An FBvian with a diverse background has some thoughtful bones to pick with the “Ghosts of racism” essay in the DMN, especially the idea of another truth-seeking commision:
Thanks for pointing out the Phillip’s piece in Sunday’s paper. I’m glad somebody can teach me something about the racial history of Dallas and politics that I guess I was to dumb to notice.
Anybody suggesting a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” is the answer is a guy that likes to hear his own ideas. Thanks.I grew up, white, Catholic, in North Dallas but in the Richardson schools. I know perfectly well that I am not really “white”, I’m not Scandinavian; I am Franco, Irish, Hispanic, native American. I wouldn’t mind being Scandinavian, but I wouldn’t mind being almost anything, as long as I am.
I remember, the searing horror of Santos Rodriguez as a child. I remember embracing Asian schoolmates at my Jr High as Vietnam fell in 1975. I remember that I didn’t have as nice a house or money as many of my friends. I remember how many people from other parts of the US and Europe, visiting us, made fun of how backwards us Texas Kennedy killers were and in the same breath asking how we could welcome these “dirty slants” into our schools. I don’t pretend to remember what Dallas and this entire world was like before my parents, teachers and leaders were around for me.
I have lived in Paris, visited many cities in the North and worked in Mexico. I have heard a radio personality, based in New York and should know better with his mixed religious background, make fun of Dallas by saying (paraphrase) those crackers wouldn’t know a bagel from a hamburger. At that time Mayor Strauss was our City Leader. Folks back east couldn’t imagine Dallas would have a female Jewish mayor.
We don’t need truth and reconciliation any more than anywhere in North America. We do need to move on and not repeat our horrors of past. We need to understand intolerance and poverty. Just like the rest of this country.
I for one have felt like I was brought up in a place open to much hope and tolerance.Just like the rest of this United States, Dallas, over the last 50 years, is a microcosm of the rest of the planet Earth. Something most countries could never say.
