Secrecy, Submission, and CMPD
Charlotte cops punched and pummeled a woman at a public bus stop on a public street, but they insisted on privacy when discussing their assault upon her, and we, as a political community, went along. After a few of his officers beat Christina Pierre in November 2023, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Johnny Jennings announced plans…
Jeff Jackson Isn’t Your Schoolgirl Crush
No matter how hard he strives for celebrity, a politician shouldn’t be judged by the standards of a Tiger Beat cover boy. Jeff Jackson, a Democratic congressman from Charlotte who’s running for state attorney general, first entered public office in 2014 when party members named him to a vacant seat in the North Carolina Senate.…
CMPD Lands a Few Blows
Charlotte cops beat the hell out of Christina Pierre, and now it’s time for the commonwealth to take a few blows. By now the story is well known: On November 17, Pierre and Anthony Lee, Pierre’s partner and co-worker, sat at a public bus stop in Steele Creek after their shifts ended at a nearby…
One Cheer for a GOP Victory
Republican Tariq Bokhari, the self-styled tech bro with a history of using his public office to further his own private interests, narrowly won reelection to Charlotte City Council in last week’s municipal elections. In a rematch against Democrat Stephanie Hand for the District 6 seat on Council, Bokhari won by a 51%-49% margin. (Bokhari beat…
N.C. Bar Association Embraces Homophobia
Nothing disappoints like the cowardice of fair-weather friends. In 2021, the North Carolina Bar Association — the premier professional organization for the state’s lawyers — touted its queer-friendly bona fides when then-President John Heyl announced the formation of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Committee, which pledged to work “to secure full equality for…
Queer Hope in Red America
The call for help went out less than twenty-four hours before the march. C.L.E.V.E.R. (Creating Love & Equity through Voices Education & Reflection), an Iredell County non-profit committed to protecting and promoting the rights and dignity of LGBTQ young people, planned to mark International Transgender Visibility Day on March 31 with a rally in downtown…
The Bizarre Deceptions of “Smuggie” Mitchell
Breaking news in the murder of JonBenet Ramsey came from the other side of the globe. Nearly a decade after the six-year-old girl was found dead in her Boulder, Colorado home on December 26, 1996, American John Mark Karr confessed to police in Thailand that he had killed her. Karr, a thirty-something white man in…
Remembering Parks Helms
On April 1, 1997, at the age of twenty, I sat in the meeting chamber of Charlotte’s government center as a narrowly divided board of county commissioners, over raucous objections from hundreds of people, codified homophobia in Mecklenburg County. I had been walking out of my dorm at Queens University of Charlotte the week before…
Leandro As Failure
Among the main characters of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House is Jarndyce and Jarndyce, an unresolved, long-lasting chancery suit of unclear origin and nature. The suit, which may have something to do with an inheritance, features attorneys on all of its many sides “engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping…
Democrats’ “Country Over Party” Strategy Reeks of Weakness
Of course elected officials ought to put country over party. Of course the people ought to prefer representatives who govern for the sake of the common good. Of course congressmen and senators ought to do their work in a manner that honors the nation’s values — even when doing so might conflict with their own,…
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