Many tributes to Rosa Parks have been given upon the occasion of her death, most far better than any I could possibly write or from a viewpoint I cannot match.

However, those tributes have focused upon what her simple act of defiance began, and what her quiet and honorable demeanor both in that act and afterwards accomplished in starting a positive change in culture that is still underway.

Perhaps it is a reflection of my personality, but I believe it is important to highlight exactly what she was defying, for it has not died, it has merely changed form and target.

You see, when and where I grew up, all the “right-thinking people” believed that the “niggers were inferior” and not deserving of equal treatment, despite the decades that had passed since the defiance of Rosa Parks, despite the decades since the intervention by President Eisenhower to enforce federal court rulings in Little Rock, Arkansas, despite the passage of years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Anyone who proclaims themselves and their fellow-travelers as “right-thinking” and any and all others as inherently wrong are immediately suspect in my eyes.

For me, “right-thinking” equates with an inwardly focused group that only feels powerful by excluding and oppressing others, for that is what I saw first-hand when I was a child, and in some respects that attitude still exists in the region where I grew up.

Even now, half a century since the defiance of Rosa Parks against an injustice that seems obvious today but was widely accepted as a fundamental truth at the time (and in some circles is still advocated), there are those who proclaim that their method of thinking is the absolute truth, completely unwilling to even consider even the possibility that they might be wrong, just as those five decades ago who thought of themselves as “right-thinking” were wrong.

This thinking is not limited to racists, neo-Nazis, or other seemingly insane cults.

As a matter of fact, this thinking is reflected in the vast majority of weblogs I read.

In other words: If you do not doubt yourself, can you truly consider yourself intelligent and thoughtful?

I have written repeatedly upon what it means to be a moderate. I repeat it here:

A moderate is one who acknowledges that their beliefs are not absolute, that there is room for doubt, that at least some of what they believe just may be wrong, and they are willing to consider that possibility.

The inverse of moderation is what I mean when I categorize a post as exemplifying “Amber and Cruelty,” the thinking is frozen, as if it is embedded in amber, and the outcome is the cruelty that is the inevitable result of rigid, inflexible, judgmental thinking.

For example:

Rape victim: ‘Morning after’ pill denied

By Carla McClain
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Although it is safe, effective and legal, emergency contraception - the “morning after” pill - can be hard to find in Tucson.

After a sexual assault one recent weekend, a young Tucson woman spent three frantic days trying to obtain the drug to prevent a pregnancy, knowing that each passing day lowered the chance the drug would work.

While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug.

When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.

If you cannot see the example of Amber and Cruelty embedded in this story, nothing I can write will persuade you to see.

Take a step outside your own beliefs.

Look in the mirror, are you judging others without any consideration that you may be just as wrong as that white man 50 years ago when he demanded that Rosa Parks give up her seat on the bus because he was white and she was not?

Take a step outside of your own prejudices and the labeling that is so easy to assign to the “moonbats” or the “wing-nuts”…

THINK…

There is more to the world than the labels or the simple, comforting belief systems we set up for ourselves.

It may be uncomfortable, but then again, when is doing the right thing easy?

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