[nagdu] Riding in the Back of the Bus was Discrimination

[Marion Gwizdala]

Debbie,

	This reminds me of an incident I had on the bus a couple years ago.
I boarded the bus with my little German Shepherd who is quite adept at
finding empty seats. The bus was quite full and the only seat he could find
was near the back of the bus. A woman who seemed to be African American
said, "You need to sit up front...there are seats there where you are
supposed to sit!" I sat down in the seat Sarge had found for me and said, "I
think I have the right to sit wherever I wish. Isn't that what Rosa Parks
had to say about that?" I said it with a smile on my face which usually
results in a smile in our voice. My comment opened up a great 30-minute
conversation about how blind people face some of the same discrimination
faced by those with racial and ethnic differences. In fact, just last week
someone who was on the bus that day saw me and reminded me of that incident.


Fraternally yours,
Marion Gwizdala


-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Debby Phillips
via nagdu
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 11:12 AM
To: Cindy Ray; NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog
Users; dcwein at dcwein.cnc.net; nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Discrimination

Kind of reminds me of some people having to sit at the back of the bus.  You
know, we're serving you, but you can't ride up front.  It's so opposite of
the reaction from a place Craig and I used to go to when we were snow birds
in southern California.  We would go to this place a lot, in fact it was
Lamar's first place we went to when we came home.  They remember him still
and ask about him.  We keep in touch with them through Facebook.  I'm going
to visit my mom in California in January and will go visit that restaurant
and introduce them to Neena.  The "Grandma" who has since passed away,
always wanted to give Lamar meat and bones and such.  Sometimes we took them
because we had a friend who fed her dog all that stuff.  They have some of
the best Mexican food 
in the whole world.  Yum!    Peace,    Debby and Neena

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