Month: February 2020

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Crosstown’s No Meat Meet-Ups: for Vegans and Veg-Curious

Bianca Phillips has been organizing vegan events in Memphis since 2004. Phillips says that, for her, it started as a moral issue rather than one of diet.

“I consider myself an ethical vegan, so vegan for the animals,” she says. “[We] don’t want to contribute to factory farming.

“When I went vegan in 2004, I wanted to meet other vegans. I put flyers around town, old-school flyers. Like, ‘We’re going to have an animal rights meeting!’ and people came.” At the time, the focus of the group was to spread animal rights information and not to focus on the health benefits of veganism.

Bianca Phillips

No meat, no problem — Crosstown Arts hosts vegan potluck meet-ups.

“We’d organize mostly PETA protests, and PETA would send us materials and we’d go out to KFC or somewhere. … We did circus protests, vegan leafleting, dressed in full plant costumes that we made ourselves,” she says with a laugh.

“[At the time] it was called Memphis Area Animal Rights Activists, and shortly after we started, I met a guy named Vaughan Dewar, and he was interested in starting a vegan meet-up group to be more focused on the food aspects of veganism and not quite as much the protest side of things,” Phillips says.

“He joined our animal rights group, but on the side, he founded another group called Food Awareness, and he would put together these super-researched presentations and go to churches and other places to deliver these talks about the benefits of a plant-based diet.

“At some point, we merged our groups together and started doing less of the protest stuff and became more focused on vegan meet-ups. So we would get together once a month at different restaurants around town and eat vegan food together,” she says, citing popular spots for vegans and non-vegans alike, like Pho Binh, which is famous for its lemongrass tofu.

Roughly 16 years later, the vegan movement in Memphis is stronger than ever. “Just in the past two years, with the whole plant-based movement, it’s much more socially acceptable to be vegan or ‘plant-based,'” she says. “I used to feel like I knew, or knew of, all the vegans in Memphis, but not anymore.”

It does feel like there are significantly more options for vegans in Memphis now than there were in the past. With the rise of local establishments like Imagine Vegan Cafe and the Raw Girls food truck, the city is embracing veganism more than ever.

Last year, when the cafe at Crosstown Arts transitioned from a full-service lunch and dinner menu to a smaller menu of pastries and coffee, Chris Miner, co-founder of Crosstown Arts, wanted to make sure the space was kept active.

That’s when he approached Phillips about organizing a monthly vegan potluck in the cafe space. Miner was familiar with Phillips’ history of organizing vegan food and drink events and thought that would be a perfect fit for Crosstown Arts.

The No Meat Meet-Up Vegan Potlucks launched last September, with about 30 attendees at the inaugural event. Since then, the attendance has gone up each month, with attendees bringing a rich variety of vegan dishes to each gathering. While it’s not required that those who attend bring a dish, it is, of course, encouraged so there’s enough food to go around.

Some of the dishes people have brought to past potlucks include tater tot casserole, Bhel Puri, vegan pizza, and desserts. It’s a great way for even non-vegans, who may be intimidated by the perceived confines of a vegan diet, to sample a number of different vegan food options at once.

For vegans who want to gather with like-minded people, or non-vegans who are curious about plant-based diets, the No Meat Meet-Up Vegan Potlucks are an opportunity to meet, mingle, and sample different kinds of foods.

Crosstown Arts will host the next No Meat Meet-Up Vegan Potluck on Sunday, February 16th.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Park + Cherry’s Phillip Dewayne Is Cooking — Thanks to “Dad”

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Phillip Dewayne had no desire to be a chef when, as a teenager, he landed a job washing dishes at The Peabody.

His friend’s mom got him a job in the banquet kitchen. “Which is hundreds and thousands of dishes a night because of the capacity of work they do,” Dewayne says.

That’s when he met the man he calls “Dad” — Andreas Kisler, The Peabody’s executive chef.

Michael Donahue

Phillip Dewayne

Dewayne now is chef/owner of Park + Cherry at Dixon Gallery and Gardens. “I never would have taken this journey without him,” he says. “Honestly, I owe everything to that guy.”

On February 20th, Dewayne and Aaron Bertelsen, author of Grow Fruit & Vegetables in Pots: Planting Advice & Recipes from Great Dixter, will create a three-course dinner.

Dewayne, 30, who grew up in a two-bedroom house with his mother, grandparents, sister, and brother in Klondike in North Memphis, had never met anybody like Kisler. “Kisler and I had a few talks, and he basically told me, ‘You know, if you take this seriously, you listen to me, one day you can go on to open your own restaurant. You’ll be as successful as you push yourself and allow yourself to be.'”

Dewayne became a cook, and Kisler yelled at him like he did the other cooks. “I would overcook things,” he says. “I would undercook meats. I screwed up a lot. I was 18, 19 at the time. I wasn’t always prompt. I got sent home a ton for not being in the right attire.”

But Kisler also told him, “You know, I have to be that guy because I have to get the team in order.”

Dewayne became Kisler’s “go-to guy.” He helped him with the hotel’s wedding tastings and banquet events. “We became like Batman and Robin,” Dewayne says.

He refers to Kisler as Dad. “Not having a dad, he kind of stepped into that role for me,” he says. “I had the ultimate respect for him. I knew that he was really trying to give me something I could have for a lifetime.”

After a few years, Dewayne left the hotel and went to work for River Oaks’ chef/owner Jose Gutierrez. “Andreas probably would have preferred for me to stay and work my way up, but my ambition pushed me to want to leave The Peabody,” he says.

Dewayne also worked at Restaurant Iris under chef/owner Kelly English. “Andreas and Jose were more French technique straight by the book,” he says. “Kelly was true to the South. Very Cajun, very New Orleans Creole.”

After Restaurant Iris, Dewayne took a job at the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego, joined the Navy, then moved back to Memphis, where he worked as a private chef, became part of a catering business, and began his own meal prep business.

Dewayne then got the job at Dixon, where he focuses on farm-to-table dishes. As for the “Phillip Dewayne style,” he says, “I like Asian [food], so I’m trying to create more of a French-Asian fusion. … I love to create a taste that people never had before.”

Dewayne’s excited about working with Bertelsen. “We’re going to team up for a USA-UK collaboration take on dinner. We’ve created a menu that’s American and British, based on some of the recipes from his books. I’ve tweaked them a bit to add a little a Southern flair.”

And now Dewayne is giving back. He created the Chef Phillip Dewayne Foundation. “I teach parents how to nourish their kids. It’s an effort to fight childhood obesity and give food knowledge to poverty-ridden neighborhoods.”

Garden to Table dinner with chef Phillip Dewayne and Aaron Bertelsen from the Great Dixter House & Gardens in East Sussex will be held at 6 p.m. on February 20th at Park + Cherry restaurant at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, 4330 Park. Tickets are $150, which includes all food and beverages and a copy of Bertelsen’s book. To make reservations, call 761-5250 or visit dixon.org.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Dixie Beer: The Story Behind NOLA’s Iconic Brew

On television, investigative journalists are never shown wasting most of their time on leads that go absolutely nowhere — but it happens. A lot. Back in 2015, I was in New Orleans chasing down what appeared to be an insurance fraud case of near-biblical proportions when I found myself in the back of a car driven by the owners of the iconic Dixie Brewery. I’d been a fan since college, and this was an angle to the story that was just too weird not to follow.

Dixie Beer was started in 1907 and bopped along swimmingly until the big nationals drove most of the locals out of business in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, in the 1970s, there was that infamous “bad batch”: 45,000 cases of epically skunky Dixie Beer. Smelling a bargain, Joe and Kendra Bruno bought the brand in 1985. They filed for bankruptcy in 1989, apparently deciding that being technically a microbrewery offering a single beer that tasted exactly like Miller Lite was not a great business plan. Dixie then introduced a more substantial Blackened Voodoo lager and by the 1990s had brewed itself back into solvency.

Then came Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The brewery on Tulane Avenue took on 10 feet of water and was looted shortly thereafter. Ten years later, the Brunos were in an eminent domain argument with the city and LSU over the abandoned building possibly being expropriated for a VA hospital. It made them paranoid. Which brings it back to where I came in.

Kendra leaned around the front seat and asked how she could be sure I wasn’t a shill of the LSU system. The charming Mrs. M leaned forward and said, “Oh, Murff went to Alabama. He hates LSU.”

That did the trick.

Without a building, Dixie was then contract brewed in Wisconsin, and later, after Saints owner Tom Benson and his wife Gail bought the brand in 2017, here in Memphis at the Blues City Brewery. The recipe has remained the same, but it’s hard to see how the Memphis water didn’t improve on that paragon of unremarkably drinkable beer. We’ve got artesian wells; the water in NOLA tastes like underwear.

About two months ago, Dixie returned home to East New Orleans, with plans to take the brand national. Which would be nice, because you can’t actually get it in Memphis proper — not even when it was made here. You can get it in Southaven.

With Mardi Gras upon us, it may be worth the trip over the state line for a six-pack or two in order to get in the spirit. Especially since the insurance companies have ruled out the baby in the king cake as a choking hazard. Absurd. Of course, it is. In fact, all of New Orleans is a choking hazard. That’s where the magic happens.

I understand that Dixie is not using city water and possibly getting it from the artesian wells of Abita Springs — home of Abita Brewing — which, if you need a Mardi Gras beer here, is a great option.

Abita’s Mardi Gras Bock is, to me, an obvious marketing gimmick aimed at the sort of people who eschew king cake simply to avoid choking to death. Its amber, on the other hand, is a great Munich-style beer. Hop 99 is a great ale for all you hopheads, and Wrought Iron IPA is just a great beer.

It’s Dixie Beer, though, that is my psychic anchor to New Orleans; perhaps it’s the memories as much as anything. Their Blackened Voodoo lager is worth trying, especially on Fat Tuesday, not only for the flavor but because it was banned for a time in Texas as being too occultish and witchy. For my money, someone here in town needs to start carrying this stuff on those credentials alone.

As for the insurance fraud story I was chasing, it was deemed too weird to publish. You don’t see that on the television either. That’s just bad storytelling.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Beale Street Music Festival: Memphis in May Reels in Global, Local Stars

CREDIT: Nabil

Nabil

Lil Wayne

Back in December, Memphis in May announced a few of the headliners for this year’s Beale Street Music Festival. Today, we know the rest of the story.

In addition to previously announced acts such as The Lumineers, Lil Wayne, The Avett Brothers, and Memphis’ own Three 6 Mafia, the lineup is now even more sure to have something for everyone:  Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, The 1975, DaBaby, 311, Deftones, Leon Bridges, Lindsey Buckingham, Louis the Child, Nelly, Portugal. The Man, Brittany Howard, Liam Gallagher, and rappers Moneybagg Yo, Young Dolph and Al Kapone.

The Lumineers

Those last three are not the only performers with deep Memphis connections. “Of course, Beale Street Music Festival always prominently features Memphis artists,” says James L. Holt, President and CEO of Memphis in May, “and this year is no exception, with Mavis Staples, Project Pat, Lil Wyte, Amy LaVere, and many more.”
Myriam Santos

Mavis Staples

Other acts familiar to many music fans include: Of Monsters and Men, AJR, Rival Sons, Billy Strings, Manchester Orchestra, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Glorious Sons, Patty Griffin (winner of the 2020 Grammy for Best Folk Album), Waka Flocka Flame, Dirty Honey, Duke Deuce, Reignwolf, Toosii, Beabadoobee, Crobot, and Lil Migo.

The festival’s international exposure is especially pronounced, with the lineup also featuring two mega-stars from Ghana, the country to be honored during this year’s Memphis in May celebrations. The rapper Sarkodie has been recognized twice as Africa’s Artist of the Year and named to MTV’s and BET’s lists of top African rap artists, while Stonebwoy was named 2019’s Best Male Artist at the African Entertainment Awards.

Sarkodie

Meanwhile, the Beale Street Music Festival once again lives up to its namesake, the home of the blues, with appearances by Keb Mo (winner of the 2020 Grammy for Best Americana Album), Bobby Rush, and Taj Mahal, along with Janiva Magness, Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys, Trigger Hippy, Kenny Brown, Lisa Mills, The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Sue Foley, Blind Mississippi Morris, Hurricane Ruth, Kelly Hunt, Richard Johnston, Earl “the Pearl” Banks, Memphissippi Sound, and Australia’s Blues Music Award winners, Kings and Associates.

The Beale Street Music Festival opens to the public at 5 pm on Friday, May 1st and runs through Sunday, May 3rd. Tickets can be purchased through eventbrite.com and are sold now through April 19th as three-day passes for $145 or single-day tickets for $55 (limited quantities). A limited number of VIP passes are also available at eventbrite.com for $699.

The 2020 Beale Street Music Festival is sponsored by Bud Light, Terminix, and Monster Energy.

Categories
Book Features Books

Jerry Mitchell’s Race Against Time

James Patterson

Jerry Mitchell


This Wednesday, February 12th, MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient, investigative journalist, and author Jerry Mitchell will discuss and sign his recently released book Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era (Simon & Schuster) at Novel bookstore.

The book was more than 30 years in the making. Mitchell’s interest in — and outrage at — a series of murders of civil rights activists by members of the Ku Klux Klan were stoked when he was sent on assignment to write up the 1988 film, Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning. So, in more ways than one, Mitchell’s efforts to bring the Klan killers to justice was a race against time.

“It was a race against time, in time being of the essence,” he says. “In case after case, there are all these deadlines.” So this book, a work of investigative reporting meets memoir that reads like a page-turner of a legal thriller, is also a race toward justice.

“The purpose for which, unfortunately, these people were killed is the color of their skin,” Mitchell says. “Many people had their lives stolen.” Race Against Time chronicles Mitchell’s work to help make sure the killers paid for their crimes.

“You’re always going to have people who question your motives in any level of reporting,” Mitchell says. “I even had people who would say, ‘Why don’t you leave these old men alone,’ and I would try to explain to them, ‘Look, these were young people when the crimes were committed. These were young killers who just happened to get old, and justice had never come.’”

So this work was not without its hurdles. “This wasn’t politically popular. It wasn’t like you’d take on a case and the voters would overwhelmingly throng to the polls to support you on this,” Mitchell adds. “I even had an editor who didn’t want me to take on these stories.”

But take on the stories Mitchell did, and his efforts were, by and large, successful. “All these guys I wrote about died in prison,” the reporter says evenly. Still, Mitchell doesn’t dwell on the perpetrators of the heinous crimes — rather he talks more of the bravery and resilience of their victims’ families and of the authorities who worked to bring the murderers to justice. “To me, it’s the story of these courageous families who never gave up.” Mitchell wanted to make sure that the victims’ families received “some semblance of justice before it was too late.”

Even years after the murders took place, though, reporting on the crimes was dangerous, as was advocating for justice. “The Klan was a very powerful organization,” Mitchell says. And about the murderers themselves, he adds, “They may not be as strong as they were before, but they could still pull a trigger. Just because they’re old doesn’t mean they can’t shoot.”

In the end, though, and in this instance at least, justice won out. Of course, Mitchell, whose nonprofit, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting has been looking into unjust outcomes in Delta prisons, is not one to throw himself a victory party, reminding the reader that there is no shortage of social ills to combat. “Justice is about more than what happens in the courtroom,” Mitchell says. “It’s about how we treat each other.”

Jerry Mitchell discusses and signs copies of his new book, Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era, at Novel bookstore, Wednesday, February 12th, at 6 p.m.

Categories
News News Blog

Memphis Pets of the Week (2/11/20-2/17/20)

Each week, the Flyer will feature adoptable dogs and cats from Memphis Animal Services. All photos are credited to Memphis Pets Alive. More pictures and more information can be found on the Memphis Pets Alive Facebook page.

[slideshow-1]

Categories
News News Blog

Beale Street Music Fest Announces Full 2020 Lineup

The Beale Street Music Festival has released its full lineup for the 2020 event. 

Here’s the press release from Memphis in May:

Memphis in May’s Beale Street Music Festival proudly announces its wide-ranging 2020 lineup. Often cited for bringing together an eclectic mix of artists and genres for the three-day festival on the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis, the forty-fourth installment upholds that reputation with a lineup featuring hip hop, rock, alternative, Americana, pop, and of course, the blues.

With a first round of headliners that was announced in December and featured The Lumineers, Lil Wayne, The Avett Brothers and Memphis’ own Oscar-winning Three 6 Mafia, Beale Street Music Festival now adds to that list of headliners Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, The 1975, DaBaby, and 311. Other big-name acts joining them are Deftones, Leon Bridges, Lindsey Buckingham, Louis the Child, Nelly, Portugal. The Man, Brittany Howard, Liam Gallagher and Memphis rappers Moneybagg Yo, Young Dolph and Al Kapone. (Complete list attached.)

“While the 2020 Beale Street Music Festival not only brings back to Tom Lee Park popular acts such as Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Avett Brothers, 311 and Deftones, we’re bringing new acts who are making their festival debut in 2020, such as The Lumineers, Lil Wayne, The 1975, DaBaby, and Leon Bridges” said James L. Holt, President and CEO of Memphis in May. “Of course, Beale Street Music Festival always prominently features Memphis artists and this year is no exception, with Three 6 Mafia, Moneybagg Yo, Young Dolph, Mavis Staples, Project Pat, Al Kapone, Lil Wyte, Amy LaVere and many more.”

With a month-long cultural salute to Ghana this year, the lineup also features two Ghanaian superstar artists: multiple award-winning rapper Sarkodie, who has been recognized twice as Africa’s Artist of the Year and named to MTV’s and BET’s lists of top African rap artists, and Stonebwoy, named 2019’s Best Male Artist at the African Entertainment Awards.

Other lineup highlights include: Of Monsters and Men, AJR, Rival Sons, Billy Strings, Manchester Orchestra, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Glorious Sons, Patty Griffin (winner of the 2020 Grammy for Best Folk Album), Waka Flocka Flame, Dirty Honey, Duke Deuce, Reignwolf, Toosii, Beabadoobee, Crobot and Lil Migo.

The Beale Street Music Festival celebrates its blues heritage all weekend long in the Coca-Cola Blues Tent with headline performances by Keb Mo (winner of the 2020 Grammy for Best Americana Album), Bobby Rush, and Taj Mahal, along with Janiva Magness, Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys, Trigger Hippy, Kenny Brown, Lisa Mills, The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Sue Foley, Blind Mississippi Morris, Earl the Pearl Banks, Hurricane Ruth, Kelly Hunt, Richard Johnston, Earl “the Pearl” Banks, Memphissippi Sound, and Australia’s Blues Music Award winners, Kings and Associates.

Tickets can be purchased through Eventbrite.com and are sold now through April 19 as three-day passes for just $145 or single-day tickets for $55 (limited quantities). A limited number of VIP passes are also available at eventbrite.com for $699 and provide access to exclusive viewing platforms near the main stages and in the Blues Tent, private “comfort station” restrooms, and light snacks and drinks (including limited alcoholic beverages) for all three days.

The festival opens to the public at 5:00 pm on Friday, May 1 and runs through Sunday, May 3. The 2020 Beale Street Music Festival is sponsored by Bud Light, Terminix and Monster Energy.

Categories
News News Blog

TN House Committee Advances ‘Hateful Anti-Refugee’ Resolution

CREDIT: World Relief

World Relief

Refugee family reunites at airport

A Tennessee House committee advanced what some are calling a “hateful anti-refugee” resolution Tuesday.

The resolution, HJR 0741, sponsored by Rep. Terri Weaver (R-Lancaster), seeks to advance Tennessee’s lawsuit against the federal government over refugee resettlement here.

The lawsuit was filed in March 2017 against the United States Department of State on the grounds that refugee settlement in Tennessee violates the U.S. Constitution by requiring the state to pay for a program it did not consent to.

The lawsuit was dismissed in March 2018 by a federal judge who ruled there was a lack of standing by the legislature to sue on its own behalf and that the state failed to show that refugee resettlement in Tennessee violates the Constitution.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in August, also stating that the General Assembly had not established its standing.


In September, attorneys with the Thomas Moore Law Center (TMLC), who are representing the state in the suit, filed a petition asking the appellate court to rehear the case, on the grounds that the court’s decision was “painfully at odds” with Supreme Court precedent. The court denied that request.


Now, attorneys with the TMLC are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

[pullquote-2]

Weaver, who was the House sponsor of the 2016 resolution that initiated the litigation, said the purpose of the resolution is to help the lawsuit move to the Supreme Court.

“The problem that is being addressed is that the federal government cannot coerce the states to pay for a federal program because that sets a very dangerous precedent for us as a state using the state budget as a solution to federal funding deficit.”

Weaver

Weaver said President Donald Trump’s executive order in September, which gave states the choice to opt in or out of continuing refugee resettlement and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s consent to the program “has made it a muddy mess.”

“We object to Governor Bill Lee’s action, the effect of which nullifies and violates the constitutional duty and exclusive institutional authority and power of the General Assembly to expend public money pursuant to appropriations made by law,” the resolution reads in part.

Weaver said she doesn’t like to see “where the separation of powers are muddied. We need to stay in our own sandbox.”

Rep. Bill Beck (D-Nashville) opposed the resolution Tuesday.

“To me it just seems that the love, accepting, warm, hospitality that we as Tennesseans serve is not reflected in this resolution,” Beck said. “We need to put ourselves in the shoes of those fleeing persecution and the challenges they have and know the empathy we need to have for them and to know what they’re going through and to welcome them and love them and lift them up. That’s my position.”

To that Weaver responded: “This is not that. This is all about a federal program. We can’t stop refugees from coming here because it’s a federal program. So what we’re asking is the federal government to pay for it.”

Weaver added that “the spirit of this is not mean. The spirit of this is to separate separations of powers, which we gave our oath to protect.

We’re appropriating funds for something we do not have authority over and that is a slippery slope for other programs down the road.”

Weaver said she is unclear about exactly how much the state is appropriating to the program, but that the state has been responsible for costs related to housing, English Language Acquisition (ELA), and health-care needs of refugees.

“We have our homeless, our veterans, our seniors,” Weaver said. “We have people in this state that are citizens currently that have needs we need to address as well.”

The resolution advanced Tuesday with a voice vote.

[pullquote-1]

Judith Clerjeune, policy and legislative affairs manager for the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition Votes condemned the resolution, calling it a “hateful tactic.”

“Just in time for another election, a handful of legislators are returning to their classic hateful playful — scapegoating refugees,” Clerjeune said. “Facing a primary challenge, Rep. Weaver is trying to appeal to those most hateful voters in her district, hoping she can win her re-election bid by targeting some of the world’s most vulnerable people. But, her constituents deserve a representative who will work to meaningfully improve their lives, not just recycle a failed resolution from five years ago.”

Clerjeune also questions the intent of the resolution.

“Despite legislators’ attempts to cast these bills and resolutions as simply a matter of clarifying constitutional responsibilities, the real intent and impact of these efforts are a crystal clear: keeping refugees from finding safety and opportunity in Tennessee.”

Categories
News News Blog

Lawmakers Call for Study on High Homicide Rate of Black Tennesseans

A group of Democratic lawmakers wants a study to be done on the high homicide rate among African Americans in Tennessee.

The bill (HB 1545/SB 1430) is sponsored by six members of the House, including G.A. Hardaway, Jesse Chism, Antonio Parkinson, and London Lamar from Memphis.

Tennessee was recently ranked in the top 10 states for the highest homicide rates among African American victims, based on a study done by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) in May.

The VPC is a nonprofit organization that conducts research, offers public education, and provides the public and policymakers with analysis and information on the issue of violence in America.

Analyzing data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ 2016 Supplemental Homicide Report (the most recent data), the VPC found that the national homicide rate for African American victims was more than four times higher than the overall national rate.

In 2016, the national rate was 5.1 homicides per 100,000 people, while the national rate among African Americans was 20.44 per 100,000.

[pullquote-2]

In Tennessee, the rate of homicide among African American victims — 28.4 per 100,000 — surpassed both the overall national rate and the national rate among African Americans.

That trend is reflected in Memphis homicide numbers. In Memphis, African Americans make up 64 percent of the total population, and in 2019, 86.3 percent of all homicide victims here were African American, according to data from the Memphis Police Department. Of the 190 homicide victims here last year, only 26 were non-black.

Black males accounted for the largest percentage of homicide victims here last year, making up a little over 75 percent of all victims.

Lawmakers say these numbers represent a “public health crisis” for the state and are calling for the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) to produce a study on the issue.

Staples

Rep. Rick Staples (D-Knoxville), the bill’s main sponsor, told the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Tuesday that currently there are statistics available on homicide rates, but there is no data on why African Americans in Tennessee lead the nation as victims of homicide.

“There’s nothing that targets why we lead the nation in that,” Staples said. “So if we could get information on that that is specific and factual like TACIR does, it could give us a lead or a path to follow so we can work in concert to correct this issue.”

The goals of the study, Staples said, would be to gather “solid information” that points to the causes of the high homicide rate among back Tennesseans, and then to determine whether legislative action is necessary to address those causes and what the state and local governments can do to reduce the rate.

According to a draft of the bill, the study would include a historical comparison of the homicide rate among black Tennesseans, as well as possible factors contributing to changes in the rate over time.

The study would also include a comparison of homicide rates among African Americans with that of other demographics in the state, as well as with the rates in neighboring states.

[pullquote-1]

Going further, the study would also look at what state and local initiatives are in place to combat the high homicide rates among black Tennessseans.

“We’re not asking for TACIR to necessarily come up with implementation or corrections,” Staples said. “What we’re asking TACIR is to do a study so that we can look at what we could possibly do as the General Assembly. That’s basically, in a nutshell, what this piece of legislation is doing.”

The bill advanced in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Tuesday to be heard by the full Judicial Committee. If the bill passes, TACIR would have until January 31, 2021, to present the report and any findings to the General Assembly.

Rep. Antonio Parkinson, who represents Memphis and sits on TACIR, said, “When they [TACIR] do their research and work on these questions that we have, they will be extremely thorough in what they bring back to us.” If the legislation passes, Parkinson said the study “will answer a lot of questions for us.”


Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Parasite Returns, The Harder They Come, and After Parkland In Theaters This Week

Jimmy Cliff as Ivanhoe Martin in The Harder They Come

It’s a gloomy week in February, but there’s lots to see on the big screen in Memphis.

Tonight the International Jewish Film Festival continues with Crescendo, a German-Israeli production about a conductor (Peter Simonischek) tasked with creating an orchestra of Israeli and Palanstinian players for a peace concert. The film starts at 7 p.m. tonight at Malco Ridgeway.

Parasite Returns, The Harder They Come, and After Parkland In Theaters This Week (2)

On Wednesday, Feb. 12, Indie Memphis is bringing the one-night-only national screening of After Parkland to Malco Powerhouse. The documentary was made by ABC producers Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman, who rushed to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting that killed 17 students. Their cameras watched as student survivors David Hogg and others launched a national movement gun control movement. Wednesday’s coordinated national screenings mark a day of action to commemorate the second anniversary of the massacre. Tickets are available at the Indie Memphis website.

Parasite Returns, The Harder They Come, and After Parkland In Theaters This Week (3)

On Thursday, Feb. 14, Crosstown Arthouse presents one of the greatest music films of all time at the Crosstown Theater. Jamaica in 1971 was a pressure cooker of sound, with reggae, ska, and rock steady tracks pouring out of a hardscrabble independent studio scene that would look familiar to Memphians.

All that musical genius came to a head with The Harder They Come, which introduced the world to reggae and made Jimmy Cliff the music’s first international breakout star. This is a low-budget indie film before such a thing had a name.

Since director Perry Henzell and company couldn’t afford sets, they took the streets and shot guerilla style. The resulting inadvertent documentary footage of Jamaica is worth the price of admission alone. The plot is also ahead of its time—think Boyz n The Hood with a patois. The incredible soundtrack includes Cliff’s titular mega-hit and Toots and the Maytal’s immortal “Pressure Drop”. The show starts at 7:30 p.m., $5 at the door.

Parasite Returns, The Harder They Come, and After Parkland In Theaters This Week (3)

Did you wake up feeling strange on Monday? That’s because the night before, the best film of 2019 (which was, by the way, a great year for quality films) actually won Best Picture at the Academy Awards! On Friday, Feb. 14, celebrate Valentine’s Day by taking your boo to Bong Joon-Ho’s brutal satire of late-stage capitalism, Parasite. This one is a must-see.

Parasite Returns, The Harder They Come, and After Parkland In Theaters This Week (4)