A deep dive into High Point’s downtown pg. 4 Triad Voice carves out space for WOC pg. 9 Coming out as gay and autistic, a journey pg. 11 AUG. 18-23, 2022 TRIAD-CITY-BEAT.COM Into Unknownthe UnknownGreensboro-basedgarage-punkduoNobodiespreparesformoremusicalheights by Miles Bates | pg. 12
Office:
I brought up the subject at an editorial meeting, and got some pushback from staff, but not much. “Who here plans on working in the office at any point this year?”
he new office looks a lot like the old one, only smaller.Ithappened a few weeks ago: After years — years! — of sitting alone in an empty office, I moved a couple desks, our archives, our files, our reference books, various pieces of technology and some art into the space across the hall. It’s roughly half the size of the former space, where we’ve been housed since our inception in 2014, with no windows and a door that swings shut so I’ve already locked myself out a few times.
First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2022 Beat Media Inc. TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian brian@triad-city-beat.comClarey PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen allen@triad-city-beat.comBroach OF COUNSEL Jonathan Jones EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Sayaka sayaka@triad-city-beat.comMatsuoka CHIEF CONTRIBUTORS Suzy james@triad-city-beat.comJamesFieldersDouglas ART ART DIRECTOR Charlie charlie@triad-city-beat.comMarion SALES KEY ACCOUNTS Chris chris@triad-city-beat.comRudd AD MANAGER Noah noah@triad-city-beat.comKirby CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry, John Cole, Owens Daniels, Luis H. Garay, Kaitlynn Havens, Jordan Howse, Matt Jones, Autumn Karen, Michaela Ratliff, Jen COVER: Unknown Nobodies is a punk garage duo based out of Greensboro [photo by Courtney Breen] EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK WEBMASTER Sam LeBlanc Sorensen, Todd Turner T I like having an office, which I suppose makes me a relic. SERIESDOWNTOWNMUSICSUMMERSUMMERONLIBERTY AUG KARON20 CLICK & THE HOT LICKS 6TH & LIBERTY Produced By The Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership downtownws.com by Brian Clarey The new office
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I asked. Silence in the Zoom, a few askance looks, but no takers. A lot has happened in that office, where Triad City Beat was born and nurtured: debates, decisions, bargains, no small measure of de spair. It’s not like that anymore. The walls, festooned with seven years of covers, original sketches before they were digitized, faded and curled awards, have the feel of a museum that nobody goes to. Truth is we don’t need all that space, and have not for some time. Everybody cleared out in late sum mer 2020, when one of our staffers got COVID, and we never really got back into it. We made our Monday meeting virtual, which has greatly increased attendance. We learned to do production remotely and started keeping our important files on the cloud. If it weren’t for our artifacts — old issues, props from photoshoots, artwork, newspaper boxes, weird office detritus that gathers over the years — we might not need office space at all. Even though I use it just a few days a week, I like having an office, which I suppose makes me a relic. I prefer having a real mailing ad dress as opposed to a PO Box; I like mingling with the other workers in the building; I need some separation between my professional life and my personal one. No one else on my young staff — by which I mean younger than me — shares these concerns.Likewise, I’m the only one with trepida tions about what’s not happening in the office: the bustle of a working newsroom, the inside jokes, the stories that develop over conversations between reporters, the physical sense of community that comes from proximity to each other. This, too, I recognize, marks me as a dinosaur. Who’s to say that the magic can happen only when we’re all sitting in the same room, inhaling each other’s droplets all day? Soon it will seem strange, how so many of us worked that way for so long. Grooming. Commuting. Meeting. Luncheoning. To a lot of us, it already does. S. Elm-Eugene St. NC 27406 336.681.0704
Box 24, Greensboro,
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SUNDAY Aug. 21 Relentless Roller Derby Interest Meeting @ Barber Park (GSO) 3 p.m. Greensboro’s newest roller derby team invites all skaters, referees and volunteers to learn how they can get involved. If you’re interested and unable to attend, email directors@relentlessrolle rderby.com. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
FRIDAY Aug. 19 Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine 24th Anniversary Bike Night @ 711 W. Main St (Jamestown) 5 p.m.
Splash Out Summer Market @ Winston Junction Market (W-S) 11 a.m. Winston Junction Market is closing out summer with a market featuring vendors, food trucks and more for you to enjoy. Stay updated on Winston Junction Market’s Facebook page
Celebrate the Carolinas’ Full Throttle Magazine 24th anniversary with hot dogs, music and ven dors. There’s free beer in it for you, too. Pull up on your most stylish bike for your chance to win the $50 Editors Choice Best Bike On The Lot con test. Visit the event page on Facebook for more information.
THURSDAY Aug. 18 Animation Exhibition: Persistence of Vision @ Gatewood Studio Arts Building (GSO) 9 a.m.
Winston-Salem native Lisa Konczal was seen line dancing in the Grammy award-winning music video for “Old Town Road.” Boogie on down to the Mayfair Club on ROAR’s rooftop and join her for a fun night of line dance lessons to pop, country, Latin and more. Purchase tickets at roarws.com
3 202223,-18AUGFRONTUP|CITY LIFE AUG. 18-21 by MICHAELA RATLIFF Send your events calendar@triad-city-beat.comto for consideration in City Life and the Weekender.
UNCG College of Visual and Performing Arts presents Persistence of Vision, an exhibition cele brating UNCG’s animation program and showcas ing the Laura Hayes and John Howard Wileman collection of animation toys and optical devices. An opening reception will be on Aug. 19 at 6 p.m. Learn more on the Facebook event page Boot Scootin’ Boogie @ ROAR (W-S) 6:30 p.m.
Jimmy Buffett’s Escape To Margaritaville @ Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance (W-S) 8 p.m. Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance invites you to view Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville, a musical comedy featuring Jimmy Buffet classics including “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” Learn more and pur chase tickets at theatrealliance.ws/box_office
Smokey Robinson @ Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts (GSO) 8 p.m. Ooo baby baby! Legendary singer-songwriter, producer and co-founder of Motown Records Smokey Robinson is bringing his talents to the Steven Tanger center for a concert. No need to shed the Tears of a Clown, just purchase tickets at tangercenter.com.
Reflections: American Photorealism. Enjoy a free screening of Spike Lee’s Crooklyn, free museum admission and a cash bar. Register to attend at reynolda.org
Cinema Under the Stars: Crooklyn @ Reynolda House Museum of American Art (W-S) 6:30 p.m. Reynolda is hosting Cinema Under the Stars, an outdoor summer film series to complement the fall exhibition, Chrome Dreams and Infinite
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SATURDAY Aug. 20 Poses N Pours @ Paddled South Brewing Co. (HP) 11 a.m. Stop by Paddled South Brewing for Poses N Pours where $10 gets you yoga class access and a drink of your choice! Stick around for good eats from My Kitchen food truck at 5 and live music by Alex Ottoway at 7.
The growth machine’s pursuit of exchange value can come into conflict with residents’ concern for use value, the worth derived from the satisfaction of using a property. The more land becomes a commodity and the less its use value is debated in relation to its exchange value, the more its land markets will be an unabated free market.Terrell’s words are shocking: not only did the growth of the Market ignore resi dents’ interests, but it also sidelined the interests of the furniture exposition it was presumably serving. That is, a Market centered on excellent furniture exposition would have been designed differently. Instead the unguided High Point Market
Showroom City: A deeper look into High Point’s downtown by John Joe Schlichtman
For most of its history, downtown High Point has been dominated by various configurations of what urbanists call a growth machine: shifting alliances of local stakeholders who worked to “increase aggregate rents... for those in the right position to benefit.”1 This arrangement not only normalizes the celebration of elite growth goals as an assumed facet of civic life but also places localities in competi tion with one another in a way that actually harms their citizens.
ou may have heard that our Furniture Market was the last bastion of free market capitalism,” said real estate attorney Tom Terrell, talking about High Point’s ascendance in the furniture industry. “I mean, it was run by real estate interests. If you could rezone for showrooms, you did it. It was loosely organized. But, truly, it was run by real estate interests, not by the furniture companies.”
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Author’s note: The following excerpt is from Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World. While the book privileges the voice of residents, this adapted excerpt from Chapter 1 considers key ideas from the study of community that can help us to better interpret this unique place. When the furniture market surpassed 1,000,000 square feet in the 1960s, the director of High Point’s largest building stated his goal was not national, but world prominence. The decades of investment that followed occurred without coordination or regulation. After being controlled by myriad individual firms, a transaction in 2011 resulted in pri vate equity funds (first Bain, then Blackstone) controlling a majority of the downtown’s square footage, which now tops 12,000,000 square feet. Today, as Part 3 of the book explores, efforts to make downtown High Point a “living room” for residents, rather than simply a stage set for marketgoers, have gained significant power. The four sections below offer terms to organize how we think of these efforts.
JOHN JOE SCHLICHTMAN “Y
Although leaders in a growth machine do not always agree on the best strategies and specifics of growth, they do agree that what we call exchange value—the mone tary value of property determined by sale in an open market — should be at the core of what the local government does and the local community celebrates. In this way, High Point’s growth machine helped determine how local political, economic, and social life interacted with the world around it. Observing their actions illumi nates the links that connect “daily life and mundane local politics” with economic and political systems that shape and are shaped by these politics.
Chasing ‘Highest and Best Use’: Exchange Value and Use Value
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As Part 3 of the book explores, attempts at community discussions about the long term effects of this growth were scoffed at, even when these calls for reflection were by powerful city leaders.
s the city’s downtown stakeholders pursued highest and best use, the downtown became what urban planning thinker John Fried mann calls economic space. Driven by calculations of exchange value, economic space seems endlessly expandable with little concern as to context. Similar to the ‘enterprise zones’ that have emerged worldwide in the era of globalization, High Point’s local government eliminated for downtown showrooms the red tape that developers would experience elsewhere in the city.
NEWS A became a huge, chaotic, global furniture bazaar.
Not developing a Plan B and pursuing what real estate parlance calls highest and best use were complementary if not virtually synonymous. Throughout the Mar ket’s history, High Point leaders invoked the tenets of highest and best use to justi fy their pro-growth strategies, privileging development that is “physically possible, appropriately supported, financially feasible, and that results in the highest value.”
The Tension Between Economic and Life Space
As Part 1 of Showroom City explores, the more High Point became wedded to the Market, the more local government leaders felt that they had to cede control to real estate investors to avoid losing the Market to a competitor. Unlike its com pany-town kin, also controlled by a single interest, High Point leaders had no representative with whom they could meaningfully discuss and negotiate. There was no single convention complex that managed these tenants. Rather, a plurality of owners and building tenants acting independently made up the High Point Market.Thecontrol given to showroom interests has meant that High Point is remark ably nimble when it comes to the Market. Local officials are proud of how quickly developers erected major downtown projects, even when national, state, regional, and local bureaucracies were involved. They point to how the city quickly settled disputes between landowners or even between the city and exhibitors. The city has allowed showroom buildings in violation of fire and building codes to remain open for the Market, arguing in that instance that the government must “assist as
“The Market itself has challenges in that it is not under single ownership control,” High Point planning director G. Lee Burnette — who recently retired — explained. That allows each individual building to “decide when to turn the lights on and when to turn the lights off.... Here, it truly is a market — small ‘m’ — phenomenon.” In some other southern cities, “citizens expect and demand” regulation, whereas High Point is “more of a free market, this-is-my-property-Ican-do-anything-I-want-to-with-it type approach,” he said. Some residents call it cowboy capitalism and academics may call it neoliberal governance. Whatever the perspective, few municipal governments have enshrined ex change value to the extent that High Point’s city council has over the past six decades, and, correspondingly, few have witnessed such a radical transformation. “To some degree, you can argue that not having any regulation on it has allowed it to evolve and be here for one hundred–plus years,” Burnette added. Politician Judy Mendenhall has been a key player throughout this process. When I first met Mendenhall, she was the inaugural president of the High Point Market Authority. Serving as mayor earlier in her political career, she was known for walking the downtown in tailored business attire and running shoes. To many, she exemplified casual southern sophistication. “I don’t think it’s the southern way to have a Plan B,” she said from her Market Authority office in downtown High Point’s brutalist white office building — often simply called “the white building” because its name changed so often as flagship tenants moved in and out. This was the first of many “No Plan B” conversations. In an unimpeded growth machine, owners are free to “manipulate property to ‘highest and best use’ by market criteria,” as sociologist Harvey Molotch explains.
The cover of Showroom City, published earlier this year.
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In High Point, until only recently, the right free market has meant that the downtown would be shorn of locals. It has seen property owners and showroom operators fre quently oppose the return of a resident-centered aspect to the downtown. Over the Market’s history, they have favored suspending the use of buildings—and thus the entire downtown—between Markets to cut their costs and preserve their assets. In the words of architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable, government used its power of zoning as “an instrument for maximizing real estate return” for investors rather than making the “city a fit place to live” for residents. “Realtors don’t bother to even take people downtown anymore because they say you’re wasting your time. The rents are too high,” politician Jay Wagner explained—before becoming a mayor who led efforts to change this. “If a proper ty owner from a purely economic standpoint can rent the building for four weeks a year and have no wear and tear on their building and can make lots of money doing that, why wouldn’t they do it? I understand simple economics.” But residents’ biographies unfold in life space, as Friedmann explains. And this can present frustrating impediments to stakeholders in economic space seeking unim peded growth. In life space, residents’ and their lives, struggles, and aspirations are forged: this is “the theater of... convivial life.” High Point’s “complete dedication” to furniture exposition, as one Market official described it, did little for High Point’s life spaces. When urbanists discuss control by capital, they often mean securing the cheapest labor or the most efficient distribution of their goods. Downtown High Point is a little different. Local leaders have allowed exhibition building owners what they sought most: a particular grip on the downtown’s time and space. Exclusion, the Frontstage and the Backstage hy is it that once you leave the showroom area of downtown, High Point looks like a slum?” a former resident asked in a letter in 2000 to the High Point Enterprise. “Why do the leaders place so much emphasis on this one area of the city when so much of the city needs help?” he continued. “The leaders of High Point need to wake up... and start treating the citizens as something other than second-class people.” Concern has grown over the past four to five decades that leaders around the world are increasingly fixated on using their cities as if they were a stage for productions for outsiders, whether gentrifiers, investors, tourists, or business visitors. This can produce two different types of boundaries that exclude: a geographic boundary that marks where the privileged stages are and are not, and a temporal or time-based boundary concerning when those privileged stages are and are not under the spotlight. I use the term frontstage to refer to a place that is a privileged geography during the time when the production is in process. Backstage refers to both the times in the frontstage when the production is not “on” and the places that are never in the frontstage. What transforms the dynamics of these terms? The gaze of an outside audience. In High Point, this gaze by more than 70,000 visitors from over 100 nations increasingly compares “everywhere in the world... with everywhere else,” as sociologist John Urry has observed. There is a term in theatre called mise-en-scène that implies both concepts: frontstage and backstage. It describes everything the audience sees on the stage during a performance, including the arrangement of the actors, the props, costumes, and settings. Historically, a preoccupation with High Point’s frontstage mise-en-scène has completely dominat ed downtown High Point during the backstage months. This is a unique type of control over the urban landscape: control of its temporality—its rela tionship to time.
Both industrial and postindustrial cities operate on a visible cycle of weekdays and weekends, providing a “seven day beat.” Downtown High Point operates differently: here the month most structures events. Observation alone cannot distinguish a Wednesday from a Sunday or ten in the morning from eight in the evening. This temporality became evident when I tried to create a year-by-year timeline of the downtown’s rhythms with showroom de signer Callie Everitt, who wracked her brain before confessing how difficult it was for her to translate the six-month rhythm of her life into my calendar of weeks, months, and years. “I think in Markets,” she apologized.
Urban temporality is not unique to High Point. Every city has a temporality — times when it is “on” and times when it is “off” to particular audiences. Historians EP Thompson and Tamara Hareven describe how just such a reorganization of time accompanied the advent of industrial life. Manufacturing cities had typically pulsed around the shifts of the local factory; their taverns and diners adjusted to match their workers’ daily schedules. College towns are often ghost towns in June and July when they are in their backstage months. Come graduation, local hotels, apartment buildings, and even municipal services adjust their cycles; bushes are trimmed and even curbs get a fresh coat of paint. Major service-center cities also have their temporality, assuming an air of commerce during business hours with stints of lively street-level activity around lunch and perhaps evening times. Some residents lament that their city’s business district is not “alive after five.” Each of these cities may have influxes of outsiders, but their rhythm is still driven largely by their residents and daily commuters. Most cities are similar. Certain scenes replay daily: during rush, work, and after-work hours. Even the dissimilar industrial and postindustrial eras share what sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel calls the “highly regular temporal structuring” that allows an observer to “tell the time by simply referring to the social environment.”
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6 |NEWSAUG.18-23,2022 much as we can to make each Market successful.” Such loosening of government control is evidence of urban planning thinker Edward Soja’s “erosion of local control over the planning process, as the powerful exogenous demands... penetrate deeply into local decision-making.” Burnette agrees. “Certainly our position in the furniture industry influences our policy,” he said. “The city has had a laissez-faire approach to Market.” But for local, nonshowroom business owners who have not enjoyed access to such expedited processes, the opposite is true. Like the many zones considered an “unregulated market,” the downtown represents not merely the absence of regulations considered hindering but the marked presence of regulations favoring particular outcomes and effectively prohibiting others. As longtime students of municipal government know, one stakeholder’s “let it be” environment often results in another stakeholder’s “don’t let it be” situation It may sound strange, but deregula tion requires regulation so that market freedoms produce the outcome its champions desire. Or so that sovereignty is “sovereign in the right way.”
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This piece is excerpted from Showroom City: Real Estate and Resis tance in the Furniture Capital of the World by John Joe Schlichtman. Published by the University of Minnesota Press. Copyright 2022 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
“There’s a lot of job opportunities when the Market is here — and that’s very beneficial for their families,” explained community college administrator Janette Mc Neill just before change began to bubble to the surface, discussing prospects for students within the local econo my. “But as a community we need to look at it a different way because that just keeps people in poverty.” Today, High Point as a community is looking at it a different way, with its path as a city still to be decided.
Before deindustrialization hit the city in the 1970s, the ideas of either a geograph ic or a temporal frontstage were less meaningful in High Point, where production and exhibition of furniture were then inextricable. However, in the era of globalization, the city’s service-industry and fortunesmanufacturing-industrybegandiverging.
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These ideas can be subsumed under two useful terms: prime and marginal space. Prime space is that desired “for residential, commercial, recreational, or navigational purposes.” Consider developing world cities where inter national investment has enabled particular favored neigh borhoods—deemed prime space—to grow very rapidly, fostering the development of globally integrated office, retail, and residential enclaves. Meanwhile, the remain der of the city, unhinged from these flows of investment, is left to carve out a life on the city’s margins. This mar ginal space has little exchange value and includes places where marginalized people such as homeless or poor residents, as well as marginalized uses such as informal settlements or single-room occupancy hotels, have more flexibility. These locations are peripheral, uncontested, and out of view. In marginal spaces, as urban planner and architect Andrés Duany noted, city inspectors only sporadically and selectively show up to monitor compliance with local ordinances. High Point’s marginal spaces form a periphery around its prime space. Sociolo gist Stephen Sills and his team from the University of North Carolina at Greens boro identified more than 1,400 acres of vacant housing in the neighborhoods surrounding the downtown. These census tracts had poverty rates of 32 to 87 percent, and the vast majority had labor force nonparticipation rates greater than 40 percent. City leaders refer to this area beyond the downtown as the “urban core.” It consists of neighbor hoods “plagued with blighted empty lots, vacant buildings, substandard housing, and whose residents have long experienced a lack of oppor tunity.” The ring of decay is interrupted at points, most prominently by Emerywood, the city’s old-money neigh borhood northeast of the downtown.Thissouthern landscape of bungalows, two-by-fours, shotguns, and low-rise public housing stands witness to the drastic devaluation over time brought on by mortgage redlining, federal defunding, municipal deprioritization, and physical deterioration, most strikingly in Black neighborhoods. “It was really eye-opening to see how many houses are boarded up and that are vacant in town,”
Downtown High Point operates differently: here the month most events.structures
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began one civic leader discussing a 2012 tour with other leaders: “I had never seen that.” Today, cities of various sizes include vast areas of unoccupied and unused blocks that are invisible to residents with no connections there. Gentrification gets most of the attention, but this is the other landscape of dis placement: discarded neighborhoods. Although located just blocks from the front stage, they are what urban sociologist Saskia Sassen calls unhinged: from the global economy, the commerce of the downtown, and the mental map of most visitors and many residents. What creates unprecedented inequality is the fact that these unhinged areas can remain stubbornly disconnected from the global economy even as nearby areas become ever more connected. “It’s awful.
Much of downtown High Point features empty storefronts when the Furniture Market isn’t in season.
City and Market officials reprioritized and deprioritized particular regions and times based on the exposition. The downtown transitioned from being the main commercial district of a vertically integrat ed manufacturing town to the runway for furniture’s fashion week. At the same time, the area around the red carpet was crumbling. The BetweenTensionPrime Space and Marginal Space
he use of terms such as downtown and slum, both used above, is important here. These terms evoke a segregated city with spaces of lack and plenty, municipal negligence and priority. Capitalizing on middle-class fears of what lies within the slum or ghetto spaces, developers build fortified enclaves in the downtown with designs that enclose and isolate buildings from the street. Such fears were prevalent in High Point. The result is a “citadel” or, in São Paulo, what urban planning scholar Teresa Caldeira called a “city of walls.”
All the boarded-up buildings, all the houses that no one can live in,” said High Point nonprofit leader Maggie Mays. “But, you know, the only thing that matters is the showrooms that are open four weeks a year.”
John Joe Schlichtman is associate professor of sociology at DePaul Uni versity. He is the author of Showroom City: Real Estate and Resistance in the Furniture Capital of the World, and coauthor of Gentrifier
T Where my Trumpies at? hings are not going great for Trump,PresidentformerDonaldwhowas meeting with his lawyers over a separate matter — a civil investiga tion in New York for allegedly lying about the size and source of his fortune — when the FBI raided his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. There they found reams of clas sified information that should not have been there. In his defense, Trump and those left standing by him say that the FBI planted those documents, and also that they already gave the documents back, and also that it doesn’t matter anyway because Trump declassified the documents with a blanket or der that does not exist anywhere. Two days later, in the NY civil matter, he pled the Fifth more than 400 times, for several hours straight, while under questioning by the NY attorney general’s office. That quieted down his support ers some — Trump himself has said only guilty people and “the mob” use the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating themselves, and so that’s what they thought too, until they didn’t. Now, as details of the FBI search come forth, all of those people who lustily yelled, “Lock her up!” in 2016 are perhaps reconsidering that as a campaign slogan. Let’s face facts: There just aren’t as many people around Trump as there used to be. A lot of them are in jail: Almost 890 people have been charged with various offenses in the Jan. 6 Capitol In surrection, all but 185 or so await sentencing. A number of them are being indicted or are under investigation, like Rudy Giuliani, who is under criminal investigation in Georgia for his actions before and after the 2020 election, or attorney Sidney Powell who, we learned this week, sent teams to rip data from voting machines in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada, which is not, awayoneseverypeelingarespeaking,technicallylegal.Andthentherethosewhoareoff,afewday,likethewhowalkfromOmelas in the middle of the night, turning down the volume on Fox News, quietly putting their Trump flags into storage and peeling the “Fuck Your Feelings” bumper stickers off theirThetrucks.onlyones left are the most loathsome, those who care not about the rule of law, the future of our republic or the opinions of their family members and neigh bors. And, of course, those who have tied their political futures to Trump — the ones who haven’t lost their primaries, anyway. In that they have no choice but to ride out the trend of diminishing returns, and hope they don’t lose too many people before Election Day. Because for their man Trump, things keeps getting worse. Let’s face facts: There just aren’t as many people around Trump as there used to be.
Courtesy of NC Policy Watch
John Cole
8 |OPINIONAUG18-23,2022 OPINION EDITORIAL Jen Sorensen jensorensen.com
Tell me about that very first issue in June. We sat down and made an avatar of our Voice readers. We asked our selves, What does she like to read? We wrote those topics down: cuisine, food, fashion, health, physical wellness, spiritual, community events, what’s going on locally. We also found great interest in horoscopes and learning more about community leaders like women in the community who are do ing exceptional things. We want to highlight art, do Q&As for beauty, as well as a ‘Girl Talk’ Q&A that’s like a ‘Dear such and such,’ sort of thing. Then we talked about Juneteenth and why it’s important and the appropriate ways to celebrate it. For the first issue we also talked about mental health and about imposter syndrome. That’s where we started. We also talk about financial literacy and business. We just really want to continue to lean into self-care and what that looks like physically. One of the big things about Voice that I’m really proud of is that we want to be positive and uplifting so when you put the magazine down you learn something that will help you in some way. Also, because we’re quarterly, we did think it was important to address weekly content, so we try to update the online blog weekly and social me dia accounts daily on community events and things like that.
CULTURE
New, by Sayaka Matsuoka Triad Voice is a new quarterly magazine that launched in June. The magazine focuses on stories that highlight women of color and was founded by Chelsie Smith, who has lived in different cities in the Triad for years. Learn more at triadvoicemag.com and on their Instagram, Twit ter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Their next issue comes out Oct. 1.
colorspacemagazineBlack-ownedcarvesoutforwomenofintheTriad
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AA AQ Chelsie Smith, publishing editor of Triad Voice magazine, saw Black women like herself as underserved by local lifestyle media.
Tell me about how the vision for the magazine started. What’s your background? Basically when the pandemic hit, I was reading more community maga zines because I still wanted to stay connected to the community, but a lot of what I was seeing did not represent myself or my colleagues. I sat down and I thought about it and talked to some of my friends who said, ‘Don’t you think it would be amazing if there was a magazine that was more repre sentative of communities of color? Like highlighting the things that are going on every month.’ And that’s not happening; it doesn’t exist; it’s never existed. So, I sat down and said, ‘I want to change that.’ As for my background, I have a degree in biology, but have always enjoyed writing and have done freelance writing in the last couple of years. Once you decided you wanted to start a magazine, what did the timeline look like? I started talks with my family and friends in January and launched the web site in May and our physical copy launched in June. It actually launched on Juneteenth. We’re quarterly at this time, but in the next four to six months, I foresee us being bimonthly, until we can gain additional community part nerships and support. Then I can see in the future us becoming monthly.
What has the reception been like? The response has been phenomenal and at times, overwhelming. I did
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Who is currently writing for Voice? At last count Voice has over 21 contributors. If you know someone who’s a writer, please connect them to myself. We have writers from all over who would send their friends. We have some very amazing contributors includ ing Nikita Wallace, the founder of Winston-Salem Fashion Week. She writes about fashion tips. Ja’Net Adams provides financial literacy tips. Toni Shaw, an award-winning photographer did our cover photography. And then we have some people who write about issues who are a little more heavy. So we have a pretty extensive list of women who are well known in the commu nity. Why did you decide to start a magazine here in the Triad? Before living here with my husband, I spent many summers coming to Winston-Salem because my father is born and raised here. Coming here was some of the best times of my life. Winston-Salem has always been my home. One of my proudest things is that there is a magazine filled with people that look like him that his daughter helped create. Before, the representation was not there, you know, there was sprinkles of it, but I could get on social media and see people celebrating wins for people like me, but I wasn’t seeing it reflected in our community publications. So I felt really strongly, Why not here? That really propelled me. Opening up a magazine and not seeing anyone that looks like you, it’s hard to relate. I wanted to change that narrative. Now my daughters were the first people to get a copy of Voice. And after that first issue, my son walked up to me and said, ‘Congratulations on the magazine, mom.’ They don’t know that what their mother did was not some thing that their grandmother could have done. Tell me about the importance of having Voice in the community. We started with women because especially minority women are often over looked when we work really hard. I love the culture and what we bring to the community. Personally, I know the pressure I’m under. Then 2020 happened but 2020 was what Black Americans knew was going on for years. I see a lot of minority women who aren’t given their flowers until they pass away. Why don’t we give her celebration here and now? We’re also very inclusive. Voice isn’t just for Black people. That’s not who it’s for. Voice caters to peo ple who are unheard. We have Latina writers; we have white writers. Anyone who has a voice that is not being heard, that’s who we’re catering towards. That’s Asian culture, Black culture, Hispanic Latino culture, that’s all of us. We’re always looking to share the experience of people in the Triad, so if you have something you want to share that you think is of interest, reach out to us. What do you hope for the future of Voice? I purposely set Voice up so that if one day I’m not here, someone else can take it over. Voice is greater than I am; it’s about going to the grocery store and seeing the magazine and picking it up and seeing someone that looks like them. A lot of the time people say, ‘Oh, don’t copy me.’ But I say, copy me! I hope that there’s another woman out there that says, ‘I really want to do whatever for the community, I see that this woman can do it, so can I.’
CULTURE not expect the level of response that we’ve had so far. It really leads me to believe that the community wanted this. We had 800 copies gone in the first 14 days. A lot of community leaders have also reached out who said they loved Voice
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Am I making eye contact for too long or too little? Did I use the right tone? Do I fit in with the crowd? The acceptance that I never felt in school was there but the comfort of structure wasn’t. There were no two people who looked alike in the congregation. The queer community, after all, is a world outside boxes. As I looked down at my blank notepad, I gathered the courage to step outside my own boxed comfort zone. I counted my steps in threes and pushed myself to interview key speakers and organizers for quotes.AsImade my way home that night, I couldn’t stop smiling.
T On
Kevin Six is Triad City Beat’s editorial intern.
I discovered a
person at the intersection of these identities can be pre carious. A 2017 study by the CDC found that 34 percent of LGBTQ+ stu dents reported being bullied on school property while for autistic children, a CBS survey found that 63 percent of them reported being bullied at school. Despite not coming out publicly about my identities when I was younger, I often felt left out and different. Bullying in elementary school was partic ularly terrible for me. In middle and high school I tried to fit in, but I could never avoid the contemptuous looks and condescending voices when I struggled to function. Changing schools often due to my military family life helped by getting fresh starts, but it also hurt my ability to make connec tions.Ifelt as though I walked around with two targets on me as gay and as autistic, so I did my best to make fly under the radar for a lot of my life. Rather than speak up during my classes, I quietly absorbed every word my English teacher said and spent my free time writing my own stories, often ones that revolved around queer characters. On the blank sheets I discov ered a place I didn’t need to order; I could let my mind run wild and let my feelings take over.Inthe years since diagnosis,my I’ve tried my best to be clear about being autistic in the hopes that it othersinSomearoundattiremulti-coloredeesfrompink,ofstreets.throughreverberateoftoJune,memberMarchjourney.it’swardness,andmannerismsunderstandpeoplehelpsbettermysocialawkbutaconstantAtthePridetoRebackinIlistenedthechantsthecrowdtheAnarraycolors—blue,white—attendwhoworeswirledme.dressedrainbowwhileadornedtheir
Coming out as gay and autistic, a journey by Kevin Six he fluorescent lights buzz overhead as I sit quietly in the back of the class. I’m buried deep in the rows of identical desks with all my classmates as we watch the teacher in the throngs of an English lecture. Everything is organized and simplified here. My desk is perfectly situated to match my books which are perfectly centered along with my pencils which lay perfectly parallel to them, almost. I take my eyes off the teacher to notice one of my pencils is out of place. I quickly rectify the placement as I feel tension building in my shoulders. Moments like these are common in my day-to-day life.
I was diagnosed with autism when I was 10 years old. Shortly after that, I was also diagnosed with OCD and anxiety, which compounds my autism. The combination of all of my diagnoses affects my daily rhythms, like the way I tap light switches in multiples of threes or count every step I take. On top of that, I realized that I was gay around the same time in my life and first came out privately to close friends in my late teens. With regards to being autistic and having OCD, I always knew I had spe cific tendencies, but never understood what they meant until I received a proper diagnosis from my school. For most of my life, I had assumed that having either, much less both, meant something bad as I had often heard them described in a negative context. As I learned more however, the un certainties gave way to clarity and the diagnoses clicked in my mind; I said, “That’s
11 202223,-18AUG|CULTURECULTURE
Beingme!”ayoung
I had crossed the parallel lines of my structured nature. I felt exhilarated, energized. And even though the storm of insecurities rages on, I’m slowly building the shelter I need to not only survive, but thrive, in this life of mine. the blank sheets place I didn’t mind
need to order; I could let my
run wild and let my feelings take over.
outfits with feathered blooms. It was my first time on my own as a gay man at such an event, but I worried about fitting in as an autistic person. My shyness washed over me as thoughts about how I’m presenting my self raced through my mind.
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Unknown Nobodies is currently working on a new project set to be released next summer. hard-hitting guitar riff breaks into the air, eliciting headbangs from the room. It’s soon followed by rough, grungy vocals rem iniscent of the late Scott Weiland, former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, or, perhaps, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame.
CULTURE
Punk speaks to me, personally, on a very visceral level. - Jack Murray “ “ A Greensboro-based garage punk duo Unknown Nobodies prepares for more musical heights by Miles Bates MELANIE MAE BRYAN
Riffage continues, breaking into slightly more melodic guitar tones, yet sound still pummels the air. This is Unknown Nobodies’ “‘Sit.” From in and out-of-state, the Greensboro-based garage-punk duo is a hidden gem aimed at forward momentum with aggressiveness, heart and, yes, excitement.Thistrademark display of heaviness and melo dy shines often inside Unknown Nobodies’ DNA. “Madeleine,” a single off their The Perplexed Sky album, bears more grit and beauty. Breaking in with a string of repeated notes like a nurse carefully, and lovingly, placing stitches into skin, it’s soon followed by soft vocals reminiscent of Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl. Later on, rougher, yet still canorous vocals enter the fray. The track’s showcase of heaviness-meets-melody sounds strikingly like ‘90s grunge. The punk spirit swirls. “Punk speaks to me, personally, on a very visceral level,” singer/guitarist Jack Murray said in an email. “But so do addictive poppy hooks. I think our music brings those two together. And I think our sound has evolved a bit… and is still Evolutionevolving.”inbothtone and place. From Greensboro to beyond, Unknown Nobodies has weaved quite the musical tale living and breathing in places like New York and Baltimore. Murray, who has moved around a lot, started a precursor to the band in Gainesville, Fla. In fact, the origins of the band began when he was in grad school at the University of Florida with his friend Raj.They played a couple shows using different names. Murray described it as “very surf punk” at that“Morepoint.Agent Orange and Social Distortion,” Mur ray said. “But the band turned into something fully real when I moved to NYC, and we began playing a lot of shows. That’s when it became Unknown Nobodies.”Theband has opened for the likes of Smile Empty Soul, Flaw and British post-punk band Skeletal Family. And, of course, Greensboro has rocked to Unknown Nobodies. Drummer Chelsey Rená, who is the second half of Un known Nobodies, referred to playing in the city as a “great experience” for her because she has grown up watching her favorite bands play in the area.
Even with the new elements, the band’s upcoming sonic effort still has “the addictive melody aspect” that Murray has “perfected” since the band began, Rená said. Their goal is to debut the project next summer. They still haven’t de cided if it’ll be a full album or if they will break it up into two EPs. “Up to this point we have been a fully DIY band, but we’re going to shop this one to labels and see what happens,” he said. “We hope some one out there will be interested in covering the vinyl pressing and help with“Wedistribution.”wanttogive you something to bob your head to,” Rená said. “My goal is for listeners to lose themselves in every melody.”
CULTURE “... [A]nd being able to do that was nothing short of amazing,” said Rená, who had a dream about a red, shiny drum kit as a two-year-old.
Rená said she and Murray thought it would be a fun idea to mix their influences together and forge a new sound. “I’m influenced by modern punk and stuff with breakdowns etc,” she said. “Jack’s more into lo-fi and post-punk. You put the two together and you get heavy stuff that’s still upbeat and danceable.”
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The band’s new project, Fiction, is in the works, promising a new crop of sounds. Murray was “obsessed” with chorus and delay pedals on the last album. On Fiction, he said, it’s all about “the fuzz.”
The band’s next show is at Monstercade in Winston-Salem on Aug. 19. Learn more at nobodies.xyz/music
14 |TRIADTHEINSHOTAUG.18-23,2022 Summer night at Pinetop Sport Club. SHOT IN THE TRIAD BY CAROLYN DE BERRY Pinetop Road, Greensboro
15 202223,-18AUG.PUZZLES|‘Found Him!’ — getting good at hide and seek. SUDOKULASTWEEK’S ANSWERS: LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS: Across 1. Addams of “The Addams Family”, as abbreviated 5. “Star Wars” role played by a new actor in 2018 9. Duck that gets you down 14. First name in country music 15. Locale depicted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling 16. Name that usually comes up in interviews with “SNL” alumni 17. “Yes, we’re ___” 18. Feline ___ (natural cat litter 19.brand)“___ Vista Social Club” (1999 20.documentary)1987hitby Was (Not Was) with a “Flintstonesque” video [OK, there he is!] 23. “That was some time ___ ...” 24. Peak occurrence 25. Information start? 26. Piglet parent 29. “Young Sheldon” character Rosenbloom 31. Judge’s highest score on “Dancing With the Stars” 33. Town where Evel Knievel attempted to jump across the Snake River Canyon in 1974 [Tough to spot, but right there!] 39. Move around, as a mannequin 40. Tip of a boot 41. Type of booth 43. ABC hidden-camera show that was once a segment on “Primetime” [Took me a while, but found him!] 48. Heap 49. Actor Simu 50. “Toy Story” character 51. Nautical position 54. Long, thin musical instrument 57. Most-nominated female artist at the 2018 59.GrammysItmay extend a lease or passport [That’s it? He’s not even trying!] 65. Pore Strips brand 66. ___ Jr. (Pixar’s lamp mascot) 67. Work the land 68. No further than 69. Laptop company 70. Bygone U.S. gas station that’s still in 71.CanadaGirder composition 72. Email button 73. Squares on calendars Down 1. “Upstart ___” (sitcom based on the life of 3.2.Shakespeare)AirfilteracronymCain’sbrother © 2022 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) © 2022 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) CROSSWORD 4. Decaf brand 5. High-end cosmetics chain 6. Garfield’s foil 7. Provides, as aid 8. ___ a million 9. Nudged in the side 10. Promissory notes 11. Night vision? 12. Jadedness 13. Emulates a startled steed 21. Weekend-lover’s letters 22. “Chicken Little” turndown 26. NASCAR additive 27. “Whoa, hold it! That hurts!” 28. Yearn (for) 30. Sax classification 32. Gp. planning to add Sweden and Finland 34. “Cool,” but not as cool? 35. Rawls or Reed 36. Get rid of cryptocurrency 37. Quick photo developing time, once 38. “Ye ___ Curiosity Shoppe” 42. Pricy bagel topping 44. How one might know a longtime friend 45. Liberty org. 46. Chat app that builds communities called 47.“servers”Mandarin hybrid used in Asian cuisine 51. Photographer Diane 52. Trick move 53. Bill from the govt. 55. Earthenware cooking pots 56. Elicit by reasoning 58. Excited, with “up” 60. Great Lake or Canal 61. “Oregon Trail” team 62. “Frozen” queen 63. All up in others’ business 64. “Terrible” stage by Matt Jones
