# How to discuss Rosa Parks? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 6, 2016, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352 "2016-04-06T16:07:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/121 "2016-04-12T16:28:06Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I’ve never understood the criticism that somehow Parks planning on getting arrested undermined the significance of her actions. It’s not like she planned a stunt so that she could get her own reality show, she planned to get arrested, in the Jim Crow South to set the stage for changing a racist policy. What’s wrong with well thought out activism? Think about how scary it must have been sitting there, waiting for the white racist cops to haul you away. When considering that article on second-option bias I linked to, the cognitive process probably goes something like this: 1. It is conventionally taught that Rosa Parks was a sweet old domestic servant whose tired achy feet prevented her from following the bus driver’s orders. 2. This narrative is false: Rosa Parks was only 42 years old and was employed by the NACCP. There were also others who had done what she’d done before, but no one ever talks about them. 3. Because this false narrative tugs at the heart strings and makes us view Rosa Parks as a saintly figure who was a Big Deal, it’s obviously the result of an agenda to hide or minimize the _real_ truth… 4. …that truth being that Rosa Parks was not a Big Deal. The whole thing was staged. If you’re not under the influence of this bias, step 4 doesn’t come naturally. I couldn’t see this earlier but now I’m pretty confident this is the underlying thinking. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/122 "2016-04-12T16:44:40Z")
I also think there is a subtle racism at play. Some people are comfortable with the narrative of Parks as a noble savage who reaches a breaking point, but Parks and her peers out thinking white America with a legal strategy is somehow unsettling. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/123 "2016-04-12T16:56:42Z")
I don’t think that’s it. Thurgood Marshall out-thought the white establishment dozens of times and the history books are happy to give him credit for it. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/124 "2016-04-12T16:56:42Z")
Living in Montgomery I get so tired of the “It was all a set up!” trope. Yes, it was a set up: somehow when she was receiving her elite education at Miss White’s Academy (a boarding school set up by New England philanthropists to give quality free vocational education to black children who passed their entrance tests- the citizens of Montgomery expressed their appreciation by burning it down- twice) young Rosa McCauley hit upon the secret of time travel. She went back in time and set up slavery, Reconstruction, and 80 years of Jim Crow, letting E.D. Nixon and MLK and a few elite others in on the secret, and then set up the entire Bus Boycott so that ultimately she could get a middle-class clerical job working for a Congressman in a city where she didn’t know anybody. Well played, Mrs. P! Had she not done that, there’s a chance that Claudette Colvin would have gotten that job instead of her. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/125 "2016-04-12T17:22:24Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I also think there is a subtle racism at play. Some people are comfortable with the narrative of Parks as a noble savage who reaches a breaking point, but Parks and her peers out thinking white America with a legal strategy is somehow unsettling. Yes, I agree with this too. Also, some people are predisposed to see the Civil Rights movement as overhyped and insignificant, and they resent all the attention given to people like MLK, Rosa Parks, and others. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/126 "2016-04-12T19:41:44Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I don’t think that’s it. Thurgood Marshall out-thought the white establishment dozens of times and the history books are happy to give him credit for it. At the elementary school level, here are the African Americans that get all the airplay: -MLK -Rosa Parks -Ruby Bridges -George Washington Carver (to a lesser degree now). -Jackie Robinson There’s a secondary list, including folks like: -Madame CJ Walker -Bessie Coleman -MAYBE Langston Hughes Partly this is because of the picture books written about these folks. Partly there’s something else going on, that I’m struggling to put into words: the absence of figures like WEB DuBois and Frederick Douglass and Thurgood Marshall is interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/127 "2016-04-12T19:49:23Z")
They don’t talk about Frederick Douglass in primary school anymore? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/128 "2016-04-12T20:05:10Z")
I first encountered Douglass in AP US History when I was a student. I’m not aware of any children’s books about him (I’m sure there are some, but they are not nearly as well-documented in the picture book genre as the first-tier or even second-tier people I mentioned above). You learned about Douglass in elementary school, really? That’s awesome! ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/129 "2016-04-12T20:22:10Z")
Doesn’t anyone hear about THESE people? Paul Robeson Marian Anderson Ralph Bunche Langston Hughes Ralph Ellison James Baldwin Dr. Charles Drew ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/130 "2016-04-12T20:38:13Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I first encountered Douglass in AP US History when I was a student. I’m not aware of any children’s books about him (I’m sure there are some, but they are not nearly as well-documented in the picture book genre as the first-tier or even second-tier people I mentioned above). > > You learned about Douglass in elementary school, really? That’s awesome! Yes, we did. He lived in the general area (WNY) for some time, so that might be why. We also covered Harriet Tubman, possibly because slaves passed through the area on the way to Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/131 "2016-04-12T20:45:19Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Doesn’t anyone hear about THESE people? > Paul Robeson > Marian Anderson > Ralph Bunche > Langston Hughes > Ralph Ellison > James Baldwin > Dr. Charles Drew Just had a huge black history project and I had people researching all of those except for Robeson. I think he’s faded from popularity due to his Communist Party membership. (I try to promote him when I can- in addition to a great voice the man had a law degree from Columbia and played for the NFL for Crikey’s sake- but he’s politically attainted.) ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/132 "2016-04-12T20:49:21Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Doesn’t anyone hear about THESE people? > Paul Robeson > Marian Anderson > Ralph Bunche > Langston Hughes > Ralph Ellison > James Baldwin > Dr. Charles Drew Yes. \*\*LHOD \*\*was mentioning people studied at the elementary school level (K-5/6). ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/133 "2016-04-12T20:52:18Z")
I can’t help but wonder whether Ellison was referring obliquely to Robeson when he had his Narrator introduced to the Brotherhood in \*The Invisible Man. \* ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/134 "2016-04-12T21:52:30Z")
I vaguely remember studying Douglass in elementary school. To be fair, I wouldn’t expect elementary to expound much on Marshall or anyone else who wasn’t doing dramatic stuff and risking their lives. There are a lot of white historic figures I didn’t hear about until high school, probably for the same reason. Kids will pay more attention to Rosa Parks and Paul Revere than they will Thurgood Marshall and Thomas Paine. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/135 "2016-04-13T00:18:33Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > I vaguely remember studying Douglass in elementary school. > > To be fair, I wouldn’t expect elementary to expound much on Marshall or anyone else who wasn’t doing dramatic stuff and risking their lives. There are a lot of white historic figures I didn’t hear about until high school, probably for the same reason. Kids will pay more attention to Rosa Parks and Paul Revere than they will Thurgood Marshall and Thomas Paine. Fair enough, and I totally left Harriet Tubman off the list for some reason. She belongs on it–although I never learned about her badass military ventures until I was an adult. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352/136 "2016-04-13T04:19:57Z")
Syndicated columnist Mona Charen once described a situation which ostensibly paralleled Rosa Parks’ situation, not in Montgomery, Alabama, but on a bus line running between the town of Monsey, in Rockland County, New York, and Manhattan. A self-styled “martyr” in the New York area arrogantly tried to appropriate the image that had evolved around Ms. Parks. Her name was Sima Rabinowicz. She was riding a bus on the line owned and operated by Monsey Trails, which runs buses between Manhattan and Monsey. The bus is designed to accommodate Orthodox Jews. In Orthodox synagogues, there is a curtain called a _mechitzah,_ which separates the men’s and women’s sections during prayer, so that “neither sex will be distracted by Earthly thoughts,” to use Ms. Charen’s words. The bus line accommodates this with a _mechitzah_ running down the center aisle during prayer period on the bus. Ms. Rabinowicz happened to be sitting on the men’s side of the bus when the evening prayer time came. She refused to move, even just for a few minutes. She said “I felt like a second-class citizen,” when she described this situation to the Washington _Post._ She was instantly dubbed the “Jewish Rosa Parks,” and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit on her behalf. The NYCLU demanded that the seating arrangement be changed to allow men and women to mingle freely—and they wanted the curtain to come down. The reporter who broke the story to the _Forward_ newspaper contacted Ms. Parks; her spokeswoman said it was “somewhat of a stretch to equate racism and discrimination to asking one woman to move for a few minutes so a large group can pray." Ms. Parks added that she would have been glad to accommodate such a request. By the time of this incident, in fact, Ms. Rabinowicz had been a passenger on Monsey Trails for two years. Ms. Charen said that this person possessed a “healthy dose of aggression.” She had, on earlier occasions, stood smiling in the center aisle, preventing the men from passing. She said to a male companion, “See what I can do, I can control them.” This is because a Hasidic man will not touch, or even brush up against, a woman who is not his wife. If she stood in the center aisle, the men would not push past her. Ms. Charen concluded: “It sounds like the would-be Jewish Rosa Parks, the crusader form women’s rights on Monsey Trails, is nothing but a nasty bigot herself, who has no respect for the religious convictions of others and less common courtesy than a St. Bernard. _[Suggests Ms. Parks’ adversaries, doesn’t it?]_ “But only in America is there a whole industry including the NYCLU, dedicated to enshrining rudeness as a constitutional right. The new victimology is not true oppression at all, merely a disguised form of belligerence.” –South Bay _Daily Breeze,_ Oct. 25, 1994, p. B-5 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-discuss-rosa-parks/751352.md?page=6)