Question

The Danger of Silence

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a 1968 speech where he reflects upon the
Civil Rights Movement, states, “In the end, we will remember not the
words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
As a teacher, I’ve internalized this message. Every day, all around us, we
see the consequences of silence manifest themselves in the form of discrimination, violence, genocide and war. In the classroom, I challenge my students to explore the silences in their own lives through poetry. We work
together to fill those spaces, to recognize them, to name them, to understand that they don’t have to be sources of shame. In an effort to create a
culture within my classroom where students feel safe sharing the intimacies of their own silences, I have four core principles posted on the board
that sits in the front of my class, which every student signs at the beginning
of the year: read critically, write consciously, speak clearly, tell your truth.
And I find myself thinking a lot about that last point, tell your truth. And
I realized that if I was going to ask my students to speak up, I was going
to have to tell my truth and be honest with them about the times where I
failed to do so. [...]
When Christian was beat up for being gay, I put my hands in my pocket
and walked with my head down as if I didn’t even notice. I couldn’t use
my locker for weeks because the bolt on the lock reminded me of the one
I had put on my lips when the homeless man on the corner looked at me
with eyes up merely searching for an affirmation that he was worth seeing. I was more concerned with touching the screen on my Apple than
actually feeding him one. [...] We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don’t.
Silence is the residue of fear. [...] It is charring. It is chains. It is privilege.
It is pain. There is no time to pick your battles when your battles have
already picked you. I will not let silence wrap itself around my indecision. [...] I will ask that homeless man what his name is and how his day was, because sometimes all
people want to be is human. [...] So this year, instead of giving something
up, I will live every day as if there were a microphone tucked under my tongue, a stage on the underside of my inhibition. Because who has to have a
soapbox when all you’ve ever needed is your voice? Thank you.

Realize uma leitura rápida do texto, ignorando as partes que você não
entender e informe: a) as palavras que você conhece e que mais se repetem
no texto; b) as palavras que se parecem com palavras em português; c) o
tema geral do texto.

Answer 1

Resposta:

QUEM FOI MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.?

Todos os anos, na terceira segunda-feira de janeiro, os americanos comemoram o aniversário de Martin Luther King Jr. (Junior). Martin Luther King Jr. era um líder dos direitos civis e as pessoas se lembram o que Martin Luther King Jr. fazia todos os anos em seu aniversário. Martin Luther King Jr. nasceu em Atlanta, Geórgia, em 15 de janeiro de 1929, em uma família de pastores. King atingiu a maioridade em uma época em que negros e brancos foram separados em grande parte dos Estados Unidos. Ele queria acabar com o separação e dizer às pessoas que todos são iguais.