TCB June 14, 2017 — BLM

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point June 14 – 20, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

Restaurant soccer league PAGE 20

Chance the Rapper PAGE 18

Unsolved homicides leave family members wondering if

BLACK

LIVES MATTER PAGE 11

FREE

June 14 – 20, 2017

chamber crawl Join us for the

3rd Annual EMF Chamber Crawl

Saturday, June 17 | 1-5 pm • Downtown Greensboro

An afternoon of musical, culinary and cultural adventures. FREE 1:00 pm 1:20 pm 1:40 pm 2:00 pm 2:20 pm 2:40 pm 3:00 pm 3:20 pm 3:40 pm 4:00 pm 5:00 pm

UNCG Steel Band at Koshary Drew Hays Quartet at Blue Denim Railyard Quartet at Triad Stage Consensus at Scuppernong Books Collapps at Jerusalem Market on Elm Drew Hays Quartet at Liberty Oak Railyard Quartet at The Worx Consensus at Ambleside Art Gallery UNCG Steel Band at The Bearded Goat Collapps at Elsewhere Finale at Gibb’s Hundred

Venues:

Drew Hays Quartet “Swinging Saxophone Jazz Combo” Railyard String Quartet “Classical for the Masses” Consensus “Classical Guitar” Collapss “Contemporary and Experimental Music” Koshary Mediterranean Restaurant | 200 South Elm Street Liberty Oak | 100 West Washington Street Scuppernong Books | 304 South Elm Street Triad Stage | 232 South Elm Street The Worx Restaurant | 106 Barnhardt Street

Thanks to our sponsors:

Ambleside Art Gallery | 528 South Elm Street The Bearded Goat | 116 East Lewis Street Blue Denim Restaurant | 217 South Elm Street Elsewhere | 606 South Elm Street Gibb’s Hundred Brewery Company | 117 West Lewis Street Jerusalem Market on Elm | 310 South Elm Street

UNCG Steel Band “Trinidadian Roots & Warm Caribbean Melodies”

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EASTERNMUSICFESTIVAL.ORG

History for dads

As far as midsized Southern cities go, Columbia, SC has a lot to offer.

Its assortment of Stuff We Don’t Got Yet in

by Brian Clarey the Triad includes a ramen restaurant, a bougie ice-cream parlor (think roastedbeet-and-feta ice cream) a straight-up vegan restaurant.

It’s the state capital, too, so I dragged my sweaty family to the grounds of the State House on Assembly Street so that I could conduct a teaching moment.

I lined them up under the most prominent monument, dedicated to the soldiers of Confederacy, who attempted an armed insurrection against the United States of America just four score and seven years after its formation.

I explained to my children that behind the statue of the soldier, who is quite literally on a pedestal, there once flew a Confederate flag, right here in front of the state capitol. That didn’t happen back in 1879, when the statue was unveiled, I fur-

ther explained. It was decreed four score and three years afterwards, by state law in 1962, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, as an effort to intimidate black people in this place that was once entirely dependent on slave labor.

And at first, the offending flag flew atop the dome of the State House, to be relocated to the memorial in May 2000.

They moved it because of a threatened NCAA boycott.

It took a North Carolina woman, Bree Newsome of Charlotte, to pull it down early one morning in June 2015 after scaling the 30-foot flagpole and tearing it from its tether. This was in the wake of a racially motivated shooting down the road at a Charleston church, after which the South Carolina legislature began debating the removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, which it finally did in July 2015.

I swept my arms across the wide plaza to impress upon my children the events of history that had happened right here.

And for a moment they humored me. But really they just wanted to get back to the ice cream place.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Where black people is getting shot and murdered, they’re treated as suspects instead of victims. We’re asking the police chief: Why aren’t you protecting us? 27260 and 27262 are the ZIP codes you’re policing, but you’re protecting 27265. You’re setting up roadblocks in our neighborhoods. I think it’s their preference. If I’m wrong I don’t think they’re showing me any different.

— Tonya Thornton, in the Cover, page 12

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg eric@triad-city-beat.com

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino jorge@triad-city-beat.com

SALES SALES/DIGITAL MARKETING SPECIALIST Regina Curry regina@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Kat Bodrie Spencer KM Brown

Jelisa Castrodale Matt Jones Joel Sronce

Cover photography of Mary Bethea and Melvin Dowe holding a photo of their son Jauhan Bethea, taken by Jordan Green

EDITORIAL INTERNS Lauren Barber & Eric Hairston intern@triad-city-beat.com

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2017 Beat Media Inc.

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June 14 – 20, 2017

CITY LIFE June 14 – 20

by Eric Hairston

IT’S BACK Y’ALL. Made with 100% NC malt and local Faucette Farms strawberries.

WEDNESDAY ET: The Extra-Terrestrial @ Milton Rhodes Arts Center (W-S), 7 p.m.

Sunset Flicks kicks off summer with a screening of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. Food trucks will be on site. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.

THURSDAY Coco Hames @ Bailey Park (W-S), 6 p.m.

Sunset Thursdays, a summer concert series, begins with performances by Coco Hames and others. There will be food trucks on hand, as well as beer and wine provided by Single Brothers.

For more information, visit flowhondasunsetthursdays.com.

preyerbrewing.com

Juneteenth luncheon @ Old Salem (W-S), noon A celebration the abolishment of slavery in Old Salem. This commemorative event celebrates the history of Winston-Salem State University and St. Phillips Moravian Church The luncheon includes a tour of the St. Phillips Moravian Church, the oldest African-American church in North Carolina. For more information, visit oldsalem.org.

Creatives On Call @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6 p.m.

UNCG’s art gallery hosts an in-depth discussion of art and its place in the exhibit Art on Paper with artist Lien Truong. For more information, visit weatherspoon.uncg.edu.

FRIDAY Richard Fennel retrospective @ Greenhill Art Gallery (GSO), noon One of North Carolina’s leading artists, Richard Fennell showcases his early work including sculptures, still lifes, interiors and portraits. For more information, visit greenhillnc.org.

SATURDAY DankFest @ Greensboro Coliseum Complex (GSO), noon DankFest is back for a third year, celebrating automotive culture. All makes and models are welcome as well imports and motorcycles. For more information, visit dankfest.net.

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not deeply rooted in misogyny.

As for Mateen’s claimed loyalty to ISIS, this seems more a symptom of bigotry rather than the origin of violence.

Let’s also pause to underpin the fact that individuals struggling with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims than perpetrators of violent crime, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

A nuanced discussion about Pulse or any mass violence isn’t possible without acknowledging the role of sexism, misogyny and performative masculinity in our culture. We need to cease careless scapegoating and reckon with the nexus of private and public violence.

We would also do well to reexamine our definition of terrorism.

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Shot in the Triad

from the presidential account. More than 30 tweets have been deleted from the Trump account since he was elected in November 2016 — there’s a complete list of them at Factbase — including the initial covfefe tweet.

So like a lot of other things, something stupid Trump did online is being used against him, this time to leverage more transparency from his administration.

And yet, he persists.

Crossword

US

Sportsball

has broken out about what exactly his tweets mean even when he isn’t making up words.

Are they just casual communications, as many of his paid defenders insist, or are these official missives from the president of the United States? Because by law, every word uttered by a sitting president must be preserved.

A Democrat from Illinois, Rep. Mike Quigley, addresses that quandary with the Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act, or COVFEFE Act for short. It seeks to amend the Presidential Records Act to include social media, which means, among other things, tweets cannot be deleted

thehubltd.com • 336-545-6535

Culture

Didn’t we all just have a blast making fun of Trump last month when he fumbled his phone during his morning tweet and accidentally informed the nation: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”?

Once we all figured out that “covfefe” wasn’t some secret, right-wing dogwhistle term for “eat the press” that dates back to the Nazis — despite Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s insistence that Trump’s people “know exactly what he meant” — it got a little crazy out there, what with the hashtag and the T-shirts and the think pieces. You can buy a covfefe mug online right now, on the same pages with the ones that say “liberal tears”; there are more than 600,000 “Covfefe Song” videos on YouTube.

So yes, ha ha! Meanwhile Trump was withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Our president’s Twitter habit is but one of the many unprecedented things about this administration; some debate

2921-D Battleground Ave. • Greensboro

Cover Story

by Brian Clarey

Opinion

The COVFEFE Act

News

to ThinkProgress. Conservative FBI estimates also show a strong correlation between men who murder four or more people without a “cool off” period and histories of domestic violence. The untold story of mass shootings is scripted behind closed doors, in the privacy of homes.

Monday marked the 1-year anniversary of Mateen’s slaughter of 49 people in the LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando.

Though media outlets widely reported that Mateen had no previous record of hate crimes, this hinges on whether our definition of a hate crime includes gender-based violence.

After the Pulse slayings, the shooter’s ex-partners, Sitora Yusifiy and Noor Salman, both reported severe domestic abuse, and homophobia is nothing if

Up Front

Omar Mateen didn’t walk into Pulse nightclub with a semi-automatic assault rifle and 9mm Glock because of devotion to the Islamic State or (speculated) bipolar disorder. It’s true he referred to himself as “Mujahideen” (“Soldier of God”) on a 911 call during the massacre, but to focus on the role of extremism or the specter of mental illness is to distort the lived realities of the mentally ill and more than 1 billion Muslims; consequently, it serves to silence the true canary in the coal mine: the increasingly clear connection between mass shootings and domestic violence.

Men commit 98 percent of mass shootings in the US — between 2009 and 2012, 40 percent of mass shootings began with a shooter targeting his girlfriend, wife or ex-wife, according

triad-city-beat.com

by Lauren Barber

The myths of the violent Muslim and the mentally-ill shooter

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June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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NEWS

Supporters strategize end game for Guatemalan woman in sactuary

by Jordan Green

Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, has taken sanctuary at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church for more than two weeks. What comes next?

As Juana Luz Tobar Ortega settled in for her second week of sanctuary at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, her supporters gathered at another church in Greensboro to discuss strategies for helping the undocumented immigrant from Guatemala resist her deportation order.

Thought to be the first person to take sanctuary in a North Carolina church in the Trump era, Tobar Ortega’s choice to seek refuge in the church beginning on May 28 was an option of last resort three days before she was scheduled to fly to Guatemala. Tobar Ortega’s decision draws on a centuries-old tradition of civil authorities refraining from seizing people from places of worship and a policy by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, of refraining from carrying out enforcement actions in churches, synagogues and mosques.

Articulated in a 2011 memo by then ICE Director John Morton, the policy calls on agents to generally avoid enforcement actions at a list of so-called “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospital, houses of worship, funerals and weddings, as well as public demonstrations.

In the absence of a clear end game, Tobar Ortega’s action to take refuge in the church buys time for her supporters to devise a strategy for her to stay with her family in North Carolina, and provides them with an opportunity to publicize her case and build support for her campaign.

“We’re not sure how we’re going to win yet,” said organizer Juan Miranda during a community meeting at Congregational United Church of Christ in Greensboro on Wednesday. “This is an experiment we’re all a part of.”

The Rev. Randall Keeney, the pastor at St. Barnabas, said the pastor at Tobar Ortega’s home church in High Point brought her a crawfish dinner and she was eating well. St. Barnabas has upgraded its wifi system to make

Supporters broke into small groups to brainstorm ideas for publicizing the plight of Juana Luz Tobar Ortega, a Guatemalan woman taking sanctuary in St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro.

the facility more inviting to volunteers. for months before she went public on ICE’s policy of exemption for places of March 31. The 30 some people who worship does include some exceptions showed up at Congregational United — such as national security or terrorism Church of Christ represented a wide armatters, an imminent danger to public ray of organizations, including Protect safety, destruction of evidence, or the GSO, the Episcopal Diocese of North arrest of a dangerous felon — although Carolina, Food Not Bombs and Resist it would be hard to conHigh Point. ceive how Tobar Ortega Hana Brown, a sociol— who has no criminal ogist professor who is ‘We’re not sure record — could fall into active with Protect GSO, how we’re going to said there’s a nation any of the categories.

“What we need is peoeffort, including the win yet. This is an ple who would stay with American Friends Service experiment we’re her,” Keeney said. “We Committee and the want people there 24-7 so all part of.’

National Lawyers Guild, if someone comes to the to devise a legal strategy – Juan Miranda door, she doesn’t have to to help people like Tobar answer.”

Ortega who avail themA group of people with the Amerselves of sanctuary eventually obtain leican Friends Service Committee and gal status to stay in the United States. At FaithAction Advocacy Committee a June 9 rally, the Rev. William Barber, had been working with Tobar Ortega former president of the North Carolina

JORDAN GREEN

NAACP, offered an undocumented man from Mexico sanctuary in Greenleaf Christian Church, where he serves as pastor in Goldsboro.

“This isn’t just about Juana,” Brown said. “Whatever we do is going to benefit every single immigrant who might need to take sanctuary.”

The coalition supporting Tobar Ortega is currently focusing its efforts on US Sen. Thom Tillis, who has called for incremental immigration reform. In an April 18 op-ed article in the Hill, the Republican lawmaker said reform legislation needs to “address the undocumented population in the United States in a fair and compassionate way,” after securing the border and strengthening interior enforcement.

“Tillis is the person who has done the most for immigrants, surprisingly,” Miranda said. “So we have to keep the pressure on him and bring him over

ferred to Atlanta. Without explanation, they let her go.”

For Juana Tobar Ortega and her family, Trump’s vow to crack down on illegal immigrants places a desperate exclamation mark on a decades-long struggle

that was already weighted with adversity.

“She’s filed her taxes every year,” Molina said. “She’s done everything she can to obtain status. Twenty-three years later we’re still fighting the same battle.”

triad-city-beat.com Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

to our side. He’s not going to do it because he’s a nice guy.”

Brown said Tobar Ortega’s supporters are asking Tillis to submit her paperwork for a stay of removal to ICE. “We want him to step in and take action,” said Lesvi Molina, one of Tobar Ortega’s four children. “We’re pretty confident he’s a man of judgment, and he’s going to make the right decision.”

Tobar Ortega’s supporters brainstormed several ideas for advancing her campaign, primarily geared towards raising money, pressuring government officials and keeping her case in the public eye. They included organizing benefit concerts with celebrity artists and more intimate house shows, fliering the upcoming Fun Fourth Festival, a “Freedom Ride” publicity tour, a documentary film, letters to the editor, and phone bank parties to keep the pressure on Tillis. On June 6, Keeney spoke at the Greensboro City Council meeting, inviting councilmembers to meet Tobar Ortega at his church and imploring them to take action.

Molina said her mother never considered going into hiding to avoid deportation.

“Immigration knew where she was from the beginning,” she said. “She came into the country seeking asylum. She’s been checking in with ICE. There was never a thought of going into hiding. We wanted it to be public. We’re looking for a solution.”

Molina said her mother fled Guatemala in 1992 after receiving letters from armed anti-government rebels pressuring her to join their cause coupled with threats on her life if she didn’t comply. Tobar Ortega first settled in California, and then came to North Carolina in 1993. (A CIA-backed coup in Guatemala preceded a decades-long civil war in the Central American country, which ended in 1996.)

While Tobar Ortega filed for asylum in the United States, her daughter Lesvi Molina stayed behind with her grandparents in Guatemala. When Lesvi fell ill, Tobar Ortega interrupted her asylum application to go back to Guatemala to care for her. Afterwards, Tobar Ortega purchased a fraudulent visa in Guatemala to re-enter the United States.

“Thanks to her decision I am here today,” Lesvi Molina said. “Not only because she’s my mother but because of everything she’s done for me, I’m taking this personally. I’m going to do whatever I can to help her.”

Molina said her mother has worked for San-Gar Enterprises, a contract sewing business in High Point, since 1999. Tobar Ortega married an American citizen, who has attempted without success to sponsor her application for citizenship. In 2011, she was arrested by ICE. Under the Obama administration, ICE maintained a policy of prioritizing criminal immigrants for deportation — a distinction erased through an executive order signed by President Trump soon after his inauguration.

“She was in the Burlington jail for a week,” Molina said of her mother’s ordeal in 2011. “She was trans-

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June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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Far-right groups converge behind anti-sharia message in Raleigh

by Jordan Green

A rally against sharia law drew a wide array of right-wing extremist groups, but counter-protesters taking a stand against Islamophobia vastly outnumbered the other side.

Far-right groups converged on the grounds of the State Capitol in Raleigh for an anti-sharia law rally, part of a nationwide string of events hosted by the anti-Muslim organization ACT for America, on June 10.

The national organizers had attempted to distance the rallies from overt white supremacy. Two days earlier, ACT for America had issued a statement disavowing the “March Against Sharia” in Bentonville, Ark. organized by neo-Nazi Billy Roper, saying they cancelled the event “when we became aware that the organizer is associated with white supremacist groups.” Noting that the event might still take place, ACT for America said Roper’s rally was un-sanctioned, adding that the organization opposes attacks or intimidation based on race, religion or sexual orientation.

“There are no KKK here, there are no Nazis here,” said Peter Boykin, president of Gays for Trump and the local coordinator for the Raleigh anti-sharia rally, on June 10. Despite his disavowal of extremism, Boykin publicly thanked Identity Evropa, a group founded last year that openly espouses white supremacy, after members in matching white dress shirts punctuated speeches with chants of, “Sharia-free USA” and “We will not be silenced.”

Boykin’s thank-you list also included Oath Keepers, a militia comprised of military veterans and retired law enforcement personnel that mobilized its members to provide security for the event, along with the III Percenters and other patriot militias, Bikers for Trump, Knights Templar, Soldiers of Odin and Proud Boys.

Proud Boys was founded by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who left the media outfit in 2008. The group calls itself a fraternal organization; its Facebook page identifies its values and beliefs as “minimal government, maximum freedom, anti-political correctness, anti-racial guilt, pro-gun rights, anti-drug war, closed borders, anti-masturbation, venerating entrepreneurs,

young girls. It encourages a father to kill his daughter if he feels she has dishonored Islam.

It encourages the murders of homosexuals and anyone who does not abide by its barbaric code.

“It’s time to take a stand,” Boykin continued. “It’s time to tell the open-border zealots that we will not be silenced by their intimidation tactics and clichéd cries of Islamophobia.

It’s time to tell the mainstream media that we aren’t buying their fake-news propaganda.”

The Council on American Islamic Relations, which describes itself as the country’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, decried the anti-sharia rallies in advance. “ACT for America is a hate group, period,” said Corey Saylor, director of the JORDAN GREEN Egbert Bickley (left) taunted protesters as Alan Hoyle, an Oath Keeper and council’s Department to Moniformer candidate for sheriff, holds up a Bible at an anti-sharia law rally. tor and Combat Islamophobia. venerating housewives, and reinstating a top of their lungs, the counter-protesters “We encourage all Americans spirit of Western chauvinism during an drowned out the speaker at the anti-shawho value religious freedom and reject age of globalism and multiculturalism.” ria rally, while facing patriot militia bigotry to take part in peaceful and Though the group is widely considered members outfitted in biker and military lawful local activities challenging these to be white supremacist, it projects a gear holding American flags. Within hate rallies.” cheeky image that camouflages its exminutes, Raleigh and Capitol police Many critics contend that rhetoric tremism. After the rally, a dozen young moved the counter-protesters across the against sharia falsely conflates a set of men underwent an initiation ritual to street. Lane “Gunny” Reynolds, state guidelines Muslims follow for living a join the Proud Boys in a public parking coordinator of the North Carolina Oath faithful life with civil law, and wildly lot near the Capitol as clusters of Oath Keepers urged people in the anti-sharia exaggerate the likelihood of its imposiKeepers and III Percenter militia memgroup to avoid confrontation, imploring, tion as a means of whipping up fear and bers milled around their vehicles nearby.

“Let law enforcement do their job.” hatred of Muslims.

Although exact counts were difficult Speakers at the anti-sharia rally took “We’ve been dealing with this issue to gauge with some of the patriot militia aim at liberal pieties, the news media for many years now, certainly postgroups staking out positions a block or and what they consider political correct9/11, but now the herring of sharia law so away from the rally as informal secuness.

— that’s what this is, we are not now rity details, the 50 or so people gathered “No, President Obama, Islamic radnor are we in the future under a threat for the anti-sharia event were signifiicals didn’t blow up my home or bring of sharia law — but they [ACT] use cantly outnumbered by counter-protestdown the World Trade Center because this as a red herring to stimulate hate ers. While ACT for America held its ralof global warming,” said Boykin, the towards the Muslim population here in ly on the south side of the State Capitol, coordinator of the Raleigh event. “They the United States,” said US Rep. Joe counter-protesters gathered at Halifax did so because they want their sharia Crowley, a Democrat from New York Mall near the state General Assembly law to be the new law of the world, who chairs of the House Democratic complex for an event billed as “Unitand we are standing in their way. What Caucus, last week. ed Against Islamophobia & Racism.” is sharia law? This is not just a code Laila Nur, a singer-songwriter who Around noon, some 250 counter-prothat Muslims live by. It is a legal system previously lived in Greensboro and who testers, including Muslims and other that intends to govern Muslims and attended the United Against Islampeople of faith, anarchists and communon-Muslims alike. It encourages a man ophobia & Racism in Raleigh, said she nists, converged at the southeast corner to beat and rape his wife as he wishes. goes back and forth on her identity as a of the Capitol grounds. Yelling at the It encourages the genital mutilation of Muslim.

Opinion Cover Story

Keeper and former candidate for sheriff in Lincoln County, insisted Christianity should have primacy in American government.

“The country was founded on the word of God,” he said. “It’s all through our country. It’s on the monuments. It’s on everything else showing the Holy Bible. It shows the Ten Commandments.

That’s where our country is founded.

That’s what’s in our Constitution through the Bill of Rights — come from the word of God. Why do we have these problems today in America? It’s because we’ve let go of the one true and living God.” Peter Boykin told the group to not be discouraged that they were outnumbered.

“Don’t get surprised about the crowds,” he said. “When people want to try to combine and they want to compare us with the evil side, like the March for Women and things like that, look we have so many veterans, disabled people, people who work, people who work out on farms and can’t make it. And a lot of people have fear. And sadly they have fear of terrorism.”

News

stand by while our women are draped in scarves, while our children are mutilated and while our men are emasculated before our very people. This is not what our Western civilization is all about.

This is not what the West was founded on.”

Lane Reynolds, the state coordinator of the North Carolina Oath Keepers, expressed disappointment in the relatively low turnout at the rally.

“It is a crying shame that there is not a million people here on this ground right now,” he said. “When I was in the Marine Corps for 20 years one of the things the Marine Corps made sure to teach us was to know our enemy. Guess what people? Go read the Koran for yourself. This is not a joke. Go read the Koran. See what’s in it. The Koran, itself, teaches hate. It’s in there. So I call out anybody that sees me on video or anything else: It is evil. I’ll say it and I’ll say it again: Radical Islam is evil, and it’s here on our ground today.”

While many speakers expressed the idea that sharia as a religious law is incompatible with the US Constitution, Alan Hoyle, a North Carolina Oath

Up Front

attended a meeting in Kernersville in February at which participants excitedly discussed local mosques and Muslim politicians. Another man, Frank del Valle, told people at the meeting that he wanted to start killing Muslims.

“Political correctness is being thrown away,” Goodwill said at the meeting. “A lot of people are meeting like this. We’re making progress in the right direction…. We need to talk about how we can get things done peacefully. Be ready for the worst.”

“I am beyond that point,” del Valle replied. “I’m ready to start taking people out.”

“I can understand that,” Goodwill said. “But we’re not there yet.”

Scott Tresler, the national coordinator of the anti-sharia rallies, said Goodwill was not involved in organizing the June 10 events.

Orry W. Von Diez, who attended the rally in Raleigh with Identity Evropa, accused opponents of being communists who support sharia law and favor “the oppression of Western civilization.”

“We will not stand for this type of oppression,” Von Diez said. “We will not

triad-city-beat.com

“It’s something I’ve taken more pride in recently with so much anti-Muslim hate,” she said. “It blows people’s minds to see a black, queer woman who is Muslim.”

Nur said she views ACT for America’s rhetoric about human rights, including female genital mutilation, domestic violence and gay rights, as a cover for and anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant agenda.

“We’re against genital mutilation, mass incarceration, dropping bombs on villages all the way,” she said. “Many times, you see white supremacist groups caping for women to mask their agenda of white nationalism. It’s like the invasion of Iraq when they said, ‘We’re protecting women.’ See what happens when you mix white nationalism with patriotism in a climate that’s hostile to brown folks. They’re using us to push a white nationalist agenda.”

ACT for America promotes a view that the United States is at risk of being subverted by an insidious agenda to impose sharia law by Muslims who present themselves as moderate and assimilated.

Robert Goodwill, who identified himself as a member of ACT for America,

Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

The Tanger Center and the DPAC playbook The Durham Performing Arts Center was a gamble: a pie-in-the-sky plan hatched more than a decade ago as an anchor for a resurging Southern city, with the city contributing about 70 percent of the $48 million price tag.

Now, with eight years of performances on the books, the DPAC posted a profit of $4.5 million in its 2015-16 season, 40 percent of which goes back to the city in a share with the venture capitalists who covered the funding gap.

Durham’s cut this year was $1.8 million.

It’s not a spectacular deal for the city, which borrowed $33.7 million in the form of bonds to come up with their portion and will be servicing the debt until 2036. But governments don’t exist to turn a profit, and the DPAC, according to its internal research, had an economic impact of $109 million on the city last season alone.

The differences between the DPAC and Greensboro’s own downtown performing arts center, the Tanger Center, which is scheduled to open in 2019, are significant but not insurmountable.

Durham is part of a larger metro area; there is less money in Greensboro, and — let’s face it — people outside of North Carolina have actually heard of Durham, while Greensboro remains off the national radar, certainly when it comes to high-dollar tourism.

And while Greensboro is kicking in roughly the same dollar amount that Durham did 10 years ago, the GPAC will cost almost twice what the DPAC did, with a current price tag of $78.1 million — the $40 million gap is to be filled with private donations, about half of which have been raised and most of the rest pledged.

But even while the Tanger Center is nothing more than a fenced-off patch of bare earth, it is still having an economic impact on downtown Greensboro. LeBauer Park is up and running. After success in its location proximate to the DPAC, the Aloft Hotel chain announced plans to build a few blocks from GPAC, with an opening date set for 2020. More projects are in the works for the area, mostly contingent on the Tanger Center, which at this point is too big to fail.

Yet, after a groundbreaking ceremony in May, the site remains untouched.

After a year of delays, construction on Phase I is scheduled to begin next week, though a contract with a builder has not been announced. Each delay brings with it diminishing returns in the forms of increased costs, decreased donor confidence and growing public distrust of the process.

And it’s a certainty that projects like Aloft and others reliant on the performing arts center will remain in a holding pattern until the Tanger Center moves forward.

CITIZEN GREEN

The Dems’ disconnect with working-class voters

During the 2016 election progressives comforted themselves with an unquestioned faith that, as Republicans coalesced behind the Trump crazy train, voters would recoil at the GOP nominee’s ostenby Jordan Green tatious sexism, disrespect for military veterans and other profound liabilities, and punish the party as a whole.

Instead, Trump swiped a handful of Democratic-leaning Rustbelt states and won the election, while Republicans retained control of Congress.

When Trump won, progressives only recalibrated their delusion, reasoning that the backlash against the new president would present new opportunities for Democratic inroads. This Pollyannaish certainty has continued with an unfounded confidence that the Republican Congress’ inept efforts to overturn Obamacare and the Trump’s mounting troubles related to the Russia scandal will ensure a Democratic resurgence at the polls in 2018.

That a blowhard real-estate mogul from New York City could win the favor of the working-class white voters who formerly comprised one of the Democrats’ primary constituencies should make it clear how much trouble the party is in. Measure for measure, the Democrats’ prescriptions on healthcare, student debt relief and childcare assistance hold more promise for improving the lives of working people, but the party’s economic message is muddled and its leadership is generally removed from the struggles of ordinary people, preventing any real prospect for electoral gains.

In short, there’s a profound disconnect between the elite class of candidates, consultants and donors operating the party machinery and the people they’re courting as a political base. The party hasn’t cultivated leadership by people with the day-to-day experience of struggling to earn a livelihood, while raising children or caring for aging parents. Considering that the political system is awash in corporate cash, maybe it’s understandable that only high-rollers can play the game, but the unfortunate result is a kind of paternalism, where working people recoil from well-intended political elites who try to tell them what’s best.

The Democrats’ deteriorating relationship with working-class voters is underscored by the fact that the party’s big play for flipping US House seats is Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, an affluent patch in the northern suburbs of Atlanta formerly represented by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, rather than deindustrialized swaths of Ohio, Pennsylvania or West Virginia. The limited options before the party leadership are evident by the amount

of cash poured into the special election for the 6th District scheduled for June 20 — now the most expensive US House race in history.

It’s also telling that in New York’s 19th Congressional District — considered one of the most promising Democratic pickups in 2018 — party volunteers are appealing to second-home owners from Brooklyn and Manhattan to try to bolster their ranks, as Frank Bruni reports in the Sunday New York Times. The district covers much of the Hudson Valley, and Bruni writes that the Democrats’ 2014 nominee, Sean Eldridge — “a pampered foal… who is married to the Facebook multi-millionaire Chris Hughes and qualified for the race by purchasing a $2 million country house just an hour from the $5 million country house the couple already owned” — never captured the hearts of the region’s beleaguered dairy farmers.

The 2016 nominee, a Bernie Sanders-style progressive named Zephyr Teachout, lost to Republican John Faso. Now, Bruni reports, the leading contenders for 2018 are Antonio Delgado, a Harvard-educated lawyer who works for the Manhattan law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; Brian Flynn, who wasn’t even registered to vote in the district during the last election; and Gareth Rhodes, who while stressing that he “grew up rural and religious, working on a farm,” is a 28-year-old law student at Harvard.

All the wailing and teeth-gnashing on Facebook threads about working-class voters failing appreciate the wisdom of the party platform won’t change the results.

My friend Christina James, a disability rights activist in Marietta, Ga. and former Whole Foods employee, summed up the party’s credibility challenge well. She noted on my Facebook page that the Affordable Care Act’s half-measure approach and Democrats’ faith that Republican state governments would expand Medicaid to help pay for it wound up causing unintended harm.

“I had continuous health insurance prior to the ACA through my husband’s retail job,” James wrote.

“After the ACA, retail jobs across the country cut hours for employees purely to avoid being required by law to pay for insurance. Often, this was with companies that had previously provided insurance (Whole Foods is a good example of this).

“Yes, the ACA helped many, many people and changed our national discussion about healthcare, but the backlash and capitulation by Democrats to make it less robust hurt many of us profoundly,” she continued. “Democrats’ failure to acknowledge or make any strides to correct this fact has done more damage to the party than they realize.”

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told of this behavior or observed it herself, I wish she would have come to the office to let someone know. I was third vice chair for the party at that time, and would have quickly apologized for this behavior, and addressed it immediately. It is important to note that there are numerous organizations and businesses housed in that building, and said behavior could have been displayed by any visitor in the building.

Also, in order to correct the record, voter registration drives never occurred in our office; those efforts are conducted out in the community.

As a personal aside, I’d like to mention that I went with Tessie Castillo of the NC Harm Reduction Coalition to meet with Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford) to bring the treatment perspective regarding the immediate need for active syringe exchange programs to be legalized throughout the state of North Carolina. Rep. Faircloth stopped us abruptly during the education component of the meeting and informed us that he did not need to hear anymore and wanted to be the author of the legislation — much more than we expected from that meeting.

Also, in 2016, I introduced a resolution calling for the legalization of syringe exchange programs into the Guilford County Democratic Party county convention and was thrilled that it received broad support at that convention and the subsequent district and state conventions, at which it passed on June 11, 2016. Lastly, I have personally distributed naloxone in the community and have been a strong and vocal advocate for the Good Samaritan laws, making naloxone easily accessible to all here in North Carolina and for the legalization and expansion of syringe exchange programs.

Ralph Rodland, High Point

News

Ties that bind harm reduction and local Dems I was happy to see your recent profile of the Urban Survivors Union in Triad City Beat’s May 31 issue [“Citizen Green: Reaching drug users where they are”; by Jordan Green]. This issue is one that needs as much press as possible, as opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of death for those under the age of 50. However, I feel it necessary to comment about one paragraph in particular, listed below: “By the summer of 2016, around the time the state General Assembly passed legislation legalizing needle exchanges, Vincent’s outfit Urban Survivors Union had set up shop in an office park upstairs from the Guilford County Democratic Party headquarters on Meadowview Road in Greensboro. It wasn’t a great fit: The party volunteers weren’t all that thrilled to see people carrying boxes of syringes through the building while they were trying to conduct voter registration drives, Vincent said.”

I have been proud to serve on the board of the Guilford County Democratic Party for the last five years, a tenure that only recently ended this past April. During my time with the local party, I have found a welcoming home, and one that embraced my decision to disclose that I am a person in long-term recovery from alcohol and other drugs. It is not easy to discuss one’s substance use for fear of backlash due to the overwhelming shame and stigma that is attached to addiction, despite the American Medical Association recognizing addiction as a disease more than 50 years ago.

If there were “party volunteers [that] weren’t all that thrilled to see people carrying boxes of syringes through the building,” and Ms. Vincent was either

11

June 14 – 20, 2017

Unsolved homicides leave family members wondering if

BLACK LIVES MATTER

by Jordan Green

Cover Story

One afternoon in 2014, Charity Thomas and her boyfriend, Maurice “Boss” Hagler, found themselves being followed by a strange car as they drove across High Point.

12

Thomas and Hagler operated Kenzie’s Event Center, a venue on Brentwood Street in High Point named after Thomas’ daughter that functioned as a nightclub while also hosting weddings and children’s birthday parties, and Hagler often helped Thomas at a clothing store she owned. When Thomas and Hagler eventually stopped at the clothing store, the occupants of the car approached them and identified themselves as a criminal defense attorney and private detective. The lawyer was representing Nathan “Goodfoot” Wilson, who was charged in the murder of Gerald Williamson, who was killed at Kenzie’s in the early morning hours of Feb. 28. Thomas had made the 911 call to report the murder and was presumably one of the few reliable witnesses on the scene.

“They were asking if the witnesses that had given information against him were present in the club; we didn’t know,” Thomas recalled. “We didn’t see him do it. When I explained that to them, they could see that me and him wasn’t any help to them. Maurice didn’t have anything to tell. We didn’t see him do it. We didn’t see him with the gun.”

Months later, on a Friday in December, Thomas picked Hagler up after a work shift. They had plans to have dinner together at Golden Corral, and then Thomas would drop him off at his house while she worked a couple hours at the clothing store. Afterwards, the two of them planned to go to Walmart to take care of some Christmas shopping.

As they rode together to the restaurant, Thomas could tell that Hagler was worried about something, but he wouldn’t tell her what it was. He told her it was nothing and turned up the music — Frankie Beverly & Maze — and the couple sang along. At the restaurant, they talked.

“He told me I was his best friend,” Thomas recalled. “We always joked about it — I would tell him, ‘You don’t have any friends.’ It made me smile so much. I laughed, and we held hands and walked out together.”

Just before dropping Maurice off at his house on Wise Avenue, Charity told him: “Have a good day. I love you.” Maurice smiled back at her.

While he waited for Charity to return, Maurice opened his house to five visitors — acquaintances from the neighborhood. Just before 10 p.m., two other men battered down the back door.

According to one of the guests, who spoke to Triad City Beat on condition of anonymity, one of the men yelled, “Where’s the money?” before shooting Hagler in the torso. The guest said she picked up someone’s cell phone and called 911, and then observed with disbelief that the other guests were grabbing Hagler’s belongings and fleeing the house. Hagler was pronounced dead after being rushed to the hospital.

Audria McIntyre, Hagler’s mother, said four people who had been at the house before the break-in stole cash out of her son’s pocket after he was shot, along with clothes, baseball cards and a suitcase full of vinyl records.

“I guess he thought he knew them pretty well to invite them over there,” McIntyre said. “They evidently weren’t his friends.”

Much of the information that has come out about Hagler’s murder amounts to little more than rumor.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that there were five people in the house, not to mention the two people that came in the house, and no one can say what happened,” Thomas said. “Everybody’s story is different. One person upped and moved to Virginia. We asked the police: ‘Do you know where they are?’ They said, ‘We don’t know where they are.’ They said, ‘We went and talked to someone when they were in jail.’ It’s constant BS. It’s unfair to us.”

Thomas doesn’t know who killed her boyfriend, but she’s certain that the people who were with

him that night know something that they’re not sharing with the police.

“How can someone come in the house with nothing on their face and no one can tell you nothing? The two guys in the house, they were from the neighborhood that he was trying to help. Me and Maurice took one of the guy’s daughters to church.

Two or three days after Maurice died, he up and left. He’s making videos about [the murder].”

Thomas does not connect the crime against her boyfriend to the murder of Gerald Williamson at Kenzie’s Event Center earlier that year.

“Definitely to take what was in the house — money and things that were found in the house,” she said, describing what she said is the most likely motive. “I asked that myself: ‘Lord, I just want to know.’ I can’t even say. I don’t really know. I really would love to know.”

More than two years have passed since Hagler’s death, and Thomas said she still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that he’s gone. He was like a father to McKenzie, who was 8 at the time of his death.

“I’m still in mourning,” Thomas said. “I still have my days when I cry out loud. It hasn’t changed. It’s like he’s on a long vacation. My daughter said, ‘It seems like he’s still going to walk in the house.’

“Man, they just don’t know what they took,” Thomas said. “They took someone that was really special.”

McIntyre, his mother, said that she wants the closure that would come from some-

Audria McIntyre holds a photograph of her son, Maurice “Boss” Hagler, who was murdered in December 2014.

JORDAN GREEN

Compared to its more populous Triad neighbors — Greensboro and Winston-Salem — High Point had until recently maintained an enviable record on violent crime. A 2014 investigation by Triad City Beat found 1.1 homicides per 100,000 people in High Point over a 12-month period, compared to 2.4 in Winston-Salem and 2.8 in Greensboro. The same review found that High Point also compared favorably on its clearance rate, with arrests in 75 percent homicides, compared to only 47.7 percent in Winston-Salem and 59.3 percent in Greensboro.

A city of 111,223, High Point has been shaken by a rash of homicides since the beginning of 2017. The city recorded seven homicides in 2015 and the same number in 2016 — more than twice the figure for 2014. With 2017 not even half over, the count is already at 11. Assuming the trend continues through the end of the year, that puts High Point at a homicide rate of 22.3 per 100,000 people, an astronomical rate when compared with the numbers from just three years ago.

Meanwhile, a growing number of unsolved cases, primarily involving black men in their twenties and early thirties, is straining trust between the police and the black community. Three of the 11 homicides in 2017 remain unsolved, along with three in 2016 and two in 2015, according to Capt. Mike Kirk, the public information officer for the department. And an arrest doesn’t guarantee a conviction: Nathan “Goodfoot” Wilson, the man charged in the murder of Gerald Williamson at Kenzie’s Event Center, walked out of the High Point Jail after 11 months of incarceration when the Guilford County District Attorney was forced to dismiss the case for lack of evidence. The case against Wilson had been built on the word of two informants of questionable credibility, and prosecutors concluded there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the charge when state lab results showed no DNA match between Wilson and shell casings recovered from the scene.

A handful of family members and intimate partners of black murder victims interviewed for this story alleged treatment by

investigators ranging from indifference to intimidation — a charge vigorously denied by department brass. Drug sales as a driver of homicides and other violent crime has also become a point of contention between police and the community. While the criminal records for some victims partially back up the police’s position that violence mainly affects people engaged in the drug trade, the characterization is highly offensive to some family members who find it to be a gross generalization that excuses official complacency.

For many of the mothers and intimate partners of black men killed in the past three years, the recent spate of violence in the first half of this year has reopened old wounds while galvanizing them to come together for mutual support. Led by Tonya Thornton, whose nephew Michael J. Davis was fatally shot in front of his house in the Five Points neighborhood, the women have been meeting roughly twice a month since February in a conference room in the Radisson Hotel in downtown under the banner We Are the Community. A broader cross-section of the community, led by the High Point NAACP, has been holding meetings at a different church in the city once a month to wrestle with the violence, along with other issues of racial inequity.

High Point’s reputation for both proactive policing and race relations — factors bearing on the handling and resolution of the unsolved murders of black men — stands on starkly divergent perceptions.

Local boosters point to High Point Community Against Violence, a nonprofit based in the West End neighborhood that works with the police to reduce violence, including a celebrated call-in program in which violent felons received harsh warnings from law enforcement while a separate panel of community members promises support if they pledge to turn away from criminal activity.

The National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College states on its website that High Point “has seen major reductions in crime over 20 years using the [project’s] strategies and conducting call-ins.

“It was the initial pilot site for the Drug Market Intervention and has helped to develop innovations such as racial reconciliation and custom notifications,” the website says.

The website for the program credits High Point Community Against Violence with providing “a template for community partnership in violence reduction efforts across the country” while noting that High Point was also the pilot site for an “Intimate Partner Violence Intervention” program in collaboration with the US Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women.

Meanwhile, former Chief Marty Sumner, who retired in February 2016, defended officers who walked out on a training about institutional racism hosted by Guilford County Schools in early 2015.

Subsequently, complaints from conservative city council members about a “Black and Blue” forum to promote dialogue between the police and the black community organized by the High Point Human Relations Commission ultimately led to the firing of Human Relations Director Al Heggins, who has a federal lawsuit for racial discrimination pending against the city.

Pastor Brad Lilley, an officer with the High Point NAACP, has characterized the city’s dismissal of Heggins and the suspension of her program to promote police-community dialogue as a squandered opportunity. Based on the fraught relationship between Lilley and department brass — notably Sumner’s successor, Kenneth Shultz — the police have largely shunned the NAACP-sponsored community meetings, further alienating black residents and erod-

ing trust in the department.

“I know he wasn’t a perfect son; he was my son,” Audria McIntyre said about Maurice Hagler, who was murdered in December 2014. “I know he got caught with marijuana.”

Hagler faced felony marijuana charges at the time of his death. An affidavit attached to a search warrant in the case indicates that TA Weavil, an investigator in the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office’s vice-narcotics unit, had met with an informant who indicated that Hagler was distributing “large amounts of marijuana” from the house. The affidavit warned, “This informant fears physical reprisal should the informant’s identity become known.”

Similarly, Jauhan Bethea, who was fatally shot in his house on Burton Avenue in September 2015, carried a 2007 conviction for trafficking MDMA, commonly known as molly, in 2007 and 1999 conviction for cocaine possession.

Bethea, who was 34 at the time of his death, was quiet and reserved, the type of

Michael J. Davis.

triad-city-beat.com

one being charged in her son’s murder, although a trial would bring up painful feelings.

“I probably won’t understand it, but at least give me clarity,” she said. “Why would you do it? Your life changed, and definitely Boss’ life changed. Who are you? Who are your parents? Who raised you? How can you walk away like you threw something in the trashcan? I’m scared for you because sooner or later the coin will flip.

This family keeps praying. We gonna be all right. I can hear Boss saying: ‘We gonna be all right.’”

While expressing hope that those responsible for her son’s death will turn themselves in, McIntyre said, “I have to forgive them for me. If I don’t forgive them, I’m gonna go down a bad road.”

Thomas said that before her boyfriend was killed, she would cry when she saw Gerald Williamson’s daughter at church, and she said she told Hagler she didn’t ever want to have to go through what Williamson’s girlfriend experienced.

If anyone thinks the two murders are connected, Thomas said, “Let it be known that just as much as I want justice for Maurice, I want it for Gerald as well.

“I just pray to God that one day we will get some type of justice,” she said. “I pray for it every day: God help us and give us strength.

My heart goes out to Gerald’s family. I pray that we get the justice we deserve.”

COURTESY

person who mainly kept to himself, said his mother, Mary Bethea. His father, Melvin Dowe, said Jauhan told him it was hard to find a job because he had a felony on his record.

Dowe said Bethea’s girlfriend and the children had just left for a funeral 30 minutes before someone broke into the house through a window and shot him.

“I know it was someone who knew him real good,” Dowe said. “He didn’t have a lot of friends. His girlfriend had friends over. I feel like it was one of her girlfriends who set him up.”

Mary Bethea added, “Somebody knows something. If it was their child, they would want someone to talk, too.”

Jauhan Bethea had four children. The youngest, Jauhan Jr., was 16 months old at the time of his death.

Now 3, Jauhan Jr. occasionally throws

13

June 14 – 20, 2017 Cover Story

14

screaming fits because he misses his father, his grandmother said.

“He’s hollering: ‘Dad, dad! Where you at?’”

Dowe said Jauhan had given him a pressure washer for Father’s Day, and they planned to start a side business together to earn extra money.

“There’s stuff we had been planning to do,” Dowe said as his wife wept. “I don’t bring up stuff like that because it’s hard for her — little stuff we had been planning to do. That Father’s Day was one of the best Father’s Days I had.”

Before Jauhan died, Dowe told him about his plans to buy a storage unit to put in the backyard.

“I said, ‘Jauhan, I finally decided to get the storage building,’” Dowe recalled. “They were building it, and they delivered it the day before his funeral. I think about him every time I step into the storage shed.”

Dowe said he’d like to know some details about Jauhan’s murder like whether there was evidence of a struggle and whether the house had been ransacked.

“We don’t know anything,” Dowe said. “It seems like [the police] avoid us.

“I went there [to the police department], and they wouldn’t even send someone to talk to us,” he added.

“I’ve only been a law-abiding citizen. When this happened I got a different perspective on law officers.”

Assistant Chief Larry Casterline dismissed Dowe’s account as “ludicrous,” adding that he could come to police headquarters and file a complaint with the professional standards division if he wished.

“If that detective was there, and they didn’t have someone at their desk, they would come out,” Casterline said. “You’re not going to ignore someone who calls you a ‘racist.’ This is 2018 [sic]. We are about customer service.”

The High Point Police Department now considers the cases of Gerald Williamson, Maurice Hagler and Jauhan Bethea to be “cold,” said Lt. Rick Johnson, who supervises the violent crimes unit.

“Obviously, the overwhelming percentage of violent crime is drug-related, or related to mental health or alcohol,” Casterline said. “It’s typically not innocent bystanders that are the victims. When you read about drive-by shootings, 95 percent is two groups going back and forth. You’ll have the Bloods and Crips with drug gangs competing for turf. They’re robbing drug dealers or places that gambling is going on.

They know there’s money there. They know they’re not going to call the police because the victims don’t want the police involved.”

Many, though not all, of the family members and intimate partners find Casterline’s characterization to be infuriating.

Michael J. Davis was fatally shot in his front yard in the Five Points neighborhood in October 2016.

Although Davis carried a conviction for felony robbery with a dangerous weapon when he was in his early twenties, his record does not include any drug charges.

“He was not an innocent person; just a regular

person,” said Davis’ aunt, Tonya Thornton. “He was 34 years old with four kids; great father. He grew a garden. He built the inside of his house with his own hands. Whenever people heard that he got killed, it was, ‘Who? Mike D?’ When he had his first kid he got in trouble. Was it right? No. He owned his home. He wasn’t a drug dealer. He did smoke weed. He worked at Family Dollar full time.”

Thornton said when she and Davis’ mother call the police department, “no one picks up and no one calls back.”

The command staff at the police department is familiar with the charge, and Casterline said the family members leveling it are just upset because the detectives tell them they have no new information.

“Every man and woman who wears the uniform, most are married,” Casterline said. “They have moms, dads, uncles and cousins, and all of them at one time have experienced loss, especially the detectives who are older. If you want your case solved and you want something done, and a detective calls and says, ‘We have no other information,’ frequently they’re not happy with that. But most of [the detectives] will call them back.”

Rosalind Hoover (see related story on next page) — whose fiancé, Donte Gilmore, was fatally stabbed at his home on Franklin

Maurice Hagler and Charity Thomas

COURTESY PHOTO

Avenue on Feb. 1, said the police have attempted to intimidate her because of her outspokenness about their handling of the case.

“I have even been told that I could not get anything on Donte’s case if I keep speaking out on Facebook and being around Tonya [Thornton],” Hoover said.

“I doubt that highly,” Casterline said when told of Hoover’s complaint. He added that, if sustained, the conduct described by Hoover would amount to a departmental violation for rudeness as opposed to intimidation, and that she should file a complaint with the professional standards division if she feels she has been mistreated.

The fact that Chief Shultz has repeatedly declined to attend or send a representative to monthly meetings of the High Point NAACP reinforces a sense among some family members that the department is indifferent towards the deaths of their loved ones.

“It’s important for meetings to be productive,” Casterline said. “If I know you can’t stand me or you’re not going to be honest with me or it’s not going to be productive… at some point we’re gonna move on.”

Pastor Brad Lilley, who serves as the community coordinator for the High Point NAACP, said Chief Shultz reluctantly attended the first community meeting in March, after Lilley met with the chief and City Manager Greg Demko.

“They were very apprehensive about coming to this meeting,” Lilley said. “As the city manager put it: Was I trying to make them look bad? As soon as I walked into the room, they began to question me.

Chief Shultz asked: Was I trying to set them up?

They had in mind that I had some kind of hidden agenda. This community meeting was the best thing that could happen to the community. I thought if we stand shoulder to shoulder that those who perpetuate these killings would see that the community is standing united with the police department to stop the violence. That has always been the agenda — to stop the violence.”

Shultz said he would not discuss anything personal between him and Pastor Lilley, but he said he meets with a representative of the High Point NAACP once a week, much as he does with representatives of the Latino community. After he attended the March NAACP meeting, Shultz said he decided it didn’t make sense to have police there because he doesn’t want to discuss personnel issues or specific cases in public. He also said when mothers claim that the police don’t talk to them, it doesn’t do any good for officers to publicly contradict them.

Tonya Thornton — whose nephew, Michael J. Davis, was murdered in 2016 — contends that the police make a broad-brush characterization that black victims of violence are involved in drug dealing as a way to excuse their lack of progress.

“Where black people is getting shot and murdered, they’re treated as suspects instead of victims,” she said.

“We’re asking the police chief: Why aren’t you protecting us? 27260 and 27262 are the ZIP codes you’re policing, but you’re protecting 27265. You’re setting up roadblocks in our neighborhoods. I think it’s their preference. If I’m wrong I don’t think they’re showing me any different.”

That’s not true, Casterline said.

“Our job is to get violent people off the streets,” Casterline said. “Every time a gun is fired, that bullet has to go somewhere. And if it misses its intended target, where’s it going? To me it’s kind of sad that someone would think that, especially the way officers risk their lives every day and put in the time to solve these crimes. The idea that we don’t make the same effort just because of someone’s skin color is outrageous.”

During two separate interviews, Casterline repeatedly emphasized that the police are reluctant to share details with family members for a variety of reasons, including that they might share the information and compromise the investigation or in some cases the family members might themselves be under suspicion. But when challenged on whether his character-

to publish the information, even at the risk that it might defame her nephew, because she believes it’s important for people to know how the police are treating the case.

“It’s always drugs — that’s horrible,” she said. “If your white neighbor got shot, they would not say it was drug-related. They would look for other reasons. That pisses me off.”

Lt. Johnson, who supervises the violent crimes unit, said the department currently considers the investigations into the Davis and Gilmore homicides to be “active, heading towards cold.”

Audria McIntyre, the mother of Maurice Hagler, said

she used to call the detective every couple days, but now she figures he’ll call her if he has any new information. She trusts that he’s still pursuing leads even though her son’s homicide is now considered a “cold case.”

“A lot of people are doing a lot of talking, but they’re not going to the police,” McIntyre said. “It’s all rumors. If it was your brother, if it was your nephew, if it was your uncle, you would want that closure. There’s no honor among thieves. They’re going to turn on you. I don’t want another mother to wake up and have a hole in her heart. No mother should bury a child, because it’s a hurting thing.”

triad-city-beat.com

ization of violent crime as being monolithically driven by the drug trade, Casterline volunteered that investigators have heard “street talk” that Michael J. Davis had “ripped off someone of a large amount of marijuana.” He added that the department was planning to release the information in the hopes that someone in the community would come forward with information that would help police make an arrest.

“I don’t appreciate that they would share it publicly before they shared it with the family,” Tonya Thornton, Davis’ aunt, said. “They don’t talk to us.”

Thornton expressly gave her blessing for Triad City Beat

White neighbors reportedly subjected bereaved woman to threats of racial violence Rosalind Hoover’s neighbors, Christopher and Tyler Littlefield, did not take kindly to her request that they stop revving their engines — a pickup truck with no muffler and a moped.

Hoover, who is black, said she was suffering a migraine when she heard the Littlefield brothers, who are white, revving their engines. In an affidavit to support a misdemeanor communicating threats charge, the 49-year-old Hoover wrote that at 7:45 p.m. on March 22 she asked them to keep the noise down and went back inside her house.

“Tyler parked in front of my walkway on his moped and [revved] the motor,” Hoover wrote. “I came back outside where Chris said to me to take my black ass back to Greensboro and that he would help his brother Tyler beat my ass and tear down my mailbox.”

The incident took place about seven weeks after the murder of Hoover’s fiancé, Donte Gilmore, which remains unsolved.

Hoover wrote in the affidavit that Chris Littlefield, who is 21, told her that “I was a black b****, and n***as is why the killings are going on, and that he (Chris) needed to kill our black asses and that is why someone killed my boyfriend.”

While Chris Littlefield was yelling at her, Hoover wrote in a separate affidavit that Tyler said “he bet I won’t get mail for a couple days because he was going to tear my mailbox down and whoop my butt and he will hang his rebel flag on my fence anytime he wanted to.”

Hoover lives in the Highland Mills neighborhood, a racially mixed and working-class area in southwest High Point that was built for employees of the Highland Cotton Mill. The mill was established in 1913 and continued to operate into the 1970s. Many of the original owners of the homes in the neighborhood have died or moved away, with much of the housing stock converting to rentals over the years.

Chris Littlefield could not be reached for this story, but Tyler denied the allegations to Triad City Beat.

“We work on our vehicles — I just recently got rid of mine,” he said. “She likes to raise hell and call the law on us when we go to rev ’em up.”

Hoover said she called 911 while the brothers were

Rosalind Hoover

JORDAN GREEN

yelling at her. A High Point police officer responded to the call, but told her that he couldn’t take any action and she would have to go to the magistrate’s office to swear out a warrant.

Assistant Chief Larry Casterline said that would be standard practice for a misdemeanor in which the alleged offense did not occur in the officer’s presence.

“That’s pathetic and disgusting,” Casterline added in reference to the reported threat. “I guarantee that upset the officer.”

Hoover said she did as the officer suggested and went downtown to the magistrate’s office to swear out a warrant against the brothers, resulting in matching charges of misdemeanor communicating threats.

The criminal summons for each of the brothers that were signed by Magistrate MH Phillips alleges that they both threatened Hoover by saying, “I’m going to whoop your butt and hang my rebel flag on your fence,” even though Hoover’s affidavits report that only Tyler made the statement. The criminal summons for Chris does not reflect Hoover’s allegation that he used the N-word or expressed the imperative to kill black people.

Police Chief Kenneth Shultz noted that in cases where racial bias is evident the police have the discretion to pursue a separate hate crime charge, but emphasized the role of the magistrate in determining appropriate charges in Hoover’s complaint. He add-

ed that the district attorney could pursue additional charges if they see fit.

The brothers’ next appearance in Guilford County District Court is scheduled for Thursday.

Hoover said the brothers’ racial hostility persisted from the day she moved into the neighborhood in September 2016. At the time, she said, the brothers had a Confederate flag hanging in their yard, and threatened to drape it over her fence.

“I said, ‘The day you do that, that’s the day your grandmother’s going to have to take you out in a body bag,” Hoover recalled.

A month later, she said one of the brothers traced out the words “I hate n****ers” in the mud covering one of their vehicles. Later, she said, they spray-painted the word “F*** you, n***ers” under the hood of one of the vehicles.

Tyler Littlefield disputed Hoover’s account.

“Underneath the hood, it said ‘F*** your V-8,’” he said. “She didn’t like that. She didn’t like the fact that we that we had old vehicles. We don’t do anything wrong to her. We don’t cuss her ass out — excuse my French.”

Hoover’s allegations against the Littlefield brothers are consistent with a complaint against Chris by another neighbor, Elizabeth Winfree, resulting in a 2015 misdemeanor stalking charge. Winfree wrote that Chris Littlefield was “driving by all hours of the night acting crazy not actually threatening but yelling and cussing, waking my kids up, calling me names like ‘fat ugly-a** cow’ and telling me to ‘go f*** myself’ and just being loud and disturbing the peace, and now he’s got a blue light on his car and pulling people over saying, ‘Freeze, fuzzballs, you’re under arrest.’”

The misdemeanor stalking charge against Chris Littlefield was dismissed for reasons that are not explained in the casefile.

Hoover said since the Littlefields’ first appearance in court, the threats have subsided.

“They realized: ‘She’s serious,’” Hoover said. “They have backed off, and it wasn’t because of no help from the police.”

Have you been a victim or a witness to a hate crime?

Email jordan@triad-city-beat.com.

15

June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News

CULTURE Tlacoyos, tostadas and pozole triumph at Mi Casita

by Eric Ginsburg

S

am pulled up a Google map of Gate City Boulevard on his phone, slowly scrolling block by block down International Restaurant Row in search of buried treasure.

He scoured other thoroughfares too, assembling a roster of places he’d never been — most of them taco joints. He texted me a list, about a dozen long, adding that he planned to work his way through it over the summer.

Culture

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SPREADING JOY ONE PINT AT A TIME

Monday Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz 7:30

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Tuesday Live music with Piedmont Old Time Society Old Time music and Bluegrass 7:30 Wednesday Live music with J Timber and Joel Henry with special guests 8:30

Thursday Beer and baseball

joymongers.com | 336-763-5255 576 N. Eugene St. | Greensboro

Triaditude Adjustment

Shot in the Triad

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Friday, Saturday, Sunday BEER

16

(336) 723-7239

breakfastofcourse.com

This is why we’re friends.

I’m not exaggerating. I get along with Sam, of course, and his wife Katie, but we first became friends because he reached out about food, basically cold-calling the food writer in town and figuring we’d have plenty to explore together. Since then he’s introduced me to Captain Chen’s and Indu Convenient Store, and we’ve passed hours eating food and talking about our lives.

But mostly about food.

It doesn’t hurt that in addition to being an adventurous eater, Sam’s also a skilled chef, making him more of an unpretentious connoisseur than a fanboy.

So when you follow my advice and check out Mi Casita on Gate City Boulevard, credit my unpaid-yet-enthusiastic researcher Sam Logan.

We recently walked in the doors of the pocket-sized Mexican restaurant with no idea what to expect, and a little bit overwhelmed by the extensive, pictograph-style menu that’s more common for a Chinese takeout joint. The sign out front for empanadas had me jonesing, but we couldn’t ignore the bounty of choices that can’t be found at most Latin places around here.

ERIC GINSBURG Sam Logan looks over the menu at Mi Casita, with his food waiting in front of him.

There are huaraches and tlacoyos, the latter of which I can vouch for at Mi Casita customer going in on a trio of them, though. and both of which can be occasionally spotted on a Triad I picked the tostada as a reference point, and I’m very glad I menu. But the restaurant also offers a bouquet of options that did because Mi Casita excels at it. Maybe it was the punch of I can’t remember seeing at a local restaurant, or maybe ever the flavors or the freshness of the ingredients, but either way, — panuchos, pambazo, entomatadas, picadas and sincronizaSam and I loved the tostada. das, among others. This is where the pictorial menu came in A small white board propped on the restaurant’s counthandy, as did our server’s willingness to answer our stream of er — where customers order and pay — announced several questions about what differentiated the items. off-menu items, and when Sam pointed out the pozole, I knew I didn’t even see the delicious-looking molletes – grilled I had to get it. I ordered without inquiry, later learning that Mexican bread with sausage, beans and mozzarella cheese the flavorful, hot red soup comes with hominy and pork at Mi served with jalapeño slices on the side — until I read through Casita, though our server said they switch it up sometimes. I the menu at home. But the menu will only get patrons so far; can’t ever remember seeing pozole on a menu — it’s the sort it doesn’t tell them, for example, that the handheld burrito of rich, somewhat spicy dish you might comes with carrots, potato and peas, or expect to find at a Mexican home birththat Mi Casita takes it a step above and day party, but not a Triad restaurant. It’s gently grill the burrito itself. The best Visit Mi Casita at 4411 W. more than enough to fill you up on its way to learn about the food here, as Gate City Blvd., Suite 119 own. always, is to order some.

(GSO) or find it on Facebook.

After sampling Sam’s food and downSam swung for the negritas – fried ing my tostada, I couldn’t bring myself corn tortillas that are mixed with black to finish the pozole, though I’d highly beans, making the patty look almost recommend it. like a portabella mushroom cap stuffed with cheese and Mi Casita covers the basics too, of course, going so far as green salsa. He snagged a panucho, a similar open-faced dish to offer bacon-wrapped hot dogs. And as the tostada proved, with shredded chicken, lettuce, sour cream and wonderfully they do the standard fare well. But when a restaurant offers fresh-tasting cheese. Neither of us had tried either entrée things like a $8 hollowed out pineapple stuffed with mango before, but gave both thumbs up. Meanwhile his tlacoyo — a and chopped pineapple and then topped with chili powder and spicy, masa-based dish that reminded me of a cross between a “snacks,” why stick with the ordinary? tamale, pupusa and a loaded baked potato — provided a heavy counterweight that was almost too much. I noticed another

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

Part cafe and part bar, Wayward Brews specializes in North Carolina beer and wine and has a constantly rotating tap selection.

• Private and semi-private meeting spaces Mentoring | Networking | Collaboration

Memberships start at $50/month.

• Comfy community spaces

collab.cobot.me/

• FREE Biscuitville coffee

Triaditude Adjustment

Downtown Greensboro’s entrepreneurial community.

• Floor-to-ceiling dry erase board walls

Shot in the Triad

• Gigabit speed internet

Make Your Own Kombucha @ Yoga Mindset (H-P) Saturday, 10:30 a.m.

Participants in this workshop will learn how to brew their own kombucha at home and also learn valuable health tips. Guests will also receive a starter kit that includes a mason jar and organic tea. For more information, visit yogamindset.com.

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Kat loves red wine, Milan Kundera, and the Shins. She wears scarves at katbodrie.com.

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for her teenage son. He’d missed curfew and was in big trouble.

The barista/bartender said he’d left a while ago. I could’ve told her he was probably on his way home, finishing his coffee drink with a friend.

Despite the sexy name, Wayward Brews is actually about as family-friendly as you can get.

KAT BODRIE

Culture

ducked under the awning of Wayward Brews on a rainy Thursday evening. Having heard about this unique Winston-Salem bar and coffeeshop only a few weeks ago, I felt compelled to try it.

A couple unaccompanied teens passed as I entered.

They sipped coffee drinks, a part of the business model I’ve seen at places like Camino Bakery. But Wayward Brews is less coffeeshop — there are no baked goods —

by Kat Bodrie and more bar, making this the perfect place for groups with mixed interests in caffeine and alcohol.

Under twinkling lights in the front windows, a half-dozen folks relaxed at tables and couches, quietly sipping their drinks and eating takeout dinner from local restaurants in this strip mall off Peters Creek Parkway. It’s a far drive from the center city, to be sure — past the Goodwill, beyond a Walmart and a country club I’ve never even heard of — but this southern outpost draws a lot of locals and has a decidedly chill, family-friendly feel.

Coffee drinks range from the usual espresso and lattes to some frozen creations, but Wayward Brews specializes in North Carolina beer and wine.

Craft beers tend to follow the seasons. Right now, there’s a lot of light-colored stuff: wheat ales (some fruit-flavored), witbier and IPAs. Most of the breweries Celebrate Wayward Brews’ at Wayward are recognizable, one-year anniversary on Satbut taps rotate constantly. A urday from 3 to 11 p.m. at 5078 couple weeks ago, Appalachian Mountain Brewing, Blowing Peters Creek Pkwy. (W-S). AlRock Brewing and Skull Camp though tickets aren’t required, were big; now, it’s Brown Truck $25 advanced tickets get you in High Point, Preyer in Greensa pint glass, first pour, endless boro, Brueprint in Apex and Huske Hardware in Fayetteville. pizza and wings and freebies A small chalkboard to the from local breweries. Visit side of the bar lists bottles and waywardbrews.com or find it cans of typical watery beers like Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, Blue on Facebook.

Moon and PBR — just in case your friend or family member doesn’t go for craft.

Wine includes various vintages from Shelton, Childress, Old North State, Skull Camp and Weathervane, plus one I hadn’t heard of before: Sanctuary out of Jarvisburg, NC. In addition to glasses, half glasses and pints, flights are available for both beer and wine. Beer flights are generous five-ounce pours at reasonable prices. Wine flights come three for $12 or five for $15.

Just before close, the café/bar’s phone rang. A concerned mom was looking

triad-city-beat.com

I

Lattes and booze at Wayward Brews

• Valuable programming and connections

17

June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News Opinion

T

he corridors of the coliseum seemed empty and haunted. Not a soul in sight and a great wave of wails and cheering bellowed across the tiled floors, crawling across the walls adorned with memorabilia and posters of all the great figures who had ever come to the Triad. As the DJ played the top hits, revving-up the waiting audience, the chanting began.

“We want Chance, we want Chance….”

Amid the darkened arena glowing with cell phone lights, the beloved rapper took the stage, humble and meek, the crowd nearly oblivious to his presence. With the few calm words, “How’s it going, North Carolina?” the coliseum erupted, and any reserve the excited and nearly frothing crowd had was lost as the stage burst to life with fireworks. The stadium was filled and ticket-holders rushed into the aisles to get even a few feet closer to the stage.

The halls and merch booth lines and even the bathrooms were empty, as if, for the moment, there could be nothing

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Culture

Cover Story

CULTURE A new era of music: Chance the Rapper hypnotizes the Triad

by Spencer KM Brown

All Showtimes @ 9:00pm Crossword

6/14 Karaoke with Michael Ray Hansen 6/15 Momma Molasses, Nalani,

Courtney Krause

6/16 Test Pattern Friday Night Summer

Shot in the Triad

Music Series presents Lemon Jack & Allen Cooper, Cactus Black

6/17 Shurwood 6/18 Dark Prophet Tongueless Monk,

The Girlfriends, Bjorn & Francois, Tim Poovey, Rosedale

Triaditude Adjustment

6/20 Crow’s Nest Presents: Dirty Legacy,

18

Written in Gray, Zestrah

701 N Trade Street Winston-Salem, NC 27101

(336)955-1888

more important than seeing Chance the Rapper perform firsthand.

Entering into the third month of his expansive Be Encouraged tour, June 7 marked Chance the Rapper’s entrance into the Triad. The tour is supporting his third mixtape Coloring Book, the same album that earned him a Grammy for Best Rap Album and Best New Artist in 2016.

As Chance came onstage at the Greensboro Coliseum, he was left smiling in the first moments as the crowd’s roaring praise drowned out any music, or any other thoughts at all.

Shedding a light jacket to get more comfortable and wearing his signature flat-billed cap with the number 3, a tucked-in COURTESY PHOTO Chance the Rapper happily displayed his gratitude for his audience in T-shirt and skinny jeans, the Greensboro last week, and seemed genuinely happy to be on stage. rapper began the show, moving around the stage on quick feet, rows. As the show carried on, a catwalk descended from the a smile fixed on his face. But aside from the usual modes of rafters, providing a path above his fans towards the back of performance — flashing lights, booming bass — there is somethe arena in an awe-inspiring scene you could only expect thing natural to Chance’s show. Something compelling and from top pop acts such as Lady Gaga. nearly hypnotic.

While Chance’s style abides by the rap traditions, they beWhile most performers wait until the show’s end to give come merely nominal moments when compared to the songlaconic words of gratitude, Chance the Rapper paused after writing for which he’s become famous. Blending old school the third song. Introducing his brother on the drums, backing flavors of Motown, gospel and R&B into his songs, Chance’s vocalists and horn player Donnie Trumpet, Chance held an complex lyrics flow effortlessly above the music — music peraura of humble magnanimity surrounding him beneath the formed by a live backing band. glowing lights. Avoiding the clichés, Chance has garnered a With drums echoing and the trumpet blaring, Chance never loyal fanbase that appreciate his genuine care of his art and lost his gratitude for the audience. Between numerous songs, down-to-earth approach to the fame he has earned. he thanked the crowd, thanked those who have helped with The 24-year-old rapper remains an independent artist, the tour and shouted out his family’s North Carolina roots, despite numerous multi-million-dollar recording offers. After referencing Winston-Salem explicitly. He seemed incapable of self-releasing two mixtapes, the young artist caught the eye of refraining from smiling while performing his songs. such acts as Kanye West and Childish Gambino. The success of While the fame and glory are the ultimate boon and acme his first albums earned him a spot opening on tour for Mackleof many musicians, Chance the Rapper has separated himself more and Ryan Lewis. from this tribe. Following in a vein of artists such as Johnny On the massive screen behind the stage, images of album Cash, Bruce Springsteen and the Clash, Chance is beginning a art, music videos and illustrations rolled as Chance performed. new era of popular music; an era that deviates from the usual And having won a Grammy for “Best Rap Performance,” trends of show business, bringing a genuine, songwriter and Chance proved his place among music’s great performers. performer into the popular light. He disposes with the holiFrom the middle of the stage, a platform raised, carrying er-than-thou attitude that many celebrities become addicted Chance high into the air as he performed his acclaimed hit to at such a level of fame, and promotes true gratitude and “Sunday Candy,” singing above screaming fans in the front kindness across the ocean of music fans.

Chance’s style and performance brought a new and refreshPick of the Week ing approach to hip-hop and popular music. While electronics and samples of his music backed his raps, his fervor and talent J. Cole @ Cone Denim Entertainment Center (GSO), June radiated into the arena, powerful and unrelenting until the 18, 8 p.m. coliseum was empty.

The Grammy-nominated artist performs in support of Enter true artistry once more into modern music — enter his album 4 Your Eyez Only. For more information, visit Chance the Rapper. cdecgreensboro.com.

by Lauren Barber

C

Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad

Friday, June 23: Jaguardini, Cactus Black, Ibidem Saturday, June 24: North Elementary, Hectorina, Lookwell Wednesday, July 5: Pinche Gringo, Plastic Pinks, the Old One Two Friday, July 7: Sarah Shook & the Disarmers onpopstudios.com • 336.383.9332 • 1333 Grove St, Greensboro

Triaditude Adjustment

Summer Solstice Festival @ Greensboro Arboretum (GSO) Saturday, 2 p.m.

A celebration of diversity and the beauty of nature, this annual festival attracts thousands of attendees. The event includes three stages of music and dance performances as well as a variety of food options. For more information, visit greensborosummersolstice.org.

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in the project.

“It’s such a great organization and a great example of artist as entrepreneur,” Hardin said. “I would encourage any other artists to do this. It’s a wonderful organization to be a part of.”

She says friends and fans of her work rejoiced to find pieces in their price range.

“I think a lot of new-time people will buy a small piece and then maybe invest in a larger piece later,” Hardin said. “It’s a great way for anybody any age to start a collection of art and [discover] artists.”

Art-o-mat blocks include artists’ information on the back.

Women from Greensboro Art-o-mat creator Clark Whittington holds a Polaroid showing construction of LAUREN BARBER Roller Derby amplified the his first art vending machine at the SECCA exhibit. event’s playful atmosphere: A handful of uniformed sarily follow art, they really connect and are curious,” Whitteam members skated throughout the galleries, answering tington said. “That’s why pretentious galleries or mindsets questions and passing out $5 tokens for the machines. about art are unfortunate.”

“We want to get our name out but also help out the comWhittington said he thinks the populist roots of the Art-omunity, so we thought supporting this great event would be mat reflected the beginning of a pendulum swing away from a way to do that,” said derby skater the stigmatized perception artists in the Jessie Grinnell, 38, of Chapel Hill. ’80s.

20 Years of Art-o-mat is open “I think [the Art-o-mat is] so clever “This day and age, you see lack of inat SECCA, 750 Marguerite Drive terest in the formula that’s been around and there’s so much to look at that it’s hard to know which [block] you want.

(W-S) through Aug. 27. Visit for a long time as far as capitalism and “The thing that really stands out secca.org for more information. the culture of big-box stores,” said Whitto me is the community of art lovers tington. “People want things they can here,” she continued. “Everybody stops trace back to a person. It’s good to see to say something and is smiling.” this goofy weird idea turn into something that’s totally in sync Whittington said he attributes the positive response to the with the direction of social culture. The whole farm-to-table accessible nature of the format. [concept] or small boutique manufacturing — we’ve been “If you do your best to explain to people who don’t necesdoing that the whole time.”

Up Front

lark Whittington is a pack-rat. He couldn’t tell you just how many Art-o-mat blocks have found homes in his dusty basement but as of mid-April, they’re on proud public display.

In 1997, the Winston-Salem-based artist created Art-o-mats: vintage cigarette vending machines repurposed to dispense small works of art, a fitting metaphor for the city’s transformation from tobacco town to flourishing center of arts and innovation.

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, or SECCA, is showing 20 Years of Art-o-mat, which commemorates Whittington’s grassroots art movement and features hundreds of cigarette box-sized blocks of art, many of which have not seen the light of day in more than a decade.

On June 10, hundreds of people of all ages gathered for a “swap meet” at SECCA, where more than 60 artists traded creations purchased from the old machines. The afternoon event featured live bands and food trucks on the grounds. Indoors, the main galleries buzzed with chatter as artists crafted new pieces at display tables and sold previous works.

Local participant and artist Sharon Hardin, 63, teaches drawing and design at Salem College. She decided to experiment with the Art-o-mat format about three years ago and loosely bases her cigarette box-sized watercolors on botanicals.

Art-o-mat makes it easy to submit examples online, Hardin said. The organization requests more pieces as her handiwork sells, and it shares records of which venues purchase her pieces.

“It’s fun to see where they go,” Hardin said. “I have work in an art museum in Boston and the Smithsonian and I think it’s wonderful.”

An Ottawa-based business owner traveled to the retired tobacco-town to purchase a machine.

Art-o-mat’s formula cultivates intimacy between the organization, its artists and distribution venues.

“I’m really fortunate that, over the years, artists have trusted me with their stuff,” Whittington said, “and it’s an honor to be a part of their lives.”

More than 400 contributing artists from 10 countries are currently involved

triad-city-beat.com

CULTURE Swap meet marks Art-o-mat’s 20th anniversary

19

June 14 – 20, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

20

SPORTSBALL

Midnight soccer reinforces the lives of the Restaurant League

J

44-foot turf pitches at the ust after the witching Winston-Salem Sportsplex. hour on a humid June Spectators face the back of one night, thick clouds slide the goals of each field, witness quickly over Winto the players’ powerful shots, ston-Salem, hued pink by the many of which miss wide and city lights. Deep in the industrial crack against the glass like cansprawl that coils around North non fire. With its high, transPoint Boulevard, the sounds

by Joel Sronce parent barrier providing the from the streets are soft. Disfan an intimate display, indoor tant traffic rumbles, and above one of a dozen buildsoccer is an aquarium. ings an American flag snaps in the wind. Tucked back In many ways, the walled-in in all the switched-off excess — the car dealership, game resembles hockey more the clothing outlet, the storage units — one building than its traditional outdoor illuminates the sagging, oversized darkness. Just after JOEL SRONCE Restaurant League players face off in late-night games at the counterpart. Players at the midnight, two whistles blow within it.

Winston-Salem Sportsplex. sportsplex take advantage of And the Restaurant League’s second set of games four on Wednesdays. On those nights, the sportsplex the walls as if they were their most reliable teammates has begun. remains open past 1 a.m.

— using them to maneuver around a defender or fool Every Tuesday and Wednesday night from May Pereda knows the importance of the opportunity the opposing keeper. through July, the Winston-Salem Sportsplex stays open to play soccer, a rejuvenating idea even after long, Unlike the long outdoor battles of lengthy posseslate for its Restaurant League. Now in its third year, the 12-hour days behind a range, a sink or a register. He sion and momentous goals, indoor soccer comes at a league provides an opportunity for restaurant workers recognizes the uncertainty and fear that limits the quicker pace. While it’s not uncommon for an outdoor in the Camel City and the surrounding area to come lives of many of these players, and he knows his soccer contest to end scoreless, or in a decisive 1-0 victory, intogether and play an hour of indoor soccer each week. league transcends it. door games at the sportsplex can yield a 31-12 blowout, Most of the participants are Latino, and by nightfall “It’s been really hard,” Pereda says of the political or a 16-15 nail-biter. the majority have spent their day — their entire day — climate. “[The players] don’t talk about it, and if we By 11:30 p.m. on June 7, players of the midnight waiting tables, washing dishes, cooking on the line. talk about it it’s really fast… They just want to have matches begin sauntering in, quickly commenting on, Promptly at 9:30 p.m. on June 7, the workers at Dofun. [Many] work from 10 to 10: 12 hours. They just chiding and sympathizing with the mingo’s Mexican & Seafood Restaurant come and want to release their stress.” halftime scores of the earlier games. in Mocksville — a half-hour’s drive from Restaurant League One player, Francisco Cruz, stands watching the Across teams and restaurants, players the sportsplex — lock the door and games continue midnight battles. Unlike most other spectators, he know one another, bonded by their very close up as fast as they can. Domingo’s hasn’t just finished a game of his own. Cruz already professions through which the league owner spurs their hasty closing — an through mid-July played the night before; he came because he wanted to began. unfamiliar concept to many restaurant on Tuesday and watch.

Nearly three years ago, Manuel workers.

Within the darkness, there’s light in knowing that Pereda founded the Restaurant League.

“Let’s close, let’s go play!” encouragWednesday nights something stays open, waiting to welcome you in.

After other leagues were already unes Gilberto, the owner at Domingo’s, at the Winston-Saderway at the complex, people began who chose not to give his last name. to ask Pereda about an opportunity for As on every game night, Gilberto and Pick of the Week lem Sportsplex. restaurant workers: Those who loved his workers rush to the sportsplex for the game but weren’t free until late their 11 p.m. kickoff — all of them, the Winston-Salem Dash vs. Down East Ducks @ into the night. Pereda started going to restaurants, owner included, excited to take the field. Not only did BB&T Ballpark (W-S), Wednesday 7 p.m. talking with owners and workers, establishing team Gilberto pay the fees for the team’s entire roster at the The last in a three-game series, the Dash once managers, making fliers and finally putting the league beginning of the season, he joins them on the pitch. again go head to head with the Ducks, hoping to in place.

“I’m 54 now, and no one has tried to stop me,” Giladd another win to the pot and send the Ducks Over the years the league’s grown to 12 teams, and berto says, laughing after the game. packing. For more information, visit wsdash.com. players enjoy one of the two games on Tuesdays or the Thick glass walls and high nets enclose two 98-by-

Investigative Journalism 101 class Thursday, June 22 • 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Suggested donation $25 per person • $5 for students at door Email eric@triad-city-beat.com for more info or to reserve your spot.

1451 S Elm-Eugene St, Greensboro, NC 27406

DWSP_Music17_TriadCityBeat_6-17-17.pdf

6/13/17

10:39 AM

‘All for It’--literally so.

triad-city-beat.com

CROSSWORD

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by Matt Jones

Up Front

Across 1 Greek letters shaped like pitchforks 5 Retired NHLer Larionov whose nickname was “The Professor” 9 Wright of 2017’s “Wonder Woman” 14 Hosiery shade 15 Neighborhood near Greenwich Village, slangily 16 Bacteria in spinach recalls 17 Poetic foot 18 Vivacity 19 Crack filler 20 Racquetball match, in a way?

23 Debtor’s note 24 2010 Apple debut 25 With 44-Across, exasperated complaint about endless corridors?

31 ___Pen (injector for some ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) allergic reactions) 34 Garlicky dip for sweet potato fries, e.g.

35 “Look ___ this way ...”

36 Seize suddenly 37 Pouting countenances 38 Tony-winning Sweeney portrayer Cariou 39 Part of an M.O.?

40 Dies down 41 “Shameless” blurb 42 “I would give all my fame for a pot ___ and safety”: Shakespeare’s “Henry V” 43 Montreal steak seasoning?

44 See 25-Across 46 Part of Q.E.D. 48 Ear, in German 49 Left like a tossed football?

55 African country just north of the equator Answers from previous publication.

56 Move like a batch of homemade slime 57 Ingredient in some diaper rash creams 26 Weeping statue of Greek legend 59 Limp Bizkit frontman Fred 27 Be an ass in the lot, maybe 60 Taj Mahal location 28 “X-Men: Days of Future Past” star Berry 61 Embarrassing defeat 29 Bought hook, line and sinker 62 “Orange” drink that’s really black 30 Specialized slang 63 Yearling, previously 32 St. ___ Girl (German beer brand) 64 Her friends include a Backpack and Map 33 “Peer Gynt” dramatist Henrik 36 Phrase before “Move ahead” in “Whip It” Down 39 McCafe option 1 Louvre Pyramid architect I.M. 41 “2017: The Year for Animal Liberation” sponsor 2 Scraped elbow souvenir 44 Martial art debuting as an Olympic event in 3 Jon’s usual waitress, in “Garfield” Tokyo in 2020 4 Feature on some Blu-Rays 45 Game show option after The Banker makes an 5 “Rhapsody ___” offer 6 45th American vice president 47 Bygone detergent with an apt brand name 7 Only U.S. state with a non-rectangular flag 49 “Leaving Las Vegas” actress Elisabeth 8 It provides coverage 50 Boulangerie purchase 9 Episode summaries 51 Airer of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” before it moved to 10 City between Jacksonville and Tampa VH1 11 Barrier later renamed for Herbert Hoover 52 MSNBC contributor Klein 12 Maladies 53 ___ gobi (Indian potato dish) 13 No-good conclusion?

54 “How to Train ___ Dragon” 21 Andrew Marvell’s “___ Coy Mistress” 55 National economic indicator, for short 22 Go bad, like kale 58 Announcement of when Alaska lands in 25 Willie of “Eight Is Enough” and “Charles in Washington, e.g.

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SATURDAYS FROM 7-10 PM AT 6TH & LIBERTY JUNE 17 THE GET RIGHT BAND (Funk/Reggae)

Cover Story Culture

Playing June 16 – 20 PREMIERE TOURNAMENT:

5 p.m. Saturday, June 17th. $50 cash prize! Free entry with drink purchase!

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Playing June 15 – 19 FINALE: Monday Night Roast Battle!

“ARMS” for Nintendo Switch!

Find Out Which NC Comic is the King of TALKING THAT TRASH! 8:30 p.m. Mon., Jun. 19th. $5 Tickets!

Crossword

--OTHER EVENTS & SCREENINGS--

Board Game Night

7 p.m. Friday, June 16th. More than 100 BOARD GAMES -- FREE TO PLAY!

2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro idiotboxers.com • 336-274-2699

TV Club: Doctor Who 8 p.m. Saturday, June 17th. Free admission with drink purchase!

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June 14 – 20, 2017

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The panic of a dead phone

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almost-forgotten exes that I keep out of tech-support dude who said yes, my couple of years ago, a family in Canada decided to phone was fried and no, he didn’t need some sense of misguided sentimentalspend a full year living like it was 1986, boxing up to press the power button even once. ity. My workout logs, my deadlines, old their iPhones and other assorted iAppendages in boarding passes, new contacts and that They issued me a new phone and, favor of a VCR, a rotary phone and, like, a stack of of Peter 15-week Snapchat streak. as I stared at its freshly Cetera cassettes. Blair McMillan said that he On the way out of the store, I illuminated Apple logo, I was disturbed by how ultra-connected his two felt like a less attractive punched my home address into Google kids had gotten and how much time they spent As I stared at its Narcissus beside a digiMaps. I sat at dinner, scrolling through on their phones, so he basically grounded the

by Jelisa Castrodale illuminated Apple tized pond. (And, much everything I missed while I blindly entire family by eliminating modern conveforked bits of chicken into my mouth. I like Narcissus, I’m pretty niences, making time to see their friends in person and getting super logo, I felt like a read a piece about how Donald Trump sure I’ll look at it until I proficient at folding paper maps. It sounded awful. less attractive might’ve been relieved of his own die.) That isn’t much of a I thought about McMillan last week when I was forced to endure 24 phone during James Comey’s testimony. stretch — or a metaphor long hours without my phone after it randomly offed itself when I was Narcissus beside — because my entire life And, for the first time ever, I felt sorry at the gym. On my way out of the weight room, I reached into my bag a digitized pond. for him. is in that phone. As my and my phone was completely unresponsive and disturbingly hot to new device restored itself the touch — which is also how I would’ve described myself at the time.

Jelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer from a backed-up version I took it home and did a hard reset (on both of us) and, when that who lives in Winston-Salem. She enjoys of my old one, the past decade reasdidn’t work, I started to frantically Google things like “WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY pizza, obscure power-pop records and will sembled itself in my hand: The pictures IPHONE,” “CAN U DIE WITHOUT UR PHONE” and “OH GOD WHAT AM I SUPPOSED probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter of my now-late dog and the now-late TO DO WITH MY HANDS NOW?” @gordonshumway. furniture he destroyed. The texts from Then I had an unsatisfying online chat with an Apple service representative, who kept sending me phone numbers so I could schedule an appointment to get it repaired.

“Okay, but my phone is dead,” I typed repeatedly. “I can’t make any calls.”

“Thank you, Jelisa,” she’d reply. “Here’s the phone number you requested.”

I logged off and gave up, wondering whether I could survive the rest of the night.

I couldn’t call anyone in case there was some kind of emergency. I didn’t have an alarm clock, because I use my phone for that, too. And, most importantly, what would happen to the 111-day Snapchat streak my sister and I had constructed? (This is my proudest accomplishment to date. Who’s the quitter now, High School Guidance Counselor?)

The next day, I went to see one of Winston-Salem’s official Apple repair technicians, arriving late because I couldn’t find the building and DIDN’T HAVE A PHONE TO GIVE ME DIRECTIONS. I walked in and tried to keep my voice steady when I told him what had happened. “Have you tried pressing the power button?” he asked. “To turn it back on?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I have.”

He didn’t believe me, taking my phone and pressing the power button, hard. He pressed it again, shaking his head this time. Needless to say, he couldn’t help. (And the only reason I didn’t roundhouse kick him right in the nametag was because I needed him to print directions from there to the Apple Store.)

The Apple Store at Friendly Center in Greensboro is like any other Apple Store, which means that it’s always packed and understaffed by approximately 50 percent, which makes it feel like some kind of psychological experiment about patience. There was a line in front of a man in an ill-fitting, green Apple T-shirt — one of many men in ill-fitting, green Apple T-shirts — and I had to wait behind a 700-year-old woman who was trying to remember her email password.

“I just need you to tell me what it is,” she said, smoothing the pleats on her pants.

“I need to do my emails.”

Mr. iShirt typed something on his iPad. “Ma’am, that’s something you set up yourself,” he told her without looking up. “Maybe it’s a child’s name? A grandchild?

A pet?”

“Yes, a pet’s name would be good,” she said, seconds before crumbling to dust.

“Could we use that?”

Good through 6/20/17 He somehow got her to wander off to the far corner of the store and I gave him my name and told the entire story for the second time in the same hour. I was told to Monday – Thursday wait at a sleek, frosted-glass table until one of the store’s Geniuses got free, which Order online at pizzerialitaliano.net was scheduled to happen sometime between 4:30 and when the Earth crashes into 219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • the sun. After staring at my own cuticles forever, I finally met with a very friendly

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