One Year Later

This is a repost of a blog that I worte in October 2005. With results of the most recent elections, I thought that it would be a good idea for us to applaud what we have done and recognize the power that we all have.

Mozz


Tuesday, October 25, 2005

6:13 PM - Rosa Parks died yesterday.

Rosa Parks died yesterday, and it got me to thinking how one person's immediate need – that need being, to sit down on a bus – changed an entire nation. Damm, the whole world was now looking at America through different eyes. Here was a woman who did not fit the stereotype put forward by the American government at the time. She was a seamstress, well spoken and meek. She was not an uppity nigger or someone trying to steal chickens from you or playing craps in the ally. She was a churchwoman who had just worked a long, hard day and all she just wanted to do is sit - the - fuck - down. But in that America this woman, simply because of her skin tone could be – and was --arrested. And what a great day for all people, because set into motion on that day was a civil rights movement that would affect you and me and our children's children for years to come.

We celebrate Rosa Parks through books and stories and songs, we teach our children about her courage and dedication. I would guess within the next year (or maybe it has already happened) someone will propose a bill for a Rosa Parks holiday. Maybe it will come from an African American agenda or possible a feminist organization or maybe a Jr. Senator from Alabama trying to make a name for him/herself. Well, more power to them, because any recognition for anyone who helps to improve the human condition is deserving of it.

But here is what I'm thinking: everything good or bad is not about the initial action, it's about the reaction. Marriage does not happen because someone asked someone to marry him or her it happens because someone says yes. The people who arrested Rosa Parks are really in part the ones responsible for the fundamental change in how people are treated in America. It helped to uncover to the world the injustices taking place on our soil. Like on the day the doors were flung open at Auschwitz and the horrific details were discovered, we as a nation were being seen for what we are.

So let's applaud the backwards people, the racists, the homophobes. Because without them, other well meaning, and seemingly intelligent people will not ever see the true consequences of allowing brothers and sisters to be treated as "other." Hooray for the Senator McCarthys, the Jessie Helmses, the George Bushes. These are the people who cause the quiet ones on the sidelines to answer the call to action. Because of their reactions to or lack of action in response to the needs of many, a few were and are forced to react to them.

We are on the precipice of a change in America, because once again people are hungry and tired and they just want ... to ...sit...the...fuck...down!

Also as of today the death toll of Americans in Iraq is 2000 – how will you react?