For the past decade - and especially in recent years - I've said just about all I can about Southlake. @CarrollISD's actions speak for themselves. Some have asked why I keep fighting. And, on days like this, it is beyond exhausting.
@Carrollisd Do I think @CarrollISD leadership will somehow develop moral fortitude overnight and fight HB 3979? Absolutely not. If there's one thing I learned during my time in the district, it's that White Supremacy and bigotry run deep there. And power and wealth usually prevail.
@Carrollisd But what I also learned as a student at @CarrollISD is how devastating it can be to feel like you don't belong. And think that what is taught within those walls reflects the outside world. That there is no hope.
@Carrollisd We deserved better then and can do better now. Speaking truth is not just to challenge those in power; it is to show others suffering in silence they are not alone. That they shouldn't give up, because we won't either.

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More from @stephaniedrenka

15 Oct
A brief history of racism in #Southlake @Carrollisd 🧵 #flashbackfriday #texashistory #HB3979 Image
"By the 1860s, there were lots of things around here for settlers to fight- illness, insects, hardship, Comanche Indians, and starting in 1861, the Yankees." (Images of America: Southlake by Connie Cooley and the Southlake Historical Society) Image
Early Southlake settler Spencer Graham is lauded by the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) for "citizenship, military service, character, and Christian qualities." (Images of America: Southlake by Connie Cooley and the Southlake Historical Society) Image
Read 44 tweets
15 Oct
#FBF 🧵: Found my old "Letter to the Editor" submission which was published (heavily edited) in the now defunct Southlake Times. Dated September 8, 2009. #flashbackfriday @Carrollisd #Southlake
@Carrollisd I wrote this piece after learning @Carrollisd would not allow teachers to show @BarackObama's address to students during class. Parents had to remove them from school if they wanted their children to watch it.
@Carrollisd @BarackObama "This decision is less about time constraints and more about the collective closed-mindedness of a community. It is about the fear of exposing children to different ideals than they have heard at home-- that they might actually form opinions according to their own free will."
Read 8 tweets
15 Oct
So many thoughts, not enough coffee yet 💆🏻‍♀️ He's apologizing for this incident making the news-not that they've been scaring teachers & gaslighting the community. The fact that they are going to continue implementing HB3979 & not fight it is the real problem. (Among many others)
If they actually "understood" (cared) about historical facts in books- they would not have allowed the school board to reprimand @farah_dragons in the first place. They chose the district's path in that terrifying moment. This was an inevitable conclusion.
Let's not forget that while the meeting Ledbetter refers to was taking place, he was busy telling parents that no such instruction was happening 😒
Read 8 tweets
18 May
In 1874, J.L. Chow opened Chow Chow Laundry at 904 Elm Street. He was the first person of Asian descent to be listed in the city directories. By 1891, 41/49 laundries in Dallas were Chinese-owned.
Fueled by decades of bigotry, a propaganda campaign was initiated against Chinese laundries by White competitors.

The Dallas Daily Times Herald ran an editorial in 1894: Danger in Inferior Laundries: Dallas Customers Cannot Be Too Careful Where They Send Their Soiled Clothing.
"… the employees of the inferior laundries referred to, run the risk of contracting some vile disease… The people should give white laundries a chance" texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/met…
Read 9 tweets
11 May
John Dolford "Bob" Jones was the son of a White man named Leazer Alvis Jones and Elizabeth, a Black woman enslaved by Leazer. When he was a child, he helped runaway slaves escape by hiding them in a cave.
Following the Civil War, Bob was granted freedom by his father and eventually became one of the largest landowners in the Tarrant-Denton county area, with somewhere between 1,000-2,000 acres to his name.

That land was located in the city known today as Southlake, my hometown.
Bob and his wife Almeada Jones, whose family had been purchased as slaves by cattleman John Chisum, had 10 children. Because his grandchildren were unable to attend White schools due to racial segregation, he built Walnut Grove Elementary School on his property for them.
Read 17 tweets
3 May
My hometown of Southlake, Texas doubled down on racism and White supremacy in their local election. I am livid and terrified, but mostly heartbroken that everything we experienced as students of color in @Carrollisd continues to have been in vain.
I wanted to believe something good could come from our pain. The hours I spent in a dark closet cutting my ankles to cope with the racial slurs my @Carrollisd classmates hurled against me. Instead, I witnessed parents claiming Christian values embrace harmful ideologies.
Adults mocking the activism of orgs like @SouthlakeARC and @DignityforTX. The @CityofSouthlake and @Carrollisd are a disgrace- a national embarrassment, and someday soon I will have the energy to fight again.
Read 5 tweets

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