Thursday, December 10, 2009

Some Fell On Stony Ground ...

Laban adds his four penn'orth to the Great Tiger Woods Debate, as channeled by Zoe Williams.



Surely if this affair tells us anything, it is that in 2009, in the Southern states of the USA, with Obama as President, a white person can still beat up a black man without charges being brought.

Was it for this that Rosa Klebb refused to give up her seat on the bus ?






It's wasted on them, I tell you. Wasted. Does Magna Carta mean nothing to them ? Did she die in vain ? I'll make an exception for commenter Col1000.



(something I didn't know - Rosa Parks was beaten and robbed in her own home by a young black man in 1994. She was 81. But they do things differently in the Land of the Free. Over here you can torture an old lady for two days then kill her, and you'll only get eleven years plus a free change of identity - in order to protect the baby you conceived on one of your many 'days off'. A 'minor crime' like hitting and robbing an old lady in her own home would probably be community service in the UK. Joseph Skipper got an 8 to 15. He was still inside when Rosa Parks died 12 years later. He's since been released and is on the rob again.)

4 comments:

staybryte said...

Laban,

Rosa Parks is quite an interesting case. I vaguely remember reading some years ago (in the Graun I think) that her role was greatly exaggerated and that another young black woman whose name escapes me was much more deserving of the relevant accolades.

However, said young woman had a "questionable" home life and the then - very intensely-held - social conservatism of southern Black Americans ensured that the more respectable figure of Parks was pushed to the fore.

Umbongo said...

Laban

"He's since been released and is on the rob again."

You see Laban, prison doesn't work. If only Skipper had been given a sentence "in the community" and had been able to meet Rosa for a bit of "restorative justice" he would have put crime behind him and become a proud hard-working member of his community. And, you know, if Rosa had reflected on this incident, she would have sympathised with Skipper's predicament. After all, he's the real victim here.

moriarty said...

The internet is a terrible place to be subtle, it's much harder to spot than IRL.

I've found this out (from both sides of the problem) quite a few times over the years.

Dave H said...

If memory serves me correctly, in the book, Klebb 'looked like the oldest and ugliest whore in the world' and actually had an unwelcome habit of sitting right next to you.