OUR VOICES: What time is it? Now is the Time!

By Charles O’Neal

Look, there is NO POINT in using logical appeals, data points or moral suasion if given the opportunity to testify AGAINST the educational savings account/voucher bill coursing its way through the Texas Legislature.

Now is the time to summon all the invective, all the opprobrium, all the disdain, all the “you MFs are crazy” that you can muster.

There is NO WAY to convince a legislature hell-bent on spending over a billion dollars to satisfy the parents of 100,000 students, because their illogical, race-based reasoning has pushed them beyond the point of coherence.

Instead, use your testimony to tie this current effort to the DECADES that Black parents spent coaxing, cajoling, offering supplications to the SAME LEGISLATIVE BODY — while they shamelessly took Black taxpayers’ money and gave us old textbooks, used desks, hand-me-down uniforms, no science labs until finally relenting and giving us BUS RIDES!

Don’t let them forget that our appeals for educational opportunity went unanswered. Don’t let them sweep aside the FACT that they – with malice aforethought – treated the educational aspirations of Black Texas students AND PARENTS with utter disdain.

The current effort to attempt to suggest that somehow – ALL OF A SUDDEN – the voucher scam has been crafted with benefit to Black students in mind is a diabolical perversion of its intent.

I think the only way to end this is with this post from 2021:

IT’S TIME TO EAT YOUR SPINACH!

I know I’m dating myself with this one, but you ol’ heads will get it…

When ol’ Bluto/Brutus had sufficiently beat Popeye the Sailor’s ass, Popeye would exclaim “… that’s all I can stans – I can’t stans no more!” Then he’d reach into his magic slide and pull out his can of “whupazz” spinach and commence to wailing on Bluto/Brutus. (You young folks Google a couple episodes of Popeye).

Well, Black Folk, looks like we’ve reached the Popeye Point! EAT YOUR SPINACH!

Charles O’Neal is the President of the Texas Association of African American Chambers of Commerce.