Official oppression: What was "Papa" Dupree doing by having intimate relations with his "adopted" son? ("Cold as ICE," by Matt Pulle, January 4.) Why did this law enforcement officer harbor a known offender at his apartment?
Using his official capacity for personal gain is what some would call official oppression. I think it's safe to say Constable Dupree is a sexual predator. This was not his first rodeo.
Jim Gilliand
Waxahachie
Full investigation: I commend my Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield for their recent request to have newly elected Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins investigate what appears to be outright official oppression committed by Dallas County Constable Mike Dupree ("Green-Eyed Monster," by Matt Pulle, January 18). As president of Dallas LULAC Council 4496, our council issued a press release a few weeks ago urging both the Dallas County Commissioners Court and District Attorney Watkins to fully investigate Constable Dupree. His reported abuse of his law enforcement powers represents a gross injustice to our citizenry and to Dallas' Hispanic community.
Jesse Diaz
Dallas
Redeeming Deep Ellum
Something meaningful: Great article ("Life and Death," by Rich Lopez, January 18). Interesting concept. I'm not a Bible-thumper, but I'm a lover of Deep Ellum. I think these guys are on to something very meaningful for the area. Good job!
Mel Abernathy
Garland
Stages of dying: You missed the point: Since I moved to Dallas and Deep Ellum in June, I have read numerous articles in your paper about the "death of Deep Ellum." And yet what each and every one of these articles has failed to see is that Deep Ellum hasn't died. It's just changed.
Deep Ellum no longer wants to be the entertainment area your paper and other people from outside of the area seem to be clinging to. The dance clubs and tattoo parlors will be gone soon, and what will remain are the people who live and work here: the galleries, the marketing and design companies and other entrepreneurs.
It's time for people to stop fighting against the tide and start swimming in a new direction.
Patrick Martin
Dallas
Segregated by Choice
Monochrome schools: It would have been a struggle, but I could have afforded to send my two children to private schools, a choice made by many parents in the late 1980s in the town I was living in at that time, Longview, Texas. I also could have chosen to participate in white flight and moved to the nearly all-white school districts surrounding Longview. Instead, I chose to send my children to Longview ISD schools, a decision which I believe benefited them greatly. The demographics were roughly 50 percent black, 40 percent white and 10 percent Hispanic. The white percentage has shrunken considerably over the past 20 years.
I not only chose to send my children to the Longview schools, but along with several others, founded the Longview ISD Foundation to raise funds to support teachers in the classroom.
My children received an excellent education in a culturally mixed setting. They both intend to send their children to culturally mixed public schools. My fear is that they will have a hard time doing that as time moves on. Why? one might ask.
I call your attention to perhaps the most telling fact contained in the article "Split Decision" (by Matt Pulle, January 11), which is that about 15 years ago, Preston Hollow Elementary was 50 percent Anglo and now is about 18 percent Anglo. That is a steep decline. It speaks volumes about the status of inner-city education and cries out for an article or series of articles attempting to explain why that has happened, whether we should care and what, if anything, can be done to reverse the trend.
I applaud those parents who attempt to buck the trend by sending their children to public schools where they are in the minority. It is not an easy decision. We all need to look at the facts honestly and admit that our schools nationwide are almost as segregated as they were in 1960, and this despite almost 50 years of federal intervention. The truth is that people have choices, and they will generally either move to predominantly single-race public schools or send their children to predominantly single-race private schools.
So in the case of the small number of parents who elected to send their children to Preston Hollow Elementary (and I would submit, without actual knowledge of the facts, that most of those parents elected to do so not for economic reasons but rather because they believe in public education), they are now the subject of scrutiny and scorn.
I am not defending the actions of the principal or the school district. I neither know nor care about those facts. I am focusing on a larger issue that I call the "re-segregation" of schools in America. That is a far more important issue than the one you chose to investigate in "Split Decision."
David Fuller
Dallas
