BACKTALK
Last week, Nick Williams visited Deli Edison in Chapel Hill, where owner Sam Suchoff boasted of eating a half-million bagels in his lifetime.
ADRIAN HALPE questions the math: “I’m no journalist, but I did take two classes from UNC’s legendary Professor Shumaker and have always had an interest in the journalistic craft. It was my understanding that articles about people are supposed to contain their age, a detail the Deli Edison piece fails to include about Sam Suchoff. But let’s imagine he’s 60. Counting the extra day of leap years, this means Sam has lived 21,915 days, give or take a few. Five hundred thousand divided by 21,915 equals 22.81; that’s 22.81 bagels Sam would have had to have eaten every single day of his life since the day he was born! “Clearly, Sam’s comment is pure hyperbole, and your article should have noted that. Moreover, it’s such hyperbole that it makes me question whether Sam is on the up-and-up, and whether he really knows bagels or not. My guess is he does not. To be an expert on this subject, one must have been raised in New York City, preferably Brooklyn, and there’s no indication in your article that Sam has that qualification.” Williams replies: “Suchoff was, in fact, raised in Brooklyn.” SUSIE PAGE, a social worker, has questions about the ongoing McDougald Terrace debacle: “I met with a client recently who reported multiple health concerns in her McDougald Terrace townhouse. Kitchen cabinets were leaning heavily from the wall. Floors were repeatedly flooding, and the fix via the property management office was to avoid using the bathtub upstairs to bathe her children. My client is pregnant and worried about having a newborn in a home with possible mold exposure. As there was no foreseeable plan to address these deficiencies, I could only recommend she reach out to Legal Aid. “Now we know that HUD inspections failed McDougald’s in 2019 and 2017, citing life-threatening safety violations including misaligned ventilation systems to furnaces and gas-fed hot-water heaters. We also now know that the DHA board knew about these issues and assumed they would be addressed immediately. I want to know how crisis-management works at DHA and why the CEO’s performance review expressed regret that day-to-day management requirements were preventing him from focusing on ‘higher-level concerns.’”
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January 29, 2020
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voices
Whitewashing Raleigh’s Future Black voices and perspectives are being shut out, and the community knows it BY COURTNEY NAPIER backtalk@indyweek.com
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n New Year’s Day, I had the plea- Black and Brown people. And what about minimum-wage sure of meeting with the legendary workers, single parents, and those on a fixed income? The professor Linda Dallas, an accom- city council and its staff have said multiple times that plished painter and illustrator who they are not focused on providing housing for residents teaches in the art department at who make 30 percent of the area median income or less. St. Augustine’s University. We sat at Raleigh developers are looking to build homes for the the Starbucks on Peace Street and young singles, couples, and families moving to the area discussed how our city has grown and changed over for tech industry jobs, a sector of the market that is prethe years—and at an ever-dizzying pace. As we talked dominantly white. But this group comprises a dwindling about the transplants to Raleigh, she said something percentage of Raleigh’s actual projected population. profound: “Many of the 60-plus people moving to the Why is this happening—the whitewashing and area are moving away from the very cities that Raleigh “rich-washing” of Raleigh’s future? Why are our govis trying to emulate. And many of those who are moving ernment and media ignoring the proverbial writing on are people of color.” the wall? Immediately, I knew this needed to be written about, I can’t speak to the intent of these entities, but the this whitewashing of the future of Raleigh by our pol- effect is that Raleigh’s Black community is being ignored, iticians and our media. Nearly 30 percent of Raleigh’s and they know it. Their needs are being swept under the population is Black, and, along with every other minority rug, and they know it. Their knowledge and voices and group, it has grown since 2000. Experts estimate that perspectives are being shut out, and they know it. people of color will be the majority of Raleigh’s populaOur city and county are full of Black people with fascition by as early as 2025. nating and insightful perspectives on every topic covered But reading articles like those in the INDY’s 2040 in the Vision 2040 series. Vision series would have you believe that Black and Aaliyah Blaylock, creator of the Black Raleigh FaceLatinx leaders will not exist 20 years from now, at least book page, would have incredible insight regarding the not any worthy of their own column. Out of the 13 con- future of media. There are two HBCUs in downtown tributors tackling topics like the future of housing, pol- Raleigh with professors and students who could share itics, art, and the robot apocalypse—not counting the important perspectives on the future of education. sections on the future of the Triangle’s municipalities, Wanda Coker has been on the frontlines of the fight which had multiple authors—there was only one person for fair and affordable housing and deserves a column of color represented (shout-out to the realest, Zainab all her own. Mike Williams, the creator of the Black Baloch). Black culture was mentioned in the piece about on Black Project, is an authority on the Triangle’s arts hip-hop being a future subject of arts education, but it scene and has a clear vision of its future that ought to was written by a white man. be heard far and wide. Similarly, The News & Observer recognized former There were some brilliant minds represented in the DHIC executive director, Greg Warren, as its 2019 Tar 2040 Vision series, as there are in City Hall, but they Heel of the Year, but left out the fact that DHIC was do not accurately represent the diversity of Raleigh or founded by Raleigh’s first and only Black mayor, Clar- Wake County. The great science-fiction novelist Octavia ence Lightner, in 1974. It seems we didn’t exist as lead- Butler said, “Whites represent themselves, and that’s ers in the past, either. plenty. Share the burden.” When you look at City Hall, the future is just as pale. Black people exist in Raleigh’s future, and the future Conversations about affordable housing are mostly refer- is now. 2 ring to blue-collar workforce housing, meaning Raleigh’s Voices is made possible by contributions to the teachers, first responders, and government workers—proINDY Press Club. Join today at KeepItINDY.com. fessions where there is a gross underrepresentation of
COURTNEY NAPIER is a Raleigh native, community activist, and co-host of the podcast Mothering on the Margins.
