The majority of his speech was focused on speaking to her accomplishments, her passions, and her desire to bring people together. He shared the impact she has had in his life and the positive change she will bring as president.

Towards the end of his time on stage, however, President Clinton made a comment about American Muslims that had absolutely no place in the rest of his thoughtful speech:

If you are a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make the future together. We want you.

This conditional statement targeted at American Muslims is both upsetting and unsettling for many reasons. Too often we hear that if you’re a good and happy Muslim, you can come here and be a part of society. But there’s a catch: you have to prove day in and day out that you aren’t one of the angry, violent Muslims. You’ll be accepted and allowed to exist, but only after suffering the scrutiny of your neighbors, inappropriate comments from elected officials, government surveillance, daily microaggressions and blatant racism and xenophobia.

Let’s get something straight here: Muslims do not have to prove they are good people because they identify as Muslim. Asking Muslims to “stay here” to “help us win” implies that Muslims are others who aren’t true Americans, and that they should help us, the real Americans, fight terror. Never mind the fact that the majority of domestic terrorist attacks are committed by non-Muslims.

American Muslims do not need to prove they “hate terror” and “love America.” That is not their primary function or responsibility. Believe it or not, Muslims are regular people who have their own lives and problems to attend to. 

Huma Abedin, who is currently the vice-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, happens to be a Muslim. Does Abedin need to to prove that she “loves America and freedom” because of her faith? (The answer is “No!”)

President Clinton’s statement was likely intended to challenge the hateful rhetoric of the Trump campaign which is calling for a ban of Muslims, and highlight instead Hillary Clinton’s inclusive and progressive platform. Unfortunately, his comment simply alienates American Muslims and frames the conversation with the same Islamophobia that the Trump campaign encourages. 

American Muslims are just as American as any other person of faith. We should be able to talk about Muslims outside the context of “terrorism,” and the fact that this needs to be said shows just how much work still needs to be done to realize the full humanity and diversity of Muslims in this nation.

So, I sort of zoned out reading a really good old Doctor Who novel over the last two days (Vampire Science, if you’re interested), but when I finally peeked back into the world I discovered that cops had once again killed a couple of black folks doing absolutely nothing that warranted anything more than a mild scolding, let alone being shot. Alton Sterling, a father of five, was killed by police in Baton Rouge as he was selling CDs outside a convenience store, and Philando Castile was killed after being pulled over for a busted taillight in St. Paul.

After these sorts of incidences, America loves to play a little game called “I’m So Special, Hear Me Speak.” We get think pieces and people “just asking questions” and millions of commenters on news stories falling all over themselves to drop a mic literally no one will ever hear hit the floor. Being that the issue on hand is most definitely — make no mistake — to stop arguing racial in nature, this brings my fellow Caucasians out in droves, either to find some reason racism doesn’t matter or to assure black people they aren’t part of the problem. Some of these are well-intentioned, some are insidiously evil, and a small number of them (really tiny) are even actually beneficial. That said…

DEAR GOD, FELLOW WHITE PEOPLE, NOW IS THE TIME TO SHUT YOUR MOUTH-BUTT.

Seriously, unless you are a high-ranking member of the law enforcement community or have an advanced degree in race studies or are otherwise in a position where you might be able to provide actual, tangible help, no black person really wants to hear your thoughts right now. There is absolutely nothing you are going to say they have not already heard before.

They don’t want to hear excuses why this particular killing or that particular killing was “understandable given the circumstances.” They don’t want to hear the statistics you Googled five seconds ago telling them the cheapness of black lives and the police’s enthusiasm for ending them “isn’t a big deal” or “actually worse for white people.” Even you, yes you, my white liberal brother and friend of all people of color, they do not want to hear from right now, not even your condolences.

Why? Two reasons. The first is that white people rule this country. That is an inarguable fact. When a white person talks, it usually means the non-white person has to stop speaking to respectfully listen and this is definitely a time when it needs to be the other way around.

The second reason is that whatever you say, no matter how well-meant, it is in another language. Black people do not live in the same country as white people, at least not when it comes to law enforcement. They have an entire cultural normalcy around behavior to keep from getting shot by authority that white people don’t live with. So when you speak up you sound like a blind person critiquing someone’s painting skills. If you get anything right, it will be entirely accidental.

Our silence right now is the bare minimum of what we can do to help. Preferably we should be reading and listening to black people about what they want and doing our damndest to try and make it happen because waking up this often watching another pointless victim of police violence thanks to an enduring legacy of racial inequality is not how you run a good country.

And I get it. I do. Scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed is post after post by black friends enraged or in despair. They blame white people, white leaders, white causes, white privilege, and that feels like it’s directed at us personally. You want to defend yourself. You want it to be abundantly clear you’re no racist and you want them to acknowledge that. However…

SERIOUSLY, SHUT UP.

This song ain’t about you or me. Your feelings are not the issue on the table right now, and black people have to spend way too much of their time making white people’s feelings a life-or-death issue as it is. Believe it or not, you can survive the momentary discomfort that comes with being faced with the bloody effects of white supremacy in America. You will not shrivel and die if a black person you know thinks of you as part of the race problem. You are not actually entitled to never looking bigoted. No one gives a Trump about your honor at the moment.

So zip it. Clam up. Listen with your ears instead of your mouth. You want to say something? Say what they’re saying: #BlackLivesMatter. Share the many wonderful pieces written by people of color instead of about people of color. Or do what I’m doing now and let other white people know we have exceeded our allotted time to speak and need to yield the floor. Our hot takes have grown cold.

Perhaps it’s synchronicity when de Havilland refers at the bottom of page 47 in the current edition of Every Frenchman Has One to a Winterhalter portrait. Upstairs the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is presenting an exhibit of Franz Winterhalter paintings and downstairs in the Brown Auditorium the MFAH is hosting a retrospective of de Havilland’s films, the titles of which were personally picked by her for their respective screenings. The actress turned 100 on July 1.

She spends the entire book not talking about movies and precious little about her sister Joan Fontaine. The reports of their rivalry seem to be more an invention of the media than actual hatred. Yes, de Havilland broke Fontaine’s collarbone when they were young but what siblings don’t fight on occasion. My younger brother knocked out my front teeth with a rock when I was sixteen and I still talk to him. On occasion.

The twelve films in the retrospective include two films for which de Havilland won the Academy Award for Best Actress — To Each Her Own (July 29) and The Heiress (August 6). In The Dark Mirror (July 30), de Havilland plays twins involved in a murder. You get two for the price of one.

Gone With the Wind, unwinding in a 4K-restoration digital print this Saturday at the MFAH, has a reputation that precedes its screening. She plays the role of Melanie Hamilton in the classic film. Under contract to Warner Brothers, de Havilland was traded for a one-time option for the services of Jimmy Stewart who himself was under contract to Selznick International. She would later sue Warner Brothers in 1943 successfully to release her from that contract. Essentially, an actor was under contract to a studio for seven years, but if you had a day or week or month off — as most actors do — the studio considered that as time that was owed them. The De Havilland Law is the unofficial name for California Labor Code Section 2855.

Adjusted for inflation, Gone With the Wind — which has been re-released numerous times since its premiere in 1939 — is the highest domestic grossing film of all time.

In David Thomson’s book The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, he examines the financial impact of Gone With the Wind. According to Thompson: “By the end of its first run, extended by the war through 1942 the picture had rentals of $31-million.” To put that in perspective for its era, “the 1941 Best Picture Winner How Green Was My Valley grossed $2.8-million, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs grossed $8-million, and Casablanca brought in $3.7-million.” Box Office Mojo, the go-to website for film grosses, has the adjusted take for Gone With the Wind at $1,733,542,900, which is $2-million more that the second place film, the 1977 Star Wars, and makes Gone With the Wind the top domestic grossing film of all time.

Gone With the Wind premiered on December 15, 1939 in Atlanta. Other historic events that took place that month included the opening of La Guardia airport on December 2, and the Soviet Union invading Finland on December 14, which got them tossed out of the League of Nations. Another film opened in 1939 that may very well be the best film ever made and is the complete opposite of Gone With the Wind in every aspect – Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.

“Gone With the Wind” unreels at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this Saturday, July 9 at 3 pm. The film will be introduced by Free Press Houston film buff and associate editor Michael Bergeron.

Take a moment to recall all the things you did between the ages of 17 and 20. Maybe you got your driver’s license, took the SAT, went to prom, graduated high school, applied to and started college, had a few “first” experiences. The teen years are lionized as the “golden” years in our culture.

Kalief Browder of New York City spent those years on Riker’s Island — one of the toughest, most notorious jails in the country — for allegedly stealing a backpack. Browder’s arrest was based entirely on one person’s testimony, that of the the alleged victim, which was delivered a full two weeks after the alleged robbery. Could the victim really be sure he identified the right child?

Over the course of several court appearances during those three years, Browder had a few opportunities to plead guilty to lesser charges and be released, but he maintained his innocence, refusing to plead guilty to a crime he claimed he didn’t commit. He contested the charges. He demanded his day in court, per his constitutional rights. So, unable to pay the $3,000 bail, he stayed behind bars, awaiting trial, for more than 1,000 days as a legally innocent person — and over 800 of those days he spent in solitary confinement.

Two years after his release when the case was finally thrown out, still haunted by his experiences on Riker’s and feeling left out of the community of friends who had moved on with positive developments in their lives, Kalief Browder finally succeeded in the last of his suicide attempts. He was 22.

Closer to home, we are all familiar with the case of Sandra Bland. Bland was stopped for allegedly failing to signal a lane change and subsequently jailed for refusing to allow a police officer to bully her. Unable to post the $500 bail, she spent the weekend in Wharton County jail and was found dead in her cell days later, also of an apparent suicide.

I cannot stress enough that neither of these individuals had been convicted of any crime for the duration of their lockups. Our constitution guarantees a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Still, if you read the comments below a Houston Chronicle article about the 55 people who died while in Harris County custody for want of bail funds between 2024 and 2024, you will see callous statements repeating the adage, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

The truth is, if these people could afford to post bail, they would be out, free and able to defend their cases within 24 hours. Instead, a report by the Prison Policy Initiative finds that a staggering 99% of growth in the jail population in the past 15 years has come from pretrial detention. On any given day in the US, of the 646,000 people locked up in jails (not counting state and federal prisons, just jails), 70% have not been convicted of a crime, and that 70% is driving the 99% of the growth of the jail population. (70% is the nationwide average — in Harris County the number was 76% in 2024.)

But then again, from a different perspective, money bail might be working exactly as intended. According to a recent New York Times article, “bail is the grease that keeps the gears of the overburdened system turning.” With 70% of the jail population locked up merely for their inability to make bail as they await their day in court, whatever fragile life they have built for themselves on the outside crumbles. This reality, coupled with the horrors of captivity, applies pressure to these accused to plead guilty, just so they can hurry up and go home, saving courts the time and expense of taking weak cases for petty crimes to trial.

“If even a small fraction of those defendants asserted their right to a trial,” the New York Times continues, “criminal courts would be overwhelmed. By encouraging poor defendants to plead guilty, bail keeps the system afloat.”

• • •

Less than two weeks ago, my friend and I received tickets for being in a New York City park after dark. We were walking back to my place from a restaurant two blocks from my house when we spotted a bench and stopped to smoke a cigarette. This “park” boasts no grass or trees, let alone any signs indicating that it’s closed after dark, so we really had no way of knowing we were in violation of any law.

Neither of us had any outstanding warrants, so we were written tickets for a $15 fine and allowed to leave, but that could easily change soon. As the officers sent us on our way, they told us that we could pay our fines online, but not until the paperwork was posted online, which would take two weeks. That gives us two weeks to forget that this petty “infraction” ever occurred, two weeks to lose the pink slip of carbon paper with all the details on it. If we do not admit guilt and pay online or show up in court at 9:30 am on August 23, warrants will be issued for our arrest.

Of course, being working professionals, it’s probably a better use of our time to just pay this minor ticket and be done with it, but on the other hand, we both feel pretty strongly that we did nothing wrong. If we were indeed in a restricted area, why were no signs posted? The ticket itself does not name a “park” where the “incident” occurred, rather it says, “opposite 380 E. 141st St.” And what about those who are not “working professionals?” What about all the people who are barely scraping by, who may not have a stable address, let alone easy internet access and a credit card for online transactions? Or what about all the people who might already have warrants or an extensive record of other such “petty crimes,” who would not have the luxury of being able to walk away from such an encounter with just a ticket? Those people would have been hauled off to jail — just for smoking a cigarette on a bench beside a sidewalk after dark — and be subjected to money bail to secure their release or otherwise sit in jail until that August 23 court date. They would likely lose their job and possibly lose their apartment; their families would have one less wage earner and caretaker of children and the elderly, and anybody with any immigration concerns might even see themselves deported, despite not having been convicted of a crime and therefore remaining at least legally innocent — all at great expense to taxpayers.

• • •

“Sittin’ in the Harris County Jail,” goes the classic Houston rap song, “spending all my little time. / I’m not driving fancy cars I’m just staring at bars and I’m about to lose my mind.” It’s funny, because the singer sings off-key and talks about the “funky toes” in the shower, but Harris County Jail is the spotlight again, and the reasons are hardly humorous.

In early June, Salon published an article called “Criminal Injustice in Texas,” which discusses the system of money bail, how it destroys lives, costs us all too much, and ought to be replaced with better ways of ensuring that defendants keep their court dates. It costs taxpayers $75 per person, per day to lock people up, and 77% of the people in the Harris County jail system are in there for pretrial detention — that comes out to over $500,000 paid by taxpayers every day to lock up innocent people.

The eighth and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States promise all citizens equal protection under the law, the right to due process, and freedom from excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishments. As the New York Times notes in the article cited above, the practice of using money bail was started in Middle Ages England as a way to help legally innocent people — and we are all presumed innocent in the eyes of the law until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt — by sparing them the punishment of incarceration unless and until they were actually found guilty at trial, as well as to allow them to work on their defense.

Something must be done to change this system, but too many people fear that releasing the indigent on their own recognizance will result in recidivism — no judge, especially those holding elected office, wants to release an alleged criminal only to have him or her commit another crime — but there are measures courts can take to reduce this possibility. Different municipalities are trying out different solutions. In the Bronx and Brooklyn, non-profit bail funds have been set up to help those who lack the funds, and they can claim that 96% of the people in their program show up for their court dates, which is higher even than the rate for people who pay their full bail out of pocket. Washington D.C. has done away with money bail entirely, opting instead for a flight-risk assessment program that allows many people out on unsecured bonds which don’t require people to pay up front but rather fine them if and when they miss a court date.

Experts agree, however, that addressing the crisis created by the often unfair system of money bail is just one step in criminal justice reform. Programs such as Houston’s “Cite and Release” must be implemented at a larger scale to put an end to life-wrecking arrests and unconscionable detentions that cost us all too much. The present system is no good for defendants who are trying to straighten up their lives, no good for their families and dependents, no good for society at large when they lose another productive member to petty infractions such as open containers in public (or often no infraction whatsoever), and costs taxpayers entirely too much.

Williams is most known for his role in Grey’s Anatomy as Dr. Jackson Avery, but what he should be recognized for is his powerful commentary on racism, equality and social justice.

“This award is not for me,” the activist began. “This is for the real organizers all over the country who are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.”

Williams, who produced Stay Woke, a documentary on the Black Lives Matter movement, spoke out against police brutality against people of color. “What we’ve been doing is looking at the data, and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day. So what’s gonna happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country, or we will restructure their function, and ours.”

The crowd was on their feet. “I’ve got more, y’all,” Williams reassured the audience.

“I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich,” said Williams, invoking the names of Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and Darrien Hunt.

He went on to call-out those who challenge anti-racist activism and equal rights, but who do not challenge racism and oppression.

“If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”

Williams also lambasted the consumption of black culture and simultaneous devaluation of black life.

“We’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment…demeaning our creations, then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.”

Williams finished his speech with one final mic drop: “Just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.”

Check out the video above for the full speech.

Look at a timeline of events in Houston over the last few decades. On October 24, 1985, a mayoral candidate was getting ready for an interview on local Channel 13. A conservative, Louis Welch, didn’t realize his microphone was live and said one of his plans to fight AIDS was “to shoot the queers.” Welch eventually lost the election to Kathy Whitmire.

On July 4, 1991, as Paul Broussard was leaving a well known Montrose nightclub, he was beaten and fatally stabbed by a group of ten teens that lived in The Woodlands. In a recent article in Out Smart magazine, Andrew Edmonson writes: “The crime received little media attention until Queer Nation, a direct-action group formed to confront and defeat homophobia, organized a Take Back the Streets march nine days later to channel the simmering anger of Houston’s LGBT community. The protest mobilized 2,000 people and stopped traffic at the intersection of Montrose and Westheimer for an hour in a spontaneous act of civil disobedience.”

All of the assailants received prison sentences or probation. The last person serving time for this crime was paroled last year.

Since this incident, there have been other incidents that galvanized the media and received worldwide attention, including the hateful murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in October of 1998 through the mass shootings last week in Orlando, Florida.

A Murder in Montrose: The Paul Broussard Legacy, a documentary produced by Houston Public Media that airs on television later this week, looks at the events surrounding Paul Broussard’s murder and how it continues to affect Houston 25 years later.

A Murder in Montrose: The Paul Broussard Legacy will run on local PBS Channel 8 on Thursday, June 23 at 8 pm. A live town-hall discussion will follow the broadcast.

For 7 years, Free Press Houston has been proud to be a producer and sole founder of Free Press Summer Festival (FPSF). What started out as a collaboration by half a dozen knuckleheads in the community who had no business in the music industry eventually grew into a leviathan larger than the people who created it. We have been proud to see this little festival turn into an important civic event that has made Houston a better place for live music. However, after bringing in more and more partners, and as the festival takes on its own inertia, we have come to a place where we can no longer contribute to FPSF. We’ve done what we can. We put our heart and soul into this event and it’s grown into a community fixture, though it’s time to let it go. The majority interest of FPSF was sold to C3 Media effective December 18th, 2024, producers of Austin City Limits (ACL), Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, and C3 was purchased by LiveNation last year. Our publication, Free Press Houston, is entirely locally owned and operated. As such, we hope this translates to a bigger, better FPSF, yet we hope they keep all of the elements that make this festival so uniquely Houston.

We wish the best for the new leadership and festival staff of FPSF and we hope to see the festival thrive, grow, and maintain its importance in the local musical ecosystem. We also hope to see Houstonians urge the new leadership to keep the festival inextricably tied to this city and always provide a place for local bands to show their talents to a larger audience. Local bands are what made FPSF special in the first place. It’s what made it different from other festivals and this festival was built on their backs. They are owed nothing less than everyone’s absolute appreciation and a seat at the table.

This festival is still special and can continue to be beautiful. Thank you to all the staff, attendees, musicians and artists who have put so much of their blood, sweat, and tears into making this an honored Houston tradition. We love you, Houston.

There are no instances of men dressed as women going into women’s bathrooms to cause a fuss, or of transgender people doing anything in bathrooms that people shouldn’t be doing. Still, bathroom bills have become the new fighting ground over the right to privacy ever since North Carolina passed HB 2, which bans transgender people from using any bathroom that doesn’t match the sex on their birth certificate. HB 2 also prohibits local, city governments from passing any nondiscrimination ordinances of their own.

These bathroom bills are entirely unenforceable, but that hasn’t stopped regular citizens from feeling they have a right to police one another. Since HB 2 passed, there have been multiple instances of cisgender men (who aren’t dressed as women) following women and children into bathrooms just to check if they are really women and are using the correct bathroom. In short, these bathroom bills are causing more problems than they claim to solve.

It should go without saying that you shouldn’t bother people in public restrooms, but apparently it needs to be said. Below, you can find a handy guide to using public bathrooms. Hopefully it is helpful.

1. Don’t follow strangers into bathrooms to figure out what genitalia they have. 
2. When using a public restroom, don’t look into or under someone’s stall.
3. Don’t comment inappropriately on people’s appearances. Oggling strangers isn’t a good idea, either.
4. Do your business IN the toilet or urinal, not AROUND it.
5. Please flush. We can’t believe we need to say it.
6. Don’t touch people without their consent. (Again, can’t believe we even need to say it).
7. If you think you might try to assault someone in a bathroom, tell the authorities so they can stop you from doing that.
8. If you’re not sure if someone is a man or a woman, remind yourself that it doesn’t really matter and that you should go about minding your own business.
9. If someone’s appearance bothers you, but they haven’t actually done anything to you, leave them alone. Your personal discomfort with someone’s appearance and/or existence is your problem and doesn’t outweigh their right to privacy.

There you have it. This is how you use the bathroom. Don’t forget to wash your hands!