4.27 Indy Week

Y D N I E H T THE IDNODRYSEMENT ENDORESNEM UE S E S N I T ISS

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill April 27, 2022

I ED T Y L O V AR E VOTE N OW!

ur , o re tive a re isla . e . H e leg ary k ee tat rim w is al, s ing p h t er pr s t r ed he s f a t g s in 29 for t n i ot nts ces v rly eme al ra a E ors loc d en and

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Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 17

Mediterranean Deli owner Jamil Kadoura shows off the deli case, p. 24 PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

CONTENTS NEWS 3 5 7

Orange County voters face a tough choice in the NC House District 56 race. BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG In NC House District 37, three Democrats are vying to help turn the state House blue. BY JASMINE GALLUP Who will succeed Congressman David Price in North Carolina's 4th Congressional District? BY LENA GELLER

ENDORSEMENTS 11 12

Clip-out Voter Guide INDY Week's 2022 Primary Endorsements

BY INDY WEEK STAFF

ARTS & CULTURE

22 Arcane Carolinas, a podcast about the legends and lore of North and South Carolina, has grown into a budding media empire.

BY MICHAEL VENTULO-MANTOVANI

24 Mediterranean Deli owner Jamil Kadoura makes community giving a restaurant centerpiece. BY REBECCA SCHNEID 26 How a Filipino microbakery in Cary became a cult success.

BY GABI MENDICK

THE REGULARS 20 Culture Calendar

COVER llustration by Jon Fuller

WE M A DE THIS PUBLIS H ER S Wake County

MaryAnn Kearns

Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Edwards

John Hurld

Staff Writers Jasmine Gallup Thomasi McDonald Lena Geller

EDITOR I AL

Copy Editor Iza Wojciechowska

Durham/Orange/ Chatham Counties

Editor in Chief Jane Porter

April 27, 2022

C RE ATI V E

A D V E RTI S I N G

Creative Director

Wake County MaryAnn Kearns

Annie Maynard Graphic Designer

Jon Fuller Staff Photographer

Brett Villena

Durham/Orange/ Chatham Counties John Hurld Sales Digital Director & Classifieds Mathias Marchington

C I RC U L ATI O N Berry Media Group

Managing Editor Geoff West

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Contributors Madeline Crone, Grant Golden, Spencer Griffith, Lucas Hubbard, Brian Howe, Lewis Kendall, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Gabi Mendick, Anna Mudd, Dan Ruccia, Rachel Simon, Harris Wheless

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Orange County From left: Allen Buansi and Jonah Garson PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CANDIDATES

Voter’s Choice Between NC House 56 candidates Allen Buansi and Jonah Garson, Orange County voters may find it tough to decide who to send to Raleigh.

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG backtalk@indyweek.com

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n Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough, local political activists often say the primary elections are more impactful than the midterms.

This year, in Orange County, that’s never been truer.

It’s common knowledge that Democrats outnumber Republicans so vastly that whoever wins the Democratic primary is almost guaranteed to win in the fall. In 2018, for instance, state House Representative Verla Insko won reelection by a margin of 86 percent—the highest Democratic majority in North Carolina that year.

But last fall, Insko announced she is retiring after 26 years in the House. Two men—both young lawyers—have placed bids to take up her work in Orange County’s NC House District 56.

Allen Buansi first announced his run in an exclusive with the INDY Week back in September. Buansi served on the

Chapel Hill Town Council from 2017 to December 2021, and has experience practicing law at the UNC Center for Civil Rights.

Jonah Garson, the chair for the Orange County Democratic Party, announced his bid that month, too, just a week after Insko made her retirement plans public. Garson is an attorney at Parry Law in Chapel Hill with a focus on corporate law, and he served as the Democratic voter protection director during the 2019 special election.

Despite their differing backgrounds in the political arena, both Garson and Buansi say they bring the experience that will be vital to the role.

Buansi says his experience serving on Chapel Hill’s town council is critical.

“I’m the only one who has served in elected office,” Buansi says.

During his time on the council, Buansi helped to create and pass the Town Criminal Justice Debt Fund, a program which provides debt relief to community members facing excessive court fees, the first of its kind in the state.

Buansi also helped to increase funds to the town’s Emergency Housing Assistance program, approve a $10 million affordable housing bond, pass a nondiscrimination ordinance, and issue the town’s first Climate Action and Response Plan.

Buansi also notes his service at the state level. In 2018, Governor Roy Cooper appointed him to the Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees.

“I’m the only one that has that experience of actually working with Republicans to move forward important government business,” Buansi says.

Buansi says he believes his lived experiences also bring essential insights to his work. He says he’s been involved in politics since a young age, as he was first inspired by his mother’s work as an environmental justice activist.

“She was such an important part of my upbringing, such an important part of orienting me towards equity and civil rights for everyone,” Buansi says.

Being a working parent to young children also informs his work.

“That’s a perspective that is sorely lacking,” Buansi says. “And there’s so much more that our state can be doing to make life easier for working families, including providing childcare subsidies, funding more childcare subsidies, and paid parental leave for our teachers. And those are the kinds of issues that I have come to know well because I’m a working parent, because my wife and I have children under 18.”

Those who have worked closely with Buansi say they think his background in civil rights law gives him an important perspective, an ability to listen to disparate voices and to center communities of color.

Austin Hahn, Buansi’s campaign manager, says he feels Buansi’s experiences on town council and as a civil rights lawyer mean he knows how to “get in the weeds” with policy, and pass legislation across party lines.

“He really does his due diligence on policies, and knows how to build coalitions and go from split votes to unanimous voices,” Hahn says. “And [if] we’re in the minority in the House, that’s something we need.”

Max Winzelberg, a student field captain for Buansi who attends East Chapel Hill High School, says he believes Buansi has a sincere passion for the state and local community and wants to make them more equitable.

“I feel like Allen’s shown that he’s dedicated to this community,” Winzelberg says. “He’s grateful to have grown up here, and I think that sense of pride about North Carolina is what he wants everyone to experience INDYweek.com

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“I’m running because at a time when it’s not at all hyperbole to say that there’s a war on democracy in this country, we need legislators who are also organizers.”

Garson says Insko’s successor needs experience as an organizer.

“I’m running because, at a time when it’s not at all hyperbole to say that there’s a war on democracy in this country, we need legislators who are also organizers,” Garson says.

Garson highlights his experiences working as an organizer across both statewide and local politics, including holding multiple roles as a field coordinator for statewide legislative campaigns, working as the NC Democratic Party’s voter protection director for NC’s 2019 Special Congressional Elections, serving on the executive committee of the Chapel Hill Carrboro NAACP, and chairing the Orange County Democratic Party.

Garson says his experience organizing across the state is vital to pushing through the progressive policies he believes are important to voters in the district to a statewide level.

“If we want huge reinvestment in public education, if we want UNC governance reform to prevent destructive interference with our university and university system, if we want climate action with all urgency, if we want to win healthcare as a right—we need apower shift,” Garson says. “We don’t win that policy without changing the way we organize.”

Garson views the current political moment as a tipping point for statewide politics, one that hearkens back to his work as a student organizer at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he saw Democrats lose major footing during the 2010 midterm election due to what he views as a lack of involved organizing.

Garson notes that while he hasn’t served in elected office, he does have experience in working and aiding in legislative roles, including working as a policy staffer and voting rights attorney.

“My opponent does not have that legislative experience,” Garson says. “These positions are not rungs on a ladder. I’m running to do a job, and that job requires a particular experience set.”

As a UNC alumnus who had his “political coming of age” during his undergrad years, Garson says he tries to center student leaders within his campaign. Cora Martin, a UNC junior who serves as Gar4

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son’s field director, says they appreciate how Garson has prioritized student concerns, which they believe are often overlooked.

“That’s not something that candidates for office do, mostly because they assume that students don’t care and that they don’t want to vote. But students have always been organizers,” Martin says. “Jonah knows that students are the most powerful advocates for students, and he wants to hear what we want, so that when he’s elected he can enact meaningful change.”

Ali Fazal, a current legal fellow for Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) and a UNC alum who worked alongside Garson through Young Democrats, says Garson’s investment in student leadership could create meaningful progressive change for North Carolina.

“He will give so many students representation and a voice, where they feel like they’re actually being represented and it’s not just that ‘safe blue district,’” Fazal says. “We’ve been missing that sort of exciting progressive candidate, and I think Jonah will be that person.”

Representative Insko says she hopes that whichever candidate succeeds her will be dedicated to the district’s constituents.

“This is a very well-informed district with very informed, active voters,” Insko says.

“It’s really important for whoever succeeds me to be willing to stay in touch and provide a lot of information.”

In recent years, Insko says she’s focused on issues of higher education, economic resilience, and climate change. She says she hopes whoever her successor is will take up those torches and stress their importance to voters.

“Make sure that people are well-informed on any issue that’s really going to impact them,” Insko says. “Not just climate change, but any current issue that’s really going to impact people.”

As far as the two candidates, Inkso says she knows both Buansi and Garson, and feels confident in the experience both would bring to the role.

“They’re both very active and have made contributions,” Insko says. “I have two good candidates running to replace me and so the voters are fortunate to have to have that option.” W

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Wake County

Deciding District Republicans took back Wake’s House District 37 in 2020, but three Democrats are making their cases in a district that could help the party win the House.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

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hirty-five years ago, Holly Springs was a sleepy farming community. According to local lore, cows used to cross Sunset Lake Road twice a day. Today, however, that once rural two-lane road is set to expand into a four-lane thoroughfare, one of the many changes wrought by the town’s population boom.

In the past decade, as Raleigh has grown, young professionals and aspiring homeowners have spilled into Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina on the outskirts of Wake County. The rapid change has thrown the area into an existential crisis: embrace the “progress” of new apartment buildings, high-end restaurants, and busy highways, or fight tooth and nail to preserve the old, ranch-home style way of life?

After raging in local elections for years, that battle is now moving to May’s legislative primary. Three Democrats, all hoping to win a seat in the NC House of Representatives, are facing off in the District 37 race, an election dominated by issues of affordable housing and infrastructure.

Historically, District 37 is the most conservative in Wake. The predominantly white suburban neighborhoods in this southern part of the county are home to upperand middle-class families, farmers, veterans, and small business owners.

Following the decennial redistricting (in which the district’s borders retreated from downtown Apex and expanded north to Lake Wheeler Road), District 37 remains one of the few competitive districts in the state and is key in determining which party will control the state House.

Democrat Sydney Batch narrowly won the seat in 2018 amid an upswell of support from anti-Trump voters, besting Republican incumbent John Adcock by just 944 votes. But 2020 was a different story, as Republican voters turned out in unexpectedly high numbers. The GOP took back the district, with Republican Erin Paré defeating Batch by 3 percentage points.

Republicans, who currently make up about 52 percent of the district’s vote share, according to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, will likely have an edge in the upcoming election, says Andrew Taylor, a professor of political science at NC State University.

One reason is that Paré, the Republican incumbent, is running for reelection, and incumbency has its advantages; another is the natural cause and effect of politics.

“Midterms are generally unkind to the party that has the White House,” Taylor says. “Obviously, this is felt most dramatically in congressional races at the federal level, but it

does also often permeate down the ballot and affect state legislative candidates. You put those two things into place and what is a competitive district on paper, in 2022 at least, makes it more favorable to the Republicans.”

The three Democrats in May’s primary are Mary Bethel, an advocate for aging and disabled adults; Christine Kelly, a marketing manager at SAS and former member of the Holly Springs town council; and Elizabeth Parent, a server at a local restaurant and transplant from Washington state.

The winner will face Paré in November. During her two years in office, she has opposed mask mandates in Wake County schools and supported a bill that would have prohibited discussion of systemic racism and white privilege in U.S. history classes (HB 324, which Gov. Cooper vetoed).

She has also expressed concern about the effects of the proposed U.S. 401 bypass on local landowners and farmers in Holly Springs and Fuquay-Varina.

Bethel and Kelly are each longtime residents of southern Wake County, having lived in the area for 20-plus years.

Both have seen their neighborhoods change with population growth, but their reactions to that change differ significantly.

Kelly, a vocal opponent of the rapid growth in Holly Springs, was elected to the town council in 2017 on the promise of slowing construction, building up infrastructure like roads and water systems, and preserving trees and green space. After a bitterly divisive election, she got to work doing just that, trying to preserve the area’s smalltown feel and advocating for more community input on development projects.

Bethel has a more proactive approach to dealing with growth. While she also feels “steps must be taken to preserve the quality of life,” as she writes on her website, she wants to help aging and disabled adults stay in their homes with home repair help and property tax relief. She also supports offering incentives or tax breaks to first-time buyers.

“This issue needs to be addressed not only by localities (and) the General Assembly but also by the housing community, the advocates, the builders, developers,” Bethel says. “There won’t be easy solutions. But if we don’t (do anything), then people are going to continue to move out of the area. A lot of moderate-income and low-income people are finding it really hard to make ends meet.”

Bethel also wants to consider solutions like housing trust funds, affordable housing bonds, relaxed zoning regulations, building reuse and revitalization, and incentives for the construction of affordable housing.

Elizabeth Parent

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CANDIDATE

Bethel is a little more progressive than Kelly on issues of affordable housing, but ultimately, Parent blows them both out of the water. For Parent, a millennial and working-class mother, affordable housing is a top priority. Like many others, she struggled to afford a home and was only able to buy one with financial assistance. For her, it came in the form of a loan program for veteran families.

Parent says she wants to expand a home loan program that was successfully used in Chapel Hill to a statewide basis. The Community Home Trust helps people purchase a home through an income-based loan. Parent also wants to ban foreign investment in North Carolina, a practice that has decimated the housing supply and sent prices skyrocketing. The ban would apply to out-of-state buyers who have no intention of making a purchased house their primary residence.

“I’m from outside of Seattle, so I saw how that affected us firsthand,” Parent says. “I want to incorporate things that other places have used as a potential solution to this affordable housing issue. Why can’t we set the standard for other states?”

More About Mary Bethel Bethel, a kindly grandmother with a Southern twang, is a fierce advocate for seniors and people with disabilities. She was a lobbyist for AARP of North Carolina for 10 years and worked for the North Carolina Coalition on Aging. Healthcare is among her top priorities.

“The number one cause of personal bankruptcies in this country is medical debt. As many as 600,000 people could be eligible for benefits if North Carolina expanded Medicaid,” Bethel said during a candidate forum last week. “It also would help our struggling (rural) hospitals.”

Bethel thinks there is a lot of momentum for the expansion of Medicaid, particularly because Republicans may be softening on the issue, she says. An expansion could bring INDYweek.com

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up to $2 billion into the state’s economy.

Like the other Democrats running in District 37—an area with a large number of veterans and law enforcement officers—Bethel is in favor of “responsible gun reforms,” such as expanded background checks and red flag laws. Bethel seems like she might take a stronger stance on gun control if elected, however.

“I think our country is ready to talk about this more and make real hard decisions,” she said during the forum.

From left: Mary Bethel and Christine Kelly

More About Christine Kelly Kelly, a confident public speaker and energetic candidate, is on the same page as her primary opponents when it comes to issues like education and healthcare, but her plans seem more specific and actionable. At the candidate forum, Kelly discussed how she would work with Republicans by starting with a common goal.

“We will win some; we’ll lose some. But we’ve got to keep trying,” Kelly said.

On universal healthcare, “the solution is to sit down and start somewhere,” she says.

“Bring in some universal healthcare provisions as they did in other countries. You start and then you make it better.”

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Kelly is also a strong proponent of building up infrastructure and transportation. During her time on the Holly Springs council, Kelly supported the passage of a $40 million transportation bond. She also supported the adoption of tree preservation and historical preservation ordinances and helped ban the open carry of guns in public parks and government buildings.

“The gun lobby that came to attack us was incredible,” Kelly said, adding that their voices faded after the law was approved.

“The common sense thing to do was the right thing.”

Kelly is running for state office after losing a bid for Holly Springs mayor in 2021 when she was defeated by Sean Mayefskie by nearly

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CANDIDATES

22 percentage points, a margin that doesn’t bode well for her winning this House seat.

More About Elizabeth Parent Parent, 28, has a unique take on problems facing the state. As a former resident of Washington, she’s now seeing North Carolina struggle with many of the same problems her former neighbors did—housing affordability, weakening infrastructure, and the tech boom.

“If we don’t break ground on solutions like the commuter rail now, we are going to be grappling with more and more congestion every single day as more and more corpo-

rations move here,” Parent says, adding that public transportation would also help protect the environment and lower housing prices.

Parent is passionate about protecting the environment. She wants to expand the state’s recycling program, create algae farms to pull carbon out of the air, and take advantage of potential solar power inland and wind power offshore. She also strongly supports legalizing recreational marijuana, a move that massively boosted the state of Washington’s tax revenue.

“Once we legalized marijuana, our public funding went way up,” she said during the forum.

Parent, a survivor of sexual abuse, is also a strong advocate for women’s rights, survivor’s rights, and mental healthcare. She is all for bodily autonomy, she says, adding she will vote to uphold abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Ultimately, Parent says she is tired of politics as usual.

“It’s time to hold our politicians accountable,” she says. “North Carolinians deserve results. I believe that it takes a fresh perspective and a new voice, not the same old same old, to break things up and say, ‘Hey, this is a problem.’ It takes one person who is passionate, proactive, and is willing to have those conversations across the aisle to get work done.”W

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North Carolina Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Succession North Carolina’s Democratic primary for the Fourth Congressional District seat features a celebrity, a longtime local leader, and an energetic, progressive firebrand. Who will follow in the footsteps of Congressman David Price?

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

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ida Allam giggles and shows me her phone.

She’s on the “Students4Nida” TikTok page, watching a video set to an Alvin and the Chipmunks-esque cover of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” The five-second video uses one of TikTok’s most common formats, where the subject lip syncs to a song and overlays text that sort of matches the theme of the lyrics. In this one, a UNC-Chapel Hill freshman named Chase pairs the lyrics “Sitting on a park bench, thinking to myself” with text that reads “Being a true progressive that supports climate and economic justice.” Then, as chipmunk Taylor sings, “Hey, isn’t this easy,” Allam’s name flashes across the screen.

Among the eight candidates running in the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional

District, Allam is the only one with a student-led TikTok account, she tells me proudly.

Like New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—whose name has been hashtagged in so many TikToks that, when totaled, videos with #AOC have a cumulative 1.1 billion views—Allam excites young people.

When Representative David Price announced in October that he would retire after more than 30 years in office, Allam emerged as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed replacement with a staunchly progressive platform that includes support for a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. “I think it’s high time for North Carolina to have a fighter,” Allam told the INDY upon announcing her candidacy in November.

Allam is one of three frontrunners in the congressional race. She’s up against Valerie Foushee, a state senator with over two decades of experience in public office, and Clay Aiken, a former American Idol contestant and activist for children with disabilities with zero experience in elected office.

The newly redrawn 4th district includes all of Durham, Orange, Person, Alamance, and Granville Counties and the northeast corner of Caswell County. As the region is solidly liberal, the primary will most likely decide the general election, though if none of the candidates receive more than 30 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff election on July 26.

Allam and I are sitting in her dining room, which doubles as her campaign office. She opens her laptop to kick off a virtual phone bank and I see Chase from TikTok, this time framed in a box on Zoom. Like Chase, most of the phone bank volunteers are UNC students who seem wildly energetic despite it being exam season.

As an icebreaker, Allam asks participants to propose a name for her baby (she had announced her pregnancy that morning), and after they drop a few suggestions in the chat—Khadija, Lex, Leia—she gives them a script and a list of phone numbers and sets them off on their own.

The next day, the phone bankers joined 100 other UNC students, including basketball star Caleb Love, at a town hall on UNC’s campus. As encouraged, most attendees wore green shirts to celebrate Earth Day and endorse a Green New Deal.

Allam isn’t much older than her student supporters— she’s 28. She was born in Canada to Indian and Pakistani immigrant parents and moved to the Triangle at age five when her father got a job at IBM. (She became a naturalized US citizen in February 2008). She grew up in Wake County, attending public schools, and went on to get a degree in sustainable materials and technology from NC State.

In 2015, during Allam’s last year of college, three of her best friends—Deah Barakat, his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Yusor’s sister, Razan Abu-Salha—were murdered in their apartment in Chapel Hill. Barakat was a student at UNC’s School of Dentistry; Yusor and Razan were Allam’s classmates at NC State.

“The week they passed away, we were all supposed to go get our ears pierced together,” Allam says. “We were still kids.”

While many, including Allam, viewed the triple-homicide as a hate crime—all three victims were Muslim—federal authorities ultimately claimed they could not find sufficient evidence to categorize it as such and wrote the shooting off as a violent reaction to a parking dispute.

“That’s what really pushed me to realize that we INDYweek.com

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need to start stepping up and speaking up, not just for the Muslim community, but for all communities that haven’t had advocates for them in leadership spaces,” Allam says.

She started a club called NC State for Bernie while she was finishing school, and after graduating, landed a job as a political director for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. In 2017, she was elected third vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party—the first Muslim American elected to the party’s executive council—and went on to make history again three years later when she was elected to the Durham County Board of Commissioners, becoming the first Muslim woman elected to public office in North Carolina.

Durham City Council member Javiera Caballero, who has worked alongside Allam for several years and recently endorsed her congressional run, says that Allam is unparalleled in her ability to identify and draw attention to the issues of young people and underrepresented communities. Specifically, she emphasizes Allam’s work in fighting for a living wage, drumming up support for food pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic, and adding an Immigrant & Refugee Affairs Coordinator position to the county office.

“She has a lot of connections into communities that, in a lot of ways, people don’t even know they exist,” says Caballero. “How do you serve communities like that if you don’t even know they’re around?”

In addition to Caballero, Allam has received endorsements from other local leaders, notable elected officials like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, and more than 20 organizations, including the Durham People’s Alliance and Communication Workers of America.

Her platform for the upcoming election builds on the issues she’s championed during her years in office, including comprehensive healthcare coverage, a green energy economy, reproductive rights, and a $23 minimum wage.

“I just keep reminding myself, ‘Who am I doing this for?’” Allam says. “This isn’t just about me getting a title. This is about all the people’s faces that I’m going to bring with me.”

V

alerie Foushee’s hands are at “10 and 2” on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road.

“We’re gonna make sure we don’t make any sudden movements,” she says, preparing to switch lanes.

It’s the third time she’s said this while we’ve been in the car. She drives the same way she speaks: assertively, and with measure.

We’re heading to the home of an officer who works at local non-profit El Centro Hispano (and who asked not to be named, so we’re calling her Rosa). Rosa has offered to give Foushee a tour of neighborhoods in southeast Durham, particularly those with new housing developments, to help deepen Foushee’s understanding of the area’s constituency.

As far as the 4th district goes, Foushee is most knowledgeable of Orange County. She grew up in Chapel Hill during the 1960s as the oldest of six children and the child of teen parents and attended segregated schools until sixth grade. She graduated from Chapel Hill High School as class president and studied at UNC-Chapel 8

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State Sen. Valerie Foushee

PHOTO FROM NCGA

Hill, ultimately leaving college after two years; attending school while working multiple jobs was “too much at the time,” she says. Years later, at age 50, Foushee returned to the university to complete degrees in political science and Afro and African-American studies.

Between her stints at UNC, Foushee worked for the Chapel Hill Police Department and volunteered at her children’s elementary school; for a period of time, she would work 12-hour overnight shifts as a desk officer in the jail, get off at 7 a.m., and head straight to the school to help out in classrooms. There, she witnessed firsthand the achievement gap between majority and minority students, motivating her to run for school board. She later became the first African American woman elected to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, then joined the North Carolina General Assembly, serving in the House and, most recently, the Senate.

Two of Foushee’s colleagues, state senators Natalie Murdock and Mike Woodard, spoke to me at length about Foushee’s achievements in office. Murdock, who returned my call despite being sick because “I’d do anything for Senator Foushee,” highlighted Foushee’s role as a champion of education and her work in passing legislation that banned child marriage, increased access to healthcare, and outlawed race-based discrimination against natural hair.

“I’ll brag on her because she won’t do it herself,” Murdock says.

Woodard emphasized Foushee’s environmental record—she’s worked on bills related to water quality,

sustainable energy, and cleaning up coal ash—and complimented her connection to her constituents.

“Her knowledge of her district is among the best of any colleague I’ve worked with,” Woodard says. “She just knows her community so well.”

In addition to Murdock and Woodard, Foushee has been endorsed by a number of other state senators plus US Representative G.K. Butterfield, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

When Foushee and I arrive at Rosa’s house, we hop into a sedan and set off on an hour-long crawl around a dozen surrounding neighborhoods. As we circle through cul-de-sacs and parking lots, Foushee asks Rosa the same two questions again and again: who lives here?

And what are their most pressing needs?

The majority of people down this road have children, so they care a lot about education, Rosa says, cruising through one development.

“Where are the activities?” Foushee asks, noting that the neighborhood doesn’t have a park. “Where can the children go for passive recreation?”

There are plans to build a playground, Rosa says, but the plot of land is right next to a thicket of high voltage power towers, so parents are worried about radiation.

Foushee takes a mental note.

We continue on our trek. This neighborhood is wealthy and white, Rosa explains—they have million-dollar houses, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and food trucks on Wednesday nights. This area has a high level of crime; two girls were killed here in a drive-by, and it was never solved. These apartments are owned by slumlords; the residents are mostly Black and Hispanic seniors, and they were hit very hard by COVID-19.

When we pass a house with a “Valerie Foushee for Congress” sign in the front yard, Foushee shrieks with delight.

Back at Foushee’s campaign office near downtown Durham, we sit down for a more formal interview and I ask her one question: “Tell me about your upbringing,” which she answers—and then, unprompted, goes on to answer nearly every other question on my list. She lays out her qualifications, discusses how her upbringing shaped her values, and walks me through her priorities if elected to Congress—reforming the criminal justice system, enhancing equity in education, implementing affordable healthcare, combating environmental racism—in a concise 20 minutes.

Foushee has clearly done this many times before. But when I ask the one question that she didn’t preemptively address, her disposition starts to shift.

A

fter we order sweet tea, I ask Clay Aiken if he chose to meet me at The Blue Note Grill because of the symbolism of the restaurant’s name: he’s a Democratic candidate (“blue”) and a famous singer (“note”) who I’m going to “grill.”

Unfortunately, he’s not that clever, he says: he’d just spoken to the Friends of Durham PAC in the adjoining event room, so lunching here made sense. He’d also been at Blue Note the previous night to sing at an open mic— the only time he’s performed publicly in the past decade,

aside from starring in a 2019 stage production of Grease (“obviously, I played Sandy”).

Aiken was born in Raleigh in 1978. For the first five years of his life, he spent most of his time at his grandparents’ house in Bahama, where he and his mother camped out to hide from his abusive alcoholic father.

When his mother remarried, they moved back to Raleigh.

His family has lived in North Carolina for at least 10 generations, and most of his relatives are Republicans.

But during the 1992 presidential election, Aiken grew interested in the values Democrats hold and invited Rep. David Price to speak to his eighth-grade class. He was immediately sold.

“I gravitated towards the group that spoke up for the underdog,” Aiken says. “Democrats were the empathetic party who were fighting for the needs of others.”

While pursuing a degree in special education at UNC-Charlotte, Aiken worked as a caregiver for an autistic boy named Mike. During his last year of college, Aiken competed on American Idol, finishing in second place; after that, he returned to Charlotte to complete his degree and co-found the National Inclusion Project—a nonprofit committed to creating programs that allow disabled children to participate in activities with their non-disabled peers—with Mike’s mother, Diane Bubel.

Bubel says Aiken’s dedication to the disabled community exemplifies how he would be a strong representative in office.

“As small, tired minority community members, we needed a champion,” Bubel says. “That’s who he’s been for us. And that’s the kind of representative he’s going to be for District 4.”

In the years following Idol, Aiken also made music and traveled as a UNICEF ambassador. He largely retired from the music industry in 2014, when he decided to run for the US House in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, losing the election to Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers. (After losing her seat in the 2016 primary, Ellmers is running for Congress again this year, in the 13th Congressional District).

Aiken has received substantial criticism online from people who claim that unlike Allam and Foushee, who live in Durham and Orange Counties, Aiken doesn’t live in the 4th district. In a written statement, Aiken’s campaign clarified that though the redrawn congressional map placed the district line 900 yards from his house, Aiken has lived in the 4th district for the majority of his life and plans to relocate before the new map takes effect.

After briefing me on his background, Aiken takes a bite of baked beans and jumps into his priorities for the 4th district: transportation, affordable housing, and education are the big three.

Despite his lack of experience in office, he seems informed on both the region’s pressing needs and political history, constantly referencing former elections and bits of legislation. He speaks at length about addressing the unintended consequences of Title 1, a program that was “wonderful on paper” but has “incentivized certain school districts to create high poverty schools.”

When I ask Aiken about LGBTQ rights, mentioning that this seems to be a central part of his platform—if elected, he would be the first gay man from the South to join Congress—he shakes his head.

copter to throw the first pitch at a Bull’s game in 2003, and it’s hard to believe that this is the same guy.

But his ability to pass as an average Joe doesn’t negate the fact that, if it weren’t for name recognition, his lack of experience would’ve likely quashed his ability to raise money and secure votes.

Instead of running in this election, I ask, did he consider using his notoriety to throw support behind a different, more qualified candidate?

He cackles, tells me I’ve been on Twitter too much, then says, “No,” reminding me that he’s the only candidate who’s won a Democratic congressional primary before.

And, he says, his fame is actually what will help him accomplish things with the opposing party.

“Are Republicans interested in talking to me about policies? Not first, of course; they want to talk about American Idol. They want to take a picture for their daughter or their mother,” Aiken says. “But it’s a way to get people to sit down and talk to you.”

A

Clay Aiken

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT

“I haven’t focused on it simply because I don’t want people to think that that’s why I’m running,” Aiken tells me. “And gosh, it’s a little sad that you did.”

It’s an important issue, he adds, but he’s tired of being seen as a single-issue candidate. At county party meetings, when others have announced that they would be the first this or the first that, he says he comes close to labeling himself as “the first person over six feet who lives on my street to be elected to Congress.”

What sets him apart is not his identity as a gay man, he says; rather, it’s his desire and ability to combat increasing political polarization by collaborating with representatives across the aisle. Aiken describes his opponents as more focused on “activism than action.”

“We need action and attention and intention to actually get some shit done,” he says.

Aiken loves expletives—over the course of our twohour meal, he curses dozens of times, always dropping his voice to a low whisper but mouthing the words dramatically. The words he won’t say are “Madison Cawthorn” and “Mark Robinson,” whom he calls “he who shall not be named” and “you know who.” He likes to punctuate statements by saying, “and you can quote me on that”—for instance, he drops the phrase after stating that Allam is not a terrorist and “anyone who says she is can kiss both cheeks of my ass.”

Most of all, for a celebrity, Aiken is exceedingly normal; when our server asks for a picture with him, for a moment I forget why she would want one. One of my earliest memories is watching Aiken climb out of a heli-

fter wrapping up the phone bank, Allam and I head over to a meet-and-greet in Durham City Council member Jillian Johnson’s front yard, where Allam mingles with some 25 people as they sip cans of La Croix and snack on finger foods from Costco.

This cohort of supporters is significantly older than the group I saw on Zoom, with most attendees looking to be in their 40s or 50s. As noted in a recent News & Observer article, it’s important that Allam focuses as much on older voters as she does on young ones; if the primary leads to a runoff in July, many college students won’t be in town to cast a ballot.

At the meet-and-greet, everybody seems to be talking about the same thing. In hushed tones, they ask me if I’ve heard about the massive amount of money that the pro-Israel group AIPAC recently donated to Foushee’s campaign.

Many interpret the contribution as an attempt to prevent Allam, who has criticized Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, from being elected, and view it as extremely concerning given AIPAC’s endorsement last month of 37 Republicans who believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Johnson says that up until recently, she saw Foushee as a strong second choice. But since the contribution from AIPAC, which she describes as a “right-wing fear mongering organization,” she no longer holds this belief.

“Raising money from the people you are asking to represent is a way of staying accountable to those individuals,” Johnson says. “So raising half of your money from a single source, it doesn’t show that you have the ability to appeal to and represent a broad group of people.”

Attendees also discuss the Islamophobic polls that have been circulating online and conducted through phone calls, one of which asks participants to respond to a statement that describes Allam admiring a woman who “showed support for a terrorist who was convicted of bombing a supermarket.”

Allam tells me that she’s received a number of death threats during her campaign—probably many more than she’s aware of, as there’s an inbox that only her campaign manager can access and her husband makes a point to INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

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“It’s very painful to be painted as something I’m not. I was fighting for a progressive Congress before those folks on Twitter knew how to spell ‘progressive.’”

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sift through their snail mail before Allam can see it.

“These polls, they’re just words, but unfortunately, we know from this district having one of the most heinous Islamophobic attacks in recent history, people act on it,” Allam says.

There are rumors that Foushee or her allies are responsible for the polls. In a written statement to the INDY, Foushee’s campaign refuted these allegations.

“They are not polls from our campaign and we have no knowledge of where they are coming from or who is paying for them,” the statement reads. “That said, if we saw an ad on any platform that used that kind of rhetoric or language, we would denounce it and call for it to be taken down.”

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ccording to FEC reports, Aiken has raised the least amount of money of the three frontrunners, with $444,389 in pocket as of April 1. Foushee, with deep roots and years of public service in the district, has raised $480,540, the second most. And Allam has raised the most money so far, $657,127.

While Foushee’s large individual donations are the most localized of the three— people associated with Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill are two of her top contributors—more than half of her quarterly funding came in the form of bundled local and non-local individual contributions from AIPAC, which led to a Twitter firestorm from local progressives and caused the Progressive Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party to pull its endorsement.

In addition to AIPAC’s bundle of donations, a super PAC called Protect Our Future recently spent more than $800,000 on advertising for Foushee.

Protect Our Future is backed primarily by Sam Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old cryptocurrency billionaire. The PAC has also spent roughly $11 million in support of four other Democratic House candidates, including Ohio Rep. Shontel Brown and

Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath in their bids for reelection.

When I ask Foushee why she hasn’t denounced the bundled contributions from AIPAC and outside spending by Protect Our Future, she stiffens in her seat.

Foushee is not a woman who likes any sudden movements, and though the question didn’t seem to catch her off guard, it’s also not one she has much experience answering.

She thanks me for giving her an opportunity to share her side of the story, then says she wishes money was not so crucial to running campaigns.

“I’ve never had to raise funds to this extent,” Foushee says, later adding that, “It is a thing that Black women in particular are not very successful in raising capital.”

She doesn’t comment on the support from the crypto billionaire—she just learned about it a few hours ago, she says.

Regarding AIPAC, Foushee says the organization supports her because of her position on Israel, which is fairly mainstream: she believes we should be working toward a two-state solution, but also that Israel should have the ability to defend itself.

“Israel has been an ally to this country for more than 70 years with keeping peace in that area, the most volatile area in the world,” Foushee says.

She feels like a scapegoat—a number of other state Democrats have accepted donations from AIPAC, including state Sen. Jeff Jackson and Reps. Deborah Ross and Alma Adams—and she’s also frustrated that the contribution is overshadowing her lifelong commitment to progressivism.

“It’s very painful to be painted as something I’m not,” she says. “I was fighting for a progressive Congress before those folks on Twitter knew how to spell ‘progressive.’”

After this line, Foushee steps out of the room to gather herself. When she comes back, there are tears in her eyes.

“They may be successful in having me defeated in this election,” she says. “But they won’t stop me from serving.”W

INDY WEEK

Voter Guide State & Federal U.S. Senate D Primary: Cheri Beasley R Primary: No endorsement US House: Congressional District 4 D Primary: Nida Allam R Primary: No endorsement US House Congressional District 13

Supreme Court, Seat 5

NC House District 35

R Primary: No endorsement

R Primary: No endorsement

NC Senate District 13

NC House District 37

D Primary: Lisa Grafstein

D Primary: Elizabeth Parent

R Primary: No endorsement

NC House District 40

NC Senate District 18

D Primary: Joe John

R Primary: No endorsement

NC House District 50

NC Senate District 22

D Primary: Renee Price

R Primary: No endorsement

NC House District 56

D Primary: Sam Searcy

NC Senate District 23

Jonah Garson Allen Buansi

R Primary: No endorsement

D Primary: Graig Meyer

NC House District 66

NC Court of Appeals, Seat 9

R Primary: No endorsement

D Primary: Sarah Crawford

R Primary: No endorsement

NC House District 33

NC District Court 14, Seat 1

NC Court of Appeals, Seat 11

D Primary: Rosa Gill

Dave Hall

R Primary: No endorsement

NC House District 34 R Primary: No endorsement

NC District Court 14, Seat 3 Kevin Jones

THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

Wake County

Durham County

Wake County Board of Commissioners, District 1

Durham District Attorney

Donald Mial Shaun Pollenz Wake County Board of Commissioners, District 3 Cindy Sinkez Wake County Sheriff D Primary: Willie Rowe R Primary: No endorsement Wake County District Attorney Damon Chetson Cary Town Council At-Large Not endorsing Cary Town Council District A Not endorsing

Satana Deberry Durham Clerk of Court

Durham Board of Education, District B Millicent Rogers NC Superior Court District 15B, Seat 1 No endorsement

Archie Smith Aminah Thompson Durham Sheriff Clarence Birkhead Durham Board of Education, District 1 Emily Chávez Durham Board of Education, District 2 Bettina Umstead Durham Board of Education, District 3 Matt Sears Durham Board of Education, District 4 Natalie Beyer

Orange County Orange/Chatham County District Attorney Jeff Nieman Kayley Taber

Orange County Register of Deeds Mark Chilton

Orange County Board of Education Sarah Smylie Ashley Wheeler

Carrboro Town Council Eliazar Posada

Cary Town Council District C Not endorsing

INDYweek.com

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US HOUSE: CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 4

U N I T E D S TAT E S

Senate & House THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

Welcome the INDY's 2022 primary endorsements!

Here you'll find our recommendtions in 29 races covering the US House and Senate, the state legislature, sheriffs, judges, district attorneys, town council and county board of commissioners candidates, and more. It's a lot, and for some of these races, we couldn't pick just one candidate—so we endorsed two.

We're also including a tear-out voting guide to take with you to the polls that lists our picks. Early voting starts tomorrow and Election Day is May 17. Be sure to cast your ballot and make your voice heard.

Nida Allam (D) Other Candidates: Valerie Foushee, Clay Aiken, Crystal Cavalier, Matt Grooms, Stephen Valentine, Ashley Ward, Richard Watkins Longtime US Rep. David Price will be a hard act to follow, but two of the frontrunners in the race to fill his seat—Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam and State Senator Valerie Foushee—are both exceptionally qualified public servants who would make history if elected: Allam as the first Muslim woman to represent the district, and Foushee as the first African American woman.

As a county commissioner, Allam successfully implemented an Immigrant and Refugee Services Coordinator position and spearheaded a movement to provide property tax relief for low-income residents.

She previously worked as a political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and served as Third Vice Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. Allam says she would be an “unapologetic progressive fighter in Congress” and champions Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a $23 federal minimum wage.

Foushee has more than two decades of experience in elected office. She has served on the school board, the Orange County Board of Commissioners, and in the state House and Senate. But Foushee, whether fairly or not, has recently come under fire for accepting more than half of her campaign funding from AIPAC, a right-leaning, pro-Israel organization that has endorsed more than 37 Republicans who believe Donald Trump to be the lawful winner of the 2020 presidential election.

While both candidates would make excellent representatives in the US House—and there’s maybe a case to be made for a vote for American Idol star Clay Aiken (see our story on page 7)—ultimately, Allam’s commitment to running a grassroots campaign, and the fact that she makes young people in her district excited about voting and gets them engaged with political issues—makes her the best choice to represent the progressive district.

U . S . S E N AT E

R Primary: No endorsement

Cheri Beasley (D)

US HOUSE: CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 13

Other Candidates: James Carr Jr., Robert Colon, Alyssia Rose Hammond, Constance Johnson, Tobias LaGrone, BK Maginnis, Rett Newton, Marcus Williams, Greg Antoine, Chrelle Booker,

Sam Searcy (D) Other Candidates: Wiley Nickel, Nathan Click, Denton Lee, Jamie Bowles

Thirty-four US Senate seats are up for grabs in November’s general election; fewer than 10 are considered competitive. One is the seat left open with the pending retirement of Republican Senator Richard Burr, which makes the question of which candidate to choose in the Democratic primary all the more pressing since that person might actually get to Washington.

The good news is you don’t have to think too hard.

Ahead of the May primary, we endorsed candidates in 29 races, and this one was by far the easiest: Cheri Beasley.

Check the box, return in November, and check it again.

From public defender to chief justice of the state Supreme Court, Beasley is not only eminently qualified but outspoken in all the best ways. Reform-minded, she used her judicial pulpit to raise awareness of the systemic racial inequity that has long plagued the criminal justice system and spearheaded the creation of a commission tasked with studying ways to bring more equity and fairness to the courtroom.

Now running for Senate, Beasley’s priorities have broadened to include expanding affordable healthcare, improving housing affordability, and protecting reproductive rights. We join Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, NC AFL-CIO, and many others with a wholehearted endorsement.

All 435 voting members of the US House are up for reelection. But in our gerrymandered country, fewer than 30 seats are projected to be true toss-up races in November between the eventual Democratic and Republican primary winners. This is one of them.

So, if you’re pragmatic (and we are this year), the question comes down to this: which candidate is most likely to win over centrists, unaffiliated, and swing voters in southern Wake County and a whole lot of rural Johnston, Harnett, Wayne counties. For us, that’s Sam Searcy.

Also, we like the guy: a vodka distiller turned politician, he fought to expand Medicaid and increase school funding as a state senator in District 17, or southern Wake County (as mentioned earlier). Like other Democrats in the race, he’s also an advocate for voting and reproductive rights. But unlike his opponents, Searcy is the only Democrat to flip a state district from red to blue, which he did in 2018 by defeating a three-term Republican incumbent. Unlike presumptive favorite (and money frontrunner) Wiley Nickel, Searcy also lives in the district (and presumably knows some folks there by name). Democrats are going to lose seats in November. This one, we believe, Searcy can get.

R Primary: No endorsement

R Primary: No endorsement

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N C S E N AT E D I S T R I C T 2 3

NORTH CAROLINA

Graig Meyer (D)

Senate & House

THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

N C S E N AT E D I S T R I C T 1 3

Lisa Grafstein (D) Other Candidates: Patrick Buffkin Buffkin and Grafstein are both qualified candidates and agree on many of the big-ticket progressive priorities championed by Democrats in the NC General Assembly: expanding Medicaid, funding the Leandro mandate, investing in renewable energy and public transit, and combating a growing affordable housing crisis that affects not only constituents of this North Raleigh district but residents statewide. We believe Grafstein is the best candidate to tackle them.

A civil rights attorney with a history of representing North Carolinians facing various types of discrimination, Grafstein is an advocate of justice in all its forms. Currently, she works for Disability Rights North Carolina, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of those with disabilities. Her world experience working closely with the mistreated and underserved speaks to a selfless passion to improve the lives of others. It’s a great recipe for a state senator and offsets any concern about her lack of political experience.

As a member of Raleigh’s city council, Buffkin no doubt understands the minutiae of governing and has a deep knowledge of the issues plaguing the city, and state, from housing affordability to infrastructure demands to unaddressed public safety reform. He’s not a bad choice, but we’re swayed by Grafstein’s idealism and force of will.

R Primary: No endorsement

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 33

Rosa Gill (D) Other Candidates: Nate Blanton Rosa Gill has served in the General Assembly since 2009, when she was appointed to her seat by then-Gov. Bev Perdue. A reliable advocate for public education (and a former educator herself), Gill has championed higher pay for teachers, funding for Pre-K through post-secondary education, and professional development for teachers in order to best serve a diverse student population. Additionally, Gill served on Wake County’s school board, and in the legislature, served as the Democratic Minority Whip and chaired the Democratic House Education Workgroup.

We don’t know much about Gill’s challenger, Nate Blanton, except for what’s on his website.

Admittedly, Blanton has an interesting background as a Navy veteran who studied nuclear waste policy and nonproliferation at NC State. Currently, Blanton works as an operator with Duke Energy at Harris Nuclear Plant. Blanton has worked as a precinct chair but is otherwise a political newcomer; we’re going with Gill for her experience.

Other Candidates: Jamie DeMent Holcomb Encompassing all of Orange County (plus Person and Caswell), North Carolina’s newly drawn Senate District 23 will be fairly blue and the state at large needs as many proven progressives within its legislative ranks as possible.

That’s why we’re endorsing Graig Meyer.

Meyer has served as a state representative since 2013 and first ran while working in the state’s public schools on a pro-public education platform. And Meyer has solid accomplishments to show for his time in Raleigh, including leading on legislation that would promote social equity through cannabis legalization, create universal paid family leave for those who have a child or need to care for a family member, and provide voter registration services and other assistance to would-be voters should a voter ID requirement become law. That’s not to mention the important work Meyer has done to pressure the legislature to support the Leandro mandate and to strengthen the Democratic caucus through service as Recruitment, Finance, and Campaign chairs.

Meyer’s opponent, Jamie DeMent Holcomb, has an impressively diverse life experience as a Capitol Hill aide, restaurant owner, farmer, cookbook author, and the director of Chapel Hill’s Kidzu Museum, but she lacks the proven track record and legislative experience that Meyer has. We hope to see Holcomb run for office again in the future.

R Primary: No endorsement

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 37

Elizabeth Parent (D) Other Candidates: Mary Bethel, Christine Kelly Elizabeth Parent, a server and host at a local restaurant, is 28 years old and makes $2.50 an hour, plus tips. In a state legislature dominated by geriatric white lawyers and business owners, we need more people like her.

If elected, Parent will represent the younger generation, millennials who are eager for change and ready for more progressive policies. In the most conservative district in Wake County, Parent offers a refreshing take on issues of affordable housing, the environment, and rights for women and LGBTQ people.

Parent supports Medicaid expansion, increased pay for teachers, and investment in renewable energy. She is also in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana, independent redistricting, and raising the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.

Parent’s working-class background could make her a solid foil for Republican Erin Parè in the fall.

Christine Kelly, a former member of the Holly Springs Town Council, championed slow growth policies during her four-year tenure. Last fall, Kelly lost her race for mayor by a wide margin to a Republican opponent—that’s concerning.

But Kelly is a solid candidate and she would be a reliable vote in the state House.

Mary Bethel, a former AARP lobbyist, is an advocate for seniors and those with disabilities and is running on a health care-focused platform. Like Kelly, Bethel is also a perfectly good candidate, but neither are as compelling as Parent.

INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

13

NORTH CAROLINA

Senate & House

INDY ENDORSEMENTS

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 40

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 50

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 66

Joe John (D)

Renee Price (D)

Sarah Crawford (D)

Other Candidates: Marguerite Creel

Other Candidates: Matt Hughes

Other Candidates: Wesley Knott, Jeremiah Pierce

Again, we’re going with incumbent experience in our endorsement of Joe John, and John has a long record of service to North Carolina.

A state representative first elected in 2016, John has also served as a judge on state district and superior courts as well as as an associate justice on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Additionally, John served as the director of the State Crime Laboratory from 2010 to 2014 after he was appointed by then-attorney general Roy Cooper. Formerly, John headed the NC DMV. In the House, John has made the fight to end partisan gerrymandering a signature issue, the topic of the first bill he sponsored. John has also worked on bipartisan legislation that allows inmates to work toward community college degrees and job training before release.

John’s platform is straightforward: advocating to fund the Leandro mandate, ending gerrymandering, pushing for Medicaid expansion, and preserving the independence of the judiciary.

John’s opponent, Marguerite Creel, who owns a tutoring company, looks to have a fairly detailed platform around strengthening education, ensuring reliable energy services, and caring for the elderly in the wake of COVID-19. But Creel has no political experience that we can discern. John is the stronger candidate in this race.

This was a tough choice between two hard-working, experienced candidates. In the end, we decided to endorse Renee Price because what we heard most from the people who know and work with her is that Price really cares about other people.

From early on in her career, Price has worked for nonprofits and government organizations in the realms of housing and neighborhood revitalization, environmental justice, farmworkers’ rights, and natural resource conservation. Price has served on the Orange County Board of Commissioners since 2012, and in 2020, her colleagues on the board elected her to serve as chair. Price is also active with the NC Association of County Commissioners, and she received an award for her work as an outstanding county commissioner in 2020.

Matt Hughes would also make an excellent state representative. Appointed chair of the Orange County Democratic Party in 2011 and having served as Second Vice Chair of the NC Democratic Party since 2017, Hughes also serves on the Hillsborough town board after he was appointed following a vacancy in 2018 and then elected in 2019.

Both Hughes and Price are solid candidates. We’re going with Price for her deep connections to, and engagement with, the people of her district.

A one-term state senator (whose senate district boundaries changed after redistricting), Crawford is now running for the NC House to represent the residents of eastern Wake County. Currently the CEO of the Tammy Lynn Center for Developmental Disabilities, Crawford worked previously to serve constituents in the congressional offices of US Reps.

Bob Etheridge and David Price. Crawford also has significant nonprofit and community leadership experience, including serving on the board of directors for a domestic violence support group. In the legislature, Crawford cites her bipartisan achievements in lowering taxes for families by increasing the child tax deduction, raising the minimum wage to $15 for workers under Medicaid, and investing $1 billion for broadband access.

One of Crawford’s challengers, Jeremiah Pierce, is an 8th-grade teacher at Wake County public schools and a strong advocate for public education. The other challenger, Wesley Knott, is a former precinct chair and district coordinator. While both Pierce and Knott are no doubt strong progressive candidates, Crawford has a record of getting elected—and getting things done—in an area of Wake County that can lean conservative.

NC HOUSE DISTRICT 56

Jonah Garson, Allen Buansi (D) This was truly an impossible choice to make and while it’s somewhat of a cop-out, we didn’t feel we could choose between Jonah Garson and Allen Buansi. And so, as with a few other races, we’re endorsing both candidates.

Buansi, a civil rights lawyer, served on Chapel Hill’s town council from 2017 to 2021 where he helped create and pass the town’s Criminal Justice Debt Fund (see our story on page 3), assist in increasing funding for Chapel Hill’s Emergency Housing Assistance program, and pass the town’s $10 million affordable housing bond and a non-discrimination ordinance.

On top of that, everyone says Buansi is just a really nice guy.

But ditto for Garson, who is popular among college students on UNC’s campus.

Though Garson hasn’t held elected office, he is described by people who know him as a workhorse and his contributions to the Democratic Party are innumerable.

Currently the chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, Garson has traveled all across the state in the past decade as a field organizer working to get Democrats elected to the legislature. Garson’s tenacity and dedication will serve Democrats—who have been sidelined by gerrymandering over the past decade—well if they are to continue to organize, push a progressive agenda, and win many more future elections with the potential to secure a majority this decade. Garson has a vision for that path forward.

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N C D I S T R I C T C O U R T 1 4 , S E AT 1

Dave Hall Other Candidates: Jessica Major Incumbent Dave Hall brings first-hand experience to a city in the throes of a gun violence epidemic: in 2013 he was an innocent bystander when he was struck by gunfire. The NC Central Law School graduate says he left private practice to determine what safety looked like for his family and community. He concluded that it begins with accountability and opportunity for individuals who come into contact with the legal system.

First elected as district court judge in 2018, Hall previously worked to end mass incarceration as a civil rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, along with working to expunge criminal records for more than 5,000 clients, and helping them restore their driver’s licenses.

While working with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Hall was involved with the lobbying efforts of the Raleigh-based NC Second Chance Alliance, a nonpartisan agency that advocates on behalf of justice-involved individuals.

“That lobbying work led to dismissed charges being automatically expunged,” Hall told the INDY this week. “Now that I’m on the bench it’s exciting to see the work we did come to fruition with automatic expungements.”

Jessica Major would likely make a fine judge, too. But Hall is more experienced.

N C D I S T R I C T C O U R T 1 4 , S E AT 3

Kevin Jones Other Candidates: Pat Evans First elected in 2002, incumbent Pat Evans did not garner endorsements from the city’s two leading political action committees, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, or the People’s Alliance. However, the veteran judge is endorsed by the nonpartisan Friends of Durham PAC who describes her as an experienced and caring judge who demonstrates a “tough love approach” to young offenders who have made poor choices, but need a second chance to become productive citizens.

Her challenger, Kevin Jones, a former elementary school teacher who has practiced law in the Bull City for more than two decades, did win Durham Committee and People Alliance’s influential PACs’ endorsements. The INDY, too, is impressed with Jones’ progressive vision and shares his concern about a judicial disconnect from ordinary people’s lives often leading to unfair prison sentences and unrealistic court fines. The INDY also agrees with Jones’ assertion that “in an effort to avoid being labeled 'soft on crime' those who are tasked with the responsibility of administering justice are 'hard on people.'”

We endorse Jones.

Other Races:

NC Senate District 22

NC Court of Appeals, Seat 9

Supreme Court, Seat 5

NC House District 34

NC Court of Appeals, Seat 11

NC Senate District 18

NC House District 35

R Primaries: No endorsements

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THE TRIANGLE

Wake County

THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

WA K E C O U N T Y D I S T R I C T AT T O R N E Y

Damon Chetson Other Candidates: Lorrin Freeman We like incumbent Lorrin Freeman. She is an honest, even-tempered, forthright public servant who takes the work of her office seriously. She is transparent with the media and is clearly guided by a worldview that shapes her moral and ethical approach to the job. Additionally, we applaud the criminal justice policies she worked to implement with other court officials, including lowering bail bond minimums and enhancing pretrial services.

But a progressive, reform-minded DA Freeman is not. Freeman prosecutes low-level drug possession and opposes a bill that would prohibit juveniles from receiving life sentences. In the past, she has sought the death penalty, which she says “should be reserved for the most egregious cases.”

As a progressive publication, we don’t feel we can endorse a prosecutor who will seek the death penalty. And although Freeman notes that her office has not declared a case capital since 2017, she has tried six capital cases before a jury during her tenure as DA, resulting in one death sentence for a man convicted of a double murder at a Raleigh hotel.

Chetson, Freeman’s challenger, is reform-minded—if not, as a former Republican-turnedBernie volunteer, terribly exciting. But he’s sound on reform and opposes capital punishment.

That makes Chetson the clear choice.

WA K E C O U N T Y B O A R D O F C O M M I S S I O N E R S, DISTRICT 1

Donald Mial, Shaun Pollenz Incumbent commissioner Sig Hutchinson is vacating his seat, leaving it open to a newcomer. And two strong challengers are vying to take Hutchinson’s place.

Wake County voters may know District 1, covering the far eastern part of the county, as Wake’s conservative district and the subject of grumbles from Republicans as it’s usually held by a Democrat (county commissioners are elected at large).

Democrats swept the board of commissioners in 2014 and, to our knowledge, a Republican hasn’t served on the board since.

This election cycle sees two types of Democrats running for the District 1 seat: Donald Mial, in the more traditional mold, and Shaun Pollenz, a staunch progressive.

Mial, who has the endorsement of Hutchinson, is retired from the NC Department of Public Safety and has a platform focusing on the county’s explosive growth and sustainability, and supporting and funding the county’s public schools.

Pollenz, the son of an English teacher who grew up in Wake and is now an attorney who has represented Black Lives Matter protesters in court, ran for the county school board in 2018 to be “a voice for teachers.” His platform is focused on education, affordable housing, and economic development.

Both solid candidates, Pollenz and Mial would likely vote the same way on most issues that come before the Board of Commissioners. While Wake voters at-large—younger, more liberal—might prefer Pollenz, district voters may prefer Mial.

We’re endorsing both.

WA K E C O U N T Y B O A R D O F C O M M I S S I O N E R S, D I S T R I C T 3

Cindy Sinkez

Other Candidates: Cheryl Stallings, Lisa Mead

At the very western end of Wake County sits District 3, which Commissioner Maria Cervania is vacating to run for the state House. That has opened the race to three qualified Democratic women—Cindy Sinkez, Cheryl Stallings, and Lisa Mead.

If only two candidates were running in this race, we would endorse them both. But since there are three, in order to give voters a little bit of guidance, we’ve decided to endorse Sinkez.

A former PTA leader and public schools champion, local Democratic party volunteer, and state Equal Rights Amendment advocate, Sinkez is the most progressive candidate in the race—endorsements from the Progressive Caucus of the NC Democratic Party and Progressive Democrats of Wake County make that clear. A longtime advocate for public education, this Cary-based mother and grandmother seems best-positioned to lead on issues ranging from education, to transit, to the environment.

Mead and Stallings would also make excellent commissioners.

Mead is a substitute teacher in Wake County schools and a former grant writer and fundraiser for nonprofits with a strong growth-oriented platform. Stallings is a psychologist, small business owner, and member of the Apex Town Council, the only candidate of the three with experience as a local elected official.

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THE TRIANGLE

INDY ENDORSEMENTS

Wake County

Defend the Eno

WA K E C O U N T Y S H E R I F F

Willie Rowe Other Candidates: Cedric Herring, Randolph Baity, Gerald M. Baker, Joe Coley, Tommy Matthews, Willie Rowe, Roy Taylor Incumbent Sheriff Gerald Baker was a good pick in 2018 when Democrats were coming out in numbers to end Republican Donnie Harrison’s 16-year reign. But after Baker’s mishandling of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, when sheriff’s deputies fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protestors, we’re not endorsing him for another term.

Baker’s victory brought seven other Democrats out of the woodwork, all vying to take the sheriff’s office in a progressive direction. Two in particular stand out—Willie Rowe, a former major in the sheriff's office with decades of law enforcement experience, and Cedric Herring, a former sergeant in the State Highway Patrol with a passion for social justice.

Rowe, 62, has a long record of community service, advocating for at-risk youth and treatment of substance abuse. He’s a deacon at First Baptist Church and currently serves as the chairman of the Wake County ABC Board and Raleigh Inter-Church Housing, where he works to increase affordable housing. Law enforcement, Rowe says, is a matter of preventing crime by engaging with the community, rather than making more arrests.

Rowe supports reform of the school resource officer program (to reduce criminalization of minority students), pretrial release programs, and education programs for people in jail. Rowe has also said he would not reinstate the 287(g) program nor honor detainer requests from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Another good candidate is Cedric Herring, 53. He has less experience as a manager in law enforcement but is determined to reform the sheriff’s office by demilitarizing the force, investing in de-escalation training, and releasing body camera footage to the public. Herring wants to reduce arrests and eliminate bonds for low-level crimes, he says. He also opposes the 287(g) program.

Still, we endorse Rowe.

R Primary: No endorsement

Other Races: We're not endorsing in Cary's municipal election as we don't feel informed enough on the issues that the town is facing to make a decision.

That said, we find two candidates running this cycle to be pretty exciting: Carissa Johnson, who is running at large, and Amanda Murphy, who is running in District C, would both bring fresh ideas to a council that's traditionally been dominated by wealthy conservatives. Both have been endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party—we trust the party's judgement.

Cary Town Council At-Large, Cary Town Council District A, Cary Town Council District C Not endorsing

A Message from the Nygard Family Speak out against the development planned next to West Point on the Eno City Park, the most intrusive development ever proposed beside Eno parkland. Let Mayor O’Neal and the Durham City Council know that you oppose this. Ask them to do everything in their power to stop it, and let them know you have their back. Send a letter to the Mayor and City Council. Or have your group, club, team, or organization issue a resolution advocating the preservation of Black Meadow Ridge with the request that there be no development. Stand up for the preservation of the unspoiled forest on the ridge and for protecting the historic Holman Cemetery at the top of the ridge. Ask the City to add Black Meadow Ridge, which embodies African American history at West Point, to the Cultural Heritage Park by the Eno. The Eno River will no longer be a wild river in Durham if this development is built. It would cover almost a mile in the river valley on the park’s south border. People will not want to swim or wade in the river with run-off from 376 housing units that will cause pollution and sedimentation. Act now to protect the watershed and the nationally significant aquatic habitat and wildlife corridor at West Point. The federally threatened Neuse River Waterdog and the other rare species the Eno still harbors cannot endure if their habitat is degraded. The quality of the drinking water in Raleigh’s Falls Lake and the future Teer Quarry in Durham is also at stake. Durham and the Triangle region must not accept this environmental travesty.

You can help keep the Eno a wild river by telling the City how much you care and urging the City to take action! Go to enoriver.org or blackmeadowridge.org These sites have posted the list ~ “Reasons to Save Black Meadow Ridge,” the contact emails, and more. ~ paid for by Erik, Kerstin & Jenny Nygard, family of the late Holger & Margaret Nygard, who did not falter from 1969-1975 in the battle to save West Point on Eno INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

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DURHAM CLERK OF COURT

THE TRIANGLE

Durham County

THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

D U R H A M D I S T R I C T AT T O R N E Y

Satana Deberry Other Candidates: Daniel Meier, Jonathan Wilson When Durham voters first elected Satana Deberry in 2019, she was often cited as part of a group of reformist DAs from across the country, including Rachael Rollins in Boston and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. Deberry cited Krasner as a model, someone who argued that a system born from reactionary zero-tolerance, tough-on-crime policies was intrinsically racist and counterproductive, producing a carceral state that had ripped apart communities of color.

“We’re looking at different ways we can protect children in Durham County,” Deberry said two years ago after announcing her office would no longer accept court referrals for school-based incidents and would stop threatening criminal charges against parents of students who miss school. “We want to focus on getting kids what they need instead of locking them up.”

Six months into her tenure as the county’s top prosecutor, Deberry made public nearly 20 policies designed to limit county residents’ involvement with the justice system while freeing it up to focus on serious crimes that harm community members. Along with partnering with the Durham Expunction and Restoration (DEAR) program that has led to the dismissal of thousands of old traffic charges and the restoration of driver’s licenses, Deberry’s office partnered with defense attorneys and judges to safely reduce the jail population to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Deberry’s work has not gone unnoticed. Last month, Deberry told members of the US House Judiciary subcommittee there is no evidence that the rise in gun violence across the country is linked to criminal justice reforms.

We endorse Deberry for another term.

Other Races: 18

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NC Superior Court District 15B, Seat 1 No endorsement

Archie Smith, Aminah Thompson Other Candidates: LiBria Stephens The INDY endorses incumbent Archie Smith, but also endorses challenger Aminah Thompson, who has secured endorsements from the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and the People’s Alliance.

Smith, who was first elected in 2002, told the INDY recently that since being elected, his office has deposited over $311 million received by the court system.

“People forgive you for a lot of things,” Smith said at the time, “but they don’t forgive you for messing with the money.”

Smith, who has been endorsed by the Friends of Durham, said that his overarching mission has been to create a diverse workplace with qualified people who are responsive to the needs of people on the other side of the counter.

Thompson is a formidable opponent. She works as a magistrate judge, and her previous political experience includes serving as vice-chair of legal redress with the Durham Committee and co-leading the People’s Alliance Racial Equity Action Team.

Thompson says she wants to improve people’s ability to navigate the county’s complicated court system and advocate for more accountability throughout the judiciary. She also wants to create a community-based law library and resource center, and partner with the sheriff’s office, along with superior and district court judges, to create more remote court hearings and night court to “alleviate some of the barriers to access that comes with job, school, and childcare constraints.”

DURHAM SHERIFF

Clarence Birkhead Other Candidates: Paul Martin The INDY endorses incumbent Clarence Birkhead, but with several caveats.

Birkhead was first elected in 2018 among a wave of Black candidates elected to serve as sheriff in seven of the state’s largest counties. He says the highlights of his first term includes navigating the county through the pandemic and mandating that all sheriff’s office employees receive a COVID-19 vaccine, providing leadership during a period of civil unrest following the police murder of George Floyd, and partnering with the nonpartisan “You Can Vote” initiative in order to educate and assist pre-trial detainees and residents serving misdemeanor sentences with the opportunity to register to vote, along with opposing the 2019 NC House Bill 370, which would have required sheriffs to comply with immigration detainers for residents accused of being in the country illegally.

But there have been several misfires. The most recent was this month when the INDY reported that the sheriff’s office has a mutual aid agreement with Alamance County that enables the patrolling of Bull City streets with deputies from one of the most conservative counties in the state and led by a sheriff who is known for his anti-immigration trash talk and pro-Confederate monument values. There are also questions of transparency after the mysterious death of J’Mauri Bumpass, the 18-year-old who died in late 2019 during a sheriff’s deputy's traffic stop. The deputies first said he died as a result of crashing his car into a power pole, but later said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The teen’s family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that accuses the two deputies who pulled over Bumpass of killing him and conspiring to cover it up. Birkhead was among those named in the complaint for his role in the alleged conspiracy.

On the other hand, Birkhead’s opponent, Paul Martin, does not appear to be a serious contender for the office.

THE TRIANGLE D U R HAM B OAR D O F E D U C AT I O N , D I S T R I C T 1

Emily Chávez Other Candidates: Jasper Fleming, Curtis Hrischuk The INDY endorses Emily Chávez, who is director of DREAM, a UNC-Chapel Hill School of education program that was created in partnership with Durham Public Schools (DPS) “to recruit and retain teachers of color and those from underrepresented backgrounds” on behalf of DPS. Chávez cites racial equity, greater support for LGBTQ students, and teacher working conditions and wellness as her highest priorities. Chávez is running for the seat left vacant by school board member and former chair Mike Lee. She has won an endorsement from the Durham Association of Educators and the People’s Alliance. Her opponent, Jasper Fleming, has been endorsed by the Durham Committee and the Friends of Durham, who described him as “a young father with children” who attend DPS, and “a relentless researcher” who will find “cost-effective ways to improve student achievement.”

D U R HAM B OAR D O F E D U C AT I O N , D I S T R I C T 3

Matt Sears Other Candidates: Gayathri Rajaraman Former Hillside High School math teacher, and current director of education programs with Duke University’s Talent Identification Program, incumbent Matt Sears told the INDY in 2018 that he was most proud of his record of challenging the Durham Public Schools' “status quo that has produced unacceptable outcomes for students over the last 25 years despite the amazing work of teachers and some school leaders.” He also took aim at legislation that lifted the cap to limit the number of charter schools as having a “devastating” impact on public education, adding that “communities can now pop up charter schools on a whim” and that, far from charters being “petri dishes of innovation,” they are “places of institutionalized racism in our community."

He's also no fan of SROs in schools.

Sears’s challenger Rajaraman has no political experience and is running with the conservative Better Board, Better Schools slate of candidates.

Durham County D U R H A M B O A R D O F E D U C AT I O N , D I S T R I C T 2

Bettina Umstead Other Candidates: Donald Hughes, Christopher Burns Bettina Umstead, who works as an associate with the Equity Collaborative, a group that supports school systems in promoting equity in schools across the country, was appointed to the DPS Board in 2016. Umstead won election to the board in 2018 and was appointed vice chair. She was then appointed to chair the board in 2020, a role she still holds.

A career-long educator, Umstead successfully helped the DPS system navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, helped develop the Racial and Educational Equity policy for the district, and worked with the City of Durham and Duke University to expand internet access to the Durham Housing Authority communities.

Umstead, described as an adept listener and communicator by those who know and work with her, takes a collaborative approach to policy-making, and maintains a focus on improving equity in the district.

Umstead’s opponent, Donald Hughes, has some interesting ideas around extending learning times for students who have fallen behind during the pandemic and addressing mental health in schools. But Umstead has proven herself to be effective on the board and her work and experience have earned her another term.

Christopher Burns has no public presence and is one of the ostensibly conservative Better Board, Better Schools slate of candidates.

D U R H A M B O A R D O F E D U C AT I O N , D I S T R I C T B

Millicent Rogers Other Candidates: Frederick Ravin III The INDY endorses newcomer and former People’s Alliance co-president Millicent Rogers.

In February, while announcing her intent to run for a school board seat, Rogers denounced state legislators who called for the banning of books in public schools and Lt. Mark Robinson’s assertion that teachers should be punished for being “culturally responsive.”

Rogers also criticized “years of underfunding” by the state and county education administrators, with the end result being “a dearth of nurses, school counselors, and social workers and unequally resourced neighborhood schools.”

Rogers, who serves as advocacy committee chair of the NC Parent Teacher Association, has been endorsed by the People’s Alliance and the Durham Association of Educators. The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and the Friends of Durham both endorsed Ravin. The FOD describes Ravin as a “calming influence” whose strong background in technology and fiscal accountability, two of the most important issues facing our schools, will serve our county well.” But we think some of Ravin's votes on COVID measures, including one to prematurely end the masking requirement for students and staff, were ill-advised.

INDY ENDORSEMENTS D U R HAM B OAR D O F E D U C AT I O N , D I S T R I C T 4

Natalie Beyer Other Candidates: Valarie Jarvis, Myca Jeter In what will probably shape up to be a highly contested race, the INDY endorses incumbent Natalie Beyer. In our 2018 endorsement of Beyer, we noted that she “has long demonstrated a commitment to Durham Public Schools and an ability to stand on her principles.”

That commitment has been readily evident in recent months. Beyer and her fellow board members unanimously approved a $1,000 retention bonus for DPS's 4,900 full-time employees and permanent part-time employees.

And in November, when more than a quarter of DPS employees were not in compliance with a DPS vaccination mandate two months before, Beyer took the school employees to task.

“This board set a mandate and this is the expectation for our employees,” she said. “We are charged in an amazing way with caring for children. Some of them are as young as four.

Some of them are medically fragile and unable to be vaccinated. And some of our co-workers and colleagues cannot be vaccinated for immunocompromised reasons. … This is to save and protect yourself and your family, and your work with Durham Public Schools.”

Beyer will face a stiff challenge from Myca Jeter, who has been endorsed by the Durham Committee for the Affairs of Black People.

Jeter is a longtime social worker and DPS parent who says that “education can be a vehicle for equity, healing, opportunity, and a thriving future for every student that attends DPS,” according to her website.

Beyer, endorsed by the Durham Association of Educators, the People’s Alliance, and the Friends of Durham, took state legislators to the woodshed last year for the GOP-led House Bill 324 that sought to make white people feel less uncomfortable with the negative aspects of this country’s history.

“It’s important for teachers to be able to teach children to think critically from primary sources,” Beyer told the INDY. “And as we are more honest about our history we can learn from the past. We don’t censor teachers. We don’t ban books. We teach children to be anti-racist.”

INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

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THE TRIANGLE

Orange County

O R A N G E C O U N T Y B O A R D O F E D U C AT I O N

Sarah Smylie, Ashley Wheeler Other Candidates: Will Atherton, André Richmond, Anne Purcell, Penny Carter King, Bethni Lee

THE INDY T ENDORSEMEN ISSUE

O R A N G E / C H AT H A M C O U N T Y D I S T R I C T AT T O R N E Y

Jeff Nieman, Kayley Taber Jeff Nieman and Kayley Taber have a lot in common. Both have worked for the Orange/Chatham District Attorney’s office for many years. Both differ from their predecessor, Jim Woodall, who is not running for reelection, in their opposition to the death penalty. And both are committed to criminal justice reform and would likely make progressive, effective district attorneys who can balance public safety with a commitment to equity. Both are outstanding candidates.

Nieman, a nearly-lifelong Orange County resident, is the better-known of the two candidates. He has a particularly strong reform platform, including mandating racial equity training for all DA office staff, promising to recruit applicants from underrepresented communities, and using rehabilitative and therapeutic approaches to criminal justice. Having co-founded the Driver’s License Restoration Project to help people escape the cycle of court costs and fines, Nieman also has a demonstrated ability to get things done.

With Roe v. Wade currently on life-support, it’s not unthinkable that sanctuary districts for people who receive abortions could be a reality sometime in the not-so-distant future. So, it was striking to us that in her candidate questionnaire, Taber writes, “There is a nationwide movement to enact laws criminalizing access to reproductive care ... I will not be part of re-victimizing women and children by prosecuting them for accessing medical care that is appropriate for them, complies with our medical standards of care, and is protected by the Constitution.” Indeed, Taber has worked on behalf of sexual assault victims for nearly a quarter-century, witnessing trauma firsthand and seeing women and girls trapped in abusive relationships with unwanted pregnancies. We commend this work—and Taber’s foresight.

That’s why we’ll leave it up to voters to make the choice between Taber and Nieman.

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With a slate of conservative (think mask-bashing, “parents’ choice”) candidates on the ballot this spring, it’s not unthinkable that the current progressive majority on the Orange County school board could be under threat. That’s why, although there are four open seats on the board, we’re only endorsing two candidates. All OCS candidates run at large, and progressive candidates Sarah Smylie and Ashley Wheeler need the most votes to win.

Smylie is an incumbent who has, in her first term on the board, played a critical role in developing strategic school improvement and equity plans—including racial and LGBTQ equity and protocols for students who want to transition—for the Orange County school system.

Ashley Wheeler, while a political newcomer, has a solidly progressive platform and understands the county’s pressing needs on infrastructure, teacher and staff recruitment, and equity. An ER nurse at Duke Health, Wheeler says she will take a collaborative approach on the board.

The other candidates we’d recommend (though are not endorsing) are Will Atherton, another incumbent, and André Richmond, a school resource officer.

Though they haven’t espoused explicitly conservative views, Atherton and Richmond have been campaigning with a more conservative slate of candidates on the ballot: Anne Purcell, a former OCS principal who has publicly said she supports keeping controversial books off of library shelves and that she’s observed more racism among students of color than among white students; Penny Carter King, who says on her website that the current board has been “more focused on furthering political agendas;” and Bethni Lee, who’s received a lot of money from “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty. Pass, pass, pass.

CARRBORO TOWN COUNCIL

Eliazar Posada Other Candidates: Aja Kelleher At 29 years old, Eliazar Posada has accomplished a lot.

The son of working-class immigrants and the youngest-ever executive director of El Centro Hispano, the state’s largest Latino organization, Posada knows how to work hard. This is why we think he’s the candidate best-positioned to get results around affordable housing, public transit, and racial equity in Carrboro.

Posada has also been politically active for a long time, serving on an exhaustive list of local government boards and commissions, including several in Carrboro.

He has also worked on voter registration and education initiatives, on political campaigns, and held leadership roles with the North Carolina Democratic party.

Posada’s opponent, Aja Kelleher, ran for a seat on Carrboro’s council last fall and was unsuccessful. Kelleher, an engineer, has interesting ideas around sustainability, but for this election, Posada is the stronger candidate.

INDY ENDORSEMENTS

THE TRIANGLE

Orange County

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Register of Deeds incumbent Mark Chilton is a NC Central law school alum who previously practiced real estate law and served as both a Chapel Hill town councilman and the mayor of Carrboro.

During his two terms in office, Chilton has added passport services, implemented an alert service to guard against real estate fraud, and completed the digitization of every deed book dating back to 1755. He has also worked to digitize records relating to the sales of enslaved people with the goal of uncovering a suppressed history of Orange County.

Chilton’s opponent is Penny Rich, a former personal chef and caterer who has served on the Orange Water And Sewer Authority board of directors, the Chapel Hill Town Council, and Orange County Board of County Commissioners. Rich is running because she believes the office’s website is out-of-date and its procedures should be more streamlined.

While user-friendliness and efficiency are important components of the register of deeds office, Rich’s complaints don’t seem particularly well-founded. We believe Chilton has proven himself to be a competent and caring public servant for the people of Orange County and will continue to expand and protect the office’s database when re-elected.

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April 27, 2022

21

E TC.

ARCANE CAROLINAS

arcanecarolinas.com

From left: Arcane Carolinas hosts Charlie Mewshaw and Michael G. Williams PHOTO BY ANDRE WATSON

Give Up the Ghost Arcane Carolinas podcast hosts Charlie Mewshaw and Michael G. Williams share an obsession with the unexplained.

BY MICHAEL VENUTOLO-MANTOVANI arts@indyweek.com

I

t’s fitting to meet the duo behind Arcane Carolinas at the heart of a cemetery.

Surrounding our makeshift interview location are grand graying obelisks, headstones dating as far back as the early 1800s, and humble monuments in various stages of decay.

Of course, amongst the dead are plenty of young and very much alive students walking to and from class: the cemetery sits directly between a medium-sized residence hall and a massive complex of intramural fields at the mouth of UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus.

It’s fitting to meet the duo here because the idea that folklore, legends, and the downright weird exist directly under all of our noses is at the core of Arcane Carolinas, which started as a podcast in the fall of 2020 and has since grown 22

April 27, 2022

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to include live events, trading cards, a fanzine, and even an apparel line featuring trademarked shirts and hats.

“There’s a nice little gazebo in a cemetery that has an interesting story right on campus,” Charlie Mewshaw, one of Arcane Carolinas’ founders and hosts, tells me when I ask where we might meet up.

The cemetery is a little plot of land I pass nearly every day and not far from Chapel Hill’s most famous landmark of sinister lore, Ghimghoul Castle.

“This place was started when a student died in the late 1700s,” he says as we walk amongst the cemetery’s tombstones. “And the university realized they needed a place to put corpses in times of pestilence.”

Michael G. Williams, Mewshaw’s partner in the podcast, points to an entirely separate section of the cem-

etery where many of the enslaved people who built the university were interred, often with only wooden crosses or flowers to mark their burial sites.

The pair often explain things in tandem, both eager and excited to outline the history that lives beneath our feet.

Mewshaw and Williams worked together in the information security department at UNC for two years before realizing they shared common ground. After a spate of departures from the department, the two often found themselves alone in the office, talking over their adjoining cubicles. Soon, they realized they both had a passion for the unexplained.

And while Mewshaw’s obsession was forged watching shows like The X-Files as a young boy in Raleigh and Maryland, Williams was born and raised in a part of Appalachia where storytelling, legend, and lore were deeply interwoven with daily life.

“I grew up in a place rife with belief in the weirdest, bloodiest serrated edge of the supernatural,” Williams, an award-winning writer of work aimed at LGBTQIA+ readers of horror and science fiction, said in an early podcast episode.

Mewshaw and Williams launched their series with a 25-minute episode about a longstanding rumor that the devil often wanders the woods surrounding Bear Creek, a small town about 40 minutes southwest of Chapel Hill.

From there, the community around Arcane Carolinas grew fast, soon clocking around a thousand downloads each week.

With a laugh, Mewshaw describes the podcast as “Ghostbusters meets Mythbusters meets Diners, DriveIns, and Dives.” He follows that up with a more detailed explanation of the vision he and Williams share about how important storytelling is to Southern culture and how respect for the source material is paramount.

But in a way, Mewshaw’s elevator pitch is the perfect diagram to describe his and Williams’ budding mini-empire: they seek to not just uncover the strange and often spooky history that exists everywhere—if you just look a little bit deeper—but also to honor the people and places that are integral to these stories.

There are ghosts and there are myths, and they’re kept alive by the locals who remember and retell those stories.

That’s something Mewshaw and Williams make a point to recognize in each episode.

“Wherever possible, we’re going to try and promote the local businesses and culture of the town and county that our story comes from,” Mewshaw said at the top of the podcast’s first episode.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is not just celebrate the history of North Carolina and South Carolina but also to celebrate the places that are there right now,” Williams added.

Both are quick to note that while chasing the stories behind these often-unexplained phenomena is fun, it’s the discovery of our shared history and the way storytelling functions as a universal coping mechanism that drives so much of their passion.

“The South is a haunted place, but a lot of the haunting isn’t ghosts,” Williams says. “It’s being aware of what our ancestors did and what a lot of our contemporaries continue to do.”

To date, Arcane Carolinas has published over 50 episodes, exploring legends like sea monsters off the Outer Banks, UFO sightings along the coast of the Carolinas, and vampires in Appalachia.

And while the podcast is currently focused on North and South Carolina, Mewshaw and Williams hope to someday grow the scope of Arcane Carolinas enough to highlight legends and lore nationwide, not unlike the beloved legends-and-lore magazine Weird NJ, which originated in, but expanded beyond, New Jersey.

An Arcane Carolinas book is in the works and convention appearances are on the schedule. Later this fall, they’ll publish a limited-run series of episodes focused on legends they’ve been sent by their community of listeners. Mewshaw and Williams have also been in talks with a few production companies about the possibility of taking their podcast to a television audience.

And though they have been approached by a variety of podcast networks, Mewshaw and Williams prefer to remain independent in an effort to reach as many people as possible.

“Wider distribution is more important than running ads about cereal or razors or whatever,” Mewshaw says.

For now, the pair will continue to chase the legends, the fairytales, the phenomenal and the mysterious, the unexplained and the inexplicable, all while furthering the tradition of Southern storytelling with an air of curiosity rather than authority.

“In this space of the unexplained, there are a lot of people trying to present that they understand things that can’t be explained,” Mewshaw says. “And it’s very important that we make sure people know that we are not claiming to be the keepers of some hidden knowledge.”

“A lot of people are out there trying to sell secret sauce,” Williams adds, “and secret sauce is always snake oil.” W INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

23

FO O D & D R I N K Jamil Kadoura at the Med Deli counter PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Paying It Forward Since opening Mediterranean Deli in 1992, owner Jamil Kadoura has put community giving at the center of the restaurant’s mission.

BY REBECCA SCHNEID food@indyweek.com

I

n Palestine, Jamil Kadoura would not be called Jamil.

Traditionally, once a Palestinian man has a son, he is usually called by his son’s name, with the prefix “Abu,” which translates to “father of.” Jamil and his wife, Angela, have three children: two daughters and a son, Zidane.

Technically, Jamil should be called Abu Zidane.

But this is not what Jamil’s mother, Ayshi, called him before she passed away six years ago. Ever since he was a child growing up in Jerusalem, she called him Abu Iieta, which means “Father of Giving.”

He doesn’t remember exactly when she started calling him this. Maybe it was after Ayshi gave him her signature chickpea dish to sell in town and he gave every cup but two out for free. Maybe it was because she used to tell him, “When you give, throw it in the ocean, and it will 24

April 27, 2022

INDYweek.com

somehow come back to you,” and she saw that he took it to heart. Likely it was a culmination of many things because giving is as significant to who Kadoura is as his exuberant hand gestures and the wide breadth of his arms as he leans in for a hug.

For our interview, we met mid-morning, coffee in hand, at his restaurant, Mediterranean Deli, which occupies a coveted spot on West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

Though it was long before the usual lunch rush, multiple people still entered the deli—from businessmen to delivery workers to employees. The first thing all of them did as they entered was to head straight to Kadoura, hug him, and tell them they loved him.

After opening in 1992, Mediterranean Deli has steadily grown into a Chapel Hill institution. In the beginning,

the cafe only fit 12 tables and a small six-foot deli case.

Today, it’s a popular lunch stop for college students, visiting parents, professors, and townies alike, with a 60-foot-long deli case.

Kadoura was born in Israeli-occupied Palestine in 1960. One night in 1967, when he and his siblings were playing marbles in their pajamas, Israeli soldiers knocked on the front door of their home, telling them to leave.

In refugee camps, Kadoura received food, blankets, and kindness from humanitarian organizations, which is why he says he invests so much in the Chapel Hill community.

Eventually, his family settled in the town of Qalqilya in Palestine, where he attended a United Nations elementary school. It was here, in his mid-teens, that he discovered his passion for cooking at the schoolyard falafel stand at recess.

Though the green stand was small and simple, its owner managed to make and sell falafel to hundreds of kids at recess. Like Kadoura, many of the school’s students had been displaced. When so much is lost, he realized, food is what binds us together.

“You make love over food; you make peace over food,” Kadoura tells me. “Food is the most important connection in the community.”

Magid, the owner, only had two sandwiches on his menu: a falafel sandwich and a hummus sandwich. It took a lot for the normally shy Kadoura to offer his boss some new ideas. Why not combine the two into a falafel-hummus sandwich, for starters? It was a hit.

It was this moment, many years before the deli was even an inkling in his mind, that started Kandoura’s journey towards Med Deli’s creation. For college, he moved to Minnesota and attended the Minnesota School of Business. The unemployment rate in Minneapolis was high, and with only $35 dollars in his pocket, Kadoura needed money.

He walked in the snow every day, he says, searching for work. Eventually, his persistence won him a dishwashing job at Jolly Troll Smorgasbord, an all-you-can-eat Swedish restaurant.

Though it was at the falafel stand at his school that Kadoura was introduced to ingenuity in the food industry, it was here that he learned about the business and decided he wanted to enter it. Soon after, he moved to North Carolina.

He opened Mediterranean Deli, three doors down from its current location, with the help of his wife, his mother, and his sister. Guests would sit at one of the 12 tables, and though the profits were small, Kadoura knew it was worth it.

“You can’t do it just for the money,” he says. “It’s too stressful and too hard to make it.”

Kadoura remembers coming into work at 3 a.m. and watching UNC students walk home from bars as he prepared food for the lunch rush, sweat dripping down his

“Food is the most important connection in the community.” forehead. After dawn, he’d head to UNC’s campus to hang flyers to post the specials for the day.

“Sometimes he would be frying falafel out back because he didn’t have room inside the restaurant,” his friend Robert Smith tells me.

After two years, Kadoura had grown his business enough to move to the larger Franklin Street location. He expanded five more times before he purchased the entire building in 2012.

“The most important thing about any restaurant is consistency,” Kadoura says.

His case is filled with mostly the same food every day. He knows if someone comes in and loves what they eat, they’ll want the same thing the next time.

At Med Deli, there is that consistency.

From the creamy chicken salad with the crunch of walnuts to the tangy kale salad, the fresh and sweet peach salad to the traditional falafel pita with bright vegetables and crunchy falafel (and a side of tzatziki that patrons are often seen grabbing to go for their home-cooked meals), the food is what patrons come and stay for.

The real consistency, though, comes from Kadoura’s enduring relationship with his staff.

“The average employee here has been here for over 10 years,” he says. “They know my kids. I know their kids . . . We’re not just like family. We are family.”

On a visit to Med Deli, Kadoura takes me to the kitchen to introduce me to each member of the staff, sharing their names and how many years they’ve worked for the restaurant. Seven years here; 16 years there; 12 years for another. One employee, in fact, is opening his own Guatemalan/Mexican restaurant down the street.

Kadoura is cosigning the lease.

“There are so many times where we think of new recipes because employees come with an idea,” Kadoura says. “If you have a better idea of how to make a better hummus, let’s make it and try and test it and see what people say.”

Beyond investing in his employees, Kadoura is invested in the community.

“When I came here, my goal was to ask, ‘How are we going to really pay back what people did for me when I was a kid?’ And you shouldn’t do it to make your business better; you do it because you want to,” Kadoura says. “A community relationship in a business is fundamental.”

Awards and fundraiser certificates crowd the walls of the restaurant by the kitchen. From natural disasters to efforts to help Syrian refugees, Kadoura has used Med Deli as a space to raise money for causes he is passionate about.

“A lot of restaurants have a little benefit, you know, for charity and stuff, but he’s been a real leader in that,” says Smith. “When most restaurants do these benefits, it’s more typical to give the profits to charity. But when Jamil has a benefit, he gives 100 percent of the money to charity. He’s buying the food and paying the employees out of his pocket.”

In March 2020, Kadoura’s success ground to a halt. After learning from the county health department that he was going to have to close his restaurant for an indefinite amount of time, he set up a conference with all his employees in the back room of the restaurant. He wasn’t worried about himself; he knew he would make it through. But what about his staff, many of whom had depended on him for years?

When he entered the conference room, though, the first thing he was struck by was the sheer volume of people; he so rarely spoke with all his employees in one place or saw them at the same time. But here were all 70 of them in one space.

He explained to them that anyone who wanted to leave, could, and he would understand. Then one employee stood up and told Kadoura that employees had held a meeting behind his back. They had already decided that they would not be paid until things got better and they would all stay on.

“I started crying,” Kadoura says. “I broke down completely.”

While at the restaurant, I was struck by how many visitors told Kadoura they loved him—and how often he said it back.

“I don’t think I say I love you casually to any of my other guy friends except for him,” says Newt Heilman, a friend of 15 years.

Smith remembers making an offhand comment to Kadoura about his love of the deli’s olives. One day, he left his home to find two 10-foot-wide, restaurant-grade containers of olives outside his front porch: Kadoura had ordered two extra containers just for Smith.

“I consider Jamil one of my closest friends,” Heilman adds, “But I think there’s a lot of people that feel that way.” W INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

25

FO O D & D R I N K

BAD OVEN badoven.com

Sweet Dreams Bad Oven, a Cary micro-bakery specializing in Filipino baked goods, might be small—but it’s found a large, devoted following.

BY GABI MENDICK food@indyweek.com

I

n parking lots across the Triangle, you’ll find Peanut Dela Cruz warmly greeting customers. Some regulars have, by now, become friends; other shop customers are first-timers.

All, however, receive beaming smiles and hugs as the Cary baker hands out bags of coffee cookies and Ube Latte buns from the trunk of her gray Hyundai.

Dela Cruz is the one-woman force behind Bad Oven, an “online mico-bakery” specializing in Filipino sweets that she founded in October 2020, just as restaurants were being devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, the small bakery has managed to thrive and even take on a minor cult appeal.

The Bad Oven system is simple: customers place orders online for weekly pickup at outdoor locations in Cary, Raleigh, and Durham. The routine of the model, it turns out, is exactly what customers have sought during the pandemic. The model also suits Dela Cruz’s needs. Scheduling around her full-time marketing job at an internet publishing company, she bakes limited quantities in her home kitchen, where she is unencumbered by some of the regulatory barriers to entry faced by large-scale food businesses. And for Dela Cruz, who moved to the U.S. from the Philippines in 2017 and settled in North Carolina in 2019, Bad Oven has been a wonderful introduction to the Triangle.

“I had no idea what to expect from North Carolina,” Dela Cruz says. “The people that I’ve met so far, they’ve all been so welcoming. Like, I have not met a single asshole.”

Personal connection is central to the bakery’s appeal.

“People at that time were longing for human interaction,” says Dela Cruz, reflecting on the early pandemic days. She does her part to facilitate these connections using social media, which is where many customers initially discover Bad Oven. When customers make the leap from social media to in-person pickups, she encourages them to pose for photos and boomerangs when they pick up their orders; often, in a sort of chain reaction, the photos shared on Bad Oven’s Instagram page are reposted by bakery loyalists. These faces of the Bad Oven community have become integral to its success.

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Peanut Dela Cruz with Bad Oven baked goods

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Bad Oven’s playful existence, in fact, can be attributed to Instagram. As a home baker sharing her failures and successes on her personal account, Dela Cruz was surprised when the popular local foodie Instagram account Cheerwine and Dine messaged asking to purchase baked goods.

From there, the craze for her products spread by word of mouth. When That Vegetarian Couple, another local Instagram account, first tried her products, they waited until Dela Cruz had established a name and a logo, then posted to their wide audience.

In the early days, whenever Dela Cruz baked something that turned out less than perfect, she would jokingly blame the failure on her oven, as if it had a mind of its own. “Bad Oven,” she’d say as if chiding a dog, and thus the name came to be.

One Saturday in April, standing beside her trunk in a Starbucks parking lot in Cary, Dela Cruz chats with Megan Cataldi, a patron who worked at UPS when the two first met last year. Cataldi says that Dela Cruz was her favorite customer and that the baker often dropped off a Bad Oven shipment order with free samples in hand for the UPS team to try. Another customer arrives, and Dela Cruz retrieves a gift she’d brought for the man’s young daughter.

A Bad Oven customer does have to jump through some hoops, though, which Dela Cruz recognizes: first, they have to order on a Tuesday evening and pick up their order at a specified location, the following Saturday, within a 15-minute window. But she aims to make the experience, as well as the flavor, something that customers look forward to. She includes personalized notes with each order, often throwing in a free bun, or—on this particular Easter weekend—a plastic egg filled with candy.

The business, Dela Cruz recognizes with a laugh, is “definitely not scalable.” There is only so much time in the day, and Dela Cruz only has two hands. Bad Oven goods come in limited quantities and are in high demand. A seasoned regular knows to set an alarm and be at their computer when the clock strikes 8 on Tuesday night. It can take first-timers several weeks to learn the ropes, having repeatedly visited the shop website at 8:10 p.m. to find everything was already sold out.

The most beloved Bad Oven item is the Purple Bun. The bun, pandesal, is a yeasted and slightly sweet Filipino bread roll. Several years ago in the Philippines, a modernized version became hugely popular; it’s dough-flavored and filled with ube, a variety of purple yam. The unique flavor, as Dela Cruz describes it, has earthy notes of vanilla and taro.

The Purple Bun is so beloved at Bad Oven that Dela Cruz has made the bun into a character, creating a fully-fledged personality named “ponpon.”

Dela Cruz’s communications background is evident across Bad Oven’s online content, which is alive with lighthearted, eye-catching graphics. The coffee buns take on a personality of their own, adorably branded with a sad face.

For all its deliciousness, this micro-bakery is more than a bakery; it is a micro-community. No traditional food business brings people together such that individuals hang around parking lots chatting, swapping ramen recommendations, or offering to help change a flat tire.

“I just thought it would be a side hobby for me,” Dela Cruz reflects, as she pulls out of the parking lot after the last pickup of the day, “but it’s been amazing.” W

SU 5/1 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS W/ LYDIA LOVELESS

WE 4/27 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE

GANG OF YOUTHS W/ TIM LAPPIN

FR 4/29 @HAW @HAW RIVER BALLROOM

FLOCK OF DIMES W/ KARIMA WALKER

TU 5/17

FR 4/29 @CAT’S @CAT’S CRADLE

GUIDED BY VOICES SA 4/30 @CAT’S @ CAT’S CRADLE

NILÜFER YANYA W/ TASHA AND ADA LEA

CAT'S CRADLE WE 4/27 WKNC PRESENTS

FR 6/24 MELVINS W /HELMS ALEE, HARSH MELLOW

W/ TIM LAPPIN

TH 6/23 BIKINI KILL W/ HC MCENTIRE

GANG OF YOUTHS SARAH SHOOK & THE DISARMERS ALBUM RELEASE SHOW TH 4/28

W/ IV AND THE STRANGE BAND

FR 4/29

GUIDED BY VOICES

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS

SA 5/7 SNAIL MAIL SOLD OUT W/ THE GOON SAX SU 5/8 BUILT TO SPILL W/PRISM BITCH, ITCHY KITTY ($25/$29)

THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE TU 5/10

W/ ROSALI

W/ THE MAGIC CASTLES

SA 5/14 YOKE

TH 5/19 & FR 5/20 SOLD OUT, SA 5/21 @HISTORIC DURHAM ATHLETIC PARK

SYLVAN ESSO W/ VARIOUS ARTISTS

LORE

THE AFGHAN WHIGS

MO 5/16 LAUREN SANDERSON W/ JORDY AND MIKI RATSULA ($18/$20 ) TH 5/19 SA 5/21

DEHD

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HANK PATTIE & THE CURRENT

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SHAME/ VIAGRA BOYS

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AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT

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DJANGO HASKINS / CHRIS STAMEY

SYMPHONY X, HAKEN, TROPE

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KELSY KARTER W/ NIKI DEMAR

DAN ANDRIANO & THE BYGONES

WE 5/4

W/ EMILY WOLFE

BORN RUFFIANS W/ SHAM FAMILY

W/ CHESSA RICH, EARLEINE

BALLYHOO! THE ANTLERS

SA 5/7 SU 5/8

W/ WILD PINK

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS WE 5/11

W/ GLOVE, SPIRIT SYSTEM, WAILIN STORMS

BRONCHO TYRONE WELLS TROPICAL FUCK STORM

FR 10/7 WE 11/2

5/19 BASS EXTREMES: VICTOR WOOTEN, STEVE BAILEY, & GREGG BISONETTE 5/21 ANDY HULL W/ KEVIN DEVINE 7/6 LOST DOG W/ WILL CARLISLE THE ARTSCENTER (CARRBORO) 5/17 GROUPER W/ NATHAN BOWLES

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MAY 19 W/ MOSES SUMNEY, VAGABON

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SOLD MAY 20 OUT W/ YO LA TENGO AND INDIGO DE SOUZA

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6/7 STILL WOOZY

NUNNELEE

’22 SUMMER REUNION

5/19 PRINCE DADDY & THE HYENA W/ MACSEAL,

10/18 MOTHER MOTHER W/ SIR SLY HISTORIC DURHAM ATHLETIC PARK

MO 7/4 MC CHRIS W/ CRUNK WITCH WE 7/6

BRE KENNEDY

5/18 VUNDABAR

THE RITZ (RALEIGH) 5/4 PUP W/ SHEER MAG, PINKSHIFT

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DISSIMILAR SOUTH ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

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FAILURE

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[POSTPONED TO 8/11/22: THE DEAR HUNTER]

SOLD OUT

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April 27, 2022

27

CULTURE CALENDAR

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers perform at Cat’s Cradle on Thurs., Apr. 28 PHOTO COURTESY OF CAT’S CRADLE

Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular $25+.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m.

The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Screaming Females $16. Fri, Apr. 29, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Snarky Puppy $37+.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m.

Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Spring in Tha Carolinas $15.

Fri, Apr. 29, 6 p.m.

Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Stile Antico $10+.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m. Duke Chapel, Durham.

music The Bay Strikes Back Tour with Testament, Exodus, and Death Angel $25. Wed, Apr. 27, 6:50 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Blends with Friends (Open Decks) Wed, Apr. 27, 6 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Bop or Flop Live On Tour! $5+. Wed, Apr. 27, 7 p.m. Crafty Beer, Wine & Spirits, Raleigh.

Deep Roots and Sturdy Branches of Country Music, Then and Now $15.

Wed, Apr. 27, 10 a.m.

Online; presented by UNC-Chapel Hill.

Gang of Youths $25. Wed, Apr. 27, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Kurt Vile and The Violators SOLD OUT. Wed, Apr. 27, 8 p.m. Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Apr. 27, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Angel Du$t $17.

Thurs, Apr. 28, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Dave O’Connor Thurs, Apr. 28, 7:30 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

Hedaldo Negro $20.

Thurs, Apr. 28, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Joe Troop & Friends: April Residency at The Fruit with Reed Stutz $20. Thurs, Apr. 28, 7:30 p.m.

The Fruit, Durham.

Martha Redbone $30. Thurs, Apr. 28, 8 p.m. Stewart Theatre, Raleigh.

Curtis Eller & Charming Disaster Fri, Apr. 29, 7 p.m.

Hunky Dory, Durham.

Mellow Swells Thurs, Apr. 28, 7:30 p.m.

Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Django Haskins $8.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Nightblooms $10.

Thurs, Apr. 28, 8:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Nine Inch Nails $63+. Thurs, Apr. 28, 7 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.

Flock of Dimes $15.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m.

Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw.

Guided By Voices $30. Fri, Apr. 29, 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

NoCap: Mr. Crawford Tour $30.

Thurs, Apr. 28, 7 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

Live Music: New Morning Jazz Fri, Apr. 29, 7 p.m. Vecino Brewing Co, Carrboro.

Plastic Flamingos $8. Thurs, Apr. 28, 8 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

North Carolina Symphony: Scheherazade $20+.

Apr. 29-30, 8 p.m.

Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers: Album Release Show $15.

Thurs, Apr. 28, 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Palace SOLD OUT. Fri, Apr. 29, 9 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Sum 41 & Simple Plan: The Blame Canada Tour $55.

Fri, Apr. 29, 6 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

Triangle Soul Society Fri, Apr. 29, 9 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Willie Bradley $20.

Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m.

Garner Performing Arts Center, Garner.

Willie Nelson’s (Unofficial) Birthday Party Fri, Apr. 29, 9 p.m.

Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Durham.

Danny Spiegel plays “Suite: April 2020” $25. Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m. Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

The Ginger Thompson Band: CD Release Party $10+. Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m. The Cornerstone, Raleigh.

Kelsey Karter $12.

Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Music of Hope: Recital to Benefit Ukraine $25 suggestd. Sat, Apr. 30, 6 p.m. Halle Cultural Center of Apex, Apex.

Nilüfer Yanya $20. Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Noizu $15. Sat, Apr. 30, 10 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Pigeons Playing Ping Pong $30.

Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m.

Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Queer Agenda! $5.

Sat, Apr. 30, 11:55 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Rav x Kill Bill: The Rapper $15. Sat, Apr. 30, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Andmoreagain Presents: Kassa Overall $15. Sat, Apr. 30, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Carolina Cutups & Friends Sun, May 1, 7 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Blind Tigers Karaoke Band Sat, Apr. 30, 9 p.m.

Rubies on Five Points,

The Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle: The New, The Rare, The Exotic $22+. Sun, May 1, 3 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Drive-By Truckers $28. Sun, May 1, 8:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Durham Symphony Orchestra “Pops in the Park” Concert Sun, May 1, 3 p.m.

Piney Wood Park, Durham.

Simple Gifts: Music in Bloom Sun, May 1, 3 p.m. Baldwin Auditorium, Durham.

Destroyer $20.

Mon, May 2, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Live Jazz with Danny Grewen & Griffanzo Mon, May 2, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Ho99o9 $20.

Tues, May 3, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, May 3, 9 p.m.

Kingfisher, Durham.

Melissa Etheridge: One Way Out $60+. Tues, May 3, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

The Pineapple Thief $28. Tues, May 3, 7:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

Rob Gelblum Tues, May 3, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

page Kate Moore—The Woman They Could Not Silence Wed, Apr. 27, 7 p.m.

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Crossing The Rift: North Carolina Poets On 9/11 & Its Aftermath Thurs, Apr. 28, 7 p.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

Roy Hoffman—The Promise of the Pelican Thurs, Apr. 28, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Poetry and Playlists Fri, Apr. 29, 12:30 p.m.

Online; presented by Scalawag Magazine.

Erin Lane— Someone Other Than a Mother Tues, May 3, 7 p.m.

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Marcie Cohen Ferris—Edible North Carolina: A Journey Across A State Of Flavor Tues, May 3, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Teddy Swims: Tough Love World Tour SOLD OUT. Tues, May 3, 8 p.m.

Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM 28

April 27, 2022

INDYweek.com

CULTURE CALENDAR “Angels Tickle My Toes at Night” by Samantha Rosado, from the exhibit Truth and Memory PHOTO COURTESY OF CRAVEN ALLEN GALLERY

stage

art Art Appreciation: The Rhonda Wilkerson Art Collection $25.

Wed, Apr. 27, 10 a.m.

UNC Friday Center, Chapel Hill.

Guided Tour— Modern Black Culture: The Art of Aaron Douglas Apr. 28-29, 1:30 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Semester Revue: Student Research & Responses to the Collection Thurs, Apr. 28, 2 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

screen

The Happy Habit of Painting Every Day $248. Sat, Apr. 30, 10:30 a.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

Artist Celebration Event: Reckoning & Resilience Sun, May 1, 1 p.m. The Nasher, Durham.

Truth and Memory Apr. 30-Jun. 25, various times.

Craven Allen Gallery, Durham.

Guided Tour: Explore the Ackland’s Collection Sun, May 1, 1:30 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Weekend of Art Handmade Parade Sat, Apr. 30, 4 p.m. Burwell School Historic Site, Hillsborough.

New Oil Paintings

by ADDISON May 1-30, various times.

Gallery C, Raleigh.

Hannah Gadsby $40+. Wed, Apr. 27, 7 p.m. DPAC, Durham.

ClydeFEST Sat, Apr. 30, 11 a.m.

Bynum Front Porch, Pittsboro.

How I Learned What I Learn $20+. Apr. 27May 15, various times. Playmakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill.

earspace presents: A reminiscence sing. Sat, Apr. 30, 7:30 p.m. Burning Coal Theatre, Raleigh.

Cascade $10+. Apr. 28-May 1, various times. The Plant, Pittsboro.

The Monti: What Was I Thinking? $22. Thurs, Apr. 28, 8 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream $10+. Apr. 29-May 8, various times.

Southern Village, Chapel Hill.

Bring Your Own $5+. Fri, Apr. 29, 8 p.m. Monkey Bottom, Durham.

The Letter & Mildred Pierce $10. Fri, Apr. 29, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

NCMA Cinema: Theirs Is The Kingdom $7. Sat, Apr. 30, 2 p.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Brunch $10.

Sat, Apr. 30, 11 a.m.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Museum Movie Night: The Matrix $5+. Fri, Apr. 29, 5:30 p.m. NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh.

The Tower Road Bus with Filmmaker Q&A $6.

Sat, Apr. 30, 5 p.m.

The Cary Theater, Cary.

PBS NC’s Preview Screening of On the Road with Chatham Rabbits— and Q+A Tues, May 5, 7 p.m. Online; presented by PBS North Carolina.

Jersey Boys $34+.

Apr. 29-May 1, various times. DPAC, Durham.

Comedy Showcase Sun, May 1, 5 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Company, Durham.

SLAVA UKRAINI! An Evening of (Bold) Stories to Support Ukrainian Refugees $25+.

Sun, May 1, 7 p.m.

The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Arts Discovery Educational Series: “The Movement, an Acapella Musical” $8. Mon, May 2, 9:45 and 11:20 a.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

My Fair Lady $35+.

May 3-8, various times. DPAC, Durham.

North Carolina Theatre: Ring of Fire $23+. Apr. 29-May 8, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM INDYweek.com

April 27, 2022

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P U Z Z L ES

NEWDED AN S! EXPO R H U

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.

In-Store Shopping Curbside Pick Up www.regulatorbookshop.com 720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705

Hours: Monday–Saturday 10–7 | Sunday 10–6

su | do | ku

this week’s puzzle level:

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box.

The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered.

Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

L f a

T

Em If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.”

Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com solution to last week’s puzzle

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April 27, 2022

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LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

BILL BURTON

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