k-punk said:
Good piece on
Lenin's Tomb on Rosa Parks, which corrects some of the myths about her (i.e. the downgrading of her involvement in anti-racist activism and her support for Malcolm X).
Very good piece. I admit I had no clue about that. I don't know why her radicalism is downplayed in the popular accounts and everything is put down to a single act of defiance (the bus story which I've just mindlessly regurgitated)?
Re. Apple co-opting Rosa Parks for a shameless bit of marketing. I think a simple tribute without the apple logo and slogan would've gotten the point across too.
But that's really the long-term danger of making any form of political statement, IMHO. Chances are those statements and the corresponding images will be used as a short-hand form for an general attitude of "otherness"/"rebelliousness" (completely hollow and utterly de-politicized) in times to come, and will be making someone a mountain of cash, e.g. Bob Marley brand cigarette paper; Andy Warhol prints of Chairman Mao; Canadian-made Che Guevara shirts at 20 bucks a pop on the malecón in Havana...