Thanks again to everyone who called and wrote after my father died last week. It’s been a rough time. Your support means the world.

I’m excited to share my first post for Southeast Texas Impact Initiative, a Beaumont-based group that organizes, advocates, and protests against the current MAGA hegemony.

Please join me and members of the initiative as we celebrate Juneteenth by protesting from 4-6pm at the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas, where Tracie grew up. (DM me if you need more info.)

Tracie and I have been mounting protests at the site since 2017. We couldn’t be more thrilled that the initiative has now taken the lead on reminding the Sons of Confederate Veterans that conspicuous displays of racist iconography are no longer acceptable in our society.

No matter what you do to observe the federal holiday on Friday, do something on purpose, like my friend Annette Purnell, a former Orange council woman, likes to say.

Thanks for checking out my post. Hope to see you on Friday. Happy Juneteenth!

“Juneteenth Remains a Beacon of Hope for the Future, even in Bleak Gerrymandering Times.”

I’ve lived in Texas since 2008. I’ve been gerrymandered twice.

The first redrawing happened when our state lawmakers sought to go after Al Green’s seat in Houston. The district where I lived had finally flipped blue. It had been solidly red since the time of George Bush senior, who first went to Washington representing the neighborhood where I’ve lived since moving to SETX. Suddenly, Al Green was now my new congressman. I supported him gladly.

The second venture in surreal cartography infamously came recently when the house where I live with my family became part of a new district, now the only majority-Black district in the city.

There’s a disconnect that often happens when you try to explain Republican gerrymandering to someone who’s never lived in the south. While segregation exists throughout the U.S., southern emargination, with its origins stretching back to the Civil War, has created a unique overlap and interconnection between geography, race, and politics. It’s because our cities are more deeply divided along racial lines than in other parts of the country…

Click here to continue reading on the Southeast Texas Impact Initiative Substack.