January 21, 2008

Swimming in Rosa Parks' Footsteps: Workers for the Wealthiest Still Struggle for Dignity
Posted by Eliseo Medina, AlterNet

For the minority workers shipped into America's richest enclave, the fight for basic human dignity continues.
^^^
Wisly [Jonatas] had just taken his seat in the ferry’s segregated employee lounge when the ferry captain summoned and reprimanded him for not following a newly-instituted rule that prohibits workers from walking past island residents’ parked cars on the ferry to get to the employee lounge. For his insubordination, Wisly was forced to get off the ferry and wait for the next one. Five days later, he was fired from his job on the island…
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No, this didn't happen before Rosa Parks' historic ride of December 1, 1955. It occurred on August 31, 2007.
Click here for the complete text.

5 comments:

jmsjoin said...

I can't believe this kind of stuff still happens today but I am seeing nmore racist crap than I have seen in my entire white boy life.
I spent most of the day commenting on posts about MLK and the conclusion I came to was two fold. You could take MLK's speeches and replace Iraq with Vietnam and nothing has changed. secondly it is much worse today and things are exponentially worse in every instance.

two crows said...

hi AAP--
yes, I was flabbergasted when I saw this and realized-- this DIDN'T happen in the mid-20th century!
we must make noise about this sort of occurrence or see Jim Crow rise again across the entire country.

two crows said...

hi Fran--
yeah.
'The only requirement for evil to flourish is for good [people] to do nothing.' I don't remember who said it and the quote is probably inaccurate -- but you know which one I'm citing here. And it is certainly still relevant.

The Cunning Runt said...

This is a hideously egregious example of the arrogance and hubris of the Ultra Rich, and of their disdain for the rest of us.

This needs to be a NATIONWIDE SCANDAL, with protests EVERYWHERE.

I'm mobilizing my two gurrrls at two different colleges on this one.

two crows said...

hi cunning runt--
yes, we must rise up about this sort of outrage or see every bit of progress that was made 50 years ago go down the tubes.

if we're willing to let that happen every death, every fire-hosing, every head that was hit with a brick during the 1950's and 1960's happened in vain.