Bob and I just finished watching the movie Freedom Writers about a teacher's actions to form a united group of kids in a Long Beach high school torn apart by gang warfare. She was a pearl wearing white girl with a smile and the kids didn't take her seriously. She kept trying to find an entrance point with them and finally did with the Holocaust - triggered because she found the kids passing a racial charicacture and flashed on Nazi ch aricatures of Jews. Only one kid in her class had ever heard of the Holocaust, but all but one had had a friend or family member killed in gang violence. For me the film isn't so much about the specifics of the circumstances, but about the importance of hanging in, fighting for an entry point, refusing to give up on people who may have given up on themselves.