Unconventional Journalist

This report is focused on reflection and is mostly music curated by All Real Radio.

Every 12 years, there's a sunset review on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). This is the time for all Texans to come together and voice their concerns around environmental racism and address the harm corporate polluters do in in their neighborhoods. The sunset review is set to be in person in Austin, Texas, with the Texas Sunset Advisory Committee for review and a public hearing on June 22, 2022. If you cannot attend in person, you can fill out the public input form, and submit your comment online before June 27, 2022.

This review is important for all Texans to participate and submit public comment, but for this interview we spoke primarily on communities affected by concrete batch plants. Here's who joined me today:

Here are the links we talked about during the interview:

We covered a wide range of topics today and concluded with an action item.

National News

Texas

Houston/Harris County

Here's today's line up for you. 

National

Texas

Harris County

From unions to police surveillance, we covered a range of topics today. 

Union updates:

Bring it back home.

Melissa Lucio:

Stop Freeway Expansions in Texas:

#StopShotSpotter:

This petition represents the demands of undersigned Houston community members for the City of Houston and Harris County to:

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's Upcoming Sunset Review:

Community Care Cooperative is a state-licensed cooperative business that enables neighbors to help neighbors live their best lives by providing personal care and home care services to seniors and disabled people. This is the first Black-founded home care services cooperative in Texas, the second home care cooperative in Texas, and exists as 1 of 14 home care cooperatives in the nation.

Assata Richards, director of Sankofa Research Institute, member of We are the Ones Cooperative Incubator, and founding collective member, interviews with me to discuss it further.

Heads up! The first couple of minutes is a little bit of a rough start as I was fixing up the levels on the board. 

This is the first in a monthly series of interviewing Elders from different communities. 

Secunda Joseph from All Real Radio's Sunday's line up, Imagine A World, co-hosts with me as we interview Ms. Sandra and Mr. Walters about Fifth Ward. We talk about the history of divestment from communities and outline parallels of what happened then, and what is happening now.

Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) did a recent investigation into Pasadena Independent School District for metrics on suspensions, referral to alternative schools, physical restraints on campus, and police response to student misbehavior. PISD police department arrested more students than other larger districts including Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin. And while Black students only make up 7.5 percent of the student body, they made up 19.4 percent of the total arrests made. We discuss the first townhall between parents, teachers, and the school district hosted by TCRP. 

After a music break, we looked at Houston Abolitionist Collective's newest newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/d342be4edebf/hac-mar-2022. This newsletter contains information on sources for Trans & Queer Help, upcoming police union contract, the campaign to remove police surveillance technology, and more.

Sign up to receive the newsletter here: bit.ly/HACnewsletter

Today we covered the history of the socialist/communist roots of International Women's Day, the history of how the US-backed coup in Ukraine gave rise to nazis, and we brought it back home with a big movement win with the Texas General Land Office investigation. 

Ukraine's nazis:

Big win for the Northeast Action Collective, Harvey Forgotten Survivor Caucus, and Texas Housers: 

Info for Pasadena-ISD townhall, see here. 

Ben Chou is a candidate for Harris County Commissioner Precinct 4 which covers Katy, CyFair, West Houston, Alief, Meyerland, Briarforest, Galleria, River Oaks, Timbergrove. We talk about why he decided to run for office, white supremacy, capitalism, and how he plans to bring the community into the work. 

Learn more about about his campaign here.

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So you vote in the Democratic Party - do you know about precinct chairs? Delegates and caucuses? What a party platform is and how it's supposed to hold the party accountable? It's okay if you don't. In this Left of Liberal throwback, I interview Prince E Winbush III, state delegate twice and more, and we talk specifically on this education. If you can, you should definitely learn more about the processes of the party.