Dallas County Commissioners Are Super Mad They Accidentally Voted To Support Reparations

We are pretty much head over heels in love with this Dallas County Commissioner, John Wiley Price. Price is the sole black member of the Dallas County Commissioners Court (no, really?) and on Tuesday he decided to spice up his Juneteenth resolution by throwing in a call for reparations. Since the other commissioners basically couldn't be arsed to pay attention, they all upfisted it and it passed unanimously. You won't be surprised to learn that now they are SO MAD and are saying they were rooked, hoodwinked, bedazzled and UNFAIR.

Do you know what makes this even better? He read the entire fucking resolution aloud to these yahoos and they STILL unthinkingly voted for it. 

But Price’s resolution went beyond taking note of Juneteenth; it included a long list of injustices endured by blacks, from slavery to Jim Crow to predatory lending practices. Then, in its final paragraph, it declared that the suffering of African-Americans should be “satisfied with monetary and substantial reparations.”

Price read the entire document aloud at the meeting. But that happens with every resolution, and the commissioners didn’t seem to be listening with a critical ear. With no discussion, Price’s resolution was approved by voice vote.

After realizing they'd basically voted for Ta-Nehisi Coates's case for reparations, the rest of the commissioners started whining about having not received a copy of the resolution.

Commissioners later said that they had not known what they were voting for. Commissioner Mike Cantrell even had his vote changed to “abstain.” The other commissioners, [sic] did not change their votes, insisting that the resolution was ceremonial.

“I do not support reparations, and I do not support one of the statements he made, which was that the United States was derelict in his promise to African Americans,” Cantrell told the Dallas Observer. “I think Commissioner Price went too far, and I can’t support that.”

“I had no opportunity to review it, to see what was in the resolution,” he added. “As Commissioner Price was reading this I was trying to find a copy because it sounded like he was going way over what he typically does.”

You'd think, Commissioner Cantrell, if it sounded a bit off to you AND you didn't have a copy of the resolution, you could have just voted no, or abstained then, or asked for clarification, or asked for a copy of the resolution or really any number of other things that would have made you a slightly better informed human being.  In fact, you could have just PAID ATTENTION AS IT WAS READ TO YOU. You're running a goddamn county, for fuck's sake. You'd think you'd try to be a little bit more on top of things.

Good on you, John Wiley Price. We'd vote for anything you read to us. Or at least we'd pay attention while you read it. Probably.

[ Dallas Morning News /