Where Does "I Don't See Color" End?

An Homage to My Mentor Compels Me To Ask

The basement walls of the Texas State Capitol building are lined with pictures. Black and white “class pictures” of every Texas legislative body, going back decades, hang everywhere. Most folks just rush right past them on their way to a committee hearing, or to take a pee.

But these pictures tell a story.

I want to tell you the story of one set of those photos; and also talk about so-called “DEI programs,” and “diversity” more broadly.

I was at the State Capitol in Austin last week, to give the invocation for the legislature. But, I always make a pilgrimage to a specific set of photos, any time I am in the building.

Just outside the basement level Men’s restroom, across the hall from the end of the stairs, you’ll see this display of the 1969 state legislature class. And then, off in one corner, you’ll find a close-up photo of my friend and mentor: Dr. Zan Wesley Holmes Jr.

It’s still a surprise to some in Dallas when they learn Dr. Zan Holmes served in the legislature; since he’s far more well known as a legendary United Methodist clergy in Dallas.

Dr. Holmes was one of Dallas’ greatest civil rights/civic leaders of the past half century. (Really, all of history…) During his tenure at St. Luke “Community” UMC, some of the most important meetings in Dallas took place in his pastoral study.

Before his retirement to California, Dr. Holmes lived out a fierce loyalty to the Bible and his faith, a commitment to social justice, and a model of social change that involved alternatively pushing against and working within the “systems” of government and church.

I was so fortunate to take multiple classes with him at Perkins School of Theology, including a senior seminar in preaching; which mainly consisted of nine of us students, sitting at his feet, listening to him tell stories of the civil rights era in Dallas. He’s been a friend, and trusted mentor, ever since.

And so it was that, as part of those “war stories” he told us in class, I came to know of Zan’s service in the legislature.

Barbara Jordan, Curtis Graves, and Joe Lockwood had been elected to the legislature in 1966….together breaking a color barrier that had existed since the last gasps of Reconstruction in….1896.

Yes, the story of these pictures begins with remembering that between 1896 and 1966 —seventy years on the nose—members of the Texas statehouse were almost all White men.
(Disclosure: My great uncle was among them for a brief season too…)

But then, tragically, Joe Lockwood died in a plane crash. Jordan was elected up and out to Congress. And so, Zan was approached and encouraged to take Lockwood’s seat, to try and keep open the tiny crack in that creaky, seventy-year-old, door.

But, take a good look again at that class picture. Look at all White men. Unless I’m missing it, there appears to be just one woman in the entire bunch (Sissie Farenthold), a few Latinos, Curtis Graves, and….Zan.

And then….look at where Zan is. They stuck him at the very bottom-right of the display….as if somebody was hoping you just wouldn’t notice him.
As if maybe he might just slip off.

As if.

Imagine what it must have been like to be among the very first African-Americans to serve in those halls in seventy years.

By the way, it’s less well remembered that Zan did the same thing for the United Methodist Church around that same time. Zan became the first African-American District Superintendent in Dallas, appointed by Bishop McFerrin Stowe.

And —even less well remembered, and never spoken of— was the resistance of White churches at the time.

Zan shared this story with me in the mid-2010s, when we had him as our “Revival Preacher” at Northaven UMC for a several night event. Sitting my study, Zan was suddenly wistful as he recalled Northaven’s support of him in, back in those days.

Apparently many White Dallas Methodist churches balked at having an African-American as District Superintendent. They approached Bishop Stowe with threats.

So, Bishop Stowe —for better or worse— carved up Dallas such that White churches were allowed to decide which district they wanted to be in. Zan got a bit misty-eyed recalling how a few White churches, Northaven included, stood with him through that time.

Again, I had never heard of any of this. (Nobody I know ever talks about this now, and nobody I know has ever fully told this story before that moment)

As Zan spun story that day in my office, this solution by Bishop Stowe and Zan felt strategically brilliant, morally flawed, and enragingly familiar….all at the same time.

So, I asked Dr. Holmes, “What happened to those separate districts?”

In his typically self-deprecating style he replied,

“Well…after a couple of years, everybody saw what fun we were having in OUR district, and they all just came and joined us…”

Again, I have to assume there is far more to this story.

I have to assume it was not nearly the smooth transition that Dr. Holmes’ historical self-deprecation would allow.

I have to assume there is far more to his story as a legislator too.

But Zan was never one to talk about his difficulties, personally. He was too busy advocating for change of his community, and for all people.

But…look at those pictures, down in the Capitol basement, again.
Look at all those White faces.
Look at Dr. Holmes, off in that very bottom right corner.

A big part of the mess we are in, right now, is that White people utterly fail to comprehend just how difficult those societal gains were, how long they took, and how tenuous they always were. And still are.

We have some fantasy in our brains that wants to believe “Well, yeah, things were bad then…but it’s all better now….”

As if permanent social change happens in an instant.
As if the story doesn’t include blood, sweat, and tears at every step.
As if White people everywhere transmogrified into Ibram X Kendi-quoting anti-racists…sometime around 1970s.

As if.

White folks fail to acknowledge that both in the church and in the statehouse: nobody ever just gave up power willingly.
White people apparently have multiple fantasies about their own past and history.

When African-Americans celebrate Juneteenth, we White folks apparently fantasize that the White people of Texas just hadn’t gotten the memo (maybe the telegraphs were broken?) instead of the more likely truth that they were intentionally enslaving people for one, final harvest season.

When General Granger read that Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, we apparently pretend that White folks were so emotionally moved by the sheer force of the words that they all said…

“Oh! My bad…well I’m glad to know Black people are free now…Good for them…”

No. That proclamation was only enforced because of the existence of two thousand Federal troops, standing behind General Granger the day. The words landed because of the full force of two thousand Union troops with guns, standing behind the guy reading the edict.
(See: “Juneteenth And the Power of Power” for more on this…)

But as Reconstruction ended, those troops eventually left and —shock of shocks— Black people stopped getting elected to leadership in Texas until 1966.

It took seventy years of fighting back against racially restrictive neighborhood covenants, “Blacks only” water fountains and buses, a rising number of Confederate monuments, and separate but equal schools in every city.

That Jim Crow era…that’s the time we White folks still don’t like to talk about.

The trouble with White people saying “I don’t see color,” is that brain science so clearly tells us this is a lie.

Don’t misunderstand me, I believe that White people believe “I don’t see color” when they say it. But, it does’t make it true, just because they believe it.

Brain science indicates just how primal our Otherizing tendencies really go, deep within the recesses of our brains.

ALL OF US.

Everybody —Blacks, Whites, Latinos, AAPI, everyone— reacts *positively* toward those who “look like us,” and negatively toward those who do not.

This brain science applies to all human brains.

Meaning: We all have biases.

Civil Rights legislation, “DEI programs”…. these things were designed to level the playing field. They weren’t perfect. I’m sure they could have been tweaked and made better. And, most importantly, they were never designed to exclude White people, or punish them for being White. (That is, frankly, it’s own fascinating psychological “projection” on the part of White people….)

What Civil Rights law and DEI actually did was: Promote fair competition.

But, look, maybe we are no longer in place where I, as a White man, make this point without being accused of being a “race traitor.”
I get it.

Civil Rights, and Voting Rights, laws are being reversed.
DEI is under attack.
And, no, as a White man, I don’t agree any of this.
And, also no, that doesn’t make a “race traitor.”

That makes me a White man who can read history, and knows the story behind that 1968 picture.

Any state like Texas where —in my lifetime— James Byrd can be lynched and Chrystal Mason thrown in jail? That’s a state that still clearly needs the help of the Federal government, no matter what anybody else says.

But the Federal government that provided that protection doesn’t exist right now.

The Trump Administration believes the myth of “I don’t see color.”

But, they are not only cheering the destruction of DEI and Civil Rights laws; they’re also actively erasing all mention of “diversity” itself.

Note the difference.

Not just destroying the laws and programs.
Also erasing the story, the history, of diversity itself.

This is the final danger of “I don’t see color."

The Trump Administration has scrubbed the mention of things like the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Codebreakers, and even “The Enola Gay.”

And while there’s little to cheer in the horrific destruction of Japanese cities, you’d at least think some Federal worker somewhere would know the difference between an airplane named after a woman, and one named after a sexual orientation.

I mean, that ridiculous story alone shows you just WHY we need to understand the true history of diversity.

So, as I snapped my picture of Zan’s picture last week, a thought crossed my mind:

Where does this end?
How far does the desire to erase diversity itself…go?

Because if you can’t allow Navajo Codebreakers on historical websites, how long before somebody erases this picture of Zan too?

No. That’s not a crazy question.

That’s a “let’s play this out to its logical extreme” question, entirely reasonable for our time.

I mean, if any mention of diversity is a problem to be solved, then maybe we should just take down ALL the portraits.

Because, you know: “We don’t see color.”

Finally, you know we are in a crazy time when both schools and businesses are afraid to speak about DEI or diversity…out of fear…but I as a preacher still can.

They still haven’t come for our ability to teach '“diversity,” and to encourage it inside the church. Ironically, religious institutions become one of the LAST places where it’s “legal” to talk about such things.

And, I assure you, some of us will.

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We are all human, and we all have biases.

That, ironically, is one of the things a good “DEI program” teaches us; what the ones I was once part of taught me. Failing to know our history, pretending it didn’t happen, erasing the story, these are dangerous choices.

Very dangerous.

There is no more dangerous myth than the myth of White innocence.

I’m not too sure White guilt is so great, either. But I know that White innocence has been, as continues to be, a deep societal problem.

And I know that the “I don’t see color” theory of this current administration is simply reinforcing a fanciful, wishful, history many, many White people dearly want to believe.

Where does “I don’t see color” ultimately lead?

Not sure I want to know.

So, for now, every time I visit the Texas State Capitol, I will continue to pay homage to my mentor, Dr. Zan W. Holmes.

Because, given where we are, it’s totally fair to assume that, one day, I might not be able to.