Washington City Paper (October 16, 2020)

INSIDE: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VOTING IN D.C. AND THE GAGGLE OF CANDIDATES SEEKING AN AT-LARGE D.C. COUNCIL SEAT 9 THE DISTRICT'S FREE WEEKLY SINCE 1981 VOLUME 40, NO. 38 WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM OCTOBER 2020

It’s Time for Leaf Season!

The Department of Public Works (DPW) begins leaf collection service on November 9, 2020 to residents who receive our trash and recycling services.

What’s New for 2020-2021 District households serviced by DPW must rake leaves into paper bags and place the bagged leaves in the tree box or at the curb in front of their homes, including the leaves underneath vehicles in front of your home.

Scan here to view your collection date!

DPW is providing residents who receive our trash and recycling services with 20 free paper bags to help with the new service change.

This is a one-time-only distribution.

Visit dpw.dc.gov for questions and updates throughout the season.

2 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 9 The Election Guide: One ballot, two at-large seats, 24 candidates.

Here’s what you need to know about the politicos angling to claim a place on the D.C. Council.

NEWS 4 Blue State Special: Congressional Republicans use their re-election campaigns to fight against D.C. statehood.

SPORTS 6 Square Space: Local Rubik’s Cube solvers explain how the greater D.C. area became a hotbed of speedcubing talent.

FOOD 20 Serving a Purpose: Uighur restaurateurs teach diners about their unique cuisine and the atrocities perpetuated against them at home.

ARTS 22 Barbie’s Dream House: A doll-filled pond continues to delight visitors and Logan Circle residents alike.

24 Book It: Entertain yourself this fall with four new releases from local authors.

26 Film: Zilberman on The Trial of the Chicago 7 27 Books: Sarappo on Anne Helen Petersen’s Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

CITY LIGHTS 29 City Lights: Hum along to a local theater’s Broadway-themed playlists or check out a new Netflix reality series set here in D.C.

DIVERSIONS 27 Crossword 30 Savage Love 31 Classifieds Cover Illustration: Ashley Jaye Williams

Darrow Montgomery | 3400 Block of 16th Street NW, Oct. 12 Editorial

Advertising and Operations

Interim Editor CAROLINE JONES Arts Editor KAYLA RANDALL Food Editor LAURA HAYES Sports Editor KELYN SOONG City Lights Editor EMMA SARAPPO Multimedia Editor WILL WARREN Loose Lips Reporter MITCH RYALS City Desk Reporter AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ Staff Photographer DARROW MONTGOMERY Creative Director JULIA TERBROCK Online Engagement Manager ELIZABETH TUTEN Copy Editor JENNY STARRS Design Assistant MADDIE GOLDSTEIN

Publisher and Chief Development Officer DUC LUU Associate Publisher ERIC NORWOOD Senior Account Executives MARK KULKOSKY, ALICIA MERRITT Account Executive ATHENA FOLTZ Event Manager KIRSTEN HOLTZ NAIM Sales Operations Manager HEATHER MCANDREWS Advertising Traffic Director JANE MARTINACHE Publisher Emeritus AMY AUSTIN

Leland Investment Corp.

Owner MARK D. EIN

LOCAL ADVERTISING: (832) 878-9567 FAX: (202) 650-6970 ADS@WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM FIND A STAFF DIRECTORY WITH CONTACT INFORMATION AT WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM VOL. 40, NO. 38, OCTOBER 2020 WASHINGTON CITY PAPER IS PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK AND IS LOCATED AT 734 15TH ST. NW, SUITE 400, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005. CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS ARE WELCOMED; THEY MUST BE RECEIVED 10 DAYS BEFORE PUBLICATION. U.S. SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE FOR $250 PER YEAR. ISSUE WILL ARRIVE SEVERAL DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION. BACK ISSUES OF THE PAST FIVE WEEKS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE OFFICE FOR $1 ($5 FOR OLDER ISSUES). BACK ISSUES ARE AVAILABLE BY MAIL FOR $5. MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO WASHINGTON CITY PAPER OR CALL FOR MORE OPTIONS. © 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE EDITOR.

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 3

NEWS CITY DESK

Blue State Special

Darrow Montgomery

Some congressional Republicans are campaigning against giving 705,000 residents voting representation and full autonomy in their bids for reelection. Others are introducing bills to undermine D.C. statehood.

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @AmanduhGomez “If Schumer-Pelosi Democrats get their way, statehood for the D.C. Swamp will become a reality,” a mailer Kentucky voters recently received reads. “Put Kentucky first—and the D.C. swamp last—by keeping Amy McGrath out of the U.S. Senate.”

The mailer, paid for by the Republican Party of Kentucky, warns against electing McGrath, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, over Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, lest D.C. become America’s 51st state. Giving the District’s 705,000 residents voting representation, along with full budget and legislative autonomy, guarantees “the ‘swamp’ two socialist senators” and “abortion on demand,” according to the mailer. (While it is unlikely D.C. residents would elect a socialist to Congress,

seeing as they’ve never elected a Democratic Socialist to citywide office, D.C. voters would likely elect a pro-choice Democrat.)

The Republican Party of Kentucky declined to answer this reporter’s questions about the mailer, including how many households it was sent to or if it was the first to mention D.C. statehood. But a mailer like this is rare, if not unprecedented. A number of statehood advocates cannot recall another election cycle during which an individual running for political office outside the D.C. region campaigned against the prospect of statehood.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, for one, is not too concerned about a GOP mailer disparaging D.C. this way. “They won’t pay much attention to that ad because they won’t know what to make of it,” she says of Kentuckians.

“Most people have no idea about D.C. statehood … most people, when they see me on the floor, just think D.C. is like everybody else.”

4 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

D.C. statehood has become a talking point in high-profile Senate races, with Republicans choosing to broach the subject. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, claimed that statehood “dilutes [South Carolina’s] influence in the Senate” at a press conference dedicated to statehood that also featured appearances from Senator Steve Daines of Montana and Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Graham’s Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison, responded by saying Graham’s political games distract from issues that directly impact their constituents. Their fight over statehood caught the attention of the local ABC affiliate.

An increasing number of Republicans are spending more time bad mouthing statehood, and a few have also introduced legislation to undermine the issue. Republican Representatives Morgan Griffith of Virginia, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, and

Mark Walker of North Carolina introduced separate bills over the last few weeks that would undermine statehood. Griffith and Johnson’s bills would return parts of D.C. to Maryland.

These bills are the first legislative push for retrocession, a topic only ever really discussed by a longshot candidate looking to oust Norton.

Polling shows that retrocession remains widely unpopular among D.C. and Maryland residents alike. According to a April 2016 poll of 879 Maryland voters, the most recent polling available, only 28 percent of respondents supported annexing D.C. while 44 percent opposed it.

“I believe the Constitution is clear that the District of Columbia was not [to] be a state, but I also understand the concerns of D.C. residents about taxation and their representation. The challenge is to meet these concerns in a constitutional way,” Griffith says. “My bill follows the precedent set when Virginia received back the portion of land it had ceded to D.C. Returning the land to Maryland would provide D.C. residents with representation in Congress consistent with the Constitution.”

Johnson introduced his bill because it “concerns the entire country, not just Washington.”

“This issue, as is often the case, has partisans on both sides that seem interested in the political fight,” Johnson tells City Paper via email. “I’m more interested in finding common ground that will serve the best interests of both D.C. residents and our nation as a whole.

I’ll keep working toward a solution by listening and discussing this issue.”

Walker’s bill proposes a constitutional amendment that would restrict the number of Senators to its current level of 100, ensuring no new states could acquire Senate representation. The bill is clearly a dig at D.C. statehood.

He made that clear in an opinion piece published in The Hill.

None of the representatives reached out to Norton to get her thoughts on their bills even though she represents D.C. This doesn’t surprise her. She views the bills as further proof of Republicans being nervous about her statehood bill, H.R. 51.

“It is a new level of distraction and opposition to statehood, which isn’t surprising,” says Bo Shuff, the executive director of DC Vote, an advocacy group that has historically fought for voting representation and statehood. “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

Republicans feel the need to fight against D.C. statehood because of the momentum it is gaining nationally, advocates argue. In 2019, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer made statehood a top Democratic priority for the first time. Former President Barack Obama used one of his few large public appearances to advocate for statehood earlier this summer.

“Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better,” Obama said in his July eulogy for the late Georgia congressman. “By guaranteeing that every American citizen has equal representation in our government, including the American citizens who live in Washington, D.C. and in Puerto Rico. They are Americans.”

CAPITOL HILL AUTO SERVICE

NEWS D.C. is closer to becoming a state now than it ever has been. A historic moment came June 26, when the House of Representatives voted 232 to 180 to grant statehood to D.C., where residents pay federal taxes but have no vote in Congress.

It was the first time either chamber of Congress passed statehood legislation in the District’s 230-year history.

Now that decades-long efforts to make D.C. a state are beginning to materialize, statehood advocates argue that Republicans are falling back on old arguments.

“Most of the people around the country just have a negative perception of the District of Columbia simply because politicians always bash D.C. and they lump the people of D.C. with the legislators that were sent here by the people of America,” says Josh Burch, founder of Neighbors United for DC Statehood, a grassroots organization that has always fought for statehood. “Because of that perception that I think both parties have played into, the Republican Party right now is trying to use … what is perceived as the District of Columbia in their own races to their own benefit.”

“They are afraid of us becoming a state because of the number of African Americans that live in the District, the number of people that vote Democratic in the District, the number of people who support pro democracy, a liberal agenda,” he continues.

Statehood advocates recognize that an ordinary voter from Iowa or Idaho might not know enough about D.C. to support statehood, so they have a lot of educating to do. There is a misconception that the city is only made up of federal properties, politicians, and lobbyists. A new campaign called #WeAreDC aspires to elevate the eclectic residents of D.C., from the teachers to the go-go artists. “We were frustrated by the repeated slander of Republicans,” 51 for 51 Campaign Director Stasha Rhodes told City Paper when the campaign launched in August.

51 for 51 is a newer statehood advocacy group fighting to change Senate rules so D.C. could gain statehood with just 51 affirmative votes as opposed to the 60 currently required. DC Vote polling also shows that once individuals hear both sides of the argument, they are more likely to support making D.C. a state.

Statehood advocates are simultaneously trying to get McGrath and Harrison elected.

While not not every Democrat running in a competitive race this election cycle has publicly expressed their support for statehood, advocates recognize they have a better shot at enfranchising the residents of D.C. with Democrats in control of the White House and Congress.

“I’d rather align myself with the party that supports D.C. statehood than the party that utterly opposes it,” says Burch.

Volunteers at Neighbors United have been encouraging D.C. residents to donate to Democrats running in close Senate contests.

Burch personally has written postcards to voters in North Carolina, the site of a competitive Senate race, as well as to voters in Florida and Ohio to encourage individuals to vote for Joe Biden. Biden after all supports making D.C. a state with just 51 Senate votes.

6 1 5 I n d e p e n d e n c e Av e S E | Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . 2 0 0 0 3 | 2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | c a p i t o l h i l l a u t o s e r v i c e . c o m

GO SOLAR. MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

HONEST QUALITY WORK AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE

Our family is here to take care of your family, safely, during every season!

IMPORT & DOMESTIC AUTO REPAIRS | CERTIFIED ASE TECHNICIANS We provide top notch service for import and domestic car repairs.

Servicing brakes, exhaust, tune ups, engine repairs, electrical, and A.C. Systems.

15

YEARS 2004-2019

Proudly serving the Washington, D.C. area for 15 years!

Call or email us today!

2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 5 1 5 5 | C A P I TO L H I L L AU TO @ G M A I L . C O M M O N DA Y - F R I DA Y, 7 : 0 0 A M - 6 : 0 0 P M CERTIFIED REPAIR SHOP

301-355-0031

VOTED BEST PLACE TO GET YOUR CAR SERVICED:

INFO@ALTENERGYINC.COM

ALTENERGYINC.COM

2020

2019

2017

2016

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 5

SPORTS SPEEDCUBING

Darrow Montgomery

Pavan Ravindra

Square Space The greater D.C. area has become a hotbed of speedcubing talent, be they college students or pro football players.

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong Pavan Ravindra’s mother had a rule for him during high school: Don’t stay up too late, but wake up early if you want to.

So, on weekdays, Ravindra would get out of bed at 4 a.m., eager to start the day. It didn’t take long for him to find a reason to take full advantage of his mother’s guidelines. At River Hill

High School in Clarksville, Maryland, Ravindra met a few older classmates who could solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds. Watching them fly through the puzzle at dizzying speeds made him want to become a speedcuber himself, years after he put down the toy due to lack of interest.

He would practice before school and bring two or three cubes with him to classes. Anytime a teacher wasn’t instructing, he’d work on his solves. He’d practice at lunch and on the bus,

6 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

then do it for hours at home after finishing his homework. Ravindra estimates that he practiced solving a Rubik’s Cube for six hours a day on weekdays, and another eight to 10 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays during his freshman, sophomore, and junior years of high school.

Ravindra was soon fully entrenched in the mind-bending world of speedcubing, in which competitors attempt to solve a Rubik’s Cube as fast as they can, often within 10 seconds. By 2015, he was one of the fastest speedcubers in

the world. At the finals of the 2015 US Nationals in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Ravindra completed one solve in 5.58 seconds, then the fourthfastest solve ever for a 3x3x3 cube.

“I knew that I wanted to get really, really good before I graduated high school,” he says. “So yeah, I just, like, practiced a lot.”

Ravindra, 20, was and still is a world-class talent. But he’s not even the highest ranked speedcuber living in the D.C. area. Or in the state of Maryland. Or even from his high school. The D.C. area is home to a tremendous amount of speedcubing talent. And Ravindra gets to witness it regularly as the president of the Rubik’s Cube Club at the University of Maryland, where he’s senior double majoring in biochemistry and computer science.

Maryland sophomore Will Callan, 20, is ranked second in the world for average time of solving a 2x2x2 cube (1.23 seconds). Keaton Ellis, 22, a former president of the school’s Rubik’s Cube Club and another River Hill alum, graduated from Maryland in 2018 with a dual degree in math and economics and is pursuing a Ph.D. in economics at the university. The Howard County resident organizes competitions in the D.C. area, and has competed twice at the biennial World Rubik’s Cube Championships.

“The D.C. area, Maryland specifically, is really big with speedcubing,” Ravindra says. “I would say, in terms of U.S. states, we’re probably top three. I think definitely top five.”

Washington Football Team rookie wide receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden loves seeing people’s reactions when he solves a Rubik’s Cube. He can often finish it in under a minute and recently set a personal record of 39 seconds.

Gandy-Golden says he’s always enjoyed puzzles and picked up his first cube in high school. It took him a day to figure out how to solve it—with help from an instructional booklet—and to this day, he brings at least one Rubik’s Cube around with him wherever he goes. A few months ago, Rubik’s tapped him to be a brand ambassador.

“I just thought it was so unique and that no one that I knew had ever been able to solve it,” Gandy-Golden says. “That alone kind of allowed me to be more interested in it, because I’m like, ‘I’ll be able to do something that nobody that I know can do.’ And it’s just that competitive nature. I’ve always liked to beat my own times in anything I did, and that was right up my alley. And it was portable.”

Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik’s Cube in 1974, and it became a global phenomenon in the following years. Popular culture has been enamored with people who can solve it ever since, and a common belief equating those who can solve a Rubik’s Cube with intelligence still exists— a notion that many speedcubers will argue is a misconception. YouTube videos of Will Smith solving a Rubik’s Cube have millions of views, and celebrities who can do it are often asked to show off the skill on camera. After the NFL Draft in April this year, ESPN interviewed Gandy-Golden as he solved a cube.

SPORTS “Everyone sort of knows what a Rubik’s Cube is, what it looks like,” Callan says. “But pretty much everyone has not been able to solve it, just because they either didn’t give it enough time or like, back then [in the 1970s], there weren’t as many resources ... I think a lot of people have always seen it as like an IQ test or [think] if you’re just like a really smart person, you’ll be able to solve it, when it’s obviously not that way ... It’s really hard to just figure it out intuitively.

So I think, because of that, it’s always sort of had this legend around it.”

The first World Rubik’s Cube Championship occurred in 1982 in Budapest, Hungary, and is considered the first officially recognized competition for speedcubing. Minh Thai of the United States beat 18 competitors with a winning single solve time of 22.95 seconds. The craze began to fizzle shortly after as video games surged in popularity, but the internet helped revive interest in the Rubik’s Cube two decades later. In 2004, the World Cube Association formed and has been governing official competitions around the world ever since.

In order for any results to be considered official, a WCA delegate must be in attendance.

Competitors can bring their own speedcubes, which are designed slightly differently than the traditional 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube, and each contestant has to solve five cubes with computergenerated scrambles. Cubers eliminate their fastest and slowest times and are ranked by the

average time of their remaining three solves.

Ellis is a local delegate and has helped organize competitions in Maryland, including last year’s CubingUSA Nationals at the Baltimore Convention Center, which drew more than 750 competitors. He says one of the reasons why the region is so talented in speedcubing is due to the amount of competitions available locally throughout the year. (In-person competitions in the United States are currently halted during the pandemic, but there are a number of virtual options for speedcubers, such as Cubing at Home, where competitors can enter times online and follow a livestream, and a competition series hosted by Red Bull. Cubers can also compete in head-to-head series via Twitch.)

The Rubik’s Cube Club at the University of Maryland has hosted biannual competitions since 2013, Ellis says. Speedcubing communities often sprout up around schools, and these local competitions attract newer cubers. Callan, who hails from Carroll County, Maryland, credits the built-in cubing community at Maryland as one of the reasons he chose to attend the school.

“Even though there was no one really near me and my town or anything that was cubing, knowing that there were like a bunch of people in Maryland, in that area, was always really encouraging because there was a good amount of competitions,” he says. “And I was able to, like, see all of them pretty often. And

we became good friends ... I think that’s something that’s really helpful because a lot of times, if there’s not a lot of competitions in your area, or other people in your area, it’s harder to keep improving.”

Before the world rankings and national competitions, Ravindra was an elementary school student who had quickly lost interest in the Rubik’s Cube. He received one as a gift around third or fourth grade from a distant relative, and taught himself how to solve it in a few weeks with help from online tutorials.

It wasn’t until high school piano class his first year at River Hill that he picked it up again. In that class were two juniors, Tanzer Balimtas and Andy Huang. At that time, Ravindra could solve a Rubik’s Cube in 30 to 40 seconds.

His older classmates solved it in 15 seconds or less.

Ravindra was determined to reach their level.

“When you see something online ... it doesn’t really mean as much. But then ... when you see it, like in person, it’s a lot cooler, because it’s like, ‘Oh, this is like a real person,’” he explains.

“This is not some random kid out on the other side of the planet ... It kind of shows you that even you can do it if this other kid in your high school can do it.”

Balimtas is currently ranked 10th in the world for a 3x3x3 cube single solve, with a personal best solve time of 4.64 seconds.

Speedcubers like Ravindra, Callan, and Ellis often use sports analogies when describing how to solve a Rubik’s Cube in record time.

Ravindra grew up playing basketball and soccer, and like with sports, solving a Rubik’s Cube involves practicing fine motor skills.

“You look at NBA players, and it’s not like any of them can’t easily dribble with both hands, or any sort of combination ... When you’re first learning how to dribble a basketball, even doing that is kind of hard, right? You just have to kind of get a feel for it,” he says. “It’s similar with Rubik’s Cubing, where you have to first understand the basic fundamentals, like the basic components of a solution. And then from there, you kind of can figure out how to piece them together a little bit better ... I’m combining and chunking these moves together into single fluid motions, rather than just single moves.”

In the video of Ravindra solving the Rubik’s Cube in 5.58 seconds from 2015, he slams his hands on the table and shouts after completing the solve, as the room erupts in cheers.

People in the audience start to scream as the announcer repeats the score: “Five, five, eight!”

Ravindra throws his fist up triumphantly before sitting back down. He can’t stop smiling. A few hours later, he watched the video while hanging out in a hotel room and thought to himself, “That was awesome.”

It felt, he says, like hitting a game-winning shot.

PAID FOR BY AARP

District of Columbia

Your Vote. Your Voice.

Our Fight.

As our nation battles a pandemic and economic downturn, the health and financial security of voters over 50 are on the line. That’s why AARP District of Columbia is fighting for your voice to be heard.

AARP District of Columbia wants to make sure that you know all of your voting options and that all Americans—from working parents to family caregivers to seniors in nursing homes—can vote safely whether they choose to vote from home or in-person.

For more information on how you can vote safely and make your voice heard, visit aarp.org/DCvotes facebook.com/AARPDC | @AARPDC | aarp.org/DC

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 7

8 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

YOUR 2020 ELECTION GUIDE

Candidates for D.C. Council at-large seats answer burning questions on everything from rent control and restaurants to whether Mayor Bowser and Chief Newsham are doing a good job.

INTERVIEWS BY

Amanda Michelle Gomez Laura Hayes Will Lennon Sarah Marloff Mitch Ryals Tom Sherwood Kelyn Soong Elizabeth Tuten The good news, D.C., is that you have options when it comes to selecting the next two at-large councilmembers. The bad news is that you might have too many. While the COVID-19 pandemic has completely uprooted traditional campaigning, a ridiculous number of candidates are running for two open seats on the D.C. Council. The stacked ballot, featuring 24 candidates, is in part a function of D.C.’s new publicly funded campaign program, which has given out almost $900,000 to at-large Council candidates as of press time.

So how the hell are you supposed to make your choice from this list of two dozen aspiring elected officials? We hope this guide will help.

We asked 22 candidates the same questions about prominent issues in D.C., including housing, education, and policing, among others. (Rick Murphree dropped out of the race after ballots were printed and Kathy Henderson declined our invitation to participate.) Their answers, like their politics, run the gamut. The field includes political newcomers, former D.C. government employees, progressives, moderates, and one former councilmember gunning for his third trip to the Wilson Building.

Each voter gets to select two candidates from the list of 24. One seat is reserved for a non-Democrat.

Incumbent At-Large Councilmember Robert White is seeking re-election as the Democratic nominee and faces a field of independents, one Libertarian, one member of the Statehood Green Party, and one Republican.

Traditional thinking would presume that White is a lock for one of the seats, but the abnormally large field calls that into question.

Also in the guide, City Paper contributor and new D.C. voter Sarah Marloff has you covered with instructions on how, where, and when to cast your ballot. And Food Editor Laura Hayes breaks down Initiative 81, a largely symbolic measure aimed at lessening criminal enforcement for possessing, cultivating, purchasing, or distributing magic mushrooms and other natural psychedelic plants.

Election Day is Nov. 3, and early voting centers open across D.C. on Oct. 27. As a pandemic-related safety precaution, the DC Board of Elections has also sent ballots to every registered voter in the District, so you can mail in or turn in your ballot at drop boxes before then. —Mitch Ryals

WASHINGTONCITYPAPER.COM OCTOBER 2020 9

THE CANDIDATES

Photos courtesy of candidates’ campaigns

Christina Henderson, 33, lives in Petworth Henderson is a former staffer for At-Large Councilmember David Grosso.

She’s taking a leave of absence from her job working for Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer to run for office.

Vincent Orange, 63, lives in Brookland Orange is a former D.C. councilm e m b e r a n d fo r m e r p r e s i de nt and CEO of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. He lost his seat to At-Large Councilmember Robert White in 2016 and resigned before his term ended after some councilmembers called foul when he took the job at the Chamber during his lame-duck term.

The business-friendly politician touts maturity and institutional knowledge as he looks to put ethical bugaboos behind him.

Franklin Garcia, 51, lives in Woodridge Garcia has served as D.C.’s shadow representative since 2015, is the former president and founder of the DC Latino Caucus, and is the current president of the DC Latino Leadership Council.

Marya Pickering, 74, lives in Tenleytown Pickering is a Republican and an immigrant of Polish descent. She was one of a handful of people to attend a “rally” in May calling on Mayor Muriel Bowser to reopen the city despite public health data showing it was not safe.

Marcus Goodwin, 31, lives in Shepherd Park Goodwin is a real estate developer who lost a bid to unseat At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds in 2018.

He was president of the D.C. Young

Democrats but changed his party registration to independent to run for office. He has support from many in the business community and from the old guard of D.C. politics, including former councilmembers Charlene Drew Jarvis and Frank Smith, Cora Masters Barry, and Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray.

Markus Batchelor, 27, lives in Congress Heights Batchelor represents Ward 8 on the State Board of Education. Although he fits in with many local progressive groups, he’s failed to lock down their support for his campaign. He touts his roots in Ward 8 as a needed perspective on the Council.

Michangelo “Doctor Mic” Scruggs, 46, lives in Crestwood Scruggs is a podiatrist and a political newcomer. His campaign has little visibility and less than $1,000 in total campaign contributions.

Mario Cristaldo, 58, lives in Adams Morgan Cristaldo is a longtime community activist and recipient of the Council’s 2018 Community Cornerstone Award and was the executive director of the Vida Senior Center, which provides services and housing to seniors.

During his time as mayor, Anthony Williams appointed Cristaldo, who is Latino, to the Rental Housing Conversion Task Force.

Calvin H. Gurley, 50, lives in Takoma Gurley is an accountant and perennial candidate for local public office. He’s taken in less than $300 in campaign contributions, according to his August finance report.

10 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Claudia Barragan, 42, lives in Pleasant Hills Barragan is a former policy staffer for Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White and an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 5. She owns Communities in Practice, an urban planning and technical services company, and has focused much of her campaign on raising the voices and needs of immigrants. She is originally from Bolivia and moved to D.C. with her family in 1987.

Jeanné Lewis, 40, lives in Fort Davis Park Lewis is a first-time candidate and the vice president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, where she pushes grantmakers to fund social justice nonprofits. Before that, Lewis was the director of U.S. programs for the Search for Common Ground where she worked with members of Congress to understand the connection between racism and policy.

Business Development. He was Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s 2018 reelection campaign manager.

Keith Silver, 66, lives in Mount Vernon Triangle Silver has served as an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Wards 5 and 6, and gained some media attention in 2011 when he was arrested during a protest for voting rights on Capitol Hill. He was acquitted at trial.

Mónica Palacio, 52, lives in Takoma Palacio, a civil rights attorney, stepped down as the director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights to run for office. She highlights her experience balancing that agency’s budget under mayors Vince Gray and Muriel Bowser. Palacio is from Bogotá, Colombia, was raised in New York City, and has lived in D.C. for three decades.

A’Shia Howard, 53, lives in Eastland Gardens Howard is a political newcomer and does not appear to have raised any campaign funds. Howard is a minister and also owns a T-shirt company.

She worked as a lifeguard for the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation in the 1980s and administrative positions with the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the A merican Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers.

Alexander M. Padro, 56, lives in Shaw Padro is the co-founder and executive director of Shaw Main Streets and an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 6. He’s earned many D.C. government appointments, including to the African American Heritage Trail Advisory Committee and the Commemorative Works Committee.

He’s a member of the Gertrude Stein Democrats and the ANC Rainbow Caucus.

Robert White, 38, lives in Shepherd Park White is the Democratic nominee, and is seeking a second term on the Council. He unseated Vincent Orange in 2016 and typically ranks among the Council’s progressive members. He chairs the Committee on Facilities and Procurement and has championed legislation enfranchising people serving prison time for felony crimes.

Ann C. Wilcox, 65, lives in Shepherd Park Wilcox is Statehood Green Party’s candidate, a lawyer, and the former Ward 2 representative on the State Board of Education.

Joe Bishop-Henchman, 39, lives in Eckington Bishop-Henchman is running as a Libertarian and chairs D.C.’s Libertarian Party. He’s the vice president of policy and litigation at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Eric M. Rogers, 46, lives in Hillcrest Rogers is a former staffer for councilmembers Sharon Ambrose and Kevin Chavous and has worked in multiple D.C. agencies, including the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Department of Small and Local

Chander Jayaraman, 50, lives in Capitol Hill Jayaraman is the chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B. He immigrated to the District from India at a young age, and now runs an emergency planning consulting company, Strategic Educational Consulting LLC.

Ed Lazere, 56, lives in Brookland Lazere is the former longtime director of the left-leaning DC Fiscal Policy Institute, where he’s lobbied for policies he believes will further racial and economic equality. He lost a bid to unseat Council Chairman Phil Mendelson in 2018.

Will Merrifield, 41, lives in Deanwood Mer ri f ield was a law yer for t he Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and resigned his position to run for office. He’s focused his campaign on doing away with government subsidies for private developers and eliminating their role in building affordable housing.

HOUSING Who should shoulder the burden of unpaid rent during the public health emergency?

Please explain.

Henderson: I think it’s important for the D.C. government to step in to help both renters and landlords in this moment in terms of unpaid rent.

I’m in favor of emergency rental assistance and even doing medium supports for renters who are experiencing a housing emergency and a housing crisis at this point. By providing the emergency rental assistance, we’re also ensuring that landlords are continuing to receive payment.

Orange: During the public health emergency, there are no evictions that are taking place, so right now the landlord and the renter are sharing that burden of unpaid rent with some type of negotiations taking place to catch up on past rent once the public health emergency is over.

Garcia: I think that the city needs to come up with ways to ensure that the low-income earners stay in place. We have a number of ways in which we can subsidize rent for people. I am a landlord.

I have a few buildings in Baltimore. As somebody who is working with city officials outside of D.C., I’m looking at the practices they put in place.

Pickering: That’s a tough one because it costs money to keep the lights on and keep the water flowing in buildings. There ought to be a joint effort, and if the city has extra funds that can be used to help people in this situation, that should become a priority. Landlords can’t operate those buildings for free.

Goodwin: We need to boost support for rental assistance, and a great way for us to do that is to clamp down on tax avoidance. On a

local level, we know that there are people who make a lot of money but don’t pay their fair share. It’s long overdue for us to repatriate those dollars and reform our tax laws.

Batchelor: The government has to step in and provide relief both for renters [and landlords]. I’ll fight from the Council to make sure the District government considers canceling rent for some of our most financially insecure folks and also for small owners providing affordable housing.

Scruggs: The city. We have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that our citizens have housing—that they’re in their homes and don’t risk eviction. We also have landlords that rely on rent as income. The city needs to ensure that we are providing grants and other incentives for landlords so that they can meet their bottom line and pay their bills.

Cristaldo: The landlords, to start with. It’s just obvious that this is a very difficult situation for all of us. With the moratorium of evictions, the rent should be absorbed by them at this time. And the D.C. government has a rainy day fund. It’s pouring rain right now.

Gurley: The District government. Being a former employee of FEMA, of DHS, this is what you call an emergency. The District government, the Council, has a responsibility to provide clean water and policing during this time.

You collect taxes and you spend. That’s all a government does. Collect and spend.

Barragan: I think we need to be more targeted about who doesn’t pay rent. The money is really tight, and by allowing people who make more than 80 percent [of the area median income] to also apply for rent relief, we’re shooting our foot. Part of it has to come from government subsidies, but other parts should come from the mortgage relief that the landlords are getting through the CARES Act.

Silver: I’m the only one that’s staunchly advocating for the D.C. government to bear the burden.

(Editor’s note: Multiple candidates have called for the government to bear the cost of unpaid rent.)

Discussion of a stimulus check is virtually tabled in the House and in the Senate because now everybody’s focused on the November election. Who knows where that’s gonna go? We can’t depend on the federal government to bail us out.

Padro: Ultimately, the tenants will have to be responsible for paying their unpaid rent but a reasonable time period would be established for such repayment.

White: It’s going to be a balancing act between assistance from the federal and local government and leniency from lenders and landlords.

No one entity can shoulder the entire burden.

Lewis: We need to protect renters who’ve lost their jobs due to COVID-19. In the long term, we need to invest in a housing infrastructure that’s truly affordable for renters and homeowners— including public housing, single-family homes, and new ideas like community land trusts and deepening investment in co-ops.

Palacio: I think the District government needs to prioritize shouldering the burden. We need to streamline the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent through [the DC Housing Authority] and the [Department of Housing and Community Development], and all the efforts we’re putting into housing are going to need to be re-examined to use those resources in the short term to make sure we can pay rent.

Wilcox: We need to make sure the city makes rental assistance available to renters—and congressional funds if available. Landlords can’t be expected to not get any money for their properties, but we need to make sure long-term payment plans are arranged and tenants are given as much legal support as possible—a combination of tenant assistance funds and legal assistance.

Darrow Montgomery/File

Bishop-Henchman: Ideally, federal relief.

But they seem to be unable to pass anything right now. It worked for a couple of months there. That’s where ideally it should come from.

Rogers: It should be a shared burden—renters and property owners with the ratio skewing more towards property owners. There are various ways to do that. You can look at fee increases [and] tax increases. The rent moratorium should continue as long as the public emergency is going. On the flip side, property owners do need income to maintain those properties, especially smaller property owners.

Giving them some form of property tax credit to help alleviate their expense burden would help them extend a little longer not collecting [rent] from tenants.

Jayaraman: Whoever signed the contract is responsible for paying it and there should be a longer repayment term so no one has to pay

more than 30 percent of their income to those overall rent payments.

Howard: I believe that D.C. needs to use the money that they receive from the tickets, the speeding cameras, and make an allotment to help the citizens of D.C. who are behind in rent and utilities.

Lazere: I think it would be a policy and [a] moral failure if anyone is evicted because they lost their job during the pandemic. I think the best solution is to ban evictions for people who got behind on rent through no fault of their own, and to back that up with an increase in funding for emergency rental assistance and a landlord relief fund.

Merrifield: The D.C. government has an obligation to keep people housed. The government was clear that people could not go to work in order to keep people safe. You can’t have people not going to work and then expect them to pay rent in the midst of global pandemic. There needs to be coordination between the government and landlords to make sure people are kept in place and anybody who’s lost income due to COVID-19 has their rent canceled.

Should the District expand its rent control law? What about the reclaim rent control platform?

Henderson: Yes, I’m supportive of expanding rent control laws. I think that we need to change the law so that buildings [built] before 2005 are included, and that it is tied to a dynamic date so that we always have an inventory that is coming in.

Orange: The District has just extended its rent control law for another 10 years, and I supported that extension … I have not thoroughly investigated [the reclaim rent control platform] but I am in favor of what Council just did. And they extended rent control for another 10 years.

Garcia: Rent control only goes so far. We need to have other measures to ensure people stay in place. So I am in support of rent control, and I think we should keep and expand the current legislation so that we can ensure that people stay in place in the District of Columbia.

Pickering: Absolutely not. These laws are well-intentioned and end up hurting the people that they are most supposed to help. In jurisdictions where this has happened, it’s driven out the middle class and left only the very wealthy and the very poor. I think rent control is a bad idea.

Goodwin: The District must reconsider rent control laws and ensure that we preserve rent

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 11

control units and expand rent control units.

However, I believe that they should and must be means-tested. We need to ensure that our neediest residents get access to those units.

workforce is made up of workers who live outside of the city, which means that payroll taxes are being put into these other states.

Batchelor: Yes. I’m in full support of the Reclaim Rent Control platform. I’m most excited [that it] brings new units under our rent control program for the first time in three decades. I’m excited about also closing the loopholes. Reclaim Rent Control and legislation Councilmembers Trayon White and Brianne Nadeau introduced accomplish that goal, and my hope is that we pass it before the new year.

Barragan: Yeah, I agree [with the Reclaim Rent Control platform]. Had it not been for rent control, I wouldn’t have been able to live in the District for as long as I have. One important thing to know about rent control, though: The Office of the Tenant Advocate was finalizing their inventory [of rent controlled units]. That has to come out first and has to be analyzed first in order to be very targeted in the language that we’re doing with rent control.

Scruggs: Yes. The city should expand the rent control law in areas where rates are going up exponentially higher than what people are making in income. In Wards 7 and 8, they’re placing apartments and condos in that area where most people cannot afford the rents. It’s a forced gentrification. We should expand rent control where it’s needed.

Silver: I would say yes. So now, I’m proposing that we need to put more money into public housing. And when you build these condos, we have to increase the ADUs, affordable dwelling units, that guarantees 18 to 25 percent of the people that are displaced can come back at a reduced rate through that new development.

Cristaldo: Absolutely. The rent control laws we have need to be updated. For example, currently, rent control only applies to buildings built prior to 1975. We need to enhance that law [to include] all buildings built up to 2011, because in 2011 we started with the inclusionary zoning laws.

Padro: Yes, rent control is an integral part of ensuring the continued availability of affordable housing in the District.

Gurley: The District needs to improve its rent control law. Currently rent is too high for working class, middle class, or even college graduates to afford. Currently 70 percent of the D.C.

White: I support expanding rent control. But I can’t sign on to every aspect of the Reclaim Rent Control platform. We have to seriously look at means-testing rent control. And we always want to make sure there is a balance that does not cause us to see our rental units turned into luxury condos because maintaining a building does require funding. If there’s

A NEW RESIDENT’S GUIDE TO VOTING IN D.C. If fall 2020 had a word of the season, “Vote,” with a capital V, would be it. An increasingly popular social media hashtag, it’s been used by thousands, including many celebrities, to urge followers to get out and, well, vote. Designers are making face masks adorned with the word, and nearly every clothing brand has a limited-run item encouraging people to go to the polls this Election Day. Many of us can’t wait to do just that. But with the coronavirus pandemic still raging through the country (and the White House), this year’s already-high-stakes election is going to look a little different. For new D.C. residents who— like myself—moved to the city in the midst of a pandemic, figuring out how to vote can be trickier than driving around Dupont Circle.

Despite best-laid plans, making an arrangement to vote isn’t always as simple as a quick Google search. I can attest.

After spending a morning searching for answers and reaching out to friends who’ve voted in D.C. for a decade, I still had questions. I’m a devout early voter—in Austin, where I lived and reported previously, I always took advantage of the option (who likes waiting in line?). But the early voting section of the D.C. Board of Elections’ website omitted some crucial information new voters might want to know: Do I need to vote in my ward during early voting? What about at the location specified on my voter registration card?

I reached out to DCBOE’s Public Information Officer Nick Jacobs for answers. He confirms: “You can vote at any center in the city,” during both early voting, which begins on 12 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

not funding to upkeep those buildings, they’ll become slums or they’ll get sold.

Lewis: Absolutely. I support the Reclaim Rent Control platform. Improving and expanding rent control is a core part of creating deeply affordable housing infrastructure. I’m particularly focused on permanently eradicating voluntary agreements in our rent control law, because it doesn’t create equity and affordability in our housing stock.

Palacio: Yes. I think our rent control laws are outdated and need to more aggressively be scaled to ensure rents do not skyrocket in the District. That is one avenue to preserve affordable housing. I am in support of the Reclaim Rent Control platform. At the core of the platform is ensuring more aggressive and more updated rent control laws and regulations.

Wilcox: Definitely. We support Reclaim Rent Control. The current law has far too many loopholes for landlords in terms of the substantial rehabilitation, voluntary agreements, the things that allow them to have their property deteriorate and then ask for rent increases to fix it up. Those loopholes need to be eliminated. Also we need to expand to include more recently built housing.

Bishop-Henchman: No. Rent control discourages construction of new housing. It discourages repairs to existing housing, and it doesn’t address the underlying problem of why housing is too expensive.

Rogers: Yes. Where I’m grappling is the middle ground between landlords and tenants, especially when it comes to transfers of property. Landlords use certain loopholes that need to be tightened to get around allowing tenants to sell their [Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act] rights to a third party.

Jayaraman: It should expand, but limit it to large apartment buildings that are corporately owned and not include buildings of 25 units or less.

Howard: Yes and no. I think that cost of living in D.C. is extremely high, and they do need more rent control, but as for a homeowner that purchased a home at $600,000, [they] need to be paid as well. So it’s a touchy situation.

Lazere: Absolutely. Rent control stabilizes families and stabilizes communities. Our law, because it covers only buildings before 1975, becomes more outdated every single year.

There are other enormous problems, including loopholes in the voluntary agreement process that unscrupulous landlords have been taking advantage of. And I’m a supporter of the [Reclaim Rent Control] platform.

Merrifield: Yeah, it’s absolutely crucial that the District expand its rent control law. I support the Reclaim Rent Control platform, but I’m running on a broader platform, on a social housing platform to essentially create a public [housing] option for voters. [The model] removes developers from the equation entirely and creates truly affordable, mixed-income housing that actually pays for itself.

What you need to know about early voting, Election Day safety precautions, and mail-in ballots

Tuesday, Oct. 27, and on Election Day, Nov. 3.

Jacobs also confirmed my suspicions that this election will look different. D.C. does not usually supply residents with unrequested absentee or mail-in ballots like the ones many of us have already received. This year, however, DCBOE shipped ballots to every registered voter in the District as part of its COVID-19 safety precautions. “We’re encouraging as many people as possible to take advantage of that mailed ballot,” Jacobs says. “When that ballot arrives, voting starts.”

Upon completion, residents can drop their ballots in any of the 55 drop boxes throughout the city, often in libraries and police stations. (Visit DCBOE.org for a list of all locations.) If folks prefer handing their ballot to a person, they can choose to deliver them to voting centers once they open. DCBOE’s early voting page lists more than 30 locations, including Super Vote Centers intended to accommodate large voter turnout. Jacobs says D.C. residents looking to vote in-person should take advantage of the city’s extended voting period in an effort to avoid crowds, an understandable desire considering the ongoing pandemic.

If the president’s fearmongering has you, like me, concerned about voting by mail, DCBOE has taken a series of precautions to ensure ballots will be counted and not tampered with. From now through 8 p.m. on Nov. 3, ballots deposited in drop boxes will be collected twice daily. “We’re doing everything we can to ensure those drop boxes are in safe and secure locations,” Jacobs says. While it’s a felony to vote twice in an election, Jacobs says stopgaps are in place to ensure that

if someone submits a ballot by mail and then decides to vote on Election Day, their vote won’t be counted twice thanks to signature verification. Voters will also be able to track their ballots online as DCBOE processes them.

Those absolutely committed to voting on Election Day will be able to do so, but should expect a wait. “The reality is that there will be lines,” Jacobs says. “Part of that has to do with interest, part of that has to do with the precautions we’re taking.” After each use, every voting machine will be disinfected. Masks and social distancing will also be required as additional COVID-19 safety measures. Super voting centers, like those at Capital One Arena and Nationals Park, will be laid out to avoid bottlenecking in order to keep people 6 feet apart, with separate lines available for folks dropping off mail-in ballots. “It’s going to take some time. That’s why we wanted to make that mail-in option available,” Jacobs explains.

The last day to register online or by mail is Oct. 13, but according to DCBOE’s website, if someone who’s lived in D.C. for at least 30 days immediately prior to the election misses the deadline, there is an option to register at voting centers. To do so, would-be voters must provide acceptable proof of residence showing their name and District address.

Jacobs urges voters who’ve received ballots to fill them out and drop them off as soon as possible. “Don’t let it gather any dust,” he urges. The numbers are going to be high. We want to be sure that everyone’s voice is heard, so vote early.”

—Sarah Marloff

POLICING What does it mean to defund the police?

And if the District further reduces the MPD budget, where should that money be directed?

Batchelor: Defunding the police starts with the premise that public safety doesn’t start or end with the police department.

If we don’t tackle the root causes of violence and crime in our community—issues rooted in poverty and disinvestment—we’ll never be truly safe. I’m in support of defunding the police and spending more on programs related to youth, job training, and mental health.

Scruggs: I don’t believe we should defund the police because it will have the opposite effect of what we desire. What we desire, as citizens, is to have a presence in our communities that makes us feel safe. Right now, police sit there in the street and watch crime happen.

Any money allocated away from the police department should go into mental health services, housing, and education.

Henderson: To me, [defunding the police means] moving from an overreliance on law enforcement to handle our public safety challenges and instead reinvesting that money in community solutions to prevent crime and violence. I’d like to see [the money] reinvested in community solutions around crime prevention. Why do we send MPD when someone calls 911 with a mental health emergency? Why are we not sending a critical response team from the Department of Behavioral Health?

Cristaldo: I think we’re headed in the right direction. We were able to get $5 million out, but I believe we need to recalculate. We need MPD to do community policing. This issue of going out, attacking protesters, it really bothers me. We need to demilitarize MPD. We need to train our officers to do community policing in our neighborhoods.

Orange: I don’t know what it means to defund the police. There’s so many definitions.

I’m in favor of a comprehensive review of MPD operations [and] methods that are outdated that should be taken off the books and no longer utilized. I’m in favor of training with the emphasis being the value of human life and training on how to bring an encounter under control without the loss of life.

Gurley: There should be no attempts to defund the police department. We do not have enough policemen to take care of 705,000 residents. The police department does need the assistance of social workers, social programs, for those types of calls when someone is having

Garcia: We can’t be talking about defunding the police in a way to make it sound like we’re not going to fund the police. Reimagining the police is what we talk about. The police force needs to reflect the population it serves. We could perhaps implement a situation where we could have a [4,000-officer] force but not employ everybody at the same time. The savings from the reduction [could be used] for a number of services that we need now, mental health in the schools, [and] subsidizing some of the housing challenges that we are talking about.

a psychotic episode. We need more police presence in the communities.

Barragan: The defund-the-police ask is something I can’t define because I didn’t ask for that. I want police reform, which includes defunding police as one of the tools. We should definitely defund old traditional training. We should definitely defund any incentives that new hires are getting who are not from the District, [and] we should definitely defund the extra funding that’s being attached to doing more recruiting outside of the city.

Silver: Instead of defunding the police, we need to redirect funding to a civilian complaint review board. We’ve got civilian complaint review boards in place, but they’re underfunded. In addition to public safety, we need to create or develop an ombudsman to further investigate police complaints. I’m not one to throw the police under the bus. They’re doing a heck of a job.

Lewis: Our safety doesn’t start and end with the police. It’s important to decrease the outsized police budget and reinvest in programs and infrastructure that create genuine safety for our community. We need a citywide conversation—convening residents from different wards/neighborhoods and experts who don’t always agree on the solutions, but agree we need safer communities—to reimagine what safety looks like and for all of us to buy into creating that so we rely less on police.

Palacio: To me, defunding police is a call for District residents to feel safe at the hands of their government, and it means redirecting resources away from traditional policing to more effective crisis intervention programs.

That means more money in mental health response teams, drug and alcohol counseling, and trained professionals who can de-escalate domestic violence situations.

Padro: Modest transfers of the funding of the MPD budget to other programs that allow nonofficers to respond to a variety of calls for service would be warranted, but not the wholesale reduction in the number of officers available.

Wilcox: Defunding is an important trend.

Money should be redirected to mental health, counseling services, and youth interventions.

Traffic enforcement can be done by other units.

We also need to enforce the NEAR Act [so] that statistics on things like stop and frisk are kept and released.

White: The money from MPD’s budget should be directed to existing or newly created agencies that are better equipped to handle many of the non-public safety things that MPD has jurisdiction over now, like traffic violations and mental health issues.

Bishop-Henchman: [They] should do a lot of training on de-escalating conflicts and buying less military-style equipment. [Defunding the police means] reducing or stopping purchases of military-style equipment and making sure that we’re focused on de-escalating conflict.

Goodwin: My notion of reimagining policing means that whatever resources are necessary for a responsible, transparent, accountable police force is what we should be budgeting for. Right now, we are on track for beyond the decade high of homicides, so we certainly need public safety officers in our communities to keep people safe from the threat of gun violence. I also want us to increase investments in mental health, addiction treatment, and transitioning people into productive, healthy lifestyles.

Darrow Montgomery/File

Pickering: I think defunding the police is pure folly. We have the best police force in the country and we have a police force that’s in a unique situation. In addition to the community policing that normal police forces do, our police force has to interact with other law enforcement agencies such as the Secret Service, the Park Police, the Capitol Police. I think our police deserve full funding and our full support.

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 13

Rogers: I don’t believe in defunding the police. The issue we need to solve is that the police department enforces our criminal code [which is] skewed towards crimes of poverty. I’d call for a systemic review of our criminal code so that it reflects our community values—decriminalizing marijuana and sex workers. [Then] you no longer have [officers] policing neighborhoods the way they’re currently policing. They’re more freed up to solve some of our more systemic criminal elements.

Jayaraman: I think we need to look at what we call on our officers to do and determine what their core functions are, and then examine a level of budget for those core functions. We ask them to do too much. Any savings should go to social service agencies to provide services in off hours.

Howard: I don’t believe in defunding the police. I believe that there should be a community group effort like the ANC that have a small group that goes out to handle minor complaints.

I do believe that there are problems within the police department, and if they were to reallocate some of that money, I will suggest that they put it into having more mental health awareness.

Lazere: Defunding starts with thinking about approaching public safety in a different way. It means reducing our police force and shifting functions that police currently provide to other agencies like the Department of Behavioral Health and directly reinvesting that in things that keep communities stable and safe, like after-school programs, job training, mental health services, and affordable housing.

Merrifield: Defunding the police means defunding militarized police tactics that I do not believe keep our community safer and reallocating that spending to housing, mental health resources, violence interruption, jobs, and education. Short term, we have to interrupt violence, and I think that’s most effectively done by funding community organizations on the ground. Long term investment should be mental health, housing, education, and jobs. If you invest in those things, I think crime will be exceedingly minimal.

List three of the most needed police reforms in D.C. Henderson: One, I would say, is a need for a standard as it relates to use of force and contact with juveniles. [MPD officers] treat 13-year-olds [like] they’re fully grown adults. Another thing is stopping stop and frisk. We know that it’s disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities and it is not resulting in a corresponding decrease in crime. And the third one is around data. The Council has taken a little

bit of this on, changing the body worn camera laws and regulations, and I support that becoming permanent.

Orange: [One] of the reforms is a training on the value of human life, and how to bring an encounter under control without that loss of life. Two, there needs to be a retooling of community policing in light of what has been taking place all over this country.

We should be examining these situations— George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Arbery’s case—so we are learning lessons from these incidents, so we can be in a better position to address issues without causing a chaotic response that also erupts our communities.

Third, more community engagement.

Garcia: The police [department] needs to ref lect the population that it serves, so we need more diversity in the force. We need to look at internal processes and ensure we compensate [police officers] not for writing more tickets, but for attending more community events. Body cameras are great. We should ensure we have other accountability measures like that.

Pickering: There’s room for improvement in every human organization. [But] I haven’t studied police procedures in sufficient detail to make credible recommendations. One thing we could do is try to make it more attractive for our police force to live in town, whether that’s allowing people to buy homes with no down payments or especially low interest loans.

Goodwin: One, immediate access to bodycam footage. Two, public accessibility of police officer records of reported abuse and disciplinary actions, and three, banning chokeholds.

Batchelor: To a certain extent, we have to put an end to qualified immunity in our city.

Second, so many reforms in the temporary legislation that the Council passed should be passed permanently, including a limit on nonlethal munitions like pepper spray and rubber bullets. Third, the way we engage with communities. If we’re not willing to put as much energy into breaking that chain of illegal guns that flow into our borders, then we have to think differently about how we approach the hands they end up in.

Scruggs: One, we need a new police administration. Change starts at the top.

From what Chief [Peter] Newsham has said recently, with the death of Deon Kay, trying to label him as a gangbanger, as if his life meant less because of his alleged activity, that’s not the type of leadership we need. Two, a redistribution of police officers into areas where police are part of the racial and ethnic backgrounds of the communities they’re serving.

Three, D.C. police need to live in the city.

Cristaldo: Starting from the police academy, we need to review all of the police

14 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

training they do to train in community policing. We need to reconfigure the number of police officers we really need for the size of the District. They’re over-equipped in so many ways. There are too many police cars.

We need to hold them accountable about what they’re really doing.

Gurley: We need to increase the police department with the needed officers to serve the residents in the District of Columbia. We need to have our officers living in the District.

We need to reinstate the police cadet and firefighter cadet programs in our high schools.

Those cadets, once they become officers and firefighters, will know their community and give a greater assurance of safety.

Barragan: Training for sure. [We need to reform] IT funding—the [crime] mapping and what information is provided to community leaders and community members. Right now, they have very little funding for engagement.

So reduce some of the IT stuff that’s useless and invest more in engagement. We also need more police officers who speak various languages. They haven’t done a good job in making sure that the police force represents 20 percent of the population, which is immigrant, so 20 percent of the police force should be immigrant.

Silver: Increase hiring from the D.C. metropolitan area. We need sensitivity training.

These people gotta be sensitized that if you’re coming into D.C., we’ve got a unique population, so you’ve got to have everybody on the same page. And finally, the officers with high seniority, I’m not saying (they should) be rotated out of the system, but after you’ve been on the police force 15, and certainly 20, years, you need to be rotated out of the live action.

Padro: New guidelines restricting the use of force, the interactions with minors, and highspeed vehicle pursuits.

White: Get the police department out of nonpublic safety issues, demilitarizing police, and more transparency.

Lewis: They’ve been addressed in recent, passed legislation, but we need deeper reforms on a larger scale. In addition to what’s already proposed, reducing qualified immunity for police officers would be the reform I’d push most heavily. Reducing that not only for MPD, but also looking at other police officers who have D.C. jurisdiction. Rep. Ayanna Pressley has advanced federal legislation to reduce qualified immunity. We need to engage Rep. [Eleanor Holmes] Norton in supporting that.

Palacio: In addition to what the Council has done, I think we need a multi-jurisdictional clearinghouse to ensure that officers with a record of using lethal force inappropriately are not allowed to work in the District. We need to increase resources for

officers trained to work with more vulnerable communities. I mean young ages 14 to 25, LGBTQ communities, faith minority communities, and neighborhoods with high concentrations of crime.

Wilcox: End stop and frisk and surprise jump-outs. Reduce the overall militarization of the police—military equipment [and] militarized interventions into neighborhoods.

The third would be using alternative techniques, such as mental health counseling or violence interrupters, much more heavily in terms of how you intervene into a neighborhood, not rolling in with a lot of militarized equipment.

Bishop-Henchman: Ending qualified immunity, relying more on community-based efforts, and stopping the purchase of militarystyle equipment.

Rogers: We need to re-engage community policing. I believe officers need to understand their communities. Second, if we move towards lessening police involvement in lowlevel crimes, then the need for some special tactical units should be reshuffled. Finally, more transparency. The people of the D.C. deserve to know when officers violate whatever standards of procedures we have.

Jayaraman: Initiatives to expand the trust between the police and the community, retraining some officers to be de-escalators— the people who get the first shot at de-escalating should be unarmed officers, faster release of body-worn camera video unless the family asks that it not be released.

Howard: I think one of the areas is to be aware of your community. They do need to be reformed in community awareness. And they do need to be reformed as far as mental health issues. And the third one is de-escalating situations.

Lazere: One, make officers responsible for intervening when another officer is engaged in inappropriate treatment of residents. Two, [the Office of Police Complaints] currently can only make recommendations of discipline, leaving final decisions to MPD. Instead, OPC recommendations should be binding. Three, completely ban use of tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters.

Merrifield: We need to eliminate jumpout squads. An unmarked car pulling up and a bunch of plainclothes cops jumping out and throwing kids up against a wall and patting them down is one of the most disturbing things I’ve witnessed. The way police treat juveniles needs to be reformed, especially within the Metro Transit system.

I would support the current reforms made with respect to body camera footage being released and maybe call for ways to increase transparency through investigations of improper conduct.

RESTAURANTS What is your vision and legislative strategy for helping the small independent restaurants that make up D.C.’s dining scene survive and thrive once again?

Orange: I would be in favor of tax incentives, grants, whatever it takes to get small businesses up and operating again. One, we need to get our D.C. residents back to work.

Two, we need our small businesses to generate income, which is subject to D.C. taxation.

And three, getting the District back to where it was. We were becoming one of the pride cities of the United States for our restaurants and our being able to enjoy what’s taking place on our Wharf and our neighborhoods.

Garcia: We need to ensure that we have all the grants they need, so they can [provide] adequate PPE to give to employees. We need to think about the transportation for the employees. I’m getting too many calls from people saying, “Sometimes it’s not worth it for me to get downtown to my job because paying all my money to Uber.” We need to partner with Uber or anybody else to provide safe transportation to and from work.

Pickering: We ought to look at measures immediately to allow our restaurants and small businesses to safely reopen. I think restaurants and bars need some insurance relief from the liabilities associated with COVID19. I think we can give increased payouts for business interruption insurance, perhaps have a rent moratorium or a delay in sales tax payments or some sort of tax abatement to allow these people to survive.

Goodwin: I would support expanded grant and loan funding, in addition to a sensible regulatory regime that supports rather than antagonizes our small local entrepreneurs to ensure that they are able to provide their communities with their diverse offerings and continue to employ and serve in making the District a rich hub of cuisine and culture.

Batchelor: Many restaurants will have to retrofit their spaces to accommodate new public health rules. Some [will] have

Darrow Montgomery/File

Henderson: The weatherization grants will be helpful in some cases. But I do think that the city writ large needs to consider doing a local version of the Paycheck Protection Program to help some small businesses get through this time, especially if we don’t think that another round of federal relief is going to happen for businesses.

to completely change their business model and retrain employees. Making sure the government does all we can to support that work. Helping businesses with overhead also means making sure all businesses are able to provide their employees with personal protective equipment for as long as they need it.

Scruggs: D.C. just has to pump money into our economies, especially where small restaurants are concerned. We need to make sure grants are going to the people who need them and that we’re [streamlining] the processes for getting those loans. It’s real out here.

Cristaldo: The federal government owes us from the last round [of relief funding]. And again, [use] the rainy day funds. My understanding is that it is close to $1.4 billion. It’s money that we didn’t use, that is dedicated to special funding in case of an emergency situation, and this is an emergency situation. We should direct money to them from the fund.

Gurley: Once we get over this pandemic, there will be small business loans for those who want to go into business. D.C. is a tourist city. We should give small loans to entrepreneurs that want to support tourism. As a councilmember, I would request federal funding in the form of a FEMA loan. We have to prioritize residents, medical needs, and police presence first. What’s left, then, can go to small business.

Barragan: Legislatively, right now we’re giving a lot of grants, but we’re not necessarily giving resources. I have a small business.

It’s not a restaurant, it’s a technical service business. And the grants are very blanketed.

And they don’t come with specific resources that are needed. It’s just money. Resources like accounting, resources like marketing, resources like legal assistance. Those are really important.

Silver: We’ve gotta put some funding in place for the waiters and waitresses whose hours have been cut back. A lot of these people don’t have backup funding or large bank accounts. Some restaurants are surviving with this outdoor seating, but that’s going to be shut down when the weather changes.

We’ve got to bail these restaurants out. We have the money, we have the funding. It’s gotta come from the coffers of the D.C. government.

Padro: Establishing a retail property tax cap that limits the collection of commercial property taxes to the percentage of space that can be occupied by customers for the balance of the pandemic. Provide subsidies and tax incentives for restaurants to provide discounted and free meals as has been done in other cities.

White: We have to continue with forgivable loans for restaurants to create infrastructure to extend outdoor eating. Start

into the winter months as much as possible.

We’re going to have to use the city’s financial leverage to to assist establishments and make it through the winter months.

Lewis: Small businesses are the lifeblood of our city. I’ve proposed a mini-bond program—selling municipal bonds to individuals, modeled after one used in Denver. This is an opportunity for us to generate revenue from local residents, like myself, whose income has remained relatively stable. I’d target this revenue to small businesses left out of federal assistance programs. We know many of those are owned by people of color and women.

Palacio: My vision is a restaurant and nightlife industry that has the protective gear needed to keep workers and customers safe. And my legislative strategy is we have to continue to invest in small grants and small loans so that small restaurants and local businesses can adapt, whether that is physical structure or takeout only or combining services in a way that reduces overhead costs.

Wilcox: The carryout model has been helpful. We need to gradually reopen, and expand streeteries. I think that’s a good way to help them have actual income and not just handouts. But it’s a balance. Gradual outdoor dining is the way to go. Tents with open ends and some heater lamps to keep everyone

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 15

EDUCATION Taking into consideration the public health emergency and the digital divide, construct the ideal learning environment for D.C. students.

comfortable to try to make it last at least into late fall.

Bishop-Henchman: We should keep the to-go liquor change[s]. And honestly, we should consider keeping the sidewalk dining changes as well. We put a lot of regulatory and tax burdens on the hospitality industry.

And I think now more than ever is a time to revisit some of those and see what can be taken off their plate.

Rogers: The city needs to extend a local [Paycheck Protection Program] to the hospitality industry. We need to give them grants so they can get the proper equipment to utilize the space. The mayor’s office has already done [this], but I would expand it. Where we have the ability to use public space effectively to give restaurants additional occupant load so that they can generate some income, we need to do that. That’s all predicated on the data coming out of the Department of Health.

Henderson: I think the ideal learning environment varies based on age. [PK4], [PK3], for kindergarten, first grade students, the ideal situation [is] to figure out a way for small, in-person instruction. For older students, it’s not an ideal situation, but I do feel that they can weather this. I would also add that for special education students, I feel like they have a specific need that virtual learning is not meeting right now. Ideally, I think it’s differentiated by age and by need.

Jayaraman: In the short run, we should take the [Business Improvement District] taxes that businesses pay and repurpose those to provide grants to small businesses that are in desperate need of help. In the long r un, it’s reimagining what dining looks like. And we should be open to a more European model that allows for greater use of our public space for dining, especially on weekends.

Orange: The ideal learning environment for D.C. students is one that can be done if distanced learning continues to be what we have to do or return to the classroom. At the bare minimum every school-aged child needs a laptop, access to internet, PPE, and a good safe learning environment when school reopens. That would be [the] Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention] protocol safe learning environments.

Garcia: So we have a big challenge in education in the District of Columbia, and this isn’t

Howard: There needs to be some type of emergency funding allocated towards the restaurants, especially small business owners, to make sure that their restaurants stay afloat, and they’re able to keep a staff. I fear that once the weather comes and the flu spikes up and the COVID resurges that it’s going to be hard to do outdoor or indoor dining. They just need more funding.

Merrifield: I think it’s essential that [small businesses] have access to capital post-pandemic and that it’s done in a way that’s not too bureaucratic. That’s why I’m proposing a jobs program. If people [who’ve been laid off] can be reemployed, they can then spend that money back into the restaurant scene and other small businesses. We need a capital injection into small businesses, but the District has the responsibility to put people back to work.

Darrow Montgomery/File

Lazere: To me, [getting our hospitality sector back with full strength] includes continued support for safe dining practices like doing more to give restaurants space outdoors. When I talk to small business owners, including restaurants, they say the biggest challenge they face is rent. So I think we just need to do a similar eviction ban, as I think we should do for residents, which is to say small businesses can’t be evicted if they got behind in rent in the pandemic because business was reduced.

16 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

because of COVID-19. It has simply [been] exacerbated because of the pandemic. We need to ensure that every neighborhood has a first-class school that they can go to. The idea of school choice, it’s good, and it’s been a good temporary solution for our city.

Pickering: The children have not been shown to be an at-risk population when it comes to COVID. I think we ought to open our schools as quickly as we safely can. The other thing we ought to look at is the whole management of our public school bureaucracy. We’ve got the same number of bureaucrats sitting in offices downtown as teachers who are not doing a good job teaching our students to do grade-level work.

Goodwin: I have long talked about the need for before- and after-school program funding. I know from my personal experience that investments in athletics, musical arts, visual arts, and extracurricular programs can dramatically transform the lives of our students.

In addition to ensuring that there are fair and equitable resources within the classrooms for them to learn effectively.

Batchelor: We must aggressively close the digital divide—getting families and young people devices, access to the internet, the literacy to use those devices most productively, [and] technical support for teachers and families. [We need] aggressive investment, diligent oversight, and replacement and repairs of HVAC systems inside our schools, updating infrastructure inside

buildings, bringing educators and families to the table to walk through what a return to the classroom looks like.

Scruggs: Creating more of a bubble inside the classroom, where we’re forcibly putting in air and taking out air. We have to monitor students’ temperatures to make sure there are no spikes. We need to ensure that there are partitions between students so the risk of transmission is less. And we need to put them in a position where they’ll be able to interact within reason and have access to Wi-Fi [and] computers.

Cristaldo: In the short term, I think we should keep doing it online, unfortunately.

We’re not ready to send our kids back to school.

It’s known, proven by scientists, that anyone can spread the virus. Until we find the real solution and cure for the virus, we need to be proactive in keeping our kids safe more than anything else.

Gurley: Every student in D.C. public schools must have and will have a computer to conduct their classes and learning. I promise them as a councilmember to provide one-on-one classes to students who may be faltering, who need assistance to catch up, or to just maintain their learning.

Barragan: I’m going to construct it based on immigrant students. If we look at their needs, every other student in the District, wealthy or not, White, Black, any other race will also benefit.

We need more tutoring for students whose parents don’t have the educational base to assist

them in virtual learning. We need to provide more relief in terms of funding for the other needs that have come because of virtual learning, like buying furniture, buying supplies, additional internet or apps that they need, or even paying for tutoring.

Silver: Quite frankly, when these young adults by and large come from inner city homes, I’m not trying to put a stigma on anybody, but it’s pretty well documented, they’re probably not going to go to Harvard or Yale. So I’m a staunch advocate [for increasing] vocational training. Let’s teach these guys and women some skills before they get out of high school, either in plumbing, [electrical work], horticulture.

Padro: Until a vaccine is available to allow the full resumption of normal, in-class instruction, the District government should provide the necessary devices and internet access to be able to ensure that all students can conduct distance learning.

White: The digital divide should not, and need not, be there. We have to close that divide.

We have to have availability for in-person learning for students with special learning needs and for at-risk students that don’t have support at

ON SHROOMS

home. And online instruction has to be consistent, strong, and offer mental health support.

Lewis: I’ve proposed following a model from other cities—using unused buses as Wi-Fi hubs to be parked in areas with less access. We need to provide protective equipment so that we can reopen schools as quickly and safely as possible.

In the long term, we need to fund our schools properly and equitably. Finally, we have schools [with] empty space in the building. We can make better use of that property by including community resources within the school building that students and families need.

groups back, probably starting with younger children. I don’t think we need to rush it, though there is a sort of social determinant to keeping children home.

Bishop-Henchman: We need a lot more on virtual learning in the interim, until we can get schools reopened. And it’s a real opportunity to make it decentralized and offer different approaches for different students. I think the school board has an opportunity to offer tailored packages of a whole bunch of different kinds to parents who really need them and want them right now.

Palacio: The ideal learning environment depends on the student and the family. For some schools, I think a hybrid model is ideal so that some students can come back most of the time. For students with the greatest need, whose families need a safe place for the student to learn, we should open the schools that are ready to open. But we have to follow the science, listen to the school leaders, and listen to the needs of the students and the families.

Rogers: For this school year, I think the hybrid model is probably the best, with tiering up to more in-person learning towards the end of the semester. I’d charge the superintendent with figuring out how you can create pods to limit exposure. Assuming a vaccine is more available, I’d extend [the 2021] school year into the summer to get [students] used to being back at school, [and] get some of that educational stuff they lost back.

Wilcox: Digital is still the safest, most effective way. We need to make sure students and families have the devices and Wi-Fi they need.

Then, gradually, we can start to bring small

Jayaraman: One that offers both an inschool and online option that parents could choose from. In-school would allow for classes outside, social distancing, and air circulation.

As an 18-year emergency planner, I currently do this for child-care centers. We can apply similar strategies to elementary schools.

Howard: As far as going back into the classrooms right now, I don’t deem it safe. The ideal situation is, for one, D.C. making sure that the free internet access is available throughout the whole city. I would also try to get study groups to help those students that are falling behind. And I would slowly work to integrate the kids back into the classroom setting, first making sure that all the schools have been thoroughly cleaned and COVID ready.

Lazere: I would like to see aggressive public health actions to control the level of the virus in our community as a key to reopening schools in-person. We need to support families with the technology and access to high speed internet so that every single student has the opportunity to not worry about whether they’re going to be able to log into class on a given day.

Merrifield: I think we have to talk to teachers about that. I don’t want to get ahead of people who are experts in the field. But what is essential is that technology is provided, so that kids can have the opportunity to be plugged in and access this new world we’re in. Ending that technology divide, which is directly on racial lines, is essential.

If approved, Initiative 81 could make the use, distribution, possession, and cultivation of magic mushrooms and other psychedelic plants a low priority for local law enforcement.

Darrow Montgomery

Collecting 25,000 signatures from a representative group of Washingtonians to get an initiative on a ballot is a feat of strength and funding under normal circumstances. Decriminalize Nature DC was able to do it during a global pandemic with help from a compassionate spokesperson, Melissa Lavasani, and a fat check of more than $500,000 from a political action committee whose donors include Dr. Bronner’s natural soap company.

Initiative 81, or the “Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020,” does not legalize the use and possession of so-called “magic mushrooms,” which contain a chemical compound called psilocybin. Nor does it legalize the use and possession of the other psychedelic plants included in the ballot initiative, among them cacti, iboga, and ayahuasca. The measure only seeks to make entheogens among the lowest law enforcement priorities for the Metropolitan Police Department, so it’s somewhat symbolic in nature. It also calls upon the D.C. Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for D.C. to cease prosecution of criminal charges involving entheogens.

Lavasani proposed the initiative to change the conversation around psychedelic plants and focus on their potentially beneficial medical properties.

Researchers around the country are examining how entheogens can treat anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health conditions.

A D.C. government employee, Lavasani says psilocybin may have saved her life after she suffered from postpartum depression in 2018. “After I delivered, I spiraled out of control,” she says, describing her experiences with anxiety, panic attacks, delusions, and suicidal thoughts. Then, a friend recommended she tune in to an episode of The Joe Rogan

Experience that featured mycologist Paul Stamets as a guest.

He addressed the health benefits of psilocybin.

“I made a life-or-death decision,” Lavasani says. “I can break the law and try this or lose my life. Thank god I did.

Within three days of microdosing [mushrooms], I was feeling human again. I was walking differently, talking differently,

playing with my kids, and communicating with my husband.” (Microdosing, in this context, generally means consuming very low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic substance.)

Ultimately, Lavasani says her goal is to “allow people to heal themselves without taking a risk on getting caught in the war on drugs.” She imagines a D.C. where patients can consume entheogens in controlled situations under the careful consultation of doctors or therapists. Cities that have decriminalized psychedelics include Oakland and Santa Cruz in California as well as Denver.

The District’s status as a non-state will stymie Decriminalize Nature DC’s broader efforts for the time being. After Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland sponsored budget riders to prevent D.C. from using its own funds to create a tax-and-regulate system for marijuana between 2014 and 2018, Congress also prohibited D.C. from decriminalizing or legalizing Schedule I drugs, which include psychedelics.

Harris told the Washington Post in August that he hopes “voters of D.C. will exercise their common sense and reject this initiative.”

“I didn’t want to talk about Andy Harris,” Lavasani quips. “He’s tried to stop our initiative.”

Other than Harris, however, Lavasani says she hasn’t seen much opposition to Initiative 81. She’s optimistic it will pass based on polling completed in August by FM3 Research that shows 60 percent of 620 likely voters support the measure.

“All it takes is a little education,” Lavasani says. “Everyone is fed up with our health care system and the fake solutions presented to us. Momentum is growing, but we have a lot of educating to do.”

—Laura Hayes washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 17

YES OR NO? Candidates answered “Yes” or “No” to issues on the table this election. We marked “Declined” where candidates could not or would not provide a “Yes” or “No” answer.

Should police disciplinary records be public?

Is Mayor Bowser doing a good job?

Is Chief Newsham doing a good job?

Should the District raise property taxes on multimilliondollar homes?

Should the District raise income tax on people making over $250,000?

Do you support raising the minimum wage along with the cost of living/ inflation?

Should police officers remain in schools?

Christina Henderson

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Vincent Orange

Yes

Yes

Declined

No

No

Yes

Declined

Franklin Garcia

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Marcus Goodwin

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

Markus Batchelor

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Michangelo “Doctor Mic” Scruggs

Yes

Declined

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Mario Cristaldo

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Calvin H. Gurley

Yes

Declined

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Claudia Barragan

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Keith Silver

Yes

Declined

Declined

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Alexander M. Padro

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Robert White

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Jeanné Lewis

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Mónica Palacio

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Ann C. Wilcox

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Joe Bishop-Henchman

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Eric M. Rogers

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Chander Jayaraman

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

A’Shia Howard

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Will Merrifield

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Ed Lazere

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Marya Pickering

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

18 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Should D.C. decriminalize sex work?

Do you support the eventual decriminalization of all drugs?

Should D.C. have rankedchoice voting for all offices?

Should charter schools be subject to the Freedom of Information Act?

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Declined

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Declined

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

Declined

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

Does D.C. have too many cops?

Do you support congestion pricing?

Do you support a 1.5 cent/ounce tax on soda and sugary drinks?

Do you support Initiative 81, which would categorize magic mushrooms and other entheogenic substances among MPD’s lowest priorities?

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 19

FOOD

Serving a Purpose Uighur restaurateurs in the D.C. region cook traditional dishes while raising awareness about the trauma happening in their homeland.

The regional origins of the food at Kiroran are hard to place at first. Heavily spiced lamb and tomato-based sauces make you think Turkey, but the spring onions, peppers, and other aromatic vegetables smell more East Asian. Puff pastry throws you off even more. The long laghman noodles are more of a tell. These hand-pulled noodles are a Uighur (sometimes spelled Uyghur) specialty, and can be found at a handful of other restaurants in the region including Dolan Uyghur in Cleveland Park and Eerkin’s, which has locations in Rockville, Fairfax, and Glover Park.

Uighur cuisine comes from Xinjiang, an autonomous province in far western China.

The Uighur people are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority and speak their own Turkic language. There are up to 12 million Uighurs in Xinjiang, and since 2017, more than a million have been imprisoned in reeducation camps where there have been reports of waterboarding and sexual abuse.

Those not detained are subject to extreme surveillance, religious restrictions, and forced sterilizations. A Foreign Policy report argues the treatment of the Uighur people meets the United Nations’ definition of genocide.

Local restaurant owners cite these camps as the reason they immigrated to the U.S. and opened their restaurants. They want to raise awareness about what’s happening at home.

Uighurs here and around the world find themselves pulling noodles in order to hang onto their people and their culture.

Much of the traditional decor at Kiroran can also be found at Eerkin’s and Dolan, but here it comes to life in bright, warm colors. Shadiya, the chef and owner, happily points out and explains it all. (She requested to only be identified by her first name.) On the walls, there are replicas of tanburs—a traditional stringed instrument. Uighur people are famous across Asia for their music. Diners can also examine prints of Uighur dances and their traditional

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Michael Loria Contributing Writer

Dolan Uyghur Restaurant in Cleveland Park doppa hats.

Some doppa are black and embroidered with roses. Others feature geometric patterns rendered in silk. Growing up, at parties like Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebration held on the vernal equinox, Shadiya says you could read someone’s doppa to learn what town they were from or who was single.

They’re no longer a source of pride because of xenophobic fears, she explains with sadness. “We had a good childhood, but the kids growing up there now have to hide that type of thing,” she says.

Shadiya started Kiroran in 2015 after moving to the U.S. with her husband and kids. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, she used to feature more than 100 dishes from around East Asia on the menu, but in recent months, she’s pared it down to strictly Uighur options. In part, this was a business decision, but the move also tracks with the two reasons she opened her restaurant in the first place.

In addition to her desire to share Uighur cuisine with Washingtonians, Shadiya wants the world to know what the Chinese Communist Party says about Uighurs isn’t true. She says Uighurs are good, honest people, just like anyone else. “The Chinese government designates Uighur people as terrorists and criminals, and that’s why they say they have the camps, but it’s all lies,” she says. “The people they have are good people, hard-working parents who wouldn’t hurt an ant.”

Shadiya was difficult to reach. She admits

20 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

that it crossed her mind that this reporter could be a representative of the CCP. Some Uighurs are understandably petrified of the potential consequences of speaking up. “You see how strong they are, even in the U.S.,” Shadiya says.

“I can never forget what they did to my family.

They broke our hearts, they broke me.”

Her English fails at points, but the tenor of her voice is hard to forget. She cooks professionally because she likes the communal nature of it and relishes seeing people enjoy her food. Like many chefs, she learned tricks and techniques by watching her mom, aunts, and grandmother in the kitchen. Her mother still bakes the nan (or naan) bread for the restaurant.

Shadiya runs Kiroran almost single-handedly and estimates that she’s been out of the building for a mere 20 days in the five years they’ve been open, aside from when they shut down during the pandemic. She arrives in the morning to pull noodles, and in the evening, she works the wok. “You see my arms?” she asks. “Uighur women are strong. We have to be.”

Some diners have told Shadiya her noodles are too long or her dishes are too spicy, but she just shrugs. Dishes like the spicy bean jelly or tintin noodles can make an eater’s tongue tingle. The heat in the spicy bean jelly noodles, garnished with chickpeas and cilantro, comes from red chili oil. Made from mung beans, the noodles are about as thick as Japanese udon.

By comparison, the tintin noodles more closely

resemble spaetzle and come with beef. The dish contains a touch of sweetness from the corn and bell pepper-based sauce.

Eerkin’s menu, on the other hand, reflects flavors from the Uighur diaspora. In addition to Uighur staples like laghman and braised chicken, they offer dishes like shakshuka, a tomato and egg dish with origins in the Middle East and North Africa, baba ganoush, a Levantine eggplant dip, and kibdah, a shallow-fried liver preparation popular in Egypt and Yemen.

Erkin Jan, a part-owner of the trio of restaurants, orders the gam bian soman and the Uighur kebab for dinner. The former is a laghman stir fry boasting noodles so long they run from serving dish, to plate, to mouth without breaking. Eerkin’s is open for dine-in service, but so far business is slow. Jans runs the Rockville location and laments that there’s no longer the rush of daytime patrons. He misses the lunchtime regulars who would come in and order kebabs by the dozen.

Inside each Eerkin’s, in addition to Westernized tables and chairs, there’s a traditional Uighur dining area. Diners leave their shoes at the foot of a small platform and step up to a low table, barely a foot off the ground.

Burgundy velvet pillows embroidered with pink and blue flowers enliven the space. This is the “Turkish essence” Jan explains. It’s fashioned to resemble the area of his house growing up where kids did their homework and families held meetings. Seated here, Jan looks

FOOD more like the 22-year-old he is and less like a restaurateur.

Eerkin’s, like Kiroran and Dolan, is a family restaurant. Jan’s uncle carved the traditional Uighur table himself and his mom and aunts stitched tablecloths. The handcrafted kettles at the tea bar come from the family’s personal collection.

Jan’s father and uncle decided to start Eerkin’s in 2015 as more and more news flowed out of Xinjiang. They felt they had to do something considering their own brush with the CCP. Soon after Xinjiang was incorporated into China in 1949, Jan says the CCP disappeared one of his uncles. Erkin means “freedom” in Uighur.

“Everything you hear about Uighurs in China was nothing new to the family,” Jan says.

They initially fled to Pakistan, where Jan was born. Jan’s younger cousin, Faezon, points to a picture of downtown Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, that hangs just inside the D.C. location. It shows a mosque and some women walking by out front. “You see that?” Faezon asks. “The mosque, those women in hijab?

That’s all gone.”

Hamid Kermin, the owner of Dolan, can speak to this firsthand. He fled Urumqi in 2017.

The morning he left, a friend caught him on the street outside his apartment. He mimics how she waved him over to her car, like she was hiding. She told him that the police had his name on the list for that day, and that if he could go, he should. He left that day for Guangzhou, China, and from there, South Korea. He remembers the date, April 9, exactly. “I won’t forget these days, brother,” he says.

Xinjiang, or East Turkestan as Kermin prefers to call it, is at the center of the Silk Road. In his old life, Kermin carried on that same tradition of facilitating trade between China and Turkic-speaking Asia, from Kazakhstan to Istanbul. He is still trying to accept all that he has lost. “Now I work hard, making noodles, cooking. I had to change my life,” he explains.

After a year of living in the U.S., taking some English courses, and trying to decide what to do for a living, Kermin bought Dolan from its previous Uighur owners in 2018. He liked the idea of having a business where he could also explain where he came from and what’s happening there now. That’s more important than money, he says.

“I cannot protest outside everyday saying I’m Uighur,” Kermin says. “But in here, at least 50,000 people [come in]. They eat this food, think about it, ask what this food is. It’s delicious and Uighur … You know [running] a restaurant isn’t easy, it’s very hard, but I think about this and I relax. I say, ‘Alhamdulillah, praise God.’” Like Kiroran, Dolan serves more traditional Uighur food and its noodles are a must-try. To start, Kermin picks the sui rou laghman. These laghman are thin and chewy, like dan dan noodles. The restaurant serves them with beef and sautéed vegetables. It tastes homey, like a family recipe for bolognese. He also recommends the generously portioned hot chicken stew as an entrée.

The Uighur-style braised chicken comes on a bed of unruly laghman and is meant to be shared.

Lamb is the Uighur meat of choice, but the leaders of Kiroran and Eerkin’s talk up their chicken too. Eerkin’s dish is also served with laghman, while Kiroran matches theirs with rough-cut potatoes. Shadiya uses 16 different spices in her preparation, and the heat sneaks through.

Kermin moved his family to the U.S. in 2016. His two kids were preschool-aged at the time and he hoped that a year in America would improve their English. Now it’s been nearly five years and the kids’ memory of where they were born is fading. The family still speaks Uighur at home, but Kermin hopes his kids will learn Mandarin as well.

He dreams of a day when his kids are grown and can sit across from CCP officials and ask them about what they’ve done.

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD.

BUY PIES! Buy a Thanksgiving pie from Food & Friends and provide meals for a neighbor in need.

Delicious FLAVORS!

Homemade Apple Pie Apple Crumble Spiced Pumpkin Pie Classic Pumpkin Nutty Pecan Pie Nutty Pecan Oh So Sweet Sweet PotatoPotato Pie Sea Salt Chocolate American Airlines Chess Sky Pie

ORDER BY NOV. 19 | PICK UP NOV. 24 www.foodandfriends.org/pie | Call (202) 269-6826 CFC # 52114

Exclusive Presenting Sponsor

Black Female Owned Local Business S O B E R E S TA U R A N TA N D LO U N G E . C O M

|

(240) 334-2819

Darrow Montgomery/File

1 0 6 2 1 G R E E N B E LT R D # 2 0 1 , G L E N N D A L E , M D 2 0 7 6 9

Restaurant & Lounge

Hand pulled laghman noodles

TACO TUESDAY SPECIALS, HAPPY HOUR, BOTTOMLESS BRUNCH washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 21

ARTS

Barbie’s Dream House

Barbie Pond

The beloved Barbie Pond on Avenue Q continues to bring delight in the toughest of times.

Outside one Logan Circle rowhouse on Q Street NW, a cast of fully accessorized Barbies greets sidewalk passersby all year. The Barbies are arranged around a small fountain, and there’s always a theme—they rode unicorns for Pride Month in June and donned bedazzled bodysuits and feathered headdresses in a Moulin Rouge-themed Valentine’s Day display.

The people behind the Barbie Pond on Avenue Q exhibits share the dolls’ endeavors with more than 19,000 Instagram followers every few weeks, usually offering humorous political commentary and quirky holiday displays. In the case of the novel coronavirus pandemic, “Barbie” has even encouraged others to support the community, sharing a link to donate to local charity Martha’s Table.

But the orchestrators are silent elsewhere.

Spectators rarely encounter the pond’s creator; his name and face are kept offline and out of media outlets. Passersby are relegated to leaving Barbie dolls and notes outside the home.

“They’re just sort of these silent artists,” says Jonathan Latino, one of the Barbie Pond’s former neighbors. “They’re kind of like the Logan Circle version of Banksy in a way.” Sometimes, the pond’s admirers actually meet the creator himself: One day last fall, Brent, who asked to be identified by his first name because he works as a lawyer for a federal government agency, stepped out of the Logan Circle rowhouse to head to the gym, but after meeting a little girl and her parents peering at the pond, hurried back inside to grab a Barbie wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt and ears. He gave it to the girl— the doll is one of a couple hundred he owns.

“Those kids that like it will grow up to remember this and the neighborhood, and how it maybe was somewhat magical to them, I hope,” Brent says.

He doesn’t talk much to media outlets— Washingtonian, WUSA9, and the Washington Post have all written about the pond without including his name or quotes from him. The lawyer, who is in his mid-50s, has “always been

Darrow Montgomery

By Ilena Peng Contributing Writer

media shy,” mostly because his line of work tends to make him cautious about speaking to the press, he says. He also still finds the pond a “little silly,” he admits.

“There’s no way that [I] can not look like an idiot if ABC TV is talking to me about dolls,” he says.

The pond’s Instagram page quips that it has been “lowering Logan Circle property values since 2014,” but Brent says he first put dolls out a few years earlier than that, after a friend taped them to his birthday gift as a joke. People started taking photos, and so the dolls stayed outside.

These days, the pond’s decorations are sourced from craft stores. Brent turns to Etsy for more elaborate elements, like the iron throne from Game of Thrones. Admirers often leave dolls on his doorstep, but he also searches eBay when displays require a particular Barbie, like the Apollo 11 anniversary display’s astronaut Barbie.

In the years since Brent first put together a display, the pond has become a well-known, charming oddity. It’s gained admiration on Instagram, and even has its own TripAdvisor and Yelp profiles.

“The Barbies are always having a party, either half-naked or elaborately clothed … Life in plastic: It’s fantastic for the Barbie Pond, as the campy neighborhood attraction is called,” the Washington Post wrote in 2018 when it included the pond on a list of 15 unusual D.C. attractions.

WUSA9 dubbed the pond “quirky, irreverent, and maybe profound,” adding that the displays can be enjoyed either for amusement or, more recently, for their political messages.

22 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Before the 2016 election, for example, the Barbie Pond displayed an all-female host of dolls holding “Vote” signs surrounding a podium that read “First All Female Ticket!” A Barbie wearing all white holding an American flag replaced that display days after Trump’s election.

“It is just one more way of being visible … I guess that’s how I would hope to create conversation,” Brent says. “And I don’t want to minimize it, but I also don’t put too much thought into this.” Despite the pond’s popularity, he is modest about the attraction: “I don’t think it’s the most amazing thing out there.”

The pond became a “cathartic” way of providing commentary on the post-2016 election political climate, says Craig, a speechwriter who helps Brent set up displays and also requested to be identified by his first name.

“There’s such an avalanche of just depressing news coming to people every day,” he says, explaining that the pond’s popularity may stem from people seeking distractions from what’s happening on Capitol Hill. “I think it’s kind of a nice way to commiserate together about just the state of things.”

In the past few months, Brent has used the Barbie Pond to comment on major news events.

One display paid tribute to health care and other essential workers with Barbie dolls in a boxing ring punching the COVID-19 virus. A display posted online on July 4 called for solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement; a fan of the pond placed signs that read Black Lives Matter into the dolls’ hands. Recently, the Barbie Pond featured Joe Biden and Kamala

Harris dolls standing in front of a Biden-Harris election sign. The caption on Instagram read “As Barbie always says: ‘Vote! Vote early! But don’t vote twice.’”

Holly Garner, who founded @igdc, an Instagram community that has featured the pond, hasn’t met the people behind the displays, but says it’s clear the displays aim to make viewers smile, even when addressing heavy subject matter.

“I think it’s their way of reminding people that these things matter and we can have those conversations with a little bit [of fun], and that we shouldn’t be scared to have those conversations or to think about those ideas,” Garner says.

The Barbie Pond’s presence alone fosters a sense of community, says Daryl Judy, who lives across the street from it. He says there’s almost never a time when he’s out in his yard or taking a walk that he doesn’t see someone stopping to look at the pond.

“It’s one thing that makes the city more special,” Judy says. “I think people have this idea that Washington, D.C., is all about the White House or Congress. And what they forget is this is actually a community.”

And, as the COVID-19 crisis has shut down much of the District, Brent says the pond has seen more visitors than usual, particularly from families with younger children. He has insisted on multiple occasions that the Barbie Pond is silly, but concedes that maybe that silliness is exactly what makes the pond valuable to its followers.

“I enjoy it,” he says. “I think people smile at it, so I should be proud about it.”

WE’LL ALWAYS STRIVE TO BE YOUR ADVOCATE. DAY IN, DAY OUT. Every day can bring changes, challenges and opportunities. Some are big, others small, but all of them can also alter your personal or business financial goals and priorities. What can make it all easier is a true financial partner. Someone who really listens, understands and then creates solutions with you, from managing your personal finances to running your business. That’s real banking for real life. And real business.

Call 833.987.REAL or visit sandyspringbank.com/real.

P E R S O N A L

|

B U S I N E S S

|

W E A L T H

|

I N S U R A N C E

|

M O R T G A G E

Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. Sandy Spring Bank NMLS # 406382. Wealth and Insurance products are not FDIC insured, not guaranteed, and may lose value. Sandy Spring Bank and the SSB logo are registered trademarks of Sandy Spring Bank. Real banking for real life.SM © 2020 Sandy Spring Bank. All rights reserved.

SSB-86 Brand Print_9.875x5.5416_WashCityPaper.indd 1

7/14/2020 10:49:03 AM washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 23

ARTS

Book It A preview of fall books by area authors

By Hannah Grieco Contributing Writer The weather is starting to cool and the chaos of 2020 continues full steam ahead, whether we like it or not. In times like these, we need good books—to curl up with a cup of tea and immerse ourselves in a different world, in the lives and landscapes of fiction and poetry.

It can be hard to find new authors without inperson readings and festivals, though. Without the ease of casual bookstore browsing or the fun of attending a large event at Politics and Prose, where do we turn for new work by local writers?

Virtual literary events are still going strong and pulling in attendees, and local authors have had time to get the hang of online book launches and tours, but it still remains a challenge to connect with new readers.

Area writers are putting out some incredible new work this fall that deserves attention. From historical fiction to mysteries, from the speculative and futuristic to poetic musings, here are four new books to read as 2020 draws to a close.

The Arctic Fury

by Greer Macallister “In the front row sit the survivors,” begins The Arctic Fury, D.C. author Greer Macallister’s fourth novel. Like all of her books, this one intertwines history and the female gaze in stunning detail. Macallister writes women like no one else, her characters’ strengths and shortcomings vividly magnified by the societies and even geography that would diminish them.

In The Arctic Fury, Virginia Reeve leads an

all-woman expedition to find a group of lost men far in the north. But Macallister starts the story in a courtroom the following year, where Reeve is accused of murdering one of the women in her group. Her real crime, however, appears to be that of audacity, the boldness of a woman in the 1850s leading an expedition and going off on adventures to rescue men.

The story is an effortless braiding of two timelines, both the expedition and the trial.

We watch the adventure quickly go south, so to speak, and we follow the court proceedings with bated breath. Does a woman have any chance of surviving, we wonder, not just the terrible cold of the arctic, but of outraged men demanding she hang for daring to step outside her place?

This is where Macallister shines. We care deeply for her characters, believe in what they fight for, but never feel lectured or pulled out by a modern point of view. These women live and shine brightly in their own time—exactly as historical fiction should read.

Macallister reads and speaks at Fairfax Library’s virtual panel “Writing Outside of Books” on Oct. 26.

They’re Gone

by E.A. Barres “They’re Gone is a culmination of themes I’ve been exploring for some time now: the morality of vigilantism; the mingling of the myriad of cultures within the DC/MD/VA triangle; the lingering effects of violence; the role of ‘heroes’ when that role is assumed by women rather than men,” E.A. Barres tells City Paper.

From Northern Virginia to D.C. to Baltimore, They’re Gone takes us on a wild ride. This crime drama puts women in the spotlight and not as victims, like we’re used to seeing in mysteries.

It’s the husbands who get off’d this time. And it’s the wives, two women from drastically different worlds, that meet up as they search for answers. Anthony Award-nominated E.A. Aymar, writing under the pseudonym E.A. Barres, tells a story that feels so familiar to us in many ways: the streets we’ve driven on, the

24 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

landmarks we know so well. And yet the underbelly peeks out. Nobody is who they seem to be.

This isn’t your typical mystery at all.

It’s a fun read, fast-paced and perfect for a vacation or lazy Sunday morning in bed.

But Aymar also tackles ideas that don’t often appear in this genre, such as definitions of cultural identity and the nuance of parent-child relationships.

This is Aymar’s fourth published book, and his first as E.A. Barres. You might also know him from his monthly column at the Washington Independent Review of Books or from his monthly appearances as host of DC Noir at the Bar. He’s a well-loved member of the D.C. literary scene, and has focused his attention this year on local events that address the difficulties (and rewards) of writing during a pandemic.

On Oct. 25, he’ll talk about book marketing during a pandemic through the Ivy Bookshop.

On Oct. 26, he’ll appear with Greer Macallister and Bethanne Patrick to discuss the importance of writing outside of books on a virtual panel for the Fairfax County Public Library. On Nov. 9, he’ll discuss social issues in crime fiction with friends via 1455 Literary Arts.

Barres also launches his book and speaks on a panel about the challenges related to writing a book during a pandemic at One More Page Books on Nov. 14.

Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die Edited by Dave Ring D.C . aut hor Marianne Kirby’s “ The Limitations of Her Code” tells the post-war story of an AI who falls in love with another AI after a war has freed them and forced humans to acknowledge their individuality. “I was built for companionship, for conversation. In all honesty, I was built for sex. Now I sort records, the old ones from the DNA Boom back before the war,” Kirby writes.

But, as is often the case after great conflict, the aftermath leaves us with the haves and havenots. And this story, like many of the stories

in Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die, gives a voice to characters that, on the surface, are the have-nots. Characters that rarely get center stage in apocalyptic fiction.

Dave Ring, the founder and publisher of the local Neon Hemlock Press, has always been drawn to themes of the apocalypse. His small press focuses on the speculative world, and this time he wanted to highlight authors who write about people and communities pulling together.

“So many marginalized communities are invisible in fictional apocalypses, which is ironic,” Ring says. “They have practice at surviving a collapse. They know what it’s like to get by with less, or to make their own infrastructures when the ‘systems’ have failed them.”

And so Glitter + Ashes was born, an anthology to give queer readers, in particular, a landscape where they thrived in uncertain times.

The stunning collection received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and many of the contributing writers are from D.C., Northern Virginia, and Baltimore.

Dave Ring and Marianne Kirby speak at Neon Hemlock Live: October on Oct. 21, and more Glitter + Ashes authors read for the press’ “A Night of Horror” on Oct. 29.

A Story of the World Before the Fence

by Leeya Mehta Leeya Mehta’s new poetry collection A Story of the World Before the Fence comes out Nov. 6, and it’s a tribute, in many ways, to the city she calls home. She writes about her family, her past, and the lines of division she sees in Washington.

In “Black Dog on the Anacostia River,” Mehta writes: “Suddenly alone, I run down the hill Through Japanese gardens In search of signs That will tell me I am home in this new life In this American city ten thousand miles Away from my own choking Arabian Sea.” “I notice the real and metaphorical fences we erect to feel safe. My poetry is a way of showing our shared need for belonging, affection, and love,” Mehta says.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than her series of “Nudes” poems, which take place in Japan, Centerville, the 4th Street Plaza at the National Gallery of Art, and at a D.C. courthouse. From a stranger yelling at her about her parenting to an infamous trial of a father’s misdeeds, Mehta’s poetry pulls us into the deeply personal and traps us there for brief moments.

Her poetry never lingers. Instead, it gently forces us to face uncomfortable things while soothing us with her eye for beauty, even when describing moments of trauma. “His frustration runs like the coils of the freeway that divides this city—East and West,” she writes.

The collection is available at Finishing Line Press.

Help us cover the local issues people need to know about.

Become a member.

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 25

ARTS FILM REVIEW

Trial by Fire The Trial of the Chicago 7 Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Chained dogs suffer day in and day out.

They endure sweltering temperatures, hunger, and thirst and are vulnerable and lonely. Keep them inside, where it’s safe and comfortable.

Photo: Don Flood (donfloodphoto.com) • Makeup: Mylah Morales, for Celestine Agency Hair: Marcia Hamilton, for Margaret Maldonado Agency • Styling: Natalie and Giolliosa Fuller (sisterstyling.com)

26 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

Aaron Sorkin scripts often include a riff on the same scene. You can see it in Malice, The Social Network, and even Sports Night. In a boardroom, often but not always during a legal deposition, two articulate people argue over an esoteric moral point. Sorkin uses this disagreement as a metaphor for differing worldviews, or an interpretation about their shared past. The Social Network, for example, is all about whether Mark Zuckerberg screwed over Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin in the company’s early stages (he did). If the dialogue and performances are powerful— and the argument is sufficiently juicy—that may be enough to make it cinematic.

The Trial of the Chicago 7, the new docudrama written and directed by Sorkin, is full of these arguments. In fact, it is an ideal Sorkin project because the bitterest disputes are among impassioned activists who disagree about the methodology, not the goal. Both Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) want to use the 1968 Democratic National Convention to force the end of the Vietnam War. Hoffman is a Yippie, a prankster who undermines the government’s authority, while Hayden is a more traditional activist. After violence erupts outside the convention, with cops beating protestors, Hoffman and Hayden—along with five others and Black Panther leader Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II)—are charged with inciting a riot. This film follows the farce of a trial, presided over by a cranky judge (Frank Langella) who has a few screws loose.

The best scenes are in the courtroom itself.

Mark Rylance plays William Kunstler, a civil rights activist who dismantles the government’s argument with one witness after another. The judge exasperates everyone—he clearly has no sense of objectivity—so ultimately the trial becomes an attempt to expose Nixonian political bias. Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) openly mock the trial, while Hayden and David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) believe their arguments can be forceful enough. As always, Sorkin crams dialogue into the film, with a focus on the uneasy alliance of everyone involved.

There is a stagey quality to the film that is wrong for the material. The courtroom depositions are an opportunity for flashbacks (the film does not depict the actual demonstration until the halfway point). The cumulative effect is that the courtroom, while full of legal procedure and moral outrage, is distant from the milieu of late 1960s America. Maybe a straightforward narrative would provide better context.

Sorkin is somewhat effective in how he shoots the protests: It looks like the infamous news footage, except in vivid color. But as a writer first and director second, his instinct is to tell rather than show. This sensibility fails him when it matters most.

No one expects The Trial of the Chicago 7 to follow history exactly. There are disputes about how it went down, for one thing, and any docudrama will take some creative liberties. But Richard Schultz, the prosecuting attorney played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is more than a creative liberty. He is a fabrication, invented by Sorkin to show that not all prosecutors are that bad. A mildmannered family man who ultimately stands in solidarity with the men he prosecutes, this kind of fabricated moral courage is an insult to what Hoffman, Hayden, and the others actually fought for. There is a memorable scene where the judge orders Bobby Seale to be bound and gagged in the courtroom. This actually happened, but did the prosecutors object to the judge’s decision?

The history is unclear, and Sorkin’s “both sides” equivocation is a smarmy disservice.

Distortions notwithstanding, The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a rousing reminder of what was at stake in the late 1960s. Tens of thousands of young men were being sent to Vietnam to die, and the establishment was dispassionate, even cavalier, about it all. Cohen is convincing as a prankster with a moral compass, and once you get past Redmayne’s strange American accent, there is a stirring portrayal of a radical who has no choice but to work within the system he loathes. They sacrificed and bled just so the U.S. government, in that moment, could be exposed as amoral and obscene. There are obvious connections between this trial and what happens on the streets today. Given Sorkin’s interest in dialogue over action and moral fault lines, this film shows he is the wrong person to make sense of these times.

—Alan Zilberman The Trial of the Chicago 7 streams Friday on Netflix.

ARTS BOOK REVIEW

DIVERSIONS CROSSWORD

Burn Notice

Dearly

By Brendan Emmett Quigley

Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

By Anne Helen Petersen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 304 pages The word’s out: Millennials are screwed.

(The Huffington Post, New York magazine, The Atlantic, and NPR all agree.) Those unlucky 83 million Americans born over 15 years in the ’80s and ’90s have now weathered two recessions, multiple never-ending wars, and the swift erosion of American hegemony. They’re also, apparently, staring down a new scourge that infects every hour of their work and home lives. Writer Anne Helen Petersen calls it “burnout.�

The term resonated with the millions of people who read and shared her massively viral BuzzFeed essay on the phenomenon in January of 2019. Out of that work comes her third book, Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. Petersen defines burnout as the resting state of millions of millennials who are more than just tired of the responsibilities of work, parenting, friendships, and the pressure to document it all on the internet—they’re fundamentally soul-weary and incapable of enjoying the fruits of their labors. “Exhaustion means going to the point where you can’t go any further,� she explains. “Burnout means reaching that point and pushing yourself to keep going, whether for days or weeks or years.� (This is a fuzzy metaphor, since burnout implies literally running out of fuel or breaking down.) If you’re a millennial situated in precarity, or you know one, you’ll recognize the feeling, Petersen says.

She’s describing the now-broken promises we were made about how the world worked (hard work pays off, going to college will put you in a better financial position, the workplace is getting more and more equal every day, you will be better off than your parents—all debunked in the book). Petersen spends a lot of time detailing those broken promises and not enough reflecting on how we weren’t all promised the same things.

Her original essay was followed by another in BuzzFeed, “This Is What Black Burnout Feels Like,� where poet Tiana Clark corrected the record: “No matter the movement or era, being burned out has been the steady state of Black people in this country for hundreds of years.�

That perspective informs Can’t Even, and that same quote appears in the book. Petersen took the note and expanded her reporting, including the voices of multiple Black millennials and millennials of color among her dozens of burnout anecdotes. But gesturing at other experiences— or just noting that other people have different ones, then moving on—doesn’t undo the fact that her ambitious, generational framing is fundamentally informed by her Whiteness and class.

Petersen is reluctant to do more than describe the problem. She’s an advocate for unionization, corporate responsibility, and work-life balance to combat burnout, but she’s quick to reassure her audience that those reforms are good for

28. Opera set during the Napoleonic wars

26. Like a really challenging golf hole, probably

37. Bibliography notation

33. Pageant winner’s crown 35. At full speed, in a boat

31. Cherish the Day creator DuVernay

25. Remove from the packaging

here 21. Bother

corporations, too. “It’s not that profits in and of themselves are morally bad. But the logic of the current market is that a refusal to increase profits, year after year, is a failure,� she writes. She’s navigating choppy waters here. Her research has led her dangerously close to the conclusions of a well-known school of thought that does think profits are morally bad—that they’re stolen wages, in fact. Petersen is free to disagree with those thinkers, but she doesn’t, not substantively.

She just adopts many of their positions while shying away from their diagnosis; she offers no compelling theory of her own in its place. “This isn’t a knock against capitalism so much as this particular type of capitalism,� she writes. In that type of capitalism, though, she says that “profits are often contingent upon workers suffering.� One is left to wonder about the type of capitalism that could exist where this is not true—the answer isn’t found in this book. Neither are solutions: “I don’t have a specific list of action items for you,� she writes in her conclusion. That’s fine. It’s not Petersen’s job to fix the problems of contemporary global capitalism. But you’d be forgiven for wondering why, then, she titled the conclusion “Burn it Down.� Burn what down? Then what?

When you recognize who Can’t Even is really for, though, Petersen’s reassurances that she’s not a scary Marxist make perfect sense. This book isn’t for the burned-out millennials who testify to their shitty conditions between its covers. It’s a response to her (and our) boomer parents, the ones who say “millennials are lazy� or “millennials are all special snowflakes,� hoping to convince them that things are as bad as we’ve been saying. On this front, it’s a triumph.

It’s impossible to refute that things are dire for millennials after Petersen confronts the ills of modern life through empathetic reporting, personal anecdotes, and well-sourced research.

She explains in detail just how much has been stripped out of our companies (unions, pensions, privacy, and balance, to name a few) and of our expectations of American life (upward class mobility, having both a career and a child, and a life free of student debt are impossible dreams for most of her interviewees). The book is adamant that no amount of personal grit, hustle, or hard work is enough to come out on top of a fundamentally rigged system, and it’s right. It’s just curious that after all this research, Petersen still ends up thinking small. —Emma Sarappo

38. “I’ve been thinking ...�

39. Crazed person

Across 1. Gives in to gravity 5. Happen in a flash 10. Exam not taken with a #2 pencil 14. Stop bleeding 15. Jewish Community Center orgs.

16. When doubled, a hot pepper from Africa (better than actress Gilpin) 17. Follow the rules 18. Those that polish off posterns?

20. Ghostbusters star ___ Jones 22. Bird commonly seen in crosswords 23. Chomped down 24. Mugs that might collect lint?

27. It’s hot and heavy in the kitchen 29. Greek letter that appears in the letters before and after it 30. Hawaii’s coffee coast 31. Roused from slumber 32. Trank gun projectile 34. 2020 NLCS team 36. Stamping machines owned by the Little Women family?

40. Lack of muscle coordination 41. They’re all for it 44. Where work might pile up 47. Apothecary’s container 50. Mustangs of Division I: Abbr.

51. ___ reef 52. All the stuff a bear needs to feel comfortable at home?

54. Roughly 2:00 dir.

55. Rocker Turner with the biography Takin’ Back My Name 57. “Look who’s back!�

58. “Munchkins� or “Coolatta�?

62. Julia Roberts’ older acting brother 63. Sparkling wine 64. Brings home 65. Muckraker Skeeter of the Potterverse 66. Ren Faire drink 67. Extract (from) 68. Thom ___ Down 1. Ripped someone a new one 2. Calgary’s province

3. Homers 4. Newspaper section with fashion news 5. Creole musical genre 6. Initialism before proffering an opinion 7. Vietnamese soup 8. Takes it all off, perhaps 9. French river that flows through Flanders 10. Make a decision 11. Mizuno rival 12. Pull into town 13. “Here’s the facts ...�

19. What to put down

42. Retired female professor 43. “Watch me do it�

44. Winter blockade 45. Inactivity 46. Starbucks order 48. Surrounded by 49. On the ___ (at large) 52. Name on a Scotch whisky bottle 53. Heat measurement 56. Had down cold 59. Tease 60. Something a mine sweeper might stumble upon?

61. Some frontline heroes: Abbr.

LAST CROSSWORD: SYMBOLIZING

0 ( 1 6

2 ; ( 1

7 2 5 2

+ $ 9 2 &

% , * 2 / ( % 8 7 7

6 $ + 2 / , $ * ' 5 $

6 7 2 5 ( 5 0 2 2 1 * / 2 :

) / 2 8 % ( 7 7 7 , $ 7 ( 2 3 ( $ 3 0 $ 1 0 ( 6 , 2 8 ; 1 2 6 , 6 . ( 1 3 8 6 6 * $ 1 & $ 5 ' < : 2 2 ' ( 0 & ( ' ( . (

5 < ' ( / /

7 5 ( 9 ,

7 5 ( $ ' , 1 *

5 < $ $ 5 ' 1 ( 5 6 ( 1 2 9 ( , ' /

+ , 5 7

$ : & ( 0 6 (

/ 2 $ ' ( ' ' , & (

/ 8 = 2 1

( 7 ( 6

$ & ( 6

1 ( 7 6

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 27

28 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

CITY LIGHTS Deaf U

Less than a decade after graduating with a degree in mathematics from Gallaudet University, a private college in D.C. for deaf and hard of hearing students, Nyle DiMarco is bringing Deaf U to Netf lix. Since receiving his diploma, DiMarco has pursued a life of deaf activism, and he has also taken home the crown from reality shows America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars.

Now, he’s the executive producer on a reality show that aims to highlight all aspects of life at Gallaudet. The show focuses on a tightknit group of students—Daequan Taylor, Cheyanna Clearbrook, Renate Rose, and Rodney Buford—plus their dates, friends, and classmates. Each student has a different background, and they’ve taken different paths to end up at Gallaudet. For instance, Taylor was born with hearing abilities, but lost them at 6 years old. He shares on Deaf U that it took him two years after admission to Gallaudet to learn American Sign Language.

DiMarco has previously said that the point of the show is to prove that deaf people are human—that they experience the same, diverse life as hearing people. And as a reality show, Deaf U also promises to showcase the “highs, lows, and hookups” of college life at Gallaudet, featuring plenty of shots of prepandemic life in D.C., bars, restaurants, and trendy neighborhoods included. The series is available on Netflix. Free with subscription.

—Sarah Smith

City Lights

Allan Gerson: Border Wall Allan Gerson, who died last year at 74, was a Washington attorney and foreign affairs expert who fought a yearslong court battle on behalf of families of victims of the terrorist bomb that downed Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988. In his off-hours, Gerson was a photographer, mounting his first exhibition while working in the Justice Department in the mid-’80s. Now, a posthumous exhibit at the American University Museum features his images of the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border, a topic that couldn’t be timelier. Gerson’s images, shown in a virtual exhibit due to the pandemic, aren’t fancy, befitting their gritty subject. The worn and rusted metal walls he documents are sometimes topped by razor wire and are often adorned with graffiti and amateur paintings: faces that straddle the line between goofy and menacing, a clenched fist, a skeleton, a deadeyed eagle, even the Spanish translation of an Oscar Wilde quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray: “The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.” Gerson’s focus on human rights stemmed from his experience in a displaced persons camp in Germany, after his Jewish family fled from the Nazis and then from the Soviets. The exhibition and the catalogue are available at american.edu. Free.

—Louis Jacobson

City Lights

Anacostia Delta: The Legend of DC’s TeleMasters

For years, local filmmakers Bryan Reichhardt and Virginia Quesada have both been at work on separate projects about late D.C. guitarist Danny Gatton, who Guitar Player magazine once called the “world’s greatest unknown guitarist.” Reichhardt’s effort, Anacostia

to Prince George’s County after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the subsequent uprising in the city. Kids turned to basketball as a haven, and with dozens of community recreation centers and parks in the county, talented players like Durant and Beasley had the opportunity to excel in the sport. Players like Beasley and Nolan Smith even credit go-go as an influence on how they play the game. But to these players, Prince George’s County is more than a place that produces basketball talent. It’s home. The film is available to watch on Showtime. Free with subscription.

—Kelyn Soong

City Lights

The National Theatre’s Music Mondays

City Lights

Basketball County: In the Water Tough. Gritty. Second to none. The mecca.

Those are just some of the words used to describe basketball in Prince George’s County by some of the sport’s top talents in the Showtime documentary Basketball County: In the Water, directed by John Beckham and Jimmy Jenkins. The county has the names to back up those boasts: Kevin Durant, Len Bias, Adrian Dantley, Victor Oladipo, Michael Beasley, Markelle Fultz, Marissa Coleman, and Steve Francis all hail from the area, and while Durant features as a central figure throughout the 51-minute film, it’s their collective pride and connection to their home that lifts up the documentary. The directors glide efficiently through several chapters of the county’s expansive history with the game, and given the amount of material, each could have been its own documentary. Edwin Henderson, considered the “father of Black basketball,” brought the sport to D.C. in the early 1900s.

In 1968, many Black families moved from D.C.

Darrow Montgomery/File

City Lights

Delta: The Legend of DC’s TeleMasters, is the first one available for viewing. Quesada’s film is intended to be a biographical look at Gatton onstage and off; Reichhardt’s film is instead an appreciation of Gatton’s rockabilly-meets-jazz, blues, and country playing, as well as that of the late guitarist Roy Buchanan and other D.C.-area-based roadhouse roots rockers from the late 1950s onward. Utilizing footage of a 2015 tribute concert at The Birchmere, with interviews and archival clips woven in, the movie documents the D.C.-area musical scene that, per the title, extended from Gatton’s childhood home on Elmira Street SE down through long-gone clubs in Prince George’s County and Charles County. Nashville’s Vince Gill and the UK’s Albert Lee spell out how musicians who were in the know respected Gatton and Buchanan, while the local artists who played with those two Telecaster slingers offer stories about how they resisted stardom. Onstage at The Birchmere, locals including bassist John Previti and guitarist Anthony Pirog bring Gatton’s take on jazz standard “Harlem Nocturne” to life. While Anacostia Delta does not offer speculative details on Gatton’s 1994 death by suicide at 49 or Buchanan’s 1988 death in a Fairfax jail cell, it celebrates and explains Gatton’s selfdescribed “redneck jazz,” Buchanan’s bluesrock, and why they happened here. The film is available to purchase at anacostiadelta.com. $11–$19.99.

—Steve Kiviat

Thanks to COVID-19, I haven’t seen a play or musical in a theater since January. I’ve tried to fill that hole in my heart with virtual cast reunions and filmed productions, but one can only watch Hamilton so many times before it becomes repetitive. I’ve mainly been ingesting theater in the form of show tunes played while I wash dishes at the end of the day. Thank goodness, then, for the National Theatre, which is tr ying to bridge the Broadway gap with a series of Spotify playlists. Dubbed “Music Monday,” each playlist has a specific theme, be it songs about work, excerpts from shows that visited the National in the past year, or selections from shows that had their pre-Broadway tryouts at the venue.

The latter option is the best place to start—it combines pieces from popular contemporary musicals (Beetlejuice, Mean Girls) that locals may have seen at the National with selections from beloved classics (Hello, Dolly!, Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) with forgotten D.C. origins.

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 29

Even Showboat, the 1927 show that brought the Broadway musical to maturity, has roots at the National and two tracks on the list. It could be a year, at least, until we’re enjoying a musical from the National’s upholstered seats, but if you fill your commemorative sippy cup from a past National season with wine, crank the playlists, and close your eyes, you can shake off the blue Mondays and imagine yourself there. The playlists are available on Spotify. Free.

—Caroline Jones

City Lights

A Fairy Queen

So you’re pro-mask? Great! But are you promasque? As in, do you like early modern plays with music, song, and dance interludes? If so, the IN Series, an innovative D.C. arts organization that straddles the worlds of theater and opera, has created the perfect pandemic podcast just for you. A Fairy Queen, a radio play mashup of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that draws from Henry Purcell’s 1692 semi-opera The FairyQueen, is now available to stream on Spotify or to download through the IN Series’ website. A r tistic director Timothy Nelson devised the project, which features arias and abridged sections of the play underscored with Purcell’s music. WBJC radio host (and bass singer) John T.K. Scherch serves as a cheeky narrator, setting up the action for Titania, Oberon, Puck, the human lovers of Athens, and the rude mechanicals. A cast of eight singers, recorded in London and Baltimore, take on multiple roles in what amounts to more than 200 minutes of content—perfect for a Baroque road trip! Intense listening is not required, however; the music (featuring musicians in both Maryland and the Netherlands) is remarkably pleasant, and many Shakespearean zingers stand out, including Puck’s classic diss, “What fools these mortals be!” He’s right. There are some real idiots around. So keep masking up, and when you have a moment, give this masque a chance. The podcast is available on Spotify. Free.

—Rebecca J. Ritzel

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE My husband recently passed away. He was a wonderful person, and we had 12 great years together. He was also very, very organized. His death was an accident, but everything was in order. He even left a note in a sealed envelope for his lawyer to present to me. It was one last love letter, Dan. Our relationship wasn’t perfect—no relationship is—but that’s who he was.

Or that’s who I thought he was.

My husband was a very good-looking man who took meticulous care of his body. We actually met in a gym at a hotel. He wasn’t conceited, which I think may be because he didn’t come into his looks until he was in his 20s, but he enjoyed the effect his appearance had on others. In addition to his last love letter and other documents, I was given a list with the passwords to my husband’s social media accounts.

I made the mistake of looking at his messages on Instagram. He exchanged private images with hundreds of women and gay men all over the world. Not just photos of him shirtless. Photos of him fully nude from the front and back, images of his genitals, even video clips of him masturbating with his face clearly visible.

I knew he had exhibitionistic tendencies. Years before we met, he got in legal trouble for exposing himself in a public place. He sought help for impulse control and never did something like that again. But he always had a very high libido, much higher than mine, he masturbated frequently, and public sex remained his biggest fantasy. I didn’t judge or shame him for any of that. We jokingly called masturbation “his thang” and sex, which we had roughly once a week, “our thang,” and one time, when it seemed safe, we did manage to have sex in public. He expressed an interest in opening up our relationship years ago, but I am monogamous by nature and he agreed to keep our relationship closed. And I believe he did: I’ve read through all his messages with these strangers and there are no mentions of any meetings. I’ve seen dozens of messages from people who wanted to meet in person and he always turned them down. But he never turned down a request for more photos.

Help me understand this. I can’t tell anyone else about this, and I hate sitting here feeling like my marriage was a lie.

—Wishing Instagram Didn’t Open Window P.S. Also, men? My husband was straight. Why was he sending photos to gay men?

I am so sorry for your loss, WIDOW, and I’m so sorry your grief has been complicated by what you found in your husband’s Instagram account. But you shouldn’t for a moment doubt the love of a man who wanted to make sure you got one last love letter if he should die unexpectedly. That’s not something a person would think to do for someone they didn’t truly love. Your husband was who you thought he was. Your marriage wasn’t a lie and your husband wasn’t a liar, WIDOW, it’s just that your grief—like you and your husband and your marriage and anything human beings do or feel or touch—is imperfect.

So far as you know, WIDOW, your husband never cheated on you—and after reading thousands of his DMs, and since your husband didn’t think you would ever see those DMs, it’s safe to say you know everything. And what you know now that you didn’t know before is that sharing

30 october 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com

pictures with strangers was one of your husband’s “thangs.”

Now I’m going to ask you to make a leap, WIDOW. Instead of seeing what you found on Instagram as evidence of your husband’s unfaithfulness, WIDOW, try to see it as something that made it possible for a man like your husband to remain faithful. Think of those DMs like a pressure-release valve. On Instagram, your husband could expose himself to strangers who wanted to see him naked—avoiding both consent violations and legal trouble—without exposing himself to the temptations of faceto-face encounters, WIDOW, temptations that might’ve led him to violate the monogamous commitment he made to you and, like all people who make monogamous commitments, sometimes struggled to keep.

“Your marriage wasn’t a lie and your husband wasn’t a liar, WIDOW, it’s just that your grief — like you and your husband and your marriage and anything human beings do or feel or touch — is imperfect.”

One person can’t be all things to another person sexually. People can ask for monogamous commitments, of course, and we all have a right to expect consideration and compassion from our partners—and not having the needs we can’t meet or the ways we fall short thrown in our faces is one way our partners demonstrate consideration and compassion. Your husband needed more attention than any one person could ever provide. He didn’t rub that in your face. He cut an ethical corner by swapping DMs with strangers to meet a need you couldn’t, but if getting that need met the way he did made it possible for him to stay in your marriage and stay faithful to you, perhaps you benefited too.

And while your husband should’ve asked for your permission—while he should’ve gotten your okay—if you had found his DMs while he was alive, WIDOW, he would no doubt ask for your forgiveness. Think of the years he gave you and the love he showed you and ask yourself if you could give him the forgiveness he would be asking for if he could. Then give him—give yourself—that gift.

—Dan Savage P.S. Your husband’s willingness to accept attention from gay men is another sign he was ones of

the good guys. Straight guys who are secure in their sexuality are much more willing to accept compliments from gay men these days—some straight guys, like your husband, even seek them out.

P.P.S. I am, again, so very sorry for your loss.

I live in North Carolina. One of our two senators, Thom Tillis, is a Republican who tested positive for COVID-19 after cavorting with the president at the White House. But when I opened the local paper, lo and behold, the top story wasn’t the ill Tillis but the admission by his Democratic opponent in the senatorial race—Cal Cunningham—that Cunningham had, in fact, exchanged “sexts” with a woman who is not his wife. I braced for dick pics or kink revelations or worse when I clicked through to the website that broke the story. At the very least I expected explicit references to sex. But nope! We’re being told to clutch our pearls—and to vote for Tillis—over some G-rated messages about “lots of kissing” and a vague wish to spend a night together. I guess these laughably tame exchanges round up to salacious because both parties are married to other people. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad and if it wasn’t threatening the Democrats’ efforts to retake the Senate.

—Voter In North Carolina Enraged So the worry here is that the people of North Carolina are going to vote for a U.S. senator who can’t open his mouth without Donald Trump’s nutsack falling out—Senator Thom Tillis—over Cal Cunningham because Cunningham sent a few not-that-dirty text messages to a woman who isn’t his wife. Sigh. Tillis has literally spent the last four years tongue-bathing the balls of a man who has cheated on every wife he’s ever had and been credibly accused of sexual assault by two dozen women. By association and proximity, Tillis has a far more scandalous record.

But whoever wins the senate election in North Carolina, there’s not enough mouthwash in the world to get the stench of Trump’s taint off Tillis’s breath.

—DS I sent you a letter yesterday. Today I told my husband I want a divorce. So I didn’t need any advice from you after all. Once I laid it out in my letter to you and thought about the last three years and the amount of struggling with this I have gone through, I realized that it was SO. DAMN. OBVIOUS. There was no question. There was only an answer. Divorce.

It has been horrible the last couple days but things are starting to feel a bit better. The worst part is the intense pain that I have caused him. He loves me so much and it was painful to tell him that I do not love him the same way. But I am holding tight to my firm belief that in a few years, he will understand that I did this out of love—for him and for me. Thank you.

Even though you did not need to respond, just being there to write to helped. —Writing Was Enough I’m happy it helped just to write the letter, WWE, and I read your letter and I agree: You’re doing the right thing for yourself and your husband. Best of luck to you both.

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

CLASSIFIEDS Legal COMMUNITY COLLEGE PREPARATORY ACADEMY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) Staff Development and Instructional Design Services Community College Preparatory Academy is seeking proposals from individuals or companies to provide Staff Development and Instructional Design Services for the 2020-2021 school year.

To request a full copy of the RFP, send email to Andrea@ccprep-academy.org.

Bids that do not address all areas as outlined in the RFP or bids received past the deadline will not be considered.

Send proposal by 12:00PM, October 27, 2020 via email to: Andrea@ccprep-academy.org.

For additional information, please contact: Andrea Robinson Community College Preparatory Academy 3301Wheeler Road, SE Washington, DC 20032 Andrea@ccprep-academy.org KINGSMAN ACADEMY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE: FOR REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Kingsman Academy Public Charter School in accordance with section 2204(c) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 intends to enter into a sole source contract with Edmentum for an online learning system designed to help students who have been identified as at-risk of not graduating on time.

This system is integral to ensure high-quality instruction for Kingsman Academy's overaged, under credited population.

School Overview Kingsman Academy is an open-enrollment public charter school that serves approximately 300 students in grades 6 through 12 in a project-based academic program that emphasizes a therapeutic approach to personalized learning. Kingsman Academy welcomes all students, especially those who are over-aged and under-credited, who have attendance problems, or who have behavioral or emotional challenges. * For further information regarding this notice, contact rfp@kingsmanacademy.org no later than 4:00 pm Monday, November 2, 2020. No phone calls, please.

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS CREATIVE MINDS INTERNATIONAL PCS seeks providers of Human Capital Management and Compensation Assessment. Full RFP available at creativemindspcs.org/requests-for-proposals or via email. Bids due to heather.hesslink@ creativemindspcs.org by 12:00 pm on October 29, 2020.

KINGSMAN ACADEMY PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE: FOR REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Kingsman Academy Public Charter School in accordance with section 2204(c) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 solicits proposals for vendors to provide the following services for SY20.21: * Payroll and Human Resource Services Proposal Submission A Portable Document Format (pdf ) election version of your proposal must be received by the school no later than 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday, November 13, 2020. Contact rfp@kingsmanacademy.org for a copy of the Scope of Work.

Proposal submissions should be emailed to rfp@ kingsmanacademy.org.

No phone calls.

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSING AUTHORITY REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) SOLICITATION NO.: 00302020 OWNERS REPRESENTATIVE/CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT SERVICES The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) requires qualified Owners Representative/ Construction Management Services for various upcoming development projects.

SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS will be available beginning Monday, October 19, 2020 on DCHA’s website at www.dchousing.org under “Business” and “Solicitation”.

SEALED PROPOSAL RESPONSES ARE DUE ON OR BEFORE Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 11:00 AM. Email Lolita Washington, Contract Specialist at lwashing@dchousing.org with copy to business@dchousing.org for additional information.

BRIDGES PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL NOTICE: FOR PROPOSALS FOR PAYROLL SERVICES Bridges Public Charter

School in accordance with section 2204(c) of the District of Columbia School Reform Act of 1995 solicits proposals for SY20-21 * COVID-19 Test Services Proposals should be submitted in PDF format and for any further information regarding this notice at bids@bridgespcs.org no later than 4:00 pm Monday, October 26, 2020.

PUBLIC NOTICE – CRAN_ RWSH_DCDTN_289 AT&T Mobility, LLC is proposing to construct a 36-foot pole at 3904 14 th Street NW, Washington, DC. Public comments regarding the potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30-days from the date of this publication to: Amanda Sabol – CBRE, 201 Tresser Boulevard, Suite 201, Stamford, CT 06901, whiteplainsculturalresources@cbre.com or (717) 601-1436.

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS CREATIVE MINDS INTERNATIONAL PCS seeks providers of Human Capital Management and Compensation Assessment. Full RFP available at creativemindspcs.org/requests-for-proposals or via email. Bids due to heather.hesslink@ creativemindspcs.org by 12:00 pm on October 29, 2020.

TWO RIVERS PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS Website Redesign Two Rivers PCS is seeking the services of a company to redesign two websites, tworiverspcs.org and learnwithtworivers. org, in order to improve branding and navigation on mobile devices. For a copy of the RFP, please email Liz Riddle at procurement@tworiverspcs.org.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION 2020 ADM 000191 Name of Decedent, Sandylee Maccoby aka Sandy .

Name and Address of Attorney Abigail Scott, Esq Regan Associates, Chtd, 1003 K Street, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC 20001. Notice of Appointment, Notice to Creditors and Notice to Unknown Heirs, Mervat Mahgoub, whose address is 1906 Jackson Street, NE, Washington, DC

20018, was appointed Personal Representative of the estate of Alaaeldin Abdelmegid Saleh who died on December 28, 2019, without a Will and will serve without Court Supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., Building A, 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before 10/9/2020. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or to the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before 10/9/2020, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of first publication: 4/9/2020 Name of Newspaper and/or periodical: Washington City Paper/ Daily Washington Law Reporter. Name of Personal Representative: Mervat Mahgoub TRUE TEST copy Nicole Stevens Acting Register of Wills Pub Dates: April 9, 16, 23.

Housing FEMALE ROOMMATE NEEDED for 2BR apt. Adams Morgan/Columbia Heights, near Metro, $400/mo + utils.

202/621-6264.

GORGEOUS 1 BD/1BA IN GEORGETOWN! $2,550/mo, 3211 Cherry Hill Lane, NW DC 20007. Lovely townhome in quiet street in downtown Georgetown.

Call or e-mail Matt or Pierce at EASE Properties, (202) 670-4111 or contact@leaseindc.com.

Must see. Available NOW! GORGEOUS 2BD, 1 BA IN GEORGETOWN, $2,600/ mo, 3213 Cherry Hill Lane, NW DC 20007. Lovely townhome in quiet street in downtown Georgetown.

Call or e-mail Matt or Pierce at EASE Properties, (202) 670-4111 or contact@leaseindc.com.

Must see. Available NOW! IN-HOUSE APARTMENT 800/MO ALL UTILITIES INCLUDED. Around GA Ave Petworth Metro Station, Tel 202 368 2628 Email epcorpusa@aol.com

NEED A ROOMMATE? Roommates.com will help you find your Perfect Match™ today!

Employment PRECISION WALL TECH IS AN ESTABLISHED PAINTING CONTRACTOR BASED IN DC. We are seeking DC qualified Commercial/Industrial Journeyman who will meet our standard for the company’s FIRST SOURCE PROJECTS. Brush & Roll & Spray Experience Required + Minimum of 3 years working on large commercial jobs. Must have own trans, pass Security clearance and drug test. $18-26/hr DOE plus benefits. EOE. Send resume to careers@ precisionwall.com Now Hiring for the following projects: 555 E Street Residences @ St Elizabeth East MLK Memorial Library Stanton Square Providence Place Takoma Place Apts Eliot Hines FLYER DISTRIBUTORS NEEDED Monday-Friday and weekends. We drop you off to distribute the flyers. NW, Bethesda, Silver Spring, Wheaton. 240715-7874 CLEANING LADY NEEDED NE DC for clean house.

Close to Metro. Spanish Speaking a plus. 301-3834504.

MCDOOGALS NIGHTCLUB SEEKING female dancers Want to have fun while earning Big $$$ Text 443-540-6119 HOME IMPROVEMENT SERVICES NEEDED. Renovations of bathrooms, kitchens and basements. Hard wood floors, painting, carpentry, windows, plumbing, electrical, concrete and hauling.

Please call 301-383-4504 for job details.

Services OVER $10K IN DEBT? Be debt free in 24-48 months.

Pay a fraction of what you owe. A+ BBB rated. Call National Debt Relief 877590-1202 HEARING AIDS!! Buy one/ get one FREE! High-quality rechargeable Nano hearing aids priced 90% less than competitors.

Nearly invisible! 45-day

money back guarantee!

1-833-585-1117 NEED IRS RELIEF $10K $125K+ Get Fresh Start or Forgiveness Call 1-877258-2890 Monday through Friday 7AM-5PM PST IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO LEARN A NEW SKILL set that can help you earn money from home using your cell phone contact Vanessa @ 301-541-8407 SERIOUSLY INJURED IN AN AUTO ACCIDENT? Let us fight for you! Our network has recovered millions for clients! Call today for a FREE consultation! 1-866991-2581 BOY SCOUT COMPENSATION FUND - Anyone that was inappropriately touched by a Scout leader deserves justice and financial compensation! Victims may be eligible for a significant cash settlement. Time to file is limited. Call Now! 844-896-8216 TRAIN ONLINE TO DO MEDICAL BILLING! Become a Medical Office Professional online at CTI! Get Trained, Certified & ready to work in months! Call 866-243-5931. M-F 8am6pm ET LOOKING FOR FULL TIME ELDERLY CARE JOB, FLEXIBLE HOURS. I have experience, good references, CPR/first aide certified.

Ask about including light housekeeping, laundry & meal prep. Have own car.

Please call & leave a message, call 240-271-1011.

PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER. CAR ACCIDENTS. Dog bites. Slip and Falls. Free Consultation. Please call Lena Yahchouchi at 818-636-2861 LOOKING FOR A PRIVATE PERSONAL TRAINER? All In With Jocelyn is a personal training and wellness business located in Washington, DC. Offering inperson and virtual training for anyone in the DC area, contact Jocelyn today to get started (contact information below).

(P) 410-652-4608 (E) allinwithjocelyn@ gmail.com allinwithjocelyn.com Instagram: @allinwithjocelyn BECOME A PUBLISHED AUTHOR! We edit, print and distribute your work

internationally. We do the work… You reap the Rewards! Call for a FREE Author’s Submission Kit: 844-511-1836.

CASH FOR CARS! We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled – it doesn’t matter!

Get free towing and same day cash! NEWER MODELS too! Call 866-535-9689

AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $49/ MONTH! Call for your fee rate comparison to see how much you can save! Call: 855-5691909.

Community

SAVE BIG ON HOME INSURANCE! Compare 20 A-rated insurances companies. Get a quote within minutes.

Average savings of $444/ year! Call 844-712-6153!

(M-F 8am-8pm Central) STRUGGLING WITH YOUR PRIVATE STUDENT LOAN PAYMENT? New relief programs can reduce your payments.

Learn your options. Good credit not necessary.

Call the Helpline 888-670-5631 DONATE YOUR CAR TO CHARITY. Receive maximum value of write off for your taxes. Running or not! All conditions accepted. Free pickup. Call for details. 855-978-0215

Music IDM/EDM DEMOS WANTED. Contact vegaanthony915@gmail.com

Buy Sell Trade FOR SALE 2018 SUBARU FORESTER 4D UTV Asking $24,500 Please contact 202-269-1430

GANGSTER CLUB USING AUDIO BOOKS AND PRINT PUBLICATIONS, we are looking for individuals interested in gangsters for bi-weekly discussions over the phone. Contact Stevenstvn9@aol.com if interested.

FRIENDS, MILITARY PERSONNEL, VETERANS, AND BOY/GIRL SCOUTS: It's now fall in the D. C. Metropolitan area. If enough readers of the City Paper vote democratic in this year's election we will somehow be able to get over the last four year's administration. Donations for the BSA are accepted.

Please call 1-866-907-2721 for counseling. Also, in you have internet access, you are welcome to petition with Common Cause to fix the broken electoral college.

Please go to www.commoncause.org/education-fund/. to learn how to support Common Cause. Nancy Pelosi says: "Vote Democratic in 2020!"

Tune into Night Light Promotions at www.nightlightproductions.club for the latest YouTube viddys!

For information call Kelly, (703) 751-3786

Health & Wellness VIAGRA & CIALIS! 60 pills for $99. 100 pills for $150.

FREE shipping. Money back guaranteed! Call Today 1-844-879-5238

Just a fraction of people reading this are paying members of City Paper.

They make all our reporting free for everyone.

Will you join them?

Become a member.

washingtoncitypaper.com/membership

washingtoncitypaper.com october 2020 31

Pride is not slowing down.

Staying up to speed is everything. That’s why Xfinity is proud to help you do even more on your devices with Gig-Speed Internet. With the xFi Gateway, the loved ones under your roof can stream 4K shows and movies, game online, and video chat to their hearts’ content – all at the same time. Plus, Xfinity xFi gives you the coverage, security, and control you need for the ultimate in-home WiFi experience.

It’s Pride all year, only with Xfinity.

Visit xfinity.com/pride

Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. For factors affecting speed visit xfinity.com/networkmanagement.

Xfinity xFi is availableto Xfinity Internet service customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. Call for restrictions and complete details. Subscription required to access HBO.® © 2020 Comcast. All rights reserved. Individual programs and marks are property of their respective owners. NPA233358-0001 NED Q4 LGBTQ NSD V4

138643_NPA233358-0001 Never Slowing ad 9.875x11.25 V4.indd 1

9/28/20 2:54 PM