New Star-Telegram columnist ready to explore Fort Worth story — and fill in the gaps | Opinion

Have y’all seen “Civil War”? No, not the one we already had. Or the one some people think we’re having right now. Or even the one some long to start! It’s just a movie, and a really good one.

Directed by Alex Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Arrival”) the thriller follows a caravan of journalists covering a battle-torn, near-future United States divided by regional factions. Led by intrepid war photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), the journalists tail a decisive charge towards Washington D.C. by the Western Forces — a faction led by California and, well, my new home.

I love everything about this film. Rob Hardy’s visceral cinematography and use of muted and alternate color scales haunt the mood and heighten the tension and despair throughout. In just a few short minutes, Jesse Plemons’ — remember Landry from “Friday Night Lights”? — steals his short scene: an exhilarating ambush of our press antiheroes. Further, that scene lays the foundation for “Civil War”’s most provocative contemplation: the mainstream media’s glorification and fetishization of violent conflict. But Garland’s plot is somewhat premised on the assumption that naturally, the Texans would secede. From my read, the gifted director is a Brit foreign to our ways, and it shows.

“Civil War’s ” stereotype of a Texas prepping for another revolution works as a narrative — remember, it’s just a movie — but it’s still a stereotype. As a journalist who won’t be shilling you fiction from the press room, watching it was a helpful reminder for me — a lifelong New Yorker migrating to Fort Worth and joining the Star-Telegram as its newest columnist — to ensure that my writing doesn’t flatten your diverse and varied experiences into a coastal elite’s assumptions.

Likewise, I want to subvert some understandable notions about me. I have my opinions – I am, after all, an opinion writer — but I’ve been drinking from the firehose on all things Fort Worth to make sure my thoughts are worth your while. I’ll never fully shed being a New York loudmouth, but I assure you will find someone who, as the Apostle James once instructed the early church, is quicker to listen than am to speak.

Speaking of: I’ve already spent time in your churches. And bars. And I’m certainly taste testing your birrias. I’m blessed to have a hometown encyclopedia — y’all know him as Bud Kennedy — on speed dial to catch me up on local civics and culture.

It’s working. My Lyft driver gave me some improv shows to put on my shortlist, and I already found a speakeasy where you can catch me sipping a neat bourbon in one hand with a good book in the other. I’ll soon have to wipe off consomme from my keyboard, all thanks to the tacos I vacuumed from Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez. I’m already gently correcting my friends that Dallas is an entirely different city with which we share an airport and that I have the privilege of living on the cooler side of the DFW. I suspect you’ll see what I’m watching, reading, eating and enjoying factor prominently in my writing. Soon, I’d love to engage with you more on digital platforms. Anyone here on PlayStation?

On Oct. 5, I even attended the first political rally of my life: Colin Allred’s “huddle” — did he play football or something? — rally at Tulips, which incidentally, was also my first media assignment with the Star-Telegram. The meetup should subvert the expectations of a homogeneous gathering of ten-gallon hats some lower life forms might have about Cow Town. From my vantage, Allred’s crowd would fit in just fine with my Queens, NY high school subway ride — there were Black, white and the vast range of Latino identities; queer, transgender and straight people; disabled and elderly Texans found seats while kids propped up on their father’s shoulders. Cowboy boots, loafers and Jordans: all well-represented.

Don’t take this as my, per se endorsement of Allred, but I’m fascinated by any gathering of Texans that shows everyone is welcome. Visiting the rally confirmed much of what I came here to do: write about your home in a way that considers those who are coming and those who been here, but maybe haven’t been as present in the public imagination as they should. The press has a part in creating those problems and a part in fixing it.

I did not come to Fort Worth to fawn over any current or aspiring electeds — it’s not in my nature or my job description. I’m eager to note the communities missing when I see them, or rather, when I don’t.

Here’s one example I can’t stop thinking about: Allred’s commendably diverse crowd, included the Pakistani-American state Rep. Salman Bhojani, the Euless Democrat who is Texas’ first Muslim lawmaker. But curiously, it featured few others with personal histories or lineages from Muslim-majority nations. With all the needed qualifiers — I did not stand by the door inspecting doctrinal statements or family trees — it may be the only sizeable, typically Democrat-leaning Texas demographic that wasn’t present in droves.

What could this mean when a state with a growing number of Muslim residents — more overall than Michigan – and a current administration embroiled in multiple Middle East proxy wars wiping out their loved ones? Who might be absent (or worse, left out) in the political calculus of a diversifying, possibly purpling state?

It’s one of a billion questions I look forward to answering, and there’s surely a billion more that I’ll discover by engaging with every community here — especially those who don’t always have their experiences reflected in news coverage.

Garland is foreign to your ways. I am, too. But I’m excited for the journey and, most of all, for the Tex-Mex recs you’ll be sending my inbox.

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