As a leaked Supreme Court opinion from Associate Justice Samuel Alito revealed, Roe v. Wade—the landmark, Texas civil-rights case—might not be with us much longer.
With the state's "trigger law" waiting in the wings—Texas is one of 13 states with a law on the books that would ban abortion outright if Roe is overturned—Contributing Writer Nancy Goldstein considers the dire consequences of women losing their reproductive freedom and healthcare. | | As if we needed more dumbed-down histories. In a rebuke to The New York Times' 1619 Project—which seeks to reframe our national story by starting in August 1619, when the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia, rather than 1776—Governor Greg Abbott has signed legislation to create a "patriotic education" for new residents. A brochure to be distributed to new state residents will purportedly "explain the significance of policy decisions by this state to promote liberty and freedom for businesses and families." Based on some committee members' views, the end product will recapitulate the same racist historical narrative some Texans would like to think is true rather than telling the truth, which is that Texas, like America, was founded on the whip-wounded backs of slaves. | | What else do you call it when Texas treats the world's most desperate people as invaders? In a sneak peek of our upcoming issue, Senior Writer and Assistant Editor Gus Bova takes us to the San Antonio border expo, where you can find "robot dogs, cocktails, a shooting competition, and more taxpayer money than you can shake a drone at." | | Staff writer Delger Erdenesanaa puts the state's heat wave into the context of our changing climate. If you think this is bad, the worst is yet to come.
Our favorite quote from the piece: "Climate change to ERCOT is like Voldemort in Harry Potter; you can't name it. They have to be able to say the words 'climate change,' they have to understand that climate change is going to be a factor."
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SNEAK PEEK AT OUR MAY/JUNE ISSUE | |  Help us welcome new Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Arana to the staff, who has a sneak peek at our upcoming issue:
Dear Observer Readers,
Our May/June issue my first as editor-in-chief, and I couldn't be more thrilled to call Texas my newly adopted home. I hail from Nogales, Arizona, a town of five square miles on the U.S.-Mexico border with too many Border Patrol agents and, now, a 20-foot wall topped with barbed wire. I left to attend college on the East Coast, where I came out as gay and became a liberal, and worked for progressive magazines and digital media outlets for 15 years before landing at the Texas Observer.
I, and the Observer, are here because injustice is here, which of late includes the state's ongoing treatment of the humanitarian crisis at the border as a military invasion, Senate Bill 8's attack on reproductive rights, and the governor's persecution of transgender children. We touch on each of these issues in the following pages, where you'll also find a photo spread that plumbs the grief of a family whose loved one died in police custody and an essay from Contributing Writer Gabriel Daniel Solis about "archives of grief" that proposes we all own the pain that comes with such violence.
In the feature well, Senior Writer and Assistant Editor Gus Bova has penned a deeply reported and critical profile of Greg Casar, the soon-to-be installed U.S. Representative for Texas' 35th Congressional District, who has promised to be the "the most pro-labor member of Congress, period." Senior Editor and Writer Lise Olsen and veteran border reporter Jason Buch track a high-powered trial lawyer as he looks to recoup $3 billion in the Houston suburbs stolen from the Mexican state of Veracruz. In a beautifully written exploration of race, history, and identity, Contributing Writer Dylan Baddour follows a woman, and a movement, challenging the myth that the U.S. Army wiped out the Lipan Apaches of Texas in 1873.
I have big plans for this magazine. I hope you will tell me how we're doing (arana@observer.org) and what you want to see.
¡Adelante!
Gabriel Arana | | | | |
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