[applause] good evening. I am bradley graham. Coowner of politics and prose. On behalf of everybody here thank you for coming. Well try to get through tonight home in time to watch the last words of this evening. [applause] the show hasnt been written yet so its very important we really and on time. Lawrence has had several interesting careers, back in the late 1970s and 80s he was a writer. His first book, deadly force about wrongful death and Police Brutality in which his father was the plaintiffs lawyer was made into a movie and will be reissued soon. If you dont have a copy you can look forward to that. Thats called deadly force. In the late 80s he got into politics working for Daniel Patrick moynihan. Later the finance committee. After that he found his way to tv writing for or producing on the west wing and winning an emmy in the process. He was also involved with other dramas including first monday and mr. Sterling. I mentioned he won an emmy for his work, that was the last thing he won until earlier this week. On colbert he made it into the trump attacked me on twitter hall of fame. [applause] if you have not seen the clip on it yet, he delivered a very moving acceptance speech he was very touched by the honor. He discusses the news and tackles issues of the day initially in the shadow of Joe Scarborough are but since 2010 as host of his own show is host on msnbc. Now given his pack schedule is managed to return to the book writing internet more than 400 pages about a transfer make additional political events lawrence was in high school at the time in the year 1968 included president johnsons extraordinary decision not to run for another term. The assassinations of Martin Luther king and robert kennedy. The Democratic Convention in chicago and bitter fights all set against the vietnam war and civil rights movement. Seen that the politics were splintered in the United States is coming up part more so than now with vivid detail and seasoned insight he looks back at what made the 1968 election a watershed event. We started the talk tonight about half an hour earlier than usual because lawrence needs to get back to the studio for his show. So to keep things moving along he will not be able to provide any personalizations that is looking forward to being here and answering questions later. Please join me in waffling lawrence odonnell. [applause] thank you. Standing room only. This is amazing. Im going to be quicker because youre standing back there and youre going to get bored much quicker standing than these people will. I have to do a live tv show in a little over three hours. And tonight, just tonight, dont judge tonight show. Is going to be written in about eight minutes. It will be something off the top of my head but the great thing tonight and the unfortunate thing is i will not be compared to rachels greatness because she has the nato. Sort of those Richard Engel specials in there. It wont look quite a stir clan prepared as it actually is. I cannot be luckier to have her there front of me. What i have stretch sometimes out to be for five minutes to the great anxiety of the control rooms. Those minutes i get to talk to rachel every night, those are my favorite minutes of the day. They have them budgeted for one minute. You can see whats going on, thats just me in a latenight phone call desperately trying to keep her on the phone. Dont hang of that she does, laughter go to the show. She is setting new records and cable news ratings issue. She is our number one show and frequently the number one show of all cable news. I think it to be the number two show at msnbc. I believe i have been asking can we change the name of the show. And just presented accurately for what it really is. Which is, riding the rachel wave with lawrence odonnell. Thats the show. Thats what it is. You dont have to choose. The 1968 election was the first one i was alert for. I was in high school and remember zero the 1964 election just before that. I remember flashes in 1960 because it was a giant deal for Irish Catholic boys in boston that one of us was on its way to winning it. Its hard to believe it but in those days we lived under certain old ghetto culture notion that it cannot happen they cannot elect a catholic president. If you know our history preceding the there was evidence that you cannot elect a catholic and that was transcended and exploded one night in november 1960. The world were looking at and 68 when i can finally Pay Attention was a world coming apart in the United States. The vietnam war is raging we have a covenant president elected four years go on a landslide who is on the way to in the easy reelection again. He was very likely to be facing some of very good at losing president ial elections. Richard nixon who had the distinction in history from being the very first Vice President in history to lose a president ial campaign. He then made Hubert Humphrey the second 1968. As the year began was back in ancient america some set, democrat or republican, you did not know. Is that personal liberal or conservative. Liberals were among the front runners, George Romney and nelson rockefeller. There are plenty of conservative democrats in the senate was filled with conservative democrats from the south. 1960 it was here the real divisions between the parties that was seen a were first locked in cement. We saw what literally became the last liberal standing on a Republican Convention stage in 1968. The moment when mayor john lindsay of new york was forced at least half against his will to second the nomination of agnew to be Vice President of the United States after lindsay himself wanted to get the nomination he had to second set. That was the last time a National Republican of significance stood on the Republican Convention stage is a liberal. John lindsay eventually left the party. We now have a world in which people hear your credit republican, they think they know everything about you. They think they know everything. 1968 have more trauma and chaos and other madness is a president ial campaign than anything before. What we just saw was in fact a perfectly normal standard president ial campaign with the exception of one candidate. But if you look at every other moving part of the campaign was all operating according to the way it always has. The democratic side were seen every one of 1960. The liberal insurgency from the left which starts about 3 in the polls challenges the favorite of the Democratic Party and that insurgent candidacy rockets up from 3 and becomes a real challenge and win states. That is what we saw happen and 68 when she mccarthy made this decision without which this would be a different and thinner book. She mccarthy made the decision that changed history. To challenge an incumbent president. Bobby kennedy thought about it before which is something i did not know he decide not to do it then jean did it and then jean won New Hampshire. I did not know, it was decades after 68 when i first learned that he be came in second in New Hampshire. But he did so shockingly well in New Hampshire that all of the calculus was upset. And that changed everything. Everyone if you could come up with was what she mccarthy had not run. Then Everything ElseMeans Nothing the likelihood is johnson wouldve run that race. But the outcomes such as a history book, its an eyewitness account in many sections of the account. For example i was sitting on the floor at home and my parents and older brothers sitting on the chairs around me as were watching the Democratic Convention and watching the rioting in the streets so some of the accounts and the thing i can never forget was the moment when the mayor of chicago, daly is standing and yelling anti semantic profane slurs that senator abe because he stood up at the podium at the convention to nominate George Mcgovern and set of George Mcgovern were president today would not see this historical behavior in the streets of chicago. And that set off richard daily. Which believes that everything must be controlled. I want to read a passage or two from this book and yesterday i was in Harvard Square doing an appearance and i had with me a wonderful guy who guides them through book to her stuff so i asked some advice like what about readings from the book . She said with nonfiction you dont really want to do that. [laughter] i said okay. I dont have enough material if i cant read from the book. So i violated the rule and i reached for the book because i want you to get the feel that there are some very personal observations and experiences through 1968 and i want to give you a bit of that and get to your questions as fast as possible because with a room full of people they are smarter than me. 1957 is the year bobby is thinking about running for president. Whenever he gives a speech anywhere all he hears is run bobby run. Run bobby run. So this part of the story picks up in that spot. Underlying his speeches had never seen before or since. Something shakespearean. When bobby stepped up to a microphone no matter how wide his smile he was always framed in tragedy with personal and National Tragedy of the assassination of his older brother, the president of the United States and alice. His audience knew his pain because they all felt their own version on that horrendous day in 1963 that shook the country to the core. In kennedys hometown of boston, it felt as if the world stopped. When the nuns got the news the president was killed the first catholic president that the older nuns never expected to see how they had outlived the 46yearold Irish Catholic boy who made them so proud. The sisters of st. Joseph were the strongest but this was too much. They could not carry on the closed school early and sent us home. We had never seen them cry before. We were all crying when the nuns got us into the line everyone we saw was crying every driver at every traffic light men carrying briefcases or bags or subway cars those who left work early to go home to cry with their families and watch on tv. Bobby watching holding his widows hands. And at Arlington National cemetery nothing could ever happen in this world to make us forget those images which were only four years old in 1967 when bobbys audience started to chant run bobby run. He had a movie star smile but they saw a grieving man who was Strong Enough to smile through his pain. Bobby was the only politician who smile could make peoples eyes tear and when they would look up at Robert Francis kennedy they only saw jfk because for them justice demanded that rfk take jfk seat history demanded that. No other politician in our history ever had such an advantage or burden. There is a part of the book we go into great detail about the decision that bobby was going through and it is fascinating who was in favor and who was against it. Jackie kennedy was in favor of it. Although jackie and he finally did decide did privately tell someone that she believed it would end for bobby the same way it ended for jack. The assassination cloud was in bobbys head all the time as he was trying to make this decision. And also just the tactics this is crazy i cant win and nobody was sharper about that than bobby. He knew nothing about running for president bobby knew too much. He was a realist first and a politician second he knew he was hearing dreamers not the presidency but the restoration of the first to put their shattered dream back together. He knew what they wanted was impossible or political suicide running against the incumbent president with the nomination of his own party was madness. Running against johnson . That was more than madness. Lyndon johnson and nixon the most ruthless democrat and republican feared that dream of a kennedy presidency as did all other hopefuls and that was enough to run the campaign bobby was certain that challenging johnson was hopeless but it might be the only way to put pressure on the president to d escalate the vietnam war. The chance the dream and the war all contrived to get bobby thinking about it it is the way he approached running for the senate three years earlier first he resisted then he wavered then he resisted again then he wavered again all the while johnson and nixon and the others believed bobby Health History in his hands. He did not yet realize the president ial election would be nothing less than lifeanddeath from the nuclear age all president ial elections by implication about lifeanddeath. The commanderinchief could launch nuclear missiles. But the 1968 election would be about the life and death of people that we knew. In the spring of 68 my cousin graduated from west point and visited us in boston before he shipped out to vietnam. The tallest among us and we worried he would be an easy target he wasnt worried he grew up on an army base with his father and was trained for combat eager to rival his fathers world war ii and korean record which fill their home with 26 awards and combat decorations including eight silver stars. He made his draft notes which just arrived in the mail. No one that we knew wanted to go to vietnam except johnny. He wanted a career in the military like his father and combat was part of that. He advised him the best way would to voluntarily enlist before being drafted because then you might get a better choice of assignments. Getting drafted was the past disrupt to vietnam. He arrived in vietnam in 1959 then he began to question the wisdom of the mission johnny earned a silver star in four months the day he was killed in action. His funeral was the First Military funeral i attended. Tragedy has many faces but none like a general crying saluting his sons coffin. It was just another day in the life of america. 1968. Eight. The president ial election could end all that if bobby ran and won as the antiwar democrats were showing him that he could. I was in high school i never heard my brothers talk about Career Planning only how to deal with the draft no longterm planning or career hopes and dreams a shortterm gain as if they were prisoners that could only begin to think of life on the outside. The prison was in their pocket with a draft registration card blocking their hopes and dreams of president ial election could end that a matter of life and death for real people that meant running for president could it simply be a matter of political calculation not just what was best for his future but lifeanddeath but the death he thought about was his own he knew assassination was driven more by madness and getting a second kennedy on his way to caption on capture the twisted imagination the only potential candidate who had to worry about a copycat assassin. So while he was thinking about running it was muddled and slow leaning against it most of the time as he thought about it he could see every detail of what could go wrong with his own but he could not yet see what the election was going to be about. Life and death so he held history in his hand so long that somebody decided he couldnt wait any longer someone nobody expected to seize the moment until he did. And that decision by mccarthy is what created the avalanche in american politics that year there is much more to say many of you much more about it than i do went through it i would love to hear from you in your questions are what you want to eliminate and yes martin sheen is wicked nice guy. [applause] explained the transformation of bobby into what he had becom become . Was and he ruthless and nonliberal in the 50s and how did he get to be a liberal icon . The answer is the 60s. With a section of his career it was very brief and he despised roy every moment. It was. Were basically the kennedys were looking for a way to bobby to fit into washington. Jack was already there bobby got his way to the senate staff he was working on the joe Mccarthy Committee he did not like that and got out within six months. So i trace what happened in the 60s. Bobby kennedy was not the same person that he was in 61 there were segregationists who were not segregationists and 68. When you look at what happened to peoples opinions and their view of the world, kennedy changed an average amount for someone with her eyes open in that period of time people went to much more dramatic changes with the bigger pendulum swing i get into that indepth how the 60s changed everyone. Gene mccarthy and everyone else in the senate voted for the gulf of tonkin resolution that is what president johnson used to wage a fullfledged war Gene Mccarthy wanted that vote back a few years later he ended up running for president because the neck, once the hero, the hero of the integration of the university of alabama standing in the doorway steamrolling over governor George Wallace a couple years later under secretary of state testifying to the Foreign Relations committee were Jean Mccarthy is a member who says he believes declarations of war are outmoded and the president has all the authority he needs to wage war at any level he wants and there is Nothing Congress can say. That was the moment and that was the hearing and the statement that may Jean Mccarthy walk out of the room too angry to even speak or ask a question and he said if i have to run for president i will to stop what johnson is doing. Everyone knows. Bobbys resume is more visit mom vivid to the liberal democrat and all sorts of questions it was the kind of experience and enlightenment people were going through in the 60s before the assassination the summer of 63 bobby goes to north dakota which jfk lost had no hope of winning no conceivable political benefit no reason to go for anything but he went there to address a convention of Indian Tribes and he delivers a speech to them in north dakota that is breathtaking because if you read it at the Standing Rock reservation last summer if you read his speech every word would be relevant what they were doing there that day. He actually quoted chief justice chief joseph about his hopes that everybody here could live together as one trib tribe. There is much of his evolution clarifies that question and im sorry that answer was so long. But with the lbj decision not to one the conventional wisdom was that he backed out but he was only 60 years old and in pretty poor health so could they nail down because they expected that if reelected if he could live through a second term. I dont even think he filed in New Hampshire. It was a writing or there was a surrogate . In those days they didnt file because nobody would challenge them so it didnt matter. But lady bird used to say lbj had his Resignation Letter in his pocket all the time. And then to give up on his career and it was lady bird who had gave him the strength he lived in fear of Bobby Kennedy. But it is very rare. They each said enough but to live in complete fear so he saw what mccarthy did in New Hampshire and linden understood what that meant. Then bobby jumps in and then how he could successfully campaigned against bobby. And he said privately if you get in johnson will drop out. So sonny liston was the most heavyweight champion of all time and he sat on the stool and refused to go back into the ring against caches clay. And then was completely right. Can you draw a comparison between senator jeff flake and cork are not to run for the reelection . And it is the decision to run for reelection you have to explain. If you have a chairmanship and then once you throw in the crazy static frustration that just isnt worth what they think it is. I dont get that. So i was just thinking 1968 it was like having a sore tooth. But somehow you cannot say stay away from it. Some of the weatherman i dont know if they really got going in 68 and i was very sympathetic with the demonstrators so i wonder with a violence so to study those riots they reached very clear conclusion they called the police riot that the protesters were up there and they moved them to restricted spaces but all of the reaction by Chicago Police was overreaction beating people sitting in restaurants in the doorways of hotels or delegates who are trying to walk back to their hotels and that was documented beyond argument. The violence was something because they wanted this violence to teach a lesson to america about the way the country really was. So those who were the victims of that most were clean kids who were not violent in the least. Mccarthy himself because they all shave their hair he felt that personally. Opening the Mccarthy Hotel rooms to basically use as a First Aid Center and then waiting to see the nomination moment and with the violence in the streets. Those that included humphrey all recognized coming through the ventilation system was teargas. They could smell that that is the closest to what was actually happening down on the streets. The next day Jean Mccarthy never addressed the convention or went there but the next day he went to grant park for all the wounded demonstrators and address them as the government of the people. We have to go to someone else. It looked opportunistic to me when kennedy jumped in but i had this romanticism he wanted kennedy to run instead of him they were trying to get any democrat to be that candidate. And then to say no right away and say you should ask George Mcgovern. He was that you should ask mccarthy and this went on for months. Bobby was much more active in what this campaign became. It wasnt immediately upon seeing the returns in New Hampshire. Will he win if he stays in the race . And to say in reaction that it is the opposition party. But steve bannon said it must be right. So just take his word for it. [laughter] as it stands it is fastmoving with a flash pole out in alabama tonight. So that is a pretty big drop for roy moore. I dont have any predictions for things that are news events certainly never before predicted the outcome of an election in alabama. Here is how much i know both of the senators from alabama were democrats. I ask the question they cannot take his name off the ballot. That is how murkowski held on to her seat. So that works when researching the book they won New Hampshire as a write in candidate. There was not even supposed to be a contest. So to try to get that analogy between the political divide 1968 and today. I was a graduate student in the 68 election. That policy that was for personal reasons but today things are different we dont have a draft but we have the divide sometimes it is vulnerable for economic reasons with the risk of military service. Do i make too much of military and Foreign Policy because americans involvement can you compare then and now . Every kid in high school was a Foreign Policy expert. When a High School Student like me could think he was smarter than the president of the United States and be right. It was an amazing time because the way the vietnam war was spot so 16589 military funerals in this country. The cousin was one of them. 2589 in one year. Iraq, the entire years afghanistan 2386 so the total combined is less than half of 1968 and one year of the vietnam war that scale changes everything you can only get those numbers with the draft so every 18 euro got the draft card and immediately became a Foreign Policy expert most of us had an opinion before that time because everyone was threatened. Your boyfriend, your brother. Your nephew, your grandson women were not immune. Every family was threatened. And it determined the way not just politics and policy and to read a passage that is relevant and since she know who won. The last couple of pages of the book. I am not giving away any plot it is a surprise. What we get to in the epilogue is the question of the what if . What if Teddy Kennedy accepted the offer to get the nomination that secret offer of the secret plan almost 24 hours before it collapsed. What if Bobby Kennedy left the stage in los angeles on the other side . That he was supposed to leave and said of the side of the kitchen . It touches on the question what if euGene Mccarthy had not one . What if nicholas had not provoked senator mccarthy with to wage war in Southeast Asia without a declaration . What if they had not urged mccarthy to run . If mccarthy had not run Bobby Kennedy would not have run and not assassinated on the night of the california primary. President johnson would have run for reelection it would come down to johnson versus nixon no matter the outcome kennedy surely would have run for president as the antiwar candidate 1972. But then mccarthy did run and made the bravest decision and to change the campaign and the faction of the party and to change the course of history. And it would have ended if mccarthy hadnt made the president ial Campaign Issue 1968. Seven years after mccarthy ran. When the war have ended seven years later . The Peace Movement one. American politics responds and it took several years and Henry Kissinger complain for the rest of their lives they were not able to achieve peace with honor because congressional support kept dropping. And then forcing them to turn against the war. And not declaring an end to the war with that Peace Movement had not force them to. But he is been killed and 76x77 . Seventyeight . Seventynine . How many more would have died . And those who are active in the Peace Movement to save lives sooner than it would have if they had never done before. And to save lives raising his voice to the growing chorus while it was still politically risky. Abigail mccarthy they save lives. They owed their lives to force the United States to get out of vietnam on april 30, 1975. I received a draft notice 72. I was in in college two weeks later i had to report for my physical exam in south boston. It was filled with young men and then others pretend to be gay or mentally ill to be disqualified. I pass the physical and went home to wait for my notice to arrive in the mail telling me exactly when to report for duty. President nixon ended the draft 1973. If Jean Mccarthy had not run for president 1968 the draft would not have ended in 1973 none of those that i had saw were killed in vietnam because of that political pressure it forced nixon to end the draft. Many of the young men to have children or grandchildren that they owed their lives to stop the draft thousands of those who would not be there if the war continued for another year or two or three. The last word about Jean Mccarthy should always be or senator Jean Mccarthy . If i have to run for president i will do it. August 17, 1967. [applause] to make this is about mccarthy and his counterpart. Going door to door for Jean Mccarthy and just like going door to door for Bernie Sanders and with that possibility for the future for young people to see what happens in virginia so in the same way my question is why doesnt msnbc or other stations cover the alternative to the establishment point of view . Virginia took everybody by surprise and they were inspired by the new wave. We love your show but i would just like to hear another voice. Is that Bernie Sanders . I do love him but i also want to hear about county elections not just the two candidates for governor or senator. There is a lot of stuff we dont hear about. The establishment as this book shows is the last to know when something new and important happens. That was true in the Democratic Party 1968 and last time around none of them saw trump coming. So the establishment will always behave that way. It will be 20 years from now the last to recognize any new and important phenomenon. To where we point the cameras and Network Television that is complicated leaving you with this one note how much Bernie Sanders coverage at 10 00 p. M. On msnbc. We did a reasonable and fair amount sharing that coverage between the clinton and Sanders Campaign but Bernie Sanders to this day has never once accepted an invitation to come on my show. I am not the person to ask about that b17 i dont know if it is 10 00 p. M. At the same time clinton has never accepted an invitation at 10 00 p. M. Either. But that didnt stop twitter and to accuse me in equal amounts of hillary versus bernie there was no way to cover that one more question. I was wondering 1968 to lose faith in institutions of government now this generation also has no faith that was even before trump so how do people build trust in institutions to strip the rights away from transgendered people from people of color to control everything in the government . How does this tell us trust was restored . I was a High School Kid 1968 and smarter than the president and secretary of state i never used trust with the government not what i believe it is worthy of they certainly didnt trust government or the people who end up in that that is why they put in every check and bow we have a government that proves itself every day. It was a trust prior to 1966 and by the way it was not a crime to burn your draft card because no one in the government everyone thought anyone would do that so they would have to write it as a crime 1865. But it was if you didnt have it on your person. So by 1968 the trust of the Defense Department collapsed completely and that worship of the generals of the white house was a laughable concept generals were burned in effigy. We believed they were all incompetent and it turns out we were all right. I dont thank you should trust the senate or the senators. It is nice if you dont insult them but that is true with everybody on the bus. Just dont do it. But that is the biggest mistake you can make the press doesnt trust government that is the best thing they should not trust government so you have to live with it. We dont have to respect it or trusted they have been hardly wrong in the past and they will be horribly wrong in the future this notion is a fantasy it is everywhere all across the media everything i say is general heresy in the American Media right now. We hear it all the time. I dont know maybe 1968 when there was no such thing as a campaignfinance law . None. Zero. You could take bags of cash. That was legal. Is that the government you want to trust . It is the romantic notion to relinquish all the energy it takes to Police Government as citizens to say now i can trust it. Dont do that. [laughter] seventeen. [applause] [inaudible conversations] i have been attacked by everybody, right wing, left, trump campaign, Sanders Campaign and now the clinton campaign. I was here in washington d. C. Not far from here hillary met this young state senator was running with her roots in illinois she told my friend we were on the third floor and said she knew barack obama but i didnt i knew a lot of people in chicago politics but not barack obama. We met him that spring 2003 and the rest is history. We assume that deep social inequities have overcome by individual efforts and everyone has an equal chance of success and if we just work harder we will be fine. We assume this because there are so many wonderful stories of people who make it and i do tell those stories you may have heard of diane in the country we love she is one of mine and she is amazing that we make the assumption if they just lack determination are not sufficiently gritty are the reason people dont get ahead. And this pedagogy that has really been popularized in our schools the just work harder kind of ethos. So i want you to critically examine that. So i will read an excerpt from the book where i described two classrooms. One where the teacher is all about grit the other with the behavioral expectations are more lax. I read this in the hopes you buy the book to say grits isnt what we need to be talking about right now. Here we go. Page 84. Twentyfive thirdgraders sat crosslegged on the rug we are about to begin the snake unit and this is the video i promised yesterday i hand shot up a little girl asked in a whisper is this the one we get to see the snake walk out of the skin . Yes. We will see that and take notes like scientist as we watch and make sketches. Everyone nodded eagerly the teacher distributed clipboards and pencils with nervous excitement rippling through the class clearly this was a listen lesson they were eagerly anticipating. Sitting up and tracking i will start the video they held their clipboards ready. However to students in the back row were overtaken with giggles and having a hard time putting in the paper or paying attention. They were clearly in a world of their own. All others had the eyes facing forward and not paying attention to the gig killers. But suddenly the teacher said, it is clear to me that the class is not ready to engage in learning so lets go back to our desk until we have 100 engagement. You are not respecting the learning process you have completely forgotten about slanting did you lose your back muscles over the weekend . Too many are slouching. I will hand out demerits. So now i will deviate if you know what slanting is . That up, look, ask questions, nod, track the speaker. Part of the great ethos all kids know how to do that on demand. The little girl whispered to her friend, we arent showing respect. Her friend nodded gravely they went to their seat with despondent went silently back to their desk. Now we have to wait until tomorrow to see the video the little girl said sadly and i really dont want a demerit. When the class was dismissed the teacher demanded everybody lineup silently and as they proceeded to the cafeteria they passed a second grade class walking in hugs and bubble formation. Just a you know, very common these days. They held their arms crisscross like in a straitjacket their cheeks were puffed out as if they caught a bubble proceeding quietly to the cafeteria where they dropped their arms. Five different classes in the cafeteria and all of them ate in complete silence. While teachers monitor the room. I will stop because in the book i dont tell you what schools these are from but this is not an Exceptional School but many, many schools are like this. I inquired if the silent lunch was a punishment for bad behavior and i was informed silent lunch was a regular occurrence. We want stunted students to have time when they are quiet and peaceful but it felt anything but peaceful but more like a prison with the teachers as guards. I was stunned this was a regular practice. Gone was the joy of meeting friends at lunch and chattering. Gone is a carefree kid. None of the students in this school are white. As in many schools, all of the teachers are young and white and female. What message does this send to kids who are not of the dominant culture . To me the school felt oppressive. While making eye contact and nodding at speakers is not wrong the slant system is not contextualized to a variety of learning environments. If this resulted in an emphasis of behavior over active learning, and other words you are considered a good learner if you can demonstrate slant. But this is a minimal condition for learning in most situations. For many it has nothing to do with learning. Of course it is hard to teach it to our cutting up but clearly that teacher was trained to stop the lesson in absence of 100 compliance. In the conversation later she admitted she felt badly to abort the lesson in favor of behavior. In the school we believe if students are practicing slant then learning is compromised it is like the broken window theory take care of the small things before the big thing or nothing is fixed. But this adherence to slant that i have witnessed in so many no excuses schools makes me wonder about the message we send to our human people. The word oppressive kept coming to mind. Little room existed for divergent thinking. And leonardo goes as a musician especially because he loves theater with Musical Instruments like a violin and in the shape of a horses hat two rings it to milan as a gift as part of the cultural delegation and more than just a painter. He has been blocked the last couple of paintings so he writes one of the coolest job application letters to the duke of milan it is 11 paragraphs long