TCB May 16, 2019 — GSO Bound

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point May 16-22, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

Ani DiFranco

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May 16-22, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

My generation

The days when I thought myself the voice of my generation are long gone, but this week’s interactive collage in the New York

by Brian Clarey Times’ Style section reminded me just how Gen X I am.

True, my parents are not divorced, and I never made any money in the Great DotCom Swindle of the late 1990s that I believe may be my cohort’s greatest accomplishment thus far, value judgments aside. And while I shared my people’s penchant for self-medication, I never took any Prozac.

But other than that, I’m Generation X through and through, at least by NYT standards.

I went from the 8-track to the 45, the cassette to the CD, Napster to Limewire to Pandora to Spotify, and I watched old vinyl collections go from treasure to trash and back again. With those tools I helped perpetuate the Baby Boomer classic-rock ethos — their stuff permeates our generation’s culture like fluoride in the water — but also bore witness to the birth of new wave, punk rock and hip hop, with varying

degrees of enthusiasm at the time.

And sure, like it says in the New York Times: Benneton. “The Cosby Show.”

Tabitha Soren. That piece of string I wore around my neck and the culture that came to be called “grunge.” That time when the houses we struggled to buy collapsed in value just as equity was starting to build. It all checks out.

But the Times collage only brushes up against the real angst (such a Gen X word) I’ve always felt defines those of us who came up in those years after Watergate but before we could buy CBD on our phones.

As middle children to the much larger generations before and after us, we know we’ve been passed over. Most of my friends have either begun their own businesses or wallow in the upper echelons of middle management while Baby Boomers remain in the C-suite, trying to figure out what Millennials want. We all have a sneaking suspicion that we’re not going to collect a dime of our Social Security when the time comes.

We’ve known that the deck has been stacked against us since New Coke.

And that, as much as our penchant for flannel, colors our experience thus far.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK We relate the name to the Confederacy, and we relate the Confederacy to the Klan.

-Marva Reid, Page 8

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

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

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green jordan@triad-city-beat.com

robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

gayla@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR Nikki Miller-Ka niksnacksblog@gmail.com

STAFF WRITER Lauren Barber lauren@triad-city-beat.com

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 COVER: Ani DiFranco talks STAFF WRITER Savi Ettinger about her autobiography, No savi@triad-city-beat.com Walls on the Recurring Dream, EDITORIAL INTERN Cason Ragland with Rhiannon Giddens as part of ART this year’s GSO Bound Festival.

(Courtesy image) ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price CONTRIBUTORS

Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones

TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2018 Beat Media Inc.

May 16-22, 2019

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May 16-22, 2019

CITY LIFE May 16-19, 2019

by Cason Ragland

THURSDAY May 16

Up Front

Meet Astra Taylor @ the People’s Perk (GSO), 5 p.m.

Support the Rainbow @ Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center (W-S), 8:45 a.m.

The folks over at PFLAG Winston-Salem will host this year’s Support the Rainbow event where the goal is to educate allies and family members of the LGBTQ community.

If you identify as a heterosexual, cisgender individual and want to learn more about the struggle that LGBTQ go through then you can take a look at the event’s page on Facebook.

News

Disney’s Frozen Jr. @ CTG (GSO), 7 p.m.

Opinion Culture

FRIDAY May 17

Author and filmmaker Astra Taylor will be at the People’s Perk coffee shop this evening.

Hosted by Greensboro DSA and Greensboro Socialists, this event will be a short meet and greet with Taylor and act as a fundraiser to send an NC contingent to the 2019 Socialism Conference in Chicago. Find out more via Facebook.

The Community Theatre of Greensboro will host the final performances of their Frozen Jr. production this weekend. If your kids are still watching the movie on repeat, you can take them out to the theater so that they can see Anna and Elsa’s story live. If you find yourself intrigued, you can discover more details on Facebook.

Wilmington on Fire screening and discussion @ Carl Chavis YMCA (HP), 6:30 p.m.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Human Library Winston-Salem @ Venture Café (W-S), 6 p.m.

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This event asks for volunteers to act as “books” and to tell stories from their lives.

These particular tales will focus on ideology and the prejudices that people face every day. If you’re interested in registering to volunteer or simply wish to attend the event, you can find out more on the Venture Café website.

Immortalized in Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition, the 1898 Wilmington Massacre is an event that still haunts those who learn about it today. Wilmington on Fire is a documentary that covers the 19th Century coup. Phyllis Bridges, an award winning documentarian and historian, will lead a discussion after the movie. Find out more on Facebook.

May 16-22, 2019

SATURDAY May 18

Craftsboro: Indie Craft and Music Show @ Center City Church (GSO), 11 a.m.

A Collector’s Legacy Auction & Celebration of JoAnne Vernon @ Sawtooth School for Visual Art (W-S), 5 p.m.

SUNDAY May 19

Up Front

Songs of Peace and Community @ Presbyterian Church of the Covenant (GSO), 8 p.m.

Rhiannon Giddens, Laurelyn Dossett, Molly McGinn and others will all perform at this benefit concert hosted by the Experimental School of Greensboro. The proceeds for this event will go to the ESG; a school that utilizes an unorthodox curriculum to that extends the classroom to the community of downtown Greensboro. Discover more via the event’s Facebook page.

Andy the Doorbum and the Emotron @ Monstercade (W-S), Monstercade 8 p.m.

News

Before he moved to LA, Andy the Doorbum put out his discography while he lived in Charlotte. Three years later and he’s back in the South to perform alongside the Emotron. If you’re a fan of anything experimental, you can check out the details on Facebook.

Culture

This event seeks to bring together the creative community of the Triad with this year’s Craftsboro. You can browse the creations brought forth by local artists, listen to live music and eat from food trucks if you’re interested. There’s more to learn about Craftsboro through Facebook.

Speakeasy at the Station @ Centennial Station Arts Center, 7 p.m.

Even though alcohol has been legal for quite a while, sometimes it’s fun to act like you’re an outlaw of the Prohibition era. Join the High Point Arts Council this weekend for a night of drinking, dancing and jazz. While you don’t have to dress up, you should know that there will be a costume contest. If you wish to know more, take a look at the details on the High Point Arts Council’s website.

Opinion

JoAnne Vernon served as Piedmont Craftsmen’s Gallery Director in the 1980s and this occasion will honor her legacy.

Many of Vernon’s paintings and ceramic pieces will be on display and up for auction. Both the Sawtooth School and Piedmont Craftsmen will benefit from the sales of her work.

If you’d like to know more, check out the event’s page on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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May 16-22, 2019 Up Front News

It’s a bit of a stretch to call this weekend’s Epicenter Festival, the metallic offspring of Carolina Rebellion held Friday-Sunday (sort of) down in Rockingham, the Fyre Festival of North Carolina.

Fyre Festival stranded jetloads of trust-fund Instagrammers in a Third World Country (check the documentaries on Netflix and Hulu, if you haven’t already). Epicenter stranded a bunch of metalheads in the rain in Rockingham.

Unlike Fyre, Epicenter had actually booked the bands on the bill, which included Korn, the Cult, Mastodon and Foo Fighters.

But like at Fyre, the infrastructure could not hold, and the weather made it worse.

Logistics on Day 1, by most accounts, sucked, leaving attendees stuck in hours-long traffic jams on the few roads into and out of the festival site.

Even before Day 2 was canceled due to weather, attendees had trouble getting into the site and many, according to news reports, never got close. And word spread that general admission tickets — for which many had paid $90 and up — were going online for $1 and $2.

What in the name of Ja Rule was going on?

We are fortunate in the Triad, where there are many, many wonderful, and often free, community-oriented music festivals like the NC Folk Fest, the Carolina Blues Fest, MerleFest, Shakori Hills, Gears & Guitars, and whatever Groove Jam is. And then there is the festival business, a crassly commercial offshoot of the form that, despite the kickass marketing, is really all about wringing dollars from young people. It’s why there’s a VIP section in front of every stage, why there are glamping tents at Coachella and why Bonnaroo platinum tickets are sold only in pairs at $6,550 per. Perks include free food and booze, a dope, airconditioned campground and you get to ride around in golf carts. This is the kind of crap that made Fyre Festival possible.

Somehow, Epicenter managed to be both.

Culture

Opinion

The way we festival now

by Brian Clarey

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Take charge of your mind, body and spirit

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Puzzles

5. Do you plan on writing more books? What are your plans for the future?

I’m actually working on a second book now. I’m hoping this will be a series. The second book will be about what happens on a college campus. Everything from graduation to special nights in the cafeteria. [Kids] only see the colleges from the outside.

But this book will show them why college is important. I think that’s a great concept. There will definitely be more books to come.

Hard news at no cost to you, and no matter the cost to us.

Shot in the Triad

4. How do your kids like it?

They love it; they’ll say, “This is mommy’s book.” They’ll request it as their bedtime story. Recently when we were in the car on a trip, my daughter had option of the iPad or the Homecoming book, and she chose the book! She said, “It’s because I wanna see me.” That’s when it stood out to me how much that representation matters. I was blown away. She’ll point to the A&T Four and she’ll be like, “Mommy I know that. I know where that is.” And that’s important. I keep a copy of the book in the car. And that’s what I wanted. I wanted them to feel that love and be accepted.

Culture

3. What has the response been like so far?

I’ve already sold 300 books. I’m self-published. The response has been overwhelming. I have people tell me that when they read the book they can smell the homecoming, that they feel the love. Adults have told me that when they read the book they could not stop smiling. Homecoming is such a staple. People would say, “The book reminds me of my homecoming.” And I wanted to include kids in that. They’re there too. It’s just as much about them as it is about their family. It’s a book that all generations can enjoy.

Opinion

La-Donia Alford Jefferies’ children’s book, Homecoming, COURTESY PHOTO draws on her experience with HBCUs.

News

2. Why is it important for kids to read this book?

It’s important because I’m a high school teacher now and part-time adjunct teacher, and students ask me where I went college all the time. I tell them A&T and use the acronym HBCU and they didn’t know what that was, and I was blown away. It’s important to introduce the acronym early on so they would know what it is and can consider them as a place to go to college. Some people have this idea that HBCUs are inferior, and that’s not the case.

Up Front

1. What inspired you to write this book?

Well, my mom taught at A&T and at WinstonSalem State University. She was actually at WSSU for 40 years and my dad is an alum from NC A&T. I also went to A&T and graduated in 2010. I wanted to introduce kids to HBCUs and HBCU homecomings at a young age rather than them learning about it in high school. Growing up, my parents would take me to HBCU homecomings when I was 2 and 3 years old. I have wanted to introduce my own kids to that since they were able to walk.

May 16-22, 2019

Writer and educator La-Donia Alford Jefferies released her first book, Homecoming, a children’s book about historically black universities, in April.

Jefferies teaches science at High Point Central High School and is an adjunct professor at NC A&T University, where she graduated in 2010. The illustrator, J’Aaron Merchant, graduated from the HBCU Savannah State University. Homecoming can be purchased at Wonderland Books in Greensboro or online at thehbcuhomecomingbook.com.

TRUTH IS POWER

5by Sayaka questions for author La-Donia Alford Jefferies Matsuoka

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Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

May 16-22, 2019

NEWS

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City receives close to 10,000 responses on renaming Dixie Classic Fair

by Sayaka Matsuoka The city has received close to 10,000 responses to a public call for new names for the Dixie Classic Fair in Winston-Salem.

City officials say there have been more than 9,000 responses submitted to the public survey for a proposed name change to Winston-Salem’s Dixie Classic Fair.

The push to change the name came about after a group of citizens brought up the issue during the city’s community development, housing and general government committee meeting in April citing its ties to the Confederacy.

Now, Mayor Allen Joines and the city council have created lines of communication for the public to express their opinions. These include a public survey in which community members can submit their recommendations for keeping or changing the name, as well as a public phone line. At a public meeting held on May 7, more than 300 community members gathered at the Education Building at the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds and about 60 people spoke during the hearing.

“I retired here in Winston-Salem 17 years ago… and I’ve been here to this fair every year since I’ve been here,” said Sam Dixon, who is black and who was the first during the evening to speak. “If you change the name of Dixie Classic Fair, I will no longer attend…. I will do everything that I can to get other people not to attend.”

Dixon then held up a bag of paper Dixie cups and asked people if they should change the name of the brand as well.

“What do you expect us to do?” he asked. “Change this to D-cups or politically correct cups?”

While the next few speakers echoed Dixon’s stance on keeping the name, others spoke out against it.

“This is an opportunity for us as parents and educators to teach our children that we need to get rid of things that make people uncomfortable as minorities,” said Felecia Piggot-Long. “I know it’s been there for 137 years but that doesn’t make it right.”

The meeting lasted about 70 minutes with speakers advocating for both sides.

“Everybody has to have a platform,” said Democratic Councilwoman DD Adams after the hearing. “Everybody has to have a way to have dialogue and discuss their concerns with the city, and

More than 300 people showed up to the public meeting on May 7 to comment on the proposal to change the name of the Dixie Classic Fair.

we have to comply. We don’t have to minorities move to the city, they actually agree on everything; that’s not our job. think that they will not be welcomed at We don’t have to like everything; it’s not the Dixie Classic Fair. I moved here from our job. Our job is to give citizens an opthe forward-thinking Research Triangle portunity and a platform to discuss and Park area and I was shocked that the city have dialogue.” was still using a title that referenced the Marva Reid, a Winston-Salem native Civil War.” who grew up going to the fair, said on Benson proposes the name City of the Tuesday that she wants to see the name Arts Fair to match the progressive image changed. of the city.

“We relate the name to the Confeder“We should have a contest and invite acy, and we relate the residents to rename Confederacy to the the fair so that everyMembers of the public Klan,” she said. “It one will immediately is a step in the right can submit their recom- know that they will direction.” be welcomed at this mendations for a name For her, an ideal festival of family new name would be fun,” Benson said. via the online survey at the Winston-Salem The fair, which surveymonkey.com/r/ Classic Fair. operates annually at Donna J. Benson, the Winston-Salem DCFNameInput, or call a history professor fairgrounds, dates 336.734.1400. at Winston-Salem back to 1882 when State University it began as a wheat said in an email that exhibition. Since “historically, the word ‘Dixie’ has been then, the fair has undergone several associated with the Confederate States name changes including: Wheat Fair, of America, slavery, and racial segregaWheat and Cattle Fair, State Fruit tion. When African Americans and other Fair, Forsyth County Fair and Winston

CASON RAGLAND

Tobacco Fair. The name was changed to the Dixie Classic Fair for Northwest North Carolina in 1956 from the Fair of Winston-Salem.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, 9,642 responses had been turned in via the online survey with about 84 percent of the respondents voting to keep the current name. Calls to change the word Dixie to suggestions like Forsyth, Piedmont, Twin City or Winston-Salem only amounted to a total of about 6 percent.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the history of the word Dixie can be traced back to a handful of different theories. One is that of the MasonDixon line, which defined the border between slave states south of it and free states to the north. Another theory draws from currency issued in New Orleans that had the word, “dix” on it, which is French for “ten.”

Those who support the name change often cite the popular song by the same name which originated in minstrel shows in the 1850s. The song quickly became popular during the time period and is even thought of by some as the de facto national anthem of the Confederacy.

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad

Recycle this paper.

May 16-22, 2019

In an NPR interview from 2002, University of Mississippi historian Charles Reagan Wilson noted how when the Civil Rights activists would sing songs like “We Shall Overcome,” opponents of integration and black rights would sing “Dixie” as a kind of counter-song asserting white supremacy. As recently as January 2018, a group of neo-Confederates sang “Dixie” to drown out a speech by antiracist Miranda Jones who called for the removal of the Confederate monument in downtown Winston-Salem.

According to Assistant City Manager Ben Rowe, the city will keep the survey open until June 3, at which point city staff will compile the responses and share them with the fair planning committee, which meets on June 10. Then, that committee will send a recommendation to the public assemblies facilities commission, which meets in July. The commission will then make a recommendation to the city council in August. Any name change would take place in 2020.

Kathleen Garber, the chair of the fair planning committee, says that the working estimate to change the name could be anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million.

This includes the cost to replace signage, promotional materials, rewrite contracts with vendors and entertainers as well as promote the new name. And while the responses have been strongly in favor of keeping the name, she says that she hasn’t heard anything from city council to stop the process from continuing.

Democratic Councilman James Taylor Jr. suggested that the name of the fair should be changed as early as 2015 after he heard from some concerned constituents.

However, after an overwhelming response from citizens to keep the name, Taylor dropped the issue. Once again, he says he’s going to let the people decide.

“I don’t want to make this about me,” he said on Tuesday. “I want to make this about the people I represent. I’ve heard a lot from both sides…. At the end of the day, there are checks and balances. I would not make that decision without meeting with the people first.”

Republican Councilman Robert Clark echoed Taylor’s sentiment.

“I’d like to be open-minded,” he said. “We’re gonna wait until we get all of the data and then we’ll make a collective decision.”

Puzzles

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May 16-22, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Organizers call for independent experts to review city’s resettlement practices

by Jordan Green Advocates for refugee families call for an “independent body of experts” to review the practices of resettlement agencies a year after a tragic fire took the lives of five Congolese refugee children at the Summit-Cone apartments in northeast Greensboro.

One year after a tragic fire that took the lives of five Congolese refugee children at a northeast Greensboro apartment complex, a group of community advocates is calling for an “independent body of experts” to review local resettlement agencies, alongside representatives of the “newcomer communities.”

A group calling itself the SummitCone Families Committee recently held three “public conversations” facilitated

by UNCG professors Jeremy Rinker and Daniel Rhodes that were closed to the news media.

“There was a wide range of the Greensboro population coming from different sectors of our city,” said Andrew Young, an advocate for refugees in the community. “To that extent, as an organizer, I’m very satisfied that this being an event that we both advertised on social media and we sent out personal invitations to particular groups in order to obtain a fair and balanced participation — we’re very satisfied on that score.”

Young said that to honor a pledge of confidentiality offered to encourage candid conversations, he did not want to divulge the names and affiliations of participants or the content of the discussions.

The May 12, 2018 fire resulted in the deaths of five children from a single family, sending shockwaves through the city and focusing public anger at the Agapion family who owns and operates the apartment complex, along with scrutiny of the city of Greensboro’s housing code inspection process. In spite of residents’ unequivocal statements that appliances and wiring in the apartment were faulty, an investigation by the Greensboro Fire Department largely absolved the owners of responsibility for the fire. Residents also said the conditions at the apartment complex constitute discrimination against the refugee population, but to date the Greensboro Human Relations Department has taken no apparent action to investigate the owners or commence civil litigation. Human Relations Director Love Crossling could not be reached for this story.

Some advocates have also faulted refugee agencies for placing clients in

the apartments, considering the decades of adverse publicity the Agapions have received for substandard and dangerous housing.

“These children’s lives were cut short due to hundreds of decisions made along the way,” states a press release issued by the Summit-Cone Families Committee released on Tuesday. “Their deaths exposed the inhumane conditions many people are forced to endure here in Greensboro at the hands of the agencies who are entrusted with their resettlement and care. We would like to see these agencies reviewed by an independent body of experts in the field along with representatives from the newcomer communities who can assess Guilford County’s current practices, obliterate the destructive ones, salvage those that work well, and create non-oppressive programs and practices that support humanism and social justice.”

The North Carolina African Services Coalition, which is one of two refugee resettlement agencies in Greensboro, declined to comment for this story. TCB did not hear back from Church World Services, the other resettlement organization.

The press release issued by the Summit-Cone Families Committee acknowledges a number of modest policy actions taken by the city and various agencies that affect the refugee community in the wake of the May 2018 fire. The press release says the city has increased the ability of housing inspectors to address code violations; the city’s International Advisory Committee has built bridges between city officials and immigrants; the human relations department has funded two interns to gather data from immigrants; the Greensboro Housing Coalition has pledged to not refer clients to Arco Realty, the company that owns Summit-Cone Apartments; and the Greensboro office of Legal Aid of North Carolina has hired a Swahili-speaking attorney to help residents recover rent.

“Compared to the enormity of the tragedy, these measures are welcome but insufficient,” the press release says.

“They do not answer the families’ original concerns nor do they inform the public of the status of efforts that were undertaken to address immediate family needs following the fire.”

The press release continues: “But because these unknowns and the short progress list do not represent a coordinated response that will prevent future

The May 12, 2018 Summit-Cone fire resulted in the deaths of five Congolese children.

tragedies, we call for an independent body of experts working with newcomer communities to properly review and assess the effectiveness of our local refugee resettlement system of agencies, organizations and offices and our community’s ability to respond to system failure. Such a body will be able to evaluate the dearth of discrimination claims, the effectiveness of Legal Aid strategies to regulate the abuses of landlords, or the spotty follow-up and lack of social worker assessments for already traumatized refugee families.”

Young mentioned Raleigh Bailey, the retired director of the Center for New North Carolinians at UNCG, and Mark Sills, the retired executive director of FaithAction International House, as potential members of an independent review board who are widely respected and trusted in the community for both their expertise and neutrality.

FILE PHOTO

Frustration with the perceived inadequacy of the response from the city and various nonprofits to the May 2018 fire holds a particular sting in Greensboro, a city that projects a progressive image.

In 2014, city council unanimously approved a resolution naming Greensboro a “Stranger to Neighbor” city, at the prodding of FaithAction. Mayor Nancy Vaughan reiterated her support of the resolution in January 2017 to reassure residents alarmed by a slate of executive orders issued by President Trump affecting refugee resettlement and immigration enforcement.

“Our city, Greensboro, has already pledged or committed to be a more welcoming city,” Young said. “That has to be more than kumbaya. It presumably means that people are entitled to rights and representation…. With or without Trump, we should be even more mindful of the vulnerable population among us.”

Trials deconstruct a melee at UNC Chapel Hill

Not so good for the goose

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

There is nothing remarkable about the firing of Kim Strach, executive director of the NC Board of Elections — at least by today’s standards.

Strach, a registered independent, was like all of her predecessors a political appointee — she was one of McCrory’s picks — and like most of them, she got shown the door when another party came into power.

Ousting Strach was probably the plan all along, as soon as Gov. Roy Cooper took office in 2016. But that was before the elections/ethics boards hornswoggle made it through the General Assembly before getting quashed by the courts.

So it wasn’t until Monday that Strach was replaced

by Karen Brinson Bell, the choice of the Democrats who make up the majority of the five-member board.

In the interim, Strach handled the fallout in Congressional District 9, where a Republican candidate hired a political operative who illegally hustled absentee ballots to deliver a victory. Admittedly, It’s ironic that it happened on her watch, but so did the Strach’s head cleanup: The election would fall under results did not stand, McRae Dowless was the same partisan indicted and four of his cronies arrested axe that took out and a new primary Tom Ross. held this week — just a day after Strach got fired.

Sure, it would have been nice to see a couple more heads roll on that one, but Strach demonstrated an ability to look beyond party in an effort to move toward some approximation of electoral justice.

That makes her, in today’s NC General Assembly, an outlier — that and the fact that she’s a political appointment who actually seems qualified to do her job.

This party-over-country mentality has infected our government at every level, certainly in Washington, DC but also here in the Triad. We’ve had partisan elections implemented at the county and city level, as well as the school board, and redistricting in a manner designed to marginalize the urban majority.

It’s ironic that Strach’s head would fall under the same partisan axe that took Tom Ross away from the UNC System and attempted to limit the governor’s powers while the window was still open.

North Carolina Democrats take heed: There’s an important election on the horizon, and the best way to differentiate from the opposition is to pull from a different playbook.

Up Front

Scott Holmes, the defense ing antiracists to angrily demand an explanation before attorney of choice for those in tensions between police and protesters escalated. Three the Triangle who get arrested defendants have had charges dismissed and a fourth has protesting racism and poverty, been found not guilty. Massengale dismissed a charge of strolled into the courtroom on the resisting arrest against Jaya Athavale, citing as the reason first floor of the Orange County that the “officer who was resisted cannot be identified.”

Courthouse on Monday morning.

Similarly, the prosecutor dismissed a resisting charge He turned and waved, smiling against Christopher David Wells on the basis that “chargby Jordan Green widely at his client, a newly minted ing officer cannot ID officer who was resisted” and “unable UNC-Chapel Hill graduate named Julia Pulawski, along to identify essential witness.” The third defendant, Joseph with her mother and about a dozen supporters sitting Baldoni Karlik, had his charges of resisting an officer and in the back two rows. He made friendly banter with the failing to disperse dismissed after completing 24 hours of prosecutors and other defense attorneys. In the collegial community service last month. And a district court judge spirit of officers of the court, they acquitted themselves found a fourth antiracist, Jody Anderson, not guilty of asas advocates who might wage a fierce battle during trial, sault on an officer, after the supposed victim testified that but then shake hands after the verdict. If any deal were to he didn’t feel anything. be brokered, it would be now, as they waited for Superior Among the four remaining defendants, Pulawski and Court Judge James P. Hill to emerge from his chambers.

Joshua Mascharka are appealing guilty verdicts. Brandon Holmes and Assistant District Attorney Billy Massengale Webb, who was accused to setting off the smoke device, sat together on the bench behind the defense table. They was found guilty. And Jayna Fishman, who was accused of bantered as if reminiscing about a particuspitting on an officer, was granted deferred larly memorable case over a friendly pint at prosecution in exchange for pleading guilty. the brewpub.

Far from the evidence establishing that Many students “I held her in the air for 10 seconds!” antiracist students are violent, many stuHolmes exclaimed, mimicking UNC police dents charge that the Sept. 8, 2018 protest charge that the Sgt. Svetlana Bostelman, Massengale’s star is a case study in police violence. As James Sept. 8, 2018 witness in State v. Pulawksi. “Or maybe it Sadler, a doctoral student at the School of was eight seconds.”

Education and former high school teacher, protest is a case Massengale grinned and nodded, not wrote on Twitter last September: “When study in police conceding but in the most agreeable way scenes had calmed down and the protest possible. was practically over after neo-Confederates violence.

Bostelman testified during a district court left, the police started a riot by tackling a trial in January that she’d seen Pulawski hitprotester. This eventually led to a conflict ting and kicking another UNC officer, Sgt. Burnett, during where police were arbitrarily pushing, tackling and arresting a Sept. 8, 2018 protest near the former site of the Confedprotesters.” erate monument known as Silent Sam. Then, Bostelman After conferring with Massengale on Monday, attorney had told the lower-court judge that she tried to “peel” Holmes stepped into the gallery to update the defendants Pulawski off Burnette. Since Pulawski was bigger than her, and their supporters. He told Pulawski and Mascharka their Bostelman said she reached around her torso and took her cases will be added to the trial calendar on Oct. 7, adding to the ground to bring her under control. That was when, that there’s a good chance they’ll be continued again. “The Bostelman said, Pulawski elbowed and kicked her four or way it works is the oldest cases go first,” he said. “That’s five times during the 10-second span she held her in the air. how backed up the system is.”

A motion to dismiss filed by Holmes subsequent to Holmes has filed a motion to dismiss charges against Pulawski’s conviction on two counts of assaulting an officer Pulawski, to suppress evidence and for court sanction of cites video evidence showing that Sgt. Burnett was occuSgt. Bostelman. Before entering the court, Pulawski called pied with arresting another protester and Pulawski was not for Bostelman’s firing during a brief statement to the press. close enough to assault him when Sgt. Bostelman grabbed UNC Police Chief Jeff McCracken, who has announced her around the waist. Burnett also testified under oath that he will retire in July, publicly countered Holmes’ that he did not remember Pulawski assaulting him or even accusation that Bostelman gave false testimony in Pufeel any hitting or kicking. Also contradicting Bostelman’s lawski’s trial, writing in an op-ed published in The Daily Tar testimony that she took Pulawski to the ground, a separate Heel that “the validity of the officer’s testimony has been video clip shows a white male officer — not Bostelman — reviewed by the district attorney’s office and determined to grabbing Pulawski around the neck and taking her to the have been truthful.” ground.

Still, on Monday, the district attorney dismissed the Other video taken of the melee, which resulted in the assault charge against Pulawski based on the assertion that arrests of eight antiracists, shows police charging into the she assaulted Sgt. Burnett. If Bostelman’s testimony wasn’t crowd and throwing at least two protesters to the ground. credible with regards to the alleged assault on Sgt. Burnett, The confrontation began when police suddenly arrested how could it hold weight when it comes to the alleged asa man suspected of deploying a smoke device, promptsault on herself?

EDITORIAL

May 16-22, 2019

CITIZEN GREEN

OPINION

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12

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

May 16-22, 2019

The second annual Greensboro Bound Literary Festival comes to the Gate City this weekend through the efforts of Scuppernong Books and crew, who gathered more than 90 authors for this year’s four-day literary extravaganza. There are readings, workshops, panels and parties, all dedicated to the written word.

We’ve teased out some of the more compelling events, and our lead story was a natural — a visit from Ani DiFranco is surely big news in the Triad, especially since she’s with local hero Rhiannon Giddens.

But in between the big-name ticketed events you’ll find untold chapters of history, writing advice, emerging genres and perhaps even some performances. Like books themselves, all the good stuff is between the pages.

Up Front

by Lauren Barber, Cason Ragland, Savi Ettinger, Jordan Green, and Sayaka Matsuoka

May 16-22, 2019

Greensboro Bound 2019

Ani DiFranco

No Walls and the Recurring Dream, with Rhiannon Giddens, Harrison Auditorium on NC A&T University campus, Sunday, 3 p.m.

Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

DiFranco, an independent American folk-rock artist, poet and activist, recounts her radical coming-of-age journey in her new memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream, released May 7. No Walls is more origin story than chronology, filled to its brim with exhilarating, profanity-laden tales from North American roadways and lofty feminist manifesto-like musings, interposed with poetry and stream-of-consciousness prose.

Unsurprisingly, her written style exemplifies the hard-fought artistic integrity of a punk-feminist chick who self-released her first LP in 1990 at the age of 18 on her own label, Righteous Babe Records. For years, fans could only find her tapes at shows or ordering through the two national women’s catalogues, Goldenrod and Ladyslipper.

With gritty sincerity, DiFranco invites readers on a young woman’s journey with no endpoint, shared, at times, with lovers of all genders, and sneaks them behind-thescenes at the odd jobs she worked to survive along the way: nude modeling; loading UPS trucks on the third shift; and chopping endlessly in a minimum-wage job at a

News

“I have always felt like a suspension bridge in the long road of American folk music.

One that spanned the dry, cracked creek bed of the late eighties and nineties, between the old era evaporating behind me drop by precious drop, and the new deluge which had yet to be dreamed up in the clouds. The culture was moving from ‘folksinger’ to ‘singer-songwriter’ and abandoning ties to the radical politics of its forbears. But to me the radical politics were the coolest part, so I was swimming upstream.”

high-end catering company. The veal scraps she would bring home one night crowned her the favorite roommate among a motley crew of seven rock musicians she lived with briefly in the then-unglamorous meatpacking district, a fifth-floor apartment that had been a queer S&M bar the week before move-in.

Her frank retelling of stories dripping with her characteristic switchblade-up-hersleeve ethos of independence and the cheeky humor of her “poet’s brain” make for an empowering, humorous read about endurance, humility and intuition, all of which the world tested as she cruised the interstates in a mid-’80s Hyundai, of which she had painted and collaged every inch. From the driver’s seat, DiFranco regales readers with a highlights reel from her relentless pursuit of a career at intimate clubs and international folk festivals where she “and the African dudes recognized one another as members of the same extended guitar family.”

DiFranco, still a touring musician more than 20 albums later, is now on tour for her memoir and will headline the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival on May 19 where she will share a conversation with Rhiannon Giddens, a prodigious folk singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of the Grammy Award-winning African-American string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, who grew up in Guilford County.

As a practitioner and scholar of American traditional string music, Giddens is uniquely positioned to delve into meaningful conversation with the iconoclast at NC A&T University, a HBCU land-grant university just miles from the de facto start of the sit-in movement at Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro. Giddens, who favors the fiddle and banjo, curated programming reflective of African-Americans’ distinct contributions to folk music for last year’s NC Folk Festival in Greensboro. As headliner, she did not shy away from speaking plain truths about the legacy of slavery in America between songs based on 17th Century slave narratives from her 2017 solo album Freedom Highway.

In her memoir, as on stage and in life, DiFranco does not mince her words, either.

She’s known for railing against patriarchy, capitalism and US foreign policy onstage, and for her vocal support of grassroots organizations that work to secure reproductive and queer rights. DiFranco counts Pete Seeger and Utah Phillips as mentors, not just as folk artists but as social activists.

DiFranco reflects on the rage, and the tactics for social change, she and Phillips shared: “We liked to get people laughing and then, when their heads were thrown back in an open-mouthed guffaw, we’d slip a little kernel of truth in there. That’s how you get people to swallow shit.”

“The way he conceived of it, his job as folksinger had a research component to it and it began the moment he stepped off the train,” she continues in No Walls. “He took the time to make each of his shows personal and relevant to the community he was in. He made it his gig to sow the seeds of critical thinking and he did so through a street-level awareness of history and oral tradition.”

DiFranco and Giddens’ mutual interest in educating and healing society through music is tied up in a belief that folk music is as much an attitude, a way of carrying oneself onstage, as it is an awareness of cultural heritage.

“I will never know what is the right balance in art between painful truths and painful silences,” DiFranco writes about the art of engaging an audience. “There is no right balance to be known. It is a question to be asked of every moment and its answer pertains only to that moment and no other. It’s the spontaneous deal we strike with others, the conversation or lack thereof.” — LB

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Marvel, Magic and Mayhem, with Chris Giarrusso and Brian Smith, Tannenbaum Sternberger Room, Greensboro Central Library, Saturday, 3:15 p.m.

Your old high school English teacher might not like it, but graphic novels and comic books have become a huge part of the secondaryeducation curriculum and the literary culture as a whole. Both play critical roles in the development of American literature as it inspires children and teenagers to become the nation’s future authors, critics and teachers. Titles such as Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the story of a young girl who lives through the Iranian Revolution, and Maus by Art Spiegelman, a series based on interviews that Spiegelman had with his father about the Holocaust, are taught in schools and can teach young adults about the consequential events of the 20th Century.

The inspiration that young readers attain when consuming graphic novels could intimidate these prospective artists. That’s why this panel plans to talk about what it’s like to create the action-packed adventures found in Marvel Comics. Though the media giant certainly attempts to accomplish great, creative endeavors, they offer dozens of avenues more suited

Opinion

News

Up Front

May 16-22, 2019

Jeremy Whitley

to those who wish to break into the comics industry.

Brian Smith, a former editor at Marvel, has written stories for such timeless characters as Iron Man, Captain America, and the Incredible Hulk. Chris Giarrusso, creator of G-Man and the parody series Mini Marvels, has done everything from lettering to cover art throughout his career in comics.

“Comics and graphic novels are a growing part of published literature and they consistently sell well in bookstores.” said Jeremy Whitely, author of Marvel’s The Unstoppable Wasp, over the phone.

While the world of literary criticism has largely blown off this form of media for decades now, it seems like comics have gained their due diligence during the early years of the 21st Century. Who knows? Maybe the characters that your kids doodle in the margins of their math homework will one day be discussed and analyzed in the halls of academia. —CR

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Ross Gay

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The Book of Delights, Van Dyke Performance Space, Greensboro Cultural Center, Saturday, 2 p.m.; Whose I Is It?, with Tyree Daye, Michael Gaspeny, Heidi Andrea Restrepo, moderated by Coen Cauthen, UpStage Cabaret, Triad Stage, Saturday, 11:15 a.m.

Through the course of a year, Ross Gay details instances of joy from his life: an interaction with a praying mantis, noticing a volunteer crossing guard in a school zone or the uplifting words on a sign out front of a church.

Compiled, these moments become The Book of Delights, an assemblage of lyrical essays containing Gay’s personal musings on joy. On Saturday, Gay will read passages from his essays at the Van Dyke Performance Space in the Greensboro Cultural Center.

“When I think of joy,” Gay says, “I think of a feeling that is tied up completely with love.”

As Gay ruminates on joy, he dives into its inner mechanisms. The work gracefully borders on the philosophical, balanced by Gay’s natural tone. The writing acts as a magnifying glass, exploring the details and implications behind seemingly simple, small moments.

The writing habit honed what Gay refers to as his “delight radar.”

“It did make it clear to me that my study, my real study,” Gay says, “is joy.”

Gay’s writing keeps a spirit of wonder, acknowledging the charm of the often overlooked. Throughout the pages, Gay contemplates all of the forms this joy takes. He stops to survey black bumblebees as they pollinate flowers, or bobbleheads as they rapidly nod. There’s an element of nostalgia, as Gay intersperses the text with memories related to the subjects.

Among these topics, he discusses race, grief and consumerism. Each chapter feels like a conversation, a brief glimpse into the complexities of emotion. The layers within

these ponderings make them almost visceral, reminding the reader of the beauty which surrounds them.

Gay has authored three poetry books, Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. His third earned the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2015 and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award in 2016. —SE

Outside Agitator, with Cleveland Sellers Jr., Saturday, 11:15 a.m.; Civil Rights: The Past and Future, with Sellers, Brian Lampkin and Robert W. Lee, moderated by Aran Shetterly, Saturday, 2 p.m., International Civil Rights Center & Museum

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad small, private black college in South Carolina, provides a template for struggle in the present, Parker said, while noting that each era is unique, with different requirements.

“In some ways, it feels like we’re in this difficult, challenging period,” Parker said.

“We are. At the same time, it’s easier to talk about things. More Americans are willing to talk about race and white supremacy. It’s the same with #MeToo and women’s rights. These are the silver linings where the hopeless might find reason to hope. We need to look to our elders for wisdom, but we also need to forge and look for new, creative ways to do so.”

—JG

Puzzles

Cleveland Sellers Jr.’s name might not elicit instant recognition the way those of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Jesse Jackson do. Even among fellow members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he’s less well known than, say, Stokely Carmichael or H. Rap Brown.

But as Adam Parker’s biography — Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr. — makes plain, the civil rights leader and South Carolina native should be better known: He helped mobilize Northern college students for Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964, while participating in a grim search for the bodies of murdered activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney; led a voter registration effort in northern Mississippi that yielded 70,000 new black voters; helped assemble massive files with evidence of voter suppression; and signed up members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the credentialing of the official delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. And that was all before he turned 22.

As a participant in a movement that channeled activist energy during a tumultuous period of American history, Sellers is akin to a good jazz pianist, helping to forge a seamless tapestry between the horns and the rhythm section. His contribution was the glue that connected charismatic leaders of the movement like Carmichael with homegrown activists like Fannie Lou Hamer.

Sellers’ story notably interfaces with Greensboro. He’ll return to the city on Saturday to join biographer Parker at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.

In 1968, as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was on the wane, Sellers visited the city, according to Parker’s biography, and became a mentor to Nelson Johnson, now the co-director of the Beloved Community Center, alongside his wife Joyce. Sellers also helped plan Malcolm X Liberation University, which briefly operated in Greensboro. During a relatively quiet mid-life period, Sellers worked for the city of Greensboro’s planning department and the Greensboro Housing Authority. (Another local cameo: Sellers ran for Greensboro City Council in 1983, losing to one Earl Jones, who was considered more conventional and palatable to the establishment.)

But the pivotal moment in Sellers’ life and Parker’s biography is the Orangeburg Massacre, an overshadowed prelude to the better known 1970 Kent State Massacre, when in February 1968 South Carolina Highway Patrol Officers opened fire and killed three black students at South Carolina State University who were protesting a segregated bowling alley. (Then, as now, their black lives didn’t matter as much as their white counterparts in the eyes of the national media.)

Compounding the injustice, Sellers was charged with inciting a riot. Ironically, desegregating the bowling alley hadn’t been Sellers’ first priority, but he deferred to the wishes of the students. According to Parker’s account, Sellers went to observe the bowling-alley protest at the prodding of the students as it deteriorated into a melee.

He wound up serving a seven-month prison sentence, but eventually received a pardon from the state of South Carolina.

The parallel between the Orangeburg Massacre and the Greensboro Massacre more than 10 years later are not lost on Parker. In Greensboro, antiracist activists were fatally shot by a caravan of Klansmen and Nazis as police hung back and failed to intervene. In Greensboro, similar to Orangeburg, the police and the political establishment scapegoated the victims, most notably Nelson Johnson.

“Episodes like Greensboro and Orangeburg are inevitable,” said Parker, who writes about arts and culture for the Charleston Post and Courier. “Still today there are flareups of violence and confrontation. They’re inevitable because of the superstructure of white supremacy and the failure of America to come to terms with the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and everything that has emerged in its wake, from redlining to mass incarceration and the drug war. Until we deal with those things there will always be this undercurrent of white supremacy. I fear it will be tricky to get away from. Americans are not very enthusiastic about pursuing truth and reconciliation. If you mention reparations, people freak out…. Until we face up to this, I fear that confrontations between law and enforcement and the state more broadly, and activists will continue.”

Sellers, who retired in 2015 at the age of 70 as the president of Voorhees College, a

May 16-22, 2019

Adam Parker

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May 16-22, 2019 Up Front News

Wiley Cash

With Catherine Venable Moore, music by Laurelyn Dossett, Van Dyke Performance Space, Greensboro Cultural Center, Friday, 7 p.m.

Whatever the means — and often by whatever means — a fundamental ambition of oppressors is to limit the imaginations of the oppressed so that it becomes difficult to envision existence without them, let alone mount an opposition.

As 28-year-old Ella May toils for poverty wages over the course of six 12-hour night shifts a week to feed her four young children, though, union leaflets begin circulating through the perpetually grimy and scarred hands of American Mill No. 2 workers in Gastonia, North Carolina, and hope kindles. Ella May decides not just to join the union, but to become an organizer whose efforts would be met with resistance on multiple fronts and bloodshed.

The Last Ballad is a compassionate narrative telling of an actual textile-mill strike in 1929, led by actual labor organizer and singer Ella May Wiggins, who is better known today as a composer of poignant ballads — American folk musician and activist Pete Seeger later covered her work. Bestselling author Wiley Cash intertwines many voices in his third novel, including that of Ella May’s daughter Lilly as an elderly woman, as she tells her nephew of his grandmother’s principled defiance. Cash juxtaposes Ella May’s perspective with that of Hampton Haywood, an African-American organizer and railroad worker radicalized by socialists and communists in the North who returns

to the South to bring more black workers into the burgeoning labor movement; their unified efforts and dialogue with black Gaston County residents illuminate the frustrating racial and regional dynamics of labor organizing in the American south in the early 20th Century. At once intimate and universal, Cash’s work of suspenseful historical fiction honors its central character outright, and humanizes all of the workers who risked their lives to forge a more just future during that wave of Southern progressivism. Importantly, he reminds readers that there is a future.

When she is murdered by gunshot Ella May’s eyes are open, and the sky is blue.

—LB

Amy Reed

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

#WeNeedDiverseBooks, Tannenbaum Sternberger Room at Greensboro Central Library, Saturday, 12:30 p.m.; Fearless Females of YA, Nussbaum Room at Greensboro Central Library, Saturday, 4:30 p.m.

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Author Amy Reed spearheaded the creation of the anthology Our Stories, Our Voices shortly after the 2016 election.

“It was a way to deliberate on the hatred and the fear and just a lot of the nastiness that was happening and to just offer this other way of looking at things that was supportive and loving and inclusive,” Reed says. “I reached out to authors that I knew that had really important stories to tell and really important point of views.”

The collection, which features 21 youngadult authors who wrote stories about what it’s like to grow up female in the United States, came out in August of 2018 and is Reed’s ninth book. She says some teachers and librarians have started using it to teach in their classrooms.

“When these topics are made personal, it’s hard to people to rely on their prejudices and argue with someone else’s lived experience,” she says. “These personal stories are such a great way to teach empathy.”

Reed’s previous book, The Nowhere Girls, which came out in 2017, follows the story of three high school girls who seek to avenge a fellow classmate who was gangraped.

The response she got after the book was released was eye opening, she says.

“I had people tell me that [the book] articulated so many feelings that [they] were thinking and feeling but I didn’t know how to express,” Reed says. “Girls were empowered to stand up to things happening in their school or start feminist clubs in their schools. To know that I’m part of that dialogue is so beautiful.”

Reed says telling the stories of marginalized groups is essential to her writing.

“I don’t know that I could write without some sort of social justice aspect to my books or some sort of lifting up of marginalized voices,” she says. “It’s always necessary for people’s voices to be heard. Especially marginalized voices need to be heard.

Someone has to do that. It’s the responsibility of art to do that.”

—SM

Gale Greenlee

Afrofuturism, with Michelle Tracey Berger and Sheree Renee Thomas, Greensboro Cultural Center Conference Room, Saturday, 3:15 p.m.

“I think speculative fiction helps us to create and hold on to visions and hope.” says Gale Greenlee, a recent PhD graduate in African-American literature from UNCChapel Hill. “It’s almost like providing all these different roadmaps or showing us that there isn’t only one way to solve our problems. We have to live in this world together and these different forms of media can show us that there’s a possibility that we can create a better world.”

While authors such as Shelley, Wells and Atwood are celebrated — as they should be — their black colleagues in the field of speculative fiction are often ignored. Afrofuturism is a cultural arts movement that aims to shed light on invisible, black artists.

“There is an inherently political element to AF; we’re talking about a future where black people can be free,” says Greenlee. “I think that right now, in our current political climate, we are steeped in anti-blackness and racism, and Afrofuturism gives us different visions and different possibilities of how we can navigate these moments.”

Michelle Tracey Berger, author of speculative works such as Reenu-You (2017) and

Awakenings (2018), will speak with Sheree Renee Thomas, editor of the speculative anthology Dark Matter, on the topic of Afrofuturism and the inspirations for their work.

The panel will be moderated by Greenlee.

“Speculative fiction can break down our ways of thinking. It can reveal the things that we take for granted about identity, power and those who hold power. These kinds of stories can make their readers question things about our world,” says Greenlee.

The group plans to talk about Afrofuturism “as a cultural movement, an aesthetic movement and envisioning a future where black people have some agency and where we’re able to live as freely as possible, even in the midst of oppressive societies.” says Greenlee. “For some who come, it will probably be an introduction to Afrofuturism. For others, though, it’ll just be a space for us to acknowledge and highlight the amount of creative work that’s coming from black writers and creators.”

—CR

Contemporary Muslim Writing, with Huda Al-Marashi, moderated by Krista Bremer, UpStage Cabaret, Triad Stage, Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; The Novel Has Many Characters, with Laurel Davis Huber, Etaf Rum, moderated by Michelle Young-Stone, Greensboro History Museum, Saturday, 12:30 p.m.

News Opinion

Bill Konigsberg

“My desire to read stories that I loved in a Pakistani context was strong enough for me to want to do it,” she says.

For her, there are parallels between Austen’s original text and its background, and the context of Unmarriageable that made the retelling make sense.

While modern Pakistan is a much more secular country than the one Pride and Prejudice is set in — women can drive, be doctors or even heads of state — the emphasis on marriage and traditional gender roles for women in the home is much the same. Still, Kamal wanted to capture the nuances and complexities of her culture and bring them to light in her book.

“It’s not so much in the choices available for women, but in the choices that Austen makes to peel away the hypocrisies in the culture,” Kamal says. “She has a piercing eye on human nature. An eye for foolishness. For me, it’s her satire.” —SM

Up Front

Author Soniah Kamal is obsessed with Jane Austen. The Pakistani-American writer first read Pride and Prejudice when she was 16.

“It is most quintessentially a Pakistani book,” she says. “The culture is still very focused on marriage.”

Her second novel, Unmarriageable, which debuted in January, is a parallel retelling of Austen’s most famous work.

“It hits all of Pride and Prejudice’s plot points,” Kamal says. “I decided to take a book I love so much and reorient it and set it in a post-colonial country.”

Kamal was born in Pakistan and spent her childhood growing up in the country, as well as in England and Saudi Arabia.

These days, she lives in Georgia with her kids. She says that growing up, she read books from all over the world and often reimagined the stories in the Pakistani culture she grew up in.

May 16-22, 2019

Soniah Kamal

Writing About Sexuality and Identity, with Brian Belovitch, Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes, moderated by Coen Cauthen, UpStage Cabaret, Triad Stage, Saturday, 2 p.m.; The Music of What Happens, Nussbaum Room, Greensboro Central Library, Saturday, 3:15 p.m.

Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Combine food trucks, complicated family dynamics, and two gay high school boys, and you get Bill Konigsberg’s The Music of What Happens. The story follows Max and Jordan as they attempt to save Jordan’s home from foreclosure using the Coq Au Vinny, a run-down food truck. Over the course of the young adult novel, both Max and Jordan deal with complexities of how their gay identity intersects with masculinity.

“What I was thinking about was all of the messages that especially gay boys take in about masculinity, and what it means to be male,” Konigsberg says, “and how much of that is garbage.”

The story handles issues like grief and poverty against a backdrop of young friendships and summer jobs. The combination generates a wit that hooks the reader and creates a dynamic main cast. Konigsberg pulls off a dual narration seamlessly, allowing each chapter to unfold with each boy telling the reader his story, on his terms.

Konigsberg has authored four other novels, earning multiple awards, including a Lamda Literary Award in 2008. Konigsberg, along with Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes and Brian Belovich, make up the panel “Writing about Sexuality and Identity” which takes place at the UpStage Cabaret at Triad Stage on Saturday.

Rhodes works in multimedia art, poetry and activism, while studying Political Science as a doctoral fellow at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Belovich’s career has seen him as a performer, playwright, editor and author. His memoir, Trans Figured: My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man, explores his personal life and journey regarding gender.

The panel provides a ground to discuss LGBT+ topics in literature, diving into topics about current LGBT+ literary trends, including a recent upsurge in material, along with the issues that remain on and off the page.

“The importance of the books is that it’s crucial for people who come from marginalized backgrounds to be able to see themselves in books,” Konigsberg says. “That was something that never was available to me when I was growing up.”

—SE

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May 16-22, 2019

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Ribbon cutting ceremony at the newly renovated Passageway Park.

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‘Eighteen Again’— in honor of Jonesin’s 18th anniversary.

by Matt Jones

EVENTS

Every Wednesday Matty Sheets and Guest Every Thursday Open Mic Friday May 17th Human Experience

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Saturday May 18th Open Mic Showcase ©2018 Jonesin’ Crosswords

(editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

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Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

1 Yale graduates, slangily 5 Carpet cleaners, in brief 9 Exams for high school jrs.

14 “The Wizard of Oz” surname 15 Without ___ (perilously) 16 “Let’s do this!”

17 “Great” Macedonian king who had his first military victory at age 18 19 “Lemon Tree” singer Lopez 20 Budapest’s river 21 ___ Nas X 23 Pascal or newton, e.g.

24 Turn blue?

25 Muddling through 27 Pahoehoe or a’a, e.g.

29 Flock of geese 33 Its clock speed is measured in GHz ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 36 At age 18, she got her ideas for “Frankenstein” during a stay in Geneva 39 Football game intermission 41 Hair braid 42 Roof edge 43 “Little Sure Shot” who was an accomplished sharpshooter at age 18 46 Putdown 47 Closer 48 Unwritten exam 50 Losing streaks 53 Forged check passer 57 Impish kid Answers from last issue 60 Establishment that can be combined with a laundromat or arcade 22 Flame source at some concerts 61 “All right, whatever ...”

25 Former French first lady ___ Bruni-Sarkozy 62 Purple ___ (New Hampshire’s state flower) 26 Scottish denial 64 Hundred Years’ War leader captured by 28 Vicks ointment French nobles at age 18 30 Pleased 66 NBC comedy with Glenn Howerton and 31 “Shazam!” star Zachary Allisyn Ashley Arm 32 Mr. Potato Head pieces 67 NASCAR course shape 33 “Rumble in the Bronx” star 68 “Switch” ending 34 Greenhouse glass 69 Small, round, and shiny 35 Lower-arm bone 70 Like an optimist’s outlook 37 Tibetan source of butter 71 “Life of Pi” author Martel 38 Grain-storage towers 40 Purpose of a certain kit Down 44 “Slippery” fish 1 “My goodness!”

45 One of the “Animaniacs” siblings 2 ‘80s-’90s legal drama 49 Dublin’s river 3 “The L Word” creator/producer Chaiken 51 Huge 4 Type of reproduction 52 BYU location 5 Barn attachment 54 Pageant prop 6 “Anything else?”

55 “The Smartest Guys in the Room” company 7 Former “The Voice” judge ___ Green 56 Scouting mission, briefly 8 Word before mall or steak 57 Say too much 9 Casino section 58 Ready to eat 10 It’s real, y’all 59 “Fantastic Four” actress Jessica 11 “It’s ___” (Pet Shop Boys hit) 61 ___ Connect (super-brainy BBC game show) 12 Collette of “Wanderlust” 63 Overly modest 13 Fit of vexation 65 ___ in “apple” 18 James Garfield’s middle name

SUDOKU

May 16-22, 2019

CROSSWORD

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Greensboro Bound 2019 Thursday, May 16 - 6:30 pm

Friday, May 17 - 7:00 pm

Astra Taylor – Author/Filmmaker Astra Taylor screens her film What Is Democracy? and talks about her new book, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone.

Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC-Greensboro

Wiley Cash, in conversation with Catherine Venable Moore. Music by Laurelyn Dossett.

Co-sponsored by PEN America.

Van Dyke Performance Space, Greensboro Cultural Center.

Saturday, May 18 - 7:30 pm

Sunday, May 19 - 3:00 pm

A Conversation with Zadie Smith.

Co-Sponsored by UNCG University Libraries. Cone Ballroom, UNC-Greensboro Campus.

THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT.

No Walls and the Recurring Dream. Ani DiFranco in Conversation with Rhiannon Giddens.THIS IS A FREE TICKETED EVENT. Harrison Auditorium, A&T University Campus.

Free Events Thursday through Sunday For more info visit www.greensborobound.com

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