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THE LEDE
“This is a time to kinda get together, but safely. A smiling face of someone you know to uplift our spirits, because if we ever needed it, we definitely needed it now, and that’s what this is about.”
PHOTO BY THEO WELLING
LESLIE “FRIZZY” HUGHES, OF FRIZZY BY NATURE, PHOTOGRAPHED AT FRIZZ FEST, A 5K “WALK TO ENCOURAGE SELF-LOVE AND UNITY,” AT TOWER GROVE PARK ON SEPTEMBER 6 riverfronttimes.com
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Road Trip
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lot of great stories begin with a long drive to somewhere you’ve never been to speak to people you’ve never met. In March, RFT staff writer Danny Wicentowski did exactly that, accepting an invitation from Chief Kenn “Grey Elk” Descombes to visit the headquarters of the Northern Cherokee Nation near the small Missouri town of Clinton. From St. Louis, it’s a nearly four-hour drive to the west. The result of that trip — and a lot of dogged reporting after — is this week’s cover story, “White Man’s Burden.” Danny reveals a fascinating portrait of Descombes, the unapologetic leader of a tribe that critics claim is little more than a profitable scheme. Ultimately, this is a local story, too, tracing one of the many twisty ways money winds through St. Louis. I think you’ll enjoy following the journey. — Doyle Murphy, editor in chief
TABLE OF CONTENTS CAN’T
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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy
E D I T O R I A L Digital Editor Jaime Lees Hero In A Hot Dog Suit Daniel Hill Contributors Trenton Almgren-Davis, Cheryl Baehr, Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Judy Lucas, Noah MacMillan, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Christian Schaeffer, Chris Ward, Theo Welling, Danny Wicentowski, Nyara Williams, Ymani Wince Columnist Ray Hartmann A R T
& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Editorial Layout Haimanti Germain Production Manager Haimanti Germain M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Jackie Mundy
COVER
C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers
White Man’s Burden What is the Northern Cherokee Nation doing in Missouri? Making millions in minority set-aside contracts Cover photo by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (MO add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (MO add $9.48 sales tax) for first class. Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com The Riverfront Times is published weekly by Euclid Media Group | Verified Audit Member
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The Lede Hartmann News Feature Short Orders Culture Savage Love 6
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HARTMANN Proposition D As In ‘Do It’ Why the city should overhaul its awful election system BY RAY HARTMANN
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he manner in which St. Louis conducts its elections is to democracy what the sundial is to keeping time. It works technically, but why would you possibly use it? I know we cling to our traditions in St. Louis to a fault — and I want to be clear that nothing that follows in any way demeans or diminishes the importance of toasted ravioli — but perhaps the most meaningless passage in the local statutes reads as follows: “The General Municipal Elec-
tion in the City of St. Louis is held on the first uesday after the first Monday in April in each odd-numbered year.” The real-world translation reads: “On the second Tuesday of April in years no one else is voting, the city of St. Louis will conduct an ‘election’ that absolutely, positively has no meaning.” Setting aside the peculiar detail that St. Louis doesn’t just vote for its mayor, comptroller, aldermanic president and aldermen when everyone else — including the city — has elections in August and November, there’s one other small problem with the notion of a “general” election: The city only has one political party. This is a fact, not an editorial statement. I don’t think it’s a good thing, by the way, but the Democratic Party is the only game in town. Now if I might speak to city Republicans: I don’t mean this to offend either of you, but it’s a oneparty town to a fault. The 2021 election in the city
will mark precisely a half century since last a Republican won citywide election. That was Aldermanic President Joe Badaracco in 1971, or, if you prefer, the year the floppy disk was invented. The corollary of this is that everything rides on the primary election held on the first uesday after the first onday in arch in each odd numbered year. Whatever. Here’s what you get when you combine a one-party system with Americans’ penchant not to vote and lots of politicians’ penchant to run for office ou elect people to citywide office with a tiny fraction of citizens’ support. In 2017, for example, Mayor Lyda Krewson was elected to run a city of roughly 300,000 with a grand total of 17,253 voters. Krewson prevailed with 32 percent of the Democratic vote in a sevenway field, winning by votes over Treasurer Tishaura Jones. Krewson became mayor with the support of roughly percent of eligible voters. Inversely stated,
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“not 92 percent” of eligible voters chose the city’s leader. “When you have seven candidates in the race, the vote is going to be split,” Krewson said at the time. “Getting 32 percent was enough. I feel good.” She should have felt good. Krewson won the system St. Louis has in place, no questions asked. The lack of a mandate implied by getting elected in this manner in no way reflects upon the mayor. But it becomes her reality. In the same primary election, Comptroller Darlene Green, the most widely respected citywide leader for a generation, won with her customarily large measure, 79 percent, a total of 39,165 votes. Meanwhile, Krewson’s total looks like a landslide next to the 12,416 who elected Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, in a four-way race, to his nearly-as-powerful post in city government in 2019. Thanks to the oddness of this odd-year election system, that outcome was decided
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by an electorate that wouldn’t have filled Busch tadium. t’s time for the city to change its voting system. ike yesterday. hanks to an ama ingly organic effort that’s a model of democracy, city voters will be asked November to pass roposition to overhaul its pitiful system. ssentially the ballot measure would do three things establish nonpartisan elections for mayor, comptroller, aldermanic president and aldermen in place of the current primaries institute a process known as “approval voting for a first round of voting in those elections, in which voters can make as many or as few selections among the election fields for those races conduct a very meaningful April runoff election of the top two vote getters in each race, replacing the aforementioned nonsense. his should be a no brainer. Nothing’s going to change the one party dominance of the emocrats in anyone’s lifetime, so the fundamental pretense of a two party system should be easily discarded. he notion of local partisan elections is obsolete. An estimated percent of ma or American cities have nonpartisan balloting to elect their municipal leadership, including almost every progressive one in the nation. t should also be changed in t. ouis ounty, but that’s for another time. ne emocrat complained privately to me that this would make it easier for a epublican to get elected to city office. ood. hat most undemocratic concern should stay private as far as ’m concerned. he runoff concept would wipe out the decades old scourge — usually across racial lines — of spoiler or “stalking horse candidates being placed into races by candidates to dilute their opposition. hite emocrats have been especially adept at this techni ue, although Blacks have engaged in their share of it as well. ’m guessing the most controversial element of the proposal is approval voting, because it’s unfamiliar and, thus, a bit unpredictable. like it. Basically, in the first round of voting, the electorate decides which candidates in the field it finds fit or acceptable to hold office, winnowing the field to two choices, who then have a fair fight in April.
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We could wipe out the scourge of “stalking horse” candidates, placed into races to dilute their opposition. his is the process that the nited Nations uses to select its secretary general, but t. ouis would be the largest city to try it. ts electoral cousin — ranked voting, in which first round voters obviously rank their preferences in order — is more common in the . . But, ’m told, it was technologically not possible in t. ouis which is shocking, considering how futuristic we are . Approval voting will reward those candidates who reach out across geographical and racial lines to get their messages and personas in front of as wide a spectrum as possible. onversely, it should discourage negative campaigning, which might boomerang on those doing the attacking. f the voters pass this measure November — and think they will — it would go into effect immediately and most certainly impact the upcoming mayoral and aldermanic races. he novelty of it all should inspire greater turnout. think my favorite part of this is how it came about. t all started with indignation against the existing system on the part of one yler chlichenmeyer. he young man is , not a native t. ouisan, nor a politician. He’s a ashington niversity graduate student working toward his doctorate in engineering. But he got some fellow idealists together, they formed a group called Approves, got a , grant from something called the enter or lection cience, and here we are. asked chlichenmeyer why he wasn’t trying to be a household name. He’s a bit shy, it turns out “ try to keep a low profile. ow. his is definitely not your typical t. ouis story. think that’s why it’s worth a shot. n
Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann@sbcglobal.net or catch him on St. Louis In the Know With Ray Hartmann and Jay Kanzler from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).
NEWS Over-thePhone Evictions
“I look at this ... all the technology I don’t know. If I’m 53, what about the people [age] 61, just finding out about this website, trying to get their flip phone?”
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n early evening rain storm had just passed through St. Louis by the time Eddie Lee Logan, 53, took a seat on the front porch of his northside home. Logan, formerly a homeless Army vet, took a few moments to savor the last-minute legal victory that will keep a roof over his head for at least another month — and possibly have widespread repercussions for thousands of other financially strapped issouri tenants fighting to stay in their homes. In late August, Logan lost an eviction trial held in St. Louis Circuit Court. The loss pushed him perilously close to being forced out of the crumbling house he rents along Cote Brilliante Avenue in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. Because the circuit court had shut down as a result of COVID-19, Logan’s trial was held virtually, via video teleconference. It took place less than two months after Logan began withholding rental payments because of the aging house’s long list of worsening problems, including a leaky roof, lopsided foundation and mold in the basement. The landlord refused to make necessary repairs. In June, property management firm . right nvestment trategies filed an eviction case against Logan. “It was like, ‘Wham, bam, you out next week,’” Logan says. Problem was, Logan tried three times to submit exhibits as part of his defense to the shuttered courthouse but each time was rebuffed. He tried mailing in the exhibits to the court, but they arrived after the trial was set to start. On the day of the trial, August 17, Logan was unable to access Wi-Fi from his house for the video conference. He tried his phone and then his wife’s phone, but
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Eddie Lee Logan was due to be evicted, but was given a reprieve, for now. | MIKE FITZGERALD neither could access the video. That forced him to dial in to the conference and listen to the audio. It didn’t go so well, he recalls. “I look at this way, as I told my wife, all the technology I don’t know,” Logan says. “If I’m 53, what about the people [age] 61, ust finding out about this website, trying to get their flip phone Logan asked the judge to continue the trial to a later date so that his exhibits would have time to arrive by mail. The judge denied the request and entered the judgment against Logan. Logan faced eviction within ten days. With the help of ArchCity Defenders, a legal aid organization, Logan appealed the judgment to the issouri ourt of Appeals, arguing, in effect, that his “due pro-
cess rights in this hearing were violated entirely,” according to John Bonacorsi, the ArchCity attorney who now represents Logan. Logan was unable to see the evidence against him, nor was he able to see the plaintiff’s attorney or the judge presiding over the case, Bonacorsi notes. “And r. ogan is literally unseen,” Bonacorsi says. “I think there are very legitimate questions that this can even be done constitutionally in a remote context.” The appeals court denied the writ for a new trial, immediately leading Bonacorsi to file an appeal to the issouri upreme ourt, which also rejected the case. But on the day before the tenday eviction deadline was set to expire, the judge in Logan’s trial
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tossed out the judgment from a few days earlier and granted a request for a new trial set for early October. The prospect of evicting people from their homes during the worst pandemic in a century, and the worst economic collapse since the 1930s, has aroused the attention of both judges and public health experts. Last week, St. Louis Circuit Court Presiding Judge Rex Burlison extended by another month the moratorium on tenant evictions in St. Louis that he had imposed in early August. Burlison cited health concerns related to the pandemic and the need to allow city residents the time needed to apply for $5.4 million in CARES Act housing aid. A day later, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered a temporary eviction ban through the end of 2020 that halts residential evictions “to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.” The eviction ban applies to people who lost work because of the pandemic, can’t pay their rent and are unable to find other housing options. Bonacorsi says the CDC eviction ban is an important first step. But ultimately Congress and the White House need to agree on another ma or pandemic financial bailout that will enable people to stay in their homes, according to Bonacorsi. “There needs to be a bailout, so the landlords and the people can get compensated,” he says. n
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The Best of St. Louis is back! ...and weird as it may seem, this could be our most important year yet. We’re deep enough into 2020 to have picked up a few tricks for living. The best curbside cocktails — our new favorite term. The best way to hear live music when concert venues are shut down. The best places to go when you just have to get out. This has been a hard year for the people, projects and businesses we cover, but it’s also a year when their ingenuity and spirit has shined. It’s a year when we’ve thought harder than ever before
about what we love, what we miss and what we can do to enjoy our lives. The RFT’s reporters, editors and photographers are digging into their lists, and we ask you to do the same in our Reader’s Poll. It’s a little trickier this time with new business models, temporary (and not-so-temporary) closures and more changes every day, but you’re the Best of St. Louis. We’ll figure it out.
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Republican senators worked all night to cut into Kim Gardner’s power. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
GOP Senators Target Kim Gardner in Late-Night Vote Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
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t only took them sixteen hours, but during a late-night/early-morning session last week, the Missouri Senate finally managed to pass a package of bills targeting violent crime in St. Louis — and its top prosecutor, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. Under an amendment voted on in the wee hours of Thursday (and which still requires approval from the House before it can become law) the Missouri attorney general would have the power to intervene in city murder cases if more than 90 days have passed since the crime or if the chief law enforcement officer sends the AG a request. The amendment would empower the AG to take over a case even if charges had been brought and later dismissed. This measure, creating a “concurrent jurisdiction” between Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and St. Louis’ circuit attorney, was first raised as a request by Gov. Mike Parson himself, who in August urged the legislature to address Gardner’s “disturbing trend of not going after murderers, which deprives victims of justice.” However, as the Riverfront Times pointed out in last week’s cover story, Parson’s stated evidence for that trend — that “only 33 homicide cases have been charged so far this year out of 161” — appears more than a little misleading when taken with the fact that, according to the St. Louis police department, officers had made just 44 arrests in homicide cases as of August 14. And it’s the criminal charges that Gardner has filed, against St. Louis gun couple the McCloskeys, that have raised Gardner’s standing to archvillain in both
Missouri and national politics. Parson’s August request to allow the state to intervene in St. Louis’ homicide cases drew a sharp rebuke from Democrats and threw the House’s special session into disarray. The House ultimately took no action on the measure. And then, in the early hours of Thursday morning, the concurrent jurisdiction measure was revived in the Senate, this time as an amendment to a bill that had nothing to do with the attorney general’s office. (The bill would make some otherwise inadmissible witness statements admissible even if the witness does not appear in court.) The Gardner-targeting amendment was proposed by Lake Saint Louis lawmaker Bob Onder; he’d previously proposed a standalone bill to give Missouri’s governor the power to unilaterally replace a circuit attorney “for any crimes, misconduct, willful neglect of duty, corruption in office, or incompetency.” While that measure failed, Onder revived the proposal for concurrent jurisdiction on the same logic: that Gardner is ignoring homicides. “She’s not doing her job. She’s too busy prosecuting the McCloskeys and the former governor while children are dying,” said Onder during the floor debate. Senator Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) fired back that Onder was trying to blame the complex causes of violent crime on Gardner. “Here you are trying to strip away her power simply because she’s a Black woman standing up for criminal justice reform,” Nasheed said, according to a report by St. Louis Public Radio. Democrats in the Senate attempted to block the amendment, debating the issue for six hours before Republicans used a procedural motion to force a vote. It’s not yet clear when the House will convene to take up the issue. Before the all-night drama, the Missouri Senate gave final approval to a repeal of the requirement for St. Louis police officers, firefighters and EMS to reside in the city. n
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White Man’s Burden
What is the Northern Cherokee Nation doing in Missouri? Making millions in minority set-aside contracts B Y Take up the White Man’s burden And reap his old reward — Rudyard Kipling, 1899
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efore the $300 million national scandal, the civil rights lawsuit and the accusations of fraud, the Northern Cherokee Nation meant something in St. Louis. It used to mean money. Instead, it is March 14, and some 200 miles west of the city, just outside the rural town of Clinton, the blue roof of the Northern Cherokee Nation’s headquarters appears on the horizon like a colorful aberration amid the green farmland. A sign proclaims the tribe’s purported founding date: March, 1755. Cars and trucks pull into the gravel parking lot at the tribal complex. Some of these tribal citizens have driven hundreds of miles to attend the council meeting. They arrive in regalia, dressed in ribbon shirts, feathers, beads and bone; their hair is braided, their wrists decorated with wampum. Kenn “Grey Elk” Descombes, the tribe’s chief, greets each arrival in a booming voice as they sign the guest book. His ribbon shirt is a rich and dense pattern of purple, and he wears multiple necklaces of bone and dangled ornaments.
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Descombes is a large man with a large presence. Surrounded by his citizens, the chief conjures a seemingly endless stream of tribal stories, tangents and legends about his people’s travails in Missouri. As the small crowd mingles, Descombes leads me toward a back office that’s almost as large as the main meeting hall. We come to a wall lined with file cabinets. Inside each drawer, he says, are “hundreds of pounds” of documents, themselves only a portion of the “thousands of pounds” of secret genealogical records scattered across vaults. He says files prove — despite denouncements from federally recognized Cherokee tribes and genealogy experts — that the citizens of Northern Cherokee Nation descend from groups which had once covered what is now the southeastern states, the same bands that were forcibly removed from their land, marched through the Trail of Tears and resettled in Oklahoma. Only, according to the Northern Cherokee Nation, not all the Cherokee went to Oklahoma. These “lost” Cherokee chose to stay in Missouri, where they hid from government census-takers and refused to sign the registries created by later commissions.
Kenn “Grey Elk” Descombes, chief of the Northern Cherokee Nation, maintains that his tribe is “just as much” a minority as federally recognized Cherokee groups. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
As Descombes narrates, a tribal member comes into the office to tell him that the council meeting is nearly ready to start. She clips a long feather to the braid of graying hair that hangs to the center of his back. “Now, your civilized people, they don’t believe in this kind of thing anymore,” he says. “They assimilate. They want to be quiet.” Despite the circumstances, there are some aspects of civilization that Descombes and the Northern Cherokee have embraced. He acknowledges as much with a laugh. “We’re going to have a modern government thing going on here,” he says as we exit the office. “Now, let’s go play white.”
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hat are the circumstances of the Northern Cherokee Nation? To hear Descombes explain it, the tribe has maintained “an unbroken line of chiefs” since the 1820s. He claims his own ancestry derives from Chickamauga Cherokee, a warrior clan which settled in Missouri and Arkansas and sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War. But in the world of government contracts, the Northern Cherokee’s history isn’t nearly as important as its potential dollar value — one not derived from Northern Cherokee’s assets, or tradition, or
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historical authenticity, but from the access it supplies to companies seeking certification for lucrative “set aside” contracts reserved for minority-owned companies. The potential earnings are enormous. Like a vault key, a Native American certification opens the door to local and state contracts. On the federal level, 5 percent of the government’s multibilliondollar contractor budget is reserved for businesses owned by eligible minorities. For years, that category included tribes such as the Northern Cherokee. Millions of dollars flowed to companies whose owners had merely supplied their tribal ID cards and claimed they’d encountered discrimination because of their minority status. The web of money stretched coast to coast. In its unraveling, the first tug came from a pair of investigative reporters from the Los Angeles Times chasing a possible political scandal: In late 2018, they reported that William Wages, the brother-in-law of then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, had received more than $7 million in no-bid federal contracts for his California-based construction company — contracts he’d been awarded because the U.S. Small Business Administration certified his company as a minority-owned enterprise, or MBE, through his
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WHITE MAN’S BURDEN Continued from pg 13
citizenship in the Northern Cherokee Nation. But Wages is white. As reporters Paul Pringle and Adam Elmahrek detailed, “[an] examination of census, birth, death, marriage and other available public records show Wages’ ancestors were identified as white. He is listed as white on his birth certificate. The reporters went further, even hiring a Cherokee genealogist from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the largest of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. Going back to the early 1800s, Wages’ ancestors didn’t show up on any membership rolls for the recognized Cherokee bands. All evidence showed his ancestry as white. his first case — involving a company that had made millions on minority contracts, certification through a non-federally recognized tribe and an owner whose ancestry lacked any documented herokee ancestors — led the reporters to chase the story across the country. It led them to Missouri, where three self-professed Cherokee tribes — including the Northern herokee Nation — had accounted for more than $300 million in minority contracts awarded by the federal government and seventeen states. The door had been opened in Missouri as well. Four companies were located in the greater St. ouis area, the fifth in nion. All had been certified as minority owned in St. Louis through their memberships in the Northern Cherokee Nation. There was Premier Demolition, owned by Bill Buell. He had been awarded a $311,000 contract in 2017 for clearing space for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in north city. Replaying the tactic from their first story, the L.A. Times investigative team hired a genealogist through the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to look at Buell: The search showed his ancestors identified as white in census records. There was also Global Environmental Inc., whose minority status led to more than $4 million in federal construction contracts. Census and death records showed company owner Vicky Dunn identified as white. Again, a genealogist with the herokee Heritage enter found no Cherokee ancestry. Thanks to the inquiries from the L.A. Times, t. ouis officials saw the scandal coming. On June 6,
Based in Clinton, the Northern Cherokee Nation claims that it is officially recognized in Missouri as a Native American tribe. It isn’t. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI 2019, the city board that regulates certifications for minority owned businesses voted unanimously to decertify the five companies certified through the Northern herokee. They were CCI Environmental Inc., Global Environmental Inc., Premier Demolition Inc., D.W. Mertzke Excavating & Trucking, nc. and nion based aylor lectrical Service. Three weeks later, the L.A. Times dropped its bombshell report online. The story’s headline, “Claiming to be Cherokee, contractors with white ancestry got million, alleged widespread fraud and government incompetence. The story described an abandoned regulation and a system hijacked by minority contractors with white ancestry. The result was “a major failure in the nation’s efforts to help disadvantaged Americans. The lead photo of the story showed a man in a ribbon shirt, his neck draped with feathers and beads, and the blue and red crescent of the Northern Cherokee Nation in the background. That was how Chief Kenn “Grey lk escombes became the face of a fake tribe scandal.
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hile the L.A. Times had unraveled a nationwide failure in government oversight, what remained unexplored was a seemingly straightforward question: What did it actually mean to be part of the Northern Cherokee Nation? Whether its citizens are sincere believers or accomplices to an elaborate fraud, the fact that the answers are tied up in a web of money and alleged tribal identity theft demanded further inquiry. In a January 2020 phone call,
the year old escombes — a long haul trucker by trade — dispenses scorn on the L.A. Times and dismisses the seriousness of the recent news coverage, which he calls “less than a little flattering. Despite the chief’s recent impression of “disparaging reporters, he invites me to attend the next tribal council meeting. And there I am, a couple months later, as Descombes and the six other members of the tribal council assemble before a crowd of seventeen citizens. (Less than a week has passed since Missouri confirmed its first coronavirus case, and I’m told that much of the usual crowd has stayed home amid the burgeoning pandemic.) Just as Descombes suggested in the back office, the council meeting is a “modern government sort of operation. It begins with the chief explaining the procedures of swearing in a new council speaker. Motions are made and seconded. Minutes are read. Then, the attendees are asked to stand and remove their hats. Descombes is a self-professed expert in the Cherokee language. (During the earlier tour in the office, he described growing up in a Cherokee-speaking home and said he’s spent 40 years translating traditional tribal prayers and rituals. As proof he produced a thick binder, stuffed with pages, which he identified as “the world’s biggest herokee dictionary. Descombes addresses the citienry. nfolding a sheet of paper, he announces, “I’ve translated a prayer here into nglish. nfolding a sheet of paper, he begins to read “ y grandfather is a fire, the earth is my mother, the great spirit is my father. “The world stopped at my birth
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and lay itself at my feet. “I shall swallow the earth whole when die. The prayer continues, moving through various objects of reverence. It hails the earth and fire, earth and wind, parents and grandparents, and finally the great spirit: “ h, great spirit, giver of my life, Descombes intones, “please accept this humble offering of prayer, this offering of praise, this honest reverence of my love for you. The prayer concludes, and the meeting turns back to the tasks of modern government: There’s an update about the remaining payments left on the tribal complex, details of an upcoming visit by a Boy Scout troop and plans for the annual powwow scheduled for October, the centerpiece of the tribe’s calendar. There’s a call for donations to buy a issouri state flag and solar lights. Mostly, it feels like a small-town city council meeting. Weeks later, I type the words “ y grandfather is a fire, the earth is my mother into oogle, and hit enter. find the entire prayer, verbatim, in Facebook and Pinterest posts, as well as the first chapter of a 2014 romance novel titled Apache Moon available for purchase on Amazon. The same text appears on spirituality websites under the title “An ndian rayer as far back as 2001.
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n 1982, the Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory registered as a nonprofit with the state of issouri, marking the first documented appearance of the group that would one day fracture into several tribes, including the Descombes-led band of the North-
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Descombes poses by what he describes as “the largest known wampum belt.” His says his proof of Cherokee heritage includes includes “thousands of pounds” of secret genealogy records. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
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ern Cherokee. The tribe is not recognized by the federal government, and it doesn’t claim to be. However, its website claims a lot of other things, including that the tribe “has been state recognized in Missouri since the 1980’s” — a pointedly misleading description that’s been debunked by the Missouri attorney general. The bottom banner of the website includes another official sounding boast, notifying visitors that the tribe is “recognized by the Missouri work force diversity program for members wishing to become minority contractors.” That claim was accurate until 2011, when a change in the federal regulation muddied the water of minority business programs. Before 2011, company owners seeking minority certification as Native American had only to “demonstrate that he or she has held himself or herself out, and is currently identified by others, as a member” of a Native American group. After 2011, however, the amended regulation changed the requirement. Now, Native American minority contracts were to be awarded only to owners with citizenship in tribes recognized by the federal government. What happened next was perhaps the most stunning part of the L.A. Times’ investigation: Nothing. Nothing happened.
Tied in a $300 million web, every level of government had failed to protect Native Americans from having their resources raided by white people — and these were the very resources intended to help repair the damage wrought in America’s past and present. The L.A. Times discovered that companies whose owners were members of non-federally recogni ed tribes had stayed certified in the programs even after 2011 — even when the owners had allwhite ancestries. It was the same in Missouri and St. Louis. The L.A. Times story included Vicki Dunn, a citizen of the Northern Cherokee Nation whose Berkeley-based company had been awarded an $80,000 minority contract from the City of St. Louis. She had no answer for why census and death records identified her ancestors as white. Days after the story published, a city spokesman said in an email to the Riverfront Times that officials had “initially relied on the State of Missouri’s approval” of the disputed Cherokee tribe, despite issouri having no official agency or process for recognizing Native American tribes. St. Louis had not acted on the 2011 regulation change, and the spokesman
confirmed that the city’s B program “did not reexamine the minority status of any of the firms after the initial certification. The result was that companies with white owners continued to en oy the benefits of their minority contracts. By the time officials corrected their oversight, the regulation that had sought to fix the problem was eight years old.
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he scandal was far from just a issouri problem. very level of government, from municipal to federal, had failed to protect programs that had been created to repair damage wrought against Native Americans in the nation’s past and present. These governments had allowed white people to claim resources reserved for Native Americans and other minorities. f course, it’s not the first time this has happened. More than a century ago, between 1898 and 1907, the Dawes
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Commission received 250,000 applications from people seeking to record their citizenship as Native American — and obtain the allotment of land that came with it. The process became swarmed by white people claiming undocumented ancestry, but the commission didn’t simply turn a blind eye. When it closed the enrollment process in 1907, it had rejected about six of ten applicants. The “Dawes Roll” includes just 100,000 names. Today, the name of “a linear ancestor” on the Dawes Roll is required for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and other federally recognized tribes. The subject of federal recognition and tribal identity can seem highly bureaucratic, and that’s because it is; but it’s important to recognize that this bureaucracy isn’t a separate entity from the vast ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. It is tied to it. This explains why the Dawes Roll, a century-old registry of names, still exerts such influence today. In the 1820s and continuing to the 1830s, thousands of Cherokees perished during a monthslong forced relocation, called the Trail of Tears, to Indian Territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma. By the end of the century, the Cherokee were among the “Five Civilized Tribes” that governed themselves and maintained a national system of communally owned land. Destroying those tribal governments was the aim of the Dawes Commission, which sought to convince the tribes to end their land ownership system. That the commission undertook a census to accurately compensate tribal citizens — with their own land — was itself a by-product of the larger theft underway. And that’s exactly what happened. The tribes’ governments and land system were abolished. Their autonomy was violated once again, and the land later became Oklahoma. However, more than a century later, the Dawes Roll is a useful artifact of that violation. This list of names, created in the context of theft and betrayal, now separates many recognized Native American groups from the countless self-identifying tribes across the country. In contrast, the enrollment process of the Northern Cherokee Nation — which, based on the genealogical investigation of the L.A. Times, appears to have certified several members with white ancestry — is not reliant on the Dawes Roll for membership. Descombes rejects the document’s
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legitimacy. “ he awes oll is one of the most flawed documents in the world, he says, noting accurately, “ t’s main thing was to destroy the reservation, which is did. As of late, the tribe’s assertions have been dealt devastating blows. A national review of federal minority business programs is underway. Along with t. ouis, several states have begun cleaning up their minority business programs, removing companies linked to the Northern herokee Nation and two other non federally recognized tribes based in Missouri. But some tribal citizens are fighting the changes. n November , , four t. ouis companies who had been caught in the decertifying sweep filed a federal civil rights lawsuit. hey’re charging t. ouis with discrimination.
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ack at the tribal council meeting on arch , the recent media and legal drama is mentioned only in passing. The meeting adjourns, and with the modern government tasks completed, the citi ens move toward a table arranged with home cooked dishes in steaming rock ots. he room fills with the combined aroma of fried chicken, chili and sauerkraut. “ ou see a lot of people here who are comfortable in their skin, escombes tells me as we return to the back office. Asked about the lawsuit, he re ects the conclusions of t. ouis’ B program and its strict definitions of who is, and is not, Native American. “ e don’t argue who’s real.’ hat’s a oke to us, escombes says. “ e simply say, ell, if whatever the government has decided is a minority, we ualify for that too, just as much.’” Descombes arrives at his large executive desk. ummaging in a drawer, he produces a sheet of printer paper with a photo of what appear to be cave carvings. He launches into a story of a tribal member who, while studying with “the ayans, had secretly photographed a cave wall covered with intricate petroglyphs, images of human figures with tiny heads and huge torsos. “That’s the only picture he got out of there,” Descombes says dramatically, but his story doesn’t end there he photo, he confides, did not include additional petroglyphs, farther down the cave wall, which portrayed “space people, spaceships and people in
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“We don’t argue who’s ‘real.’ That’s a joke to us,” Descombes says. “We simply say, ‘Well, if whatever the government has decided is a minority, we qualify for that too, just as much.’” helmets.” We return to the main meeting space, and Descombes sits at the head of the council table to be photographed for this story. Behind him rests a multi-headed drum that he says was constructed in 1820. All around him are artifacts which, in his telling, speak for a culture that has for centuries thrived in a hostile land. The citizens, dressed in their ribbon shirts and wampum, are still engaged in lunch and conversation. At one table sits a young man who drove from inneapolis to attend his first meeting. he other citizens introduce themselves and welcome him warmly. He doesn’t yet have a herokee name, like “ rey lk or “ hite row. he tribe offers that service to citizens, according to its website, in exchange for a “small gift.” inally, after taking a portrait of the chief, ask him the uestion that inspired my trip to Clinton Amid the conflict over identity and recognition, what does it mean to be a Northern herokee “It’s several things,” he begins. “ t’s knowledge of your ancestors, it’s knowledge of your language. But it’s something bigger than knowledge, deeper than ancestry. “ t’s the fact that you know an entire society that nobody else knows, he says. “ hey can’t know it, they can’t know the history, they can’t know any of this. o, it’s just yours.”
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fter t. ouis decertified companies registered to nonfederally recognized tribes, those companies filed suit, alleging discrimination. The lawsuit argues that the city’s B program unfairly uses different standards between Native Americans and other minorities. “ he ity’s rules allow African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans to meet the definition of a inority roup ember by simply having origins’ within a group of peoples, the lawsuit says. “Whereas Native Americans are restricted to those persons who have cultural identification and can demonstrate membership in a tribe recognized by the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
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But while the lawsuit seeks to prove the legal issue, it also devotes twelve pages to defending the Northern herokee Nation’s ancestry, complete with an array of source documents used to prove the purported heritage stretching back centuries. Or, at least to the 1980s. One exhibit includes a proclamation signed by Governor Kit Bond in recognition of the tribe’s registration as a nonprofit the previous year. The language reads as resoundingly official “ , hristopher . Bond, overnor of the tate of issouri, do hereby acknowledge the existence of the Northern herokee Nation as an American ndian ribe within the boundaries of the state of Missouri.” oday, the claim elicits a mocking counterargument from ocky Miller, a Republican state representative from the ake of the arks and a member of the herokee Nation of klahoma. “I can have a resolution sent to you that you’re king of t. ouis County,” he retorts, “and that’ll be worth about as much as the resolution they have from Governor Bond.” Miller admits he has an antagonistic history with escombes and the Northern herokee Nation. n his telling, the tension goes back to 2013, just after Miller entered office as a rookie legislator. “ was in my office, and hief rey lk came in to talk to me, he begins. “I’m listening to him, things were making sense. he tribe is out of Clinton, and he had the title chief,’ and to be uite honest, didn’t know a whole lot about my own heritage. It’s not a matter of gullibility or ignorance. There’s nothing inherently implausible about the existence of a tribe like the Northern herokee Nation. iller had known of other federally recogni ed herokee bands, groups with their own chiefs and territory, including the United eetoowah Band of herokee ndians. He assumed Descombes represented a similar group. But then he remembered something his grandfather had told him.
“As he kept talking, reali ed, h, my grandfather talked about these guys, these “wannabes. ’ o, took out my tribal card, the federal documents, the blood quantum, everything showing was member of the herokee Nation — and asked him, o you have one of these?’” iller recalls escombes explaining how Northern herokee had refused to sign various treaties associated with federal recognition and therefore didn’t need to provide those documents. The response was enough for the lawmaker to make up his mind. “ said, his is the deal. y grandfather would have done something pretty bad at this point. ’m not, and will ask you to please leave and never come back.’ iller adds, “ hat was the last ever saw of hief rey lk. he two would tangle again in , when escombes traveled to Jefferson City to protest a bill Miller had sponsored that made it a state crime for anyone not from a federally recognized tribe to sell Native American art. The bill defined an “American ndian tribe as “any Indian tribe federally recogni ed by the . . Bureau of ndian Affairs.” Although the bill became law, Northern herokee Nation citizens continue to attend craft events to sell artwork the tribe’s website currently features an “Artist’s howcase of works from its citizens, including a “Holy Man of the Northern herokee Nation and a tribal member described as “famous for her beadwork. In 2019, Miller says he contacted the Missouri attorney general, requesting the state investigate the tribe’s claims of recognition and legitimacy. he complaint was later closed a spokesman with the A ’s office told the St. Louis PostDispatch that the office “lacked specific information or facts that could supplement the complaint.” “The attorney general, in my opinion, it just didn’t seem real interested, didn’t seem really aggressive, iller says now. And that aggravated the lawmaker, because he argues there are actually two thefts at stake not ust the theft of herokee heritage, but the theft of taxpayer money set aside to “level the playing field for Native Americans whose descendants still carry the burden of centuries of abuse. Before he was a representative, Miller operated a construction company that was certified as a minority owned subcontractor, as his herokee citi enship ualified him for contracts. Continued on pg 19
Today, the Republican legislator says he doesn’t support the current system of “set asides” to drive contracts to disadvantaged groups. He questions the necessity of programs that single out minorities for benefits. till, he acknowledges the logic and the historical burden behind the programs. After all, it’s Miller’s history, too. “ y grandfather was raised in an ndian school, not of his own choice. He could not practice his own heritage, he says. “ ’m years old. y grandfather was discriminated against in an economic way. o make up for that, his ancestors are allowed special treatment. “ ight or wrong, he adds, “that’s what set asides are for, because in the past, in their history, they started at an unequal level. his is leveling the playing field. disagree with that, but that’s what the thought is.” Miller says he’s confounded by the lack of national, sustained outrage at the pilfering of minority contracts intended for legitimate tribes — he references the scrutiny that in was directed at achel ole al, a white woman who was exposed for passing herself as Black while heading a local chapter of the NAA in pokane, Washington. “ hey vilified her he exclaims. “What if she made $30 million off them? It’s just so absurd that people don’t understand it.”
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wila Barnes grew up twenty miles outside Clinton and attended high school in the early s. he remembers when citi ens of a tribe seemed to appear out of nowhere. “ hey were seen as New Age people at the time, people didn’t pay much attention,” she recalls. he adds, with a sigh, “ hey’ve had years to grow. Barnes, a professional genealogist and citi en of the herokee Nation of klahoma, is something of an expert on self proclaimed herokee tribes. n , she was launched into the controversy around emocratic . . enator li abeth arren, whose claims of herokee heritage created a vortex of identity politics, actual politics and cultural theft. But more than just becoming a fre uently booked guest on cable news shows, Barnes used her expertise to solve the mystery — embarking on a mission to evaluate the ancestry claims and “family stories” that the senator insisted were valid. housands of words and several lengthy, primary source filled blog posts later, Barnes had her conclusions: Warren’s family had been listed
Missouri state Rep. Rocky Miller, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, argues that fake tribes are stealing from both his heritage and taxpayer funds. | MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES as white “in all records and documentation for the past 188 years.” But as the Warren controversy faded, Barnes says she recognized a similar dynamic surging in America. here had always been “pretendians,” but a corner had apparently been turned: More and more people were believing these dubious claims. And the scale kept growing. “ don’t think America knows it’s as bad as it is,” Barnes says. “America doesn’t know enough about Native Americans to know that these people are fake. In July 2018, more than three months before the L.A. Times published the first part of its investigation featuring the Northern herokee and related self identifying tribes, Barnes published her own research in a six part series described as “debunking the myth of a fake tribe. he titled the pro ect “ he ardner reen eries. “None of it was true, it was all made up, she says now. “ t was lie built on lie built on lie, and it’s still going on today.” As many lies are, it was built on a single truth. Gardner Green, born as oung olf, was a herokee man who died in . His nglish name appeared on an census of the herokee Nation. “ years after his death, Barnes wrote, “a family stole his identity and exchanged it for the identity of their long dead grandfather in a way that might bring them personal gain.” Indeed, as Barnes found, the origins of the Northern herokee Nation started with a single family, the reens, whose members mostly resided in Boone County near olumbia. hey insisted they were descendants of Gardner Green and Continued on pg 21
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that his son — listed in the 1835 Cherokee census as Ooahhusky — was actually their grandfather, Benjamin Green. The Green family was adamant and, as records show, persistent. Barnes uncovered 29 applications sent to the Dawes Commission in 1896, all from members of the Green family seeking recognition for their Cherokee blood. Each time, they claimed Gardner Green was their great-grandfather. That wasn’t all. Later, the Green family sought recognition for a share of a $4.5 million settlement related to a Cherokee treaty. More than 200 members of the Green family filed claims for a piece of the money. “ALL were rejected,” Barnes wrote. Her series delved into the facts behind the Gardner Green claim, complete with birth, death, census and tribal records. The dates just didn’t line up for the Green family’s claims. Benjamin Green, their grandfather, could not also be Ooahhusky, the son of Gardner Green in the tribal records; for that to be true, it would require Benjamin to sire a son in 1789, more than 40 years before his own birth. Benjamin Green also appears in the lawsuit filed against t. ouis he is described as the first principal chief of the “Northern Band” and instrumental in the tribe’s history and early unification. To date, Barnes says she’s tracked more than a dozen unrecognized tribes in Missouri alone, several of which draw on the Green family claims. But she admits that she never imagined the scale of the money involved, the millions funneled to companies across the country — that is, until the scheme wound up in the cross hairs of the L.A. Times. And yet, despite the scandals, the Northern Cherokee Nation retains much of its official cache in major Missouri cities, at least those not named t. ouis. n August, a spokesman for Kansas ity confirmed that the city’s respective minority business program retains companies tied to the Northern Cherokee Nation, as well as a third Cherokee group that had also broken from the original Northern Cherokee group in the ’90s. This third group, based in ansfield, named itself the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri. One company featured in the L.A. Times’ 2019 report, Colum-
(LEFT) A photo that Descombes claimed was captured by a Northern Cherokee citizen in a Mayan cave. (RIGHT) The same photo, as shared on Pinterest from a 2012 blog post about Hopi petroglyphs. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI/SCREENSHOT VIA PINTEREST bia utter urb, is still certified as a minority-owned business by Columbia’s diversity hiring program through its citizenship in the Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory. The company received more than $67 million in minority contracts. Barnes just doesn’t buy it. “How could they not know?” she asks of the cities accepting the dubious claims. “How could they not know that something’s not on the up and up. How can you think that this group just comes together in and it’s a tribe t doesn’t make sense.” Barnes doesn’t discount the possibility that the Northern Cherokee and similar tribes have earnest followers with genuine beliefs. But given the tribe’s history, and her research, she believes “their main motivator is money in the end.” This is more than just claiming “family stories.” When it comes to the Northern Cherokee, all she can see is the exploitation, a fabricated culture, and the lies spelled out in her records. “People claiming Cherokee ancestry who don’t have it is a common genealogical myth,” Barnes points out. “Most people don’t start fake tribes, though.”
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he discrimination lawsuit pending against t. ouis is still in its early stages, and it could drag on for years. Matt Ghio, the attorney representing the four companies suing the city — all based in greater t. ouis — declined to comment for this story, citing the pending litigation. But the Northern Cherokee Nation itself isn’t a party to the lawsuit. eached by phone on a aturday in August, Descombes is unfailingly optimistic, predicting the legal decision will reverse the
city’s decertifications and even bolster the tribe’s case for federal recognition. At the mention of Twila Barnes and her research into the Green family’s non-Cherokee ancestry, the chief laughs and discounts her conclusions. n escombes’ telling, the impossible grandfather figure, Benjamin Green, who is described in the lawsuit against t. ouis as the Northern herokee band’s “first Principal Chief” actually wasn’t an important figure — but instead “a very low-level, isolated person, and a few of the people might have descended from him.” And, he adds, even if there are issues with the Green family claims, those issues are irrelevant: “There are thousands and thousands of us who don’t even know who Benjamin Green is.” Descombes vows to publish his own investigation into Barnes’ conclusions, which, he says, will “destroy, line by line” her evidence that ties the Northern Cherokee to generations of white people baselessly claiming Cherokee heritage. “ he’s as clueless as the rest of us,” he charges. “We descend from our people.” escombes is unflappably genial. n all of our interviews, he never raises his voice, never sounds flustered as he responds to the accusations that rise from damning genealogies uncovered by Barnes and the L.A. Times. For him, perhaps, this is what it means to be Northern Cherokee: to be assailed by critics, rival tribes, ignorant journalists, toxic governments — and in spite of it all, never backing down from the ownership of his own identity, the knowledge of his ancestors and of his language. He’s devoted his life to it. bring up his translation work of
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ancient Cherokee prayers and rituals, and the years of web pages and posts that feature the exact same “Cherokee Prayer” he read to the tribal council on arch . t’s the one that began, “My grandfather is a fire, the earth is my mother. At first, he doesn’t remember the prayer, but when pressed, concedes that it “may not be the one translated. till, he adds “it doesn’t matter who translates something from Cherokee into nglish. ’ll use anybody else’s if they’ve translated it.” hen why, ask, did he tell his own followers that he had laboriously translated it himself? For that matter, why boast about growing up fluent in herokee, his decades of scholarship, his authorship of dictionaries … only to back it up with an easily provable lie? He has no answer. bring up the photo of the “Mayan petroglyphs,” the one he claimed to have obtained from a tribal member who had secretly photographed the carvings after smuggling a camera into the cave. Was any of that true? After a pause, he responds, “Uh, don’t know if that picture is of that or not, he definitely got pictures, several old petroglyphs.” But the supposed photographer was ust another story. found the same photo in a 2012 blog post; the petroglyphs weren’t Mayan, but carved by Hopi clans in the American southwest. Lies on top of lies. Was he just messing with me? With everyone? Descombes just laughs at my questions. “ en oyed spoofing you uite a bit back there,” he tells me. “What ’m taking away from this conversation is that it’s very important for you to have all the facts. “For us,” he says, “we could care less what facts you have.” n
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[SIDE DISH]
The New Hospitality For the Bellwether’s Thomas Futrell, making guests feel comfortable during the pandemic is key Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
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homas Futrell doesn’t hesitate when asked about the hardest thing he’s had to deal with in his role as executive chef at the Bellwether (1419 Carroll Street, 314-380-3086) since the COVID-19 pandemic struck St. Louis. “I want to say it was the third week of March, on a Monday, and we’d just made our order for the week, but we decided to close the dining rooms,” Futrell recalls. “That was the hardest day, laying everyone off — knowing we had to lay everyone off, myself included. You build a team, and they are family; you spend more time with them than your family. We just tried to regroup and figure out what our next step was.” A veteran chef, Futrell has seen a lot of ups and downs during his time in the business, but he has never seen anything like the devastation that the outbreak has wreaked upon the restaurant industry. The speed and strength with which the virus hit is something he is still trying to comprehend. One minute, the restaurant was coming off a great post-holiday season — typically a downtime in the business — and gearing up for what would surely be a great patio season on the restaurant’s impressive rooftop. The next, he and the management team were wondering what steps they could take to make sure their restaurant would survive. It’s made them rethink everything, including the fundamentals about what it means to be in the business. “It’s strange; we always say that we are navigating this while trying to do hospitality, and the two things don’t always coincide,” Futrell says. “You can go to a table,
The Bellwether’s Thomas Futrell has had to rethink what hospitality means due to the COVID-19 pandemic. | MONICA MILEUR but you can’t give someone you haven’t seen in a while a hug. You can give someone an elbow bump but not a handshake. You can’t see our facial expressions behind a mask. Hospitality now is about making people feel comfortable because you can no longer make them feel like they are at home.” Despite the challenges, Futrell feels fortunate about where he and his team at the Bellwether, and its sister restaurant, Polite Society, have landed. The Bellwether was quickly able to pivot to carryout, and he was thrilled with the support the restaurant received from regulars. And now, with two patios open, he’s seeing guests slowly come back out to eat, which is made possible by the trust their commitment to creating a safe environment has afforded the restaurant. Still, he is hopeful that the COVID-19 reality will one day be a memory, and things can get back to where they were. “There is always that looming around the corner of ‘What’s next?’ but we try not to think about it too much and take things day by day,” Futrell says. “I really hope a year from now we can look back on this, but realistically,
we could be years into this. I believe wholeheartedly that this will leave our industry changed. If half of us survive ... yeah.” Futrell took some time from the Bellwether’s kitchen to share his thoughts on what it’s like to be in the restaurant business during such a challenging time, what he does to maintain a sense of normalcy, what keeps him grounded and the things that give him hope. As a hospitality professional, what do people need to know about what you are going through? his is a difficult uestion to answer. We are all going through so much right now, keeping our teams, families and guests safe. Outside of all of that, we are operating at 50 percent (or in most cases less than that) what we were doing pre-COVID-19. You are taught all your career that hospitality is about comfort, and now the idea of what makes people comfortable has completely changed. We (owners and managers) sat and debated before reopening about if we pour the wine for the guests or ask them if they would prefer to pour it. As different as everything
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feels, this is what I love to do. It feels amazing to welcome people into our doors, to sit at our tables, to enjoy our food and service again. What do you miss most about the way things were at your job before COVID? I miss feeling comfortable going to a table to say hi or to talk to people. Table visits now feel more uncomfortable for everyone. What do you miss least? I do not miss how unkind people can be. There seems to be more empathy with the guests (that are coming out). There appears to be the old adage that “we are all in the same boat.” There is a shared compassion that we, too, are going through the same life-changing events. What is one thing you make sure you do every day to maintain a sense of normalcy? I have a zoo at home. People always laugh, and yes, it can be a little ridiculous. My girlfriend and I volunteer for Serendipity German Shepherd Rescue. We have four dogs of our own, and we currently have a foster dog, to boot, so I have no “free time.” The dogs
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have been my normal. They do not know what is going on. They still need to be taken on walks and fed. They all need attention all the time, so they are a great distraction. The dogs and my girlfriend keep me grounded in normalcy. What have you been stress-eating/drinking lately? I haven’t been stress-eating; you have been stress-eating. This is just preparing for a cold winter. I know I have been stress-eating. Can you blame anyone in this? I know I do not need them, but my latest are Peanut Butter Oreos. Where the hell have you been all my life? Really, they are ridiculous. What are the three things you’ve made sure you don’t run out of, other than toilet paper? At the restaurant: gloves, masks, sanitizer/disinfectant. At home: dog food, dog treats, dog toys. You have to be quarantined with three people. Who would you pick? If there are no rules to this, and I can choose anyone through history living or not, then Stan Lee, Martin Luther King Jr. and Anthony Bourdain. I would love to hear what they have to say about current events. Once you feel comfortable going back out and about, what’s the first thing you’ll do? I feel comfortable going out now, following guidelines of course. he first thing that we [Futrell and his girlfriend, Karri] did was go out to a few restaurants. We liked knowing that we could go and support friends and see what others are doing to navigate this. What do you think the biggest change to the hospitality industry will be once people are allowed to return to normal activity levels? Continuing to make people feel comfortable with dining out. As we have seen, we have been allowed to do activities, and honestly, people do not know that we are operating at 50 percent capacity, so normal activity levels probably will not happen for a little while. What is one thing that gives you hope during this crisis? That we have had people coming out. We can give a little escapism from everything going on. n
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Modern Brewery’s new Oops! All line will see the release of two additional flavors this week. | VIA MODERN BREWERY
[DRINK]
Make No Mistake St. Louis’ Modern Brewery rolls out line of Oops! All single-hopped IPAs Written by
THOMAS CRONE
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s COVID-19 closures began to claim the open hours of craft breweries in early spring, each individual shop has had a particular set of circumstances to overcome. At Modern Brewery (5231 Manchester Avenue), a few factors immediately proved themselves to be challenges. For one, customers wouldn’t be enjoying beers at the facility’s tap house anymore; that closure to the public remains in effect today. And in addition to on-site sales, the brewery has always built its model around self-distributing to pubs and restaurants, with an emphasis on city and mid-county locations — but now those businesses are closed or drastically cut back themselves. And perhaps the quirkiest knot to untie was the fact that Modern Brewery has become synonymous with one product more than any other: Citrapolis IPA, which makes up nearly two-thirds of its sales. If you see a tap handle of Modern’s at your local pub, it’s likely tied to a keg of Citrapolis — expanding upon the success of the brewery’s flagship was key to surviving this moment. As it turns out, IPAs are still at the center of Modern’s new model, with a series called Oops! All serving as a lab, of
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sorts, as single-hopped IPAs are brewed, canned and sold curbside at the brewpub, or via a small, select group of retail accounts. “It’s a showcase for hop qualities and characteristics,” says Modern’s owner/ operator Beamer Eisele. “What’s been really positive during this whole pandemic is that we’ve had to find ways to get creative.” Head brewer Brian Harmon notes that there’s a consistency to the line. Each comes in at the same IBU (50) and ABV (7 percent), and all the cans have been given a graphic cohesion by designer Nick Mantia. With smaller batch sizes, Harmon says, “we’ll be able to try out different hopping techniques, boil times, use of whirlpooling.” All of these are “changes that we can use going forward,” he notes, whether as single-hopped beers or those made up of hop combinations. To date, Modern’s released its Oops! All series with Nelson, Mosaic, Citra and Galaxy hops. The brewery will roll out two more versions, featuring Riwaka (New Zealand) and Cashmere (USA) hops, this week. With luck, one more version, with El Dorado hops, will appear before long. Modern’s staffers say the Galaxy round was arguably the most successful in terms of sales and feedback, giving it a leg up on returning. “It’s been really fun,” Harmon says. “This series has definitely been the right way to do it. It’s been a good learning experience, to see the characteristics of a hop all by itself. They all react a little differently, and the only thing that changes is the hop, so you can really tell what one hop brings to the table.” IPAs, both Harmon and Eisele note, have gone through multiple trendlines in recent years, as craft breweries have swung between creating the most bitter brews possible to lighter-weight session
IPAs to ultra-cloudy hazy IPAs. Modern’s approach with the single-hopped series of Oops! All is meant to allow for each hop to lead the way, but with those consistent IBU/ABV guidelines in place. Eisele says that, to date, the series is “starting to find legs,” especially with on-site customers, as only a few cases of each are going out into the wider retail market. About a year back, there were times when the only beer being canned at Modern was the flagship, Citrapolis IPA. These days, Modern’s had up to eight or nine cans on display during their weekend curbside sales. Harmon says that special releases have been hits, like “the smoothie beers we were releasing this summer. We’ve done well with our Imperial IPA, called Mansions & Benzes, and our big stouts. We tend to see new faces when we have those, but we still see a lot of regulars who come in for a case of Citrapolis every other weekend, because they know it’ll be here.” That, he says, is the silver lining to all this. “The can sales have been going very well for us,” he notes. Modern Brewery’s beers are available for purchase at their midtown facility via curbside pickup, with hours currently set from 1 to 5 p.m., Thursday through Saturday. Mantia has also created a website for several local food and beverage entities called supportlocalstl.com, and Modern’s got an online ordering page there. You can also find its beers at several neighborhood-based locations such as Vincent’s Market and Gustine Market, as well as at specialty shops including Craft Beer Cellar and St. Louis Hop Shop. n Thomas Crone is a longtime Riverfront Times contributor. He reports on a weekly basis about new releases from local distilleries and craft breweries.
[SHORT ORDERS]
Lulu’s Local Eatery to Reopen Under New Management Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
V
egans, vegetarians and anyone who loves good food, rejoice! Lulu’s Local Eatery (3201 South Grand Boulevard), the South Grand plant-based oasis that shut its doors this past June, will reopen this fall under a new owner who promises to carry on the legacy of the beloved restaurant. The buyer, who has requested to remain anonymous for reasons she would not like to make public, purchased Lulu’s Local Eatery last month after hearing that the restaurant’s founders, Lauren “Lulu” Loomis and Robbie Tucker, had put their business up for sale due to health reasons. A longtime patron of Lulu’s, the buyer describes hearing the news of the restaurant’s closure and feeling a sense of loss, not just for herself but for the community as a whole — and for a culinary movement of which she feels Lulu’s was an important part.
manager and staff to identify “As a customer, I felt this was areas for change, she plans to an important place,” the new ownreplace less popular dishes with er recalls. “One of the things I liked new ones that have a more globabout their concept is how susal culinary style. tainability was a part of what they “The main, popular things are did. I worried that if another buyer going to stay,” she emphasizes. came in, they might not keep that “There’s not going to be a huge part of the operation, even though difference on the menu, but there it is so essential. I thought, ‘Hey, will be additions. Looking formaybe I can do this.’” ward, I will do an update on the Lulu’s new owner comes from menu where there will be more a veteran restaurant family and fusion recipes. I’m still working on has worked in the industry her them, but look for dishes that will entire professional life. As she be a fusion of cultures.” explains, she and another family Right now, her goal for remember have been wanting to opening is late September or open a restaurant of their own for some time, but had recently Lulu’s Local Eatery will remain a plant-based oasis on South Grand early October, but she says that put their plans on hold because thanks to a new owner. | JENNIFER SILVERBERG is dependent on how fast she can get inspections and licensof the COVID-19 pandemic that ing completed with the City of St. has wreaked havoc on the industry since this past March. However, crew,” the buyer says. “I did this before Louis. Once the doors reopen, she plans when she saw the Lulu’s announcement, I did any new hiring because I thought it to offer carryout and curbside service she felt that it was the opportunity she’d would be a good idea to have them back. only, and will think of having patio serI knew that if Lulu’s closed there would vice when she feels she can safely do so. been looking for. For now, though, she is just happy that Though the ownership is new, nearly be twenty people without jobs, so it was all of the former Lulu’s staff, including a good idea to work it out, and most were she gets to carry on a legacy that she feels is a vital part of the St. Louis food scene. the kitchen manager, will return when interested in coming back to help out.” “For me, I don’t eat meat, but what is The new buyer emphasizes that the the restaurant reopens this fall. As the buyer explains, this allows for continuity staff is not the only thing that will remain also important is the restaurant’s comof the food and service experience; plus, the same under her stewardship. As part mitment to sustainability,” she says. “I’ve retaining the staff was something she of the purchase, she acquired all of Lu- worked in the business my whole career, lu’s recipes, and she plans on keeping all so I know how much food waste happens just felt was the right thing to do. “Whenever we were completing the of the customer favorites. However, she in one restaurant. If we can start adaptpurchase and were toward the end of does have some menu tweaks up her ing and doing things differently going forn closing, I reached out to the original sleeve. Working closely with the kitchen ward, it could have a huge impact.”
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CULTURE
Clockwise from top left: .Zack, The Pageant, Delmar Hall and Local 6 Stagehands union headquarters were lit up support of the RESTART ACT. | GINA GRAFOS/JASON GROSSMAN/MICHAEL BECKMAN
[VENUES]
In the Red St. Louis venues go red to spotlight RESTART Act — here’s how you can help Written by
DANIEL HILL
L
ast Tuesday, observant St. Louisans were treated to an unusual sight as many of the city’s music and entertainment venues, both large and small, illuminated their buildings in bright red light throughout the evening. The coordinated effort was part
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of a nationwide movement to draw attention to the dire plight of those who work in the live entertainment industry, who have found themselves out of work for months as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc across the country and world. St. Louis venues including the Fox Theatre, Delmar Hall, the Dark Room, the Grandel, Red Flag, the Kranzberg Arts Center, .Zack, Powell Hall, the Stifel Theatre and the Enterprise Center all participated in the effort, among many others locally and nationally. The campaign was dubbed “Red Alert Restart,” with a hashtag to match, and its goal was to raise awareness about the bipartisan Reviving the Economy Sustainably Towards a Recovery in Twentytwenty (RESTART) Act. The bill was first introduced in ay by . . en-
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ators ichael Bennet olorado and Todd Young (R-Indiana). According to a press release from Bennet’s office upon the announcement of the bill, its aim is to “support the small- and midsized businesses most affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis,” including “restaurants, gyms, hotels, retailers, and other businesses. pecifically, the bill would offer up to 90 percent forgiveness on loans to those who have suffered high revenue losses due to the pandemic, and it won’t penalize companies with part-time employees. Additionally, it offers grants to eligible businesses equal to 45 percent of gross revenue from 2019, capping out at $12 million. As it happens, many of the businesses in the live entertainment industry fall squarely in that category of eligibility. As Pageant and
Delmar Hall co-owner Pat Hagin explains to the RFT, the RESTART Act would prove far more helpful for those in the struggling industry than the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, loans that were disbursed at the start of the coronavirus crisis. “ t’s a better fit than the previous round,” Hagin says. “As an example, with the PPP where you’re required to spend a large percent of it on labor, we’ve all been completely shut down — at least in the case of the Pageant, Delmar Hall and the Duck Room — since arch th, and with no income. So it’s not really a matter of cutting back on labor or anything like that; it’s like, there is nothing coming in.” Simply put, with so many of the venues still closed entirely, there isn’t even any work to do for which
employees could be paid. Hagin says that, of the 95 people employed by his venues, only five are still collecting a paycheck — and those checks are at a reduced rate. “So that gives you an idea of how tight things are,” Hagin says. The number of people affected by the lack of work in the live entertainment industry is huge, extending from those who sell and scan your tickets to those working security to promoters, talent buyers, lighting and sound professionals, booking agents, musicians, actors and on and on — around 5 million people across the nation, according to some estimates. ichael Beckman, the business manager of the Local 6 St. Louis Stagehands union, says he represents about 140 full-time members who specialize in entertainment lighting, audio, video, scenic, rigging and personnel management for live events. That number typically swells to between 200 and 250 during the busy summer and fall seasons. But almost all of them are not working at present, and haven’t since the pandemic began. “ e’re still out of work, Beckman says. “We’re lucky if we have eight to ten guys working a week at best.” Beckman says members have been forced to take out personal loans and tap into their retirement savings ust to keep afloat. He says that many of them have been unemployed since arch. For him, some form of government assistance is the only way for his people to avoid economic devastation — and that means supporting the RESTART Act. “Right now I feel like our elected officials have failed us, he says. “ got people that are worried about their mortgage. They’re at home right now, their kids are at home because of this . y guys are struggling. y guys and women are struggling.” Chris Hansen, executive director of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, which operates several of the venues that went red on Tuesday (including the Dark Room, the Grandel, .Zack, the Kranzberg Arts Center and more), says that even though their establishments operate a bit differently than some of the other participating venues, they still felt it was important to draw attention to the
issues the industry is facing. All of the ran berg affiliated stages remain dark as well. “Our spaces are inherently different in how they serve — we’re not a competitive commercialbased entertainment venue, so our rooms work a little differently,” he explains. “We don’t buy touring acts in that same way, and we don’t compete with the likes of at Hagin or ff Broadway and things of that nature. We’re standing in solidarity with this effort because we are part of the broader industry widely and we’ve seen firsthand the devastation of the gig worker, our colleagues and other venues and production companies that we work with.” Hansen says Beckman and Hagin each reached out to him about having ran berg affiliated venues participate in the Red Alert Restart campaign. He says he was happy to do his part to help. “From what I’ve heard, up to 90 percent of some of the smaller venues and production houses could go out of business next year,” Hansen says. “So it is really critical, and it’s often an industry that doesn’t get enough attention.” As of press time, a total of 54 members of Congress support the bill, with a healthy bipartisan split of 30 Democrats, 23 Republicans and one Independent. In the bistate area, Senators Tammy Duckworth, ick urbin and oy Blunt have all signed on as co-sponsors. Josh Hawley remains a holdout. To show your support for the RESTART Act, visit saveourstages. com and fill out the short form at the bottom to be sent to your elected representatives. The form identifies those officials automatically, and filling it out takes less than five minutes. The Senate is back in session as of this week, and they’re expected to continue to hammer through negotiations for a COVID-19 stimulus package. Supporters of the RESTART Act hope that it will be included in that legislation. “We obviously want to thank the senators who endorse it and encourage them to stay firm to their commitment to it, because God knows what can happen once they start to blend bills,” Hagin says. “And also to ask Josh Hawley to also get involved. “It’s a bi-partisan effort,” he adds. “Hopefully this can get done.” n
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SAVAGE LOVE NO CHOKE BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a 29-year-old straight woman in Pennsylvania. My question is to do with choking and consent. I’ve had two experiences in the past six months or so where someone has tried to choke me without my consent. The first time this happened, I coughed immediately, but he tried multiple times during sex. I was caught so off-guard that I didn’t say anything until the next morning. I told him I wasn’t okay with that and that it was too much. The second time, I shook my head as soon as he put his hand on my throat and he stopped immediately. I told him, “That scared the shit out of me.” He apologized for startling me and said he wouldn’t do it again. My question is: Why is this a thing? The fact that this has happened to me more than once in a short period of time kind of shocked me. And what is the appropriate thing to do when this happens? What should I do with the person who does this? Concerned Hetero Over Kinky Entitled Dumbasses “I would also love to know why choking has become a thing,” said Dr. Debby Herbenick. “And it is a thing, especially among young adults.” Herbenick is a professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health and the author of numerous books on sexuality and sexual pleasure. She’s also the lead author of a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, CHOKED, a study that looked at the sort of behavior you’ve been encountering recently: people engaging in spanking, choking, face fucking, etc. Though some of this is no doubt consensual, much of it is not. “We found that 21 percent of women had been choked during sex as had 11 percent of men,” said Herbenick. “We also found that 20 percent of men and 12 percent of women had choked a partner. But choking during sex was much more common among 18-to-29-year-olds — almost 40 percent of whom had choked or been choked — leading us to believe that choking has really changed in the U.S., over probably the last ten to twenty years.”
Men who choked women were the biggest single group of chokers, followed by men choking men, women choking women, and trans and gender nonbinary individuals choking and being choked. Straight cisgender men, perhaps unsurprisingly, were the least likely to report that partners choked them during sex. Trans and gender nonbinary participants in Herbenick’s research more often reported that their partners established consent prior to choking, but across the board there was still a great deal of nonconsensual choking going on. How did we get here? “Probably porn,” said Herbenick. “We found that many people into choking remember growing up and watching porn with choking in it — and in a country where porn stands in for sex education and family conversations about sex, some young people do what they see in porn.” And some people — mostly male people — do it because they think the other person wants or expects it. This was dramatized in an episode of Euphoria, the terrific HB show about a group of high school students, when a boy suddenly starts choking a girl during their first hookup at a party. he girl is scared and confused — she thought the boy liked her — and the boy tells her he does like her; he grabbed her throat because he thought she would like it, not to harm or scare her. Although shaken, she makes it clear she expects him to ask first. It is scary to be suddenly choked by a sex partner. When asked if something scary had ever happened to them during sex, numerous women Herbenick surveyed for a different study cited someone choking them without asking. Even if you were into being choked, CHOKED, which you’re not, suddenly being choked by a new sex partner would still be scary. Because if someone chokes you without asking first, they’re essentially saying — they’re clearly saying — that they have extremely shitty judgment (and didn’t think to obtain your consent) or that they’re an extremely shitty person (and didn’t care to obtain your consent). “Now I’m not one of those people who says explicit verbal consent is needed for every hug or kiss or breast/chest touch,” said Herbenick. “I’m well aware that sex often involves verbal, nonverbal and other shades of asking for something. But
no one should choke another person without their explicit verbal consent.” hat goes double triple infinity for aggressive and/or high-risk kinks, not just choking. “And choking is really risky,” added Herbenick. “Even though people call it choking, external pressure on the neck — like from hands or a cord or necktie — is technically strangulation. In rare cases, choking/strangulation causes people to pass out, leading to probable mild traumatic brain injury. And choking/strangulation sometimes kills people. Even if the person who was choked consented to it, even if they asked to be choked, the person who did the choking is often legally responsible in the event of injury or death.” I’ve interviewed professional Dominants who will literally stick needles through men’s testicles — sterilized needles, consenting testicles — but who refuse to choke clients or engage in other forms of breath play. These professionals aren’t refusing to choke clients because it’s too extreme (remember the needles?), but because it’s too dangerous. “There is truly no safe way to choke someone,” said Herbenick. “As part of my research, I’ve sought advice from several kink-positive physician colleagues, none of whom feels confident in a safe’ way of choking as there is too much that can go wrong — from seizures to neck injury to death.” So what do you do the next time some dude grabs your throat? (And there will, sadly, most likely be a next time.) You immediately tell them to stop. Don’t cough, don’t deflect, don’t prioriti e their feelings in the moment or worry about ruining the mood and derailing the sex. Use your words: “Don’t choke me, I don’t like that, it’s not sexy to me and it’s not safe, and you should’ve asked.” If they apologize and don’t try it again, great. Maybe you can keep fucking. But if they pout or act annoyed or insist you might like it after you’ve ust finished telling them you definitely don’t like it, get up and leave. And if someone tried to choke you during sex and you shut it down and they pivoted to mutually enjoyable sex acts, CHOKED, be sure to raise the subject up after sex. Make sure they understand you don’t want that to happen again and that you
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expect them to be more conscientious about consent the next time — if there is a next time. And considering that this has happened to you twice recently, CHOKED, and considering how popular busting out this particular move seems to have become, you might wanna consider saying something about choking to a new sex partner before you have sex for the first time. “I would be very up front about it from the get-go,” said Herbenick. “ hen you’re first talking with someone or moving things forward, say something like, ’m not into choking, so don’t try it,’ or, hatever you do, don’t choke me.’ If you can both share your hard limits, you’ll be better prepped for good, fun, exciting, pleasurable sex — not scary stuff like nonconsensual choking. “And for everyone reading this, seriously: Stop choking people without first talking or asking about it. Just stop.” Follow Dr. Debby Herbenick on Twitter @DebbyHerbenick. Hey, Dan: I hope you’re getting a lot of mail from people uncomfortable with your response to DISCORD, the woman whose cheating husband blew up when a man she was merely chatting with forwarded their correspondence to her husband. Seeing as DISCORD’s husband has already established that she will put up with his tantrums, withholding of sexual intimacy, strangulation, lying, and affairs, it’s also possible that he’s engineered her financial dependence. I would advise her to at least talk to a professional who could paint an objective picture of her financial options. She might also benefit from the advice of an advocate for domestic violence survivors. Strangulation is usually not an isolated violent act. Rarely Disappointed Reader Thank you for writing, RDR — thank to everyone who wrote. I’ve reached out to DISCORD privately and will forward your emails on to her. I should’ve pushed back when DISCORD ruled out divorce as an option. Here’s hoping DISCORD takes your advice over mine. mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savagelovecast.com
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THE GREEN DRAGON CBD
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