TCB Dec. 20, 2018 — Art for prophet

Local Gift Guide 2018 in this issue.

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point December 20-26, 2018 triad-city-beat.com

WINSTON-SALEM EDITION

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Art for prophet

Lonnie Holley’s kaleidoscopic lens

In the raw PAGE 12

New school boards PAGE 7

Tumblr, censored PAGE 6

December 20-26, 2018

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Winning Christmas Over the past few weeks I’ve been prowling the local boutiques, matching items to the names on my list. I made some small but

by Brian Clarey significant online purchases in time for Christmas delivery.

I’ve been slyly quizzing family members in pursuit of information that would lead to more meaningful — and memorable!

— giftings. Today I picked up a thin stack of gas cards to hand out to anyone I may have forgotten.

I’ve got eggnog in the fridge, a stack of firewood by the door; the tree is up and blinking like a fool, and we’re flush with gift bags, tissue, wrapping paper and clear tape. I’ve even got a nearly brand-new pair of scissors.

I am killing Christmas this year. Murdering it. Don’t even try to stop me.

I’ve driven under the Balls of Sunset Hills twice now, and I’m going again tonight. From today until Dec. 25, these pass-throughs will be mandatory for everyone who happens to be in my car, as will a trip through the Tanglewood Festival of Lights, and no I don’t care how cold it

gets. There will be cocoa and marshmallows. There will be candy canes. There will be some freakin’ Christmas magic, even if I have to get up in the middle of the night to build a train track with a miniature Christmas village beneath the tree.

It wasn’t always like this.

I’ve been known in the past to talk smack about Christmas: calling it “The Big Spend,” juxtaposing its pseudo-religious underpinnings against its underlying message of consumerism, inserting different words into Christmas carols to make them sound dirty, declaring, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” as the sun sets at 4:30 p.m.

But this year, I’m in it to win it.

And believe me, the festivities have barely begun.

Before it’s through, there will be a buttload of cookies, enough to fill a thousand twists of colored cellophane; a Secret Santa; an ugly sweater or two; and I’m informing the kids that from now through Christmas Day, eating a candy cane counts as brushing your teeth.

And if you’re keeping score at home, mark down that I’ll have a live wreath on my door before the week is through.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

This is not a troupe for people to play people with disabilities, It’s for people with disabilities to play what they want.

— Sally Kinka, Page 13

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

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

Sayaka Matsuoka

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 Greensboro Cover: EDITORIAL INTERN Savi Ettinger Photo Emily Crofford’s latest calendar@triad-city-beat.com choreographic work by Lauren ART Barber ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price gayla@triad-city-beat.com

SALES Johnathan Enoch

johnathan@triad-city-beat.com

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.

Winston-Salem Cover: Photo by Sayaka Matsuoka

December 20-26, 2018

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December 20-26, 2018

CITY LIFE Dec. 13-20, 2018

by Savi Ettinger

THURSDAY

Home Alone @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 1 p.m.

Winter Solstice @ Tanger Family Bicentennial Garden (GSO), 6 p.m.

News

Up Front

Ozuna @ Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 8 p.m.

FRIDAY

Opinion

Enjoy a combination of reggaeton and Latin trap from award-winning artist Ozuna.

The energetic melodies of the set are sure to make audiences stand up and dance.

Buy tickets and learn more on Facebook.

Darsombra @ Monstercade (W-S), 9 p.m.

The Carolina Theatre screens Home Alone, Kevin McCallister’s battle of the wits against a pair of robbers. Grab some candy and popcorn before the comedy and donate two items to the Greensboro Urban Ministry Food Bank for a discount.

Find out more on Facebook.

Ugly Sweater Party @ Boxcar Bar + Arcade (GSO), 4 p.m.

Culture

The Greensboro Summer Solstice invites the public to celebrate the other solstice.

Join them to commemorate the longest night of the year for music and meditation.

Hot cocoa and cider keep participants warm around a fire. Find more on Facebook.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party @ Brown Truck Brewery (HP), 7 p.m.

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Spend the evening surrounded by psychedelic sounds with Darsombra, a rock duo inspired by the cosmos. Damiyana and Tarnation, two Winston-Salem based groups, join with space rock and visuals for an immersive experience. Learn more on Facebook.

Jingle Ball @ Burke Street Pub (W-S), 9 p.m.

Pride Night comes to Burke Street Pub with a festive drag show. DJ Fish spins the tunes, and drink specials mix holiday and drag themes. A surprise guest completes a line-up hosted by Devonte Jackson, 2017’s Mr. Pride. Find out more on Facebook.

Dress your worst with this ugly sweater party, complete with games and grub.

Enjoy drink specials on shots and drafts and stick around for a contest to declare the most hideous holiday duds. Learn more on Facebook.

Find your ugliest and most festive sweater for a night of holiday fun at Brown Truck Brewery. Grab a plate from GT Fusion Food Truck to pair with your favorite brew. Find out more about the event on Facebook.

Jump, Little Children @ the Ramkat (W-S), 8 p.m.

Taking inspiration from a folk story, this event offers a chance to sample a trio of soups: bean and greens, bone broth or pho. Shop a craft market or enjoy a reading of the tale and live music. Proceeds go towards the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market’s Food Security Program. Find more on Facebook.

Jump, Little Children plays a hometown concert, influenced by artsy pop and alternative rock. The concert showcases their new album and features original string music from the New Oblivion Quartet. Learn more on Facebook.

Community Stone Soup @ Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 9 a.m.

SUNDAY

December 20-26, 2018

SATURDAY

Michelle C. Johnson @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 1 p.m.

Up Front News

Red June @ Muddy Creek Cafe and Music Hall (W-S), 8 p.m.

Die Hard is Totally a Christmas Movie @ Geeksboro Battle Pub (GSO), 10 p.m.

Santa Fly-In @ Smith Reynolds Airport, 1:30 p.m.

Witness an aerial holiday experience as Santa’s flight from the North Pole lands at the Smith Reynolds Airport. Watch as he flies in alongside other pilots and then enjoy a meetand-greet. Learn more on Facebook.

Disagree all you want, but Die Hard deserves to be called a Christmas movie. Enjoy some snacks and a bag full of props to make the screening interactive. Reserve a spot and learn more on Facebook.

Under the Mistletoe @ Footnote Coffee and Cocktails (W-S), 7 p.m.

A folk group, the Tyler Millard Band, leads this holiday concert. James Vincent Carroll, Lauren Light and Emma Lee join in for a selection of festive hits and Christmas classics. Find out more on Facebook.

Culture

Fiddle, mandolin and guitar meet with a trifecta of harmonies as acoustic band Red June takes the stage. The Asheville-based band harkens back to bluegrass and country traditions with a spirited tone. Learn more on Facebook.

Opinion

Stop in for a book reading, discussion and social justiceoriented yoga session. Michelle C. Johnson highlights excerpts from her book, Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World, with this event. Find out more on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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December 20-26, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad

The difference between sex work, sex education and sex trafficking

by Lauren Barber Porn thrived on Tumblr in no small part because it was a safe space for women to consume femme- and queer-centric erotic content.

But on Dec. 17, Tumblr banned all “adult content” from its platform, and in weeks previous had unleashed a porn-scrubbing algorithm that has flagged images of vases and gay pride pins as “explicit.” Even before Tumblr announced the adult-content ban, it shut down several sex-education blogs discussing kink safety and sex workers’ rights.

This is happening because of the sweeping language in FOSTA-SESTA, a hybrid GETTY Advertising online allows workers of a Senate and House bill IMAGES President Trump signed into to operate independently and screen law last April, which created potential clients from home. an exception to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that has protected online platforms from liability for user-generated content for decades. Now, digital publishers will be responsible if third parties post ads for consensual sex work on their platforms which is incentivizing digital platforms — of which Tumblr is just the latest — to over-censor users, disproportionately silencing marginalized voices.

“Section 230 doesn’t cause lawlessness,” says Alexandra Levy, an adjunct professor of human trafficking and human markets at Notre Dame Law School. “Rather, it creates a space in which many things — including lawless behavior — come to light. And it’s in that light that multitudes of organizations and people have taken proactive steps to usher victims to safety and apprehend their abusers.”

Trafficking — like any other form of abuse — thrives when victims are isolated.

“This legislation will drive demand into the street corners, the back alleys…[and] will stifle meaningful discussions on education and safety, perpetuating the very problems they hoped to resolve,” Nat Paul, a former consensual sex worker and trafficking survivor recently appointed to the US Advisory Council on Trafficking, told Rolling Stone.

Puzzles

Advertising online allows workers to operate independently and screen potential clients from home. And it’s not only the anecdotal testimony of sex workers — a 2017 West Virginia University and Baylor University study found a 17 percent drop in female homicide rates correlated to Craigslist opening its “erotic” section. (That’s not homicide rates among female sex workers, specifically — the platform simply had that sizable of an effect.)

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It is, at best, a grossly misguided attempt to cut down on illegal sex trafficking online but one has to wonder how in 2018 we are conflating child sex predators and adult, consensual sex workers. Instead of addressing the needs of trafficking survivors, targeting the predators who monetize child abuse or making it easier for prosecutors to take suspected traffickers to court, lawmakers have further criminalized one of the most vulnerable populations in the country.

Bennett College is screwed

by Brian Clarey

Rep. Alma Adams with her fellow Bennett Belles in November 2014.

FILE PHOTO

Things don’t look good for Bennett College, Greensboro’s 145-year-old private HBCU. On Tuesday, governing bodies announced that, in its second year of probation for enrollment and financial issues, the school will lose its accreditation at the end of the year. The decision has been appealed, with a final call scheduled for February, but it doesn’t look good.

Bennett College, founded in 1873 as a teacher’s college for freed slaves, became in 1926 one of just two colleges in the country exclusively for black women — the other is Spellman College in Atlanta.

Think about that: In Greensboro, at the height of Jim Crow, they were giving college degrees to black women. That sort of enterprise — along with the Underground Railroad near Guilford College and the civil rights warhorse that is NC A&T University — is woven into the fabric of the city. Bennett Belles were integral to the Woolworth Sit-Ins, and so many have gone on to public service in the Triad it’s impossible to name them all, but the list includes Greensboro City Council members Goldie Wells and Yvonne Johnson, who was Greensboro’s first black mayor, and Carolyn Payton, the first African American to head the Peace Corps.

But the allure of the school has paled in recent years — currently there are just 469 students, and while nearby A&T, which is a state school while Bennett is a private one, has undergone millions of dollars in upgrades, there has been no significant new construction on the campus for decades.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, charged with accreditation, specifically pointed out the school’s financial issues.

It’s not in Bennett’s favor that the land is in a fantastic location, downtown adjacent with plenty of space — it might be possible for A&T to absorb the school and its traditions in some manner, if the developers don’t get ahold of it first.

There’s a fix, of course, which — unless Oprah swoops in — is huge gobs of money.

Bennett President Phyllis Worthy Dawkins told the News & Record that she’ll be tapping alumnae and other potential donors to satisfy the commission’s financial standards before Feb. 18.

Perhaps those Bennett Belles can pull off another miracle.

Forsyth and Guilford education boards convene with new leadership

By Sayaka Matsuoka

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

mates. These inequities don’t exist because black students are less capable or are misbehaving more frequently, they exist because of our history with race.”

Just four days later in Greensboro, similar asks arose during the board of education meeting on Dec. 17.

After new members Deena Hayes, Khem Irby, Winston McGregor, Anita Sharpe and Linda Welborn were sworn in and Hayes and T. Dianne Bellamy Small were voted for chair and vice chair respectively, many in the audience quickly took on the hot topic at hand during the public comments section. Most spoke out with regards to the recent viral video of two white, SAYAKA MATSUOKA male Northwest Guilford Concerned parents aired grievances about a racist student video at the Guilford County school board meeting on Monday evening.

High School students spewing hateful and racist incident, they have not disclosed to the called for an increase in mental health comments towards black people. public what the punishment was. professionals in the school system as well “By now we’re all very well aware Council also called for teaching as an increase in security measures. about the racist video that came out students more about the role that people Still, parents and other members from Northwest Guilford High School,” of color have played in the country’s of the community including Samuel said Todd Warren, the president of the history.

Hawkins, spoke of the threat that white Guilford County Association of Educa“When the minority people are no supremacy and racism play in the daily tors and the first to speak. “It was truly longer victimized, then I think it will lives of students of color. troubling to see a video like that go viral help the majority people realize how we “This type of action presents a clear for any number of reasons. It was very all come together and work together as and present danger,” said Hawkins. “It clear that this wasn’t something in isolahumans,” she said. has the ability to act as recruitment to tion. It was too well put together and the Others who spoke also echoed the those who are not students but certainly racism was too fluent.” idea that the incident wasn’t an isolated those who have issues with the subject of Warren, like many who spoke after one and is one that the county has been color and what it represents. The risk is him, called for fully funding the county’s dealing with for decades. our posterity.”

Diversity Office which currently has only Annabelle Fisher, a senior from High Boardmember Tillman, whose district five staff members for the county’s 126 Point Central High School spoke on includes Northwest Guilford High schools and 73,000 students. behalf of the students at her school.

School, thanked the parents and com“There wasn’t enough staff at the “Racism is not something that just munity members for speaking out and diversity office to handle this one incioccurs at Northwest,” Fisher said. “It stated that “the good and the light will dent,” Warren said. plagues schools all over our county often always outshine the dark.”

Carla Council, a concerned parent, times in ways that go unnoticed. Due to Parent Carla Bluitt spoke about how called for tougher punishment for racism fact that the components of racism are she felt that there was a lack of a sense in schools much like if someone were to within all of our schools, we strongly of urgency to fix the situation. come in with a gun. encourage the board to implement the “It’s time to make a change,” she said.

“There needs to be no tolerance and steps that are being taken at Northwest “How can we enact this change? It’s not they need to be expelled from school,” on a county wide level.” enough to just recognize Black History Council said.

She also noted the recent event in Month. We have allowed abhorrent acts While officials at Northwest have said which an armed individual walked into to continue for too long.” that they have taken appropriate actions Smith High School. She and others against the students involved in the

Up Front

This past week, both the Forsyth and Guilford County Boards of Education swore in their new members. In Forsyth, the result was historic.

On Dec. 13, Malishai Woodbury, Barbara Burke, Deanna Kaplan, Andrea Bramer and Leah Crowley were all sworn in at the start of the meeting.

These five new members — along with incumbents Dana Jones, Elisabeth Motsinger, Lida Calvert Hayes and Lori Clark — resulted in the first Winston-Salem/ Forsyth County school board made up entirely of women. With a majority vote, the only two women of color on the historic board, Woodbury and Burke, were elected chair and vice chair of the board respectively despite opposition from Motsinger and Clark, who nominated Jones instead.

“I believe the district is best served by a chair that knows the district,” Motsinger said.

The election of new leadership drew loud cheers of support from those in the room, including many who stood in applause.

As the time for public comments began, those in the audience expressed their profound relief and excitement at the makeup and leadership of the new board.

“It’s a pleasure for me to stand before this historic board,” said community member Al Jabbar. “We have waited a long time for this.”

Before the meeting, local organization Action4Equity held a press conference outside the building. They listed their recommendations for the new board including ensuring equity for all students, closing the achievement gap and providing healthy and safe school environments. Many of the asks had racial components, including comprehensive racial-equity training for all of the board members, and the formation of a racialequity task force for the county.

“Here in Winston-Salem, only a quarter of black students in elementary and middle school are considered college and career ready,” said Peggy Nicholson, the co-director of the Youth Justice Project of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “Compare that to almost 70 percent of white students. The same goes for suspension. If you are a black student in Winston-Salem, you are six times more likely to receive a short-term suspension than one of your white class-

December 20-26, 2018

NEWS

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December 20-26, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Greensboro apartment complex sold to investors from Northeast

by Jordan Green A South Carolina real-estate investor contends that during his 5-year tenure as owner of Timber Hollow Apartments in northeast Greensboro, he fixed up units and increased occupancy. But the new owners, like the seller, specialize in “distressed” properties.

Nine months ago, many of the units at Timber Hollow Apartments in northeast Greensboro were in disrepair. Squatting, along with water and electrical piracy, were rampant at the low-income housing complex, according to a local housing advocate. One tenant, Natalie Carter, whose apartment became uninhabitable because of water damage and a collapsing ceiling, said the management office was closed and tenants didn’t even know who should receive their rent payments.

Eventually, after Carter sought shelter for herself and her children in a nearby hotel, the city condemned her apartment in the 140-unit complex.

Carl Withers bought the two properties that comprise Timber Hollow Apartments for $1.25 million in December 2013 from an LLC owned by L. Worth Holleman Jr., a local lawyer who died in 2015.

On Sept. 28, Withers sold the apartment complex to a pair of investors from New York and Boston for $3.85 million.

“We buy distressed properties, fix them up, and sell them,” Withers said.

Back in March, Brett Byerly, executive director of the Greensboro Housing Coalition, estimated that only a third to half of the units at Timber Hollow Apartments were legally occupied. Byerly told City Beat that multifamily housing owners typically need to maintain 80 percent occupancy to generate adequate income to service debt and keep up with repairs. Withers himself said in a 2016 podcast interview that with 60-70 percent occupancy, it’s generally still possible to keep up with mortgage payments and costs. The low occupancy at Timber Hollow Apartments raised a question: How was it possible for the owner to turn a profit on the investment?

Robert Kim, a South Carolina investor, suggested an answer.

As a member support coordinator for the Midlands Real Estate Investors Association in South Carolina, Kim said he decided to start speaking out against Withers because he wants to protect members from making bad investments.

Kim initially reached out to Byerly in response to publicity about challenges at another Greensboro apartment complex,

Timber Hollow Apartments was sold in September for $3.85 million.

Avalon Trace, that was also formerly owned by Withers. Reached by City Beat, Kim said that Withers typically finances multifamily real-estate investments through a syndication model that ensures that Withers gets paid while his investors shoulder the risk.

In response to the characterizations in the March 2018 article, Withers told City Beat that Kim doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“He knows nothing about what I do,” Withers said.

Withers said that, in fact, he did earn a profit on the sale of Timber Hollow Apartments. Without specifying whether the deal also paid off for his investors, he said, “We used ourselves. We did use a little bit of outside money. You use a combination of that stuff.”

Withers describes his involvement with

Timber Hollow Apartments as a story of two troubled properties that he made a good-faith effort to improve while dealing with tenants who failed to meet their responsibilities.

“These properties were distressed,” Withers said. “We put money into them. Regardless of what you think, we made them habitable.

The ones that we rented, safety, cleanliness and stuff like that is always something we look at. There is a responsibility of the tenants to clean up after themselves. Out there we had a lot of tenants who didn’t clean up after themselves. We take it, get it in working order, however much we need to do, and then we sell it. That’s what we did with both of those properties.”

Withers acknowledged that the repairs were only partial.

‘He knows nothing about what I do,’ Withers said.

FILE PHOTO

“We didn’t repair all those units; we repaired some of them,” he said. “The units we did not repair were boarded up.

We still had some squatting.

“We bought this property and we brought it up to another level,” Withers added. “There were more people in there when we sold it than when we bought it, so you go figure. We’d repair a unit and fill it.”

Byerly said he finds it hard to believe that Withers increased the number of tenants at Timber Hollow Apartments over the past five years, although he has no trouble believing that he made money on the investment.

“I wouldn’t say he’s investing very much,” Byerly said. “I’d say he’s holding on to them and waiting for the market to come up. The fact that these properties are appreciating even without a lot of investment shows that there’s a lot of speculation going on in the real estate market. Withers is not seeming to do much with the property and then

Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad

Rouge regime, and they lived in communities like Timber Hollow.

Leap said the first step in improving Timber Hollow will be investing $1 million in the property. The sum equates to $7,143 per unit, on average. Leap said it’s hard to explain in concrete terms what will be different under the new ownership, but that the results will be apparent once the work is done.

As for the management of the companies, Leap said the vertical integration of his company allows site managers to focus on advocating for the residents, while the corporate office in Boston worries about the bottom line.

Timber Hollow Apartments is one of three projects Leap is undertaking with Peter Auerbach.

The other two are in Atlanta.

Leap said he’s known Auerbach for less than a year, but the two men share a lot of the same values.

“He’s a giving person; he’s given a tremendous amount to charity,” Leap said. “He’s a tremendous human being. It’s important to find a partner who believes what we believe. He targets properties like this property.

He creates value for the residents and shareholders.”

Leap said his company is also working to acquire Ashleigh Park Apartments, a similarly challenged low-income housing community that is located nearby Timber Hollow and is owned by Withers and three other investors from Florida and North Carolina.

“A lot of people think they’re in the apartment business,” Leap said. “We’re in the people business and the creating community business. We’re trying to get back to the roots of why we exist.

I always say that the property management business is no more about making money than being human is about making blood. As humans, we have to make blood to stay alive, but it’s not the sum total of who we are.”

December 20-26, 2018 Puzzles

selling at a profit. I think it’s just a symptom of where we are with the market and lack of affordable housing.”

In September, Withers sold Timber Hollow Apartments to Peter Auerbach of New York and Nicholas Leap of Boston.

Auerbach is the founder and CEO of Auerbach Funds, described as a real-estate investment fund that invests in “undermanaged assets, distressed assets, REOs [lender-owned properties], and risk-mitigated developments in the retail, industrial, office, multifamily, medical office and manufacturing asset classes,” according to the fund’s website.

Auerbach’s bio indicates that he started his career in the investment banking and asset management divisions of Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, and formerly taught as an adjunct professor at New York University.

Nicholas Leap is a principal of Nicas Group Capital, described on its website as “a vertically integrated multifamily ownership group” that is “focused on light to heavily distressed B and C class properties in the southeastern part of the US.” The website says, “We target ‘workforce housing’ in secondary and tertiary markets around metropolitan areas. When we initially acquire these opportunities, they are often struggling with occupancy problems, physical distress, deferred maintenance, crime, delinquency, and therefore under-perform financially.”

Leap said Timber Hollow Apartments is among three properties his company recently acquired that can be described as “distressed” and “low occupancy.”

“The industry has been rocked by a lot of owners that just don’t care about the residents,” Leap said. “They don’t care about the community. They run them into the ground. They just see them as a profit center.”

Leap said he understands that people might be skeptical about a new owner who targets distressed properties while promising to turn them around, considering the history of Timber Hollow Apartments. He mentioned that he came with his family came to the United States as refugees from Cambodia during the Khmer

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December 20-26, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

On being and seeming inNorthNorth Carolina Carolina’s state motto, Esse quam videri, is

Latin for “To be, rather than to seem.”

For journalists who have been covering state government for the past decade, it has become a punchline of sorts.

In that time, the ruling party in state government has conflated child molestation with transphobia, turning bathrooms into battlefields; has gerrymandered the state districts so profoundly that our elections have become an exercise in politicians choosing their voters instead of the other way around; has emphasized the values of a disappearing, rural voter base while our cities are the real economic engines of the state.

The whole thing has become a joke.

Now we’ve got a Democrat governor, Roy Cooper, threatening to veto one of the four amendments to the NC Constitution that passed a voter referendum.

There were six proposed amendments, remember, which might make it seem like the state’s most important document needed a major overhaul, but these were floated late in the session, and the amendments themselves were not even written when voters weighed in on them.

It’s not like his veto has any teeth — the Senate overrode his veto on the voter ID amendment on the same day.

The piece Cooper threatened to thwart on Tuesday was the elections amendment, which merges the State Board of Elections with the board of ethics, but among its Easter eggs is a provision that would affect the fiasco unfolding right now in the state’s 9th Congressional District.

That’s the one where the GOP candidate, Mark Harris, seems to have pulled a caper in Bladen County using absentee ballots — the investigation is still unfurling. The new amendment would give the GOP an opportunity to scrap Harris in a new election, which seems more and more to be the only fix here, by requiring a primary with all new candidates.

The last time we tried something like that, Ted Budd got elected.

But Cooper doesn’t take issue with that aspect.

He’s more concerned about a provision that creates a cloud of secrecy over campaign-finance investigations, stipulating silence from the board on all investigations and imposing a four-year statute of limitations on investigations. He said Tuesday he’d sign the bill with that piece excised.

Seems like a reasonable request.

The whole thing has become a joke.

CITIZEN GREEN

Reaching drug users where they are

by Jordan Green

Editor’s note: This Citizen Green, awarded Second Place for Best Political Columns by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in 2018, first ran in Triad City Beat on May 31, 2017.

In the beginning, Louise Beale Vincent operated a clean syringe exchange out of her home, but since she was occasionally using heroin herself, the police failed to appreciate the social-service function of the project and raided the house she shares with her 75-year-old mother.

Vincent is a pioneer in the harmreduction movement in Greensboro, part of a statewide network that has sprung up over the past decade to provide drug users with clean needles, distribute Naloxone to reverse overdoses and offer free testing for HIV and Hepatitis C. “We had Naloxone early on,” Vincent recalled. “We got a small supply from a source in Chicago before anyone had heard about it.

If we got a call about an overdose we jumped in the car and our crew drove over there. It was renegade early on. I was actively using at the time.”

By the summer of 2016, around the time the state General Assembly passed legislation legalizing needle exchanges, Vincent’s outfit Urban Survivors Union had set up shop in an office park — Loftin Wilson, upstairs from the Guilford County Democratic Party headquarters on Urban Survivors Meadowview Road in Greensboro.

It wasn’t a great fit: The party volunteers weren’t all that thrilled to see people carrying boxes of syringes through the building while they were trying to conduct voter registration drives, Vincent said. By November, Urban Survivors had relocated to its current location, a storefront on Grove Street next to the Peoples’ Market & Gardens in Glenwood.

Vincent’s aim with Urban Survivors is to empower drug users to make decisions about their lives and their health.

“I give someone some Naloxone — they come back and they say, ‘You’re never going to believe this,’” Vincent said.

“I say, ‘I bet I do.’ They say, ‘It wasn’t more than five minutes after they overdosed; they came right back.’ They say, ‘I did something. I’m not this piece of s***.’ It feels good to hear people say, ‘Louise, you’ve affected so many people in a good way.’ Because I’ve been hearing for years about all the people I’ve affected in a negative way.”

Wearing a T-shirt declaring “No more drug war” during a recent cookout and open house at Urban Survivors,

Vincent held forth on her view that conventional treatment programs harm addicts by isolating them and reinforcing a sense of shame. Two women gravitated to her orbit. After listening for a couple minutes, one of the women, wearing a zippered hoodie and a cross around her neck, felt emboldened to speak.

“I was on Rock 92 for a couple years for being the biggest con artist in Greensboro for approaching people in parking lots,” she said. “It wasn’t like I was selling my body; I was just asking for money.”

“We feel really s***ty about everything,” Vincent responded. “I would tell myself this has got to stop. Then I would use a s***load of drugs to feel better.”

Across the state people like Vincent are cultivating genuine relationships with users to literally save lives by making sure they have clean needles when they inject drugs, and distributing Naloxone kits to reverse overdoses. The Urban Survivors storefront on Grove Street is one among a handful of important staging areas across the state that help reach users from the cities to the most rural counties.

“Vance County is a distribution hub for heroin,” said Loftin Wilson, who conducts HIV and Hepatitis C testing at Urban Survivors and works at a needle exchange in Durham. “It’s economically depressed.

The choices are to move out, sell heroin or work at Walmart. People come there to buy heroin, so there are a lot of overdoses.

“We flooded that county with Naloxone,” he continued. “We did outreach in pawnshops. I love doing outreach in rural areas. In Durham, you can pretty much show up at a streetcorner and find people.

It’s a little more challenging in a rural area.

You have to be tapped into people’s kinship networks.”

The most effective outreach is done by people with close connection to addiction, said Robert Childs, executive director of NC Harm Reduction.

“Now we’re shifting to having people who are directly affected be our primary Naloxone distributors — people who have lost a kid or somebody who is still a drug user,” Childs said. “We were using public health nerds, but we’re shifting away from that.”

“They’re eager, but not so effective,” Wilson added.

“Creating a rapport — not so much.”

The woman who had been the butt of jokes on Rock 92 got up to take a cell phone call, and Vincent went to check on a volunteer who was grilling hamburgers and hotdogs behind the building.

“If they would use us, we could fix the world,” Vincent said. “Give us a project with a prize at the end, and we could come up with the solution for the world’s economy.”

‘Vance County is a distribution hub for heroin. It’s economically depressed.

The choices are to move out, sell heroin or work at Walmart. People come there to buy heroin, so there are a lot of overdoses.’

December 20-26, 2018

CULTURE Lonnie Holley creates treasures from trash

by Sayaka Matsuoka

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Up Front News Opinion

A golden eagle trapped in a birdcage serves as a metaphor in Lonnie Holley’s SECCA exhibit, Somewhere in a Dream I Got Lost.

PHOTO CREDIT

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

and the water is tainted. How many other places have their nequin with a spigot and a bucket stuck in its chest serves as own problems that we won’t know about?” a metaphor for how people can become drained by events in While he’s known mostly for his music now, the 68-year-old their lives like a tree tapped for its sap. artist has been creating visual art since the late 1970s. Taking Towards the beginning of the show, at the bottom of the hardships from his early life which included years in foster stairs, lays a giant piece of rope that’s been tied into a noose. homes and some time in a juvenile labor camp in Alabama, Holley walks up to it and lays down at the end of the rope Holley found his calling after carving tombstones for his sisso that his body becomes an extension of it. The looped porter’s children out of sandstone he found at a nearby foundry. tion that lays next to him measures about as long as he is Like these first sculptures, his work is predominantly made tall. It was originally a tow-boat rope, titled “Hung.” The card of found objects that he collects from dumps or roadsides or explains how ropes have been used for good and necessary forgotten creeks and ditches. Trash literally becomes treasure, purposes throughout history but how when used by the wrong his medium and his muse. people, they can and have, been used for evil.

“I’ve always been different,” Holley says as he walks around Even the way Holley speaks has a prophetic quality to it. the gallery. “I couldn’t afford brand-new His words meld together and with every materials. A lot of artists can’t afford added word — like a bartender making new materials but that doesn’t make a cocktail — he adds new meaning and Somewhere in a Dream I Got them less of an artist. I use objects that depth of flavor to his sentences.

Lost will be on display at people have thrown away.”

“As humans, as artists, we need to talk SECCA through May 18. You And while the objects he uses may about the aftermath of our disasters,” seem simple and commonplace to many, he says. can find out more about the to Holley, they carry layers of meaning.

Looking around the exhibit, it’s hard artist at lonnieholley.com.

Ordinary objects are rearranged and to imagine that most of the pieces were transformed to tell profound stories. made in the last two years. At almost “He is insanely smart,” says Wendy 70-years-old, it seems Holley has no Earle, the curator of contemporary art at SECCA. “He’s making intentions of stopping any time soon. His 2018 album, MITH, connections that the rest of just can’t make. He’s looking at has been critically acclaimed while his recent short film, “I things holistically.”

Snuck Off the Slave Ship,” was recently accepted into the 2019 Like “No Milk and Bad Water in the Hood,” many of the Sundance Film Festival. pieces in the show reflect themes of neglect and racism, as “A lot of my pieces are about self-lubrication, about fueling well as motifs of discrimination and subjugation. A golden yourself,” Holley says. “We learn more than just in school; eagle trapped in a birdcage symbolizes captivity while a manevery second of life is an experience.”

Culture

onnie Holley’s mind is like a kaleidoscope.

With each new turn, a differing perspective emerges that’s just as vivid and complex as the last. It’s everchanging; his art is the same way.

Holley’s new show, Somewhere in a Dream I Got Lost, which opened at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art on Dec. 13, showcases just a recent slice of his work and includes both sculptural and print pieces, as well as a sample of his music.

Late afternoon on the day of the exhibit’s opening, Holley sits in a corner of the gallery at a listening station in what looks like an IKEA chair, the kind that, without back legs, appears to float.

He wears hues of black and multiple rings adorn his left hand while a pair of black-and-white American flag gloves hang from a scarf that’s draped around his neck. On his head sits a pair of headphones through which Holley listens to one of his songs, “I Woke Up in a FuckedUp America.”

Cacophonous and varied, the instrumentals and Holley’s vocals punch through the speakers, carrying the lyrics like words in a sermon.

“I fell deeper, deeper, deeper in a dream,” belts Holley. “And I dreamed that I woke up in fucked-up America.”

Brass harmonies blare as sharp piano notes cut through Holley’s sing-shouting that sounds like spoken word. At times it’s hard to understand what he’s saying but the feeling is there; it’s one of deep pain and powerful sorrow.

In the gallery, dozens of Holley’s pieces speak to the same sentiment.

Displayed behind a clear, plastic box, a glass bottle with the word “Hood” embossed on it sits atop a pedestal. Filling it are dozens of rusty nuts and bolts and out of the neck emerges a long, heavy water faucet. Titled, “No Milk and Bad Water in the Hood,” the card next to the sculpture describes Holley’s process of creating the piece and how he initially tried to get the faucet to stand on its own in the milk bottle, to no avail. He then added the oxidized pieces of metal and found that they helped keep the pipe upright.

“I started thinking about all the metal and rust in the bottle and it made me think about Flint, Michigan,” Holley explains in the card description. “The idea just came to me that people in the ’hood don’t have milk to nourish their babies

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December 20-26, 2018 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

12

CULTURE NC Dance Project artists embrace vulnerability

by Lauren Barber

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afe from winter’s chill, two or three dozen settle into rows of folding chairs in a small studio on the third floor of the Greensboro Cultural Center, where they will spend time eye-to-eye with four unique dancers.

This evening’s performance creates an opportunity for choreographer-dancers in the North Carolina Dance Project’s Artist in Residence program — Emily Crofford and Jordan Medley of WinstonSalem, Mandi Moore of Greensboro and Perlizbeth “Beth” De Leon of Raleigh — to receive feedback on their works in progress.

“It’s a chance for us to nurture local choreographers and give them free range to experiment since one of the big needs [dancers] were expressing was affordable space,” the project’s co-executive director Anne Morris says.

“We thought that’d be a great way to support the creation of new work and communities and exchanges like this. It’s such a nice way to... have frank conversations about what it is to perform and to watch a performer.”

Crofford offered her audience a deeply LAUREN BARBER Perlizbeth “Beth” De Leon and her dance crew draws from house, freestyle, waving and vogue styles of dance. vulnerable performance, alluding to the ways in which she is processing the flips harshly once more. She is writhing on the floor, gasping No one struggles to hear the varied, upbeat soundtrack to ramifications of the #MeToo movement intermittently. She is riding an imaginary someone, hands on De Leon and her dance crew’s performance, though. Dressed and the sociopolitical climate through her hips until she begins to cradle her head, close her eyes and in sweats, the troupe draws from house, freestyle, waving and dance. massage her curly tresses.

All movement is glacial, pensive, vogue styles of dance over multiple acts, featuring group, duet “I’m dealing with… what it means to until it’s sudden. She stands and extends her arms out ever and solo performances. After a few minutes of quiet observabe a woman and what the female form wider until she turns away and releases a primal scream. tions, some attendees engage the dancers, proffering encourcarries, and what attention you get with “I liked that at any moment in the second half a middle finagement. a female form whether it’s wanted or ger would’ve been appropriate,” a young man in the audience “Let’s gooooooo!” unwanted,” she says as she introduces says afterward. “I felt almost transcendent vibes from you at “Okay, okay!” her piece. “I realized there’s this really times and then hiding from yourself almost to then a ‘I-don’t“Ayyyyyye! interesting dynamic within myself where really-care-to-mess-with-you-right-now’ tone.”

“Get it!”

I’ve struggled with body image and… it’s When asked about her creative process, Crofford says, “I An audience member says, “I really like how you engaged a work in progress… but I’m really happy didn’t by any means think that this would be the final prodthat sense of community and brought that sense of hyping with my body and what it can do for me uct. I was just improv-ing ... and there were certain moveand gassing each other up. You brought the audience to you and I have curves and I like that!” ments, like this ‘ticking’ came up and I move from my hips and you brought yourself to us in this performance.”

Then, in the farthest right corner of and I started putting it together.

I just After a question addressing the dynamic of young people of the intimate kept digging, [asking] Why, why? And color performing a routine that featured many street styles stage setting, Learn more at danceproject.org. going further, just past the movement. within a traditionally formal and white space, a black woman Crofford sits on I journaled a lot during this process and in the audience spoke up. her folded legs, things slowly started to creep up.

It “With regard to the question of what is it like to be perbegins to spread came from my initial idea and evolved from there.” forming in these spaces in this way when your ‘natural’ place her knees outward and arches her back.

One woman proposes that Crofford experiment with video is somewhere else: The truth is this space is transformed by A shoulder spasm rocks her torso as she projection during the performance. you. You are helping us understand and navigate the space you gazes backward, and then another, until “When you were doing a lot of small gestures that were a are now controlling and helping us enter into. That is what we she flails to the floor. Right hand and little bit difficult to see from this vantage point, I was a curious do when we bring our bodies in here and we move in this way. leg press against the weight of gravabout projections of just your hands,” she says. “The same That is to say: all of our bodies and all of our ways of being ity and she gasps loudly, activating the thing with sound I wanted to hear more of; there were a lot of have every right to be here.” muscles in that calf and points toes as interesting sounds you were making from rubbing the floor.” she rolls onto her stomach and claps her This isn’t the first time Crofford’s heard this suggestion and legs together. They hinge upward from she says she’s toying with the idea of adapting the piece into a knees, cross and she is panting as she dance film.

December 20-26, 2018

CULTURE All Abilities Actors Legion stages fight against ableism

by Savi Ettinger

I

Up Front News Opinion Culture

Talie Patalano (left) and Bradley Rice (right) perform in Chasing the Sword at the Greensboro Cultural Center.

SAVI ETTINGER

Puzzles

cause is personal, whether through experiences of their own few rehearsals as individuals, but the group quickly transor of friends. formed into a serious troupe. The closeness translated onto “We see it on stage and we assume that it’s someone prethe stage, as they rifted off of each other’s characterizations tending,” cast member Terry Powers commented. seamlessly.

Because of this, many company The impact began before the lights members have found that people even went up. The Drama Center carry biases about disability that folpromises a second show for the For more information on the low them into the theater. troupe this season, with open audiDrama Center, call 336.373.2974 or “People may come in with precontions on Feb. 5. The All Abilities Actors ceived ideas,” Powers said.

Legion invited audiences to sit down, visit www.thedramacenter.com.

Actress Valerie Murray refuses to silence their cell phones and break let the misconceptions about autism down prejudice. stop her. Her theater experience Actor Davis Nidiffer, playing a role began as a stagehand and continued on as a performer in an as a detective’s assistant, hopes to see more inclusivity in indie horror film, set to release in 2019. theater.

“I actually found out if I really, really want to do some“Short and sweet,” Nidiffer said. “Let everyone have a thing,” Murray said. “I’ll do it anyways.” chance.”

Cast members shared anecdotes about walking into the first

Shot in the Triad

t all ended with a chase montage spanning five decades.

The first production from the Drama Center’s All Abilities Actors Legion, Chasing the Sword, debuted Friday, blending together Greensboro history with Arthurian legend. Audiences filled the Hyers Theatre on the Greensboro Cultural Center’s first floor, as Director Sally Kinka along with cast and crew, celebrated both the 50th anniversary of the Drama Center and inclusivity in the theater community.

The show introduced the All Abilities Actors Legion which intends to build a troupe that includes and accepts people with disabilities. Formed by Kinka, the group portrays their own original tale as a fully-fledged troupe despite beginning work on their first production only five months ago.

“This is not a troupe for people to play people with disabilities,” Kinka said. “It’s for people with disabilities to play what they want.”

Though the script was transcribed by Kinka, the story itself formed from a combination of improv games and brainstorming sessions led by the cast. The collective process resulted in a campy yet clever one-act, following a series of parole hearings for a janitor accused of stealing King Arthur’s legendary sword from the Greensboro History Museum.

The lineup of witnesses and investigators included detectives, bar regulars and an archivist, all struggling to piece together the truth. When a piece of evidence turns out to possess timetraveling powers, the fantasy themes skyrocket.

“We tried to play to everyone’s strengths and interests,” Kinka said.

The mystery maintained comedic elements. Purposefully mistaken names turned into a running gag, and certain moments and movements were overdramatized for effect. Whimsical costumes included a clown and a hippie, and the cast sent off the show with a time-travelling, fourth-wall-bursting chase scene.

The show itself held humor at its heart, but the All Abilities Actors Legion sends out a larger message about the theater community itself. The company aims to dispel myths against people with any type of disability, especially within theater. Often, disability lacks true representation, being portrayed on stage by someone without the disability. For many of the cast members, the

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December 20-26, 2018

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Across 1 ___ Xtra (Dr Pepper rival) 5 Group of eight 10 Do really badly 14 Out on the open water 15 Done for one, for one 16 Skate park fixture 17 Bremner of “Trainspotting” and “Wonder Woman” 18 Gives the ax 19 Competently 20 Political position that’s half- human, half-horse?

23 Easy basketball shot 24 “Agnus ___” 25 Swiss peak 28 Gallery works 29 Standard pinball feature 33 “8 Seconds” venue 35 Bar activity with request slips ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 38 Stick with a spring 39 Carnival attraction that’s half- human, half-goat?

43 Former Montreal ballplayer 44 Of food regimens (like 36-Down) 45 One-named supporting actress on “Parks and Recreation” 47 Salsa ___ (red condiment) 48 Bar brew, briefly 51 Rain-___ (gumball brand) 52 Roasting receptacle 55 World Cup 2022’s host country 57 Seasonal greeting that’s half-human, half-bird?

62 Mariska Hargitay’s longtime costar 64 Triple Seven, for one Answers from last issue 65 “That’s ___!”

31 Haleakala locale 66 Purplish ingredient of bubble tea and milk tea 32 Tough puzzle 67 Poet Federico GarcÌa ___ 34 Grand Ole ___ 68 Neighbor of Wisc.

35 Shoelace issue 69 Part of a goblet 36 Regimen with a high-fat focus 70 Type in 37 Key with four sharps, for short 71 Stuffing herb 39 “Phineas and ___”

40 Ice skating jump Down 41 Where you may have had it?

1 Rice dish made with saffron 42 From Basra, perhaps 2 “Honestly!”

46 May preceder (abbr.)

3 Short-sleeved Hanes product 48 Napoli’s nation 4 African linguistic group 49 Like most customers 5 “Carmina Burana” composer Carl 50 Former Arsenal manager Wenger whose 6 In fashion nickname is “Le Professeur” 7 Car part, in Britain 53 Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter 8 Improve on 54 1930s DuPont fabric invention 9 Villa ___ (estate near Rome) 56 First presidential surname to appear twice 10 Bavarian title 58 Molecular unit 11 Common breed for guide dogs 59 Playwright Moss or lyricist Lorenz 12 It may be essential (but isn’t actually essential) 60 Not again?

13 Paper layer 61 “All in the Family” producer Norman 21 Winfrey in “A Wrinkle in Time” 62 Opening word of “Monty Python’s Flying 22 Bubble wrap component Circus” episodes 26 “The ___ Movie 2” (February 2019 release) 63 Grumpy ___ (Internet celebrity with the real 27 Low-grade name Tardar Sauce) 30 Former Yankee nickname

December 20-26, 2018

CROSSWORD ‘Half-Human’—a short list of hybrids. SUDOKU

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