DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are today’s links:

Q&A: Michelle Alexander on “The New Jim Crow” “Our criminal justice system, though it appears on the surface to be color blind, is actually working to effectively recreate a caste-like system in America. Young folks of color are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools, to brand new high-tech prisons. And once they’re released from prison, having been branded a criminal or felon, they’re ushered into a parallel social universe in which they’re stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement. Like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, the right to be free of discrimination in housing, employment, access to education and public benefits.” (The Informant)

Why I got arrested for D.C. voting rights “I am not your average protester. The last protest I attended was in 1965, demanding that President Lyndon B. Johnson take action during the civil rights struggle in Selma, Ala. But I got arrested last week because I am devastated that 600,000 residents of Washington, including me, my husband, my children and my grandchildren, continue to be denied voting representation in Congress. More important, I have seen how our lack of power in Congress negatively affects life in my beloved District, such as with the congressional override of local health-care decisions on AIDS prevention and reproductive services.” (The Washington Post)

The Rising Attacks on Black Women Since the Presence of Michelle Obama “The vilification and debasement of Black women has a long, troubled history in America that lingers with its rotten stench into our pseudo post-racial society. Michelle Obama’s presence in the White House has invoked a plan of sorts, by certain individuals and entities, to defy her image by reinforcing all things negative about Black women. Every week there is a new study focusing on how and why Black women are at the bottom of the totem pole in the land of the free. Psychology Today is the most recent culprit participating in the campaign to demean Black women.” (clutchmagonline.com)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Happy Monday to you all.

Southeast Washington minister leads rally against violence “(Rev. R. Joyce) Scott said she wanted to draw attention to the violence that has killed thousands of young black men in the past decade and to empower people in communities wracked by shootings to rise up and fight…Scott and others compared the violence responsible for the shootings of her grandsons and so many others to evil. ‘God doesn’t do drive-bys; the devil does.’” (The Washington Post)

At Thai Orchid’s Kitchen, Curry Meets Fried Cod Sandwiches East of D.C.’s Anacostia River “The sudden emergence of Thai food in Ward 7, Italian-influenced or not, would seem to indicate a neighborhood on the verge of sweeping revitalization. According to urban planner Richard Layman, a long-time chronicler of new restaurants’ relation to shifting neighborhood demographics, Thai eateries are generally among the “second wave” of retailers to set up shop in an up-and-coming part of town.” (Washington City Paper)

Schwarzenegger, Gingrich, Strauss-Kahn: White People Behaving Badly “Has the time finally come for social scientists who blame the so-called culture of poverty for the lowly status of the black underclass to start focusing on the equally pathological culture of the wealthy, powerful…all-white elite?…while the sort of self-destructive, irresponsible and slothful attitudes and behaviors that we impute to the poor souls stuck at the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder are also common at its pinnacle, we treat those at the top very differently.” (The Root)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your slightly soggy links:

GOP-Style Democrats Slash DC Budget: Homeless Moms Already Given Bus Tokens, Not Shelter “(Eric) Sheptock has a stark, up-close perspective on the DC government’s new War on the Poor (as opposed to LBJ’s War on Poverty): ‘To make a long story short, they want to push the poor out of the city,’ he says. ‘They don’t want a place where the poor and homeless can come’” He adds, ‘They won’t want to wait to end the culture of dependence: they just want poor people to get out of town. They’re defunding affordable housing, they’re decreasing housing production, they’re shutting down shelters, breaking down encampments. You don’t prevent homelessness, you don’t cure it, you don’t want to shelter them.’” (Huffington Post)

Tangents: On Cornel, Obama and Identity “I also find myself repeatedly troubled when I read about how biracial or multiracial people (where one of those “pieces” is black) talk about their experiences as if they are so far removed from those of someone who, like me, goes by “just black…”… I guess I am saying that it would be nice if these conversations about social binaries recognized the fact that since race is socially constructed, then deciding “how we are going to be in the world” is an issue for all blacks or part-blacks regardless of how much “black” each of us has in our “blood”.” (Jay Smooth/Ill Doctrine)

Metro Chief Taborn Talks About Crime “(Chief Michael)Taborn spent nearly two hours answering questions, providing details, offering statistics and giving examples of how the agency is reaching out to compare WMATA’s issues with other public transportation agencies. ‘You are a lot safer in the Metro system than you are walking the streets of any jurisdiction in the national capitol region,’ he said. Overall, the number of assaults, car thefts, and electronic device thefts is on the rise from this time last year but the number of violent crimes like robbery and rape are actually down.” (WUSA Washington, DC)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Why not start your Wednesday with some links:

To Be Black, And Also A “Mutt” “In response to perceived social slights, West severs Obama from any individual claim to blackness while inviting him to accept the terms of an implicit contract by which his lost negritude might be restored. For mixed people, blackness is not accepted as a fact of existence but something negotiable, a question of membership to which those whom are Truly Black may grant you access. This gives the game away of course, the reality of race as an invention, if one we have no choice but to live with.” (The American Prospect)

Councilmembers vehemently stand up for stingy, multiple-car owning, wealthy residents “In a budget that makes very deep cuts, there was more passion for keeping parking cheap and for keeping taxes on the wealthy low than anything for keeping people off the street and from going hungry…This parochial argumentation seemed more bizarre in the context of all the cuts that threaten the life or health of some of the least fortunate residents. Asking households with 3 cars to pay $100 more per year is apparently “exorbitant,” to use Thomas’ term, but having families unable to get basic food and shelter didn’t stir up nearly as much outrage.” (Greater Greater Washington)

Metro Bus Riders With 7 Day Pass Charged Extra “Many passengers have noticed that their SmarTrip card is being charged bus fare, which means the $15 pass they bought is money out the window. ‘In two weeks I went though $100,’ said Corinthia Offutt, an Anacostia resident. Metro officials admit there is a problem with their software, but they say it will take until next month to get it fixed. Until then it’s up to customers figure out if they’ve been overcharged.” (WUSA Washington, DC)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Five fresh links await you:

Interview with Alycea on Punching Earthquakes and Tornadoes "My name is Alycea. I am five-years-old…I want to tell all of the kids in Washington not to worry about tornadoes and earthquakes because if they come here, I will punch them in the face. I will punch them and then step on them so they won’t knock our buildings down. Now can I ask you some questions? Have you ever seen an orangutan eat his own poop at the zoo? Have you ever had a baby in your stomach? Have you ever put cake on your pizza?” (peoplesdistrict.com)

Sisters Go From The Streets And Trouble To College "The Callahan sisters are among the first teens literally rescued from the streets by the now-struggling Peaceaholics program — founded by Juahar Abraham and Ron Moten, a couple of youth advocates who got healthy funding from then-mayor Adrian Fenty. Moten and Abraham confirm the Callahan sisters were among the toughest and most feared females in Southeast, DC. But once they were recruited to stop the violence, other females followed and agreed to "'do the right things.'" (WUSA Washington, DC)

Apartment construction to spike in D.C. area "A surge in completions may cause area owners to sweat, but the new rentals should be absorbed fairly quickly due to falling vacancy rates, a spike in jobs and a large pool of short-tenure residents, according to the forecast…Asking rents will increase 4.6 percent to $1,442 per month, while a 5.5 percent jump in effective rents to $1,374 per month will reduce concessions to 4.7 percent of asking rents. During 2010, asking rents rose 3.5 percent, and effective rents gained 5.5 percent." (bizjournals.com)

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Good morning, DCentric readers! Welcome back from your weekend.

Profile of ‘Unlikely Brothers’ authors “They don’t even look much like friends. But Michael and J.P., denizens of two very different Washingtons, are at this favorite spot celebrating a relationship that has spanned 25 years and produced a harrowing record of violence, despair and, finally, redemption. After a chance meeting in a homeless shelter in 1984, an aimless 21-year-old activist and a homeless 7-year-old city kid effectively declared each other brothers for life.” (The Washington Post)

Police Drop Search for Missing D.C. Teen’s Body “A Washington, D.C. mother may never bury her 18-year-old daughter, whose body is believed to be entombed in dozens of feet of trash somewhere in a Virginia landfill…Investigators might have been more likely to excavate the landfill if Frazier didn’t belong to the “small world” of blue-collar workers, according to her father, Barry Campbell.” (afro.com)

Graduates From First Black High School Celebrate 75th Reunion “Twenty classmates from Dunbar High School, the country’s first black high school, celebrated their 75th-year reunion last week in Southwest Washington…Dunbar High School began back in 1870 in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. The school employed black teachers during a time when most schools would not…One of Dunbar’s earliest principals was the first black graduate of Harvard University.” (The Root)

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