The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: CortJstr on October 25, 2005, 02:56:08 am
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She died of natural causes at age 92
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102402053.html
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She died of natural causes at age 92
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/24/AR2005102402053.html
I win
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You're good, kid. Real good. But as long as Terrence Trapezoid is around, you'll always be second banana.
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BLATANT FAVORITISM'D
Carry on, citizens.
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BLATANT FAVORITISM'D
Carry on, citizens.
You are a complete anal-butt moderator dude.
Dick.
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BLATANT FAVORITISM'D
Carry on, citizens.
Rock!
(It's way too cheery in this thread, considering the actual topic)
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Well, ummmm.
I never knew Rosa Parks, but I learned in 3rd grade, and 4th grade, and 5th grade, and really all through middle school, that she began the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was crucial in the Civil Rights movement.
She was pretty awesome. And 92 is a pretty respectable year to get to.
I don't want to sound flip. I'm actually slightly saddened by this news, not just because Rosa Parks died, but also because of the Civil Rights movement then- the protests, the firm resolve, the goals- contrasted with the Anti-War movement now- basically, a bunch of jackasses.
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I say sandblast Stone Mountain and recarve it to include her image, along with Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall.
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I think we need a music video of Prussian Blue dancing on her grave.
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Woh - 380 day bus boycott. It must have been nice when people were protesting things for a reason instead of just to piss off their parents.
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I think we need a music video of Prussian Blue dancing on her grave.
why? i know you are being funny, as much as i know anything about the intentions of people i don't know, but i don't get it.
i'm being serious.
could you break down/flow chart the humor/comedy/joke of this thought?
there's absurdity, possibly intent to irony, a bit of wackiness?
but having two young girls dancing on the grave of an old woman who the two girls think and believe was better off dead because she as, for arbitrary reasons, inferior to them, while the old woman was known famously for pretty much just wanting to be able to sit down and not be treated like a pariah, where's the humor to that?
it's the saddest thing.
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Absurdity, a heapin' shellacking of irony and if we're lucky, they'll attempt to do it and be shamed out of existence. Everyone's a winner.
I don't think Ms. Parks would have minded the temporary defilement of her grave in order to shame a racist phenomenon out of existence, as long as she doesn't have to stand.
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Ugh. I'm sorely tempted to lock this one as well.
Does anyone have anything worth saying? We can still maybe salvage this.
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Ugh. I'm sorely tempted to lock this one as well.
Does anyone have anything worth saying? We can still maybe salvage this.
please don't lock this thread, as i'm attempting to learn some things.
what about it is wanting you to lock it.
also, i'm thinking.
edit- also, while i'm thinking, bobby i think you are hilarious 9 times out of 10, and apparently intelligent. i truly want to pick your brain on this.
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This thread is staying open because it's a major current event and I think there's meaningful discussion to be had from it (although I don't have a whole lot to say about it). Prussian Blue stuff should stay in its thread over at A&E, thx.
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She knew that in the previous year, two other women had been arrested for the same offense, but neither was deemed right to handle the role that was sure to become one of the most controversial of the century.
I found this really interesting; I hadn't known that. I also hadn't known that she and her husband were politically active already in antisegregation, & her husband being "an early defender of the Scottsboro boys". The problem I'd always had with Parks being used as a symbol for the civil rights movement was that she always seemed to me as being portrayed as a passive and politically naive resister, an old woman, non-threatening.
They quote her in the article saying something to this effect:
I thought back to the time when I used to sit up all night and didn't sleep, and my grandfather would have his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had his one-hoss wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon," she wrote. "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.
I find that really creepy, actually.
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Ugh. I'm sorely tempted to lock this one as well.
Does anyone have anything worth saying? We can still maybe salvage this.
edit- also, while i'm thinking, bobby i think you are hilarious 9 times out of 10, and apparently intelligent. i truly want to pick your brain on this.
You had me at hello. I think the best comment on this matter was elucidated in the Prussian Blue thread, regarding the "marketplace of ideas." I believe in anyone -- even a bigot's -- right to say whatever he or she wants. I think the only way to successfuly quell an idea is reductio ad absurdum. Every other attempt to stifle a belief or meme will merely result in it getting a case of martyrdom. To destroy an idea you must give it its fifteen minutes of fame and watch it wither from overexposure. This is where I feel irony should be directed, not to cartoon-embossed t-shirts on yowling hipsters with black plastic framed glasses dancing to cheap synth music and drinking cheaper beer.
Humor is a weapon. When you say I'm funny nine times out of ten, that's because i'm trying to KILL YOU. A 90% hit rate ain't bad.
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She knew that in the previous year, two other women had been arrested for the same offense, but neither was deemed right to handle the role that was sure to become one of the most controversial of the century.
I found this really interesting; I hadn't known that. I also hadn't known that she and her husband were politically active already in antisegregation, & her husband being "an early defender of the Scottsboro boys". The problem I'd always had with Parks being used as a symbol for the civil rights movement was that she always seemed to me as being portrayed as a passive and politically naive resister, an old woman, non-threatening.
They quote her in the article saying something to this effect:
I thought back to the time when I used to sit up all night and didn't sleep, and my grandfather would have his gun right by the fireplace, or if he had his one-hoss wagon going anywhere, he always had his gun in the back of the wagon," she wrote. "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.
I find that really creepy, actually.
Creepy how?
She worked as an icon because it would be hard to attack her in the media and in discussion as some kind of rabble rouser. I imagine the two that got arrested before made a production out of it. What was needed, I suspect, and what the movement got, was a woman who was just going to take a simple human action that any reasonable person would take, and was simply going to be quiet and strong willed about it. No kicking and screaming, profanity, etc. Just a clear example the world could easily understand of just how absurd and unfair and irrational segregation was.
To build on a question from the other thread: I think this is why the current brand of protesting as brought to you by anti-globalization folks, PETA, ELF, and even the anti-Bush anti-war people is that the protests and dialogue don't have a simple focus for people to seize on. Also, too much profanity and too many celebrities. The problem with celebrities is that it's hard to take, say, Sean Penn seriously as a self-proclaimed expert on Foreign Policy. Or Barbara Streisand or even Bono, although I have a little more respect for him than the others. So my advice to protesters of this era is: get a simple message you all can agree on and repeat it mercilessly, avoid recycling people like Joan Baez, etc. because it's a cliche, and for God's sake hire a consultant to come up with your chants. Every time I hear someone trying to lead a chant, it's like they lifted a page from a Chilton's manual and are reading it aloud. Horrible.
The most recent semi-successful protest I can think of was the woman camped out at Crawford on behalf of her son who was KIA in Iraq. That one was going OK (regardless of my personal opinion) and what I think killed it was when people supposedly smarter than her took over and muddled the message - when it was simply a mom looking to talk to the President, it had meaning, but when suddenly there was obviously big money and political interests behind it, it stopped being meaningful or having the ability to attract people who weren't already of that point of view.
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I don't get the creepy part, either. I always thought it was pretty well known that Parks was an activist (and not just a tired old Grandma). Or is that not what's creepy?
Oh, and, was Parks v Outkast ever really settled?
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She worked as an icon because it would be hard to attack here in the media and in discussion as some kind of rabble rouser. I imagine the two that got arrested before made a production out of it. What was needed, I sispect, and what the movement got, was a woman who was just going to take a simple human action that any reasonable person would take, and was simply going to be quiet and strong willed about it. No kicking and screaming, profanity, etc. Just a clear example the world could easily understand of just how absurd and unfair and irrational segregation was
I know that one of the women was pregnant out of wedlock. It had nothing to do with the way that woman acted on the bus or her attitude towards the situation...the leaders in the movement just didn't want to use her as a symbol of the boycott.
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i think the idea of my father having to drive around with a shotgun in order to protect himself and his family is beyond creepy, but i don't know what word means "beyond creepy".
i think rosa parks, in the end, ended up being a "hero" because all she was doing was doing what she knew was right.
nowadays, "heroes" try to do things they think will make them "heroes".
of course, being "Acceptable" by the "hero" makers sure helps a lot too.
what a sad day, but if anyone gets to go to a better place i sure hope she does.
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I know that one of the women was pregnant out of wedlock. It had nothing to do with the way that woman acted on the bus or her attitude towards the situation...the leaders in the movement just didn't want to use her as a symbol of the boycott.
It's interesting, the verb 'use'. I wonder about that now - did the Civil Rights leaders of the time speak with Mrs Parks and her family and get her to agree to become an elevated hero? Or did it just happen naturally? Did they plan the boycott well in advance and just wait until the most appropriate for their purpose person decided not to stand at the back of the bus? That seems overly orchestrated to me but certainly could be how it went. That's interesting to think about.
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It's interesting, the verb 'use'. I wonder about that now - did the Civil Rights leaders of the time speak with Mrs Parks and her family and get her to agree to become an elevated hero? Or did it just happen naturally? Did they plan the boycott well in advance and just wait until the most appropriate for their purpose person decided not to stand at the back of the bus? That seems overly orchestrated to me but certainly could be how it went. That's interesting to think about.
The myth that Rosa Parks was just a tired old lady that didn't want to stand anymore was what won the day for the civil rights movement. Learning now that she was actually active in the movement and quite possibly orchestrated the whole event is, I believe, what Andalucia will tell you is creepy. I'm glad though that her protest achieved it's goal.
~Paul
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So the big question we're skating around is
Does it take away from the impact of Mrs. Parks' status as civil rights pioneer or from the whole civil rights movement itself (in your opinion) if she was a participant in those struggles all along and the event itself was orchestrated in order to kick off the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
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Does it take away from the impact of Mrs. Parks' status as civil rights pioneer or from the whole civil rights movement itself (in your opinion) if she was a participant in those struggles all along and the event itself was orchestrated in order to kick off the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
no,
the fact that an icon of the American Civil Rights Movement was an active participant in said movement does not detract any impact her icon status has on me.
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Does it take away from the impact of Mrs. Parks' status as civil rights pioneer or from the whole civil rights movement itself (in your opinion) if she was a participant in those struggles all along and the event itself was orchestrated in order to kick off the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
I don't know, but I just killed a post in the other thread because I couldn't think of a good way to say that those two misguided children dancing on Rosa Parks grave isn't funny because it's a stunningly acurate metaphor for the state of race relations in America at the moment. The civil rights movement is dead and racism is on the rise among young white people.
~Paul
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So the big question we're skating around is
Does it take away from the impact of Mrs. Parks' status as civil rights pioneer or from the whole civil rights movement itself (in your opinion) if she was a participant in those struggles all along and the event itself was orchestrated in order to kick off the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
Well, that's exactly the opposite of what I meant. (Thanks Paul for straightening that up, I'd only recently woken up when I wrote that comment). I find her a lot more compelling as a hero knowing that she was a politically aware actor, who did what she did as a conscious act of protest.
What this reminds me of is a passage in a book by Angela Davis, who I respect quite a lot-- her autobiography is well worth checking out-- on black women in blues music, where she takes on the myth that Billie Holiday had no idea what "Strange Fruit" was about (ie, lynching) and just sang the words as they were given to her. Which, not surprisingly, is total bullshit. It's the fairly pervasive myth that either of these intelligent and aware women were being used as tools in the civil rights movement without their real knowledge or of their own volition, that strikes me as creepy.
I mean, since most of you guys are American, and probably have a better grasp of American history than I do, and, as miles and others have said, knew that she was already an activist. In that case, you may safely ignore this comment.
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Does it take away from the impact of Mrs. Parks' status as civil rights pioneer or from the whole civil rights movement itself (in your opinion) if she was a participant in those struggles all along and the event itself was orchestrated in order to kick off the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
no,
the fact that an icon of the American Civil Rights Movement was an active participant in said movement does not detract any impact her icon status has on me.
Totally. If anything I have more respect for her. Is it somehow wrong that she orchestrated the event? It reminds me of the arrest that led to the Lawrence v Texas decision. People on the right were always quick to point out that it seemed staged, and that this somehow mitigated the impact of the decision. Even if those guys were totally faking it, and weren't even gay, let alone had the arrest staged, I don't see how it would have been different.
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The civil rights movement is dead and racism is on the rise among young white people.
Really? I'd disagree (without any evidence in the way of statistics and shit) on both points. I could be totally wrong, and would appreciate being pointed in the direction of any related studies or reports. Certainly it's not the same as it was, but great progress is still being made (with a number of setbacks, certainly) in areas that have been overlooked in the past--such as with gay rights. I know you mentioned racism specifically, but, you know.
Edit: Oh, and andalucia: I too thought that Rosa Parks was just a tired woman and not really connected with the civil rights movement. It's just that it seems like the myth was dispelled rather widely a couple years ago. Like a book was published or something. I remember my friend commenting that he was a little disappointed, which seemed weird to me.
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The civil rights movement is dead and racism is on the rise among young white people.
Really? I'd disagree (without any evidence in the way of statistics and shit) on both points. I could be totally wrong, and would appreciate being pointed in the direction of any related studies or reports. Certainly it's not the same as it was, but great progress is still being made (with a number of setbacks, certainly) in areas that have been overlooked in the past--such as with gay rights. I know you mentioned racism specifically, but, you know.
I can't quantify it, but I can feel it.
~Paul
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I'm happy to say that my gut feeling is the opposite Paul.
I grew up and started school shortly after desegregation. I started the first grade in 1971. I was around black kids throughout my grade school career, unlike my parents. We had more contact than any generation before us. This has extended through my life. I've had female, black and black female bosses. 20 to 30 years ago I think that would have been highly unusual. It's not uncommon today. Hell, we have a black female Secretary of State (who is lousy, which has nothing to do with her race or gender) who replaced a black male, who replaced a white female.
The culture has changed. It was common for me to hear overtly racist comments from adults when I was growing up. I don't think my children ever have. The mass media depicts more diversity in a less self-conscious manner.
I believe everybody has prejudices, some of them racial. I believe that my generation is more aware of mine and do more to fight them than my parents' generation did. I believe my kids will do better than I did.
I'm not saying things are perfect, or even close to where they should be. But I do believe things are getting better, gradually.
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Dude, I used to sit in the back of the bus all the dang time. I ain't proud.
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Parks may be the first woman (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102701702.html) to lie in honor at the Capitol.
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Dude, I used to sit in the back of the bus all the dang time. I ain't proud.
The shorter the bus, the less the esteem i guess.
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Zing! Winner.
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I'm glad that a thread can be so really touching (AW's) and then be followed by a short bus joke. I'm serious, I'm very happy I can see that.
We are well-rounded.