Warriors Dont Cry

Terrane Hicks November 17,2002

8-111 Current Events

Title Navy to Limit Sonar Testing Thought to Hurt Sea Mammals

Paper New York Times

Authors THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Summary this article comes from San Francisco and is about how the Navy has agreed to limit the testing grounds the testing of a new sonar system designed to track down enemy submarines. The Navy finally agreed after there were a couple months of protest for the harm of marine life. The protest was about the concern of harming marine life . With all the limit's the Navy has the Navy agrees to test the system in about 14 million square miles in the ocean and the limit will be a million square miles of remote ocean around the Mariana Islands. Andrew Wetzel a lawyer in the Natural Resources Defense Council said that the Mariana Islands was the least affective of Ocean the Navy could have. This wonderful sonar system can send signals hundreds of miles. It can be as loud as 215 decibels, as much noise as a twin-engine F-15 fighter jet makes when it takes off. This agreement doesn't stop the navy from using the sonar anywhere in wartime and but limit's the training ground of the sonar. The judge ordered all discussions between the environmental group and the Navy to not to be mentioned. The Natural Resources Defense Council said Navy sonar used in March 2000 has caused about 16 whales and 2 dolphins to beach themselves on islands in the Bahamas. Eight whales died, and scientists found bleeding around their brains and ear bones, injuries consistent with exposure to loud noise.

Critique This article is very important because the Navy has to train with their equipment but marine life cannot be harmed. The Navy has made the same decision I would have made to limit grounds for harming marine life but still training. This was a very hard decision to make because the Navy doesn't want to kill animals but they have to just to train. I didn't find this article interesting nor boring I found it hard to agree or disagree with.

A call to battle

Comment: I read Warrior's Don't Cry for a book report last year. As a high school student, I had heard very little about the integration of Central High School, and living in a predominantly white suburban community, knew very little about the Civil Rights Movement beyond Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Beals' personal account spurred me to learn more about the Movement on my own and to start demanding a 20th century in America class for my Social Studies department.

Melba Patillo Beals was your average 16 year-old when she decided that she wished to attend Central High with the white kids. One might assume that she received huge amounts of support from the members of her community, but that was not the case. She would soon learn that the acts of violence committed against her by members of her own race would pale in comparison to the bitter hatred exhibited by the white people in Little Rock, Arkansas.

With the help of eight other black students, the Little Rock Nine bravely attended Central High for the duration of one year. When Governor Faubus of Arkansas sent forces to prevent them from entering the school, President Eisenhower himself sent the 101 Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, to individually chaperone the members of the Nine. However, the Screaming Eagles soon left their ranks, and the Nine was forced to fend for themselves.

All but one of the Nine finished that school year, and Ernest Greene was the first black student to graduate from Central High. Though he accepted his diploma with deafening silence instead of deafening applause, his triumph was a triumph for the entire black community.

The most amazing part of this story is the lack of aggression that Beals exhibited towards those who held such animosity to her. For this reason, I feel that Beals calls all of us to become warriors and battle for our own personal causes, but without violence.

Rating: 5

Summary: WARRIORS DONT CRY REVIEW

Comment: I give Melba Patillo Beal's novel Warriors Don't Cry two thumbs up. Warriors Don't Cry is an inspirational, moving account of Melba and the Little Rock Nine's ordeal integrating Little Rock High School. Being spat at, kicked, egged and fearing for their lives was a typical day at school for these nine brave black students. Things happened to Melba (one of the nine selected), her family and the other eight which are hard to imagine. This is a book about how cruel people can be sometimes, and Melba and her families struggle to survive her year at Central.

Segregationists would do just about anything to prevent the Little Rock Nine from returning the next day. Day after day was torture for them. Today if you are attacked you can fight back. The black students were harassed, physically abused and could not do a thing about it, without getting kicked out of school for good. Although slow at times, this book is an easy to read book, mainly revolving around what was happening to Melba at school, home and in her community. Also, the hardships of the other eight students. I was both surprised and angry that no one was backing her on her decision to integrate. Not even her own people! Although a few good, kind people helped her along, mostly she was alone. A fifteen year old girl being abused by students, their parents and teachers alike.

The author keeps you glued to the book to see what will happen to Melba the next day she goes to school. It amazes me that Melba can keep going to school when she is treated so badly. I would have quit after the first day. Melba's faith in g-d, her grandma India, her mother Louis, and a few blacks and whites helped her survive her struggle to get an education. Melba didn't go through integration for her self, she was a brave warrior so that in the future her people could get a good education, and lead a good life in this "free"