This will sound familiar to many of you in the audience.
When I enrolled in Bowie Junior High as a seventh-grader, I heard many horror stories. Gangs ran amuck in the school, everyone carried a knife, blah. Blah. Blah.
By the time that John McKissack, then-anchor of Channel 7, ran a hysterical hit piece about these gangs—which he called “low-riders,” as did most uniformed Anglos in those days—I was a two-year veteran of the school, and knew the truth. By then, I regarded those gangsters as rather silly posers in khakis and watch chains; walking down the hall, I half expected them to break out into song:
When you’re a cholo,Don’t get me wrong; I avoided them in the halls, especially when they were traveling in packs. But McKissack—an adult, who should have known better—cluelessly took them rather more seriously than that.
You’re a cholo all the way,
From your very first hair net
To your last “¿’Sup, esé?”
McKissack, of course, was so beloved an anchor that he went on to the City Commission and then to even greater glory.
I couldn’t help but think of him when I read these words in Steve Holland’s column yesterday:
Don't misunderstand me; I have no problem with folks who live in southwest Amarillo. I have some good friends there, or at least I did until this was printed. I do have a problem with a city commission that ignores half of the city. It's not that the commissioners don't like us; it's more that they have no clue who or even where we are.Remember this cluelessness when you read or hear commissioners and the Mayor—however well-intentioned they may be—trying to convince you that they care, they really do care, and that they treat (they really do!) all areas of town the same. Remember this cluelessness on November 7.
spacedark
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