TCB Feb. 11, 2021 — Kink & Kiln

KINK

&

KILN

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point Feb. 11-17, 2021 triad-city-beat.com

FREE

Molly Freilich’s sex-positive pottery PAGE 12

GSO council race kicks off

PAGE 6

NC A&T at the Super Bowl PAGE 13

Police alternative PAGE 8

Feb. 11-17, 2021

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Quitting smoking makes you fart

N

obody tells you this when you’re going into it: That after a few decades of cigarettes — first one

by Brian Clarey with your coffee in the morning and the last right before bed — you go a couple days without them and you’ll be afflicted with long, slow farts emanating from deep within. It’s like your ass is growling.

It has something to do with nicotine and peristalsis, but there’s no need to get into the dirty details here.

Joe knows what I’m talking about. He got off the smokes for five years. Five years! He’s back now, though. He remembered the farting thing as he sucked down one Marlboro Light after another on the patio at Hoots and my ass barked into the wind.

Joe has been pissed off at me since 2014, not that I blame him. It’s in this shared moment of contemplative weakness that we can reconnect. We sense each other’s pain — his for smoking and me for not.

“You want me to blow it in your face?” he asked, exhaling.

No, thank you.

Oh, the things I’ve left behind! It’s been 10 years since I’ve been off the booze and the dry goods. It’s been 20 since I walked away from the hard-edge nightlife and became a daywalker. Now it’s a month without smokes, and it’s fine.

It’s fine.

But it’s not the same as quitting the other stuff. Once you lose your taste for being drunk, it never quite comes back.

Even if it did, a relapse is not the kind of thing you can keep from the people in your life. Because you’d be drunk. And once you lose your taste for being drunk, the dry goods make no sense at all.

But the cigarettes are like a friend — a friend that eventually kills you, sure, but only if you live that long. The smokes have gotten me through heartache, intense stress, long car rides, deep conversations, interminable wait times; and they’ve never been further away than the corner store.

Joe has lit another Marlboro Light, and he’s regarding it now as it smolders in his hand.

“They’ve always been there for me,” he says. I must agree.

He smokes. I fart. On the patio at Hoots, we make quite a pair.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

A boob vase is not going to do anything to anybody.

—Molly Freilich pg. 12 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com

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

ART ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette robert@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

SALES

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka

CONTRIBUTORS

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336.256.9320 COVER: SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR Nikki Miller-Ka Courtesy photo of one of Molly niksnacksblog@gmail.com Freilich’s strap-on mugs.

KEY ACCOUNTS Drew Dix

drew@triad-city-beat.com Michaela Ratliff, 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.

PASTRY BOX:

Dirty Croissants and Macarons.

Feb. 11-17, 2021

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Feb. 11-17, 2021

CITY LIFE Feb. 11-15

by Michaela Ratliff

THURSDAY Feb. 11

FRIDAY Feb. 12

Valentine’s Dance and Desserts @ Kaleideum North (W-S) 6:30 p.m.

SATURDAY Feb. 13

Mardi Gras @ Wise Man Brewing (W-S) 12 p.m.

News

Up Front

Black-Owned Table Talk @ Zoom (Online) 6 p.m.

Opinion

Celebrate Mardi Gras at Wise Man Brewing! Taste of Creole Concessions will be in attendance with authentic Cajun cuisine. Cans of Soul Refreshment will also be available.

WFU Center for Private Business and HUSTLE WinstonSalem are hosting a Zoom discussion in which three Black business owners will share tips for the growth and success of your company. Visit Zoom to register.

Dog Adoption & FUNdraiser @ Bull City Ciderworks (GSO) 2 p.m.

Gio Project Recital @ UNC School of the Arts (W-S) 7:30 p.m.

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Run Club @ SouthEnd Brewing Co. (GSO) 6 p.m.

Kaleideum North invites your family to an evening of fun filled with dancing, crafts and desserts! A keepsake photo will also be provided. Advance registration is required and can be done on Kaleideum’s website.

Join SouthEnd every Thursday for Run Club, where 1, 2 and 3+ mile routes are available. $4 beer specials are also up for grabs. For more info, visit the event page on Facebook.

Puzzles

Pullman Poet Society’s Virtual Poetry Reading @ High Point Arts Council (HP) 7 p.m.

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The High Point Arts Council is hosting a virtual poetry reading where members of the PPS will read excerpts from their works. The event will be livestreamed from the Art Council’s Facebook page.

School of Music faculty members Robert Young and Polina Khatsko present a piano and saxophone recital dedicated to the life of Robert’s son Gianni, born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome who passed away in May 2020. For more info, visit the event page on UNCSA’s website.

Bull City Ciderworks is partnering with Doxie by Proxy Rescue to bring you a fun-filled fundraiser benefitting the dachshund rescue company. Enjoy hard cider while finding your new pet.

SUNDAY Feb. 14

Share the Love @ All Pets Considered Battleground & High Point Rd. (GSO) 11 a.m.

Feb. 11-17, 2021

Coronavirus in the Triad:

(As of Wednesday, Feb. 10, compared to last week)

Documented COVID-19 diagnoses 805,898 (+29,591)

Forsyth

29,727 (+1,226)

Guilford County

36,226 (+2,479)

Up Front

NC

COVID-19 deaths

MONDAY Feb. 15

Discussion with Lindsay McDivitt and Mike Ford @ Bookmarks (W-S) 6:30 p.m.

Forsyth

307 (+24)

Guilford

435 (+44)

Documented recoveries NC Forsyth

730,454 (+46,757)

22,958 (as of 1/16, no new data)

Guilford

30,588 (+2,870)

Current cases 65,263 (-17,769)

Forsyth

*no data*

Guilford

5,205 (-432)

2,291 (-415)

Forsyth

*no data*

Guilford

137 (-18)

Doses administered 1,436,745 Fully vaccinated

Puzzles

Vaccinations (statewide)

Shot in the Triad

NC

Culture

NC

Hospitalizations (right now)

Author Lindsay McDivitt and Mike Ford are hosting a virtual discussion of McDivitt’s book, Truth and Honor: The President Ford Story. McDivitt will talk about writing the book as Ford talks about growing up in the White House. For free registration, visit crowdcast.io/e/presidentsday.

Opinion

Chakra Yoga Series @ High Point Yoga School (HP) 3 p.m.

High Point Yoga School is offering a series of yoga sessions, each designed to balance a different chakra — energy point — in your body. This session focuses on the sacral chakra, associated with emotion and creativity. Visit HPYS’s website to register.

10,181 (+603)

News

Share the love by purchasing your pet’s food at All Pets Considered; 20 percent of pet food sales will be donated to local rescues.

NC

301,234 (2.9 %)

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Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

Feb. 11-17, 2021

NEWS

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Greensboro mayoral challengers emerge after a turbulent year

by Jordan Green

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n the first municipal election since the pandemic swept the world and historic protests against racial inequality erupted following the death of George Floyd, Greensboro’s incumbent mayor faces at least three challengers, with two others who might join the scrum if conditions look favorable.

Nancy Vaughan, the incumbent, will have served eight years when she completes her current term — the longest tenure since Keith Holliday’s run from 1999 to 2007. Prior to winning election as mayor, Vaughan served in the at-large position on city council with two mayors who held the office for only two years each. During her last campaign in 2017, Vaughan said she wouldn’t run again.

The upheavals of 2020 changed her mind.

“I’m one of the few people who have been through the recession before, and know what it took to get us out,” Vaughan said.

“This has been a term like no other term,” she continued. “We were faced with a tornado, a pandemic, social unrest, a business downturn. I have been able to juggle all those challenges.

Greensboro is a different place than it was four years ago.”

Justin Outling, the current District 3 representative, announced his plan to challenge Vaughan for the mayoral position in December and is considered the strongest contender. Outling has charged that the current mayor “has lacked a coherent, inclusive vision” and emphasized “symbolism and quick fixes over long-term success.” Outling has lined up an impressive roster of endorsements, including former mayor Jim Melvin, former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Frye and developer Marty Kotis.

Two other Greensboro political veterans are also eying the mayoral position. Marikay Abuzuaiter, who was first elected to an at-large position on city council in 2011, has made no secret of her interest in running for mayor. She told Triad City Beat on Monday that she’s “weighing all options.” If she doesn’t run for mayor, Abuzuaiter said she’ll run at large again.

Tony Wilkins, who represented District 5 on city council from 2012 until losing his seat to Tammi Thurm in 2017, has announced his intention to run for council this year, although he

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan will face current District 3 representative Justin Outling in her re-election bid, as well as two current NC A&T University students. Other potential candidates are still waiting in the wings.

hasn’t specified which seat. Greensboro Cone Health, was galvanized to run for elections are nominally nonpartisan, but mayor through his experience with the Wilkins is a registered Republican; curupheaval in the city following the death rently Democrats currently hold every of George Floyd. On May 31, Wright seat on the council. said he witnessed Wilkins said he will be a protester throw a monitoring the decenbottle at police, who ‘We were faced with a nial redistricting reresponded with teartornado, a pandemic, quired by the Census gas. He had trouble to determine whether sleeping that night, social unrest, a busianother District 5 and felt a responsibilness downturn.... run or an at-large ity to bring peace bid would be most between the protesters Greensboro is a advantageous for him. and police. So, Wright different place than it And while he hasn’t staged a protest in completely ruled out front of police headwas four years ago.’ the possibility, Wilkins quarters a couple days – Mayor Nancy Vaughan said he hasn’t “seen a later. Wright spoke mathematical path to about his experience mayor.” being racially profiled, Along with Vaughan and Outling, two and it ended with protesters and police political newcomers have declared their praying together. intention of running for mayor.

“After speaking — there’s a woman, Jermaine Wright, a student at NC she’s a pastor — she told me she saw A&T University who works as cleaner at such a bright light in me,” Wright

COURTESY PHOTO

recalled. “She said I was going to bring together the gangs and the corrupt and the crooked. She said she needs to pray.

I said, ‘Let’s pray with the officers as well.’ It was such a spiritual and powerful moment. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was tears of releasing something, putting feelings aside. It felt new. It felt rejuvenating.”

Later, he met with police Chief Brian James.

“I told myself, I’m going to run for mayor,” Wright recalled. “I’m going to use this platform to unite the people.”

Ty-Quann Knight, an entrepreneur who is also a student at A&T, said his upbringing as “a young, Black male” who grew up in “inner-city Baltimore” and had the “opportunity to go to an HBCU” influenced his decision to run for mayor. “I just saw some needed changes in my community,” he said. “It wasn’t enough figures that looked like me, including people in my age group.

We do have a lot of great and influential

Tough decisions for an incumbent, a challenger who is hard to pigeon-hole

Housing first, or jobs?

Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

As Greensboro emerges from the COVID pandemic, Outling is emphasizing employment as a focal point for rebuilding while Vaughan talks about strengthening the city’s housing stock.

When VF Corp. announced it was moving its headquarters from Greensboro to Denver in 2018, Outling said city council members should have been talking in an intentional manner about how it could have been avoided and what to do to make sure the city is equipped to sustain the next shock.

“One of our largest employers, Cone Health, announced it’s merging into a Virginia-based company, Sentara,” Outling said. “We’ve been here before.

We know what the possibilities can be in terms of high-paying jobs no longer being in our community. That’s a fundamental issue.”

Vaughan said housing has always been one of her top priorities.

“We have to make sure people have safe places to live and our housing stock is secure,” she said. Noting that a previous city program called Rental Unit Certificate of Occupancy was disbanded by a state law, Vaughan said the city is going back to the legislature this year to seek permission to enact an ordinance wherein “if someone is going to rent a unit that has a history of housing violations or they are using a rent subsidy that it would require an inspection.”

She also wants to put a new housing bond on the ballot this year — the first since 2016.

“We need a housing bond that will support permanent supportive housing,” Vaughan said. “It will leverage private dollars so people at the lower end of the spectrum will have housing. We have a great 10-year housing plan, which was updated for COVID, but we want to look at some long-term funding.”

Opinion

‘The breadth of those who support me can be confusing. Respecting police and calling for police accountability at the same time shows that I’m someone who can bring people together.’

believe our city manager hired the best person for the job. The chief on his own is changing directives and policies. I don’t think we need to micromanage our police department.”

Outling argued that leadership by city council is essential.

“The next police chief could change it on the first day,” Outling said. “The difference between council-led action and department-led action is fundamental.”

News

would be there as partners.

“Let’s all come together collectively for the things we need,” Wright said.

Knight said he embraced the message of the racial justice movement that surged last summer, but the issues aren’t new to him. He said he wrote a letter to the governor six or seven years ago outlining his concerns.

“A lot of people in the inner city are familiar with mass incarceration and systemic oppression,” Knight said. “Poverty is something that is placed on you. Take the youth from the inner city — it could be anybody, a Caucasian kid — he gets thrown at the mercy of the court system.

Let’s start programs.”

Speaking as a self-published author who has launched clothing lines and operates a cleaning company, Knight said he sees economic opportunity as the best antidote to criminalization.

“I know the biggest thing that alleviated crime is having capital,” he said.

“I feel like poverty and crime goes hand in hand.”

Along with the issue of written consent for police searches, the two leading candidates for mayor also differ on what degree of involvement the city council should have in pursing reforms.

Vaughan has dropped a goal for city council to pass a resolution in support of the national #8CANTWAIT agenda for police reform, which she had held up as a priority in the weeks after the protests began.

“I believe we have a good police chief,” she said. “I believe that he wants to have the best police force. He is making the right move to protect the people of this city. He is not going to stand for subpar police officers. He’s already made those changes; he made them without the resolution.”

Vaughan’s position has evolved towards the position on that policy should be left up to the chief, while Abuzuaiter was a staunch proponent back in June.

“No, absolutely not,” she responded when asked whether the council should set policy on reforms.

“We need to hire the police chief to do his or her job,” Abuzuaiter said. “I

Up Front

Vaughan presents herself as someone who’s not afraid to make unpopular decisions, including imposing a curfew after the first two nights of protests ended with property damage.

“That is not going to make me popular with a lot of people,” she said. “I thought it might be a time to take a step back. Calling for stay-at-home orders or masking. I have been willing to take a stand where I thought it was the best for the community. It’s more than symbolism; it’s taking a stand.”

While Outling has been honing a “symbolism without substance” attack line against Vaughan, the current mayor says she’s been too “focused on the critical issues facing our city” to give much thought to her campaign.

No mayoral candidates have echoed the call raised by activists over the summer to significantly redirect funding from policing to social services such as housing, employment and community health. But Vaughan said front-end efforts to reduce dependency on police were already underway before last summer’s protests, including contracting and then hiring mental health workers and the Cure Violence program to de-escalate conflict.

“They did come out of the generalfund budget,” Vaughan said. “We don’t really have a police department budget that is full of excess money. The fact is that we are low when it comes to per-capita police. We see the spikes in homicides and aggravated assaults.

We know we need more detectives and police in cars.”

Abuzuaiter, who is weighing a run for mayor, also adamantly opposes reducing the police budget.

“When I hear ‘defund the police,’ I look at our crime rates,” she said. “I don’t think we need to defund the police.

We need to re-fund the police, and train them as they need to be trained.”

Outling’s stance on police accountability resists easy categorization.

As a District 3 candidate in 2017, he received the endorsement of the Greensboro Police Officers Association. So, it might come as a surprise that last year he voted in favor of requiring written consent for police searches. Outling was

on the losing end of the close vote, with Vaughan joining those who prevailed to kill written consent.

“The breadth of those who support me can be confusing,” Outling said.

“Respecting police and calling for police accountability at the same time shows that I’m someone who can bring people together.

“I judge each of the things on their merits and substance,” he added. “Certainly I have received the support of the police organizations in the past. That’s always been notwithstanding that on certain issues we might disagree.”

Like his opponent, Outling cites efforts on police accountability that long predate George Floyd.

Outling took the lead on a police body-camera policy that was established in Greensboro for a brief period in 2016 before it was overridden by a state law sponsored by Rep. John Faircloth. (RGuilford).

The Dejuan Yourse case made national headlines, and Greensboro City Council acted.

“There was a situation where an officer assaulted and battered a gentleman on his mother’s porch, and in my view the officer had no justification,” Outling said. “We released that video. The public was able to process anger, hurt and disappoint– Justin Outling ment. Ultimately, it provided greater confidence in our police leadership. At the same time in Charlotte, they were dealing with the death of gentleman, Keith Lamont Scott. They were not prepared to release the video. There was greater distrust in the community. It resulted in protests, property destruction and one person being killed during the protests.”

Wright, who facilitated the prayer session with Greensboro police and protesters, outright rejected the idea of shrinking the police force.

“A lot of people want to defund the police,” he said. “I don’t see an issue of having to defund anything.” Wright added that he shared his dream of standing up a mental-health counseling program with Chief James, and the chief promised that when the time came his officers

Feb. 11-17, 2021

African Americans, but the age barrier wasn’t allowing us to see that young people can do great things as well. I want to be able to spark the mind to someone who looks like me to run.”

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Feb. 11-17, 2021 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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W-S considers a police-free response for mental-health emergencies

by Sayaka Matsuoka

W

inston-Salem activists who have been calling for defunding law enforcement departments and alternatives to policing may see a favorable change in their city within the next year and a half.

On Monday evening, during the monthly public safety meeting, several committee members expressed interest in implementing an alternative response model for 911 calls involving individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. The conversation was a continuation from January’s meeting in which members of the Forsyth County Police Accountability and Reallocation Coalition called on the committee to divert police department funds to create a separate mental health crisis intervention unit. During Monday’s meeting, Scott Tesh, the director of the city’s office of performance and accountability, outlined three possible routes the city could take when dealing with individuals in the midst of a mental health crisis. The first is the law enforcement only model, which is the one that the city currently uses where only police respond to the scene; the second, a co-response model in which both police officers and mental health professionals have the ability to respond to the scene; and the final option, an alternative response model in which mental health professionals respond to the call by themselves and have the option to call the police for back up if needed.

While councilperson Kevin Mundy of the Southwest Ward expressed skepticism for reallocation of police funds in January, during Monday’s meeting Mundy went as far as to say that he was now “leaning heavily towards” an alternative response model. Councilperson Barbara Burke of the Northeast Ward also expressed interest in moving forward with the option of having mental health professionals respond to mental health crises calls.

“More cities are turning to the alternative response model,” Burke said.

“Even those cities that started out with the co-response model, they are moving to the alternative response model.”

However, not all of the committee members expressed outright support for a change. Like in last month’s meeting, councilmember John Larson of the South Ward remained concerned about the delineation of responsibility between the city and county when it comes to mental health services and councilperson

Annette Scippio of the East Ward brought up potential costs of the program and asked what other factors like homelessness could affect the number of mental-health related calls.

To answer some of these questions and appropriately assess how to implement a potential program, the city has partnered with RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, which will be tasked with analyzing the city’s 911 call data from the last three years. The initiative, which has been dubbed the 911 Calls For SerFILE PHOTO The city of Winston-Salem is considering moving to an alternative-response model in which mental-health professionals are sent to some 911 calls instead of police. vice Project, includes other cities in the state included in the calls for service project to response there tends to be a less likely as well, such as Burlington, Greensboro, review 911 call data. chance of involuntary commitment or Cary, Durham and Raleigh. The project, Two individuals with the Forsyth commitment to the hospital generally so according to city assistant manager County Police Accountability and Realcrisis counselors are more well equipped Tasha Logan Ford, will take place in four location Coalition spoke during Monto keep people out of the hospital.” phases across 18 months: Phase I will be day’s meeting in favor of an alternative While any implementation of a new collecting calls for service data, Phase 2 response model. Selene Johnson, a response model would not happen any will involve exploring different responses board-certified behavior analyst, pointed time soon, Assistant City Manager Ford including the alternative response model, out that the very presence of law ensaid that the city is already working with Phase 3 will see an implementation of a forcement officers on site can escalate a RTI in the calls for service research porpilot program and Phase IV would be an situation and further stress out individution and has already researched different evaluation of the pilot program. als experiencing a crisis. models the city could implement. Once “A lot of it is determining the volume “Professionals who are fully trained in the city has collected 911 data from RTI, of calls,” Ford said in a phone call on mental health crisis have been shown to staff will work to come up with specific Tuesday. “If we’re making changes to have the opposite effect,” Johnson said. program ideas that they will present to how the police department responds to “Calming, deescalating and redirectthe committee. these types of calls, we want to make ing…Your training and demeanor are “It’s too soon to tell now…but we do sure we have something in place so citiwhat ultimately create the feeling or cirknow that there is a lot of community zens don’t fall through the cracks.” cumstance that creates that escalation.” support for an alternative response Currently, Ford said that the city is in Johnson, who regularly works with model and there seems to be come supPhase I but has already begun parts of those in crisis, said that she has never port from the committee as well,” Ford Phase 2 which include researching the had to carry a gun or pepper spray for said. “We’re keenly aware that there different models. her job and pointed out that those expeare different ways that we can respond The alternative response model riencing a mental health crisis may not to our residents. For the city to become gained national attention after Eugene, be able to comply with police officers in a part of this cohort I think is imporOre. successfully implemented their the moment because of their enhanced tant because it helps us understand the CAHOOTS model in which mental stress. Jillian Neill, a licensed psycholoneeds versus taking something from health professionals began responding to gist who is also part of the coalition, another city and just putting it here. The certain calls for service. According to the noted the other ways that the city could residents’ needs drive what we’re doing city’s presentation, the city of Eugene save money if they implement such a here.” saw a 5-8 percent diversion rate and an program. estimated $8.5 million in law enforce“Other sources of cost saving tend The next public safety committee ment savings. to be, one, people can get connected meeting takes place on March 15 As of last year, Greensboro has been with services which diverts the cost at 6 p.m. and can be viewed on the using a co-response model in which poof repeated calls,” Neill said. “When city’s website. lice can call mental health professionals police are not involved in mental health to the scene if needed, but the city is also

Feb. 11-17, 2021 Up Front

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Shot in the Triad

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Puzzles

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Feb. 11-17, 2021

OPINION

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EDITORIAL

More North Carolina seditionists

N

orth Carolina voters delivered for Donald Trump on Election Day, awarding him the state by 1.3 percentage points — 74,483

votes.

North Carolina Republicans continued to deliver for Trump even after he lost the election, destroying their reputations in the process.

We’ve named several seditionists from our state in this space: those who supported the Texas lawsuit to overturn some states’ results (reps Virginia Foxx, Ted Budd, Dan Bishop, Richard Hudson, Greg Murphy and David Rouzer), and those who protested fair election results even after their comrades had attacked the US Capitol Building (Reps. Budd and Madison Cawthorn).

Their efforts in perpetuating the Big Lie — that Trump actually won the 2020 election — are undeniable, committed in plain sight.

But let’s not forget a couple unelected officials from the Old North State who also must wear the shameful badge of sedition for the rest of their political days.

Former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin must pay a price for his role in the insurrection, which has only recently become widely understood. According to news reports, Martin was the one who told Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to nullify some states’ electoral votes at the official count on Jan. 6. The degree to which

this fueled the insurrection cannot be understated.

Currently the dean of a Christian law school in Virginia, at televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University, Martin is not answering questions from media about his apparent treason against the US Constitution and the people whose rights it guarantees. But North Carolina will not forget.

We would be remiss if we omitted Mark Meadows from this list of North Carolina seditionists. Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, was the one who brought Martin into the picture. He presided over the very worst days of the Trump administration, helping to craft the Big Lie and enlisting confederates in Trump’s plan to overthrow the US government.

Meadows participated in phone calls to Georgia election officials, encouraging them to “find” more votes for Trump. He, along with Jared Kushner lied to Senate Republicans about Trump’s intentions to leave office peacefully after the loss.

He was with Trump on Jan. 6 before the president whipped his crowd into a seditionist frenzy, and afterward, when Trump’s reaction to the bringers of deaths and violence was, “We love you.”

Less idealistic than a simple seditionist, more treacherous even than bands of armed white supremacists, Meadows has become the shame of North Carolina, the worst of the insurrectionist lot.

Claytoonz

by Clay Jones

claytoonz.com

Jen Sorensen

B

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

City offered new opportunities and learning experiences, volunteer work with young people and exploration of the world through global cuisine at restaurants.

In the late ’80s, Morton jumped at an opportunity to work at the Reynolds Wrap test kitchen in Richmond, Va., which put her only five hours from Winston-Salem.

At first, the job was more of the same recipe testing, product development and work with brand managers but with a diverse range of products to work with. And then something magical happened.

The idea came from execs at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York City, the same agency responsible for the “I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid” jingle, De Beers diamond ads (“A Diamond is Forever”) and the “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Weiner” campaigns.

“Some creative at the agency decided it would be a good idea to put people in the test kitchen in the commercials,” says Morton. “At the time, I was a manager in the test kitchen and Pat was a homeeconomist in the test kitchen.”

Morton and Pat Schweitzer, the Reynolds Kitchen home economists, were known in the ‘90s for starring in commercials featuring full, home-cooked meals wrapped in aluminum foil. The ads featured Betty Thompson Morton worked in test kitchens and in TV COURTESY IMAGE G-rated slapstick comedy that ads before coming back home to Winston-Salem. usually involved Pat conducting “We still had our work and day-to-day responsibilities experiments while Betty penned in the test kitchen,” Morton remembers fondly. “We’d the results on a clipboard. One commercial promoting get the script and the storyboard and the challenge of Reynolds Crystal Color Plastic Wrap begins in a sterile, being able to deliver the lines, working with the direcwhite test kitchen and moves to the front porch of tors and the script people, director of photography. We a house. In the next scene, Morton presents a plain got better over the years, but It was another job, really.” zucchini bread in a pan while her partner, Pat presents These days, Morton has slowed down considerably another zucchini bread swaddled in yellow cellophane and is quite content to stay close to home and enjoy the with a plume of golden-hued ribbon eliciting an excited Triad. She is into aging gracefully with research about response from an off-camera voice over. A 10-second self-care and enjoying a diet full of fruits, vegetables presentation of a pink packaged cake, a green bundled and hearty greens. For many years, her cooking and Easter basket and a tray of pastel-sheathed bundles all experiments were made to feed a generation of people end in Pat and Betty wearing pastel-dyed lab coats in a across the world. Now, Morton makes one-pot meals at pastel-colored test kitchen. home because she’s cooking for herself.

Representation matters, and Morton thought often “I have not traveled and been on a plane since 2009,” of how she was portrayed on television.

Morton says. “I’m good. I just enjoy seeing where “If you’re a Black person,” she says, “you’re more than everybody else goes on Facebook, so I feel like I’ve been likely to zoom in on it and say, ‘Hey, there’s a Black lady there. I’ve traveled enough. I travel around the Triad. in a commercial,’ and that makes a difference too.”

That’s good enough for me.”

Behind the scenes, it was a whirlwind of high-roller travel to New York, LA and Toronto mixed with highintensity work.

Up Front

etty Thompson Morton was a media star and social influencer long before those terms were introduced into our lexicon.

Two cookbooks, more than 25 national TV commercials and radio spots over 14 years and

by Nikki Miller-Ka one interesting career are all just one part of Morton’s life as a local celebrity. Known to millions as one of the voices of the “Pat and Betty” Reynolds commercials, Morton’s popularity rose as she appeared regularly on TV, radio, and in internet ads in the 1990s. After spending a lengthy career as a testkitchen manager and home-economist for some of the nation’s largest and oldest food brands, Morton is now living life out of the public eye as a Kernersville retiree.

Morton was born and raised in Winston-Salem’s Dreamland Park neighborhood, tucked above East 14th Street just west of New Walkertown Road. She attended the original Atkins High School on Cameron Avenue, graduating in 1968. She grew up in a family of good cooks. She and her sister began making family dinners at the age of 10.

“My mother worked at a grocery store, so we always had good food,” Morton says. Her uncle, Clem Wilson, owned Wilson’s Grocery, where her mother worked, in Columbia Terrace, where Skyland Park is now. She grew up cooking alongside her grandmother and mother at home. In school, she drifted toward home economics classes.

Reminiscing about being a student at one of the Big Four historically Black high schools in Winston-Salem: Carver, Simon G. Atkins, AH Anderson and JW Paisley, Morton says, “They used to call me ‘Betty Crocker’ in high school. I used to bake a lot of cakes on the weekends and was very active in the Future Homemakers of America.” Her senior year, she was awarded the Crisco Award for outstanding work in home economics.

Morton went on to graduate from North Carolina Central University and earned a BS in Home Economics. Nowadays, home-economists have monikers like “domestic engineers” and “executive household managers,” under the family and consumer sciences umbrella.

In the early ’70s, affirmative action pushed major corporations to recruit heavily on HBCU campuses; Morton’s first job out of college was in Minneapolis at the General Mills test kitchen. There, home-economists were part of the marketing team, working with a range of products, responsible for package directions, recipes and any other promotional materials. It was there that Winston-Salem’s “Betty Crocker” got to work with Betty Crocker’s pie-crust mix, one of Morton’s first assignments.

“I can make a mean pie,” she says. “I still have skills after all of this time.”

After three years, she was looking for upward mobility and wanted to get as close to North Carolina as possible, so she moved to Chicago where she began working at the Quaker Oats test kitchen. The Windy

Feb. 11-17, 2021

Nik Snacks TV and test kitchens: Winston-Salem’s Betty Crocker comes home

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Feb. 11-17, 2021 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CULTURE Kink from the kiln: GSO artist crafts sex-positive pottery

by Sayaka Matsuoka

T

he first time Molly Freilich tried to make a plaster molding of a Fleshlight, it didn’t go well.

“I was just winging it,” says Freilich, about trying to make an imprint using the popular vagina-shaped sex toy.

“I tried casting a Fleshlight so it would look like a butthole, but it went very, very badly. The plaster got kind of up in there. It was not successful.”

Since then, Freilich has made plenty of ceramic representations of buttholes, just not with plaster molds. These days, she opts for hand-stamped images of… well, you know.

Freilich is a Greensboro-based artist and ceramicist who has been making erotic pottery, erottery if you will, since around 2015. The introverted artist found that she had a hard time speaking about sexuality, so after enrolling in a gender and sexuality class in college, she used her studies to broaden her own comfort and understanding of the body.

COURTESY Freilich throws her mugs on the wheel and then Now, she sells everything from mugs PHOTO hand-molds each detail piece. with buttplug and dildo handles to cups this concept of what ‘family-friendly’ is,” Freilich says. “I’m with suggestive lips, both of the mouth really not a fan of the thinking that anything is inappropriate and vulval variety, through her online when it comes to bodies. It shuts down the entire conversaEtsy shop. tion.”

“I was uptight and oppressed out the Instead, Freilich says that being open about sexuality and wazoo,” Freilich says. “I was doing that our bodies creates dialogue about complex issues surroundwork while I was studying. I was able to ing consent and bodily autonomy that are important for all use that academic foundation to give people, even children, to understand. direction to my curiosity in a safe and “The way that people try to shut it down the most is by saystructured environment.” ing, ‘What if kids see it?’” she says. “And No. 1, a kid is probWhile all of Freilich’s piece are strikably not going to be able to recognize a buttplug, and there’s ing, some of the most eye-catching a separation between sexuality and harm. And what kid do forms include her strap-on dildo mugs you know that doesn’t know that penises exupon which Freilich ist? Little kids are fascinated with buttholes. hand alters variously Kids know that these things exist…. If you’re colored dildos into Learn more about taking your kid to a fine-arts museum, they’ve handles for the wheelprobably seen naked people and that is no Freilich and her work thrown terracotta more harmful than somebody else’s pottery…. drinkware she creates. on her Instagram A boob vase is not going to do anything to They’re artistic for sure, at @kinkyceramics anybody.” but also meant to be and on her Etsy shop While Freilich has a very open approach to functional, she says. sexuality now, she admits that it took her a KinkyCeramic.

“Ceramics is pretty while to get to that place personally. She says approachable,” the artwhen she first moved from her native Pennist says. “It’s not meant sylvania to North Carolina for college, she felt uncomfortable to be shocking in any way. It’s not meant being naked. So, what did she do? to be repulsive. I hope it lets folks be “I started doing nude modeling,” she says. “It was very curious to come and take a peek at it, scary…. But it was just getting in my way as a whole. I was very maybe pick it up.” uncomfortable with myself physically so that was one of the Still, she says she has gotten some most solid steps that I took. I still do that now. It was necespushback at local events where she’s sary but very alarming at the time.” sold her pottery before.

Freilich says this incredibly stressful form of exposure “We’re in the Bible Belt for sure, and therapy helped her become more open to talking about bodies I think there’s a lot of people who have

Freilich’s pottery spans from purely sensual to slightly scandalous.

COURTESY PHOTO

which translates into her work.

“What I’m thinking about when I’m making them is that bodies are super cool and nothing to be ashamed of,” Freilich says. “Sexuality looks like a lot of different things, and that’s a great thing that is perfectly fine to be curious about.”

And for those that are still opposed to seeing dildos on mugs?

“I’m not going to stop making them, so it’s kind of a lost cause,” she says.

by Michaela Ratliff

R

News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

know about it per the crew’s request. He told close friends he received an “amazing opportunity,” omitting further details.

Tanner considers himself a performer rather than a dancer, but as a drum major, he’s not exempt from dancing as Smooth Ignition is known for their choreography featuring pelvic thrusts, body rolls and moves mimicking step as the band takes the field.

“While I’m not an experienced professional dancer, I am capable of dancing when I want to,” he says.

He notes that while he performs in front of huge crowds all the time, the Super Bowl was still nerve-wracking. He says he fed off the crowd’s energy to get through the performance.

“That was a huge stage I wasn’t expecting to be on,” he says.

Tanner’s favorite part of the halftime show was the march during the intro of the song “House of Balloons,” approximately 10 minutes into the show as it reminded him of the BGMM. Before the bandaged performers appeared, a choir was situated behind the Weeknd in a lit skyline similar to the one seen in the “Blinding Lights” music video.

Backstage, Tanner danced along as the choir shoulder leaned to “The Hills.” He enjoyed the freestyle portion at the beginning of “Blinding Lights,” as the dancers got to let loose for a moment with the Weeknd before falling back into choreography. At this point, the stadium literally filled with blinding lights as fireworks erupted. Tanner never got to speak to him one-on-one but is still appreciative of his brush with Bentley Tanner spent Super Bowl weekend dancing on the field with the COURTESY PHOTO celebrity.

Weeknd.

“He made sure to let the dancin March 2017 is what made Tanner realize he was meant to ers know he appreciated their part in the field show,” he says. be an Aggie. It helps that A&T has been recognized by several Tanner has been performing music since he was a child, joinpublications as the nation’s top producer of Black engineers, ing his local church at 8 years old and later starting a marchas Tanner is an information technology student. ing band there. While in his middle school marching band, he “I couldn’t see myself anywhere else,” he says. knew he wanted to continue to play in college. When applying As for the future, Tanner may add dance to his performance to universities, unfamiliarity was the least of the eager teen’s résumé, as the performance made him realize he has a natural concerns. talent for movement. He’s considering taking classes, but “For me, I wanted to branch out and take that first step that’s all he’s willing to say for now. towards my own life and own path,” he says.

“I just wanna get stuff done,” he says. “Then, I’ll post the The mesmerizing performance of the BGMM and what he receipts. describes as the “positive energy” he felt during a campus tour

Up Front

ed and white pulsating lights illuminated Raymond Jones Stadium in Tampa as the song “House of Balloons” filled the air.

It was halftime of Super Bowl LV with the Buccaneers leading 21-6 against the Chiefs when the Weeknd brought more than 200 dancers onto the field. To coincide with his album After Hours, the Weeknd, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, released a series of music videos in which he is seen partying, abusing drugs and entering into a downward spiral of self-doubt and plastic surgery. During his performance at the 2020 American Music Awards, the artist covered his face in white bandages while singing “Save Your Tears” and “In Your Eyes,” leading many to speculate he actually went under the knife. In an interview with Variety magazine, he says the act represented “the absurd culture of Hollywood celebrity and people manipulating themselves for superficial reasons to please and be validated.”

Dressed in red jackets, black pants and black gloves, also with white bandages over their faces, the dancers first appeared on stage as the Weeknd sang “Can’t Feel My Face” while running through a hallway lit by titles of his songs. With choreography featuring marching and head snaps as they began the field portion of the show, they served as an army of the Weeknd clones as they marched alongside him. Among that army was North Carolina A&T State University senior Bentley Tanner.

As children, Tanner and his friend Kahdre Walker dreamed of becoming drum majors in college. The dream became reality for the young men, with Tanner joining Smooth Ignition— the drum majors of the Blue and Gold Marching Machine, the band at A&T— and Walker joining the Marching Wildcats at Bethune-Cookman University. Walker, a professional dancer with connections to the Super Bowl performance crew, knew that if Tanner could handle the pressure of performing with the award-winning BGMM, then he could handle anything.

Tanner’s oldest friend asked him one question: “Wanna be in the Super Bowl?”

He did.

He jumped at both the chance to perform with a Grammy award-winning musician and to perform in his hometown of Tampa. Once the gig was set in stone, Tanner declined to let anyone

Feb. 11-17, 2021

CULTURE NC A&T drum major spends the Weeknd on ‘huge stage’

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East Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro

Feb. 11-17, 2021 Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

Puzzles

The Fullwood family has been running Ocean Fresh Seafood since 1978.

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CAROLYN DE BERRY

Across

by Matt Jones

Down

News Opinion

© 2021 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

SUDOKU Culture Shot in the Triad

Answers from last issue

©2021 Jonesin’ Crosswords

(editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

Puzzles

1 Colony resident 2 Dragon’s den 3 “Picnic” playwright 4 Really wish you could 5 Instrument that can play quarter tones 6 Refrain for a “sweet chariot” 7 Letters for the 2020 Super Bowl 8 Margin in a close game, maybe 9 Bugs 10 Green-minded org.

11 Fitting 12 Bill who appears in the 2021 Amazon movie “Bliss” 15 Much of a penny 17 Part of some three-day weekends, for short 21 Belgian salad green 23 Artery along the thigh 24 “Be back ___” 25 2020 Pixar movie 26 Au pair 27 Oakland athlete 28 Kyoto garment 31 Blood flow facilitator 32 ___ Lingus (carrier based in Dublin) 33 Techno offshoot big in the 1990s 35 Ryerson who shows up (again!) during repeat viewings of “Groundhog Day” 37 Traffic noise 38 How some flat, green insects are described 44 Oldest ever U.S. ex-president 45 It’s still a good idea to get a shot for it 47 Pet food brand 48 The Lightning Seeds lead singer Broudie 49 Wanda of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” 52 Mass movement of viewers to another Twitch stream 53 Air France assets, once 54 Magazine with a final print issue in 2018 55 Mineral-rich source 56 Quick swim 58 “Pay attention!”

59 Scottish mystery writer Josephine

Up Front

1 A name by any other name?

6 ___-pitch softball 9 Gradually withdraw 13 Country singer Griffith 14 Place first 15 Titular “Pinhead” of comics 16 Short, effective set for a stand-up comedian 18 Pissed 19 Gain again, as trust 20 Former Quebecois premier ___ Levesque 22 Cosecant, for one 27 “Citizen Kane” studio 29 Grant temporary use of 30 “Frozen” princess 31 Raphael’s weapon, in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” 32 Molecule unit 34 Held for possible sale, maybe 36 Midwestern NBA follower, maybe 39 Japanese period for over 250 years (headquartered in what is now Tokyo) 40 Oboe, for one 41 Suffix for trick 42 Leakes of reality TV 43 Final Four initials 45 Post-apocalyptic zombie series, to fans 46 Tank dwellers that need a lot of care 50 “Cinderella Man” antagonist 51 Feature of some interesting stories 54 Internet connection device 57 “Heads up!” (or advice to crossword speed-solvers) 60 A fire sign 61 “Yikes!”

62 High-ranking 63 “Edward Scissorhands” star 64 Ham sandwich bread 65 Like some bathwater

Feb. 11-17, 2021

CROSSWORD ‘True/False Test’—either way, it’s correct.

Answers from previous publication.

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