I don't like to get involved in local politics, but with what happened during a Dallas County commissioners meeting last Tuesday, I have to say something. First off, I've respected Commissioner John Wiley Price in some way since I've lived here in Dallas, but after what transpired, I may have to take back some of my respect.
During the aforementioned meeting, fellow commissioner Kenneth Mayfield called Dallas County's central collections office a "black hole" because of the propensity of the office to lose traffic ticket payments and other paperwork. Well, Mr. Price took the low road and equated this statement as a racist diatribe. I don't know Mr. Mayfield so I can't say that he would be one to say a racist remark, but what Mr. Price said does indeed have a racist inclination. I say his rebuttal is somewhat racist because he thought it as much. It's that making a mountain of a molehill type of thing. Any nonracist thinking person would not have thought Mr. Mayfield's comment as racist and would have probably laughed with him considering the office's misplacing tendencies. Now, if Mr. Mayfield had said that the central collections office is a black hole like a "specific, predominantly Black neighborhood of Dallas," then I'd say he deserves all the flack he's catching right now.
What Mr. Price's statement also shows is his ignorance. If you ask anyone, Black, White, Hispanic, or whatever, if the statement made initially by Mr. Mayfield had any racist connotation, most if not all would say it is not a racist statement. A black hole, if anyone would be asked, would say something along the lines of cosmological term for the remains of a collapsed star where nothing can escape, matter and even light. What Mr. Price is doing is perpetuating the race card where none exists. In his mind, the only thing that can escape a black hole is a supposed racist remark.
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