RIP, Rosa

Rosa Parks has passed away.

I bitch and moan a lot these days about the modern sense of entitlement. People use the phrase "I deserve" far too often, I feel, and much of the grief that is inflicted on me on a daily basis arises mainly from people who think they're entitled to this, entitled to that. "It's my right," they'll grumble. It's really the bane of my existence -- these petty people of the present who some how sanctimoniously believe there's a universal right of way or something that allows them to disregard others and override consideration.

Today, though, I found myself reflecting on the illustrious Ms. Parks and her sense of entitlement that helped pave the way to a newer America. (I won't say "new" because I think there's still a hell of a lot of race problems that need fixing, but it's Rosa's day, so fuck all that shit.)

A misnomer exists, that Rosa was "tired" after a long hard day at work and thus refused to give her seat up to a white man. Rosa said otherwise, back in 1996, when she stated, "No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Rosa rightly felt that she was as entitled to rest her sorry, tired black ass as much as any white fucker was. She stayed put and found that ass in jail. A young dude decided this was time to change history and held the imprisoned Rosa Parks up as a martyr for their cause, something he would become himself in a few short years. Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott captured headlines and provoked national unrest over the course of the 381-day protest that followed.

I wonder today if it all woulda shaken down different had it been a black man. Was the fact that it was a woman, a tired working woman, the spark that made this somehow more socially relevant? Who knows.

In her quiet and passionate sense of what she was entitled to, what "right" was, Rosa Parks sparked a protest that ignited a nation and changed the path of America's future. She became the catalyst for the strong black woman who took no shit. She was the cat's meow, man.

These days, the guy who shouts the loudest gets the most air-time. Rosa, though, changed her country and her race's status by simply saying no and staying put. Quiet defiance, to my mind, is one of the most admirable battles one can wage.

We were fortunate to have her around so goddamned many years. I'm thankful she was able to stick around and see the world change. Not heal completely, since that's a long ways off from happening in America, but at least she saw a changing mentality and a people go from being extremely oppressed to whatever the hell the Black is today in America.* Come a long way, baby, but there's still so far to go.

In 1996, she went on record saying, "We still have a long way to go in improving the race relations in this country." Who can argue that?

Rosa wasn't just some chick who stayed seated. She spent the rest of her life working for the Black cause. She started organizations to help kids develop character, that taught about the Underground Railway that helped spirit blacks to freedom during Slavery. She was enormously involved with the NAACP. And she always, always was embarrassed to be thought of as the godmother of race equality, since she says she was only one of many in the bad old days of Montgomery, that it all boiled down essentially as a fluke that she was the one who provided the spark.

A fluke it weren't. It was her grace, her poise, her style, her class that made this not just some mamie refusing a man his rightful resting spot. This was a classy Black woman asserting her right to have a cushy tushy.

This was a woman with dignity, and she wasn't gonna apologize for it. Rosa, you rocked, honey. Enjoy the after-party, baby.

*Before my ass gets chewed off, this isn't a slam on Blacks, but a slam on the reality that in many places they are still not equal -- not financially, judicially, or socially, as Katrina illustrated all too well. I think it's still changing, and for the better, but let's not delude ourselves that the work is done. Some more seeds to be sown, my friends.