When the Help Doesn't Help

 By Diego Garcia III ★ Editor of The Brownsville Beacon

William Randolph Hearst was an American businessman and publisher who was the first person to establish the largest chain of newspapers across the country. His media company was known as Hearst Communications. At the height of his power, his newspapers reached over one million readers a day and covered over 30 major American cities. In order to capture as many readers as possible, Hearst relied on sensational headlines and stories telling of sex, violence, and corruption rather than objective, unbiased facts. This type of journalism is widely known as Yellow Journalism. 

The most infamous of William Randolph Hearst stories revolves around the Spanish-American War, or the time period leading up to the Spanish-American War. Hearst sent artist Frederic Remington to Cuba to capture images of the conflict between Spain and the United States in 1897. Remington sent Hearst a cable saying there wasn't going to be a war, noting that there was no fighting. Hearst sent a cable back saying "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

There are those who argue Hearst is the father of tabloid journalism. Hearst's methods led to outrageous publications like The Sun, The Weekly World News, and The National Enquirer. The tabloids and tabloid journalism led to sensationalist websites and social media pages that deal in the same type of outrageous salacious news "stories."

Nutshell version: Sex sells. Violence sells. Outrageous, exaggerated stories sell.

Which brings us to today. Anna Kramer is a reporter for a website called Protocol. a site that has several newsletters covering such diverse topics as finance, China, gaming, fintech (I guess we're inventing words now — fintech is financial technology), and workplace issues. Kramer wrote an article about Brownsville, SpaceX, and the environmental impact SpaceX has had on Boca Chica Beach and the surrounding wetlands. The article explains how Musk's test rockets have exploded and showered the beach with shrapnel and shards of toxic metal, impacting the local wildlife.

The article also talks about the relationship Musk has cultivated between SpaceX, his administrators, and local Brownsville and Cameron County politicians, including Mayor Trey Mendez and former mayor and current Cameroun County Judge Eddie Treviño.

Editor's note: It is important to remember while Mendez is Brownsville's mayor, the city does not have legal jurisdiction out at Boca Chica Beach; the beach falls under the auspices of Cameron County and Eddie Treviño. 

The article goes on to chronicle the issues SpaceX has brought the community; some positive, others negative. It also references the negative impact SpaceX is having on the environment. The article concludes with the author going to the Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport, passing by the recently named Starship Road. The last sentence of her article delivers a harrowing conclusion: "Regardless of how the locals might feel, there's no stopping SpaceX now."

I am not questioning the content of the article. I am glad someone is continuing to bring national attention to the goings on at Boca Chica Beach. I am glad there is someone who is writing about things that I, and other members of the Brownsville Blogosphere, have written and continue to write. 

I am, however, questioning the author's methods of introducing Brownsville to those who have never visited the area.

In a throwback to Yellow Journalism, Kramer introduces Brownsville as a place where people live in houses with dirt floors and probably wonders if the only places with indoor plumbing are hotels like the one she must have stayed in. Kramer Writes:

From afar, only electricity and cars signal that Brownsville hasn't been plucked from the early 20th century. The old stables, yellow brick, stucco, painted general-store signs, the occasional colonnade and elaborately wrought balcony all echo with a kind of faded glory. The ghosts of a place that was home to Spanish colonizers, the last battle of the Civil War and generations of Mexican immigrants remain in the still-standing architecture. 

Up close, the picture is a different one. The abandoned downtown storefronts with dusty, off-kilter wigs and broken glass convey the decades since almost anyone could afford to own a local business; the long nearby highway with strip malls, pawn shops and dried-out palm trees suggest the tax dollars are slim. Despite its historic charm, Brownsville is one of the poorest urban areas in the United States.

Kramer's condescending introduction reminds me of the movie Endgame. Endgame was the story of Brownsville's successful youth chess program. The movie portrayed Brownsville and Brownsvillians in similar "one of the poorest urban areas in the United States" fashion. One of the characters did live in a house with a dirt floor, and lived in a Brownsville where the Border Patrol routinely boarded school buses and arrested illegal children on their way to school.

The author may have been surprised but yes, the city has electricity, paved roads, indoor plumbing, clean running water, and yes — we have several different modes of transportation. 

We are no longer a region of Spanish colonial masters, mestizos, or an area filled with nothing but Mexican immigrants. We are a part of Texas. Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state in 1845. I am a Native Texan and an American citizen.

I don't know of any downtown business with broken glass in their storefront, Downtown Brownsville is hardly abandoned. If the author would have actually spent time in the area rather than what she gleaned from a 3 minute Uber through the area, she would have known tat Downtown Brownsville is in the middle of a renaissance and revitalization. She would have also realized there are plenty of small business owners wo have, and can afford, businesses downtown.

We are more than pawn shops, strip malls, and dried out palm trees. We have a zoo, a deep water port that services a thriving petrochemical industry among other industries, Mexican-American and Civil War battlefields, wildlife and nature preserves, championship golf courses, and access to some of the most beautiful beaches along the Texas Gulf Coast.

We are more than what an out-of-state Ivy-League graduate thinks we are. I'm sure this will probably come as a shock to her, but I'm not publishing this via a dial-up or free Starbucks internet connection. Yes, we have access to high-speed wireless iternet — surprise, surprise.

Don't paint us as a bunch of poor incompetent Mexican immigrants who can;t defend ourselves against the big, bad Elon Musk. We may not have his billions, or millions, but we have several people who can see through Musk and his swindling ways.

Thanks for writing about the way Musk and SpaceX is treating the local community, but don't make us out to be some barefoot, dirt poor peasants.

Don't help us too much.