The Freedom Writers Diary
In Long Beach it all comes down to which
you look like, it’s all about color. If you’re Latino, or Asian, or Black; you
can get blast at any time you walked out your door. Schools are valuated to
separate trials. We kill each other over race, pride and respect. We fight for
our America! We are on war. Another main conflict of this book “The Freedom
Writers Diary” is how people are being separate and judge for the way they look
their color for their raze and where they grow up at. But at the end they
realize that all of that don’t matter and what really matter is what that
person is capable of doing. Don’t ever judge someone without knowing them good
enough because you might have a fake opinion about them. The Freedom Writers
formed a family that knows no color lines and only sees what lies deep within
the heart. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
This is one of the fragments from the book
Freedom Writers Diary that really got my attention. “A chain is only as strong
as its weakest link. A truly self-reliant person finds his weak link and
strengthens it." This was what the boy that wrote about his brother’s
murder trial wrote on another diary entry. After the attorney sentence fifteen
years to life in prison to his brother he get back to what he used to do (you
know what I mean, illegal stuff). Mrs. Gruwell gave to her students the
assignment to do a self-evaluation, he gave himself and F, and he automatically
failed himself. Then Mrs. Gruwell asked him “What’s this? Do you know what this
means?” then she added “FUCK YOU! That’s what this is! It’s a fuck you, and a
fuck me, and fuck everyone who’s ever cared about you!” This was a pep talk
that he never thought he would have with his teacher. Also this "pep
talk", teacher to student, in somehow inspires me to not give up on
things, to fix what it has to be fix and to learn from my own mistakes,
as the phrase says "A truly self-reliant person finds his weak link and
strengthens it." I'm going to find my mistakes, learn from them and
correct them. These words, the way they use writing to express their
thoughts, their feelings, their stories to the world around them makes me get
excited and reflect on their stories to change communities like their, where
everything was gang violence, even one of the Freedom Writers wrote that every
night were guns shooting at the hood that he get used to it, it became his
lullaby.
