It’s ironic that the whole Darren
Wilson/Michael Brown thing should be going on right now. Many people are
holding up cases like this one and others (Trayvon Martin, Eric Gardner, Tamir
Rice) as evidence that blacks have not come as far as they thought they had in
the fight for equality, that all the ground we thought we’d gained has actually
been nothing but a mere footstep. (And some feel that we’re being pushed back
so that we lose that footstep!) It’s just sad, that on a day like today when we
should be commemorating how far this country has come toward equality for all,
we are instead commiserating with parents whose children have been snatched
away from them by a police system that was supposed to be in place “To Protect
and Serve”.
Today in Black History, in 1955, an
event occurred which at the time seemed momentous; an event that sparked the
flame that was The Civil Rights Movement. December 1, 1955 was the day that one
lone young woman made a decision which, at the time, didn’t seem like it would
generate the national controversy that followed.
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| Rosa Parks at work |
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| Rosa Parks on the bus |
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| Rosa Parks mug shot |
On
this day in black history a young lady, tired from a long day at work, took a
seat on a Metro bus and prepared herself for the ride home. What she didn’t
prepare herself for was to be screamed at, called names, taken to jail like a
common criminal, and then hailed as a national hero for helping to launch the
civil rights struggle into the country’s collective consciousness. The woman?
The
woman was Rosa Parks, who went from an unknown faceless black woman in the
back of the bus
to a woman with a mug shot, whose face was
known everywhere and by everyone in the time it
took to ride the bus home. She didn’t want the fame, or the notariety, but when
it was thrust upon her she didn’t shirk her reponsibility.
So many people are
up in arms about what’s happened in Ferguson, and unfortunately many of them
are resorting to looting and burning, as if that is going to change anything…
imo, it not only won’t effect any positive changes, it further cements the
stereotypical picture that white America already has. The few strides we had
made did not come about because of violence, they came about through the work
of peaceful activists like Martin Luther King. They didn’t come about through
big “die-ins”,
where large numbers of people suffered financially and feared for their lives, where
there was no regard for who the owners of those stores were or what their
sympathies were. Those strides came about through certain stores/bus companies/restaurants
which were known to discriminate being boycotted, and staging peaceful sit-ins;
no violence, no threats, no profanity, just quiet dignity. What Rosa Parks did
led to public transportation being integrated so that everyone could ride in
any seat on the bus they chose without fear of being told to move, or risking
arrest or even a beating, and she did not even set out to do it! She was merely
a tired woman who had worked hard that day and didn’t see why she should have
to get up.
The young men that
have been killed, the men and women who have been abused by the police
department, we should not mar their memories with all this violence and unrest.
For the parents to specifically ask that people not link their son’s name with all
the rioting, and for those people to ignore their pleas… well, it just makes me
so sad. This is how her son will be remembered.
We should be
commemorating the struggle that was fought for us so many years ago; remembering
the people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks; carrying on their work,
instead of taking part in this mindless, useless, violence.
On this day in Black
History, a tired young woman named Rosa Parks sat quietly in a bus seat, and
forever changed the way the country treated black people.
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