6.01 Indy Week

Raleigh | Durham | Chapel Hill June 1, 2022

E D I R P

Sports teams have long had a limited mold.

A few inclusive Triangle teams are helping change that.

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG, P. 10 STO N

EWA LL

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VOL. 39 NO. 22

CONTENTS

BACK TA L K

Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill

Last week, we published a story from a group of student journalists at NC State about their peers’ frustrations with the campus bus system, the Wolfline, since the onset of the pandemic and with the glitchy TransLoc app the students have to use to track the buses that move them around the university’s sprawling campus. Reader CRISTIAN IVAN ZELAYA-REYES has some thoughts about the story:

NEWS 4

Local students, most too young to vote, are using the only recourse available to them to demonstrate for reporoductive rights and against gun violence— they're walking out of class. BY LENA GELLER How Durham's City Council used an arcane resolution to get out of paying a man who spent 25 years in prison for a double murder he didn't commit.

“It’s centered around the notion of not taking whoever you’re close with for granted," says Sarah McCombie, one-half of Chatham Rabbits, on the Americana duo's third album. BY MADELINE CRONE 14 The American Dance Festival kicks off this week in Durham with ShaLeigh Dance Works’ bold, immersive performance, enVISION. BY BYRON WOODS

Good story about the state of the Wolfline. I couldn’t help but notice the many parallels between the Wolfline and the GoRaleigh bus system however.

GoRaleigh (and the rest of GoTriangle and its departments) advertise TransLoc as the main way to track your bus. If you were to go on the app during the middle of a weekday, you’d quickly notice how many routes don’t have any up to date data at all, just displaying the scheduling GoRaleigh itself provides. For example, Route 20, the route between Raleigh and Garner, and the route I use most often, has not been up to date for months. I’ve sent emails about this, no change.

As for working conditions, it’s bad. Please watch the most recent Raleigh Transit Authority meeting done last week or so. Several GoRaleigh bus drivers spoke up, detailing their deteriorating working conditions, badly thought out equipment, and lack of raises and bonuses they were promised. The board seemed very receptive to the complaints brought forward, and promised change, but we’ll see how that pans out. While I cannot remember her exact words, one of the members said with the current state of the bus system and the city’s future plans, we’re building on top of trash.

Thanks for the story on the Wolfine, just wanted to point out its issues are city wide as well.

THE REGULARS

And on Twitter, commenter @CAPITALFSMGMT had the following to say: Why is there a driver shortage? As a country we need to do away with this "plantation mentality". That if your workforce is predominately black and your management is white, you can pay a lower salary and dictate anything. The ones that are currently working need to unionize.

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BY THOMASI MCDONALD

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It's been two years since the Black Lives Matter demonstrations took place in downtown Raleigh. What's changed with the city's police force since then?

BY JASMINE GALLUP

ARTS & CULTURE 10

Inclusive Triangle sports teams like the Raleigh Junior Rollers, Eno River Rugby, and the Carolina Crawfish are expanding the playing field.

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG

12

15 Culture Calendar WANT TO SEE YOUR NAME IN BOLD?

COVER Photos by Brett Villena / Design by Jon Fuller

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Durham Durham School of the Arts walkout PHOTO BY HAU TUNG

Walkout This Way With the probable overturn of Roe v. Wade and the constant specter of gun violence, local students, most too young to vote, are making their voices heard in the only way they feel they can—by walking out of class.

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

E

veryone knew it was coming, but it was still a sight to behold.

Two weeks ago, in the middle of third period, hundreds of Riverside High School students put down their pencils, closed their textbooks, and extinguished their Bunsen burners to march, pass-less, through the halls, gather in front of the school, and voice their support for reproductive rights in response to the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that aims to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Riverside looks remarkably like a correctional facility—the school stands at the end of a long driveway in northern Durham, and the front of its main building is a largely windowless slab of concrete—so the walkout bore resemblance to a jailbreak, except everyone stayed on the grounds, and the people in charge were prepared for it.

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The four sophomores who organized the demonstration had approached the principal, Gloria Woods-Weeks, with their plan several days prior. They weren’t asking for permission but wanted to give her a heads-up as an act of courtesy.

“She tried to encourage us to not do it during instructional time,” says organizer Natalia Caballero. “And we were just like, ‘Well, that’s kind of the point.’”

Woods-Weeks “gave up pretty quickly,” according to Caballero, and told the organizers that she’d been expecting a protest, as a number of other Triangle high schools had held them during the past week.

That trend was part of the reason Caballero and her friends decided to arrange the walkout—they didn’t want to be the only school not to do it.

“We had to acknowledge that we were aware of this, too,” organizer Rachael Ades says.

But they weren’t just bandwagoning. On the Instagram account they created to promote the demonstration, the organizers laid out their intentions in a concise post.

“As high schoolers, most of us cannot vote, and just posting graphics on Instagram stories can only do so much,” the post reads. “This is the next step. This is how we show support and use our voices.”

In a Zoom call, Caballero elaborates on this point.

“Obviously, younger people can get pregnant, and a lot of times younger people are not ready to have kids,” Caballero says. “But also, Roe v. Wade being overturned would lead to a lot of other rights potentially being taken away. And then we’re the ones who are gonna have to rebuild all of that progress, if it gets destroyed.”

And more broadly, she says, a reversal of rights would just be really messed up.

“Most of our parents were born right after Roe v. Wade.

So it’s kind of like, how are we going to have less rights than our parents? I don’t know how you could look at that and not be disturbed.”

In the days leading up to the walkout, the organizers rallied support through Instagram and word of mouth, and the morning of, their efforts were unintentionally bolstered by Woods-Weeks, who sent a last-minute email to faculty stating that “teachers should not encourage students to participate in the walkout.” The email backfired when at least one teacher projected it onto the whiteboard for students to see. (Woods-Weeks did not reply for comment, but a teacher told me the email was likely driven by safety concerns.)

On May 20 at 1:30 p.m., roughly 200 students exited their classrooms and assembled under the flagpole in front of the school. They passed around a hat to collect money for Planned Parenthood, then spent the next 40 minutes chanting, “They say no choice, we say pro-choice,” and parading signs they’d made during their lunch period. Most signs showed variations of the phrase “Abortion is health care,” though some were coarser; one, taped to the end of a yardstick, bore angry black and red letters that read, “If I wanted government in my womb I would f*ck a senator.”

In hindsight, though, the most jarring sign was one with the friendliest packaging.

Written in pastel pinks and purples, and bordered with doodles of flowers and hearts, it read, “WISH I HAD AS MUCH RIGHTS AS A GUN.”

L

ast Monday, instead of holding a walkout, students at Durham School of the Arts wore purple to show their support for reproductive rights.

But the next day, when a gunman murdered 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, they felt compelled to stage a more dramatic demonstration.

On Thursday morning, concurrent with students from several other Durham public schools, hundreds of middle and high schoolers walked out of DSA and convened in front of the school’s main entrance.

The students were joined by a number of teachers, as well as their principal, Jackie Tobias, who stood on a ledge and gave a speech encouraging students to call their senators and demand stricter gun laws. As she spoke, teachers handed out slips of paper with senators’ names and contact information.

Some students carried signs, but most, like junior Alexa Sabo, hadn’t had time to prepare, and came bearing only raw emotion.

“My friends and I, we just held each other, just crying,” Sabo says. “There was a lot of outrage and sadness.”

Sabo found out about the shooting while she was babysitting an eight-year-old girl, which she says felt acutely devastating.

“It hurt a lot to know that [the victims] won’t be able to celebrate, you know, their sweet 16 or stuff like that,” Sabo says.

The news also hit close to home for junior Scarlett Todd, who has younger siblings.

“I remember when Sandy Hook happened and how absolutely terrified I was to go to school, because I didn’t want that to be me,” Todd says. “Now I’m scared of it happening to [my siblings].”

The walkout provided a space for the school to mourn together, Sabo and Todd say, but it also served a greater purpose—it showed them that organizing is possible, allowed them to advocate for gun control, and made a statement.

“Even if it didn’t bring mass attention, it still showed the community that our school is extremely disturbed by these types of situations,” Todd says. “This isn’t something we’re just going to let slide.”

The demonstration at DSA wasn’t her first; in 2018, after 17 people were murdered in a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Todd and her classmates walked out of their middle school and sat on the ground in a silent protest.

She was reminded of that protest as she stood in front of DSA on Thursday; after a speaker read out the names of the Uvalde victims, the crowd of typically rowdy teenagers was swallowed by silence.

“Each time a name would be shouted, they would say how old the victim was,” Todd says. “I just broke down sobbing. Because every time they said, ‘This kid was 10,’ I would just be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s, that’s how old my brother is.’”

W

hen I ask sophomore Donna Diaz why she participated in the walkout at Riverside, she first tells me, “I’ll be honest—I wanted to skip class.”

But as we continue to talk, it becomes clear that Diaz cares about reproductive rights—she held a sign at the walkout that said, “My pussy, my power.”

Riverside High School walkout

PHOTO (RIGHT) BY DONNELL ESTES, COURTESY OF NATALIA CABALLERO (LEFT)

So if she’s invested in the cause, I ask, why was skipping class her motivation to attend?

Her answer is simple: she didn’t think the demonstration was going to accomplish anything. By that logic, she didn’t walk out to make some kind of large-scale change; she walked out because it was better than being in class.

“If it’s not getting attention from higher-ups, if it’s not getting attention from Congress, what we did was for nothing,” Diaz says.

Demonstrations do help to raise awareness, she says, but raising awareness doesn’t seem to be inspiring any real progress.

“Let’s take the protests for Black Lives Matter,” Diaz says. “People are still dying. They still hire racist police officers. Nothing’s really changed. It’s just that it’s more amplified.”

Like Diaz, a number of other students were critical of the walkout, despite supporting its cause. More than a few told me it was performative and pointless. One junior, Eden Richman, says it would’ve been more productive if the organizers had narrowed their focus.

“I wish that they made it more about, like, ‘if they’re gonna take away our access to abortion, DPS needs to step it up and give us better sex education and access to contraceptives’ to try to bridge the gap,” Richman says.

Richman’s idea is a good one, but I was taken aback by how many students—particularly upperclassmen, who were almost entirely absent from the Riverside walkout— were seemingly incensed at the naivete of those who believed they could change the system.

I participated in a walkout at Riverside during my senior year of high school. It was two days after Donald Trump had been elected president, and a lot of us

felt scared, angry, and bereft of agency—Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric targeted about 75 percent of the student body, and hardly any of us had been able to vote. The outcome of the election meant that we couldn’t rely on adults to protect or make decisions for us. So for a moment, we stopped listening to them and walked out of class.

When we showed up to school the next day, Trump was still president, but it felt like we had done something—like maybe we had practiced for the real world.

Just five years later, it seems that many students at that same school have become so cynical and disillusioned that they see public protests as showy and futile.

I can’t blame them. But still, it’s worrying.

Ray Starn, who organized the walkout during my senior year and recently graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill after serving as the lead organizer of the school’s Young Democrats chapter, says that the students who attended their school’s walkouts are on the right track.

“People grandstanding that it’s ‘not doing anything’ is funny, because ... grassroots organizing, whether it’s walkouts, labor strikes, or marches, creates new leaders and just a more politically active, aligned class,” Starn says.

Perhaps because it was triggered by an immediate tragedy, DSA’s walkout wasn’t polarizing in the way Riverside’s was. But Sabo shares a viewpoint that could be used to justify any school-based walkout: if school systems are a microcosm of government, walking out of class is the most immediate way for students to stand up against the larger system imposed on them.

“This is our way of pushing back,” Sabo says. “Even though we’re stuck in this really enforced system.” W INDYweek.com

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Durham Darryl Howard and his son Kai PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Cut and Run Durham’s city council refused to pay a jury award to a man who was falsely convicted of a double homicide in 1995. The city attorney says city officials attempted to negotiate with Darryl Howard— but ultimately, they leaned on an arcane statute that allows them to dodge payment. BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

D

arryl Howard’s voice was thick with anguish as he talked about the Durham City Council’s decision to not pay him $6 million that a federal jury awarded after he spent decades in prison for two murders he did not commit.

A jury concluded last December, at the end of a nearly month-long civil rights trial, that a police detective had manufactured evidence that resulted in Howard spending more than two decades behind bars after he was wrongly convicted for the murders of a 29-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter in 1991.

“All those years sitting in prison,” Howard says. “All the things that I have seen that will never leave my mind.”

Court records show that the victims, Doris Washington and her child, Nishonda, had both been raped before their murders inside of their apartment at the 6

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former Few Gardens public housing complex. Doris died of blunt force trauma to her abdomen. Nishonda had been strangled.

On March 31, 1995, Durham County superior court judge James Spencer sentenced Howard to serve 80 years in prison after he was convicted for the second-degree murders of the Washingtons.

Howard was also convicted of first-degree arson and sentenced to an additional 40 years after prosecutors contended he lit a fire in the apartment before fleeing.

On December 1, 2016, after Howard had served more than 23 years behind bars, Durham senior resident superior court judge Orlando Hudson ordered that his convictions be vacated and that he be released from prison following a DNA analysis that indicated he was innocent.

On April 30, 2021, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper issued Howard a pardon of innocence. He received $750,000 in compensation.

“There was a lot of abuse,” Howard says about the time he spent locked up. “I worked in segregation, where you see the worst in prison. I used to think, ‘Why, God? Why did you choose something for me like this?’”

On December 1, 2021, a jury in the U.S. District Court’s Middle District’s Durham division deliberated for about an hour before determining that former Durham police detective Darrell Dowdy had violated Howard’s civil rights when he fabricated evidence and demonstrated “a bad-faith failure to investigate” the double murders.

Howard says he learned in April that Durham City Council members went into “a closed session” and decided they weren’t going to pay him.

“Durham decided 24 years of my life wasn’t worthy,” he says. “It brought tears to my eyes.”

Criticism of the city council’s decision has been intense with pleas from residents to get council members to go on record as to why they decided not to pay Howard.

The INDY reached out to Durham mayor Elaine O’Neal and her fellow council members Leonardo Williams, Jillian Johnson, and Mark-Anthony Middleton, who are all Black Americans, along with Javiera Caballero, the first Latinx person elected to the city council.

“They have all complained in the past about systemic racism,” says Brad Bannon, Howard’s attorney, who is based in Chapel Hill. “And this decision is completely opposed to that view.”

The council members—owing to ongoing litigation— referred the INDY’s questions to Durham city attorney Kimberly Rehberg, who said the city council’s decision was made following a series of closed-door sessions soon after the federal jury’s verdict to award between December 2021 and February of this year.

Rehberg stated via a series of emails to the INDY that the city council’s decision not to pay Howard the $6 million jury award hinged on a single paragraph approved by the city council four decades ago.

The city’s two-and-a-half-page “Resolution Establishing Uniform Standards under Which Claims or Civil Judgements Sought or Entered against City Officers and Employees May Be Paid” was approved by city council members on September 8, 1981.

Section 5 of Resolution #3115 states that “whereas, it is in the public interest that claims made or judgments entered against officers or employees of the City be satisfied by the City, if the facts and circumstances of the claim or suit in which the judgment is entered show that the officer or employee was engaged in the good faith performance of his duties on behalf of the City when the act or omission giving rise to the claim or suit occurred.”

A jury of Dowdy’s peers “determined that Mr. Dowdy engaged in fabrication of evidence and a bad-faith failure to investigate,” Rehberg explained.

Rehberg says paying Howard after the city council determined Dowdy acted in bad faith is prohibited by state law.

“Once the jury made those factual findings, the city’s hands were tied.”

Bannon says he thinks the council members are “using the jury verdict as an excuse to cut and run” and that, “somehow, the jury verdict prohibits [the city council] from moving forward, and that’s simply not true.

You didn’t need a resolution to defend Darrell Dowdy for five years.”

Howard wonders why the city of Durham won’t acknowledge that Dowdy’s corrupt investigation was under the direction of higher-ups in the police department.

“He took orders,” Howard says. “He did what they said. So why can’t they pay? He did this because the police department told him to. When Dowdy arrested me, I heard his superior officer tell him two times that he had done a good job.”

Barry Scheck, cofounder of the nation’s original Innocence Project in Yeshiva University’s Cardozo law school, became a member of Howard’s defense team when Howard contacted the Innocence Project nearly 20 years ago. Scheck told the INDY that the city council’s decision to not pay Howard after the federal jury’s verdict was “ridiculous.”

“What’s particularly upsetting is the City of Durham took the position to pay out $4 million for Darrell Dowdy’s defense, and now they won’t pay [Howard].”

“I wish I knew,” Scheck answered when asked why he thought the city declined to pay his client the jury award.

“Right-thinking people have condemned it. It’s very cruel and very upsetting to Darryl. An innocent man wrongly convicted makes me think about the other Darryl,” Scheck adds, referring to Darryl Hunt, who was 19 in 1984 when he was wrongly convicted and served 19 years behind bars before he was released in 2005. Hunt took his own life in 2016.

He was 51.

“I pray everyday Darryl stays sane,” Scheck says. “I don’t know how these people can be so cavalier and cruel. It’s perverse.”

Though city officials have taken a lot of heat for paying $4 million to defend Dowdy, Rehberg, the city attorney, said the $4 million in legal fees were not solely for Dowdy’s defense. She says $1.5 million was spent in legal fees defending the City of Durham.

The remaining $2.5 million paid for the defense of Dowdy along with that of three other police officers—Scott Pennica, E.E.

Sarvis, and Michele Soucie—and retired fire marshal Milton Smith.

Rehberg says prior to the jury verdict, the City of Durham “did engage in goodfaith efforts to settle the case on behalf of all the named defendants in three separate mediation settlement conferences” and that the city’s offers “were remarkably close to what the jury ultimately awarded to Mr. Howard at the close of the trial.”

Bannon scoffs at the city attorney’s assertion and says the city offered Howard $4.5 million, less than the jury’s award and not accounting for accrued interest and legal fees.

“First of all, there were only two mediations, and each time, the settlement offer wasn’t anything close, let alone ‘remarkably close,’ to the jury award,” he says.

There are other troubling, unresolved issues about the case: Doris and Nishonda Washington’s killer(s) remains at large.

Court documents suggest a man who was a juvenile at the time may have significant information about who was responsible for the mother’s and child’s deaths. The man’s DNA was found in Doris Washington. But he remains free.

“He pleaded the fifth in front of the judge,” Howard says. “[Judge Hudson] asked the district attorney if they were going to let the man walk out of the courtroom. He’s still walking around free.”

“The Durham Police Department is not interested in investigating, because someone was wrongfully convicted,” Bannon says. “That would admit they got it wrong.”

Owing to the city’s resolution of not indemnifying city employees who act in bad faith, Dowdy, described in a News and Observer story in April as a 30-year police veteran who made nearly $76,000 annually when he retired in 2007, stands to lose everything he owns to pay Howard $6 million.

Citing financial hardship, on March 4, Dowdy’s attorneys had filed a motion to stay the proceedings to enforce the jury’s verdict because the Durham council should have complied. The motion also indicates Dowdy may file a lawsuit against the city.

Bannon says Dowdy’s financial situation is not of concern to his client’s interest.

“The victim here in no shape or form is Darrell Dowdy,” Bannon says. “We’ll take his house, his car, and all of his money. But the victim here is Darryl Howard.”

Meanwhile, Howard spends his days working at a nonprofit he started in 2018, The Darryl Howard Foundation, and taking care of his two-year-old son, Kai. “I’m never giving up,” he says. “I don’t have a giving-up bone in my body.” W INDYweek.com

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Raleigh National Day of Action for Black Lives Lost protest in Downtown Raleigh on May 30, 2020 PHOTO BY JADE WILSON

Street Justice It’s been two years since Black Lives Matter demonstrations took place in downtown Raleigh. What, if anything, has improved in the city’s police department? BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

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wo years after the murder of George Floyd and citywide protests calling for police reform, there’s still no justice for the Black and brown people killed and brutalized

by Raleigh police officers, activists say.

In fact, the state of policing in Raleigh has arguably gotten worse.

“Once you create a culture where I can come and beat up on you and there’s no ramifications for my actions, guess what we’re gonna keep doing?” Kerwin Pittman, a local activist, told the INDY. “More and more people are going to keep beating up on you because there’s no ramifications. It’s about accountability.”

Pittman has been hard at work in the two years since the Black Lives Matter movement resurged—meeting with people who have had violent encounters with the police, lobbying to get body camera footage released, and pressuring government officials to take stronger steps against officers who act inappropriately.

But in some ways, his work has been in vain.

In those same two years, Raleigh police have shot and killed five people, leaving their families awash in a sea of grief and confusion.

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In January, Daniel Turcios, 43, was shot five times in front of his wife and two children. Turcios was smeared by police and media following the shooting, described as “intoxicated” and as “a knife-wielding man.” But the facts that slowly trickled out in the weeks and months afterward disproved the initial narrative.

The “knife” that Turcios had was a pocketknife, too small to be seen on a cell phone video taken by a witness. The toxicology report shows Turcios had no drugs or alcohol in his system, merely caffeine and nicotine. Body camera footage reveals Turcios, who didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand officers’ commands, was trying to walk away from police when he was first tasered in the back.

“My children were yelling [at the police] and asking them to not kill him,” Rosa Jerez, Turcios’s wife, said at a press conference earlier this year. “He was killed like a dog.”

In the four months since Turcios was shot and killed, the state has completed an investigation. Wake County district attorney Lorrin Freeman will decide whether to press criminal charges against the two officers involved. Freeman said in an email that the State Bureau of Investigation provided its investigation to her “approximately thirty days ago.”

“I asked for some additional information which we are working on obtaining,” Freeman wrote. “A decision has not been made in this case but I expect will be in the next few weeks.”

Historically, however, officers who kill men of color are not held accountable, even when they’re involved in multiple violent incidents. Officer W.B. Tapscott, who tasered Turcios, is also the officer who fatally shot Keith Collins in 2020, firing at him four times as he ran away and seven more times after he fell to the ground. Collins was carrying a BB gun.

Freeman decided not to press charges in Collins’s case, saying Tapscott reasonably believed his life was in danger and was justified in using deadly force. But that’s exactly what needs to change, says Pittman.

“We need to start looking at a more nonlethal way of responding to different incidents,” says Pittman. “It starts with the department here really saying, ‘Let’s look at our training manuals, let’s look at our policies, and let’s [change] it in a way that … value[s] life. [Where] we don’t take it at the first instance that we feel like we have justification in the eyes of the law.”

When officers don’t face consequences for killings, it’s no wonder the killings continue, says Pittman. Just last month, Reuel Rodriguez-Nunez, 37, was killed after police opened fire with more than 30 rounds. The shooting followed a confrontation outside a southeast Raleigh police station, where Rodriguez-Nunez was throwing Molotov cocktails at police cars.

Rodriguez-Nunez’s case isn’t as clear cut as some others, but his death was avoidable, says Pittman.

“Of course [it was preventable],” he says. “You have a guy throwing Molotov cocktails and you have individuals with firearms. They could have easily deployed something else instead of shooting.”

“I’ve thought about it long and hard,” Pittman adds.

“During the George Floyd protests, we were shot with rubber bullets. Why wasn’t this man shot with a rubber bullet?

Why is the first resort to always kill?”

Pittman and other activists had hoped the culture of policing in Raleigh would change after a new police chief, Estella Patterson, was appointed in August of last year.

Patterson took the place of former chief Cassandra DeckBrown, who retired earlier in 2021 following a barrage of criticism from protestors.

Dawn Blagrove, executive director of Emancipate NC, says she had hoped Patterson would take a more “commonsense” approach to officers who have behaved badly and acknowledge their misconduct. So far, she says, she’s been disappointed.

“While the new chief is taking a much more objective tone than we typically saw from Chief Deck-Brown, I think what we are not seeing from this chief is real accountability for her law enforcement officers and for the things

that they are doing that are excessive,” Blagrove says.

“Since the new chief has been in place, we have seen an incredible uptick in police-involved shootings in Raleigh and a really unprecedented amount of hostility and violence.”

Although Patterson fired Detective Omar Abdullah—who arrested more than a dozen men on trumped-up drug-trafficking charges—other officers who raided the home of an innocent family on Abdullah’s word are still employed, says Blagrove.

“While [Abdullah] was fired, there was a whole team of officers involved in that nefarious behavior,” she says. “All of them are still employed with RPD. All of them are still actively getting paychecks, are still actively working, and none of them have been held accountable for the abuses of trust that happened and the trauma that was caused.”

Police Sgt. Brian Scioli, who wrongfully arrested 17-year-old Nyee’ya Williams during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, remains a member of the Raleigh Police Department, according to a recent report

by The News and Observer. This even after the city agreed to pay Williams $37,500 in an out-of-court settlement last month.

Scioli is also the officer who was caught on video threatening a teenager in 2016, after the teen wrote “F*** the Police” in snow on his cruiser. “I’ll assault you all I want, man,” Scioli said, followed by, “I’m allowed to threaten people, I’m police.”

“That officer still has a job, even though it is clear he violated Nyee’ya’s rights, that he lied about what actually happened,” says Blagrove. “After the investigation, he still has a job. That’s problematic.”

The police department, under the leadership of Patterson, has petitioned the court to release body camera footage in some cases, including in the killings of Turcios and Rodriguez-Nunez. But for Pittman, that’s not enough. He argues the department’s commitment to transparency wavers on a case-by-case basis.

“This is a typical ploy that I’ve seen from the police department when they feel that a shooting they do is justifiable in the court of popular opinion,” Pittman says, referring to the release of the body camera footage in Rodriguez-Nunez’s killing.

“In Daniel Turcios’s case, they petitioned for the body camera footage to be released because they felt like they could sway [people] in the court of popular opinion, without really laying out clear facts of what happened and what particularly led up to this incident.”

On that same day in court, Pittman says, the department petitioned against body camera footage being released in an inci-

dent where police officers raided the wrong house.

“That is the pattern that I’m seeing with them,” Pittman says. “And if it’s transparency, it has to be clear transparency when you’re right or when you’re wrong. It can’t be only when you feel like you’re right.”

The results of internal police investigations are not public record, so the names of officers who have complaints sustained against them, as well as the consequences they may face, are often unknown.

Additionally, North Carolina DAs are now required to report officers whom prosecutors don’t deem credible as witnesses in court to their agencies.

Freeman says her office “had approximately 10 to 12 officers over the last seven years … who we had deemed not credible.”

“Fortunately, when this happened historically their agency terminated them and we dismissed all charges in which they were key witnesses,” Freeman wrote in an email to the INDY. But, again, the officers are shielded by personnel laws, so while the law enforcement agency is notified when an officer is deemed not credible, the public is not informed.

Patterson remains committed to transparency, she said in an email to the INDY last week.

“My commitment to transparency remains steadfast and I will continue to provide updated, timely information as it becomes available,” she wrote, referring to Turcios’s shooting.

“The investigation regarding the officer-involved shooting that occurred on January 11 has not yet been concluded, as we are still waiting on the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the Wake County District Attorney to present their findings.”

But ultimately, anything Patterson does to improve the department “is going to be deeply undercut by the wayward behavior of her officers,” Blagrove says.

“While I appreciate that she does not necessarily have control over the team or the culture she inherits, I do believe that it is her responsibility to be very proactive in creating a culture that is more respectful of the role they play and of the community they serve,” Blagrove says.

Pittman had a blunter criticism of Patterson.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he says. “I think [Patterson] may have good intentions because she hasn’t shown cruel intentions yet. But it’s a point of matter getting in there and doing the brunt of the work … putting policies in place to hold these people accountable and also putting policies in place that creates true transparency.” W

Use of Force: A Timeline Statewide, 70 men and women have been shot and killed by law enforcement since 2020, including Charles Walker Piquet, 51, in Durham, Ondrae Levado Hutchinson, 30, in Durham, and Stanley Edward Thompson, 51, in Apex.

April 20, 2019

Soheil Antonio Mojarrad, 30, is shot eight times by Officer William Brett Edwards following a report of trespassing. Edwards’s body camera was not turned on.

Mojarrad, who had a history of mental health issues, first attempted to walk away. Mojarrad’s family later files a wrongful death suit alleging he was unarmed.

January 14, 2020

Braily Andres Batista-Concepcion, 22, is beaten by a police officer during an arrest, as shown in a video posted to Twitter. Batista-Concepcion was stopped in connection with three hit-and-run crashes earlier in the day.

The RPD conducted a criminal investigation into allegations of excessive force, but Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman declined to have the incident investigated by the state, saying an internal review of the officer’s conduct was sufficient.

January 30, 2020

Keith Dutree Collins, 52, is shot 11 times by Officer W.B. Tapscott. Collins was mentally and physically disabled. His last words: “It ain’t nothing but a BB gun.”

May 2020 Black Lives Matter protests take place in downtown Raleigh. Nyee’ya Williams, 17, is wrongfully arrested

by Sgt. Brian Scioli. The city later pays Williams $37,500 in an out-of-court settlement.

March 10, 2020 Javier Torres, 26, is shot and killed.

Torres was armed with a handgun but is shot while attempting to flee. Protestors gather outside then chief Cassandra DeckBrown’s house.

January 11, 2022

Daniel Turcios is shot and killed in front of his family following a rollover traffic accident.

May 7, 2022

Reuel Rodriguez-Nunez is shot after throwing Molotov cocktails at police vehicles outside a police station in southeast Raleigh.

INDYweek.com

June 1, 2022

9

E TC.

RALEIGH JUNIOR ROLLERS

ENO RIVER RUGBY

CAROLINA CRAWFISH

raleighjuniorrollers.com

enorugby.com

@carolinacrawfishbaseball

Carolina Crawfish PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Finding Home Base

and masculinity abound. For trans athletes there is intense scrutiny of their every move as terms such as “fairness” and “biological advantages” are levied against them.

Sports can be a hostile place across all ages and leagues; according to the Trevor Project, less than one-third of LGBTQ youth participate in sports, with many saying they don’t participate out of fear. In 2015, the international study Out on the Fields found that 80 percent of gay and straight athletes said they had witnessed some form of homophobia in sports.

LGBTQ folks who do hold a notable space in sports, like University of Pennsylvania diver Lia Thomas or U.S. women’s soccer captain Megan Rapinoe, are often subject to relentless criticism. Since Thomas’s win for the 500-yard freestyle in the Division I national championship in March, she’s faced an onslaught of public and media criticism, from personal attacks by right-wing pundits to reactionary anti-trans legislation citing Thomas’s win that seeks to ban trans participants from playing in teams corresponding with their gender. The nonprofit Freedom for All Americans reports that 64 anti-trans sports bills are currently active across 29 state legislatures, including the North Carolina “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which has been stalled in the house since last spring. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 2022 is the “worst year on record” for antiLGBTQ legislation across the country.

As politicians and members of the public try to draw lines in the sand of who sports are for, the importance of LGBTQ-affirming teams and leagues is more important than ever.

Sports teams have long had a limited mold.

A few inclusive Triangle teams are helping change that.

T

BY BRIAN ROSENZWEIG arts@indyweek.com

W

hen Kelsey Rene first joined Eno River Rugby (ERR) in 2018, they commuted from Greensboro to Durham—a 45-minute drive, on a good day—for practices.

Friends were confused why Rene gave so much time to a sports team so far away. But ERR was different.

“With Eno River Rugby, for the first time, I just got to be Kelsey Rene,” Rene says. “That was a beautiful thing.”

ERR, the oldest women’s rugby club in the state, prides itself on being openly queer and inclusive. As a proud Black lesbian, those values are important to Rene.

Rene had long been involved in sports; during their undergraduate years, they played women’s soccer for Loyola University. But even as they felt accepted, they still bore the weight of being one of the few out queer players, much less one of the few queer people of color on the team.

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“When I stepped onto that field, I felt othered,” Rene says. “[With ERR], you go out there on the field for 80 minutes, and just play, and that’s all that matters.”

That’s stuck with Rene. Four years later, they’re now the president of the club, a space they once never imagined holding as a queer person of color. But that’s what Rene says makes ERR truly unique.

“People talk about teams being a family, and I’ve been on every type of team from so young to now,” Rene says.

“I’ve never felt the idea of family until I joined Eno River.”

Searching for space Sports have long occupied a complicated space for LGBTQ people. In women’s sports, stereotypes about queerness

wo years ago, Marty Rogers’s friend Garrett Holt asked them to join his new baseball team, the Carolina Crawfish. At first, Rogers demurred.

“I was like, ‘Garrett, I’m fat.’” Rogers says. “He said, ‘Who cares? Come play baseball.’

“Then I was like, ‘OK, but I don’t run,’ and he was like, ‘I don’t run either! You run like 10 feet at a time, tops, in baseball.’

“I said, ‘Fine, I’ll come out and play.’ I’ve been in love with it since.”

Carolina Crawfish is not your average baseball team. It’s part of the Dock Ellis League, a self-described “punk rock” baseball league named after the late Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who “famously pitched a no-hitter on LSD.” Its model, in other words, goes against the grain, with a spirit of inclusivity, queerness, and communal structure, as upheld by the central rule, “no umpires, no managers.”

Prior to Carolina Crawfish, Rogers’s primary experience with sports was a “traumatic” experience with softball growing up. They had long counted themselves out.

But the Crawfish do things differently.

“We always like to joke that we ‘fucking suck,’ but at the same time, we don’t suck, because we’re all just here, having fun and trying to improve,” Rogers says.

Rogers says their time with the Crawfish has been critical in dismantling their internalized beliefs that sports are solely for able-bodied, athletically elite, and predominantly straight and cisgender athletes.

“I think it’s extremely important that we are visible and that we’re loud about how we’re having a good time and taking up space in sports,” Rogers says. “I think our team is the least white, and the least skinny, and the least male out of any of the teams in the league.”

Yet the Crawfish have also made Rogers aware of how many traditional sports can be a toxic space even for cisgender males.

“They will bring their stories of like, ‘Yeah, I’m a straight dude, but I didn’t fit the mold enough. I was too nerdy, or I was too skinny, or I was too weird,’” Rogers says. “We all share this narrative of not being welcomed. So we’re kind of like the Island of Misfit Toys.”

Affirming spaces for youth Ailen Marie and Asher Weyhrauch don’t have much in common. There’s their hair, for starters—Marie’s is a rich blue in a traditional crew cut, while Weyhrauch’s is a soft cherry red swooping across his face—and they’re also several grades apart, attend different schools, and differ widely in personal interests.

Yet when they both came to Raleigh Junior Rollers (RJR), a gender-inclusive roller derby league in Raleigh that’s expressly queer-affirming, one question let them both know they were in the right place: “Welcome! What are your pronouns?”

For the two boys and their parents, who had felt uncomfortable on certain teams, in locker rooms, and on fields over the years, that question was like a sigh of relief.

Roller derby—a roller-skating contact sport with longtime ties to the LGBTQ community—has provided a space for Marie and Weyhrauch to express themselves and build confidence in an affirming league. In skating with people from across the Triangle of all gender expressions and backgrounds— and learning to be rough and assertive while also respectful and kind—the two say they’ve both grown tremendously.

Marie says he loves the theatricality of derby; while on the rink, he and others don a “ring name,” like in wrestling.

“It’s been a really nice means for a lot of people questioning their gender, and not yet comfortable transitioning, just being like, ‘Well, you can call me this,’” Marie says.

“It offers up a lot of space to learn about performing as a person, and how that’s not exactly a linear thing, but it’s definite-

“It’s extremely important that we are visible and that we’re loud about how we’re having a good time and taking up space in sports. Our team is the least white, and the least skinny, and the least male out of any of the teams in the league.” ly something to be optimistic about and search for improvement within.”

Weyhrauch, who’s currently in seventh grade, says that while RJR serves a wide age range (ages 8–17), he thinks it’s most impactful for the younger participants.

“It’s really cool, but I think I see a big difference in the children that play, more than the teenagers,” Weyhrauch says.

Charity Weyhrauch, Asher’s mom, says RJR has been an important part of Asher’s growth in confidence, especially since “coming out” during the pandemic.

“This was really the first thing, after he came out, where he could see people like him in person,” Charity Weyhrauch says.

“And it’s just been amazing to see how happy he was from that.”

Marie says one of his favorite things about derby is that while it encourages physical development and competition like other sports it’s also based on a foundation of respect and understanding.

“Even though you could frame what we’re doing as violent, by hitting each other, we’re also very respectful of the fact that inside a body is a person, and they have feelings,” Marie says.

Community beyond college Rugby was the first space where Ash Davison saw queer people like themself.

“I grew up in Waxhaw, which is a pretty conservative area, and didn’t really understand or know my sexuality at the time,” Davison says. “When I joined my rugby team [at NC State University], I had finally been in a space that was predominantly queer.”

Yet as Davison graduated, they worried that the queer space they’d grown used to in college would cease to exist. Then, they found Eno River Rugby.

“When I joined Eno, I realized, ‘They’re not just in college, they’re not just having fun,’ like these identities, they’re real,” Davison says. “It was really cool to see that out in the world, and see these people continue to take up space.”

At ERR, teammates often repeat the mantra “everybody is a rugby body.” That affirmation that rugby belongs to everyone—and beyond a college time frame— means a lot to Davison.

“It’s just that level of comfort and protection in that you know you’re with people like yourself, and no one’s gonna question it,” Davison says.

Davison believes that Eno River Rugby is a closer community than most teams, and thinks that’s largely because of how meaningful it is for queer and diverse groups to have communities like the club.

“Our teammates, they’re not just our teammates. They’re also our friends,” Davison says. “We do a really good job of welcoming people and being a friendly queer space for people in the area.”

While many on queer and genderaffirming teams are grateful for the spaces they provide and the progress that’s been made, they hope over time to become less of an outlier.

Cas, another member of Carolina Crawfish, says while he loves how “homemade” the team is, he wishes they had more support from the local community.

“We don’t get much turnout at our games, aside from the family and friends of the actual players, but we really do have a good time,” Cas says. “A lot of these leagues are often overlooked still, because they’re not the professional leagues, or they’re not comprised of people you expect to see playing these sports.”

Rene, from ERR, says they hope for more visibility in all sports—not just smaller, expressly affirming teams.

“I think there’s value in having a predominantly queer space for people to enter, but that does not mean that sport at a high level should be prohibitive to how you identify,” Rene says. “You should be able to play in whatever league that you feel represents you best.” W

Raleigh's Community Bookstore

Latest on Bookin’ Available

5.23

Dan Grunfeld,

By The Grace of the Game Events

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6.3

7PM

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6.7

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6.8

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IN-STORE

Therese Anne Fowler, It All Comes Down to This

IN-STORE

Corban Addison, Wastelands in conversation with John Grisham

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INDYweek.com

June 1, 2022

11

M U SIC

CHATHAM RABBITS: IF YOU SEE ME RIDING BY

IF YOU SEE ME RIDING BY

[Self-released; June 3]

Friday, June 3, 8 p.m., $28 | The Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw

Chatham Rabbits duo Austin and Sarah McCombie PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

Hop on the Bandwagon For their expansive third album, If You See Me Riding By, the Chatham Rabbits consider life and friendships through a pandemic lens.

BY MADELINE CRONE music@indyweek.com

I

t was 98 degrees in downtown Durham the day Sarah and Austin McCombie performed at the funeral of a man they had never met.

What led them here is a testament to the duo, broadly known as Chatham Rabbits, and their abiding efforts to connect through music. What most would call a “stranger” Sarah and Austin consider “a friend I’ve never met.” The success of this married couple’s musical pursuits hinges on this kindredship.

Looking around at the gathering, they found only one familiar face: Miss Becky, the grieving wife whom they had met just a few weeks before, at a pandemic-friendly performance in her neighborhood. It was one of several stops on Chatham Rabbits’ “Stay at Home Tour” that brought live music from a safe dis12

June 1, 2022

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tance to the Triangle and beyond—a creative solution to a dismal situation.

Miss Becky, in turn, had never heard of Chatham Rabbits before the pair pulled up her street on a trailer turned stage, hitched behind their sprinter van they could no longer use to tour their sophomore album The Yoke Is Easy, The Burden Is Full, which was released in May 2020. So the McCombies were surprised when she emailed them a few weeks later to request they perform at the funeral of her husband, Henry Wood.

“In normal times, we wouldn’t have had the time to do something like this,” Austin says. “And we were really honored to do it.”

In the planning process, Miss Becky described her vision for the service as “beautiful, Southern, and all about Jesus.”

And that it was.

“It was like something out of a movie,” Austin continues.

Despite the blistering heat, attendees gathered around the American flag–draped casket and honored Wood and his hard-fought battle with lung cancer.

Beneath the ancient oaks of the historic Duke Cemetery, the duo leaned into their bluegrass roots, paying their respects with a traditional take on the hymn “I’ll Fly Away.”

“By the end of the service, we were both super emotional; we felt like we knew this man,” Austin says. “It made us think what it would be like to be flies on the wall at our own funerals. If we heard what people had to say about us, maybe we would focus less on the little things that bog us down and more on what Sarah says are those ‘eulogy moments’—who we are as people. The essence of who someone is can be described so quickly.”

Their song “Flies at Our Funeral” is the product of a friendship that formed in the face of suboptimal circumstances. Drawing on intimate moments like these, Chatham Rabbits crafted their third album, If You See Me Riding By. Due June 3, the record is a bold step forward for the Americana duo who, in 2018, opted out of their more conventional roles as a teacher and financial adviser to pursue the path less followed as full-time musicians.

Threaded through all three of their albums is a recurring theme of friendship found along the way.

“You Never Told Me I Was Pretty” is told through the endearing lens of a fan’s five-year-old granddaughter, Eleanor. This track—their first song added to Spotify curated playlists (“Indie Bluegrass” and “Grassroots”)—was commissioned as a gift for the fan’s husband to honor his relationship with their grandchild.

“She said that he never tells Eleanor that she’s pretty or cute or anything about her physical appearance, but he focuses on how she can do anything she sets her mind to,” Austin says.

At its core, If You See Me Riding By is a pandemic album.

Not in the sense of slapping a label onto a COVID-19 project but because the album blossomed from the depths of uncertainty, with an emphasis on how people live and connect in isolation.

“It’s a compilation of experiences we had during a time we could pick our heads up and look around and connect with people we haven’t had time to because we were all in this predicament together,” Austin says.

“If You See Me Riding By” transports the two back to what they jokingly referred to as the “honeymoon phase” of the pandemic. Until then, the song was just a melody and the first two verses.

“It’s centered around the notion of not taking whoever you’re close with for granted, and learning to be a person who can be more humble in this situation,” Sarah says.

The title track is what they consider a “true cowrite”—a deviation from their previous process.

Their 2020 album is an artistic union of two sets of separately penned songs. But their new practice is even more personal, revealing their individual personalities more so than writing on their own. This tag-team approach is reflective of their day-to-day life as a married couple: Austin is a self-admitted high-level idea guy, and Sarah brings the concepts back down to earth.

“Austin’s ability to look at the big picture is awesome, but then he gets super overwhelmed by tedious details,” she says.

“And I’m the opposite. I love a to-do list, then get freaked out by high-level plans.

That definitely falls into our songwriting; it’s apparent all over the album.”

“Kill the Snake” considers the cost of wishing time away with a retrospective romanticization of aspects of pandemic life. Like many, it took shape with an Austin melody, and again Sarah swept in to tie loose ends with tangible lyrics that bring the message to life, like “Eatin’ supper on the floor / Our height marked on the door.”

Chatham Rabbits’ musical approach honors old-time music through modern interpretation. Maintaining elements of age-old instrumentation without rigid sonic boundaries expands their audience, further sanctifying the tradition.

To build out the album’s expansive sound, the pair turned to the producer Saman Khoujinian, a friend and previous collaborator. Together, they worked to relinquish the tight grips of what could have defined their artistry.

Austin describes Khoujinian as a “scientist” and “total standout,” adding, “We came to him saying, ‘We want your fingerprints all over this album.’”

The album took shape with an intimate pod that included Khoujinian and bassist Alex Bingham at the quaint Bedtown studios. A few months later, when deemed safe to gather, they brought their full band to Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Betty’s, to infuse the project with its full sonic potential.

“I feel really proud of my effort to surrender to what we wanted to make with this record and to not feel beholden to ways that people think we should sound,” Sarah says. “I love that imagery of just letting go and creating the art we wanted to, and letting the mess of the pandemic sort itself out on the record.” W

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June 1, 2022

13

STAGE

ENVISION: SENSORY BEYOND SIGHT

ShaLeigh Dance Works | American Dance Festival | Friday, June 3–Sunday, June 5 | The Fruit, Durham, $20 | americandancefestival.org

Sense Making ShaLeigh Dance Works’ bold, immersive performance, enVISION, opens the American Dance Festival in Durham this week. BY BYRON WOODS arts@indyweek.com

A

white, disposable blindfold lay in every audience member’s chair prior to last month’s preliminary preview of ShaLeigh Dance Works’ enVISION, a new piece set to open this year’s American Dance Festival this week.

Though we hardly realized it at the time, the seemingly innocuous eye covering, an incongruity at a dance show, had just posed the work’s first challenge and possibility to us, even before any dancers entered the room.

We had a choice—provided we were sighted, that is. We could watch the performance as usual. Or we could experience it through our other senses instead, as enVISION’s creators, designers, and performers engaged not only the discrete senses of hearing and smell but the constellation of tactile or skin senses that register temperature, texture, air movement, proximity, and body awareness, along with the fusion of sensory inputs that create experiences like frisson and autonomic sensory meridian response, or ASMR. Later, we learned that audience members would be given third and fourth options in departures even further from the conventional dance experience during this weekend’s run. Audience members can sit in a section near the stage, where sensory elements in the work will be more immersive and robust.

They can also opt instead to be taken and led by a guide, sightless, into and through the movements and experiences in the performance environment onstage, during the show.

“It’s about sharing an experience, and about stepping into the shoes of people that live in a world that’s not dominated by sight,” says artistic director ShaLeigh Comerford. “Because this is a world that we, the sighted, will never understand unless we step into it.”

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“It’s also looking at that as a point of inspiration: how differently we experience when we’re navigated through touch, sound, or things that ground us in embodiment as we’re opening up the senses,” the award-winning Rougemont choreographer adds.

The seeds of enVISION began three years ago, with a commission Comerford received to create a work with Davian Robinson, a blind dancer and choreographer from Charlotte. The experience sensitized Comerford to the underpinnings of ableism in the aesthetics and practices of conventional dance. Visual ability has always had primacy and privilege in the art form: dance has always been judged by how its bodies in motion look.

But that runs counter to another fundamental truth that everyone who’s ever danced also knows: we can experience dance every bit as deeply based on how it feels. And that realization got Comerford to interrogate the assumptions that have traditionally barred people with visual impairments from dance classes to performing and experiencing the artworks themselves.

“It took a pandemic, actually, for minds to start changing about who deserves to study dance,” says Krishna Washburn, choreographer and artistic director of Dark Room Ballet, a New York–based school for blind and visually impaired dancers. She also ridicules dry, overly technical audio descriptions that don’t consider that blind audience members might have different priorities.

“When you’re just told, ‘There’s an elbow at a 90-degree angle,’ that’s not an equitable translation of what’s actually happening,” Washburn scoffs.

Robinson also dings the unimaginative language he finds at the root of resistance in dance instruction. “The Terrible T’s: this,

A chiaroscuro image of four dancers gently embracing a blindfolded woman with their hands and heads lightly resting on her. PHOTO BY SLATER MAPP that, and there,” he notes, number among nondescriptive words that convey little to no direction to a blind dancer.

“The challenge is overcoming the false messages and stereotypes about what’s possible, replacing the voices they’ve heard in the past saying you can’t with a voice that says, ‘Of course, you can do it,’” Washburn notes.

Comerford estimates it took a full six months of training and preparation before her company could even begin work on enVISION. First, sighted dancers in her company had to learn how to take direction from a blind person, by taking ballet lessons, blindfolded, with Washburn.

Robinson then led the group through an empowering workshop series he’s taught at Columbia University on learning how to move without a visual focus.

“When you teach someone with a sight impairment how to dance as a sighted person, it doesn’t work,” says Robinson. “When you look at yourself in a mirror you take a kind of snapshot and try to line those back up in your mind. What’s absent most of the time is what it feels like. ‘OK, you want me to be in this position. But why?’”

Washburn and Robinson both give primacy to the feelings that movement convey within the dancer’s body. “You’re allowed to trust those things. You don’t need someone else to tell you how you feel on the inside of your own body,” Washburn says.

In enVISION, we ultimately learn that dancers fully grounded in the feeling and meaning underlying movements will likely be able to transmit them to their audience in turn.

An opening section reveals to sighted audience members the chaos and specific danger that a rushing crowd in a public place poses to a sightless person, before a deeply moving sequence where somatic touch and talk defuses the potential trauma of that event. At one point, Robinson’s character asks, “Can we hold our hands on each other’s hearts? For when we do that, we can see each other.”

Thus a work created for people with visual impairments, to reflect and disclose some of their deepest embodied experiences, also serves as an important, empathetic bridge to the sighted community.

“I wanted to tell these stories. I wanted to give them the world that they deserve to have,” Comerford says.

When we talk, Washburn notes that most dance performances are designed for the sighted.

Then she concludes, “This one is not.

You can still come; you are welcome, because no one should ever be denied access to art. But understand: there are reasons why blind and visually impaired people should have access to dance performance. And enVISION is a performance that fully embodies these important, antiableist artistic principles.” W

CULTURE CALENDAR

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

CHVRCHES will perform at the Ritz on Thursday, June 2.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RITZ

Blab School $8. Sat, Jun. 4, 7:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Blind Tigers Karaoke Band: Dazed and Confused Edition Sat, Jun. 4, 9 p.m.

Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

The Conjure Dance Party: Rave Edition Sat, Jun. 4, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Cosmic Charlie— High Energy Grateful Dead from Athens, GA $17. Sat, Jun. 4, 8:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

FRESH Sounds with Charly Lowry $45. Sat, Jun. 4, 7 p.m. Artspace, Raleigh.

music CHVRCHES $35.

Thurs, Jun. 2, 7 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Jun. 1, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Queer Country Night Wed, Jun. 1, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

NC Symphony: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony $54+.

Jun. 2-3, 8 p.m.

Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh. $15+. Sat, Jun. 4, 8 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

Bombino $29. Thurs, Jun. 2, 8 p.m. The ArtsCenter, Carrboro.

Kris Allen Trio $15+.

Thurs, Jun. 2, 8 p.m.

Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

Sweet Fiend $8.

Thurs, Jun. 2, 9 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Triangle Soul Society Thurs, Jun. 2, 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

God’s Trombones $15. Jun. 3-4, various times. Hayti Heritage Center, Durham.

3AMSOUND $15.

Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. The Warehouse at The Fruit, Durham.

Al Riggs Themselves Release Party $10.

Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Get Proud Y’all: An Emo Pop & Punk Party $12. Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

The Gone Ghosts Record Release Show $8. Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Hank, Pattie & the Current Album Release Show $18. Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m. Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro.

The Holland Brothers Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. Vecino Brewing Co., Carrboro.

Jupiter Coyote Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. Smoky Hollow, Raleigh.

Kip Moore: How High Tour $30. Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m. The Ritz, Raleigh.

Kristin Hersh $22.

Fri, Jun. 3, 8 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

New Morning Jazz Trio Fri, Jun. 3, 7:30 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

Morgan Wallen: The Dangerous Tour $600+. Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

Rage Against the Machine Tribute $12. Fri, Jun. 3, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz $25.

Sat, Jun. 4, 8 p.m.

Sharp Nine Gallery, Durham.

Noah Finnce $15. Sat, Jun. 4, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Parker McCollum $25+. Sat, Jun. 4, 8 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.

Phish and Widespread Panic Tribute $14. Sat, Jun. 4, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

The Pink Triangle Dance Party $7. Sat, Jun. 4, 9:30 p.m. The Basement at The Fruit, Durham.

Push Play with Eskuche $20+. Sat, Jun. 4, 10 p.m. The Warehouse at The Fruit, Durham.

Starbenders $18.

Sat, Jun. 4, 9 p.m.

Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Afro Pop at Midway Sun, Jun. 5, 2 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

Carolina Cutups & Friends Sun, Jun. 5, 6 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

The Raleigh Ringers Spring Concert $12+. Sun, Jun. 5, 3 p.m. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

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

Bay Ledges $15.

Tues, Jun. 7, 8:30 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Bonnie Raitt $478+.

Tues, Jun. 7, 7:30 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Rob Gelblum Tues, Jun. 7, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Still Woozy: If This Isn’t Nice Tour $50.

Tues, Jun. 7, 8 p.m.

The Ritz, Raleigh.

screen Gambit $8. Wed, Jun. 1, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Godzilla vs. Kong $5. Thurs, Jun. 2, 8:30 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

Back to School and Summer School $10. Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Pitch Perfect Movie Party $24. Jun. 4 and 7, various times.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar Brunch $10. Sat, Jun. 4, 11 a.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Back to the Future Movie Party $24.

Sun, Jun. 5, 4 p.m.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

Watch Durham: A VERY Durham Film Screening Series Tues, Jun. 7, 6 p.m.

Durty Bull Brewing Company, Durham.

page John Richard Saylor: Lakes Thurs, Jun. 2, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Tori Eldridge: Dance among the Flames Mon, Jun. 6, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Rick Reilly: So Help Me Golf Fri, Jun. 3, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Therese Anne Fowler: It All Comes Down to This Tues, Jun. 7, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

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

June 1, 2022

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CULTURE CALENDAR A Teen Sketching Meetup will take place at the North Carolina Museum of Art on Saturday, June 4.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NCMA

PAINT & BODY • PERFORMANCE OIL CHANGES (AMSOIL) HIGH-END DETAILING • VEHICLE RESTORATION PERFORMANCE MODIFICATIONS & UPGRADES

MUSICONS, Our Music Icons by Ikorma—Opening Party Fri, Jun. 3, 6 p.m. Eno Arts Mill Gallery, Hillsborough.

aplusclassicrestorations.com | (919)-662-4163

Durham’s Murals by Bike Tour Sat, Jun. 4, 10 a.m. “Major” the Bull Sculpture, Durham.

Museum Park Tour Sat, Jun. 4, 9:30 a.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

WE RECYCLE ELECTRONICS, PLASTICS, CARDBOARD, GLASS, METALS, ETC...

Teen Sketching Meetup Sat, Jun. 4, 12 p.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

www.anythingwithaplugrecycling.com | 919-610-3465

art

stage

Guided Tour: Modern Black Culture: The Art of Aaron Douglas Jun. 2-3, 1:30 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

FRESH Juror Talk with Jonell Logan Thurs, Jun. 2, 6 p.m.

Artspace, Raleigh.

Hamilton $109+.

May 17–June 5, various times. DPAC, Durham.

Assassins $12+. Jun. 2-19, various times.

Titmus Theatre at Frank Thompson Hall, Raleigh.

CC & Company Dance Complex: End of Year Gala and Recital $25+.

Jun. 1-5, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

American Dance Festival Jun. 3–Jul. 20, various times.

Various venues, Durham.

What’s That Sculpture? Sat, Jun. 4, 10:30 a.m. NCMA, Raleigh.

Creative Processing in Community Sun, Jun. 5, 10 a.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight $20.

Jun. 3-5, various times. The Blackbox at The Fruit, Durham.

Beaver Queen Pageant Sat, Jun. 4, 4 p.m. Duke Park, Durham.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM 16

June 1, 2022

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NEWDED AN S! EXPO R H U

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

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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.

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 6.01.22

solution to last week’s puzzle

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C L AS S I F I E D S EMPLOYMENT Software Developer III (Raleigh, N.C.) Software Developer III, F/T, at Truist (Multiple Openings) (Raleigh, NC) Deliver highly complex solutions w/ significant system linkages, dependencies, associated risk. Lead & perform dvlpmt efforts such as analysis, dsgn, coding/creating, & testing. Must have Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, Comp Engg, Electronics Engg or related tech’l field. Must be certified in TIBCO Business Works 5.x/6.x. Must have 6 yrs of progressive exp in s/ ware engg or IT Consulting positions performing the following: applying in-depth knowl in info systems & understanding of key business processes & competitive strategies related to the IT function to identify, apply, & implmt IT best practices; applying broad functional knowl in reqmt gathering, analysis, dsgn, dvlpmt, testing, implmtn, & deployment of applications; working w/ business users, creating functional reqmts, application architecture, business solutions dsgn & tech’l solution; leading & guiding team(s) through tech’l issues for successful implmtn, monitoring SLA performance, identify project risks & formulate risk mitigation strategy; executing & setting up Business Continuity Process (BCP) for Disaster Recovery; planning & managing projects & solving complex problems by applying best practice; providing direction & mentoring less exp’d teammates; application architecture & delivering business solution w/ Middleware Integration Products TIBCO BW 5.x/6.x & TIBCO Enterprise Messaging Systems (TIBCO EMS); TIBCO Platform engg, defining platform topology, build & performance tuning; API application architecture, dsgn & dvlpmt of application for ERP solutions, incl SAP, 3rd party B2B vendor, & Salesforce; enabling proxy/ policies using API Gateway Platform such as Layer7; applying in-depth knowl of TIBCO Disaster Recovery (B2C) setup & testing.; & utilizing the following: Cloud Technology Products AWS Cloud, ECS Clustering & Docker; Enterprise Monitoring Solutions for Business Transaction Monitoring using SPLUNK; rule-based monitoring using Hawk; & CICD DevOps & Automation tools for TIBCO delivery & migration framework. Email resume w/ cvr ltr to: Paige Whitesell, Paige.Whitesell@Truist. com. (Ref. Job No. R0060370) Software Engineer III (Raleigh, N.C.) Software Engineer III sought by LexisNexis Risk Data Management Inc in Raleigh NC to perform moderately difficult research, design & software development assignments within specific software functional area or product line. Minimum of Master’s or equiv in Comp Sci, Comp Engg or rltd + 1 yr exp in job offered or rltd rqd. EE reports to LexisNexis Risk Data Management Inc office in Raleigh NC but may telecommute from any location within US. Apply by mail to T. Hayward, 1100 Alderman Dr, Alpharetta, GA 30005.

Software Engineer II (Raleigh, N.C.) Software Engineer II, F/T, at Truist (Raleigh, NC) Deliver technically complex solutions. Perform system integration support for all project work. Consult & partner w/ the business product owners to understand the end goal & offer solutions & recommendations during the dsgn. Must have Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, IT, or related tech’l field. Must have 4 yrs of exp in s/ware engg or IT consulting positions performing/utilizing the following: applying in-depth knowl in info systems & ability to identify, apply, & implmt IT best practices; understanding of key business processes & competitive strategies related to the IT function; planning & managing projects & solve complex problems by applying best practices; applying broad functional knowl in defining technology reqmts; interpreting internal & external business challenges & implmtg best practices to improve products, processes, or services; leading technology projects of moderate complexity; applying Agile &/or Waterfall methodologies; dsgng, dvlpg, & testing of mainframe applications using COBOL, CICS, DB2, JCL, VSAM technologies; & Utilizing exp w/: COBOL, Assembler, Eztrieve, CICS, DB2, JCL, VSAM, PS, PDS, Mainframe systems, TSO, Changeman, FileManager (file-aid), Fault analyzer, Rally, NDM (Connect Direct), FTP, SOAPUI (cross platform API testing tool), IBM WebSphere MQ, REXX, SQL, SPUFI, DFSORT, ICETOOL, ALM (Application Life Cycle Mgmt), Visio, & Quality Center. Position may work remotely but is based out of & reports to Truist offices in Raleigh, NC. Must be available to travel to Raleigh, NC regularly for meetings & reviews w/ manager & project teams w/in 48-hrs’ notice. Email resume w/ cvr ltr to: Paige Whitesell, Paige.Whitesell@Truist.com. (Ref. Job No. R0060428) IT Professionals (Raleigh, N.C.) Eminence IT Solutions seeks multiple positions for Cary, NC office: DevOps Engineer to develop and implement software configuration management strategies for complex application per agile process. Create the build and release pipelines on Azure DevOps. Perform deployment of AWS and configuration management. Perform Shell Scripting for automating Linux platforms. Implement cloud platforms Azure/AWS. Implement Maven, Gitbash, Apache Tomcat, Application Servers, Jenkins. Must have Master’s in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field & 3 years of exp or Bachelor’s in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field & 5 years of exp.

Business Intelligence Developer to analyze data to find actionable insights that lead to business insights and opportunities. Assemble large, complex data sets that meet functional/non-functional business requirements. Build dashboards and custom reports to track performance and investigate key business questions. Build upon our common data framework so that all data is accessible to analysts and data scientists throughout the company. Must have Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, Technology, Information Systems or related and 3 years of exp or Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Engineering, Technology, Information Systems or related and 5 years of exp. Both positions may travel and relocate to various unanticipated sites throughout the US. Send Resumes and cover letter to resumes@eminenceitsol.com. NO CALLS. EOE

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