By Brad McLeod
SEATTLE— A Seattle woman has been arrested today for disregarding national and state law when she refused to give up her priority front-row bus seat to a man in a wheelchair.
Jane Cartwright, a 40-year-old activist from Kirkland, Washington and self-proclaimed Rosa Parks of her generation was fined $50 yesterday for refusing to obey the common public transportation courtesy that states “the elderly and disabled” have priority in the front seats of the bus in order to accommodate easy entry and exiting.
Although the general consensus from fellow passengers and onlookers was that the woman was simply acting like a “massive jerk” when she refused to move from her seat to allow the man, who is paralyzed with a spinal cord injury, to board, Ms. Cartwright has described the events as a crime of passion against a prejudiced, antiquated law.
“I was tired; I had been on my feet all day working, so I took a seat at the front,” Cartwright told the media shortly after being released from county jail. “And then I’m just supposed to give it up because some entitled handicapped person who’s been sitting on his ass all day is too lazy to roll his way to the back?”
Despite being clearly at fault both legally and ethically, Cartwright believes the way society has treated able-bodied citizens such as herself is highly discriminatory and needs to come to an end.
“Why should I have to suffer?” she sputtered, grasping at straws, “I didn’t ask to be not-handicapped, why should they get all the breaks? Bus seats, parking spots, and . . . uh . . . wheelchair basketball. I mean, what do normal people have that’s even close that?”
As of yet, no one has supported Cartwright in her fight against people suffering with crippling physical disabilities, but experts in the field of activism have warned to not rush to judgment too quickly.
“It’s tough these days, when you’re in the activist game, to find what’s going to be that ‘next big movement,’” said Dr. Hugh Maclean, a radical ‘60s protestor turned stuffy professor, “Ms. Cartwright is at a huge disadvantage being a white, heterosexual, financially stable woman — there aren’t a lot of real problems for her; it was either this or a war on Frappuccino prices”.
Although a stand against a Starbucks novelty drink surely would have garnered more support, Cartwright is now stuck fighting a battle that will never become a national cause, nor warrant a coloured ribbon.
Nevertheless, she vows to keep her protest going until bus seats at the front are reserved for only the pushiest, laziest people in the world, or as she described it, “What Rosa Parks dreamed of.” Reporters have yet to confirm whether Mrs. Parks, or the wheelchair she rode later in life, were in fact spinning in her grave.
