Concrete Feminism
The day before the Dobbs decision was announced, I presented and passed a slate of grants to fund Southerners and Midwesterners who would need to travel out of state to seek abortion care once Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Fast forward a year, and I was a month into my master’s when an abortion travel ban was introduced. The proposed travel ban sought to impose a bounty on doctors, loved ones, and Uber drivers — anyone who helped abortion seekers in my hometown travel out of state to receive care.
Abortion has always been inaccessible in the Texas Panhandle. My childhood there and return as a young adult enable me to intuit authoritarian policies tested and exported nationally that are imperceptible to most white Americans.
Highway infrastructure as a literal means of control became the focus of my graduate research. I am now turning that body of work into a psychogeographical memoir.
I focus on the extractive industries that simultaneously force birth and cause premature death, the fallacies of white femininism, and its race to the bottom twin flame — infrastructural brutalism.
Welcome to the space where I will share personal writing, updates, and pieces of research as my work comes together. I believe deeply in our collective agency. I hope you do too.
The Crisis Pregnancy Center Creation Story
Segregationists had to find new defensible manifestations of whiteness as contraception and abortion lowered the white birth rate; at the same time, the immigration of non-white people increased in the United States. Racists and anti-abortion activists, white conservatives that previously coalesced around separate but complementary priorities, colluded around a common cause and found a way to use federal infrastructure dollars to protect white life at a discounted price: highway infrastructure and crisis pregnancy centers.
I introduce their relationship, and provide visualizations of the growth of crisis pregnancy centers in Texas in this presentation. As of May 2024, across the United States crisis pregnancy centers outnumber abortion providers four to one.
Interstate Surveillance and Bodily Autonomy in Amarillo
Attached to two windmills at the entrance to a highway rest stop, posters display a line drawing of a white Texas Ranger with a chiseled jaw. A banner above his hat and the Texas state flag reads: “THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU!” Below his collared jacket and aviator sunglasses is a clear instruction: “CELLULAR PHONE USERS call 911 to report criminal activities or emergencies.” The rest stop is under surveillance by eight different armed state agencies.