[img]2020|right|||no_popup[/img]Earlier this year, the House of Representatives honored the civil rights heroine Rosa Parks with a commemorative statue in the Capitol. I wonder if U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Culver City) took time to visit the unveiling and share her sentiments.
Seated in peaceful repose, Ms. Parks rests amiably, looking ahead but not worried about the future. The bronzed legacy of the woman who blazed a trail for civil rights as a courageous bus rider is remembered for what she would not do: Give up her seat in the front of a Montgomery bus after a long day of work. Despite repeated demands by the driver to move back, she refused, was arrested, then aroused enough outrage to organize the final and most successful boycott of the Montgomery bus line.
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Following the shameful uproars the past in reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict, and Rep. Bass’s shameless pandering – replacing her image with a photo of Trayvon on her Twitter account – Ms. Parks would feel less peaceful and more distressed, we may speculate. She would be upset that a legacy of respectable demonstration had given way to violent frustration among African-American civic leaders and those who heedlessly heed them.
Congresswoman Bass, you are one of those civic leaders. You blame racism in American society, claiming that the ill-repute that justified putting blacks like Rosa Parks in the back of the bus lingers today in our country. You claim, as do racially-driven activists like the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, that there is no justice for black people, that white America is responsible, and the Zimmerman verdict is proof.
What would Rosa Parks say about the Zimmerman verdict?
First, I believe that she would applaud the American criminal justice system because prosecutors indicted a man of mixed heritage for the murder of a young black child. Decades ago, so many blacks routinely were lynched by rabid white mobs.
Often white rioters would pose with the bodies of the African-Americans whom they had murdered. Arrogantly, they knew no white jury would convict them. Ms. Parks likely would recall the untimely death of young Trayvon Martin with the wicked slaughter of young Emmett Till of Mississippi, a fifteen-year old African-American brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman. “We have come a long way!” Ms. Parks would say. I believe she would respect the verdict handed down by the jury because the state of Florida was willing to spend twelve days with fifty-six witnesses to investigate whether Mr. Zimmerman had committed murder or merely engaged in self-defense.
Yet leaving behind the Zimmerman verdict, the notion of latent racism that erupts in our country still animates civil rights activists to act uncivilly in the public square. Perhaps, Rep. Bass, you would argue that African-Americans still endure the hardships Ms. Parks had to put up with.
Let’s compare the time when Ms. Parks refused to give up her seat with the present-day plight of African-Americans. .
Ms. Parks was tired. She was tired of being told where to sit. She was tired of the disrespect she and others of her race had endured for so long. She was tired of being told what she could and could not do. She was tired of what she could earn, as well. She was tired of giving in to a lie that she had to put up with disrespect because of her skin color.
What would Rosa Parks say today about African-Americans today?
She would say they are worse off because they see nothing but grievance and racism behind every verdict that exonerates a non-black person in the death of black person. She would be disgusted by modern-day African-Americans who trumpet racism and victimization while enabling the same in black communities to this day.
She would call out the Democratic hegemony of these racist leaders, then remind everyone that it was the Democratic party – the party of slavery, secession, and segregation – that has been persecuting black folks. Ms. Parks would be appalled that African-Americans have flocked to the Democratic party, not just because of the history, but their current policies, many of which you support, Rep. Bass, along with the first black President, Barack Obama. These policies place blacks at a greater disadvantage.
She would indict the Obama administration because today blacks suffer twice the national average of unemployment. Black youths like Trayvon face 50 percent unemployment. They suffer in poor public schools, they live in ghettoes riddled with illegitimacy and dependency, subsidized by welfare dollars. Democrats have become crazy in telling everyone what they can do, what they can make, forcing blacks to sit in poverty and stagnation.
In light of these disturbing trends, what would Rosa Parks say, Rep. Bass?
She would shout:
“Stop putting my people in the back of the bus!”
Instead of pandering to sentiments of racism and victimhood, Rep. Bass, stop supporting destructive Democratic policies that hurt your people. Stop lying, stop pandering, and allow every African-American a chance to choose where he or she wants to sit.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A lifelong Southern California resident, he currently lives in Torrance.
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