Under policies adopted last year, the VA now refuses to support newly transitioned veterans. Even accessing routine healthcare can be a challenge.
Category: Culture
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Posted inCulture
Black-Owned Bookstores in Texas Bring Communities Together. They’re Also Harassed and Vandalized.
Fort Worth sisters Donna and Donya Craddock refer to 2020 as “the unicorn year.” There was the COVID-19 shutdown, but there was also something more — a death that prompted a period of racial reckoning. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was murdered on camera by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. What followed […]
Posted inBig & Bright
Years Before the Stonewall Riots, Dallas’ Queer Community Had Its Own Movement
In 1988, the city of Dallas filled in a hole. City council spent half a million dollars to fix a dangerous gap left on a vacant lot by a construction company. Seemingly good news, right? Well, to local LGBTQ+ activists, it was a sign of how little local politicians cared about them. At the time, […]
Posted inCulture
‘Future Legends.’ Despite So-Called ‘Drag Ban,’ Texas’ Queer Showcases Are Launching Pads for Performers.
In Austin, a city with an abundance of drag shows, one monthly showcase offers a unique platform — and launch pad — for emerging talent. “You get to see future legends get their start, and other people just flourish and find their niche.” That’s how “Big Tits, Bigger Dreams,” or BTBD, was described by co-host […]
Posted inCulture
‘When You Know Homeless People, You Can’t Ignore Them’: Inside ‘The Challenger,’ a Newspaper Written by and for Unhoused Austinites
Clifton Pappas, who is unhoused, has been a distributor for The Challenger newspaper for a year. He walks Austin streets wearing a black cowboy hat with a short rim and a backpack. He also carries what all distributors do: printed copies of the paper, as well as an ID badge with his photo and number, […]
Posted inTexana
Did Whataburger ‘Fall Off’? We Sent a Team of Texas Comedians to Investigate.
EXCLUSIVE It was 6 p.m. in downtown Austin. Traffic was humming, and responsible adults were bustling, which is to say it was absolutely the wrong time to eat Whataburger. Whataburger is 2 a.m. food. Eating it while the sun is still up feels like seeing a teacher at the grocery store: technically allowed, but unsettling. […]
Posted inCulture
How Selena Called Me Home to Texas
I have a secret to admit. I’m not a Texas native. Luckily, I’m not a Californian who moved to the Lone Star State. I’m a Nebraskan who fell in love with the Dallas Fort-Worth area. But my introduction to Texas was not the metroplex. Nor was it Southern Methodist University, where I attended college. It […]
Posted inMusic
The Bootlegging, Blues Singing Star of 1930s Prison Radio
This essay, originally written by Maurice Chammah, is an edition of Redemption Songs, a limited-run newsletter from The Marshall Project that dives into the music produced in prisons over the last century. Sign up now to get a song by incarcerated artists delivered to your inbox each Sunday through September. My favorite song on the […]
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Posted inArts
This Austin Art Show Is the Mirror America Needs Right Now
A pirate radio station broadcasting from inside an art gallery, a cowboy who refuses to be a conqueror, and mirrors positioned so carefully throughout the space that you can’t look at the work without looking at yourself. That’s ‘The Neon Republic’ — and it might be the most urgent art show happening in Austin right […]
Posted inNews
A ‘Gut Punch’ of Censorship and ‘Erasure’: University of Texas Professors Decry Rushed Merging of Ethnic & Gender Studies
Nearly two months after University of Texas at Austin President Jim Davis announced plans to consolidate seven ethnic and gender studies departments, students and faculty say they’re still in the dark and bracing for what comes next. On Feb.12, Davis announced a consolidation set to take effect in fall 2027. Then, on Apr. 2, interim […]