Since Rick Perry seems determined to play the "I'm a Real Texan" card---and a whole lot of the mainstream media is willing to play along---I expect that I'll be spending the next few months, and god forbid year, hopping mad. Not because I think Perry's an "inauthentic" Texan, but because I dislike the concept of "authentic", which, as I note below, is ironically based more in myth-making than in our complex realities. I mean, Perry is playing the not-a-Real-Texan card against George Bush, who I recall I had to defend a few times (much to my dismay) from liberals in the past who wanted to take away your Texan card because you were born somewhere else, even if you were raised Texan, identified as a Texan, ran the state, and retired there. I felt if Bush doesn't get to be a Texan, anyone's card can be yanked on the basis of some arbitrary bullshit. I take this stuff personally, because I've often felt the not-a-Real-Texan play being used against me, because I don't fit the narrow mold of "ignorant, mean-spirited yahoo" that is heralded by wingnuts, exoticized by the Village, and loathed by decent people who know damn well that there's no honor in willfull ignorance and spiteful reactionary politics.
On our Bloggingheads discussion, Josh Treviño suggested that it would be impossible to separate attacks on Rick Perry, a Texan, from attacks on Texas and Texas culture. I strongly disagreed, and feel it's a simple as launching an attack on, say, John McCain without claiming that all Americans are grouchy, pandering assholes. Rick Perry may claim that he's the only kind of Texan that counts, but I humbly disagree.
With that in mind, I put together a far-from-complete list of famous Texans that are nothing like Rick Perry, and can be printed out and mailed to any media organization that suggests that Rick Perry=all Texans, or that Rick Perry is somehow an "authentic" Texan, like the rest of us don't count. To avoid confusing the issue, I left off most overtly commercial country-western musicians, unless they are quite obviously not like Rick Perry, and I left off all Republican political figures. I also left off anyone born in Texas but not raised there, because I wanted this to be a list of people we can be reasonably certain thought of themselves as Texans, especially while they were forming as human beings. The point is to illustrate that there's a lot of ways to be a for-real Texan that don't involve being a conservative yahoo. Feel free to add more in comments.
Janis Joplin, singer
Ornette Coleman, innovative jazz musician
Patrick Swayze, actor
Roky Erickson, musician and founder of the original psychedelic rock band, the 13th Floor Elevators
Beyonce Knowles, R&B singer, current unofficial queen of New York, and her sister Solange Knowles
Molly Ivins, political writer, humorist
Lee Trevino, golfer
Wes Anderson, director
Dewey Redman, jazz musician
Katherine Anne Porter, novelist
Ann Richards, former governor
Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood
Erykah Badu, R&B singer, disrober around JFK assassination site
Bill Hicks, comedian
Van Cliburn, classical pianist
Buddy Holly, lead of The Crickets
William Butler of The Arcade Fire
St. Vincent, indie rock musician
Annise Parker, mayor of Houston, first gay mayor of a major city
Bill Moyers, journalist
Shelley Duvall, actress
Mike Judge, director of "Office Space", creator of "Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill"
Babe Didrickson, golfer and Olympian
Eva Longoria, actress
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, founders and members of The Mars Volta
The Dixie Chicks, of course
Selena, Tejano superstar murdered in her prime
Barbara Jordan, first Southern black woman elected to the House of Representatives
Renee Zellweger, actress
Steve Earle, musician
Lupe Ontiveros, actress
Richard Linklater, director of "Dazed and Confused", "Before Sunrise" and "School of Rock"
Melinda Gates, philanthropist
Gibby Haynes of The Butthole Surfers
Lance Armstrong, bicyclist
T-Bone Burnett, musician and producer
Lyle Lovett, musician
Phylicia Rashād, actress
Robert Rodriguez, director of "El Mariachi", "Spy Kids", and "Sin City"
Britt Daniel, lead singer of Spoon
Jamie Foxx, actor
The members of ZZ Top
Dennis and Randy Quaid, actors
Sarah Weddington, law professor and the lawyer who argued Roe v. Wade
F. Murray Abraham, actor
Isaiah Washington, actor
Alexis Biedel, actress
Vicki Carr, singer
Scarface, Willie D and Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys
Gloria Feldt, former head of Planned Parenthood (where would reproductive rights be without Texas women?)
Matthew McConaughey, actor
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Can’t leave out Tommy Lee Jones!