Erin Gruwell: You hate me? You don’t even know me.
Student: I know what you can do. I saw white cops shoot my friend in the back for reaching into his pocket, his pocket! I saw white cops come into my house and take my father away for no REASON except they feel like it! Except because they can! And they can because they’re white.
So I HATE white people on sight!
Freedom Writers is an American film based on a true story as it is recounted in the diaries of Miss Gruwell and 150 “unteachable” and “at-risk” students in Long Beach, California. The new high school teacher miraculously manages to grab the attention of the tough teenagers by making them see what segregation and racism led to during the Second World War. On a visit to the Holocaust section in the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, they are introduced to the story of the young Dutch Jewish girl, Anne Frank, and her destiny as a Holocaust victim. They detect many parallels to their own suburban lives as members of dysfunctional families and rough gangs.
I chose this film and specific clip because it has similarities to the theme of racism in Once Upon A Time In Punchbowl but is a different focus as it looks to the past of an Arab community, the Lebanese in Australia – tracing the history of this community, their search for an identity, and their struggle to be accepted as Australians.
The film feed 