Choose your location
Texas Observer
Industry Threatens Water Supplies and Coastal Ecology Near Corpus Christi
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.”. Articles cannot be rewritten,...
WhoDunnIt?: West Texas Billionaire Funds “Pink Slime” Journalism
Notorious right wing mega-donor Tim Dunn is directly involved with an extensive network of sites that launder advocacy of groups he funds. West Texas oil billionaire Tim Dunn has poured millions into conservative politics, seeking to push the Texas GOP further to the right since at least 2007. His involvement in intraparty conflicts is well documented, as is his funding of the now-defunct Empower Texans PAC, a conservative advocacy group that closed in 2020, and its spin-off publication, Texas Scorecard. In recent years, Dunn’s involvement in right-wing media has gone from arms-length funding to hands-on involvement, according to a newly released report by researchers at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism (CDJ) at Columbia University.
Christofascism Is Everyone’s Problem
In a time of national crisis, when human rights and democratic ideals are under threat, it’s everyone’s responsibility to take a stand—but those of us who benefit from the harmful systems fueling the emergency have an even greater moral obligation to act. For the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, a groundbreaking feminist theologian, that means Christians need to play a much bigger role in the fight against fascism.
The Most Notorious Neo-Fascist Hate Group in Texas Can’t Catch A Break
As much as 10 percent of the white supremacist, ultranationalist Patriot Front, including its leader Thomas Rousseau, are currently facing civil or criminal cases. Under the cover of a cool October night in 2021, two masked men wearing gloves and carrying cans of spray paint entered a pedestrian tunnel in a public park in Richmond, Virginia. They proceeded to spray over a mural dedicated to Arthur Ashe, a Black hometown tennis legend, while a third person filmed. Their target was not incidental, and their actions were not mere graffiti tagging nor petty vandalism. They’d come to leave an ominous message: stencil designs of the white supremacist neo-fascist group, Patriot Front, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist hate group.
Better Read Than Dead, A Reading List
Rather than sneaking tequila shots from your abuelito's altar, here are a few thanatos-themed titles to read for Día de los Muertos. With ritualistic roots reaching back 3,000 years to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and All Souls Day elements incorporated from Medieval Spain, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican Holiday that seeks to honor the dead with altars and offerings. But, sugar skulls and existential cheer aside, Día de los Muertos is easily the most pensive fiesta on the calendar, reminding us that not only is the line that separates the living from the dead liminal, but we are standing in it. From a metafictional fable to awkward epiphanies experienced at Auschwitz, here is a list of some thanatos-themed titles that focus on our common fate.
Black Residents of Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Back in Court Over Pollution
The Hillcrest neighborhood in Corpus Christi, Texas, started out as an upscale all-white community in the heart of the city. But after oil was discovered nearby in 1930, a growing refinery sector on Hillcrest’s edge drove many residents to seek homes elsewhere. So in 1944, Corpus Christi recommended Hillcrest be opened to Black people.
Progressive Prosecutor on Trial in Dallas Election
Incumbent John Creuzot's policies could reduce incarceration rates in his county, but a GOP challenger seeks to dismantle his efforts. To his Republican opposition, Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot’s policies look “soft” on crime. Within a year of taking office in 2019, he stated his office wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes including shoplifting baby formula and, in many cases, first-time marijuana possession. Creuzot clearly signaled that decarceration was his goal, making him one of a small but visible contingent of reformist DAs to win over voters nationwide in the past decade. Creuzot is up for reelection this November, and the race will serve as a referendum on these progressive policies.
Disaster Dollars: Abbott’s Big New Donor Got Half-Billion in COVID, Border Contracts
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the governor's pandemic and Operation Lone Star disaster declarations has now kicked Abbott a cool $150,000. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Michelsen and his newly founded company Gothams LLC uprooted from California and moved to Austin. Soon, his disaster logistics firm had become one of the largest contractors for Texas’ COVID-19 response—and, later, for Abbott’s multi-billion dollar border security scheme Operation Lone Star.
The Uvalde Parents Won’t Back Down
Alongside diligent media members, and despite local divisions, these families aren’t letting Texas move on from the Robb Elementary School tragedy. One hundred twenty-six days after the deadliest school shooting in Texas history submerged his town in grief, Brett Cross began sleeping in front of the Uvalde school district’s administration building. Uncle and guardian to one of the 19 children lost on May 24 at Robb Elementary, Cross announced he wasn’t leaving until the district suspended its five-person police force—a fraction of the 376 officers who wasted 70-plus minutes in the botched response to the killing. Cross met two days later with Uvalde Superintendent Hal Harrell, who swore he couldn’t spare the district’s officers. Harrell then condemned Cross, and others who joined him during the days, writing in a letter: “We do not condone this group’s behavior and are seeking an end to the disruption,” while the district also started installing a fence on site.
The Flowers of Campo Santo
In West Dallas, a volunteer group is creating a haven for monarch butterflies inside a historic immigrant cemetery. On a muggy September morning, Henry Martinez Jr. brushed a thin layer of dust from his uncle’s tombstone, kneeling to reposition a bundle of red silk flowers knocked askew by the wind. Eladio Martinez, Henry’s uncle, was buried at the small cemetery in West Dallas in 1945 after being killed in World War II. His late aunt and grandmother lay in a row beside his uncle. “All the family is buried here and it brings back a lot of memories,” Henry Jr. says. “The old times and fun times.”
Rappers Keep Getting Murdered in Texas
After two up-and-coming talents were killed within days of each other, experts question the state’s high body count for hip-hop artists. As someone who lived through the so-called East Coast-West Coast rap war of the late ’90s—a time when Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. were both unnecessary casualties, each gunned down in their prime—it’s unfortunate that young MCs are still being snuffed out. (Both Wikipedia and XXL have been keeping running lists.) It’s even more unfortunate that most of these deaths have been occurring in Southern states, including Texas.
Mike Collier Wants Texans to Give Up Red Meat
In his rematch against the state’s far-right lieutenant governor, this Democratic underdog hopes pragmatism can break through to the electorate. In 2018, Texas’ ultraconservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick barely bothered to run for reelection. His campaign launch amounted to flying a charter jet to municipal airports across small-town Texas, stopping just long enough to do an interview with a local TV station. Mostly, he just went on Fox News and hung out with Donald Trump. Despite the attempts of his Democratic opponent Mike Collier—a corporate accountant who’d previously ran for Texas comptroller—Patrick ignored him.
Malas Calles/Mean Streets
A version of this story ran in the September / October 2022 issue. Mexican hats igniting green clover aflame for miles. along twisted mesquites muscling their mangled limbs. Plucking wild blackberries in abandoned lots we called woods. Our teeth & t-shirts stained with their blood juice. Never less lost never...
Plumshuga: The Rise of Lauren Anderson
New play tells a poetic version of the long road to recovery of Houston’s first Black prima ballerina. Lauren Anderson, poised and beautiful as she was in her stage days, is sitting at a chair in her office at the Houston Ballet with its view of the sprawling skyscrapers along Buffalo Bayou. Anderson has no brag wall here—nor in her home. Old programs, souvenirs of her long career, are tucked inside a crate she keeps only because fans, monied patrons of the arts, and tiny girls in her dance classes sometimes request autographs. A graceful woman with trailing locks and flashing eyes, Anderson remains immediately recognizable as the woman who for years starred as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker and in many other roles as one the first Black principal ballerinas of any major ballet company in the United States.
Setting Fires to Save the Houston Toad
An environmental film festival spotlights a Central Texas land trust’s effort to bring back endangered species. On October 22, the public will have a unique opportunity to see local efforts to protect and bring these species back, when the Pines and Prairies Land Trust hosts a traveling edition of the national Wild & Scenic Film Festival on its 600-acre ranch and wildlife refuge in Paige, about an hour’s drive east of Austin.
Indigenous Leaders Fight to Keep Natural Gas Pipelines Off Sacred Lands
Mancias, chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe, has spent his last year engaged in a global campaign to thwart the liquified natural gas (LNG) facilities proposed for his people’s sacred site. Supported by the Sierra Club, a coalition of Indigenous leaders and local organizers have traveled Europe lobbying customers and funders that developers need for their buildout in the Rio Grande Valley, a historically marginalized zone along the Mexican border in Texas.
1836, the Slaveholder Republic’s Birthday
Historian Gerald Horne on the Texas Revolution, its victors, and its victims. History, it’s often said, is written by the victors. While that isn’t always true, it’s certainly borne out by many popular accounts of the Texas Revolution of 1835-36, which often tell “a very black-and-white story of the virtuous Texans”—the victors—“fighting against the evil Mexicans.” The San Jacinto Monument inscription, for instance, blames the rebellion on “unjust acts and despotic decrees” of “unscrupulous rulers” in Mexico. A pamphlet produced by the Republican Party-sponsored 1836 Project says that Anglo settlers fought to preserve “constitutional liberty and republican government.”
‘Girlhood,’ Interrupted
In a new memoir, a mother recounts the trauma of being investigated for supporting her trans daughter. Carolyn Hays, a pseudonym used by the author of the new book, A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter, divides her life into two distinct parts: before the knock at the door and after. The man knocking was an agent with the Department of Children and Families. An anonymous source had called to report Hays’ family simply because they supported their trans daughter.
Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Fueled Sierra Blanca Migrant Shooting, Advocates Say
As darkness descended on a remote ranch in far West Texas, a migrant from Mexico sat bleeding from a shotgun blast to her stomach. She texted a farewell to her aunt: “I am dying. They shot me. Please don’t tell my mother. Everyone else is OK, except for one other guy that they shot. He’s dead, and I might be soon.”
Big Money Floods into Texas Governor’s Race
In total, Beto O’Rourke and Greg Abbott have raised $200 million. For the second-straight filing period, Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke has outraised the incumbent Governor Greg Abbott—only this time, barely. The Democrat reported raising just over $25 million since July 1, while Abbott has raised just under $25 million. Combined, the two candidates have raised over $200 million so far, much of which has been used to fuel a statewide ad war.
Texas Observer
1K+
Posts
9M+
Views
The Texas Observer is an Austin-based nonprofit news organization known for fearless investigative reporting, narrative storytelling and sophisticated cultural criticism about all things Texan.