Lone Star state of mind
September 23, 2021
Another in a series of observations of life as I know it.
“The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.”
– Toni Morrison
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Let me begin this morning by saying that if and when I ever travel again, I will be certain to choose a flight that does not stop in Dallas-Fort Worth or Houston. Or anywhere in Texas for that matter. With all due respect to all of my friends who live there or washed ashore on Cape Cod from the Lone Star state, I find that place a hell hole. It’s all hat and no cowboy. There is no there, there. I will keep my distance, thank you.
Why? Okay, here’s a list. You might want to take a load off your feet, grab coffee and find a comfy chair. Covid denial, vaccine denial, mask denial. Women of means are flying to Colorado to get an abortion. One woman in her late thirties has a heart condition. Which is why she and her husband adopted and have a lovely family. But nature isn’t fool proof and she got pregnant. In Texas. Other women who don’t have her cash flow aren’t so lucky. Then there’s the lunacy surrounding immigration. Guv Abbott, for whom there is no Stetson small enough to fit his tiny cranium, just sent a fleet of hundreds of state-owned cars to the border. To form a “wall of steel”. Give me strength to face another day. In the Texas heat, the drivers probably kept the AC running and with any luck, they ran out of gas. And the most recent indignity is in Grapevine, Texas. As in, I heard it through the grapevine. The independent school district of Grapevine-Colleyville just voted, without a single bit of dissent from the school board, that a BLACK high school principal should be fired. Forthwith. Why? Um, he’s black. He might teach CRT. Critical Race Theory. He might encourage diversity. He might become a role model to both black and, heaven forfend, white students. After being heaped with racial smears and outright lies in front of a large audience, he took his allotted 1 minute of microphone time to defend his reputation. That sealed the deal. He was summarily dismissed. Even though parents and students at his school spoke glowingly on his behalf. That seemed to fuel the lily white board. The principal then took to his own defense on Facebook. As a result, he got a more severe and less benevolent financial separation package. Given the nature of the white supremacists in his district, the poor man probably can’t even get a minimum wage job at McDonalds.
Oh and in Texas, you can pack heat openly. On a pretty, tooled leather holster or in your jacket. Is that a pistol in your pocket, big boy, or are you just glad to see me? And, you don’t need no lessons on how to pull the trigger. No sirree Billy Bob. Any fool can just go over to the Fun and Gun shop on Main Street, and buy hisself a piece. To be clear, you still have to get a license to drive your Ford F150, but you don’t need no piece of paper for your Smith and Wesson. Just out of curiosity, can you still buy a Go Cup of booze and drive on the old lonesome highway?
Let’s review, shall we? I shan’t reenumerate any of the above. Waste of my time and effort. But, suffice it to say, I feel truly sorry for the good folks who make their homes in Texas. And there are fine people there. Beto O’Roarke. Stay strong, man. Keep fighting. Lord know, we could use Lyndon right about now. The Barbara Jordans, Ann Richards and Molly Ivins of that wretched state have gone to their reward in heaven. God knows they weren’t getting one in Texas. Others have got to step up. Ann’s daughter, Cecille Richards, is doing her part for Planned Parenthood. But she’s just one lone woman. Honestly, Texas should have left the Union after the Alamo. But I hear that even Mexico doesn’t want them. No disrespect to Mexico intended.
When schools fire competent educators for the sin of being black, one can only imagine what might follow.
Next step? Slavery.