Fort Bend loves to call itself the most diverse county in America. We put it on the brochures. We say it at the ribbon cuttings.
Here’s the problem. Diversity isn’t a strength by itself. It becomes a strength when a community actually acts like one. Right now, too much of Fort Bend isn’t acting like one. It’s acting like a set of rival camps that happen to share a zip code.
Let me be very clear about what tribalism means here. It’s not cultural pride. It’s not community organizing. Those build people up. Tribalism is politics run on “our group first.” That pattern is playing out across this county right now, and it deserves to be named.
After the Taral Patel scandal, in which a Democratic candidate stood accused of posting racist comments about himself under fake online accounts, community groups reportedly approached Commissioner Andy Meyers’ (his opponent) camp. The terms were plain: support in exchange for a hire. He already has a Hindu staffer, they said. Now hire a Muslim. Call it what it looks like. That’s quid pro quo. Whatever the intent, the message was blunt: a seat at the table should be handed out by identity, not by who’s actually qualified to do the job. Did Meyers do it? No.
Commissioner Dexter McCoy faced something similar. He’s been criticized for not having enough black members on staff. Are his staffers educated and qualified and good at their jobs? Doesn’t matter, they weren’t black enough for some members of the community.
Now look at the narrative being spun around Fort Bend Democratic Party Chair Jennifer Cantu and judicial candidate Paula Miller. Cantu declared Miller ineligible for a county court seat over a state residency requirement. Miller has to this date not filed anything successfully and the Texas Supreme Court called one of her filings “AI-fabricated hallucinations” while refusing to rule in her favor. Miller’s camp called it an attempt to “artificially create a ballot vacancy and disenfranchise the voters.” The residency question, the kind of thing settled by paperwork, not passion, was being sold publicly as racial targeting of a Black candidate.
I’ve got example after example of this. A candidate getting blasted by other candidates for reaching out to voters across party lines. A candidate telling a crowded room he hates Islam. A corrupt county head being “defended” by others because she just so happens to be in the same sorority. A local political party not lambasting a disastrous decision by a partisan judge to appoint a nominee to the position he’s seeking, because, well, it’s a win for their party. It’s all fucking tribalism.
That’s the cost. The law be damned. Tribalism splits political power that could otherwise be decisive. It turns “most diverse county in America” into a marketing slogan instead of what could be an absolutely beautiful and uniting thing.
None of this comes from nowhere. People cluster for real reasons: safety, language, history, a hard-earned wariness of being the only one in the room. That history is exactly why our judges, our leaders, our “journalists,” our community organizers owe us better. Their job is to build bridges, not cash in on division for turnout or headlines.
Diversity turns into strength the day coalitions form across community lines on shared problems. It turns into strength when hiring gets decided by qualification, not quota. It turns into strength when a legal dispute gets treated like a legal dispute, not a weapon.
Fort Bend is highly educated. We have great voter turnout compared to most places, we have low crime, we have great schools. As a whole we are successful. Most rooms of power I sit in are filled with the rainbow. But those rooms are deeply divided and the tension I feel as an intuitive empath gives me headaches.
Is there still racism? Hell yes. Is there still disparity? Of course. Have groups of people been systematically kept away from power based on the color of their skin? For centuries. Are there still many problems to fix? Indubitably.
But that doesn’t get corrected when the Good Ole Boys Club swaps color and gender. Power is just changing hands not changing systems. We need principled stateswomen and men. If you can’t call out wrong even when it’s within your own tribe or your own party, you aren’t principled.
If you need tribalism to stay in power or to grab power, you are just continuing the same system that keeps us in the mess we’re in. If you want a seat at the table to make real and lasting change, build coalition, build movement, convince voters to vote for you because you have vision and leadership not just for your tribe but for all tribes.
Fort Bend won’t fix this tomorrow. But every resident, every leader, gets to choose which county they’re building. I vote for merit, rule of law and justice. I vote for unity over manufactured division. I vote no on tribalism.
All my love,
All my light,
All my best,
Jess