Surprise, surprise: So former Dallas NAACP President Lee Alcorn developed a taste for his foot last week regarding the nomination of "Jew person" (Alcorn's phrase) Joe Lieberman as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Someone tell Buzz, What exactly was so surprising? Was it that Alcorn might harbor anti-Semitic feelings in his breast, or that he was stupid enough to spout off at what is possibly the worst time ever?
Buzz, who already holds a jaded view of the human heart, votes for stupid. Yet even we didn't think he was quite dumb enough to reveal his thoughts about Jews just now, when any politically savvy person should have known that the media were waiting, guns cocked, for the first remotely anti-Semitic bird to come flapping out of the underbrush. Up pops Alcorn, yammering on local radio about Jew persons' supposed affinity for money.
Blam, blam, blam!
So Alcorn is out as NAACP head and claiming that he only "misspoke" and was taken out of context and he's not really anti-Semitic and was just voicing African-American frustration and, and...and everything but "some of my best friends are Jewish." You know, the usual stuff bigots blather when they're caught.
A parent involved in the fight five years ago over the preservation of the Dallas school district's Townview Talented and Gifted Magnet School tells Buzz that we shouldn't believe any of it (as if). This parent, who asked not to be named, was there as Dallas black leaders complained of a Jewish conspiracy to keep the school, which was disproportionally white, open at the expense of black students.
"They would not say stuff like [two very offensive terms for Jews that Buzz won't repeat]," this parent recalls. But black protesters would call out "Jew principal" or "smart Jew" from their seats, referring to former TAG principal Susan Feibelman or former trustee Sandy Kress. "They were essentially using Jew as a four-letter word."
Alcorn helped lead the charge against the school, and although Buzz's source couldn't recall Alcorn making anti-Semitic remarks himself, he didn't recall Alcorn telling anyone to shut up either.
"It's just such a sad joke that he has this position of leadership," the parent says.
Well, not anymore.
Still, maybe Alcorn can come back some day. Let enough time pass and memories fade, and perhaps Alcorn can recast himself as misunderstood, a failed hero, a friend to all people. History has a way of rewriting itself like that. Hey, it worked for George Wallace.
Some of Buzz's best friends are homo sapiens. Won't you be our friend and write us at patrick.williams@dallasobserver.com. Phone (214) 757-8439 and fax (214) 757-8593.
