Rosa Parks will forever be a symbol of resistance to the white, racist South — and rightly so. She is associated with Montgomery, Ala., where she took her stand. But when I was growing up, I knew her as a local, frankly. A Detroiter. And I remember very well when a drug addict and thug entered her home, recognized her, said, “Hey, aren’t you Rosa Parks?”, robbed her, and beat the hell out of her. She was 81 at the time.
You have to deal with — or at least acknowledge — the problems of your own day.
Twenty years ago — two years after Mrs. Parks was attacked — Hillary Clinton used the word “super-predator.” She has now apologized for it and vowed never to use the word again.
She will also not say “illegal immigrant.” She has vowed never to use that term. She, and others, won’t say “All lives matter.” They will not say “radical Islam.”
These people muzzle themselves. In so doing, they muzzle the truth, to an extent. They keep putting chunks of the English language off limits. Years ago, there was a biography of Harry Truman: Plain Speaking. His party has evolved into the opposite.
My party, the Republican party, has problems, heaven knows. A plurality of us supports a big-government strongman instead of a principled conservative. But the Democratic party has deep problems too, and maybe ones harder to shake.