Anna | DCentric

Author Archives: Anna

DCentric was created to examine the ways race and class interact in Washington, D.C., a city with a vibrant mix of cultures and neighborhoods. Your guides to the changing district are reporters Anna John and Elahe Izadi.

May 4, 2011 | 8:47 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – A Fake MLK Quote, Looking at DYRS Leaders and Defining Latinos

Good morning, DCentric readers! Enjoy some links with your morning coffee:

African American church is first in D.C. to be powered by solar energy “Florida Avenue Baptist’s installation of 44 solar panels was hailed at a ribbon-cutting Tuesday by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson and other government officials as a breakthrough in the black community, where the clean-energy divide mirrors its well-known high-tech digital divide with the white community.” (The Washington Post)

Fake MLK Quote Goes Viral “‘I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” That 23 words, attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. were yesterday’s Twitter mantra for those of the view that exuberant and partying in the streets in response to a death (any death, even Osama Bin Laden’s) was morally wrong, creepy, or otherwise problematic….The problem, as Megan McArdle also pointed out in The Atlantic, was that Martin Luther King never said it. Or anything even close.” (The Root)

Council members to examine DYRS leadership “Experience at the top of the agency and widespread perceptions of an overly therapeutic philosophy shared by Mr. Stanley’s top advisers figure to be the topic of questions on Thursday by Ward 1 council member Jim Graham, who has expressed doubts that DYRS has struck a proper balance between rehabilitation and detention.” (Washington Times)
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May 3, 2011 | 10:01 AM | By Anna

Kavitha Cardoza on “The Heavy Burden Of Childhood Obesity”

Credit: Kavitha Cardoza

A student at Beers Elementary in Southeast enjoys Salad and Strawberry day.

First lady Michelle Obama started her “Let’s Move” campaign in part because people under the age of 25 are the first generation of Americans who are expected to live shorter lives than their parents, due to diet-related health issues. Last week, in a five-part series called, “The Heavy Burden Of Childhood Obesity” WAMU’s Kavitha Cardoza and Ginger Moored interviewed overweight children, their families and the doctors who are trying to help. I spoke to Kavitha to find out more about how race and class complicate the already challenging task of addressing obesity in some of D.C.’s youngest citizens.

Kavitha, you mentioned a clinic where the patients include a child who can’t bite a carrot because her teeth have rotted from her diet.

That’s an issue. One of the doctors told us they keep telling kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, yet this girl can’t eat carrots because her teeth have rotted and it hurts her. So some of these kids just can’t. It’s really hard for families. There was a 3-year waiting period for one obesity clinic. Meanwhile, a boy is putting on 4 lbs a month, can you imagine what a three year waiting period would mean? Three years x 4 lbs a month, think of how bad his problems will be.

Tell me about the family that did have access to a clinic; they saw a doctor who spent an unusual amount of time with them, right?

The doctor patiently spent 90 minutes with that family, trying to teach them about nutrition…they hadn’t even left her office and they were opening up and eating food. They’re just little children, of course if they see an Oreo, they want to eat it. And there was so much going on during that appointment…the Mom was braiding her kids hair, two little boys were playing, there were babies. After, the Doctor said, “You know, I have relatives who are obese. In my practice, I see single-parent, low-income families like the one I came from. A lot of people give up on families like that and I never want these families to feel like I’ve given up on them.”

What was the purpose of that visit, specifically?

At that appointment, the doctor was trying to explain nutrition labels. She told them not to worry about saturated and unsaturated fats at this point, because it’s too complicated. She said during the last visit, she explained calories. This time it was grams of sugar. She thinks they will get to a point where they do talk about fat. But it’s not just them–many of us are unaware of how unhealthy what we eat can be…5 grams is one spoon of sugar? I certainly didn’t know that. I grew up in an urban city, in Bangalore. Ginger, my producer, grew up on a farm in Virginia, and our connections to food are very different. She eats fruit and I eat chips and chocolate. I felt like a living test case. I’m not overweight, so it didn’t occur to me, how bad some foods can be.

In one story, you met a child who often has to be excused from class to go to the bathroom because his weight is putting pressure on his bladder– so obesity is now affecting that child’s school work, too. I thought, “What is he missing when he’s out of the room?”

He’s definitely missing things. Also, of all the things to be mocked for at that age…going to the bathroom? Anything related to bodily functions is hilarious to these children and this kid is going to the bathroom multiple times during the day.
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FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Food, Privilege, Public Health, Race and Class

May 3, 2011 | 8:42 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – Code of the Streets, Identifying DYRS Escapees and Prince Charles in D.C.

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are the five links we’re reading, now:

Courtland Milloy: What does bin Laden’s slaying teach kids? “Out in the District’s feuding neighborhoods, a world away from the revelry around the White House, the killing of Osama bin Laden has simply reaffirmed the code of the streets — especially the principle of an eye for an eye. “You get on the wrong side of the wrong people, you reap what you sow,” a youngster from the Woodland Terrace housing complex in Southeast told me… The difference is that while the United States celebrates taking revenge against its enemies, the gunslinger in the ’hood is condemned for doing the same.” (The Washington Post)

Leckie Elementary Remembers Losses from 9/11 “Many people directly touched by the September 11 tragedy are reacting to the death of Osama Bin Laden. They include students from Leckie Elementary School in Southwest D.C. Even though they are too young to remember the attacks; they are forever linked to the tragedy. The school lost a teacher and a student when a plane carrying 64 people crashed into the Pentagon.” (myfoxdc.com)

Graham bill would ID young escapees “In response to two highly publicized escapes, a D.C. Council member who oversees the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services wants to speed up the release of pertinent information to the public when a young offender flees from custody…Mr. Graham will introduce a resolution Tuesday that would allow DYRS to release a photograph and “other relevant information determined by the agency as additional tools to quickly and safely apprehend a juvenile escapee” instead of waiting for a court order.” (Washington Times)
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May 2, 2011 | 8:57 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – D.C. is Rich, Anacostia School Garden Vandalized and Attacking the President

Good morning, DCentric readers! Treat your case of the Mondays with some hot links:

A little luxury for all “I mean look at this coat, the detailing, the cut, the style,” she said, modeling the $548 gold trench she bought a week ago, while ogling a $900 satchel bag. Linton is exactly the kind of customer Elie Tahari knew he’d find in the Washington area: one with discerning tastes, definite style and disposable income…The region’s resilient and diverse economy has attracted a stream of young professionals with edgier tastes in fashion, restaurants and entertainment. Not all of these folks are game to drop $200 on a button-down shirt, but enough are to make this area fertile ground for a new class of luxury retailer.” (The Washington Post)

Coming Out: Not as Simple as Black and White “With respect to Ms. Maddow, it’s much easier for a white lesbian to adhere to this virtue than her darker gay brethren. As a highly educated, successful white woman, she is afforded certain privileges that many gays of color still are not. Not to mention, being gay is often a bigger taboo within the black community than the white. And while she has certainly had to contend with her own battles with heteronormativity, it might not be to the same extent as, say, her black male counterparts have to deal with.” (The Root)

Malcolm X Elementary School’s Community Garden Vandalized Students at the Anacostia public school have started replanting, need donations: “It made me feel sad because we weren’t able to keep the garden,” said Lenea Johnson, who is 9. Many of the kids came by during Spring Break to water the plants. By the end of the week, the plants had been pulled and thrown in the trash. “I’m not surprised because things go on in this neighborhood, vandalizing and stuff like that,” said 11-year-old Tyuana Turner. (WUSA Washington, DC)
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April 29, 2011 | 12:00 PM | By Anna

Graham: Outsourcing Youth Rehab is Expensive and Cuts Family Ties

Flickr: dbking

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham

Two D.C.teens recently escaped from centers in Maryland and South Carolina aimed at rehabilitating them.

D.C. spends approximately $67,000 a day to house 225 wards in so-called residential treatment centers, or RTCs, across several states, according to a recent Examiner article. Councilman Jim Graham, chairman of the city committee that oversees the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, slammed the RTC system recently, saying it’s not cost-effective or productive.

“Sending kids to Utah and Arizona and Tennessee and South Carolina raises our costs and cuts those ties. It is totally unacceptable, for example, that we do not have a juvenile substance abuse treatment program right here in DC. I hope to be able to change that shortly,” he said in an email.

But supporters of the current system say the District doesn’t have enough centers. The teens sent out-of-state “are not kids who have shoplifted, these are hard-core bad guys,” Kris Bauman, leader of D.C.’s police union told the Examiner recently.

Critics question how troubled the youth are, since that is hard to measure. Some say what’s needed is a rehabilitation program that’s closer to home, or perhaps at home.

In some cases, RTCs have been used for wards who did not have a serious emotional disturbance or mental illness and who were not a threat to themselves or the community, according to the Washington City Paper.

What’s more, the city’s youth rehabilitation services department may have exceeded its budget by $994,000 in 2009 in part because it used RTCs for teens who may not have needed it.

But it’s easier to send teens away than deal with guiding them to improve their lives, said Victoria Otchere, Program Director at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a local nonprofit that designs intervention strategies to treat teens at home.

Otchere echoes Graham’s concerns about preserving family ties because she believes relatives can be an important part of the rehabilitation process. She has worked with DYRS wards who benefited from remaining in the community and receiving the support of their families.

FILED UNDER: Government, Children, DYRS

April 29, 2011 | 8:50 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – Housing Voucher Discrimination, Flash Mob Robberies and Marion Barry’s Manifest Destiny

Good morning, DCentric readers! Have a royal Friday with the five things we’re reading, right now:

D.C. landlords shun housing vouchers “One landlord imposed a requirement that a voucher holder had to make $64,000 a year in order to a rent an apartment costing $1,300 a month,” said Don Kahl, the (Equal Rights) center’s executive director. Applicants for the voucher program typically have incomes of less than $30,000 for a family of four. Such actions are illegal under the D.C. Human Rights Act, which prohibits landlords from discriminating because a renter wants to pay using various types of funds, including government vouchers.” (The Washington Post)

D.C.’s child welfare system leaves kids at risk “The inspector general made 23 recommendations to improve the system. Key among them was improving the city’s child abuse hot line so investigators spend less time on frivolous cases. In one case, a father reported that his child’s mother was spending child support dollars improperly, the report said. The father’s complaint was sent to an investigator, even though there was no report of neglect or abuse, the inspector general wrote. An investigator then had to meet with the family and school.” (Washington Examiner )

Flash Mob Robberies Not A Rare Occurrence in DC “A brazen robbery occurred in broad daylight at a Dupont Circle men’s store. These daytime hold ups are going on more often than you might think. Surveillance video from the G-Star Raw store on Connecticut Avenue on Monday shows more than a dozen teenagers rushing in, overwhelming customers and employees. They ended up walking away with more than $20,000 dollars worth of merchandise. This bold type of criminal activity happens quite a bit. (myfoxdc.com)
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April 28, 2011 | 11:39 AM | By Anna

“Blackness that is uniquely and indisputably American”

Flickr: Natalie Woo

Billboard from 2009 along California's Interstate 5 freeway.

More on race and perception, though this time, the issue is not what people see– it’s what they know about President Obama’s ancestry. In “For Birthers, Obama’s Not Black Enough“, Melissa Harris-Perry wonders if the President’s lack of connection to “the historical variation of blackness that is uniquely and indisputably American” is part of what makes him suspect to those who doubt his citizenship:

The American slave system disrupted the ability of enslaved Africans to retain or pass along their ethnic identities. Igbo, Ashanti, Akan, Yoruba and Hausa became interchangeable units for sale. While slaves nurtured fragments of cultural, religious and familial traditions, much of the specificity of their African experience was surrendered to an imagined and indistinct notion of “Africa.” Moreover, the law did not initially recognize slaves or their US-born children as American. So enslaved Africans were women and men literally without a country, defined solely in terms of their labor value. Their descendants eventually achieved citizenship, but to be an American black, a Negro, is to be a rejected child who nonetheless clings to her abusive father because she knows no other parent. To be a black American descended from slaves is to lack, if not a birth certificate, then at least a known genealogy—to have only a vague sense of where one comes from, of who one’s ancestors were and of where one belongs.

In this sense, Obama is not very black. He is not a Negro. As a black man, President Obama’s confident and clear knowledge of his lineage is precisely the thing that makes his American identity dubious. Unlike most black people, he has easy access to both his American and his African selves.

FILED UNDER: History, Immigrants, Multiracial, Obama, Racial identity

April 28, 2011 | 8:55 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – Homeless African Americans, Student Transit Passes and DYRS Escapee Captured

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are some links for a rainy Thursday.

D.C. mayor: National Zoo stabbing shows need for more police agency coordination Several fights at the zoo, two stories about how they were handled. Did the zoo police know one of the teens it ejected was armed? They say no, MPD says yes: “After one such fight, D.C. police say, zoo police officers removed several teens, and a teen was stabbed four times in the chest on Connecticut Avenue NW…It was unclear why zoo police decided to eject the youths from the zoo rather than arrest them or whether they knew one had a knife, as D.C. police allege he did.” (The Washington Post)

Economy Drives Increase in Homeless Count “High rates of unemployment among minorities, foreclosures, the rising cost of rent, utilities and fuel and extreme budget cuts are behind a rise in the area’s homeless population, local homeless advocates say. An upcoming report by the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments indicates the Washington region’s homeless has increased to 11,988 persons, mostly among families and African Americans, and that’s largely due to the hobbled economy.” (afro.com)

Anti-Police Sentiments Rage On In Southeast DC Plain clothes officer who was part of unit tasked with getting guns off the streets killed Rafael Briscoe when the teen ran from them with a BB gun: “The shooting has sparked outrage among community members who held a vigil for Briscoe Wednesday evening. Neighbors who live in the area are now turning their frustration at the police, claiming Briscoe was shot in the back and never threatened the officer. Cherie Smith, Briscoe’s grandmother, said, “The police senselessly shot and killed my grandson, and they are making up all kinds of excuses for them doing it.”" (WUSA Washington, DC)
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April 27, 2011 | 8:58 AM | By Anna

Tasty Morning Bytes – Disorganization at the Zoo, Neighbors Outraged in Southeast and Orange Wins

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your links:

Officer: Disorganization, Lack of Resources in National Zoo Stabbing Response “The officer also said throughout the day, there were kids fighting and causing problems. “You’re talking about 45 to 55 kids; they were running right into the main entrance of the National Zoo, they were disturbing people, they were toppling over each other, strollers, things of that nature,” the officer said. “The officers that I was working with had no other recourse, but use their spray in order to subdue two of them,” he said. With an estimated 26,000 visitors at the zoo, the officer said they only had seven officers on zoo grounds. Clearly, he said it wasn’t enough.” (myfoxdc.com)

Study: Renters spending greater share of income on monthly expenses “The study offers the latest in a series of grim statistics about the scarcity of rental housing, especially for the working poor. Housing supply has not kept up with demand in part because of a shortage of apartments, a key source of new rentals. Developers cut back on such projects when the economy deteriorated in 2009, which drove down vacancies and boosted rents. Rental markets are tightening while monthly costs climb putting the largest burden on the nation’s poorest workers, the bottom fifth of household income distribution.” (thehill.com)

Cora Masters Barry won’t toot her own horn, but others will Said Maya Angelou: “She means to change things for the better, and I don’t know of a better way to use my energies than to support someone who does that.” More: “When then-D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was trying to take the (Southeast Tennis and Learning Center) away from Barry in 2009, saying that the city lease had run out, a nationwide coalition of women — Angelou, Height and several members of Congress among them — came to her defense. Once Fenty decided not to pursue the eviction, Barry got back to work.” (The Washington Post)
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April 26, 2011 | 7:11 PM | By Anna

Update on Easter Monday Stabbing at Zoo

Flickr: Smithsonian’s National Zoo

The crowd reached 25,000 at the National Zoo yesterday, on Easter Monday.

Mshairi Alkebular, the 16-year old who allegedly stabbed another teen during Easter Monday celebrations at the National Zoo yesterday will be charged as an adult, according to WUSA9:

Charging documents show the victim identified (Alkebular) by photo.

According to charging documents, the victim said he was stabbed twice in the right elbow area by Alkebular inside the National Zoo and police broke up the fight.

Then, according to documents, Alkebular and others exited the zoo and chased McNeal again. Alkebular allegedly stabbed him four more times in the chest.

African American families have been visiting the National Zoo on the day after Easter for over a century. WUSA’s Bruce Johnson said that the victim is 14-years old and is now in stable condition. NBC reported that the attack was gang-related.