My thoughts

Sit in the back of the bus it is okay.

“Don’t sit in the back if the bus that is not what Rosa Parks would have wanted use to be doing!” I have heard something like this during most of my life and that thought just set with me like rice in a cooker and now it is time for me to let the top of this thought. Back on my youth I heard this statement a lot and now as a many I can say that this was one of the most damaging and ignorant statements I have ever heard for a few reasons first it is contemptuous and two it does not show Sister Parks true intent or mission.

The part that really set wrong with me was that it was Black people for the most part chastising other black people for now reason. It is hard enough being Black in America with out others just ripping into us for no reason.

The second part that bothered me was that it was not true to what Sister Parks set out to do she refused to get up not because she only wanted to sit in the front of the bus. She refused because she had no rights at all on the bus. I think my generation and the generation before mine have it confused that sign that read Whites only was a sliding sign that went from the front of the bus all the way to the back of the bus so if a white man wanted to take your seat you had to give it up no matter where you sat. That is what Sister Parks was fighting for our ability to be treated equally.

So next time you see a Black man sitting in the back of the bus let him live; his ability to sit there in peace is exactly what Rosa Parks was fighting for. If you really wanted to be like Rosa Parks help him gain some more social mobility by fighting for his right to have a good education, world class healthcare and job so he can get a car.