Burnt Orange Report

I confess I have no love for Dallas politics, which is why I don't live there. And while I do understand the longstanding complaints about the lack of investment in South Dallas, I think this recall was based on bad reasons. I listened to Nash, the organizer of the recall drive speak, and his reasons were extremely overstated. Removing a black chief of police does not constitute a purge of blacks from the city government.

The threat of perpetual drives is wrong.

Since I have lived in this area, Dallas has been a horribly managed city with even more horrible race relations.

There are times when I agree with those who complain that race becomes too easily a part of the argument. This is one of those times. Race was and is a problem in this country, but to trivialize it by yelling "wolf!" when a failed police chief is fired is to ensure no one believes you when there is a real case.

Byron,

Out of curiousity, who is Miller, and why does it matter that she fired the police chief? Did you want her to be ousted, was he that good? Why was he fired? I follow politics pretty closely, but I have to confess that my knowledge of Dallas city politics is slight, to say the least.

Sherk

Under the former police chief's (Bolton's) watch, there was a fake drug scandal in Dallas where minorities were put in jail for buying crushed up sheetrock. There was also research showing that crime has increased in Dallas at a scary rate during his tenure. Whether or not any of it is his fault, I think the case could be made that the buck stops at his desk for things like this. In any case, it wasn't Miller (the mayor) who fired him, it was the city manager who did. Even the previous (black) mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, didn't have nice words to say about Bolton. So saying he was fired because he is black is a stretch.

The first thing Bolton did after being fired is go around to the black churches and start telling his sob story. That of course inflamed the passions of the black community, and it seemed to snowball from there. It even seemed he was trying to extort money from the city, by saying he should get a big severance check or he would sue the city. What I don't understand is why the black community thought Bolton was one of them, I really doubt he lived in their neighborhood. He even had a personal driver, which was another one of the controversies we have heard about.

Isn't it great our leaders are looking out for us, and not themselves? ;-)

Jason pretty much got the story right about Bolton. I never followed the details of Bolton's tenure as chief, but there's certainly evidence to show that he didn't get the job done. And the city manager fired him. Bolton is Black, he blamed Miller and various Black community leaders decided to try a recall effort.

As for Laura Miller. She has an interesting political base. She's married to a pretty liberal Democratic State Representative, Steve Wolens. Miller, herself is a Democrat, but calls herself Independent. She used to write for the Dallas Observer - a weekly alternative paper, then ran for city council, was a vocal opponent of Ron Kirk, the arena project and the Trinity River project, ran for mayor when Kirk resigned to run for US Senate and won. Although her election shouldn't be seen as a rejection of Ron Kirk - Kirk was a popular mayor of Dallas and Miller had a relatively weak opponent, Tom Dunning. Dunning had the perfect resume and had money, was the type of pro-business Democrat that runs well in the city of Dallas, but as a candidate... he was less than inspiring I'll say.

Miller won Kirk's unexpired term and a full term this year with a coalition of mostly Republican north Dallas who were less ideological (the establishment Republicans supported Mary Poss, Miller's GOP opponent), but interested in the basics (roads, parks, etc.) and less in the big projects that Ron Kirk engaged in (arena, trinity river). Most White Democrats supported Miller since Poss was a Republican. The gay community raised over $100,000 for Miller and heavily supported her after she helped steer through a non-discrimination ordinance. Hispanics favored Miller but Blacks opposed her by 3-1 margins because of what she had said in the past about various Black leaders (Bolton, Al Libscome, Ron Kirk, etc.). Anyway, she doesn't have a typical Dallas coalition, but then again neither did Ron Kirk (Blacks, Hispanics and the business establishment). Miller would easily defeat a recall if it ever made the ballot. She's too popular in north Dallas, and north Dallas votes in city elections.

My fellow "African" Americans here in Dallas are only confirming they have a victim mentality by all these efforts to make a 'black' voice heard.

The main reason that Dallas Mayor Laura Miller needs to be recalled is because she has ruined a lot of small businesses that thrived on the people that smoke. She came into office and proceeded to make Dallas another Arlington. If she likes it so much in Arlington (with all it's clean air!) then she needs to run for mayor of Arlington. She has taken the road of a typical Republican and gone toward big business. Why hasn't she had the city clean up the streets and spend money on beautification which would create more jobs and less unemployment? When has she fought for better housing for all instead of the few? And what has she done for healthcare or to help the homeless??? Nothing. She deserves to be recalled for her heartless ways!
Cerina Wrye, business owner

The main reason that Dallas Mayor Laura Miller needs to be recalled is because she has ruined a lot of small businesses that thrived on the people that smoke. She came into office and proceeded to make Dallas another Arlington. If she likes it so much in Arlington (with all it's clean air!) then she needs to run for mayor of Arlington. She has taken the road of a typical Republican and gone toward big business. Why hasn't she had the city clean up the streets and spend money on beautification which would create more jobs and less unemployment? When has she fought for better housing for all instead of the few? And what has she done for healthcare or to help the homeless??? Nothing. She deserves to be recalled for her heartless ways!
Cerina Wrye, business owner

The reality is that Miller is not perfect, but she is much better than Kirk and most of the others on council, who are mostly self-serving or ignorant.

She is also the best hope Dallas has for not getting cheated again with the Jerry Jones Stadium. Kirk sold us an Arena promising Dallas would recoup on surrounding development. Guess what, there isn't any. Instead, the arena developers came back for another multi-million dollar handout. Miller tried to block it, but most of the other idiots on the council voted for the subsidy.

Bolton was incompetant and should have been fired long ago. The city manager needs to go next.

What is wrong with this city? I am a young black politic for this great city of Dallas. Every since Chief Bolton was fired there has been rage for our Mayor (who is a good friend of mine) Laura Miller to be disposed of in any way. I would like to know is it because he was black and she being white? Or because she cannot run the city good which one is it? I can tell you all exactly what it is RACISM! On our behalf!! We, the black community, act as if we were not worried about crime. We, always seem to point the finger because the one it is being pointed at is WHITE. It is time the nation stops seeing racism and see what is happening!! If Ron Kirk would have fored Terrel Bolton all we would have said is that he should havedone better. BUT NO because the city manager and the mayor decided to try to make our city better we see racism. I say unto you all MY PEOPLE. Honestly ask yourself did you always feel safe in this city.

Sterling Davis.

Did that illiterate person actually go to Dallas schools? Are his grammar and punctuation examples of what black communities produce in Dallas schools these days? Or does his Ebonics gibberish represent what he actually thinks is decent English?

God help us if he actually represents the typical "educated" black in Dallas. If so, the black community is in a deeper cesspool than I had thought.

Black males need to stop chasing so much black pussy and instead get their heads into some textbooks, get a real education, and become productive citizens instead of dreaming about becoming rappers or pro basketball players.

And black females need to stop breeding and producing progeny in fatherless homes. With that irresponsible and immoral behavior, they only continue a pathetic pattern that has doomed blacks to economic and social inferiority.

Blacks are only slightly better off today than they were when their African ancestors gathered them up centuries ago and sold them to European slave ship owners, who then shipped them to the New World to be further abused by white slave owners.

Blacks, as a group overall, just have never adjusted to the American economic and opportunity model that could so positively transform their culture and their individual lives. Most of them still are in the plantation dependency mindset (actively promoted to them by the Democrat party) in which they think that if they do whitie’s work (by voting en masse for Democrats), whitie will continue to take care of them.

And it isn’t about us spending more money on black schools or teachers’ salaries in those schools. It isn’t about spending more money (we spend too much already in those schools). It is simply about black parents insisting that their children do very well in school, rewarding them if they do, and punishing them if they don’t.

Until blacks change their lifestyles so that their children have wholesome examples as parents, blacks will continue to represent the dregs of American society. Black mothers should insist that their children focus on their educations, and make that the primary focus of their lives. Until black mothers do that, and produce more educated people than Sterling Davis, blacks as a whole are doomed to generation after generation of pathetic ignorance and failure.

First and foremost, I think Laura Miller is exceptional.

Was all of that really necessary? And did it have anything to do with the topic title? To me, an educated person, it seems that this thread had something to do with Laura Miller's recall. Maybe I misinterpreted it due to my lack of education.

Any points you might have made in the aforementioned post are obscured under layers upon layers of racism and stereotypes. It is unfortunate that people like you give the Grand Old Party a bad name.

While the black culture of America as it stands today does need to make some serious adjustments to improve its welfare, it is a bit simple minded and might i say - uneducated - to simply rule that it is chasing a rap or NBA dream that is the cause of its present condition.

An educated person who had studied history would realize that it was decades after abolition that equal civil rights were implemented into law. Additionally, it was decades before that sunk into reality and it became anathema to proclaim yourself as a racist. At this point, thankfully, it has mostly faded to people like you anonymously making these posts from the safety of your home rather than in public or on a political platform.

You do, incidentally and probably without much awareness, raise a good question though. I may not be a minority, but it is easy to see that the school system in Dallas is far from ideal. It also does well to notice that many surrounding suburbs have higher standards of performance and that it is not impossible to achieve such in this area.

Racism is definitely not the problem (though perhaps, it is yours) and the black community definitely has to make adjustments to the system. While increasing spending may not be the solution, penalizing schools as a whole for underperformance, is certainly not the way to resolve the problem.

- Empiricus