TCB March 14, 2019 — Rink Rats

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point March 14-20, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

Rink Rats WINSTON-SALEM EDITION

FREE

United Skates pinpoints intersection of roller skating and black culture

PAGE 14

Clue: The Musical PAGE 17

Confederacy dethroned PAGE 10

Dumplin’ star PAGE 6

March 14-20, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Christ in a coffee cup Last week Sayaka Matsuoka’s feature about Union Coffee really jammed up our server, where weaknesses were exposed in the

by Brian Clarey processing of more than 33,000 pageviews.

The piece revealed that Union Coffee, which targets millennials in their marketing and menu, gives all of its profits to a conservative church whose views on same-sex marriage and LGBT rights do not jibe with that of the desired demographic.

The outrage came fast and hot after we dropped the story on the site as it got pushed through social media channels faster than a kitten cuddling with a poop emoji.

And I didn’t quite understand it.

I am not the desired demo, of course — I drink a lot of coffee, and I’m old by millennials’ standards. I hadn’t heard of the place until just a couple of weeks before when I took a meeting there.

Great coffee.

And I guess I wasn’t outraged enough?

Religious affiliation is not in and itself an issue for me. I rather enjoy the depictions of Ganesha in most of the Indian restaurants I go to; I attended a Jesuit university; I used to frequent the Hari Krishna place when it was open on Tate Street. And I never had a problem with Chik-fil-A’s overtly religious vibe… until they got all spendy on the wrong side of the LGBT stuff, the wrong side of justice and the wrong side of history.

One millennial told me her umbrage stemmed from Union’s marketing. She found out about the place through a sponsored Instagram post, targeted specifically to her demographic. She liked the coffee, and never bothered to check the place out — its religious affiliation is no secret, posted on its website and social media pages, and it takes another layer of digging to understand the Wesleyan Church’s views on LGBT issues.

To her, it felt like a bait and switch.

Me, I don’t take the sins of marketing personally. But I can’t go to Union Coffee anymore because to do so would ultimately harm people that I love. It’s as simple as that.

But Jesus, that’s good coffee.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK I am all for being pro-fat, but I think the actual point is that it doesn’t matter what you look like or what your body is.

-Hilliary Begley pg. 6 Q&A

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

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

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

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 Winston-Salem Cover: EDITORIAL INTERN Savi Ettinger A skater from the documentary calendar@triad-city-beat.com United Skates [photo courtesy of ART HBO] 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.

Greensboro Cover: Clue gameboard and game pieces [photo by Savi Ettinger]

March 14-20, 2019

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March 14-20, 2019

CITY LIFE March 14-17, 2019

by Savi Ettinger

Up Front

THURSDAY Mar 14

An Evening of Short Plays @ Greensboro Cultural Center, 6:30 p.m.

The Drama Center stages the 38th installment of An Evening of Short Plays, featuring both comedies and dramas from six playwrights in the Playwright’s Forum. Performances run through the weekend. Find out more at greensboro-nc.gov.

Mipso @ the Ramkat (W-S), 7 p.m

News

(Raspberry) Pi Day Celebration @ Forge Greensboro, 6 p.m.

North Carolina based band Mipso stops at the Ramkat during a spring tour. The band fuses alternative rock tropes with country to create melodic folk-rock, and sprinkles in a bit of humor. Find the event on Facebook.

Culture

Opinion

Ben Rector @ Cone Denim Entertainment Center (GSO), 8 p.m.

Singer-songwriter Ben Rector marks Greensboro as a part of the Magic tour. The Nashville-based artist plays a catchy set of pop-rock, spotlighting his new album. Find the event on Facebook.

Greensboro’s community makerspace sells both sweet pies and pizzas to celebrate March 14th: Pi Day. Builders compete while guests rack their brains in a contest to see who can remember the most digits of pi.

Find the event on Facebook.

Ships in the Night @ Monstercade (W-S), 9 p.m.

FRIDAY March 15

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

WTH!? CON @ Guilford College (GSO), 12 p.m.

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The Guilford College Yachting Club, actually the nerd club, hosts a convention for all things geek. An auction, video games, Magic:The Gathering matches and other nerdy activities fill the weekend. Find out more on Facebook.

Alethea Leventhal’s project, Ships in the Night, shares the ghostly quality of her dream pop music. Electronic bands Solemn Shapes and the Gasping join in for a surreal show. Find the event on Facebook.

March 14-20, 2019

SATURDAY March 16

Family Safari Night @ Kaleideum North (W-S), 6 p.m.

St. Patrick’s Day @ LeBauer Park (GSO), 11 a.m.

Head to LeBauer Park for a family-friendly day of leprechauns and shamrocks. Jam out to live bagpipe and fiddle while strolling through a vendor market. The Walsh Kelley School presents an Irish dancing performance in the afternoon. Find the event on Facebook.

News

Hand to Hand Spring Market @ Revolution Mills (GSO), 11 a.m.

Opinion

Explore all the inhabitants of any type of habitat imaginable during this family-fun event. Meet scaled reptiles and fuzzy mammals, while making animalistic art projects and trying to score bingo. Find the event on Facebook.

SUNDAY March 17

Up Front

St. Patrick’s Day @ Joymongers Barrel Hall (W-S), 1 p.m.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day weekend with Joymongers Barrel Hall. Medley food truck serves up salads, rice and mac-and-cheese dishes, while Colin Allured accompanies with folk music. Find the event on Facebook.

Triad City Beat 5th anniversary party @ Common Grounds (GSO), 6 p.m.

Puzzles

Chefs from the Winston-Salem community come together to fundraise for the SECU Family House. More than 20 chefs cook up dishes including gumbo and mashed potatoes. Find the event on Facebook.

Airshow @ Muddy Creek Cafe & Music Hall (W-S), 6 p.m.

Airshow amps up acoustic music with energetic Americana in a show alongside Rain Check. Both bands unplug for a bluegrass set that builds on roots tradition with classic rock. Find the event on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad

Men Who Cook @ Bridger Field House (W-S), 6:30 p.m.

George Lakey @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 3 p.m.

George Lakey stepped into activism as a trainer during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. He visits Scuppernong with his experiences written in his book, How We Win: Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning.

Find the event on Facebook.

Culture

Come celebrate five years of Triad City Beat at our anniversary party at Common Grounds. The free event welcomes readers and supporters, writers and advertisers, and anyone in between. Clarey hired a theremin player! Learn more on Facebook.

The 8th annual Hand to Hand Spring Market offers an opportunity to browse local artists’ and makers’ works. Workshops and discussions about business strategies and crafting invite guests to sharpen their own skills. Find the event on Facebook.

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March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News

Seven questions for Hilliary Begley from Dumplin’

by Sayaka Matsuoka Hilliary Begley is an Asheville-based comic turned actor, who had a starring role as Aunt Lucy in the Netflix film Dumplin’ after being discovered on Facebook. Begley talked about newfound fame as well as her other projects. She will be performing stand-up at the Idiot Box in Greensboro on Friday. Get tickets at idiotboxers.com.

Dumplin’ debuted on Netflix at the end of last year and stars actors like Jennifer Aniston and a soundtrack by Dolly Parton. What has the sudden fame of being in a film like that been like?

It’s honestly not been that much. I have some random people recognize me. Like on Christmas Eve, I was shopping with my brother and a woman came up to me and was like, “Hey, I know who you are, but I don’t wanna out you.” Some Uber drivers recognize me too. And every big girl in America wants to be my friend. My Instagram following doubled in the week the movie came out.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

Why did you get into comedy?

In 2012, I MC’ed for a hip-hop show dressed up as Ursula from the Little Mermaid. That and mostly drinking and telling jokes at parties at my friends’ houses. I was so scared, and then I started. Just yesterday, it came up in my Facebook memories, one of the first shows I ever did was six years ago. I just talk a lot.

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You character, Aunt Lucy, was Willowdean’s role model in the film.

Who was yours growing up?

All the women in my family are pretty influential on my life. Aunt Shawna, my dad’s sister, she and I have the same face. She didn’t grow up big, but she was bigger during my teenage years. She’s got a largerthan-life personality, a super jovial spirit. She was encouraging about me being big and being okay. She looked at me like I was an inspiration; we learned from one another.

At one point, Willowdean’s best friend says to her, “I never thought of you as fat.” That seems to paint “fat” as derogatory or a bad thing. But isn’t the point of the movie to show that being fat doesn’t equal ugly or less than?

I did think that was a little strange. I feel like it’s not just about big girls. I am all for being pro-fat, but I think the actual point is that it doesn’t matter what you look like or what your body is. People view each other differently now than they did, like being nonbinary or transgender. There are people who want to be animals now. I think we should be taught from a young age that we are enough, which is hard.

I thought that it was just girls like me that had insecurity issues. But COURTESY IMAGE Hilliary Begley broke through on Dumplin’, a Netflix film starring Jennifer Aniston with a soundtrack by Dolly Parton, but she got her start in stand-up.

I found out that it doesn’t matter. We all have those feelings. Every person on the planet has self-doubt. That’s part of being a human, I Has the movie changed your view/opinion of beauty pageants? think, is second guessing yourself. But at the end of the day, you have to know if you are I still think beauty pageants are insane. I think it’s so weird. I never did it. My mom and being completely true to yourself, that you are okay with you. And if you are okay with dad were like “No, this is not for you.” It puts too much of an emphasis on beauty. I think you, everybody else will fall into place. it’s weird to line up a row of girls and judge them on their beauty. We don’t do that with men. It just seems strange.

Dolly Parton’s music plays a big role in this movie. Did you have a musician or something like that that played a vital role when you were growing up?

Is there anything you’d like girls and women to know?

Reba McEntire! When I was 9 years old and heard Reba McEntire’s “Fancy,” my whole Love yourself, like literally. Love yourself. Even when you’re questioning you. Even when soul vibrated. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I could feel it in every fiber of you don’t know or you’re not confident. Know that everybody feels that way and resonate my being. She’s another incredible, iconic woman. Initially they wanted to make her into in it. Even in the self-doubt. Then pick your feet up and keep going. And you are enough a pop singer and she said, “No, I don’t wanna do that.” So they let her go. But she did it no matter what you do or where you came from. And you are enough, otherwise you anyway. She said, “I’m gonna do what I wanna do or I’m not gonna do it at all.” And now, wouldn’t be here. she’s got album after album.

News

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Up Front

BAD NEWS

March 14-20, 2019

NO NEWS IS

Opinion Culture

1/2 off Tequila & $2 Tacos.

WEDNESDAY

Shot in the Triad

TUESDAY

50 cent wings.

Run Club at 6pm & Trivia at 8pm.

Poké Night

Puzzles

THURSDAY SUNDAY

Boozy Brunch www.burgerbatch.com

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Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

Culture

Opinion

News

Up Front

March 14-20, 2019

NEWS

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Forsyth school board considers options in superintendent search

by Jordan Green The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board isn’t yet sold on the idea of hiring the NC School Board Association to manage its search for a new superintendent.

For a flat fee of less than $20,000 plus expenses, the NC School Board Association will manage the search process to help the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board select the district’s next superintendent.

Board members left a special meeting on March 6 wanting more information about other districts’ experiences with the association’s handling of superintendent searches compared to services from private search firms. But the pitch from Allison Schafer, the association’s director of policy and legal counsel, provided a rough overview of what the process is likely to look like.

Community members often want transparency, but Schafer said finalists who are typically working as superintendents or assistant superintendents in other districts rarely agree to have their names released. Requiring them to go public before the final selection is likely to chase away the top talent, she said.

For that reason, the association recommends that school boards hold community forums to get public input on the qualities people want in a superintendent before whittling down the field to three or four finalists.

Board Chair Malishai Woodbury asked Schafer what she thought about the idea of appointing an advisory committee. Schafer discouraged against it, arguing that it can create an exclusionary dynamic.

“You need to be careful — ‘Oh, these are the people that are important; the other people aren’t as important,’” she said. “You don’t want to say, ‘These groups we want to hear from, and these groups we don’t.’ You want everybody to feel like they’re included. If you start selecting people, that’s not what you want. You want everything to be as open as possible.”

She also said it would be okay for the school board to set up special focus groups to encourage input from particular constituencies like business owners, faith leaders and school staff, but due to state public-meetings law all the events would have to be open to anyone who wanted to attend.

Among the school board’s nine

members, only one — Elisabeth Motsinger — was serving the last time the board undertook a search for a new superintendent, which took place in late 2012 and early 2013.

Five out of nine members, including Woodbury, were elected to the board last year. The new board has emphasized that they’re looking for a leader who is committed to equity, Schafer said.

Barbara Burke, who represents urban District 1 alongside Woodbury, itemized a list of qualities that the board wants to see in the next superintendent in an interview following the meeting.

“Definitely someone with experience working as a superintendent in an urban school setting,” said Burke, a former assistant principal. “Someone who has the data to show they’ve been able to turn around a failing school or a failing school system. Someone with the references that can verify that they’ve done the work. In summary, someone who can move us in a forward direction.”

Ronda Mays, a social worker who serves as president of the Forsyth County Association of Educators, sounded some of the same themes. She said she’d like to see a superintendent who “will continue to listen to the educators and be involved with the community, and make certain that our students’ needs are being held of highest importance as far as resources that they need in the form of those tangible things, but also people resources…. And someone who has experience working with schools to turn around as far as the academic performance. That’s going to be important as well because we have a number of schools that have been identified as low performing.”

Action4Equity — a community coalition that filed a civil rights complaint prompting a federal investigation of the district’s handling of health and safety concerns at Ashley Elementary — has compiled a page-long list of recommendations for the search.

The coalition is calling on the school board to weigh each candidate’s experience working “as an administrator in an urban system that has eliminated or reduced the achievement gap for black and white students, particularly males.”

Under the heading of “knowledge,” Action4Equity seeks a superintendent who “understands how institutional racism has impacted all the structures in this

Members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board heard a sales pitch from the NC School Board Association.

society and can articulate this understanding with courage, and commitment to lead the district in this understanding.” And the coalition wants the board to be on the lookout for a leader with “the emotional intelligence and selfdiscipline to treat everyone with courtesy and respect.”

Schafer said a typical search takes six months from the start of the process to the new superintendent’s first day on the job. She said Winston-Salem/ Forsyth County Schools could expect to receive 15 to 20 applicants, including some from out of state. With 32 years of experience, she said she’s conducted 165 searches.

Schafer said it’s a matter of pride that more than 50 percent of the applications received by the association over the past four years have come from minorities and more than 30 percent have come from women.

Board member Lida Calvert-Hayes said she likes the fact that the NC School Board Association is in-state and wouldn’t have to bill for exorbitant travel costs.

“I also like the diversity that she had,”

JORDAN GREEN

Calvert-Hayes said. “Considering who we are — ladies — I found that to be very impressive,” she added, referencing the all-female board.

At the end of the meeting, board members said they want to talk to their counterparts at Guilford County Schools and Wake County Schools — two systems that hired the NC School Board Association to lead searches after previously using private firms. And they want to get pricing information from private firms.

“I think at the end of the day the suggestion from a comparable district was to weigh your options,” Woodbury said. “Listen to the profit side before you make a decision instead of hearing just one perspective. I think all of us are very comfortable with the NC School Board Association because we’re members; we’re used to them. I don’t think deciding to hear from another search firm says anything but we’re trying to be prudent about what we’re doing.”

March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Greensboro community members put up a memorial on South Elm-Eugene Street near Bojangles for Carolyn Tiger, who was killed on March 3 after being involved in a minor car accident. Greensboro police say the other driver followed Tiger’s vehicle, blocking it in the parking lot, and shot her with a rifle. Tiger died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

Her two children, who were in the car at the time, survived. John Matthews, who was visiting his barber in the area, took a photo of the memorial on his smart phone on Wednesday morning. “It’s a damn shame,” he said. “It could have happend to someone in my family.” Deflating balloons, melted candles and sprawled paint decorate mark the spot where Tiger died. “I hope whoever did this gets caught,” Matthews said. “She’s in heaven now.” — Sayaka Matsuoka

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March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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The Confederate monument in Winston-Salem comes down

by Jordan Green The city of Winston-Salem chose a busy workday morning to remove the downtown Confederate monument.

With the Confederate soldier statue strapped in, one crane gently lifted it off its pedestal. Then another crane with suspended steel forks slid a platform under the monument.

And with that, the Confederate monument glided off its pedestal just after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, and came to rest on a flatbed truck on Liberty Street.

The monument was erected in 1905, only five years after white supremacists consolidated power in North Carolina and as Winston — the two towns wouldn’t merge into Winston-Salem until 1913 — was on the ascent as an industrial center based on tobacco production.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy raised $3,000 to erect the statue.

The keynote speaker for the unveiling of the statue was Alfred Moore Waddell, who had led a bloody coup against multiracial democracy in Wilmington seven years earlier. Urging white Wilmington residents to prevent their black neighbors from exercising the franchise, Waddell had said, “If you find the Negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls. And if he refuses, kill him, shoot him down in his tracks.”

Speaking at the unveiling of the monument in 1905, the Winston-Salem Journal records Waddell as saying, “I thank God that monuments to the Confederate soldiers are rapidly multiplying

across the land. I rejoice in the fact for many reasons, but chiefly because of its significance from one point of view.”

The city of Winston-Salem blocked off traffic on Liberty Street and West Fourth Street to allow workers to remove the monument without interference.

After the surprise announcement about the removal — or “relocation” as city officials framed it — the city provided prominent coverage, posting a photograph on Facebook as the operation got underway. Among the city officials who monitored the removal of the statue were police Chief Catrina Thompson and City Attorney Angela Carmon, both black women.

Councilman Dan Besse, a white Democrat who represents the Southwest Ward, highlighted Waddell’s association with the statue in a Facebook post shortly after the removal.

“The removal of this divisive symbol is intended to protect our community and aid in the healing of longstanding wounds,” Besse wrote. “However, it is necessary that we remember this is only a symbol. We must continue the work of dismantling the far more damaging legacies of Jim Crow and segregation in housing, health, education and resources by building equity and opportunity for all in our communities. That is our real work, and we must never forget this.”

Antiracist residents hung posters on the chain-link fence blocking off the street that said, “Black and brown built this town, time to take the statue down,” and “Give monuments to real heroes

City workers removed the Confederate statue on Tuesday morning.

and rebels: Panthers, freedom riders and John Brown.” Wake Forest University students tweeted a photo of themselves standing in front of the chain-link fence with signs reading, “Get hate out of Winston-Salem; get hate out of Wake Forest University,” and “WFU: Are you paying attention?” The second sign checked off a box for “downtown Confederate statue” while also listing campus buildings named for two university presidents associated with the Confederacy and a third who was a proponent

JORDAN GREEN

of eugenics.

On Tuesday afternoon, as workers were removing the final pieces of the monument, antiracists held a “celebration and rededication.”

“This will be a time to reassert what we have been saying since day one,” the Facebook invitation read. “This is, and always has been, about more than just a statue. This is about inequity in our schools, neighborhoods and communities. The systems of white supremacy need to be torn down.”

March 14-20, 2019 Up Front

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR THE PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS ALONG GALLIMORE DAIRY ROAD FROM N.C. 68 (EASTCHESTER DRIVE) TO SOUTH OF AIRPARK ROAD IN GUILFORD COUNTY

TIP PROJECT NO. U-4015A

News

The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed improvements along Gallimore Dairy Road (S.R. 1556) from N.C. 68 (Eastchester Drive) to just south of Airpark Road in Guilford County.

The meeting will be held Thursday, March 21 from 5-7 p.m. at The Church on 68 located at 300 N.C. 68 S. in Greensboro. The public may attend at any time during the meeting hours. Please note there will be no formal presentation.

Culture

As information becomes available, it may be viewed at the NCDOT public meeting webpage: https://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings/.

Opinion

At the meeting there will be maps of the proposed plans as well as project team members who will be available to answer your questions and receive feedback. All comments will be taken into consideration as the project progresses. The opportunity to submit written comments will be provided at the meeting or may be done by phone, email or mail no later than April 4.

For additional information please contact NCDOT Division 7 Project Engineer Brian Ketner, P.E., at (336) 487-0075 or bkketner@ncdot.gov, or consultant Project Manager John Williams at (919) 653-7358 or jwilliams@rkk.com.

Aquellas personas no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

Puzzles

Persons who do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494.

Shot in the Triad

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting.

Anyone requiring special services should contact Lauren Putnam at lnputnam1@ncdot.gov or (919) 707-6072 as early as possible, so that arrangements can be made.

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March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CITIZEN GREEN

Michael Roberto vs. the Beast

OPINION

By the time Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2016, Michael Roberto’s work on his book The Coming of the American Behemoth: The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920-1940 was well underway.

Roberto tells me he was the last person who would have predicted Trump’s election, and his students at NC A&T University rubbed it in the next day. He retired as a tenured professor that year. At the time, Roberto was active with a group of Bernie Sandby Jordan Green ers supporters that would evolve into Democracy Greensboro and leverage their losses in the 2016 election into a force intent on setting a progressive agenda for Greensboro city government.

During a meeting at the Beloved Community Center attended by several Democracy Greensboro members around the time of Trump’s inauguration, I recall Roberto marveling that “fascism” in the United States would have a white nationalist rather than a multicultural face.

Trump’s election spawned a cottage industry of books preoccupied with the president’s departure from democratic norms, mainly by liberal and center-right thinkers, perhaps most notably Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic by former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum. Most of these books eschew the charged term “fascism,” instead warning against the dangers of “autocracy,” “authoritarianism,” “nationalism” and “populism.”

Meanwhile, many Americans got their first exposure to the antifascist movement when activists disrupted the inauguration in January 2017 and soon after shut down an appearance by alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Though widely reviled, the antifascist movement’s principles and aims have been explained in books like Antifa: The Antifascism Handbook by Mark Bray and Fascism Today: What It is and How to End It by Shane Burley.

More importantly, the antifascist movement has exposed white supremacist groups like the Traditionalist Worker Party and League of the South and prevented them from building a mass movement.

Roberto tells me that in no way does he want to minimize the work that antifascists do, but he dismisses extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and their more contemporary alt-right successors as “small-fry fascisti,” a term coined by journalist George Seldes in the COURTESY PHOTO early 1940s. Chatting with a friend at Spring Garden Bakery and Coffeehouse on a recent Michael Roberto will speak at UNCG on March 28 at 7 p.m.

Thursday morning, Roberto laments that there are so many definitions of fascism floating around, many of them incorrect in his view. essentialization of identity.”

Roberto’s scholarship is explicitly grounded in Marxist analysis, and he views fascism as Roberto respectfully but firmly pushes back against any analysis of fascism that is dibeing inextricably tied to capitalism. vorced from a critique of capitalism.

“We cannot organize ourselves in the fight against fascism unless we understand how The major contribution of his heavily footnoted, 463-page book, Roberto says, is resurcapitalist relations in our community are essential to all the other deep divisions that make facing the scholarship of an eclectic collection of writers and thinkers in the 1930 and ’40s, up the totality,” Roberto says during a conversation in the nook at the back of the coffeeincluding AB Magil, Henry Stevens, Lewis Corey, Carmen Haider and Robert Brady. Magil house. “When we begin to do this, we begin to build a united front against all the forces and Stevens wrote in 1938 that “the germ of fascism was inherent within and processes that can be called ‘fascist’ because they extend the American monopoly capitalism, but it was not until the economic crisis power of capital over our lives. When the power of capital is extended of 1929 that it developed into a definite political force of ominous in such a way, so too is the power of those who personify that capital.

Michael Roberto speaks proportions.”

On that basis, what we need to do is look around and see for ourselves Roberto argues that these thinkers correctly predicted the United who those personifications are. When we do that, I believe we then in the Alexander Room of States’ current political situation. There isn’t room here to do justice to discover the structure and spirit of fascism in our community.” his analysis of the New Deal and World War II, but he essentially argues Elliott University Center I mention that there are other definitions of fascism that emphasize that FDR saved capitalism and positioned the United States as the social and cultural aspects over economic processes. For example, on the campus of UNCG military victor to accelerate capitalism in its most ferocious form from Burley writes about fascism as a so-called “third way” that attempts to 1945 onward. on March 28 at 7 p.m. co-opt and displace the left as an energizing force for change. The Class consciousness is the medicine Roberto prescribes. If you acrevolutionary antifascist blog Three Way Fight, maintained by Matthew cept his thesis, the prognosis is daunting. Capitalism was a formidable N. Lyons, in fact is explicitly premised on the assertion that “leftists force in the 1930s, and a frontal challenge would have almost certainly need to confront both the established capitalist order and an insurgent prompted a sharp backlash, Haider observes. or even revolutionary right, while recognizing that these opponents are also in conflict with “This was the revolutionary challenge when the American Behemoth was rising in the each other.”

1920s and 1930,” Roberto concludes 413 pages in. “And so today it is greater, now that the Far from merely being a symptom of capitalism, Burley asserts that fascism is a cultural beast is at full strength.” movement based on “inequality through mythological and essentialized identity.” I’ve slightly adapted his definition for my own purposes as “the exaltation of inequality and the

EDITORIAL

by Clay Jones

Up Front News

claytoonz.com

Opinion Culture

Perhaps it wasn’t essential that This Confederate monument had Senior Editor Jordan Green join the stood prominently outside the courtmedia scrum outside the Old Forsyth house in downtown Winston-Salem for Courthouse on Tuesday morning to more than a hundred years. Imagine contribute what amounted to a piece of how many African Americans glanced commodity spot news, which is generupwards at its towering figure before ally not our style. they went into a federal courtroom, a But it was important for Triad City visual reminder of the pecking order.

Beat to be there for this symbolic Those who dispute the intentions of moment, and equally this statue need look important for Green to only at the words sposee it with his own eyes, Those who dispute ken ceremoniously upon as he did the dismanits erection. the intentions of tling of Silent Sam on Alfred Moore Wadthe UNC-Chapel Hill dell got the keynote this statue need campus.

— the man who led a look at the words In writing these first mob of thousands of drafts of American white people in 1898 spoken upon its history, we’ve taken to to overthrow a duly erection. calling this period the elected government in Age of Reckoning, in what would be known as which we re-examine the Wilmington Riot. our heroes, our values, our institutions, It’s telling that its removal from the and find them wanting. So many of public eye was not particularly conthe things we constructed to carry us troversial among people who actually through the last century are just not live in Winston-Salem. All of the fringe cutting it in this one. groups who defended its presence And there is a strong push among come from way out of town.

Americans to make things right.

And with their beloved statue gone, #MeToo. Black Lives Matter. Public there is really no reason for them to shaming. Blackface apologies. They’re come back and visit. all a part of the Age of Reckoning.

Claytoonz

March 14-20, 2019

Monuments in the Age of Reckoning

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March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CULTURE New documentary chronicles fight to keep skate rinks alive

by Sayaka Matsuoka

A

young Ice Cube raps on stage, a disco ball cascading hundreds of specks of light onto the walls and floor. A thousand people fill the room. The venue? A Skateland roller rink.

A newly released documentary delves into the long-established importance of roller rinks in the black community.

The 90-minute doc United Skates, which is available to stream on HBO GO and HBO NOW, uncovers the link between the old-school pastime and aspects of black culture like its significance in music, keeping the peace between gangs and even its role during the Civil Rights Movement. The film will screen at A/ perture Cinema on March 18, with a post-screening Q&A with the directors.

“The connection between roller rinks and music — they go hand in hand,” says Maulud Allah, a journalist interviewed in the film.

Grainy scenes of Biggie Smalls and Queen Latifah fill the screen as narrators describe how many hip-hop giants got their start in the rink. Craig Schweisinger, the owner of Skateland LA in Compton, says he was known as the “craziest white man in Compton.”

“Our first DJ was Dr. Dre,” he says as he picks up a preserved poster from one of the rink’s shows.

“Hip-hop and rap artists had no place to perform,” Allah says. “So, the only place that people could perform was in skating rinks.”

Salt-N-Pepa, who also make appearances in the film, back Allah up.

“Skating rinks was hardcore,” says Cheryl Renee James, otherwise known as Salt. “Like if you could rock out in a skating rink, then you know you’re doing well.”

According to the film, an average of three rinks in the country close each month. A montage displays the lifespan of numerous rinks, many of which closed in the mid 2000s after being open for decades.

“As you go across the country, you will find, if it’s a popular rink, it’s because they have a really strong African-American skate community,” says Pete, a custom skate designer in LA. The documentary covers the history of roller rinks in the black community, spotlighting the different styles of rolling in each of the regions.

Skaters from Kentucky gracefully slide under each other’s legs or while those

from Philly skate backwards, their feet barely lifting off the wooden surface. “Train riders” from New York and New Jersey form a line, arms locked as they command the floor as a single body. Tying different locations with local skaters, United Skates follows a group of enthusiasts who are fighting to keep rinks across the nation open.

Phelicia Wright, who anchors much of the story, grew up in Los Angeles and has passed down her love of skating to her five children.

“My dad was a skate guard and my mom was a DJ,” Wright says. “I’m considered a rink rat; I was born and raised in the rink.”

She and her kids frequent Skate Depot, a rink in Cerritos that is revealed to have closed in the latter half of the film.

Wright glides on the floor, her COURTESY OF HBO United Skates premiered on HBO this year and has won numerous film smile as wide as her stride. She festival awards. skates backwards, her hips sashaying back and forth, making treaty. it look as natural as dancing but cooler.

“The gangs made a pact that the rink would be declared “Something about hitting that floor,” she says. “It’s where I neutral territory,” says Connie, the former manager of the can breathe.” rink. “Everybody got a pass to come skate.”

Her son Shannon shows off a pair of modded skates he The film also interviews skaters from the ’50s and ’60s who made from his navy-blue boat shoes. He says he switched the fought for their right to skate in white-dominated rinks. heavy metal plate and changed out the wheels for smaller “When roller rinks were forced to integrate, a lot of whites ones so he can perform tricks with more ease. they just stopped going,” says Reggie Brown, a North Carolina “This is why I am who I am today,” he says. “Skating to me is local fighting to resuscitate struggling rinks. “So, the rink ownlike….” ers found new ways to segregate us.”

He trails off, but the sentiment is clear.

He mentions the emergence of “adult nights” in rinks across While it may seem like just a childhood pastime or a place to the country where a predominantly black clientele would take host children’s birthday parties, United Skates makes apparent over the rink for one night a week. that for many, roller-skating has become so intertwined with “Adult nights have to survive for us to survive,” Brown says. their lives that without it, they can The documentary points out the become imbalanced. layer of racism that black skaters ofIn the latter half of the film, Shanten have to face when going to rinks.

United Skates will screen at a/ non is caught breaking and entering Signs on the door prohibiting baggy into someone’s home. His mom is the pants and excluding rap or R&B are perture cinema on March 18. Find one to turn him in. often plastered on the walls. tickets at aperturecinema.com.

“I’d rather see him in jail than Many also ban modded skates, a Learn more about the documendead,” she says as she cries. The inciquintessential part of the black skate dent comes about a year after their tary at unitedskatesfilm.com. community. local rink closes.

The film follows Brown as he introA map plotting all of the rinks in duces the idea of adult night to a rink the country flashes onto the screen, in Charlotte, hoping to bring black more and more dots disappearing as the timeline progresses. skaters from across the state to the event.

A group of supporters picket outside of the Los Angeles city The owner of the rink takes to the idea, hopeful that the hall in 2013 to try and keep World on Wheels, a local rink, from event will bring new customers. closing. The rink’s location had been rezoned and in 2017, three In Chicago, Buddy Love has owned Rich City Skate for the years after it shut its doors, the building remained empty and last 10 years. unused.

“We’ve hit financial struggles but we need to keep the busiThe location was more than just a community hub; it was ness open for the community,” he says. Towards the end of the peaceful territory where the Blood and Crips gangs formed a film during a national skate event, it’s revealed that Rich City

March 14-20, 2019 Up Front

COURTESY OF HBO

COURTESY OF HBO

floor, dancing, snapping their fingers and high fiving each other.

Shannon, who is now on probation, skates next to his mom, a coy smile spreading across his face.

“The first thing he wants to do is go skating,” Wright says. “And now it’s possible.”

As skaters embrace and fill the floor at World on Wheels, moving like a continuous wave, Love narrates in the background.

“This is my history,” he says. “This is my culture. We want to protect it. So, we know that we have to continue. We have to bring the next generation. We just never stop.

Whatever the situation, we’re gonna roll.”

Opinion

Skate will also close. Love says it’s hard to keep a rink open, especially when they have to pay $96,000 in taxes but only charge five dollars admission. Tears stream down his face as he is confronted with the fact that they have to close their doors.

The film doesn’t hold back on the difficulty of keeping and maintaining skating rinks. Still, there’s hope to be had when back in LA, the new co-owners of World on Wheels reopen the rink for the first time in three years. Supporters and skate fans come in the carloads to hit the floor once again.

Wright hauls her kids into the car and they arrive at the rink, all carrying their own unique pairs of skates.

Macklemore’s “Glorious” plays in the background as hundreds of skaters take to the

Phelicia Wright grew up in skating rinks. “I’m considered a rink rat,” she says. “I was born and raised in the rink.”

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Buddy Love and his family owned Rich City Skate for ten years before it closed in 2016.

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March 14-20, 2019 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CULTURE Animated classics re-energized by the Queen’s Cartoonists

by Sayaka Matsuoka

A

black and white, line-drawn Bambi peacefully eats flowers in a field as musicians on stage play the first notes from Arthur Fiedler’s “William Tell Overture.”

Graceful tones from the saxophone lead the tune as Bambi lifts his head before continuing to graze. Suddenly a giant, dinosaur-sized leg enters the screen, stomping poor Bambi into the ground.

The end.

“Bambi beats Godzilla” by Marv Newland was just one of several cartoons shown at the Queen’s Cartoonists show at High Point Theatre on Sunday.

The six-piece band — made up of a pianist, three brass musicians, an upright bass player and a drummer — captured the audience by playing live jazz and classical music set to screenings of old and contemporary animation.

“It’s a jazz concert, but it’s a fun concert,” joked Joel Pierson, the band’s pianist, conductor and main on-stage spokesperson. “If you can’t reconcile that, you should leave.”

Soon, other childhood classics like Popeye and Bugs Bunny graced the screen. With each scene, the band perfectly synced with the characters’ animations and emotions, the sax or piano leading the melody while the drums and piccolo plucked out intense chase numbers.

According to the band’s website, the Queen’s Cartoonists formed in 2015 with a mission of “equal parts education, preservation and performance.”

After warming up the crowd with accompaniment for some stop-motion films, the band played a medley of crowd favorites. Tunes from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Batman, Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and “The Simpsons” melded into each other as the band played. Upbeat, bouncy chords for Pee Wee’s number changed to suspenseful, brooding tones as the Batman logo was projected onto the screen. Just as quickly, the mood shifted and turned whimsical for “What’s This?” from Nightmare Before Christmas. The band played swiftly and with such precision that as they progressed, images from each of the films and TV shows were projected into the minds of those listening, despite there not being any visual component on screen besides the titles.

The crowd clapped and exclaimed as they recognized each section.

The Queen’s Cartoonists played live scores to a medley of animation, both old and new, at High Point Theatre on Sunday.

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

While most audience members grew up with the animations vocals for the cat. in the ’50s and ’60s, there were a few kids in attendance too.

An airplane’s pipes become a xylophone, brought to life by Brother and sister Henry and Charlotte Howes bounced the plucky sounds of the piano while a string of bells imitate excitedly in their chairs as they watched the band and the jangling chains. As the cat and dog run into eels, rays and animation on screen. even dancing skeletons, each animation is promptly played by “It’s kinda funny,” said Charlotte, who wore a gray sweatthe band, including the characters’ terror, emphasized by the shirt with unicorns on it. sliding whistle. Towards the end of the piece, a lobster dances “It never gets old,” said their mom, Nadine. She grew up by clacking its claws, sounded by castanets. The whole picture watching Popeye and other lasts about seven minutes, with cartoons as a kid. That love for each second energized by the animation was passed down band’s produced sounds.

Learn more about the Queen’s Cartoonists to her children, she says. Both In between the animations, at www.thequeenscartoonists.com.

Henry and Charlotte’s favorite the band introduced themselves cartoons are still the classics — in bizarre and humorous ways Looney Tunes. like playing music through a Right before the intermission, straw or blaring the trumpet the band demonstrated its full prowess during an accompaniwhile riding a bicycle. At one point, the upright bassist danced ment of the Van Beuren Studio’s “Haunted Ship” by playing with his instrument in an awkward, waltzy march. every note and sound effect for the film. In it, a black-andBy taking jazz and classical music and applying it to animatwhite dog and cat — drawn in the style of early, Steamboat ed pieces, the Queen’s Cartoonists seamlessly married their Willie-era Mickey Mouse — crash their plane into the ocean goofy sense of humor with musical prowess. and find their way onto a haunted ship where they encounter “Jazz doesn’t always have to be serious,” Nadine said. “You a cast of zany characters. can be trained classically but apply it to a variety of stuff.”

The band utilized a full range of quirky instruments including a slide whistle, recorder, bells and even provided goofy

March 14-20, 2019

CULTURE CTG plays games with Clue: The Musical

by Savi Ettinger

T

Up Front News Opinion Culture

Chelsea Block and Sean Browne as The Detective and Mr. Green.

LAIR BLOCK

Puzzles

squares, as if guided by invisible hands. They pass in front of Mr. Boddy’s ghost, satisfied with his death, returns wearenormous room cards and a painted front of the box they ing white to show the audience the answer. For tonight, the live within. Mrs. White tenderizes a roast using a lead pipe, victim met his demise at the hands of his housekeeper, Mrs. and Ms. Peacock names off her dead White, with the revolver in the billiard husbands in a song. room. A handful of audience members Mr. Boddy interrupts each scene, stand, holding up their programs high Clue: The Musical runs at the pointing out hints towards the answer with the correct answer, but thanks to for the “whodunit.” The house lights a final twist, the last scene holds an Community Theater of Greensflicker on for a few brief moments. The extra mystery. boro through Sunday. For showaudience moves their attention from The characters delight over being times and tickets see ctgso.org. the stage to the back of the program, free from Boddy Manor, but then the where they scribble down notes and opening song begins to repeat. Each mark out eliminated answer choices token takes their place on their podiusing a form provided by the theater. ums, and exit one-by-one until only The band of likely killers joke about their constant game Mr. Boddy remains. He removes the top of the box from the of murder, singing out the weapons. They list off, “wrench, backdrop, and carries it over to the door, shutting it. candlestick, knife, pipe, revolver, rope,” filling the intimate He closes the box, and resets the game. theater with their rhythmic chanting.

Shot in the Triad

he premise of the game is simple,” Mr. Boddy says.

The tuxedoed man saunters around the stage while explaining the rules for the evening. He stops center stage, looking from person to person.

“Kill me,” he says, “with one weapon, in one room.”

From the opening of the first act, the cast for the Community Theater of Greensboro’s production of Clue: The Musical breaks the fourth wall of the cardboard box.

On Friday night, the Starr theater morphs into Boddy Manor, its floor and back wall covered in square tiles, as Director Bobby Bodford aims to place the familiar Parker Brothers mystery on a life-size scale.

“If I could make you feel like you were watching an oversized board game being played,” Bodford says, “Then we were a good ways there.”

The scenes seem more likely to happen around a dining room table with miniature pewter weapons and playing cards, rather than in a musical that pulls from all types of Broadway tradition.

Mr. Boddy sits beside a two-foot die, in a painted room marked “Library.”

He moves plastic tokens on top of his makeshift table as he invites three audience members onto the stage. A pair of musicians play out a piano instrumental as a young boy approaches the soon-tobe murder victim. Mr. Boddy offers a set of six cards, asking the child to choose who tonight’s killer will be. The small boy hesitantly reaches out.

“Oh no, not that one!” Mr. Boddy retracts the cards. “Let me shuffle these!”

With a total of 216 possible endings giving each show a different outcome, the production stays grounded within the original game. Director Bodford mentioned going so far as to use the board for the initial blocking. He counted how the plastic pieces moved and recreated it with the cast.

“They have to sorta be two-dimensional,” Bodford said of the characters, “in some odd kind of way.”

With only a moment’s notice, actors alter their lines and props as the final reveal switches between Mr. Green in the conservatory with the lead pipe to Colonel Mustard in the lounge with the revolver — or another of the hundreds of options.

The characters walk within the

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1 Jean jacket material 6 Prefix meaning “ten” 10 Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas 14 Blunt married to John Krasinski 15 “Chill in the Air” singer ___ Lee 16 Spoken aloud 17 Sudden change of plans to not tumble down the hill after Jack?

19 “Escape (The ___ Colada Song)” 20 Had some gummy bears, perhaps 21 Statuary segment 22 Lightheaded 23 Like some terriers’ coats 24 “Beds ___ Burning” (Midnight Oil song) 25 Return 28 Earp/Clanton shootout site 33 Charles of polytonal music 34 ___ Lodge (motel chain) 35 Historic timespan 36 Utility vehicle that stays road-bound ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) (and not on your lawn)?

40 One of a handful of notable hockey surnames in crosswords 41 Letter before India 42 Love, deified 43 bell hooks, for one 45 City with the ZIP 93888 47 Pen filler, perhaps 48 Twofold 49 Attacks, like a unicorn might 52 Hear about 54 Law enforcement gps.

57 Tournament type 58 Putting area sponsored by fruit spread?

Answers from last issue 60 Touch down 61 Eye creepily 27 They’re held by growlers 62 Bird on a coin 28 Eight-member group 63 Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist 29 1980s-’90s German leader Helmut 64 Low digits?

30 Brings up 65 First U.S. “Millionaire” host Philbin 31 Lighting problem?

32 Wonder Woman’s weapon Down 34 Online banking transactions, briefly 1 “It’s ___ vu all over again!”

37 “Most definitely!”

2 Give off, as light 38 It doesn’t go in the microwave 3 River near the Valley of the Kings 39 Projectionist’s need 4 Feverish, maybe 44 Meeting outline 5 Washington WNBA teammate 45 Nick in the “Captain Marvel” movie 6 Unlike almond milk and soy cheese 46 Smith, to Yogi Bear 7 911 first responders 48 Broad valleys 8 2017 Pixar movie 49 Spieth sport 9 ___ Wednesday 50 Character formed by Pearl and Amethyst on 10 Giant office machine “Steven Universe” 11 Calif. neighbor 51 Artist Magritte 12 “SNL” alum Horatio 52 “The ___ Movie 2: The Second Part” (2019) 13 Do in a dragon 53 Cosmo competitor 18 Do the job 54 Simon of “Shaun of the Dead” 22 Slang for “friend” in “A Clockwork Orange” 55 Grocery store section 23 Nesting insect 56 Star Fox console, once 24 Proactiv target 58 Scribble (down) 25 “And knowing is half the battle” cartoon 59 “Party for One” singer Carly ___ Jepsen 26 Do-___ (second chances)

EVENTS

March 14-20, 2019

CROSSWORD ‘Just Kidding’— or is it the other way around? SUDOKU

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