![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2016\/07\/Texas-Flag.png\")
<\/a>If I could live anywhere I wanted, I wouldn\u2019t live in Texas. I\u2019d live in Wales or Ireland, or maybe in the Pacific Northwest \u2013 some place where the climate is cooler and wetter, without being horribly cold. But I can\u2019t live anywhere I want, at least not without making where<\/em> I live more important than how<\/em> I live, and more important than who I live with.<\/p>\nLike so many before and after me, I came to Texas for economic opportunity. My job in Atlanta was going away, a job was open in Dallas, and so I came here. It\u2019s not where I wanted to live, but I\u2019ve built a nice life here, and I\u2019m happy living in Texas.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always had strong connections with the land where ever I lived, but pride in being part of a political partition of the land never made much sense to me. I\u2019ve been honest about the problems with the cities and states where I\u2019ve lived. I grew up hearing \u201cAmerica: Love It Or Leave It\u201d and that seemed like sheer idiocy. If you really love something, be honest about its flaws and work to improve them.<\/p>\n
With all that said, I\u2019m starting to get really annoyed with some people who\u2019ve never set foot in Texas talking about it like it was Saudi Arabia or North Korea.<\/p>\n
Like all people of good will, I\u2019m sad and angry that twelve police officers were shot and five were killed in Dallas last Thursday night. But I\u2019m dismayed at many of the internet comments (some from my friends) that said something along the lines of \u201cit\u2019s Texas \u2013 what did you expect?\u201d It\u2019s something I hear every time something bad happens in Texas, and every time a Texas politician says something stupid.<\/p>\n
[This post was precipitated by reactions to the Dallas shootings, and the police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota that preceded them. I held off posting it for a week to avoid implying any moral equivalency between na\u00efve anti-Texas commentary and the prejudice and bigotry of racism. There is no equivalency: one is occasionally insulting, the other is frequently deadly.<\/p>\n
But we are capable of addressing more than one issue at once, particularly when one is easy to remedy, and when those who need to address it generally consider themselves fact-friendly, open-minded, and progressive.]<\/p>\n Stereotyping and overgeneralization<\/strong>. Most stereotypes have at least a bit of truth in them. On the whole, Texas is a conservative state. It has elected some politicians who regularly say and do highly offensive things. Its taxes are low and regressive, making it very attractive to large corporations. Its cities are relatively new and there are few natural barriers to expansion, which has led to an explosion of suburbs and suburban values (i.e. \u2013 \u201ckeeping our children safe from them<\/em>\u201d). Our Lieutenant Governor (a fairly powerful position in Texas government) is a fascist theocrat<\/a> \u2013 pro-business Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for allowing him to oust a conservative but professional Republican in 2014.<\/p>\n But to assume that Texas is uniformly or even overwhelmingly conservative is to overgeneralize. Barack Obama won 41% of the Texas vote in 2012, down from 44% in 2008. In 2000, Al Gore won 38% of the vote against George W. Bush, the sitting Governor of Texas.<\/p>\n The cities tend to be progressive. Annise Parker<\/a>, an \u201cout\u201d lesbian, was elected mayor of Houston three times in this decade. Denton passed an referendum banning fracking in 2014, only to see the state legislature overturn it.<\/p>\n The problem isn\u2019t that Texas is uniformly conservative \u2013 it isn\u2019t. The problem is that except where progressives tend to congregate (i.e. \u2013 big cities) conservatives have a majority, and they\u2019re able to pass much of their regressive and oppressive agenda into law. Those who claim \u201cmore democracy\u201d is the solution to everything should be careful what they wish for. Meanwhile, those of us who are trying to act as a moderating and liberating force would appreciate your support, not your erasure and victim blaming.<\/p>\n Ignoring your own problems<\/strong>. Yes, Texas has its problems, and a state legislature that wants to insert itself in people\u2019s private lives is at the top of the list. But Texas is hardly alone.<\/p>\n Philando Castile<\/a> \u2013 Minnesota. Freddie Gray<\/a> \u2013 Maryland. Ferguson<\/a> \u2013 Missouri. Rep. Joe Walsh<\/a> \u2013 Illinois. Rep. Peter King<\/a> \u2013 New York. 30 states passed bans on same sex marriage<\/a> and 16 were still in effect when the US Supreme Court overturned them in Obergefell v. Hodges<\/a><\/em>. Abortion rights are under attack in all but the most progressive of states. Texas is very vocal about gun rights, but mass shootings are a nation-wide problem. I could go on and on and on.<\/p>\n Most of the problems that lead smug liberals to say \u201cit\u2019s Texas \u2013 what do you expect?\u201d are present in every state in the union. That\u2019s because they\u2019re not Texas problems: they\u2019re American problems, they\u2019re Western (i.e. \u2013 North America plus Europe) problems, and they\u2019re human problems. Finger-pointing is not helpful to the people of Texas or to the people where you live.<\/p>\n Eating the clickbait<\/strong>. Much of the \u201cain\u2019t Texas awful\u201d stuff you see is pure clickbait \u2013 Facebook posts that are exaggerations, half-truths, and outright lies.<\/p>\n Shortly after the UK\u2019s Brexit referendum, a post was making its way around Facebook shouting \u201cJUST IN: Texas Republicans DEMAND To Secede From America After Witnessing The Brexit\u201d (no, I won\u2019t link to it). That headline makes you think the Governor immediately called a special session of the legislature to pass a secession resolution. The actual content of the article was three random tweets and a quote from another article that mentions Texas. Pure fact-free clickbait.<\/p>\n The headline should have read: \u201cA tiny group of Texas Republicans repeat their never-ending call for secession, which can\u2019t happen legally and went very poorly the time it was tried illegally.\u201d<\/p>\n Political clickbait riles people\u2019s emotions and distracts us from our real problems. Don\u2019t eat the clickbait.<\/p>\n A Pagan in Texas<\/strong>. I\u2019ve lived in the Dallas \u2013 Fort Worth area for almost 15 years. I\u2019ve visited most of the state except for El Paso and the High Plains region. It\u2019s far from perfect, but I\u2019m happy here, and unless my job goes away unexpectedly before I reach retirement age, I plan to stay here. The cost of living is low, the cities have almost anything you could want, and while I don\u2019t like the heat I\u2019ll gladly take it over the three winters I spent\u00a0in South Bend, Indiana (average annual snowfall: 72 inches).<\/p>\n I\u2019m part of a local Pagan group<\/a> that\u2019s been doing public circles on the eight high days for the past 16 years. We\u2019ve never had a problem with disruption or harassment. There are Pagan groups throughout the state and when we get together<\/a> we realize there are more of us than we think. On two occasions I\u2019ve helped lead Pagan ritual in the largest public park<\/a> in the city of Dallas and both times it went beautifully.<\/p>\n I\u2019m part of a UU church<\/a> that\u2019s a Welcoming Congregation<\/a> and is not afraid to take a stand on controversial issues. The fire<\/a> we\u2019ve been struggling to recover from was an act of random vandalism by a disturbed teenager, not a hate crime.<\/p>\n I freely admit I have a lot of privilege when it comes to living here. I\u2019m a straight white man who works a professional job. That makes things easier anywhere. But I look around my workplace and I see Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, atheists, and at least one Pagan. I see gay people. I see women and racial minorities in leadership positions. Say what you will about large corporations (and there\u2019s plenty to criticize them for), most of them have realized that discrimination is bad for business.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re poor and able-bodied, Texas is a good place to be \u2013 the job situation here has been far better than average through the recession and into the so-called recovery. It\u2019s slowed a bit lately as low oil prices have shut down some of that industry, but the Texas economy is highly diverse and resilient.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re poor and sick, Texas is a bad place to be. Taxes are regressive, public assistance is minimal, and Medicaid is very difficult to get.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a Democrat, Texas is a frustrating place to be. No Democrat has won a state-wide election in Texas this century. We keep expecting demographic changes to turn Texas from red to purple, but that keeps not happening \u2013 in large part because voter turnout in Texas is low, particularly among the poor and ethnic minorities. Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and other voter suppression activities don\u2019t help, but a sense of \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 the Republicans are going to win anyway\u201d is mostly to blame. Texas is an open primary state and I live in a red district \u2013 I frequently vote in the Republican primary to try to elect the lesser evil.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not leaving the United States if Donald Trump wins<\/a> the Presidency. I haven\u2019t left Texas just because we elected Ted Cruz Senator and Dan Patrick Lieutenant Governor. Texas is worth fighting for, and so are the millions of good, compassionate, inclusive people who live here.<\/p>\n This is my home<\/strong>. Even after living here for 15 years, I don\u2019t really think of myself as a Texan. I find my identity in my religion, not in geography or politics. There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s wrong with Texas, and if you\u2019d rather live somewhere else I completely understand.<\/p>\n But Texas has become my home<\/a>, and I\u2019m getting pretty damned tired of people who should know better bashing it because of stereotypes, othering, and clickbait.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot that\u2019s wrong with Texas and if you\u2019d rather live somewhere else I completely understand. But I\u2019m getting really annoyed with people who\u2019ve never set foot in Texas talking about it like it was Saudi Arabia or North Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":5288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[106,1089,1052,535,4,5,964,377],"class_list":["post-5277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-2","tag-community","tag-dallas","tag-dan-patrick","tag-denton-cuups","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-ted-cruz","tag-texas"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>