By James Thompson
HOUSTON-On December 14, 2013 there was a runoff election for the District 1 trustee position on the Houston Community College Board Of Trustees. Zeph Capo, who is Vice President and Legislative Director of the Houston Federation of Teachers, beat incumbent Yolanda Navarro-Flores 53 to 47%.
In the run-up to the runoff election, Navarro-Flores decided to take the low road and tried to brand Capo as a communist. According to an article by Jonathan McElvy on December 13, 2013 (which I just accidentally discovered in the last week), Navarro-Flores stuffed mailboxes with preposterous allegations against Capo “One of her mailers spotlighted that Capo had been ‘Arrested, Charged and Convicted’ for blocking a road during a Houston Communist Party and Occupy Houston rally. She even gave us the case number, in case we don’t believe her… That’s rich, but not as rich or odd is what one of her supporters and fellow HCC Trustee Elect Dave Wilson did. Apparently Wilson’s campaign coffers funded a letter to potential voters echoing that Capo was working with the Houston Communist Party. Then things got nasty, as the letter described Capo as a ‘homosexual Democrat that wants to make marriage between a man and a man legal in Texas.'”
Dave Wilson is an anti-gay, white Republican who won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees by campaigning as a black man. Apparently, his campaign literature led the people who read it to believe that he is black.
Navarro-Flores and Capo are both prominent members of the Harris County Democratic Party. Neither Navarro-Flores nor Capo are members of or have worked with the Houston Communist Party now or in the past. Navarro-Flores’ redbaiting tactics did not serve her well. Sen. Joseph McCarthy used similar tactics on a widescale basis in the 1950s and this earned him eternal infamy.
Redbaiting, anti-Communism and homophobia do not work in Houston, Texas. They are both forms of hate speech. Hate speech is a tactic frequently used by Nazis and fascists. We all know what happened to Hitler’s Nazi Germany. We also know the tragic loss of life of millions that Nazism and fascism caused before it was stopped.
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