I’ve been scratching my head, searching for the right framing for Black/white interracial relations in Dallas/Texas/America without much success, then BOINGGGG!!!
Leave it to iconic Brenham Texas’ Blue Bell ice cream to provide the absolute PERFECT metaphor… the Great Divide! A solid chunk of chocolate and vanilla, frozen in perpetual yin-yang.
A hundred and thirty or so years ago, ol’ Rudy Kipling – in his tepid ode to British imperialism in India – kinda captured this dilemma in his line “East is East and West is West, and never the Twain shall meet…”
I don’t think, however, it’s as black and white as the situation seems always to be. What does always seem to be the case, though, is that the hopes, dreams, aspirations and OPINIONS of Black Texans/Americans still – after all these years – merit such little consideration from white folks.
The quandary stretches from the micro to the macro… Here in Dallas the opinions of Black Dallasites mean absolutely NOTHING to the imperialist aggressions of basketball team owners and the phalanx of supporters committed to shaping “our” city in their image. It’s exhausting.
As tiresome/tiring as is this local “tempest in a teapot,” the abject dismissal of any consideration of Black Texans/Americans in state and federal policy-making is particularly galling.
When the federal government trumpets budget cuts designed to make life more miserable for Black America… when state government works its damnedest to mirror the pus-filled inhumanity festering in federal policy – well, you’d think everyone could see what’s happening.
But, nope! On one side of the Great Divide it makes perfect sense to mandate – under penalty of law – to REQUIRE Turning Point “clubs” in EVERY Texas high school. It makes sense to fight “woke indoctrination” by excising Black people from history books, stealing taxpayer money from public education and issuing “special rules” to nullify laws created to level the economic playing field. Any voice raised in protest is unpatriotic, unreasonable, angry, socialist/communist or dumb. Ain’t that pathetic?
It’s 2026. Black folks have been here longer than many of the folks who cause these troubles in Washington, Austin AND City Hall, yet Black people are treated like newcomers, interlopers or DUMMIES who don’t understand what’s happening TO US! JEEZ!
Y’all better hurry up – ice cream melts!
Charles O’Neal is the President of the Texas Association of African American Chambers of Commerce (TAAACC) and a well-respected former journalist.
