Washington City Paper (January 15, 2021)

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2 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER STORY 14 All Politics Are Local: The Capitol insurrection hits close to home.

NEWS 4 Loose Lips: Who knew what in the moments before pro-Trump radicals reached the Capitol?

6 Teach Your Children Well: How local educators taught their students in the aftermath of Jan. 6

SPORTS 8 Up Their Alley: Despite the pandemic, the Howard women’s bowling team fights for wins and attention.

FOOD 24 Take-Home for the Holidays: Restaurants spread good cheer and earn much-needed income with fancified seasonal feasts.

ARTS 26 Free the Future: OnRaé LaTeal keeps joy at the heart of her music and activism.

28 Film: Gittell on MLK/FBI 29 Galleries: Mitchell on the Phillips Collection’s Community in Focus 30 Ink Mark in a Rain Storm: Decades of prints are displaced after the demolition of printmaker Lou Stovall’s Cleveland Park studio.

CITY LIGHTS 32 City Lights: Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with jazz and poetry, or learn a bit about the natural history of Shenandoah.

DIVERSIONS 11 Crossword 34 Savage Love 35 Classifieds On the cover: Watercolor painting

by Julia Terbrock

Darrow Montgomery | 3100 Block of Mount Pleasant Street NW, Jan. 9 Editorial

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washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 3

NEWS LOOSE LIPS

The Insurrection Will Be Televised

Darrow Montgomery

The week that pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol

The Capitol Building on Jan. 7

By Mitch Ryals @MitchRyals For Mayor Muriel Bowser, the planning started in December. On New Year’s Eve, Bowser requested support of 340 unarmed D.C. National Guard troops for the pro-Trump gatherings scheduled for the following week.

By Monday, Jan. 4, federal officials approved activation of 340 guard members, most of whom were on traffic duty.

Also on Jan. 4, attorneys with the Office of the Attorney General convened a closed briefing to tell D.C. councilmembers about all the ways President Donald Trump

could interfere with law enforcement in D.C. The OAG produced a two-page memo, first reported by Buzzfeed News, after Trump threatened to take over the Metropolitan Police Department in the midst of racial justice protests last summer. The memo is not a public document, but an attorney familiar with its contents described it to LL. It lays out several scenarios. The memo cites the D.C. law that gives the president the authority to take control of MPD in “special conditions of an emergency nature.” It talks about how, unlike in states, where governors control the National Guard, the D.C. National Guard can be used for various functions in

4 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

the District without the direct consent of the mayor. The third section describes the president’s power to deputize federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Bureau of Prisons, to operate in D.C. under other federal agencies that already exist here, such as the U.S. Park Police. The memo explains how the Insurrection Act gives the president the authority to call armed troops to suppress a rebellion. Under the law, originally passed in 1807, the president would first have to “issue a proclamation ordering insurgents to disperse within a limited time.” If that doesn’t work, he or she can send in the armed forces.

The law was last used in 1992, after four White police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.

The memo’s final section talks about how the president can use the National Guards of other states in the District to protect federal property.

On Jan. 5, the day before pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent and horrific attempt to stop Congress from affirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Bowser said she had everything under control. In a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, and Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Bowser wrote that MPD had all the help it needed for the planned demonstrations on Jan. 6. The letter describes coordination between MPD and the U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Park Police, and the Secret Service, as well as logistical help from the D.C. National Guard.

Bowser’s letter referenced unidentifiable federal agents “deployed in the District of Columbia without proper coordination,” during last summer’s protests, and said their presence could complicate and confuse her officers trying to police the pro-Trump crowds expected in D.C. last week.

“To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with MPD if such plans are underway,” Bowser wrote.

At his rally on Wednesday, Jan. 6, Trump pledged to “never give up,” in front of a crowd of mostly unmasked supporters gathered on the Ellipse and encouraged them to “fight like hell.”

Trump’s lawyer and abettor, Rudy Giuliani, suggested a “trial by combat.” (The House of Representatives filed articles of impeachment against Trump on Monday, alleging that his comments incited the riot that followed.

As of Jan. 7, acting United States Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin did not rule out the possibility of seeking criminal charges against both men.)

The first wave of insurrectionists left Trump’s rally and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue NW toward the Capitol before 1 p.m.

There, they met a few measly barriers and a severely under prepared U.S. Capitol Police force. Around 1 p.m., Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund called Acting MPD Chief Robert Contee, who sent 100 officers to help,

according to the Washington Post’s account.

Shortly after, Sund called House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger to ask for an emergency declaration and D.C. National Guard support. Sund told the Post that he asked for Guard support six times before it was finally granted about two hours later.

At 1:34 p.m., Bowser joined a call with McCarthy and asked for an unspecified number of additional forces, according to a timeline assembled by the Department of Defense, and just before 2 p.m., the violent mob entered the Capitol.

By 2:26 p.m., Sund was on a conference call with the Pentagon and D.C. government officials, pleading for more help. Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, director of the Army staff, said he did not like the optics of the National Guard standing in a police line at the Capitol, Sund told the Post, though Piatt has disputed that. But by 3:04 p.m., Miller, the acting defense secretary, verbally authorized activation of the full D.C. Guard. Guard members didn’t arrive at the Capitol until 5:40 p.m. By then, four people were already dead; a fifth, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, would die later in a hospital. Capitol Police declared the building secure at 8 p.m., but it took the help of MPD, National Guard, and state and local police agencies in jurisdictions surrounding D.C. Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer when she tried to enter the Speaker’s Lobby. Three people— Kevin Greeson, Roseanne Boyland, and Benjamin Philips—died after suffering medical emergencies on Capitol grounds, MPD Chief Contee said. Their causes of death have not been released publicly. Sicknick was injured “while physically engaging with protesters.” Law enforcement sources told the AP he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, though officials have not confirmed that account. Another Capitol Police officer, Howard Liebengood, who was on duty during the riot, died by suicide after the events.

Contee has heaped praise on his officers for quickly coming to the aid of Capitol Police.

More than 50 MPD officers were injured, and video circulating online shows insurrectionists beating one MPD officer with a flagpole on the Capitol steps.

At 11 p.m., Bowser held a press conference announcing the extension of a public emergency until Jan. 21, the day after Biden is slated to be sworn in on the Capitol steps.

What specific intelligence did the local government have?

When the dust settled, District officials wasted little time pointing the finger at the federal government.

“I don’t think MPD is where we should be pointing fingers,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said last Friday. “I think it would be fair for the Council, in oversight hearings, to press public safety officials on

NEWS ‘what can you be doing to make sure we’ve got the bases covered?’”

He noted that MPD does not have jurisdiction on federal property, including the Capitol grounds, but “they could block protesters on Constitution Avenue, on the way up to the Capitol,” he said. “I’m not sure how viable that is, but law enforcement can be creative when they want to.”

Contee said the Capitol Police likely miscalculated the threat, but he has declined to say what information his department was aware of in the lead-up to the insurrection. On WAMU’s The Politics Hour last Friday afternoon, Contee said MPD had no “specific intelligence where someone says, ‘Hey, I’m going to place a bomb’ or ‘I’m going to do this.’”

But the evidence, as many have pointed out, was hiding in plain sight.

Sund, it appears, was aware of at least some of the threats to storm the Capitol and attack members of Congress, as he indicated in his interview with the Post. But those threats have appeared on social media in the past as well, he said.

This week, the Post uncovered a Jan. 5 report from the FBI that warned about extremists coming to D.C. for “war,” and foreshadowing the violence that would unfold at the Capitol. Steven D’Antuono, head of the FBI’s Washington office, said Tuesday that the report was shared with a joint terrorism task force, which includes MPD. Additionally, Mary McCord, the legal director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, has worked with a researcher at the Digital Forensic Research Lab to track online extremism and paramilitary groups. Through that work, she’s provided daily reports on online chatter about potential threats of violence on Jan. 6 to local and federal law enforcement, she said. She did not send the reports directly to Capitol Police.

“Not only did they probably have this information through their own sources, but other outside groups were providing some measure of it,” McCord says. “Whether they thought that threat was credible, that’s their own decision.”

How did councilmembers react?

At-Large Councilmember Robert White asked D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine whether Trump could be charged with inciting a riot. In a letter sent Jan. 7, White asks Racine for an analysis of whether Trump could be held criminally responsible and of any changes the Council could make to the District’s rioting statue “to address future incitement of riots and terrorism.”

Recently, D.C.’s riot law was used to charge hundreds of protesters arrested last summer during the unrest related to racial injustice and police brutality. MPD only arrested about 60 people involved in the insurrection, most for violating Bowser’s 6 p.m. curfew.

Racine said this week that his office is taking

up White’s request. In addition to Trump, Racine is evaluating whether Donald Trump Jr., Giuliani, and Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks (R) could face criminal charges under D.C. law. The code defines riot as a “public disturbance involving an assemblage of 5 or more persons which by tumultuous and violent conduct or threat thereof creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons.”

The House’s articles of impeachment accuse Trump of “inciting violence against the government of the United States.”

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen held a hearing last year on a bill to update the riot statute, but it never passed out of committee. The bill died in January with the end of the two-year Council period. It’s unclear whether Allen will reintroduce it, according to a spokesperson for his office.

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What does this mean for D.C. statehood?

The day after the insurrection, Bowser laid out her priorities for the new, Democratcontrolled Congress. At the top of the list is getting a D.C. statehood bill to Biden’s desk in the first 100 days. Bowser’s inability to mobilize the D.C. National Guard without approval of the federal government, an authority that all governors have, forced the issue to the national consciousness.

But even with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, D.C. statehood is not a guarantee. Supporters would need 60 Senate votes to overcome a filibuster.

The House approved a bill granting statehood last summer, but the bill died in the Republican-held Senate. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), D.C.’s non-voting representative, re-introduced the bill this year.

LET’S PLAY!

What does it mean for the inauguration?

President-elect Joe Biden will take the oath of office on Jan. 20, despite evidence that Trump’s extremist supporters are again planning to show up for the event.

On Sunday, Bowser asked the Secretary of the Interior not to issue any public gathering permits and to cancel any that were previously issued. She also asked the Department of Homeland Security to expand the National Special Security Event, which allows officials to create a perimeter around the Capitol, from Jan. 11 to Jan. 24. The acting secretary agreed to expand the designation from Jan. 13 to Jan. 19.

Bowser stopped short of asking for a cancelation because “that event, in my view, should be public,” she said Monday. Bowser joined Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in encouraging people to watch the inauguration virtually. Up to 15,000 National Guard troops will be stationed in D.C. for the event.

“If I’m scared of anything, it’s for our democracy,” Bowser said Monday. “Because we have very extreme factions in our country that are armed and dangerous.”

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DC Scratcher games may continue to be sold even when all the top prizes have been claimed.

Wash. City Paper | 1/4 pg V washingtoncitypaper.com | 4.85” x 11.25” | 4c | New | Jan Bundler january 2021 5

NEWS CITY DESK

Teach Your Children Well

Darrow Montgomery/File

The day after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol, local teachers had to figure out how to explain the moment to their students.

Ronald Edmonds

By Amanda Michelle Gomez @AmanduhGomez “It’s sad that the color of someone’s skin determines whether they are a threat or not,” says a high school student. Her classmates react with thumbs up and heart emojis.

“If that was us, we would have been dead, no question about it,” another student says. “You see how when it was the [Black Lives Matter] protest, you couldn’t even get up one step, but somehow the Whites made it all the way in there through police and all.”

Anacostia High School teacher Ronald Edmonds watched over Microsoft Teams as his 12th graders reflected on Jan. 6, the day hundreds of alt-right insurrectionists seized the U.S. Capitol. The history teacher of 23 years had to change his lesson plans for the following day.

He called the new one “Chaos On Capitol Hill.”

Edmonds had already been teaching his U.S government class, a group of six students, about the Bill of Rights. The invasion of the Capitol offered an opportunity to further explain the First Amendment. What happened Jan. 6 was not a protest, he says.

Edmonds’ students could not talk about Jan. 6 without mentioning race and law enforcement.

A White mob incited by President Donald Trump, some of whom carried Confederate flags, breached the Capitol. Edmonds is Black, as are all his students. Anacostia High School is located in Ward 8, a majority-Black ward where views of the police are complicated. This is a ward that saw the most homicides in 2020.

It is also the ward where a Metropolitan Police Department officer shot and killed 18-year-old Deon Kay in September. Edmonds did not tell his students that law enforcement treats Black people differently than White people. They arrived at that conclusion on their own based on lived experiences.

“Where was the National Guard?” a student asks during another class of Edmonds. “If this was a peaceful protest of Black people, there would have been the National Guard lined up on the steps. This goes to show you this is White privilege. This is White supremacy.”

With a virtual classroom as his background, Edmonds leans into the camera as he intently listens to the student speak. He is the only one with his web camera on. He respects whatever way students want to share. Camera off. Chatroom.

In response to this student, he shares how previous classes of his had toured the Capitol, which is roughly 3 miles away from Anacostia High

6 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

School. The Capitol, which on Jan. 6 was a place of shattered glass and ransacked offices, is also an educational space for students.

Edmonds, like a lot of teachers across the District, weighed how to talk about Jan. 6 with students. They reviewed resources ahead of class. They also took time to reflect on how they felt about the insurrection in their city. Some classes started with meditation. Others dove right in and discussed the civil unrest. Students sometimes introduced the topic themselves.

Challenging conversations about race and policing seemed inevitable this week. Teachers focused on listening to what the students had to say, and some corrected misinformation.

At Creative Minds International Public Charter School in Ward 5, fourth graders used words like “stunned,” “scared,” “angry,” and “sad” to describe how they were feeling in the aftermath of Jan. 6.

“Most of them had a strong understanding of what happened,” says their teacher, Elizabeth Coldwell. She says they learned from their parents and the news.

Altogether, Coldwell taught 21 students on the Thursday after the attack. She had planned to teach them about the earth’s layers but decided it was more important to reflect on what was

happening on top of the earth, so she structured her lesson plan around Jan. 6, asking students to choose from a list of feeling words to describe how the day’s events impacted them.

One student said he was stunned because he couldn’t understand how Trump supporters got into the Capitol. The most popular question that day was why hadn’t police stopped them? A few students said they were scared.

They knew a woman was shot and killed inside the Capitol. One student had a neighbor who worked in the Capitol. Others had parents who were journalists that were reporting on what happened.

“People they know and love were put in harm’s way because of [Wednesday’s] events,” says Coldwell.

Both Coldwell and Edmonds found some light in the darkness.

“Honestly, I’ve been extremely blown away with these students this year,” says Coldwell.

“I’ve been passionate about teaching the truth about our country. I’ve never worked with a group of kids who are so passionate on their own.”

Her students, who are between 8 and 10 years old, unpacked racism’s role in the rioting. Coldwell, who is White, teaches a diverse group of students who are White, Black, Latinx, and Asian. They all feel comfortable offering their own perspectives, Coldwell says. One Black student shared how police wouldn’t have treated rioters as nicely had they looked like him.

Another White student expressed how she was embarrassed after seeing a video of a White officer taking a selfie with a White rioter. Coldwell explains that they had the language to talk about racial justice after reading Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson earlier in the year.

“It felt authentic,” says Edmonds of his own students’ reflections. “These are young people who are now being aware and being exposed to the fact that this is their government too.”

While it hurt to see White nationalists and conspiracy theorists successfully storm the Capitol, their attempt to subvert the election ultimately failed. Congress confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential election winner before dawn. One former student texted Edmonds afterwards to say “my vote counted.” The text brought joy to a man who spent decades trying to teach his students why democracy matters.

Jan. 7 was undoubtedly a difficult day for teachers who had to work the day after an attempted coup in their city. They were simultaneously sitting with their own raw emotions about Jan. 6, and holding space for their students.

“You know this happens. You are not surprised.

But that does not mean it does not affect you,” says Syreetta McArthur, a third grade teacher at Lafayette Elementary School in Ward 4.

McArthur was indifferent as the events of Jan. 6 unfolded in real time. “As a Black woman in America, you keep going. You keep going,” she explains. Then, when it came time to teach her students Thursday, the heaviness of it all hit her that morning. “Trying not to cry in front of your students because maybe you are an emotional person—because I am—and trying not to say this is how it is supposed to be,” she continues. “It’s hard. It’s really difficult to find the words to say.”

NEWS She recalls how a friend of hers who worked for the Obama administration wasn’t allowed to take photos in her wedding dress on the steps of the Capitol. She became more hurt as she thought of that, the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, and the hundreds of Trump supporters who managed to take control of the Capitol and left largely unscathed. Meanwhile, her students, who were born during President Barack Obama’s second term, “have so much promise,” she says.

“This world can be an amazing place, and here we go,” says McArthur. “Right in their backyard.” Despite how challenging it was, McArthur held space for her students the best way she knew how, by having them create art inspired by what had happened.

Mische Walden, a counselor at John Hayden Johnson Middle School in Ward 8, says teachers in her school were more angry and confused by what had happened Jan. 6 than students. After she and her colleagues observed classes all day Thursday, they decided to host a professional development gathering with staff on Friday.

As a third generation Washingtonian, Walden could understand how emotional Jan. 6 was for locals. She was angry to see a mob invade the Capitol. She too noticed law enforcement acting less militant this time around than over the summer, during protests over anti-Black racism and police brutality. She had watched CNN from 2 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Wednesday and texted a colleague as she did.

A school resource officer whom she plays basketball with was called to respond to the rioting on Capitol Hill. When Walden reported to work on Thursday, she had to first vent to her mental health team.

A number of charter schools in the District closed on Jan 7 due to what happened on Capitol Hill. KIPP DC and Friendship, charter networks that educate more than 11,000 students who are mostly Black, canceled class to give families time to process. “The pain and anxiety being felt in our community is real,” KIPP DC CEO Susan Schaeffler told families via email.

After processing the day’s civil unrest with his colleagues, Cody Norton, a third grade teacher at Marie Reed Elementary School in Ward 1, channeled his reflection into action. He created a discussion guide for teachers Wednesday night that centers around power, liberation, and White supremacy. He says the framework helps facilitate a discussion by first assessing the needs of both the teacher and students, and then having them decide how they want to participate.

“We should have agency when deciding how or when to engage in challenging dialogues,” says one slide.

While some of these words might seem to be above a third grader’s reading level, Norton has introduced, say, the concept of White supremacy to his students. Norton, who is White, simply explains it as a group of people who believe they are superior to another group. His students know

this goes against a principle of the classroom, which is that someone may not hold a belief that seeks to deny the humanity or the rights of other people.

“Young kids, they have a very strong understanding of these abstract sociological concepts.

The challenge is connecting the concept to the definition,” says Norton.

Mary Dent, a special education teacher for preschool kids at Smothers Elementary School in Ward 7, feels similarly. Her kids’ families were impacted by what transpired on Jan. 6. One parent, an electrician for the Capitol, was under lockdown until nearly 11 p.m. The insurrectionists destroyed all the work he had performed in preparation for Inauguration Day. While she did not explicitly talk about what had happened with her students, Dent re-introduced concepts that would empower them during a difficult time. She read The Lying Liar Called Racism: A Love Letter by Giselle Fuerte. The story is about a villain called racism who lies to people to try to make them believe they aren’t a mountain but a pile of spaghetti. As she read to her group of five students Thursday morning, she reminded them they are mountains, as are their family members. Parents listening in reinforced these ideas.

Dent, a Black educator of 34 years, says most, if not all, of her read-aloud books are by authors of color. She buys them herself, and says she doesn’t mind. All of her students are Black, and

she wants them to see themselves in what she’s teaching. “My job is to empower them,” says Dent. “That they know how important they are.

They know they have a voice.”

Scott Goldstein, the executive director of the local teacher advocacy group EmpowerEd and a facilitator with the national youth civic organization Mikva Challenge, got messages from many educators Wednesday evening asking how they should teach Jan. 6. “How do we square this with what we teach students about our country and our democracy,” says Goldstein.

For the Mikva Challenge, Goldstein wrote lesson ideas and shared them with teachers.

He offers three different activities that jive with Common Core State Standards. By 10:30 a.m.

Thursday morning, he says about 500 people had looked at the sheet of lesson ideas on Google Docs. The sheet advises teachers to make space for students. Don’t lecture. Talk. It can be really hard to talk about topics like democracy, race, and policing with students, particularly when parents can listen in via virtual learning, he says. He adds that DC Public Schools, particularly the social studies department, is very encouraging of educators taking advantage of teachable moments.

“I think it is important for teachers to be vulnerable, to share their own thoughts and perspectives with their students. But I think it’s just as important that that’s not what’s dominant,” says Goldstein.

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1/6/2021 12:47:43 PM washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 7

SPORTS BOWLING

Darrow Montgomery

Jayla Webster

Up Their Alley Howard University’s women’s bowling team wants people to know it exists and it’s here to win.

By Kelyn Soong @KelynSoong In the decade and a half Ron Davis has spent coaching the Howard University women’s bowling team, he’s never led a group quite like the one he did last winter. The Bison won a program-best 50 matches and qualified for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament for the second straight year. The players spoke excitedly about the chance to bowl for the title to cap off their historic season.

Then, shortly before the team was set to leave for the MEAC championships in Chesapeake, Virginia, in late March, the conference suspended its basketball and bowling

tournaments and spring sports season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Don’t ask Davis about the disappointment he felt. It still stings.

“After you hang up the phone, I’m probably going to knock the wall down or something,” he says with a laugh. “I knew that this team was going in the direction where we could compete in the championship.”

Howard women’s varsity bowling, which has never won the MEAC championship in the 20 years the tournament has been held, will have to wait a little longer before it gets another chance. In November, the school’s athletic department decided to opt out of the 2020-21 season, a call the school “made with

8 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

the health and safety of our student-athletes being our top priority,” a Howard athletics department spokesperson says.

The bowlers are eager to return, but beyond that, they want respect. They want the recognition that comes with being a Division I collegiate athlete. These women practice daily, yet some classmates are still surprised to learn Howard even has a varsity bowling team. Awareness in the greater D.C. community is even fainter.

Davis intends for that to change.

“We put in the time,” he says. “We’re serious about what we do.”

Ronald Davis Jr. is the first to arrive.

It’s a little after 4 p.m. on March 2, 2020, and I am at AMF Capital Plaza Lanes in Hyattsville to report on the team for a cover story that would eventually be scrapped due to the pandemic. Davis, who is Ron’s son and the team’s volunteer assistant coach, and I wait near the far left corner of the building as Ron, five of the team’s six players, and their team manager enter the facility one at a time.

Since the Howard women’s bowling team does not have its own facility on campus, the players have to commute from D.C. to either Hyattsville or the bowling center at Joint Base Andrews four times a week for practice.

There used to be a 12-lane bowling alley at the Armour J. Blackburn University Center on campus, but the lanes have been shut down for renovations since the 2016-17 academic year.

“It’s frustrating,” says captain Carolyn Williams. “Seeing the improvements the athletic department is making in other areas, it’s really rewarding ... but it is a little frustrating that the center has been down for so long.”

Williams, a Glen Burnie native, comes from a bowling family. She picked up bowling around age 3 or 4 and started competing in local youth leagues shortly after. When her mother Nancy went into labor, her father and brother were at Saturday morning bowling league, Williams says.

In sixth grade, she had to write about a college for a school project, and Williams’ teacher assigned her Howard University.

Williams discovered during her research that the school has its own varsity women’s bowling team. She made it her goal to bowl collegiately at the HBCU. “Howard kinda stayed on my brain after that,” she says. “I did look at other places, but I knew at that moment that I wanted to compete at a DI school. I was looking within MEAC and looked at a lot of schools. Not one of them stood out to me like Howard did.”

The MEAC officially sanctioned women’s bowling in 1999, and prior to the 199697 school year, the conference was the first to secure NCAA sanctioning for women’s bowling by adopting it as a club sport. There are currently 11 teams in the conference, including the three-time NCAA champion University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and a total of 87 NCAA schools have sponsored women’s bowling across the Division I, Division II, and Division III levels. All programs are eligible to compete for the NCAA Division I championship, which was first held in 2004.

Howard has never competed in the NCAA championship, coming closest in 2004, when it finished as the MEAC runner-up. The tournament was scheduled to include 16 teams last year, an increase from 12 in 2019. In 2011, the Bison scored a massive upset win during the regular season over Vanderbilt University, then the No. 1 team in the country and the eventual NCAA runner-up.

“In some ways, I think even with professional bowling, [the sport] is still trying to

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washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 9

SPORTS gain the respect that I believe it deserves,” Williams says. “Same thing for bowling collegiately, not just here at Howard. Bowling is one of those sports [where] you have to constantly defend yourself, even though the respect is there, I think there will still be a fight.”

On this early March afternoon, Williams and Janae Bradford are sidelined with injuries. Senior Tea Lewis is in class. The remaining members, sophomores Jayla Webster and Jahnia Phillips and freshman Vanessa Johnson, start doing jumping jacks to warm up, followed by arm and wrist stretches.

The players line up for the “no step” drill, standing at the foul line and tossing the ball down the lane without taking any steps.

“Train your eyes and body to do the same thing,” the younger Davis instructs.

When the team isn’t at a bowling center, the bowlers also put in time in the gym, working on balance drills, doing lunges, and working with the medicine ball. The coaches assign a workout schedule that incorporates cardio every other day, either on the bike or treadmill.

“A lot of people don’t think bowling is physical,” Ron says. “But we work out just like everyone else.”

At practice, the players react to throwing strikes with silence. These aren’t your

weekend birthday party bowlers. They understand there’s more to bowling than just simply throwing a ball down the lane. You need to understand the oil patterns, whether it’s a standard house shot, where a majority of the oil is located in the middle of the lane, or a spot short, where most of the oil is concentrated on the outer portion of the lane.

Collegiate and professional bowlers compete on sport shots, which is considerably more challenging.

During competition, players may need to stand for hours, and tournaments include multiple competitions against several schools on the same weekend. Bowlers require endurance and flexibility in order to put their bodies in the same positions repeatedly.

“People don’t generally think bowling is a sport,” Phillips says. “They don’t see the athleticism that’s shown in sports like football or basketball, but people understand more the technicality, but actually being able to play the lane, steps, release, finger pressure, why people don’t use the same ball ... There are a lot of misconceptions ... Just because we’re not knocked down doesn’t mean that it’s not a sport.”

The players are now scattered around the country.

In a normal year, teammates would be seeing each other daily, commiserating over

10 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

sitting in traffic on their way to the bowling centers and bonding through the grueling practices. The collegiate season would be more than halfway over.

But now, the players are managing their way through remote, online learning.

Instead of practicing in bowling centers and on lanes, the team has resorted to makeshift setups with pillows and sheets. The team hasn’t been in the same place since last year’s spring break—Howard announced on March 11 that it would transition to online and remote instruction. Many of them haven’t met their newest member, freshman Aleyana DeBrest, in person.

For long stretches last fall, bowling centers were closed to the public, but the players still needed to practice.

Phillips created her own bowling lane in a spare room at her parents’ home in Elmont, New York. She set pillows against the wall and laid a comforter on the floor. This way, she can work on her ball releases without damaging anything, Phillips explains.

Webster, who lives in Woodbr idge, Virginia, rolled bowling balls in her parents’ backyard with her brother, who also bowls collegiately. “There’s like a little hill,” she says. “We would face towards the hill and roll our balls up the hill, so it would just come back down to us.”

She also has an indoor setup in her

basement. To emulate a bowling lane, Webster puts a pillow inside a cardboard box that rests against the wall. Leading up to the box are multiple blankets. “Picture a lane,” she says, “but like covers and pillows. We had it set up something like that, and where the pins are set up, that was basically the box.”

Williams, the lone senior on the team this year, hasn’t been inside a bowling center since October. She’s accepted that she’s bowled for the last time as a Howard Bison, and even though the school says that it will give players this season an extra year of eligibility, Williams has plans to attend a different school for her master’s degree.

Her ultimate goal is to bowl at the professional level. It’s what she’s wanted to do since she was in a youth league, but her time as a Howard Bison solidified those aspirations.

“Because of COVID, I have to work 20 times harder to get where I want to be, but it’s gonna happen,” Williams says. “I’m gonna speak it into existence. You will see me competing on your TV, professionally.”

Even if that doesn’t happen, she’ll look back at her time at Howard fondly. She captained a team that made program history. She helped the Bison beat higher ranked teams with better resources. She got to compete in her lifelong sport at her dream school.

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” Williams says.

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Important Facts About DOVATO

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• Worsening of HBV infection. If you have HIV-1 and HBV infection, your HBV • Allergic reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away if you may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking DOVATO. A “flare-up” is when your develop a rash with DOVATO. Stop taking DOVATO and get medical HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before. Worsening liver help right away if you develop a rash with any of the following signs or disease can be serious and may lead to death. symptoms: fever; generally ill feeling; tiredness; muscle or joint aches; blisters ° Do not run out of DOVATO. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare or sores in mouth; blisters or peeling of the skin; redness or swelling of the eyes; provider before your DOVATO is all gone. swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; problems breathing. ° Do not stop DOVATO without first talking to your healthcare provider.

• Liver problems. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus may have an If you stop taking DOVATO, your healthcare provider will need to check your increased risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check your liver. during treatment with DOVATO. Liver problems, including liver failure, have also What is DOVATO? happened in people without a history of liver disease or other risk factors. Your DOVATO is a prescription medicine that is used without other HIV-1 medicines to healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your liver. treat human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection in adults: who have not Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following received HIV-1 medicines in the past, or to replace their current HIV-1 medicines signs or symptoms of liver problems: your skin or the white part of your when their healthcare provider determines that they meet certain requirements. HIV-1 eyes turns yellow (jaundice); dark or “tea-colored” urine; light-colored stools is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). It is not (bowel movements); nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; and/or pain, aching, or known if DOVATO is safe and effective in children. tenderness on the right side of your stomach area.

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SO MUCH GOES INTO WHO I AM HIV MEDICINE IS ONE PART OF IT. Why could DOVATO be right for you? DOVATO is proven to help control HIV with just 2 medicines in 1 pill. That means fewer medicines* in your body while taking DOVATO. It’s proven as effective as an HIV treatment with 3 or 4 medicines. Learn more about fewer medicines at DOVATO.com DOVATO is a complete prescription regimen to treat HIV-1 in adults who have not received HIV-1 medicines in the past or to replace their current HIV-1 medicines when their doctor determines they meet certain requirements.

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Ask your doctor about DOVATO. washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 13

All Politics Are Local Jan. 6, 2021, in words and images

By City Paper Contributors Photographs by Darrow Montgomery and J.M. Giordano

T

J.M. Giordano

he Capitol dome sits atop a hill, a symbol of American democracy for everyone except the actual residents of D.C., taxpayers whose representation in its marbled halls is limited to one nonvoting delegate. For Washingtonians, the complex is an office, a place to renew a credential or visit with out-of-town guests, to appreciate Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscaping, or rest on cool, soft grass of the West Lawn. More often than not, it’s a place we pass without entering when cutting from one side of the Hill to the other. Occasionally on one of those shortcuts, a Capitol Police officer might stop you for reasons unknown and advise you to walk around, further removing you from the halls of power.

And yet, watching rioters storm the building and break windows to dispute the outcome of an already decided presidential election felt inherently personal.

We may not have much of a say in what happens in Senate, but this is our town. How, after a summer when police kettled peaceful protesters standing against racism and brutality and the National Guard forcibly cleared Lafayette Square so the president could take a photo, did this happen? Did local leaders really not pay attention to the warning signs? Were the Capitol Police underprepared? Answers to some of these questions have become clearer in recent days, but the hurt—the loss of life, the spread of COVID-19 cases, the compounded ache of fear and hopelessness—remains.

In the following pages, we’ve attempted to make sense of the past week and figure out what happens next. Where we go from here isn’t clear yet, but if the words of our readers, which you’ll find throughout this feature, are any indication, we’ll forge a path forward together.

—Caroline Jones

14 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Tear gas is deployed to clear the protestors from the inauguration scaffolding on the Capitolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s north side.

washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 15

What Now?

Darrow Montgomery

More “security theater” is another attack on the Capitol.

T

he stench of sedition still lingers on my mask and mind from wading into the insurrection on Jan. 6. The walk onto the sprawling eastside grounds of the Capitol was easy. No police visible. No roadblocks.

Instead of hanging on the fringe of the agitated mob as we had intended, we found ourselves walking halfway up the broad ceremonial steps. As an older White guy with no press tag visible, it was easy to stand among the group strutting about and cheering on those who had bolted inside.

There will be investigations.

Boy, will there be investigations.

Shaken House and Senate committees are launching separate probes into why and how the mob stormed the Capitol.

What could be done to prevent future attacks? Why was the U.S. Capitol Police, the principal protective force of that property, understaffed and poorly deployed? Other federal law enforcement agencies, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, regional police, and the National Guard are launching reassessments of their inadequate mutual aid agreements.

“It turns out … nothing was under control and we were overrun,” fumed California Rep. Maxine Waters (D) on Joe Madison’s SiriusXM radio show. House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina (D) publicly questioned whether “there were certain kinds of infiltration,” suggesting maybe an inside job by some to look the other way.

16 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Former MPD Chief Charles Ramsey wondered on CNN whether the majority White Capitol Police simply assumed the White crowd would never really attack Congress, while suggesting a Black crowd would have been met with fierce resistance. “There is a difference. Why that is, I don’t know. But you can’t rule out bias as being one of the issues,” he said. Days later, two Capitol Police officers were suspended for posing for photos with rioters and donning a MAGA hat during the insurrection, respectively.

In the short term, the level of security for the upcoming inaugural festivities will be more intense than ever, hardened security elements visible and invisible. But in the longer term, it’s almost certain the assault will lead to a new layer of “security theater,” a classic bureaucratic move to physically close off more public space rather than adequately defend it.

It will mean more hassle for school groups, families, and tourists who come by the millions each year to see our federal government up close (except in this pandemic year.). They are already carefully searched and controlled. It even took an act of Congress in 2015 just to tell the Capitol Police to back off and open the western slope of the Capitol grounds for sledding on snowy days.

Sadly, what is left of openness on Capitol Hill since 9/11 could be the next victim of the attack.

On the Jan. 8 edition of WAMU’s Politics Hour, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) also worried that closing down even more of the

Capitol complex, while not the right answer, is likely. “That [violence] could have been managed on Wednesday very effectively, but we shouldn’t penalize the public for poor management of the security challenge.”

Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, who lives on Capitol Hill and chairs the Council’s public safety committee, told City Paper closing off more of the Capitol grounds “is security theater, not the right response.”

“Its openness is a symbol of our freedom,” writes Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum. “Achieving openness and security has always been a difficult balancing act, but it is what sets our country and the policing profession apart.”

“When I saw them going up the steps, I thought they’d never get in. Those are bronze doors,” says Sharon Gang, a former Hill staffer who helped oversee the opening of the $600 million, secure underground visitor center in 2008. “When they were breaking out the Capitol windows, I thought we’d put in extra thick glass, [but they were] busting through it like nothing.”

Just as Congress rushed to reconvene and complete the electoral vote count hours after the attack, many citizens are hoping they’ll also restore as much openness as possible, so tourists and other visitors can walk its historic halls again.

The first thing that should go after the inauguration is that oppressive, 7-foot security fence. And then, go on from there.

—Tom Sherwood

“The events at the Capitol were deeply disturbing, but they did not change the way I feel about D.C. or my joy in living here. This is because I know the people who defiled the Capitol are by and large outsiders, agitated by a shell of a man with a bruised ego.

I love Washington, I love our people, and I am not deterred from living in the city of my dreams.”

—Geoffry Spangler “No, the events of the past few days have not made me feel like living somewhere else. Protests are part of D.C., and one of the perks of living here. While this protest was way beyond anything that I (or anyone) have seen, and not one that I agree with, it is, in the end, one of those things that happen in D.C., just more so. I live on Capitol Hill, and was concerned enough that I had a few essentials ready to pack and go, but I never really felt that I was personally in danger of being attacked in my home or street (probably thanks to my White privilege).

Protests, even riots, can happen anywhere. There is no place where you could be honestly, absolutely sure that “it can’t happen here.” Moreover, natural or man-made disasters can happen anywhere, so trying to find a perfectly safe place to live is pointless.

So I have not thought about leaving D.C. over this latest unfortunate event (or I hadn’t until you asked).

Besides, anywhere that I might flee to, small town or large, is likely to have a higher COVID infection rate or ICU bed utilization rate. As I said, every place has some drawback, so might as well stay in D.C., damn the torpedoes, and full speed ahead.”

—Peter

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my life in D.C. since the coup attempt on Wednesday. I live downtown only a mile from the U.S. Capitol.

Since yesterday, everyone that I’ve interacted with - the grocery store clerks, my handyman, my neighbors, people on the street - look directly at each other and nod or shake our heads. And if we do speak with each other it starts with “Oh my god” or “Can you believe it” and then “How are you?” with the expectation of a real, heartfelt answer.

So do I feel differently about D.C.?

I give a resounding no. Even with the events this week, I am grateful to be a witness to history. I still love my life here. Even with the defiling of the U.S. Capitol, I plan to walk up the street and pay homage to it this week knowing it will be made whole again.

This week only underscored the strength, integrity and resilience of the people in my community. I am staying.”

—Thais Austin “The recent events have not changed the way I feel about D.C. If [anything] it makes me feel more strongly than ever to advocate for statehood and for our protection. D.C.’s lifeblood is more than the evening news … D.C. is such a small town in a city. It’s a community where I know at least one employee in every store, restaurant, and shop in almost every neighborhood. I know my friends and neighbors, their dogs, their opinions on scooters, their order at brunch, and their favorite watering hole. The District is home, and advocating to stay and protect our home is more important than ever.”

—Jade Womack

washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 17

“As a six-year Capitol Hill staffer (for a Dem in the House) and seven-year D.C. resident nothing could deter me less from leaving. That is just what they want. I refuse to change my routine or life even a little in the face of these terrorists and their despicable actions.

I got up on Friday and went to work alongside the Member I work for and went home to my place a few blocks from the Capitol and will continue to do so. The people who call D.C. home don't share values with these insurrectionists and it does not define our city or who we are as a community.

We aren't going anywhere.”

—Lauren Mylott “In short, no, it has not changed how I feel about living in/ near Washington, D.C. Is it scary living in proximity to multiple locations/points of interest vulnerable to an attack? Yes. But, since I moved here nearly 10 years ago, this is something that's been in the back of my mind and it's something you learn to live with.

Even prior to the siege on the Capitol, I've had discussions with significant others on a course of action in case of an emergency and locations where we would meet with our pets in case we are unable to communicate.

I've also had friends mention they have "go bags" prepared in their hall closets and an escape route planned for if/when they need to get out of the D.C. metro area.

D.C. being attacked has been portrayed in television and movies enough where it's just something you just have to keep in mind.”

—Espedito Muniz

18 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

“Recent events here in Washington, DC have not changed the way I feel about my city. I was born here and I raised my family here. We have lived through many volatile times, civil rights marches, riots in Mount Pleasant, a shotgun stalker, 9-11, marches of every kind (where both sides express their opinions on women’s rights, gun rights, civil rights), and now a pandemic.

It was painfully clear that those who participated in the insurrection were not people of D.C. While most of our population are Democrats, this is not a political issue. It is an attack on our history and an attack on our democracy, incited by a number of seditionists, including the person occupying the highest office in our land. When I saw those domestic terrorists fill the inaugural steps and bleachers of the People’s House, my heart ached. It revealed, yet again, a dark and disturbing side of our nation. I love my city, my roots here are deep and it will always be my home. We will get through this and emerge stronger with the help of our leaders. So I’m not going anywhere.”

—Laurie “Recent events are troubling to me.

If anything, they have affirmed my decision to live in the District. It has proven what I believe about the people of this city: We know good from bad, we know right from wrong, we are accepting, and we are resilient.

Better times are ahead. The District is one of the few places in the world where you can regularly watch history being made, and as residents we are privileged (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) to have a front row seat. Albeit, some of that history might be unpleasant. Not everything can be bad, and if we look and work towards a brighter tomorrow we can see positive history being made.”

—Jesse Herman

A Ride Through the Capitol

Darrow Montgomery

A bike commuter reflects on the journey that took him past the halls of power, a route that’s now fenced off.

I

t must have been in August 2011, after we moved into the house on the Hill, when my bike commute changed and I started riding past the Capitol everyday. As a matter of practical concern, you shouldn’t ride a bike on Constitution or Independence avenues unless you want to be made uncomfortable or unsafe, so instead, after you come down East Capitol Street, you ride past the metal bollards onto the bricked terrace atop the underground Capitol Visitor Center. You see the whole building, but it’s the dome that impresses. In the morning, unless you’re very late, you’ve probably beaten the school groups and the engagement photo shoots, and it’s empty except for you and the guards and joggers and some drivers entering the complex. I never understood exactly who had the privilege of parking inside the security perimeter, but some people do, and after you pass the Senate side and go through more bollards to start down the Olmstedian curved driveway where they park, you see their cars.

They’re just normal parked cars, like outside any other office.

Around then is when you pick up speed. Exiting the driveway is tricky, because there’s only a narrow space between yet another bollard and a security gate that lowers for cars (but not for bikes), and if you don’t make the gap cleanly, you’ll hear your rear left pannier scrape the steel pole as you ride through.

But it’s riding up the hill when bike commuters test themselves against those same drivers leaving work, ambling groups of gawking or bored tourists, zoned-out runners, and the grade itself, which is steeper than you’d prefer. Daily riders aren’t snobs, but they do become quite proud of themselves. They climb the hill every day in the shadow of the building where the legislative

“You want to say, ‘You are messing up my commute.

I do this every day. Don’t you know me?’ They don’t.” branch of the United States of America works. If you know what the junior senator from North Dakota looks like, you might say, ‘Afternoon, sir,’ and if you don’t, you might ding your bell at him to get out of the way, because the last thing you need is another stupid obstacle after everything else D.C. streets have already thrown at you that day.

There will be days when you stop there. Because you have to (flat tire) and because you can (is that your neighbor?). Your Instagram will fill with pictures of the dome; stark winter morning crispy white; gauzy muggy summer haze yellow. You must stop because it’s the State of the Union and everything is closed.

Serious people with guns will shunt you to Constitution or Independence. You want to say, “You are messing up my commute. I do this every day. Don’t you know me?” They don’t.

Because of the events of Jan. 6, the Capitol complex has locked down. Fences are up. Maybe future bike commuters will get to reclaim it or maybe it’ll be lost for good to the ever-expanding security needs of a democratic republic in disarray. It will be a shame, but we will have to ride around.

—Brian McEntee washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 19

The Warning Signs

Darrow Montgomery

If you believe in democracy and a free and fair society, what are we as a city doing to protect it?

Editor’s note: Allison Lane is a D.C. bartender who co-founded Bartenders Against Racism, an organization that seeks to combat racism and discrimination in the hospitality industry, in 2020.

She participated in protests against anti-Black violence and police brutality over the spring and summer, and even stepped up to feed her fellow demonstrators. In November, Lane was arrested during demonstrations at Black Lives Matter Plaza. She recounts the emotional anguish of the past year, and in particular, the stark contrast between how law enforcement treated Black protestors compared to the largely White domestic terrorists who stormed the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6.

I

expected violence from White supremacists on Jan. 6, having experienced brutality before in D.C. I read threats on social media that were published freely and consistently.

And I’ve lived long enough in this Black body to know when something dangerous is about to happen. Watching White people have a tantrum because they don’t get their way is something I know many Black and Brown people experience, and we all know the consequences of not heeding the warning signs.

The lack of protection for D.C. residents is well documented.

Thinking White supremacists only stay at downtown hotels and not at neighborhood Airbnbs is willfully ignorant. I went grocery shopping days before to prepare to stay in my house all week.

I didn’t see the mayor, interim police chief, or D.C. Council responding appropriately to the threats of violence, so I developed my own plan to stay safe. I even had an exit strategy in case something truly dangerous happened in my backyard.

I also didn’t see businesses responding in ways that felt responsible. Most people still working in public-facing roles—grocery store employees, rideshare drivers, baristas, and restaurant staffers—are Black and Brown. We didn’t see business owners board up their storefronts. We didn’t see any plans to protect their Black and Brown employees from visiting Proud Boys. People in my industry worried about the potential of serving maskless customers and wondered how to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations.

As I’m watching supporters of a violent presidential 20 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

Allison Lane

administration destroy federal property and threaten the lives of legislators as they said they would, I’m brought back to June, when I was pepper-sprayed and later trapped in a Shaw home after the president wanted to take a picture in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church holding a bible. Unarmed people, with their hands raised above their heads chanting “hands up, don’t shoot,” were maced, beaten, and shot with rubber bullets without hesitation. I saw businesses boarded up and the National Guard show up because Black people were upset and asking not to be killed.

In November, the Proud Boys came to D.C. for their first “Stop

“They charged me, a Black woman, with a hate crime against White supremacists at Black Lives Matter Plaza. A place that used to represent hope is now a place where I relive trauma.”

The Steal” demonstration. The next day, I took a walk to see the destroyed art at Black Lives Matter Plaza. I watched police officers protect White supremacists starting fights with peaceful Black protesters. I saw a woman hit a young Black man with a MAGA sign and I stood between them. The police immediately arrested the Black man. About an hour later, they arrested me.

The woman claimed I was threatening her, and D.C. police took her on her word. I spent the night in jail for simple assault with a hate bias. They charged me, a Black woman, with a hate crime against White supremacists at Black Lives Matter Plaza. A place that used to represent hope is now a place where I relive trauma.

The response to Black Lives Matter demonstrations was in stark

contrast with what unfolded on Jan. 6, when White insurrectionists entered the Capitol, armed as if it were their right to do so.

Fortunately, I didn’t have anywhere to be. Like many bartenders in D.C., my place of work is temporarily closed because of the pandemic. I’m sad to be unemployed, but I’m also grateful not to have to clock in, because I doubt that many restaurant owners would be able to keep me safe under these conditions.

As I walk down the empty streets of D.C., I spot shuttered businesses with Black Lives Matter banners pasted proudly in windows. Yet Black people know they aren’t truly welcome. I wonder, what do the signs really stand for? I say this as both a restaurant worker and patron.

I see businesses with oddly specific, anti-Black dress codes.

I see the restaurant that allowed me to be bullied by my Whitepresenting manager “because I have a strong personality and I can handle it.” I see the restaurant that fired me for not coming into work “sassy” and “twerking.” I see the restaurant that ignored me when I expressed that it made me uncomfortable when a regular customer constantly asked to touch my hair. I see the restaurant that has a hip-hop night for its almost exclusively White patrons and staff. They think posting black squares on their Instagram accounts and placing signs in their windows means all is forgiven.

I’ve put my energy into building a safe community for Black people. I’ve identified resources and tried my best to develop relationships with people who are looking at how they do business by making personal and professional changes. I’ve participated in protecting democracy. I’ve tried to be inclusive and pursue paths that lead to more equitable spaces, but most importantly, I’ve tried to do so without focusing on making White people comfortable. That’s not my job. That’s, in part, the mayor’s job.

As we reflect on what happened last week, I have to wonder what it means for our community that claims to be progressive, inclusive, and equitable. If you truly believe in democracy and a free and fair society, what are we as a city doing to protect it?

What are you going to do when your Black coworker is harassed by visiting White supremacists? Are there plans to keep Black people safe?

—Allison Lane

“No, the disturbing events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 did not change my view about the value of living and working in the District.

Washington still is the most interesting city in the world. The riot and ensuing fallout is eye [opening] for many; however … the racial and ethnic disparities in America are deeper and wider than some wanted to believe even as late as the summer of 2020.”

—Rawle Andrews Jr.

“The recent events at the Capitol concerning the white terrorists was no surprise to many Black folks. These events and other white privileged tactics always have me thinking about moving and living elsewhere. I'm talking elsewhere like not in the U.S. If I lived in a place like Florida (which I have before) and this occurred there, yes I definitely would have made moving a top priority ASAP; however since I am a native of D.C., I know I am somewhat safer here than possibly other places.”

—Jaha Booker “I have lived within a mile of the Capitol on and off for most of my life.

As a native Washingtonian and a Jew, the attempted coup horrified me.

It also strengthened my love for D.C. and the Hill. We are resilient. Living here will be different for a while but it has also strengthened our community.

On neighborhood Facebook groups and listservs, we offered safe places to ride out the unknown last Wednesday, are checking in on each other, and buying local Girl Scout cookies. It’s hard to imagine letting fascists scare me away from my community.”

—Jenna Umansky

“In general, I’ve become aware of the rise in crime in D.C. and specifically in shootings. I live in Petworth and Columbia Heights and Brightwood are around me and become bad hotbeds of activity. This rise started in May and is clearly parallel to the pandemic. That, with the happenings of this week, do make me wonder if I’m choosing the safest place possible to raise my child.

Especially because pre-pandemic there were areas where he used to walk/ride his bike that I would never permit him to do the same now.

That said, my son loves this city and violence and crime can happen anywhere, even in “safe” suburbs. Truly I think it’s a more sign of the times than anything else and not something that would necessarily be “fixed” if I moved.

I’m also hopeful that the crime rate will go down post vaccine distribution and that there will be more opportunities for my work in entertainment with Biden and Harris in the WH attracting celebrities and other VIPs to the city for events like WHCD weekend etc.

To sum it up, I’m sticking it out and hopeful for the city’s future!”

—Jess Hoy “If anything, I’m more committed to living here. The residents of this city deserve the right of representation and the right to defend themselves from the people who are attempting to suborn our government. As a resident, I can lend my voice toward those efforts from a first hand, on the ground perspective and I aim to continue doing so.”

—Greg

washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 21

J.M. Giordano

Using ropes and a lot of help, Trump supporters scale the wall in front of the Capitol.

22 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

A protestor in front of the United States Capitol throws their hands up in surrender as Capitol Police move in.

J.M. Giordano

A Trump supporter receives aid after being pepper sprayed on the steps of the Capitol.

J.M. Giordano

J.M. Giordano

The crowd listens to President Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s speech on the Ellipse.

J.M. Giordano J.M. Giordano

Trump supporters march with a massive American flag in front of Black Lives Matter Plaza.

A Trump supporter carries a flag past the New America building at 15th Street NW. washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 23

FOOD YOUNG & HUNGRY

Take-Home for the Holidays

Leading DC

D.C. restaurants sold out of the sumptuous feasts they offered for takeout over the holidays, proving you can box up hospitality.

Anju’s Christmas Eve Beef Wellington

By Laura Hayes @LauraHayesDC Cassia Denton and Devin Maier found themselves home for the holidays. They heeded repeated warnings that traveling and mingling with older relatives is too dangerous because of COVID-19. “We have always spent Christmas in Hawaii with Devin’s dad,” Denton says. “He always makes a big meal there. We were not expecting to be here instead.”

The engaged couple, who live in Shaw, turned to Anju to make Christmas Eve feel festive. The Korean restaurant, which typically serves dolsot bibimbap and stews studded with rice cakes, dressed for the occasion. Executive Chef Angel Barreto prepared a $120 feast for two with a beef Wellington the size of a peewee football, chestnut stuffing, kimchi collard greens with pork belly, roasted potatoes in a sweet soy lacquer (gamja jorim), assorted snacks (banchan), and a ginger pear cobbler.

“They did a phenomenal job,” Denton says.

“They really put care and attention into it. It wasn’t like, ‘Here's our normal menu.’” The pair was so impressed that they ordered from Anju

again for New Year’s Eve. This time, dinner came with party favors like streamers, beads, and silly hats. Denton posted photos of both dinners on social media, and Anju co-owner Danny Lee responded to express gratitude. “This is a person who is part of my community who is doing what he loves and making the food he loves,” Denton continues. “I got to be a part of that.”

Devastated by the pandemic, local restaurants recognized they had a captive audience this holiday season and responded by experimenting with merry meal packages. In doing so, they proved it’s possible to box up hospitality.

The payoff was two-fold. D.C. diners ordered in droves, giving restaurants a desperately needed year-end sales boost. Chefs and restaurateurs also report that making isolation a little more palatable for new and regular customers was emotionally satisfying. It’s been 10 months since hospitality professionals felt anything close to warm and fuzzy.

“This was therapeutic for us,” says Lee, who also co-owns CHIKO and Mandu. “We can’t cook for our families, but let’s put that same amount of passion and love that we would for a combined 500 guests through our different restaurants.” After the last customers had picked up

24 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

their food and drink pairings, Lee turned to social media to reap the rewarding feelings.

Washingtonians snapped and shared many pictures of Anju's Christmas Eve Wellington coming out of their ovens. It was a risk choosing an entrée with a high level of difficulty. Patrons were required to bake the beef, already cocooned in its pastry shell, for 10 to 12 minutes. “The most common picture was people doing a center slice,” Lee says. “By nature, it’s a blind cook. Even though we had a couple of testers, each piece of protein acts differently. We were very happy once we started seeing guests send in those photos. It’s almost as if we were open for indoor dining and were seeing their reactions from the kitchen.”

CHIKO, Anju, and Mandu sold out of both their Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve packages. Recognizing that even homebound revelers would heavily toast to the end of 2020 on New Year’s Eve, CHIKO added the option to tack on a $20 hangover kit from I Egg You, the Capitol Hill location’s weekend breakfast pop-up. It came with a loaf of milk bread from O Bread, a pound of Logan’s Sausage, a pound of fontina cheese, four eggs, and Bloody Mary mix. “Guests got an email link that night with video content from us,” Lee says. His business partner, Chef

Scott Drewno, taught viewers how to make a decadent breakfast sandwich.

Other chefs agree that “wow factor” played a role in their sell-out sensations. Fight Club’s strategy was to package up indulgence. They sold a $100 New Year’s Eve spread with fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits, hot sauce, an ounce of caviar with traditional garnishes, truffle mac and cheese, and banana pudding. “Orders flew out of the gates,” according to Chef Andrew Markert.

He was able to close out some accounts and pay vendors during a precarious time when indoor dining is banned and restaurants are awaiting further financial support. “When we looked at the sales, that’s what hit me,” Markert says. “Seeing how much support we got. It’s about the numbers and surviving another month. Seeing that sigh of relief in the sales reports was like, ‘Fuck, thank god.’”

Because customers have to order holiday meals in advance, the sales boost lasted days or weeks for some restaurants, according to Pop’s SeaBar owner John Manolatos. “You’re collecting money across a seven-day period,” the chef says. “That helps a lot of restaurants. It keeps things moving.”

Pop’s SeaBar had experience with to-go packages prior to the holidays, which worked to their advantage when they got busy. The small bar specializing in beer and $1 oysters has boxed up crab feasts and shrimp boils in the past, as there’s not enough room on-site for such spreads. Like Lee and Markert, Manolatos picked more luxurious products that signify celebration over the holidays.

“Lobster isn’t something that everybody does for Thanksgiving, even though it was probably on the first Thanksgiving table,” Manolatos says. He sold 95 lobster dinners in November.

“If I had one more cook, I would have kept adding. For a 1,500-square-foot little bar, it was a great showing.”

Pop’s SeaBar sold lobsters again for Christmas Eve. On both occasions, the crustaceans came with the bar’s typical sides—corn and coleslaw. Manolatos says his experience in retail taught him to “stick with what you do well and don’t try to reinvent yourself for a short sale.” He calls the menu “a little off,” but expresses that he didn’t want to stray too far from Pop’s branding. That said, Pop’s leveled up for New Year’s Eve. Manolatos stuffed the lobsters with crab and served them as a part of a three-course experience with tuna tartare to start and a simple dessert. “Like all chefs do when they don’t have a pastry chef, they make panna cotta,” he jokes.

Manolatos is grateful to the loyal customers keeping his seafood spot afloat. Most are young singles and couples living in Adams Morgan. “It’s been a godsend that they keep supporting us,” he says. “It was nice to be a part of their holidays.

Pop’s usually isn’t part of people’s holiday plans.

They usually pick a higher-end place to eat with their parents. We got to play in that pond a little.”

But a crush of sales and mental satisfaction doesn't come without added elbow grease. Chef Colin McClimans, who co-owns Nina May and its offshoot boxed-meal service Feast, ran into that barrier as his businesses prepared

FOOD Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve packages.

Juggling on-site dining with not one, but two takeout operations requires more staff than the skeleton crews restaurants have been operating with throughout the pandemic. It also requires more physical space than some of D.C.’s small mom-and-pop restaurants have.

“Doing in-restaurant dining and doing takeout require two skills and set-ups,” McClimans says, relaying his thought process leading up to November. “How much takeout can we do to maximize profit that isn’t going to affect the people we cook for in the restaurant? Do we take over the whole space and not serve anyone in the restaurant? We’re a neighborhood restaurant. We’re supposed to be here for [neighbors] no matter what. What will they think if we close for two days to build takeout boxes?”

McClimans describes the internal tug of war that played out in his head. As an owner, he wanted to strive for more sales, but as a chef, he wanted to pump the brakes so as not to compromise quality. He and his business partner, Danilo Simic, found balance. For example, they delivered Feast boxes in advance of the holiday on Dec. 23, since they keep overnight. This freed up the kitchen to focus on the Feast of the Seven Fishes they offered for more traditional takeout or outdoor dining at Nina May on Dec. 24.

Feast was born out of the unique operating parameters of the pandemic. The boxes find the sweet spot between cooking dinner and ordering takeout. Customers complete 10 minutes of reheating and finishing. “We normally do A to Z, now we’re doing A to N,” McClimans says.

Each one comes with instructions and personal notes from the chef detailing the inspiration behind each dish, yet another effort to bring hospitality to the table from a distance.

But before McClimans can put pen to paper, he has to determine the average Washingtonian’s cooking aptitude. “We spend a lot of time testing everything,” he says. Like Lee and Barreto from Anju, who faithfully entrusted diners not to bungle the cook on a Wellington, McClimans put a hard-to-nail lava cake on Feast’s New Year’s Eve

Darrow Montgomery/File

Components of a Feast box this summer

menu. Diners had to microwave the confection to the perfect point so chocolate would ooze out of the center once they cut into it.

McClimans tapped his employees to partake in the weekslong testing process because every microwave is different. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done it, but we got great feedback from people,” he says. “For us, that’s the fun. You’re going down these uncharted areas and really trying to make something work.”

The chef also got great feedback on Nina May’s New Year’s Eve menu that included a tomahawk steak. He picked a dramatic cut of meat intentionally. “How we had to pack them in the bags was funny,” McClimans says. A big bone was sticking out. “When people come to see you in a restaurant, you can have all of these special moments, like a pour of prosecco on your anniversary. You can lose that with takeout. Trying to create those ‘wow’ moments is really tough in a to-go container.”

McClimans and others say they’ll continue to swing big given diners’ reliance on takeout is showing no signs of waning as the pandemic stretches on. “It’s going to be a long time until you walk into a busy restaurant and feel super comfortable,” he says. At the same time, the holidays heightened diners’ expectations. “Takeout has changed 100 percent over the last 10 months. All of the options are of such high quality that people will continue to feed this beast.”

“Our job is to make sure people enjoy themselves regardless of whether they’re eating inside pre-pandemic or at home,” Lee chimes in. “Now that restaurants have gotten some reps in, I think we’ll see some more dramatic packages. We’re all trying to provide something besides food and drink to accompany the food you’re taking home.

There are numerous ways to do this. We’re just starting to scratch the surface.”

The next big food holiday on the horizon is Valentine’s Day. Restaurants are on the hook for helping romantic partners who’ve been cooped up together for about a year remember why they tolerate each other. The demand is there.

Denton, the Shaw resident who doubled down on holiday orders at Anju, says she started Googling Valentine’s Day menus as soon as January hit.

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ARTS

Free the Future

OnRaé LaTeal

In her activism, educational, and musical work, OnRaé LaTeal is focusing on Black joy.

One Sunday in late June, activist, music producer, and educator OnRaé LaTeal assembled some friends and community organizers at the newly established Black Lives Matter Plaza.

She also brought in a videographer to capture their afternoon, which was filled with purpose. They posed for the camera, standing still with fists raised. They chanted, “Middle finger to the law/Say no, no to the po-po.” And they danced: A lithe ballerina executed some neat changements en pointe, and two street dancers, Kidflxsh and Loso, glided through the Citi Rock. Behind them at her beatpad and mixing board was LaTeal, wearing one of her signature wide-brimmed hats. The words “a person was lynched yesterday” were printed across the back collar of her crisp white jumpsuit, echoing the flag once flown outside the NAACP’s New York City headquarters.

The result of that afternoon was the song and video “Middle Finger to the Law” by LaTeal featuring Fresco Steez and the Black Youth Project 100 Choir. It is one of 11 tracks on the visual album We Keep Us Safe, released last month by LaTeal’s Freedom Futures Collective and available on all streaming platforms.

LaTeal created the collective, which she usually refers to by its FFC acronym, in October.

Her goal was to mentor young adults as they use film, music, and education to support the Movement for Black Lives. FFC members range in age from 16 to 36 and are Black, Latinx, and White. As their teacher, producer, and allaround fairy godmother, LaTeal is mentoring what she likes to call a “new generation of liberation music makers.”

An adept multitasker, LaTeal currently works as the senior manager of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s ARTLAB, a digital arts studio that hosts afterschool programming for teens. As an artist and producer, she has recorded several collaborative albums with multiple artists; she also co-founded the Black Girls Handgames Project, presenting interactive community events that fuse traditional children’s hand games with hip-hop culture. Throughout nearly all her work, a common theme can be found: a deliberate celebration of Black joy.

Darrow Montgomery

By Alona Wartofsky Contributing Writer

“While we are out demonstrating, Black joy is essential to sustaining our organizing work.

Combating systemic oppression is taxing. In the midst of our fight for liberation, we as Black people have to always make time to rest in our joy,” LaTeal says.

“For so long, we have watched our people being murdered by police unjustifiably and without facing accountability. Considering centuries of Black pain and trauma caused by white supremacy, some would think it’s impossible for Black people to experience joy. Our joy is something that should have been taken away from us, but we are reclaiming it,” she continues. “Joy is a form of resistance.”

A powerful sense of conviction guides all her endeavors. ARTLAB, for example, offers teens access to brand new digital art technology, which LaTeal believes translates to academic and professional success. “It’s about offering our youth the necessary mentorship to transform them from consumers to producers of 21st century technology to increase their success in the classroom and their chances to receive quality employment when transitioning into adulthood,” she says.

ARTLAB is where LaTeal met many of the fledgling artists who would become FFC members and collaborate with her on We Keep Us Safe. While “Middle Finger to the Law” and other tracks on the album are unlikely contenders for commercial radio, they are reaching audiences on social media. “Middle Finger” has accumulated more than 168,000 views across platforms, and “Freedomside” has over 93,000.

26 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

FFC’s Liv Grace, 19, met LaTeal two years ago at the ARTLAB, which was closed when she arrived at the museum with her family.

They knocked on the door anyway, and LaTeal invited them in. Currently attending college in Alabama, Liv Grace recorded two tracks on We Keep Us Safe. “Melanin” is a self-love anthem, but “Liberated (Hands up to the Sky)” has a different goal: “I wanted to explain defunding the police in a way that would be easily received and help people understand how it would positively affect our community,” she says.

For Liv Grace, LaTeal’s mentorship has been invaluable. “She’s like the program’s eternal hype man,” she says. “She’s very uplifting and always quick to tell us, ‘You’re stuff is amazing.

You’re super dope.’”

Fabiola Castro, 20, a producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who grew up in Alexandria, is one of FFC’s non-Black members. “This program wasn’t just about us creating music for fun as a hobby. It was also about becoming professionals,” she says. “OnRaé showed us how to register for [Broadcast Music, Inc.] so we can get paid for our music … and all those nitty-gritty things that are important for functioning in the industry as an artist.”

Castro carefully considered what she wanted to communicate on her track, “We Keep Each Other Safe,” on the FFC album. “Since I don’t have the Black experience as a Mexican who is White-passing, I wanted to instead focus on the experience of watching all of these different catastrophes going on,” she says. “With my song, I want to convey the feeling of helplessness when you’re trying to combat all these

things alone, but also the feeling of community and power when you work together with others towards one goal, especially when that goal is equality for all.”

FFC rapper, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and self-described “mythical or mystical intentional creativity personality” Trélogy, 20, grew up in Northeast Washington. He, too, met LaTeal in the ARTLAB. His powerful song “Black in Peace,” written after the murder of George Floyd, is one of the most haunting tracks on the album. “OnRaé has helped me develop as an artist by shaping my writing perspective and also encouraging me to finally step out and release something,” he says. “She is almost like a second mother to me. I personally know that OnRaé will push you to the best of your abilities when she sees something in you.”

Growing up, OnRaé LaTeal Watkins was a military brat whose family lived in Portugal, the Philippines, Arizona, Colorado, and Florida before settling in suburban Maryland during her early teens. Her father is a former track star who gave her his competitive streak. “I’ve lost friendships due to bowling matches,” she says with an easy laugh.

That intensity also drives her creative work, she adds. “I always want whatever I’m working on to be even more dynamic than my last piece,” she says.

Her mother, described by OnRaé as more spiritual, contributed to her confidence. “She helps me stay grounded in understanding where my gifts and talents come from,” says LaTeal. “She always affirmed us by putting us

washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 27

ARTS ARTS FILM REVIEW in front of the mirror before school to remind us how amazing we are, to believe in myself, my strengths, my talents.”

Starting in third grade, LaTeal played saxophone and tenor sax before transitioning to piano. She attended a jazz band camp in College Park and sang in a gospel choir at Frostburg State University before transferring to Southern Maryland Community College.

She eventually graduated from Howard University with a degree in radio, TV, and film.

An internship for WHUR (96.3 FM) solidified her production skills, and later, her connections with the station paid off with airplay for her 2014 single “Infatuation,” recorded with a group she called Aflocentric. After that, she taught hip-hop and beatmaking at the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights.

Now she juggles multiple projects and lives in Alexandria with her fiancée Tashira Halyard, a child welfare attorney who blogs about style, self-care, and social justice.

In 2018, as the protests for Black lives amped up in cities across the country, LaTeal recorded The Black Joy Experience, a compelling collection of well-known freedom songs and liberation chants she produced with BYP100, a national nonprofit activist group. Her first politically driven project, it featured more than 20 activists from around the U.S. “When it was released in 2018, I was a little disappointed and thought we should have gotten more traction,” she says. “It turned out that the time for that album to impact the world was during the summer of the George Floyd uprisings when we started to see tens of thousands of album streams and see and hear our chants being recited via social media at demonstrations all over the nation. ” LaTeal also co-founded the Black Girls Handgames Project in 2018, using hip-hop beats to revitalize childhood clapping games.

“Basically, we merge the cultural traditions of hand games and hip-hop to facilitate community-driven experiences,” she says. LaTeal considers the program particularly important for Black girls. “Oftentimes, Black girls are victims of adultification bias, which removes their innocence and ability to be seen as children,” she says. “The project is about helping our girls to experience play in a way that they deserve.”

A secondary benefit of teaching teenage girls beatmaking skills is the possibility of improving women’s representation in the music production field.

At Black Girls Handgames Project events, participants are taught Miss Mary Mack, Apple on a Stick, Gigolo, and other games. “It’s so cool because you see the 8-year-olds stepping up and leading the adults, and vice versa,” says LaTeal. “I make it contemporary by putting a hip-hop instrumental trap beat on it. So it’s Miss Mary Mack with beatboxing, and it’s super interactive but has some Black historical significance as well.”

In 2019, LaTeal brought the Black Girls Handgames Project to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for one glorious afternoon, as crowds delighted in Miss Mary Mack, Slide, and Little Sally Walker. “It was such a diverse

audience,” says LaTeal. “It was really a magical experience, all based on the childhood experiences of Black girls, which I think is really dope.”

With the advent of COVID-19, LaTeal pivoted to focus on FFC, obtaining a grant from Open Society Foundations, which funds independent groups working for democratic governance and social justice. Once she assembled the collective, it took the group three months to complete We Keep Us Safe.The collective’s efforts incorporate her own work documenting some of the artistic aspects of the local movement for Black lives. “After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I started to support D.C. activist organizations by remixing sounds from the movement into contemporary songs.

I wanted to add video to capture the organizing work that is happening in D.C., so I started going out and capturing content,” LaTeal says.

“We’re addressing some really painful toxicity, and yet there’s so much joy in this project.”

Makia Green, lead organizer with Black Lives Matter DC and an organizer with the Working Families Party, considers LaTeal an essential part of the movement. “OnRaé is such a light. She captures the essence of protest culture and helps us tell the story of the uprising for Black liberation and defunding the police,” says Green. “OnRaé is in the Black Lives Matter community, and her work uplifts Black resistance, Black healing, and Black joy.

“She’s providing opportunities to the artist community in the middle of the pandemic,” adds Green. “The fact that she built a whole collective in the middle of a pandemic and mass unemployment is an investment in the artist community.”

LaTeal recorded part of the track “Our Lives Matter,” credited to LaTeal featuring Afriye and Marley, last summer at a children’s protest along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast. As 5-year-old Afriye led the singsong chant—“we are Black, we are strong, our lives matter”—LaTeal walked in front of her, recording. “She was so passionate about it, and I had my phone directly in front of her mouth as she was marching down the street,” says LaTeal, who later mixed the chant for that track with snippets of an interview she conducted with Marley, a 9-year-old protester.

“When I think of freedom, I think of a world where my students aren’t afraid to walk in the rain with a hoodie on, because [now] they think about Trayvon Martin walking in a hoodie and being murdered because he was racially profiled,” says LaTeal. “I think of a world where Black youth have access to the equitable education, resources, and technology they need to be successful. When I think of reimagining public safety—I think of a world that does not have police terror, state sanctioned-violence, state-sanctioned murder.”

For now, she will continue to prioritize art and activism. “I see the amazing impact of art and how beneficial it can be for our youth every day,” she says. “Music is universal, and I believe it has the power to bring people together in a way that other mediums can’t. And I do believe that art has the power to change the world.”

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Content of Their Characters MLK/FBI Directed by Sam Pollard Those with even a cursory knowledge of American history already know most of the story: J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1972, viewed Martin Luther King Jr. as a threat to law and order, or maybe just his own stranglehold on the American justice system. The bureau kept a detailed file on the civil rights leader, filled with salacious details gleaned from surveillance of his private life. Then they used it: They sent a recording of him and his alleged mistress to King’s wife, followed by a letter to King himself, encouraging him to commit suicide to prevent these personal secrets from ever reaching the public. Understandably, there are those who think the FBI had something to do with his assassination.

MLK/FBI, a documentary by Sam Pollard, offers no revelatory additions to this story, but fills in some meaningful shading that makes the picture come to life. Blending archival footage of King and Hoover with interviews with scholars, historians, and a few figures who were in King’s orbit at the time, the film tracks the FBI’s public and private campaigns against the man Hoover famously called “the most dangerous Negro of the future.” Pollard, who is best known for editing many of Spike Lee’s films in the 1990s, avoids talking heads and keeps the faces of King and Hoover front and center, as his experts elucidate their points in voice-over.

It’s a nice change of pace from historical documentaries that are overly reliant on expert interviews, but the technique also serves a purpose. Simply looking at these two figures for

so long helps to reorient the viewer to the time when these events occurred, which allows the film’s thesis to fully bloom: MLK/FBI seeks to remind us that King was something close to a pariah in his time, not the universally respected figure he is today, and that the FBI was not a rogue agency acting against the wishes of the American people. “A lot of people understood what the FBI was up to,” says one expert, “and in fact, they supported it.” It gives the battle between King and Hoover the stakes that history books rarely do.

MLK/FBI builds in the viewer the feeling that if a figure like Martin Luther King Jr. were to show up in 2020 (or if, say, another Black liberation movement formed in the wake of repeated shootings of unarmed Black citizens by the state), they would still be considered a threat by the media establishment, the government, and half the population. Consider the film’s man-on-the-street interviews, in which one man says King is the worst person in America, and another, who, encouraged by the specifics of the FBI’s public campaign against King, proudly asserts that King was “without a doubt” trained by Communists.

She even has a newspaper article to back up her wildly false claim. It all sounds so tragically familiar.

That’s a justification for MLK/FBI to exist, and also a point against it. Familiarity is not necessarily the stuff of great cinema, and there are times when it feels as if Pollard is simply running through facts that should already be known to any literate American. Then again, illuminating what interviewee and former FBI director James Comey describes as “the darkest part of the bureau’s history” is probably worth doing, especially at a time when agreeing on a common story is one of our nation’s biggest challenges. Strong with purpose, MLK/FBI demythologizes the past and sets the record straight on our present.

—Noah Gittell MLK/FBI is available to stream on demand beginning Jan. 15.

Digital exhibition at phillipscollection.org to Feb. 7 Devastation and rebuilding. Mistrust and faith. Isolation and unity. These are just some of the contradictions that make the Phillips Collection’s year-end exhibition Community in Focus a discordant experience that is both heartwrenching and heartening—and true to life.

Summarizing 2020 isn’t easy, but this project attempts to do just that through a powerful display of hundreds of images from the indescribable last year. The digital exhibition is up on the museum’s website until Feb. 7, and is free to view.

On Oct. 19, 2020, the Phillips posted a call on social media for members of the public to send in photographs from the year, specifying that it was for a project to “capture a unique photographic snapshot of an unprecedented year.”

Seasoned photographers and everyday people submitted more than 500 images depicting what life has been like throughout the months of 2020 across the U.S. The photos are organized by the day they were taken, creating a chronological record of this emotionally taxing chapter of human history.

While many of the images are beautiful, viewers shouldn’t go into Community in Focus expecting a traditional fine art collection. Submissions were open to everyone, regardless of skills level.

That, too, is an indication of the times. The year 2020 taught us that the everyday is far from ordinary. The exhibition succeeded in putting community, not just photographers, in focus.

The virtual display showcases minute details of 2020 that are difficult to describe with words alone. A medical worker wearing personal protective equipment prays while riding in an empty Metro car. Empty streets. Empty restaurants. Empty grocery store shelves. People at home. Couples dancing at a distance wearing face masks. Lone individuals in cities or parks. A clever shot of two people’s shoes facing a social distancing indicator that reads “The Distance Between Us Will Soon Bring Us Back Together.” A toppled monument that seems to be waving goodbye as it is driven away on a truck.

Physically distanced weddings and parties. A newborn baby nursing in her masked mother’s arms as she sits on a hospital bed. Waves rolling into the shore during Hurricane Teddy. Flowers left outside the Supreme Court to pay respects to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she lay in repose. A photo of a man reading a copy of the Washington Post that reads “Biden defeats Trump.” The words “Black Lives Matter” and one of George Floyd and Eric Garner’s final sentences, “I Can’t Breathe,” written on signs, walls, and face masks. A protest sign that reads “This Shit Is Exhausting.”

The entire collection of submitted images is presented in videos, one for almost every month of the year (January and February are combined and, since the exhibition was put together during

Taken on July 20, 2020

Patrick Ryan

Community in Focus

the last month of the year, there are no photos from December). Select images that are viewable on clickable slideshows just beneath each video serve as a preview. The Phillips also displays photos that were sent in during the six-week submission period on its blog “The Experiment Station,” again organized in months, and in a YouTube video.

Practically speaking, the digital format allows viewers to take breaks from looking at the content—a relief from a mental health standpoint.

Revisiting 2020 is hard, so it is helpful that Community in Focus allows viewers to walk away from the screen if the exhibition becomes too overwhelming. Since the photos are organized in months, there is a framework to digest the project at a slow, stop-and-go pace.

Like in real life, nature provides respite from the realities of this era. There are numerous images of trees; animals; empty fields, parks, and forests; bodies of water; and flowers, including one virus-shaped bloom that the photographer says reminded them of the novel coronavirus.

This has been a time of reconnecting with the environment, and one of Community in Focus’ strongest aspects is showcasing that. Since nature shots didn’t dominate the front pages of newspapers, the ones collected here are like a peek into untold stories in quiet corners of 2020.

Some of the photographs in the exhibition are clearly informal. A medical worker, for example, added text and emojis to a shot of her wearing a medical gown and PPE, writing what she calls a PSA: “Vote like you want to wear this as a Ghostbuster for Halloween, not as protection against COVID-19 at work.” Her message encapsulates the urgency that our society felt around the 2020 election, when snapshots became opportunities for political statements. Casual photos of pets are also prevalent, serving as an indication of how valuable the bond between humans and their animal companions has been during this period of isolation.

Everyday shots of life at home feel familiar today, like a concert livestreaming on a laptop and a handwritten cardboard sign outside of a bedroom that says “Meeting in Progress.” These and all of the 500-plus photographs might help future generations understand the intricacies and enormity of 2020.

Another powerful element of Community in Focus is the intimacy that the web display creates between the viewer and the screen. This was a practical rather than artistic choice due to the ongoing public health restrictions, yet the virtual component adds another layer to the installation’s artistry. So much of our lives took place digitally during 2020. Zoom conferences, FaceTime with family, Slack conversations with coworkers, and social media posts connected us when physical distance kept us apart. It feels right that Community in Focus follows suit.

Viewers are able to sit quietly—and perhaps, once again, alone—with these images and contemplate a year that has frequently felt paused.

Community in Focus demonstrates that 2020 was anything but. These photos are bursting with life, both its joy and despair. The show is a testament to how we, as a human community, continued on.

—Jennifer Anne Mitchell

Taken on May 29, 2020

Daniel Pollack

Supercut of Us

Sara Allen

ARTS EXHIBITION REVIEW

Taken on June 11, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 29

ARTS

Ink Mark in a Rainstorm After a tree fell, the backyard studio where artist Lou Stovall screen printed his own and others’ artwork for nearly 50 years had to be razed — but his legacy persists.

Artwork from Lou Stovall’s print studio, Workshop, Inc., is ubiquitous in local galleries and museums. Pieces populate institutions like the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as well as the American University Museum, D.C.’s Art Bank, the Phillips Collection, and Addison/ Ripley Gallery. But unlike many of the artists he created prints for and with, including Sam Gilliam, Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Gene Davis, Elizabeth Catlett, Lois Mailou Jones, and Jacob Lawrence, Stovall’s name has yet to seep into the mainstream. And though Stovall has produced his own artwork— mainly silk-screen prints, but also collages and assemblages—along with prints for other artists from his backyard studio for decades, now, due to the artist’s age and an act of nature, his future output is in jeopardy.

During a rainstorm on the evening of May 8, 2020, a large tree fell through the Workshop, Inc. studio, which is located behind Stovall’s Cleveland Park home. Branches penetrated the roof, and the overall weight crushed in the ceiling, leaving the space open to the wind and rain. In addition to the printing stations, the studio housed walls of flat files storing hundreds of artworks by Stovall and the artists he has worked with over the last four decades. The impact was so shattering that the building was razed five months later. His wife Di Bagley Stovall, an artist herself, described the loss as “devastating.”

Stovall, who moved to D.C. in 1962 to study fine arts at Howard University, is a master of silk-screen printing. A 1998 New York Times profile of Stovall quotes Lawrence, one of the most important 20th century creators of narrative artworks, describing Stovall as “a craftsman who is also an artist.”

The volume of Stovall’s output—which

Darrow Montgomery/File

By Robert Bettmann Contributing Writer

Lou Stovall working in his studio in 1997 includes prints for other artists, his own artwork, and prints made for commercial and community use—is vast and diverse. But, as Lawrence’s description reinforces, evaluations of Stovall have commonly centered on him as a craftsman more than as an artist. In 2001, Paul Richard wrote in the Washington Post that “As a printer of his own art, and of the art of many others, as a framer and installer and shepherd of collections, Stovall has inserted more art into Washington than almost anyone in town.” The Workshop, Inc. space was also a frame shop for fine art for many years, and Stovall was available to install and maintain fine art collections.

Now, Stovall is increasingly getting his artistic due; for example, there’s a current solo show of Stovall’s artwork at the Columbus Museum in Georgia. Harry Cooper, senior curator and head of modern art at the National Gallery of Art, says, “He took color screen-printing, which is often regarded as a more commercial form, to new heights, both in his own work and that for Sam Gilliam.” Cooper also noted Stovall’s “gift for delicate line and bold color, and an elegance that pervades even his most energetic abstractions.”

Born in Athens, Georgia, Stovall earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Howard in 1965.

Having worked his way through school at a commercial print shop, he was able to set up the Workshop, Inc. studio in 1968 with support from a Stern Family Fund grant that required him to also use the studio to teach printmaking,

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which he continued to do into his 80s. A multiyear Stern Fund grant was also made to Gilliam, a longtime Stovall collaborator. Gilliam says the grant provided him with the resources to work full-time as an artist.

Stovall’s output over the years is varied, including works with text, flowers, landscapes, and abstract color work. “First known for his activist posters, Lou’s art has long embraced elements of nature in parallel with a complex of abstract principles of image-making, with one or the other of these concerns taking priority at different times,” says Ruth Fine, a curator at the National Gallery of Art from 1972 to 2012, who was involved in several acquisitions of Stovall’s work. Stovall’s flowers are reminiscent of fellow D.C. artist and Corcoran benefactor Lowell Nesbitt’s, but tend to have more breathing space around the main subject.

Recent color forms easily remind one of similar work by Gilliam.

When evaluating any artist, the knowledgeable viewer commonly finds influences. But critiques of Stovall’s work may have suffered through the years because those influences can be so readily identifiable. Depending on the decade, critics have described his work as “intricate and refined” or evaluated it as “serene abstractions.” Undeniably, his own artwork is compared to his most famous and consistent collaborators—Gilliam and Lawrence— and deeply linked with the craft of silk-screen printmaking.

Silk-screen printing is easy to understand but difficult to master. Stovall’s creations from the 1960s to the present show mastery of the form and experimentation with its limits. The practice of creating fine art silk-screen prints entirely by hand, as Stovall did, has all but disappeared with new, computer-aided production methods. But during the decades of his greatest output, if an artist wanted a hand-inked version of their work that they could sign and sell as original artwork, silk-screen printing was perhaps the best option. Working with his artist colleagues, Stovall would begin either from an existing artwork or fully from scratch to match ink colors brought or described to him, to cut the stencils, and to create the image in layers by squeezing ink through a silk screen, one color at a time. Each color added to a print has to be allowed to dry because the paper, which is laid underneath the stencil and screen, will otherwise smudge the ink. To produce just 50 prints of an artwork including 10 colors requires 500 individual passes, with time to dry between each, and only that few if each pass is completed perfectly. Some pieces Stovall produced required more than 100 colors. Any imperfection, whether it appears on the first or last pass, means the piece is discarded. The painstaking attention to detail required to produce silkscreen artwork at scale is stunning.

Interest in Stovall’s output has increased over the last two decades, along with interest in other African American artists, including

ARTS Alma Thomas and Gilliam. Aaron Brophy is a sculptor and teacher of visual arts at the nearby Sidwell Friends School who also curates exhibitions for the school’s Rubenstein Gallery, including recent shows of works by Gilliam and Carol Brown Goldberg. In 2018, Brophy curated a two-part solo show of Stovall’s artwork: One section featured works created by Stovall alone; the other showed art in which Stovall was a collaborating printmaker.

“And one of the early pieces was a poster he made for [Dance Theatre of] Harlem,” Brophy says. “And that made me realize, there’s really a kind of throughline in Lou’s work from the Harlem Renaissance and his work with Jacob Lawrence and his connections with Sam Gilliam, all the way through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. Looking across his output, we see Lou has literally been relevant for 50 years, as an artist and also as a collaborator with other artists.”

“Sam Gilliam’s very first international retrospective wasn’t until two years ago,” Brophy continues. “It’s interesting to watch this resurgence of artists from the ’60s and ’70s … to see curators and museums picking up this thread and finally recognizing artists like Lou, like Sam.”

were very supportive.” The pair helped connect Talley to David Driskell and the Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland and to other collectors of Thomas’s artwork.

The creative back-and-forth among neighbors was once one of the draws of moving to Cleveland Park, a neighborhood that has a long history of artistic and intellectually engaged residents. One of the Stovalls’ notable Cleveland Park neighbors was photographer and sculptor William Christenberry.

And, like Stovall, Christenberry made his artwork in a studio attached to the family home—in his case, not an expanded detached garage, but an addition. “It was a very interesting, vibrant neighborhood,” his wife Sandy Christenberry says.

Hubbard, the community activist, started her career as personal secretary for Helen “Leni” Stern, the influential artist and philanthropist.

A Cleveland Park resident since the early 1970s, Hubbard says the neighborhood has always included authors, activists, intellectuals, and visual artists, mentioning David Ignatius, Christopher Buckley, Susan Shreve, Milton and Judith Viorst, Peter Edelman and Marian Wright Edelman, and Dickson Carroll. “This is a very intellectual activist neighborhood,” Hubbard says. Still, as the city as a whole has gentrified, the neighborhood has become less economically diverse, and it’s hard to imagine working artists being able to move into the community today. According to U.S. census data, median income for a Ward 3

Courtesy of Carol Harrison

In 1968, Stovall took over the lease of a closing gallery to start the Workshop, Inc. business.

In that Dupont Circle space, he created commercial prints, taught, made frames, worked on his own art, and helped others make their own silk-screen artworks. Lou and Di Stovall married in 1971; in 1972, they moved to the

Cleveland Park home where they still live and brought the business with them. Eventually, they set up the print shop in a detached garage in the back, and over time the space was modified and expanded to better meet the needs of the business.

Three categories of visitors have consistently trafficked Workshop, Inc.: collectors, artists, and students. And while Stovall built an American art institution, one ink layer and one print at a time, he and Di raised their son Will in a creative and community-minded Cleveland Park that has slowly changed around them.

Even as Workshop, Inc. rose to prominence within the national art scene, Stovall remained an active participant in the D.C. and Cleveland Park communities. In addition to serving as a commissioner for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, he regularly made prints for community organizations, concerts, and benefits. Judy Hubbard, a Cleveland Park Historical Society tour guide, longtime community activist, and retired director of constituent services for Ward 3 councilmember Mary Cheh, describes an early 1970s Cleveland Park community campaign asking drivers to slow down on Reno Road near John Eaton Elementary School on Lowell Street NW; Stovall created the campaign poster. And when collector Susan Talley, a longtime Cleveland Park neighbor, decided to see if there might be interest in starting the now-influential unincorporated Friends of Alma Thomas group, “the first person I went to visit, called and went to visit, was Lou and Di,” she says. “And they

The destruction inside Lou Stovall’s studio after the storm on May 8, 2020

household has risen from $45,000 in 1990, to more than $126,000 in the most recent data.

Stovall’s commitment to teaching neighborhood children, including students from Sidwell Friends School and fine art students from area colleges, models how an artist can be a positive influence on a community. Poet E. Ethelbert Miller, Stovall’s longtime friend and colleague, says “I’ve always felt that Lou having a workshop behind the house was very special, especially for young people … I always felt that this is the type of artist I aspire to.”

Andrew Christenberry, the son of William Christenberry and a sculptor and furnituremaker in his own right, grew up aware of his influential neighbor’s work. “Lou is an absolute master printmaker, and he was quite known for that,” he says. “If you’re a painter or draw and you want to work in the print medium, you often need help because it’s very technical.”

It’s not uncommon to think of artists of Stovall’s caliber as bold and full of ego, but his neighbors describe him as anything but that. Susan Talley says Stovall “sort of subverted his own ego in some ways to other artists … They were the stars, and his skill is immense in what he was able to help them accomplish.” And Anthony Gittens, a longtime friend and colleague who worked with Stovall when Gittens was executive director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, remarked, “You go into Lou’s studio and his art is there, but you also see so many other excellent artworks. Lou talks about other people’s work as much as he does about his own.” In the 1998 New York Times profile, Stovall himself is quoted saying, “The most important part of what I do is to give artists who have ideas they want to express in a silk-screen a way of doing it.”

Walking through the wreckage of the space with Di Stovall before it was demolished, she recalled hurriedly removing art from the studio after the tree’s fall in the tones of someone recounting saving a child from the path of a landslide. She also confirmed that the Workshop, Inc. studio will be rebuilt, but it’s unclear where Lou’s future artistic process will take him. Now that he is 84 years old, the work of cataloguing, displaying, and preserving artwork may become a bigger part of what’s accomplished in a future space.

Sorting through nearly half a century of artistic output is no easy feat. Since William Christenberry died in 2016, his wife Sandy has slowly confronted reconfiguring the space in their home that includes her late husband’s work. For now, his studio space is less of a work space and more a storage unit. “You know, it’s been four years since Bill passed away,” she says, “and I’m still trying to figure out what to do … Because I want to have people come to visit the studio again.”

In November 2020, Stovall’s damaged studio was razed. Decades of brilliant output currently have no permanent home. As Stovall’s work is sent out for upcoming exhibitions and becomes a part of the narrative of art history, the studio’s destruction is likely to remain a marker—though not an end point—in an artist’s exceptional career.

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CITY LIGHTS City Lights

City Lights

The People’s Holiday

#PHEdesdemibalcón

From the moment the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened, it was clearly the go-to venue for the Smithsonian’s jazz initiatives. Even more than many of its jazz events, though, NMAAHC’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations and Christian McBride’s album The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons seem made for each other. The iconic bassist’s work honors King alongside Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, building gospel-tinged music around their words and ideas in a dramatic way that by itself evokes a poetry reading. It’s shrewd programming, then, that McBride’s NMAAHC performance (with students from New York’s Juilliard School) based on The Movement Revisited would also include a poetry reading by the award-winning Evie Shockley. Both McBride and Shockley’s art is soaked in unmistakable soul—but then, what else would one expect in marking The People’s Holiday? The concert begins at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 18. Registration is available at si.edu. Free.

—Michael J. West

Remember when balconies had a moment? Think late March, when Italians started singing together from their balconies, or when New Yorkers stepped out onto their balconies to applaud health care workers. Much like face masks, hand sanitizer, and the Zoom ding, balconies could be considered an emblem of the COVID-19 era. That was the thinking behind PHotoESPAÑA’s 2020 exhibit, #PHEdesdemibalcón, which invited Spaniards to share photos on Instagram that represented life as they saw it from their balcony during the pandemic. Through a collaboration between PHotoESPAÑA and the Spanish embassy, images from the collection are now on view at the corner of 16th and Fuller Streets NW, along the fence outside the Spanish embassy’s cultural center. In one blown-up photo from the exhibit, a man is seen through his balcony trimming the hair of a young boy in the kitchen; in another, a woman has dragged her yoga mat onto her balcony and is mid-squat. There are photos of masked city dwellers walking down empty streets, friends leaning out of their windows to chat with each other, and people applauding toward a nearby hospital through their window. Despite being taken thousands of miles away, the photos are eerily familiar, a reminder of the commonalities of the pandemic. There’s just one obvious giveaway that the exhibit is foreign—we don’t have nearly that many high-up balconies in D.C. The outdoor exhibition is on view until Feb. 15 at the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, 2801 16th St. NW. Free.

—Ella Feldman

City Lights

Shenandoah National Park: Natural History Highlights

Shenandoah National Park, located 75 miles from downtown Washington, is a popular daytrip for D.C. residents, especially since we learned outdoor activities are less risky in a pandemic. Its more than 500 trails make it easy to understand why. The park’s landscape is dramatic, marked by jagged outcroppings and elevations up to 4,000 feet. It hosts a vast array of wildlife, including the world’s only population of Shenandoah salamanders, as well as an intricate network of forested streams. If you’re especially familiar with Shenandoah, what better way to advance your knowledge than by taking a crash course on its natural history? This week, the Smithsonian is offering park enthusiasts a chance to do just that. In a one hour and fifteen minute-long presentation, naturalist Keith Tomlinson will give an overview of the park’s past, from its geological origins to present-day conservation efforts. The event is a part of the Smithsonian Associates Streaming series, which also includes virtual tours and webcasts on topics like history and art. Expect to leave with a deeper understanding of Shenandoah and a greater appreciation for the eons-long process that shapes it today. The webcast begins at 10 a.m. on Jan. 16. Registration is available at smithsonianassociates.org. $25–$30.

—Dora Segall 32 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

City Lights

Another Round After 10 months of increased quarantine drinking across the country, it’s once again Dry January for the sober-curious. What better film to celebrate the occasion than Another Round, a boozy Danish romp starring Mads Mikkelsen, available in the AFI Silver virtual screening room after playing at its European Union Film Showcase? As washed-up, middle-aged Martin, a schoolteacher who’s lost some spring in his step, Mikkelsen is party to a grand experiment.

After the exhilaration of a drunken party, Martin and his friends decide to test a hypothesis: What if the optimal blood alcohol level for human beings isn’t 0 percent, but instead somewhere right around a nice buzz, like .5 percent? To find out, they spend much of the movie constantly imbibing, but with rules. (Those quickly go out the window, to no one’s surprise). Thomas Vinterberg’s feature is marketed as a comedic look at some over-the-hill Scandinavians having a college-style romp, but as any imbiber knows, after the fun comes the hangover. The bad idea Martin and his friends share is predictably bad; after all, alcohol is an addictive drug.

But the movie’s more than a morality play—it’s an examination of coming to terms with yourself minus the comforting distraction of drugs and reorienting your priorities after your life feels out of control. If you’re abstaining, watching their comedown in the sober light of day might be just what you need to make it to the end of the month. The film is available to stream at afivsr.eventive.org. $12.

—Emma Sarappo

City Lights

Out My Window Where some photographers duck, Nancy Shia doesn’t. In the “Mt. Pleasant Uprising” gallery of the artist and activist’s collection Out My Window, there’s a photo of a man running down the street screaming. He holds a two-by-four in his hands; behind him a photographer turns to shield himself. The black-and-white photo was taken during one of the nights of the 1991 Mount Pleasant Uprising. The photos that follow show the protest marches a year later, depicted in the glorious colors of early ’90s film stock. The full collection covers 40 years of life in D.C., and is full of similar scenes of celebration and unrest. The other three galleries include “D.C. Latino Festival,” “Gentrification,” and “Homelessness.” The first two cover public moments, like parades and protests. The latter is more intimate, like her portraits of a man named Piloto and his boys, who she shoots spending a day on a stoop on Columbia Road NW. It’s sunny, and they gather around Piloto, listening to his handheld radio. The gallery closes with some photos from Reaganville, the Community for Creative Non-Violence’s campaign to raise awareness for unhoused people dying of hypothermia in the District. One photo shows a sign in Lafayette Park that reads “Welcome to Reaganville. Population growing daily. Reaganomics at work.” Behind the sign, the White House sits in soft focus. After so many months looking out our own windows, check out Nancy Shia’s and see a D.C. undergoing change and a D.C. that’s long been fighting for its people. The collection is available at outmywindowbynancyshia.org. Free.

—Michael Loria

City Lights

Heart Still in the Trenches Rapper Lightshow moved from D.C. to Atlanta two years ago, but his Instagram handle is still @lightshow10thpl—a reference to 10th Place SE, where he grew up—and his latest album, Heart Still in the Trenches, was recorded locally at Connected DC studio in Oxon Hill. The lyrics were inspired by life in the Congress Heights neighborhood where he grew up, he says. Lightshow says he even slept on his grandmother’s couch in Southeast while he was here recording. The album cover shows the Holiday Market convenience store on Wheeler Road SE where Lightshow sometimes bought snacks; it’s also marked by the shooting deaths that occurred outside it, including the murder of 15-year-old Somerset Prep student Maurice Scott in 2019. Lightshow says the cover documents both the pain of the murders and his fond memories of his neighborhood. The video for the song “my hood,” which includes the album’s title phrase, was filmed outside the shop.

Lightshow, who was once shot by someone robbing him, explained that the meaning of “glocks in da car,” full of both danger and bravado, is that while the song’s narrator is not necessarily starting problems, he is not an uncomplicated victim either. Lightshow’s move to Atlanta was in part for his safety and his family’s, he says, which adds another layer to the meaning of his lyrics.

Lightshow works with four different producers, who all help empower his delivery no matter the words uttered. Consistent with his earlier releases, Heart offers Lightshow’s syncopated flow on songs addressing street life, relationships, and friendships, using looped classical flutes, insistent beats, and string instruments over speedy hip-hop rhythms. The album is available to stream on Spotify and other services. Free.

—Steve Kiviat

City Lights

“The Last Last Dance” Michael Jordan would prefer if everyone simply forgot about his time with the Washington Wizards; however, Slate’s Hang Up and Listen podcast has defied MJ’s wishes. “The Last Last Dance,” a 56-minute feature podcast about Jordan’s two rather unsuccessful seasons in D.C., is a fascinating reminiscence of Jordan’s time with a losing Wizards team. After retiring from the Chicago Bulls in 1999, Jordan became a part owner and president of basketball operations with the Washington Wizards.

But Jordan was not satisfied with that role, and he returned to the court for the Wizards in 2001, at the age of 38. Jordan’s time with the Wizards brought huge fan attention and television numbers to a franchise that had struggled for the previous 20 years. But the team’s lack of success—somewhat caused by Jordan’s own decisions as an executive—led to a great deal of frustration for the superstar.

Although Jordan got another shot as an owner and executive with the Charlotte Hornets and continues to be one of the most famous people on the planet, his time with the Wizards has disappeared down the memory hole. You can hear the full story of what happened on “The Last Last Dance,” not covered in the documentary series The Last Dance, on Slate’s website or your podcast listening platform of choice. The episode is available at slate.com. Free.

—Tristan Jung washingtoncitypaper.com january 2021 33

DIVERSIONS SAVAGE LOVE

Spring State of the Arts is coming this March!

Learn about advertising opportunities by contacting your account executive or emailing ads@ washingtoncity paper.com.

As you can see by my signature, Dan, I’m a linguist.

On your podcast, you frequently ask researchers “whatchyougot” on all kinds of sex- and romancerelated questions. I thought maybe you’d be interested in some expertise on linguistic matters, too.

And I have some on “cum,” “cumming,” and (shudder) “cummed.”

The technical term here used among linguists for this kind of phenomenon is “peeve.” Let me clarify, it’s not the “cum,” “cumming,” and “cummed” that’s a peeve, but the shuddering.

You see, the snide sound there is due to the fact that what causes peevers to shudder causes linguists to get interested. The point is language always changes, and linguists are interested in these changes however much they horrify normal people. (That’s our technical term for non-linguists.) Grandparents are forever lamenting about how their grandchildren’s generation is ruining the language. Documentation of this phenomenon goes back to the Roman times. And indeed, generations upon generations of grandchildren turned Latin into Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and a host of lesser-known forms of ruination.

In terms of the sticky substance at hand (or on hand), cum as a verb and cumming are just alternative spellings, which are common enough for slang. It’s slang! Are you really gonna insist slang follow uptight and buttoned-down spelling rules, Dan? That’s just stoopid. Cummed is more interesting—and also causes peevers to shudder—because it’s a real change in the language. But why shudder? Why not appreciate it instead? “Cummed” shows us how creative we are with our language, how we play with it, and, in this case, do something useful, differentiating the sublime “got off” (climaxed) from the banal “got there” (arrived).

Don’t fall into useless peeving, Dan! You’ve famously instigated language change. Just ask Rick Santorum, your former college roommate, or the men who’ve cummed and cummed hard while a nice vagina-haver pegged their ass.

—Michael Newman, Professor of Linguistics and Chair, Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders, Queens College/CUNY Thank you for taking the time to write, Professor Newman, and please forgive me for peeving you. But the sticky issue for me, if you’ll pardon the expression, remains the seemingly unnecessary and arbitrary use of an alternate spelling in this one instance. As I’ve said before, no one is confused when someone calls a person a “dick” in print and then goes on to wax poetic about the dick they sucked in the next sentence.

If we don’t have to spell it “dik” when we’re referring to male genitalia—or the genitals of penis-havers—I don’t see why “come” needs to be spelled “cum” when referring to someone climaxing or when referring to ejaculate. Of all the words out there with more than one meaning—dick, dong, cock, pussy, beaver, box, crack, rack, sack—why does this one require special linguistic treatment?

—Dan Savage Interesting take on cum ... as your column ventured into linguistics. How do you feel about “tonite” for “tonight” or “lite” for “light”? Inquiring minds want to know. —Commonly Used Mutated Spellings

34 january 2021 washingtoncitypaper.com

I made inquiries at the website of the world’s best dictionary (and best drag name) MerriamWebster, CUMS, where I learned tonite is “a blasting explosive consisting of a mixture of guncotton with a nitrate,” and lite means “made with a lower calorie content or with less of some such ingredient (salt, fat, or alcohol) than usual.” So you can have dinner tonight and wash it down with something lite, CUMS, but don’t have tonite for dinner unless you want to light yourself up.

—DS I basically agree with your views about spelling the verb as “come.” However, I think one could be a bit more nuanced about usage here. “Come” is rather polite and could easily be used in a romantic context (“Oh god honey I’m about to come”) whereas “cum” has a definite “let’s fuck” feel to it (something not unheard of in your column). Different contexts call for different styles, perhaps. I would also like to make an outright exception for the substance “cum,” which I feel should always be spelled with a “u.” For the noun, using the “u”

“Your argument convinced me, CUMFAN. If everyone else agrees to use “come” for the verb, I can swallow “cum” as a noun.

The copy editor carries the day! ” hardly seems vulgar at all. One might wonder why cum seems more appropriate for denoting semen. I can think of two good reasons. First, “cum” evokes “scum,” which matches the feelings of some (benighted) people that cum is slimy and disgusting. And secondly, the final letters “um” occur in some medical terms—all nouns—which relate to sex, like pudendum, scrotum, rectum, flagellum, perineum. This is a very different association than scum but also seems like part of the story, at least to me.

—TK Hm … I agree that an alternate spelling when referring to ejaculate could be helpful. But context also provides clarity. If a man and/or penis-haver says, “My come was everywhere,” no one thinks his/hers/their orgasms are Jesus Christ or dark matter—literally everywhere throughout the universe—but rather that he’s/ she’s/they’re exaggerating about the volume of a recent orgasm to make a point about the intensity of pleasure he/she/they derived from it. —DS I’ve been a copy editor for 15 years and a Savage Love reader for much longer. I wanted to chime in on fellow Canadian COME’s letter about the “come” vs

“cum” spelling. I fully agree that as a verb, it should be “come” and “came/coming” instead of “cummed/ cumming.” But there is a place for “cum:” as a noun when referring to the actual gooey substance (aka semen, ejaculate, spunk, etc). Consider the sentence, “I have come in my mouth.” Are you announcing an act of autofellatio (talk about a cumblebrag!) or are you describing a substance someone else left behind?

Or, “How did come get on my jacket?” Doesn’t that just look like a mistake? Millennials love turning nouns into verbs (adulting!) but I think using “come” as a noun is incorrect. And what about describing something as “cummy?” How would you spell that?

Comy? Comey? Perhaps we can all come together on this: “come” for the verb of achieving orgasm, “cum” for the noun that describes the resulting emission.

—Copyeditor Uses Modification For A Noun Your argument convinced me, CUMFAN. If everyone else agrees to use “come” for the verb, I can swallow “cum” as a noun. The copy editor carries the day!

—DS You were close with your advice to Cabin Fever, the man whose teenager was derailing his sex life, but it was still a miss. Instead of telling his kid to “take a fucking walk,” per your advice, he should use the moment to teach. As you said, Dan, even teenage boys realize that happy-and-still-in-love parents are a good thing. So instead of being confrontational, CF and his wife could laugh and pay their son the compliment of being honest: “We enjoy sex but we don’t enjoy it with you in the next room any more than you enjoy hearing it.” Then come up with someplace for him to go for a few hours that HE wants to go to and make it happen.

By being upfront, they’ll be modeling healthy adult behavior and a healthy and adult approach to problem solving. This is truly an opportunity for good parenting.

—Mom And Dad Are Fucking While I did advise CF to tell his kid to “take a fucking walk” when Mommy and Daddy wanted to peg, I expected CF to approach that conversation in a tactful and constructive manner. That said, due to the pandemic, there aren’t many places for a kid to go when his parents are fucking. A walk, for now, may be their best option. If CF’s family doesn’t already have a dog, perhaps they should get one.

—DS To my readers: There are more important things happening in the world right now than disputes over sexual slang, I realize, but I hope today’s column was a welcome and fleeting distraction from the news … kinda like that viral video of the sweet guy whose cat won’t let him make his audition tape. I am following the news and reacting in real time on Twitter, if you care to hear what I have to say, and like all sane people everywhere, I am equal parts furious and mortified. Donald Fucking Trump and every last one of his coconspirators in his family, in his administration, and in Congress belong in prison with every last traitor who stormed the U.S. Capitol last week.

Impeach the motherfucker again, and indict all the motherfuckers already.

—DS Email your Savage Love questions to mail@savagelove.net

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