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NEWS COUNCIL APPROVES POLICE REFORMS 4 POLITICS HOW BROOKE PINTO WON IN WARD 2 5 ARTS FRIENDS REMEMBER TCB’S TONY REDZ 18 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 23 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM JUNE 12–18, 2020

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TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY

8 Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution: Images and stories from this weekend’s protests against antiblack racism and police brutality

NEWS

4 Copping, Out: The D.C. Council passes emergency legislation to reform policing.

5 Loose Lips: How Brooke Pinto won the stacked Ward 2 primary

SPORTS

6 American Spirit: Washington Spirit rookie Kaiya McCullough brings her protests to the pitch.

FOOD

16 Course Correction: Black hospitality pros share their thoughts on the fight for racial justice in restaurants.

ARTS

18 Tony Redz, 1974–2020: Friends remember the TCB rapper and radio host.

19 Film: Zilberman on The King of Staten Island 20 Care Package: An arts collective delivers art to local hospital workers fighting the pandemic.

CITY LIGHTS

21 City Lights: Virtually tour the homes of Frederick Douglass and a radical lesbian feminist collective.

DIVERSIONS

17 Crossword 22 Savage Love 23 Classifieds

On the cover: “The Revolution Will Be Digitized”

by Halim Flowers, 2020.

Acrylic Paint and Oil Stick 40” x 40” Photograph of painting by Lauren P. McKinney Listen to Flowers’ spoken word track “The Revolution Will Be Digitized” online at washingtoncitypaper.com.

Darrow Montgomery | Black Lives Matter Plaza, June 7 Editorial

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washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 3

NEWS CITY DESK

D.C. Council passes police reform legislation and reckons with calls to defund the police.

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @amanduhgomez In response to more than a week of protests against police brutality and abuse of power, the D.C. Council debated and passed legislation on Tuesday that makes sweeping reforms to the Metropolitan Police Department, along with the systems like the Office of Police Complaints that hold it accountable. The Council also used the momentum of the protests to more forcibly probe MPD about its current and Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

“The fact of the matter is we incarcerate more people than almost any other place in the country, and yet here we are today where homicides have not descended,” Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie told MPD Chief Peter Newsham during Tuesday’s budget hearing. “It is not working and we need to change the approach. And what I am saying is it is okay for a Council to look at your budget to see whether some of the funding, as in other agencies, could be used to address these issues in a way that produces better results.”

During the legislative meeting earlier in the day, members discussed decreasing the number of MPD officers after At-Large Councilmember David Grosso introduced an amendment to reduce the sworn officer force to no more than 3,500. (MPD currently has 3,863 officers, per Grosso.) Although the amendment ultimately wasn’t included in the police reform legislation that unanimously passed Tuesday afternoon, the fact that it was debated for nearly an hour, with some members expressing openness to the idea, is a testament to the actions of protesters who’ve called for smaller police budgets and fewer cops on the streets.

Some of these protesters painted “defund the police” on several streets downtown over the weekend, in response to the “Black Lives Matter” street painting and plaza renaming Mayor Muriel Bowser announced last week.

Protesters want her to take concrete action and direct money from MPD to community resources.

In a public statement released while Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen introduced his police reform emergency legislation, which stays in effect for 90 days, Bowser asked the Council to “delay consideration” until public hearings could be held, echoing a call made by the police union. In that same statement, the mayor said she supports the legislation.

“We have about 55 MPD officers per 10,000 residents. Chicago has 44 per 10,000. New York has 42 per 10,000. Baltimore has 40 per 10,000,

“Ever since I’ve been on the Council, whenever issues about police staffing come up, there is always talk about ‘we have to get to 4,000’ ...

What’s magical about 4,000? Do we need 4,000 MPD officers?” Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh asked Newsham.

“I don’t think there’s anything magical about any number. But I do think the calls that the mayor and I have heard from the community is that they want to see more police officers out on the street,” he responded. “I am hopeful the day will come where we don’t need as many police officers as we currently have, but looking at the increase in gun violence that we have in our city and the potential for future violence by people who come into

4 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

our city with the intent on destroying and burning things, I don’t think we are there quite yet.”

Other councilmembers asked the police chief some variation of this question. Newsham routinely pointed to the city’s murder rate, which was the highest in a decade in 2019 and continues to rise in 2020. But some legislators, along with activists, see the rising number of homicides as more reason to question MPD’s performance and budget. The mayor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 increases the MPD budget by 3.3 percent and, as Allen told City Paper previously, his Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety is looking to find savings.

Lawmakers and activists have suggested investing more money in newer alternatives to

Darrow Montgomery

Copping, Out

and Boston only has 31 per 10,000,” Grosso said as he introduced his amendment. If the number of MPD officers was capped at 3,500, D.C. would still have about 50 officers per 10,000 residents.

“This is something that I have struggled with, because I have groups that are pushing me to have zero police officers and then I have other groups that think we should have 4,000 plus,” Grosso continued. “This is a very challenging debate and something that I think we all should take a close, hard look on.”

Grosso offered his amendment as a way to jumpstart a conversation on reducing police in the Council so when members review the mayor’s budget, they don’t just continue to rely on police as the primary way to keep the city’s residents safe.

Activists have been trying to discuss police reduction with legislators for years. Grosso, however, did not attend the budget hearing that followed the legislative meeting, and his spokesperson did not respond to questions about why he wasn’t there to ask the police chief about his amendment.

“So far this is the only Councilmember actually being REAL about defunding the police,” Black Lives Matter DC tweeted as the Council debated Grosso’s amendment to Allen’s police reform legislation. Allen’s legislation touches on a lot of issues, such as expanding access to body-worn camera footage and requiring officers to explain to residents that they have the right to refuse a search without probable cause. Two amendments added

by Chairman Phil Mendelson prohibit MPD from hiring officers with a history of misconduct in other police departments and prevent the police union from negotiating discipline as part of its collective bargaining agreement with the city.

Allen was the first councilmember to express skepticism of Grosso’s amendment, questioning whether it’s a good idea to make the size of the police force statutory. “When I hear the voices, it’s not just about the number of police officers, but it’s the officers themselves,” Allen added.

(For groups like Stop Police Terror Project DC, the numbers are “definitely” part of the problem.) Multiple councilmembers said they wanted more time to debate the size of the police force.

At-Large Councilmember Robert White supported Grosso’s call for an independent hearing on this issue, but worried they’d be slowed by bureaucracy and lose the energy of the moment.

In the end, Grosso—“in hesitance”—withdrew his amendment, and lawmakers eyed the budget process as a way to reckon with the calls to defund the police.

investigations into use of force prompted yearslong reform. Recruiting and training also cost money, he added. Previous Marshall Project investigations found that just cutting police budgets did not reduce violence. Those reports looked at defunding following the Great Recession, and activists are currently calling for lawmakers to not just cut, but reimagine law enforcement entirely.

D.C. Auditor and former chairperson of the Judiciary Committee Kathy Patterson tells City Paper that she is not aware of data that links funding to use of force. Her office has recommended a comprehensive utilization study, as other cities have done, to determine how many officers the city actually needs, since D.C. is unique as a city-state. She notes that the use of force work that

Sunday, June 7 on H Street NW public safety—namely, the city’s violence interruption initiatives, where trusted and unarmed residents try to identify and stop crime in their neighborhoods before it happens. When asked about his impression of violence interrupters, Newsham said “the MPD is 100 percent supportive of any initiative that can reduce violence in our city.” He also showed a willingness to remove the types of responsibilities that officers have historically been expected to respond to, like enforcing noise ordinances or open container laws, saying, “sometimes putting a police officer in some of those circumstances can exacerbate an otherwise congenial experience.”

The budget hearing started off tense, when Allen asked Newsham to wrap up his opening testimony because they only allotted two hours for the full hearing, due to scheduling related to the pandemic. “I do think it is important, when we are in an environment where people are talking about police budgets, that we give the chief of police an opportunity to let the community know where their money is being spent,” said Newsham. “If you want to silence that voice, then I will let you silence that voice.”

Allen also asked Newsham to provide data to back up his claim made on Friday’s Kojo Nnamdi Show that “the number one thing that contributes to excess force in any police agency is when you underfund it.” Newsham could only cite his experience at MPD since he first joined in 1989, right before Washington Post and Justice Department

she did as a councilmember, alongside Michael Bromwich, who acted as an independent monitor of MPD between 2002 and 2008, did not look into manpower, but as auditor, she has looked into this with a smaller sample of MPD officers.

“Based on our review of data from one week in August 2015, we found officers spent an average of 22 percent of their time on calls for service, a lower proportion of time than the amount of time spent by patrol officers in a handful of other studies,” she wrote in a letter to Allen and Newsham in February 2017. “This raises the obvious question of how the remainder of patrol time is spent, and could indicate that the number of patrol officers now deployed could be reduced without a significant impact on public safety.”

Another tense moment during the hearing came when McDuffie asked Newsham if he believes over-policing of black residents exists, and if so, why that happens. Newsham acknowledged there were “some instances of that,” and over-policing is likely a symptom of police looking to find “violent offenders.”

“I think we are forgetting about that,” Newsham said, in reference to gun violence. McDuffie immediately pushed back, recalling times in his youth when he was arrested and when he held one of his friends “and watched him bleed out.”

“I live this stuff every single day, and even though I’ve gotten to this point, where I’m on the Council, I wear suits to work, I carry that trauma with me every single day,” McDuffie said.

NEWS LOOSE LIPS

We Have a Winner

On a good day, Pinto says she made 500 calls to Ward 2 voters. That’s in addition to the calls a small army of about 70 volunteers made—among them, her mother, Dale Pinto, who phoned D.C. voters from her home in Connecticut.

“Our philosophy was ‘yes to everything,’” Pinto says. Yes to requests to meet individually, yes to invitations for meet-and-greets, yes to writing out policy positions in emails.

Early poll numbers had Pinto at just 2 or 3 percent, but the tides appeared to shift when the Washington Post editorial board announced its unexpected endorsement of her campaign.

“The Post [editorial board] has been so discredited that everyone wrote it off as an important validator,” says At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, who endorsed Grossman.

“But clearly, in Ward 2 it still is.”

Pinto’s phone call strategy and select prominent endorsements were amplified by her fundraising haul.

On the campaign trail, Pinto emphasized her opposition to “outside interest group[s]” that try

How did Brooke Pinto snatch the Ward 2 Council seat from a field of experienced candidates?

Brooke Pinto had no business winning the Ward 2 Democratic primary race.

The 28-year-old Greenwich, Conn., native has only lived in D.C. for six years. She’s never voted here and only registered to vote in D.C. in 2019. Her campaign signs said she was running for “city council,” a semantic mistake typically met with jeers from entrenched local politicos.

She has little, albeit relevant, professional work experience. After law school, Pinto joined the Office of the Attorney General through a fellowship program, working in the tax and finance division. She later transferred to work on policy matters directly under AG Karl Racine, who enthusiastically supported her campaign.

Pinto jumped into a field of seven opponents, three of whom—Patrick Kennedy, John Fanning, and Kishan Putta—are advisory neighborhood commissioners with deep community connections. Another, Jordan Grossman, had support of local progressive groups and many labor unions. And then there was ex-Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, who came into the race with a longer record, more name recognition, and more ethics violations than any other candidate.

And yet, on June 4, two days after Election Day, Pinto declared victory with a lead of fewer than 300 votes. On June 6, after Pinto’s lead grew, Kennedy, her closest opponent, conceded.

The Board of Elections will hold a special election June 16 to fill the seat for the remainder of the year. Pinto is expected to win, as most other campaigns have suspended their operations.

Pinto will become the youngest D.C. councilmember in history and join a body that just traded two moderate, male members—Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd, 37, and Evans, 66—for two younger female members in Pinto and the Democratic nominee for the Ward 4 Council seat, Janeese Lewis George, 32. (George and Pinto still have to win the general election in November, but in heavily Democratic D.C., they’re expected to coast to victory.)

“She literally ran a perfect race,” Racine says.

“Anything short of perfection there, she loses.”

So how did she do it? And what does Pinto’s victory mean for the future of the D.C. Council?

Darrow Montgomery

By Mitch Ryals and Rachel Cohen

out their donations to her campaign, they did not contribute beyond that. Over the last decade, though, James Pinto has donated $12,800 to Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, and $7,800 to Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Both men endorsed Pinto, and on the campaign trail she emphasized that she’s “the only candidate in this race to be endorsed by sitting Senators & a Congressman.”

Early on in the campaign, it looked like Pinto’s parents were set to help their daughter establish a campaign headquarters, too. While Pinto lives on Q Street NW near Logan Circle, and put that address on her campaign lawn signs, her parents started renting a house down the street shortly after Pinto announced her bid.

That property, at 1300 Q Street NW, hit the market in late January, and on February 18, a new LLC entitled “1300 Q Street NW LLC” formed.

The house was sold to this LLC on February 27, and less than a week later, Pinto listed it as her campaign’s address on her AFL-CIO questionnaire. She tells City Paper she was “intending to initiate a sub-lease,” but changed her plans

Brooke Pinto to buy elections, and praised the city for having “progressive campaign finance limits and a public financing system to empower voters, not dollars.” Yet she was the only candidate in Ward 2 to decline participating in said public financing program, a decision that allowed her to personally contribute $45,000 to her campaign.

When asked how a 28-year-old with two years of work experience, earning public servant salaries that ranged from $56,000 to $101,000, was able to do that, she told City Paper she used “savings” from a personal brokerage account and some money she inherited from her grandmother’s passing.

Pinto comes from a wealthy family. Her father, James J. Pinto, has spent decades in private equity, and currently leads the firm MVC Capital, Inc. In 2015, while Brooke was attending Georgetown Law School, James and Dale Pinto endowed the school with an annual fellowship in their name for alumni.

Pinto says though her parents kindly maxed

when the pandemic worsened and her campaign went remote. Her mother returned to D.C last week to stay in the house she’s still renting, and put up large balloons outside that stated “Brooke4Ward2.”

Pinto tells City Paper she does not have any information on the LLC, and says her parents “of course put yard signs up” because they stay when they visit. Dale and James Pinto did not respond to requests for comment.

Pinto’s stance against outside money also rubbed up against the realities of her fundraising haul. She had the lowest percentage of D.C. donors and the most money coming from out of state among Ward 2 candidates. Pinto also had the second fewest donations coming from Ward 2. While she says she “understands the desire for people to go down the road” of looking at her own contributions, Pinto stresses that her campaign, which raised about $136,000, was outspent. “It’s just not true that we bought this race,” she said.

“Other candidates had much more money.”

With Evans officially off the Council and Todd likely to be gone by the end of the year, Chairman Phil Mendelson will lose two significant supporters of his moderate priorities. While George, a Democratic Socialist, will ostensibly fit in alongside Silverman and the Council’s progressive wing, it’s less clear who Pinto will end up aligning and voting with.

Racine describes her as a cross between Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen and At-Large Councilmember Robert White. According to the attorney general, Pinto has Allen’s organization and thoughtfulness and, like White, is progressive in areas around social and racial justice, with special attention to criminal justice reform, but can be “more center in areas around business.”

“My guess is that she’ll have a positive working relationship as well with the mayor,” he adds.

Silverman largely agrees. She spoke with Pinto by phone Sunday evening to offer congratulations.

She says she expects Pinto to generally support her priorities for working families, and is holding her breath when it comes to economic issues.

“Where the real rubber hits the road is on the economic issues,” Silverman says. “You can’t do restorative justice without progressive economic policy. ” Meanwhile, Mendelson says he’s not concerned about losing control of a Council that appears to be drifting further to his left. By the time he talked with LL Monday afternoon, the chairman hadn’t spoken to Pinto, but said he intended to call.

Asked what Pinto’s victory says about potential changes in Ward 2, the chairman notes that “the ward is not as far to the left as some said it would be, but more importantly, the bigger message is the ward resoundingly rejected ethical lapses, to put it politely.”

The full effect of the 2020 election cycle on the Council will become clear after the general election in November. Ultra-progressive policy wonk Ed Lazere, who Mendelson thumped in 2018, is one of more than a dozen declared candidates running for At-Large Councilmember David Grosso’s seat.

LL will note that Racine is likely counting himself among the winners in the primary election. Both of his endorsed candidates, Pinto and George, will likely join former Racine staffers Robert White and Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White on the Council dais in 2021.

For now, Pinto says she wants to restore faith in the ward. “I take very seriously the responsibility … that everything be … 100 percent above board and followed through on,” she tells LL. Still, she’s off to a so-so start with some aspects of her campaign finance reports. Stickers she used to feature her Post endorsement were not included on her May 26 filings, and she tells City Paper “we are working with our compliance officer to determine why” that was.

“Please always feel free to ask if you have questions,” she adds. “I am confident that every question has an answer.”

washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 5

SPORTS

American Spirit Washington Spirit rookie Kaiya McCullough has decried systemic racism for years. She won’t let her career interfere with her protests.

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong Kaiya McCullough lets out a heavy sigh.

In the nights following the protests against racism and police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd, McCullough cried herself to sleep and mental images of the protests jolted her awake. Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, was killed while in police custody on May 25, after a white cop pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

“I usually have so much to say about everything, and I am genuinely at a loss of words right now,” she says in an 11-minute Instagram video addressing systemic racism and the constant battles that black people in America face.

“I have had literally hours of conversation about everything that is happening right now.”

She sighs again before continuing.

The video, which she posted with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, was a way to channel years of pent-up emotions. The 22-year-old wanted to start a conversation with her nearly 4,000 followers, inviting those who had questions about race in America to reach out to her. But more than that, the Washington Spirit rookie felt compelled to use her platform to speak out against white supremacy, professional or personal consequences be damned.

The South Orange County, California, native is used to being outspoken. In 2017, McCullough made headlines for becoming one of the first college athletes to kneel during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. The decision elicited heavy criticism in the conservative corners of the internet and mixed reactions from classmates in her predominantly white hometown. She plans to kneel again when National Women’s Soccer League matches begin later this month.

No NWSL player other than World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe has knelt during the national anthem, and athletes like Rapinoe and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started the movement, have faced professional repercussions for their actions. Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since 2016; Rapinoe was left off the U.S. Women’s National Team roster for months after her protests in the fall of 2016, which some interpreted as a punishment for kneeling. In January, the International Olympic Committee banned “gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling.”

McCullough says she is prepared for any potential backlash. Since college, her convictions have only gotten stronger.

“There’s a lot of people recently that are

just now starting the conversation,” says Ki Muhammad, McCullough’s best friend.

“She’s not afraid to let people know she’s about it. She’s not just one of these people who talk about these things, she’s been about it. And she does it with confidence.”

McCullough and Muhammad have been FaceTiming with each other for hours every day in recent weeks. The two were among the few black students at El Toro High School in Lake Forest, California. Conversations with her black friends have allowed McCullough to feel safe and supported.

She’s had to turn some people away from having “normal conversations,” because she didn’t have the emotional energy for them, but Muhammad is someone McCullough has leaned on for support since middle school.

“For me, it’s just coming to terms with what we’re dealing with ... [and] just honestly offering a crutch of emotional support,” McCullough says. “Because in all of this, as it has always been, we’ve always had each other in regards to stuff when we’re talking about race.”

Growing up in a mostly white community, McCullough says she’s existed simultaneously in both black and white spaces her entire life.

Her dad is black and her mom is white. In the Instagram video, she suggested that her being biracial could make non-black people more comfortable engaging in difficult conversations with her about race. She considers that a privilege she wants to use to initiate discussions, something she’s done since an early age.

But it wasn’t until police shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 that McCullough began her public displays of protest. The video of the shooting horrified her, and, coupled with the unjust experiences she heard from her black friends and family members, she decided to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance during her junior year of high school. There would be days where she sat and watched as other students stood and put their hands over their hearts.

“Because I didn’t agree with the ‘liberty and justice for all’ part,” McCullough says. That was not reflective of the world she lived in, she explains.

Her classmates fumed. Mu hammad says that she heard other students gossip about McCullough and complain about her being “disrespectful.” One day, a boy in McCullough’s class told her to go back to Africa.

The next year, Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign and the harassment became worse. McCullough’s classmates reposted his bombastic and racist comments on

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social media. She was constantly confronted by students wearing Make America Great Again apparel at school and spent nights engaging in Twitter arguments.

“It felt like I was fighting almost every day with people about the election and just Trump’s policies and specifically how his rhetoric was just really inciting some racial divisions,” she says.

The backlash from her high school classmates only empowered her when she arrived at UCLA as a member of the women’s soccer team.

McCullough can’t remember exactly what triggered her on Twitter during her sophomore year, but she knows the words made her cry.

It was around the time that Trump had called Kaepernick a “son of a bitch” in 2017 for kneeling during the national anthem.

Images of black men being killed by police and inflammatory words from the president pushed McCullough to a breaking point. In that moment, she texted her mom and explained what she planned to do. McCullough also reached out to her dad for his opinion, and then messaged her head coach, Amanda Cromwell, and asked to talk after practice.

She knew there would be potential backlash.

McCullough was only a sophomore, and Trump had distorted the protest into a referendum on

“I remember crying the whole time I was kneeling for the first time, and every time from there, it became a little bit easier.” respecting the flag and the military, and few, if any, college students dared to challenge him in public. But the decision was, in her mind, already made. She would kneel during the national anthem.

Cromwell, who was born in D.C. and graduated from Annandale High School, offered McCullough her support. The first time McCullough kneeled, several teammates joined her, with others putting a hand on each other’s shoulders as a show of solidarity.

“I remember crying the whole time I was kneeling for the first time, and every time from there a little bit easier,” McCullough says. “I was less scared of the consequences. I was less scared about what people would say.”

McCullough recalls being booed in some stadiums, but says she received “overwhelming support” from her friends, coaches, and teammates. A year later, TMZ Sports published an article with a photo of McCullough and another black teammate, Kennedy Faulknor, kneeling before a game against Loyola Marymount University. The article has close to 400 comments, with many criticizing the women, some demanding that UCLA kick the players off the team, and others calling them “monkeys.”

McCullough calls that experience a turning point. She changed her major to political science shortly after and continued to kneel during the national anthem throughout her college career.

“I think it’s great. I think athletes need to use their platforms,” Cromwell says. “I think athletes need to decide what they believe in and what they want to support, because they do have a platform. I do think it’s our obligation, as athletes and coaches, to share our opinions. Other people share their thoughts. Why can’t people in the sports world?”

T h e Wa sh i ngt on Spi r i t d r a f t e d McCullough, a second team All-Pac 12 defender, with the 32nd overall pick in the 2020 NWSL Draft this past January. In college, McCullough idolized Rapinoe, who remains the only professional women’s soccer player who has joined Kaepernick in his kneeling protest. Now, McCullough is playing in the same league as her, and will be part of the Spirit’s youthful core along with her UCLA teammate Ashley Sanchez, who the team selected with the fourth overall pick.

Four years ago, when Rapinoe’s Seattle Reign was set to play the Spirit in Maryland on Sept.

7, 2016, then-Spirit majority owner Bill Lynch surprised players by playing the national anthem while teams were still in the locker room. NWSL players strongly condemned the move, with Rapinoe calling it “fucking unbelievable.”

But the organization has changed since then. Lynch is now the minority owner, while local tech executive Steve Baldwin serves as the majority owner. Shortly after McCullough arrived on the team, she met with Baldwin, and the two spoke about McCullough’s interest in public policy. Baldwin promised that he’d work to help her find opportunities in that space.

More recently, the two had another long conversation in wake of the protests for racial justice. When the team heads to Utah later this month to play in the NWSL Challenge Cup, one of the first professional sporting events to return in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough plans to kneel during the national anthem.

Baldwin says the team will support her.

“I find her to be extremely intelligent and thoughtful, and I made a commitment to her that I would support her in her pursuit of her interests and what she wants to do, just as I do every single one of our players,” he says.

On Sunday, June 7, McCullough and a few teammates went to the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza and then the U.S. Capitol to join the protestors. On social media, she regularly shares posts from activists. She jokes with Muhammad that when they return home at night from their day jobs, it’s “back to business” to dismantle systemic racism, and hopes those posting online in solidarity feel the same.

McCullough is glad that people are opening up their hearts, educating themselves, and stepping out of their comfort zones in recognizing that racism exists. “But,” she adds, “that’s the bare minimum.”

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washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 7

Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

8 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution On Saturday, June 6, streets in cities and towns around the world filled with people protesting institutional anti-black racism and police brutality. In D.C., where just days earlier, police officers had attacked and arrested residents around the city for protesting the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many other victims of racist violence, tens of thousands of determined individuals gathered peacefully and made their voices heard through chants, posters, and art.

Mayor Muriel Bowser made her own statement on the morning of June 5, when she changed the name of several blocks of 16th Street NW to Black Lives Matter Plaza and unveiled a streetwide mural that reads “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in large yellow letters next to the three stars and two bars of D.C.’s flag. Activists moved quickly to add a statement of their own, adding “DEFUND

THE POLICE” and painting over the stars to turn the bars into an equal sign.

City Paper wanted to know who the people on the street were and what prompted them to act on this particular day, so we asked them.

Some pasted posters in their neighborhoods or sat to take in the moment. Others walked with props that reflected their feelings. What motivated all of them was the need for immediate and significant systemic change.

The people we spoke with and the reporters that interviewed them provided images from Saturday’s actions. Throughout the weekend, City Paper’s longtime staff photographer, Darrow Montgomery, captured other moments of action and grace as people across our city called for justice.

“IT AIN’T OVER,” reads the sign of one man who Montgomery encountered at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday morning. He’s right.

Let’s get to work.

—Caroline Jones

washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 9

Keri Gray, 29, has considered herself part of the Black Lives Matter movement for years. She was a member of Black Youth Project 100, where she got an early taste of organizing. Nothing was going to stop her from protesting on Saturday.

She marched with the National Alliance of Multicultural Disabled Advocates.

“Justice [Short] reached out to me and said, ‘I want to go out to the protest, but I’m blind.’ I was like, ‘I’ve been feeling the same way. I want to go out to the protest, but I have a prosthetic limb.’

What would it look like for us to go together and feel supported and know this is a time we absolutely don’t want to miss? We went out there and felt everything we needed to feel affirmed.”

Gray and Short started on H Street NW, five blocks from the White House. “We saw the attention we were gathering,” Gray says. “We had wheelchair users. Folks that were signing. It wasn’t your typical scene. There was a lot going on, but we shared in the joy of resistance.”

Eventually, Gray was able to see the city’s “Black Lives Matter” street art. “It’s beautiful, if I’m going to be honest,” she says. “What Mayor [Muriel] Bowser has done—there’s controversy over some of her decisions, like when the 7 p.m. curfew hit on Monday and what [President] Trump did in relation to that. But when it comes to that mural, I think that was her way of showing some level of solidarity.” She appreciates the “Defund The Police” message that activists added. “It’s not about just saying the words ‘Black Lives Matter,’ but creating change that makes sure the black community doesn’t fall victim to our policing system,” she says.

She vows to stay involved: “One of the reasons we wanted to make Saturday happen is to continue to encourage people with disabilities to show —Laura Hayes up in the streets.”

Hours after a large crowd of protestors left the Lincoln Memorial, Dior Ginyard found a spot on the nearby steps in the shade and held up his sign.

One side read: “IS MY 6-YEAR-OLD SON NEXT?” A middle-aged white man stopped and asked what it meant. Ginyard, 31, replied that it referred to police brutality. Would his son, growing up black in America, be another victim of police violence? He was out in the heat protesting for his

Keri Gray and Justice Short

Mitch Ryals

Jen White Johnson

Martha Miller

Kelyn Soong

Born and raised in D.C., Lisa Smith has been protesting against injustice her entire life. “It’s just in my blood to protest,” Smith says.

Although she’s been at it for years, Smith believes the ongoing protests taking place in the District and across the country indicate that many Americans have reached a new level of intolerance for racial injustice.

“We’re tired of being done so wrong for so long, and the people are not gonna stand for it anymore,” Smith says.

In Smith’s eyes, nothing has changed for far too long.

“I’m down here because for too long, there’s been injustice in police brutality and the killings.

I’m down here because a long time ago, Dr. King said we should all be treated equally, but for the black people, they look at our color and they say we’re guilty,” Smith says. “But truth is, they’re just as guilty. Unclean hands committing a crime without doing the time. It is wrong. I’m down here to stand up for everything I believe in, and that’s justice for all. Whether you’re young, old, black, white, or whatever, there has not been no justice —Ella Feldman for a long time.”

Dior Ginyard son’s future.

“I’ve been stopped before. I’ve been searched before. I’ve been questioned,” says Ginyard, who grew up in Prince George’s County and works for the NFL Players Association. “As a black man, it may look like we can take a punch ... but we’re human. We cry. We have emotions. We have mental health issues, too. And that’s my goal, is that I hope that people look at us as human.”

He hasn’t yet had “the talk” with his son that many black parents have with their children about surviving police encounters. But he will, soon. “I think it’s not enough to just tell him, treat people good—and I hope he treats people the right way— it’s talking to him explicitly about racism, and what that looks like,” Ginyard says.

—Kelyn Soong

D.C. resident Martha Miller marched alongside her family on Pennsylvania Avenue NW Saturday in “solidarity with friends and for those who can’t be here.”

The 30-something Birmingham, Alabama, native is due to give birth in a few weeks, she says, and is also marching for a “better world that this

10 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

child is gonna come into.”

She’s participated in public demonstrations previously, but never one this large, she says. Also fueling her desire to march is her recognition that, as a white woman, her interactions with the police are “totally different” from her black friends and neighbors.

Like others marching on Pennsylvania Avenue NW over the weekend, Miller says the 16th Street mural is a nice gesture, but “it needs to be backed up with action from individuals, from the government, and from institutions,” she says. “It needs to be everyone taking responsibility to act.”

—Mitch Ryals

On June 6, Michael Patterson, 37, could be found spinning an arrow sign proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” down Pennsylvania Avenue NW, with two other spinners. When the group of men reached Black Lives Matter Plaza, the crowd made space and created a circle around them so they could spin their signs, much to the surprise of Patterson. There was a moment afterwards when an elderly black woman asked Patterson to take a photo with them.

“It was a wonderful moment to see so many generations of people, so many races, and so many people represented,” Patterson tells City Paper.

Patterson is one of the founders of AArrow Sign Spinners, a national guerrilla marketing company that creates serious employment opportunities for young people and trains them to be competitive spinners. “This is my way of creating social change,” Patterson says.

He protested with his sign on four other days in addition to Saturday, because the message he’s trying to communicate is personal. Patterson has been pulled over by police 35 times, he says, and once for driving 43 mph in a 55 mph zone. When he was 16, police handcuffed Patterson because they couldn’t believe that he and his friends—a group of young black men—could live in a nice house in Prince George’s County. Patterson remembers waiting outside the house for 25 minutes in handcuffs as the neighbors watched. “We had to prove that his parents lived there,” Patterson recalls. It was a traumatic and humiliating experience that he’ll never forget. —Amanda Michelle Gomez Protesting was Alex Duarte’s immediate reaction.

After the Minneapolis police’s killing of George Floyd on May 25, in addition to the shootings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor earlier this year, caused a tidal wave of protests against antiblack racism and police brutality, Duarte’s first thought was to join the marches and be part of the cause. So, she did. She protested last Tuesday, and then again on Saturday—with her boyfriend, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend—from noon to 4 p.m.

Originally from Rockville, she now lives in D.C. “It makes me feel emotional,” she says of protesting. She’s proud to live in the District, where she says she can join the right team and help however she can. “It’s empowering, and I feel lucky to be in a city where I can easily be part of a movement,” she says. The power of protesting, in her view, is showing that those fighting for what’s right will make their voices heard, forcing policymakers and city officials to address the issues at hand.

“As long as we promise each other to continue, it’s truly one of the most beneficial ways to create change, and the government will not be able to ignore it,” she says. “The relentlessness from the people protesting is powerful.”

On Saturday, she began protesting at noon at the Lincoln Memorial, and later walked with the crowd to the White House. Afterward, she ventured around the city, joining different crowds and ended her protesting near the U.S. Capitol.

She held a sign that referred to Donald Trump as “Bunker Bitch.” She walked six miles that day.

While she appreciates the aesthetic of the new “Black Lives Matter” mural painted in yellow on 16th Street NW, she wants to see action to make those words ring true: “Like anything in life, words don’t mean anything unless the action matches up. If black lives matter, what has been done to prove that? Will there be defunding in the police? What else is to come of that? It’s a great statement and I think it was done well, I just think there needs to be more on top of that. Actions —Kayla Randall speak louder than words.”

Not far from his Capitol Hill home, Nate Stephens, 33, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue NW on Saturday, holding a pinata of Donald Trump dressed as the devil.

“I’ve been bringing [it] to protests since 2016,” he says. “I bought it in Guatemala in 2016. Every

year at the end of the year, they have a tradition called ‘cama del diablo,’ which is the devil burning to burn the bad spirits of the year, and in 2016 the devil took the form of Donald Trump in Guatemala, so I brought one back and have been bringing it to every protest since.”

Stephens says he’s marching to oppose the “authoritarian white suprmacist state of Donald Trump,” and although his own experiences with the police are minimal, he says his partner, who is black, “has repeated negative experience with the police on a nearly daily basis, including in our neighborhood, including in our doorway when he was trying to walk in.”

Stephens says he’s participated in dozens of protests in D.C. in the past, but Saturday’s march feels larger and more urgent.

“It feels different for sure,” he says. “I’m seeing white people speak more confidently and walk less meekly.”

As for the “Black Lives Matter” mural on 16th Street NW? “I think it’s a nice gesture and doesn’t go nearly far enough in terms of the action and reform needed to abolish the police,” he says. “It’s a nice

Nate Stephens

‘fuck you’ to Donald Trump, but in terms of actual —Mitch Ryals action, it clearly lacks.”

Khadijah Ceesay knows the power of protests.

Originally from The Gambia, a small country in West Africa, Ceesay had a front row seat to the protests that helped end the 23-year authoritarian rule of Yahya Jammeh.

“We protested and got him out,” Ceesay says.

“I know what it is like to be under a tyrant, and America does not want that with Donald Trump.”

Ceesay has been living in D.C. for five years.

Although Saturday was her first time attending a large protest in the city, she has been acutely aware of the systemic racism protesters are fighting against ever since coming to the United States.

“I am black, I am a woman, I am Muslim, and I am an immigrant, so I see injustice and I see inequality all around me—Islamaphobic comments, racism, all of it,” Ceesay says. “It’s our responsibility to be out here protesting to get justice. If we don’t fight for it, who’s gonna fight for us? It’s up to us, everybody, to fight. America was built by everybody and America is for everybody.”

On Saturday, Ceesay did not interact with

Ella Feldman

Alex Duarte

Mitch Ryals

Satsuki Patterson Courtesy Alex Duarte

Michael Patterson (center)

Khadijah Ceesay

police officers. She avoided being near them, as she usually does.

“To be honest, I try to avoid the police as much as I can,” Ceesay says. “I don’t want anything to —Ella Feldman do with cops.”

Amanda Quintana didn’t join any crowds on Saturday. “I’m very aware of coronavirus and the pandemic. I’m a public health professional in the area, so this has been on my mind, but, of course, I want to make sure that our community is safe, and I still want to show my support,” she says. Instead, she pasted posters around Glover Park, where she lives. They addressed defunding the police, the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and MPD’s treatment of the black community in D.C. Mindful of public health, Quintana, 27, only walked around with one other person, but she’s in a newly organized WhatsApp group of about 40 people. “There’s an Excel spreadsheet with all of our contacts on who can make wheatpaste, who’s able to travel around, who’s able to print posters, things like that,” she says.

“I needed to feel like I was doing something in

solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement that was going on in D.C.,” she says. “Typically, I’d be the first person to run down there to march with everyone, like I did with the Women’s March and the climate marches and everything that has happened in the city. But with the pandemic, I can’t with good conscience do it.”

Less than 24 hours after they were put up, some of the posters were defaced with “grotesque” graffiti, Quintana says. The group agreed that they’d paste other posters on top “with the knowledge that this could potentially happen again,” she says, but they’ll also try a different approach: asking businesses—ones that weren’t boarded up—to place the flyers behind the glass in their store—Emma Sarappo fronts.

For James Earle, the fight against racism and brutality toward the black community is a literal marathon. According to his Fitbit, Earle has walked more than 26 miles during the past week while protesting downtown day after day.

“This is just the beginning,” Earle says. “If we can really get everybody on board with the next steps, the real hard work, the policy changes, the

washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 11

Lydia Curtis, 63, and Mark Robinson, 66, had been out four other days to protest before the largest day of demonstrations on June 6.

“It’s important that people come out in numbers and that the protest continues,” Curtis tells City Paper. “We have people who haven’t gotten justice. We have names we don’t know who haven’t gotten justice. And we don’t want this to happen anymore. The only way we can keep pressure on the status quo is if we stay in the streets.”

The married couple is inspired by the ferocity of the young people that learned from their elders and are leading the protests. And what felt different in these protests than in past ones, Robinson says, was no one was saying “all lives matter” in response to “Black Lives Matter” chants. “People are starting to get it,” Robinson says. “Hearts are changing.”

A powerful moment for the couple came when they saw White Coats for Black Lives taking a knee. It was the convergence of two public health crises plaguing black people: police brutality and COVID-19. “We need powerful symbols,” Curtis says. Symbols like this, along with the mayor’s “Black Lives Matter” mural and street renaming, are important, but it should not end there, the couple says. They advise supporting grassroots organizations. Both are part of different local groups, including Empower DC and Diverse City Fund.

“I have a lot of history with the police that’s not all positive,” Robinson says. “I would like to defund police and start all over again too .… We could have a big, 10,000-foot discussion, but I also think we really need to understand that we need to do things that are going to help the next young black man, or woman, or person of color who gets stopped by the cops and is abused.”

Robinson relived his protest experience the next day with his 94-year-old mother, who marched on Washington in 1963. She couldn’t go out due to the pandemic, but Curtis went out to protest yet again. —Amanda Michelle Gomez Prashant Choudhary, 27, came to the District from his home in Alexandria to march from the Dirksen Senate Office Building down Pennsylvania Avenue NW. “Because Breonna Taylor needs justice,” he says. “Alton Sterling needs justice. Black people need justice ... This is an ongoing issue. Black

every single time to protest—just to be out here to scream and rage that we matter and we should have justice and we are going to get that justice some day,” he says. —Amanda Michelle Gomez For current Baltimore denizen and first-time protester Shania Bailey, the demonstration in D.C. Saturday afternoon brought a sense of unity.

“I think it’s great to see so many diverse people here, especially in D.C., which is one of the most diverse places I’ve lived,” she says. “It’s great to see so many people out here for one cause, and I think it’s more of a civil rights issue than a politics issue. I think that’s what’s been unifying people.”

One of the posters put up in Ward 3

Ella Feldman

Amanda Quintana

—Mitch Ryals

Amanda Michelle Gomez

organizing, if we can translate these protests into real change, I think there’s some hope for our future.”

Mayor Bowser made headlines last week when she commissioned a “Black Lives Matter” street mural and renamed a portion of 16th Street NW after the movement. Earle, who’s been living in the District for six years, says he’d like to see the mayor put substantive change behind those actions.

“I think [the mural and plaza are] great for catching headlines. I think [they’re] great for pissing off Trump. It’s encouraging, but we’re not here for a performance. We’re here for policy.

We want change,” Earle says. “Muriel Bowser’s record has been touch-and-go on police issues and police reform, and while D.C. and the Metropolitan Police Department have come a long way since the ’80s, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, there’s a lot of trust that needs to be rebuilt, and Bowser really needs to step up.

She needs to do more than repaint a street and —Ella Feldman rename a plaza.”

James Earle

Mark Robinson and Lydia Curtis lives matter. The world needs to know that this is an injustice in America, and this is what we stand for and we’re willing to fight for and die for.”

Choudhary says his previous interactions with police have been unpleasant. He understands officers have a tough job, but “there needs to be a better way to train police officers and a more effective way to deal with the crisis in our country.”

“There are so many homeless people in this country who have mental issues, who the police are called for, and they take them to jail,” he continues. “We need to systemically divest funds, not necessarily just for police and law enforcement and giving them the latitude to go to town on citizens. We need to move towards a society where we can function better. We can do better.

We have to do better. This is America.”

—Mitch Ryals

Saturday was the first day DuLane McGill, 17, protested against the killing of George Floyd.

Both McGill and his mother were nervous about the coronavirus and how police would react to his black body within the crowds of people. But after watching the video of a white police officer kneeling into Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, McGill could not stay home.

12 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

“Our people have been through enough,” McGill says. “If there is one black person who can have a voice and be empowered and try to make a change, I want to be that person.”

The 17-year-old has had his own traumatizing run-in with police. Once, when he was going to the store, McGill says he was stopped and frisked by the Metropolitan Police Department. Police searched his pockets for a weapon. “After they found out I was just some kid trying to go to the store, they felt so bad. They just let me go,” he says.

This is not McGill’s first time protesting. He became politically active when the D.C. government decided to shut down Washington Metropolitan Opportunity Academy, an alternative high school for students who struggle in traditional settings. He does not see these protests as separate from those, so cannot understand how the mayor or other officials could.

“Our school was meant for people who wanted a second chance. A lot of black people need a second chance, so for you to just close our school and now try to show support, it’s like, what side are you actually on,” he asks.

McGill has no intention of stopping anytime soon. “If my mom is actually going to allow me to come out here, I will actually come out here

A trail of flowers led to Carmen Hardesty and her wagon of blooms parked across from the White House. Hardesty, the owner of local floral service Poppy, and her husband, Michael Babyak, were handing out stems to protesters. “I’ve been out with my husband at the protests for the last few days, and it was really dark. There were military police everywhere, I was like, ‘we need flowers,’” Hardesty says. She asked one of her supply farms for free flowers to give away, and they obliged.

Hardesty worked on drug policy in the White House during the Obama administration. She feels strongly about ending mass incarceration and mandatory minimum sentencing, and was appalled by the death of George Floyd. While Hardesty and Babyay haven’t had any negative police interactions, she described the scene downtown the week prior as “an alphabet soup of law enforcement.” The officers without identifying insignia troubled her. “I was trying to understand why they’re here and who they were, but they wouldn’t talk to us, it got kind of tense,” —Elizabeth Tuten Hardesty says.

Daniella Villamil, 29, marched for about an hour in Arlington, where she lives, and later met up with friends in D.C. Together, they marched from Malcolm X Park to the White House.

Two things stayed with her when she spoke with City Paper the next day. First were the “storytellers,” who reminded the crowd of “some of the stories of people in different places in the country, how their life was taken, how there wasn’t justice,” she says. “I think those moments are very sobering because, of course, you’re marching and you know exactly what you’re doing, but I think that just hearing different stories just reminds you how important it is for everybody to show up and come out.”

The other was the go-go music and the celebratory atmosphere she’d seen in D.C. “They were just sort of saying, like, hey, let’s also have a little bit of black joy, let’s enjoy ourselves, not everything has to be about trauma,” she says.

She marched because “it is not a time to adopt a stance of neutrality or complacency. I think we’re being called to kind of stand up,” she says. “I think that is the most important thing, and that’s why, for me, it was important to show up physically, even though I’m scared during this pandemic. I think we just have to keep track of all of us, of everyone, of the fact that black lives always —Emma Sarappo matter.”

Charlottesville, Virginia, resident Emily Rose brought sage to the protest in downtown D.C. Saturday afternoon “to cleanse the energy of this place,” she says. “It needs some love. It needs some clarity.”

She showed up with her friends to stand in

solidarity with the African American community and against police violence.

“This is a really potent time that we’re in, and the more of us who show up, hopefully the more progress we’ll make and the more change we’ll invoke,” Rose says.

Her reaction to the scene last weekend? “It’s —Mitch Ryals fucking awesome.”

—Mitch Ryals

Allison Krumsiek, 40, marched more than four miles in Arlington on a route from Court House

Amanda Michelle Gomez

Mitch Ryals

Allison Krumsiek to Memorial Bridge. “I’m a runner, and it was almost like a race, because every half a mile there were aid stations,” she says. “People were out there with water, with Capri Sun, with granola bars, people had sunscreen … people were amazingly generous the entire time.”

Saturday’s march was Krumsiek’s first large protest, and she was amazed, she says, as were her friends. “The friend that I was with, she’s black and she grew up here in Arlington as well, and she kept saying, ‘I’ve never seen anything

Mitch Ryals

Caitlin Neels, 24, traveled to D.C. from Reston to support her friends and “speak out against the racism that’s happening around the country.”

She’s participated in other public demonstrations in the District in the past, such as the Women’s March and the March for Racial Justice.

“The Women’s March was very, very powerful,” she says. “I’m glad I went with my mom, and then the March for Racial Justice, I mean we’re still doing the same thing. I wish it had worked then, but hopefully now people are more willing to listen.

“I think there’s more anger now,” she continues. “That was three years ago and there’s been no difference, no change. And I think the police presence here and the violence they’re using against the protesters is making it more heightened.”

Her interactions with police is limited to getting pulled over for speeding tickets, which she says have been generally negative.

“They’ve always had an attitude for no reason,” Neels says. “I felt unsafe a couple times. But I’m also a person of color, so that could be it.”

away from people—her boyfriend has asthma, and she doesn’t want to get him sick—but felt compelled to protest on Saturday. “It just seems like one of those moments where you can’t put yourself first. You have to get out there and you have to say, ‘I’m done with this,’” she says. “If we can keep this momentum going, we can push this past the tipping point and hopefully change —Emma Sarappo the world.”

MacKenzie Evans drove about 20 miles from northern Virginia to march in the District Saturday—the first such demonstration she’s participated in—“because no one realizes black lives matter and it’s just becoming even more egregiously apparent,” she says. “I feel like Trump’s reign has really promoted a divide in America that’s just more extreme than it’s ever been. And I just feel like we’re regressing in terms of acting civilized and respecting and caring for one another.”

She’s had brief interactions with police in the past, not “super violent, but I have gotten in trouble a couple of times.”

As for the street mural painted on 16th Street —Mitch Ryals NW? “I love it,” she says.

Prashant Choudhary

Mitch Ryals

Originally from northern Virginia, but now living in Adams Morgan, Erin Crowder protested at Malcolm X Park “for a lot of reasons.” She’s here for all victims of police brutality, but also specifically for Bijan Ghaisar. “Their family’s dear friends of mine, and he was shot by [U.S.] Park Police two years ago now, and the federal government has been silent on the ongoings of the shooting, and the family has pressed for answers, and we’ve just gotten none,” she says.

Crowder had participated in Occupy Wall Street protests, but had never marched against police brutality and racism until last week. After a “ loaded” day on Saturday, that was at times emotional and at other times joyful, and several days of protesting last week, she says she’s inclined to continue protesting. “Especially being a resident of D.C. and being so close to the lawmakers and decision makers of the country, I do feel like I have the opportunity and duty almost. It’s so easy for me to walk down to the White House—it’s about a 30 minute walk—and join in and show support physically. It’s a really —Will Warren easy thing I can do.”

Allison Krumsiek

Devin Williams, 20, traveled from northern Virginia with his father to march in D.C. to “support the Black Lives Matter movement and what’s going on with police brutality,” he says.

“It’s just nice to see a bunch of different people from different backgrounds supporting the same cause.”

He’s never participated in a demonstration like this, and describes the scene as “breathtaking.”

“I’ve never seen this amount of people for one cause and trying to level the playing field for —Mitch Ryals everybody,” he says.

A “Defund the Police” mural at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Bruce Jones was born and raised in D.C. He once lived across the street from Malcolm X Park, where he stopped on his way back to Takoma, where he currently lives, from protesting downtown. He didn’t expect to be protesting today—he had gone downtown to pick up his wife—but found himself drawn in. “I’m just amazed at what younger people have done in forming some sort of real change initiatives,” Jones says. Growing up, he says, killings by police officers didn’t get this level of attention, even though it happened “all the time.” “But now, I think they’ve reached the point where people are not going to take it anymore,” he says.

There was a moment that struck him earlier in the day. “It was definitely a feeling that something was different. Almost a new age, a new chapter. Something had turned. And going down 16th Street, it’s like you can feel it as you get closer to it. I could feel the energy. The energy of the people. It’s overwhelming almost.

Even with people with masks, you know they were smiling. One thing to me, when I got down there, it kind of shifted, it wasn’t like a protest, it was like a demonstration. A demonstration of people coming together to say ‘this is how we should live.’”

Later that day, at the Takoma Park Recreation Center, he participated in another protest, kneel—Will Warren ing alongside his neighbors.

Caitlin Neels

MacKenzie Evans like this, I’ve never felt anything like this.’ You could tell that something changed. There were people of all races and ages, and children, and people on bikes, and people who couldn’t protest were standing on the side cheering us on.

There was a whole construction crew on a roof cheering as people walked down Clarendon Boulevard. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before—so many people out there together, I can’t even explain it,” she says.

Because of the pandemic, she’d been keeping

Sharon Soh, 26, and her friend Julie Kim, 25, drove from Baltimore to march in D.C. Saturday afternoon, believing their presence can make a difference.

“Every small thing matters and each protest matters,” Soh says. “What I’m scared of actually is that this momentum is going to stop, and people are gonna forget again. That’s why I’m out here, so people don’t forget.”

She’s also participated in recent protests in Baltimore and Rockville. The march in D.C. Saturday had a similar energy, she says.

The mural on 16th Street NW is a “nice gesture,” Soh says. “But I feel like that’s just it. It’s just a gesture, and I think actions speak louder than words. So until we see actual reform, it’s —Mitch Ryals just a pretty picture.”

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FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Course Correction

Erica Christian

For three months, COVID-19 disrupted the restaurant industry. While dining rooms were closed, some operators used their idle time to reflect on what the future of restaurants could and should look like—whether that’s more equitable labor models or a greater reliance on the local food system.

But then the world saw a Minneapolis police officer kill George Floyd. People around the world, including thousands of D.C.-area residents, filled the streets in response to peacefully protest against police brutality and systemic anti-black racism.

They remembered Floyd, Breonna Taylor, a Kentucky EMT who Louisville police officers fatally shot on March 13, Ahmaud Arbery, a runner who two white men shot and killed in Georgia on Feb. 23, and many other victims whose lives ended too soon.

Businesses and brands, including white-owned restaurants, raced to craft statements of solidarity on social media. “We all must embrace the discomfort that is required to effect change,” Little Beast posted. “We stand strongly against racism and injustice,” Little Sesame shared. “We acknowledge that the system is broken and that it was built this way intentionally.” All-Purpose Pizzeria added, “We vow to use our platform to amplify black voices and advocate for the marginalized.”

Some posts from owners prompted current or former employees to speak out, calling restaurants’ pledges of solidarity hollow and hypocritical based on how they’ve been treated on the clock.

Time will tell if restaurants make good on their promises and do the work required to make their kitchens and dining rooms workplaces where black employees feel supported and celebrated.

City Paper asked black hospitality professionals to write about what their industry can do to fight for racial justice all the time, not just right now. They call on their past, present, and future employers to promote black workers and amplify their voices, invest in black culture instead of coopting it for commercial gain, examine areas rife with potential for implicit bias, and find ways to reimagine a system that wasn’t built with black advancement in mind.

—Laura Hayes Erica Christian Thamee server and sommelier I had to write and send an open letter to restaurant and bar owners and operators to call

Darrow Montgomery

Black hospitality industry pros discuss how restaurants can fight for racial justice now and in the future.

them to action. I shouldn’t have had to.

I am a 25-year-old Black woman from Buffalo, who has enthusiastically contributed my time and talents to the D.C. hospitality sector since 2015. I love this industry, but I am gravely disappointed by the responses of businesses across the city. Many hospitality-driven D.C. businesses benefit from Black labor, especially the labor of Black women, and the displacement of Black communities. Their silence echoes more than just complacency, but a complete disregard for Black livelihood.

From the businesses that aren’t silent, I see empty posts about “standing with the Black community” and “Black Lives Matter.” I see short-term action against America’s racist, long-term legacy. If non-Black owners, operators, managers, and chefs want to make impactful change, they must first unpack all of the ways in which they have contributed to and perpetuated racism.

It is the sole responsibility of non-Black leaders in the hospitality industry to acknowledge their own role in actively disregarding the local Black community, including their Black staff.

Ask yourselves: How do you support Black communities? How have you supported your Black employees? Did you silence their voices?

Did you respect and uplift their contributions?

Think deeply on this. Examine your role as a non-Black leader. Only then will these businesses build equitable and safe workplaces for their Black staff and their future.

It is imperative that non-Black businesses take responsibility for ensuring safe and sustainable multicultural work spaces. My Black

16 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

labor, my power, and my connection to community are not for the progression of white agendas that highlight “diversity” as an image or advertisement.

Practice multiculturalism instead of diversity. Practice anti-racism. Acknowledge and care for your Black employees and their contributions. Raise their voices. I have left almost every hospitality job I have had in search of multicultural workspaces. Create long-term solutions to uplift Black labor always. Do the research yourselves. Partake in actionable responses instead of cute Instagram posts.

Show us you are with us. Show us you will hire us. Show us you will create equitable spaces for us. Do not forget, the hospitality industry is built on slave labor. You cannot create impactful change if you do not first acknowledge and unpack this. If your business is not anti-racist, it is racist. Heard?

Andra “AJ” Johnson Serenata managing partner, bartender, and cofounder of DMV Black Restaurant Week The hospitality industry’s struggle with racism is not an evolved or new occurrence. It is steeped in systemic racism, from the tipping structure to owners and managers using discriminatory practices in order to hire people only they deem necessary to represent the face of their businesses. Black restaurant workers have felt this sting daily, in an industry where hard work and a strong commitment to customer service should be the only currency necessary to succeed in this business.

With the influx of developers and investors buying up property in the District at discount prices, we have seen a marked shift not only in the demographic make-up of the nation’s capital, but the culinary scene as well. The D.C. restaurant scene is overrun with terrible riffs on fried chicken and mumbo sauce, businesses playing urban music without a Black employee or customer in sight, and countless hollow attempts from food outlets to show diversity.

It was never acceptable, but Black hospitality workers played the game, albeit with limited resources, lack of access to proper funding, and zero representation at the table. This is no longer a sustainable model for this industry. It is in dire need of healthy and accountable relationships with Black employees and guests.

There are an infinite number of actions, not only to redirect the current course of racial discrimination but to ensure that we, as an industry, do not backslide. Simply put, restaurant owners can start investing in the D.C. community, not just the culture that we bring.

They can do this by: not throwing away applications because they can’t pronounce someone’s name; acknowledging the work that employees of color do and hiring and promoting them accordingly; recognizing our cultural food as cuisine; listening to employees of color and standing behind them when they are being discriminated against by their own colleagues.

But most importantly, they can accept the fact that Black people want to hang out and eat good food just like everyone else. Our contributions to this city are endless, and it is no longer acceptable for us to be shut out of an industry

FOOD DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD that has our work ethic, passion, and dedication embedded in its DNA. Paola Velez Kith/Kin executive pastry chef, co-founder of Doùa Dona and Bakers Against Racism The restaurant industry has pro­ gressed a lot, but not nearly enough for people of color. The sad truth is, if you stick your head into any restaurant in America, you’ll likely see a predominantly white front of­ house and management staff and a predomi­ nantly black and brown kitchen staff. Is this because white people are better leaders and serv­ ers and people of color are better cooks and dish­ washers? Of course not. It’s because our beloved culinary system has been built and sustained— both implicitly and explicitly—by bias and racism.

Whether knowingly or unknowingly, restau­ rateurs, owners, chefs, and managers have per­ petuated a system that has reinforced systems of bias. As a woman of color, I’ve witnessed first­ hand how these systems have supported bias and minimized the voices of people of color. I’ve dealt with the microaggressions, comments about my hair, and jokes about my culture. I’ve been denied promotions and receive constant reminders that, despite how many articles are written or accolades I collect, I’ll never be “one of the boys� in this club.

But that time is over. It’s time for restaurants to step up, stand for what is right, and take the diffi­ cult but necessary steps to change their structure and culture. While vague references to diversity and inclusion may appease their investors, restau­ rants just need to take a few simple and practical steps to actually effect real and lasting change.

Assess yourself: Before you can take steps to change, you have to know what’s broken. Take a critical look at your current staffing. Is there a disparity between front­of­house, back­of­ house, and management? Are there really no black sommeliers in D.C., or are you maybe not looking in the right places?

Remove application barriers: Make questions about education and previous arrests and con­ victions optional or non­existent.

Offer training: Cross­train staff on different positions. Offer or subsidize English or Spanish language training to ensure that your teams can communicate with each other effectively.

Develop clear pathways for promotion: Promotions shouldn’t be a mystery for staff.

Clearly identify the skills required, share how applicants will be assessed, provide examples of how applicants can get the necessary skills, and prioritize hiring from within.

Identify areas of potential implicit bias: How are hiring and promotion decisions made?

Implement a standardized structure to make these decisions and rely on a panel of voices to weigh in. A diversity of opinions is a simple way to help reduce the impact of individual bias.

These are just a few thoughts on how to change internally, but restaurants, chefs, owners, and advocates should also be utiliz­ ing their platforms to share trusted resources for folks to learn more about current efforts to address racial disparities and promote equity.

Donate to nonprofits and relief funds and

identify black­owned businesses that consumers can support directly.

Restaurants like Emilie’s have done a great job utilizing their websites in this way. Business owners like Andra “AJ� Johnson of Serenata are using their voices to advocate for black busi­ ness owners in the industry. Food advocates like Anela Malik (@FeedTheMalik) and Takera Gholson (@f lightsandfoods) have raised awareness for black­owned businesses utiliz­ ing their platforms. It’s simple steps like these that can effect lasting change.

Rock Harper Chef, author, and creator of the Chef Rock Xperiment podcast “Shut up dumb nigger,� someone emailed me. It’s hard to tell why. Sometimes it’s just ran­ dom. Sometimes it’s presumably in response to a tweet I may have sent out on black issues.

Or maybe it’s a cue that Hell’s Kitchen reruns are on. I competed and won a season, and then reappeared on the show several times after.

To be a black chef is to live with a normal­ ized rage. I see my culture exploited. I am told “soul food is not soignĂŠ.â€? I hear that my hair is threatening. Smiling on the outside, screaming within. I feel the pilot light of my soul flicker.

COVID­19 face coverings are easy, I’ve donned a mask for decades.

A CEO said that I was too aggressive. I was unsurprised when my white successor received the OK for the upgrades I suggested. Praised for his ambition, admonished for my approach.

I don’t care to change a racist’s mind. Decon­ struct the system. Reimagine and rebuild it. The compounding effects of systemic racism have left blacks standing shoeless behind the line while others hopped on a train racing toward the goal.

I believe that this country must atone for its original, heinous sin against black people.

America must heal the scars, but that’s impos­ sible if she denies that a wound even exists.

I’d like for you to begin by understanding how we arrived at this point. For example, the appropriation of fried chicken. The evil scheme of slavery is responsible for American fried chicken, yet blacks are systemically exempt from participating in its profits. Enslaved blacks deserve 100 percent credit, yet we have virtu­ ally 0 percent market share. The racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the filthy propaganda that followed ensured that blacks would forever be viewed as fried chicken­eating savages. The stereotype is 100 percent ours, critical acclaim is damn near 0 percent. White­owned Hattie B’s owns the airwaves, although Prince’s cre­ ated Nashville Hot Chicken.

I challenge the food community and beyond to help create a fund. We need resources more than we do rhetoric. Join me in creating a $100 Million Dollar Fund to build a local food based community and an economic base.

Imagine a network of farms, transportation, grocery stores, restaurants, incubators, bak­ eries, media, schools, and more—all owned by black Americans. Details will be posted at rocksolidfood.com.

Wipe That Smile Off Your Face

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Across 1. Former state whose motto was “Workers of the world, unite!�

5. Cool and distant 10. “Don’t go so fast!�

14. Tried and ___ 15. Baseball GM Billy featured in the book Moneyball 16. Actress Hathaway 17. Some red wines, informally 18. Drive-thru sign 19. Abounding 20. Skating legend who cameoed as a commentator in Blades of Glory 23. Be part of the cast of 25. Loud, as a crowd 26. Boba Fett, e.g.

31. Melville’s Billy ___ 32. All-time home run leader among foreign-born MLB players 33. Eat up 37. Exodus character 38. Like some poor judgment 40. Gen ___ 41. Perch on which to watch a dart game 43. Hard rain?

44. Sunday song 45. Elvis standard

that begins “Bright light city gonna set my soul / Gonna set my soul on fire�

48. It’s read at an audition 50. “Why ___ you married yet?�

51. Donnie Darko’s sister’s dance troupe 56. Well container 57. Robin Hood portrayer Russell 58. Some servers 61. Volcano on Sicily 62. Get ready to eat?

63. Two-time NBA MVP Steve 64. Turn on the waterworks 65. Upturned, as a box 66. “Cogito ___ sum�

Down 1. Mystic Potato Chips maker 2. ___ Lanka 3. Legendary Memphis site where Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Great Balls of Fire�

4. Take back 5. Run interference during a robbery, say 6. Easter Triduum ends it 7. Mild swear 8. ___ Day Women’s

Prenatal 9. Mathematician Pierre whose “last theorem� took 358 years to prove 10. Iron fist ruler 11. Writer Shreve or Diamont or Loos 12. Awaiting 13. Anybody featured in a high school yearbook, if you don’t count teachers 21. Can. province 22. “Some website posted this article ...�

23. PLO leader Mahmoud 24. Jazz gig setting?

27. Fashion designer’s monogram 28. Big to-do 29. “Round up the ___ suspects�

30. Gymnast Comaneci 34. Establishment where you can get a lungful 35. Add more to the staff 36. Artist Max 38. Toasting sound 39. 1997 U.S. Open champ Ernie 42. Middle bit of a Venn diagram 44. Scout of To Kill A Mockingbird, e.g.

46. Closing material 47. ‘80s guitar god Steve 48. Avalanche 49. Michael who had a cameo in Inception 51. Erupt 52. Ireland, poetically 53. Put on a long face 54. Wilson of Hollywood 55. Gravitate (toward) 59. Chinese restaurant additive 60. The Borgias channel, on schedules

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washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 17

ARTS

Tony Redz, 1974–2020

Tony Redz

The go-go community remembers the radio personality and rapper.

Antonio “Tony Redz” Lovett was best known as a radio personality on WPGC 95.5 FM and as a rapper, both with and without the highly popular bounce beat band TCB. He was best loved for his tireless work on behalf of his community.

That his death last month at age 45 reverberated in so many cultural realms is a testament to the multiple roles he played: in go-go as the second mic rapper for TCB, in hip-hop as an independent rapper, in theater as a comic actor, and in radio for nearly 20 years as he presided over WPGC’s top-rated Street Squad Radio and then his own nightly show.

“He had a great hustle; his whole purpose, his whole movement was to push local music,” says rapper Calvin “Killa Cal” Henry, who collaborated with Tony Redz on “The Go-Go Show” and other tracks. “He was plugged into everything, and he helped people with exposure by getting them on the radio. He loved his city, he loved where he came from. We have truly lost one of our own.”

Tony Redz called his brand “Mr. 24/7,” because the hustle never stopped. A stylish dresser with an easy laugh, he radiated the kind of infectious energy that lights up a party.

Raasan Fuller, head of R&G Entertainment and manager of Backyard Band and its bandleader Anwan “Big G” Glover, regularly tapped Tony Redz to host events. “He was a household name, a great dad, a great and loyal friend to many, many people, and a natural born entertainer, so it’s innate,” says Fuller, who hosted Street Squad Radio with Tony Redz in the early 2000s. “And you know what I love most?

He’s versatile. Tony Redz could host an event with kids, he could host an event in the ghetto, and he could host an event for all middle-aged white people and always get the same response.”

DJ Rico Scott first met Tony Redz in the late ’90s, when they both worked at WPGC. “His energy would definitely make you step up your game,” he says. “He really was a voice for the community, somebody who didn’t have to know you to love you. He was all about helping out independent artists and giving back to certain communities.”

Growing up in and around Southeast D.C., Tony Redz attended several high schools before graduating from Springbrook High School in Silver Spring. For several years, he studied acting at Howard Community College and the

Autumn’s Eye Photography

By Alona Wartofsky Contributing Writer

University of the District of Columbia while immersing himself in go-go culture. He performed with Pure Elegance, Optimystic Tribe, Rare Essence, and other go-go groups before joining TCB. Most go-go bands have three front-line microphones: Number one is for the band’s lead talker, number two is for the rapper, and number three is for the vocalist. The second mic job is like a hype man, but much more. “He was a super spark plug,” says TCB percussionist

18 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

A’Luvly AKA Luv. “Thinking about recent shows we did in Atlanta and LA, he just commands everybody with that energy. He makes everybody feel untouchable.”

Tony Redz brought that intensity to every project, and there was always a lot going on.

He was the guy to hit up if you were looking for airplay, the guy who could connect you with a music label, the guy who would throw together a fundraiser faster than most folks eat lunch, the guy who would organize a back-to-school

drive in the heavy heat of August and stay until the very end.

While he focused on rapping, Tony Redz was also a multi-instrumentalist who played drums over the years at various local churches.

But he wasn’t a go-go drummer. Several people in the go-go community recall a night several years ago at the Ibiza club, when Junkyard Band’s drummer missed a show that activist Ron Moten had put together with Junkyard, Backyard, and Experience Unlimited.

ARTS ARTS FILM REVIEW “Tony Redz jumps on the drums playing with Junkyard, and if you didn’t know, you’d be like, ‘this is all right.’ But if you was in go-go, you’d be like, ‘oh, my god,’” Moten says. “He got us through the night, and he lived up to his name as Mr. 24/7, always figuring a way to lend his hand to the community. He was always there for the less fortunate, and trying to pull people to work together. That’s who he was. People like him, Big G, Lil Chris from TOB, they were doing it before it was popular.”

Members of TCB credit Tony Redz for helping Elgin “Bo” Miller hold the band together after the 2013 death of bandleader and bounce beat innovator Reginald “Polo” Burwell.

“Tony Redz stepping up to Bo’s position when Bo stepped into Polo’s position happened at a time when everyone was required to step up,” TCB manager Rome Curtis says. “It was a level of energy like, ‘I’m gonna do whatever it takes to keep this bounce beat alive.’”

In 2014, Tony Redz was promoted to become a full-time night show personality on WPGC, fulfilling a lifelong dream. “Go-go, that’s where he’s from, but his ambitions were in radio,” former TCB co-manager Darrin “X” Frazier says. “He was on the number one radio station in his hometown, and not many people can say that.”

While his WPGC commitments meant less time for TCB, Tony Redz focused his attention on boosting area artists with the DMV Spotlight, his show’s most popular feature.

“With his position, he was able to lift the culture,” Curtis says. “He was one of the top influencers here in D.C., and not just for the music culture, but also local clothing businesses, food businesses, and organizations wanting to meet consumer needs on a mainstream level.”

To the best of his ability, Tony Redz supported local artists in an era when most commercial radio has seemed to disregard area talent. “Nobody in radio was doing what Tony Redz was doing,” TCB keyboard player Goldie Hefner says.

Theater producer Lovail Long Sr. was one of many who enjoyed watching Tony Redz rise.

“I went from seeing him passing out flyers, doing street promotions, to being the number one show on PGC,” Long says. “He learned the grassroots marketing situation, and he used that to give the youngsters a platform for their music to be heard.”

Tony Redz performed in two of Long’s theatrical productions, The Giz and Da Golden Girlz.

In The Giz, Tony Redz played WB, the wisecracking sidekick of the Dottie/Dorothy character. Long recalls that, early on, Tony Redz had him worried. “The first two rehearsals, he was terrible,” he says. “We were all thinking, ‘he can’t read,’ but nobody wanted to correct him, because he was Tony Redz. We couldn’t understand what was going on.” It turned out that Tony Redz had simply neglected to bring his glasses.

For an encore production of The Giz slated for 2021, WB will be renamed Tony Redz. “The last time he texted was after our last show on February 8th, and he wrote, ‘thank you brother for letting me be part of the dream,’” Long says.

“I never had the chance to tell him he’s one of the few that helped me with my dream.”

Tony Redz was a devoted family man whose vices were Red Bull and red Blow Pops, and he was known for his style: coordinating socks, shoes, jacket, and hat. “He had a real nice hat game, some bedazzled hats,” TCB bassist Johnny “Groove” Worth says.

Groove remembers the late night when his car died after a show at Fast Eddie’s in Camp Springs. “Tony brought me all the way to Montgomery County, and he lived back in Prince George’s County,” he says. “That’s the kind of person he was. And all the knowledge he attained over the years, he would give that to you in five minutes.”

Friends point out that his fame as a radio host eclipsed his own career as a rapper, but Tony Redz never seemed to mind. “A lot of people don’t know he was a very talented solo artist before he was on the radio,” Killa Cal says. “His style was very smooth, very lyrical, very energetic.”

In the early 2000s, Tony Redz regularly joined Rare Essence on stage Sunday nights at the Classics in Camp Springs to perform additional verses he wrote for “Work That Thang.”

Rare Essence bandleader and guitarist Andre “Whiteboy” Johnson recalls those nights: “His performance was one of the highlights of that song, because of the energy he brought and the originality in his verses,” he says.

“He was one of the best freestyle rappers in the city,” TCB drummer Zae Alston says.

“Tony was speaking some real stuff as a fighter for the community.”

Tony Redz lived up to his words offstage, speaking at area schools and volunteering for community youth movements. “We’d visit schools and Tony would tell the students to stay out of trouble and stop the violence. He tried to give them a better insight on life,” Hefner says.

“He was a leader and a legend. He was a bounce beat king.”

In 2019, Tony Redz left WPGC deeply disappointed, but resumed regular performances with TCB. He also connected with local rapper Fatz Da Big Fella to start a video blog, Da Big News, praised by The DMV Daily as, “Filled with clever satire about black issues, highlights on entrepreneurs, discussion about various subjects in Urban culture, and a signature ‘DMV flair.’” One recent episode featured a “Battle of the Snickerdoodles,” pitting mall cookies from the Shops at Iverson against those from the Centre at Forestville.

“He was a local legend, he had the charisma, and he put on the struggle of the independent artist. That’s the same thing we did with the show,” Fatz DaBigFella says. “We found hidden gems in entertainment, fashion, and food, and were shining a light on them.”

Several days after he learned of Tony Redz’ passing, area filmmaker James Mitchell compiled a video tribute, one of several that have shown up on YouTube. “If you look on YouTube, you’ll see hundreds of video clips of him helping somebody,” Mitchell says. “I took the time to just look back and say, ‘Why don’t I just be that one person to do something for him.’”

Clown Royal The King of Staten Island Directed by Judd Apatow

Judd Apatow loves coming-of-age films about actual adults. That was clear in his feature debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and continued onward through Knocked Up and Trainwreck. Now, he’s directed The King of Staten Island, a comedy where Apatow’s sensibilities clash with the acerbic dirtbag antics of Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson.

Anyone who has watched the aforementioned films will recognize Apatow hallmarks, whether it’s unexpected gross-out humor or scenes that take a touch too long to finish, borne out of a filmmaker being too enamored with himself to make smart choices.

This f ilm is semi-autobiographical— Davidson wrote the screenplay with Apatow and Dave Sirus—so it borrows heavily from Davidson’s early life. Davidson’s father was a firefighter who died as a first responder during the 9/11 attacks. Here, Davidson plays Scott, an aimless loser and aspiring tattoo artist who still lives with his mom (Marisa Tomei) and never fully recovered from losing his firefighter father. Life advances forward as Scott’s younger sister heads to college and his mom begins dating someone new, and he resents all of it. He is afraid of change because it means he has to reckon with his grief, and it is so much easier to wander through life in a stoned haze.

There are many subplots in this film: The romantic subplot with Scott’s mom and her new boyfriend (Bill Burr) is a sweet, gentle story about middle-aged people who see romance as a calculated risk. Scott’s friends plan to rob a pharmacy, using the drugs they find to buy a better life. There is also a

plausible, observant workplace comedy at the firehouse where Scott somehow finds himself.

Scott is on the periphery of all these stories— and they could all easily resolve without him.

I cannot help but wonder if a better film could be made without the “king” in it.

There are thoughtful scenes, like the opening where Scott has a major panic attack while driving. Davidson is equal parts defensive and vulnerable, and watching ordinary people negotiate with him creates a palpable sense of tragedy. But Apatow’s affection for improvisation is a weakness here as he lets his actors riff and create a bloated runtime.

Davidson’s comic style is raw and confrontational, the sort of thing that could bring energy to a story like this, but he loses his edge in a film that feels longer than it should.

This is also the grittiest film that Apatow has ever made—he does not shy away from Scott’s depravity, like a scene in which he thinks it’s a good idea to tattoo a child. Then there is the business of the pharmacy robbery, which leads to violence, and there’s also the real danger the firefighter characters must face. All this grittiness adds to a sense of realism at first, but the trouble is that everyone sounds like they’re being fed lines by a comedian like Apatow. It’s admirable how he advances the careers of his lead actors, however all that goodwill drains with an unfocused approach.

The King of Staten Island is all about decent people who try to get an immature and broken man on the right path. They plead with him, make excuses for him, and, most of all, they wait. By the time Scott finally becomes slightly less of a screwup, your patience and curiosity will already be way too eroded for his development to leave any real satisfaction.

—Alan Zilberman

The King of Staten Island is available on VOD platforms starting June 12.

washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 19

ARTS

Care Package Local artists thank health care workers with 1,600 artworks.

delivered to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, and MedStar Washington Hospital Center in D.C. The mission of ArtWatch is to use visual communication to support democratic values and bring people together, with projects on topics like feminism, climate change, and inclusion that have included as many as 300 artists.

City Paper spoke with ArtWatch’s cofounders Jackie Hoysted and Ellyn Weiss to learn about “Art from the Heart” and arts activism.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Washington City Paper: What was it like to go through all of the submissions for this project?

Ellyn Weiss: We knew pretty much right away that this was going to be big because of the immediate response we got when we started posting around. But 1,600 just exceeds our expectations. I think this project just speaks for itself; you don’t have to explain it. [Other ArtWatch projects have] had an edge to them.

And this one we decided it would just be positive, it would just be thank you—and that’s what struck a chord.

Shante Bullock

WCP: What drew you to become arts activists?

Lori Anne Boocks

EW: Both of us have been activists for a long time, and I’ve been involved with environmental issues for my entire professional life and that’s reflected in my art. But ArtWatch itself, the way it started was I posted a [photo] on Facebook right after the [2016] election of an 80-plus-year-old woman holding a sign that says, “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.” And Jackie immediately messaged back, “Well let’s do something about it.” And that’s how ArtWatch started. It’s not a 501(c)(3). It’s not really officially organized. It’s just project by project. We reach out and the artists we know— we both have pretty deep roots in the DMV arts community—who are interested respond. I think artists, like anybody else, need to be engaged with the world around them. And this is where we choose to take a stand.

By Jennifer Anne Mitchell Contributing Writer Just more than three weeks ago, the local arts collective ArtWatch received about 1,600 submissions for their project “Art from the Heart,” which sends artwork, as a token of thanks, to health care workers who are risking their lives to help others during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The creations came from more than 230 people, including children and artists outside of the Washington area, from states like Texas,

Illinois, Arizona, and Colorado. All pieces were limited to the size of an index card. The collection includes colorful, abstract images and drawings of flowers, birds, and hearts. Others depict health care workers wearing masks; with most of the faces covered, the emphasis is on the eyes. There are even a few funny pictures, like a dog saying, “Thank you for helping my human,” and a bottle of hand sanitizer next to the words, “Let’s come clean: your work is appreciated.”

ArtWatch distributed the art to three local hospitals, with bundles of about 500 artworks

20 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Jackie Hoysted: I didn’t set out to be an activist, but you can’t stand aside and just watch. You have to take part in making the community and the place you live the place you want to be. I think, especially with the current administration, I feel like so many things are kind of falling apart here.

And we have to take a stand, and if we don’t take a stand, things will get worse. So that’s really I guess the bottom line. With forming ArtWatch, we’ve created a wonderful community where we can discuss these issues together, where we can work together to facilitate change. And I think having an art collective like this, we garner all the support together and do something more powerful than we could do individually.

WCP: Ellyn, you co-created an installation in 2017, Migration of Pestilence, about the

migration of infectious diseases. Can you share what that work means to you now with COVID-19, or any messages from the artwork that relate to this time?

EW: The visual and the underlying conceptual message behind that was, we, in the northern world, have created the conditions for the movement of these diseases. We continue to be completely complacent about what we’ve created that is heading toward us, and you can’t help but feel, “It’s here.”

WCP: What have you learned from past artistic responses to crises?

JH: Working on what I call positive actions, like “Art from the Heart”: These are all positive measures where we stage what we believe in and try to get other people to come and have a conversation. I think [art] gives you the opportunity to initiate conversation, a lot of times in a non-confrontational way. It gives you a way to open up that dialogue.

EW: I’ve been surprised in my history of making climate change-related installations that they do educate people—I did one with Richard Dana, another local artist, a few years back on the destruction of the coral reefs.

Lots of people came up to us and said, “Well, I didn’t really know about that.” When you’re involved in issues, you think that everybody knows about them, but they don’t. Art has the capacity to spread truth.

WCP: How would you encourage folks who aren’t activists, but are interested in getting involved in activism?

EW: You have to make your own opportunities and decide what you want to show. And take that to the galleries and propose it. I think you have to make what you believe in.

JH: It’s amazing when you do something different how many new people come into your community, and maybe you have a chance to make change.

WCP: What thoughts or feelings come up as you witness the current protests against racism and police brutality, and everything happening in our country right now?

EW: I think that the focus of activism for anybody who is horrified by where we are in this country, which ought to be a whole lot of people, has got to be on getting out the vote. ArtWatch will certainly be involved.

JH: The next six months up to the election will be the most important time in our lives. There can be nothing more important to do. Everyone must mobilize and put our concerted energy into ensuring a safe, free, and fair election come November. We cannot tolerate another four years of mayhem and rot.

City Lights

CITY LIGHTS City Lights

Browse the Black Lesbian Archives Unless we seek it out, it’s rare to casually encounter prose about falling in love as a black lesbian, thoughts on homophobia within black communities, or an erotic magazine for “dykes of all persuasions.” That’s because racism and homophobia are just as prevalent in academic and archival work as they are in any other sector of society, and it shows in the scarcity of archival material available on black lesbianism. Krü Maekdo noticed this absence in physical and digital libraries while she was researching lesbian history, and, frustrated, she set out to elevate these excluded voices. The result was Black Lesbian Archives, an organization that collects archival material by and about black lesbians and makes it digitally accessible. Earlier this year, BLA started to make its materials physically accessible by kicking off its first tour, which was going to bring hundreds of written and visual materials to cities across the country. The BLA tour would’ve arrived in D.C. at the end of May, but it was canceled due to COVID-19.

Fear not—Maekdo hasn’t stopped bringing prime black and gay content to the BLA Instagram account, and you can find more on its website. Maekdo also runs a YouTube channel and a podcast, where you can bask in her contagious good energy as she talks all things black and lesbian. You can also find her speaking to the current moment, telling listeners in her latest podcast episode that “we have the power to change this narrative.” Black Lesbian Archives can be found at blacklesbianarchives.wixsite.com and linktr.ee/blacklesbianarchives. Free.

—Ella Feldman

City Lights

Hear (or read) firsthand accounts of the 1991 Mount Pleasant Riots Just a year before the 1992 Los Angeles riots, D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood was shaken by the shooting of Daniel Enrique Gomez, a Salvadoran man, on the corner of 17th and Lamont streets NW. Eyewitnesses said Gomez was handcuffed when he was shot by rookie cop Angela Jewell. (The police claimed that Gomez had lunged with a knife.) Although Gomez lived, the result was a clash between a mostly black and white Metropolitan Police Department and a growing Latinx community that felt misunderstood, neglected, and harassed. (In his interview, Jose “Chico” Diaz, who grew up in the neighborhood, describes an incident where a police officer pressed a pistol against his brother’s head for no apparent reason.) A Metrobus and a Church’s Chicken were torched in the ensuing conflict, and MPD cruisers were rocked and flipped. A curfew was imposed on Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, and Adams Morgan, and after three long nights, the riots subsided. Nearly 30 years later, the DC Public Library compiled interviews with 10 Mount Pleasant residents who witnessed the action and its aftermath.

Thanks to the Mount Pleasant Riot Oral History Project, transcripts of the interviews are available online. You can also listen to the original audio of conversations with residents, a former

Tour the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

ANC commissioner, a social worker, and a Capuchin friar. The interviewees’ combined perspectives help illustrate the inequities and injustices that led to the rioting. They also highlight a grim resonance between the discontent of D.C. residents in 1968, 1991, and 2020. The interviews are available at digdc.dclibrary.org.

Free.

—Will Lennon

City Lights

Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field

Frederick Douglass’ enduring legacy has shaped social and political movements for more than a century. He was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, emancipated himself, and went on to become one of the most famous abolitionists and reformers of his time. And toward the end of his career, which was filled with powerful orations and writing, suffrage activism, and several roles in public office, he settled into Cedar Hill, his final home, in Washington, D.C. Now run as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site by the National Park Service, the Anacostia home typically welcomes in-person tours, an annual children’s oratorical contest, and other educational programs on abolition for K-12 students. Although its doors are shut due to the pandemic, there are still opportunities to learn through a virtual house tour and image gallery. In the library, you’ll see his vast collection of books and the roll top desk at which he wrote The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Cedar Hill’s east and west parlors house Douglass’ Kimball piano and statues from Roman mythology. And upstairs, you can peruse the bedrooms of Frederick Douglass, his first wife Anna Murray Douglass, his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass, and guest bedrooms for both women and men. As the NPS declares, a tour of Cedar Hill illuminates many facets of Douglass’ inner life.

Virtually tour the Frederick Douglass National Historical Site at nps.gov or through artsandculture.google.com. Free.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Read about the Furies Collective

Abiquiú, New Mexico, located northwest of Santa Fe, is best known as the place where Georgia O’Keeffe lived and painted for more than five decades. But a new online exhibit mounted by the National Museum of the American Indian documents a centuries-old community with a complex history: the Genízaro.

As photographer Russel Albert Daniels explains through a combination of sober black-and-white images and deeply reported captions, Native Americans have lived in the area for at least 800 years; their discarded awls, hoes, and pottery pop up in local fields with some regularity. In the 1600s, Spanish colonizers arrived and abducted or purchased members of the Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Navajo, Pawnee, and Ute peoples and enslaved them for 10 to 15 years under Spanish law. Regardless of where they came from, the Spanish called these people and their children “Genízaro.” In 1754, Genízaro and Hopi families received a land grant they still hold some of today. The Genízaro continue to observe aspects of their unique Catholic and Native American heritage, such as the Santo Tomás feast day ceremony, which is punctuated by the 150-year-old El Cautivo (The Captive) dance, in which participants dress as their ancestors, with face paint, feather hair ornaments, ankle bells, and dollar bills pinned to their clothing, signifying their “ransom.”

Daniels’ crisp images are undergirded by his own personal history; Daniels is not Genízaro, he comes from Diné, Ho-Chunk, Mormon settler, and European ancestry, and calls his work “an act of self-discovery.” His images and text are available online, along with a recorded interview, at the National Museum of the American Indian website. Daniels’ exhibit will rotate out on July 14 with the posting of another documentary project, this one by Tailyr Irvine, detailing the legacy of U.S. government policy on contemporary Native families. The exhibition is available at americanindian.si.edu/developingstories. Free.

At first glance, the demure-looking Capitol Hill rowhouse that stands at 219 11th Street SE doesn’t seem especially radical. But for two years in the early 1970s, the building was home to the Furies Collective, a radical lesbian feminist commune whose publications, like the magazine motive and especially the newspaper The Furies, helped redefine the national discourse around lesbianism and feminism. Many of the members had been rejected from mainstream feminism because of their sexuality, which influenced their political stance against multiple forms of oppression. In motive, they wrote that mainstream feminism “lacks direction now because it has failed to understand the importance of heterosexuality in maintaining male supremacy and because it has failed to face class and race as real differences in women’s behavior and political needs.” In 2016, the house was named the first lesbian-specific site on the National Register of Historic Places, which means there’s now a lot of easily accessible archival material. Start with the NRHP’s nomination form, which takes readers through the ideological impact of the Furies and the ambition of their collective project. Then, try the D.C. Preservation League’s overview and the National Park Service’s short entry on the Furies in a series on “Collectives, Enclaves, and Gayborhoods.” Even though separatist ideas are no longer in vogue, the Furies’ ideas and legacy still influence lesbian culture today—notably, members of the collective went on to found Olivia Records, the indie record company that released women- and lesbian-focused music and is now Olivia Travel, a notable cruise company that caters to queer women. For younger readers, it’s maybe better known as the setting for last year’s viral “lesbian cruise article” in Buzzfeed. The information is available at nps.gov and historicsites.dcpreservation.org. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

—Emma Sarappo washingtoncitypaper.com june 12, 2020 21

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE Hey, everybody: We had our first Savage Love Livestream event last Thursday night and I had such a blast! A huge crowd of Savage Love readers and Savage Lovecast listeners got together on Zoom for a live online Q&A that raised more than $14,000 for Northwest Harvest, an organization that supports food banks in my home state. I got more questions than I could answer in our allotted time, so I’m going to answer as many as I can squeeze into this week’s column.

Here we go …

—Dan Savage Is it a red flag or sign of deeper attachment or commitment issues if your long-term partner never tells you he loves you?

ABUSE, SEX AND DRUGS A Novel by Taylor

THE LIFE OF TEENAGERS ON THE STREETS OF AMERICA The story of friends forced by circumstance to find a better life for themselves on the streets.

But the streets are hard, and the world is unforgiving. And unfortunately, not everyone is strong enough to make it.

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON IN PAPERBACK AND FOR KINDLE

CITYPAPER WASHINGTON

Stay tuned with local news.

Follow City Paper on social media. @washingtoncitypaper @wcp @washingtoncitypaper

I’ve heard people describe relationships that were three months old as “LTRs.” Assuming you’re not one of those people—assuming you’ve been with this guy for more than a year— and you’ve already said “I love you” to him and he hasn’t said it back, well, that’s a bad sign. But I wouldn’t describe it as a red flag. Early warning signs for physical or emotional abuse are red flags; not hearing “I love you” from someone you’d like to hear that from does suck, I know (because I’ve been there), but it’s not a sign that you’re in danger, girl. It’s also not proof your partner has attachment or commitment issues; he just might not be interested in attaching or committing to you. But whatever the case might be, if you’re unhappy being with someone who can’t bring himself to say “I love you,” then you shouldn’t be with that person.

Is there a safe way to date/be slutty now? Will there ever be again? I’m poly but live alone so I haven’t had sex in 12 weeks. HELP! While health officials in most places are urging all of us to only have sex with people we live with—mom and dad excepted—over in the Netherlands, they are advising single and horny Dutch people to find “sex buddies.” One sex buddy per person, someone you can meet up with for sex and ideally someone who isn’t interacting with too many other people. If you can find someone you trust—and if you are someone who can be trusted—you could go Dutch.

My fiancé has an ex-girlfriend who just can’t let it go. He’s blocked her on social media but his mother still follows his ex and is friends with her and they interact at least monthly. Likes, comments, etc.

Can I address the issue with his mom or is that just somewhere you don’t go?

Why are you monitoring your fiancé’s ex-girlfriend’s social media? I mean, if you weren’t lurking on her Instagram, you wouldn’t know your future MIL is liking and commenting on her photos. Your fiancé’s mom is an adult and she can follow anyone she likes on Instagram.

And if you don’t want her to think you’re the toxic one, don’t address this with her. Be the change you want to see in your fiancé’s ex: Let it go.

I’ve always wanted to know more about your history with circumcision.

22 june 12, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

My history with circumcision isn’t that interesting: I was present at one circumcision (my own), I’ve never performed a circumcision (that I recall), and I’ve encountered both circumcised and uncircumcised dicks in the wild (and enjoyed them all).

My wife and I are lesbians who just found out we’re having a baby boy! We’re super excited but had some penis questions. My wife wants to circumcise our son because she says that if he’s uncircumcised he’ll get made fun of in the locker room. Does this happen? How often do boys look at each other’s dicks growing up?

The circumcision rate among newborn boys has been falling for decades, and now only a little more than half of boys are circumcised at birth. So even if boys were comparing their dicks in locker rooms—and they’re not—your son won’t be alone. And for the record: The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t recommend the procedure, and the supposed health benefits—a lower risk for urinary tract infections and a lower risk for some sexually transmitted infections—aren’t a convincing argument in favor of the routine circumcision of male infants. And while the complication rate is low (1.5 percent), those complications can range from easily treatable infections to “amputation of the glans,” “necrosis of the penis,” and “death.” Risking your son’s life and most important limb to spare him a moment’s awkwardness in a locker room seems unreasonable to me—particularly since your son can’t consent.

My partner wants me (F) to peg him! Hooray! Any advice? He is very hot! Thanks! You rock!

He should douche! Plenty of lube! Take it slow!

Film it for HUMP! I’m a bisexual male in California. When is the right time to tell someone I just started dating that I’m bisexual? And how?

Mention your bisexuality on dating apps— which is where most couples meet these days—and you won’t have to tell someone you’re bisexual after you’ve started dating them. If you meet someone the old-fashioned way (school, work, through friends), tell ‘em right away. It’s nothing you should be ashamed of or have to roll out carefully. And being with someone who can’t embrace and celebrate your sexuality is bad for your mental health; the more out you are about being bi, the lower your odds of winding up with someone who has a problem with it. It ups your odds of winding up with someone who fetishizes your bisexuality, of course, but if you had to choose between a partner who disapproves (and polices) and a partner who drools (and wants to watch), you’re going to be way better off with the droolers.

Cis poly woman here. My quarantine sexpod contains me and my two male partners. We’ll call them A and B. My partner B has another female

partner that we’ll call C. Since we’re already “connected” anyway, would it change anything for me to have a threesome with B and C? If B is fucking C and then coming home and fucking you, and then you’re running down the hall to A, then C is essentially already in your sexpod. The bigger your sexpod, the more people you’re in contact with, the greater your risk of contracting and/or spreading COVID-19.

Ideally C would move in with you and A and B if you’re all going to be fucking each other. But not having a threesome with B and C while B is out there fucking C won’t protect you and A from whatever B might bring home from C. Gay black male from NYC here. Two months ago I lost my partner of seventeen years to COVID19. I have a pretty strong support system but it’s really hitting me really hard right now because my partner was very politically active and supportive of the struggles of black and brown people. I’ve been in therapy but any suggestions or resources for how to deal with such a loss in the midst of all this chaos?

I’m so sorry for your loss—and I apologize for not spotting your question during the show.

I’m glad you have a strong support system and that you’re working with a therapist. If you need more support, your therapist should be able to refer you to an online grief support group. And I’ll just add … grief isn’t something we “deal with” and then we’re done. It’s something we carry with us. In my experience, time doesn’t lighten the load. Still, the longer we walk with it, the stronger we get, and the lighter it feels.

My heart goes out to you.

Longtime listener and magnum subscriber! We will keep this short: We are in a happy monogamish marriage and have heard one is not supposed to share toys under any circumstances. What are your thoughts on this?

One shouldn’t share a toy one hasn’t cleaned— and one should make sure one’s toys aren’t made of porous materials that are hard or impossible to clean. But if one has, say, a silicone toy that can be run through a dishwasher, well, one can share that toy. A fluid-bonded couple can safely share toys during sex, of course, so long as toys aren’t going from assholes to vaginas between cleanings. You also shouldn’t put a dildo in your spouse and then in turn stick it in your very special guest star. But if you obey those simple rules—clean toys, no ass-to-vag, no used toys in thirds or toys used by thirds in primaries—it’s safe to share your toys.

Thank you again to everyone who bought a ticket to the Savage Love Livestream! All proceeds—every single cent raised—went to Northwest Harvest. If anyone reading this is in a donating mood right now, you can donate to Northwest Harvest directly at northwestharvest.org/donate.

Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net.

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Proposals shall be submitted as PDF documents no later than 5:00 PM on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 Contact: bids@briya.org KIPP DC PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Food Program KIPP DC is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors for a Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Program.

The RFP can be found on KIPP DC’s website at www.kippdc.org/procurement. Proposals should be uploaded to the website no later than 5:00 PM ET on June 23, 2020. Questions can be addressed to dionna.day@kippdc.org.

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STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF CLARENDON IN THE FAMILY COURT THIRD JUDICIAL CIRCUIT 2020-DR-14-119 SUMMONS, NOTICE OF PUBLICATION AND NOTICE OF HEARING South Carolina Department of Social Services, PLAINTIFF, vs.

Shameka Johnson Billy Sweat a/k/a Gary Gates In the interests of: ) D. J. DOB 4/19/2003 ) Minor child under the age of 18. ) DEFENDANTS. TO: Billy Sweat a/k/a Gary Gates, THE DEFENDANT ABOVE NAMED: SUMMONS: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED and required to answer the Complaint for termination of your parental rights in and to the Defendant minor children in this action, the original of which has been filed in the Office of the Family Court for Clarendon County, on the 20th day of April, 2020, a copy of which will be delivered to you upon request; and to serve a copy of your Answer to the Complaint upon the undersigned attorney for the Plaintiff, Cherie N. LongHardin, 236 Commerce Street, Suite 2, Manning SC 29102, within thirty (30) days following the date of service upon you, exclusive of the day of such service; and if you fail to answer the Complaint within the time stated, the Plaintiff will apply for judgment by default against the Defendants for the relief demanded in the Complaint.

NOTICE OF FILING: YOU WILL PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the action entitled above has been commenced by the Plaintiff against you in the Family Court of Clarendon County in the Third Judicial Circuit, Manning, South Carolina, by the filing of a Summons and Complaint for Termination of Parental Rights on the 20th day of April,

2020, and is available for inspection in the Office of the Family Court for Clarendon County, South Carolina.

NOTICE OF HEARING: A Termination of Parental Rights Hearing will be held at the Family Court of the Third Judicial Circuit, Clarendon County Judicial Center, 102 South Mill Street, Manning, South Carolina, on July 27, 2020, at 2:00p.m. May 21, 2020 South Carolina Department of Social Services Manning, South Carolina By:_Cherie N. LongHardin Cherie N. Long-Hardin, Esquire South Carolina Department of Social Services 236 Commerce Street, Suite 2, Manning, SC 29102 Kingstree, SC 29556 ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFF

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