A blind Blow

Writing in the Dallas Morning News Metro Blog, Steve Blow says, judging from trailers he's seen on television, he is concerned about Dallas will be portrayed in the upcoming film "The Express," the story of Ernie Davis, the Syracuse University running back who became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy. The trailer, according to Blow, makes a big deal of the racism Davis faced when Syracuse played in the Cotton Bowl.

"But I sure never thought of Texas as being the worst of the worst when it came to racism," Blow writes. "Am I just being defensive?"

No, Steve, you're not being defensive. You're blind.

Let's see, Dallas is where Preston Hollow Elementary School is located. You remember Preston Hollow Elementary, don't you Steve? That was the school a federal judge said practiced illegal segregation just two years ago.

In a state known for its capital punishment and death row, a Dallas jury has never -- ever -- sentenced a person to death for killing an African American.

Dallas is a city that is still trying to recover from a covert policy that separated the city into a flourishing white northern half and a poor black southern half. It is a city that denied Cinemark when it attempted to build its first theater here purely on racial grounds and paid large sums in a judgment because of it. It is a city that had a written policy at one time that restricted black homeownership to places like Cadillac Heights that constantly flooded. It is a city that fought giving minorities a voice in city government until it was ordered to by a federal judge.

Is this area racist? Just read the comments of those opposing the renaming of Ross Avenue or examine what unconstitutional activities are going on in Farmer's Branch.

Of all the places I've lived -- and I've lived all over the world at one time or another -- I have never been in an area more racist than Dallas.