<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=content-type content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2769" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bottomMargin=0 bgColor=#ffffff leftMargin=3 topMargin=0 rightMargin=3>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Didn't the press make up the RED states and Blue
states just for something to write about ??</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dave</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- <B>Subject:</B> [GCFL-discuss] Jackson on
Parks</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>There must be something interesting we can talk about. I doubt if Time
magazine is going to print this letter, so maybe I should toss it out here for
dissection. (It is a response to Jesse Jackson's shamelessly opportunistic
"Appreciation" of Rosa Parks, which Time for some unfathomable reason asked
him to write). I must admit, I cannot remember a time I have ever had any
respect for Jackson. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>It is unfortunate that you chose Jesse Jackson to write your Appreciation
of Rosa Parks. He has diluted, rather than extolled, her sterling
accomplishments, with irrelevant political rhetoric. Perhaps most glaring is
his use of the 21st century cliche "red states" to refer to the former
confederate states who had laws explicitly segregating public life by race. At
the time Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, anyone who heard a
state described as "red" would have understood that a majority of the state's
voters supported the Communist Party in the last election. No state from
the short-lived Confederacy would have given a majority of its votes to
Republicans. Nor are states of the old South uniformly "red" today, nor "red"
states confined to those that once had segregation laws. In states now
stereotyped as "blue," there was no shortage of restaurants and hotels where
staff nervously said "We don't serve Negroes here." (When I was a child, there
was a joke about a man of dark complexion who calmly replied "That's good, I
don't want to eat one, bring me some fried chicken.")</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mrs. Parks took her stand within a legacy that stretched back through
Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Dubois, not merely a spark out of nowhere that ignited
a mere nine years of progress. On the other hand, she was hardly THE
inspiration for the 100 year struggle of the African National Congress, which
began before she was born. There is a huge difference between a native African
majority fighting for freedom from an immigrant "white" minority regime, and a
stereotyped minority fighting for freedom from laws favoring a "white"
majority. Don't even try to compare Tienanmen Square. While both <EM>Brown v.
Board of Education</EM> and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were important, the
1964 law had little to do with enforcing school integration, and the
<EM>Brown</EM> case had nothing to do with jobs, housing, restaurants, trains,
buses, or much of anything outside of schools. Rosa Parks was never driven by
any political agenda? Her whole life <EM>was</EM> a political agenda, in the
finest sense of the word.</DIV></DIV>
<P>
<HR>
<P></P>_______________________________________________<BR>GCFL-discuss mailing
list<BR>GCFL-discuss@gcfl.net<BR>http://gcfl.net/mailman/listinfo/gcfl-discuss<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>