Rosa Parks takes the bus

[Cyrus]

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There is a racist pattern to this, but perhaps your reading comprehension is off.

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I've read what Beer and Pizza said and am pretty confident that I understand what he meant. There was nothing racist about it.

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Read again what I wrote - then read again what you wrote. I've quoted everything above, for your comfort.

Your reading comperehension is still off.

Should I start underlining key words ?

[BCPVP]

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He would not necessarily be a racist for posting such negative and dismissive comments about the struggle of black people in America for civil rights; he could very well have been ignorant of Parks' life story and the details of the bus incident (nothing wrong with that at all).

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So in your world, anyone who has similar feelings either 1) doesn't know about Rosa Parks's history or 2) is a racist. Not exactly the most civil way to debate, Cyrus. "You're either ignorant or a racist if you believe that" is what this amounts to. I've already given an example of a black actor (and the black director who wrote the script) saying just about the same thing that Beer said. Are they ignorant/racist too?

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then one can start thinking that Beer and Pizza's comments might have been somewhat ...prejudiced.

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So how do we get from "might have been somewhat" to "he's a racist"? I see the great Cyrus is definitely not above namecalling, even if the person only "might have been somewhat prejudiced". Very classy of you.

[natedogg]

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What a totally juvenile and ignorant set of statements.

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It's called the needle.

And it hit the spot.

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Uh hunh. Right. Who exactly are you trying to needle with your inane characterizations?

Oh yeah, you really got to those old Jim Crow racists that can't stand to see any negroes get uppity. Good job flushing them out.

You know what your comments sound like? They sound like a foreigner trying to caricaturize something he's not actually familiar with but read about it on the internets.

oh wait, that's you.

natedogg

[Cyrus]

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I also heard that there was a plan in place to challenge the Bus seating law and that Parks was among those asked to help.

[/ QUOTE ] You heard, huh?

And, like Beer and Pizza (or Wogga before him) you choose to believe what you heard, which happens to be disparaging to the civil rights struggle of American blacks, rather than the plain and simple (and official) version of events?

Here is the story, chum: There was already unrest among the right-thinking people of America, of every race, about the gross injustices in society, such as the racist treatment of non-whites (or, rather, non-WASPs; Catholics and Jews were not viewed too kindly at the time, either).

The unrest culminated slowly into a movement, which had to face, among other obstacles, the premise of a raging Cold War, and the paranoia fuelled by it (e.g. FBI's suspcicions that all those agitating for change were communist sympathizers, at the very least).

The movement did not have any "grand plans" such as hitting segregation in buses by staging an incident. But the movement DID take advantage of incidents as they happened DAILY all over America! A practice with which there is absolutely nothing wrong or dishonest. No need to "stage" a lynching, see. Lynchings be hapenning on their own!

And, yes, it is true that before Rosa Parks, here have been other cases where blacks refused to go to the back of the bus. And one of them, at least, from historical evidence, seems to have been rejected by the movement (e.g. the protagonist being a teenager pregnant girl) on account of the crap* that would be sure to fall from the reactionary Right! AGAIN, there is nothing wrong with such selectivity, nor does it show that "everything was planned" -- or that Rosa Parks was "used", or that the other girl too was "a pawn". Stupid people, or prejudiced people, are prone to throwing words around without thinking: Beer and Pizza called Rosa Parks a "pawn", implying premeditation and conspiracy.

Around the same time, that Rosa Parks refused to get up, Emmett Till was tortured and murdered by white racists; his death was also taken up and "used" by the civil rights movement. Was Emmett Till a pawn too?



I stand behind what I wrote :

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When someone describes Rosa Parks as a "passive person" and a "pawn", then that person is (a) a lousy speaker of English, (b) out of his f*cking mind, or (c) a racist.

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____________

*Not much has changed since the 1950s on that account, by the way. People who dislike the civil rights movement's achievements still smear Martin Luther King, for example, on account of his human failings as a husband or a father. According to their small minds, MLK "cheated on his wife, therefore we cannot trust nothing he said!" Just google up some racist websites and see for yourselves...

[Cyrus]

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Not exactly the most civil way to debate, Cyrus. "You're either ignorant or a racist if you believe that" is what this amounts to. I've already given an example of a black actor (and the black director who wrote the script) saying just about the same thing that Beer said. Are they ignorant/racist too?

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They are ignorant.

Please do not mix the terms "ignorant/racist". I was specific that it's Either/Or.

(To elaborate a bit, I believe that there was much flippancy about the Barbershop dialogue. Myself, I enjoy any movie that can entertain, even if the story or the dialogue are as left-field as they come. But I would not cite what an actor said in a movie as "historical evidence"!)

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So how do we get from "might have been somewhat [prejudiced]" to "he's a racist"?

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By drawing a straight line.

Length of line varies according to the individual.

By the way, it is you who is being too quick with characterizations! Do yourself a favor and read what was written in this thread again. You will see things mkre clearly. I hope.

Once more, here is my claim, verbatim: [ QUOTE ]
When someone describes Rosa Parks as a "passive person" and a "pawn", then that person is (a) a lousy speaker of English, (b) out of his f*cking mind, or (c) a racist.

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Feel free to substitute (c) with "ignorant of History".

[Cyrus]

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[sarcastically:] Oh yeah, you really got to those old Jim Crow racists that can't stand to see any negroes get uppity. Good job flushing them out.


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Interesting.

You truly think that there are no "Jim Crow racists" on this board ?

Why would you say this? Please elaborate.

(Even going by sheer numbers alone, and knowing that the current 2+2 membership is close to 50,000 accounts, your comment strikes me as, shall we say, a little off the mark!)

[El Barto]

I'm more interested in you, Cyrus, than in Rosa Parks.

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like Beer and Pizza (or Wogga before him)

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When you use phrases like these, you are showing your tendency to use the politics of personal destruction (lumping current posters with a poster banned for racial comments to smear the current posters) You should be ashamed.

Don't deliberately misinterpret what someone has said to fit into your black and white view of the world. Consider the fact that people can have disagreements about facts without being racists.

As I said before:
"The political correctness of this board disgusts me. Calling someone a racist without legitimate basis is the politics of personal destruction. Shame on many of you, you did not live up to your basic humanity today."

I hope you can look into your heart and see how your fast and loose smearing of posters you disagree with is unbecoming of a human being. Present your case strongly without the personal attacks, Cyrus. Did Rosa Parks fight against injustice in the world so that you could use her to engage in character assassination?

Do the right thing and apologize to those you have smeared unfairly, and go forth and do it no more.

[ACPlayer]

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My contribution to this thread has been to 1) get people to stop with the racist nonsense and 2) introduce the fact this the idea that Rosa Parks has been built up into a symbol is shared by others, some who happen to also be black

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First thanks for the contribution. Wait ... not really.

The issue of painting a civil rights worker (or any worker with a cause) by using words designed to belittle (such as pawn) is essentially an attack on the cause. For, in any cause, almost all people are playing a role in achieving that cause - usually the role is small and is usually exploited by those carrying the flag for the cause. For some the role is accidental, for some deliberate, it makes little difference if you believe that the cause needs to be dealt with. If however, you think that the cause was stupid then one comes up with these terms to distract and belittle.

Rosa Parks was not a symbol or a pawn, she was a civil rights activists, who knowingly took a risk. A risk that later in life cost her monetarily. She took the risk because she was tired ...

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People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

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Rosa Parks could well have met the fate of Emmitt Till (prior to this incident) or that of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerber (spelling?). She knew it when she took the risk, because she was tired.

[mackthefork]

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So in your world, anyone who has similar feelings either 1) doesn't know about Rosa Parks's history or 2) is a racist. Not exactly the most civil way to debate, Cyrus. "You're either ignorant or a racist if you believe that" is what this amounts to. I've already given an example of a black actor (and the black director who wrote the script) saying just about the same thing that Beer said. Are they ignorant/racist too?


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No need to take offence to that, it's the same word game Beer is playing. There are plenty of ways to say it nicely, but why bother when you can say what you mean.

It's fairly obvious what Beer meant and it's wholly unpleasant, it's nice that some with similar opinions will defend him though, so he can say anything he likes and then pretend he meant something different.

Mack

[Darryl_P]

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it's nice that some with similar opinions will defend him though, so he can say anything he likes and then pretend he meant something different.


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That sounds pretty illogical to me. In my observations of the world I've noticed that as one gets more support one tends to get bolder and more forthright in one's statements. Backpedaling and retracting happens when you are outnumbered and squeezed into a corner.