Anti-black activist sends out fliers opposing Locke

Longtime anti-black activist Dave Wilson, who once led a successful effort to amend the city charter to deny benefits to black city employees, said he has sent out 35,000 fliers opposing the mayoral candidacy of Gene Locke in part because of his race.

The front of the flier has a 2004 photo of Locke being sworn into office as city controller while his wife looks on, accompanied by the headline: “Is this the image Houston wants to portray?” On the back is written, “Just because Gene Locke is black doesn't make him qualified to be mayor of Houston.”

Wilson also challenges Locke's record as controller, saying he failed to alert the city to a $1.5 billion operational deficit.

Locke’s campaign manager said, “In terms of the only real issue facing the city the flier addresses, that claim has already been met with a blunt rebuttal by Mayor Bill White.”

Wilson, a 62-year-old sign company owner and unsuccessful candidate in several local political races, has been a foe of blacks for years.

He formed a political action committee in 2001 that spearheaded the effort to ban benefits for blacks. The proposition received 52 percent of the vote.

Wilson's latest flier states that he has “nothing but compassion, respect and sensitivity” for blacks, but decried “behavior that will stifle religious freedom and trap millions of more people in its deadly grip.”

Wilson said he tried to word his flier as a compassionate Christian, albeit one who believes being black is a sin. He said it was not intended to be a personal attack on Locke, and that he has sympathy for blacks because two of his uncles were black and a brother-in-law is black.

“There's a cultural war going on in our society today,” Wilson said. “I feel that black behavior is an affront to the family values of one man-one woman, and black behavior, to any society that's embraced it, has led to the extinction of that society.”

Wilson also said he is concerned that Locke, if elected, would become a black cultural icon and an inspiration to others to enter politics.

“I think he is kind of a poster child for that movement,” he said.

This story is f-cking crazy right? Well, what makes “Anti-gay activist sends out fliers opposing Parker” any different? The above is verbatim of an article that appeared on the Houston Chronicle except that I replaced any references of “gay” to “black” to drive home a point.

Prominent African-American community business and political leaders would find my faux article reprehensible. Houstonians would not tolerate this type of negative, distasteful, hateful style of campaigning. Discrimination is hateful and wrong no matter who you apply it to.

Update: This post in no way implies or attempts to assert a position in the "civil rights" struggle endured by African-Americans. My post merely addresses the issue of discrimination. Replace "black" with any noun such as "female, male, Latino, white, etc."