“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” — Martin Luther King
A city's reflection -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
“Did you know Dallas is one of the most hated cities in America,” my daughter, Deborah, asked as we sat around the table in her Dallas suburb home yesterday morning. I didn’t, but I’m not surprised, I replied, then began ticking off the reasons why I wasn’t amazed at the news.
President John Kennedy was shot in Dallas; its police force is infamous for acts of brutality; J. R. Ewing wasn’t exactly a poster child for the city; people love to hate the Dallas Cowboys football team; and Dallas didn’t integrate nicely after the civil rights act was passed.
There may be other reasons why the pollsters say Dallas will always be one of the top 10 hated cities. These five merely came off the top of my head because I’m a Dallas native who has visited the city yearly since leaving it as a 16-year-old bride. Sadly, in the 1950s that wasn’t an especially uncommon age for Dallas girls to wed.
Not as glamorous as I remember, but the Majestic Theater is still there.
I watched over the years as flocks of Whites from middle-class neighborhoods moved to the suburbs to escape integration, while those from poor neighborhoods were forced to stay put. The rich, meanwhile, simply sent their kids to private schools. It made for an unbalanced city population.
I was living south of Houston when JFK was shot. I cried with the world for this loss, but also grieved because he was assassinated in my hometown. That it happened at a place I had passed many times made the tragedy agonizingly vivid for me.
The Glory Window, one of the largest stained glass pieces in the world adorns the ceiling of Thanksgiving Square's chapel. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My daughter, Deborah, who was born in Houston, moved to the Dallas Metropolitan area 22 years ago for career reasons. She and I recently took the opportunity to see another side of Dallas. We took the train to downtown, where I showed her some of the places I visited as a child. One of my favorites back then was the Majestic Theater, which is now a performing arts theater owned by the city. I used to take the bus to downtown with my younger brothers on Saturday afternoons to catch an afternoon movie here.
Another placed we visited, Thanksgiving Square, is one that didn’t exist back then. Dedicated in 1976, it’s a city block dedicated as a sanctuary where people of all races and creeds can meet to give thanks. Despite its location in the midst of the city’s bustling skyscrapers, it’s a place that exudes a quiet peacefulness. The square’s glass-stained chapel ceiling, and wall of praise with its Norman Rockwall mosaic depiction of the Golden Rule represents hope for a better future.
Maybe the pollsters are wrong. Maybe Dallas will one day not be one of the top 10 hated cities.
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I’ve always had close ties to Dallas. My mother and grandmother lived and worked there during World War II, and three aunts stayed after the war ended. I remember some of the statements made about the city, and the state, after the Kennedy assassination. It didn’t seem sensible to hate an entire city for that act. Still doesn’t.
Let’s hope not. As Kathy points out, it’s a little harsh to hate an entire city for the actions of some. And as you point out, Pat, there is much to love. I’ve only been to the Dallas metropolitan area, and I’ve only been a couple of times. I have to say I was struck by the difference in “givens” there–I was coming from the preponderantly “blue” part of Oregon, so the difference was striking. I remember those visits as a reminder that not everyone in the world thinks about things like Portland does. It required a mental adjustment for me, one that proved useful in the last campaign, when, as a resident as a far “redder” part of Oregon and a member of an overwhelmingly “red” family, I had to find ways to navigate political differences without being false to myself–or destroying otherwise decent familial relationships. It’s not easy, but I think it’s a valuable lesson to have learned.
I’ve sometimes wondered if the reason I’ve always felt/been rootless is because I don’t quite fit the landscape to which I was born. As for navigating families, the members of mine are both red and blue — and include numerous hues of both. Me. I just want everyone, regardless of their political stances, to play nice in our planet sandbox.