Casie Pierce

05/14/03 It's the White Guy's Fault!

DallasArena.com is not a chat room. This is a discussion piece.

Poor people don't vote in high numbers, whether black or white or brown. It's not about race- it's about class. And blacks and elderly happen to be the poorest among us. And they also happen to be sequestered in large populations around the general vicinity of the "southern sector" in Dallas, not widely dispersed in large numbers across the entire city. When two or three voting districts are drawn around one group of people with the same socioeconomic backgrounds, the same geopolitical backgrounds, and are the poorest people in town, the same factors prevail.

Current district lines were drawn by council member appointees. A-A and Hispanic commissioners fought for these lines. Blame A-A leaders for concentrating poor, non-voters in particular districts. People in A-A districts don't vote because they don't like their choices.

It's so easy for middle class people, especially for middle class white people, to offer something like, "at some point, African Americans have to stop blaming the world for their woes and take responsibility for their actions..." as a solution. It's not a solution. How can they rationalize what responsibility they failed to take? Should they be thinking, "If only I had voted for Mayor, my life might be different?" Maybe they're just sick and tired of the whole process because, while they are poor and feel disenfranchised, they also feel like every time they vote for a black politician, the white politicians accuse them of being criminals. So they don't trust white people.

Paul Fielding was not African-American. James Fantroy was indicted for criminal activity before he was ever on the Council. Maxine Thornton-Reese got into legal trouble over Tri-Cities Hospital before she was elected to the council. Al Lipscomb had a criminal history of pimping and drug-pushing before he got on the council and before he confessed and was convicted of taking bribes. If people don't like for others to accuse their elected officials of being criminals, they should not elect people with shady histories. No one ever accused Charlotte Mayes of wrong doing. Leo Chaney was a DISD employee before council pay was enacted, that was a clear conflict of interest; then, he sold out to Smirnoff over naming rights for Starplex. Even Commissioner John Wiley Price called it "blood money".

Like plane crashes, dishonest politicians are talked about, written about, editorialized about, feared and not trusted. But what about all the hundreds of safe landings that planes make every day that don't make headlines, because they are not so sensational? There are some honest black elected officials in this city. What about Don Hill? What has he been dishonest about? What has he been unethical about? What has he done that would make him a poor example to young black leaders? What about Hollis Brashear and Lew Blackburn? What are they on the hook for?

Don Hill fought to block the revised Ethics Code and the more detailed Finance Report for Candidates and Council members. Why? DallasArena.com supported Dr. Blackburn in his first race, but he is now an employee of a neighboring school district that competes with the DISD for teachers and state funding.

Supporters of Laura Miller know that she goes after anyone who does wrong. To the black community, however, it looks like all the people who get all the bad PR are only the blacks. Readers of dallasarena.com know different, but then read the Dallas Morning News and you can see how Mary Poss gets let off the hook with her Texas ethics violations. Is it swept under the rug now that she lost the election? I think that Al Lipscomb's technicality was an olive branch to the black community.

Bad PR comes from wrong-doing. Mary Poss is accused of violating campaign contribution laws (repaying herself for out-of-pocket expenses in excess of $30,000 with no documentation). Al Lipscomb's wrong-doing hurt (or destroyed) financially hundreds of taxi cab drivers and was devastating for the Bachman/NW Highway community. Lipscomb should have been re-tried. You don't throw out criminal wrong-doing as an olive branch. Well, there was Barabas, but history has not treated that gesture to the masses as a noble thing.

In my opinion, it is incumbent upon white leaders to act like leaders, to go to the black communities, to show young black leaders that we want them to be a part of the process, to begin to build those bridges. It is more divisive to yell out at people to be responsible when, as far as they can tell, they are. But imploring blacks to take responsibility for their own actions, as if they are feeble children who must be scolded, is not the way to accomplish better voter turnout, or to improve race relations in this city, for that matter. I think that it is a reasonable goal for any political candidate to want to try and reach out to communities that appear to be frustrated and the "marker" for frustration is apathy at the polls.

It is patronizing to assume it takes "white leaders" to teach other ethnic groups how to be more responsible. With some "at large" council seats, people in every district had other council members to go to when they differed with their district representative. We had more city involvement, much larger election turnouts (percentage and count).

No one had to teach Charlotte Mayes about honesty and integrity. Two of her sons are Dallas Policemen.   Gerrymandered council districts are the primary reason for low voter turnout in all council districts, particularly African-American areas. Districts that ribbon across the Southern part of the city, dissecting neighborhoods and historic communities, are the reason people are detached from their city government. Those districts were the goal and intention of A-A leaders. Put the blame where it belongs.

It is incumbent upon White leaders to be honest and fair and to follow the laws and regulations of local, state and federal government entities. It is incumbent upon all citizens to take responsibility for their lives and their civic responsibilities.