8.10 Indy Week

THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

For conservative candidates for the Wake school board "parental rights" are a hot talking point by Jasmine Gallup p.8

Raleigh W Durham W Chapel Hill VOL. 39 NO. 32

CONTENTS NEWS 4

Teachers are pushing back on a state compensation plan they say will introduce merit pay. BY GREG CHILDRESS

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Amid a staffing shortage, uncertified sheriff's deputies are guarding detainees at the Durham County jail. BY THOMASI MCDONALD

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"Parental rights" are a popular talking point among conservatives who want to wrest control of the Wake school board. BY JASMINE GALLUP

10 Wake County leaders are using opioid settlement funds to help a community heal. BY JOE KILLIAN

Whoop! plays at Rubies on Five Points on Friday, August 12.

(See calendar, page 17.)

PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

ARTS & CULTURE 12 Her Take: On the kinetic Vibes R Eternal, Vol. 2, rapper Phocuz and producer J-Mac team up for the second time. BY KYESHA JENNINGS 14 With new restaurant Krill, Giorgios Bakatsias seeking "#FarEastFunk."

Along the way, he's found critique of the restaurant's rollout.

BY LENA GELLER

16 A new book offers a powerful counterweight to the dominant ideas about what it means to eat while being Black in America. BY THOMASI MCDONALD

THE REGULARS 3 Quickbait

17 Culture Calendar

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Kendall, Kyesha Jennings, Glenn McDonald, Nick McGregor, Gabi Mendick, Dan Ruccia, Rachel Simon, Harris Wheless

P.O. Box 1772 • Durham, N.C. 27702 Durham: 320 East Chapel Hill Street, #200 Durham, N.C. 27701 | 919-286-1972 Raleigh: 16 W Martin St, Raleigh, N.C. 27601

C RE ATI VE Creative Director Nicole Pajor Moore Graphic Designer Jon Fuller Staff Photographer Brett Villena

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COVER Design by Nicole Pajor Moore and Jon Fuller

BACK TA L K

Last week for the web, we wrote about Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis as compared to other, admittedly much larger, U.S. cities and a recent report that found that Raleigh’s affordable housing crisis isn’t as bad as those cities’ … yet. Readers were appalled.

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“Because the population growth is driven by upper middle class and younger people working jobs and coming from more expensive markets where a ‘luxury’ apartment or $400k house is achievable,” writes Facebook commenter ALEX HOWARD by way of explanation. “The crisis is for the lower middle and under who already live here and are being driven out by increasing rents. It’s a minority of the population but undergird the service industry and physical labor that prop up everything else. Single 27 year old programmers can afford it. Single moms waiting tables and cleaning houses can’t.”

“To compare Raleigh with those cities is absurd,” writes Facebook commenter

RENEE DEININGER ADDISON. “Just because ‘it’s worse in LA’ doesn't mean it’s OK in Raleigh.

The doubling of the homeless population in two years is unacceptable. But, hey, at least it isn’t Miami doesn’t mean shit to the unhoused here.”

“Little comfort for those in Raleigh who can’t find affordable housing,” writes commenter MILDRED ROBERTSON.

We also wrote about new rules governing private bars in North Carolina—now they’re just regular bars (no more member fees) and you can bring your kids to them during some daytime hours. Readers were, again, appalled.

“Don’t we go to bars to get away from children,” writes Facebook commenter BJ OLSEN. “If I wanted to hear your screaming child I would go to Walmart.” “lmao @ bringing your kids to surf club, i imagine theyd prefer you not do that,” writes commenter MATTHEW WOOD. “I can already hear the tantrums,” writes commenter BRUCE WILCOX. Commenter CHRIS JOHN ANTHONY, on the other hand, is a fan of the Eurocentric model: “Many European pubs are places that families go to. I do like the idea though that no one under 21 allowed after a certain time of the night.”

QUICKBAIT

The Money Game

The data reflects each candidate's most recent campaign finance report filed in July

Raleigh Mayor

BY JASMINE GALLUP

Raleigh City Council At-Large

jgallup@indyweek.com

W

$500,000

ith three months to go until Election Day, many candidates for Raleigh mayor and city council are launching their campaigns in earnest, preparing for a long and expensive race. So who's ahead of the game when it comes to money in the bank? And who's spent the most on ads, mailers, and yard signs? Unsurprisingly, incumbents have raised the most money so far, with Raleigh mayor MaryAnn Baldwin topping the charts at more than half a million dollars. Some newcomers to politics have also raised tens of thousands for their city council bids. When it comes to spending, Baldwin wins again, but District E representative David Knight falls second, having spent more than $50,000.

Here's our first report on the money involved in the Raleigh council race.

$110,000

$151,670 /$500,053

$8,907 /$109,135

$100,000 $9,000

Spent Cash on hand

$30,000

Spent Cash on hand

$8,000 $7,000

$25,000

$6,000

$27,329 /$4,922

$20,000

$5,000 $4,000

$15,000

$246 /$2,850

$3,000

$10,000

$1,199 /$146

$2,000 $5,000

$250 /$25

$0

$0 /$2,000

$748 /$1,841

$1,000

N/A

$200 /$0

$0

* d th lan win Ru pe ald ce o B n C n ra ta An Ter uan ryQ a M Da

* e ley om on soe elle klin ort elt rad Od led ran eF och i B B n M F R h a rm es ne an Jo hu rtia An Sto ath Jam Jos Po Jon

Raleigh City Council

$120,000

$56,181 /$118,766

Spent

$50,000

Cash on hand

$3,407 /$30,008

$30,000

$3,404 /$25,557

$10,561 /$21,208

$1,994 /$19,493

$20,000

$6,936 /$12,049 $10,000

$0

$3,582 /$2,286

$0 /$0

N/A

$252 /$100

$12 /$488

$0 /$118

$169 /$485

$0 /$4,320

$247 /$0

$0 /$0

l r t t n n h es ck dy an rce ht* ch* Lee Hil son lat iso gar nte loc tto on ne Bla nig Pie ran rum erb Pa Ba arr inu aJ Hu en um ney K Law T k B ry b n a t K H n b a i r i t r M n a d y t e e d ga vi M nd Lo re ina Ca bB ris Fra Wh nif Jan Da Tod Me Za Co Ro ob Wa Ch Jen Jak

District A

District B

District C

District D

District E * Incumbent Source: NC Board of Elections INDYweek.com

August 10, 2022

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North Carolina

Professional Pushback State superintendent Catherine Truitt denies the plan she and other state education leaders support would introduce “merit pay,” but critics strongly disagree.

PHOTO BY CDC

BY GREG CHILDRESS backtalk@indyweek.com

W

ith just a few weeks left before the start of a new school year, districts are scrambling to fill teaching vacancies.

North Carolina educators, and those in other states, are leaving the profession in large numbers on the heels of the traumatic COVID-19 pandemic that, at its worst, led to school closures, remote learning, and unprecedented stress and burnout for teachers.

Moving forward, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics projects that there will be more than 124,000 openings for elementary school teachers and 77,400 high school teachers each year for at least the next decade.

Some North Carolina districts have reported hundreds of teacher resignations.

Undoubtedly, the past two years have been among the toughest teachers have faced in decades. Pandemic-related stresses along with parent uprisings over school closures, mask mandates, and attacks on curricula by elected officials and others have left teachers feeling disrespected and unappreciated.

Now, North Carolina educators might have another reason to look for different work: a new licensing and compensation proposal backed by state education leaders would replace the state’s seniority-based teacher salary system with one that partially rewards teachers for student performance on state tests.

The Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission (PEPSC) presented a draft proposal of the 4

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new system—labeled “North Carolina Pathways to Excellence for Teaching Professionals”—to the State Board of Education in April. If the proposal is approved and implemented, standardized tests, principal and peer evaluations, and student surveys would be used to determine whether a teacher is effective.

Supporters say the new plan would help to attract more candidates to the teaching profession, increase teacher pay, and retain veteran teachers with the promise of advancement and higher pay.

“We’re trying to address the ongoing, pervasive challenge that many teachers feel that they do all of this extra work, which is tantamount to volunteer work that they’re not compensated for,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt said in April during a State Board of Education meeting.

Teachers, however, are vigorously pushing back against the proposal, which they contend is an unwanted move to a system of “merit pay” that places too much emphasis on student scores on standardized tests. They argue that a better strategy to recruit and retain teachers—a stated goal of the new proposal—is to pay them a fair wage. The average annual teacher salary in North Carolina is $54,150.

The state is ranked 33rd nationally in average teacher pay and much lower when salaries are compared to what individuals with comparable education and experience can earn in each state’s private sector.

“North Carolina needs a teacher licensure program that

respects teachers’ expertise, rewards their time in the profession, and offers support throughout the duration of their career,” said Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the NC Association of Educators.

Meanwhile, academic studies examining merit pay show mixed results. A 2020 study (Teacher Merit Pay: A Meta-Analysis) conducted by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University, Kansas State University, and UNC-Chapel Hill was one such study. As the authors reported: “We found that when a merit pay program motivates “We found that when a merit pay program motivates teachers, it also tends to produce positive effects on student test scores. However, differing effects imply that not all merit pay programs are motivating to teachers. The literature also suggests that merit pay can potentially increase teacher recruitment and retention but teachers are less likely to stay once the incentives run out.”

Educators express deep concerns Justin Parmenter, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle school teacher and education policy commentator who writes at the website at Notes from the Chalkboard, has taken on a leading position in pushing back against the new licensing and compensation model.

“There are some serious flaws with this proposal and widespread teacher objections [to it],” Parmenter told Pol-

icy Watch. “It’s not just one loud-mouthed teacher in Charlotte who is complaining about it.”

Indeed, the new licensing and pay proposal has been topic Number One among educators on various social media platforms this summer. And more than 1,000 educators reportedly joined Walker Kelly in a recent tele-townhall meeting to voice concerns about the proposal.

The NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) also conducted several regional listening sessions to collect feedback from teachers and found widespread concern about what many teachers view as a backdoor attempt to move them to an unwanted system of merit pay, something that many educators nationwide have rejected.

“By and large, the feedback that they got was all negative,” said Parmenter, who has combed through numerous public documents to better inform teachers about the new licensing and compensation plan.

Teachers wonder in particular how such a plan can be administered fairly when data show students in wealthy, predominately white schools perform better on state exams, he said.

“One concern I keep hearing being raised by teachers is that if we know that our pay and career advancement is going to be determined by students being successful on a standardized test, then who’s going to want to teach in Title I [low-wealth] schools that routinely have abysmal test results?”

Parmenter noted, however, that it might be advantageous to teach in such a school if the pay proposal rewards educators for improving academic growth from one year to the next.

In addition to revising how teachers are paid, the new proposal would also create a system of entry-level certifications with the goal of bringing more people into the profession. One certification under the plan would serve essentially as a learner’s permit, that would allow aspiring educators with associate degrees to teach for two years while they earn a bachelor’s degree.

Some veteran educators see that move, however, as one that will negatively impact the quality of the instruction students will receive.

“This is a move toward the de-professionalization of teaching,” said Michelle Burton, president of the Durham Association of Educators. “It’s being done in a very sneaky, underhanded way.”

The new model creates multiple steps at which educators can advance in the profession, including “expert” and “advanced” teaching roles that allow them to earn higher pay for taking on additional responsibilities such as coaching novice teachers.

Walker Kelly, though, said North Carolina already has policies and pathways to support teacher recruitment and retention.

“But they lack execution with fidelity and funding commitments from the North Carolina General Assembly,” she said. “For the sake of our children and the teaching profession, we need to fund what we know works adequately. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel on licensure and compensation with a pipeline plan designed to leak.””

Merit pay or not?

Truitt has pushed back against claims that the “North Carolina Pathways to Excellence for Teaching Professionals” is a merit pay plan. She doubled down on that stance last month during an interview on WFAE radio’s “Charlotte Talks.”

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now, some of it deliberate, some of it not, about this proposed pay plan which is still in the development phases,” Truitt said in the interview, which Parmenter shared on Notes from the Chalkboard. “And it is absolutely false to say that this is merit pay. Merit pay means that you are comparing a teacher against another teacher. That’s not what this pay plan proposes.”

Parmenter challenged Truitt’s remarks in a July 28 post.

“State Superintendent Catherine Truitt continued to insult the intelligence of North Carolina’s teachers this week, repeating her absurd claim that paying teachers based on their perceived merit is not merit pay,” Parmenter said.

The debate over labels and definitions seems likely to prove important in how the proposal is received by educators. A 2014 report by UNC-Wilmington researchers found that less than 10% of the state’s teachers agreed that “performance-based pay would incentivize teachers to work more effectively,” attract and retain teachers or improve student learning.

The study also found that 89 percent of teachers believe merit pay would disrupt collaboration in teaching. Only 1% of teach-

ers agreed that pay for performance would have a positive impact on teacher morale, retention or quality.”

Battles over messaging and access to records Parmenter submitted dozens of public records requests to learn more about who’s behind the push for a new system of teacher compensation. Indeed, he submitted so many requests that the NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) has threatened to charge him thousands of dollars to process future requests.

“Our team has worked with others at the agency to ensure each request was completed and we have done so without charge,” DPI Communications Director Blair Rhoades informed Parmenter via email last month. “However, as stated on the NCDPI Records Request form, and pasted below, we reserve the right to charge.”

Notwithstanding the agency’s warning, Parmenter’s efforts have borne fruit.

Among other things, his requests uncovered evidence of a concerted effort by Truitt, PEPSC leaders, and members of the Human Capital Roundtable, a group of state education leaders working to find solutions to the state’s teacher shortage issues, to thwart EducationNC, an online media outlet, from conducting its own teacher survey to find out how teachers feel about the Pathways proposal.

A similar strategy to control messaging about the proposal was employed when the Public School Forum of North Carolina, a nonprofit education policy think tank, offered to hold focus groups to collect feedback on the proposal.

“There are some specific things teachers object to [in the proposal], but the problem is how much of these [public records] show a concerted effort to market this plan instead of working on trying to figure out what’s wrong with it,” Parmenter said. “I believe stakeholders can give them some ideas on how to fix it, but there’s this major effort like trying to lean on EdNC to not to do a survey, which is all about controlling the public narrative and making sure people only get positive messaging about this proposal.”W This story was originally published online at NC Policy Watch.

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Durham

Uncertified In the throes of a staffing shortage at county jails across the nation, Durham County sheriff’s deputies who aren’t certified to guard people in custody are doing just that.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD

PHOTO BY RODNAE PRODUCTIONS.

tmcdonald@indyweek.com

W

ho is watching the men and women in custody at the Durham County jail while they await their day in court?

This week, the INDY received an anonymous letter from a self-described county detention center employee who claims that county sheriff Clarence Birkhead last year issued a new mandatory requirement that orders all deputies to work overtime at least two days a month at the jail.

Problem is, the officers haven’t been certified to watch folks in the slammer—and the officers won’t begin training to become certified until November—leaving anyone incarcerated in the county jail to be guarded by unqualified deputies for over a year.

“Now, the uncertified deputies are actually manning entire pods within the jail, by themselves,” says the whistle-blower, who mailed to the INDY their complaint on the sheriff’s office letterhead. “These men and women are not Basic Detention Officer [Training] (BDOT)–certified,” meaning they 6

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haven’t taken the detention officer training course that’s typically required for someone working in such a position.

The anonymous employee says the new requirement has led to “dangerous and deeply troubling situations,” both at the sheriff’s office and at the jail, as a consequence of detention officers who are not trained and certified to monitor people in custody. (The sheriff’s office has not yet responded to the INDY’s request for records of assaults in the county jail since 2019.)

The letter writer asserts that the sheriff’s mandatory overtime order to work at the detention center is in response to unprecedented staffing shortages that law enforcement agencies all over the country have endured since the police murder of George Floyd.

“Durham County is no exception,” the whistle-blower writes. “At one time during this time period, the agency had over 100 vacancies agency wide.”

Sheriff’s office spokesman David Bowser says the current number of vacancies among the law enforcement ranks is 28.

But for detention officers, that number is much larger.

“Our detention officer vacancy is 82,” he says.

Bowser counters the letter writer’s claims by noting that, with the sheriff’s office’s current training requirements, “both deputies and detention officers are trained in use of force, report writing, de-escalation techniques, mental health, first aid, subject-control arrest techniques, crisis intervention, transporting detained individuals, and other skills.”

He adds that the deputies currently working in the detention center “have already demonstrated mastery of many of the skills required of detention officers,” even though they don’t share the same level of certification as detention officers.

Moreover, Bowser says, “all new person-

nel—including new hires and deputies—in the detention facility receive on-the-job training, access to post orders, and access to our general orders.”

Cool beans. The sheriff’s deputies are trained and skilled, but what’s missing from the sheriff’s spokesman’s response is any refutation of the whistle-blower’s claim that folks in custody at the county jail have been under the eyes and care of non-certified detention officers for more than a year.

But they’re working on certifying these officers, Bowser states.

Bowser says that since last fall, the sheriff’s office has “worked closely with the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Education and Training Commission regarding the certification process.”

Bowser adds that, in June, the commission granted a one-year extension for Durham deputies working in the detention facility. These deputies will have until early summer of next year to become certified.

“We anticipate a new two-week certification course will be launched in November, with Durham County hosting the first class across the state,” Bowser says.

“The deputies who have been working in the detention facility have until June 30, 2023, to become certified detention officers and will be compensated for their dual certification.”

Bowser says the sheriff’s office and Durham Tech last year formed a partnership “that allows us to run both training academies—detention officer and law enforcement officer—at the same time.”

“The next detention officer certification course will begin soon,” he adds.

But the whistle-blower writes that that lack of training for deputies guarding jail pods is “disturbing.”

“Not one single minute of training has been provided or offered to non-BDOT certified law enforcement officers,” they write.

“This means no basic orientation, no field training of any kind, no in-service training for 2020 or 2021, and no policy and procedural training.”

The self-alleged sheriff’s employee emphasizes that they sent the letter due not to “harsh feelings” or ill will toward their employer but as a consequence of “dire safety measures not being met and violations being committed daily.”

“The men and women of the Durham County Sheriff’s Office are at risk as are the inmates that are currently incarcerated at the Durham County Detention Center.”

According to the NC Department of Justice (DOJ), the minimum training standards for detention officers are 172 hours of instruction, offered at the NC Justice Academy, along with in-house training at local sheriff’s offices and community colleges.

Once a detention officer becomes

employed with a sheriff’s department or confinement facility, they are placed on a probationary period for 12 months and “should” complete a certification course, according to the minimum training standards posted on the DOJ’s website.

However, a detention officer who does not complete a course during the probationary period “will no longer be able to perform the duties of a detention officer,” according to the DOJ. Bowser says the sheriff’s office “is committed to ensuring the security and safety of detainees and staff in the detention center.”

He also confirms the whistle-blower’s assertion that sheriff’s deputies— including captains and command staff— have been required to work shifts at the Durham County Detention Center since last summer.

“We are in compliance with all state regulations governing detention officers, including noncertified personnel,” Bowser adds.

Bowser also notes that the state’s general statutes allow a county sheriff to have the “exclusive right to hire, discharge, and supervise employees in his office.” He points to a November 2018 document from the NC Sheriffs’ Association that recognizes a sheriff’s exclusive authority to supervise and discharge employees.

On this, the sheriff’s office whistle-blower agrees with Bowser. Birkhead has the authority “to place different individuals within his office for up to one year before they are required to be certified in that position.”

“However, during that one year, no employee that is non-certified is supposed to be in direct contact and directly responsible for the welfare and/or confinement of inmates while working alone,” the whistle-blower says.

Nonetheless, the alleged sheriff’s employee writes, the sheriff’s “law enforcement officers are tasked with this duty, daily. I have firsthand knowledge of this as I am one of them.”

The whistle-blower also notes that sheriff’s employees are ordered to perform “virtually every task” as a certified detention officer.

“Uncertified deputies are actually manning entire pods within the jail, by themselves.”

“More times than not, they oversee entire inmate pods, alone,” the whistle-blower adds. “Some of these pods can contain 60-plus inmates.”

A cursory search of the sheriff’s office website indicates the agency is hiring and offering detention officer applicants a $6,000 signing bonus and a starting salary of $44,575. Minimum requirements include being at least 21 years of age, U.S. citizenship, and a high school diploma. That starting salary increases if the applicant has earned a degree, has military or previous experience, and is fluent in a foreign language.

Job responsibilities include “custodial

work with the transportation, security, and supervision” of people in custody at the county jail, in relation to the “care, direct supervision, desk duty, and transportation” of the detainees.

Applicants “must meet all the applicable standards and qualify for State Certification in accordance with the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Training & Standards Commission as well as the policies of the Office of the Sheriff of Durham County,” according to the sheriff’s office website.

The whistle-blower says the sheriff’s office has tried to comply with law enforcement standards by amending sheriff’s office policies. It appears that Birkhead, whose office reported the graduation of 14 cadets last week from the Basic Law Enforcement Training Academy and seven detention officer cadets from the Detention Officer Certification Academy, amended the sheriff’s office policies to address staffing shortages.

“However, the rules and regulations” established by state authorities “have not changed, yet Durham County continues to violate these standards set by the North Carolina Sheriff’s Training and Standards Commission daily since June, 2021,” the sheriff’s employee writes.

Bowser, however, says that the sheriff’s office “is in compliance with all rules, regulations and training requirements. And it is why we have worked closely with the [state Sheriffs’ Education and Training Commission] in developing training for our certified deputies.”

However well intentioned the sheriff’s amended policies are, the whistle-blower calls them a “horrific example of malfeasance.”

“Who will be civilly liable if and when something tragic happens to a non-certified deputy or an inmate?” they ask. W

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Wake County Wake school board candidate and Moms for Liberty member Becky Lew-Hobbs PHOTO BY BRETT VILLENA

shares the same views, but “parental rights” are a talking point for many—in addition to discussions of student performance, fiscal responsibility, and school security.

“The school board race is very energized right now, and it has to do with the last two years especially, with what people feel has been done to our children, to the parents of those children,” says Donna Williams, chairwoman of the Wake County Republican Party. “[Parents] have been trying to communicate with these school board members and there’s nothing coming back out. They might listen, but they absolutely do nothing. It’s like they don’t care.”

Parental rights, explained

Think of the Children?

For a new flock of candidates hoping to wrangle conservative control on the Wake County school board, “parental rights” are a popular talking point.

BY JASMINE GALLUP jgallup@indyweek.com

B

ecky Lew-Hobbs, a mother of three and candidate for the Wake County school board, joined Moms for Liberty about a year ago.

It was during the coronavirus pandemic, when schools were closed, that Lew-Hobbs started watching and participating in virtual school board meetings. Like many parents, she was worried about her children’s education. But Lew-Hobbs also objected to the schools’ moratorium on in-person volunteering and was concerned the school board was overstepping its authority with some COVID-related policies, she says.

“We received several reports of schools where principals were promoting getting your vaccination over the intercom,” Lew-Hobbs says. “And whether you’re [vaccinated] or not, I don’t care, but that’s a decision between the parent and their child. That’s not something for the school to be promoting.”

Lew-Hobbs is one of about 100 parents in Wake County who are members of Moms for Liberty, a conservative grassroots group founded by two moms and former 8

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school board members in Florida. Since its inception in 2021, Moms for Liberty has quickly grown to include nearly 100,000 members nationwide, many of whom regularly attend local school board meetings.

At first, members protested mask mandates and other COVID-related policies. Now, however, the national parental rights movement has grown to include grievances on a variety of topics, including the nonexistent issue of teaching Critical Race Theory in classrooms and efforts to ban books, including those with LGBTQ themes, in school libraries.

This year, as the election for Wake County school board approaches, the parental rights movement is taking center stage. Come November, every seat on the school board will be on the ballot, including five left vacant by incumbents who are stepping down. With the race open to all, several state and local groups are trying to take advantage of the opportunity to flip the board from majority Democratic to majority Republican.

Not every Republican candidate for the school board

In talking about the top issues in this year’s school board race, Williams says the board needs to listen to parents and rebuild trust with the community. She also says the district should look at the curriculum and what children are learning. Right now, social agendas seem to be more important than student performance, she says.

Williams cites an interaction with her granddaughter, who, she says, came home from elementary school one day and “said two girls kissing ‘was OK’ but a girl and boy kissing was ‘gross.’”

“She’s in elementary school. Why in the world is that even coming into a conversation with her teacher? It shouldn’t be. And I’m not saying that’s not something a child should learn, but they should learn it from their parents, not from a teacher at school,” Williams says. “There’s this agenda of putting social issues into these little children’s heads. Why? How does that make them prepared for the world? It doesn’t.”

Julie Page, chair of the Wake County branch of Moms for Liberty, says the parental rights movement is about transparency. It’s about parents knowing what’s going on with their children and having a right to choose what they are exposed to.

Regarding the group’s campaign against LGBTQ books Lawn Boy, Gender Queer, and George, Page says the books have sexually explicit content and the group wants to ensure “age-inappropriate materials” are not available to students without their parents’ consent.

“We are about choice. We’re about nothing being mandated or forced upon anyone either way,” Page says. “We stand for liberty, which is our God-given right, our constitutional right to be able to do as individuals what we want to do.”

Liberals are concerned about the pattern of protests from parental rights advocates. Members of Moms for Liberty and another parental rights group, Education First Alliance, have each objected to school surveys that include ques-

tions about sexuality and gender identity.

Sloan Rachmuth, the president of Education First Alliance and a social media provocateur, recently wrote about the “social contagion” of transgenderism and how schools are trying to “groom” children into identifying as LGBTQ, pointing to the state’s anti-bullying law and efforts to improve equity in schools.

“We’ve seen schools enact secret transgender care programs that assign a ‘support adult’ to students interested in changing their gender behind the backs of parents,” Rachmuth wrote in a June post on the Education First Alliance website. “There has also been an explosion of schools bringing Gay-straight alliance clubs onto campuses.

The clubs have also been grooming children behind the backs of parents.”

Critics push back strongly against such claims.

“The types of language that these groups use, it’s not just untrue, it’s defamatory,” says Kevyn Creech, chair of the Wake County Democratic Party. “We have people calling school board members … using words like ‘grooming’ and ‘pedophile’ and all these, quite frankly, disgusting terms. It has been horrifying to watch.”

“Looking at it as someone who is progressive, who is very concerned with human rights and inclusion, it’s incredibly troubling,” Creech adds. “It is not something that is apart from the larger trend of erasing folks who don’t fit the ‘traditional norm.’”

Not every person involved in the parental rights movement shares these extreme views. On the one hand, parental rights can be about increasing parent involvement in the classroom as well as transparency and trust. On the other, parental rights as a blanket concept is easily used to mask antiLGBTQ sentiment and opposition to equity initiatives, which some advocates call “racially divisive.”

The narrative So far, conservative candidates haven’t performed well in local school board races.

In Durham County’s May election, all five Republican candidates for school board lost to liberal opponents, including Gayathri Rajaraman and Joetta MacMiller, whom the Education First Alliance endorsed.

The results in Orange County were more mixed, but liberals still came out on top. One seat of four went to a conservative candidate, Anne Purcell. Purcell was one of the less extreme conservatives in the race. She and the other candidates elected focused more on practi-

cal, nonpartisan local issues than political talking points, suggesting that hot-button national issues may not be the key to victory in this year’s school board races, at least not in the blue Triangle.

During the INDY’s interviews with conservative school board candidates last week, the subject of parental rights took a back seat to discussions of student performance and fiscal responsibility. Republicans Lew-Hobbs, Cheryl Caulfield, and Michele Morrow each talked about changing the curriculum to address declines in reading and math proficiency, as well as reexamining the school district’s budget. But they have each also made strong statements on parental rights.

Lew-Hobbs says school staff don’t have the right to act as a mother, father, or doctor, citing the district’s collection of vaccination data during the COVID pandemic as well as school surveys that include questions about life at home.

“First and foremost, my child is my child. My child does not belong to the school. She and he does not belong to the state,” Lew-Hobbs says.

“Anything that stresses that the administration or somebody else has authority over that [relationship] has no place in the school system.”

Lew-Hobbs says she’d like to see weekly lesson plans from her children’s teachers so she can help with their education from home.

Likewise, Caulfield says she wants more transparency around the curriculum, including on online platforms like PowerSchool.

“I don’t think there’s enough communication. I don’t think there’s enough understanding of what it is that the children need,” she says. “I think we’re doing a lot of teaching by preaching rather than teaching how they learn.”

Caulfield supports the Parental Bill of Rights (NC House Bill 755), a Republican-backed bill stalled in committee that needlessly addresses pronouns and could lead to potentially outing LGBTQ students before they are ready to come out.

On social media, Caulfield criticized retiring Wake school board member Jim Martin’s description of the bill as a “distraction” and attempt at “parent control.”

She also posted comments on social media about the controversy at Ballentine

Elementary School, where a teacher had LGBTQ-themed flash cards in her classroom that Caulfield says were age inappropriate. Parents of students in the teacher’s class rushed to her defense, but the teacher resigned after NC House Speaker Tim Moore and state representative Erin Paré ginned up national attention around the manufactured scandal.

Morrow, whom Rachmuth has personally endorsed, says parental rights are about respecting the privacy between children and their families and creating a partnership between parents and teachers. But most of the conversation around her candidacy takes a different tack. Morrow’s social media posts express some extreme views and have prompted some voters to form a group called Moms Against Michele Morrow.

One video shows Morrow, a Trump supporter, walking toward the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on January 6 to participate in Trump’s infamous Stop the Steal rally.

“We are here to take back America,” she says.

“We are here to stop the steal. We are here to ensure President Trump gets four more years. And we are here to ensure the United States never becomes a communist country!”

In response to the video, Morrow says she was in DC simply to participate in a peaceful rally, which she had done several times before, and that she did not take part in the riot at the Capitol.

“I’m a law-abiding citizen. I broke no laws, I did no damage, I hurt no people,” she says.

“I absolutely think anybody that broke laws … needs to be prosecuted. But merely participating in an event, saying that we wanted to protect election rights for everybody, is not the definition of an insurrectionist.”

Morrow, a member of conservative PAC Liberty First Grassroots, has also posted comments on social media calling mass shootings “fake event(s),” talking about the “One World Order” conspiracy theory, and implying “Satan is coming” in the form of the “Muslim movement” in America.

“We are about choice. We are about nothing being mandated or forced upon anyone either way.”

The strategy While conservative school board candidates are largely refraining from address-

ing hot-button political issues directly, fear of the “liberal agenda” could play a role in getting conservative voters to turn out. In an interview with the INDY last week, Rachmuth says one reason she’s “seized upon” political rhetoric is because she thinks it can help Republican candidates win unaffiliated and crossover Democrats’ votes.

“Look, I’m conservative, we all are,” Rachmuth says. “[But] I have a lot of Democrat friends and they’ve all told me, ‘This woke shit is way too far. You will never get me to admit it, but it’s scaring me.’

When we look at Critical Race Theory, for instance, this is pretty basic. Anything that is going to stereotype, scapegoat, and collectively punish, in action, that’s where we come down and say, ‘We do not do that.’”

This year, unaffiliated voters in Wake County outnumber both Republicans and Democrats. Since the race for school board is nonpartisan (meaning party affiliations aren’t listed on the ballot), voters may be more likely to cross party lines or vote based on a single issue like COVID learning loss.

“There’s just been decisions made from the current school board that a lot of the people in this county are not happy about,” says Williams, the GOP chair.

“And I’ll be honest, I would not put an R behind all of their names. There’s Democrats that are very unhappy. There’s unaffiliated voters. It’s across the board, and it has to do with the children, with the learning loss from COVID that is just not being addressed.”

Turnout for the school board race is expected to be stronger than usual this year, since it takes place in November along with the midterms. That could bode well for Republicans, who weren’t in charge as schools struggled with the COVID pandemic.

“I’m expecting a very healthy percentage of voters to come out this fall, and it’s just because of the day-to-day-life issue that every single one of us is living with,” says Williams. “Everybody’s concerned about the economy. That’s really the top of the ticket as far as issues.”

Rachmuth says Education First Alliance will not be making endorsements in the Wake County school board race as it has in past races. But the conservative group and others will undoubtedly still influence the narrative around the election. Although candidates are campaigning on local, nonpartisan issues, politics have been at play in the school board race since at least 2009. This year, it looks like the fight to “protect children” will be more political than ever. W INDYweek.com

August 10, 2022

9

N E WS

Wake County

Historic Settlement A community ravaged by opioids looks to heal with settlement funds.

BY JOE KILLIAN backtalk@indyweek.com

O

n Tuesday morning, Wake County held its first community meeting on how it will spend its share of the historic $26 billion National Opioid Settlement—more than $35 million over the next 18 years.

But before the crowd of nearly 200 talked about solutions, Megan Peevey took them on a guided tour of the dark corners of opioid addiction most North Carolinians are lucky to never to see for themselves.

It began with a childhood in which she felt isolated and out of step with her peers, Peevey told the crowd assembled at the Wake County Commons building.

“From a very young age I felt like I didn’t have the tools everyone else seemed to have,” she said.

That feeling led to running away, smoking weed, and drinking at an early age to cope and find connection with others. Stints in juvenile detention failed to turn her situation around. She kept turning to harder drugs to escape—until the fateful day she first shot heroin.

“I knew this was something that was going to change everything about my life,” said Peevey, a Raleigh native. “And it was going to kill me.”

It did change everything, making her life unrecognizable, but remarkably, she survived.

Peevey struggled with opioid addiction for 10 harrowing years: Cycling in and out of jail, hustling, stealing, shooting up in bathrooms at McDonald’s and Walmart.

Overdoses. Hospital stays. Tears of sorrow and rage from her family. Living in rundown motels, waking up cold as a corpse to find her skin was turning blue. Reusing old syringes until the needles dulled and broke off in her arms, which were so riddled with infections and abscesses she could barely use them.

One morning her boyfriend went for an early morning drug run and crashed his truck. The gas tank exploded and the fire burned most of the skin off his 10

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INDYweek.com

body. When she saw him in the hospital, she said, she had just one thought: “How am I going to be able to keep using now?”

“This would be a good place to tell you that’s when I quit,” she said. “But I didn’t.”

She had alienated most of her friends and family, she said, but two encounters helped her see a life beyond the next fix.

The first was with someone from the NC Harm Reduction Coalition. They gave her clean syringes and cotton swabs, she said— telling her they weren’t there to judge her, just to be sure she survived to get to the other side of her addiction.

“They treated me like a human being,” she said.

She’d almost forgotten what that was like.

The other was a late-night call to a peer support specialist, who walked her from a Glenwood Avenue motel to a detox clinic.

Peevey has now been sober three years, six months, and nine days. She’s reconnected with her family and is now working to help others in recovery and those not quite there yet.

She’s one of the lucky ones, she says— and she knows it. Nearly 200 people died of drug overdoses in Wake County last year and more than 1,000 landed in hospital emergency rooms. Some 2,917 received medication-assisted treatment for addiction and 546 were saved from overdoses by naloxone.

COVID-19, mass shootings, and national political chaos may have taken the spotlight in the last few years, but the national opioid epidemic hasn’t gone anywhere.

Peevey said she doesn’t have a ready solution for how the county should use the $35 million it now has to spend on the problem. But everything needs to be considered.

“I don’t know what’s going to work for everyone,” Peevey said. ”But I do know we can’t help people if they’re not alive.”

“From a criminal problem to a health situation” Among the large crowd for Tuesday’s first community meeting were medical professionals, local nonprofit leaders, and elected officials. The scope of the problem is more apparent than ever, they said.

“We lost 57,000 people in [the] Vietnam War,” said Sig Hutchinson, chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners.

“Forty-three thousand people died of overdoses in America last year.”

Willie Rowe, a Wake County ABC commission member now running for county sheriff, said the United States is just beginning to wake up to addiction as a health issue.

Race and class have a lot to do with that, Rowe suggested.

County figures show white people in Wake are overdosing at higher rates than Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native American people. But between 2015 and 2020, the rate of overdoses has increased 223 percent among Hispanic people and 224 percent among Black people. For whites, there has been a 74 percent increase.

During his years working with the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, Rowe said, he saw shifting views on drug addiction and many other social ills depending upon who was most affected.

“We saw it with the crack epidemic,” Rowe said. “That was a criminal problem.

But now we see with opioids it’s crossed over to other parts of town. Suddenly it moves from a criminal problem to a health situation. People see it as ‘Well, they’re drug users. They brought it on themselves.’ Until it’s someone they know.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, working groups contemplated several broad areas for tackling the problem: early intervention; syringe service programs; naloxone distribution; evidence-based addiction treatment, including for people who are incarcerated; criminal justice diversion programs; reentry programs; recovery support services, including housing; and employment-related services.

County staff conducted an online public survey to determine priorities from among the strategies discussed. The recommendations will be presented to the Wake County Board of Commissioners’ Human Services Committee for consideration at the board’s August meeting.

The board is expected to make final decisions on the settlement funding in September. W This story was originally published online at NC Policy Watch.

Clean syringes: a first step in harm reduction

PHOTO BY TARA WINSTEAD

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August 10, 2022

11

M U SIC

Her Take: On Carolina Hip-Hop ILLUSTRATION BY JON FULLER

Game Changer On the kinetic Vibes R Eternal, Vol. 2, rapper Phocuz and producer J-Mac team up for the second time.

BY KYESHA JENNINGS

music@indyweek.com | @kyeshajennings

W

hat happens when an equally accomplished producer and rapper from rural North Carolina join forces? In the case of Phocuz and J-Mac, it’s making a record that impresses legendary West Coast rapper The Game.

In early May, in preparation for their second collaborative studio project, titled Vibes R Eternal, Vol. 2, Phocuz & J-Mac released “Limousine Dark Tints,” which featured fellow North Carolina emcee Chriz Millz and rap legend The Game. The J-Mac-produced summertime track, best described as lo-fi meets trap, follows traditional hip-hop themes like braggadocious bars that boast about toughness, cars, wealth, women, and success. And as expected, The Game’s raspy tone and subdued delivery over J-Mac’s elegant piano riffs are what take the track up a notch. But both Phocuz and J-Mac are no strangers to holding their own when working with high-profile artists.

Raised in Elizabeth City, Phocuz (Brandon Bryant) attended North Carolina Central University, where he earned a reputation as the “freestyle king,” a title that had previously been given to Little Brother’s Phonte during his time on the same campus. Years later in his career, Phocuz has already worked with superproducer 9th Wonder and Swift, a Durham native who saw success as a Def Jam and Epic Records signee in 2017. Phocuz’s relationship with Swift then afforded him opportunities to write for the likes of Dr. Dre, Diddy, and other 12

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hip-hop legends in need of fresh material.

J-Mac (John David McCall), meanwhile, is a well-known producer in the Triangle area from Edenton. He has earned production credits on work by Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah, G-Unit, Sean Price, Yung Berg, and more. J-Mac’s work has also landed spots on ESPN and NBC Sports.

Despite growing up in different environments with two disparate experiences, hip-hop forged a relationship between these two North Carolina natives.

“When I met Phocuz at 9th Wonder’s studio, he had a charisma about him that automatically had me assuming he was probably a dope artist,” J-Mac says. “I first heard him rap when 9th did the ‘B-Ball Tryouts’ track, where he was only keeping the best verses. I stayed and listened to Phocuz record his verse and was just super impressed with his style, metaphors, and swagger on the track.”

Phocuz was just as impressed with J-Mac. “He had hella soul beats and he respected the culture,” Phocuz says.

The two first collaborated in 2017 on a joint project (Vibes R Eternal), but timing didn’t allow for the right marketing promotion and rollout the project needed to thrive in hip-hop’s oversaturated digital ecosystem. J-Mac got married, became a father, sold his house in North Raleigh, and moved back to his hometown. Phocuz, meanwhile, was prioritizing spending time with his daughter who had

just moved back to Greensboro.

“We didn’t do any shows [or] didn’t perform the project anywhere,” J-Mac says. “We really didn’t do anything other than just kind of put it out online.”

This time around, things are a bit different. For one, the duo has a new secret sauce for getting the word out: publicist Andre Barnes, who has worked with a number of both established and emerging regional artists including The Foreign Exchange and Little Brother. On June 24, they released the album.

Vibes R Eternal, Vol. 2 is influenced by the duo’s real-life experiences and doesn’t shy away from references to America’s current political state. The diverse production provided

by J-Mac strays away from a cohesive sonic sound throughout and instead matches the various moods, lyrical flows, and narratives that Phocuz brings. In addition to The Game, the project includes guest verses from Jamla’s GQ, White Dave, Chopps, and J. Arrr. As we wrapped up the conversation, J-Mac summed up the intent of the project perfectly: “I think a lot of the political undertones in the project that come out are very much something that me and Phocuz share, him as a [Black] male and me as a [white] male. Our experiences are very different, but they’re also very similar, and we would stand together to fight for the greater good.”

Vibes R Eternal, Vol. 2 is currently available on all streaming platforms. W

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August 10, 2022

13

FOOD & DRINK

KRILL 506 Ramseur St., Durham | 984-257-3165

The interior of Krill PHOTO BY FORREST MASON

Rising Tide With his eleventh new restaurant, Krill, Giorgios Bakatsias is seeking “#FarEastFunk.” Along the way, he’s found critique of the restaurant rollout.

BY LENA GELLER lgeller@indyweek.com

T

he two tops that border Krill’s front window are situated so close together that a chat with your neighboring diners is all but guaranteed as a complimentary menu item, like the ramekins of nam pla and Thai basil dipping sauces that sit on the restaurant’s tables.

At dinner at the new downtown Durham restaurant last month, my father and I received both a recommendation and a reaction from the folks at proximate tables: after ordering the market fish of the day—a whole black sea bass, crispy-skinned and swimming upright through a tangled botany of carrot, papaya, and scallion—as advised by the couple on our right, the man on our left leaned over and whispered, “I think I just saw it blink.”

Camaraderie is by design at Krill, an Asian-street-food-inspired restaurant co-owned by restaurateur Giorgios Bakatsias and chef Jason Lawless. The restaurant is Bakatsias’s 11th restaurant and the first of six new concepts he’s opening in North Carolina this year: Kipos Hellenic Cuisine, a coastal extension of his Greek tavern in Chapel Hill, will 14

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open in Wilmington this summer, followed by a pizza joint, a steak house, and a Spanish tapas bar in Raleigh, and Niko, a Mediterranean spot in Durham, slated to open in early 2023.

All this is ambitious. But first thing’s first: Krill.

The restaurant’s name comes from a staple ingredient in Southeast Asian cooking—typically fermented and used in the form of fish sauce—and many of its dishes are anchored by the tiny crustacean, whose concentrated umami flavor creates a sturdy base to be overlaid with pops of acid, sweetness, and spice.

Everything I tried—the sea bass, Peking duck lumpia rolls, blistered miso shishito peppers, squid ink tagliatelle with crabmeat and lobster sauce, and udon noodles with mussels and uni butter—included ingredients that punched every spot on my palate but were balanced elegantly enough that even the gentlest flavors poked through. Krill’s menu is compact and split into six categories—hot and cold appetizers, noodle bowls, fried rice, skewers, and large

plates—and each dish is served family style.

“Small things have a big influence in life,” Bakatsias says.

“Krill is a small gem that hopefully makes a difference in the community.”

But even before Krill opened its doors, some members of the community—and in particular, members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community—had misgivings about Krill’s presentation and rollout. On Reddit, one user called out the restaurant for “treating Asian cuisine as a single genre,” noting that “restaurant empires like [Bakatsias’s] that span a dozen different cuisines seldom retain the authenticity or nuances of the cultures they pull from.”

Others took to Instagram to denounce Krill’s decor, which includes a painting of an Asian woman with her breasts exposed and a large mural of a cleavage-baring Asian woman who is shrouded in palm leaves and surrounded by animals—a zebra, a dragon, a cheetah—that, for the most part, wouldn’t be found in Southeast Asia and were presumably chosen for their “exotic” aesthetic. (The restaurant also features a mural of the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain—who is white, clothed, and identified by name—hovering over a bowl of noodles.)

In an Instagram Story, Raleigh florist Deana Nguyen, who has worked for years in the restaurant industry, criticized Krill’s decorative use of Asian women as well as an Instagram post from the restaurant that reads, “We hope you’ve been practicing with your chopsticks… because it’s time for some #FarEastFunk”—as “perpetuat[ing] Asian stereotypes and fetishization.” She also cited a quote where Bakatsias, who is white, describes finding ingredients in Taiwan that “we’re never confronted with in this part of the world” as “classic colonizer mentality.”

Asian-owned restaurants with said “vibrant culture and ingredients” already exist in the Triangle, Nguyen wrote, adding that they’ve “been here working their asses off.” (The INDY reached out to Nguyen and a few others who had voiced criticism to the INDY over email, but they declined to comment; in a text, Nguyen wrote that she felt commenting further would offer “little reward and no change.”)

This pushback is ensconsed, of course, in ongoing debates in the food world about just what constitutes appropriation versus appreciation; in 2019, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, for instance, found himself at the center of a heated dispute after Chinese food critic Angela Hui denounced his London restaurant Lucky Cat for cultural tokenism.

When asked by the INDY about these comments, Bakatsias acknowledged the pushback and says he’s listening.

“As an immigrant owned business, we at Giorgios Hospitality Group have been sincere in our mission to celebrate all cultures and cuisines with passion and respect,” Bakatsias wrote in an email. “Please know that we are listening to the feedback—which has been both incredibly positive and, in a few instances from the AAPI community, very

critical. We appreciate each of these comments and we are working through them with our team so that we may continue to grow within our community.”

When I visited the restaurant recently, Bakatsias made a quiet entrance, though his eminence was palpable; crowned in his signature fedora, he strolled over to my table and wordlessly gave my dad a 10-second shoulder massage—no need to introduce himself.

Bakatsias has spent years stewing over the idea of Krill—he sold his share of his first Asian culinary venture, Jujube, more than a decade ago, but held on to the “love affair with Asian cuisine” he developed after spending time in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand—and says the concept started to seem viable when he met Lawless, a chef he hired to revamp his Durham restaurant Parizade in 2016.

Lawless worked at a string of high-profile New York restaurants before moving to North Carolina and trained under world-renowned chefs Gray Kunz and Floyd Cardoz, two pioneering forces in Asian fusion and Indian cuisine who died, unexpectedly, within a month of each other in 2020.

“Ever since they passed, I was like, ‘I need to use their flavors,’” Lawless says.

Now chef and co-owner at Krill, Lawless has his chance.

“I can feel them in the walls,” he says. “I can hear them in the back of my head as we’re cooking.”

When I ask Lawless to tell me about Krill’s menu, he first answers as if he’s just taken a bite of something and is narrating the experience in real time—“the spice, the heat, the acid, the freshness, the crunch of a radish, the balance”—then elaborates: while his dishes generally adhere to flavors of Southeast Asian cuisine, he makes an effort to incorporate flavors from different cultures (the squid ink tagliatelle and the uni udon mussels show some Italian and French influence, for example), and he doesn’t want to do anything too mainstream: if he were to feature something like pad thai or bibimbap as a special, he’d want to “add some funk.”

According to Bakatsias, Lawless’s understanding of Asian cuisine, bolstered by the expertise of the kitchen staff, allows Krill the flexibility to play around with traditional dishes without worrying about besmirching their integrity. Time will tell how the community receives it.

“We wanted to have enough funkiness to honor [the Bakatsias brand] but at the same time to respect the culture,” Bakatsias says.

“If you’re going to break the boundaries, you need to understand the roots.” W

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15

PAGE

PSYCHE A. WILLIAMS-FORSON: EATING WHILE BLACK: FOOD SHAMING AND RACE IN AMERICA

[UNC Press; August 2022]

IMAGE COURTESY OF UNC PRESS

Feast of Burden Psyche A. Williams-Forson’s insightful new book offers a powerful counterweight to dominant ideas about what it means to eat while being Black in America.

BY THOMASI MCDONALD tmcdonald@indyweek.com

P

syche A. Williams-Forson’s new book, Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America, begins with an incident that took place a little over three years ago when one morning in Washington, DC, a Metro passenger snapped a photo of a Black woman in a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority uniform eating on the train.

The passenger, Natasha Tynes, then posted the photo on Twitter with a shaming caption, adding that when confronted about eating while on the job, the employee’s response was “Worry about yourself.”

“Worry about yourself indeed,” Williams-Forson writes in her provocative volume set to be published this month by the University of North Carolina Press. This clapback, she notes, includes an embedded, unasked question: “Who are you to regulate me?”

Eating While Black, Williams-Forson writes, is an attempt to dig down deep in an attempt to understand why so often Black Americans’ “food encounters—whether trying to get, prepare, consume, or enjoy food—are under fire.”

Whether it is “BBQ Becky” calling the police on Black families grilling in an Oakland, CA, park or “Starbucks Susie or Sam” calling police officers on two Black men who were waiting for friends in a coffee shop, Williams-Forson writes, “somebody is always watching, waiting to tell Black people what they should or should not do and can and cannot eat.”

“And why?” asks Williams-Forson, who is one of the nation’s leading thinkers about food in America and a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland.

“Why do African American food cultures and eating habits elicit so much attention, criticism, and censure?”

The practices of shaming and policing Black bodies with and around food, she notes, “arise from a broader history of trying to control our very states of being, and this assumed stance is rooted in privilege and power.”

Since the 2007 publication of her first book, the wonderfully titled Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power, Williams-Forson has traveled nationally and internationally to write and talk about the intersections of food, gender, and power. Eating While Black looks at Black food culture along the broader tablecloth 16

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of structural and systemic racism, violence, degradation, socioeconomics, and exploitation. (As a disclosure, this reviewer is referenced in the book.)

Still, stories are at the heart of Williams-Forson’s latest volume, and in particular those about “How Black people see themselves and how we are characterized with regard to food.”

Williams-Forson further explains that while Eating While Black is written for a variety of audiences, “it is very intentionally geared toward African American communities.”

The stories, anecdotes, and analyses are illuminating.

Williams-Forson recalls that when she first began her academic career in the 1980s at a university in New England, vegetarianism, though widely practiced, was not as popular a way of eating as it is today. At the time, she was one of three women of color who participated in the university’s major diversity initiative, and the trio often left meetings feeling “marginalized, silenced, and of course, extremely frustrated.”

Shortly after the committee’s final report was submitted, the participants were invited to a cookout at the home of “one of the higher-ups who led the group.”

Following “the etiquette of her home training,” Williams-Forson asked what she should bring but was assured she did not have to bring anything.

“On the day of the event, my sister and I traveled to the hinterlands of the region to attend the cookout,” Williams-Forson explains. “We arrived at the sprawling home and were ushered into the backyard where we were greeted by our colleagues. We were encouraged to enjoy the main dish—tofu kabobs! One of the other women of color took me aside and asked, ‘What is this?’

“My response was, in a word, ‘Power.’”

Williams-Forson later shares a story about her 14-year-old daughter recalling that when she was in elementary school a health education teacher asked her and her fellow classmates to publicly step on a scale, and he read their weights out loud.

After everyone had been weighed, the teacher, with less sensitivity than a small farm animal, told Williams-Forson’s daughter and the other African American boys and girls that many of them would not live to see adolescence because they were obese.

The author recounts how her child concluded years later that “this kind of public shaming was nothing short of a microaggression against Black and Brown children.”

In an American cultural landscape dotted with “incendiary images” of Black folks eating watermelon and chicken—along with reports that suggest Black people have the worst health outcomes and arguments that what we eat is causing our early deaths—Williams-Forson maintains that the ultimate purpose behind these racist ideas is to maintain white supremacy and convince African Americans and society at large of Black inferiority. While Black Americans are affected by unhealthy food options, myriad other aspects of being Black—the stress of living in America, disproportionate poverty, and food deserts, among others—are also crucial factors. And Williams-Forson’s goal, she writes, is to “intervene in these ongoing discussions by providing another point of view.” Amen.

Eating While Black notes that Black folk have always been creative and varied when it comes to food practices. The history of African American food culture is varied, Williams-Forson asserts, and the prevailing narrative of fried chicken, fried fish, corn bread, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese, along with antebellum foodways rooted in eating scraps, is only partially true.

“We eat from fast-foods, and we eat from Whole Foods,” Williams-Forson writes. “There are days that we eat from our own gardens, and there are days we eat from the dollar store. We eat fresh, frozen, and canned. We are carnivores, vegans, pescatarians, vegetarians, and maybe even breatharians.” W

C U LT U R E CA L E NDA R music Holy Fuck $12. Wed, Aug. 10, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Live Jazz with Marc Puricelli and Friends Wed, Aug. 10, 7 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

REO Speedwagon and Styx with Loverboy: Live and UnZoomed $30.

Wed, Aug. 10, 6:45 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

Teens in Trouble $10. Wed, Aug. 10, 8 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

The Dear Hunter $23. Thurs, Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m. Motorco Music Hall, Durham.

Lee Bains $12.

Thurs, Aug. 11, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Aaron Hamm and the Big River Band $15. Fri, Aug. 12, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

ARRIVAL from Sweden: The Music of ABBA $35+.

Fri, Aug. 12, 8 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

The Blazers 2022 Summer Reunion $15. Fri, Aug. 12, 8:30 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

L.A. Witch $12. Fri, Aug. 12, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Whoop! Fri, Aug. 12, 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Death Valley Girls $12. Sat, Aug. 13, 9 p.m. Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Keith Urban: The Speed of Now World Tour $30+.

Sat, Aug. 13, 7 p.m.

Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

Shallow Cuts: Pop Dance Party with DJ Fifi Hifi and Mike D Sat, Aug. 13, 9 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

Siempre Puente Sat, Aug. 13, 7:30 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

A.R. Rahman $328+.

Sun, Aug. 14, 7 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Crowbar $20. Sun, Aug. 14, 7 p.m. Local 506, Chapel Hill.

David Gray: The 20th Anniversary Tour $30+. Sun, Aug. 14, 8 p.m. Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh.

Mallarme: Bach to Bluegrass Sun, Aug. 14, 2 p.m. Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham.

Dummy $12. Mon, Aug. 15, 8 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Live Jazz with Danny Grewen & Griffanzo Mon, Aug. 15, 6 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Lyle Lovett and his Large Band $60+.

Mon, Aug. 15, 8 p.m.

DPAC, Durham.

Fenton Live! Tues, Aug. 16, 6 p.m.

Fenton, Cary.

Kidz Bop Live $25+. Tues, Aug. 16, 7 p.m. Koka Booth Amphitheatre, Cary.

Live Jazz with the Brian Horton Trio Tues, Aug. 16, 9 p.m.

Kingfisher, Durham.

The Mall $10. Tues, Aug. 16, 8 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Tommy Prine $15.

Tues, Aug. 16, 7 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Tune Up Tuesdays with Charly Lowry Tues, Aug. 16, 9:30 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Yellow Ostrich $15.

Tues, Aug. 16, 8 p.m.

Cat’s Cradle Back Room, Carrboro.

Local Produce Thurs, Aug. 11, 8 p.m.

The Fruit, Durham.

screen OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival $13+.

Aug. 11-14, various times. The Carolina Theatre, Durham.

Movies under the Stars: Inside Out Thurs, Aug. 11, 8 p.m. The Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill.

art

Twilights on the Terrace: Warm Evenings and Watercolors Fri, Aug. 12, 5 p.m. Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Muscadine Bloodline $20.

Thurs, Aug. 11, 8:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh.

The Ackland Art Museum hosts an evening of watercolor painting on Friday, August 12. PAINTING BY ALEXIS ROCKMAN; PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ACKLAND ART MUSEUM

Two Eyes screens at the Carolina Theatre’s OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival on Saturday, August 13. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CAROLINA THEATRE

Sunflower Photography Workshop $54.

Thurs, Aug. 11, 6 p.m.

Online; presented by NCMA.

Mellow Swells Thurs, Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m. Imbibe, Chapel Hill.

Remona Jeannine Thurs, Aug. 11, 7 p.m. The Oak House, Durham.

Please check with local venues for their health and safety protocols.

Art Adventures: Animal Amulets Sat, Aug. 13, 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill.

Horror Movie Triple Feature Fri, Aug. 12, 7 p.m. The Fruit, Durham.

Outdoor Films: Nomadland $8. Sat, Aug. 13, 8:30 p.m.

NCMA, Raleigh.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas Brunch $11. Sun, Aug. 14, 11:30 a.m. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Raleigh.

stage

Encanto: The SingAlong Film Concert $30+. Sun, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m. Coastal Credit Union Music Park, Raleigh.

City of Angels $30+.

Aug. 3-14, various times. Theatre Raleigh, Raleigh.

page Kwame Mbalia: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky Wed, Aug. 10, 6 p.m.

Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

Storytime on the Roof Wed, Aug. 10, 10:30 a.m. The Durham Hotel, Durham.

Dr. Francesca Tripodi: The Propagandists’ Playbook Tues, Aug. 16, 5:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill.

Mason Deaver: The Feeling of Falling in Love Tues, Aug. 16, 7 p.m. Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh.

On Your Feet! The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan $23+. Aug. 9-14, various times. Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, Raleigh.

Miss B Haven presents: Midnight Remedies $5.

Thurs, Aug. 11, 10 p.m. Rubies on Five Points, Durham.

House of Coxx Presents: Heat Wave $10. Sat, Aug. 13, 10 p.m. The Pinhook, Durham.

Points South Live Mon, Aug. 15, 7 p.m.

21c Museum Hotel, Durham.

Lisa Jewell: The Family Remains $30. Sat, Aug. 13, 2 p.m. The Barn at Fearrington Village, Pittsboro.

FOR OUR COMPLETE COMMUNITY CALENDAR: INDYWEEK.COM INDYweek.com

August 10, 2022

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P U Z Z L ES

T OUN DISC FREE C LU B A L L FOR ORS & E CAT EDU LTH CAR S A HE KER WO R

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages” at the bottom of our webpage.

In-Store Shopping Curbside Pick Up www.regulatorbookshop.com 720 Ninth Street, Durham, NC 27705 Hours: Monday–Friday 10–7 | Saturday & Sunday 10–6

su | do | ku

this week’s puzzle level:

© Puzzles by Pappocom

There is really only one rule to Sudoku: Fill in the game board so that the numbers 1 through 9 occur exactly once in each row, column, and 3x3 box.

The numbers can appear in any order and diagonals are not considered.

Your initial game board will consist of several numbers that are already placed. Those numbers cannot be changed. Your goal is to fill in the empty squares following the simple rule above.

If you just can’t wait, check out the current week’s answer key at www.indyweek.com, and click “puzzle pages.”

Best of luck, and have fun! www.sudoku.com solution to last week’s puzzle

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August 10, 2022

INDYweek.com

8.10.22 INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com

C L AS S I F I E D S HEALTH & WELL BEING

919-416-0675

www.harmonygate.com

EMPLOYMENT

Software Engineer III Software Engineer III, F/T at Truist Bank (Raleigh, NC) Deliver highly complex solutions w/ significant system linkages, dependencies, associated risk. Lead & perform dvlpmt efforts such as analysis, dsgn, coding/creating, & testing. Must have Bach’s deg in Comp Sci, Comp Engg, Mechanical Engg or related field. Must have 6 yrs of progressive exp in s/ware engg or IT Consulting positions performing the following: applying in-depth knowl in info systems & understanding of key business processes & competitive strategies related to the IT function to identify, apply, & implmt IT best practices; applying broad functional knowl in reqmt gathering, analysis, dsgn, dvlpmt, testing, implmtn, & deployment of applications; planning & managing projects & solving complex problems by applying best practice; providing direction & mentoring less expd teammates; & utilizing exp w/: TFS (Azure DevOps); FTP; SOAPUI; IBM WebSphere MQ; Tomcat Web Services; UNIX; Visio; IBM DB2; Pega; Websphere; Open API & service architectures; IBM Content Manager; IBM Websphere process Server (WPS); & J2EE. Position may be eligible to work remotely but is based out of & reports to Truist offices in Raleigh, NC. Must be available to travel to Raleigh, NC regularly for meetings & reviews w/ manager & project teams w/in 24-hrs’ notice. Email resume w/ cvr ltr to: Paige.Whitesell@Truist.com (Ref. Job No. R0061976) MULTIPLE POSITIONS Avalara, Inc. in Durham, NC is hiring for the following.

To apply, email resume to jobs@avalara.com.

APPS ENGR III. Dev integration solutions for cloud/onprem/hybrid using DELL Boomi. Req BS in Comp Sci or related; 5y SW dev exp; Boomi Cert + 1y exp in Boomi dev/ int; & exp in: OOP; Boomi int for cloud/on-prem/hybrid; designing int w/ std ent sys; REST APIs; CSV, XML, Json, & auth methods for APIs; & writing SQL queries.

SW ENGR. Expand .NET Core web app using AWS tech to provide secure best-in-class user exp for cust. Req BS in Comp Sci or related; 5y exp in: SW engg, ent-level apps, & rel’l DB; & exp w/ SSIS; perf tuning SQL queries, Schema design, SQL Server, C++/C# app suites; & security protocols & best practices.

MGR, Data Services. Create SW & manage Data Engrs.

Req Bach in IT or related; 8y data svcs exp, 5y IT leadership exp; & exp using: ETL Talend, Informatica, DataStage, & Snowflake; BI Tools Power BI, SSRS, OBIEE, & Tableau; & cloud tech AWS, Azure, MDM, & PL/SQL. SR SW DEV ENG. Des/dev/test comp SW apps/systms/services. Telecomm permitted w/in area. Req BS CS/ CE or rel + 5yrs exp in: all phases of SW lifecycle; Comm’g risks/delays/concerns; Leading SW proj; Mentor’g SW ENGRS; Code Rev; JS/jQuery; SQL; Git; & CI tools.

SR ETL DEV. Translate bus req into specifications to drive data store/warehouse/mart des & config. Req BS CS, Info Sys or rel + 5yrs exp in: Data mgmt, ETL, & data warehousing; BI des/tools/proc/implement/report’g; Data Integration tools; Writ’g complex SQL queries; Stored Proc; Integr w Rel DB; SSIS & SSRS; & AWS, inc’g EC2 & S3.

EMPLOYMENT Software Engineering Senior Advisors Software Engineering Senior Advisors (Raleigh, NC) Play a tech’l leadership role in an enterprise area responsible for driving the adoption of s/ware engg best practices & innovative product introduction. Incidental domestic travel only.

Virtual/work from home benefit available. Reqs a Bach’s Deg in Comp Sci or a related field as well as at least 5 yrs of IT exp (or a Master’s Deg in Comp Sci or a related field & 2 yrs of IT exp). Resumes to Evernorth Enterprise Svcs., Inc. at: shankar.subramani@evernorth.com INDY CLASSIFIEDS classy@indyweek.com

Mechanical Engineer McKim & Creed, Inc. (Raleigh, NC) to be resp. for providing techncl & design services in support of mchncl design projects as a part of a multi-discipline project team to produce mchncl, plumbing & fire protection design/ cnstrctn drawings & specs for institutional, commercial & industrial facilities. Conducts tchncl eval. of projects.

Prepares design computations & assessments. Produces design/cnstrctn drawings, tchncl specs, & bid dcmnts of elctrcl eqpmnt/sys., control sys. & prepare design computations & assessments. Stays current w/Local, State & Federal Design Standards & Regs. Master’s degree in Mchncl Engnrng & Engineer Intern or Engineer in Training Crtfctn. Must know AutoCAD. Apply https:// recruiting.ultipro.com/MCK1004MCKI/JobBoard/ f29e8f64-6bcd-4988-8fad-851c4970ffe4/Opportun ityDetail?opportunityId=f3ac7144-8f02-42a4-9ec67985dbbdf200

NOTICES HEIR ALERT Descendants of M. R. LEEDY are sought as potential heirs of real estate located in Wytheville, Virginia and owned by M. R. Leedy in 1909. A legal suit has been filed claiming ownership of a residential lot at 435 East Jefferson Street, Wytheville, VA 24382.

If you are a descendant or a sibling or descendant of a sibling of DAN STERCHI STREET who died on February 11, 2021 and lived at 1114 Manchester St., Apt. 104, Raleigh, NC 27609 and wish to make a claim related to this real property, you may contact the Circuit Court Clerk of Wythe County at:

JERIMIAH MUSSER, CLERK OF CIRCUIT COURT 105 Courthouse 225 S. 4th Street Wytheville, VA 24382 You must respond in writing on or prior to August 10, 2022 and include your name, address and information about your relationship to DAN STERCHI STREET by identifying your ancestors that were children or other descendants of DAN STERCHI STREET. The litigation information is: VIRGINIA: IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WYTHE COUNTY NANCY GAIL CROCKETT, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action: CL 22-491 Heirs of M. R. LEEDY, Addresses Unknown, Defendants

LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE

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