Dallas is often considered a cosmopolitan city of luxury and bon gout. To counter Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” motto, Dallas has put out t-shirts with slogans like “Keep Dallas Classy” or the less-flattering “Keep Dallas Pretentious.” This monolithic view of Dallas as a capital of wealth and style is not only wrong, but frankly destructive.
Yesterday I visited West Dallas, one of our town’s most segregated areas. Driving through, I got a sense of the neglect that has subjugated this neighborhood to poverty. Underfunded schools, under-resourced neighborhoods and a general lack of access all contribute to the difficult living conditions many West Dallas residents face. Besides being cash-poor, many residents suffer from lack of access to transportation, sanitation and healthy food. The contrast with the usually highlighted cosmopolitan and luxurious Dallas is astounding.
While in West Dallas, a man approached my friends and me in search of some spare change for a bus fare. When we apologetically declined to help, he expressed with some despondence that if he were white like us, we would have helped him; as we had not, it was, of course, because he was black. For him, the reality that we did not give was par for the course, a pattern he had clearly seen before.
True, we were all white. But contrary to his assumptions, I am sure that we would not have cared any more to be approached by a man of our own race in an unfamiliar area asking for money.
Regardless, I felt powerless to express what I really wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that it was not on account of his race that we did not help, that truly we would not have given were he white, black or green. I wished to tell him that we were all idealistic college students who believed in promoting social justice.
The simple reality is that we were not able to or were not comfortable to give him our cash. Race did not deserve the blame for our decision.
But even if our own intentions were pure, the reality of his life and neighborhood spoke volumes against anything I might have had to say, even if I could get the right words out.
His neighborhood, with an almost wholly minority population, is neglected by city, state and federal funding. There is only one grocery store to serve an area with over 30,000 residents.
By contrast, the area of town from which we hail—the neighborhood where our university stands—is rich, vibrant and over-funded. We have gourmet grocery stores and a public pool with a waterslide. We have well-manicured parks, expensive bronzes and plentiful fountains. We have an active police force that will stop you from going 31 in a 30. While the laws and intentions may be written and professed to be colorblind, the reality is not.
We live in a supremely divided city. The difference between affluent areas likes North Dallas, the Park Cities and Uptown and poor areas like West Dallas could not be more marked. The history of West Dallas runs deep and divided, but the social amnesia seems to begin on the north banks of the Trinity River.
How can we forget so quickly that just 10 minutes away exist areas on the brink of disaster? How can we stand to live in a city where half of us live like royalty and the other half like slaves? But most importantly, what can we do about it?
Rebecca Quinn is a senior art history, Spanish and French triple major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
