Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 triad-city-beat.com
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W-S cop cleared PAGE 10 Like a hurricane PAGE 6 Tea & banh mi PAGE 16
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Kenny, in detail
by Brian Clarey
I see Kenny on Tuesdays, sometimes on Thursdays and altogether about a third of the time I visit this coffeeshop, one of several where I
am a regular. He holds his right hand, gnarled from the fingertips to the wrist, curled against his torso; he carries his auto-cleaning supplies in a burlap grocery bag with red handles. Once, with his good hand, he lifted up his T-shirt and showed me the thick, abiding scars that turned his belly and chest into a work of cubism. It happened years ago, when he got into an argument with a friend outside their car, on the side of the highway. His friend pushed him into the traffic stream. Kenny wasn’t supposed to survive that, but he did. That’s what he says, anyway, and I don’t care if it’s true or not. The scars are definitely for real. Kenny doesn’t beg, and Kenny doesn’t steal. He doesn’t even, technically, charge for detailing a car. When people ask him how much, he says, “Whatever you think it’s worth.”
He’ll detail the car while its owner drinks coffee, or eats dinner, or washes clothes or gets drunk here on the corner. When he’s done he’ll walk over and quietly let you know. It’s important to slip the money into his left hand. The right one’s no good. Kenny hit my car just this afternoon, and the tires shine like they’re brand new. He’s minimized some of the hairline scratches on the black body of the car and elbow-greased every corner of the windshield. Over the course of a couple treatments, he’s considerably reduced the yellow haze that coated my headlight lenses. “You know what I use?” he asked me. “I use WD-40.” After a job, Kenny usually gets something to eat and some smokes. Maybe a cup of coffee. Then he’ll post up again, smoking, eyes clocking the corner, looking for the next job. During business hours, Kenny affects a humble and quiet demeanor. Off the clock he’ll relax a little with his friends on the corner. When people remind him that he’s not supposed to be alive he laughs. When I tell him I might want to do a little writing about him, he shrugs. “Don’t do a little writing,” he says. “Do a lot.”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Every time I got depressed he gave me encouragement. He was so intelligent. He treated you with dignity, whether you were gay, straight or transgender. He was a very inspirational leader in this community. I’m upset because he gave so much to everyone else, but he could never get to the greater for himself. — Tiffany Dumas, in the News, page 8
BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com
PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach allen@triad-city-beat.com
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STAFF WRITERS Lauren Barber lauren@triad-city-beat.com
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2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
GSOFW OCT. 2018
Meet & Greet
The Mill Entertainment Complex/6-8pm
Sponsors Gathering
Havana Phil’s Cigar Lounge/7-9pm
Kids Fashion Show
Greensboro Childrens Museum/6-9pm
Emerging Designer Competition Koury Aviation/6-10:30pm
6th
Local Boutiques/National Brands Koury Aviation/6-10:30
7th
Kriegsman Luxury and Outwear/ Mack and Mac
Van Dyke Performance Center/5-8:30pm
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Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
CITY LIFE Sept. 13-19, 2018 by Lauren Barber
THURSDAY
Ritual Talk @ the Ramkat (W-S), 7 p.m.
Burt Reynolds double-feature tribute @ Geeksboro Battle Pub (GSO), 7 p.m.
Opinion
News
Up Front
Homeless screening & discussion @ Aperture Cinema (W-S), 6 p.m.
Join United Way of Forsyth County in learning about youth experiencing homelessness through this award-winning narrative feature film shot in Winston-Salem. Enjoy post-screening conversation with Clay Hassler, one of the filmmakers, and participate in a Q&A with local expert panelists. Find tickets at aperturecinema.com and learn more at homelessthefilm.com. Local Food for Local People panel @ High Point Public Library (HP), 6:30 p.m.
Locals Victoria Victoria and Reaves join psychedelic indierock outfit Ritual Talk as they continue their fall tour. Learn more at theramkat.com.
Culture
FRIDAY
Puzzles
Shot in the Triad
50+ Art Show @ CAN-NC/Bell House Center (GSO), 5 p.m.
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The library welcomes local food experts to will discuss what it means to “eat local,� how to start a community garden and community issues like food accessibility. The panel will feature NC Extension Community and School Garden coordinator Quina Weber-Shirkof, Farmers Market director Lee Gann and Triad Food Pantry Coordinator Jo Williams. Find the event on Facebook.
This three-day show features works from local painters, potters, sculptors, metalworkers, fiber and mixed-media artists ages 50 and over. Weekend hours are noon to 5 p.m. Find the event on Facebook.
Geeksboro screens Smokey the Bandit and White Lightning, two films starring Burt Reynolds, an American actor, director and producer who passed away at age 82 on Sept. 6. Find the event on Facebook.
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
Drat the Luck @ Monstercade (W-S), 9 p.m.
International Village Food & Music Festival @ Corpening Plaza (W-S), noon
SUNDAY
Up Front
Angelo’s Artisan Market @ Wise Man Brewing (W-S), noon Forty-five regional vendors sell unique arts, crafts, antiques and other goods while attendees enjoy food from the Bahtmobile and Twin City Mini’s food trucks. Activities for children are available and Big City Lights will perform live. Find the event on Facebook. Malcolm Holcombe @ Muddy Creek Café & Music Hall (W-S), 1 p.m.
News Opinion
At noon, 39 people will become official citizens during a naturalization ceremony. Cultures from all corners of the globe will be showcased through fashion, food vendors, information booths, arts and crafts vendors. Food trucks will also be on site. Performances from a variety of cultural dance groups, a local gospel band and Easton Elementary African Drummers are scheduled throughout the afternoon. Reggae band Liontracks performs live beginning at 5:30 p.m. Learn more at cityofws.org/internationalvillage.
Culture
Best of the Greensboro 48 Hour Film Project @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), 7:30 p.m. RiverRun International Film Festival presents an encore show of the best short films produced during the 2018 Greensboro 48 Hour Film Project, a contest in which 40 teams of filmmakers produce a short film after drawing random genres, a character, a line of dialogue and a prop. Director of the festival Iris Carter will be on site to introduce the films. Learn more at riverrunfilm.com/48hr. Stargazing @ Kaleideum North (W-S), 7:30 p.m.
Shot in the Triad
Winston-Salem’s Drat the Luck joins Basement Life and Buck Gooter for an evening of punk rock with a side dish of nostalgia. Find the event on Facebook.
SATURDAY
Greensboro Comicon @ Greensboro Marriott downtown, 10 a.m. Check out the locally owned and operated comic-book convention featuring comics, a host of vendors, cosplay contests, panels and gaming opportunities.Learn more at greensborocomicon.com. All are welcome to join the Forsyth Astronomical Society in the parking area for a front-row seat to early-evening Mars, Saturn and Jupiter sightings. Society members will find star clusters, nebulae and galaxies larger scopes for attendees. Find the event on Facebook.
Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 7 p.m. The PTJO presents an encompassment of members’ favorites from the Great American Songbook. Learn more at carolinatheatre.com.
Puzzles
Day in the Park Festival @ High Point City Lake Park (HP), 11 a.m. The longest-running arts festival in Guilford County features live entertainment on three stages, food trucks, arts and crafts vendors and art activities for children. Learn more at highpointarts.org/events.
Americana singer/songwriter Malcolm Holcombe plays an album release show with Jared Tyler. Learn more at muddycreekcafeandmusichall.com.
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Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
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Hurricane, schmurricane by Brian Clarey
every Tuesday, all day
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Hurricane Florence is going to make landfall... hundreds of miles away.
COURTESY IMAGE
I remember my first hurricane. Not my actual first hurricane, a freak storm that hit Long Island back in the mid1980s, but my first real hurricane, which landed on the Louisiana coast just a couple of weeks after I moved to town in 1988. This one was also named Florence, strangely enough. At Loyola, they sealed the freshman dorm, but my friends and I had the wherewithal to sneak out before the lockdown and set up accommodations at friends’ apartments. I spent some of the wildest moments of that storm in the bed of a pickup truck, driving through the deserted New Orleans streets as furious rain and lightning assaulted the city from above. I remember this as the citizens of the Triad make furious preparations for the oncoming storm as breathless TV announcers imply that the only thing keeping us alive throughout the disaster are their on-spot dispatches and maps in motion. Even Trump got in on the act, calling all of us North Carolina citizens “incredible” in a tweet issued on Tuesday. I’ve been through more than a dozen hurricanes, clocked more than a dozen others as they made their way towards me. And I’ll tell you this: Hurricane Florence, now a Cat 4, will certainly cause a lot of damage to the Carolina coast. It may even remain a Cat 4 or, even worse, a Cat 5, until it makes landfall. That would be brutal for our coastal communities. Mark my words: Here in the Triad, we will get a lot of rain, as these storms tend to hover after they break on the land. We’ll have some wind. Some flooding, possibly. And sure, some loose tree branches might knock out power in a neighborhood or two. After following the news cycle through the early part of the week, I’m alarmed at how easily so many people around here have become convinced that we are in imminent danger. The grocery stores have been out of bottled water for days. Events — indoor events — are being canceled. People are freaking out. We’re some 200 miles inland. Winston-Salem is more than 900 feet above sea level. This is not hurricane country. Get a grip on yourselves. Maybe I’m wrong — and I know some of you sick haters out there are actually hoping I’m wrong. We’ll know by Friday morning, after what remains of Florence makes landfall on the Carolina coast. But I’m not stockpiling any bottled water. And I’ve got a flight out of town Saturday morning that I intend to make.
Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles
It’s inimical to the journalistic enterprise of holding the powerful to account to say kind things about elected officials, but I like Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan. She takes chances and isn’t afraid to engage with constituents, and even admits on occasion when she makes the wrong call. But she’s not backing down on her stance against stockpiling bottled water in preparation for Hurricane Florence. With 27 comments, 86 retweets and 166 likes, this wise edict from Monday at 5:58 p.m. qualifies as a viral tweet for a mid-size city mayor: “If you are on city water there is no reason to buy bottled water. Our system is reliable and well prepared. It is designed to operate during and after the storm.” Facing an onslaught of skepticism and scorn, she took delight in citing the Charlotte Observer’s editorial the next day, which both quoted her tweet and vindicated her position. The Durham Herald-Sun likewise researched the question and concluded that municipal water supplies are safe in a hurricane. (Most of the pushback boils down to a concern that flooding could cause contamination, and residents experiencing a power outage would be unable to boil water. City officials respond that water-treatment plants in the state’s three major metros are at a high enough altitude that they’re not going to flood, and they have backup generators to pump water wherever it needs to go if the power goes out.) While Vaughan displays the modern politician’s skilled use of social media, she doesn’t shrink from IRL dialogue either. Her appearance on a live broadcast of North Carolina Public Radio’s “The State of Things” with Homeless Union of Greensboro organizer Marcus Hyde and Duke Law School professor Sara Sternberg Greene to talk about panhandling demonstrates that she’s not afraid to mix it up with smart people who may wield opinions different from hers. And this isn’t the first time Greensboro’s mayor has sat on a panel and hashed it out with people who might challenge her: She joined The New Jim Crow author Michelle Alexander onstage at the Carolina Theatre in 2016 after the New York Times rapped the Greensboro Police Department for racial profiling. Progressives may not like every single one of Vaughan’s votes, but holding a perfect voting record by one group’s criteria is not really the standard of democratic governance, is it? We live in an era in which most politicians wield power by sticking to their corner and waging eternal war against their opponents, whether it’s Trump’s plurality of support triumphing over his divided enemies, or Phil Berger’s artificial majority through rigged legislative mapping. Vaughan’s politics rest not on the notion that she’s always right, but rather that by mixing it up with people who hold different viewpoints you tend to get a result that the largest number of people can live with. Vaughan opened the segment on “The State of Things” on Tuesday by paying a compliment to Hyde, her sometime adversary. “You know, I do want to give Marcus a lot of credit for this,” she said. “He really brought this [constitutional violation] to our attention, maybe in January or February of this year. And he came to city council and said that the laws had changed, and that according to the Supreme Court we could no longer have permits, and that we should review our ordinances. And we did away with the permitting almost immediately.” You can accuse Vaughan of co-optation, but it’s a lot better than annihilation. So, Nancy, go ahead and accept the compliment. Then forget I said it. (And by the way, Triad City Beat doesn’t make election endorsements, so if for some reason you decide to break your campaign pledge to not seek reelection in 2021, understand that this friendly note is non-transferrable.)
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
Mayor Nancy Vaughan by Jordan Green
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Puzzles
Shot in the Triad
Culture
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News
Up Front
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
NEWS
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Few details in death of man after police encounter by Jordan Green Marcus Smith, who hoped for a new start as a barber, encountered the Greensboro police and EMS in the early morning hours of Sept. 8. An hour later, after being taken to the hospital, he stopped breathing. We don’t know much about how he died. Marcus Deon Smith was a oncepromising high school basketball player who had hoped to make a new start as a professional barber. After an early-morning encounter with the police in downtown Greensboro on Sept. 8, Smith was transported by EMS to a local hospital and died about an hour later. A police press release describes the 38-year-old Smith as a “disoriented suicidal subject” who officers found running in and out of traffic on the 100 block of North Church Street near the Governor’s Square Condominiums at 12:45 a.m. The press release indicates that Emergency Medical Services arrived on the scene five minutes after the police. The police said while officers were trying to transport Smith for a mental evaluation, he “became combative and collapsed.” The press release further says that officers and EMS personnel began rendering aid, and that Smith was then transported by EMS to a local hospital. The police said Smith passed away at about 1:50 a.m. The four officers involved in the incident were identified by the agency as AG Lewis and JC Payne, both with the Center City Resource Team, and LA Andrews and RR Duncan, both assigned to patrol. With the exception of Duncan, who joined the force in 2016, the other three officers have served since 2009 or 2010. Ronald Glenn Jr., the public information officer for the
Marcus Smith with his friend, Tiffany Dumas, at the Interactive Resource Center.
Greensboro Police Department declined to provide additional details about the circumstances of Smith’s death. Smith was a longtime guest at the Interactive Resource Center, an agency that provides support services to people experiencing homelessness. “This is somebody I’ve known for a long time and saw on a regular basis, and was very much a part of the dayto-day at the IRC,” Executive Director
Michelle Kennedy said. “Like the rest of us, his life was not perfect, but it was still important, and he impacted a lot of people.” Kennedy also serves as an at-large member on Greensboro City Council. Tiffany Dumas said she got to know Smith in her role as volunteer coordinator when he first showed up as a guest at the center in 2012. Dumas now serves as a peer-support specialist.
COURTESY PHOTO
“Every time I got depressed he gave me encouragement,” Dumas said. “He was so intelligent. He treated you with dignity, whether you were gay, straight or transgender. He was a very inspirational leader in this community. I’m upset because he gave so much to everyone else, but he could never get to the greater for himself.” Smith left behind three children, including a teenaged son in South Caro-
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a commitment that as he sorted out his personal issues he would attend barber college. We had made a commitment to support him and help him get his barber license as he turned that corner in life.” The encounter between Smith and the police is under investigation by the Greensboro Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation. The four officers involved have been placed on administrative duty. Dumas, who identifies as a gay woman, said Smith was like family to many of the guests and staff at the Interactive Resource Center. “I have never loved anybody in my life the way I loved him,” Dumas said, “because he had so much potential. There were so many things that got in his way. He wanted greater for himself and his children. “When you start listening to folks and having dialogue, you start talking about connections,” she added. “We’re trying to get somewhere, each one of us. We cultivate a culture of community and family, and we don’t judge; we care for each other. He was an IRC family member that we lost. We’ve lost so many, but this one hit home.”
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
lina, a 2-year-old in Greensboro and a 1-year-old in Raleigh, Dumas said. Smith had been a promising basketball player, Dumas said, but was sidelined by a torn ligament in his senior year. She said the setback sent him down a spiral of depression. When he relocated from South Carolina to Greensboro, Smith initially didn’t want his family to know that he was experiencing homelessness. Dumas said Smith would often say that he didn’t want to disappoint his mother. Eventually, Smith’s parents learned about his situation. “I would talk to his mom and dad; they would come to visit him,” Dumas said. “He had a very supportive family. He was taught by his father to make better choices.” Smith was known as the “IRC barber” because he cut hair for the other guests, Dumas said. The staff at the Interactive Resource Center noticed Smith’s talent and introduced him to Gene Blackmon, the owner of Prestige Barber College. “He’s been cutting hair for a really long time, and he was trying to make some changes in his life,” Kennedy said. “He’d never been able to get it together to get his barber license. It’s a fairly expensive process. We had made
Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles
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Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles
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Winston-Salem officer cleared in fatal shooting during traffic stop by Jordan Green A Winston-Salem police officer who fatally shot a man during a traffic stop in March is returning to active duty and will not face criminal charges. The Winston-Salem police officer who fatally shot a man during a traffic stop in March has been officially absolved of wrongdoing, and as of Monday he is cleared to return to active duty. “All evidence indicates” Officer Dalton McGuire “acted appropriately and lawfully,” Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said in a public presentation on Monday. O’Neill said he also considered a history of the victim, 60-year-old Edward Van McCrae, “resisting and assaulting officers” in determining that “no probable cause exists to charge Officer McGuire with any crime.” Footage from McGuire’s police bodyworn camera, which was released by order of a superior court judge on Monday, shows the officer pull up behind an older-model Toyota Camry on March 30, and the McGuire approach the car from the passenger side while walking on the grassy shoulder of Bowen Boulevard. McGuire greets an individual in the front passenger seat and then quickly turns his attention to the backseat to engage a man later identified as McCrae. McGuire asks McCrae what he’s holding in his hand, and soon orders him to get out of the car and lie on the ground. As the car door jerks opens, McGuire says for the first time: “Quit reaching.” “Quit, bro!” McGuire says. “Quit man. Quit….” While McCrae’s voice is hard to hear in the audio, it sounds as though he is saying, “This is f***ed up.” O’Neill said around this point, McGuire’s body camera came loose, so that it was pointed downward along his bodyline instead of in the direction of his gaze. “Stop reaching,” McGuire says with increasing urgency. “Get your hands behind your back. Get your hands behind your back.” Then, McGuire can be heard saying, “S***! S***!” And then, “Gun. Gun…. Don’t reach for the gun!” Soon four shots can be heard. O’Neill said the autopsy found that three of the shots from McGuire’s weapon struck McCrae. One entered and exited his arm, another pierced his back, and still another stuck him near his spine. The grainy quality of the video posted on news outlets websites makes it difficult to discern either the gun referenced
in McGuire’s comments or McCrae reaching for the weapon. But in a frame isolated for O’Neill’s slide presentation, McCrae can be seen lying on the ground while reaching into his back pocket. A subsequent frame then shows something silver glinting beneath McCrae’s leg. A third frame shows a small pistol lying on the grass near a storm drain. O’Neill also presented a photograph taken by a crime-scene investigator showing the pistol down in the storm drain. David Freedman, a lawyer representing McGuire, said the officer is satisfied that the State Bureau of Investigation completed a thorough investigation, which showed he acted appropriately. “He appreciates the hard work of the SBI and the district attorney’s office in exonerating him, but this process brings him no joy,” Freedman said. “The COURTESY IMAGE Officer Dalton McGuire’s body-camera trains on Edward McCray minutes before the last thing he wanted to officer fatally shot him. do was take someone’s life, but he was put in a and community members joined by the know if he had a prior run-in or he had position where he had no choice.” Revolutionary Action Movement and heard about him. I felt like he was in the Freedman said the shooting and its the International Socialist Organization wrong; he made that happen.” aftermath has been “devastating” for marched down Fourth Street chanting, O’Neill said McGuire initiated the McGuire, who had served on the force “When black lives are under attack, what stop after running a “DMV query” and for about two years prior to the incident. do we do? Stand up, fight back.” got back “a limited expired status, which “It’s been difficult to deal with on sevMichael Banner, one of the commucould be anything from the taxes hadn’t eral levels,” O’Neill said. “It’s never easy nity members who has closely monitored been paid when the vehicle was regiswhen you take someone’s life, regardless the official handling of the investigation tered…. In addition, it showed that the of the situation. And then, secondly, into McCrae’s death, said he was not owner of that vehicle had a suspended since last March his actions have been satisfied with the outcome. driver’s license.” called into question quite publicly. He “My impression, from what I’ve heard After McGuire initiated the stop, knew he had done nothing wrong, but he and learned of it is that the officer acted O’Neill said the officer noticed the had to wait for the process to play out.” in an aggressive fashion and manner by backseat passenger’s head moving side McCray’s family could not be reached first of all pulling over the car,” Banner to side, which caused him to focus his atfor comment, and their lawyer, John said. “Being apprehended in that agtention on McCray. Later, after engaging Vermitsky, did not return messages for gressive manner over an expired license McCray, McGuire became concerned this story. tag, for [McGuire] to pull up and not go that McCray was concealing something, During the months that the shooting to the driver’s side, but instead go to the leading him to order him out of the car. remained under investigation, communipassenger rear side and start scrutinizing O’Neill said McCray’s toxicology report ty members expressed concern on social Ed McCrae, what I read is [McCray] indicates that he tested positive for comedia and in the streets. Winston-Salem turned his back. I felt like [the officer] caine and marijuana. State University students held a die-in, was looking for that trouble. I didn’t O’Neill said the traffic stop was lawful,
Up Front
NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS AT THE U.S. 29/N.C. 150 INTERCHANGE IN GUILFORD COUNTY
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
STIP PROJECT NO. U-5898 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed improvements at the U.S. 29/N.C. 150 interchange in Guilford County. The primary purpose of this project is to improve traffic operations and upgrade the interchange to meet interstate standards for U.S. 29, which has been designated as the future I-785.
News
The meeting will be held on Thursday, September 20, 2018 at the Crooked Tree Golf Course located at 7665 Caber Road in Browns Summit from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The public may attend at any time during the meeting hours. Please note there will be no formal presentation. At the meeting there will be maps of the proposed plans as well as project team members who will be available to answer your questions and receive feedback. All comments will be taken into consideration as the project progresses. The opportunity to submit written comments will be provided at the meeting or can be done via phone, email, or mail no later than October 22, 2018.
Culture
As information becomes available, it may be viewed at the NCDOT Public Meeting Webpage: https://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings/.
Opinion
For additional information please contact NCDOT Project Manager, Jennifer Evans, P.E., by phone at (336) 487-0075 or by email at jenniferevans@ ncdot.gov or Consultant Project Manager Brandon Johnson, P.E., by phone at (919) 322-0115 or by email at brandon.johnson@summitde.net. NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting. Anyone requiring special services should contact Lauren Putnam via email at lnputnam1@ncdot.gov or by phone at (919) 707-6072 as early as possible, so that arrangements can be made.
Aquellas personas que hablan español y no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.
Puzzles
Persons who speak Spanish and do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494.
Shot in the Triad
adding, “As far as the law is concerned, McGuire can order McCray to get out of the vehicle when he stops the car.” Banner questioned both the need for the traffic stop and McGuire shifting his attention from the driver to the backseat passenger. He noted that potentially deadly encounters with the police are structured by economic status. “A lot of people in their highly distressed communities, it’s either pay the taxes and fees for the license or get this immediate food,” Banner said. “The choice is going to be get the food. With the heavy police presence in East Winston… I don’t see nothing positive coming out of it. They put [the officer] right back out on the street. It doesn’t look good. I’m not hopeful. I don’t have those things — my license — paid up. I’ll just go ahead and walk downtown; that’s how it’s affected me.” Banner also faulted the emphatic media coverage of the district attorney’s decision to absolve the officer with sending a message that residents should be prepared to submit to police abuse. O’Neill’s presentation included slides stating that the front passenger of the vehicle, who is related to McCrae, was recorded at the Public Safety Center saying to himself: “Unc, why would you do something like that?” But O’Neill also said, “The driver felt like the officer was yelling at McCrae, being aggressive with McCrae.” O’Neill said he relied on the Supreme Court’s 1989 Graham v. Connor ruling in determining that McGuire’s use of deadly force against McCray was lawful. “The reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight,” the ruling says. “The calculus of reasonableness must embody for allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments — in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving — about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” O’Neill said 90 percent of the incident was captured on McGuire’s body-camera video, but he also considered other evidence, including McCray’s prior contacts with police. The slide presentation itemized a lengthy list, including a 1981 conviction for assaulting law enforcement, a 1983 incident in which he allegedly attempted to run over an arresting officer, and multiple convictions through 2000 for resisting a public officer. “Some of the other things we have to look at is when McCrae had prior contacts with police, how did he handle himself ?” O’Neill said. “What did he do? How did those situations go? My point is that this is not designed to embarrass McCray or his memory. And it’s not designed to embarrass his family. I had an opportunity before the hearing to speak with McCray’s sisters, and I can tell you that I came away from that meeting believing that his family cared about him, loved him and supported him, and that his family, they are decent, good people, and they certainly didn’t ask for this attention, nor did they deserve it.”
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Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles
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Residents want more time to move out of troubled apartments by Jordan Green Consideration of Hurricane Florence gives results in a one-week extension for families at the Summit-Cone apartments, who face eviction under a pending condemnation process. On Tuesday, the city of Greensboro granted the residents of the SummitCone apartments a one-week extension, to Sept. 21, to pack up their belongings and move out. The accommodation came courtesy of Hurricane Florence. The deadline also marks the day when city inspectors will return and determine whether the owners have made adequate repairs for 41 out of 42 units to be deemed habitable again. If the units don’t pass inspection, the condemnation order will go into effect. The pending condemnation order resulted from complaints by residents after a May 12 fire resulted in the deaths of five children, inspiring collective horror after revelations of shoddy wiring, leaks and other code violations. A fire investigation identified the cause of the fatal fire as “unattended cooking” even though family members told the investigator the kitchen stove was inoperable and a state code inspector raised questions about the possibility of faulty electrical wiring in the unit. While the housing’s documented problems leave much to be desired, many of the residents, mostly refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have found it difficult to leave the complex. One extra week isn’t enough time for Juma Juma, a Congolese refugee at Summit-Cone, although he eventually wants to move his family out of the complex for good. He said he could do with one or two months to find a new home for his wife and four children. One barrier is that other landlords have waiting lists, Juma said. He added that the vast majority of the housing units available don’t meet the standards required by the Greensboro Housing Coalition, an agency assisting with relocation. Some of his neighbors have asked to stay and hope to move into repaired units on the premises, Juma said. “I myself, based on what happened here, when the next problem happens the landlord may not come to see what happened,” Juma said. “It may be another big problem like the one where the kids died. I have a scared feeling. If the landlord cares about the property, they care about the tenants, too. If they don’t care about the property, that shows they don’t care about the tenants.”
On Tuesday, a painting crew was working on the interior of some units. Irene Agapion-Martinez, who manages the apartments for her family, blamed a broken window in one of the units on the children who live in the complex. She said workers have prepped the exterior walls to be painted. Agapion-Martinez said workers have completely renovations on 10 units, with three deemed compliant and the remaining seven ready for inspection on Thursday. A crew of workers from Safe Laboratories & Engineering Corp. outfitted in facemasks worked inside of Apartment G in the 3100 building — the unit destroyed by the May 12 fire — removing unknown items and wrapping them in cellophane. A man who identified himself as a lawyer but declined to give his name stood nearby monitoring the operation. Agapion-Martinez said the Safe Lab workers were assisting with an investigation, adding that she couldn’t comment further because of legal ramifications. Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that, based on what she’s observed so far, she remains skeptical that Agapion-Martinez would “bring in a SWAT team of repair people this week to do quality repairs.” But the mayor also cautioned that once the repairs are made, there would be nothing the city could do to prevent the units from being rented out again, no matter how much some residents want the owners to be penalized for a history of providing substandard housing. “Once she repairs these units, she can bring them back online,” Vaughan said. “If she repairs them and brings them up to minimum standards, she can re-rent them.” Prior to the city’s decision to extend the deadline as an allowance for the impending hurricane, Vaughan visited the apartment complex on Sept. 8. Vaughan acknowledged that some of the landlords with available units don’t want to cooperate with the Greensboro Housing Coalition to allow inspection to ensure that the housing is safe. But Vaughan said she stands firm in her position that the residents have to leave, assuming the property owner doesn’t bring the 41 units back into compliance. “We’re following what they said: ‘This is an unsafe place to live,’” Vaughan said. “Once we’ve gone into the condemnation period, we can’t say, ‘You can move back in.’ We can’t really give an
A fire-damaged apartment where five children perished in May was unsealed so an investigative team could extract materials.
extension with condemnation. If someone were to get hurt, we are on notice that they are living in unsafe conditions. The landlord has had 60 days to cure these violations. It is the landlord who is putting them out of the street.” Speaking on Sept. 8, Vaughan said, “Some of the housing advocates are calling for an extension. Many of the residents have called for additional time. I went there today because I didn’t want them to be under the impression that they had extra time.” Vaughan said she’s personally reached out to landlords to ask them to expedite applications from the Summit-Cone tenants, and has also written letters to employers, asking them to allow the residents time off from work so they can move. Brett Byerly, the executive director of the Greensboro Housing Coalition, said in late August that about 27 families
JORDAN GREEN
remained at Summit-Cone apartments. As of Tuesday, that number had hardly budged. Juma said someone from the housing coalition told him the day before that there were about 28 families left. In the past couple days, Juma said, one or two families have moved out. Mindful that many residents are frustrated that the city’s current code enforcement policy appears to allow recurring abuses by unscrupulous landlords, Vaughan said she expects city council to pass an ordinance in the next several weeks based on a new law passed by the state General Assembly that will enable the city to undertake a more proactive inspection program. “It will give us the ability to go in and look at more of [Agapion-Martinez’s] units,” Vaughan said. “It’s based on prior bad history.”
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EDITORIAL
A unified NC BOE bucks a trend It’s tough to know, on this side of the looking glass, which of the horrendous commands emanating from the federal government will be taken seriously, which will be glossed over as the lunatic ravings of a bunch of crazed old white men, and which will be actively fought against in this era of shameful complicity and impotent rage. So when the federal government’s nastiest enforcement arm, ICE, in conjunction with its most reactionary department, Attorney General Jeff Session’s Justice Department, sends word to North Carolina that they want to take a look at election and voter records for some of the state’s poorest — and blackest — counties, we’ve got to wonder if our GOP-heavy state government will fight for the rights of its people or roll over and play lapdog. The federal subpoena, delivered to the NC Board of Elections, wanted more than 2.3 million “traceable” ballots, showing the way people voted, in a request of more than 15 million documents in all. Speculation in the media posits that this order came about because earlier this summer, 19 foreign nationals were indicted by a grand jury for illegally voting in the 2016 election. They await trial now. ICE, incidentally, has also requested eight years’ worth of records from the NC DMV. Against smart money, the state BOE pushed back against the subpoena, quashing it until after the election — January — and sustaining their insistence upon redacting specific voter information, that is, who everybody voted for. A spokesman for the BOE told a Reuters reporter: “We do not know the impetus for these subpoenas.” We’ll give kudos to the bipartisan BOE, which voted unanimously to protect the sanctity of the state’s elections. These days, when a state agency actually does their job, it merits a full-on editorial. And while we’re at it we’ll remind everybody that the current BOE structure — an arm of state government that is actually functioning properly in these dysfunctional times — will be challenged by a proposed amendment that will be on the ballots in November, combining the ethics and elections boards. The reason to vote against it is as good as any: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix.
A spokesman for the BOE told a Reuters reporter: ‘We do not know the impetus for these subpoenas.’
White-supremacist campaign dates to GSO Massacre
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of neo-Nazis and Klansmen, and they are naming themselves as a unified movement, the United Racist Front. They’re coming to a public altercation, and violence ensues in the confrontation.” Among Belew’s critical insights, the modern white-power movement was born out of the trauma of the Vietnam war. And whereas previous white-supremacist violence had been an extension of state power — as Klan bombings and assassinations to reinforce Southern resistance to civil rights in the 1960s attest — Belew reports that in the 1983 movement leaders converged on an agreement to wage war against the state. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, Belew writes, the absence of an international communist foe increasingly made the American super-state the foe for the white-power movement. Preoccupation with an entity known by the anti-Semitic nomenclature “Zionist Occupational Government” gave way to a new obsession — a “New World Order” supposedly ready to enforce the mandate of a globalist elite through UN black helicopters. Belew argues that the patriot militia movement of the 1990s was a direct outgrowth of the paramilitary culture propagated by the Vietnam generation of white-power activists, even if it camouflaged its racism while broadening its appeal. The 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, resulting in the death of Vicki Weaver by an FBI sniper, is widely understood as the animating grievance of the patriot militia movement. One Unite the Right participant, a self-style patriot activist from Browns Summit, told me that Randy Weaver, Vicki Weaver’s husband, had been unfairly characterized as a white supremacist; his only association was that he brought his children to play at a nearby Aryan Nations compound because the northern Idaho family had few other neighbors. Belew refutes that notion, writing that the Weavers moved to Idaho in 1983 as part of the northwest migration of white separatist. “An Identity Christian, Weaver spoke frequently about his belief that the Bible said black and white people should not live together, not even in the same county,” Belew writes. “He also told his neighbors that Jews were behind the New World Order.” One other theme runs chillingly through the story of the whitepower movement from 1979 to 2018: Belew describes how anticommunism served as an alibi for the racist violence of the United Racist Front in Greensboro, helping secure the acquittal of the Klan-Nazi defendants. Today, while chanting variants of, “You will not replace us,” many white power activists downplay overt symbols like swastikas or Klan hoods. Instead, they troll their antiracist opponents with violent anticommunist graphics celebrating the grisly practice of extrajudicial executions carried out by the former military dictatorship in Chile, which dropped political opponents out of helicopters. “Free helicopter rides,” the signs mockingly invite. Or, even more casually: “Physical removal, so to speak.”
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Seen from the vantage point of the political center, and even the left, the 1979 murder of five antiracist activists by white supremacists at the beginning of a march in Greensboro’s Morningside Homes public-housing project might seem like a freak occurrence. And for us who live in Greensboro, by Jordan Green the impact of the violence was intensely localized, reverberating out from the five people killed to their friends and family, and then to the residents and neighbors around Morningside Homes, even though the cause and consequences were also national in scope. Like the Greensboro Massacre, the 1984 murder of Denver talk-radio host Alan Berg and the spectacular series of bank robberies by the white-power paramilitary strike force the Order in the 1980s and particularly the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people, seemed at surface level to be acts of eccentric loners. But Kathleen Belew, an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago, makes the case in her new book, Bring the War Home, a breathtaking history of the white-power movement from 1979 to 1995, that in fact Greensboro was the first violent outbreak “in an escalating campaign of terror against the American public” by “highly organized cadres motivated by a coherent and deeply troubling worldview of white supremacy, anticommunism and apocalypse.” Although Belew’s research goes up to only 1995, she makes a compelling argument that the inability to understand the violence as an outgrowth of a coherent social movement has resulted in a continual failure to anticipate and respond to new outbreaks. As Belew writes, “Violent, outright racism and antisemitism were live currents in these decades, waiting for the opportunity to resurface in overt form.” Although the deadly violence during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017 was predicted by many, the alt-right movement that emerged the year before alongside Donald Trump’s presidential campaign seemed to come out of nowhere. The parallels between Greensboro in 1979 and Charlottesville in 2017 are stark: The violence in the former was perpetrated by a first-ever coalition of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, and in the latter by a coalition of established hardline white nationalist organizations and ironic internet trolls. In both instances, the violence was forecasted, and law enforcement and the legal system were either ill-equipped or unwilling to effectively address it. “And even though this entire event was caught in multiple angels of news cameras who were on the scene, all of the gunmen were acquitted in state and federal trials, and a civil trial a few years later returned a decision that only one of the deaths had been wrongful,” Belew told “Democracy Now!” co-hosts Amy Goodman and Juan González in July. “So the Greensboro Massacre really gives us a historical cognate for Charlottesville, in that we see a unified group
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018
CITIZEN GREEN
OPINION
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Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front
I
t looks kind of like if Pinterest and Jamba Juice had a baby, and it turned out to be Asian. MasterTea Café and Bites, nestled in a tiny shopping center off West Market Street in Greensboro just past Super G Mart, is cuter than my entire house (and I spent hours studying Pinterest). Multicolored metal dining chairs flank about a dozen wooden tables while cushy, striped and pom-pommed pillows cozy up the bench seating that lines the left wall of the shop. A vibrant pink neon sign that reads “Master Tea” in adorable cursive adorns the wall next to the register where Instagram-hungry millennials can capture shots of their picture-perfect liquid lunches.
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CULTURE Picture-perfect liquid lunches at MasterTea Cafe and Bites
by Sayaka Matsuoka
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SAYAKA The signature fruit teas are unlike anything else in town. MATSUOKA
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The café, which opened at the end of July, boasts an extensive food menu that seems to be a mish-mash of Asian staples like bánh mì (try the customer favorite Master’s Special) and phÓ, along with smaller side “snacks” like spring rolls, fried tofu, chicken wings and kimchi fries. Co-owner Maya Nguyen, who emigrated to Greensboro from Vietnam with her family in 2004, said she was inspired to create the diverse menu after going to other establishments in town.
Menu items at Master Tea like the bánh mì and even the bún bò huế, a Vietnamese spicy, beef noodle soup, were inspired by co-owner Maya Nguyen’s late father,
“We go to different places and eat and see what we can make for lots of people,” Nguyen said. “We want it to attract more than just the Asian community.” She says that many of the menu items like the bánh mì and even the bún bò huế, a Vietnamese spicy, beef noodle soup, were inspired by her late father, who loved to cook in the kitchen. “My daddy would also cook and get everyone to eat,” Nguyen said. “We try to recreate the dishes in a simpler way.” She says that they’ve taken the family recipes and altered them slightly to be more palatable to a wider customer base. She also says they try to offer a lot of vegetarian options. And while the food can hold its own against other Viet-
SAYAKA MATSUOKA
namese giants in the city (I’m looking at you Pho Hien Vuong), the real draw for most of the customers at MasterTea is the smoothies and signature fruit teas. At $5.50 each, the bright concoctions are priced reasonably enough to be competitive with local favorites like Juice Shop and chains like Smoothie King. With nine different smoothie flavors, including avocado and durian, customers can experience both familiar and experimental flavors. The signature fruit teas on the other hand, are unlike anything else in town. Using teas or juice as the base, these super-sweet fruit teas — which cover an array of tropical flavors from guava to lychee — are as delicious as they are beautiful. The clear plastic cups in which they’re served act as vessels that display the colorful jewel-like pieces of fruit that
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front
The bánh mì has become a favorite among students.
SAYAKA MATSUOKA
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float in a golden liquid like fossils captured in amber. good hours and wifi for studying and it’s homey.” And because of its convenient-for-studying hours And she’s right: Among the few places in the city (they close at 9 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on that serve boba teas or similar beverages, MasterTea is Fridays and Saturdays), affordable prices and unique arguably the most relaxing and inviting. drinks, MasterTea has come to Its pastel colored walls, fake serve as a respite for many of the succulents and signs with rustic city’s young Asian population, flare that read, “You are loved” MasterTea is located at 5103 despite Nguyen’s hopes to draw and, “Gather together,” definitely W. Market St. Suite D (GSO) a diverse crowd. On a Wednesday give the cafe a younger vibe. afternoon, a constant stream of There’s even a giant chalkboard college-aged Asian kids stroll in, wall where customers can write ordering smoothies and bánh mì. little notes or draw animated My sister, a junior at UNCG, admitted to coming three characters. Many scrawl their social media handles. times in as many weeks. And with an atmosphere this cute and picture-ready, “It’s popular among Asians because there isn’t really there’s no filter necessary. a boba place like this in Greensboro,” she said. “It’s got
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CULTURE At the NC Folk Festival, a homecoming for Rhiannon Giddens
by Lauren Barber
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Banjo in hand and band in tow, Rhiannon Giddens returned to her hometown to curate a stage for the North Carolina Folk Festival.
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on’t worry, I’m not gonna get into it; y’all know I can talk,” Rhiannon Giddens admits from an open-air stage in the heart of Greensboro, a smirk flashing across her face. “I’m just gonna play some tunes for ya.” The prodigious singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of the Grammy Award-winning AfricanAmerican string band Carolina Chocolate Drops is performing live with her band at the inaugural North Carolina Folk Festival, a locally-produced “legacy event” of the National Folk Festival, which moved on from Greensboro after last year. Giddens had performed at the first festival in her hometown hosted in 2015. Like the annual national festival, the three-day outdoor event featured an impressively diverse lineup of musicians, dancers and craftspeople in a celebration of cultural heritage traditions.
CAROLYN DE BERRY
As a woman born to a white father and Native American “I heard some amazing old-time music at those dances and and African-American mother in the late 1970s, she’s not fell in love with the banjo and the rest is history,” she tells afraid to make statements about her own roots, or make her the audience between songs as a train’s call can be heard as it mostly-white fan base a little uncomfortable. Her 2017 album chugs through downtown. Freedom Highway opens with “At the Purchaser’s Option,” a “The whole idea of what we’re doin’ [at the festival] is trying disquieting song inspired by a 1830s advertisement for a slave to educate through music and trying to widen the knowledge woman whose 9-month-old baby could be incorporated in her base of some of these beloved art forms because the more we sale “at the purchaser’s option.” know about them, the more interesting they get,” Giddens Cool gusts of wind moving in from the east carry those and says from the stage. “It’s not just about flashy steps; it’s about other haunting lyrics inspired by knowing where they come from and slave narratives toward an audience how they connect us to our past that spilled well beyond the white moving into the future.” Learn more at rhiannongiddens.com folding chairs in the Lincoln FinanLast year, Giddens received a cial parking lot. Few of the hundreds MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and ncfolkfestival.com. left their seats. The opera-trained also known as a “genius” grant, for singer’s exquisite vocals deserved her advocacy for traditional string that unwavering attention, whether music and work reclaiming Africancrooning early 19th Century folk and gospel songs like “WayfarAmericans’ distinct contributions to folk and country music. ing Stranger” or revealing her full prowess while belting the She’s curated programming on these themes for this year’s heights of a self-composed chorus. event. Giddens says her career in traditional American music Her slate includes jazz and folk music performances fused began when she found her place in Greensboro’s old-time and with spoken word and dance, talks on banjo cultures and contra-dance communities. traditions, flat-footing and tap-dance workshops, a dance-off
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture young black man.” Her sister, Lalenja Harrington of Greensboro, also joins Giddens on vocals for several songs, including the Staple Singers’ “Freedom Highway,” the evening’s finale. When Giddens claps her hands overhead, her audience overwhelmingly obliges in kind. With a final twirl of her butterscotch-orange skirt dotted with brilliant red blossoms, a final brandishing of her tambourine, her homecoming comes to a close. Earlier, she’d said, “There’s been a lot of division in our country. I know in our hearts we want to believe each other and hear each other and to understand where we come from…. We gotta all fix our stuff together if we’re gonna fix anything.” The night’s patchwork of the vast, messy American family had done the first step of work: They showed up and, hopefully, listened between the lines, grappling with an unsavory history and healing, one foot-stomping fiddle tune at a time.
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and, of course, her own voice. Gearing up for a mid-show fiddle set, she massages her bow with resin as she pays a tribute to Joe Thompson, an African-American old-time fiddler credited with keeping the tradition of the black string band, which preludes blues, alive until his death at age 93 in 2012. Giddens is dedicated to tracing and honoring musical, cultural and blood lineages which are just as much about the present as the past. Toward the end of the evening, she invites her nephew Justin Harrington to the stage to rap his verses on “Better Get it Right the First Time,” a funky, soulful song she wrote in response to police violence. In it, she begs the question, “Did you stand your ground?... Is that why they took you down?” “This song came out of [Justin] and I talkin’ about some of the stuff that’s been goin’ on, and that’s been goin’ on for a long time, but we’re becoming more and more aware of it,” she says on stage. “So this is about some of the things he faces as a
CAROLYN DE BERRY
Shot in the Triad
As a woman born to a white father and Native American and African-American mother in the late 1970s, she’s not afraid to make statements about her own roots, or make her mostly-white fan base a little uncomfortable.
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CULTURE White supremacists next door and YA sci-fi at Bookmarks
by Sayaka Matsuoka
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Caption Vegas Tenold, left, was at the Bookmarks Festival on Sept. 8 to talk about his new book, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America.
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ven white nationalists host backyard barbecues according to Vegas Tenold. “The humanity of it makes you want to get along with this person,” Tenold explained. Sitting at the front of the Calvary Moravian Sanctuary in Winston-Salem, the bald Norwegian journalist wore a white-collared, button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearm tattoos, and pale-ish blue slacks with white high-top Converses. Tenold, who was at the Bookmarks Festival on Sept. 8 to talk about his new book, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, explained to the audience that most of the people in his book were actually “weirdly pleasant in a way” and that they “looked regular.” After
SAYAKA MATSUOKA
spending six years embedded in different factions of white beliefs are. In other words, don’t let the wolf fool you. supremacy, Tenold found that the extraordinary power of huAnd yet, other writers argued that empathy is necessary and man empathy had betrayed him. one of the most powerful tools that literature and writing ofAt one point during his talk he described a moment when he fers in the present moment. realized his integrity as a journalist had started to slip after he A few hours after Tenold gave his talk, a group of writhad become complacent and too familiar towards Matthew ers sat on a stage at Hanesbrands Theatre for a panel titled, Heimbach, the founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party, a “Truth You Don’t See: YA Authors on Reality.” The five authors neo-Nazi, white-nationalist group. who spanned the ethnic, generational and gender spectrum “He asked me why I hadn’t asked him about the Holodescribed how writing young adult books could help foscaust,” Tenold recalled. “And ter empathy in readers for I thought to myself, Why marginalized, often forgotten hadn’t I asked him about the characters. Find more info on Vegas Tenold at vegaHolocaust? I realized that I In her debut novel, Allegstenold.com, and more info about Tiffany D. had been slipping.” edly, writer Tiffany D. Jackson, Learning from this experione of the panelists, tells the Jackson at writeinbk.com and more on Ingrid ence, Tenold warned that fictional tale of Mary, a young Rojas Contreras at ingridrojascontreras.com. despite the mundane, utterly black girl who is convicted normal rituals that some of murdering a white child white nationalists practice, while fighting for survival in a like hosting barbecues and singing along to Les Mis, that it group home. To craft Mary’s story in an authentic way, Jackson should never be forgotten how abnormal and abhorrent their spent hours doing research on group homes for girls and even
Sept. 13 - 19, 2018 Up Front News Opinion
A few hours after Tenold gave his talk, a group of writers sat on a stage at Hanesbrands Theatre for a panel titled, “Truth You Don’t See: YA Authors on Reality.”
her experience as a Colombian immigrant to craft impactful stories. Her debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a young girl and a teenage maid during the height Pablo Escobar’s violent reign in Colombia. Contreras hopes that her readers develop care and feeling for her main charac-
ters, who likely would have been turned away at the US southern border had they existed in reality in the present day. “Empathy is the biggest goal for me,” Contreras said. “Hearing other people’s stories opens you up to experiences you haven’t had. It’s about broadening your experiences.”
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interviewed a few in person, using their experiences to write Mary’s character. “I like to write about real-life cases,” Jackson said. “I want teens to know that these things are happening so they can change the world.” On a panel in the building next door, author Ingrid Rojas Contreras told the audience how she draws from
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Sunday afternoon with La Patronal at the NC Folk Festival.
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CAROLYN DE BERRY
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35 Traffic caution word 36 Poker variant 38 Hype up 39 Grimm creature 40 Piece with a headline 41 PGA measurements 44 2016 Dreamworks movie with Justin Timberlake 46 Respectable group? 47 Converse rival 50 Lilly of pharmaceuticals 51 Penalized, monetarily 52 Knighted vacuum cleaner inventor 54 They offer immunity on “Survivor” 55 Highly proper 56 Wrestler John of countless memes 57 “Peter Pan” dog 58 Took in 59 King Kong, for instance 60 Vexation
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Down 1 ”With ___ of thousands” 2 Escaped 3 Horn 4 “Break Your Heart” singer Cruz 5 Provide with a wardrobe 6 Protestors’ placards 7 Unfit for farming 8 Mario Puzo subject 9 “The Jungle Book” boy 10 Rowboat pair 11 “Mr. Robot” network 12 Tiny drink 13 Feature of a Mariner’s cap 19 Blasting stuff 21 Fall-blooming flowers 25 2012 Affleck thriller 26 Bearing 27 Donkey relative 29 “___ the best of times ...” 31 Word before longlegs or Yankee 33 1940s-’50s jazz style 34 Strange sighting
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Across 1 Playground marble 6 “Stay With Me” singer Smith 9 Point-and-click tool 14 Late-night TBS show 15 Bank offering, for short 16 “Champagne Supernova” band 17 Storage place 18 Does some present preparation 20 New pilot’s achievements 22 Wed. preceder 23 “Inglourious Basterds” org. 24 The Braves, on scoreboards 25 “I ___ Man of Constant Sorrow” 28 Country singer Travis 30 Elba who recently announced he won’t be playing James Bond 32 Australia’s Outback, alternatively 37 Becomes less green 38 Historic castle officially called “Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress” ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 41 Discipline with poses 42 Wound on a bobbin 43 Limp Bizkit frontman Fred 45 “Parks and Recreation” character Andy 48 Joan of Arc, e.g., for short 49 Ruling official 52 Word with Plaines or Moines 53 Niihau necklace 55 Like a government wonk, say 58 They may be receding 61 1990s cardio fad 62 For some reason it’s National Soft Pretzel Month 63 “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” composer 64 Become a member 65 Regards 66 Columnist Savage Answers from previous publication. 67 Classic symbols of the theater
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