Welcome to Literature Group #2's posting area. In the "post comment" section directly below this post please do the following:
1) Choose a passage to post.
2) Write your passage.
3) Write two questions to share with your literature group to prompt an online discussion in relation to your passage.
4) Write two "ahas"--surprises or new knowledge
5) Read each others postings (passage, questions, and "ahas").
6) Respond to the members of your groups postings.
Pg. 29 An experience I endured on a December morning would forever affect any decision I made to go "potty" in a public place. We were Christmas shopping when I felt the twinge of emergency. I convinced Mother and Grandmother that I knew the way to the rest room by myself. I was moving as fast as I could when suddenly I knew I wasn't going to make it all the way down those stairs and across the warehouse walkway to the "Colored Ladies" toilet.
ReplyDeleteSo I pushed open the door marked "White Ladies" and, taking a deep breath, I crossed the threshold. It was just as bright and pretty as I had imagined it to be. At first I could only hear voices nearby, but when I stepped throught a second doorway, I saw several white ladies chatting and fussing with their makeup. Across the room, other white ladies sat on a couch reading the newspaper. Suddenly realizing I was there, two of them looked up a me in astonishment. Unless I was the maid, they said, I was in the wrong place. But it was clear I was too young to be the maid. While they shouted at me to "get out," my throbbing bladder consumed my attention as I frantically headed for the unoccupied stall.
1. Can you imagine having to think about not being allowed to use a public restroom?
2. Could you ever deny a CHILD the use of a restroom?
Aha-1.Black men were afraid to stand up to white men that were abusive to their wives and children. I was shocked that in their own home, Melba's parents had to suffer the abuses of white people. (p.26)
Aha-2. The stress of trying to survive each day began to physically wear down each of the students. (p. 195)
1. I usually find it annoying when I'm in a store and they don't have a public restroom. I can't imagine how I would feel if there was one available to the public, but I was not allowed to use it simply because of my skin color.
Delete2. I have been an establishment with my 2 1/2 year old that was in the process of learning to use the potty. My daughter asked me if she could use the potty. She was visibly uncomfortable and upset. I asked the clerk if they had a restroom available. She looked at my daughter and told us that the restroom was unavailable to customers. We would have to go somewhere else. I had to leave the store and find another restroom. I don't shop at that store anymore.
Aha moments: I think we have different printings of the book because I can not find these in my book. Your aha #1 reminds me of the grocery store scene in my aha moment where Melba realizes that her father could not protect her from the whites. I think Melba mentioned several times that stress of trying to survive each day began to physically wear down the students. I find it amazing that they were able stay well enough to go.
1. Just an insane thougth process. What an aweful experience for her. It is a blessing that we have not had to even think about not being able to use a restroom, let alone have to go through it. Even when you try to think about how it could have been for her you know that you don't have any idea.
Delete2. To think about how it would feel for a child when they can't make it to the bathroom in time makes me sick. Why would anyone allow a child to feel incapable and also the embarrasment in not making it to the restroom in time.
I do like your a ah moments. I again can't even begin to imagine to the fear in people that they are not even able to stand up for themselves or others. I just keep going back to the thought of this really wasn't that long ago in time, but it sure does seem like it had to be so long ago. Unforunately, things are still going on today that put this same fear in people.
How could the stress not wear them down. Stress is awful on our bodies and it fear and intimidation just adds to it. Everything is hindered when such stressers are in our lives. It seems as though we struggle through stressfull times, but can we really understand the depth of what they felt?
Just think about the pains we take to plan out the school day, schedule, best practices etc, etc. in order to optimize our students learning. We talk about creature comforts such as recess before lunch and anti-bullying initiatives to relieve the stress from our student's lives. Obviously the Little Rock Nine experienced no best practices in order to optimize learning. What a different world.
Deletepg. 170 By the beginning of March, I had sunk into the state of mind you get into when you know you have to take castor oil and there's no way out. I just did what had to be done, without discussing it or thinking about it. I would get up, polish my saddle shoes, bathe, get dressed, dump my bowl of oatmeal into the toilet so Grandma India would think I'd eaten it-but my nervous stomach wouldn't have to eject it-and go to the war inside that school. I listened to shout, to ugly names, while I smiled and said "Thank you." I waited for a ride, came home, did homework, got to bed, and started over again the next day. I felt kind of numb, as though nothing mattered anymore.
ReplyDelete1. Can any of you relate to feelings like this?
2. Do you think Grandma India's advice to treat Melba's attackers with kindness was good advice?
Aha-1 Fifty-two planeloads-C123's and C130's have brought 1200 battle-equipped paratroopers to Little Rock to see that integration is carried out at Central High School without further violence. (pg. 90)
Aha-2 It frightened me and made me think a ot about how, if I got into trouble with white people, the folks I counted on most in my life for protection couldn't help me at all. I was beginning to resign myself to the fact that white people were definitely in charge, and there was nothing we could do about it. (pg. 10)
I think I can relate to pushing on every day, trying to get through and being tired and feeling helpless but not to a smidgeon of the degree that Melba endured.
DeleteGrandma was probably correct with her advice. "Kill em with kindness." I think no matter what reaction they would have given the whites their hatred was so deep it would take generations to change it.
Aha-Yes, the sheer magnitude of the military force needed is amazing.
I have unfortunalety felt this way in my own walk of life during the time my husband passed away, but I still feel that the difference in the way children felt during this time and my experience are completely different. I know the feeling of helplessness, but I still had people on my side and helpful to me. The students during this time were in this fight basically for themselves and the thought of making things different for the future. It would be hard to have to hide your fear and anxiety and push through without anyone having the ability to make it better. Not only that but I am an adult and these where children. CRAZY things for them to deal with.
DeleteI like the saying "kill them with kindness". It may take awhile, but eventually the right role model gets noticed. Showing your integrity is so important.
Huge military presents to be able to attend a school. That is an a ah moment!
How sinking of a feeling to come to the realization that you were look at as nothing compared to whites and not knowing what or if anything could ever be different.
Heather--That's what I thought too. In my terms, I call situations like this "Twilight Zone" There's was a situation beyond anything sensible. Even thinking through the eyes of the average white Little Rock citizen, it's hard for me to make sense of their attitudes and actions. Melba's humanity was so in the basement for those people and her pysche had little to hope except for getting through another day.
DeleteSo I am reading this day 10 blog late on Friday night and unable to help out my group. I apologize to those that are checking this Saturday morning. I returned my book to the library after the last day blog (9), because I thought we were done with Warriors Don't Cry. I have focused on the next book on our assignment sheet. So again I apologize. I will try to get the book again from my local library in the morning if it is available and bring it with to class, so I can add to the literature group as needed.
ReplyDeleteAnd I’m late too—didn’t get the book until late and then there were track meets, concerts, play openings—argh!
ReplyDeleteHow amazing is Warriors Don’t Cry? Melba’s voice is a straightforward, matter of fact, no pity necessary account of a horrific experience. It’s hard to imagine what hate could be worse than that which is directed so violently toward innocent children. My passage produced the book’s title, p. 57: Grandma India finds Melba sobbing and tells her, “You’ll make this your last cry. Your’re a warrior on the battlefield for your Lord. God’s warriors don’t cry, ‘cause they trust that he’s always by their side. The women of the family don’t break down in the face of trouble. We act with courage, and with trouble right on out.” She goes on to admonish her with some instructions: read the Twenty-third Psalm, get yourself together and don’t ever let me see you behave like again.
Q: Where do people find the resolve and the resilience in the face of such injustice and powerlessness?
Q: Refusing to succomb to the wrong, even if you are a poor, black woman seems futile. What tactics did these women employ to shift the massive cultural opposition?
Aha--Seeing pictures of the National Guard and the Little Rock Nine led me to believe the guard was there to protect them. Unbelievably, not so. p. 59
Aha--I had no idea, NO IDEA, of the depth of the suffering these individuals endured. Our bullying is nothing, our limitations are nothing compared to what their experience of being educated in America was. Yet on pg. 230, Melba reflects on what more she must do to continue on. She was a regular person, who had such strength because she decided to.