Another bus, another Rosa Parks: 21st century events

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"The only tired I was, tirred of give in"

Rosa Parks

The strategy

Society had built her to oppress her, to keep her at the last link in the food chain, to keep her mouth shut even when she could speak. She talked to everyone, but more to her class, the blacks. She boarded the bus early in the morning. Most people who were on the bus at the time she went thought she worked as a secretary or cashier somewhere, but she was no one's employee, she was her own boss. Although her job as a lawyer left her juicy profits, she preferred to take the bus, share the trip with other people destined for her places.  That's how she met the gentleman. He was an elegant, crimped man with a tightly knotted tie and snow-white skin. Every morning he greeted the chauffeur and the chauffeur answered his greeting enthusiastically, which made it clear that the gentleman had been a passenger for a long time. He always occupied the front seats, the pair just after the door, sat with his eyes facing the front and never turned, he sat in one seat and his briefcase in the other. Every day it was the same, at least for her who had just moved to that place and was beginning to know how everything worked. As time is sometimes capricious and fate confuses dates, that morning when she boarded the bus her usual seat was occupied, so she decided to sit in one of the front seats, one of the pair next to the door. She didn't stop smiling until the gentleman came up. As usual he greeted the driver. However, when he saw his seat occupied by a black woman he said: "dirty nigger". He didn't sit next to her, he passed by the row of seats and sat down at the end of them all. From that day on she decided to sit in the front seats every day. Every day, without leaving one, the gentleman passing by her side said: "dirty nigger" "disgusting" "poor nigger" "human waste" "go back to where you belong".... In total she counted 235 insults.  For almost a year she listened to every insult and said nothing and never would. She came home every night, upset, angry, furious. Her husband even asked her who was the guy to go and give her a good and deserved beating. Even her teenage sons and daughters wanted to take matters into their own hands. She did not allow it. Her family didn't understand how she allowed that to happen, they couldn't understand why she didn't defend herself, why she didn't take legal action against that gentleman.

The outcome

I'm gonna kill him! - Said  that morning during breakfast. Everyone looked at her in amazement, from the husband to the cat. What do you mean you're going to kill him? - they replied. Today when he gets on the bus, I'm going to kill him. - she argued.  You can't do that, you can't go around killing people. - repudiated the husband. Stay out of this, it' s between him and me. - she said as he closed the door. As every morning she waited for the bus, she was not nervous, on the contrary, she was tempered like a war drum. The bus arrived and she sat down in the first seat, to her luck, that morning the bus was full and there was only the seat next to her.  The gentleman got on the bus. He looked. When he realized the sinister, he was disgusted. Better dead than sitting in the free seat. So he prepared to pass through the corridor to hold on to the tube and stay standing, but she got in the way. In an instant she was standing. All her intentions slipped through her immensity. She stood in front of him, her chest firm, her back straight and her pride intact. The gentleman made to move away, but she did not allow him. With her black hands she held his face. Very fervent she approached him. He saw that beautiful bemba, but black. She planted him a kiss, a chocolate kiss, a kiss of Antilles, a kiss of history. That was the kiss of the kisses, it was a succulent, juicy, fleshy, colorful kiss. When he took it off, he had a reddened mouth, that gentleman was dead in life. She sat down, like the lady she was, with pride present, with a smile curved by the satisfaction of having won, of having been a better person than him. After that lesson, he was never seen again. However, she has plenty of kisses.

F. JaBieR