And it warrants mentioning - and unambiguously mentioning: It is not racist for a Black woman to call out anti-Blackness. The next tweet continues “I’m looking to combat anti-black racism in the Asian community at at (sic) my daughters’ mostly Asian Am school.”Ĭollins is the only Black woman on the school board (though these tweets were written two years before her election). “Does anyone know about any news stories highlighting hate speech or bullying of Asian students? Please send them my way.” Nobody is coming out of this looking good. And when.Ĭollins is now in the difficult position she’s in not just because of what she wrote in 2016, but how she handled matters when confronted on it in 2021. The tweets say what they say - and say what they say regardless of who’s publicizing them. If you’re complaining people missed nuance and context, maybe it wasn’t there to start with. A tweetstorm is not a Dostoevsky novel it doesn’t take that much time to read and re-read it. And that definitely happened here.īut Collins’ protestations that her comments were being taken “ out of context” befuddled the Asian Americans who subsequently reached out to her (as did her apology - not for what she said, but for how it was received). It’s never an ideal situation when extreme partisans call the tune and make everybody dance. This material was quickly seeded into the mainstream media, where headlines simply and unambiguously described Collins’ tweets as “racist.” Calls for her ouster grew deafening - and, separate and apart from the content of those tweets, a city leader’s decision on what to say about Collins soon became a political calculation.
#DALLAS KING BLACK GAY TWITTER SERIES#
These are not good and pleasant times.Īdd to all this a series of incendiary 2016 Collins tweets describing anti-Blackness among Asian Americans, last week unearthed by online partisans opposed to altering Lowell’s admission plans and pushing a recall effort for Collins and two other commissioners. The school district and Board of Education are presently staving off a lawsuit filed by the City Attorney regarding those sclerotic reopening plans. And there is the ongoing misery regarding the city’s shuttered schools, spaced-out Zoom students, declining enrollment and the school board’s deliberate decision to not hire a consultant to form pandemic plans. There was the vote to remove the merit-based entrance system at Lowell High School. There was the vote to rename 44 schools despite provably shoddy historical research, an arbitrary and sloppy process from the renaming committee - and despite the fact all the schools are closed. There was the polarizing decision to paint over murals at George Washington High School depicting our founding father as the slave-owner and Indian-fighter he was. The Board of Education has been in the headlines a bit even prior to the pandemic, and these were not flattering headlines. today, and it remains to be seen how good and pleasant that will be. The next Board of Education meeting is slated for 3 p.m. This is neither good nor pleasant company for Collins to find herself in.