YES! Weekly - November 4, 2020 by YES! Weekly

law enforcement uses pepper spray at ‘march to the polls’ rally in graham

ALAMANCE COUNTY

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NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 45

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ATTACK ON VOTING

Publisher CHARLES A. WOMACK III publisher@yesweekly.com

On Halloween, a disabled Black woman writhed in agony, convulsing in her motorized wheelchair after being pepper-sprayed by the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department. When onlookers rushed to her aid, they were also PEPPER-SPRAYED. Although recorded by professional filmmakers, the attack was not the beginning of a dystopian horror story, but the horrifying reality during a permitted rally held in Graham, in which the chemical weapons deployed by law enforcement prevented Black voters from reaching the polls.

EDITORIAL Editor KATIE MURAWSKI katie@yesweekly.com Contributors IAN MCDOWELL MARK BURGER KATEI CRANFORD JIM LONGWORTH

PRODUCTION Graphic Designers ALEX FARMER designer@yesweekly.com AUSTIN KINDLEY artdirector@yesweekly.com ADVERTISING Marketing TRAVIS WAGEMAN travis@yesweekly.com

On Saturday, GRAHAM POLICE and ALAMANCE COUNTY SHERIFF’s officers used chemical spray to disperse a mostly Black voting rights march led by Greensboro minister Rev. Greg Drumwright, Burlington Mayor Ian Baltutis, and George Floyd’s 17-year-old niece Brooke Williams. Those directly pepper-sprayed by officers included a Black woman in a motorized wheelchair and the people who rushed to help her. Those thrown to the ground, handcuffed and dragged away included a Black child. 5 I’ve been following Drew Lackland’s culinary career since I’ve been writing about restaurants- knocking on 40 years. We’ve both been around awhile. He started at the pinnacle of fine dining in our area, with stints at Madison’s, Sedgefield Country Club, then Café 200 (in High Point), and hit a home run with the mid-priced Bert’s (RIP). He transferred that seafood-focused concept to Reel Seafood Grille, with partners, exiting that establishment about three years ago. His

latest iteration is OAK RIDGE DINEReven more casual, quite a bit lower priced, yet still highly enjoyable. 6 If you don’t know JOHN BADHAM by name, you certainly know his work: Saturday Night Fever (1977), Blue Thunder and WarGames (1983), Short Circuit (1986), and Stakeout (1987), to name a few – all critical and financial hits, all revered by fans worldwide. 14 RELIABLY BAD is looking to shake some butts from a social distance with singles dropping, videos popping, and a debut album on the way. The Greensboro funk-pop group got together as music students at UNCG, playing shows through the house show circuit. “When we first started playing together, everyone in the band was a jazz studies major, except for Jess and me,” said bassist Matt Laird. “The energy from those packed house shows is really what got us all excited about the band initially and motivated to develop our sound.”

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DISTRIBUTION JANICE GANTT KYLE MUNRO SHANE MERRIMAN ANDREW WOMACK We at YES! Weekly realize that the interest of our readers goes well beyond the boundaries of the Piedmont Triad. Therefore we are dedicated to informing and entertaining with thought-provoking, debate-spurring, in-depth investigative news stories and features of local, national and international scope, and opinion grounded in reason, as well as providing the most comprehensive entertainment and arts coverage in the Triad. YES! Weekly welcomes submissions of all kinds. Efforts will be made to return those with a self-addressed stamped envelope; however YES! Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited submissions. YES! Weekly is published every Wednesday by Womack Newspapers, Inc. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. Copyright 2020 Womack Newspapers, Inc.

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Dr. Angela Hairston, we hardly knew ye In May 2018, The Broad Center— a nationally respected organization that develops and assists educators— published a report titled, “Superintendents stay in their jobs longer than we Jim Longworth think.” That report concluded that an average school Longworth superintendent’s at Large tenure is six years. Dr. Angela Hairston must not have received her copy of that report, because just over a year after being hired to lead the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, she turned in her resignation, and on Dec. 1, will take charge of the Danville, Virginia, school system. Hairston’s reasons for leaving Forsyth County were both nostalgic (she grew up in Danville) and logistic (her husband currently works for the Danville Police Department).

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Nevertheless, her announcement shocked the community and left WSFCS in the lurch. First, let me say that I was a big fan of Dr. Hairston. She appeared on my Triad Today television program multiple times to discuss various policy initiatives, and I can tell you that she was the real deal. Hairston didn’t need any on-the-jobtraining or adjustment period. She hit the ground running, was a good listener, and wasn’t afraid to make decisions. Her proposals didn’t always meet with Board approval, but when extra money was needed for increasing teacher pay, Hairston successfully lobbied voters to pass a sales tax referendum to cover the cost— not an easy task considering Forsyth County had rejected a similar tax hike just two years before. She was also the kind of leader we needed in case the school system was ever faced with a crisis, so when COVID-19 appeared, Hairston effectively navigated the school system through state-ordered shutdowns, implementation of online learning, and a confusing set of mandates for re-opening.

Hairston’s handling of the pandemic was masterful and comforting, yet, as The Broad Center’s report warned, “It’s problematic if educators adjust to one leader’s vision for the district if that person then leaves as plans are coming to fruition.” Translation? It’s not a good idea to leave your job in the middle of a pandemic, regardless of the reasons. Dr. Hairston’s sudden departure is unusual by local standards. In fact, all of the WSFCS superintendents in recent memory have remained on the job for at least three years. Hairston’s immediate predecessor, Beverly Emory, served for five years; Marvin Ward, who presided over the system for much of the 1960s and 1970s, served for 13 years; and Don Martin (who preceded Emory), held the post for 19 years. A typical superintendent’s contract runs for two to four years, with the Board offering extensions in one to two-year increments, so no matter how you spin it, Hairston’s leaving was an anomaly. Speaking of contracts, in the old days, a superintendent who left the

job early was required to reimburse the school board for the money they spent on recruitment. According to the North Carolina School Board Association, the average cost to search for and hire a new superintendent is around $15,000, but that figure is much higher whenever a national headhunting firm is employed. Sources tell me that no such reimbursement clause exists in Hairston’s contract, but it should. As much as I admire Hairston, and as sympathetic as I am to anyone who wants to return to her roots, there should be a price to pay for abandoning ship just after leaving port. Going forward, all local school boards should include a reimbursement clause in every new contract. It costs a lot of money to find the right person, and it costs a lot of momentum when that person leaves early. Someone needs to pay for the damages. ! JIM LONGWORTH is the host of Triad Today, airing on Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. on ABC45 (cable channel 7) and Sundays at 11 a.m. on WMYV (cable channel 15).

NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020

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Did Graham law enforcement tip off neo-Confederates?

n Saturday, Graham Police and Alamance County Sheriff ’s officers used chemical spray to disperse a mostly Black voting rights march led by Ian McDowell Greensboro minister Rev. Greg Drumwright, Burlington Contributor Mayor Ian Baltutis, and George Floyd’s 17-year-old niece Brooke Williams. Those directly peppersprayed by officers included a Black woman in a motorized wheelchair and the people who rushed to help her. Those thrown to the ground, handcuffed and dragged away included a Black child. These actions by Graham and Alamance law enforcement made international headlines and brought condemnation from Gov. Roy Cooper. Now,

questions have arisen about not only what police and deputies did and why they did it, but who they may have tipped off about their intentions to deploy volleys of carbon dioxide pepper-spray against the marchers. A video posted to Twitter on Sunday by the anti-racist coalition Chatham Takes Action purports to depict a social media livestream by a neo-Confederate activist watching the rally from beside a red car parked in front of the Graham Soda Shop and Grill. In the video, the man holding the camera points it at the activity in front of the courthouse in the area cordoned off for speakers from the “March to the Polls” rally. He makes the following statement: “Yeah guys, most time, we’re on the other side of the street. The cops literally moved us and now we know why. So, when they went off and when they used that tear gas, it wouldn’t get none of us. So, I guess it worked out for the best.” On Saturday while covering the march

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in Graham, I noticed the absence of neoConfederates from their usual position in Sesquicentennial Park, which is the name for the gazebo-like area around the bell on the opposite side of Court Square. During the Burlington-Alamance March for Justice and Community in July, Rev. Drumwright and over 700 Black Lives Matter marchers were greeted with racist taunts and threats from approximately 70 neo-Confederate counter-protesters, whom Sheriff Terry Johnson had allowed to take a position around the bell in Sesquicentennial Park. As is his usual practice, Sheriff Johnson arrested anti-racist activists for cursing the neoConfederates, but appeared to take no action while neo-Confederates cursed and threatened anti-racists. Neo-Confederates also were able to ring the historic bell in an attempt to disrupt the speeches from anti-racists, while Sheriff Johnson arrested a Black man who attempted to stop them from doing so. On every anti-racist demonstration since then, neo-Confederate counter-protesters have been allowed to gather in that spot. Also, at every anti-racist demonstration since then, the sheriff or his officers have arrested antiracist activists, but no neo-Confederate counter-protesters. There were no neo-Confederates in Sesquicentennial Park on Saturday, but shortly before officers charged out of the Old Graham Courthouse, pepper-sprayed the designated speaker’s area and arrested Rev. Drumwright, this reporter noticed a lean grey-bearded white man in a blue cap apparently livestreaming from beside a red car parked in front of the soda shop on the other side of the square. That is the same vantage point as the alleged neo-Confederate livestream was taken from. On Sunday, after viewing that video on Twitter, I asked photographer and Elon

University professor Anthony Crider, who documents the activities of neo-Confederates and white supremacists in the North Carolina Piedmont, if he had seen any neo-Confederates livestreaming that day. Crider said that he had seen two. One, Crider alleged, was Steve Marley, a member of the neo-Confederate group Alamance County Taking Back Alamance County. The other, Crider said, was Lemuel Kevin Ashberry, whom Crider described as a former member of the neo-Confederate extremist group The Hiwaymen. Crider told YES! Weekly that, to the best of his knowledge, Ashberry lives in Virginia but regularly attends and livestreams neo-Confederate rallies and counter-protests in Graham. Crider supplied YES! Weekly with a photo he’d taken on Saturday of a man Crider said is Ashberry, whom Crider described as livestreaming in front of the soda shop. The man in the photo appeared to be the same one I’d seen in that location. A Feb. 28, 2019, article posted on the website Hatetrackers also described Ashberry as a member of the Hiwaymen, and linked to a Facebook page in the name of L Kevin Ashberry. The lean, grey-bearded, bespectacled white man in profile photos on that Facebook page appears to be the same person as in Crider’s photo, and the same person I saw livestreaming on Saturday. In one of the phots on his Facebook page, he wears a jacket with the words “Southern Patriots East Coast” and an American flag in the shape of a skull. Other photos depict Confederate iconography and Donald Trump. In a photo from November of last year, he wears a yellow T-shirt with “The Hiwaymen” printed on it, with the image of a sword between the two words. Multiple photos indicate identification with the state of Virginia. YES! Weekly has attempted to contact this man, both via Facebook messages, and by calling the only Lemuel Kevin Ashberry that Intelius and Zabasearch show as living in Virginia. As of 9 a.m. on Monday, neither the phone calls nor the Facebook message has been answered. (A longer article examining Saturday’s events in detail and from the perspective of multiple witnesses is located on pages 12-13 of this issue.) ! IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

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flicks

The book of Badham: Acclaimed director explores the tools, tricks, and techniques of the trade

f you don’t know John Badham by name, you certainly know his work: Saturday Night Fever (1977), Blue Thunder and WarGames (1983), Short Circuit (1986), Mark Burger and Stakeout (1987), to name a few – all critical and financial Contributor hits, all revered by fans worldwide. On the small screen, Badham helmed episodes of Night Gallery, The Streets of San Francisco, Kung Fu, Police Story, and earned Emmy nominations for The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970) and The Law (1974). Currently Professor of Media Arts at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Chapman University in Orange, California; Badham continues to direct episodic television, including Supernatural, The Arrow, Rush Hour, and Siren. I’ll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors, which Badham co-authored with Craig Modderno, was published in 2006, followed by the first edition of John Badham: On Directing in 2013, published by Michael Wiese Productions. The second edition, also published by Michael Wiese Productions, was recently released (290 pages; $28.95 retail), and Badham was gracious enough to discuss it at length. With over 50 years in showbusiness, his enthusiasm – both for directing and teaching – is undiminished, even if the COVID-19 pandemic has forced him to teach virtual classes. “People think because I made WarGames and Short Circuit that I’m a ‘high-tech’ guy, but I’m really not,” he said with a laugh. “Since March, it’s been a big learning curve!” Badham estimates his revisions for the second edition of On Directing “is about 35% new material. I scrubbed out a couple of dull bits, and some jokes I included the first time weren’t that funny, so I cut those, too,” he noted with a laugh. On Directing is not a heavy-handed treatise or a ponderous checklist of technical terminology. Badham discusses not only his own films but other films he’s enjoyed (or not). He discusses the lessons he’s learned and the mistakes he’s made, and the inclusion of opinions from directors, actors, producers, and writers gives it a well-rounded, eminently readable quality. It’s useful for those interested in directing but also entertainWWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

ing and informative for film fans. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s the intention. Although I do use the book when teaching my classes, I never wanted it to be a textbook. I wanted people to enjoy it.” “It has two new major sections: A ‘survivor’s guide’ for directors in television (Part IV: Surviving Television: A Director’s Guide), and the other I call a ‘Cyber-Colloquium,’ which is a set of conversations about directors working with actors,” he said. Among those directors are Taylor Hackford, Patty Jenkins, Thomas Schlamme, Allan Arkush, playwright/director George C. Wolfe, actor/ director Jodie Foster, and the late Gilbert Cates. Of the “survivor’s guide,” Badham observed: “When you move from television to feature films, the director becomes the top guy on the totem pole, but when you move from film to television, the food chain changes considerably. Instead of being the top man, you’re 12th or 13th. You’ve got to learn new customs and different techniques.” Having worked with several actors more than once – including Richard Dreyfuss, James Garner, Emilio Estevez, Gary Busey, and the late Miguel Ferrer – Badham emphasizes the importance of trust between actor and director. “That’s a critical part of the book,” he confirmed. “Trying to establish trust is imperative. So many actors have had bad experiences with directors that they’re defensive or afraid to make suggestions. “It would be upsetting to me if I heard that an actor I work with went home to their spouse or partner and said ‘That a-hole director ruined my day. He wouldn’t listen to my suggestions!’ I think my default position with actors is to say, ‘Let’s go. Let’s try it.’ Even if it’s the worst idea in the world, the fact that they got to try it means so much. They know you were willing to listen. They got it out of their system, but they got to try it!” Badham’s career has come full circle and is still going strong. He graduated from episodic television to made-for-T.V. movies to feature films, from feature films to cable films, and back again to episodic television. That transition, he said, has changed considerably since he started out. “The wall between film and television has vanished,” he said. “It’s like the Berlin Wall: There are hardly any rocks or chips left. Look at what Amazon and Netflix are doing. The Academy changed their rules, allowing films that were available streaming to qualify for awards without having the theatrical release that was once required. Marty Scorsese’s The Irishman is a perfect example. It premiered on Netflix,

but it’s absolutely a feature film, and it got a lot of nominations.” Indeed, he said, “at Chapman University, we’ve melded and blended the film and television departments, because there really are no barriers between them any longer. It’s the same doggone thing!” Whether it’s writing about directing or teaching it to film students, there’s an unmistakable love for the process, which comes across palpably in On Directing.

“I love doing it,” he said. “It’s like going to the directing gym. (Director) John Frankenheimer said something once that stuck like cement in my brain: ‘I never met anybody who learned anything about directing without directing.’” John Badham’s official website is www. johnbadham.com/. ! See MARK BURGER’s reviews of current movies on Burgervideo.com. © 2020, Mark Burger.

NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020

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chow

EAT IT!

Chow down with John Batchelor at Oak Ridge Diner ROLL

BY JOHN BATCHELOR

Most recent visit: Oct. 17

’ve been following Drew Lackland’s culinary career since I’ve been writing about restaurants- knocking on 40 years. We’ve both been around awhile. He started at the pinnacle of fine dining in our area, with stints at Madison’s, Sedgefield Country Club, then Café 200 (in High Point), and hit a home run with the mid-priced Bert’s (RIP). He transferred that seafood-focused concept to Reel Seafood Grille, with partners, exiting that establishment about three years ago. His latest iteration is Oak Ridge Dinereven more casual, quite a bit lower priced, yet still highly enjoyable. His partners are Brad Hendricks, who has been working with Drew for over 30 years, including Bert’s and Reel, along with Darold Dumond. They share cooking and management responsibilities. Inside, tables are spaced wide apart. Patio seating is provided under a tent. Servers are pleasant, deliveries prompt. A children’s menu ($4.95-$5.95) offers chicken tenders, grilled cheese sandwich, or chicken wings. As befits the diner concept, several sandwiches are offered, such as a burger, grilled chicken, chicken salad, steak and cheese, and pimiento cheese. All these, plus salads, are offered for both lunch and dinner. All my meals to research this article came in the evening, so I stuck to the dinner entrees. (There are

FRIED SHRIMP

BLACKENED MAHI no appetizers or soups on the menu.) You get a choice of dinner roll or cornbread. I’d be hard-pressed to urge one over the other. The cornbread is a thick wedge, the roll a yeasty spiral creation, both more naturally flavorful than the bread you usually find in area restaurants. My wife and I led off with seafood. Two Crab Cakes exhibit a crisp exterior, giving way to a jumbo lump crabmeat interior held together with minimal breading. Better and a lower price than most area

CRAB CAKE

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NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020

restaurants. Blackened Mahi tastes pleasantly fresh, the white flesh augmented with a dusting of blackening spices, conveying spicy flavor as opposed to just heat. Fried Shrimp would be at home in any good restaurant on the coast. They bear a very light but crisp and tasty crust, allowing the flavor of the shrimp themselves to come through. Country Style Steak is mandatory in a diner. ORD’s version is tender and flavorful, especially well served by rich milk gravy. Meatloaf is right at home, too, its solid beefy flavor enhanced by warm tomato catsup. Entrees come with two sides. Mashed potatoes and gravy is a particularly good match for the two beef dishes. I would also suggest the fresh Collard Greens, which gain flavor from a little bacon fat and ham hock all simmered in chicken stock, touched with vinegar. For the

seafood, Cole Slaw tastes fresh-cut, with a little carrot joining the green cabbage. French Fries are unusually crisp, with good potato flavor. I wasn’t wild about the Green Beans- too stringy for me, although if the texture doesn’t bother you, the ham enhanced flavor certainly fits the diner setting. The Black-Eyed Peas are a winner, too, and they go well with everything. Brad Hendricks is a major league pie maker— Key Lime, Coconut, Chocolate Peanut Butter, Chocolate, plus Chocolate Cake. These can be ordered whole with a day’s notice, in addition to by the slice in the restaurant. I judge restaurants by their Key Lime Pie, and the rendition here is exceptional- tart yet sweet, resting in a graham cracker crust. I would go back for the pies any day or night! I think Drew and his partners have another winner here. Coming in well below the average price range for food this good,

MASHED POTATOES AND GRAVY

FRENCH FRIES

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MEATLOAF

NCDOT PROJECT UPDATE REGARDING PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO N.C. 68 FROM HICKSWOOD ROAD TO GALLIMORE DAIRY ROAD IN GUILFORD COUNTY

STIP Project No. U-5974 High Point - The public is invited to view pre-recorded videos from the N.C. Department of Transportation this month regarding the proposal to improve N.C. 68 (Eastchester Drive) from Hickswood Road to Gallimore Dairy Road in Guilford County. This project proposes to improve safety and mobility.

COUNTRY STEAK

ORD is hard to beat. And the drive from most of Greensboro is easy- no more than the amount of time it takes to cross town, thanks to our new beltway system. ! JOHN BATCHELOR has been writing about eating and drinking since 1981. Over a thousand of his articles have been published. He is also author of two travel/ cookbooks: Chefs of the Coast: Restaurants and Recipes from the North Carolina Coast, and Chefs of the Mountains: Restaurants and Recipes from Western North Carolina. Contact him at john.e.batchelor@gmail.com or see his blog, johnbatchelordiningandtravel.blogspot.com.v

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KEY LIME PIE

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Due to COVID-19, NCDOT will not host an in-person public meeting for the N.C. 68 upgrades. The department has developed a series of videos to provide you with the following: • An overview of the project; • Project alternative descriptions • A visualization about the project area; and • Project maps, which can be found on the NCDOT public input webpage https://publicinput.com/NC68-HighPoint. The public can view the project materials and leave comments by accessing the public input webpage shown above. There will not be a formal presentation. People may also submit comments by phone (855-925-2801 enter project code 4871), email (NC68-HighPoint@PublicInput.com), or mail to the project manager by November, 23, 2020. NCDOT Division Highway 7 Project Engineer Brian Ketner

1584 Yanceyville Street, Greensboro, NC 27405, 336- 487-0165

Contact NCDOT as soon as possible if you require any accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Anyone requiring special services should contact Tony Gallagher, Environmental Analysis Unit, at 1598 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 276991598, 919-707-6069 or magallagher@ncdot.gov as early as possible so arrangements can be made. Those who do not speak English, or have a limited

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ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive

para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir

interpretive services upon request prior by calling 1-800-

servicios de interpretación si los solicitan llamando al

481-6494.

1-800-481-6494.

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leisure

[NEWS OF THE WEIRD] CRIME REPORT, HALLOWEEN EDITION

Nathan Garisto, 26, of Largo, Florida, was arrested on Oct. 19 on a domestic battery charge. The Smoking Gun reported that Garisto was “heavChuck Shepherd ily intoxicated while engaged in a verbal argument with his girlfriend,” according to police. He refused to leave after his girlfriend asked him to, instead throwing “a pumpkin and all insides of the pumpkin at the subject.” Garisto maintains he threw the pumpkin at the door, not at the girlfriend. He was released on bond and ordered to have no contact with the victim.

SWEET LOVE

Sugar Good, 49, who manages a Dunkin’ donuts store in Edmond, Oklahoma, knew a good man when she saw one ... every morning at 7:15 as he collected his sausage, egg and cheese croissant at her drivethru. After a year of friendly commercial exchanges, The New York Times reported, Good finally got up the nerve to hand

John Thompson, 45, her business card along with his food and coffee. Two years later, on Oct. 13, Good and Thompson tied the knot at the place that brought them together: the Dunkin’ drive-thru. “We knew we wanted to share it with the Dunkin’ family,” Good said. She stood at her spot in the window and Thompson drove up in his red truck, where former pastor Colby Taylor was waiting for them. Taylor kept the ceremony short, as other customers were lined up behind Thompson, but at the end, Good came outside and Thompson got out of his truck for their first kiss as regulars, friends and family cheered them on. “Our story wasn’t glamour,” Good said, “but it was true romance.”

BRIGHT IDEA

In Littleton, New Hampshire, a Hillsborough County grand jury filed indictments against Lisa Landon, 33, in early October, the Union Leader reported. Landon was scheduled in court for three different cases in November and December 2019, involving drug possession and stalking. To avoid going to jail, Landon impersonated a prosecutor, using the court’s electronic system to file fake documents dropping the charges against her. A state forensic officer

noticed last November that the charges were dropped and wondered if a scheduled competency evaluation on Landon should proceed, which tipped off court officials. While she was at it, Landon allegedly filed an order on behalf of a relative to halt guardianship proceedings involving Landon’s child. She’s been charged with one count of false impersonation and six counts of falsifying physical evidence.

CUE THE LAWYERS

Nightmares really do come true: On Oct. 24, as Leonard Shoulders, 33, waited at a bus stop in the Bronx, New York, the sidewalk beneath him gave way and he dropped into a decrepit basement full of rats, Fox News reported. Bystanders alerted authorities, and Shoulders was rescued from the dark hole about 30 minutes later, with injuries including a broken arm, broken leg and scraped face. New York’s Department of Buildings said the basement beneath the sidewalk was poorly maintained, and the building was closed until repairs can be made.

FLORIDA

THE METH MADE ME DO IT

Traffic slowed to a crawl and people got out of their cars on a busy roadway

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TR ADE STREET

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LI BERTY STREET

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2 ND AVE

MARSHALL STRE E T

5TH STREET

4TH STREET

in Chongqing, China, on Oct. 17, hoping to collect banknotes that were raining down from the sky. As it turned out, the money wasn’t coming from heaven, but from an unnamed 29-year-old man who was tripping on methamphetamine in his 30-storyhigh apartment overlooking the street. As he showered passersby with money, police arrived and took him into custody, and he was receiving treatment, according to The Guardian. A woman who would not leave a St. Petersburg, Florida, Mobil gas station was arrested for trespassing on Oct. 14, The Smoking Gun reported. But that’s not the weird part. Melinda Lynn Guerrero, 33, was also charged with providing a false name to law enforcement after she repeatedly said her name was “My butt just farted.” Officers were familiar with Guerrero from a series of arrests over several years, and her last name is tattooed on her back, so ... They noted she may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. !

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‘The whole world is watching’ Law enforcement uses pepper spray at ‘march to the polls’ rally in Graham

n Halloween, a disabled Black woman writhed in agony, convulsing in her motorized wheelchair after being pepper-sprayed Ian McDowell by the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department. When Contributor onlookers rushed to her aid, they were also pepper-sprayed. Although recorded by professional filmmakers, the attack was not the beginning of a dystopian horror story, but the horrifying reality during a permitted rally held in Graham, in which the chemical weapons deployed by law enforcement prevented Black voters from reaching the polls on the last day of early voting in North Carolina. The incident was captured by filmmakers Nat and Beatrice Frum, who were there documenting the “I Am Change March to the Polls” rally led by Greensboro’s Rev. Greg Drumwright, Burlington Mayor Ian Baltutis, and George Floyd’s niece and nephew Brooke and Brandon Williams. Later that afternoon, Nat and Beatrice Frum’s father, David Frum, a former President George W. Bush speechwriter and a former editor of The Atlantic, shared his children’s video of the incident on Twitter. The senior Frum also tweeted that the filmmakers “were both tear-gassed for being there,” adding that his son was peppersprayed more than once as he attempted to retrieve the woman’s wheelchair after she was carried to the medic’s station in Graham’s Sesquicentennial Park, the small gazebo-like area around the city’s historic courthouse bell. That area is where, during a July Black Lives Matter march led by Rev. Drumwright, Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson allowed neo-Confederate counter-protesters to gather and taunt Black marchers with obscenities, racist insults and threats, while personally arresting any marcher who cursed at the neo-Confederates back. While David Frum is credited as the author of the phrase “axis of evil,” the woman his son and daughter filmed being pepper-sprayed was a victim of what local activists allege is an axis of racism, one that includes Sheriff Johnson, the Graham YES! WEEKLY

NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020

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Law enforcement officers pepper-spray a crowd of about 200 in Graham during the permitted “I Am Change March to the Polls” rally on Oct. 31. City Council, the Alamance Board of County Commissioners and Graham Police Chief Kristy Cole. “We actually know why blatant racism is out in the open in Graham, led by Sheriff Terry Johnson, with no help for our cause from the new Police Chief Kristy Cole,” activist Paulette Montgomery told YES! Weekly. Montgomery livestreamed the incident and was also pepper-sprayed, along with her teenage daughter. “The racists in Graham seem to enjoy hurting people of color and the ones that support them; some folks even appear to take pleasure in it.” On Saturday, neo-Confederate counterprotesters were not in their usual place in Sesquicentennial Park but were keeping a low profile in front of the Soda Shop and Grill on the other side of Court Square. In a video allegedly depicting a livestream by neo-Confederate Kevin Ashberry, a man states that the neo-Confederates were moved across the street by law enforcement prior to pepper-spray being deployed against the crowd marching to the polls. The woman who was pepper-sprayed in her wheelchair recovered. (YES! Weekly is withholding her identity due to the threats she’s received from Alamance County white supremacists). But, while there were no neo-Confederates in the spot where she received medical treatment, the woman was allegedly accosted 30 minutes later by a small group as she passed Colonial Hardware as part of the crowd fleeing the volleys of pepper-spray that police and deputies used to break up the march. Matthew McDonald, who was part of that crowd and allegedly intervened, photographed a gray-haired woman and a gray-bearded man in a Confederate

officer’s hat speaking to the woman in the wheelchair. “They called me a snowflake and commie when I told them to leave her alone,” McDonald told YES! Weekly. The gray-haired woman was later identified by multiple sources as Elaine Stuart— the same person who made international news in September at a Graham Trump rally for wearing a mask resembling Black male genitalia. During that rally, Stuart allegedly mocked several white female counter-protesters with Black husbands and then was arrested for assaulting a Black male activist. McDonald said he knew who the woman was, but not until his sister identified her from the photo by saying, “I didn’t recognize her without her cock.” Stuart, who has never been shy about owning up to her controversial behavior, sent YES! Weekly an email on Monday morning in response to the article about the video. “You forgot to mention that Kevin Ashberry had on Biden underwear with a shit stain in them,” she wrote. Stuart’s comment may indicate tension between her and other neo-Confederates. (As of 2 p.m. on Tuesday, she had not responded to a request for clarification or to comment on the allegations that she accosted the woman in the wheelchair.) In a Sunday press conference, Lt. Daniel Sisk of the Graham Police Department blamed the dispersal of the march on the marchers’ alleged refusal to stay out of the street after being given permission to speak in front of the historic courthouse. “It was made very clear that no road closure was authorized,” Sisk said. “Toward the conclusion of the event, the sheriff’s office had interaction with people within

the rally that led to people coming out into the streets.” While the police had used pepper-spray to “direct” people off the streets earlier in the day, the “incident” Sisk referred to was the pepper-spraying of the woman in the wheelchair. “We tried to prevent people from being in the streets at that point,” Sisk said, “and one of our officers was assaulted. And at that point, that’s when we deemed it was an unsafe event and deemed that it was unlawful, and we went ahead and dispersed the crowd.” Sisk then stated that “the dispersant measures we used were a pepper fogger that was never directed at any person; we directed it toward the ground. That created a vapor that was in the air. Our officers were never ordered to don masks or anything like that.” The only officers YES! Weekly observed wearing gas masks were the sheriff’s deputies, and the only ones directly spraying marchers were those deputies, one of whom sprayed Rev. Drumwright in the face while arresting him. However, it appeared that the police officers used the foggers to drive people toward clouds of pepper spray. “It has been said that we peppersprayed children and disabled folks,” Sisk said. “Again, I want to reiterate; we never directly sprayed anyone in the face. It was all directed toward the ground to disperse the crowd.” Sisk said that the initial dispersant was after the marchers reached Court Square. “We allowed them to pause for eight minutes and 40-some seconds, and after about nine minutes, told them they needed to clear the road. Once it was clear they had no intention to clear the road, we sprayed a couple of sprays on the ground, and the crowds moved to the respective areas where they were at.” YES! Weekly observed officers directing that spray in the direction of people who were clearly already trying to get out of the street, including several with children. Mayor Ian Baltutis of Burlington told the Burlington Times-News that he did as well. Baltutis also told the Times-News that the Graham Police “very aggressively told everyone to get off the street and onto the sidewalk. They started spraying everyone, including a couple of kids – small children.” Scott Huffman, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, marched beside Baltutis and

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Drumwright and condemned the police and sheriff’s office. “Children and the elderly were sprayed and arrested,” Huffman stated in a press release. “There was no warning from the police to disperse and no reason for them to force the rally to shut down.” Huffman also challenged his opponent Ted Budd to condemn the police action, and stated, “I wonder how his events are traded in Graham by the local police.” McDonald told YES! Weekly that Mayor Baltutis was not the only white person officers carefully avoided arresting or pepper spraying. McDonald said that officers seemed extremely tolerant of the neo-Confederates who stopped keeping a low profile after the march was dispersed, alleging that law enforcement allowed a group of them to lean against a police vehicle. He sent YES! Weekly a photo of them doing so, along with the following statement: “Rules of the road were drastically different for these white people. After I requested equal enforcement of crosswalk or street loitering violations to at least five officers, one officer came over [to the neo-Confederates] and asked them [to move], and they skipped over to the sidewalk. Not long after this, [the neo-Confederates] parked in the road and leaned on a police car unbothered for the duration. We were sprayed out of the road prior to this and afterward. People were thrown to the ground for the same exact citation level infractions.” McDonald also alleged that police allowed neo-Confederates to heckle and harass Black women and young white women down the street, “asking ‘how many of y’all did they get this time?’ while laughing.” Ian McDowell’s account and timeline of the Oct. 31 rally in Graham At approximately 11:40 a.m., the march began in front of Wayman’s Chapel AME Church at 592 N. Main St. and headed south towards Court Square. Rev. Drumwright and Shon Green led the marchers in chants and songs. At one point, Drumwright handed his megaphone over to Brooke Williams, the 17-year-old niece of George Floyd. They paused in front of the former home of Wyatt Outlaw, the Black Union veteran and Graham town constable lynched by the Klan in 1870, whose killers later erected the county’s Confederate monument on the spot where he was lynched. At approximately noon, the march reached that monument, where Rev. Drumwright told everyone to pause for eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence. At 12:05 p.m., Drumwright said, “We’re getting ready to build our stage” and told marchers to “hang tight.” WWW.YESWEEKLY.COM

At 12:07 p.m., a police officer yelled, “clear the roadway!” “Get behind the barriers,” another yelled. There was no indication of any conversation between the police and Drumwright. Instead, officers yelled at the crowd. At around 12:08 p.m., rather than asking him to tell the marchers milling around to move out of the street, an officer shouted, “get out of the road, or you’re subject to arrest!” and “move ‘em out!” through a bullhorn. “If you don’t clear the roadway, you will be arrested,” another officer shouted. At around 12:12 p.m., while most of the crowd was still attempting to move out of the street, the first volley of pepper spray was fired. Marchers begin coughing and choking. I witnessed a young child kneel and vomit and saw several other children with tears and mucous streaming down their faces. Sheriff’s deputies gathered on the steps of the old courthouse, in front of which the marchers had been allowed to set up a speaker’s stand. At 12:17 p.m., Drumwright said, “All right, family, we’re here for change, and we’re going to get our change. We’re going to get some of these people out of these offices. We’re gonna vote em out; we’re gonna get a new council, we’re gonna get new commissioners. Chief Kristy Cole, you maced children. This is how your administration is starting.” At 12:20 p.m., he said, “What we are about to witness is that the Graham Police Department has reopened the streets so that people can prohibit us from having a peaceful demonstration. But you do not have to be afraid. Everything that is happening is happening before the world. This revolution is televised!” By 12:24 p.m., the streets were clear and open. Speeches began on the stand, while several cars festooned with Confederate flags circled, honked, and jeered. “I am here in peace; we are here in peace,” said one speaker to the crowd. At approximately 1 p.m., deputies on the courthouse steps rushed forward and seized what appeared to be a small generator from beside the speaker’s stand and began discharging pepper spray. A few moments later, I saw the woman in the motorized wheelchair heaving out of her seat in convulsions. “Oh my God, she’s seizing!” a marcher shouted. “Oh my God, my eyes are burning,” another exclaimed. Through my own burning eyes, I saw the woman lifted out of her wheelchair and carried across the street, where she was given medical attention. I also glimpsed people being pepper-sprayed as they retrieved her wheelchair.

At 1:05 p.m., my eyes now only slightly burning, I heard an amplified voice say, “I’m a deputy with the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office. You are in violation of [inaudible] statute leave [inaudible] disperse peacefully, or you will be arrested.” A minute later, I heard, “you have five minutes to leave.” Many began dispersing, but some remained in the speaker’s stand. Others milled about, chanting “fuck Terry Johnson!” One woman shouted, “talk to people! Andy Griffith would follow the will of the people!” (Sheriff Johnson had made numerous statements comparing Graham to Mayberry; his critics alleged this means he wants to keep a white majority in the city.) “How the Hell can you pepper-spray a woman in a wheelchair!?” shouted an activist over a megaphone. “The whole world is watching; I hope you’re proud!” yelled another to the officers. Rev. Drumwright and Green remained standing on the stage, fists raised, accompanied by four or five others. Around them, their crew began gathering up microphones and cables. A deputy spoke through a megaphone again. While I could not distinguish his amplified words, he sounded high-pitched and frantic. “You are the new slave patrol,” shouted Green, while waving his flag. “You trying to keep us from the polls?” a Black woman asked. “Well, we still going!” “Shame on you!” Drumwright shouted. “When police get involved, this always happens! “We believe in peace. You have disturbed our peace. We will not stand down. We believe in Democracy. We ask you to honor our permit and our right to occupy this space until 2 o’clock, and we will peacefully do so. We are telling you, stand down. You have tear-gassed our children. You have tear-gassed our elderly. You have created medical situations for our disabled. You have criminalized our peaceful movement.” I heard a deputy say, to his radio, “we have given a third warning.” The deputies surged forward, pepperspraying Drumwright and bearing him to the ground. He and the others remaining were arrested and hauled inside the old courthouse. I saw Mayor Baltutis arguing with several officers as I retreated. People around me coughed and cursed, and clouds of pepper spray drifted past police pushing the crowd down the street. I heard someone shout, “Oh look, the neo-Confederates have shown up!” At 1:13 p.m., the woman with whom I’d traveled to Graham with texted me that she and her son were at the polling place

and ready to leave. I found them both suffering slightly from pepper-spray, and we returned to Greensboro. According to Forward Motion Alamance’s livestreamed press conference on Sunday, another march to the polls was announced by Rev. Drumwright on Election Day for those who did not get the chance to vote after the incident on Oct. 31. “Let me tell you something, we were beaten but we are not going to be broken,” Drumwright said to the cheering crowd. “We will stay relentless.” Monday evening, the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina announced their lawsuit against Sheriff Terry Johnson and Chief Kristy Cole. The announcement included the following statement: “Law enforcement officers in Graham violently interfered with voters’ march to the polls on Saturday and suppressed a peaceful and lawful assembly,” said Chantal Stevens, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina. “We know that voters, particularly Black and Brown voters, have repeatedly refused to let acts of intimidation silence their voices or deprive them of the right to vote, and we hope that’s the case during this election.” The lawsuit aims to protect protesters’ rights to free speech and assembly under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as rights protected under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act. The police violence over the weekend is cited as a violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which was initially enacted to protect the suffrage rights of formerly enslaved people, including by protecting them and their supporters from violence, intimidation, and harassment. “The right to protest has always been an important feature of our democracy and a tool for demanding change,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The police violence in Graham, N.C. perpetrated against a group of peaceful and primarily Black protestors over the weekend is yet another clear violation of the right to free speech and the right to vote. We will not stand back and let the voices of voters continue to be suppressed just hours before Election Day. Racially motivated attacks on peaceful demonstrators is a form of grotesque voter intimidation, and we cannot continue to let these acts of violence continue.” ! IAN MCDOWELL is the author of two published novels, numerous anthologized short stories, and a whole lot of nonfiction and journalism, some of which he’s proud of and none of which he’s ashamed of.

NOVEMBER 4-10, 2020

YES! WEEKLY

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HEAR IT!

PHOTO COURTESY OF RELIABLY BAD

Reliably Bad shakes out singles on the way to an album debut

eliably Bad is looking to shake some butts from a social distance with singles dropping, videos popping, and a debut album on the way. The funk-pop Katei Cranford group got together as music students at the University of Contributor North Carolina at Greensboro, playing gigs through the house show circuit. “When we first started playing together, everyone in the band was a jazz studies major, except for Jess and me,” said bassist Matt Laird. “The energy from those packed house shows is really what got us all excited about the band initially and motivated to develop our sound.” That sound parlays the eight-piece’s jazz experience with funk and tones to mesh their mission of “music for dancing.” The broad appeal has garnered a listing on Spotify’s “Nu Funk” playlist amongst artists such as Bootsy Collins and Janelle Monae.

Now, they’re making an album and dropping singles on a monthly basis, culminating in a February release. “Everyone has really stepped up to make this album of original music happen while in a pandemic,” Laird said, relaying the difficulty of logistics during the pandemic. “We haven’t been able to have a practice as a full band since before the pandemic. Between scheduling for eight people and socially-distanced safety restrictions, it’s pretty much impossible for us all to get together.” In lieu of in-person practice, they’ve relied on weekly digital meetings and a handful of cover videos filmed over Zoom. “We each record our own part from wherever we’re quarantining,” Laird explained of the videos made from spliced digital footage. “‘Magic School Bus’ is probably our favorite,” he noted, “we got roommates to join on the ad-libs, and literally went outside with an audio interface to record our car horns.” Turns out, Camrys have the closest sound to the actual bus. While the “Magic School Bus” video was highlighted over local news and UNCG’s website, the group has its eyes on pushing original tunes and the upcoming album, produced by Charlie

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Hunter and engineered by Benjy Johnson at Earthtones Recording Studio. For their debut record, the group went with an even bigger band approach, pulling-in fellow UNCG musicians to add choir, organ, pedal steel, cello, viola, and more into their traditional mix of three-piece horns, guitar, bass, drum, and keys. “Recording the fulllength is a big opportunity, so Chris really went all out,” Laird said of saxophonist Chris “Chef” Peebles, whose vision drives their arrangement. “We’re grateful to have him,” Laird added, “he turns songs written by various band members into the Reliably Bad sound.” That sound, and the record itself, encircles distracted and dysfunctional themes with a polish fit for pop-hit radio. The first single, “Make it Out,” focuses on finding one’s place in a better future. Written by guitarist Jimmy Washington before the pandemic, the song has since taken a new meaning in a world reshaped by social unrest and coronavirus. Likewise, both the record and the recording process were molded around events as they unfolded. “We started recording the album as soon as the recording studio was allowed to open,” Laird explained of the process, “this was about the exact same time that protests were happening downtown. There were multiple days of recording in the studio all day and then going out downtown at night to protest, and it definitely affected the way we went about recording.” The issue shifted their public focus

away from album promotion during the protests. “It’s very important to us all to acknowledge the music our band makes has roots directly in Black American Music,” Laird noted. “Most of our influences we drew on for this record were Black artists, and we wanted the attention to be on the importance of Black lives.” And with that, the group directed attention to Black artists in the Triad, such as Debbie the Artist and Emanuel Wynter, who’ll be featured, along with Reliably Bad, in the Around the Town Sessions, a new video series filmed throughout Greensboro. While all four new singles will be featured in the series, the group is also making original videos for themselves, coinciding with each track’s release. “Make it Out” was recorded and edited by drummer Zac Covington and features the group hopping around downtown Greensboro. The next single, “Summer,” a track about missing friends, written by singer Jess Schnieder, and drops on Thanksgiving Day. “Goodbye” (as in #Goodbye2020) comes out in December. They also plan to pepper their feeds with more socially-distanced, Zoom cover videos, coming soon. As for 2021, Reliably Bad remains hopeful and excited to drop their full-length debut release, coming in February. ! KATEI CRANFORD is a Triad music nerd who hosts “Katei’s Thursday Triad Report,” a radio show spotlighting artists and events, Thursday 5:30-7 p.m., on WUAG 103.1FM.

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[THE ADVICE GODDESS] love • sex • dating • marriage • questions

HEAVY MENTAL

I’m a woman who recently stopped talking with a guy I’d been seeing because, frankly, I didn’t find him intelligent enough. He is a good guy, but just a little dim for me. When I Amy Alkon told my friends this was the reason I endAdvice ed things, they said it was a bit snobbish. Goddess Does this make me an intellectual snob? I get that he has other good qualities, but I just don’t feel like they’re enough. —Nerd Seeking Nerd Love sometimes requires one to make sacrifices, but these shouldn’t include avoiding any words with more than two syllables. You aren’t alone in wanting a partner with smarts. In 1989, evolutionary psychologist David Buss and his colleagues did a massive study exploring mate preferences, including the desire for an intelligent partner, across 37 cultures (“on six continents and five islands”). Their participant group included Gujarati Indians, Estonians, mainland Chinese, Santa Catarina Brazilians, and South African Zulus. Using such a broad cross-cultural group (rather than just surveying the latest crop of American college undergrads) helps parse which traits might be evolved “human universals,” inherited by humans around the globe, irrespective of culture. Universal human traits — for example,

communicating with language and fear of snakes — evolved to solve recurring problems faced by ancestral humans across continents and over generations, improving our chances of surviving, mating, and, most importantly, passing on our genes. Buss found that for some mate preferences, “cultures varied tremendously.” For example, the Dutch had a “whatevs!” attitude toward whether a partner is a virgin, while people in mainland China, India, and Iran placed a lot of importance on “chastity or virginity” in a partner. There were also strong sex differences in certain mate preferences — even across cultures — for example, with men (on average) “always ... valuing virginity more than women.” This might help a man avoid a hookup-erella and the evolutionary fail of unwittingly investing in a kid who’ll pass on some other dude’s genes. Of course, no woman has to worry her kid isn’t hers (especially not after 26 hours of screaming labor to push it out). There were also some universal mate preferences — across cultures and in both sexes. Buss and his team found that intelligence (as well as kindness and health) were chart-toppers, traits desired by men and women across cultures from Z to Z: from the Zulus to the Croatians in Zagreb. Granted, Buss did this research 30 years ago. Do his findings hold up? They do — according to a survey of 14,000 people in 45 countries published in March of 2020 by evolutionary psychologist Daniel ConroyBeam and his grad student Kathryn V. Walter, in concert with a huge international team of researchers. They write, “Consistent with Buss (1989), our results showed that health, kindness, and intelligence were highly valued by both men and

women” around the world. Why might intelligence in a mate have evolved to be such a strong, culturally universal preference? In research exploring the role of men’s intelligence in heterosexual women’s mate choices, psychologist Mark D. Prokosch and his colleagues explain that “greater intelligence is generally associated with success in a wide variety of circumstances,” most notably, workplace success, leading to higher income. “Selecting a more intelligent mate often provides women with better access to resources and parental investment for offspring.” Additionally, smart-man genes are likely to lead to smarter children, making intelligence attractive as an “overall heritable ... quality.” There’s a widely held myth that romantic partners need to be near doppelgangers — have matching traits and interests — to make it as a couple. This sells memberships to those dating sites promising to ferret out “points of compatibility.” However, research by psychologist Manon van Scheppingen finds that varying, complementing personality traits (such as outgoingness or conscientiousness) in partners often lead to greater relationship

satisfaction. That said, it’s reasonable to want a partner with a level of smarts that’s a pretty good match with yours, because, well, a meeting of the minds is a little hard when one mind is tuned into Cold War documentaries while the other is all up in reruns of “Scooby-Doo.” Chances are the notion that you’re a “snob” for wanting an intellectually wellmatched partner is driven in part by others’ fear that they’ll be nixed by potential partners for traits beyond their control. There’s this lovely fiction that “what’s inside is all that matters.” A person’s heart and character are deeply important, but you can’t just decide to have the hots for some Mr. Libido Repellent because he feeds orphaned baby birds with an eyedropper while taking calls for a suicide hotline. Likewise, you can believe all people have innate value and treat them with respect and dignity and still not feel you’re compatible with a partner whose intelligence test results lead to a participation trophy. ! GOT A problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or e-mail AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com) © 2020 Amy Alkon Distributed by Creators.Com.

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