Good Morning,
I feel the need to speak out on one thing.
I think we have gotten off on an incorrect assumption here.
Returning to the bus would have been the safe thing to do.
The way I read this story she was assaulted at an intersection.
Apparently the criminals had dragged her off the bus to beat her at an intersection. The boyfriend was trying to get her back on the bus to safety. Isnt that correct?
Rosa Parks got a seat, why shouldn't this woman?
Now that I have addressed that, you can stop reading.
Or if you would perhaps like to have some ideas challenged, read on.
Here is another misconception. Many people say a person is racist when in fact they mean bigot.
Or at least bigot is a more accurate description of the person being referred to.
It is possible to be one, both or neither. I could dislike people of a different skin color without thinking I am better than them. And many black people do dislike white people and vise versa.
(Side note: I dont like most black people. But I dont like most white people either)
Many people have been victims of racial hatred. So they hate back. Many people never have been treated unjustly because of their skin color and seem perfectly accepting of other races.
It seems to be human nature to dislike those that are different from one's self.
Some people say that hatred is taught. But we have all seen how children can be cruel to those that are different.
I believe there is no such thing as race. It is an arbitrary concept that can become meaningless very quickly. But we use it for convenience.
See this link I found for some fascinating genetic information on race.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/326
My mother is Swedish and my father is Sudanese. What color am I?
I father a daughter by a German woman. What color is my daughter?
My daughter then has offspring by a Latino man. What color is that child?
(Latino is not a race by any definition I am aware of except political purposes)
This discussion becomes more relevant in light (Pun) of the Obama/Ophra factor
Is he black enough?
And they are many whities in the woodpile.
Maynard Jackson meets his great great Grandfather who was a slave owner.
Does he shake his hand or punch him?
Theres the conundrum.
We are where we are because of where we have been.
Hotel Rwanda. The Hutu and the Tutsis kill each other. But it was the evil white Europeans fault. Did you catch that in the movie?
Thugs in Africa and thugs in America.
But its someone elses fault.
It seems to me that at least some of peoples behavior has to be genetic.
Now I am going to speak in generalities. The following does not apply to individuals.
And there are many exceptions within a given population.
Repeat: This is a broad brush of a group, which is a dangerous thing politically.
When the Arabs rounded up the human chattel from Africa for slaves, they didnt get the Albert Einsteins.
They got the ones that could physically survive the horrors to come. It was a brutal life and they got the brutal people. They got the ones that were already living in the dirt, drinking blood, running around naked and breeding within the tribe. So when one looks at the resulting gene pool in this country, one can see the results here in this country.
Just like inbred white hillbillies are stereotyped for a perfectly good reason.
There must be good and bad in all.