Dr. King's Legacy

The buses are more crowded today than on ordinary Mondays. The public sector has the day off but many on the lower rungs of the private sector don't, yet the buses run less frequently on their holiday schedule. So there's a bit of a jostle at the most crowded downtown stop, and a man apparently bumped a woman's arm while she was holding a cup of coffee. As they boarded, the woman loudly demanded, if not an apology, at least an "excuse me" from the man. The man only wished her to chill out, admonishing her not to "be black in the morning" in a manner only black people, I presume, can get away with. From the woman's perspective, his talking back to her only perpetuated his offense. How dare he insist that she let the matter drop ("It's just a two-dollar cup of coffee!") when he kept talking to her? Finally the man tired of the banter and urged her to shut up. This was the wrong day to do that.

"FREEDOM OF FUCKING SPEECH!" she yelled, "MARTIN LUTHER KING! KNOW YOUR HISTORY! FREEDOM OF FUCKING SPEECH! I'M GONNA SAY WHAT I WANT!"

Finally, the driver called a supervisor, and in a minute he appeared to ask, "Is everything all right in here?"

"Yeah, we okay," the disputants answered.