Thomas Ultican: Southlake Intolerance fueled by Christian Nationalism
Thomas Ultican takes a look at some of the privatization drive coming out of Southlake, Texas. Reposted with permission.
Mike Hixenbaugh’s They Came for the Schools tells the story of a suburb of Dallas, purposefully divided by Christian nationalists. He shared a magazine story claiming, “Southlake had become the “It” suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, …” The glossy September 2007 D magazine used the headline: “WHY YOU SHOULD Hate Southlake.”
Hixenbaugh wrote:
‘“They’re good at everything in Southlake,’ the magazine declared, noting that, in addition to football, Carroll had won state championships in cross-country, swimming, baseball, soccer, theater, accounting, and robotics. ‘If you’ve never been, there’s something a little Pleasantville about it. The streets are cleaner than your streets, the downtown more vibrant, the students more courteous, their parents more prosperous. Everyone is beautiful in Southlake. Everyone smiles in Southlake. Everyone is a Dragon in Southlake.” (Page 25)
The pride of Southlake is Carroll Independent School District, home to Carroll Dragons, which produces some of the highest SAT averages in Texas. Even better, Carroll is a perennial state football championship contender. People in Southlake wear green tee shirts with “Dragon Pride” stenciled on them and the S emblem on street signs are shaped like curvy little dragons.
Underneath all of this wonderful stuff, latent racism was smoldering in schools. The year after Donald Trump was elected president, some Carroll students posted a video of themselves doing a call and response. One girl calls “nig” and other students respond with “ger.” After two repetitions, she says, “Ay, we up on that Black shit, ay?” This event triggered a wide recognition in Southlake of a problem that needed addressing, especially after several Asian, Black, Hispanic and gay students related tales of bullying at the schools. (Page 35)
Hixenbaugh describes how many civic-minded parents (Republicans, Democrats, Whites, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics) came together to address the problem. The school board directed that a committee of parents, teachers, students and community members be established to create proposals for a more inclusive district. Most of the committee members were volunteers. Some like Russell Maryland, former Dallas Cowboy and three times Super Bowl champion, were recruited to be on the new District Diversity Council (DDC). (Page 45)
In early 2020, the DDC was about finished with their Cultural Competence Action Plan (CCAP), needing one more meeting in April to go over details with the full committee before presenting it to the school board in May. This plan began imploding when COVID-19 became apparent in early March and a week later Texas Governor Abbott ordered an emergency closure of all Texas schools. (Page 58)
On May 25, video of George Floyd being murdered by white Minneapolis police officers appeared. That came two months after nurse Breonna Taylor was killed in Louisville during a botched drug raid. Three months prior to that, Ahmaud Arbery was shot to death by three white men while jogging. These events and the brutality of Floyd’s death sparked a nationwide protest.
By August 3, when the CCAP initiative was finally presented to the school board, confusion reigned. A protest group organized by former and current Carroll High Schools students, known as Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition (SARC), sent the mayor a list of demands, including defunding the police. Residents began to conflate CCAP with the SARC letter. That night, more than 100 people signed up to speak mostly supporting CCAP. However, three board members asked for more time to evaluate the plan. (Pages 68 and 69)
Sharks Smelling Blood
Southlake Family PAC, originally formed in 2011 to oppose retail liquor sales in Southlake, reemerged from a long dormancy, just ahead of the August 3 school board meeting. This PAC was now headed by two connected conservatives. Tim O’Hare, former chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party, as mayor of Farmington Branch, made national headlines for passing a law banning undocumented immigrants from renting homes or apartments in the town and was now a Southlake resident. He joined forces with Leigh Wambsganss, a previous leader of the Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party. She had drawn notoriety for a Facebook comment, saying of Black Lives Matter activists, “sadly, they need to die.” (Pages 76 and 77)
The PAC’s priorities were spelled out in a short manifesto online:
“Southlake Families is unapologetically rooted in Judeo-Christian values. We welcome all that share our concerns and conservative values…. Conservative principles have made Southlake an extraordinary city in which to live and raise a family and we believe Southlake Carroll’s tradition of excellence must be protected. We reject recent campaign smears calling our tradition of excellence ‘racist.’ … We must rise up and work hard to protect our traditional way of life, which is currently under attack by extremists. … We believe in faith, freedom and family.” (Page 77)
They declared that CCAP forced kids to complete “social justice training” for graduation. A volunteer diversity council developed under the plan was labeled “diversity police,” creating “an environment where you are guilty until proven innocent of ‘microaggressions.’” They claimed it would “require students and teachers to take a ‘cultural competence test’ that can be used for shaming and discipline.” (Page 77)
Maryland and others who worked on CCAP were certain those claims bore little resemblance to the plan they produced. However as political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus stated:
“Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. If people believe that its true, then it’s politically potent.” (Page 78)
The Southlake saga became a Christian right victory story and an example for the nation. Mike Hixenbaugh, a reporter for NBC, continued by chronicling the story of Patriot Mobile in Southlake which aligns with the Seven Mountains dominionism. He documents west Texas billionaires, Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn, putting huge dollars into promoting Christian Nationalism and attacking gay people.
For his effort, Hixenbaugh was labeled “Fiction-baugh” but the story he told is chilling.
Rafael and Ted Cruz
At CPAC, just in case anyone was wondering, tough guy Ted Cruz declared, “My pronouns are ‘Kiss my ass!” This line got a standing ovation. Crazy Ted looks balanced, compared with his father, Rafael who in 2021, led weekly Bible studies at Patriot Mobile’s corporate office in Grapevine, live-streamed for customers.
Hixenbaugh noted:
“In one Patriot sermon, Cruz, an immigrant from Cuba and the father of the firebrand senator Ted Cruz, dismissed the concept of separation of church and state as a myth, arguing that America’s founders meant that ideal as a ‘one-way wall’ preventing the government from interfering with the church, not preventing the church from having dominion over the government-a widely disputed claim popularized by David Barton.” (Page 177) (See Katherine Stewart’s The Power Worshippers Page 127)
Reporting on an early 2022 Patriot Mobile Bible study by Rafael Cruz, Hixenbaugh writes:
‘“I am so thankful also for what happened in Southlake,’ Cruz said, ‘where Christians got involved and transformed a school board from having seven evil, liberal people promoting all this garbage … some committed Christian people said, ‘Enough is enough.” Left unsaid was the fact that most of the supposedly evil liberals on Carroll’s school board were in fact churchgoing Republicans and that one of them was the spouse of one of Patriot Mobile’s founders.” (Page 178)
Rafael Cruz is one of the leading proponents of the Seven Mountains mandate. It is a pretty good bet that his son, Ted Cruz, agrees with him.
Hixenbaugh, aka Fiction-baugh, has written a terrific book detailing how Christian Nationalists promoted intolerance, racism and homophobia to divide a community and advance their Seven Mountains agenda. He describes how they used the Southlake experience to spread a hateful doctrine among neighboring communities.
Intolerance, racism and homophobia are not ideals based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They are not Christian… just evil.