6/14/21

By Josh Rubin

War has been declared in Texas. Not against injustice, but against the oppressed. Not against poverty, but against the poor. Not against homelessness but against the homeless. Not against hunger, but against the hungry. Not against terror, but against the terrified.

Walls. Guns. The war is to protect ourselves from the vicissitudes of injustice. A world where it gets harder and harder not to see the outstretched hands of those who are designated by accident of birth to be chewed up and tossed to the side by the juggernaut of greed.

How can we see this and not have our hearts broken? Here is how. We criminalize poverty. We criminalize foreignness. We racialize crime. We blame victims. We build prisons. We put up tents. And we fill them.

But it is still not enough. So we have guns.

We have Texas, and Texas has declared war.