A couple of readers have taken me to task for truncating John Wiley Price's incendiary comment from yesterday's Dallas County Commissioners Court meeting.In the headline and text of The Big Story, posted earlier, I shortened Price's comment to "go to hell."
The full quote, as Price argued with county taxpayers taking him to task for his admitted maneuvering to run off respected Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet:
"Why are all the speakers white?" And then, "All of you are white. Go to hell."
In case anyone missed it, Price repeated the "go to hell" part a few times in response to shouted criticisms from the gallery. He also fired a "You, too, fat boy" at one fellow who hadn't even had a chance to speak before County Judge Clay Jenkins hastily gaveled the meeting closed.
I stand corrected on the omission, which was just that. It certainly wasn't any attempt to shield Price from the opprobrium he so richly deserves for his words.
(And, to be fair,the news storyandboth raw video feeds linked from the original posthad his comments in full.)
Price made a blatantly racist comment and, after he'd had time to think about it,absurdly tried to blame the last speaker, Jeff Turner, for inciting himwith what Price called a racist comment, "chief mullah" (or, as Price misstates it, "moolah").
Look, Price isn't all bad or all good, probably not even a preponderance of either. If you think he's no more than a local version of Al Sharpton, consider that the Dallas County jails still would be out of state compliance without his efforts. And that he proved to be a smarter, more realistic fiscal conservative as the county's budget problems deepened over the past few years.
That said, if this had been anyone else, "All of you are [insert race here]. Go to hell," would have been political suicide. If you don't think so, consider:
-- Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, barraged by critics of his position on Cesar Захочит: "All of you are Hispanic. Go to hell."
-- DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, barraged by critics of his position on cutting the workforce at schools in certain neighborhoods: "All of you are black. Go to hell."
See how it works? Yet in Price's case, what he said also means this: "I don't need a single white person to get re-elected for the rest of my life. This job pays $126,802 a year, and that's just the salary part. Now that I have a county judge who will do what I want and a Commissioners Court that will vote the way I want, I will do as I please. I am the most powerful single official in Dallas County. If you don't like it -- especially if you're white -- well, go to hell."
And one more update: I referenceda two-week-old Jim Schutze postin The Big Story, where he wrote that he was seeing a "new John Price." Today,Schutze has an update that basically says he refuses to get all worked up about Price's anticssince "the old white guys behind the scenes" are pulling the strings.
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