<strong>Confronting injustice sounds great, but it's hard.</strong>

Recently I had a coaching conversation with a friend who did not know how to take a stand for her own dignity.  She was the "whipping boy" in her circles, and over a long period of time she had simply allowed it to happen.  The cost was significant to her health and capacity to work.  But after encouraging her to take a stand for herself, she finally did.  The immediate sense of joy was followed by an "Oh shit" moment.  Standing up for herself meant confronting not only those who participated in her oppression, but confronting some of the deep seeded lies she held onto about her own sense of worth.  Standing up for herself meant believing that she actually was worth it.

This conversation took place at the exact same time I was reading about Rosa Parks and the moment she took a stand for her dignity and ultimately justice.

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It was Thursday, December 1, 1955 in Montgomery Alabama, and (Rosa Parks) had just finished a long day at Montgomery Fair, the department store where she worked as a seamstress.  The bus was crowded and, by law, the first four rows were reserved for white passengers.  The area where black passengers were allowed to sit, in the back, was already full and so (Rosa) sat in a center row, right behind the white section, where either race could claim a seat.

As the bus continued on its route, more people boarded. Soon, all the rows were filled and some–including a white passenger–were standing in the aisle, holding to an overhead bar.  The bus driver, James F. Blake, seeing the white man on his feet, shouted at the black passengers in Park's area to give up their seats, but no one moved.  It was noisy.  They might not have heard.  Blake pulled over to a bus stop in front of the Empire Theater on Montgomery Street and walked back.

"Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats," he said.  Three of the black passengers got up and moved to the rear, but Parks stayed put.  She wasn't <em>in</em> the white section, she told the driver, and besides, there was only one white rider standing.

"If you don't stand up," Blake said, "I'm going to call the police and have you arrested."

"You may do that," Parks said.

The driver left and found two policeman.

"Why don't you stand up?" one of them asked Parks after they boarded.

"Why do you push us around?" she said.

<strong>"I don't know," the officer answered.  "But the law is the law and you're under arrest."</strong>

(Excerpt from <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/1400069289" target="_blank">The Power of Habit</a></em> by Charles Duhigg, Random House)

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That last line hit me like a ton of bricks.  How often do we simply accept injustice, even our own because we don't know.  In hindsight, this was one of the most pivotal moments in humanity, when a simple, frail black woman, who was tired from a long day at work, refused to allow her dignity to be trampled on.  Before that moment, it was acceptable.  After that moment, it wasn't.

The problem is these moments are not easy.  When we confront injustice, it usually requires we encounter and experience some significant pain.  Rosa was arrested.  The Montgomery boycotts first made things worse, not better.  But as the community gathered around the idea that blacks were equal to whites and thus no longer should be required to segregate, it changed the world.

Standing up for justice usually means confronting those who don't know why they do what they do.  "I don't know..." The officers were following the law but instinctively didn't have a sound reasoning behind the law.  The had blindly participated.  Rosa forced them to confront that.

As I continued to work with my friend, the immediate sense of fear that accompanied standing up for her dignity began to fade away.  As she partnered with her husband, she began to embrace the idea that standing up for herself was justice.  The idea that she was worth it wasn't something she had to invent.  It was already deeply embedded inside of her, as a human being created in the image of God.  She was worth it.  Not because she said so, but because God said so.

The life of Rosa invites us to ask deep questions about our own life.  Where do we need to take a stand for our own dignity?  Where do we need to confront the injustice that strikes at the heart of our own life.  Where do we need to say, "Why do you push me around?"

How would you answer that question?