NEWS: State lawmakers dismiss gender identity ◊ PG. 4
ARTS: Rashaun Rucker takes ‘em to church ◊ PG. 7
FOOD: ICE impacts the Central Avenue restaurant industry◊ PG. 11
ADVERTISING
NEWS & OPINION
FEATURE STORY
LEGISLATIVE TARGETING
NC Senate Republicans seek to define biological sex, dismiss gender identity
BY GRACE VITAGLIONE AND RACHEL CRUMPLER, NC HEALTH NEWS
State lawmakers at the North Carolina General Assembly are pondering another bill that would affect transgender people — the latest in a string of legislation targeting this population that has been introduced in recent years, some of which has become law.
Senate Republicans added language to House Bill 805, which was originally written to regulate online pornography but would also recognize only two sexes in state government rules and public policies.
The language echoes President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that asserted this as the US government’s position.
The new provisions would define the terms “male” and “female” in a way similar to those laid out in Trump’s order. Another new measure would prohibit the use of state money to pay for gender-affirming care for incarcerated people and would require the preservation of the original birth certificate when a transgender person goes to change the sex on that form.
These additional measures sparked concern from advocates for intersex and transgender people who acknowledged that, while most people fall into one category of male or female, the new language doesn’t acknowledge the existence of people who do not.
Experts also said defining biological sex and determining whether someone is male or female are more complicated than they seem. They also
say the bill may not adequately reflect scientific consensus.
In North Carolina, fewer than 1% of the adult population, or an estimated 71,300 people, identify as transgender. An estimated 8,500 additional people ages 13-17 identify as transgender, according to a 2022 report by UCLA’s Williams Institute, which researches sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.
When Trump signed his executive order, Deanna Jones from Orange County said she felt “illegitimate” as a transgender person. Jones is the president of Harmony: NC LGBT+ Allied Chamber of Commerce.
“It was painful, and it’s painful to see North Carolina do that,” she said.
‘Co-opted’ bill
House Bill 805 was originally a bipartisan bill cosponsored by NC Reps. Laura Budd (D-Matthews) and Neal Jackson (R-Robbins) to prevent exploitation of performers in online pornography. It passed the House unanimously on May 7.
Senators added new language afterwards, which Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) presented in a Senate committee meeting on June 10, where lawmakers discussed but did not vote on the language.
Budd said she found out about the additions the night before the committee meeting. She and the other primary co-sponsors were disappointed by the move, she said.
“This is a bill that had very real-world impacts for women and men,” Budd said. “[The addition] took a really substantive piece of legislation that would have had a practical impact for the positive and just co-opted it for purposes for which it wasn’t intended.”
Newton said at the committee meeting that the bill was needed because “some in our society” are confused about the fluidity of sex, so it’s important the state government clarifies that there are only two sexes. There’s an effort to redefine sex and gender as subjective rather than objective, he claimed.
“We see it play out in women’s sports,” he argued. “We see it play out with safety and security in locker rooms. We see it play out in places where two genders are put in intimate spaces together against their will.”
Democratic senators took issue with the language: “I actually don’t understand why this chamber is so obsessed with genitalia,” Sen.
Sydney Batch (D-Raleigh) said.
She asked Newton whether he or others behind the language consulted any doctors or geneticists. He said he had not personally had those conversations.
Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) asked what problem this legislation would solve in terms of cost savings or efficiency.
“We’re not here to legislate public opinion,” she said in committee. “We’re here to solve problems.”
‘It’s not clear cut’
House Bill 805 would define the terms “male” and “female” as a person who, at conception, belongs to the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs or sperm.
It would also define biological sex based on “reproductive potential or capacity, such as sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth, without regard to an individual’s psychological, chosen, or subjective experience of gender.”
Eve Feinberg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University who specializes in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, said there are differences in how sexual development unfolds and that one’s reproductive system doesn’t always follow the sex chromosomes.
“Why do we need to categorize?” Feinberg asked. “Why do we need to put people in one of two boxes? It’s not a binary.”
“They’re trying to impose a political agenda onto a biological process,” she continued.
Defining whether someone is male or female is “not clear cut” all the time, said Jane Maienschein, a professor at Arizona State University who specializes in the history and philosophy of biology. Using the term “conception” in the definition is flawed, she said, as that’s a social term, not a biological one.
Fertilization is also a process that happens over time as the egg and sperm cell come together, she said.
The proposed language is a “clusterfuck of a definition,” said Alice Dreger, a writer and historian
of science and medicine. There are women born without functioning reproductive systems, she said, people born with neither ovaries nor testes, and some with a combination of male and female reproductive organs.
The American Medical Association stated in a 2023 issue brief that sex categories are not “unchanging and exclusively male or female,” referring to a landmark study that demonstrated about 1 in 50 live births have variations in chromosomes, gonads, hormone levels, internal sex organs and/or external genitalia that differ from the expected ideas of male or female.
Sex characteristics may also vary over time due to changes like menopause.
Chitlik raised the point of a male who’s had a vasectomy and therefore would no longer be able to produce sperm. She asked if this bill would make it so that person would no longer be considered male.
Senators Newton and Amy Galey (R-Burlington) argued that sex chromosomes could be instead used to determine one’s sex in cases where someone has reproductive issues, such as infertility or having had a vasectomy. But using sex chromosomes to make a determination is not always clear cut either, medical and sociological experts told NC Health News.
There are two sex chromosomes — X and Y. But those chromosomes get expressed on a spectrum with varying degrees of biological differences, Feinberg said. They don’t always align into two neat categories.
Charlotte family physician Rhett Brown, who has transgender and nonbinary patients, echoed that humans exist on a spectrum, which makes it problematic to define sex.
“There is not a single part of our unique identity that is not on a spectrum,” he said. “If you tell me you are a blonde, are you a light blonde? Are you a platinum blonde? Are you a reddish blonde? Everything in nature exists on a spectrum.”
In the relatively rare cases where someone doesn’t have an XX or XY chromosome, Galey said, it would then fall to the person’s subjective experience.
Impact on intersex and transgender people
House Bill 805’s language ignores the existence of intersex people, said Dreger, who’s been studying intersex conditions and worked with the intersex rights movement for decades. People who are intersex have reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not exclusively fit into a male/female sex binary.
Around 1.7% of the U.S. population is intersex, according to the UCLA Williams Institute.
“Nature is so much more complicated than people want to deal with,” Dreger said.
Dreger pointed to androgen insensitivity syndrome, for example, in which people have male chromosomes but develop female genitals instead because their bodies can’t respond to male sex hormones.
There are more than 40 medical terms for the different ways sex anatomy might develop, according to interACT, an intersex advocacy organization.
Photo by Ted Eytan
A protest against anti-trans legislation in 2017.
NEWS & OPINION
When doctors assign one’s sex at birth, they don’t always get it right, Dreger said.
For some kids, “it’s a crapshoot on whether to assign the male or female,” she said. “You just find out later if that was right, and some of the kids switch because they decide that the one that was assigned to them doesn’t work for them.”
The bill also defines “gender identity” as not legally or biologically equivalent to sex.
Adoption of such language by the federal government and some states is problematic as it attempts to separate sex and gender, which social scientists and medical professionals have long understood as complex and intertwined concepts, according to a January issue brief from the Williams Institute on the impact that redefining sex has on transgender, nonbinary and intersex people.
Gender identity is a real thing, yet this language assumes it’s something fictional or intangible, said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute.
“The fact is that people’s lived experience of gender is far more complicated and does not fit into these categories,” Redfield said.
The “elephant in the room” is that lawmakers are trying to get rid of trans people and deny their existence, said Feinberg.
Jones, the transgender woman from Orange County, said her biological sex when she was born doesn’t have anything to do with her identity. She has identified as a woman since she was 4 years old.
Jones said she doesn’t understand why living her life makes people so mad, but bills like these keep her on edge.
“I don’t know when someone’s going to come for me and my rights,” Jones said.
Phoenix, a transgender teenager in Wake County who requested NC Health News not use their last
name for privacy and safety concerns, said they feel like they can’t be a normal teenager.
“I can’t really do anything without somebody having an issue with it, because I’m this big scapegoat for absolutely no reason,” Phoenix said. It’s frustrating and feels like a “waste of time and money” on the government’s part to focus on a “minuscule issue,” Phoenix said.
Another section of the bill would require the state registrar to preserve and attach the original copy of a birth certificate when issuing a new copy if someone changes their sex on their birth certificate.
Jones said she changed her birth certificate, and she worries if this bill were to become law, that measure would be another step towards stripping her identity.
“The next logical step for them is to say the birth certificate that aligns with your identity is the one that is no longer valid,” she said.
Gender-affirming care for incarcerated people
The bill would also prohibit state funds from being used to provide gender-affirming care — puberty blockers, hormones and surgical gender transition procedures — to incarcerated people.
The Department of Adult Correction currently has 254 people who identify as transgender among its prison population of nearly 32,000 people, according to department communications director Keith Acree.
Acree said that in the past year, 42 of 381 transgender people housed in North Carolina’s prisons were prescribed hormone replacement therapy at a total annual cost of approximately $63,000. Currently, 28 transgender incarcerated people receive hormone replacement therapy, he said.
But Acree stated no state funds have ever been
used for gender-affirming surgical procedures.
When asked why the language was included despite no funds being used for surgical procedures, Newton said, “We think it’s important that we draw a line now, before anybody attempts to do such a thing.”
Access to gender-affirming surgical procedures has led to ongoing litigation against the state prison system after the ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2022 on behalf of Kanautica Zayre-Brown, an incarcerated transgender woman who was denied a genderaffirming genital surgery.
Multidisciplinary groups called Transgender Accommodation Review Committees at the facility and division level evaluate gender-affirming care requests and determine whether medical treatment is medically necessary, Acree said.
They also weigh in on other possible genderaffirming care accommodations, such as genderconsistent clothing, hygiene items and private showering.
Next steps
North Carolina is not the only state considering and possibly enacting this kind of legislation.
Montana passed a law in 2023 defining sex in state law as only male or female, but the law was struck down in court a year later. West Virginia passed a law defining male and female in March.
House Bill 805 passed its first reading in the NC Senate on May 8 and is scheduled for a vote on the afternoon that this paper is going to print on June
24, though that has been previously pushed back multiple times.
The Senate Judiciary committee had planned to vote on the bill last week, but Newton said it was pulled after lawmakers decided to work on it further. Jackson, a Republican primary co-sponsor of the original bill, said he was working to continue to have bipartisan support for the legislation.
When asked about the bill, Speaker of the House of Representatives Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) said his caucus believes there are only two sexes. House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Reives (D-Goldston) said he’s disappointed by Republicans playing “political games” with a bill that would add protections for people appearing in online pornography — and that the House already passed unanimously.
“It’s a position that to them is more valuable as a piece that they can use for mailers as opposed to something trying to protect women who are in a very vulnerable situation,” he said.
This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-forprofit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org.
INFO@QCNERVE.COM
Courtesy of Phoenix via NC Health News
Trans teen Phoenix speaks to state lawmakers in 2023.
CHARLOTTE HORNETS DRAFT PARTY
June 25 • 6:30 p.m. • Hoppin’, 1402 Winnifred St. • Free • tinyurl.com/CrownClub25DraftParty
The Charlotte Hornets, who finished 19-63 and missed the playoffs last season, have the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft in Brooklyn. Sports fans and barstool analysts alike are invited to gather at Hoppin’ in South End with The Crown Club to watch the home team make its highly anticipated selection. ESPN basketball analyst and Charlotte resident Jay Bilas has already predicted that the Hornets will wind up with VJ Edgecombe, calling the 19-year-old former Baylor guard a great defender, a fabulous transition player and the best athlete in the draft, but live coverage on Hoppin’s wide screen TVs will tell the final tale. Come to speculate, stay to support the Hornets, save the videos to shame people for their wrong reactions later.
SUNNY WAR, RYAN LOCKHART
June 27 • 8 p.m. • Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. • $22-$26 • neighborhoodtheatre.com
From her days a decade past as a busking folk-punk on Venice Beach to her 2025 full band album with pop-soul shadings, Armageddon in a Summer Dress, Sunny War traces a throughline from Woody Guthrie to anarchist noise punks Crass. In fact, Crass’ Steve Ignorant joins Ward on the incendiary “Walking Contradiction,” a stark portrait of class war that rings painfully true in the Peter Thiel/Elon Musk “broligarch” era. The queasy creepshow organ on that track returns on “Ghosts,” a snake-charmer blues tune with brittle crabwalking guitar. Former frontman for metal/hardcore outfit Funeral Chic, raspy voiced troubadour Ryan Lockhart crafts melodic, spidery guitar-propelled hardscrabble country that keeps the rebellious punk fires burning.
GOODYEAR ARTS SUMMER RESIDENCY SHOWCASE
June 27 • 6-9 p.m. • Goodyear Arts, 301 Camp Road • Free • goodyeararts.com
Goodyear Arts’ six-week long residencies support local artists with 24/7 private studio access and stipends for materials and living expenses. They culminate with an opening reception for a onemonth exhibition, open Fridays and Saturdays through July 18, in this case. The three showcased artists include Tom Burch, associate professor of Scenic Design at UNC Charlotte, who has designed shows for Children’s Theatre and Charlotte Conservatory Theatre. Vietnamese-American painter and printmaker Ngoc Ha captures both impactful and mundane aspects of everyday life to “communicate themes of human expression (emotions, sexuality and mediocrity) that shape individuals,” according to her website. A semi-finalist on Project Runway, fashion designer, illustrator and musician Will White is redefining what fashion means to men and women.
LATE NIGHT CONFESSIONS: THE FILMS OF KALIL HADDAD
June 28 • 7:30 p.m. • Independent Picture House, 4237 Raleigh St. • $12 • independentpicturehouse.org
An important voice in queer and avant-garde cinema, Toronto-based filmmaker Kalil Haddad screens seven of his short films and takes part in a Q&A. In The Beautiful Room is Empty, Haddad’s aunt revisits her childhood home and recalls the abuse she endured there. In The Taking of Jordan: All American Boy, an amateur adult performer recalls the horror of his many former lives. Other films on the program include the erotic His Smell; the romantic Vampires Drink Blood … I Drink Sorrow; the biographical/autobiographical reveries of The Boy Was Found Unharmed; Paul and Eileen Had Four Children; and Victim of Circumstance, a tale told through the pages on an adult magazine.
DEORE, DAZY BAE, DYLAN GILBERT
June 29 • 8 p.m. • The Milestone, 3400 Tuckaseegee Road • $12 • themilestone.club
After stints in Richmond, Virginia and Okinawa, alternative folk-inflected pop singer-songwriter Deore relocated to Charlotte. Her 2024 The Brat EP features the delicate, lilting “Tell Me I’m in Trouble” that seems to embrace a sub lifestyle: “Be the predator/ I’ll be the prey/ Do your worst daddy/ Break me like a curse...” Queen City alternative R&B/neo-soul artist Dazy Bae crafts caressing tunes with entwining vocals like the subtly addictive “Sailor Moon.” Charlotte’s multifaceted songwriter-producer-magician Dylan Gilbert conjures incredible music ranging from the chiming embracing/questioning pop of When Did Everything Change? (2024) to the clangorous/minimalist vision quest through the wasteland I’ll Be the Lakebed (2020).
WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE: “ELECTRICIDAD” BY THREE BONE
July 2 • 5 p.m. • Mint Museum Uptown, 500 S. Tryon St. • Free • mintmuseum.org
RAFA BARRIOS, HUMANA, YOPRESTO
July 4 • 6 p.m.
Prolific Spanish producer-DJ Rafa Barrios rocking the Music Yard on the Fourth of July has become an annual ritual at the venue. Known for his signature fiesta style, a dynamic groove-driven mix of techno, house and flamenco influences, Barrios heads popular tech and house label Bandidos and plays parties like Music On, elrow and BPM. On tracks like “Distraido,” Barrios interpolates mysterious snatches of spoken Spanish with an energetic electro-samba beat crossed with a runaway locomotive. Drawing inspiration from artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Pablo Picasso as well as fellow musicians, Greenville, South Carolina-based Humano is resident DJ for Charlotte Peruvian/Japanese restaurant Yunta Nikkei. DJ-producer Yopresto rounds out the bill.
ROCKERS 4 A REASON
July 5 • 8 p.m. • Petra’s, 1919 Commonwealth Ave. • $8 • petrasbar.com
Three local bands raise funds for Time Out Youth with a “silent bidding” rock show. Does that mean bidders wordlessly hold up auction house paddles during guitar solos? No matter, the gig promises committed performances for a worthy cause. Five-piece synth-rock outfit Lucid Dreams, fronted by singer-songwriter and Roland keyboard player Corrina Lewis, are at home with charging pop like “Just Friends” as they are with slinky psychedelic rockers like “I Don’t Want to be Alone.” The Fool Hardies fuse guitar-driven roots rock, horn-driven Chicago blues and Southern soul pop for sinister scorchers like “Dark-n-Stormy.” Sweeping, cinematic pop-rock gems with soaring vocals like ”Grand Opening” are the Joseph Gallo Band’s stock in trade.
‘BLUES FOR MAMA’
July 6 • 6 p.m. • Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St. • $40-$77 • blumenthalarts.org
Set in Baltimore during the 1980s, Blues for Mama features the powerful genre-fluid jazzblues-gospel-classical fusion of Tryon-born high priestess of soul Nina Simone. The play centers on a family of headstrong women, headed by a matriarch whose faculties are fading. As Mama experiences episodes of public nudity, loss of appetite, unsanitary hygiene, and confrontation avoidance, her daughters must grapple with and accept the encroaching changes in their family dynamic and structure. With universal issues and transcendent music Blues for Mama is a moving study of a family in transition and the inevitable effects of aging.
COOK OUT SUMMER SHOOTOUT ROUND 7
July 8 • 5 p.m. • Charlotte Motor Speedway, 5555 Concord Pkwy. S., Concord • $10
THEATRE
The Mint offers a free sneak peek at Three Bone Theatre’s production of Electricidad. Written by Luis Alfaro and directed by Glynnis O’Donoghue, Electricidad transplants Sophocles’ Electra from ancient Greece to modern day Los Angeles. As a Latino family grapples with their father’s murder, the play explores violence and the cyclical nature of revenge. Variety calls Electricidad an “incendiary portrait of people fragmenting under pressure.” The Mint’s preview comes after Three Bone lost a $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant awarded to the company last year to support its run of the Luis Alfaro Trilogy, which also includes Oedipus El Rey (Sophocles’ Oedipus) and Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles (Euripides’ Medea), due to federal funding cuts to the arts. The company has committed to finishing out the trilogy even without the funding.
NASCAR champions including Chase Elliott and Joey Logano cut their teeth in the Cook Out Summer Shootout. This year’s edition could determine the next generation of racing royalty as drivers compete in Legend cars and Bandoleros on the frontstretch quarter-mile. Round seven of the high-speed shootout celebrates Charlotte Motor Speedway mascot Lug Nut’s birthday. Patrons who bring Lug Nut a toy get in for free. Last year, UNC Charlotte’s Norm the Niner blew the competition away in a mascot free-for-all at Lug Nut’s Go-Kart Birthday Bash, followed by fellow NASCAR mascots Lugette, Champ the Cheetah and Lug Nut, then Chubby (Charlotte Checkers), Bones the Dog (no affiliation) and Sir Minty (Charlotte FC) — in case anyone is keeping track.
Cook out Summer Shootout
Courtesy of Charlotte Motor Speedway 7/8
Deore
Promotional photo 6/29
ARTS & CULTURE
TAKE ‘EM TO CHURCH
Rashaun
Rucker’s iconography wraps Southern Black portraiture series at
UNC Charlotte
BY DEZANII LEWIS
When Yvonne Bynoe was first commissioned to curate a trio of art exhibits for UNC Charlotte, she thought as much about the end as the beginning.
Having completed two exhibits highlighting Southern Black portraiture, Bynoe is now on the home stretch of her series, wrapping her run of the final exhibit, Covered in Black | Patron Saints of a Black Boy, on June 27.
For the renowned local curator, there was no way to tell the story she wanted to tell without including the Black church, and Rashaun Rucker was the perfect artist to help her get that message across.
A North Carolina native now based in Detroit, Rucker’s work connects Christian iconography, Black spirituality and notions of ancestry through a wide range of mediums including photographs, prints, objects and drawings.
“I didn’t find [Rucker’s work] to be the traditional Christian story,” Bynoe said. “I like the whole concept that this was an individual looking at people in their lives — community members, family, friends — as the people who are the prayer circle, the people who are keeping them on the straight and narrow, the people who are helping them to move forward.
“I thought it was both unique and traditional,” she contend, “and I just thought it fit very well with the rest of the story that I was hoping to tell through the various exhibitions.”
Rucker got his start as an artist at North Carolina Central University before relocating to Michigan to earn his Master of Fine Arts in Print Media from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Rucker said many of the pieces included in the exhibit were inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. He knew of at least a dozen people who died from the virus, which forced him to reflect on who is important within our respective lives.
“The more I started thinking about it, the more I started researching it and reading books and different things about the Black church, about family, about our histories,” he said. “I started thinking more about not just God, but who I see God in.”
Rucker said he doesn’t often get to showcase his work in North Carolina, so finally having the opportunity felt like a homecoming.
“North Carolina made me the artist that I am,” he said. “I owe a great deal to the state and to the people there. I was truly honored to be able to do it with Yvonne.”
We talked to Bynoe and Rucker together for their insight as Covered in Black and the Southern Black portraiture series come to an end.
QUEEN CITY NERVE: Yvonne said you can’t really tell the story of the Black Southerner without talking about the church. How did that play into your upbringing?
RUCKER: I feel like most people in the South, even if you chose a different path, your path started off going to church, especially if you’re a certain age. I’m about to be 48. I feel like if you’re in a certain demographic, you spent quite a large amount of your childhood within the walls of a church.
How heavily would you say that experience influences your exhibit and your pieces?
RUCKER: Anywhere it’s ever shown in any museum or institution this body of work has been to, I’ve never walked away from it without somebody who was visiting telling me, “I feel like I went to church,” or somebody said, “Hey, I could tell you went to church all your life.”
The iconography is a big part of it, but some of that stuff is pulled from Baptist hymnals and from Bible verses.
BYNOE: In terms of just looking at the whole idea of holy items, relics, it brings it forward with the Black Southern contribution in terms of looking at the oversize church fans. Immediately, when you see that, if you’ve gone anywhere in any vicinity of Black churches or churches congregated by Black people, you’ve seen those church fans.
The fact that he made them so oversized, for me, gave them even more life and even more significance as part of this whole exhibition.
For me, I looked at it as we’re expanding the globe and we’re also spanning time when we look at these works.
I thought it was very important, too, what we’re seeing in terms of saints — very often when you talk about saints, it’s usually white people. We’re seeing not only Black people but these are community people. They are the people that you walk and see every day. These are your family members.
The people who have seen the exhibition have talked to me about how it definitely resonates because, even for the people who are not necessarily church or have stopped going to church, they saw the people and how they were presented in these pieces really resonated with attendees.
Rashaun, why do you think it’s important to showcase these depictions?
RUCKER: One part of it was talking about going through this period of grief during the pandemic. But I also wanted people to see how much I honor the people in my family and how they should be hailed to these types of standards.
I think everybody has a saint in their life and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with God — it’s just somebody who’s been there to that level.
When I was working in the corporate world, they would say, “Everybody needs a rabbi.” There’s somebody in everybody’s life, that’s why they hold that type of position.
I wanted to show people who these people were in my life and make them bigger than life. That’s why the fans are oversize, the drawings are oversized.
Then the things that aren’t oversize, they’re very delicate and well-crafted and put together.
You have to stay there and look at the tambourine because there’s so much going on because you might be looking at one with clip-on earrings from my grandmother and a brooch from my greatgrandmother, all these different facets that are in one piece.
BYNOE: The work reflects who he is as an artist and as a person. This is family and community. For many Southern Black people and Black people in general, the church is still the central gathering place, even outside of religion.
This is where social life happens. This is where
you do your choir practice. Yeah, you get your spiritual food, but it’s about family, community first and foremost. I just felt like that’s what most people are getting out of it.
The church part of it is important, but for the people who that’s not their biggest takeaway, they do see the family and they do see the friendships. These are bonds that have been forged through good times and bad times and over years.
This is not like somebody I met yesterday. These are people who have been there and they’ve been through the trenches and they’ve been there through the good times as well.
What do you hope people take from this exhibit, Rashaun?
RUCKER: When I first started making this, I remember saying that I want people to walk in there and feel like they’ve been hugged. I want it to be warm. There were people walking out of there with tears in their eyes. They said, “This reminds me so much of my big mama. This reminds me so much of my grandad.”
I think I want people to walk away from it and think about who’s worthy in their life to be celebrated, because I don’t think we do that much of that. You always want to talk about people when they’re gone. Let’s celebrate the people that are still here in a magnificent way. Let’s do that. Let’s think about who holds these spaces for you. I want people to walk out of there and say, “You know what? I need to call my grandma.” Because there’s all these people that we have that have a major impact on our lives that sometimes when you get older or you get going on your own way, you forget about. My grandmother told me, “You don’t ever have to tell me you love me because you put me in your work.” I can’t ask for much more than that.
And now as you’ve reached the end of this Southern Black portraiture series, Yvonne, what do you hope people took from the work as a whole?
BYNOE: I think for me as curating this series, I really feel happy. I felt like I really achieved what I wanted to do and that was to bring some of the best contemporary artists throughout the South here to Charlotte.
Charlotte is positioning itself as a growing art center. To do that, that means you must see what’s beyond Charlotte. In each of the three exhibitions, we saw something different; we saw a different aspect of Black Southerners. These are people telling their own stories, how they felt it should be told.
This is the end of the series but also at the beginning, in my mind, of what can come next for other artists to come here, other curators, other institutions, because we need to see more of it. It’s not so much that everything needs to be light and positive per se, but we need to see a full spectrum of what it looks like to be a Black Southerner. I’m not sure that we always get that. That’s been my mandate throughout these three exhibitions: to show the full story.
DLEWIS@QCNERVE.COM
Courtesy of Rashaun Rucker
Rashaun Rucker in a past iteration of his Patron Saints of a Black Boy exhibit.
TRUE OPTIMISM IN A GLOOMY ERA
Evan Plante creates a musical getaway with ‘Parlor Palms’
BY PAT MORAN
The opening of True Optimist’s new single “Make Money All Day” suggests a soca madrigal entwining with a 1980s new-wave dancefloor hit. Shaking percussion rains down on ricocheting high-life guitars and a plangent, bittersweet bassline. Then a braided stream of swarming voices transforms the tune into a whirlpool of shifting rhythms and vocal harmonies:
“You make a dollar, you make a dime/ You save your pennies for another time … And you say, ‘till you’re blue in the face/ There must be something more/ Than make money, money all day...”
“Make Money All Day,” which drops on June 25, is the lead-off single for the ambitious double LP Parlor Palms, composed and curated by Charlotte music scene veteran Evan Plante (Quad, Pleather, Light the Fuse and Run, Escapists, Black Market and more), who now creates music with his wife Susan Plante as True Optimist.
“It’s frustrating to know how hard you work and how you can’t seem to get ahead,” Evan says of the lead single’s universal message. “[I’ve decided] I’ve got to create music. I’ve got to care about things other than just making money all day.”
The song isn’t exploring a new concept by any means, but while the tune’s lyrics cogently describe and critique the endless treadmill of capitalism, it’s the music that is transformative and subtly startling.
Amid the mix of instruments, human voices predominate, as they do on all of Parlor Palms’ 20 tracks. As the chorus on “Make Money All Day” adds voices and repeats subtly shifting patterns at the edge of perception, it also sweeps the listener along in a life-affirming rush.
“The idea was to hover over on one note for the whole song and do all of the actual work with the vocals,” Plante says. “After the vocals start in that song, they don’t end until the song is over. There’s no break; there’s no bridge.”
Parlor Palms will drop on Oct. 24, and in the lead up to that date, Plante will release a total of four more singles, one each month before the LP drops. That rollout begins on June 26 with the release party for “Make Money All Day” at Evening Muse, where Evan and Susan will strip their songs down to perform as an acoustic duo, as will another married couple from the Charlotte music scene:
True Optimist collaborators Madison Lucas and Harry Kolm of Modern Moxie.
The 20 tunes recorded for the double LP are winding shape-shifting entities, so it makes sense that the Plantes will restructure the songs yet again for True Optimist’s first official live show. In the leadup to the gig, Evan bought a nylon string Spanish guitar and taught himself to play it.
Parlor Palms is a genre-shattering song cycle based on complex shape-shifting polyrhythms and left field vocal harmonies that seem to be extracted from the ether.
The album’s catchy tunes blend styles from bossa nova, mutant disco, soul jazz, sun-kissed tropicalia and breezy beachside pop. Such a concoction should startle like a flashing strobe light but, instead, the ambitious double LP caresses and cradles like a warmly proffered hand.
“The songs are … such a departure from anything else we’ve done before,” says Evan’s wife Susan Plante, who has collaborated with her husband on several previous projects including rock band Quad. “Everything feels so loose and organic.”
It’s the kind of iconoclastic music that could only be made by a true optimist.
Invite your friends
Parts of Parlor Palms were inspired by a 2024 trip that Evan and Susan took to Portugal and Spain. There, Plante fell in love with the haunting songs of Portuguese-language street musicians. Plante’s Iberian holiday proved a touchstone for the new project, a follow-up to last year’s Mental Health.
“We stayed at the southern edge of Spain and I could see the shore of Africa across the Strait of Gibraltar,” Plante remembers.
Realizing that people had been migrating across the strait for thousands of years, Plante felt compelled to address human migration, particularly politicians’ cynical exploitation of a staple of human behavior since the dawn of time. Plante’s thoughts on immigration became the basis of the song “Nothing But a Slogan” on Parlor Palms
In a broader sense, Plante’s experiences in Spain suggested the outline that Parlor Palms would take, as well as its title. In effect the new album became the story of Plante’s journey through the past year, from 2024 to 2025, from parlor to palms.
Disc one of the double LP is the parlor, Plante posits, a symbol of the constraints and stresses that America places on its residents and that Americans place on themselves.
“The first half of these songs … are sad, frustrated with capitalism [and] mad that people are demonizing immigrants,” Plante says, noting that many of us feel traumatized by events unfolding in our home country.
Disc two of the project comprises the palms, which represent escape and finding comfort, Plante explains.
“I can disappear and … exist in a kind of bliss for a moment,” Plante says. “It’s just me trying to go into a different mindset, a different state, and see what it makes me want to do.”
That bliss, in the metaphorical shade of the palms, can be a moment of comfort, Plante offers. Even his drumming is no longer the forward-leaning,
full-tilt approach of jackhammer punk, but the laidback swing of bossa nova and jazz. It’s designed to comfort the listener.
Back stateside, Plante continued to compose the songs that would become Parlor Palms, casting himself in the role of studio-based songwritermusician. He also realized that, while making Mental Health alongside his wife went well enough, he missed the sense of camaraderie that collaborating with other musicians brought.
As the new LP took shape, he grew determined to bring in other artists to augment himself and Susan on the project.
“Every time someone came in to lay down some tracks and put their style and interpretation into [the album], it was like watching a song grow and change in the most organic and beautiful way,” Susan says.
“Making Parlor Palms, I decided to try to be a great songwriter,” Evan says, “I want to write vocals that are full of hooks, that do all the work.”
A song happens in the words, Plante maintains, and with today’s short attention spans, a songwriter only has five seconds to grab and hold a listener. When Susan approached Lisa Ortiz to collaborate on Parlor Palms, the singer-songwriter-founder of Latin synth-pop trio Bravo Pueblo readily agreed. Ortiz’s warm lively vocals join the stream of voices that cascade through lead-off single “Make Money All Day.”
Madison Lucas, songwriter-guitarist-frontwoman for Queen City alt-rock powerhouse Modern Moxie, is also one of the coursing chorus of voices on the song, along with Susan Plante and her partner in indie-rock outfit Faye, songwriter-vocalist-bassist Sarah Blumenthal.
“Recording vocals for that song is one of my favorite memories,” Lucas says. “Watching Liza, Susan and Sarah execute their vocal magic live in [the] studio is something I’ll never forget … It was a femme-powered evening of my dreams.”
Thomas Berkeau (Quad) and Stephen Warwick (Ancient Cities) also contribute to the tune.
The album’s second single, a snaking Latin jazzinflected track titled “Nothing But a Slogan,” drops July 23. It’s inspired by Plante’s epiphany at the Straits of Gibraltar that migration is humanity’s default setting throughout history.
“On the first day we came here, didn’t know my name/ When I stopped to ask directions, they sent me back the way I came ... On the third day we came here, they were ready for a fight, so we stayed below the margins and we hid inside the night...” Ortiz sings the lead vocal in a low register that is atypical for her.
“That’s what I felt the song called for,” Ortiz says. With Plante encouraging a wide latitude of input and improvisation from his collaborators, Ortiz decided to add layered harmonies to add dynamics to the hypnotic yet shape-shifting song.
On the clattering Carnival-in-Rio crawl “Be Something Real,” Parlor Palms’ third single that’s set to drop on Aug. 27, Ortiz’s Bravo Pueblo bandmate Lee Herrera plays guitar. Madison Lucas also returns on an instrument she’s not widely known for playing: the trumpet, which Lucas calls her “first musical love.” She also plays the instrument on Parlor Palms’ “I Got You.”)
Photo by Evan Plante
Cover art for True Optimist’s ‘Make Money All Day,’ taken in the Pena Palace in Portugal.
“Evan encouraged me along the way,” Lucas notes. “I needed a little push and he was the kindest motivator.”
Plante plans to drop two more singles in the lead up to the Parlor Palms release. The French-discomeets-Malian-desert-blues “Bonsoir Regret,” which features drummer-percussionist Davey Blackburn (Curiosidades de Bombrill), drops Sept. 23. The polyrhythmic, tropical, funk labyrinth “Tough Guy” drops with the rest of the album on Oct. 24.
“The way Evan’s brain mixes influences together is so fascinating, and the final album is a mesmerizing journey,” Lucas says. “It’s a true work of art that must be heard.”
Tunes to ease trauma
Plante adopted the name True Optimist to mark his return to writing and playing songs after several years away from music. Having spent his entire adult life touring and playing drums in punk bands, Plante was burnt out.
“I felt like I was going through the motions, so I tried to quit music,” he remembers. “I sold all my equipment and dedicated myself to working on my art and not making music anymore.”
Plante threw himself into Dockland Designs, a boutique print-and-design shop he founded with Susan to pay the bills while scratching his creative itch with art. Although Plante was no longer playing, he continued to listen to music. For two months, he devoted a full day of listening to music from one year only while he worked.
“I would put on music from 1961 all day … and never skip a song; then 1962 the next day,” Plante told Queen City Nerve in 2024. Moving chronologically through the years, he soon discovered his favorite time and place for music: Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas from 1980-83.
During that post-new wave and -disco era, sinewy Jamaican grooves and digital Fairlight synthesizers collided at the studio built by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. The result came in the form of classic genre-fluid records by artists including Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Grace Jones and Lizzy Mercier Descloux that were experimental yet accessible and dance-oriented.
This eclectic lightning-in-a-bottle era would later inspire Plante’s approach to Parlor Palms. The palm tree design on his upcoming album is a conscious nod to Island Records’ 1980s logo
In the meantime, after several years of denying himself the joy and challenge of making music, Plante realized that quitting music was making him miserable.
In 2024, he returned to music as True Optimist, recording at home with Susan to craft his debut solo album Mental Health. Plante describes the process as his attempt to reprogram how he approached music.
He embraced genres as disparate as pop and Latin jazz while eschewing the punk music he previously played. He started singing, something he had never done before, and altered how he played drums.
In hardcore punk, the drums lean into the beat and propel the music, Plante explains. For Mental
MUSIC FEATURE STORY
Health, he leaned behind the beat like a jazz player, imparting the album’s compositions with a loose sense of swing. Plante also fell in love with the bass, teaching himself how to play the instrument.
“True Optimist as a project is .. me saying to myself, ‘You are not what you always have been, you can be more than that,’” Plante says.
When Plante returned to making music, he made an effort not to fall directly back into the rinse-and-repeat cycle of recording, promoting and performing an album, deciding to simply record his music and let it fall where it would. He committed to never performing live in front of an audience again.
With Parlor Palms, however, he’s embraced the promotion process, taking new avenues that weren’t even available in his former music days. A Spotify playlist he’s created titled “True Optimist Presents: Parlor Palms Playlist” features True Optimist’s music as well as songs that inspired Parlor Palms. In a coordinated promotional drop, the playlist will be heard all day at five Rhino Market locations, Divine Barrel Brewery and Triple C Brewing on the June 25 release date of “Make Money All Day.”
Plante also reversed his previous decision to not play his music live. He’s already tested some Parlor Palms songs before audiences at two underthe-radar gigs — a short solo set at Evening Muse’s Monday open mic in early June and a longer set accompanied by Davey Blackburn and saxophonist Brent Bagwell at Snug Harbor on June 11. Bagwell, one half of experimental free-jazz duo Ghost Trees, plays on several of Parlor Palms’ tracks as well.
At the Snug Harbor show, Plante told me immediately after his set that he had played solo gigs on acoustic guitar before and found the
experience stressful. That night at the popular Plaza Midwood venue, however, was different, he noted. For a few minutes onstage playing Parlor Palms’ tunes, Plante wasn’t anxious; he was completely in the moment.
What he felt was comfort, Plante says. Sharing that sense of well being with his listeners is his primary goal with Parlor Palms
“I’m trying to … create comfort in a world that’s increasingly uncomfortable,” Plante offers. “I’m trying to center myself … with these people, and center them with me, and have us all inhabit this moment. We don’t know what’s going to happen and we know that things are hard, but we can have comfort together just for a minute.”
Plante once decided to reprogram how he played and listened to music. Now with Parlor Palms, and input from some of Charlotte’s most creative musicians, he’s hoping to reprogram how we interact with an increasingly traumatic world. Plante’s remarkable double LP is an accessible explosion of rhythm and invention — and it’s all in pursuit of forming a less stressful, more perfect world.
PMORAN@QCNERVE.COM
Photo by Susan Plante
Evan Plante of True Optimist
SOUNDWAVE
WEDNESDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
JUNE 25
JAN. 22
Cam Girl w/ Oyster, Wine Mom (The Milestone)
Chained Saint (Neighborhood Theatre)
Ringo Starr & His All Star Band (Ovens Auditorium)
Connor Kelly & The Time Warp w/ Impending Joy, Benz Birdz (Snug Harbor)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Will Orchard w/ Alexa Jenson, Elonzo Wesley (Evening Muse)
Josh Daniel, Jim Brock & Kerry Brooks (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
HIP-HOP/SOUL/R&B
Coco Jones (The Fillmore)
JAZZ/BLUES
DJAM Collective: Jazz Night (Camp North End)
Copperhead Revival (Comet Grill)
Emanuel Wynter (Middle C Jazz)
OPEN MIC
Singer/Songwriter Open Mic (The Rooster)*
Open Hearts Open Mic (Starlight on 22nd)
THURSDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
JUNE 26
The White Horse w/ Caught Off Guard, Blissful Thoughts, This Island Earth, Endless Nameless (The Milestone) COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Brown Mountain Lightning Bugs (Comet Grill)
Tommy Prine w/ The Hill Country Devil (Neighborhood Theatre)
FUNK/JAM BAND/REGGAE
Shana Blake’s Musical Menagerie (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
SapphoSphere V.5 (Petra’s)
JAZZ/BLUES
Boney James (The Amp Ballantyne)
MIXED-GENRE/EXPERIMENTAL/FESTIVAL
True Optimist w/ Modern Moxie (Evening Muse)
The Fucking Mental Tour (The Rooster)
LATIN/WORLD
¡Tumbao! (Snug Harbor)
COVER BANDS
Gena Chambers (Angie Stone tribute) (Middle C Jazz)
FRIDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
JUNE 27
Evergone w/ Over the Wire (Evening Muse)
Straightjacket w/ Bittersuite, Polaroids, Juniper, Catchbliss (The Milestone)
Crackasmyle’s Rock N Roll Circus (The Rooster) Kansas w/ 38 Special, The Outlaws (Skyla Amphitheatre)
Noir Noir w/ Wine Pride, Somnium, DJ Sway (Snug Harbor)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Ryan Trotti w/ Matt Stratford (Goldie’s)
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Austin McNeill w/ Ettore Buzzini (Camp North End)
Sons of Habit w/ Chace Saunders (Evening Muse)
Sunny War w/ Ryan Lockhart (Neighborhood Theatre)
POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
Time Off Dance Party (Petra’s)
MIXED-GENRE/EXPERIMENTAL/FESTIVAL
Carolina Open Air Fest (Blackbox Theater)
JAZZ/BLUES
Peter White (Middle C Jazz)
COVER BANDS
The Reflex (Duran Duran tribute) (Amos’ Southend)
School of Rock Charlotte House Band (Snug Harbor)
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Choir (The Milestone)
Three Dog Night (Ovens Auditorium)
JUNE 28
JAN. 25
Girl Brutal w/ P.H.o, Reflect//Refine, DJ NPC, Ghost
Crackasmyle’s Rock N Roll Circus (The Rooster)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Leah Darling (Comet Grill)
Scott Miller (Evening Muse)
Brad Heller & The Fustics (Thomas Street Tavern)
JAZZ/BLUES
Peter White (Middle C Jazz)
MIXED-GENRE/EXPERIMENTAL/FESTIVAL
Carolina Open Air Fest (Blackbox Theater)
Boy AC w/ Reveri3, YAWNI (Petra’s)
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
The Bar of Fame: Line Dance & Country Swing
Competition (Coyote Joe’s)
FUNK/JAM BAND/REGGAE
John Maddrey w/ BANFF (Evening Muse)
The Hourglass Kids (Primal Brewery)
Untethered Soul w/ Jordan Sledge & The Saucepan Band (Starlight on 22nd)
CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL
Hauser (Skyla Amphitheatre)
COVER BANDS
SATURDAY SUNDAY
Tell Me Lies (Fleetwood Mac tribute) w/ Ten Feet Deep (Amos’ Southend)
Work Trip Band w/ Rany Paul & Jesse Lee (Goldie’s)
Badmotorfinger (Soundgarden tribute) (Visulite Theatre)
POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
Hazy Sunday (Petra’s)
Village Vibes (Starlight on 22nd)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
THURSDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Tyger w/ Preppen Barium, Good Good Grief, Evan Pittfield (The Milestone)
FUNK/JAM BANDS/REGGAE
Shana Blake’s Musical Menagerie (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Folk Night feat. A.P. Rodgers & Friends (The Rooster)
JAZZ/BLUES
Java Band (Middle C Jazz)
FRIDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
The Lenny Federal Band (Comet Grill)*
Wastoid w/ Consumer Culture, Squeamish, Septix, Nozen (The Milestone)
Savage & the Witch w/ The Poontanglers (Snug Harbor)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Big Fun w/ Nate & John Duo (Goldie’s) POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
Small Records w/ DJ Overcash (Salud Cerveceria)*
JAZZ/BLUES
Jazz Funk Soul (Middle C Jazz) COVER BANDS
Mamma Mania! (ABBA tribute) (Amos’ Southend)
SATURDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Jiu Jitsu w/ Fear of Loss, Ferment, Lucky Feeling, Conquer (The Milestone)
POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
Latin Dance Party (Salud Cerveceria)*
A Homebody’s Night Out (Snug Harbor)
JAZZ/BLUES
Althea Rene (Middle C Jazz)
Rock N Roll Circus After Party (The Rooster)
CLASSICAL/INSTRUMENTAL
Charlotte Symphony Summer Pops: Celebrate America (Symphony Park)
JAZZ/BLUES
Marcus Adams (Middle C Jazz)
LATIN/WORLD
Pedro Fernandez (Ovens Auditorium)
MIXED-GENRE/EXPERIMENTAL/FESTIVAL
Benefit for Brad Brady (Amos’ Southend)
Deore w/ Dazy Bea, Dylan Gilbert (The Milestone)
MONDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
JAZZ/BLUES
JUNE 30
Leaving for Arizona w/ Thee Windows, Saintlogic (The Milestone)
The Bill Hanna Legacy Jazz Session (Petra’s)
OPEN MIC
Find Your Muse Open Mic (Evening Muse)
TUESDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Red Rocking Chair (Comet Grill)*
OPEN MIC
FUNK/JAM BAND/REGGAE
Camp Calico w/ John Maddrey, Lacey Dooms (Starlight on 22nd)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Ryan Trotti w/ Marcy Live (Goldie’s)
Remington Cartee Band (Primal Brewery)
MIXED-GENRE/EXPERIMENTAL/FESTIVAL
2025 Carolina Vet Fest (The Rooster)
SUNDAY
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Dollhaver w/ Hitachi Torture, Goon, Goatse (The Milestone)
JAZZ/BLUES
Marqueal Jordan (Middle C Jazz)
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
Watts McCormick (Free Range Brewing)
POP/DANCE/ELECTRONIC/DJ
Soul Sundays (Starlight on 22nd)
JULY 1
Faster Pussycat w/ The Supersuckers, The Lonely Ones (Neighborhood Theatre)
Tosco Music Open Mic (Evening Muse)
Open Mic Night feat. The Smokin J’s (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
WEDNESDAY
SINGER-SONGWRITER/ACOUSTIC
JAZZ/BLUES
JULY 2
Josh Daniel, Jim Brock & Kerry Brooks (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
DJAM Collective: Jazz Night (Camp North End)
FUNK/JAM BANDS/REGGAE
Iration (The Fillmore)
OPEN MIC
Singer/Songwriter Open Mic (The Rooster)*
4
5
JUNE 29 JULY 3
6
7
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Cloutchaser w/ Floral; Somnium; Dollars, Taxes (The Milestone)
OPEN MIC
MONDAY TUESDAY
Find Your Muse Open Mic (Evening Muse)
ROCK/PUNK/METAL
Red Rocking Chair (Comet Grill)*
The Soundwave is Queen City Nerve’s comprehensive guide to live music happening in Charlotte every night of the week. This list is pulled together by our editorial team every other week from combing through Charlotte music venue calendars and separated by genre. None of these listings are paid advertisements. We understand that many non-traditional music venues offer live music like coffee shops, breweries, art galleries, community events and more.
8
Styx w/ Kevin Cronin & Don Felder (PNC Music Pavilion)
COUNTRY/FOLK/AMERICANA
Cocaine Fairies w/ Liam & the Nerdy Blues, Ryan Lockhart, A.P. Rodgers (The Milestone)
OPEN MIC
Open Mic Night feat. The Smokin J’s (Smokey Joe’s Cafe & Bar)*
This list may not have every event listed. To have a venue included in the editorial compilation of this list, please send an email to info@qcnerve.com with the subject “Soundwave.”
FOOD & DRINK FEATURE STORY
THE BUSINESS OF RESILIENCE
How increased ICE aggression has impacted the service industry in immigrant communities
BY ANNIE KEOUGH
With residents speaking more than 50 languages among them, the Central Avenue/Albemarle Road Corridor is considered the most diverse of Charlotte’s six Corridors of Opportunity.
Thanks to Central Avenue’s diverse makeup, and especially its burgeoning Latino population, the area has become a hotspot for folks in search of ethnic food options in Charlotte over the years.
However, since President Donald Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, it has also become a hotspot for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. Carolina Migrant Network’s (CMN) ICE hotline, which allows community members to report ICE activity and get resources for detainee’s families, fielded more than 150 calls in a 10-day span in May following the high-profile arrest of a father in view of parents and students in the Charlotte Language Academy off Albemarle Road.
Though the number of calls has slowed since then, according to CMN co-founder Stefanía Arteaga, she knows from experience that ICE activity ebbs and flows. Not knowing what is coming next only adds to “the chill factor.”
“The fear still exists, the tensions are still happening,” Arteaga said.
Restaurant owners and others in the service industry are feeling the effects of ICE’s intimidation along Central Avenue and throughout Charlotte.
Immigrants found a home along Central Avenue
According to the city of Charlotte, the Central Avenue/Albemarle Road corridor contains a significant concentration of residents with Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South/Central American or Spanish culture or origin.
As of 2020, about 32.5% of the population in
the corridor identified as Hispanic, nearly tripling the 11.1% seen across the broader Charlotte metro area.
CharlotteEAST, a nonprofit dedicated to developing economic and social capital in east Charlotte, received funding at the beginning of the year through the American Rescue Plan Act to work on business district development in the area.
During the two-year funding period, the organization’s goal is to create a comprehensive business ecosystem centered around Eastland Yards, the mixed-use redevelopment of the 69-acre site where Eastland Mall once served as a thriving community hub but for many years sat vacant as a sign of disinvestment in the area.
CharlotteEAST executive director Greg Asciutto told Queen City Nerve that the organization is reclaiming the greater Eastland community — bordered by Eastway Drive, East W.T. Harris Boulevard, The Plaza and East Independence Freeway — to ensure economic prosperity.
A major way the organization is achieving this is through identifying 11 commercial clusters with the highest concentration of business strips and/ or standalone businesses. Beginning at the end of April, CharlotteEAST went door to door for six weeks inventorying and canvassing small businesses, asking them to complete a business needs assessment.
Although this effort will run through Aug. 10, CharlotteEAST’s raw inventory data revealed that there are 656 businesses in all of CharlotteEAST’s footprint, 143 of which are confirmed Hispanicowned and/or operated, Asciutto said.
The nearly 4.5-mile stretch of Central Avenue holds 83 individual storefronts, nine of which are chain businesses, five are vacant and 33 are confirmed Hispanic-owned or operated, though it’s suspected that more businesses went unaccounted
because the organization was not able to connect with each of them individually.
In talking with business owners along Central Avenue and the surrounding area, Asciutto found that when there is a known ICE presence in the community, people tend to shut themselves in their home for fear of being detained.
That’s a valid fear when Central Avenue’s walkability makes the Latino community more visible and an easier target for ICE agents to nab on their way to work, Arteaga said.
When foot traffic declines because folks are afraid to leave their homes, immigrant-serving businesses lose a significant revenue generator, Asciutto said. Most of the immigrant-owned food service businesses surveyed by CharlotteEAST didn’t have robust marketing strategies or partnerships with third-party delivery services like DoorDash.
Some immigrant food truck operators have taken to running their businesses in a sort of secret fashion, hiding behind other businesses rather than risk parking in a visible location, Arteaga said.
Without delivery platforms or a marketing apparatus set up, businesses don’t have the capacity to reach folks outside of their immediate community — geographically or culturally, Asciutto said. CharlotteEAST’s next step is to help business owners and commercial property owners develop strategic plans and marketing strategies to create a more resilient business community.
How ICE activity impacts Central Avenue businesses
Abugida Ethiopian Café owner Yobite Mengesha said that, in her eight years in business, she’s never seen anything like the panic caused by ICE activity along Central Ave.
Since ICE began detaining folks across the country earlier this year, Mengesha has lost three employees — not because they were detained but because they were too scared to come into work.
Manolo Betancur, owner of Manolo’s Bakery on Central Avenue, remembers when ICE agents came to his business and took one of his employees in the parking lot. The man they arrested turned out not to be the one they were looking for.
“ICE took the wrong guy,” he said. “Those were very bad months.”
Though Mengesha’s employees held work permits that allowed them legal residency, they didn’t yet have green cards and had heard the stories of ICE detaining even those people who have followed all the rules. One such employee who holds a work visa hasn’t left her house in almost two months to avoid the trauma of an ICE confrontation, she said.
“Employee-wise we’re getting affected and customer-wise … thank God I have more American customers, but my Ethiopian and foreign customers just don’t show up,” Mengesha said.
She estimates a 40% loss in sales compared to last year, attributing it to the uncertainty people feel in the current climate.
Mengesha said she knows of other Ethiopian restaurants, such as Nile Ethiopian at the corner of Sharon Amity and Albemarle roads, that are struggling.
Queen Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant & Bar operates a nightclub connected to its eatery that
serves a majority-Latino population. The owner told Asciutto that business at the club side has significantly decreased since ICE activity picked up along Central Avenue.
Ownership at Cuzcatlan Restaurant, located on the corner of Rosehaven Drive and Central Avenue, sent Queen City Nerve a statement saying that ICE raids have impacted its patrons, who largely work in construction and are immigrants themselves.
“The paranoia of ICE being in our cities have made them not venture out as much as before,” the statement read. “The immigrants they’re pursuing aren’t criminals or [delinquents], they are honest and hard-working people that do not deserve the treatment they’re receiving.”
Tacos El Nevado manager Litzy Mali said the restaurant’s Central Avenue location has seen a drop in business compared to its South Boulevard location.
“Central Avenue has gotten hit the most on sales, we definitely see it,” Mali said. “We do a side-by-side comparison to our other location down on South Boulevard. It’s a drastic change … It doesn’t just affect us as a business but people that work with us. Sales have gone down so it causes us to reduce hours, reduce staffing and it’s just all a domino effect.”
Immigrant businesses aren’t going anywhere
Despite the sense of fear that is currently permeating the immigrant community, one that is affecting foot traffic and sales among local businesses, a spirit of resilience remains, explained Asciutto.
“At the same time, we’re also seeing a number of immigrant-owned businesses that are opening up that are having really good success rates,” he said.
Within CharlotteEAST’s footprint over the last three months, six new immigrant-owned businesses have opened, with the only two that have closed being replaced by other immigrantowned businesses.
It’s an interesting profile, Asciutto said. He hears anecdotally from business owners, food service workers and other professionals that business is down because folks aren’t leaving their houses as frequently. Then, in the same community, there are new businesses that have seen exceptional success. When Legends Ice Cream & Churros opened earlier this year on Sharon Amity Road, the line was out the door for nearly three full days, Asciutto said.
El Churro del 8 and Guatelinda Resturante & Pandaría, both of which are located in the Milton Plaza shopping center on The Plaza, have also had steady business.
”I know I’m not painting a very clear picture to you, but that’s because I think the picture is not very clear,” Asciutto explained. “There are multiple things true at once.”
While the government continues on a campaign of mass deportations and intimidation, Mengesha emphasized the need for everyday people to support immigrants and their businesses and, above all, to be kind.
“Give them that comfort,” she said. “…Especially [people who don’t] speak the language or know the laws, anything will scare them quickly because this is their dream, they come here for that dream. Show them that love.”
AKEOUGH@QCNERVE.COM
Courtesy of Charlotte EAST
Supermercadito El Salvador is a grocery store, deli and panaderia on Central Avenue.
JUNE 25 - JULY 1 JULY 2 - JULY 8
ARIES (March 21 to April 19) You feel ready to face a major change, although it might involve some risks. A once-dubious family member comes around and offers support and encouragement.
TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) Move forward with your plans, despite discouraging words from those who underestimate the Bovine’s strong will. Your keen instincts will guide you well.
GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) A misunderstanding is easily cleared up. Then go ahead and enjoy some fun and games this week! Meanwhile, a Libra might have ideas that merit serious consideration for the future.
CANCER (June 21 to July 22) You might feel as if you’re in an emotional pressure cooker, but the situation is about to change in your favor. Take time out for some well-earned fun!
LEO (July 23 to August 22) A shift in your workplace responsibilities creates resentment among some coworkers. Deal with it before it becomes a threat to your success on the job.
VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) Expect some surprises in what you thought was one of your typically well-planned schedules. Deal with them, then enjoy some lighthearted entertainment.
LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Be careful: What appears to be a solid financial opportunity might have some hidden risks attached. In addition, a hazy personal matter needs to be cleared up.
SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) It’s a good time to strengthen ties with family and friends. In other news, you might feel unsure about a recent workplace decision, but time will prove that you did the right thing.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) Just when you thought your relationship was comfortable and even predictable, your partner or spouse could spring a potentially life-changing surprise on you.
CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) Your usually generous self is overshadowed by your equally strong suspicious nature. You might be judging things too harshly. Keep an open mind.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) Love and romance dominate the week. Married Aquarians enjoy domestic harmony, while singles could soon be welcoming overtures from loving LEOs.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20) An old health problem recurs, but it is soon dealt with, leaving you eager to get back into the swing of things. Also, a favorable travel period starts this week.
BORN THIS WEEK: You have an independent spirit that resists being told what to do. But you’re also wise enough to appreciate good advice when you receive it.
ARIES (March 21 to April 19) Although you don’t like to change plans once they’re set, once again, you might find that doing so can make a big difference in your favor. Meanwhile, family matters dominate the weekend.
TAURUS (April 20 to May 20) You continue to get encouragement for your proposals, including some support from unlikely sources. Use this positive flow to move forward with your plans. Good luck!
GEMINI (May 21 to June 20) Family matters are dominant this week. It’s a good time to be with those you love. It’s also a good time to contact and reunite with loved ones with whom you’ve lost touch.
CANCER (June 21 to July 22) Be careful not to allow differences of opinion to create unpleasant feelings, especially in the workplace. A neutral observer could check out the situation and suggest a resolution.
LEO (July 23 to August 22) While the Lion’s Den is the center of attention this week with family matters dominating much of your time, workplace issues are also important. Try to find a balance between them.
VIRGO (August 23 to September 22) The future of a new relationship could depend on how much the usually impatient-to-get-things-done Virgo is willing to stop pushing and let things happen naturally.
LIBRA (September 23 to October 22) Worry over a loved one’s well-being is eased with good news from a sympathetic source. Your continued show of love and support is important. Stay with it.
SCORPIO (October 23 to November 21) This is a good time to consider mending fences with someone you wish was back in your life. Forget about blame and focus on the good things you once shared.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 to December 21) This is a good week to start researching information regarding whatever changes you’re considering, whether it involves a new home, a new location, or a new job.
CAPRICORN (December 22 to January 19) A longanticipated job opportunity could turn out to be less than you expected, but appearances might be deceiving. Check it out before you decide it’s not for you.
AQUARIUS (January 20 to February 18) Good news! Adapting to a new situation might come more easily than you expected. You can look for continued support from colleagues who appreciate your contributions.
PISCES (February 19 to March 20) Someone you care for might need more reassurance from the typically “unemotional” Pisces. Go ahead. Open up, and you might be surprised at what you find when you do.
BORN THIS WEEK: You are a romantic at heart, although you can be amazingly practical when you need to be. Many might consider you a great shoulder to lean on.
TRIVIA TEST
1. TELEVISION: “The Simpsons” first appeared as a short on which TV show?
2. GEOGRAPHY: What is the distance between mainland Russia (Siberia) and mainland United States (Alaska)?
3. GAMES: What is the highest score you can achieve in one frame of bowling?
4. MYTHOLOGY: What is the Roman god of the sea called?
5. SCIENCE: What are the only letters that don’t currently appear in the Periodic Table?
6. MOVIES: Which animated movie’s tagline is “Escape or die frying”?
7. LITERATURE: The Republic of Gilead appears in which 1980s novel?
8. FOOD & DRINK: Which spice is often praised for its antiinflammatory properties?
9. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: In which country did Cirque du Soleil originate?
10. LANGUAGE: What is glossolalia?
PLACE A NUMBER IN THE EMPTY BOXES IN SUCH A WAY THAT EACH ROW ACROSS, EACH COLUMN DOWN AND EACH SMALL 9-BOX SQUARE CONTAINS ALL OF THE NUMBERS ONE TO NINE.
NERVE ENDINGS
HB 318 WON’T KEEP US SAFE
I know what it’s like to be scared of leaving your house
BY STEFANÍA ARTEAGA
Growing up on the east side, I remember my mom warning us when Mecklenburg County Sheriff deputies were staging checkpoints. When I was 13 years old, Sheriff Jim Pendergraph entered into the infamous voluntary 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), deputizing sheriff’s deputies as ICE agents.
Over dinner, my mom, a local Spanish language newspaper journalist, shared stories of loved ones and community members detained by local law enforcement who were transferred to ICE for minor traffic violations.
From 2008 to 2018, when 287(g) was in place, I feared for the day that one of my loved ones or myself would even come into contact with local law enforcement.
Witnessing the deportations of so many loved ones changed my life. It led to a campaign to end 287(g) in 2018 because I saw firsthand the suffering that policy caused. As someone who has felt and witnessed the suffering of family separation, I know that community safety does not mean more family separation.
All of us, regardless of our immigration status, can feel safe taking our kids to school, going to the doctor and living our lives.
Like me, NC Rep. Carla Cunningham has spent her life making the Charlotte area a healthier place to live. She spent her career as a nurse and has fought to improve our state’s health system.
But I know that House Bill 318, which will force sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration and which Rep. Cunningham has supported, will only make our community less healthy and less trusting of authority. Gov. Stein has vetoed the bill and Rep. Cunningham will now be the deciding vote on whether the Republicans who wrote it can override that veto and make it law.
Cunningham has a strong record as an advocate for mental health and preventative care for Charlotteans and people across North Carolina. However, anti-immigrant legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly have gone to great lengths to lie in pursuit of their anti-immigrant agenda.
Among the key lies that have underpinned HB 318:
This bill will make our communities more safe. In fact, every bit of evidence suggests that requiring law enforcement to do the job of federal immigration enforcement makes the community less safe. Immigrants will be less likely to pursue medical care and less likely to report crime.
Rogue sheriffs are not following the law. According to the president of the NC Sheriffs Association, “It is our understanding and firm belief that all North Carolina sheriffs are fully complying with the legal requirements [regarding ICE cooperation] and we have seen no information or indication to the contrary.”
HB 318 focuses on people charged with violent crimes. The most important part of this bill requires that sheriffs hold all undocumented immigrants who are placed under detainer requests for at least 48 hours after a criminal court orders them released. Under the Trump administration, detainers are overwhelmingly placed on people with no criminal record (72% of the time) and those with a conviction are mostly low-level offenses such as traffic violations and illegal reentry.
If this bill passes, immigrants in Charlotte and the rest of North Carolina will be less likely to engage with law enforcement or participate in everyday activities for fear of encountering police. Reporting of domestic violence will go down and we will have kids less likely to show up to school.
Our local taxpayer dollars will go to funding Trump’s deportation machine instead of the health and education systems that keep our people safe.
The far-right representatives in Raleigh are selling a lie. What I know about Rep. Cunningham’s values and record gives me hope that she’s unlikely to keep buying it.
Stefanía Arteaga is co-founder of Carolina Migrant Network, which provides free legal representation to people facing removal proceedings and in Immigration detention facilities. INFO@QCNERVE.COM
Stefanía Arteaga speaks at a press conference denouncing ICE activity in May.
Photo by Annie Keough
LIFESTYLE
SAVAGE LOVE
SITUATION CRITICAL
Subs on the move
BY DAN SAVAGE
I’m a 27-year-old Italian guy. I just got out of a situationship with a woman five years older than me. It was a total mess.
She wanted everything to revolve around her and be in control of everything because she had bad relationships in the past. She wanted to date other people but I was always against it. Not because I wanted to control her but because she literally said she enjoyed “betraying and lying for fun.”
We argued a lot about her love of talking about her exes. That was her favorite argument. She thought I was jealous but I was just annoyed about being constantly compared to guys from her past and those comparisons stung because — spoiler alert — the sex we had wasn’t that great.
To make matters worse, she would complain to me during sex that all the men in her life had “performance issues” with her. Sometimes when I couldn’t get hard — mostly because images of her exes were playing in my head — she would have a literal panic attack.
And then there was this double standard: She would go on and on about how big this ex’s cock was and how amazing sex with this other ex was, but she didn’t want to hear about any of my past sexual encounters.
I told her all of this made me feel bad about myself, but she felt that since we weren’t a “real” couple she didn’t have to take my feelings into consideration.
Every one of her stories was about how she betrayed her exes and messed up these monogamous relationships but somehow she was the victim.
I finally told her that I didn’t want to hear another word about her past. She didn’t like that and expected me to apologize for what I had said but I never did. After that, I left her. Do you think I did the right thing? Am I an asshole for leaving her?
Unpleasant Situationship Ends Disastrously
You’re not an asshole for leaving, USED, but staying as long as you did — well, I don’t wanna call you an idiot (as you’re a reader), but staying with this woman for more than five minutes was a pretty idiotic thing to do.
She bragged about betraying her exes and lying to their faces for fun. She compared you to her exes
(unfavorably!) during sex and then had a meltdown when you couldn’t stay hard. She claimed she didn’t owe you consideration or even kindness because you weren’t a “real” couple. (Decent people are kind to their one-night stands.)
That’s not the behavior of someone who’s had some bad experiences with previous partners and needs a little extra care and consideration from their current partner. That’s the behavior of an emotionally abusive asshole in victim drag.
Now, usually when someone sticks around despite their partner being awful, USED, it’s because the sex is amazing or they did something stupid that makes walking away impossibly hard — they married the awful person or scrambled their DNA together with theirs.
But in your case, USED, the sex was lousy, she was lousier, you weren’t married and didn’t have kids. This woman wasn’t even your girlfriend! So, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t, “Am I the asshole for leaving,” but rather, “Why the fuck did I put up with this shit for so long?”
You’re gonna need to figure out the answer to that question before you get with/on/in someone else — and you’re gonna need to promise me you’ll grab your pants and run the next time someone puts down your dick while you’re trying to use it. (Some men like that sort of thing — you’re not one of them.)
Again, you did the right thing by leaving. Now you need to do the hard thing: Learn from this experience. Drama is not romance. Traumatic past experiences (real or imaginary) are not get-out-ofhuman-decency-free cards.
And if someone you’re fucking only has shitty things to say about their exes — if someone is the common denominator in a whole bunch of shitty relationships — then the person you’re fucking is the shitty one.
I’m hoping you can put me in a better headspace about external pressure on my relationship. I’ve got a fantastic partner; we are sharing a life together and we are very happy.
The challenge I face is that we own a nightclub where we encounter loads of single people. There’s music, there’s alcohol, there’s dancing — it all sounds fun, I know.
Shockingly, I am not worried that my partner has a wandering eye. He’s well known in our little
island town and respected here by everyone. But on many occasions, some woman has openly flirted with him, touched him suggestively, looked at him seductively — or worse — right in front of me.
He deflects these advances and he always tells these women that he is mine. My issue is with my anger I have towards these women as I feel they are testing me. I’m doing my best to let it go even though it still gets to me.
I would like to not let my emotions make me their bitch but some of these girls are clearly testing me. What can I say in these situations that is both diplomatic and firm without creating friction?
Peace Not Beast
Are you sure these women are testing you?
I mean, if the women who’ve hit on your boyfriend at the club are locals who know you’re together — and they know you’re exclusive — they may be testing you.
But if these women are strangers or tourists, how are they supposed to know the hot guy serving them drinks has a girlfriend?
If we’re talking locals, you shouldn’t worry about being polite or diplomatic — you have every right to blow up — but you don’t wanna drive off regular paying customers either, right?
And the alcohol isn’t “there,” PNB. You’re selling alcohol and profiting from it. Since booze is known to lower people’s inhibitions in ways that can impact their judgment, some tolerance for mild boundary violations and party fouls — and flirting with a hot-but-taken guy counts — are a cost of doing business.
So, if we’re talking local bitches, I would advise you to stick to withering looks and let your boyfriend continue doing the shutting down.
If they’re tourists … yeah, a tourist isn’t gonna know your boyfriend is taken, so a tourist who makes a pass at your boyfriend is only guilty of shooting her shot.
And as sex and relationship problems go, PNB, “everyone wants to fuck my boyfriend” is a pretty good problem to have. So long as your boyfriend can be trusted not to bang two tourist girls at a time in the walk-in beer cooler — and it sounds like he can be trusted not to do that — I think you should take the high road and the compliment.
Laugh and tell the tourist your boyfriend is taken, offer her a shot to toast her great taste in men and point her in the direction of someone who might wanna fuck the shit out of her in your beer cooler.
I’m an elder millennial who’s been with a beautiful guy for 15 years. We’ve been open for half of that, starting with DADT but then becoming more transparent very recently. We navigated a few tricky episodes where he suspected emotional infidelity on my part. In hindsight, I was acting out of frustration with the DADT setup.
For what it’s worth, the pivot to transparency has done us good. I don’t think we’ve ever felt as confident or secure in our bond as we have in the last few months.
My issue involves another guy; a very young millennial (late twenties) guy I met on Recon fairly early into the “Dom” journey I’ve been on for the last two years. (My husband is staunchly vanilla and enjoys teasing me about my new “hobbies.”) I’ve explored a laundry list of kinks with this boy.
We have great sexual chemistry and we’re both pretty intellectually compatible. It’s fair to say I’m a little smitten with him — but it doesn’t feel like a romantic bond and I’ve never discouraged him from dating other men. Still, I ache a bit when it’s been too long since I’ve seen him last. This guy just accepted a job offer a few time zones away. I’d like to make the effort to see him once in a while after he moves. Dumping this news on my spouse could upend the amazing vibe we’ve recently established but it feels like a conversation worth risking.
However, I feel like I should maybe reach out to the other guy first to see if he’s even interested in staying connected after he moves away. Which of these conversations should come first: the one with the other guy or the one with my husband?
Deliberating Over Move
You’re gay, you’re married and open, and you and your husband both see other people. It’s obviously easier for your vanilla husband to find other partners, DOM, as most gay guys are vanilla and even the kinky ones enjoy vanilla sex from time to time.
But it’s harder for you; you not only have to find guys you’re into who are also into you, DOM, you have to find guys who share your kinks — and not just share them, but who are essentially the (sub) lids to your (dom) pot.
So, while the guys your husband hooks up with are easily replaced, the guys you hook up with are gonna be harder to come by, on and in.
If your husband knows you’re kinky and wants you to explore your kinks with guys you can trust, he should be able to wrap his head around your desire to stay connected to particular subs that were good-to-great matches, even if it means a little travel.
But seeing as you’re only a few months into your transparency era — you’re sharing everything (or almost everything) now — I wouldn’t blame you for avoiding this convo for the time being.
So, start by asking this boy if he wants to keep fucking with you after he moves away. If he’s not interested, you don’t need to have an awkward discussion with your husband about some hypothetical sub you might meet in the future.
If this boy does wanna keep fucking with you, then you’re gonna need to talk with your husband about your travel plans.
Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage.love; or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage. love/askdan; podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love.
