Washington City Paper (Aug. 14, 2020)

BEHIND THE MOVEMENT A global reckoning with systemic racism has turned young protesters in the city into ambitious organizers.

And they’re here to stay.

PAGE 8 By Ella Feldman

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TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 8 Behind the Movement: Young people in and around the District are leading efforts to fight systemic racism and police violence.

NEWS 4 Changing the Stationed: Legislation that reforms the Metropolitan Police Department has upset the police union and the families of people killed by officers.

6 The Unseen Pandemic: With cases in D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Division suspended, advocates worry about the safety of their clients.

FOOD 14 On the Line: As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches past the fivemonth mark, bar and restaurant owners discuss their attempts to keep their businesses going.

ARTS 16 Cinematic Universe: Local independent movie theaters try to stay afloat with new streaming offerings.

18 Books: Ottenberg on Liv Constantine’s The Wife Stalker 19 Film: Gittell on Boys State

CITY LIGHTS 20 City Lights: Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the women who make go-go sound great.

DIVERSIONS 19 Crossword 22 Savage Love 23 Classifieds Cover Photo: Darrow Montgomery Cover Design: Maddie Goldstein

Darrow Montgomery | Black Lives Matter Plaza, August 10 Editorial

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NEWS

Change the Stationed Police reform efforts in D.C. have frustrated police, protesters, and the families of Black people killed by cops.

As the country continues to reckon with police violence and the disproportionate impact it has on Black people, the D.C. Police Union is seeking to paint Metropolitan Police Department officers as the real victims.

In the past two weeks, the union representing 3,600 sworn MPD members has filed two lawsuits challenging pieces of sweeping police reform legislation that the D.C. Council passed on an emergency and temporary basis in July.

The bill, which Mayor Muriel Bowser signed on July 22, was crafted in direct response to uprisings over the deaths of George Floyd, a Black man killed when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by officers in Louisville, Kentucky, while they were executing a no-knock warrant.

The union disagrees with two provisions in the legislation. The first bars the union from negotiating the terms of officer discipline during collective bargaining. The second requires the mayor to identify officers involved in serious and fatal uses of force and to release the body camera footage of those incidents dating back to the inception of the body camera footage program in October 2014. The bill gives the mayor an August 15 deadline for old cases and requires the release of footage from new incidents within five days.

The union is challenging those pieces of the bill in two separate lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and D.C. Superior Court, respectively.

“The Act lacks a rational basis, but was instead offered as a punishment of sworn law enforcement officers in the District of Columbia to quell rising tensions and protests in the District coming as a result of the death of George Floyd in Minnesota,” the union claims in its federal court filing, which challenges the law’s restrictions on collective bargaining. “No studies or surveys were conducted, no research was performed or basis was proffered for the passage of the Act other than the protests arising out of an incident that occurred over one thousand milies from the District of Columbia, and that was unrelated to any District resident, agency, or officer.”

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, the

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Amanda Michelle Gomez and Mitch Ryals

bill’s primary author, does not seem bothered in the slightest by the union’s pushback.

“Having the police union criticize a policing reform bill is usually a metric of whether you actually made an impact or not,” says Allen, who spoke with City Paper before the union filed its second lawsuit. “I don’t have a regret around the legislation. I think that it was timely. I think it was necessary. I think it’s important.”

While the police union criticizes the Council’s bill as reactionary for its reference to an incident that occurred in another city, it ignores MPD’s role in multiple fatal incidents between 2016 and the present, about which the department has, for years, refused to release full details. Protesters in D.C. connected the deaths of Floyd and Taylor to three Black men killed by MPD officers in the span of two months in 2018, and chanted their names—Marqueese Alston, Jeffrey Price, and D’Quan Young—as they took to the streets.

The Council passed the reforms on an emergency and temporary basis, which allowed lawmakers to sidestep the otherwise required public debates. As Allen prepares for a hearing on a permanent bill this fall, some provisions in the temporary version are taking effect. For some families who’ve sought answers from police and the District for years, the law is not working as they expected it to. Victims of police violence thought the release of body camera footage would bring them justice, but many were retraumatized and the government’s edited videos, along with its unwillingness to release all the available footage, left them with more questions than answers. The strong reactions to the legislation mere weeks into implementation underscore how difficult police

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reform actually is.

Kenithia Alston says she was notified that the mayor was releasing body camera footage of a cop fatally shooting her son, Marqueese, 90 minutes before it was published on MPD’s website on the morning of July 31. Denise Price received a voicemail from an MPD lieutenant at 9 a.m. that same morning, saying they had information regarding her son, Jeffrey, who was killed in a dirt bike collision with an officer. The message came 90 minutes before city officials briefed the media about the release of police video of the fatal incident.

“I’m so pissed,” Denise’s brother, Jay Brown, said in a phone call with City Paper immediately after the mayor’s 11:30 a.m. press conference. He was unable to articulate how he was feeling beyond rage.

In follow-up conversations, Brown says the family learned of the release from acquaintances and members of the media who were watching the press conference and called or texted them.

Price’s family wanted the mayor to publicly release the video, but only when they were ready and had sought counseling. Their lawyer, David Shurtz, is aware of 51 videos related to Price’s death and filed a motion in court to prevent the release of any footage until he and the family secured and reviewed all the footage associated with the case. He was negotiating the terms of the footage’s release on the morning Bowser made a small portion of the footage public.

At the July 31 media briefing, an MPD official said the Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office asked them to not release all of the footage because it could hamper the OAG’s ability to defend lawsuits. Generally, the OAG is

responsible for representing nonindependent city agencies in court.

Shurtz believes it was wrong for the government to decline to release all of the video and to not give his clients notice of when footage was being released. But he says the hourlong body camera footage that MPD eventually published is critical, as it shows the officer running a stop sign and fatally striking Price, and supports claims and witness testimony in the family’s lawsuit against the District. In the hourlong video, unlike in the edited version, the officer who struck Price says he saw Price coming in his direction.

“I personally want to give the Council credit for releasing the video,” says Shurtz. “It was very helpful.”

The Council’s emergency police reform bill says the mayor cannot release body camera footage if the “decedent’s next of kin” objects to the release. The bill directs MPD to consult with an organization with experience in trauma and grief to understand best practices of how to show the footage to families, notify the next of kin of its impending release, and offer them an opportunity for a private showing.

Up to two weeks before the footage was released, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Kevin Donahue tells City Paper that workers with the Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants and the Department of Behavioral Health began reaching out to families whose relatives were killed by police. He says these workers went over the requirements of the law, and the next of kin for four people killed by police between 2017 and 2020—Timothy Williams, Isabelle Duval, Eric Carter, and

NEWS Devonne Harris—stated they did not consent to the release of police video. OVSJG told the deputy mayor the families of Alston, Price, and Young and their lawyers did not explicitly say they did not wish for the video to be released, and the law does not require affirmative consent, so footage was made public. Donahue describes the families and their lawyers’ requests as ambiguous, as they wanted to negotiate terms of release. But he says officials were moving expeditiously through the process to fulfill the legislative intent of the bill.

“I respect the families and respect their viewpoints if they didn’t like the way in which we went through the process, and that should inform legislators and inform the executive,” says Donahue.

Allen says the law worked insofar as four families’ wishes were respected. He is still trying to understand the communication breakdown between the Alston, Price, and Young families and public officials. The Washington Lawyers’ Committee, a nonprofit that’s advocated for more police transparency and accountability, says the Council should revisit the law’s language and consider requiring families’ verbal or written consent to release footage.

“I think [the Council] should look at that, especially since this was the first time footage was released under the bill and you already have family members talking about the process and being re-traumatized [and] causing further harm,” says Marques Banks, an associate lawyer with Washington Lawyers’ Committee.

Open government lawyers and advocates disagree that family members should have the power to keep the footage from the public. Allen does not sound interested in changing the current language around consent, but says it’s possible for the Council to tweak this language, or any section of the law, once members make it permanent.

“There is a default position that when there’s a police officer-involved death, that the video should be released,” says Allen. “In the spirit of transparency and accountability, we want that to be released.”

Catherine Young, whose son, D’Quan, was fatally shot by an off-duty MPD officer in May 2018, says she objected to the release of police footage after privately viewing an edited version on July 28.

“I guess I didn’t want people to see my son like that, getting shot,” she says. “I just didn’t want this.”

Her sister, Michelle Young, who also watched the footage before it was publicly released, objects to the way the department edited the footage, including the narrative introduction, which she believes attempts to paint D’Quan in a negative light.

“Let the people form their own opinion,” she says.

The Youngs’ attorney, Caleb Joseph, says it was unfair of the department to ask for the family’s consent to release the video without showing them all of the unedited footage.

“We thought they were providing an incomplete story and we identified it for what it was, which was a production,” Joseph says. “We did not feel comfortable consenting to that without being able to ... view the entirety of footage that existed.”

For Catherine Young, the release of the video

footage and the officer’s name only brought more questions and confusion. At the hospital on the day her son was killed, she spoke to an MPD detective named James Wilson. The off-duty officer who shot and killed her son is also named James Wilson. An MPD spokesperson tells City Paper that the officer, not the detective, was the shooter, but the department did not make that clear to Young’s family. The spokesperson says MPD “[does] not have information to suggest that they’re related.”

“I feel like I had to relive the whole situation all over again,” Catherine Young says.

D.C. law has always permitted Bowser to release police video on a case-by-case basis in matters of significant public interest, and the newly passed law mandates the release of videos for officers who killed or used serious force on an individual.

In addition to the release of video footage in Price, Young, and Alston’s deaths, MPD identified 21 officers involved in fatal incidents dating back to October 2014. Still, the police union’s most recent lawsuit filed in D.C. Superior Court seeks to prevent the future release of footage and the identities of officers involved in fatal incidents.

“If there are additional names, whether the department has failed to identify anyone unintentionally, we’d like to prevent that,” D.C. Police Union president Gregg Pemberton says. “Not all the videos have been released. We’d like to prevent that until the issue is litigated.”

Pemberton adds that body camera footage does not provide all the context necessary to evaluate an incident, and releasing it without a full investigation could distort public opinion.

The union’s lawsuit claims that the Council is illegally usurping the mayor’s authority and is putting officers in danger by identifying them.

The suit cites a letter from Acting United States Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin, who argues that the release of body camera footage, as the bill requires, could complicate his office’s investigation of officers who use deadly force.

“The early publication of [body-worn camera footage] could create a narrative that makes it difficult to conduct an investigation, as it may lead witnesses to a conclusion that affects their testimony,” Sherwin writes in the letter sent to Allen.

But in the same letter, Sherwin makes the case that officers should be allowed to watch body camera footage to ensure their police reports are accurate.

Attorneys for the ACLU-DC and the D.C. Open Government Coalition, both proponents of greater transparency around policing, scratch their heads at the lawsuit. Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at the ACLU, says the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches clearly gives the Council the authority to direct how body camera footage is handled.

“I just don’t think they know what they’re talking about, frankly, in this separation of powers claim,” Spitzer says.

Thomas Susman, president of the D.C. OGC, adds that the right to privacy is not absolute, and the determination for the appropriate level of invasiveness is up to the Council.

“I think it’s what one might call a ‘message lawsuit.’ They feel strongly about it, but I see very

little chance of a legal case prevailing,” Susman says. “This lawsuit is to enjoin disclosure, and I think that is tone-deaf to the public sentiment.”

The D.C. Police Union’s other lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, objects to the law’s changes to collective bargaining. Under the new law, the union could not negotiate the terms of officer discipline, which the lawsuit claims unconstitutionally singles out police officers.

“No other public employees of the District of labor unions representing those employees are restricted from bargaining with management concerning discipline,” the lawsuit says.

In a statement released at the time the lawsuit was filed, Pemberton said D.C.’s elected leaders are violating the constitutional rights of the city’s first responders in order to “preserve their own political survival.”

He tells City Paper that unfavorable working conditions will deter officers from working in D.C., which could ultimately harm the quality of policing in the District.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who introduced the collective bargaining provision as an amendment to Allen’s bill, dismissed the union’s lawsuit and the notion that all unions should be treated equally.

“The police have a different responsibility than any other workers in government,” Mendelson says. “When one has the ability to deprive others of liberty ... accountability becomes more important than, say, a clerk in civil service.”

Mendelson has clashed with police labor before, most recently when the union launched a mailer campaign and website called “Mendelson Must Go” during the 2014 election. The chairman believes he may have an ally in Chief Peter Newsham, who has previously expressed frustration with the disciplinary process.

Newsham has fired several officers only to have an arbitrator overrule his decisions and reinstate the officers.

“These types of lawsuits are not typical,” says Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former deputy assistant attorney general within the Department of Justice.

Saltzburg believes the union’s strongest argument in the lawsuit is its claim that the District is violating the contract clause of the Constitution.

“A state can interfere with existing contracts if there is a strong public interested in doing so,” he says. “Reasonable people can differ to justify this.”

The emergency legislation is in effect until March 4, 2021, or 225 days from when Bowser signed it into law, and could easily change as members look to make it permanent. The Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety expects to hold a hearing on the legislation in September.

“I certainly want to be open to hear about what parts of the legislation are working. Are there problems that we hadn’t anticipated? Are there places where we need to go further?” Allen, who chairs the public safety committee, says. “I’m not starting from a place of saying, ‘What do I remove from the bill?’”

Other members might try to remove provisions. Mendelson, for example, continues to disagree with the provision that says all members of the Police Complaints Board have to be unaffiliated with law enforcement. Morgan Kane, the commander of MPD’s First District, is currently a member of the Office of Police Complaints’ governing body, and Mendelson says he’s seen no evidence of undue influence.

Not all critics of the 26-page law are cops.

A few days after Mendelson announced the members appointed to the Police Reform Commission that the legislation established, he received emails taking issue with his selections.

Philip Pannell, the executive director of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, pointed out the lack of geographic diversity.

“To have a 20-member commission to deal with police reform and to have only one person from Ward 8 is tokenism at best or graphical insensitivity at worse,” Pannell tells City Paper.

“There is no substitute for a place at the table.”

“I’m sure they are really concerned about east of the river,” Pannell says of the commission members. “But to be honest about it, some of these people have appeared in Ward 8 as often as a solar eclipse.”

Pannell believes representation is critical given Ward 8 residents’ experience with MPD. Police focus on Ward 8 because it is disproportionately impacted by gun violence, but residents have testified to feeling targeted.

Robert Bobb, the former city administrator, and Christy Lopez, the primary drafter of the Ferguson report and negotiator of the Ferguson consent decree, chair the board. According to Pannell, the only Ward 8 resident on the commission is Corwin Knight, the founder and CEO of the Hope Foundation Reentry Network.

Mendelson says geography was not a consideration for the commission, which was given a whopping $500,000 budget and is expected to deliver a final report in December.

“I don’t know if the residents of Ward 8 are more knowledgeable of victims of racism than African Americans of Ward 7 or pick another ward,” he tells City Paper.

Some residents wish the legislation went further, particularly as it relates to discipline.

Brown, Jeffrey Price’s uncle, has been trying to learn about disciplinary decisions. MPD’s Crash Review Board determined the traffic crash that killed Price was “preventable” because the officer, Michael Pearson, failed to stop at a sign without clearing the intersection and thus violated the department’s general orders. Pearson served a one-day suspension. Brown does not understand why the U.S. Attorneys’ Office for D.C. declined to criminally prosecute Pearson in February 2019 after reviewing the evidence, but has failed to get answers.

Meanwhile, the Price family’s attorney, Shurtz, is still trying to get all of the footage associated with the case, because the footage they do have shows an incomplete picture. There were multiple officers with body-worn cameras at the scene, of which the public has not seen, and hourlong redacted footage shows Pearson’s body camera did not always have audio.

“This is murder,” says Shurtz.

washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 5

NEWS

The Unseen Pandemic

Darrow Montgomery/File

Domestic violence risk has increased during the coronavirus, creating its own pandemic behind closed doors. But as the number of cases increases, court backlogs have made it difficult for some survivors to seek justice.

By Lora Strum Contributing Writer Since the coronavirus pandemic began, Kirisha Marshall has spent more time handling her clients’ confusion and concern than litigating their domestic violence cases.

Ordinarily, Marshall, a staff attorney with Break the Cycle, an organization providing legal services to survivors of dating abuse between the ages of 12 and 24, would spend her days at the D.C. Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Division, securing protective orders or representing her clients at hearings. But since March 16, when the coronavirus forced D.C. courts to suspend all in-person arguments and shift services online, Marshall has struggled to move her cases forward.

“The courts were not prepared for anything when it came to COVID,” Marshall says. “We have cases from the beginning of March— before the pandemic—that are just not happening. My clients are confused, defeated. They feel like nothing is happening.”

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the DVD has continued (or, in lay terms, postponed) all status and evidentiary hearings, including those for nonpriority custody, divorce, or child support matters, until at least October. Arraignments for domestic violence misdemeanors are being held in one of four remote courtrooms available to the division. Citation hearings and contempt

of court charges, including violations of protective orders, will not be heard until the fall.

Advocates who traditionally work in the Domestic Violence Intake Center at Moultrie Courthouse have done their jobs remotely since the courts closed. The Center was often the first place, other than a police station, where a victim would file for a protective order. Survivors must now file online for a temporary protection order. TPOs offer survivors two weeks of protection from their abuser before they must file for a civil protection order, which lasts up to one year.

During the pandemic, the DVD has ruled that TPOs will not expire. Initially, the DVD ruled that CPOs, too, would be stayed during the public health emergency. It reversed that decision in June, requiring survivors with an existing order to file a motion to extend it using its online system. Currently, hearings for new or contested CPOs, where the petitioner and the respondent must be present, have been continued for at least three months, barring emergencies.

“We’re seeing more violations of TPOs while waiting to see a CPO resolve, which may not be until October,” Rebecca Simpson, legal director of the D.C. Volunteer Lawyers Project, says.

“For some clients, this is a safety issue.”

Simpson also notes that judges have become more discerning when granting TPOs under these new regulations. She suspects they may be hesitant to issue an order that is essentially

6 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

permanent without hearing oral arguments.

“When you’re talking about a TPO lasting three or four months, rather than two weeks, it’s hard to imagine, as a judge, to not factor that in,” Simpson says.

A representative for the DVD was unable to be reached for comment on how the public emergency may affect whether protective orders are issued and how dockets are determined.

When a protective order is not issued or is delayed, not only does a petitioner remain vulnerable to abuse, but their case also joins a backlog created when the pandemic first began and the courts temporarily stopped accepting cases while services moved online.

Statements from the D.C. Superior Court emphasize its dedication to maintaining, if not increasing, access through online systems, but Simpson describes the early days of this transition as “complete chaos.”

“We were just emailing things for protective orders and motions,” she says.

Prior to the pandemic, CPOs could not be filed online, though infrastructure to file a TPO electronically did exist in the seldom used probono.net. This service was expanded over the past five months, but it’s not a permanent solution. Stopgap measures include prioritizing emergencies and continuing most cases until the system can return to “normal.”

But normal has yet to come, and constant delays have created a bottleneck.

Previously, the attorneys Simpson supervises would carry up to eight CPO cases at a time.

Delays and shutdowns have increased that caseload to roughly 22 CPO cases per attorney.

Simpson is concerned about overwork when courts reopen, but even stalled cases still have her attention. “Even though nothing is happening, that client is still our client,” she says.

Tracy Davis, the managing attorney at Bread for the City, a local organization helping to close the justice gap in low-income communities, worries that the backlog, coupled with unclear messaging and complicated virtual systems, will only discourage survivors. Her organization has already noticed a decrease in the number of petitions for protection orders.

This April, 263 CPOs petitions were filed with the DVD compared to 457 in April 2019.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Davis says. “The courts are trying … but it’s pretty horrific.”

In a statement, the DVD announced that it intends to be back to full capacity in late July or early August. That includes resuming attorney mediation in some CPO cases as well as increasing the number of cases heard remotely. Currently, two-thirds of the courtrooms are available for remote trials, but Marshall, who works with low-income individuals who often lack access to laptops or smartphones, worries her clients will be unable to appear remotely.

“Judges expect everyone in 2020 to have a laptop. But this isn’t a jury summons. You can’t order someone to appear,” Marshall says.

If a party fails to appear, their case is dismissed and the process begins again, moving

the case even deeper into the backlog. In an effort to move things along, Marshall reports that the Office of the Attorney General is focusing on cases where service—when a respondent has been served with a protective order—can be proven. The courts have ruled that electronic service, such as a text message, is permitted. But if that can’t be done, the difficult work of tracking down respondents has become even harder during the pandemic.

“With COVID, we have to heavily rely on police officers to do service for us,” Marshall says. “Even though you would think people would be at home, they’re not. They’re evading service and investigators are choosing not to investigate.”

The Metropolitan Police Department Office of Communications reports no gaps in its services. If possible, police ask respondents to step outside to make reports and all officers are instructed to wear their masks when maintaining social distance is not possible. These restrictions, though necessary, have increased delays. Simpson has experienced difficulties obtaining incident reports, which are often necessary for a protective order, and uncertainty from law enforcement over whether an order to vacate violates the shelter-in-place mandate.

Given the confusion, a lot of cases may hinge on what happens when remote trials are underway. But remote trials last much longer as protocol is put in place for how to email evidence or subpoena witnesses for a video call.

Simpson fears the stress from constant setbacks may affect her clients’ ability to present their case.

“When you have someone who has been traumatized, it’s hard enough for them to testify calmly and coherently and be believed by judges. When you don’t have the opportunity for them to appear in person, it can be a real disadvantage,” Simpson says.

Remote trials also present a unique risk to domestic violence survivors with confidential addresses. Any identifying details that may appear in the background of a video call could compromise their safety. Marshall tries to bring clients into her workspace or other secure locations, but with social distancing restrictions, this is hard.

Like Marshall’s clients, Davis’ clients are low-income and struggling to access safe housing, food, and health care during the pandemic. “My concern is that, by the time their hearing comes up, it will not be the number one priority and they won’t follow through,” Davis says.

Not reaching survivors at this critical moment is what worries Natalia Otero, executive director of DC SAFE, the only 24/7 crisis intervention agency for domestic violence in D.C. Domestic violence has a very human toll, Otero says, and the coronavirus may prevent survivors from finding relief, legal or otherwise.

“You think about a survivor at home with a very dangerous abuser, you think about someone being monitored 24/7 [by their abuser],” she says. “How do you reach them?”

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washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 7

BEHIND THE MOVEMENT Meet six young leaders organizing to fight systemic racism and support those in need.

By Ella Feldman Photographs by Darrow Montgomery

FREEDOM FIGHTERS DC, the force behind many of the marches and demonstrations against anti-Black racism and police brutality that have taken place in D.C. this summer, started with a single tweet. On May 28, three days after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, Philomena Wankenge, a 22-year-old living in Stafford County, Virginia, sent out a digital call for D.C. locals interested in protesting. As demonstrations cropped up around the country, Wankenge’s tweet gained traction, eventually leading to a GroupMe chat of about 35 organizers who, for the most part, had never met. They planned their first event for five days later, on June 3: a march from Freedom Plaza to the Capitol, followed by a sit-in, which brought out approximately 700 people, says founding member and director of public affairs Kerrigan Williams. Within a matter of days, FFDC was born. They weren’t alone.

In late May and early June, Black-led, grassroots organizations––like FFDC, Concerned Citizens of D.C., and DC Protests––began springing up to support and lead the ongoing protests that took off locally on May 29, along with existing groups such as Black Lives Matter D.C. and BYP100 D.C. As they’ve protested, members of these groups have weathered intense violence from police, who used pepper spray, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets on peaceful demonstrators earlier this summer amid President Trump’s deployment of federal troops in the city. The protests they’ve led, participated in, and supported with food, medical attention, and masks have transformed the city, both psychologically and physically––it is in part because of these activists’ intense and sustained efforts that Mayor Muriel Bowser decided to christen Black Lives Matter Plaza, and that the White House cordoned off swaths of previously public roads.

The young people who lead these newer groups have devoted countless hours of their summer to mobilizing their communities to sit-in at the Capitol, donate food and water to protestors, call their councilmembers, mourn together, and celebrate together. The missions of these groups differ slightly. Some focus on organizing protests, while others raise money to invest in their communities or mobilize people to engage in local politics. Many, if not all, aim to defund the Metropolitan Police Department beyond the modest 5 percent cut the D.C. Council passed in its most recent annual budget vote.

But all of these groups have one thing in common: The young people leading these new organizations envision a radically different future, one where community is everything, where neighbors look after each other, and where being who you are doesn’t mean your community looks out for you any less. City Paper spoke with six young people leading grassroots organizations and paving a path toward that future. We could all learn a thing or two from them. −Ella Feldman

8 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

JAMIE TURNER

JAMIE TURNER, 22 FREEDOM FIGHTERS D.C. JAMIE TURNER WAS protesting near the White House on May 30 when she was tear-gassed for the first time in her life.

“I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. I honestly felt like I was gonna black out,” Turner recalls. The irony of experiencing brutality from the police at a protest against police brutality is not lost on her. “It’s like, you’re doing exactly what we said you’re doing,” she says. “And you’re just proving us right.”

As she stumbled, unable to see clearly, a stranger asked her if she needed help. Suddenly, someone was pouring milk over her eyes, which helped with the stinging (although experts suggest using cool water first). She says she’s not sure what she and other protesters would’ve done without medical volunteers.

That kind of looking out for one another—people pouring milk in tear-gassed eyes or passing out free snacks and water to fatigued protesters—has been something Turner has noticed over and over again in the past few months as a member of FFDC, an activist group that organizes around Black liberation and efforts to defund MPD. “Being involved with FFDC, it’s made me able to see a world where we’re responsible for each other and we take care of each other,” Turner says.

Although she’s only 22, Turner, who is from Manassas, Virginia, came into FFDC with years of experience in

anti-racist and political activism. A recent graduate of Norfolk State University, where she studied political science, Turner spent her years on campus working with the NAACP, mobilizing voters, and fighting sexual assault.

“These protests are huge, but before this, there were people who have been doing [the] work for years,” Turner says.

“I know because I’m one of them.”

Turner joined FFDC in early June. Since then, the group has grown to include 40 core members and has been supported by more than 150 volunteers. They’ve organized marches that brought thousands of people to downtown D.C. and sit-ins at the Capitol and Freedom Plaza; the Freedom Plaza sit-in to demand that the D.C. Council defund MPD, which lasted from June 15 to 17, was attended by 80 people. They’ve mobilized people to submit testimonies to the Council against increasing MPD’s budget, which was eventually cut slightly after massive public pressure. They’ve collected donations on Cash App and Venmo, which have been used to support more than 24 activist organizations and fund Uber and Lyft rides for protesters who’d spent a night in jail. (FFDC has not been keeping track of how many donations it has received, according to Kerrigan Williams, one of the group’s founders.)

FFDC’s social media followers have skyrocketed by tens of thousands since the group’s inception; its Instagram now sits at almost 29,000 followers. FFDC uses Instagram and Twitter to promote their own calls to action, promote the work of other grassroots organizations, inform followers of any local news relevant to their mission, and provide live

coverage of their demonstrations. Turner helps run these accounts, and a lot of her job has been to live-tweet events, which is especially important when the press isn’t there, she notes. “When police were brutalizing protesters, we made sure it was known,” Turner says. “We made sure it was documented.”

The work of FFDC hasn’t gone without pushback. On June 21, Turner helped FFDC organize a vigil on the Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge in Woodley Park to honor Oluwatoyin Salau, a Black Lives Matter activist from Tallahassee, Florida, who was kidnapped and murdered in June, and other Black women who have been killed. They left a memorial with flowers and framed photographs of victims they were honoring. But when the team came back a few days later, they found several smashed photo frames.

They cleaned up the mess, but the memorial was tampered with several nights in a row.

“We went back there every single day one week trying to clean it up,” Turner recalls. “We were honestly really devastated every time it happened. The vigil was to honor the lives of those Black women and girls who were lost, so that’s kind of like you dishonoring the lives of those people.”

Eventually, the vandals stopped coming. Now, Turner says she sees many pedestrians stopping to appreciate the memorial. “At the end of the day, the community is all we have,” she says. “It’s so important to build community with each other, because that’s what’s gonna get us through this.” washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 9

TY HOBSON-POWELL, 25 CONCERNED CITIZENS OF D.C. TY HOBSON-POWELL was just 13 years old when he graduated from high school. Two years later, he had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Baltimore. At 17, HobsonPowell obtained his master’s degree in human services from Liberty University, capping off an academic journey that has earned him, over and over again, the label of child prodigy.

But drive and intelligence weren’t the only things that led Hobson-Powell down such an impressive path. At 13, he already understood that, as a Black boy in America, the odds were stacked against him.

“To stand out as a Black man in America, which is already against me every step of the way, I had to do something,” Hobson-Powell says. “I felt like making myself an anomaly with an untraditional academic path would be some of what could set me apart, and of what could give me a fighting chance in a society that doesn’t really care about me.”

Twelve years after his high school graduation, HobsonPowell is living in Colonial Village, where he’s lived for most of his life, and that same lived understanding of systemic racism and inequality drives much of what he does. On June 3, it drove him to create Concerned Citizens of D.C., a group that organizes protests and promotes progressive

policies geared toward fighting institutional racism, like a mandatory national hourly minimum wage of $15 and the elimination of law enforcement from primary and secondary schools.

Hobson-Powell, who works full-time at the D.C. statehood campaign 51 for 51, decided he wanted to lead an activism group when he began protesting back in May, in part because he found a lot of emotion coming from the crowds, but not a lot of specific asks. “If you could’ve brought a magic genie down and granted everyone’s wish, there would’ve been a lot of people out there that didn’t quite know what they were wishing for,” he says.

He put out a solicitation on his Instagram for people looking to organize around tangible demands, and brought in five other young activists as co-founders of Concerned Citizens. The group has grown quite a bit since then.

They’ve brought thousands of people out to their marches, which typically start at the Chase Bank at 14th Street and New York Avenue NW before moving around the city, according to Hobson-Powell. Their events vary in focus—at a July 23 gathering called Dear Muriel, Concerned Citizens led a forum about local policy outside Mayor Bowser’s private residence; during an event called siren pollution, which they led on July 25 and 26, marchers blared sirens off their phones as they walked through the predominantly White neighborhoods of Georgetown and Glover Park to show residents what over-policing in predominantly Black neighborhoods sounds like. On July 26, they shut down traffic on Key Bridge.

The group is also focused on pressuring legislators to adopt progressive policies, which they’ve documented comprehensively in their Bill of Rights for a New America, published as a petition on Change.org. It outlines policy demands ranging from the elimination of cash bail systems to the implementation of Medicare for All. Concerned Citizens has sent it to every member of the D.C. Council and Mayor Bowser, according to Hobson-Powell, but he hopes lawmakers and citizens from across the country will take a look at it. “We believe that in 2020, we can do so much better than something that was written on a piece of linen paper by a bunch of racist people with a feather,” Hobson-Powell says, referring to the U.S. Constitution.

Between working a full-time job and leading marches and events around the city for Concerned Citizens immediately after work most days, Hobson-Powell hasn’t had a moment to catch his breath in a while. When he finally does, he says he wants to think about how the group can expand its scope to other parts of the country, and maybe other parts of the world. He also plans to reconsider how he can be an effective leader for the causes he cares about, whether that means continuing grassroots work or running for elected office.

“I lend myself to whatever future that the people require of me,” Hobson-Powell says. “If that looks like elected office, then I’ll do elected office. If it looks like me continuing to do what I’m doing now, I’ll continue to do this. It’s just all about what the people want.”

TY HOBSON-POWELL

10 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

EBONI ELLIS, 23 FRONTLINE WOMEN DC EBONI ELLIS HAS spent a lot of time over the past few months out on the streets, either protesting herself or handing out snacks and supplies to marchers. But the moment when she’s felt the most fulfilled this summer took place inside a grocery store—specifically, a Giant in Congress Heights.

Ellis was there with Frontline Women DC, an organization she co-founded on June 3 that mobilizes Black women in D.C. to provide fellow District residents and protesters with food, water, and financial support. As part of the group’s community support efforts, Ellis was walking up to strangers around the store and giving them Giant gift cards.

“It was probably one of the best feelings I’ve had in a long time,” Ellis, a 23-year-old from Michigan Park, says. “Being face-to-face with those we were helping and just making sure that they had the things they need was very fulfilling.”

Grocery giveaways have been a central part of Frontline Women’s work since it began in June. The giveaways prioritize families who reside in Wards 4, 7, and 8, areas Frontline chose in order to combat food deserts and support low-income households, Ellis says. They take place virtually—residents can fill out an online application with Frontline for an Instacart gift card—and in-person at the Giants in Congress Heights and Columbia Heights. To grant the virtual awards, the team looks through applications and prioritizes those with the most financial need. In person, Frontline volunteers hand out gift cards at random, an approach Ellis says they take because a diverse crosssection of people have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. “You can’t put a face on who needs help right now,” she says.

The gift cards are funded by the $30,000 Frontline has raised in donations over Cash App and Venmo. The group has also used their donations to bring water, snacks, and medical supplies to protests and to award a community grant to local braider Ashley Price at Braids Beads and Things, who is planning to publish a coloring book for young Black girls that focuses on natural and braided hair.

Frontline intends to make community grants a recurring award for more locals working on projects that support Black D.C. residents.

They’ve also redistributed donations to the memorial funds for Saige Ballard and Zymia Joyner, two Black D.C. teenagers who were killed in separate shootings this summer. In honor of those two young women, Frontline released a statement on Instagram calling for more support for Black women and girls in the city. The statement notes that Black women are often forgotten by the people they work to protect, a frustration that led Ellis and other Black women to found Frontline Women in the first place.

“We want to be an activist group that supports and champions Black women specifically in the city: Black women who are natives, Black women who are queer, Black women who are living in impoverished parts of the city,” Ellis says. “We felt like a lot of times in these movements, we aren’t at the center, or we aren’t focused on, when we do have specific needs that have to be catered to.”

Running Frontline Women and applying for 501(c)(3) certification hasn’t been easy. Ellis has had more time than usual after being furloughed from her job as a music programmer at the Kennedy Center due to the pandemic, but members of Frontline have needed to take breaks from organizing at times due to the immense workload.

Currently, Frontline has three founding members and 12 more core group members, all Black women from D.C. Although she’s still building her career in the entertainment industry, Ellis says that, now more than ever, she sees herself being an activist in some capacity for the rest of her life. In doing so, she’ll be continuing the work of her late father, Elmer Douglass Ellis Sr., who came to D.C. to attend Howard University and went on to serve as a criminal defense lawyer in the city.

EBONI ELLIS

“We want to be an activist group that supports and champions Black women specifically in the city— Black women who are natives, Black women who are queer, Black women who are living in impoverished parts of the city.”

“My dad was from Birmingham, Alabama. He grew up through [the] Civil Rights [era], and told us that we, as citizens, have the right, and need to, take a stand against what’s wrong, and to fight for our rights,” Ellis says. “That’s something that my bloodline has literally been doing since the beginning of time.”

ASHA BURWELL, 25 UNIVERSITY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BLACK LAW STUDENTS ASSOCIATION ASHA BURWELL ORIGINALLY planned to celebrate her 25th birthday in Jamaica with her mom. Instead, she spent June 6 leading thousands of protesters from the Capitol to the White House in an event called March for Justice, organized by the University of the District of Columbia Black Law Students Association. It was her best birthday celebration ever, she says.

“I didn’t have my makeup done. My nails were crazy. I was sweating. My hair looked horrible. But I felt the best I’ve ever felt on any birthday,” Burwell says. “I didn’t even know, like, my voice would carry for that long on a megaphone.”

Burwell is originally from Long Island, New York, but has lived in D.C. since enrolling at Howard University as an undergraduate. On Aug. 17, Burwell will virtually return to UDC for her second year of law school and will officially become UDC BLSA’s president for the school year. The organization caught Burwell’s eye during her first year in school as a space where she could build community with other law students of color and support the greater D.C. community through service work, but the scope of activism Burwell has involved the organization in was unprecedented for BLSA, she says. “I wasn’t expecting to do all of this work,” Burwell says, “But that’s the thing with movements.”

On top of completing an internship with the Systemic Justice Project at Harvard University, Burwell has spent her summer with BLSA overseeing their March for Justice, as well as a sit-in and speaker series outside the Supreme Court on July 4 that focused on protecting Black women, and a campaign to collect donations for more than 100 masks and sanitary items, which were then distributed to people experiencing homelessness around the city by the Distant Relatives Project.

Burwell has also dedicated time to disseminating the information she and her peers learn in UDC classrooms, where many students are seeking legal careers related to social justice, to people who might not have access to that kind of education. BLSA does this over social media and at in-person events. As law students, Burwell says, BLSA members can equip their community with information on things such as qualified immunity and the details of their rights to assemble and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “A lot of the information we’re learning, I feel like you shouldn’t have to pay for it.” Burwell says. “It’s just basic rights.”

Although it’s been empowering for Burwell to educate and organize people around the Black Lives Matter movement, she says the work has been exhausting. The work can also be traumatizing, Burwell says, and she often thinks about the possibility that she or a loved one could be the next victim of police brutality. “A lot of the issues are very triggering for me as a Black woman,” Burwell says. “I think a lot of people, especially Black women, we feel like we washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 11

ASHA BURWELL

“I wasn’t expecting to do all of this work ... But that’s the thing with movements.” have to uphold this notion of being invincible. Like, we can’t cry.”

Letting herself cry, or be angry, or express whatever she is feeling on any given day, is what Burwell says has gotten her through the work. “We can always have other people there to support us,” she says. “We just have to be willing to accept their help.”

Burwell is also motivated by the knowledge that she’s paving a path toward being able to help her community at a systemic level with her law degree, as a Black woman in a field dominated by White men—especially at the elite level. When Burwell thinks about her future career, she thinks about people like Ben Crump, who leads the legal team for George Floyd’s family, and Lee Merritt, who serves as the lawyer for the family of Ahmaud Arbery. “I want to do work like that,” she says. “I want to be doing something where I’m actually making a difference with my degree.”

JUSTIN DANIELS, 23 DC PROTESTS DC PROTESTS STARTED with an Instagram account that six strangers made together on the street. It was June 1, and the strangers in question had emerged as the de facto leaders of a crowd of protesters throughout the day, guiding a large group of demonstrators away from the White House and around the city while leading them in chants.

They visited the Trump Hotel and Georgetown before ending back at the White House. At the end of the day, people wanted to know who they were.

“Everybody was like, you guys have an Instagram?”

12 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Justin Daniels, a member of that group, recalls. “We just made the Instagram right in the street, and we were like, follow us. This is us.”

Daniels is originally from Dumfries, Virginia, where he is currently residing, although he lived in D.C. for a few years as a young child and visits the city often to protest. The group leading the protest that day had never met before.

They ranged in age from 19 to 30, and in profession from students—like Daniels, who is starting his second year at New England Law School in the fall—to health care workers. They were all interested in continuing to work together,

Daniels says, and immediately started planning their next gathering and advertising it on Instagram.

Three days later, the group led their first of many protests calling for an end to police brutality and the defunding of MPD, in which they led a group from Malcolm X Park to Mayor Bowser’s office. Turnout far exceeded their expectations. “We would’ve never thought that we would build this group randomly, and a thousand people would show up the next time we did something,” Daniels says. But they did. People showed up over and over again as the group led more protests along the same route, and supported them by volunteering or donating snacks and sanitary supplies that leaders would hand out to people as they marched.

As DC Protests started to make a name for themselves, they decided to narrow down their mission statement to three core principles. The first is a commitment to defunding local police—last month’s slight budget cut to MPD wasn’t satisfactory, says Daniels. The second is a commitment to community safety, which means maintaining peace at protests. “We try and make sure everyone goes home at the end of the night,” Daniels says.

The third mission of DC Protests is to educate District residents on local politics, and encourage them to get in touch with the councilmembers and other elected representatives who represent them to demand the policy changes they want to see. “It’s really important to know your school board, your city council, your mayor. You need to know who all of these people are,” Daniels says. “You need to know what you’re voting for, and you also need to know what these people have the power to do.”

Before this summer’s wave of action, Daniels wasn’t much of a protester. His political engagement was limited to working on campaigns. But now that he’s started, Daniels doesn’t see himself ever stopping.

The work has also made him reconsider his legal career.

“I really am big on criminal defense and criminal reform, and that’s what I wanted to start out with,” Daniels says.

“But now I would really like to add immigration law and family law as well. With immigration, I can help out a lot of people. And with family law, I can help out with juveniles in the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Daniels will return to his studies this fall, but his classes will be virtual. He plans to stay in Dumfries and continue organizing. Although he admits that regular protesting will be more of a challenge as many young people go back to JUSTIN DANIELS

DAMALI LAMBERT school and begin transitioning to a new normal, he’s hopeful about the future of DC Protests. ”We’ll be here to stay,” he says.

DAMALI LAMBERT, 23 STEPS TO ANOTHER REALITY ON A HUMID evening in late May, Damali Lambert stood hand in hand with loved ones and strangers, forming a wall of protesters. The group stood a couple blocks away from the White House, and just a few feet away from MPD officers.

“I felt so much fear in my heart, and I felt even my friends’ fear from their hands shaking, their palms getting sweaty,” Lambert says. “I could only imagine how Breonna Taylor felt having a gun to her face, how George Floyd felt having a knee on his neck. I’m feeling this fear and this hurt and this wanting to cry just looking at them in the face, and that’s not how it should be.”

At that moment, Lambert decided she needed to do something to support Black youth in Prince George’s County, where she teaches fourth grade math and science at CMIT South Elementary. On June 3, she founded Steps

To Another Reality, an organization that provides academic and emotional support to students in the county. “That night, I said we need to start S.T.A.R., because I don’t want any more Black kids to feel unprotected and unsafe in their own communities,” Lambert says.

Lambert is originally from Brooklyn, New York. She moved to D.C. in 2018 to teach at KIPP DC, and started teaching in Prince George’s County in 2019. In the past couple months, Lambert, who is also pursuing a Ph.D. in public policy at George Mason University, has poured her limited hours and funds into getting the organization off the ground. The group organized a Juneteenth festival on Black Lives Matter Plaza that highlighted Black-owned businesses, a sit-in before the Supreme Court to demand justice for women of color who have been murdered, a school supply drive for the fall, and a poetry slam that highlighted young, local Black artists.

At the poetry event, Lambert was moved by a young boy who spoke to recent events.

“He came up, and he was just talking about Fredrick Douglass, and it warmed all of our hearts, because he was feeling it too,” Lambert says. “He ended his poem saying, ‘Get your knees off our necks.’ This is a 6-year-old.”

Lambert says she hopes that S.T.A.R. will provide

community and emotional support for children like the young poet, who are learning at an incredibly early age that their skin color affects the way the world sees and treats them. “It was important for me that minority youth felt like they had a safe haven they could go to, where they can talk about what’s actually going on, where having problems and having pain in your life isn’t something you push under the rug,” Lambert says.

She also hopes S.T.A.R. will provide students in the county with free resources like after-school programs and tutoring, which many of the students in her own classroom can’t otherwise afford. But until S.T.A.R. is approved as a nonprofit and can apply for grants, Lambert will continue funding the organization’s activities out-of-pocket— she’s used $1,500 of her own money to start S.T.A.R.—and through donations—people have donated $2,000 through their website. Lambert will also continue working overtime until she can start paying her staff and hiring more workers. Her team is currently made up of 11 people working pro bono, and they have about 20 regular volunteers.

She isn’t deterred. “I said to [my team], I said, ‘This isn’t going to be easy, but we’re not people that look for easy. We’re people that look for change,’” Lambert says.

“Honestly, it feels like this is what I was meant to do.” washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 13

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

On the Line Five months into the public health emergency, some local bars and restaurants are tentatively surviving the pandemic. Others are opting to close their doors for good.

T h e I n de p e n de n t R e s tau r a n t Coalition hired actor Morgan Freeman to narrate a haunting call for help released earlier this month. “The COVID-19 crisis threatens to permanently close 85 percent of independent restaurants,” Freeman says in the ad that urges Congress to pass legislation including $120 billion in aid specifically for the hospitality industry.

When Mayor Muriel Bowser closed restaurants and bars for on-premises consumption on March 16, some restaurant operators speculated that the pandemic would only stretch into late spring. Tyoka Jackson, the owner of an IHOP franchise in Congress Heights, told City Paper on April 2 that he wouldn’t be able to survive four more weeks operating on takeout alone. “I don’t like to predict our own demise, but I’m scared to be doing this beyond one month from now,” he said at the time.

It’s now been 19 weeks since Jackson made his dire prediction and five months since the pandemic first necessitated a shutdown. While D.C. restaurants have since been able to open their patios in Phase One of reopening and seat a limited number of people in their dining rooms in Phase Two, the city could roll back these permissions at any moment. Leaders in other cities and states, including California and parts of Michigan, have reclosed restaurants as the virus continues to spread, acknowledging that indoor dining is risky.

Many of the District’s small and independent restaurants that are currently open for business are staffed solely by an owner or a handful of staff to cut down on labor costs and free up money for mounting rent and utility bills. “This is like The Hunger Games, restaurant edition,” says Coconut Club chef and partner Adam Greenberg. “Everyone gets two people to operate.”

According to the U.S. Labor Department’s July jobs report, 21.8 percent of hospitality industry workers remain unemployed. There couldn’t be a worse time to be without work—the $600

Darrow Montgomery

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC

per week Pandemic Unemployment Insurance payments ceased in late July, and Congress is deadlocked over reinstating the benefit at the same or a lesser amount.

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum on Aug. 8 promising an additional $400 per week in unemployment benefits, but the order will be difficult to implement because the money is tied up in the Department of Homeland Security’s Disaster Relief Fund.

Trump’s memo also asks states and other jurisdictions, which are strapped for cash, to contribute 25 percent of the $400.

There also isn’t any promising aid on the way for restaurant owners. The Paycheck Protection Program wasn’t created with a lengthy pandemic in mind. The forgivable loan application window expired on Aug. 8, and any plans for an extension are also tied up

14 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

in the stalled stimulus talks. Locally, the D.C. Council dedicated a fresh $100 million to microgrants targeting restaurants, hotels, and retailers, but the funding to bring the grants to fruition isn’t available yet.

As conditions grow increasingly challenging, City Paper took the pulse of four bar and restaurant owners in the District. One didn’t make it.

Another has yet to reopen. And two more are doing whatever it takes to survive, despite not knowing how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last.

Coppi’s Organic 3321 Connecticut Ave. NW Coppi’s Organic’s history in D.C. dates back to 1993, when the restaurant first opened on U Street NW. In the early 2000s, the original

owners sold the restaurant to Salvadoran siblings Carlos and Nori Amaya. Then tragedy struck. Nori was murdered in her apartment in 2009; the case remains unsolved and continues to torment Carlos.

In 2012, the building housing Coppi’s was slated for redevelopment, forcing Carlos to find a new home for his restaurant. He signed a lease in Cleveland Park and reopened in late 2014 with the help of another sister, Liz Pacheco.

According to Carlos, business was steady until the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration in 2016.

“There was a noticeable difference in sales,” he says. “They dropped dramatically, so we started having conversations with our landlord about rent relief.” Other Cleveland Park restaurants struggled as well, with Ripple and NamViet closing in 2017.

FOOD That rent relief didn’t come, according to Carlos. Coppi’s fell $20,000 behind in rent in 2016, and ended up in court with its landlord, Katz & Company. The parties reached an agreement and the case was dismissed in August 2017.

“From there we kept a good balance, where it didn’t happen again until COVID-19,” Carlos says. “It was a blow overnight. We went dead.”

The restaurant condensed its menu and laid off almost all of its employees to try to make the numbers work doing takeout and delivery.

“I was washing dishes and had two cooks cooking,” Carlos says. Coppi’s was only bringing in a couple hundred dollars per day throughout the pandemic.

Despite this, Carlos and Pacheco say their landlord grew increasingly “aggressive” about collecting payments. They say they received multiple texts, emails, and calls per day, until an in-person confrontation was captured on video in May. The owners say a man representing Katz & Company showed up at the restaurant asking for at least $1,000.

“The mere fact that he was there collecting rent during a pandemic,” Carlos says, exasperated. The restaurant owner did much of the yelling on the recording obtained by City Paper. He calls the exchange stressful. “We’re not trying to cheat you on rent! We’ve been on time with rental payments for six years except that one time,” he recalls saying.

On May 27, Carlos received a letter from a law firm stating the landlord would not renew Coppi’s lease, which expired in July. It cites failure to pay March, April, and May rent and asks the restaurant to vacate the premises.

While the D.C. Council, through emergency legislation, set up protections that prevent commercial landlords from evicting tenants during COVID-19, there isn’t anything mandating that landlords renew expiring leases.

Carlos and his sister didn’t put up much of a fight. “If you can’t reduce my rent to the percentages I’m making, then you can have your key back,” Carlos says. “I left because I didn’t see a healthy outcome to this.”

Pacheco says they’ve hired an attorney to navigate final negotiations over back rent. Katz & Company did not respond to City Paper’s requests for comment, including a query about whether they expect to find a new tenant in the current economic climate.

“I’m not a special case, but when a 27-yearold institution gets shut down,” Carlos says, his words trailing off. “You have to be fearless to be in the restaurant business.”

Coconut Club 540 Penn St. NE When Chef Adam Greenberg and his business partner Emily Cipes closed their island-inspired restaurant near Union Market on March 15, they examined their financials.

Greenberg penned a letter to his investors asking them to help him come up with $75,000 to get through 10 weeks with no sales. Then the team put their heads together, determined to do whatever it took to “see the other side.” Their ingenuity paid off, and Greenberg walked back

his initial request to his investors—at least for the time being.

In the beginning, takeout and delivery were the restaurant’s only way to earn revenue.

Coconut Club projected bringing in about $2,500 per week from selling to-go food three days a week. The restaurant was on Caviar before the pandemic, but would only receive a handful of orders per week. To their surprise, they did $8,500 the first week. “If we can do $7,500 a week for 10 weeks, there’s $75,000,” Greenberg recalls. He reached back out to his investors. “I don’t need your money,” he told them. “We’ll bust ass!”

Greenberg continued to tweak takeout and delivery. The team learned how to operate with less people, cut down on fancy proteins like tuna, and pivoted to pre-orders, which improved staff morale. Kyle Henderson, the chef de cuisine, could wake up knowing exactly how much food to prepare and call it a day at 3:30 p.m., instead of waiting to see if orders trickled in later in the evening.

“You’re paying a chef to have a nice salary, but I’m not going to have the guy work 60 hours a week during COVID,” Greenberg says. “Whatever

Coconut Club is still racing the clock.

Greenberg says if sales don’t return to prepandemic levels by early 2021, he’ll run out of money. At that point, he’ll need to ask investors for another infusion of cash, secure money through loans or grants, or close. “What COVID has created is living in reality,” he says. “A lot of restaurateurs or chefs, we romanticize that if we do this, we’ll make money one day.”

The Pug 1234 H St. NE Early on in the pandemic, The Pug owner Tony Tomelden says he would gather with a bartender from The Red Hen and the owner of All Souls Bar for socially distanced summits in a Brookland alley to commiserate about the state of their industry. “Then we all got tired of complaining to each other, so we did it less,” Tomelden says.

He can’t bring himself to read articles about customers mistreating bar and restaurant workers, nor can he doom scroll through stories about how businesses that haven’t opened yet likely won’t. Tomelden closed his H Street

“What COVID has created is living in reality. A lot of restaurateurs or chefs, we romanticize that if we do this, we’ll make money one day.” environment we can create to be the best [for] us mentally, that’s what we’re going to do.” Coconut Club found the most success with themed preorder meals, including a weeklong Passover brisket special that brought in a record $24,000.

When the pandemic lasted well past the 10 weeks Greenberg initially projected, he experimented further. Coconut Club built a market where customers could pick up cooking staples missing from grocery stores, teamed up with former Yang Market owner Pete Sitcov to launch sandwich pop-up Crush Subbies, and even tried collaborating with a cannabis delivery service, before pulling back when city agencies caught wind of the partnership before the launch.

Once Coconut Club could seat customers outside, the restaurant tried serving a $55 prixfixe meal. “I had two people crying and having panic attacks over that style of service,” Greenberg says. There was too much interaction between customers and employees. They switched to an a la carte menu that allows customers to order from a window. Food runners drop everything off at tables in disposable containers.

“With every scenario, something is going to suck, but you have to decide what sucks the least,” Greenberg says. The chef talks openly about battling depression. In the past, he might have surrendered to tough times, but COVID19 has had the opposite effect. “I can’t believe it’s been five months,” he says. “Every time we’ve pivoted, it’s worked.”

NE dive bar on March 15 and hasn’t been able to reopen. The phased reopening process uniquely disadvantages small indoor bars compared to sprawling beer gardens or restaurants with a lot of square footage.

“I went to zero income,” says Tomelden, 54, who has worked in hospitality since he took his first job at Roy Rogers at 16. He has three children and his wife is a physical therapist. Her work was also disrupted by the pandemic. While Tomelden sounds discouraged, he doesn’t blame the city for taking measures to keep Washingtonians safe. “I’m vaguely frustrated,” he says. “I’m not mad at anyone in particular.”

Tomelden is involved in other projects, which have proceeded cautiously. At Brookland’s Finest, for example, he and his business partners took their time opening the patio and remain “too afraid” to open indoor service.

The Pug isn’t getting threats from a landlord because Tomelden owns the building. But he is beholden to the bank. While he was recently able to secure a three-month mortgage deferral, the COVID-19 pandemic could worsen in the winter. “Everything comes back to the banks,” he says. “I don’t want them to close, but they have to freeze mortgages. And don’t give us hoops and hoops to jump through.”

Tomelden says he would prefer not to close permanently, but says it’s “tough to just sit there.” Recently, he’s allowed Peregrine Espresso to pop up in The Pug and collects a

small percentage of their sales. Other than that, his bar has gone dark. “The Pug is a little dump, but it’s an awesome little bar,” he says. “I hate seeing it empty.”

Places like The Pug are in danger, and that doesn’t sit well with Tomelden. “It’s the third place,” he says. “I’m getting a little emotional.”

He ticks off The Pug, All Souls, and The Public Option as places people can go in their jeans or right after work to rub elbows with their neighbors. “People don’t realize what a big part of our lives those little escape places are,” he says.

“Clearly Applebee’s will have to fill that if we don’t figure out how to get this done.”

Open Crumb 1243 Good Hope Road SE Chef Peter Opare and his family run a carryout restaurant that bucked all trends by having one of its best months ever during the pandemic. It helps that the Anacostia business was already positioned to do a majority of its sales to-go. Opare attributes Open Crumb’s solid June numbers to a series of press clips. The Post called the restaurant specializing in soul food and Ghanian dishes “a safe harbor from the storm that has devastated Anacostia” on June 2.

“It definitely boosted our sales,” Opare says.

“We got more eyes on us and more followers on Instagram. If it wasn’t for those things, we wouldn’t be having the same conversation.”

But the bump didn’t last. Opare says sales dropped 70 percent from the end of July through mid-August. He attributes the decrease to neighbors losing all or a portion of their unemployment benefits or income. If customers don’t have money to cover rent, they’re not dining out, Opare says.

Opare began considering how best to serve his community. First, Open Crumb teamed up with World Central Kitchen to prepare meals for those in need. The nonprofit pays restaurants about $10 per meal. Then, Opare decided it was time to introduce a new revenue stream. He purchased a machine from Canada before the pandemic and is nearly ready to put it to use making prepackaged meals. He plans to box up reheatable dishes like jollof rice with chicken and lasagna.

“I’m trying to compete in a different space,” Opare explains. “It’s like HelloFresh and Blue Apron, but with a local identity. We think there’s space for that around this time where people aren’t trying to eat out or cook. I want to give people the idea that I’m their personal chef.”

If Open Crumb can pull off the prepackaged meals, Opare is cautiously optimistic his business will make it. “If Congress can get its head out of the sand and figure out a way to get more income into people’s pockets, I feel like people are going to be more willing to spend and put money back into small businesses like mine,” he says.

Confronted with the statistic quoted in the IRC commercial that 85 percent of independent restaurants will close, Opare is defiant. “That’s exaggerated,” he says. “I think we’re stronger than that. The restaurant industry is not made for the weak of heart.”

washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 15

ARTS

Cinematic Universe

Darrow Montgomery

Avalon Theatre, Suns Cinema, and AFI Silver are brimming with films you can stream from home. They could use your support.

By Ella Feldman @EllaMFeld It took about a day for Avalon Theatre’s director of programming Andrew Mencher to begin transforming the Chevy Chase independent art house cinema on Connecticut Avenue NW into a virtual theater.

On Friday, March 13, the Avalon began showing the indie comedy Saint Frances. The

next day, Mencher and his team decided to close the theater in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic, and he was immediately on the phone with a member of the distribution company—the people in charge of releasing and marketing a film—for Saint Frances. By the following Tuesday, they had figured out a way to offer the film virtually.

“I didn’t want to lose the opportunity of having just opened up a terrific little independent

16 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

film, and I understood that we could be able to find a way to do this, to really rescue that film,” Mencher says. “I was definitely looking more at that one film in particular initially.”

But Mencher’s thinking changed rapidly, as it became clearer minute by minute that movie theaters (which, of course, have built their entire business model around packing dozens of strangers into an indoor space, a nightmare by today’s public health standards) might be

closed for a very long time. He wasn’t alone.

Throughout that week, film distributors and independent theaters across the country began figuring out how to bring their movies into people’s living rooms.

Their solution: En masse, small movie theaters have transformed their websites into virtual cinemas, where viewers can browse through a list of movies being shown, choose a film, then click a link. That link will take them to an external streaming site like Vimeo or Eventive, where they can pay $12 or so directly to the film’s distributor and access the movie for a number of days.

The move to streaming films in this way has presented a mixed bag of advantages and challenges to independent theaters in the District, such as the Avalon, Mount Pleasant’s quaint and beloved Suns Cinema, which is in a rowhouse and doubles as a bar, and the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring. Virtual cinemas allow theaters to screen more films at once, keep them showing for a longer time, and bring them to audiences who might not be able to make it to their physical establishments. But the pool of films programmers can choose from has changed considerably, making it harder for them to uphold their ethos in their selections.

And financially, the switch has changed their business models entirely, and made them a lot less money.

David Cabrera co-founded Suns Cinema with business partner Ryan Hunter Mitchell in 2016, housing it in a Mount Pleasant Street NW property that used to be a cellphone store. In the four years since, the art house theater has become a neighborhood favorite for grabbing a drink and watching its eclectic lineup of films, which are organized into monthly themes such as “Outrageous and Unacceptable”—that lineup included the Kenyan drama Rafiki and cult favorite Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The space at Suns is small, and feels more like a living room than a traditional theater. “Our business model was packing people into a really small room, and that was very novel,” says Cabrera, who serves as program director. “It’s terrifying now.”

Since going virtual, the pool of movies Cabrera can choose from to put together Suns’ lineup has changed entirely, and shrunken greatly. Like almost everyone else in the industry, he’s limited to the films that distribution companies themselves choose to stream, rather than being able to curate a unique program and secure screening rights independently.

“We prided ourselves on doing these themed months, where we would try to run the gamut very broadly of what we were showing— from old stuff to new stuff, weird stuff, stuff everyone knows,” Cabrera says. “Right now, we get to pick and choose from what’s available to us and to everyone, which is not quite the same as the broad spectrum of cinema that we were allowed to put out before.”

Some of what makes Suns unique has been lost with those limits, Cabrera says, but the new system has also allowed them to become

ARTS something they weren’t before: a first-run theater, meaning their virtual cinema gets to show movies as they’re released. They also have the opportunity to hold interesting films for longer periods of time, which they don’t normally get to do. “People have a lot more freedom to kind of watch things when they want,” Cabrera says.

Over in Silver Spring, AFI Silver’s administrative assistant Brenna Davis says going virtual has allowed the theater, which is run by the American Film Institute, to give more exposure to its selection of independent films, especially international films.

This fall, Davis and her team will be taking that exposure a step further by bringing its annual Latin American Film Festival online with Eventive, which they also used earlier in the year for AFI DOCS. Tickets will still be capped, as the festival is a venue for many films to run for the first time, but Davis hopes the switch will allow for a wider variety of people to watch the lineup, which will include 20 movies from a variety of Latin American

offices. As a result, they’ve been relying heavily on other financial support—government assistance, traditional donations, Patreon memberships—in order to stay open and continue paying staff. But Cabrera, Davis, and Mencher all say they’re in no rush to open back up during the pandemic. Even if D.C. and Maryland enter into the next phases of reopening, they’re not sure when they will be comfortable starting to transition back to in-person screenings. The Avalon’s patronage skews older, and the likelihood of putting them in danger by reopening is another reason Mencher isn’t in a hurry to reopen. He also doesn’t think it would put the Avalon in a better financial position.

“We don’t project that we would do more than a quarter of our normal business,” he explains. “Number one, you have a quarter or less of your capacity. So that means that on the days when you traditionally do a lot of business—Friday night, Saturday, Sunday matinees—you can’t. So you have to make it up during the week. And that’s just hard to contemplate, that people are just going to

“Our business model was packing people into a really small room, and that was very novel. It’s terrifying now.” countries. She says many of the filmmakers who submitted their work are excited to see how things go virtually.

Still, a lot will be missing. Usually, the festival brings food, live music, and Q&As with filmmakers to its attendees. Although AFI Silver plans to replicate some of those events virtually over video streaming software, Davis says it won’t quite be the same. “You don’t get that same level of community camaraderie and engagement, all being in the same place and celebrating culture and film together without having, you know, a physical theater to go to,” she says.

The move online has also been tough financially for local theaters—their business models are totally upside down. Usually, theaters are the ones who collect money from ticket sales, report sale numbers to distribution companies, and pay them their share accordingly.

Now, most virtual cinemas are set up so that distribution companies themselves collect the money, report ticket sales to theaters, and give them their cut. A few independent theaters across the country, like Utah’s Salt Lake Film Society, have developed platforms that maintain the traditional chain of command, but they’re few and far between. “It’s a complete reversal of the usual behavior,” Mencher says.

“It’s been very challenging to have to become a bill collector.”

Theaters are also not making nearly as much on virtual ticket sales as they do in their box

adjust their normal behavior and come on a Tuesday afternoon to make up for your capacity issues.” Theaters would also accrue operational expenses they’ve been able to stop paying currently, such as air conditioning and trash collection.

Despite not wanting to open anytime soon, Mencher sorely misses the theater. “I think I miss what everybody misses: the communal experience, the sitting in the dark, the not getting to push the pause button. It’s very different,” he says. “There’s something very oldfashioned about it, something very traditional about it. But there’s also something very wonderful about it. That’s what I miss, just being able to sort of decide that you’re going to spend two hours somewhere else, in someone else’s shoes or learning about someone else’s story or a different part of the world.”

Various local organizations have been trying to give that experience back to people, namely with drive-in theaters, and Cabrera says Suns is considering hosting some sort of outdoor screening, although nothing is planned yet. But you might also get some semblance of that experience from home by turning off the lights, skipping a visit to Netflix in favor of your favorite independent theater’s website, and streaming something from their blossoming online selections.

You’ll be directly supporting theaters in their time of need, and you never know what you might find.

DOEE.DC.GOV/TRASHFREEDC

washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 17

ARTS BOOK REVIEW

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washingtoncitypaper.com/membership 18 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Killer Thriller The Wife Stalker

By Liv Constantine HarperCollins, 308 pages Thrillers with a big twist near the end make for good reading, and that’s what Liv Constantine’s recently published The Wife Stalker provides. It saves lots of its ammunition for the denouement, making it a pageturner—not surprising considering its authors, the sister duo Lynne and Valerie Constantine as Liv Constantine, have written nothing but best-sellers.

The Wife Stalker presents two women, Piper and Joanna, in a struggle over a man, Leo. The book alternates between chapters told from Piper’s and Joanna’s perspectives, which are as different as possible: Piper is organized, goaloriented, and successful, though haunted by a questionable past; Joanna is frazzled, emotional, disorganized, and, in many ways, the very definition of a loser. How she got this way is revealed by the unsparing portrait of her mother, a complaining, nagging, self-pitying hypochondriac Joanna must care for. “Men always get what they want,” Joanna’s mother says, “and we’re left with nothing.”

Piper’s parents are a different disaster. “Her parents were good on paper: accomplished and hardworking. Her father, a mechanical engineer, taught at the Naval Academy, and her microbiologist mother worked in a private research lab. As the only child, she’d felt the full force of the high standards they set for her … she realized what a cold and barren upbringing she’d had. It was probably part of the reason she’d never really wanted children of her own.”

When Piper’s father dies, her mother waits a week to notify her, denying her the chance to attend his funeral.

Both narrators are scarred. Neither is particularly sympathetic, but they keep the reader riveted with their machinations in their fight over Leo. He is not developed much; he’s simply presented as an all-purpose, desirable male over whom the two women battle, nearly destroying each other. Particularly interesting are Joanna’s sessions with her therapist Celeste, who tries and fails to shatter her patient’s fixations. Though a minor character, Celeste is revealed as pivotal in the end. The reader can’t help rooting for her. Her professional distance and care for her patients are well-presented. She could support another novel herself.

This is a story about a psychopath. It holds the reader in suspense for a while as to who is the psychopath, but once it becomes clear, the stage is set for even more bombshell revelations.

Keeping the reader unsure of who the real menace is makes this novel a successful thriller.

The idea that these women will claw each other to death for a man is never questioned.

Indeed, in some places, the idea of feminist solidarity was never born, and a thriller in the mold of the movie Fatal Attraction is one of them.

This genre does not pretend to be something it’s not. In it, women are out for themselves, which means one thing: snagging the man they’re after. At one point in this book, one character reads Jane Eyre. This sly reference is apt. In The Wife Stalker, there is an unwell woman, though not in the attic like in Jane Eyre, but out and about, making trouble.

“She was elected home-coming queen,” Piper’s mother says of her, “of all the antifeminist, frivolous things.” It’s a little dispiriting to read an endorsement of feminism in the mouth of such a monstrous character. But fortunately, Constantine does not belabor the point. In this novel’s world, feminism is a sick joke. You can’t fault this thriller for reflecting the values of the culture at large, especially when it does such a good job of delineating them to their fatal, frightening conclusion.

—Eve Ottenberg

ARTS FILM REVIEW

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Up With People

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Boys State Directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss In moments of deep despair, when it seems like nothing will ever get better, we can always tap into one particular reserve: our hope that future generations will be smarter than we are and be able to solve the immense problems we’ve left them. Boys State may disavow you of that notion, as it shows that the next wave of political leaders are no more equipped to deal with the failures of our system than we are.

This hard lesson is exposed through the chronicling of an annual camp for ambitious, politically minded teenagers. Every state except Hawaii has a Boys State program, and while it may be unfamiliar to many viewers, it has deep roots in our political system. Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Samuel Alito, and Cory Booker are all alumni of the immersive, weeklong program sponsored by the American Legion in which high school students practice the art of politics by forming political parties and electing state leaders. The election is the program’s final event. The skill of actual governing is not part of the curriculum. Instead, in this film, conservative youths at Texas Boys State learn to hustle, negotiate, and mud-sling to defeat their opponents.

The participants can run for anything, from state policy chair to senator, but filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (The Overnighters) wisely zoom in on the race for governor, the highest office in Boys State, which pits a well-drawn, charismatic cast of characters against each other in fascinating ways.

There’s Ben, a brash, right-wing boy who lost his legs to meningitis as a child and plans to run for governor, but finds his niche as a pugnacious campaign manager; Steven, an idealistic Bernie Sanders supporter who struggles to

Boys State streams Friday on Apple TV.

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24. The Big Easy

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22. She Dies Tomorrow director Seimetz

keep his liberal politics hidden from the largely conservative electorate; Robert, a long-haired quarterback type who seems to have stepped out of a Richard Linklater movie; and RenĂŠ, a Black Chicagoan who has moved to Texas but has no qualms about standing out in the crowd. “I’ve never seen so many white people ever,â€? he smirks to the camera. Someone had to say it.

Boys State flirts with indicting our political system and critiquing modern masculinity (the primal, guttural chants that one party ritually adopts are unnerving), but the filmmakers smartly resist the urge to the widen their scope and draw explicit connections to the world outside the camp. We can do that on our own. The film serves as a riveting narrative in its own right, but it’s impossible to miss the parallels to our broader political movements. It’s never heavyhanded, but it reminds us that the kids are watching what the grown-ups are doing.

Consider how it plays out: In one primary, the most promising candidate is plagued by evidence, dug up by his opponent, that he marched in a gun control rally. He survives the primary, but emerges damaged for the general election.

Meanwhile, another candidate, losing badly in the general, enacts a scorched-earth strategy, wildly accuses the opposing party chair of using his influence in setting the rules of debate to conspire against his candidate. The claim of institutional bias strikes a deep chord with the voters.

It’s a chilling reproduction of our failing political state, but it’s somehow a joy to watch. The teenagers are so vulnerable that even the most vicious among them are a little sympathetic.

They’re all just trying to figure it out. They imitate their political heroes at the podium, but they lack polish and stumble over their words.

It’s endearing. Boys State is a rarely compelling work: a riveting political documentary and a heartfelt coming-of-age drama, with only the future of our country hanging in the balance. —Noah Gittell

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washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 19

CITY LIGHTS City Lights

Respect Her Crank!: Frontwomen of Go-Go Go-go music has been the artistic cornerstone of D.C. for decades— and it’s an act of resistance, in addition to the demonstrations taking place all over the globe. Go-go is historically Black, locally celebrated, and centers on the empowerment of Black lives in the District and their contributions to D.C.’s homegrown culture.

After events like Moechella, the Hirshhorn Museum’s ARTLAB is taking that experience to a higher level—and making it clear that underscoring the fundamental position women play in the world of go-go is equally, if not more, important than knowing the difference between a bounce beat and riding the slow pocket. As a result, the Respect Her Crank! virtual series is specifically focusing on the underrecognized Black women who have made go-go what it is today. The Aug. 14 session will highlight the frontwomen and organizers who lead go-go bands, and they’ll share their experiences on the scene. The program begins at 6 p.m. on Aug. 14 on Zoom.

Registration is available at hirshhorn.si.edu. Free. —Mikala Williams

City Lights

Design Harmonica Cases Harmonicas have been a part of American music since at least the 1850s. They’re not just confined to the clichéd intro to “Piano Man”—harmonicas were a foundational instrument in the early days of jazz, folk, and country music. You can learn more about the instrument’s unique heritage in Artomatic 2.0’s Design Harmonica Cases class, hosted and taught by Bob Hoffman. Hoffman is better known as Hoff the Harmonica Case Man. Based in Mount Pleasant, he says he has the largest collection of handmade harmonica cases in the world (and was profiled in a 2015 City Paper article that showed off the hundreds he’s collected over the years). But Hoffman wants to spread the art form of harmonica case design further, especially in D.C., and this hour-long class should be a great introduction. Cases can be made from wood, beads, metal, eggshells, and even computer parts, so there’s a low barrier for entry. Once your case is done, you can safely store your harmonica and display your craftsmanship at the same time. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 12. Registration is available at eventbrite.com. Free.

—Tristan Jung

City Lights

Picture: Present To say that the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything would be an understatement. The effects of the health crisis have rippled through our political, financial, and social lives. For many, each new development feels overwhelming. New Yorkbased artist Luca Buvoli aims to capture the pathos of our collective grief through Picture: Present, a 12-scene episode from his ongoing project Astrodoubt and The Quarantine Chronicles.

Buvoli’s work is the first in the virtual reincarnation of the Phillips Collection’s Intersections project, which was introduced in 2009 to engage the museum’s permanent collection and its 20 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

location. Intersections has recently been forced to move online, for obvious reasons. Buvoli’s project preserves the spirit of the initiative by engaging its current environment: the online world.

And on Aug. 13, the Phillips Collection will host a virtual artist talk where Buvoli will discuss the work. The work is available at phillipscollection.org, Instagram, and Facebook. Registration for the talk is available at phillipscollection.org. Free.

—Kaila Philo

City Lights

Monument Lab Field Trip Though exact numbers are elusive, D.C. is dotted with hundreds of memorials, statues, and monuments. As protestors draw fresh scrutiny to exactly who these monuments

celebrate—and who they exclude—there’s no better time to embark on a Monument Lab Field Trip. Developed by a Philadelphia-based independent public art and history studio, the self-guided field trip uses a printable zine to guide participants through a gradual process of noticing, analyzing, and questioning the monuments they encounter. Each question will help you unknot the issues that surround monuments— such as their physical context, how they represent power, and why they were originally created—in scribbled observations and sketches. You’ll also encounter prompts to seek out monuments you might not be familiar with, and you’ll be encouraged to design a monument of your very own. If you feel comfortable going on a masked stroll, you can pick a day with good weather and embark on a socially distant wander. But if you prefer sticking closer to home, the Field Trip was designed to work just as well online via Google Earth or Street View. The instructions are available at monumentlab.com. Free.

—Michelle Delgado

platforms starting on Aug. 3, each dedicated to telling the story— in screenshot-worthy Instagram form—of an influential fighter for women’s suffrage. Some are associated with the original right-tovote movement, while others, like Fannie Lou Hamer, continued the fight to expand the franchise to all women and to ensure free and unrestricted access to the polls. The lessons of Hamer and the other 18 suffragists featured in the series are especially poignant at this particular moment, when the threat of voter suppression looms on a massive scale as millions of Americans gear up to vote by mail this fall in a system unequipped (or unwilling) to handle the new format. The posts are available on Instagram and Twitter or at blogs.loc.gov. Free.

—Ellie Zimmerman

City Lights

The Forest Floor Series

City Lights

#19SuffrageStories “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” announces a blinking cartoon version of Ida B. Wells crowned with flashing stars. For the next two weeks, Wells, Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, and Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, among others, can help you celebrate women’s suffrage, with the help of the Library of Congress. Aug. 26 marks the 100th anniversary of the day the 19th Amendment, which made it unlawful to deny Americans the right to vote on the basis of sex, went into effect. To honor the milestone, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and the National Archives launched a series of 19 posts on their social media

About 15 years ago, Colby Caldwell saw the future of photography in a flatbed scanner. “In actuality, it is a camera, just in reverse,” Caldwell says. “Typical cameras receive light, but scanners emit light as well.” For years, Caldwell used a scanner in his studio to make highly detailed images of dead birds, spent shotgun shells, and other subjects. Then, in January, Caldwell decided to take the scanner directly to the forest floor, lugging it and a power source in his backpack. “I feel compelled to be in this landscape, working improvisationally with what I find—branches, a stump stippled with fungi, desiccated leaves, stones, water,” he says. The images that Caldwell has made public so far, based on 8-10 minute exposures, are still lifes featuring leafy detritus and tree bark, but the scanner also provides atmospherics wholly unlike a camera—blocky segments caused by the scanner being moved mid-exposure, with the segments often separated by horizontal ribbons of digital glitches. (Electronic ghosts are a source of fascination for Caldwell; a previous series, how to survive your own death, consists of variations on an abstract digital

pattern Caldwell made accidentally.) The best images toy with geometrical echoes between the segments and the forest forms being photographed. Caldwell says trudging through the woods with a scanner “delivered me back to the primary desire of photography: how to harness light, how to play with time.” The works are available at colbycaldwell.com and hemphillfinearts.com. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

City Lights

Eighteenth Street Lounge’s online DJ sets Instead of hosting a proper 25th anniversary celebration, renowned Dupont Circle nightclub Eighteenth Street Lounge permanently closed its doors in June. Citing growing safety concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic and the inability to come to a lease agreement with the club’s landlord, owner Farid Nouri’s closing announcement came as a shock to the D.C. community as the pandemic claimed another nightlife institution. Despite a bleak outlook for the immediate future of nightlife, Nouri hinted that the party isn’t over. Like many DJs and music artists attempting to weather the pandemic, ESL has pivoted to video for now, hosting a weekly schedule of virtual dance parties via Twitch and Facebook Live. “We believe it’s the only outlet for DJs to express themselves and for club culture to continue while we are all trying to avoid large gatherings,” Nouri said via Facebook Messenger. Each week, ESL posts its schedule of livestreams, which feature the club’s resident DJs spinning disco, funk, hip-hop, and everything in between for virtual partygoers. The livestreams also provide an opportunity for fans to purchase ESL’s 25th anniversary apparel; ESL donates the proceeds to local charities through its #ESLCares initiative. The weekly schedule and livestreams are available at twitch.tv/18thstlounge. Free.

—Casey Embert washingtoncitypaper.com august 14, 2020 21

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

me o s d Nee dvice? love a Curious about kinks?

e Visit thper City Paor more te f ve. i s b e w age Lo Sav washingtoncitypaper.com/ columns

I’m a 38-year-old bi woman who has been sleeping with a married male coworker for the last eight months. We’re a walking cliché: I’m a nurse, he’s a doctor, and one night, he ended up spilling a lot of personal information about his marriage to me (sexless, non-romantic, she might be a lesbian) before asking if he could kiss me. I declined. Three months and many text messages later, I met him for drinks.

The next thing I know, we are falling in love and spending as much time together as we can manage.

Even though he is married and has kids, this has been one of the best relationships of my adult life. He loves me in ways I never thought possible—he even savors my COVID-19 curves. The obvious problem here is that he is married and his wife allegedly doesn’t know about his unhappiness in their marriage. We have to arrange our dates around his work schedule and his lies to his wife. I find myself becoming increasingly jealous of the time he spends with his wife and his inability to spend more time with me. I want him to confront the issues in his marriage and I want him to at least attempt being honest with her so we can figure out if it’s even possible for us to move forward.

My question is this: How do I have this conversation with him without it seeming like an ultimatum?

I adore him and I don’t think he’s lying to me about his marriage. But I long to have more freedom in our relationship. I love that I finally found someone who treats me so well when we are together but my heart is breaking because our love exists in the shadows. It’s a win/win for him—he gets his marriage, his kids, his “real life,” and me too. But I can’t even text or even call him freely and I certainly couldn’t rely on him in an emergency. I want this to work. I don’t necessarily want him to get divorced, Dan, as I fear it would cause him to resent me, but that would honestly be my preference. What should I do?

—Outside The Home Exists Romance What are you willing to settle for, OTHER? If you can’t live without Dr. Married and you can only have him on his terms—terms he set at the start, terms designed to keep his wife in the dark—then you’ll have to accept his terms. You can only see Dr. Married during office hours, you can’t call or text him, and you’re on your own if you have an emergency outside of office hours. But agreeing to his terms at the outset doesn’t obligate you to stick to his terms forever. Terms can be renegotiated, but unless you’re willing to issue an ultimatum, OTHER, Dr. Married has no incentive to renegotiate the terms of your relationship.

Zooming out for a second: I get letters all the time from women who ask me how to issue an ultimatum without seeming like they’re issuing an ultimatum. I don’t get many letters from men like that for good and not-so-good reasons: Men are socialized to feel entitled to what they want, men are praised when they ask for what they want, and, consequently, men are likelier to get what they want.

To get what you want, OTHER, you’re gonna have to man up: feel entitled, act entitled, make demands. And you’ve got to be willing to walk.

You have to go in fully prepared to use the leverage you actually have here—your presence in Dr. Married’s life—or nothing will change. His circumstances have required you to live in the shadows if you wanted to see him and maybe that worked for you once. But it doesn’t work for you

22 august 14, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

anymore, and Dr. Married needs to understand that if his circumstances don’t change—if he doesn’t change them—then he’s going to lose you.

There’s a middle ground between divorce— your preferred circumstance—and things staying exactly as they are. Dr. Married’s wife is surely aware that her marriage is sexless and non-romantic, assuming he’s told you the truth, and if his wife’s actually a lesbian, well, perhaps she’d like the freedom to date other women too. (Or date them openly, I should say; for all we know, she’s been getting some pussy on the side herself.) If they want to stay together for the kids, if they have a constructive, functional, low-conflict, loving partnership, and it would be possible to daylight you without anyone having to get divorced, maybe you could settle for those terms.

—Dan Savage I’m a bi man in a straight marriage. We have two young children. My wife and I have been working through some relationship issues. Because of these, she has not been open to sex with me and for 18 months our marriage has been essentially sexless. I’m not happy with this, but we are working on things. Since we stopped having sex, I have been using

“To get what you want, OTHER, you’re gonna have to man up: feel entitled, act entitled, make demands.

And you’ve got to be willing to walk.” my wife’s used panties to masturbate. I work from home and do a lot of the household work, including laundry. Every couple of weeks, I will take a couple of her panties from the laundry. I rub myself with one pair and sniff the other one. I enjoy the way the fabric feels and am turned on by knowing that they’ve been rubbing up against her pussy. It makes me feel very close to her. I finish by ejaculating into her panties and then I rinse them out and wash them. I’m very careful not to stain or damage them. This is something I do to feel more connected with her sexually.

I don’t get hard thinking that she’s wearing panties I came in; I get hard thinking about coming in panties she’s worn. But I worry that I’m violating her, which is not something I want to do. I know that if I were doing this with a stranger’s panties, or with the panties of someone I knew but was not in an intimate relationship with, it would be at best creepy and at worst a sex crime. But she’s my wife, and although we are in a hard place right now, we’re trying to find our way back to each other. Is this an acceptable way for me to get off while we work on our relationship? Or is it a violation? —Wonders About Nuzzling Knickers I’m torn, WANK.If you and the wife were fucking, WANK, she might enjoy knowing that, however many years and two kids later, you’re still so crazy about her that you’re down in the laundry

room perving on her dirty panties. But you aren’t fucking and things are strained for reasons you didn’t share, so you need to ask yourself whether this perving, if your wife were to find out about it, would set you two back. If you think it would—if, say, your wife isn’t fucking you because she feels like you don’t respect her opinions, her boundaries, her autonomy, etc.—then the risk (further damaging your marriage) has to outweigh the rewards (momentarily draining your sack).That said, WANK, if perving on your wife’s panties without damaging or staining them is helping you remain faithful during this sexless period of your marriage and sustaining your attraction to your wife through this difficult time, well, an argument/rationalization could be made that your wife benefits from this perving. And these aren’t stolen panties—these aren’t a stranger’s panties or a roommate’s panties—these are panties your wife hands over to you for laundering. That you derive a moment’s pleasure from them on their way from laundry basket to washing machine could be selfservingly filed, I guess, under “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

But if you feel like your wife would regard this as a violation—and I’m guessing you feel that way, WANK, since you’re asking me about it and not her—then you might wanna knock it off.

—DS Quick question: Why get married? I’m a 29-yearold lesbian who got married to a woman at 26 and divorced at 28. We had a pretty low-key wedding, but we still stated to all of our friends and family that we were in it for the long haul, people wished us well, bought us gifts, gave us money. When I realized it was a huge mistake (we rushed into it, we ignored huge incompatibilities), I felt terrible for all the usual reasons involved in a break up, Dan, but I also felt like we were letting down our friends, family, and all gays everywhere. I’m jaded right now, I realize, but seriously: WHY DO THIS? Why get married? Why do this thing that adds so much stress and pressure to leaving a relationship that might have run its course, as MOST relationships eventually do?

—Marriage-Averse Dyke Quick answer, MAD: People get married for love—ideally, at least these days, and it was not always thus. (Suggested reading: Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz.) But, sometimes, I think people marry for the same reasons you think no one should, MAD: The stress of ending a marriage and the pressure to stay in a marriage often prompts a couple to work through a rough patch. Of course, that pressure can keep two people together who really shouldn’t be together anymore—or never should’ve been together, MAD, like you and your ex-wife—but sometimes, two people stick it out to avoid the embarrassment, expense, and drama of divorce, and eventually get to a place where they’re genuinely happy to still be together. Maybe a wedding isn’t a promise that two people will stay together forever, MAD, but rather a promise that two people will have to think long and hard before parting.

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

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