The Sunday Editorial: Once You’ve Gone Black…

Sunday, December 20, 2009. This past week, I was on the elliptical machine at my health club, using the incline setting as if to metaphorically indicate that I’m fighting an uphill battle to prevent holiday fat gain. A buddy spotted me, and jumped onto the machine next to mine, and before even saying hello, began to talk to me about the Tiger Woods saga. He, like most people, would be willing to cut him some slack if he’d had one, maybe even two mistresses. But 7? 14? 21? How many times did Woods score off the golf course?

My friend is more upset by this than I am.

You see for me Woods is one of the five greatest golfers of all time, far and away the greatest since Jack Nicklaus. Like Nicklaus, and unlike any other golfer I’ve seen in my lifetime, he can concentrate like a laser on key shots. He will make an opponent wilt into pull hook hell with merely a steely glance. Phil Mickelson arguably is just as gifted, has a better short game, and hits the ball just as far as Woods. Vijay Singh is another with uncommon gifts. But these players come off as “soft” compared to Woods. Woods wins because he is more dedicated and focused. He practices longer, eats better, works out harder. In golf, he has unmatched will power. I’m perplexed as to how his personal life can be such the opposite. That’s what the recent twist in the “Story of Tiger” represents to me.

However, Woods’ infidelities create a much heavier burden for my pal.

My pal is black.

“When a guy like Tiger does something like this, or Kobe [Bryant], or some of these other black guys, it worries me that people think all black guys are like this, or most of them—you know?” he says.

“Yep—I know. It’s stereotyping. It’s frustrating.”

Being a man, I think I understand very well that this is not a “black” problem. Men are men. Their God-given desire to procreate with attractive women is quite strong, and I have not noticed blacks having any more difficulty controlling it than any other race.

Which brings us to another burden blacks must bear. Barack Obama was elected President at an historical crossroads when growing ranks of blacks are shedding the old stereotype that blacks must be Democrats. They’ve seen that the liberal band-aid approach to solving problems in America never works in the end. It’s just a lot of pandering to superficial, short-term desires, and is patronizing to blacks–more a hindrance to them than a boon. Many of these black Americans, at the fore of a burgeoning group of minorities who are Republicans and Independents, cite profound frustration as they witness in disbelief the far-left, social-manipulation policies of Obama, policies that cannot do anything but weaken an already-shaky America.

They’re wondering what whites are thinking now with this crazy president. I have spoken to them about this, and have read countless comments from blacks on news stories from sources like ONE.SIX. They worry that Obama has made it utterly impossible for another black man to be elected as President of the United States.

I think I speak for millions of whites when I say, “Don’t worry blacks—we whites aren’t that stupid.” True, there are always going to be some who can somehow judge a group of millions of people based on the actions of one or a few men. There are white bigots who are that stupid, who would not have given Obama a chance even had his policies been to the right of President Ronald Reagan’s.

I don’t believe that Obama will be the last black president. If Obama’s election did nothing else, it served as a sledge hammer through the walls of bigotry, causing the President’s residence to only literally be the “White” House.

I didn’t vote for Obama because I don’t believe liberal policies work, and I surmised his policies would bankrupt America. However, on election night, when Obama had won and I watched thousands of citizens from my home town of Chicago, many of them black, crying with incredulous gratitude that finally they had gained the respect and recognition they had fought for since they disembarked from slave boats in the Seventeenth Century, I got quite emotional and felt proud to be American–like when the U.S. wins a Gold Medal in the Olympics and the Star Spangled Banner is played. It sort of hit me in the back of the throat and I couldn’t have talked for a few minutes without crying a bit.

Blacks have battled too long to let the lasting memory of what a black president represents be Barack Obama, and Barack Obama only. Their struggles for equality have forged a strength like iron into their bones, and have caused them to become politically involved and prominent. They won’t let the courageous battles of heroes like Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King go wasted. Their door has been swung open, and blacks like Larry Elder, Niger Innis, Wallace Jefferson, Angela McGlowen, Rod Paige, Star Parker, Jesse Lee Peterson, Collin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Michael Steele, Shelby Steele, Clarence Thomas, J.C. Watts, Armstrong Williams, and thousands of others will continue to bulldoze that entryway wider so that black conservatives can get through it too.

Most white conservatives recognize that Obama has socialistic tendencies—not blacks in general. Look, for instance, at former presidential candidate Alan Keyes. Keyes, a black, has for years labeled Obama a communist. Most whites recognize that Obama wants to overspend to push his liberal folly—not blacks in general. Look, for instance, at Stanford University’s Thomas Sowell, a black, and perhaps the most prolific economics author of our day. Sowell has repeatedly decried the debacle of Obama’s fiscal and political myopia. The list could go on and on.

So, to my buddy at the health club, to other black Americans, I say this: The barrier has been smashed. Anybody with drive and ambition can become President of the United States, or become anything else for that matter. You’ve got too much dirt under fingernails, too much scar tissue, too much heartache, too much time and money invested, to let this progressive charlatan come in and rob your bounteous harvest.

–CB

If I had to name one pet peeve it would be Complacency. If you feel passionate about something you need to let your voice be heard. Not only to the “safe” people around you, but mostly to those who may not be so comfortable to hear your point of view. There is a saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. I love Grease. We all remember Rosa Parks. She had no desire to be part of the civil rights movement. She was tired from a long days work. She made her stand by not giving up her seat and not crawling to the back of the bus. Her actions gave momentum to the Civil Rights Movement.

Perhaps I was meant to be thriving in the 60’s. A Stonewall Drag Queen in 6 inch heals chanting about not wearing any underwear. (Maybe Not). I do know that I respect the activism of Milk, and MLK, and all the less known people who stood up for what they truly believe in. Not only did they stand up, but many were beaten down, or in the case of the former mentioned, were murdered out of ignorance or lack of understanding.

What should YOU be passionate about? There must be that one thing (or many things in my world) that raises your blood pressure and turns your stomach. What is it? Are you willing to die for it? What if dying for it meant it would make it so?

So what are Penni’s passions? Gay rights, Womens’ rights, Freedom from Religion, Animal Rights, the Environment, Human Rights, and much more that we will touch upon soon.

Am I willing to die for these? Likely not all, but some hold stronger than others. Stay tuned to find out what Penni is really thinking.

About a year ago, I wrote a post in which I mentioned that society had started to over-vilify conformity. It was just a side point in an argument about majoritarianism/communitarianism, but I’ve been giving it a bit more thought lately, and it’s kind of been a recurring theme in several of my recent posts, whether just a tour of my neighborhood, a response to an old book review, or a complaint about the increasing numbers of independents in politics.

For my entire life, conformity has always been considered the Big Bad Villain, scorned culturally in books, films, even in advertising. Weird thing is, I can’t remember ever reading or seeing anything in my life that has defended conformity. Kinda tough to create a counter-culture without a culture to rebel against.

Part of my objection to non-conformity is personal; I’m just really sick of people thinking they have some special insight, and in that context, conforming to some basic way of seeing the world or behaving in accordance with prevailing norms seems to be, not only necessary, but refreshing. It’s a hint of humility in an age of narcissism.

I also think that my interpretation of conformity’s role throughout history is a bit different than the usual cultural depiction. As the general storyline goes, all social progress is achieved by nonconformists – individuals fighting against an oppressive status quo: Look at Rosa Parks. Had it not been for brave nonconformists like Parks, the status quo of segregation would have prevailed.

But that’s a pretty narrow interpretation. Every community and every movement has a mix of conformists and nonconformists. Far from demonstrating the power of independence and individualism, the Rosa Parks example is a perfect example of the power of conformity. She didn’t act alone – she conformed to the rules laid out by the local NAACP. In fact, the only reason her situation sparked the bus boycott was because she fit in with the rules of her society, and could bridge the divide between the local civil rights establishment (E.D. Nixon, Clifford and Virginia Durr) and the young ministers (King and Abernathy).

Parks did everything exactly as she was trained to do it, by the NAACP and at the Highlander School. Less than a year before Parks’ arrest, teenager Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same offense. Her arrest didn’t spark a boycott because she truly was a nonconformist – a rogue individual who didn’t conform to society’s standards of acceptability (she was pregnant with a married man’s child) or standards of civil rights activism (she cursed at the arresting officer, and had not been an established activist before her arrest).

The year-long bus boycott that followed Parks’ arrest was a textbook example of the successful use of social pressure to encourage conformity within the African American community in Montgomery.

There were rogue (nonconformist) civil rights activists – James Meredith comes to mind – but they were usually the least effective. Meredith had relatively little respect from the civil rights community. He didn’t see himself as part of anything.

In terms of social progress, conformity is also an obvious necessity in union organizing and collective bargaining. Rather than conformity serving as an obstacle to social progress, conformity is progress’s most important tool. It’s nothing more than the ability to apply social pressure on an individual to sacrifice a small piece of their own desires and inclinations in exchange for the benefits of being a part of a community.

Unfortunately, the ability to apply social pressure is fading fast. Loyalty and faithfulness to external values take a clear backseat to loyalty and faithfulness to internal values – an individual conscience. People proudly proclaim that they live their lives based on their own moral code, and not one arbitrarily dictated by society.

It’s nice rhetoric, but it’s a bit hollow and strikingly arrogant. First, isn’t it pretty easy to live in accordance with personal values? I mean, wouldn’t it be natural for people to set their “moral code” based on their own strengths, weaknesses, and opinions? It only demands the amount of sacrifice that the individual deems necessary. Don’t want to do something? Write it out of your moral code! Develop a theory about why it’s a wicked norm anyway. Like accumulating money? Buy into the Virtue of Selfishness and preach that greed is good. You can live happily and in complete accordance with your own moral code.

But forget about the twisted logic that can develop from some individual’s moral code. Let’s assume we’re not talking about sociopaths, but about reasonable people with a general concept of right and wrong. They just want to follow their consciences and put their loyalty to their conscience above loyalty to anything or anyone else. I’m talking about the people who make heroes out of whistle-blowers, who cast themselves in the Henry Fonda role from 12 Angry Men, who long to be the one voice saying “no” while everyone else is saying “yes.” It’s a romantic ideal.

It’s also an ideal that we only associate with actual moral correctness. In every celebrated story about the one against the many, the one is always on the side of the angels. That rarely matches up with reality. Believing in one’s personal correctness at the expense of the correctness of society is more often a sign of megalomania than moral superiority. I actually think there’s something exceptionally brave (not to mention humble) about the foot soldiers, who believe in loyalty to something outside of themselves and are willing to sacrifice on its behalf.

Finally, I’m using the concept of conformity as a sort of pendulum. If society swung completely the opposite direction, and we became a nation of drones marching in unthinking lockstep, I’d argue the value of nonconformity. But that’s just not where we are today. As it stands, we are a nation of individualists, going our own way, trusting only our own consciences, sacrificing nothing of ourselves to anything beyond ourselves.

I have been discussing with some of my HIV positive friends and fellow activists: how do you become an activist? What motivates you, what inspires you?

One of the answers was: you are self appointed, you make yourself one. And maybe it is partly true.

Sometimes I feel I am doing what I am doing, because nobody else (or just a few others) want or are able to do it. Who wants to be known for having a sexually transmitted disease? What will be the consequences of being so open about my status? I do fear sometimes that some enraged old lover may find this blog and come looking for me with a machete, but I hope that my cat Caspar will defend me fearlessly.

I would like to know more about the moment, or the process that pushes you and makes you step up.  What sparkles that? For me personally it was seeing so much unnecessary suffering in the women I supported. Witnessing women being beaten and abandoned by husbands, young women thrown out of their homes by their parents, gifted and talented girls gripped and paralyzed by the shame and low self esteem caused by internalized stigma. I felt that if I didn’t do something to stop this, if I didn’t try to act on the cause of such violence, I was almost an accomplice, how could I not do something?However, I also soon realized that you can not talk about HIV without talking about power, how it is distributed in our society, and how those who have less, or none, are so much more vulnerable to this small bug called HIV. You can not talk about HIV without talking of gender, poverty, the educational system, the relationship between rich and poor countries, homophobia, racism and a lot more. HIV and social justice are tightly interconnected. It is not just a limited struggle about this virus that affects me. It is about something much bigger: it is about justice.

Also I would have never taken this big step with all the risks involved if it wasn’t for the inspiration I had from other women living with HIV who had already started. We follow on the steps of those who walked before us and we hope that others will follow on our steps. A West African proverb states: we stand on shoulders of our ancestors.

My ancestors are many:  people who dared in face of incredible difficulties to do something to change the minds and hearts of those around them and thus initiate a much bigger change.

One of the ancestors on whose shoulders I stand is Rosa Parks, the civil rights movement leader, and this is how she commented on her decision not to give up her bus seat to a white person, and thus initiate the historical bus boycott:

The only tired I was, was tired of giving in. I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.

Rosa Parks

I’d think that:

• The Emancipation Proclamation actually called for the continued enslavement of Africans
• We were happy slaves
• Juneteenth was created to give African Americans another reason to have a cookout
• Malcolm, Martin, Medgar, and Rosa were fictional characters
• Brown v. Board of Education upheld and legalized school segregation
• There is no such thing as ‘The Talented Tenth’
• We have actually overcome
• The Civil Rights Movement never happened
• Arne Duncan is the son of God, sent to save us savages
• Blacks are too ignorant and incompetent to educate any children, especially their own
• We’re only qualified to run a football, shoot a basketball, sing, and dance
• Having a Black president will erase our country’s torrid and shameful past
• That my $150,000 education is not good enough to break into the ‘Good ‘ol boy’ network

Now that my vent is over, I can get back to work.

Rosa Parks’ refusal to obey bus driver James Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, and her subsequent arrest, is one of the most famous events in the history of the American civil rights movement. Read the whole story here. 

Rosa Parks bus diagram

(source)

Rosa Parks' booking photo when being arrested on December 1st, 1955

(source)

More on segregation and Jim Crow. More iconic images of human rights violations.

The joy of travel isn’t always in reaching the destination, but in taking the journey itself.

New Greyhound buses feature wi-fi and power outlets at your seat. Greyhound Lines photo

By SABRINA MESSENGER
For many people around the world, travel by bus or motor coach is commonplace. In the United States, however, many people feel that bus travel is uncomfortable, unsafe, or something that only “low-class” people do.

If I had $100 for every person who has ever said to me when discussing travel, “Oh, I could never ride the bus!,” let me tell you, I’d be richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined! People who reject bus travel out of hand miss out on a unique travel experience.

Sabrina Messenger

As a person who appreciates history and classic movies, I find there is a certain romance in bus travel. It brings to mind screwball comedy movies from the 1930s like “It Happened One Night,” or dramas like the 1955 “Bus Stop.”

I’ve traveled via Greyhound numerous times since 1978. I was 17 when I first traveled from Ohio to New York City on the bus. ..and regaled people with my guitar playing!

In my mid-20s, I took the bus cross country…twice…with a baby in tow! My route followed very closely the “Mother Road”…Route 66.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve enjoyed many a bus trip throughout the West, with my family or on my own. I take the bus to visit relatives, to get myself to rock concerts or special events…or just to get the heck out of Dodge!

Bus travel encourages communication and camaraderie amongst passengers, and there are plenty of opportunities to meet very interesting and fascinating people from all over the world. Sometimes it’s fun just to be quiet and watch other passengers or eavesdrop.

I can definitely identify with the lyrics in the Simon and Garfunkel song “America.”

“Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said “Be careful his bowtie is really a camera”

Bus travel for me has been the inspiration for poetry and songs.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: There currently are at least 40 inter-city bus lines in the United States, most of them in the east. Most are listed here. Some of them connect Chinatowns around the country. Others shuttle passenger between the U.S. -Mexico border and cities in Southern California and the southwestern U.S. G. Gross)

For African-Americans, bus travel in the 1950s and 1960s was “ground zero” of the Civil Rights movement. It was on a bus where Rosa Parks made her stand…by sitting down.

Beginning in 1961, courageous young students, both Black and White, began to taking road trips to ensure that buses, trains and planes were really and truly desegregated. These were the Freedom Rides. Those activists ran into people who jeered them, and many were threatened by violence. Some buses were even destroyed by pro-segregationists.

However, due to their perseverance, travel became desegregated and “we” now can travel freely. Bus travel, to me, was a hard-earned right that we as Black people shouldn’t abandon so easily.

These days, bus travel is somewhat endangered. Many routes are being cut, leaving entire communities potentially isolated. Local and regional bus companies are beginning to pick up the slack, but there is still a need for interstate buses for those who can’t or prefer not to use other forms of transportation.

Okay, so for many people, bus travel really is not feasible. Business travelers on an extremely tight deadline, for example. People trying to get from Point A to Point B in an emergency. However, for some people, like me, bus travel is an enjoyable and preferred method of transportation.

Why?

Well, some people either can’t afford or dislike flying. Trains may not be available. Some people either can’t drive or simply prefer to leave the driving to someone else.

For those who think that bus travel is only for ‘low-life’ or disreputable people, consider these facts about the average Greyhound customer:

* One-third of Greyhound passengers make more than $35,000 per year.
* More than half of Greyhound riders have received higher education beyond high school.
* Forty-two percent of Greyhound passengers are between the ages of 18 and 34.
* Nearly 60 percent of Greyhound passengers travel less than 450 miles.
* In many cases, Greyhound passengers report they own automobiles considered sufficiently reliable for a trip of a similar distance, but travel by bus because it is safe and more economical.
* The majority of Greyhound passengers travel to visit family and friends, but more than 21 percent travel for business reasons.
* The average ticket price is $45.

(source; www.greyhound.com)

For many young people, particularly from Europe, traveling by bus was the way they got to “know” America because of offers like AmeriPass. For a low fee, you could travel anyplace any time.

Such offers still exist today in the form of the Discovery Pass.

One of the arguments used to promote air travel over buses goes something like this: “Flying is safer than driving.”

Well, I beg to differ. The Greyhound website cites federal statistics showing that inter-city buses like Greyhound, are the safest mode of transportation — over cars, trucks, trains, planes and other commercial vehicles.

As for the ride being ‘uncomfortable,’ even that’s now a thing of the past. The newer Greyhound buses have been retooled to have considerably more leg room.

Also, bus travel is more environmentally friendly than either flying or driving your own vehicle. They’re also touting eco-friendly buses, too. So if you want to ‘discover America’ and decrease your carbon footprint, I recommend using mass transit of all kinds.

Sure, there are some bad people on buses. There also are bad people on planes, trains, driving automobiles, riding bicycles, on cruise ships! The chances of truly being a victim of crime while on a bus trip are very rare. The key is to always be aware of your surroundings and use your common sense, just as you would at home.

Bus travel is the closest many people can come to experiencing what it may have been like for the pioneers of long ago who traveled overland to the West. You can observe a great many cultures and personalities while on the bus, and it makes for a far more interesting trip than some homogenized air trip, when all you see is clouds, and everyone is trying to ignore each other while watching the in-flight movie.

IF YOU GO
Plan ahead. Order your tickets online and they’ll send them through the mail. Ordering online can also save money because sometimes the trips have discounts.

Read the instructions carefully on how many bags you can take. It’s a bit more flexible than airline rules, but no, you can’t take your entire household on the bus!

All adult passengers need a photo ID to board. Minors must either be accompanied by a parent or a legal guardian, or have consent from one i traveling alone.

Keep any medications you may need in your carry-on baggage. The bus company will NOT allow you to unlock your checked bags to get it. If you have a disability and need assistance, let the driver know.

Alcohol is dehydrating. It’s also illegal to bring on a bus. If you’re caught, you will be kicked off. Water is your best friend on long trips. Bring your own as bottled water can be somewhat expensive en route. Don’t bring illegal drugs, either….unless you’re looking to spending some time in the crossbar hotel!

Bring your favorite tunes…but remember those headphones. Also bring your favorite reading material or crossword puzzles, and favorite toys if you’re traveling en famille. It’s YOUR responsibility, not the driver’s, to keep your offspring in line.

Bring a travel guide to spot points of interests en route, and maybe a journal to chronicle your journey. Keep a digital camera handy, too. You never know when an awesome photo or video op may turn up! Some buses have wi-fi, so if you have a laptop, you can upload those vids to YouTube while you’re on the road!

Do bring enough money for meals, but you may also want to bring some chocolate bars, fruit, veggies or other healthy snacks along with you to munch along the way.

I don’t do this, but I’ve known of people who have brought their own toilet paper…just in case. A small pillow and a blanket or warm jacket can come in handy, too…even in summer. Sometimes that air conditioning can get pretty cool.

A smile, tolerance and common courtesy go a long way. However, if someone is being annoying, is harassing you or doing something bordering on illegal, don’t confront the individual yourself. Tell the driver.

For more information on bus travel and to find out routes, visit the Greyhound website http://www.greyhound.com/

Apartheid—meaning separateness in Afrikaans (which is cognate to the English apart and -hood)—was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the National Party government in South Africa between 1948 and early 1994.

We have had the civil rights movement. We had a woman who defied the local bus system’s seating chart. The blacks were supposed to sit in the back of the bus, and she (Rosa Parks) decided to sit in the front. Her act helped set in motion a movement for change, especially for the African people, especially those who lived in America at the time and even now. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu had a hand in breaking the chains of apartheid and brought hope into a hopeless situation. They sought to essentially redraw the boundaries and invite even their enemies into this new kind of circle that everyone could be a part of. It was a journey to aggressive inclusiveness that we are still partaking in.

I wonder if in the language and theology of the Church (historically speaking) if we too have condoned a spirit of apartheid?

If apartheid is defined as separateness then maybe we have. If the idea of salvation is defined as something we can pray into, that would be akin to someone seeking membership into a club where there is a membership fee to join. What if salvation is more than something we verbally say to God? To use a familiar phrase, what if salvation is something that we do by voting with our feet? (What if faith is action? Sure, the author James seems to differentiate between the two, but to him, it seems like their is a symbiotic partnership that takes shape over time.) Salvation is simplistically translated from the Greek and Hebrew as ‘healing’. If you talk with a doctor they might inform you that healing is a process that happens over time. It doesn’t happen in the moment. And I would argue that the healing of Jesus is more of a movement we can join in by not only experiencing healing from his hands, but by promoting healing in the lives and situations of other. Maybe the reason why we are healed isn’t to join a club, but rather to heal others. To take that healing to those in need. But when we attempt to minimize the message of Jesus down to a prayer or a small exclusive band of followers we without knowing it have minimized the global message of healing for everyone that has already taken place through the powerful act of Jesus on the cross. Which also includes Jesus coming back after the 3-day nap. It is these two acts together that signify a metaphor for daily living. We die to destructive decisions and selfish ways or another way to say it is “we learn from them”, and then through the process of rebirth we come to discover more of who we are meant to be. But when we take the message of Jesus and transform it from being a powerful inventive movement of love that everyone could join in on, we become a community (albeit, without knowing it at times) who supports a sort of religious apartheid that separates one another from the love of God. Jesus crafted a message that allowed all people from all backgrounds who have light and dark histories to go and build a new way of life into their immediate and global contexts. This is a part of what it could mean to be saved. To be saved from ideas and theologies that seek to minimize the inclusive message of Jesus and go and restore cities and hearts and lives back into the healing of the Christ-man. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could be a part of a movement that condoned peace, grace, love, redemption and forgiveness and through these acts bring people into the movement of Jesus?

On December 5:

63 BC Cicero read the last of his Catiline Orations.

1360 The French Franc was created.

1484  Pope Innocent VIII issued the Summis desiderantes, a papal bull that deputised Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany and led to one of the most oppressive witch hunts in European history.

1859 John Jellicoe, British admiral, was born.

1872  Harry Nelson Pillsbury, American chess player, was born.

1979  Clyde Cessna, American airplane manufacturer, was born.

1890 New Zealand’s first one-man-one-vote election took place.

1901 Walt Disney, American animated film producer, was born.

1932  German-born Swiss physicist Albert Einstein was granted an American visa.

1932  Little Richard, American singer and pianist, was born.

1933 Prohibition in the United States ended when : Utah ratified the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to enact the amendment (this overturned the 18th Amendment which had made the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol illegal in the United States).

1938  J. J. Cale, American songwriter, was born.

1943  Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attacked Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture the city.

1936 The Soviet Union adopted a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a full Union Republic of the USSR.

1945 Flight 19 was lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Map of Flight 19’s flight plan and final position on December 5.

1955 E.D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1957 Sukarno expelled all Dutch people from Indonesia.

1958  Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) was inaugurated in the UK by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh.

1958 The Preston bypass, the UK’s first stretch of motorway, opened to traffic for the first time.

1963 Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards, English ski jumper, was born.

1964 Captain Roger Donlon was awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Vietnam War.

1983  Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina.

2005 The Civil Partnership Act came into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership was registered there.

2006 Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrew the government in Fiji.

Sourced from NZ History Online & wikipedia.

By Time Traveler Extraordinaire John Titor

The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer is extremely popular in your time. The blockbuster success of this teenage vampire franchise has been such that in order for anyone to compete with it, they must also have vampires involved in whatever good or service is being provided. If you need proof that this is the way your culture is trending, then know this: There are at least two different, independently written vampire Pride and Prejudice novels. Who knows how far this will go? I do. Cause I’m a time traveler.

Does this mean that everyone is a devil worshiper in the future? No, but religion did change in time. Here’s a quote from the New International Version of the Unholy Bible:

“Drink this for it is my blood” says Jesus. “For it is the path to eternal life.”

Not too much difference, right? Oh yeah, I guess it should be mentioned that the Red Cross is now a larger religious group than the Catholic Church.

A poster from the Red Cross' conversion campaign.

These changes even reach into the government. Before the collapse of the US government in 2010, terminology had been changed around quite a bit to accomodate the growing demand of their constituents to adopt a pro-undead stance, the two leading parties; the Demoncrats and the Suck-your-blood-icans, agreed that any new law proposed by the House of Wraiths be called a “Blood Contract” and be prayed over by Loth-nor the dark lord of legal proceeding. Perhaps more wide reaching, if subtle, is the dress code that all politicians be extra sparkly when in session.

Civil rights has evolved due to Stephanie Meyer as well. You foolish primitives used to oppress those who donned fangs and owned the night. Thanks to Stephanie Meyer, these people gained courage and ate the hearts of their enemies which gave them even more courage. In my time period, teenagers eviscerating their non-understanding parents is held in the same esteem as Rosa Parks not getting off the bus.

One right that had to be protected for vampires was the necessary behavior of dissolving into rats that scurry away. This seems like an obvious right, but many people during my time still think that the famous case of Alabama vs Anne Rice is giving way too many rights to vampires. Other obvious rights that any good civilization would lend to its vampires would be the right to blood. This blood would usually have to be redistributed from those who had too much to those who had the need for it.

Vampires aren’t sucking blood alone in the future, as that is nutritionally unsound. Obviously. We expanded our goth palate to include all four essential humors of blood, tequila, black bile and yellow bile. I never eat Chinese food without yellow bile, let me tell ya. But blood is still central to our culture. Just as some of you might say grace before dinner, we traditionally sprinkle some of our blood onto the meal to say thanks. If anyone came to my house and didn’t slit their wrists over my mashed potatoes, I would be horribly offended.

But who started all of this? It turns out it was none other than Bram Stoker.

The Head Vampire, Bram Stoker.

Our historical records on this man in the future are pretty meager, but near as we can tell, he was psychic, a hemaphiliac, and had a disorder that caused him to sparkle incessantly. His friends would tell him, “Damn it Stoker, would you stop fucking sparkling for one minute?!” He never did. For this he was burned at the stake while a smaller stake was impaled through his heart and was also set on fire. All that remains is his masterpiece, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Rosa Parks: “Why do you push us around?”

Officer: “I don’t know but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”

From Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Quiet Strength
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), page 23.

Photo: Mrs. Parks being fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama; photo from New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Library of Congress

Today in History at the Library of Congress states the simple facts:

On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Rosa Parks made a nearly perfect subject for a protest on racism. College-educated, trained in peaceful protest at the famous Highlander Folk School, Parks was known as a peaceful and respected person. The sight of such a proper woman being arrested and jailed would provide a schocking image to most Americans. Americans jolted awake.

Often lost in the retelling of the story are the threads that tie together the events of the civil rights movement through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. As noted, Parks was a trained civil rights activist. Such training in peaceful and nonviolent protest provided a moral power to the movement probably unattainable any other way. Parks’ arrest was not planned, however. Parks wrote that as she sat on the bus, she was thinking of the tragedy of Emmet Till, the young African American man from Chicago, brutally murdered in Mississippi early in 1955. She was thinking that someone had to take a stand for civil rights, at about the time the bus driver told her to move to allow a white man to take her seat. To take a stand, she remained seated. [More below the fold]

African Americans in Montgomery organized a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. This was also not unique, but earlier bus boycotts are unremembered. A bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier in 1955 did not produce nearly the same results.

The boycott organizers needed a place to meet, a large hall. The biggest building in town with such a room was the Dexter Street Baptist Church. At the first meeting on December 5, it made sense to make the pastor of that church the focal point of the boycott organizing, and so the fresh, young pastor, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was thrust into civil rights organizing as president, with Ralph Abernathy as program director. They called their group the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). When their organizing stretched beyond the city limits of Montgomery, the group became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

• Montgomery Advertiser, December 6, 1955; copyright by the Montgomery Advertiser, via the Memory Project, Library of Congress

Litigation on the boycott went all the way to the Supreme Court (Browder v. Gale). The boycotters won. The 382-day boycott was ended on December 21, 1956, with the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system.

Sources for lesson plans and projects:

• Rosa Parks photo gallery at the Academy of Achievement site
• Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20th century, Rosa Parks
• Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development
• Scholastic.com resources on Rosa Parks
• “The Civil Rights Era,” The Memory Center, Library of Congress
• “We Shall Overcome,” music by Silphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger
• Highlander Center (successor to the Highlander Folk School)
• 
• Mrs. Parks’s casket at the U.S. Capitol
• Biography of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Nobel Peace Prize site
• Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford University
• Teaching King, lesson plans and other resources, Stanford University
• The King Center
• Long Island University Library tribute to Dr. King
• “With an Even Hand: Brown v. Board at Fifty,” Library of Congress on-line exhibition

This post is modified with permission from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

By BROOKS BARNES

On that supercharged day in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., she rode her way into history books, credited with helping to ignite the civil rights movement.

But there was another woman, named Claudette Colvin, who refused to be treated like a substandard citizen on one of those Montgomery buses — and she did it nine months before Mrs. Parks. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his political debut fighting her arrest. Moreover, she was the star witness in the legal case that eventually forced bus desegregation.

Yet instead of being celebrated, Ms. Colvin has lived unheralded in the Bronx for decades, initially cast off by black leaders who feared she was not the right face for their battle, according to a new book that has plucked her from obscurity.

Read Full Article

Don’t let your female characters be defined by weakness. Strong characters make history and enduring stories. Fifty-four years ago today, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. (You go, girl! Sit down for what you believe in!) Her action set in motion the Montgomery Bus Boycott, making Rosa an icon of resistance, and catapulting the Civil Rights Movement into the national spotlight. How’s that for driving the plot with deliberate character actions?

Sometimes it’s too easy let a character get whisked away by her circumstances. But, by letting her become a passive victim, follower, pawn, or the dreaded token arm-candy, you lose the opportunity to drive the story proactively from a uniquely feminine perspective and you risk creating a character that is unlikeable to readers because of her weakness.

Do you want your female protagonist wielding a machete against Jason Voorhees (scary Friday the 13th hockey-mask guy) or do you want her running and tripping through the woods drenched in her own fear and snot? Think strong. Write strong.

So, maybe your story doesn’t require your female character to go Rambette on Black Friday wearing a tubetop of AK bullets; you can still create a character who is smart and capable as well as flawed. Think multi-dimensional. No paper dolls allowed. You must give her something to believe in. Something to stand for. Something that comes from the core of her being. Something that will resonate with readers.

Character-Driven Plot 101:

• Give your protagonist a goal.
• Present her with obstacles to overcome.
• Make her take deliberate actions to reach her goal.
• Show the consequences of her actions.
• Allow her to grow (arc) from her experiences.
• Bring closure to her story by revealing the outcome (good or bad).

BTW, you get bonus points for making her a real superhero like Rosa Parks.

***

Dear Readers: What challenges do you have when creating your female characters?

I wasn’t around 54 years ago on this date… but other Mother Rosa Parks was and she sat down so we could all stand up. It was 54 years ago today (Dec. 1, 1955) when an unknown Black Woman demanded to be treated with respect. Mother Parks declared on this day that a Black Woman must be given respect and she was hauled off to jail for refusing to go to the back of a transit bus.

TMD loves you Mother for what you did for us all 54 years ago today.

Power, Respect and Strength to the legacy of our Mother.

Rosa Parks: “Why do you push us around?”

Officer: “I don’t know but the law is the law and you’re under arrest.”

From Rosa Parks with Gregory J. Reed, Quiet Strength
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1994), page 23.

Photo: Mrs. Parks being fingerprinted in Montgomery, Alabama; photo from New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Library of Congress

Today in History at the Library of Congress states the simple facts:

On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American, was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black passengers to relinquish seats to white passengers when the bus was full. Blacks were also required to sit at the back of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system and led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Rosa Parks made a nearly perfect subject for a protest on racism. College-educated, trained in peaceful protest at the famous Highlander Folk School, Parks was known as a peaceful and respected person. The sight of such a proper woman being arrested and jailed would provide a schocking image to most Americans. Americans jolted awake.

Often lost in the retelling of the story are the threads that tie together the events of the civil rights movement through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. As noted, Parks was a trained civil rights activist. Such training in peaceful and nonviolent protest provided a moral power to the movement probably unattainable any other way. Parks’ arrest was not planned, however. Parks wrote that as she sat on the bus, she was thinking of the tragedy of Emmet Till, the young African American man from Chicago, brutally murdered in Mississippi early in 1955. She was thinking that someone had to take a stand for civil rights, at about the time the bus driver told her to move to allow a white man to take her seat. To take a stand, she remained seated. [More below the fold]

African Americans in Montgomery organized a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. This was also not unique, but earlier bus boycotts are unremembered. A bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, earlier in 1955 did not produce nearly the same results.

The boycott organizers needed a place to meet, a large hall. The biggest building in town with such a room was the Dexter Street Baptist Church. At the first meeting on December 5, it made sense to make the pastor of that church the focal point of the boycott organizing, and so the fresh, young pastor, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was thrust into civil rights organizing as president, with Ralph Abernathy as program director. They called their group the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). When their organizing stretched beyond the city limits of Montgomery, the group became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

• Montgomery Advertiser, December 6, 1955; copyright by the Montgomery Advertiser, via the Memory Project, Library of Congress

Litigation on the boycott went all the way to the Supreme Court (Browder v. Gale). The boycotters won. The 382-day boycott was ended on December 21, 1956, with the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system.

Sources for lesson plans and projects:

• Rosa Parks photo gallery at the Academy of Achievement site
• Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20th century, Rosa Parks
• Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development
• Scholastic.com resources on Rosa Parks
• “The Civil Rights Era,” The Memory Center, Library of Congress
• “We Shall Overcome,” music by Silphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger
• Highlander Center (successor to the Highlander Folk School)
• 
• Mrs. Parks’s casket at the U.S. Capitol
• Biography of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Nobel Peace Prize site
• Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford University
• Teaching King, lesson plans and other resources, Stanford University
• The King Center
• Long Island University Library tribute to Dr. King
• “With an Even Hand: Brown v. Board at Fifty,” Library of Congress on-line exhibition

December 1, 1955 

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. 

Riding home from work on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Rosa Parks was ordered to give up her seat for a white passenger. She refused and was arrested. Her arrest led fellow African Americans to boycott the city’s buses. The bus boycott is credited with ending institutionalized segregation in the South. In 1957, Parks moved to Detroit, where she lived until her death. 

Thank you Michigan Start Pages for this glimpse into our past.  See more here.

Today is the anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks after she refused to comply with racial segregation laws. She refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus. She wasn’t the first person to defy the law in that way, but the time had come, and the place was right, and Rosa had the drive and the inclination to make it an important issue.

Rosa Parks is regarded as an African-American, of course, but like all of us, she was actually a racial mixture. In fact, her great-grandfather was an Ulsterman. If defiance of authority is genetic, that would be a good place to start looking.

Rosa’s bus is preserved in a museum, although slighty incongruously, it’s the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. Not incongrous because it’s in Detroit instead of Montgomery, Alabama; but because Henry Ford’s record of antisemitism doesn’t fit well with commemorating a pioneer campaigner for racial equality.

Because it’s all the same. Picking any group of people to hate, on any critereon, for any reason, only shows a lack of rationality and a weakness of mind. Like the good citizens of Switzerland who voted to ban the building of minarets. Because the overwhelming presence of so many minarets already erected in Switzerland (four) showed how traditional Swiss culture was being swamped by something foreign. See what I mean? Weakness of mind.

But the Swiss Nazis who exploited the Swiss constitution to get a referendum and scared enough of the weak-minded to vote their way don’t really care about minarets. Their objective is power. Power obtained by fear and hatred. And there’s one good way to deal with that. Resist. Stand up for your rights. Like Rosa Parks.

(Yes, I know she sat down for her rights.)

Yesterday was such a Moan-Day and then it wasn’t.

I hadn’t even left the house yet and my bra strap pops off.  I didn’t have time to peel off my layers and fix it so I had to walk to work with one of the girls a little bouncier than the other.  Thank God I walk to work at 5am and in the dark…in layers.

The shift was pretty good, no real complaints about that.  I called The Boss to talk shop.  I thought he’d be cranky with me for complaining to him so early on a Monday morning, but he was with me on my gripes.

So…I had a meet up with Cortejo and Shane.  Something always happens to make me late or eff it up.  If I believed in God, I’d say He was messing with me.  I get part way to the city and decide to stop for gas somewhere on the way in because it’s cheaper.  It’s full service the place I stop and he’s already pumping the gas before I can find my wallet in my massive purse (I need a smaller one, such a big purse is unbecoming of a lesbian).  Long story short, no wallet.  Apologize to gas guy, apologize to Cortejo (to the point I’m sure if I had said “I’m sorry” one more time she might have throttled me)…drive alllllll the way home, grab my wallet, gas up in town, fly like the wind to the city.  I’m pretty easy going person most of the time.  But that’s one of those things that flaps me…I really hate making people wait.

I realized yesterday, talking with Cortejo that sheesh, I really don’t want to be in love.  Not right now, anyway.  It’s really terrible, I am a total guy about it.  I get squirrelly about it.  Girls just say it at the drop of a hat…the hat hasn’t even hit the floor, it’s not even out of your fingers yet and someone is saying “I love you”.  I said it to Steph, but turns out it wasn’t so much love as I was just…yeah.  <Shrug>

“I love you, baby”

<Pulling pants on>”Yeah, that’s great.  Listen, I’ve got to go.  My cat…is having…emergency rhinoplasty in the morning.”

“It’s 2 in the afternoon!!”

Hahaha what can I say?  I’m sure it’ll happen one day where some girl makes me all doe-eyed and full of feelings, I’ll want to hold hands and buy matching hers-and-hers towels.  Until then, bring on the ladies!

Shane isn’t actually named Shane, but we were swapping girl stories yesterday and she’s the Gay Fonz (Like Shane from The L Word).  Two girls at once.  That’s every straight man and lesbian’s dream.  I bow down to her awesomeness.  We’re so alike, it’s rather comical.  We say we’re evil twins.  Evil Wonder Twins.  I wonder what we’d take the form of?  Something evil?  Something gay?  Something evil AND gay?

We were looking at some movies in Zellers and commenting on this movie where Selma Hayek has a gay moment with Ashley Judd.

Shane:  Selma Hayek is hot.  Ashley Judd is hot.

Me:  It’s always awesome when hot chicks make out.  It’s less awesome when not so hot chicks make out.  Like say, Rita McNeil making out with Oprah.  No one wants to see that.

Shane:  <Getting a visual>  Oh my God!  Where do you come up with this stuff, and so fast?

Don’t try to understand my mind…I’m mad, mad I tell you!

I talk a lot…I don’t know how to shut up sometimes.  I get nervous, I get rambley.  They have all their ears and both still want to hang out, so hurray for small miracles.

D and I have some up with a new commercial idea.  We were talking about The Learning Channel (which has really transformed into a channel devoted to the misery of human lives) had a show about a 650lb virgin guy who was at something called “Meow” which was a cougar gathering (Oh my God, I want to go!) and he had a panic attack when they spoke to him.  D says I should rub up against him since I’m so good at getting cougars to chase me.  I said I’d rather bottle it…just think, I’d make millions.  So the idea is that we’d do a perfume commercial based on “Gaynip” scent.  We need a cougar to tackle me.  Sorta like Axe, but gayer.  And with cougar sound effects.

…Hmmm…who could I impose upon to tackle and maul me…

Today Is:

• World AIDS Day.  Wear a ribbon.  Be aware.
• the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person and move to the back of a bus.  She started the civil rights movement.
• the day James Naismith invented Basketball.
• the day the first issue of Playboy hit stands.  God Bless you, Hugh.
• Tuesday.

On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress living in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her seat on a Public Bus to a white man.  This event sparked the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott – a critical piece of the civil rights fight.

Any of you bloggers have acts of courage you want to report on?  I still remember TSTBGOP’s great letter to the editor of the Eagle about Parks.  Maybe on this date, he’d be kind enough to reprint it for us.

Welcome bloggers… to those with acts of courage to report, and to those without.

Today in history. On 1990, The Channel Tunnel is built which links UK to the rest of Europe, mainly France.
but it wasn’t opened till 6 May 1994 by the Queen and the French president Francois Mitterrand.

On 1955, Miss Rosa Parks had been arrested by police in Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white person. Few days later, thousands of black people boycotted the buses in Alabama. That evening, Martin Luther King ordered for the boycotting to continue. This was a breakthrough in US Civil Rights.