This past May, I sat in front of legislators to testify against their attempts to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender children in Texas, including my own transgender son. Despite COVID-19 and my aversion to public speaking, I traveled to Austin many times...
It’s been a rough couple of months for Black women in sports and I’m tired of seeing extraordinary Black women being dehumanized for choosing themselves. The world and America needs to understand supporting Black women and normalizing mental health is overdue. It all...
On March 9, The University of Texas at Austin’s The Eyes of Texas History Committee released a report about UT Austin’s official song, “The Eyes of Texas.” Neither the report nor the committee could strip the song of its “Alma Mater” status, per the report....
In the summer of 1997, thousands of Black Austinites streamed to Rosewood Park, a historic space on the capital city’s East Side. They were headed to Jump On It, an event created by rising rapper Nook Turner and longtime civil rights activist Dorothy Turner (no...
As one of the biggest advocates for making Juneteenth a national holiday, Texas native Opal Lee has attracted quite the following around the country to rally around her cause. Yesterday, at a virtual summit sponsored by Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Lee discussed the...
Members of the Texas Senate Committee on Jurisprudence held their first hearing this week over Senate Bill 21, a controversial bail reform bill backed by Republicans. The purpose of the bill according to its author Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) is to prevent repeat...
This past year has seen a disturbing spike in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. The horrific shooting in Atlanta, where a gunman killed eight people including six Asian women, is one of the more high-profile incidents but hardly the only one. The same day as the...
Democrats in the U.S. House voted to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act on Wednesday. The legislation includes reform for qualified immunity, a ban on chokeholds and no-knock warrants, a grant program for state attorney generals to investigate police...
Today is the day that we celebrate the life of civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although we celebrate MLK Day every year, this time feels different. It occurs less than two weeks after a mob of white supremacists stormed the Capitol and the nation is on...