Racist Comments Leveled At KISD’s Dibrell Unacceptable; Reformers Fight About Issues And Principle - Not Race

FLASHBACK STORY: An anonymous blogger recently injected the subject of race as a basis of criticizing new Katy I.S.D. school board member Henry Dibrell, an African-American.  This particular blogger, when confronted, ‘doubled-down’ in her comments.  For those of us who are engaged in the battle of ideas on public education reform, we find this assault on Henry totally unacceptable.

Over the years and including recently, I routinely write that my criticisms - often harsh - of Katy I.S.D. school board members and superintendents are based upon issues.  I have written and believe they are all good people.  Given the unwarranted basis of the attack on Henry by this blog-participant,  I am republishing a story about Henry’s life that appeared on George Scott Reports about a year ago.

Henry is a good man and he has an inspirational story.  As a community, we must not allow racist kinds of remarks to enter into any aspect of the debate on public education reform.  So, here’s the flashback story on Henry to help remind us all that good people can disagree and that disagreements - while tough on issues - must recognize there are limits. Racism is one of them.

FLASHBACK STORY ON HENRY DIBRELL - By George Scott

Henry Dibrell believes his life’s story gives him the standing if not moral duty to speak out on trends that he says are poisoning our culture and threatening America’s historical values including a strong work ethic.

“I feel an obligation to become more engaged in my community,” he says.  “I believe there is a role for me to play to bring my experience and values to the debate.”

“And some of it belongs to a local administration and school board that have become increasingly arrogant and abusive of classroom teachers, parents, and taxpayers because they have adopted a know-it-all attitude that locks reformers and critics out of the room,” he said.

The public education system, he believes, is being compromised in the process in a way that jeopardizes the once rock solid institution’s role as the generator of the country’s economic engine.  That is the engine that fueled freedom and opportunity for folks like him who grew up dirt poor in the small rural environment of Sunset, Louisiana.

“Government at every level is sending a message to our children that life is a freeway.  All you have to do is get on it and everything you want will just appear along the path arising magically out of the horizon,” he said.  “Well it’s not. Our message should be that life is a toll road. If you are willing to work and pay the price then you will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.”

Dibrell’s stepfather was a farmer and a construction worker who had an eighth grade education.  His mom was functionally illiterate.  She stopped school in the third grade.  As an adult, she could not read, write, and could only sign her own name.  Divorced when Dibrell was a young child, his mother remarried and he became the second youngest of 10 children in a blended family.

“In every sense of the word, they were victims of their era of segregation and Jim Crow,” Dibrell said.  “I don’t need to be reminded by some liberal apologist that America has never been a perfect nation.  I only have to look at the lives of my father and my mother whose futures were diminished by racism,” Dibrell says.

“But we need to keep in mind that America has always been a more perfect nation by focusing on what their son and the millions of sons and daughters of parents like them and others have been able to accomplish because of the historical core values of America’s work ethic and opportunity.

“I really didn’t realize how poor we were growing up.  It is only looking back in time that has given me a perspective on life as a child and the role that the country played in giving me the chance to pursue my dreams,” he said.  “I was the first in my family to attend and graduate from college.  What I learned is that if you worked and looked hard for opportunity, this great country has it for you.”

From Dibrell’s perspective, the forces of change that threaten America’s core values are like crescendo in music. “It started slow.  Now, the changes in values are coming in waves,” he says.

“It is somewhat easy to look at the federal government and observe clearly how we are transitioning to a socialist nation where favorites are selected, whether that involves groups of people or certain big industries,” he notes.  “Those that get on board the government train are promised the fruits of ‘the ride’ whether that is money or power or both.  That’s pretty easy to see unfold before our very eyes.”

“We know in many ways that state governments have surrendered to a federal role in our economy and lives that should not exist,” he said.

The mention of states’ rights is a sensitive subject even to Dibrell.

“As a Black and as a conservative, I am very familiar with the reality that states’ rights once had a sinister connotation of the power to impose slavery and all of the evil that involved,” Dibrell said.  “White liberal apologists need to get over it. Black liberals need to stop playing the race card as a political tool of personal destruction as we have a debate on the role of government in the 21^st century.”

“We are watching our federal government drain our economic engine; we are watching our state government impose regulations and economic burdens that would not have been acceptable even 20 years ago; and now, we are watching our public education system surrender to political correctness and contrived standards of excellence,” Dibrell said.  “We need to stop listening to the people that want to play the race card on the role of government.”

So just how did Dibrell escape the farm and a family history dominated by racism while achieving a professional career that has taken him around the country and around the world?

“My parents gave me something more valuable than money.  It was a strong work ethic.  It was my high school football coach who would not let me coast.  It was my high school principal that saw something special and gave me a summer job that told me I could make it,” Dibrell said.  “It was the very best of our country telling a poor kid in rural Louisiana: work, work, work.”

“Our football team had a record of 0-30 when the new coach arrived.  He turned it around in one year by turning around our attitude.  It was the final piece of the puzzle that gave me the courage to escape the small town mentality,” he said.

Just what was that small town mentality in Sunset, Louisiana for the black son of rural farmers?

“Buy a trailer and have some kids,” he said.  The alternative for Dibrell was to enroll in Northwestern State University in Louisiana where he earned his degree in marketing.

“When I got to college, I had to work extra hard to keep up.  I committed several hours a night every week night at the library whether I had homework or not.  My goal was to get ahead.  The benefit was that I never got behind,” he said.

“I surrounded myself with the same kind of people.  My friends were those who didn’t come to college to party but to succeed,” he said.

Dibrell’s efforts at college were drawing attention back home in Sunset.  The community newspaper published the names of local students who had earned the Dean’s List at their respective colleges.  The local principal observed his name continually appearing.

That translated into a summer job working in the office of his old high school helping the principal and his staff in organizational work for the school’s next term. “My father came to the school one day in the summer and saw me working in the office while other kids were out working in the yard.  I think that was the day that he understood that life was going to be different for me than a trailer on a piece of land in Sunset,” he said.  “I could see the look on his face when he walked in that day. I am grateful that my parents could see me graduate from college.”

Dibrell’s first professional job after graduation involved marketing for the Dillard’s operation.  It was when he proved to himself that the hard work at college would pay off.  His first assignment was challenging.  It involved the analysis of sales tracking data among the separate stores so that the right clearance merchandise was moved to the right stores.

His success there helped land him a position with the Van Heusen apparel corporation.  This was a pivotal job both in terms of professionalism and political philosophy. Van Heusen has two divisions – retail and manufacturing.

“Most of the clothing in the United States is made in a Van Heusen shop.  It owns lots of private labels that people would recognize in the various department stores,” he said.

The corporation established Dibrell as the classic troubleshooter.  “If a retail outlet was having problems, it was my job to go there and fix the problem.  It involved a lot of travel and a lot of responsibility under pressure.”

It was in this position that the young college Democrat began a change of political perspective.

“My compensation plan was heavy on the bonus side.  By this time, I had a family.  I worked hard to support my growing family and that meant that my bonus was very important to us,” he said.  “I simply could not believe the amount of money that government took out of my bonus.  It made me start asking a lot of questions about my former political viewpoint.”

What has been left untold thus far is the spiritual side of Dibrell.  Another attribute that is rooted in family history is deeply held religious faith that involves the call to serve those less fortunate.

Dibrell’s career path at Van Heusen was on a fast track.  However, the road would have sent him and his family to New Jersey and his family chose not to take the ride.

That is when he turned his marketing prowess into leading a faith-based organization called Turning Point, a group that helped drug addicts and prostitutes in sections of Houston turn their lives around.

Dibrell met the founder of the organization.  It was a meeting that convinced the founder that Dibrell had the skills he had been seeking to give real strength to his inspiration of service.  The founder was right.

Under Dibrell’s leadership, the vision that started essentially in the Montrose area of Houston grew to 13 national chapters and two international ones over the course of the next seven years.  Despite the extraordinary success that Dibrell’s leadership brought to the cause, the incessant travel and time away from the family was draining.

It was his last international trip to Israel that prompted the family to decide that it was time to come home and get off the road.  It was a trip that ended up being fraught with inadvertent danger.

“It was after the 911 terror attacks.  The Mid East was in turmoil, but we didn’t sense any particular danger more than before,” he said.  “Bombs started going off everywhere and our driver was taking us right through the aftermath.”

“My family was seeing all of this on television.  The stress on my family was just enormous,” he said.  “My wife was pregnant with our third child and we were in the process of adopting a child as well.  It was time to come home to a more stable pattern.”

The next step was to become executive pastor at the Heights Assembly of God Church in Houston.  Once again, it was a job that leaned heavily on Dibrell’s impressive administrative skills but also involved pastoral duties.  He stayed there through 2009.

Dibrell followed that with a brief, intermediary step in the Rev. Kirby Jon Caldwell’s church primarily assisting Suzette Caldwell launch a new book as part of the Kingdom Builder’s Prayer Institute.

It was then that he met a person who has become an important professional figure in his life – Sherron Watkins of Enron whistleblower fame. She serves on the board of Lifehouse Houston, a Christian-based residential facility providing care, counseling, and support for young women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, Dibrell notes.

“Sherron recruited me to the Lifehouse Board of Directors because she had confidence in my background, values, and skills to help the organization at a very critical moment in its history,” he said.  Dibrell currently serves as Executive Director of the organization.

“It is an organization that performs truly outstanding ministry for young women who are facing an incredible challenge.  Given my background and the respect that I have gained for Sherron, it was not a position I could decline,” Dibrell said.

Whether it is a position that I will remain has not yet been decided.  “I know it had a need and extraordinary board that believed I was the right person at the right time.  I was honored to be asked to step in on very short notice. We’ll see where the future leads,” he said.

What is more certain is that Dibrell is prepared to follow any road that keeps him in contact with his values and his family.

He and wife Delia have four children.  The oldest is a 15-year old sophomore at Katy High School.  They have a 13-year old freshman at Katy High along with two third-graders at Cimarron Elementary School.

Beyond his professional life, Dibrell is very concerned about the leadership he sees in public education.

“I believe it is my responsibility to my own family and to my community to take an active role in trying to address important issues in public education,” he said.

Because of his concerns, Dibrell decided very late in the cycle to challenge Katy I.S.D. incumbent board member Joe Adams in last year’s election.

“While I did not win in my first effort, the experience convinced me that new leadership – whether on the board or in the community – is needed to bring genuine financial and academic reform to Katy I.S.D.,” he said.

“I think more and more people in Katy are beginning to understand that the top leadership of the school district including the majority of the members of the board of trustees is locking out real input from the citizens.”

“From curriculum to construction, this is a board and an administration that are not comfortable with honest, open debate.  The façade of input they have created through carefully selected, handpicked members of the public does not work to the advantage of our students, our teachers, or our taxpayers,” he said.

“We have a school district that is outstanding in many ways.  We have outstanding teachers.  However, Katy is not immune from the powerful forces that are destroying public education, and the superintendent and the board must stop pretending that we are immune.”

Does Dibrell expect to maintain an active presence in the public debate on a full range of educational issues involving Katy I.S.D.?

“Absolutely,” Dibrell says.

“There are profound issues that are affecting the quality of education that thousands of our children in Katy are receiving.  There is plenty of blame to go around.  Some of it can be assigned to a national power grab by the Department of Education.  Some of it can be assigned to a state government that has allowed a system of accountability to misrepresent what’s happening,” he said.