Rosa Parks Day

Cicero has just come off the phone and in a very exasperated, highly agitated and deeply frustrated mindset. And sometimes this is not a suitable mindset to be in when musings have to be written.

In essence Cicero is being advised to accept the way things are and deal with the world as it is, not the way he would like it to be. In other words Cicero has been asked to put up with shoddy service, a poor customer experience, a take it or leave it attitude.

‘This is just the way it is’, Cicero has been advised, ‘and you and I are not going to change it’.

Those of you fortunate to have Cicero’s acquaintance will know that comments like this are akin to a red rag to a bull.

This appeasement attitude does not go down well. And one would have thought that given the history of appeasement in this country, and it does have a wee bit of a bad reputation, there would be more people willing to stand up for what is right and to be the change the world they want to see rather than bow down in front of might.

And what was Cicero’s response.

It was challenging, forthright and obstinate. Would you have expected any less? And no doubt at this point your sympathies are switching from Cicero to the person at the other end of the telephony instrument.

Let us put this way-the person with whom Cicero was conversing had simply called to tell him the date and time of an Apparatchik meeting, a meeting which Cicero was expecting sooner not later. They were not expecting to get a lecture on Rosa Parks.

Hopefully if you are reading this you will know who Rosa Parks was. But in the rare event that there is someone who out there who doesn’t, Rosa was a black lady in the south of the United States who sat on a seat she was not entitled to because she was the wrong colour. And as a consequence helped to bring about the end of de-segregation.

And for this act of disobedience, this act of rebellion when right stood up, or in this case sat down, against might, she earned the title ‘The First Lady of Civil Rights’ and her very own day in the calendar.

She did not accept that she could not bring about change.

She did not accept that the status quo was immutable.

She did not accept things as they were.

We can all be Rosa Parks and sit on the wrong seat on the bus just because it is the right thing to do. We can all stick our head, even on the smallest of issues, above the parapet and say ‘hey hold on a bit here, but this is wrong’. We all have the right to stand up for what is right against might.

It might not make for an easy life but because unreasonable people adapt the world to themselves, and not the other way round, all change and all progress depend on people being unreasonable.

Cicero will tell you now that Apparatchiks and others in positions of power and influence won’t like it one jot if we sit on the wrong seats. But as Rosa Parks proved the wrong seat is usually the right seat in the end.

And so today’s challenge, be Rosa Parks.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus. Semper.