Rosa Parks & Helpful Comparisons

Very often, comparison to an ideal is a helpful practice, not a harmful one. Helpful comparisons are those that place a normal or ideal condition on one side of a scale and a real-life condition on the other side, hoping to achieve balance. As Rosa Parks rode the bus day after day in 1950s Montgomery, Alabama, she compared the area of the bus where she and other people of color were allowed to sit to the rows where white patrons were permitted to sit.

That comparison fueled her discontent with a situation that needed to be changed. Finally, she summoned courage to defy an unfair law.…