CNN had a story recently about Vidor's racist past. When the reporter talked to this enormously huge fat woman (eating, because what else would she be doing?) She said that she didn't mind black people, but "mingling with them" or "eating with them" was where she drew the line. Typically, the town was in an uproar over the story. They went back to talk to some more enormously fat people that said Vidor is not racist.
We don't know if Vidor is a racist town or not, we don't even know where Vidor is. But, what we do know from the CNN story is that this town has a lot bigger fish to fry than racism. It's got the ugliest and fattest people we've ever seen on TV. We aren't talking slightly overweight here, we're talking "Oh. My. God. How do they fit in a car?" obesity.
UPDATE: A reader emailed me the link to the YouTube. You have to see it.
My father in law grew up in Vidor and tells lots of interesting stories. He swears that the city isn't racist anymore and that really some of the other towns around there are worse. I don't really, I've only ever driven through the town. It is a crappy little town for sure.
Vidor is famous for having a Klan bookstore in the early 80s.
In the mid 70s, whenever our bus would go through Vidor at night returning from a basketball game, all of the African American players would slide down in their seats so that they couldn't be seen.
Vidor is along I-10, close to the Louisiana border, right before you get to Orange. Just a FYI.
Really and truly that woman needs to draw the line at eating period. A classic "red state" moment.
I'll take "Fattest" for $300, please, Alex.
Negro, please!
If ya'll ain't been to Greenville or Grand Saline, you don't even know no racism or sundown towns.
She's like a big, melty tub of flesh.
I grew up in a nearby town to Vidor and we had a saying, "If God were to give the earth an enema, he'd put the hose in Vidor".
There's no shortage of racist towns in Texas. The difference between Vidor and Dallas is that Dallas wears better clothes and is a little more practiced in hiding their racism.
Back in the 1950s, when Dallas was looking for a place to build a federally-mandated public housing project, they decided that west Dallas would be a convenient location. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the lead smelting plant that was located next to the public housing site.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91539F936A15751C1A963958260
I had a friend tell me that she had an incident in Vidor. Driver was white. She was Filipino. They stopped to fill up gas. When he was ready to pay they wouldn't let him in the store to pay. Stupidly, he was insistant on paying. The guys outside said we got it covered but you aren't welcome here. Crazy racists!
Vidor will have to update its old slogan to: "Lardass, don't let the sun st on you in Vidor."
Vidor has a longstanding reputation as one of the most racist cities in the United States. Eroyl Morris's 1988 film The Thin Blue Line is probably the best films that touches on Vidor's racist past. Another documentary, Least of My Brothers, is more specifically about race (and murder) in Vidor.
Or you could just look up the data on HUD's attempt to integrate Vidor's public housing projects in the 1990s. Every single black resident gave up and left. Vidor is the textbook definition of a sunset town.