Dr. Michael Phillips
drmphillipsut.bsky.social
Dr. Michael Phillips
@drmphillipsut.bsky.social
Historian, author of “White Metropolis” and co-author of the upcoming “The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas.”
Somebody called the alternative halftime with Kid Rock “Klanchella” and I already know I will enjoy that more than the game.
February 8, 2026 at 10:06 PM
I'll speak this afternoon at the central branch of Dallas Public Library downtown about my first book, "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001," published 20 years ago. The talk will be from 2-3:30 p.m.

We hope we see you there.
February 7, 2026 at 4:00 PM
@betsyfriauf.bsky.social and I are at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy Culture Fest in Austin. She’s making a presentation based on our book “The Purifying Knife: the Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas.”
February 5, 2026 at 6:24 PM
I speak this Saturday from 2-3:30 p.m. at the downtown Dallas Central Library about the 20th anniversary of my 1st book, "White Metropolis." I'll about the book I co-authored last year with Betsy Friauf, "The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas." Hope I see you there.
February 4, 2026 at 7:01 PM
This is one of the journalists arrested by the Trump goons in the justice department for covering that protest in the Minneapolis church. She's doing brave work. Please support her.

www.georgiafort.com/support
Support Independent Journalism | GF
www.georgiafort.com
February 3, 2026 at 3:04 AM
I was busy this morning. Betsy sketched me doing my rounds this morning.
January 31, 2026 at 5:10 PM
It seems fitting that on the day some of the most disgusting descriptions of powerful sexual predators in the Epstein files becomes public, Texas A&M kills women’s & gender studies classes where students might learn the history of patriarchy & misogyny and how such oppression has been resisted.
January 30, 2026 at 11:22 PM
I wrote about heroic and cowardly responses to ICE and the racist war on migrants in the United States in Minneapolis and Texas.

open.substack.com/pub/drmphill...
Cowards and Heroes
Life, Death, and Warehousing Humans in the American Police State
open.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:07 AM
This made my day. I posted a selfie on Instagram from a day Betsy & I were at a vigil outside of the Dallas ICE headquarters.
The photo got a response: "Dr. Phillips, keep up the good work. I was a student of yours a decade ago. I am so proud you were MY professor. Keep 'Making Good Trouble.'"
January 29, 2026 at 4:14 PM
"We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can’t the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy . . . and I would submit to you that if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy.”

--- Ta-Nehisi Coates
January 26, 2026 at 3:08 PM
My friend & podcast colleague @stevanzetti.bsky.social wrote an investigative piece revealing the location of a warehouse in Hutchins near Dallas where up to 9,500 migrants from all over the country might be imprisoned in degrading conditions.

www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/...
ICE Just Bought a Massive Warehouse in Hutchins
Faith leaders call the 1-million-square-foot planned detention facility "disturbing."
www.dmagazine.com
January 24, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Samee Ahmad for Acacia Magazine wrote a thoughtful story here about the irony of a deeply socially conservative mosque I Plano in North Texas becoming a target of hate from right wing politicians aligned with Christian Nationalists. I'm quoted here.

www.acaciamag.com/issue-04/dre...
Dreaming EPIC in Texas — Acacia Magazine
This reported essay will look at the development of EPIC City, a proposed Muslim residential enclave in the Dallas, Texas suburbs. A 400-acre siloed “Muslim city,” the enclave takes its name after EPI...
www.acaciamag.com
January 24, 2026 at 6:38 PM
I have at this point only three events marking the twentieth anniversary of my first book, "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001." Here's one of them.
January 24, 2026 at 3:13 PM
We stood w/ the Clergy League for Emergency Action and Response (CLEAR) at Kessler United Methodist Church in Dallas during a press conference about the brutality in Minneapolis and ICE's plan to imprison migrants in nearby Hutchins. Photo by Dallas journalist Steven Vanzetti Monacelli.
January 23, 2026 at 11:50 PM
We’ve moved on to deliberately killing detainees rather quickly, haven’t we?

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment
Despite ample funding, the agency halted payments in October. They may not resume for several months.
www.motherjones.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:20 PM
There has been a sinister shift although whitewashing King, what I called his second assassination, was destructive in its own right.
It feels like there’s been a shift where instead of fighting against people sanitizing King, we’re seeing more demonization & questioning why he should be celebrated in the 1st place. Ideas that used to only be in trolling comment are now a pretty common response.
There was a time on old Twitter when I would get online on MLK Day and write a long thread about his radicalism and the defanging and sanitization, his warnings and the quote misusage, and the collective not singular effort. I guess I am old or exhausted because by now I think folks should know.
January 19, 2026 at 4:42 PM
"Well, maybe if we gave the Gestapo more training and made them wear body cameras they wouldn't be so abusive," said no one in Nazi Germany.
January 19, 2026 at 1:50 AM
A question I ask every day.
January 16, 2026 at 2:50 PM
I'm waiting for Trump to announce we're going to invade McDonaldland.
January 14, 2026 at 11:55 PM
As part of his internship, Dominic visited a steel factory his company owns.
January 13, 2026 at 9:26 PM
Let me get this straight: we’re going to kill some Iranians because they’ve killed some protestors there while we killed a protestor here.
January 12, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Their dimwittery gives me hope.
January 12, 2026 at 3:39 AM
Reposted by Dr. Michael Phillips
Dude’s out here making Ron Burgundy look like Edward R. Murrow
Tony Dokoupil closed last night's CBS Evening "News" with a passionate bothsidesing of Renee Good's killing: "I've heard too, not on the streets protesting, but in passionate notes in my inbox from people who want to see our immigration laws enforced."
January 9, 2026 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Dr. Michael Phillips
There are two sides to this issue. One one side, law-abiding US citizens who are getting murdered extrajudicially by the Federal Government. On the other side are the Federal Government agents who are murdering them. Who is right? Both are right. Everything is the same. Thanks for watching CBS news.
New CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil closing the broadcast from MN last night.
January 9, 2026 at 4:30 PM
A new edition of “Charlotte’s Web” came out.
January 8, 2026 at 3:14 AM