R.I.P. Rosa Parks

redcrescent

Well-known member
One of the great icons of the US Civil Rights struggle, Rosa Parks, who in 1951 famously refused to give up her seat and go to the back of the bus, passed away yesterday aged 92.
RIP.

CNN article.
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
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).
 

Woebot

Well-known member
have to say i felt extremely ambivalent about apple's use of her on their front page.

cmon is this *really* a memorial? looks like the most cynical bit of advertising EVER from where i'm moaning.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
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...
 

mms

sometimes
WOEBOT said:
have to say i felt extremely ambivalent about apple's use of her on their front page.

cmon is this *really* a memorial? looks like the most cynical bit of advertising EVER from where i'm moaning.

'think differently' oh for fucks sake.
 
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