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A Grief Observed in Texas
Contrary to observation, Texas has not thawed out.
Hundreds of thousands of people still do not have clean water to drink. While power has been restored to most, an affordable bill is far from guaranteed in many parts of the state, and infrastructural necessities from water mains to power lines remain battered or broken. Against health advisories Governor Abbott has lifted the mask mandate in an effort to get Texans “back to work,” even as cultural institutions are disappearing and employment opportunities shrink. Elon Musk moved in. Suffering and grim tidings surround us.
I will not be the first resident to note that the intersecting roots of these catastrophes have been growing for years if not decades, and that Texas’ staunch obsession with being treated like a sovereign nation that also does not actually want to uphold any of the responsibilities a country has towards its citizenry has indirectly killed many, many people. What I have noticed, however, is that when we talk about these things purely as a matter of policy we do not give ourselves room to grieve for the human cost of these decisions. The fact of the matter is that we have had violence done to us, and a reckoning with the rage and sorrow that this violence evokes is long past due.
In his inspiring, incendiary book Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, Reverend…
