Hate in My Family

My great-grand father, Jackson “Jack” James, murdered an African American freedman in broad daylight in the center of Florence, Texas sometime between the end of the Civil War and 1893. 

My grandfather, John James, told me the story on Thanksgiving 1972 as I tape recorded a part of my family’s oral history. 

Jack James, a Confederate infantryman, believed that the ex-slave insulted his mother, my great-great-grandmother.  Apprehending the man, he marched him into the town and shot him, execution style.  My grandfather, John reported that his father characterized the target of his hatred as “a mean n_____.”

Jack James went to trial and was promptly acquitted by an all-white jury.  In those days Texas juries never convicted white men of crimes against black folks.  Sadly, such verdicts still remain very rare today.

Jack James died in 1893, just eight years after my grandfather was born. 

The Confederate memorial, now located in Dallas’ Pioneer Park, came to our city just three years after the elder James died. 

I’m in favor of the removal of the CSA memorial statues not only because of what they represent and present today, but also and mainly because of the atmosphere, the ambiance they honored, celebrated and perpetuated during the era of their creation--the horrid era of Jim Crow.

The intentions of preservationists might be noble in some cases today.  Those who erected the monuments just 30 years after the Civil War, and about the time of Jack James' crime, had no such noble motivation.  

No, this tribute to the South's Lost Cause sought to embed in our value system the hatred, bias and oppression that sustained slavery and the so-called “Southern Way of Life." 

My grandfather was a hero of mine.  

But he experienced the curse of racism, planted by his father in his soul, ensuring that it captured his entire worldview. 

Indeed, the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. Still, the cycle of hate and ignorance can be broken.  In any case,  these monuments to hatred and white supremacy in the era of Jim Crow serve no good purpose except to offer us all the opportunity to do what is right, faithful and true by everyone in our city. 

Time for Revival!

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II will be speaking in Dallas Monday evening at 7:00 p.m. at Moody Performance Hall, thanks to the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture.


 

We don't often think deeply or clearly enough about the language, the routine practices and the institutions supporting the continuation of "white supremacy" as a world view.

This chart challenged me.

How about you?

Rush to TRUTH

Don't be fooled: race matters

My friend and colleague, Dr. Timothy Bray, Director, Institute for Urban Policy Research at the University of Texas at Dallas, shared the following reality with me about "concentrated poverty" (neighborhood or census tract in which 40% of population live at or below federal poverty line) in the city of Dallas:

• 11% of the 96 predominantly Hispanic census tracts experience concentrated poverty
• 40% of our 48 predominantly African American, non-Hispanic census tracts experience concentrated poverty
• 0% of our 90 predominantly non-Hispanic, white census tracts experience concentrated poverty

Apparently, race still matters.

Racism remains

This just goes on and on in this nation. Not long ago, I was told that this same thing happens continually in Dallas, especially as more companies move their headquarters our way. Our continuing racism remains insane, immoral and un-American. No one should ever, ever doubt our nation's need for a contiually renewed Fair Housing Act. Better yet, possibly what we really need is a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing fair housing policies in the nation. Our battle against racism is not over, far from it. People who insist that things have changed and that the struggle is behind us are simply not right.  The struggle is more challenging than ever, given the "work arounds" and the new strategies to ignore the law. In all of this, I wonder where are the communities of faith?  And frankly, it's time for white folks to step up, speak up and insist on a new day for all of our African American citizens.  The following editorial statement appeared in The New York Times (9-15-15).]

How Segregation Destroys Black Wealth

                  

   

 

Americans commonly — and mistakenly — believe that well-to-do black people no longer face the kind of discrimination that prevents them from living anywhere they can afford. But a federal housing discrimination complaint filed last week by the National Fair Housing Alliance shows that this toxic problem is very much with us, nearly 50 years after Congress outlawed housing discrimination in the Fair Housing Act.

 

The complaint, and the investigations that led to it, shows how real estate agents promote segregation — and deny African-Americans the opportunity to buy into high-value areas that would provide better educations for children and a greater return on their investments.

 

Over the course of nearly a year, the alliance reports, black and white testers posing as home buyers had drastically different experiences when they contacted a real estate company near Jackson, Miss. Agents often declined to show properties to black customers who were better qualified than whites, with higher incomes, better credit scores and more savings for down payments. Meanwhile, white testers who had expressed interest in properties in the majority-black city of Jackson were steered into majority-white communities elsewhere.

 

These problems are not limited to the South. Indeed, another alliance investigation covering a dozen metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Chicago, Dayton, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, San Antonio and the District of Columbia, suggests that housing market discrimination is universal.

 

Continue reading here. 

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 5

NOV. 29, 2014

Nicholas Kristof               

     campaign: nyt2015_sharetools_mkt_opinion_47K78 -- 271975, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_opinion_47K78 -- 375123, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-when-whites-just-dont-get-it-part-5.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion, position: MiddleLeft                           

WE Americans are a nation divided.

 

We feud about the fires in Ferguson, Mo., and we can agree only that racial divisions remain raw. So let’s borrow a page from South Africa and impanel a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine race in America.

 

The model should be the 9/11 commission or the Warren Commission on President Kennedy’s assassination, and it should hold televised hearings and issue a report to help us understand ourselves. Perhaps it could be led by the likes of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Oprah Winfrey.

 

We as a nation need to grapple with race because the evidence is overwhelming that racial bias remains deeply embedded in American life. Two economists, Joseph Price and Justin Wolfers, found that white N.B.A. referees disproportionally call fouls on black players, while black refs call more fouls on white players. “These biases are sufficiently large that they affect the outcome of an appreciable number of games,” Price and Wolfers wrote.

 

Read more here.

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 4

NOV. 15, 2014

Nicholas Kristof                  

campaign: nyt2015_sharetools_mkt_opinion_47K78 -- 271975, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_opinion_47K78 -- 375123, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion/sunday/when-whites-just-dont-get-it-part-4.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion, position: MiddleLeft

WHEN I write about racial inequality in America, one common response from whites is eye-rolling and an emphatic: It’s time to move on.

 

“As whites, are we doomed to an eternity of apology?” Neil tweeted at me. “When does individual responsibility kick in?”

 

Terry asked on my Facebook page: “Why are we still being held to actions that took place long ago?”

 

“How long am I supposed to feel guilty about being white? I bust my hump at work and refrain from living a thug life,” Bradley chimed in. “America is about personal responsibility. ... And really, get past the slavery issue.”

 

Read more here.

 

                    

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 3

OCT. 11, 2014

Nicholas Kristof                    

    

SOME white Americans may be surprised to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu describe Bryan Stevenson, an African-American lawyer fighting for racial justice, as “America’s young Nelson Mandela.”

 

Huh? Why do we need a Mandela over here? We’ve made so much progress on race over 50 years! And who is this guy Stevenson, anyway?

 

Yet Archbishop Tutu is right. Even after remarkable gains in civil rights, including the election of a black president, the United States remains a profoundly unequal society — and nowhere is justice more elusive than in our justice system.

 

When I was born in 1959, the hospital in which I arrived had separate floors for black babies and white babies, and it was then illegal for blacks and whites to marry in many states. So progress has been enormous, and America today is nothing like the apartheid South Africa that imprisoned Mandela. But there’s also a risk that that progress distracts us from the profound and persistent inequality that remains.

 

Read more here.

When whites just don't get it. . .

When Whites Just Don’t Get It (Part 1)

AUG. 30, 2014 

Nicholas Kristof    paign: nyt2015_sharetools_mkt_opinion_47K78 -- 271975, creative: nyt2014_sharetools_mktg_opinion_47K78 -- 375123, page: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-after-ferguson-race-deserves-more-attention-not-less.html, targetedPage: www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/opinion, position: MiddleLeft

MANY white Americans say they are fed up with the coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. A plurality of whites in a recent Pew survey said that the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves.

 

Bill O’Reilly of Fox News reflected that weariness, saying: “All you hear is grievance, grievance, grievance, money, money, money.”

 

Indeed, a 2011 study by scholars at Harvard and Tufts found that whites, on average, believed that anti-white racism was a bigger problem than anti-black racism.

 

Yes, you read that right!

 

Read more here.

A respected voice not often heard. . .

Here's a word from a respected source that we don't hear from very often.


 In fact, I can't recall the last time I heard him speak.


 Clearly, we have more work to do in this nation.


 We see evidence of that reality on a daily basis in the city.


A fundamental part of our work here focuses on racial reconciliation.


This has always been true.


 I know we will continue to work at bringing people together.

The truth of white privilege

By an accident of birth I was born privileged. 

I was born a white male.

My gender and my race set me up in a position of amazing advantage. 

To deny this basic truth would be the ultimate in self-deception.  To pretend that I've "made it own my own" would be the most damaging lie.

No one ever turned my father or me away from a drinking fountain.  In fact, my society thought so much of us that we had a designated fountain with the word "ONLY" set in place to assure no one but our kind drank from these special places of refreshment. 

No one ever turned me away or thought of turning me away from a school, a hotel, a neighborhood, a church, a restaurant, a business establishment or a job due to my racial identity. 

My father moved from share cropping in West Texas to being a successful real estate developer.  How?  He was smart, but not formally educated beyond the 11th grade.  He got an opportunity.  He was given a chance. 

Everyone in his work world was white.  The job he began with at the City of Richardson could have been filled by a black man, but that's not how things worked.  He was able to move into the private sector from that job and its experiences.  I have to believe that the only thing separating a black dad from such success was the absence of an invitation to give it a try. 

Growing up, I never thought of myself or my family in racial terms.  Such thoughts were reserved for people  of color. 

Special schools were reserved for me and my friends, and they were all white.  The black kids in the area had their own schools.  I never saw the students or their schools.

The barriers facing my black and Hispanic friends as they grew up were real, considerable and almost impenetrable.   It literally took an act of Congress to open doors sealed shut for so long.  Actually, it was a matter of cutting doors through thick, unforgiving walls that finally opened up some passages for advancement in spite of their racial identity. 

But, it's not all about history, or the past.  Today it is certainly not all about "the progress" we've made. 

There is no place for smugness when it comes to racial justice in the United States. 

We have an African American president.  That is a signal achievement for the nation. 

However, don't be fooled.

White privilege, and male at that, remains a powerful force in our culture. 

And personally, before I get too sold on my own accomplishments, it is always helpful to remind myself that I started, via a genetic lottery, with a huge advantage. 

If you look at life as if it were a football game, I was born on my opponents' 5-yard line, while they weren't even in the stadium. 

Considering racism: personal reflections

Racism hurts.  In fact, it destroys, and the destruction goes deep into a person's psyche. 

Racism and prejudice are not the same.  All racists are prejudiced.  But racism combines a hateful prejudice with power.  It's the power that gives prejudice teeth, transforming it into a force that works in individual lives and decisions, but even more importantly, it also spawns policies and systems capable of oppressing entire groups of people on the basis of race and ethnicity alone. 

Without a doubt over my lifetime, we've made progress as a nation in our struggle with and against racism.  Still, two factors combine to ensure that our struggle must continue. 

First, systemic racism still exists, and in some situations it is on the grow. 

Disproportionate numbers of African Americans end up in prison in this nation.  Violence against black "suspects" fills our news:  young people in hoodies, an asthmatic adult choked to death, a young man in Ferguson, Missouri gunned down by a police officer as he held his empty hands high above his head in a posture of surrender, organized attacks on various essential expressions of the Voters' Rights Acts threatened to call in question the legitimacy of our electoral process.  I know black mothers who feel compelled to teach their children how to react to authority figures in our culture, especially police officers.  Who am I to question their assessment of the world their children must face even today?  Rather than question or minimize, I just need to listen and learn.  I could go on.  People who protest too much about any conversation involving the so-called "race card," make me wonder about their true worldview regarding the subject. 

Second, seasoned civil rights warriors have been defined in many respects by their experiences in the battle against racism.  Such self-definition must be honored, not rudely brushed to the side.

Many activists in my generation simply cannot forget what went before the progress we have made.  Frankly, it is unfair to ask them to forget that which has defined their lives so completely.  White persons who insist on "moving on" or who urge us to forget the past in defensive responses to words like I am sharing right now, just don't understand.  There is a time for simple listening in a real attempt to understand those who have been wounded and forever altered by the pain of the long night's struggle. The progress many white folks and even younger minorities want to quickly tout would not have been realized without the sacrifice of the generation that calls on us to never forget. 

Sometimes being thoughtful means simply being silent, even when you don't agree, so that real hearing, listening and understanding can happen. 

Deed restrictions and discrimination as "ethical"

My good friend, Randy Mayeux writes in a most revealing way about a problem that persists in other, more respectable forms even today. 

Read what he has to say here.

Facing Race

April 4, 1968

It was one of those moments that I will never forget.  I recall exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news reports crackled into the radio of my 1957 Buick.

My good buddy, Eddie Wilson and I were putting school board campaign signs out in yards where they had been requested.  I can't remember the name of the candidate my father was supporting, but we were working for him.  

I was 18-years-old, a senior in high school about ready to go off to college.  

The news bulletin:  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gunned down and dead in Memphis, Tennessee where he was supporting striking sanitation workers.  

Dr. King. . .dead.  

April 4, 1968.

I am remembering today.

Challenge, faithfulness and real prayer

Hate speech gets us nowhere

The Fort Worth Star Telegram published a story on November 8, 2012 that disturbed me deeply.  As a matter of fact, it just takes the cake! Under the headline, "Hardin GOP official: 'Maggots' elected Obama,"  Bud Kennedy reported the amazingly hateful comments of Hardin County Republican treasurer Peter Morrison.

Here's just a snippet of Kennedy's story:

Texas Republicans are already using the s-word.

One party official from Southeast Texas calls for -- not secession -- separation.

"Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?" writes Hardin County Republican treasurer Peter Morrison, a Ron Paul supporter and author of a race-heavy Tea Party newsletter.

"Let each go her own way," he writes, demanding an "amicable divorce" from the U.S. and from the "maggots" who re-elected President Obama.

"Maggots who re-elected President Obama"?

Seriously?  

Let me just say this sort of conversation destroys community, offends millions and has no place in a serious discussion about how to make the nation work.  Furthermore, this language hurts so many of my friends, people I love and respect.  How dare anyone speak of a fellow American in such a course, demeaning manner.  

Mr. Morrison, who do you think you are, sir?  

Remembering to never forget

47th Anniversary of Dr. King's Famous Sermon to America

No comment need be added here. Possibly the greatest speech in the nation's history lives on. . .