Bogus Mayor's Anti-Hate Advisory Council and collusion by supposed supporters of social justice. Update: Mormons refuse mailing. Thanksgiving Square reorg/breakup
Letter to Almas Muscatwalla, Executive Director of Thangs Giving Foundation calling out her collusion.
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NOTE: This post will be updated with additional information as more correspondance is sent out.
Introduction
In response to an earlier letter to Dallas Mayor Johnson about the need for a human rights commission and a Dallas Police Dept. Hate Crimes Unit, I got a letter from Dist. 12, City Council member Cara Mendelsohn that the Mayor had formed an Anti-Hate Advisory Council. My freedom of information request to the City of Dallas and other researchers showed that it was merely a media event with little or no substance.
One of the persons appointed to this council was Almas Muscatwalla, Executive Director of the Thanks-Giving Foundation.
This letter to Almas Muscatwalla discusses how her actions supported this effort by Mayor Johnson to appear to be doing something, but not actually doing something. Within the letter is a detailed history of the earlier correspondance and issues. The mailed letter just has the links, but for this post, I have preview links.
On of the obstacles Dallas faces in getting support for human rights is the collusion of those who allow themselves to be used in ways that block human rights actions.
Every individual who participated in this Advisory group is going to be called out if they haven’t resigned yet. More correspondance is coming.
List of the people getting the above letter is at the end of this newsletter post.
Copies of this letter will be sent to over 90 people who are listed at the Thanks Giving Foundation webpage who have some official role with that organization.
September 18, 2023
Edward H. Sebesta
Dallas, TX
Almas Muscatwalla
Executive Director
Thanksgiving Foundation
P.O. Box 131770
Dallas, Texas 75313-1770
Dear Director Muscatwalla:
Recently District 12 Dallas City Council Member Cara Mendelsohn wrote a letter to me in response to my correspondence to Dallas Mayor Johnson, copied to all the Dallas City Council members, about the need for a Human Rights Commission and a Dallas Police Hate Crimes Unit. She suggested that I consider the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council as something that addressed my expressed need.
This newsletter post has the letter to which Hon. Mendelsohn responded to with her letter.
The letter to Mayor Johnson makes reference to these newsletter posts about the need for a DPD hate crimes unit and human rights commission.
This newsletter post has my reply to Hon. Mendelsohn’s letter.
My Freedom of Information Act, C006896-081323, request about any relevant record at all with the City of Dallas came up with nothing regarding the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council, nothing. The group appears to be merely an informal private affair with no official standing and no actions with the City of Dallas.
Checking online for any website for the advisory council or any reports by or about the council, or any records at all as to what the Anti-Hate Advisory Council did or said or anything came up as a zero.
It seems there was a big media splash and then nothing. Perhaps privately members sent emails, but nothing seems to have come of it.
The City of Fort Worth has had a Human Relations Commission, which is basically a Human Rights Commission going back to 1967. Dallas has nothing. This newsletter post is about the need for a Dallas Human Rights Commission.
https://dallasgayliberation.substack.com/p/dallas-needs-a-human-rights-commission
The following newsletter discusses the need for a Dallas Police Dept. hate crimes Unit.
https://dallasgayliberation.substack.com/p/dallas-police-dept-needs-a-hate-crimes
It would seem that anyone with the least concern over human rights or opposing hate would want the City of Dallas to have a human rights commission. Did any of the members of the group ask for a human rights commission, do you have any record of actually asking for a human rights commission, and if so, what was the reply?
The persons giving invocations at the Dallas City Council meetings included some fairly vicious homophobes. Yet, did the Thanksgiving Foundation say a word, the group that gurgles and babbles happy thoughts about faith and acceptance, say a word about these vicious homophobes. No, they didn’t. I raised the issue and it stopped. To report on the homophobes, I had to do three posts.
Even then I still needed to report on yet another group that I wasn’t able to report on immediately.
It fairly obvious that the Anti-Hate Advisory Council was a media event designed to make it look like something was done so that actually doing something could be avoided, like a human rights commission.
A person would have to be fairly obtuse not to realize, if not when the group was formed, at least shortly after the formation, that the entire thing was nothing but a media event without substance. I suppose it is resume’ building for those in the social justice trades to have been mentioned as being appointed to this council.
To have accepted the appointment knowing that this council wasn’t substantial or to have continued without publicly resigning when it was realized that it wasn’t substantial is collusion with the establishment against real action for human rights.
The LGBT in Dallas are under siege.
1. Drag shows all over Dallas have been shut down.
2. Within 22 to 24 minutes of the Cedar Springs Strip there is a church calling for the government to execute homosexuals.
3. An LGBTQ friendly church in Plano was recently firebombed.
4. A shop owner in California was recently shot because she had a Pride flag on her store.
5. There continues to be incendiary rhetoric about Pride Events in Dallas and North Texas.
6. The Dallas Independent School District is being targeted.
7. Dallas City Hall is being targeted.
Yet, what is offered to me in response to very real concerns about the security and human rights of the LGBT in Dallas, is something that was a media puff piece, a sham. Perhaps the Advisory Council did some minor token things, perhaps my Freedom of Information Request wasn’t executed properly, but unless the Advisory Council urged the formation of a human rights commission, it was essentially an activity that undermined human rights in Dallas.
If there is a shooting on Cedar Springs, I am sure the clerical worthies of Thanksgiving Square will efflorescence with sad, sad words and oceans of sentiment. What would be better would be no shooting in the first place.
If there is a shooting, those who give the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council credibility will be complicit in the deaths of LGBT as will those who imped action to effectively prevent such a massacre such as happens at LGBT venues in the United States.
Dallas is the way it is, not just because of the substantial reactionary forces in the city, but also due to the willingness of those who purportedly are for human rights and social justice to collude with superficial actions done to substitute for substantial action.
I call upon you, as well as all the members of the Anti-Hate Advisory Council to do the following:
1. Publicly resign from the Council so it no longer can be pushed as a substitute for real action on human rights.
2. Not accept membership in any similar body or group which has no substantial basis regarding human rights.
To continue to be known as a member of the Mayor’s Anti-Hate Advisory Council and thus giving it credibility is to be an enemy of the LGBT and an enemy of human rights.
In the future to be part of such type superficial activities is to be an enemy of the LGBT and an enemy of human rights.
During the 1960s I was very impressed by my great aunt’s support for civil rights. However, my mother cautioned me, “She’s liberal for a giggle.”
It is a free country. You giggle all you want. Just don’t let it get in the way of human rights.
Sincerely Yours,
Edward H. Sebesta
Mormons refuse mail.
“Refused”
I checked the address. It was the correct address on the Duncanville Chamber of Commerce webpage. One of their pages had the address I used for their History Center at their building.
Breakup/Reorg at Thanksgiving Square
When I went back to check on her affiliations with Thanksiving I noticed that their website had been redesigned.
Before on this website you would find a drop down with links to Faith Forward Dallas and the Interfaith Council.
You don’t find anything except info on the Thanksgiving foundation now using their website as intended.
I did find this URL on their website by using the Google Advance Search. It directs you to the Faith Forward Dallas website.
https://thanksgiving.org/faithforwarddallas/
https://web.archive.org/web/20231106011948/https://thanksgiving.org/faithforwarddallas/
[I like to have Internet Archive links so webpages are archived and don’t disappear forever.]
However, in tracking down their website, you see that it has expired. It had existed, but now doesn’t.
The Interfaith Council webpage still exists. You can’t get to it directly from the front page of Thanksgiving Foundation. I think it is some type of remnant page left on the server after the website was redesigned.
https://thanksgiving.org/interfaithcouncil/
https://web.archive.org/web/20231106012758/https://thanksgiving.org/interfaithcouncil/
Using Google Advanced search I could find Almas Muscatwall on website pages, but in trying to find officially who is the staff and officers of the group, I didn’t find her.
https://thanksgiving.org/thanksgivingfoundation/organization/
I basically regard Thanksgiving Square as a group that will produce big nothings of find sounding words as a substitute for real action. So this breakup is a good thing. It probably was in the works before I did the mailings, but maybe my mailings got this change moving faster than originally planned.
The names of the people in the Faith Forward Dallas lent luster to Thanksgiving Square and being listed on Thanksgiving Square gave luster to Faith Forward Dallas.
This isn’t a huge advance for the LGBT in Dallas, but it is a step on the way, and I wanted to have it documented. Part of our going forward will be clearing away obstacles.
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This image has been updated with a complete image. The earlier image had omitted some rows. (11/5/2023)
