It’s pretty easy to peek at the reality of the city even during SXSW or ACL. For starters: Just look around and notice how white the lines are outside venues, the audiences inside. A good portion of them are out-of-towners, sure, but if these festivals are supposed to represent this city, what do they say about the overall accessibility of the city? Is Austin -- a place where the black population is just 8% and declining -- what a progressive haven looks like to you?

It’s one of the toughest questions facing Austinites of any race. I’ve been in this city for just under a decade now, so feel free to take my words with as many grains of salt as you’d like, but I keep finding an Austin that lags well behind its hype. For decades, the city has served as a haven for musicians and other artists trying to get by, but in recent years, as it transformed into a tech hub, it hasn’t truly reckoned with its ingrained history of segregation. When you find yourself caught in I-35 traffic, consider that in 1928, that sprawling, perpetually under construction interstate served as the dividing line for Austin’s master plan to push Black Austinites into East Austin -- a border that people on either side rarely crossed.