In Memory of Rosa Parks

Just heard it from the news that Rosa Parks, the woman whose action against racial discrimination in 1955 started the whole civil liberty movement in the United States/>/>, died at the age of 92.

The news, not surprisinly, was only a snap of fingers overwhelmed by the coverage of other events of greater "importance". Its only significance is to remind us how far we are from that time when people were out on the streets, fighting for what they believed was "morally right".

That era already ended way back in the old days, when Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X were assasinated, leaving people the painful thuth that it really doesn't matter which path one takes to fight for freedom and equality. Ever since, we have been reminded again and again of the end of that era, when Rodney King was beaten up in the suburb of Los Angeles and the police officers who committed the horrible crime were realsed not guilty, when a black man was shot over 30 bullets at the door of his New York City apartment and the police officer who committed the horrilbe crime were also released not guilty on the basis that they, at them moment, was "scared".

But scared of what? Of the simple fact of the color of skin of the man in front of them. Scared of a simple biological fact to which we have attached so much meaning that we sincerely believe that those meanings naturally belong to that color. Isn't that what we have done all the time?

The death of Rosa Parks is not free of irony to take place at the time of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which, while appearing to most as just another "natural" disaster, bears again the racial marks on its consequence.

I don't know what Rosa Parks was thinking, in the last moment of her life, about the racial situation in the US, or what Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he knows (in heaven or hell) that the street in the nation's capital is named after his name while in the same time the whole nation has lost the very language to talk about a problem that he once fought against. However, i do have a clue what Malcom X would say.         

This is the age of racism. To be mroe exact, this is the age of "enlightened racism". There are poor blacks, and there are rich blacks. So, shouldn't we just believe that we are now all equal, that as long as we work hard, we will get to where we want. Therefore, if blacks are still poor, it must be their own fault. How convenient a logic, and how happy it makes us.

But blacks are still dead for the sake of their skin color. Chinese are still fighting for thier right to study on a equal ground as what is going on in Yale/> University/>/>. To complicate things further, Chinese people are still holding the firm belief that black people are dangerous, lazy, and look out for handouts; and are themselves called cock roaches, or, good for them, Chinamen. The problem today is more difficult to be detected than it was half a century ago, since racism has been internalized and the only people to hate now is ourselves. 

I've always believed that the most violent crime and the ultimate stage of totalitarianism is when people are deprived of their own language, not in terms of the phonetic system that they still use to describe thier consuming habits, but the vocabulary and perception that enable them to see through the surface phenomena and get to the "traumatic kernel".