TCB Sept. 28, 2016 — Where is the love for G-$antana?

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com Sept. 28 – Oct. 4, 2016

He’s toured Europe with KRS-One and no one from his hometown knows who he is.

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Cops, courts and race PAGES 6 and 10 A kind of brainwashing PAGE 18 Cam Newton and kneeling PAGE 20

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Trump for kids

UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 5 The List 5 Barometer 5 Unsolicited Endorsement

by Brian Clarey

NEWS 6 Video shows police brutality, activists demand broader change 7 Cooperative grocery proposed for food-scarce West Salem 8 Charter school opponents take aim at school board incumbents

OPINION 10 Editorial: Police on TV 10 Citizen Green: Guilford court system produces reformer 11 Fresh Eyes: A foodie apologia

COVER 12 Where is the love for G-$antana

CULTURE 16 Food: This is what a smoothie bowl looks like

17 Barstool: Opening for new bar Bearded Goat imminent 18 Art: White women, advertising and history at the Weatherspoon

CROSSWORD

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21 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

SPORTSBALL

22 Eastchester Dr, High Point

20 Cam Newton and taking a knee

ALL SHE WROTE 23 Pret-a-porter politics

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

He didn’t call Sunday. He didn’t call Monday. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m gonna forget about that.’ A couple days later I’m staring at the cash register and it’s the end of the shift. I thought, ‘I’ll just go home and smoke down a bag.’ My phone rings and I see a New Jersey number. My OG lives in Jersey, so I thought it was him. I pick up the phone, and he says, ‘Ha ha ha this is KRS-One.’ — G-$antana, in the Cover, page 12

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

brian@triad-city-beat.com allen@triad-city-beat.com

jorge@triad-city-beat.com

dick@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES EXECUTIVE Stephen Cuccio

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

lamar@triad-city-beat.com

eric@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERN Naari Honor intern@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Nicole Crews Stallone Frazier Anthony Harrison Matt Jones

Cover photography of G-$antana by Stallone Frazier

steve@triad-city-beat.com

SALES EXECUTIVE Lamar Gibson SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

We don’t play drinking games in my house, but we watched the debate anyway, with notebooks and pens, our phones ready for fact-checking.

The kids were pretty excited about it — there was some extra credit in the offering and at least one of them has been working on his Trump impression for months.

We started tallying his references on our notebooks and phones: one mention apiece of Michigan and Ohio, states he desperately needs to win; six “believe me”s; two “big-league”s; three uses of the word “disaster” in the first 25 minutes; three things deemed “tremendous”; and a single “That I can tell you,” deployed in the final third.

I showed the kids how quickly #thatmakesmesmart infiltrated the Twittersphere, and explained how, during the Sarah Palin debates, much was made about how bad it would have looked for Joe Biden to verbally bully a woman on live TV. “Trump maybe didn’t get that memo,” my 14-year-old said.

They were most surprised, however, by the ugliest political truth I revealed to them that night.

“It doesn’t really matter,” I told them. “As soon as this is over there will be hundreds of thousands of people claiming that Trump won this one, and they will never change their minds.”

They’re too young to remember that George W. Bush lost all of his debates, too, the foreboding words of the neocons from that era regarding the “reality-based community” and the dwindling number of those who live there.

My kids still think it’s sort of funny.

The biggest laugh of the night came when Trump took a shot at his old nemesis Rosie O’Donnell, who he has in the past called a My teenage children mar“loser” and a “fat pig.” veled at the pettiness of Regarding a presidential candidate O’Donnell, the dragging a 10-year-old media Republican canfeud into a national political didate said on live debate.

TV: “I think we can all agree that she deserved it, and nobody feels sorry for her.”

My teenage children marveled at the pettiness of a presidential candidate dragging a 10-year-old media feud into a national political debate. And as they shuffled off to bed, I think they were more confused than anything else.

They had just watched a grown-up act like a baby, lie and smirk his way through a serious evening. And he just might grow up to be president.

cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2015 Beat Media Inc.

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016

WEDNESDAY

CITY LIFE September 28 – October 4

by Naari Honor

Autumn leaves tour @ departs from Market-Fire Engine House on Salem Square (W-S), noon Pretty sure there’s a poignant song that involves seasons changing and leaves falling that would provide the perfect soundtrack for this event, but at the moment it has escaped the mind. So instead just think of Old Salem and its historic trees with leaves that are on the brink of changing from green into vivid shades of yellows, reds and oranges. Advanced reservations required. More information (and probably the title of that elusive song) can be found at oldsalem.org.

Forsyth Humane Society tour @ 4881 Country Club Road (W-S), 6:30 p.m.

Looks like the lost pooches and kittens of Winston-Salem have gotten some new digs. The new location of the Forsyth Human Society opens its doors for a grand tour and invites the public to inspect the new facility. However, TCB cannot take responsibility if you come home with new fur babies. More information can be found at forsythhumane.org.

FRIDAY

Read-in @ beginning at LeBauer Park (GSO), 8 p.m.

In solidarity with demonstrators and activists in Charlotte, the Queer People Of Color Collective, Black Lives Matter Greensboro and Elsewhere host a series of “out-loud” readings in public spaces, starting with the occupation of Lebauer Park. Detailed information about the demonstration route can be found on the Read-In: #BlackLivesMatter event Facebook page.

SATURDAY Rowing festival @ Oak Hollow Festival Park (HP), 8 a.m.

It’s the small things, like a gigantic inflatable rubber ducky, that can make or break an event, and the 2016 High Point Rowing Festival will have said duck.

Enough said. Pictures of the great duck and pertinent details of the rowing regatta can be found on the High Point Autumn Rowing Festival event page.

Yoga by the Barn @ Salem Tavern Meadow (W-S), 9 a.m.

Is it wrong to imagine barn yard animals in yoga gear or class being taught by a well-known insurance duck when the words “yoga” and “barn” are mentioned in the same sentence? Okay, so that may not happen but the whole “Yoga by the Barn” theme still sounds pretty picturesque. For more information, contact Tabatha Renegar at trenegar@oldsalem.org or at 336.721.7352.

Radish investigation @ Greensboro Farmers Curb Market (GSO), 10 a.m.

Budding sleuths between the ages of 6 and 12: The Greensboro Farmers Curb Market has the perfect excuse for you to wake your parents up very early on a Saturday morning. (Just don’t tell them you saw it in Triad City Beat.) Corben Harris from the YMCA’s Camp Weaver teaches the kiddies all about roots and radishes. For more information and to register mosey on over to gsofarmersmarket.org.

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History Rocks! @ High Point Museum (HP), noon The High Point Museum pulls out all the stops for its sixth annual Historical Society Fundraiser. With Pokestops and Pokegyms, local bands, K9 demonstrations by the High Point Police Department, bake sales and games, there is a little something for the whole family to enjoy. Complete event details can be found on highpointnc.gov.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 1 p.m.

The students of the Wake Forest Asian Student Interest Association bring the Chinese Mooncake Festival to Winston-Salem. The association invites the community to take a break from the busy work week to indulge in a variety of flavorful mooncakes, Asian-inspired cuisine, traditional festival performances and quality time with friends and neighbors. More information can be found on the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival Facebook event page.

Bearded Goat soft opening @ 116 E. Lewis St. (GSO), 6 p.m.

Self-described as a classy yet “artistic dive”, the Bearded Goat is calling on all friends and fam to help partake in their pre-opening night of celebratory fun. RSVP on the Bearded Goat’s Facebook page or with the dudes known as Seth, Matt and Mike.

TUESDAY

Collectors talk @ Greensboro Cultural Center (GSO), Tuesday, 5:30 p.m.

Artists and collectors come together to offer insight on the world of an art connoisseur. Robin Barefoot and artist Sharon Dowell share stories about working with collectors in a reception and talk at the Greensboro Cultural Center. RSVP at greenhillnc.org.

Brian Clarey: I haven’t had a drink in almost five years, so I don’t speak with any authority. But I’m voting for Rollinson of Joymongers because he’s the only one on the list who remembers the days when I did.

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4. I’m angry that Black Lives Matter is routinely misrepresented I am tired of hearing Black Lives Matter organizers compared to violent criminals and rogue vigilantes. The bottom line is that the movement was created after the death of Michael Brown and is a stand against anti-black racism. The movement does not support violence.

5. I’m angry that so many people ignore or don’t know our history The fear and rage of black people surrounding such things as oppression, discrimination, violence and racism

6. I’m afraid of what the future holds for our nation The footage of police brutality, random acts of racism and rioting in the streets seem strikingly similar to movies like Mississippi Burning and Rosewood. This brings fear to my heart because the journey to reach an end in these movies was filled with unspeakable tragedies.

7. I’m afraid that my skin color is perceived as violent I think my biggest fear may be hypervigilance on both sides of this war against racism. It feels as if being black is like having a target painted and your back and it is assumed that you are angry, armed and ready to go to war so you must automatically be laid to rest.

All She Wrote

3. I’m angry that police continue to kill unarmed black people with impunity The nightmares of being forced to the ground at gunpoint by a police officer as bystanders stand in a circle around me with their hands up in the air and not intervening started two weeks ago.

is not unfounded. Despite slavery ending, the mindset that influenced slavery did not end with it, and legalized racial discrimination in housing, voting and every other aspect of life continued for a century. Yet somehow there are people who claim that racism began with Barack Obama’s tenure.

Shot in the Triad

2. I’m afraid of the racism that propels Trump Conversations that once included plans for future travels to chase bands I had yet to see live or pursue dreams I was finally ready to move forward with have been replaced with discussions about if we will be safe as black

people if Trump is elected president, why white people want to see black people dead and whether we need to leave the country before the race riots start.

Crossword

1. I’m afraid of being killed by police In getting ready for work in the morning, I have added extra steps to my daily regimen that have become more important than the act of going to work itself. Right before I put on my clothes, I make sure to perfume my body with a scent that is sure to linger long after my body has vacated any space that my feet have touched. Once I get dressed and have gathered my belongings, I go into my 22-year-old’s room, kiss her cheek and tell her that I love her before saying goodbye.

I do this because the probability that I may not make it home one night due to being killed in the streets by the hand of another has become my realty as a black person. I am afraid and angry that I now where perfume so that my daughter remembers the way I smell in case I am murdered through no fault of my own.

Sportsball

7by Naari reasons why I am angry and afraid as a black woman in America Honor

Culture

9% Dave McClure of Hoots 9% TL Adkisson of Foothills 9% Mike Rollinson of Joymongers 11% Other

Cover Story

Readers: With just 15 votes separating the top contenders, Calder Preyer of Greensboro’s Preyer Brewing edged out Ian Burnett, the brewmaster

24% Calder Preyer of Preyer 21% Ian Burnett of Brown Truck 17% Todd Isbell of Liberty

Maybe you’ve heard of Leon Bridges by now, thanks to his appearance in an NPR “Tiny Desk Concert” or one of his tunes showing up in a prime-time advertisement. Chances are you like his infectious hit “Coming Home,” the first track off his album by the same name, which has nearly 32 million streams on Spotify. But the other tracks, including “Better Man,” the slow and soulful “River” or songs like “Flowers” that betray his Texas roots are well worth the listen, too.

Bridges and his backing band, including a stellar sax player and similarly impressive back-up singer, recently rolled through the Durham Performing Arts Center on tour, and I remember thinking early in his set that I hope Greensboro’s planned downtown performance space will someday draw acts like his.

I’ve run into a few people who are acquainted with his music, which harkens back to the soul hits of earlier generations, who aren’t impressed. It’s unoriginal, they say, and not that interesting. But while I wouldn’t put Bridges in league with bygone greats, I have no idea what these folks are talking about. Yes, Bridges dances about as well as I do (read: hopefully endearingly bad), but he maintains a good stage presence even seen from the balcony, explaining some of the context behind song lyrics and exuding genuine excitement for the stage.

The band’s encore lasted longer than it should’ve, considering the length of the set that could’ve been extended, but all is forgiven because Bridges started their return to the spotlight with a cover of Ginuwine’s legendary hit “Pony.” Describing myself as stunned would be an understatement, and I only wish the seated audience had risen to its feet earlier in the night to jam along with Bridges and company.

Watch the music video for “River” and then try and pretend you’re not drawn to Bridges. Listen to “Coming Home” if you haven’t, and if that doesn’t work, consider the upbeat “Outta Line.” If you can’t find something you like on his album, we should just avoid talking about music together.

Opinion

Eric Ginsburg: Yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and pass on this one. You may not believe me, but I think all of the Triad’s breweries make great beer, and I refuse to pick a favorite.

New question: Our 2016 Beer Issue comes out next week, so we have another beer question — which Triad brewery serves the best food? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

Leon Bridges

by Eric Ginsburg

News

Jordan Green: Seriously? How on earth am I supposed to make this choice? And it’s not just because I don’t want to play favorites, although it might be that my palate is not especially refined.

In the past year, I’ve gained sublime enjoyment from beers at Hoots, Small Batch, Brown Truck, Gibb’s and Preyer. And Foothills is the beloved standby in the Triad. And Todd Isbell at Liberty’s deserves props as the veteran on the scene. And I do truly love Pig Pounder’s Boar Brown. There — I’ve named everybody except Natty Greene’s and Joymongers, the latter of which I still haven’t tried.

at High Point’s new Brown Truck Brewing. Preyer commanded 24 percent of the vote to Burnett’s 21.

High Point’s other brewery ranked third thanks to the work of Todd Isbell (17 percent), followed by a tie between Dave McClure of Hoots, TL Adkisson of Foothills and Mike Rollinson of Joymongers with 9 percent each (though McClure technically received 90 votes to Adkisson’s 89 and Rollinson’s 88). Gibb’s, Small Batch, Natty Greene’s and Pig Pounder made up the remaining 11 percent, ranking in that order. Look for more on Preyer and Burnett in the upcoming 2016 Beer Issue, out next week!

Up Front

In advance of our 2016 Beer Issue, we asked our readers who they’d pick as the best brewmaster in the Triad. And you responded in droves, with about 1,000 votes cast by the time we cut off polling at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

triad-city-beat.com

Best brewmaster in the Triad?

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

Video shows police brutality, activists demand broader change

by Eric Ginsburg As Greensboro City Council releases footage of a police officer assaulting a black resident on his mother’s porch and votes to pursue ramifications for the officer, residents demand deeper change in the police department and insist council’s action amounts to window dressing.

Monday marked the second time the Greensboro City Council shared police body camera video from an incident that’s caused public outcry, this time showing former officer Travis B. Cole assaulting resident Dejuan Yourse on his mother’s porch.

Cole, who is white, rapidly escalated an interaction with Yourse, who is black, grabbing Yourse’s phone out of his hand before attacking him and wrestling him to the ground.

A new state law takes effect Saturday that will limit the release of police body camera footage across North Carolina, though Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan said Monday that won’t stop council from voting to release footage of critical incidents in the future.

Council — with the support of Chief Wayne Scott — went a step further, unanimously approving a resolution that seeks the indefinite suspension of Cole’s certification as an officer “so that he will not be eligible to serve as a law enforcement officer in the future” and instructing the police department to ask Guilford County District Attorney Doug Henderson to “review this incident again to ensure the entire investigative file is duly considered.”

Cole quit the force in August amid two departmental investigations into the June 17 incident, including a criminal investigation. The department eventually determined that Cole violated the department’s directives for use of force, courtesy towards the public, arrest, search and seizure and also compliance to laws and regulations. All charges against Yourse stemming from the incident, including assault and resisting arrest, were dropped, but the district attorney’s office chose not to pursue charges against Cole for the assault.

During the department’s investigations, Cole was placed on administrative leave with pay on Aug. 10 before he resigned.

In a special meeting called Monday afternoon, Greensboro City Council members and Chief Scott apologized directly to Yourse — who sat in the front row — for the incident before

ERIC GINSBURG Supporters of Dejuan Yourse (seated facing camera) call for broader police reform and a deeper investigation into the handling of his case on Monday.

voting on the resolution that pushes for Cole to be charged and seeks to prevent him from working as a police officer.

But hundreds of residents who marched to the meeting — including many students from NC A&T University, local clergy and Black Lives Matter supporters — reamed the process that council and the chief agreed took far too long and condemned the handling of the incident in general.

Though it wasn’t raised at the meeting Monday, Cole’s employment history reveals that the former officer was actually promoted to Police Officer III on Aug. 1, well after the incident with Yourse and the beginning of the department’s first investigation into the use of force. Yourse also called the department to file a complaint about the incident on July 20, Scott said.

Cole had been suspended without pay for one day in mid-2015 over an incident with brothers Devin and Rufus Scales the year prior. After significant public pressure, the city issued a formal apology to them and the Scales brothers received a $50,000 settlement.

In October 2015, the Scales brothers’ case appeared prominently in a frontpage investigative New York Times piece about race and policing in Greensboro, helping to make it one of the most wellknown and most frequently cited incidents of police misconduct in the city’s recent history. (The author contributed reporting to the article.)

Given Cole’s history with the Scales brothers, speakers during the public comment section of the meeting lambasted the city for acting so slowly.

It is not immediately clear why Cole received a promotion in the middle of the department’s investigation, but spokesperson Susan Danielsen said officers are presumed innocent until an investigation determines otherwise.

“Cole and all of his other academy graduates were promoted on the same day,” she said via email. Cole’s salary went up from $46,592 to $48,067 with the promotion, Danielsen said.

The tense Monday meeting involved frequent warnings from Vaughan that she would kick people out of the council chambers as attendees repeatedly interrupted the proceedings to demand greater action, including the desire to see Officer CN Jackson — a female officer who responded to a possible break-in call with Cole and who claimed Yourse assaulted her in a report — similarly punished.

In the charging documents, Jackson accused Yourse of “using his shoulder to press her wrist against a doorframe.”

The charge was also dropped.

Scott said in a press conference following the council meeting that Jackson is still under internal investigation for use of force in the incident, but she is still on duty and the process may not be complete for another two weeks.

Jackson did not agree to the release of

her body-camera footage and neither did Cole, Scott said.

Former lawyer Lewis Pitts, a vocal police-reform advocate, said at the council meeting that the only reason the issue became public is that other officers leaked the information, which eventually made its way to clergy including the Rev. Cardes Brown, another tireless reform advocate. Multiple speakers said the investigation should not end with Cole; the Rev. Nelson Johnson specifically asked for an official inquiry into the case and the unduly long process.

“If this were just about Officer Cole, it would be fairly simple,” he said.

Instead, he elaborated, the department’s handling of the case is a microcosm of other issues plaguing the department.

Kiera Hereford, a leader in Black Lives Matter Greensboro, said black council members aren’t doing enough to address systemic police abuses, also criticizing police surveillance of local activists and adding that she is “tired” and “frustrated.”

“We’re fighting for your lives, too,” Hereford said, addressing black council members.

Mayor Vaughan, who is white, said later in the meeting: “We as a city council agree: Black lives matter.” Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann attempted to explain all the ways she thinks the council has been proactive and has set an example for other cities. Activists repeatedly interrupted Hoffmann, Vaughan and other aspects of the meeting, but as Yourse himself approached the podium to thank the crowd for their support attendees chanted, “We love you, we we love you.”

Council also voted unanimously to provide financial assistance to Yourse to go towards expunging his record of the bogus charges he faced. Councilman Mike Barber, who voted against the release of the footage last week, was absent and didn’t participate in the vote or the previous one Monday.

Attendees vowed that the matter isn’t settled with council’s actions Monday, and while Vaughan and others said they agreed, Councilwoman Sharon Hightower spoke most vocally against the department’s handling of the investigations and the June 17 incident itself.

“There’s something wrong here, ladies and gentlemen,” Hightower said.

“It doesn’t smell right to me.”

A faith-based initiative seeks to provide affordable and wholesome food in a high-need part of Winston-Salem, but location and sourcing could be challenges.

Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

co-op is its proximity to the ballpark, where a boom in luxury housing is creating a potential clientele with high incomes to help support the venture.

Williams said cooperative leaders plan to start canvassing residential areas around the proposed site in November to conduct what he called a “visible customer discovery.” The leadership of Share Cooperative has also looked to Renaissance Community Cooperative as a model.

“The things they’ve shared with us is that community organization is important,” Williams said.

Dave Reed is a cooperative business developer with the Fund for Democratic Communities, a Greensboro-based foundation that provided technical assistance to Renaissance Community Cooperative. Although the timeline from inception to implementation spans about five years, the community organizing that laid the foundation actually dates back to 1998, Reed said.

“For Renaissance Community Cooperative, what was critical to the success was the high level of organizing within the community,” he said. “The Renaissance Community Cooperative really has been built on the back of some deep community organizing that has been going on in northeast Greensboro that really started with the closing of the Winn-Dixie grocery store in 1998.

Within weeks of the store closing, there

Opinion

A distressed neighborhood just across Business 40 from BB&T Ballpark and bracketed between Peters Creek Parkway and South Broad Street, West Salem roughly mirrors the demographics of the city: 64.3 percent white, 30.6 percent black and 16.1 percent Latino. Its poverty rate — 42.4 percent — is well above the 24 percent rate for the city as a whole, and median family income is about three quarters of the city average.

Yet West Salem is nowhere near as poor as neighborhoods to the east that straddle US Highway 52, where the poverty rate exceeds 60 percent.

The cooperative is applying for a community grant from the city of Winston-Salem to pay for a feasibility study and a marketing study in the 2017-2018 funding cycle. Winston-Salem Community & Housing Development Director Ritchie Brooks said the co-op applied for a city grant in the most recent funding cycle and was turned down.

The site is about two miles southeast of a cluster of high-end groceries, including Publix, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, and a mile and a half north of the more affordable Compare Foods on Silas Creek Parkway. Bass said that the proximity to Compare shouldn’t be a deterrent, reasoning that in affluent areas, grocery stores are often clustered together. In addition to being part of a food desert, Bass said that one of the advantages of the location for the food

JORDAN GREEN

News

Gary Williams (left) is heading an effort with the Rev. Willard Bass to open a food co-op in the West Salem Shopping Center.

Up Front

The Rev. Willard Bass and Gary Williams are interested in opening a cooperative grocery in Winston-Salem to respond to the need for affordable, quality food in food deserts.

Bass is executive director of the Institute for Dismantling Racism, a nonprofit housed in Green Street Church primarily known for facilitating anti-racist trainings for large institutions. With the Institute for Dismantling Racism as sponsor of the cooperative, Bass called on Gary Williams, his associate from the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem & Vicinity, to lead the effort.

“We’ll put a plan in place, and we’ll start to offer memberships,” said Williams, a minister who lives in Mocksville. “The members will vote on who the directors are and elect a board. At that point, my work will have concluded if I’ve done my job on the front end.”

Williams and Bass acknowledged that their initiative, called the Share Cooperative, is in many ways modeled on Renaissance Community Co-op in northeast Greensboro, whose soft opening is expected to take place in the first half of October with a grand opening scheduled for Nov. 15.

“What our niche will be is affordable, wholesome and fresh foods,” Williams said. “A traditional food cooperative, they’re appealing to a clientele who are natural-food enthusiasts, organic-food enthusiasts. Cost is not an issue. Because we are catering to lower-income communities and a lower-income clientele, value will be important.”

The Share Cooperative identified a storefront in the West Salem Shopping Center on Peters Creek Parkway as an ideal location by overlaying a map of US Department of Agriculture-designated food deserts with a map of shopping centers targeted for improvement through the city of Winston-Salem’s Revitalizing Urban Commercial Areas program. Williams said project leaders like the West Salem Shopping Center because it’s centrally located and already hosts a number of viable businesses that would omplement a food market. Green Street Church and the storefront that Williams and Bass are eyeing are located in the West Salem neighborhood.

were neighbors meeting to discuss how to deal with it. That community successfully prevented the re-opening of the White Street Landfill, and the co-op grew out of that. While this is end of a five-year effort, it’s really the culmination of an 18-year struggle.”

Williams said he sees Share Cooperative as a hybrid of Renaissance and the various farmers’ markets that have sprung up around Winston-Salem, with a commitment to sourcing food from local farmers and community gardens.

Notwithstanding challenges experienced by other markets, Williams said he’s confident the co-op will be able to buy enough produce to make the partnership work for farmers and gardeners while also keeping prices low enough for consumers.

Reed said when Renaissance Community Cooperative started looking for distributors, local sourcing was only part of their criteria. They ended up choosing Merchants Distributors, a wholesale grocery store distributor based in Hickory, because they’re a North Carolina company and because they treat their workers well.

“They’re in the process of building out a local food distribution program,” Reed said. “The guy who runs their produce section came and met with us.

He was in the midst of meeting with all the agriculture cooperative extensions. He was meeting with farmers and asking, ‘What are you growing, and can we help you grow the stuff that we are selling?’ The RCC — because we’re going to be sourcing a substantial amount of product, we’re going to have access to that.”

While the new co-op in Greensboro will buy packaged items like barbecue sauce directly from local producers, fresh produce is a tougher prospect because of the challenge of scalability.

“When it comes to fresh produce coming from local farmers, it’s going to be difficult to get that on store shelves,” Reed said. Food systems are complex, and finding a way to serve communities that have been failed by capitalism presents a tricky balancing act, he said.

“We exist within a food system that is already created,” he said. “We — and by we, I mean communities that are interested in figuring out a better way to feed ourselves — need to create sustainable entities within the existing food system but disrupt it enough to get a better outcome for their constituents.”

triad-city-beat.com

Cooperative grocery proposed for food-scarce West Salem area

by Jordan Green

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Charter school proponents take aim at school board incuments

by Jordan Green Two Republican challengers seeking seats on Guilford County School Board have ties to the charter school movement, while Democratic incumbents warn about “an assault on public schools in this state” and trends in education “that have not been positive.”

With all seats on the reconfigured Guilford County School Board up for re-election this year, two Republican candidates with deep ties to the charter school movement are challenging longtime Democratic incumbents intent on defending traditional public schools.

Republican Alan Hawkes, a member of the NC Charter School Advisory Board who was appointed by Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, is challenging board Chairman Alan Duncan, a Democrat first elected in 2002, for the countywide at-large seat. Hawkes current serves on the board of directors of two local charter schools: Greensboro Charter Academy and Summerfield Charter Academy.

“We’ve got incumbents making excuses as to why public schools of choice shouldn’t have a seat at the table,” Hawkes told an audience at a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of the Piedmont Triad on Sept.

20, referring to charter schools. “Every option should be on the table to get our children reading at grade level and not ending up incarcerated or on the streets or substance abusers.”

Elaborating in an interview with Triad City Beat, Hawkes said, “There are some things that members of the Guilford County School Board don’t want to talk about. One of them is the actual school board applying for and getting a charter where they could skip some of the requirements of those traditional public schools, and partner with an education management organization to be able to plunk one of those schools down in the district and be a public school of choice.”

The Hawkes campaign received a $1,000 contribution in February from Jon Hage, CEO of Charter Schools USA, a Florida-based charter school company that operates schools in seven states, including North Carolina. The contribution accounts for a considerable portion of the $2,596 total raised by the Hawkes campaign as of the most recent report at the end of June.

Colleen Reynolds, a spokesperson for

Guilford County School Board Chairman Alan Duncan (left), a 14year incumbent, is being challenged by Alan Hawkes (right).

Charter Schools USA said in an email that she doesn’t believe it’s appropriate to “question any private citizen about his or her motivation to contribute to a specific campaign.” She added, “However, I can tell you from my observations and experience that Mr. Hage is a serious proponent of doing what he believes is best for students and families.

He has a long history of contributing to political campaigns across the country, across party lines, in states where we do have schools and in states where we don’t have schools. It’s very simple. Jon Hage supports political candidates at all levels who support education reform, educational choice and high-quality charter schools.”

Hawkes said in an email that “there is no quid pro quo nor expectation of special treatment for public charter schools in NC with which CS USA has partnered.”

Among Hawke’s duties as a member of the state Charter Schools Advisory Board is recommending applications for final approval to the State Board of Education and recommending to revoke charters for schools that fail to perform.

“I have absolutely no problem,” he said, “voting to revoke the charter of any public charter school that fails operationally, financially or academically.”

Duncan, Hawke’s opponent, has signed a statement that he does not intend to raise more than $1,000 during the campaign, and as such has not been required by state law to file detailed campaign finance reports with the

JORDAN GREEN

Guilford County Board of Elections. If at any time during the campaign he exceeds that threshold, he will be required to report his receipts.

During the candidate forum, Duncan offered a nuanced response to a question about whether traditional public schools in Guilford County have adapted any innovations from charter schools — one of six purposes articulated when the state General Assembly initially authorized charters in the 1990s. Duncan cited Allen Jay Preparatory Academy in High Point. He elaborated later that the academy borrowed some practices from a charter school in Charlotte based on the “Ron Clark model,” which emphasizes a balance of academic rigor, creativity and a strict code of discipline. As an example of innovation flowing in the opposite direction, Duncan added that the private Phoenix Academy launched an aviation program after the public Andrews High School did so.

“The charter school question’s terribly complicated,” he said.

Darlene Garrett, a Democratic incumbent who has served on the school board since 2000 and who is running for reelection in the new District 5, has taken more of a hardline position against diverting state funds from traditional public schools to charters.

“I am definitely against the vouchers,” she said. “I believe they’re unconstitutional, as well as there’s no accountability for the taxpayers’ dollars that go to parochial schools and religious schools. It’s just plain wrong to take it

away from public schools.”

During her closing comment at the candidate forum, Garrett took a jab at her Republican opponent, without mentioning her by name.

“And if you don’t know it, there’s an assault on public schools in this state,” Garrett said. “And that’s why it’s so important to elect strong board of education candidates. I have all the time in the world to do it. I don’t have a job. I’m not running another charter school.”

Mary Catherine Sauer, the Republican candidate, responded during her own closing statement by saying, “I have started two charter schools; I don’t run either one.”

Sauer elaborated in a follow-up interview with TCB, explaining that she founded Cornerstone Charter Academy and Piedmont Classical High School.

She said she currently holds a part-time position as director of development at Piedmont Classical, adding that her contract ends in June 2017. All four of Sauer’s children attended Greensboro Charter Academy, a K-8 school, and three returned to the traditional public school system to attend Northern Guilford High School. Her youngest child is attending Piedmont Classical.

“My job was to get it started and stay there two years to make sure there’s a healthy transition,” Sauer said.

Sauer does not see her employment with a charter school and potential service on a local school board as being a conflict of interest, and said she would like to see “more constructive dialogue” between Guilford County Schools and local charters.

“There are lots of ways we can work together; at least, we shouldn’t be working against each other,” she said. “We need to do what benefits the kids. I think they could go a lot further.

Charter schools tend to see families as customers. I think Guilford County Schools could go further in that regard by being more customer friendly and more in partnership with parents.”

Sauer acknowledged the concern of some that charter schools represent a diversion of public dollars and in some cases fund religious schools at taxpayer expense. “As a school board member we really don’t have any control over that,” she said during the candidate forum.

“So while I see that some people have

Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

A third candidate, Lois L. Bailey, is running for the District 5 seat as an unaffiliated candidate. Bailey did not field either of the two questions about charter schools during the candidate forum and did not address the issue during her closing statement. She could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Alan Hawkes issued a withering denunciation of opponent Alan Duncan at the forum. “If I were an incumbent on the board of education,” he said, “I would be absolutely ashamed of myself for 50 percent reading proficiency in third grade and 39 failing elementary and middle schools in Guilford County.”

Without responding directly, Duncan shifted focus to a number of state trends that he said threaten teacher morale and public education, including a drop in the number of teachers in “our education pipeline.” Then he noted that the Guilford County School Board has passed a resolution asking the General Assembly to repeal the A-F school grading system.

“If you look at a map of where the poverty is in North Carolina,” Duncan said, “you will be able to follow that probably to where the schools are failing.”

triad-city-beat.com

concerns about that — and separation of church and state — as a school board we should worry about what we have control over, which is Guilford County Schools. We need to concentrate on making Guilford County Schools the best it can be so that people don’t make other choices — that every Guilford County school is an excellent school.”

The Sauer campaign had raised $2,534 as of June 30, including a $200 contribution from Eddie Goodall. The former state lawmaker owns Goodall Consulting, a firm that advertises itself as offering “a broad range of services to help charter schools achieve and maintain a firm financial foundation.”

Goodall said he doesn’t view his contribution as promoting any potential financial benefit for his company.

“I’ve worked with Mary Catherine before,” he said. “She is smart and passionate about public education, and I think she’s someone who’s dedicated to creating change that provides better outcomes for students.”

Like her fellow Democratic incumbent, Garrett has signed a statement to the effect that she does not intend to raise more than $1,000, and has not been required to file detailed campaign finance reports.

Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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OPINION EDITORIAL

Cops on TV Maybe he had a gun. Maybe he didn’t.

How can it be that almost a week after the police shot Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte’s University City neighborhood, we still don’t really know what happened?

We have the official version of events — that Scott was brandishing a handgun, that he threatened the officers on the scene, that it was a black cop who pulled the trigger — and we have some video that has wisely been released by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and the city, though their narrative doesn’t jibe with the images.

The released video seems to show that Scott was most certainly not holding a gun when he was shot, and it becomes difficult to tell if, as the CMPD claims, it was a black cop who shot him.

But it doesn’t matter: All cops are blue. It’s the victim’s race that makes this story national news.

This mistrust of the police, always extant in a big, Southern city like Charlotte, was exacerbated by Todd Walther, who, in speaking for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police on live television, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that 70 percent of the protestors arrested the night of the shooting were from out of state. He recanted a day later, when Charlotte Observer reporters found that almost 80 percent of those arrested were from the Queen City.

When CMPD Chief Kerr Putney says that his department has no “definitive” evidence that Scott was holding a gun, how can he still have so much confidence in the actions of his officers? Every single cop on the scene, and every squad car, should have been recording footage of the event as well. Where is that footage? And why can’t the public see it?

As it stands, civilians have no legal right to see what their employees on the police force are doing on the job: Body-camera video is classified as evidence, or personnel info, labels that seem applied with the express purpose of shielding those charged with protecting and serving. And a new state law goes into effect next week that further hampers our ability to monitor the officers on our payroll.

This week, the city of Greensboro showed some courage in releasing footage of Officer Travis Cole using “excessive force” on an African-American man sitting on his mother’s porch in an otherwise quiet Greensboro neighborhood.

Cole, who resigned in the middle of the department’s investigation, has already got a highlight reel: He was disciplined for his role in the infamous Scales brothers video two years ago, handcuffing Rufus Scales on a Greensboro Street for “blocking traffic” while his brother Devon recorded the encounter on his cellphone. The settlement cost the city $50,000.

When the final tally comes in Charlotte, the cost will be much higher.

CITIZEN GREEN

Guilford court system produces reformer

Working as a prosecutor in Guilford County District Court during his final year at Elon Law School, Ricky Watson Jr. was taken aback

by Jordan Green at some of the charges against 16- and 17-year-olds whose cases, often simple assault, had been referred from the public school system.

“They had done things that when I was growing up would be referred to in-school suspension or what was called ‘Sunday school’ when I was a student at Grimsley High School,” Watson said in an interview with Triad City Beat. “These people were criminalized at a very young age and they were being stuck with collateral consequences like not being able to qualify for a job, not being able to qualify for housing and not being able to qualify for certain kinds of student loans.”

North Carolina is one of two states in the nation, along with New York, where 16- and 17-year-olds are treated as adults in the criminal justice system. After law school, Watson went to work in the public defenders’ office under Fred Lind, where he observed from another side how the black males who are disproportionately referred to the system are siphoned into second-class citizenship.

“The need for quality representation is imperative,” he said. “We often talk about the presumption of innocence. As you may know, that’s not typically the way it works. Often the reality is that with the charges the bell is already rung, and as a defendant you’re trying to work your way down to what you should have been charged with in the first place. When defendants are charged, often we’ll talk about ‘throwing the kitchen sink at a defendant to see what sticks’ so as a defender you spend a lot of time getting charges dropped.”

Eventually, Watson, now 30, transitioned to the juvenile court system, where he felt he could do more good by helping young people in trouble before they face criminal charges. In contrast to the punitive adult criminal justice system, the juvenile system — which is premised on rehabilitating offenders by putting services in place to help them avoid recidivating — proved to be a better fit for Watson’s values.

Since March, Watson has served as co-director of the Youth Justice Project at the Southern Coalition for

Social Justice in Durham. Watson is one of 10 people chosen for a youth leadership institute for juvenile justice reform advocates run by the National Juvenile Justice Network in Washington. He will travel periodically to Washington to meet the other fellows and attend trainings, enhancing his work in North Carolina.

One of his primary objectives is advocating for the age of jurisdiction to be raised to 18 so that 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t tried as adults.

And while he believes there’s no substitute for getting 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, the Youth Justice Project is also pushing for the expansion of a misdemeanor diversion program for young people ages 16 to 21 currently in place in Durham County, Orange County and Wake County Schools.

“It operates pre-arrest,” Watson said. “If a kid’s a target and they happen to be accused of shoplifting, instead of filing that charge and creating a public record of citation, they hold that charge and refer that young person to the diversion program. It’s a great model because young people don’t have to deal with the collateral consequence. Once you have been diverted, you complete whatever the assigned remedy is. It’s a mock court session that’s closed to the public where you get to see all of those consequences play out, but you avoid that charge ever being on your record.”

Through the fellowship, Watson hopes to train and encourage other young, black men to advocate for reform.

“Young black men are the overwhelming percentage of all young juvenile cases,” he said. “Black men tend to be the overwhelming majority of any court cases. My goal is to empower young minority males to get them involved in changing the system that they find themselves closely entrenched in. I’m essentially recruiting college-age males, but it could be anywhere from 30 to 16 or 17, to go into their community and utilize the tools we’ve created.”

The first order of business is to change North Carolina’s ignominious status as one of the two states that prosecutes 16- and 17-yearolds as adults. But Watson still sees plenty of room for reform after that.

“Ideally, we would see the age of jurisdiction raised to 18,” he said. “Really we need to be expanding that to 21 and 25. All of the brain science research indicates that young people’s brains don’t fully develop until their mid-twenties. Adultification is preventing them from qualifying for jobs that they could access in other states. Ideally, we would be incorporating 16- and 17-year-olds into the juvenile system. I hope we can do better; that’s just the floor.”

A foodie apologia

News Opinion Cover Story Sportsball

At the Vineyard you can come as you are and be yourself.

gatecityvineyard.com

All She Wrote

Whatever your thoughts about church, whatever your beliefs about God … you are welcome here.

Shot in the Triad

Gate City Vineyard is a modern, Christian church that exists to serve the community around us. Our desire is to help people of all ages and backgrounds grow in their understanding of God.

Crossword

and a hearty “bless your heart” to any place that wishes to ban any person from your establishment that decides to issue an ill word or contradiction to you. I would, however, like to take this opportunity to let the owners and staff responsible for the curation of the 9/11 menu at Hutch & Harris know that while I do not agree with what you did, I would like to apologize for my words that accompanied the post with your menu.

A large portion of what I do is help promote Triad restaurants. I am a professional and I will continue as such in the future. I believe I am very good at what I do and I challenge anyone to prove contrary. I love what I do and I will not change how I conduct my business but I will be mindful of all restaurant dealings. I will be mindful that people near and far are watching and waiting in the wings. Hopefully those wings will be double fried, covered in sauce and served with the best hospitality one can find in the South.

Nikki Miller-Ka is a chef and food blogger who gives food tours and also writes about food for the Greensboro News & Record.

Culture

has been highlighted in a few highly lauded publications, we are a veritable culinary destination.

Restaurateurs, cooks and chefs have attempted to step up the game to lure customers in with New South cuisine; highlighting North Carolina farms and producers seems to be the end game.

So many establishments are transforming the food we have been eating for over three centuries into something new again.

And yet, many other restaurants have been phoning it in, producing boilerplate menus and grasping at straws in order to try to figure out what customers want and what they’re willing to pay for. One menu in particular caused many divisive opinions on Facebook recently when I posted it mid-afternoon on 9/11.

In an attempt to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the largest terrorist attack on the United States, Hutch & Harris published a menu with items such as “Ladder 1” blackened mahi mahi and a “Never Forget” omelet. Later that day, they issued an apology to all those who were offended by it.

I published a photo of the menu accompanied by the words: “What’s this, you ask? Oh, it’s just my 2nd least favorite downtown Winston-Salem restaurant and their RUDE AF menu to ‘commemorate’ 9/11.” I wanted my Facebook friends to see what the restaurant had done. I wanted all to know I did not condone this menu and did not particularly care for the restaurant either.

I was not alone in believing the menu to be in poor taste. I was correct in my assumption. I was incorrect in thinking my opinion would not matter.

After a few hours, the post received more than 22 shares and more than 300 comments. In addition, the menu received front-page news attention and I added a Facebook post to say that I was putting the city’s restaurants on notice.

I’ve watched restaurants open and close. I’ve seen food that’s bad, ugly and everything in between. I never knew how many people cared about what I had to say. My informed, yet carefully crafted opinion is just that: an opinion.

I am just one voice among many and while I do happen to have a legion of followers, there are more than that who have no idea who I am, what I do and probably do not care. I say “good luck”

Up Front

For the past 10 years I have crafted my career specifically around food.

I have paid my dues in

by Nikki Miller-Ka more than one way to commit myself to the industry. After graduating from East Carolina University, I spent thousands of dollars to attend culinary school, just on the chance that someone would take me more seriously as a food writer. I have washed dishes, seared my arms on the line, been yelled yet, asked to retrieve left-handed knives, had gas blow up in my face, slipped on errant French fries, cut myself, motivated and managed waitstaff and acted as a gatekeeper, administrative assistant and restaurant consultant in all different roles inside and outside of restaurants… all just so people I have never met and do not know will take me seriously.

I have been loving on and applauding the area’s restaurants since 2007.

My food blog, which is my job, started almost 10 years ago, too. I wanted to work my way up. And I’ve done nothing except that. I have traveled all over the country to eat in the best restaurants and enjoy the finest craft beers and handmade spirits. I can do my job anywhere in the world and I choose to do it here. In Winston-Salem. I have respect for all business owners because I know it is not easy.

The food and restaurant community in the Piedmont Triad is a small one. A microcosm of restaurateurs and owners within the central business district of downtown Winston-Salem have recently had a Maglite of national and regional attention shine down upon them via television and print news. Overall, these trailblazers and culinary artists hold themselves to higher standards, higher real-estate leasing fees and are the most visible of all restaurants within the city limits.

Patrons hold these places to higher standards as well. Downtown is the epicenter of the city’s cuisine. Essentially, we are a coffee-drinking, bread-loving, hot-dog slinging, doughnut-eating town. Now that the Camel City is on the radar of food writers, bloggers and

triad-city-beat.com

FRESH EYES

204 S. Westgate Dr., Greensboro

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336.323.1288

Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016

A hip hop odyssey, in free style story by Jordan Green // photos by Stallone Frazier

Cover Story

In the beginning: the cypher

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It’s Friday at 4 p.m. on the campus of NC A&T University in early April.

In one of several YouTube videos commemorating the event, the legendary hip-hop emcee KRS-One strides onto the plaza. He towers over everybody else in sunglasses, a Nike athletic jacket and blue jeans, with Terence Muhammad, a Nation of Islam member who often provides security in Greensboro, following about three paces behind. KRS-One’s stature and magnetism give a sense of what it must have been like to be in the presence of Marcus Garvey or Booker T. Washington a hundred years ago.

A voice off camera summons the students milling around.

“Everybody gather ’round. Teacher has something to

say. Gather ’round everybody.”

Just then, a white van bearing the university emblem and the word “facilities” pulls up, and everyone looks a little startled, as if the gathering is about to be disrupted.

The driver steps out of the van and hands his cell phone to a bystander so he can pose for a photo with legend.

“This is the foundation right here,” he exults.

Without getting into detail, KRS-One makes passing reference to his concert at Dynacon Event Center coming up that night before getting down the business at hand.

“The point of the matter is you never know when you’re in history until it’s too late,” he says.

“What you want to be is a friend to your future self,” he continues. “Your future self is depending on you…. You’ll never be 15 again, but you will be 30. So the 30-year-old you is hoping that the 20-year-old you is doing it right.”

He makes an argument that knowledge depends on having a large vocabulary to describe the world.

“That’s why emceeing is so important,” he says. “Where the spitters at?”

He commences: Right now the cypher just begin/ KRSOne, we gonna do it again and again/ My man got the camera on me/ You watchin’ a real emcee from 1983/ Dude, I’m gonna pass the mic/ I want to see who’s ready to get down/ Not in the day, but tonight.

Before the breath of KRS-One’s last word is exhaled, an emcee named Mani Parris is on it.

I’m the voice of the oppressed like a rebel in protest.

The Teacher clasps his chin between his forefinger and his thumb.

On the corner with hustlers, Parris continues, in the streets with the homeless/ Y’all worshipping Yeezus? Boy

G-$antana performs during the prime slot at the monthly Gate City Cypher at Shiner’s, a bar and music venue near Guilford College, after returning from a European tour with hip-hop lege

end KRS-One.

Regeneration: Brooklyn born, Greensboro raised “Brooklyn made me, Greensboro raised me” is the tagline G-$antanauses on his Facebook profile. $antana, who declined to reveal his real name to Triad City Beat, was born in Brooklyn in 1995, a time when the rise of artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Nas and Biggie Smalls was beginning to move hip-hop’s center of gravity back to New York City following a period of dominance by the West Coast. $antana’s mother, Lynne Maillard, was involved in the scene, appearing in a few rap videos.

“She grew up around the pure culture,” $antana said.

“So she knew — or knew of — most of the cats who blew up,” including Jay Z. Maillard exposed her son to Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

In 2001, Maillard moved $antana and his sister down to Greensboro, hoping that the smaller Southern city would keep her son out of trouble.

“My mother was trying to shelter me,” said $antana, who is now 21. “I was playing hooky. My mother did the right thing. I’ve done some things. Up there, I’d probably be in the slammer now if we’d stayed.”

He performed in public for the first time at the Carolina Theatre for A&T homecoming in October 2015. He met Ed E. Ruger, a veteran emcee who has been a linchpin of the Greensboro scene for the past decade, at a beat battle a couple months later in December.

He worked nearly constantly on his craft, to the detriment of his studies at A&T. “At 6 or 7 o’clock, I’m writing for a couple hours, going over rhymes before I go to sleep,” he recalled during an interview at the Starbucks near his place on Dolley

Madison Road in west Greensboro. “I’d wake up at 2 in the morning. That’s when I lose track of time. I locked myself in my closet with a little bag of weed. I have about 15 notebooks now; then I had four. I had a list of what I wanted to finish. This is 3 in the morning, and I’d do it for six hours.”

Ruger, who hosts the monthly Gate City Cypher at Shiner’s, encouraged $antana to keep showing up and to network. In January, an artist had to drop out and Ruger called $antana and asked him to fill the slot. At the time, $antana’s academic career was on the rocks.

“It was like, ‘Why am I getting this notification that I’m getting kicked out of school and I’m getting my first paid gig at the same time?’” $antana recalled. “Maybe God’s trying to tell me something: ‘You’re on the right track.’”

Ruger has been a fan from the start.

“He’s very fresh,” Ruger said. “He’s like the golden era of hip hop, but now. His first show he was freestyling and people didn’t know what it was. He’s just gotten better and better. He’s found his lane.”

triad-city-beat.com

please, I’m Moses/ I was sent by God to come and lead the hopeless.

“Mmmm…” KRS says.

My squad’s skinny, but we push weight like we muscular, Parris says, and KRS roars his approval.

I’m just connected to the plug, Parris says, gesturing towards the legendary emcee, like a USB, and KRS acknowledges the gesture with an outstretched hand.

Next up is G-$antana, wearing a Knicks hat and a green backpack loaded to capacity.

Knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone, right? he begins, enunciating the words in the acronym that forms KRS-One’s name. So I should get the mental wealth, increase my fight.

He raises his fists in a defensive posture, as his friend, Kiing Spacely beat-boxes an accompaniment.

Told the Crips in the hood, ‘Back off my back’/ I’m just trying to get home and not move in no pack/ I’d rather go to the stu’, mix up some beats, freestyle off the dome.

He pauses.

Do you like what I speak? $antana asks, clasping hands with KRS. As the freestyle continues, KRS nods with the beat, laughing. A minute in, KRS is looking visibly amazed, dropping his jaw. Then, before KRS can fully absorb the moment, $antana switches up, recounting an adventure with Kiing in Queens when they spent their last dollar on a slice of cheese pizza, and then found they didn’t have enough money to catch the bus.

Talkin’ ’bout Lucky Charms, I was too broke for cereal/ Serial rapper, who the f*** like venereal….

KRS bobs his head like a punch-drunk boxer, delight playing across his smile, as $antana starts the next stanza with the word “diseases.”

The one who is called: Master Blaster and the apprentice $antana already had a ticket for KRS-One’s April 8 show at Dynacon Event Center when he heard about the cypher at A&T. He had booked some time in a local recording studio at 5 p.m., which left just enough time to make his appearance at the cypher. After finishing the recording session, he headed over to the concert venue and resumed his campaign to connect with KRS-One. “I finessed my way backstage, and I waited for an opportunity to kick it with him,” $antana recalled. “I wasn’t nervous. I knew what I was doing. I just plan carefully.

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Cover Story

I really believe if you concentrate you can control the universe. I wasn’t star-struck. I said, ‘What do I gotta do? I know I’m gonna make it, but I need the guidance.”

Before the concert, $antana slipped his phone number to KRS-One. The intimate concert saw KRS-One jump into the crowd and regale the audience with his hits, and then pass the mic around. $antana got his turn again, and freestyled what would become his track “Puffy in 95,” in which he puts himself in the shoes of Sean Combs in hip hop’s pivotal years.

The lyrics lay out $antana’s position pretty clearly: “Hip hop saved my soul, so I’ll rap ’til I die.”

He had to be at work at McDonald’s on Guilford College Road the next day at 5 a.m.

“He didn’t call Sunday,” $antana recalled. “He didn’t call Monday. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m gonna forget about that.’ A couple days later I’m staring at the cash register and it’s the end of the shift. I thought, ‘I’ll just go home and smoke down a bag.’ My phone rings and I see a New Jersey number. My OG lives in Jersey, so I thought it was him. I pick up the phone, and he says, ‘Ha ha ha this is KRS-One.’” The legendary emcee asked $antana if he could join him late that week for two dates in Florida, culminating in Orlando that Saturday. $antana set out with Kiing Spacely and another emcee, Slim Lieu on a Thursday. The car, which was owned

by Lieu, broke down several times, and they ended up stranded in northern Florida, missing a date in Gainesville.

During the perilous journey, Kiing fell asleep at the wheel late at night and their vehicle was struck by a truck. At another point, $antana recalled, they caught a ride with a meth head.

When they finally arrived in Orlando on Saturday, $antana said it was the first time he really experienced an audience going wild during his performance.

During his opening set, he gave a shout-out to his hometown: Gate City Cypher back in December, tons of great energy/ I purchased a ticket from an artist who will not be mentioned — why?/ Cos G-$antana spittin’ and I need for everybody to listen.

Then a nod to his mentor: See the thing about me, I always recognize you gotta check out the venue first/ And I learned from KRS you gotta put most of these rappers in a hearse/ See, I hurt on emcees, I shoulda won a gold medal/ I’m shockin’ all these cats, my static energy is so high level.

They limped back to Greensboro, and Lieu’s car finally gave out. But by that time, $antana had an offer to join KRS-One on his European tour, beginning in May.

On tour: Siren at the cypher

14

Those three and a half months “offshore” are like a dream, $antana said. Back at Shiner’s for the Gate City Cipher in mid-September, $antana let himself be transported from the humble venue tucked in a suburban office park near Guilford College: “I want to be standing with my feet in sand/ Bottle of Fiji and joint in my hand.”

The tour took them from Spain to Germany, with

G-$antana’s performances frequently evolve into freestyle.

stops in England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

With $antana performing opening sets and acting as hypeman for KRS-One, they shared a stage with Mobb Deep, Redman and Cypress Hill at Festival des Artefacts in Strasbourg, France, and partied with Waka Flocka Flame in Switzerland.

“We didn’t plan on wilding out,” $antana said. “I told my mother: ‘We’re going out to work.’ Waka Flocka came out to our show, and, ‘Why don’t you guys join us at the club?’

We said, ‘Why not?’” $antana said Waka Flocka’s newer music is a little more sophisticated than his raw reputation would suggest, and his off-the-chain lifestyle is belied by the fact that he’s a practicing vegan. $antana was impressed by Waka Flocka’s ability to freestyle and control an audience.

“Most people who went to that club, they wouldn’t have been able to survive the next day,” $antana said. “Me, I just got out of college. I know how many shots I can take.

One more shot of Hennessy — that’s it. I see that Patrón — nope, can’t do it. My homie got me breakfast, and four hours later we’re sober.” $antana’s experience in Switzerland was particularly magical.

“We had a cypher outside one of the venues,” he recalled. “People were passing me and the DJ joints. I was freestyling to this lady. She was like, ‘I feel in love with this American boy.’”

The crowd in Turin, Italy was nuts, he said, with people stomping the floor so hard it felt like an earthquake, while the vibe in Amsterdam was extremely chill. In Strasbourg, $antana was taken aback to hear fans whispering, “Oh, that’s him,” as he walked past, and on the second of a twonight stand in Berlin, a stranger complimented the crew

on the previous night’s show.

Down to earth: Can’t stop, won’t stop Since his stateside return in late July, adjusting to life back in Greensboro hasn’t been without frustration for $antana. He knows he needs to work on building his local fan base, and selling tickets hand to hand at cyphers can be a humbling experience for someone accustomed to performing for a built-in audience of hundreds or thousands. He wants to book a college tour, and he’s planning to record a track with Ed E. Ruger. Meanwhile, he’s talking about leaving Greensboro, maybe relocating to New Jersey, where he could save money and be closer to New York, or Atlanta, which he sees as a good place to network.

On Sept. 4, $antana vented his disappointment in a Facebook status update, writing, “Ever since I’ve been on tour and back I’ve realized the fakes and the snakes.

I’ve realized others outside of where you live will truly appreciate and buy your music. They will become fans!

Supporters as well… but at home! Even if you toured with KRS-One, it’s still like, ‘So?’ “But I see where I must go,” $antana’s screed continued. “I must follow my music. And my music is telling me this isn’t the place. The money shows as well. Too many opportunities outside of these walls, and my music has opened way too many doors that NC cannot understand.

I have [given] this some long hard thought, but it’s come to this. So…. On that note…. It’s been real, Greensboro.

I’m taking my talents where they belong. Real rap. Where it’s appreciated. Where the culture is represented and not disrespected. Where true fans support. Not haters. Back to my real home (and my next tour).”

The reality, as Ed E. Ruger will tell anyone, is that even

platform I’m building,” he said. “I honestly don’t want the same people at shows after five years. I want you to go away, and come back and headline.”

For the most recent Gate City Cypher, held at Shiner’s on Sept. 17, Ruger booked nine acts, including himself, with G-$antana in the prime slot from 12:05 to 12:25 a.m. Jay Mac, a South Carolina emcee who would look more at home in a death-metal band than at a rap show, projected electric fury and hip-hop unity, while Indo da Diva drew a surge of crowd love with her intimidating flow and support from her sister and friends. At the end of the night, Ruger would pronounce himself satisfied to have pulled in 191 people in a venue with a capacity of 299, including 168 paid attendees.

Ruger acted as emcee in both senses of the word, rocking the mic during his own set and hyping the other artists.

“This man has just returned from an international tour and he’s been taken under the wing of KRS-One,” Ruger said, introducing $antana. “Please show this dude some love.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” Ruger continued. “I’ve sold more records outside of

North Carolina than in North Carolina.

He’s gotten more love outside of North Carolina than in North Carolina. We’re the only ones who can fix that s***.” $antana’s set opened with Kiing Spacely beat-boxing before returning to the turntables. $antana interspersed freestyles with staple tracks like “Puffy in 95” and “Everybody Wants to Be a Rapper.”

Introducing “Put ’Em Up,” $antana said, “This is like a crowd joint. Picture hundreds, picture thousands of hip hop-crazy heads. I usually stage-dive on this one, but I’d probably break my neck here.”

When $antana and Kiing finished their set, they waded through a throng of supporters, reciprocating hand slaps and bro-hugs.

“As a veteran, we proud as s*** of you,” Ruger said. “You reppin’ all over the world for us.”

“Everywhere I go all over the world I mention the Gate City in my freestyles,” $antana replied.

Pointing to $antana as he turned to the audience, Ruger said, “This dude proves that dreams can come true.”

During the Shiners cypher, in conversation and on his Facebook feed, $antana

has been making it clear that what he wanted more than anything else was to be back on tour.

And so it would come to pass that on Sept. 22, he would post a freestyle on his Facebook feed from a tour of the United Kingdom with KRS-One. Bruh, I’m in f***in’ Scotland, hearin’ about my brothers getting killed/ I had to take time out of making my music to go ahead and tell people what’s really real/ Real recognize real, and realize realize realize realize/ And I’m realizing that the lies from the government is bull****/ Goodbye.

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with some mainstream exposure making hip-hop music is still a struggle. A couple hundred people is a good draw for a hip-hop show in Greensboro, Ruger said, and he’s been to events in New York City, where attendance wasn’t much better. A good night at a local show might net an emcee $60 to $100, with whatever they can pull in from merch sales as a bonus.

If $antana continues to tour with KRS-One, Ruger said he can expect to gradually convert the headliner’s fans to his own, but at the same time it’s not wise to neglect the local fan base, whether it be in Greensboro or Brooklyn. Building an effective fan base is a complex undertaking that requires attention to both an internet audience and a personal network of friends and supporters. A solid hip-hop career is built like a pyramid, with mass appeal at the base and trusted colleagues near the top: If one element is pulled out, the artist at the top doesn’t have to worry about falling too far, Ruger said.

At the same time, Ruger said he wouldn’t fault $antana if he decides to relocate to a more active locale like Brooklyn.

“That’s kind of the purpose of the

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball

Eating smoothie in a bowl sounds dumb, but tastes great

by Eric Ginsburg

I

don’t think I’ve ever eaten something such a bright shade of purple.

I stared down into the contents of the plastic bowl before me, the deep purple radiating beneath the fruit, coconut flecks and toasted almond crumble, unsure of what to expect and anticipating the first bite the way a kid on a diving board anticipates the water on the first day of summer.

What the hell am I about to dive into? I thought.

The Village Juice in Winston-Salem didn’t invent the concept of smoothie bowls, but the concept is still pretty foreign to the Triad. Even if you’ve heard of it, or tried one, it’s hard not to think of it as a little ridiculous, and at least a touch pretentious. But let’s explore it anyway.

The smoothies and their bowl variants at Village Juice are nothing like the ones I used to prepare when I worked at local smoothie chain the Juice Shop, or any smoothie you’re used to, for that matter. They’re full of ingredients like spinach, dates, almond or coconut milk and in the case of the bowls, topped with things like organic cacao nib, goji berries or acai. And they’re twice as expensive.

Places like the Village Juice are part of a movement to eat healthy and local; the company lays out details for how to go about a “juice cleanse” on its website, and a board inside the store on Stratford Road lists which farms the restaurant sourced from that week.

Like Organix Juice Bar, also in Winston-Salem, the focus is on healthy juices, but the choices go deeper here, with a fuller menu at the physical store and a food truck to boot. It’s not strictly vegetarian, with a chicken salad and a “grain bowl” with bacon in it on the menu, but it’s one of the few local spots with a predominantly vegan and vegetarian offering, including a raw vegan dessert.

It’s an Instagram-ready affair, with colorful juices and smoothie bowls or stacked toast, featuring ingredients such as goat cheese, pear, basil honey and micro-greens and two others with avocado — basically an open-faced sandwich for $9. And so after snapping a photo of my dragonfruit bowl that featured house coconut milk, pineapple, mango, banana, date and lime, I broke the surface of my well-decorated smoothie with a plastic spoon.

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ERIC GINSBURG

choose from, and another called Black Magic (Charcoal couldn’t believe how good it tasted.

Lemonade) that’s a $9 black “super detox” drink with Eating a smoothie bowl at the Village Juice is like filtered water, lemon, organic apple, organic ginger eating a really cold bowl of yogurt loaded with topand something called “activated charcoal” that Google pings. The smoothie portion is thick, with a consistentells me can reduce bloating, gas and a number of cy not far off from a milkshake despite being so light, other positive things. Or try the Brussels & Bacon grain which is good because it keeps the bowl from being bowl with quinoa or brown rice and spinach, roasted too watery. Like a burrito bowl, consuming a smoothie Brussels sprouts, tomato, bacon and parmesan crisp like this allows for greater control over what’s in each with fig-balsamic dressing. There’s even kombucha on bite, though it’s a little impractical when you reach the tap here, but if all this sounds overwhelming or over end and want to scoop up the last few spoonfuls. the top, opt for the village cobb or the tropical chicken It didn’t surprise me that during a recent lunch salads instead. rush, everyone else who came into the Village Juice The day I walked in, the Village Juice offered a green was a white woman save for one other white dude curry grain bowl on special, featuring fresh coconut — that’s certainly the niche and stereotype of the milk, house green curry, juice-cleansing, avocaeggplant, sweet potato, do toast-wielding, Pick of the Week Visit the Village Juice store carrot, zucchini, basil and smoothie bowl-drinkHops and history mushrooms. I didn’t see it ing crowd. But given at 205 S. Stratford Road TBT happy hour @ LeBauer advertised on the chalkthe food’s sourcing, (W-S) seven days a week or board along the back wall Park (GSO), Thursday, 5 p.m. flavor, presumed As if adult coloring couuntil I’d just about finished healthiness and the find the juice truck at 1208 pled with alcohol wouldn’t fact that it’s made to Reynolda Road (W-S) Mon- my first-ever smoothie be enough, the park threw bowl, and as I read it I order, it’s well worth day–Saturday. More info at immediately wanted to try in retro and lawn games, a the price. Go try one few food trucks, music, and such a complete-sounding the next time you’re villagejuicecompany.com. more food. Additional inforvegetarian entrée. But havplanning to grab lunch mation about LeBauer Park’s ing consumed most of the out — I won’t believe Thursday Adult Happy Hour bowl’s contents already, with its nutty crumble, fresh you if you say you regretted it later. can be found on LeBauer fruit and coconut adorning the surface, I didn’t regret You don’t have to get the Park’s Facebook page. my order, even fleetingly. smoothie bowl, though. There are at least five green juices to

Opinion Cover Story

The Blind Goat will carry about 70 Charlotte’s popular and artsy NoDa disbottled or canned beers and will fill trict — at least how it was 10 years ago. most of its 10 draft lines with North There’s plenty to support his idea Carolina craft beer, Mapes said, adding that the South End area is cultivating that about 60 percent of the liquor will a major cultural shift for the city — the be whiskeys. Drinks will range from $2 vicinity is ground zero for Gibb’s Hunall the way up to around $50, he said. dred Brewing, the new Fainting Goat Three huge windows front Lewis Spirits (no relation, despite the name), Street, right there by their door just Elsewhere, the Forge makerspace and a short distance from the corner a few other venues. Table 16 just went with South Elm, and through renovations, a pass-thru window and Boxcar bar and on the side will allow arcade — actually a Find the Bearded transplant as well, this Goat on Facebook for patrons drinking outside to order without time from Raleigh — is more info or go to 116 coming in. Three big on the way. televisions are going in Mapes, 33, has been E. Lewis St. (GSO). behind the bar, Mapes slinging drinks in Charsaid, and they salvaged lotte since he turned 21, a couple features from the original and most recently worked as the generO. Henry Hotel that will add to the al manager at the Blind Pig in Charlotte. industrial feel of the space. Between At some point he hopes to expand the the Bloody Mary bar and the patio/lawn Blind Goat to other parts of the city, where a food truck can pull up, it suits though under slightly different names his affinity for day drinking well. such as the Blind Dragon. But for now, “I just kinda like to bulls*** and talk he’s still doing everything he can to pull to people all day long,” he said. “That’s together this “classy, artistic dive bar” probably how I got into this.” by its targeted October opening.

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an extended, enclosed grassy area, a 12-foot-long community table and what Mapes hopes will be the biggest buildyour-own Bloody Mary bar in the city each weekend.

The team behind the bar hails from Charlotte, including partners Matt Yavorcik and Michael Kuhn who live there, and Mapes and his wife recently relocated here to be closer to family.

It’s still uncommon to see folks from outside the Triad deciding to open a bar here, but Mapes said the South End of downtown Greensboro reminds him of

Up Front

It’s crunch time at the Bearded Goat, downtown Greensboro’s newest bar that’s moving into

by Eric Ginsburg a long-vacant storefront on East Lewis Street. Owner/ operator Seth Mapes and his team are pulling double shifts to finalize plans for the venue, which will include

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Opening for new bar Bearded Goat imminent

Culture Sportsball Crossword

Matt Yavorcik (left) and Seth Mapes are two of the partners behind the ERIC GINSBURG forthcoming Bearded Goat, seen here with a mural on the bar’s side wall.

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18

CULTURE Stripping away text reveals cultural assumptions about white women

by Jordan Green

T

he images that comprise Hank Willis Thomas’ exhibit, Unbranded: A Century of White Women, 1915-2015, piece together a complex narrative of their subject’s story through the past 100 years: increasing autonomy and idealized beauty set in opposition to racialized otherness.

Further complicating the story, a counter-narrative of backlash periodically pushes against the story of liberation, with images that suggest efforts to dominate and control women, subjugate them as objects of male desire and punish them for their independence.

An abbreviated version of the exhibit, on display at the Weatherspoon Art Museum through Dec. 11, commandeers two lower galleries of the museum with a chronological presentation of advertising images, with the both the original text and brand identification stripped away. What’s left is the underlying imagery used to manipulate desire by playing on powerful and ANDREA BLANCH Hank Willis Thomas unexamined feelings. By removing the product placement, Thomas hopes viewers will look more closely.

One image in the full exhibit, but not included in the really knowing what’s happening. abbreviated version on display at the Weatherspoon, “I want people to think twice about what made a distinct impression on me as a 12-year-old they are buying into, literally and conceptusubscriber to Rolling Stone. Three young women in ally, when they buy a product,” Thomas has one-piece bathing suits sprawl across an oversized said in an interview with his mother, photogbeach blanket draped over a wooden deck with the rapher Deborah Willis. “Advertising is a form ephemera of beer cans, portable CD players and books of social conditioning and brainwashing. It laying around. The colors of the is beautiful in its ability women’s bathing suits are strateto communicate really gically aligned with those of the Unbranded: A Century of COURTESY IMAGE “Bounce back to normal, 1933/2015,” by Hank complex ideas, but it is beach towel, which even with the White Women 1915-2015 is also sinister in its capacity Willis Thomas words removed is easily identifiable to do that.” as the Budweiser motif. The woman on view at Weatherspoon a woman’s face angled directly at the camera with a The exhibit doesn’t anin the middle of the trio smiles in Art Museum, located bisecting line dividing a smooth, beautiful and relaxed nounce the fact that the images are a way that is both provocative and visage from a garish, almost skeletal version with deep excavated from advertising history. at the corner of Spring demure. The insidious message is wrinkles and a shadow under the right eye.

A laminated cheat card in each of pretty unmistakable: Women are Garden and Tate streets “Look at this before-and-after,” one of the women the galleries matches the original an alluring, but controllable facet said. “We’re not that bad, are we?”

(GSO) through Dec. 11. text to the images, but does not of a carefree experience with alco“That’s what the beach will do to you,” her companidentify the associated products. hol; they’re literally melting into ion replied.

Some viewers may find themselves the woodwork — and the brand.

A Century of White Women functions as a kind of absorbing the exhibit at surface level, which provides I doubt that I picked up on those subtleties as an sequel to a previous project, Unbranded: Reflections its own layer of fascinating meaning. impressionable 12-year-old, but I definitely took note in Black by Corporate America, 1968-2008, which During my visit on Tuesday, I observed two elderly of how weird the whole thing was. Such is the power of examined media images of and for black consumers. white women leisurely strolling through the exhibit, a jarring image that captures our attention without us Thomas, who is black, has said that he doesn’t feel an lingering over an image of a young woman in civilian affinity with the images in A Century of White Women. scrubs working in a 1940s “I always like to stress that the craziest thing about era war industries plant.

Pick of the Week blackness is that black people never had much to do One of them remarked Abandoned but not forgotten with creating it,” he said in his interview with Willis. with a pride about a female Matthew Christopher @ Elberson “It was actually created with a commercial interest family member who worked Fine Arts Center (W-S), Friday, 6 p.m. in order to turn people into property. The colonialists in the war industries in AlaPhotographer Matthew Christohad to come up with a subhuman brand of person, meda, Calif. during the war. pher, author of Abandoned America: and that marketing campaign was race. So much of “Some of them didn’t The Age of Consequence, gives a prethe conversation about race is spent talking about want to give those jobs up,” sentation on crumbling infrastrucblackness and black people, but it does not, and rarely the woman said. “They liked ture in the Hanes Auditorium in the addresses whiteness. Whiteness was constructed to the freedom. They liked Elberson Fine Arts Center on the give certain people an upper hand, and we, brown peoearning money and getting campus of Salem College. A book ple all over the world, have been contending with this out of the house.” signing and reception follow. Visit oppositional hyperbole for centuries.”

When they progressed salem.edu for more information. through the exhibit and landed at a 1982 image of

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Sept. 28 — Oct. 4, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball

Cam Newton and taking a knee

I

nstead of attempting a 95yard Hail Mary drive to score a touchdown, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford took a knee to run out the clock and end the first half of their eventual victory on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte.

by Anthony Harrison The game also started with taking a knee, but the TV broadcast didn’t show it.

Well over 100 protesters knelt outside Bank of America Stadium while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played inside. They did so in solidarity with the ongoing protests following the police killing of Keith Lamont Scott.

Charlotte police officers gunned down Scott, who was walking backwards in the middle of the afternoon on Sept. 20, firing four shots into the man diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. The police department maintains Scott was armed; after viewing the footage from two available angles, I must respectfully disagree.

The protest and its genuflection mirrors that of athletes across the country, a further imitation of San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, the man to whom this protest can be traced. Kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem before a preseason contest against the Green Bay Packers on Aug. 26, setting off a firestorm.

Kaepernick pulled no punches in explaining the reason for what some viewed as a sign of disrespect.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL.com’s Steve Wyche in an interview following the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

After a lengthy conversation with teammates, Kaepernick opted to kneel during the performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of the Niners’ preseason finale on Sept. 1.

All She Wrote

20

But this time, he wasn’t alone. Safety Eric Reid knelt beside his former field marshal.

Since then, Kaepernick’s kneel — a quiet, elegant act of civil disobedience — found respectful copycats from the NFL to women’s soccer, beneath Friday night lights and on the UNC-Chapel Hill gridiron.

Players continue to kneel with Kaepernick despite potential consequences; on the NFL season’s opening night, Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall took a knee during the national anthem before the Super Bowl 50 rematch with the Panthers, and two sponsors dropped him almost immediately.

However, one outspoken, high-profile player hasn’t taken a knee: Carolina quarterback Cam Newton.

Before I continue, let’s settle things right off the bat: I’m not admonishing Newton. I love Killa Cam. And believe me when I say I think he’s admonished enough, especially by white, male sportswriters who don’t know the man.

But prior to the Vikings game, he’d been relatively silent on his fellow players’ protests, and I find that rather uncharacteristic of our brash, favored Panther.

Let’s not split hairs here: Newton spoke publicly about police brutality following Scott’s death, taking a centrist stance on the issue.

“I am not happy how justice has been dealt with over the years — you know, the state of oppression in our community,” Newton said in a press conference on Sept. 21. “But we also as black people have to do right by ourselves. We can’t be hypocrites […] I am saying we have to have a clear-eyed vision on both sides and [that] starts with everyone holding each other accountable and policing yourselves.”

Let’s not pretend he doesn’t notice the unfair scrutiny leveled at him.

“The place that I stand, sometimes it’s a lose-lose,” Newton pointed out. “You say something in one sense, and everyone says you’re a traitor.”

I get that he has a lot to lose — no offense, Kaepernick — as the reigning MVP and the face of a franchise struggling to legitimize itself as a serious powerhouse in a league seemingly perturbed by its recent success.

Yet clearly, players like Kaepernick, Reid, Marshall and

others who’ve either knelt, held up a fist or shown some sign of dissent to speak for the voiceless care more about the cause than about material loss.

That’s where criticism of Newton’s relative lack of action ends for me.

For one, he supports Kaepernick’s protest without any ambiguity.

“I salute him for standing (in this case kneeling) for something to, if not fix the issues, raise awareness of the issues,” Newton wrote in a Sept. 21 Instagram post eccentrically composed of special characters.

And then, further making a point, Newton practiced before the Vikings game dressed in a black T-shirt with the famous quote from Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

It makes sense he’d wear a shirt featuring MLK; his stances on social issues reflect the maxim, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

But these are desperate times.

As I stated in the May 4 iteration of this column, “[S]ports can influence and drive social change.” Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling proves that much.

“I don’t want to kneel forever,” Kaepernick told the press on Sept. 12 with a sly, sardonic laugh. “I want these things to change. I do know it will be a process, and it is not something that will change overnight.

But I think there are some major changes that we can make that are very reasonable.”

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1 Apt. complex unit 2 Mil. infraction 3 Hi-fi setting 4 It’s passed when someone requests “beer me” 5 “That is,” in Latin 6 “Workaholics” costar Adam 7 “Hey, wait ___!”

8 Put an X on 9 School curriculum categories 10 Portray 11 “Match Game” host Baldwin 12 Run like hell 13 Savion Glover’s specialty 21 Jazz guitarist ___ Farlow 22 Delta competitor

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25 Belt place 26 Relative by marriage 27 Dictation taker, once 29 Kofi Annan’s home country 30 Ending for danger or thunder 31 “A Doll’s House” playwright Henrik 32 In advance 33 La ___ (Milan opera house) 35 Kind of issues aggravated by gluten 40 Be in a fix 41 It’s way easier to fold than a GPS 46 Unsatisfactorily watered-down argument, in slang 48 Hot tub maintenance task, often 49 Home city of pizza 50 Mineral spring site 54 Cupcake topper 55 Two-decade Laker Bryant 56 Insanely great 57 State with six sides 58 Rabanne of perfume and fashion 59 Approx. costs 60 Little ‘uns 61 Blue-bottled vodka brand 62 Insult

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1 Flower’s friend 6 Beaver-made barriers 10 ___ Punk 14 With “The,” groundbreaking Showtime series 15 Jacob’s biblical twin 16 Singer Lorde’s real first name 17 Charity beneficiary 18 “Like” or “leave”, e.g.

19 Chick chirp 20 “We couldn’t get alien blood, so we just sprayed plants with ___” 23 2016 U.S. Open winner Wawrinka 24 Abbr. at the bottom of an application 25 “Ring around the collar” detergent 28 “Of course we can’t have a monster destroy buildings, so we built entire ___” 34 Bit of slapstick 36 Jabba the ___ 37 Anti-___ hand soap 38 Grosse ___, Michigan 39 How hordes advance 42 Mrs., in Mallorca 43 Quentin preceder 44 Ground beef packaging word 45 Fixate (on) 47 “Instead of alien spacecraft, we got fishing line and dangled ___” 51 “Shepherd Moons” Grammy winner 52 Hornswoggled

53 Samoa’s capital 55 “Fake blood was too expensive, so we just used ___” 62 Inside info 63 List-ending abbr.

64 “Everything will be all right” 65 Bird associated with the Egyptian god Thoth 66 Shoe accessory 67 Like meshed fabric 68 Religious offshoot 69 They’re hot in Hanoi 70 Needing a pat on the back?

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Skinny jeans: Skinny people across the globe are in an uproar over the advent of plus-sized versions of these stovepipes. I mean, what’s the point of being skinny if anybody can wear them?

Crossword

Polo shirts: Unless you are unbelievably wealthy or a handsome Argentinean playboy wearing tight pants and sleek boots I would avoid wearing these unless you want to really piss off rich people. I don’t care how casual your Friday is, call it a “golf shirt” or face the consequences of the 1 percenters.

Sportsball

Cowboy boots: The wrath of cowpokes across North

Slave bracelets: These clackety ring-chain-tobracelet manacles have nothing to do with slavery outside of the realm of being a slave to fashion.

The moniker is merely in relation to the chain that connects them. However, that said, I’d be careful giving them as a present.

White wedding dresses: Virgins from near and far are really ticked off about this one. It goes without saying that gay marriage has added a whole new layer of tulle to the mix. I mean, what is a virgin anyway? And if you are a virgin after Labor Day can you still wear white?

Culture

Goddess gowns: The draped, often one-shouldered paean to the toga seen on red carpets over the last few years has angered the gods to the point of global repercussions. The Greek government debt crisis and the al Qaeda splinter group ISIS may be attributed to this fashion offense. Scarlett Johansson’s recent career can be, too.

Jesus sandals: The messiah may have been a mensch, but there is widespread evidence that he is not down with the popularity of his signature footwear. Foot washing aside, “B**** stoleth my look” is a saying for a reason. (It sounds better in Aramaic.) Where do you think the late Joan River’s got it from?

Military gear: The ubiquity of the hipster pea coat has brought about a veritable tribunal regarding the wearing of Army/Navy surplus that veers all the way from controversy over aviator glasses to camouflage to dress blues. The general rule of thumb is that if you think you can kick the veteran’s ass who calls you out on it, go for it.

Cover Story

Native-American headdresses: Huge controversy surrounds the wearing of war bonnets by whites and, in particular, hipsters at music festivals. Even musicians of Native American descent like Pharrell Williams and Cher have taken flak for adorning themselves with our fine-feathered friends. So if you must “put a bird on it,” take a cue from Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen of “Portlandia” fame and go for the silk-screen variety.

Scottish kilts: Traditional male dress of the Scottish Highlands and Catholic school girls, the kilt made a pop cultural resurgence during the punk-rock era as a symbol of defiance. Today it serves as a go-to get up at strip clubs thanks to Britney Spears. Wear with caution and never with see-thru platform stilettos.

Capri pants: Are you Italian? Is your name Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida? No? Then don’t wear these pants. Just because brands like Lily Pulitzer have embroidered seashells and lobsters on them does not make them acceptable for the flat hind quartered, square hipped nor thick-ankled WASP set.

Opinion

Mrs. Claus attire: Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sparked this controversy after the first presidential debate of 2016 this week. Apparently showing up in a red pantsuit with “that hairstyle” and little black shoes was a North Pole no-no unless you are a direct descendent of the Claus family.

Turbans: Traditionally the territory of Sikhs and other faith communities for religious observance, this wraparound headgear may incite a riot unless you are a silent movie star, a gay man in Key West or between weaves.

Mermaid dresses: There are only two species that can pull off this fish-tailed ensemble: actual mermaids and Sofia Vergara. Rumor has it they have formed a union and make the Teamsters look like Girl Scouts.

News

Sombreros: Thanks to the Fashion Police at Bowdoin College, the tiny sombreros often seen in gift shops and accompanying bottles of tequila in liquor stores now are seen as “ethnic stereotyping” due to a student party with a “fiesta” theme that was vilified once photos of attendees wearing these tiny toppers from the event became public.

America for the appropriation of this footwear has been traced to the Menendez brothers’ use of these boots with white jeans in the 1980s. For some reason, Ralph Lauren and actors with ranch-cred like Sam Shepard have been let off the hook. So proceed with caution if you choose to wear these pointedly pointed kicks. And if you wear them with a suit outside of Texas, make sure it has rhinestones and your name is Porter Wagoner.

Up Front

G

reensboro Fashion Week ended just in time to tune into the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And as we all are becoming aware, fashion plays a key role in how we judge and perceive our leaders

by Nicole Crews and their greater image. From Nancy Reagan’s Adolfo red dresses to Bill Clinton’s running shorts all the way to Eleanor Roosevelt’s hemlines and JFK’s rejection of the ubiquitous hat — the politics of prêt-à-porter are a wild and wooly danger zone as treacherous as a thigh-high slit circa 1975 — or as I often refer to it, the pre-Bush bush era.

Scandal has followed fashion as far back as the fig leaf and resonates as recently as Rihanna’s latest get-up, but the current culture of exclusionary fashion regulation has taken the offense on being offended.

Fashion has always borrowed from eras, cultures and paid tribute to the aesthetics of tribes ’round the world. But today, amid accusations of racial stereotyping and reckless irreverence, it seems some guidance is in order. It may take a village to make fashion happen, but it takes Fashion Police to get dressed in the morning. So I offer you a humble guide to clothing yourself in election year 2016.

triad-city-beat.com

ALL SHE WROTE

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