84

Where does City Commissioner John "Cowboy" Cowen stand on the removal of the Jefferson Davis rock located in Washington Park? A member of a "good" gringo family and rejecting any association with the Harlingen Heathens and the "bad" gringos, Cowen is in a position to take a stand against the racism that has existed from the time of slaveholder and Brownsville founder Charles Stillman to the present day as Confederate supporters march in Brownsville parades waving their flags as well as exert pressure on the city council that there will be repercussions if municipal politicians in any way desecrate the memory of Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi slaveholder and president of the Confederacy, who believed that keeping human beings in bondage was a cause worth seceding from the union and dedicated himself to fighting for a crusade that led to the death of more than 600,000 soldiers.

Cowen is building a career walking the thin middle line, but is there a thin middle line when it comes to racism? Do he and the Cowen family support a shrine that was dedicated in 1926 by the Daughters of the Confederacy to impress upon the people of the South--both white and black as well as brown--that the KKK reigned, that Jim Crow was the law of the land in Dixie, that lynching was justified because black men represented a sexual threat to white women and that African-Americans were restricted from Anglo-American establishments? African-Americans were discriminated against in Brownsville, beginning with the Brownsville Independent School District that in its inglorious tradition riddled with incompetence and corruption, which also persists in the present, included segregating these children from the general populace.

Cowen was elected to effect change in Brownsville, but nobody suspected that he would support change that was a slap in the face to local Mexican-Americans as he paid homage to his own Anglo-American roots and culture. The decision haunts him to this day and his detractors insist that he is a closet member of the Harlingen Heathens, the collection of privileged gabachos who have a dishonorable past of using their political clout to put their personal interests ahead of Brownsville's interest. He joined fellow commissioners Rose Gowen, Joel Munguia and Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa and changed Fronton Street, erasing 167 years of history, to Buford Family Drive to honor one of the most despised families in Brownsville who epitomize that Trumpian vanity that white is right, black belongs at the back and brown prospers six-feet underground.

"Racism is rampant in Brownsville," says Maclovio O'Malley. "The KKK used to have its headquarters 30 miles up the road in Harlingen. Forget the ill-treatment of blacks by whites in Brownsville. Mexican-Americans were second-class citizens for decades until the 1960s when minorities started to rise against white tyranny. Look at plaques on public buildings erected before the change began. The names are all Anglo even though Brownsville was 80% Hispanic. We had a city commissioner a few years ago referring to two African-American female lawyers as niggers. The Jefferson Davis rock in big, bold letters shouts NIGGER!!! Cowen is a Notre Dame graduate. He is not a product of the University of Alabama. His uncle, a BISD trustee, was labeled a racist last week. The Cowens are pillars of the community, but are they the white pillars that adorned antebellum mansions or are they the pillars of a society that is no longer going to tolerate racism?"

Trump asserts that Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Confederate traitors are a part of history and the monuments constructed to honor their perfidy should remain untouched. Adolf Hitler was a part of history. Has Germany constructed any monuments to him? Does being a part of history give you a free pass from the wrongs that you committed against your own country? It perpetuates in the minds of those misguided souls clinging to the myths of white supremacy that their wrongs were right. With Trump sowing division, these cockroaches are coming out of the dark and in the light of day are thumbing their noses by demonstrating that the Confederacy was a noble cause. Does Cowen and his family share this delusion? For that matter, does the Lucio family, the Cowen family if the latter were Mexican-American, support removing the sacrilegious rock or are they no different than Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of our greatest presidents, who refused to publicly condemn lynching in 1932. He feared the Southern Democrats would turn against him and cost him the presidency?

"We are demanding that both the Cowen and Lucio clans lead on this issue," avers O'Malley. "Are you a racist or not? If you support keeping the Jefferson Davis rock in its place, you are at best a supporter of racism and at worst a racist. John is in a position to lead on this controversy. He knows that the rock represents hate, brutality and murder, but is he so blinded by his own political ambitions that he rejects his Catholic education at both St. Joseph and Notre Dame and is willing to join rednecks and allow 400 years of racism to fester unchecked? At The Murphy Report we have decided that Commissioner Cowen should spearhead the campaign to place the Jefferson Davis on the trash heap of history. As a Catholic he understands penance, but for his past transgressions an Our Father and Three Hail Marys ain't gonna cut it. He needs to cast this millstone that hangs around the necks of all Brownsville residents into the Gulf of Mexico. Does John have balls? Most people believe he doesn't. Reducing the Jefferson David rock to grains of sand would prove he has gonads of a size that would fill bullfighters with jealously."