Scene: Urban elementary school, cafagymatorium
Rehearsal for Rosa Parks/bus boycott reenactment
45 grade schoolers, KS and first grade teacher
FGT: Do you know what's interesting that I didn't know? One of the arresting officers was Rosa Parks nephew.
KS: (blank stare, thinking: no, you are not going to say what I think you are going to say)
FGT: I think I read it in one of the books. The officer called her "Auntie".
KS stares unblinkingly for a full minute, then says very, very slowly...
"I believe that term was used in a manner akin to 'boy'-a replacement for Mrs., Miss or any other title of respect usually reserved for a white woman."
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2 comments:
Now, boys and girls, today we will learn the word "conflate."
After Rosa Parks was arrested, the blacks tried to boycott buses. One white bus driver stopped to let off a lone black man in a black neighborhood. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw an old black woman with a cane rushing towards the bus. He opened the door and said, "You don't have to rush auntie. I'll wait for you." The woman replied, "In the first place, I ain't your auntie. In the second place, I ain't rushing to get on your bus. I'm jus' trying to catch up with that nigger who just got off, so I can hit him with this here stick."
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html
That "ni**er" was a man, so he probably deserved it. You go, Woman.
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