Phew, I'm back in GA after a week in Dallas, Texas. Here's the thing about Texas: On the one hand it really is the republican stronghold you've heard scary campfire stories about. Every gas station I went to along I-20, under the big Texan sky, had for sale special edition TIME magazines dedicated to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, prominently displayed, right in front of the cash registers. In Dallas, there were numerous highways named after George W. or Reagan, and, of course, Dallas is the town where the G.W. Bush library is located (I drove by––I didn't actually go in).
But on the other hand, the part of Dallas where I stayed looked almost exactly like little 5 points in Atlanta or the end of Washington street in Athens, GA. Which is to say, no more than a 5 minute drive from the G.W. Bush library was a section of town filled with tattooed hipsters riding fixies to specialty craft beer pubs or co-opt grocery stores with banners advertising "No GMO" products (at one point, I even spotted an organic dog food store). It was strange. I mean, it was odd that in what is arguably the most conservative state in the country, in Dallas there was a sizable amount of what might be called progressive/Whole Foods style culture right next door to the super-patriotic cultural monuments of the New Right.
This dichotomy was epitomized for me when I spotted a Volvo emblazoned with numerous liberal bumper stickers supportive of Obama and the local library system right next to a car with Army of God style anti-abortion stickers. And it was nothing to spot a group of goth girls all with polychromatic hair
walking behind a group of frat guys wearing pastel Polos and khaki
shorts. There was something almost schizophrenic about it, cowboy boots and doc martens all walking alongside each other without anyone batting an eye. I didn't stay in Dallas long enough to get a handle on it, but I do have free place to stay if I every decide to go back and try and understand it––the seemingly binary culture of Dallas, TX.
