Town Hall Meeting with Paula Zahn

CNN's Paula Zahn is bringing a town hall meeting to Beaumont to address the issue of racism in Vidor. I think. I am not sure what the purpose is actually.

All of this started with a segment on Paula Zahn Now that featured Vidor and shed a not so flattering light on the town. Everyone who lives near Vidor knows it's history and knows that the stigma is still there and that it is not so easily overcome. Racism is still rampant in Vidor no matter how much the mayor may want to change that perception.

But what does Beaumont have to do with it? What do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have to do with it? Why is CNN moving the meeting to Beaumont and why are Jackson and Sharpton coming here? This is turning in to nothing but a media circus, one created to wreak havoc and cause problems here in Beaumont. This will cause nothing but problems. The black community will say they are being left out if not enough of the invitees are black, the hispanic community will cry, too. Everytime there is some big event in town, it is a racial issue. Remember the Labor Day Festival brouhaha? I'm not sure CNN knows what it has gotten itself in to.

I was invited to this meeting and I am sooooooo happy that I have the bunco Christmas party that night. That is one place I definitely do not want to be. I was invited because I sent an email to the producers of PZN basically stating that Vidor does have its' issues but that it is so much bigger than Vidor.

It is an issue of making race a non-issue. I have made an effort to make sure that my children know that all of us are God's children and that he loves us all the same, no matter what our skin color or our religious views or our political view. I would never tell anyone, as people have told me, that they can't be a Christian because of their political views. I have actually been told I can't possible be a Christian because I am a Democrat. People like that are the ones we need to change.

Those are the people who are perpetuating the myth that only certain people will find favor with God. Those are the people who continue to tell their children that people with different skin color than theirs are bad. We need to change this by the things we teach our children. We are the generation that can make this change and we need to.

Start by making a conscious effort not to refer to people by their skin color. I don't ever try to ask my children about kids in their class by saying the "black boy" or the "hispanic girl". They are just boys and girls. In my house on any given day, you will find Brenham, Nicholas and David accompanied by Nicholas and Drew. The second Nicholas is black and Drew is Japanese. But my kids don't see this. You might also find Afif and Amneh, who are Muslim.

My point is, all of these kids are just kids to my boys. They are their friends. Period. They are all welcome in my home, together or individually, and I will make them feel as welcome as possible. And I believe that this attitude creates in my children the ability to accept all people as they are. Not as how a few think they need to be. And I think that this attitude is the one that we need to be nurturing in our children so that racism can end.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every mountainside.

And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

---Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr from his speech on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial