Burnt Orange Report

More Conservative Hysteria Over HB 3

By Byron LaMasters

This one, in the form of an editorial certainly crosses the line regarding appropriate discussion regarding race in the 21st century. Calling this editorial blatantly racist would be a reasonable characterization. Here are excerpts from this week's Park Cities People editorial (emphasis mine):

A Government of Pygmies

The stature of the Texas Legislature shrinks with every session

John Adams warned long ago that there never was a democracy that didn’t commit suicide. This week the state House put the gun to…Texas’ head. Whether the Texas Senate will pull the trigger is still an open question.

The finance bill passed by the House shuffles the array of taxes available to the state like a deck of cards. It adds a few dollars to public education, but then promptly adds mandates on how school districts are required to spend it. In all, it is “revenue neutral.” That is another way of saying it provides no new money.

For a moment, let’s pass over what this means to the Highland Park schools. (And it means nothing good.) Let’s see what it means to the state of Texas.

First, a few unpleasant facts. In just 10 years, Anglos will be a minority in North Texas. In North Texas. We already have the highest rate of teens giving birth in the nation. We rank second among states for child abuse, 43rd for children born into poverty, and 45th in the number of kids who graduate from high school.

If those social problems correlate to poverty, they can do nothing but get worse. Median household income — which has risen every decade since Texas was a republic — is expected to drop two percentage points a decade for the next 40 years.

At the same time, Dallas-Fort Worth will grow 55 percent, from 5.3 million to 8 million over the next 10 years.

What kind of picture does this paint?

What about this picture — huge growth, a less educated workforce, declining household income — does the Legislature not understand? [...]

The real problem is not money. Money is a tool. The real problem is mediocrity.

Robin Hood — take from the “rich” and give to the “poor” — was the liberals’ answer to school finance, and like the socialism it emulates, its end result was to discourage excellence and to flatten education to a level aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Now conservatives are in charge. The House has already shown what a difference this makes — none. Now the Texas Senate says it will do better. Its solution — apparently a majority have already signed on to it — is a statewide property tax to replace local taxes. And what will the end result of that be? To discourage excellence and flatten education to the lowest common denominator. [...]

Any pygmy can become a giant by standing on the nearest rock. What we need in Texas is a Republican leader willing to look around for one.

I'll start by agreeing with one aspect of the editorial. The real problem is mediocrity. Texas must not settle for mediocrity, and Democrats refused to settle for mediocrity by voting against HB 3. I applaud them for that.

Having said that, parts of this editorial step way over the line. The term "pygmy" broadly refers to an exceptionally short individual, although the term more specifically refers to members of various tribes in equatorial Africa and Southeast Asia. By itself, "pygmy" doesn't necessarily have a racial context, but the editorial goes on to make a blatantly racist statement: "First, a few unpleasant facts. In just 10 years, Anglos will be a minority in North Texas".

Excuse me? Poverty, high teen birth rates and child abuse are unpleasant facts, but the fact that Anglos are declining as a portion of the regional population? Why is that an unpleasant fact? I guess that the Park Cities People are looking for an unreconstructed George Wallace or Lester Maddox to lead the Texas GOP to victory in 2006.

Update: More at The Frontburner.