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The board issued a statement saying they have secured short-term pledges to bridge an immediate budget shortfall, “thanks to the extraordinary success of the staff’s fundraising this week.” A GoFundMe effort begun on Monday had raised more than $275,000 on Wednesday from more than 3,000 supporters. The...
True Crime’s Ethical Dilemma
What begins as a search for a murder ends as a hard look at the murky ethics of "nonfiction" crime storytelling. In an early scene of Chris Kasick’s new documentary Citizen Sleuth, the film’s protagonist Emily Nestor visits a local tattoo parlor. She’s getting one of those punk-style mom tattoos, a big red heart inked into her right calf, but instead of “mom,” the tattoo spells out “true crime” in black script letters. Near the end, we see the tattoo again, but this time we’re in a doctor’s office, watching her wince as it is slowly removed.
Learning from the Dead
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Save the Texas Observer!
Shuttering the publication would be extremely damaging to a staff that was recently and successfully rebuilt after a previous crisis. It would adversely affect staff who need their pay to cover cat food and rent, to pay for kids in college and people who have a baby on the way. It would cause journalists to lose credibility with those who have supported stories already published or in progress, including their recent series on women’s health and threats to Texas rivers.
‘I’ve Always Been a Transplant’: A Global Perspective on Texas Hip-Hop
David Shabani’s life took him on an international journey from France to the Live Music Capital of the World. By the end of their second livestream performance, the Nu Leopards were a “tight-ass band” with their setlists memorized and in tune with each other’s cues. Shabani’s sound is global, with complex instrumentation supported by keyboardist Marcell Coleman, drummer Jamal Knox, and bassist Christian Callegeri, his music shows a wide range of influences from R&B to electronic dance music.
Celia Israel’s Got ‘Both Feet on the Ground’
What the historic race for mayor meant for her, for Austin, and women in Texas politics. “She was the first person who ever told me that I should run for office, and that was empowering,” Israel said in our phone interview. “And I remember saying, ‘Yeah Lena, but you know I’m gay. They won’t vote for a gay person.’ She said ‘Jita, you’re in Austin!’ She had this saying, ‘Jita, aqui estas en Austin.’”
Abortion Laws Stand Between Pregnant Texans and the Care They Need
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Physicians are finding themselves torn between providing medically appropriate care and staying in compliance with the state’s draconian anti-abortion laws. The stakes couldn’t be higher: risking major fines and up to life in prison for doctors on one side, and on the other, often putting women’s lives at risk because of delays in care or refusals to provide formerly routine procedures. As a result, medical decisions regarding pregnancy complications now involve a host of new stakeholders—hospital administrators and lawyers—who may put questions of institutional risk above patient well-being.
A Border Crossing with the Devil
Hail Mary, which premiered at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, reframes the immigration crisis through a supernatural, biblical lens. Baal was once known as the king of gods. The ancient Canaanites called him the “Lord of Rain and Dew.” The Phoenicians, the “Lord of the Heavens.” The Israelites named him “He Who Rides the Clouds.” It was only after the Hebrew queen Jezebel tried to replace the official worship of the Hebrew God with the worship of Baal in the ninth century BCE that Baal became the emblem for a false god, a fallen angel, and later, the prince of demons himself: Satan.
This Burned-out Texas Teacher Unseated His School Board President
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Andrew Gonzales never expected his name to be on a ballot. The 30-year-old native Austinite had taught for seven years in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) before quitting in October 2021—joining an exodus of instructors fleeing the pains and indignities of Texas’ public schools. Then, last November, Gonzales shocked the local political scene by ousting Austin’s sitting school board president, earning himself a board seat from which to try to fix the problems that drove him out of teaching.
Houston ISD Takeover Is a Trojan Horse for Privatization
Leaders of low-income communities of color worry the state’s power grab could deepen inequalities. Donnie Walker, U.S. history teacher at Wheatley High School in the Houston Independent School District (HISD), has a family legacy at the school. His grandparents went to Wheatley. His great-aunt graduated from the same class as Barbara Jordan, the first southern Black woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. His father and mother met at Wheatley.
Clarence Brandley: Unjustly Convicted, Overdue for Justice
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
The ‘Dallas Express’: Your Go-To Source for Right-Wing, Astroturf News
The formerly Black-owned, progressive newspaper has re-emerged as a "pink slime" media site that launders conservative propaganda. For over 80 years, the Dallas Express operated as a weekly, Black-owned, progressive newspaper that covered racist lynchings, fought against segregation, and focused on the issues that mattered to the Black community in Dallas. Founded in 1892 and shuttered in the mid-1970s, the newspaper focused on issues ignored by the predominantly White press in a segregated city “that had been effectively run by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.”
Dallas Has a Problem With Zombie Astroturf Groups
Despite being exposed as bogus, some right-wing organizations keep coming back from the dead. No one knows who is funding them. In September 2020, a large, white transportation truck wrapped in splashy adverts drove through the streets of downtown Dallas. “Tell City Council to Defund Themselves—Not the Police,” read one side. “Don’t let Dallas become Portland,” read the other. It was a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement in Dallas and was a preposterous display for more than its garishness: Dallas had not seen major unrest since June 2020, when police tear-gassed hundreds and arrested others for protesting on a bridge. But it served to introduce Keep Dallas Safe (KDS)—a shadowy pro-police group with unknown funders—into Dallas politics.
I Am a Trans Texan
If you’re not aware that there is a moral panic about trans lives, then you need to pay attention. As of now, according to the list maintained by activists Alejandra Caraballo, Erin Reed, and Allison Chapman, over 400 bills targeting trans people have been filed with legislatures nationwide this year—more than in the past several years combined. Texas is at the vanguard with about 30 bills and counting. If the frenzy continues, it won’t end there, as former President Donald Trump’s recent speech and Michael Knowles’ rhetoric at CPAC on eradicating transgenderism make clear.
For Trevante Rhodes of ‘Moonlight’ Fame, Acting Was Plan B
The actor talks about his move into producing and his unique journey to becoming an actor. While he was born and initially raised in Louisiana, Rhodes moved to Little Elm when he was around 6 and soon established himself as one of the finest runners and football players at Little Elm High School. Not only did he play alongside the current Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, he won a gold medal at the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championship.
‘We Won’t Be Bullied’: Abortion Pill Website Fights Texas Censorship
Tracy Droz Tragos’ documentary Plan C, now screening at SXSW, follows the ongoing fight to expand access to abortion medication. Before the opening shot in Tracy Droz Tragos’ documentary Plan C comes this brief explanation: “Voices, faces, names, and locations of some participants in this film are obscured to protect them from the risk of prosecution and violence.” The film follows the activists behind the website Plan C, an online resource that provides information on how to access abortion medication in all 50 states (yes, even Texas).
A Houston Opera About the Unhoused, Inspired by the Streets
Ecclesia Houston—a multi-denominational church on a ragged edge of downtown—would seem an unlikely place to find the Houston Grand Opera (HGO) in performance. It is housed in a cinderblock-and-brick former paper warehouse that once also served as the Houston Police Department’s storage for recovered stolen vehicles. Two highways swoop down over the building as they converge on the business district, cutting a diagonal across the skyline and separating it from the so-near downtown neighborhood. The land between Ecclesia and downtown should be quite valuable given its location, but because of the overpasses, it’s a no-man’s-land.
The Life, Death, and Life of San Antonio’s Symphony
A version of this story ran in the March / April 2023 issue. Articles must link back to the original article and contain the following attribution at the top of the story:. This article was originally published by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative news outlet. Sign up for their weekly newsletter, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.”
Haunting the Border
"Deadland," which premiered at SXSW, is a surreal father-son migration movie that will linger with you. By definition, the Texas borderlands are where one artificial nation bleeds—too often literally—into another. It’s a region where metaphorical walls between languages and cultures crumble while physical walls are breached and scaled, a space where a fictitious line is as real as family or hunger. In the world of Deadland, a new feature film that premiered in Austin at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, it’s also a place where even more primordial veils are pierced: those between past and present, life and death.
Border Militia Bill Reveals Texas GOP’s Scheme to Expand State Enforcement Powers
Opponents call it a dangerous vigilante move that will get innocent people killed. House Speaker Dade Phelan announced his final package of priority legislation centered on border security late Friday, headlined by House Bill 20, a measure by state Representative Matt Schaefer, a right-wing Republican from Tyler, that would create a state “Border Protection Unit” with officers who are empowered to “arrest, detain, and deter individuals crossing the border illegally including with the use of non-deadly force.”
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