Reflection 5

Honestly I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of the Little Rock Nine. Although I feel that what they did was super courageous, I, for one, would not have wanted to be a part of that. I’m open to new experience but I don’t think I would’ve made it though the mobs. I probably would have turned around and went home. Being the integrator is a very strong responsibility that should have been decided on with way more than attendance, good grades and such. I feel they should have had psychological test done on the students they chose to make sure that they were mentally stable enough to handle the situation. I would’ve been outside myself thinking that I, a child, needed armed guards to enter school. Just like the white kids I would have been there with a purpose, to learn. While it is important for kids to have social interactions, I would have self-segregated myself; even if the white kids weren’t being rude and disrespectful. I don’t think it’s smart or safe to put yourself in a harmful situation like that. The person I am today would’ve have been lynched if I was plucked out of 2010 and placed in 1957. I would have been quick to side eye those white folk yelling slurs at me, most likely I would have called them everything but a child of God, if I lived to tell the tale. Realistically if I grew up in that time I would have kept my mouth shut and my head down. I think I would have been one of those black folks to say “now why you gotta go messing with them white folks? Why you just can’t get this good second rate education they’re trying to give us? So what if the books and buildings are run down? They still read, don’t they? The school gotta roof, don’t it?” Luckily I was born in 1989. Thankfully I’ve never faced any of the blatant racism that many before me faced. People like me would have seriously slowed the movement down. But everyone can’t be a leader. I would’ve been just fine staying in the background getting my second rate education at the all black, run down schools, waiting for someone to do what the Little Rock Nine did.