Inside the 2011 ALEC conference

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_OFdjC87ko

This YouTube video shoes a group of people called ThinkProgress try and get into an American Legislative Exchange Council conference. They are, of course, denied access into the conference, so they interviewed people outside of the conference. They asked a man that was apart of ALEC certain questions about his thoughts on ALEC. Then after that they waited outside a conference for people to come out for a smoke. They got very angry when asked what their names were and were unresponsive to questions.

Passage Journal #6

"A short time after Minnijean's return, a boy doused her with what appeared to be a bucket of soup. She froze in her tracks and did not respond, even as the greasy liquid trickled down her chest and horror painted on her face. Afterward, a group of perhaps fifty students gathered outside the Principal's office to shout cheers for the douser, saying he had paid her back. He was suspended. but we were frightened that he had set in motion an all-out soup war that could lead to the drenching of each one of us and guarantee a real brawl if we tried to fight back."
I picked this one because it shows that at least administration isn't too bias when it comes to suspending. It is fair that if Minnijean was suspended then the boy should be suspended. Although it shows that these segregationists will not be deterred from their goal. It is also upsetting that half way through the year a couple of kids finally got suspended. People should have been expelled the first day.

Passage Journal #5

""Nigger," I would whisper to myself. That's all I am to them. They don't see me as a real person. There even came a moment when i pinched myself to see if I was really there. So many times I wanted to shout, "I'm Melba, don't you see me? I play the piano, I can make blouses, I can write poems... and I sing." When I felt I couldn't hold it in anymore, I talked to grandma India."
I picked this one because I find it upsetting that she had spent so much time in central that she started thinking of herself badly. She faced so much ridicule from all of her peers and teachers that her self esteem was low enough to have her knock herself down. This passage also shows that her grandmother is a rock in her life. She couldn't have gone through the school year if she didn't have her grandmother. She even thought about killing herself which her grandma talked her out of.

Passage Journal #4

"One girl with short red hair, freckles, and a pixie smile was being especially attentive. She invited me accompany her to window that overlooked the school yard. I was suspicious of her kindness, but I wanted to believe someone was having a change of heart. As I stood beside her chatting about the bright day and the activity of the soldiers on the ground beneath us, I felt a twinge of joy.
"Stand right here. We're gonna salute the flag now," she said. I raised my hand to my chest and smile as the flag was hoisted up in front of the classroom.
"Aren't you gonna take a picture of me saluting the American flag with this famous nigger," she suddenly shouted to the boy who was focusing the camera. "Snap it, you idiot... now! I wanna get into life magazine like the niggers are.""
I picked this passage because as I was reading this I was kind of relieved that someone was actually being nice to her. Then you find out she is just using her to get on time magazine. It is actually kind of sad that Melba was so quick to trust this girl. The only reason didn't is because she craved some kind of positive reinforcement from the school and that was the only time someone approached her. Then after this the ginger actually stabbed her with a pointed stick and the teacher didn't do anything about it. I think it is sad that this is where the education system was at at this point in time.