January 7, 2011 | 1:01 PM | By Anna
Flickr: kate.gardiner
Now reading: Amanda Hess’ piece on “Gay bars, gentrification, and homophobia” in TBD:
LGBT establishments have a complex history with the gentrification of cities. At a glance: In response to discriminatory zoning laws and social ostracization, gay bars traditionally set up shop in underdeveloped urban areas with lower rents and looser regulations. Around these establishments, LGBT neighborhoods formed, later attracting more well-to-do members of the community—and eventually, more affluent straights, too. The gentrification of a gay village signaled a certain mainstream social acceptance of gays—but it also meant pushing less affluent members of the LGBT community back on the social fringes. Straight gentrifiers of gay villages may be willing to tolerate wealthy gay yuppies, but they can also facilitate the marginalization of others in the LGBT community.
January 7, 2011 | 10:49 AM | By Anna
Flickr: vpickering
This brief but information-packed blurb from DCist’s On this day in 2010-feature caught my attention this morning, via their roundup, even if the numbers are a year old:
D.C. Wire reported some new census figures earlier today that show that Washington, D.C.’s African-American population continues to dwindle, while the presence of whites, Latinos and Asians continues to grow. The city is now about 54 percent black, 40 percent white, 4 percent Asian and 9 percent Hispanic. Those figures compare to 61 percent black and 34 percent white in 2000, which translates to 27,000 African-American residents moving out and 40,000 whites moving in over the course of 2000 to 2008. Some estimates predict that pace could mean D.C. would cease being a majority African-American city by 2020, if not sooner.
January 7, 2011 | 8:26 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Happy Friday to you.
Interim Schools Chancellor Gets Praise From Duncan “National Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised interim D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson Thursday, saying D.C. should remove the “interim” from in front of her title, but Mayor Vincent Gray hasn’t started his search for a permanent replacement for Michelle Rhee. Gray frequently praises Henderson, who was Rhee’s deputy for three years, but he insists on a major search before naming a permanent schools chancellor…”She certainly is a strong candidate,” Gray said. “We probably will have several strong candidates. I just don’t know who they are at this stage. We will follow the process that’s been laid out in the law.” (NBC Washington)
Scholarship in Memory of Jamal Coates sends Students to School in Guatemala “A scholarship fund in memory of Jamal Coates has raised $1,500, enough to send seven children to school in a Guatamala education program Coates was a part of before his death. Coates, 21, was killed Sep. 28 in a shooting during a funeral procession for his friend Ashley McRae. Coates’ family asked that community contribute to the scholarship fund for Guatemalan students instead of helping to pay funeral expenses. Coates spent eight weeks in Guatemala in 2009 teaching basketball with Hoops Sagrado, a D.C. organization that sends at-risk D.C. youth to Guatemala to teach basketball.” (homicidewatch.org)
NPR executive who fired Juan Williams resigns from her job “NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller has been docked her 2010 bonus because of her role in Williams’s firing, which set off a firestorm of controversy and fueled GOP cries to defund the news outlet. The outlet also announced that Ellen Weiss, who fired Williams, has resigned. Weiss was the senior vice president for news. NPR announced Thursday that chief executive Vivian Schiller will not receive a bonus due to “concern over her role in the termination process.” (thehill.com)
Continue reading →
January 6, 2011 | 11:53 PM | By Anna
I promise, I did not pick this one because I’m a huge fan of Apizza; I picked it because it made me smile.
January 6, 2011 | 2:48 PM | By Anna
Flickr: amberley johanna
A sign from the Rally to Restore Sanity which seemed apposite for this post, as well.
My post from December 28th, “More on Brown-on-Black Racism” may be the most “popular” piece I’ve ever written on DCentric, if we’re using comments and retweets as metrics. I am shocked (shocked!) and elated that it has nine whole comments, and I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions before wading in to the discussion and making a request for mutual respect. You’ve done a great job of being courteous to each other and I’d love to see that continue. My ultimate goal for this website is for it to become a trusted space for civil discussion of issues which usually inspire incivility.
Let’s look at one comment from that thread, from reader TL:
Oh how truly good it is to be Black. Black as night and no one can join us.
Of course, I don’t know AJ and I’ll assume she is a well meaning Indian woman. But when she’s not blogging, she’s probably out in the world being part of the problem. Reality: Asians, Indians and Hispanics generally want to be white. “Don’t say that!” “That’s ridiculous!” Behind closed doors (sometimes in public) the majority is the group they want align with. No problem. It’s survival to want to ride with whoever has the power. It’s a little gutless, but hey tough choices to be made in this life.
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January 6, 2011 | 12:57 PM | By Anna
DCentric
A Salvation Army Red Kettle at "Social Safeway", in Georgetown.
WaPo has an update on Giant’s move to limit the Salvation Army’s Red Kettle campaign outside of its grocery stores, via this article: “Limited collection time at Giant fueled drop in donations, Salvation Army says“. The charity collected 60% less money than it did last year:
Giant’s policy change irked some advocates for the needy.
“It’s hard times like these when we need our corporate partners to step up and do more rather than less,” said Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations. “A lot less people are going to get a lot less help when they most need it. And that’s tragic.”…
Terri Lee Freeman, president of the Community Foundation, which makes grants to local groups, said nonprofits have been further hurt because local governments facing declining tax revenue are less able to hire the organizations as contractors.
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January 6, 2011 | 10:53 AM | By Anna
I saw this video on YouTube yesterday, but didn’t want to link to it because of the profanity and a few other reasons…I’m grateful TBD has more information that I can point you to, instead. This whole story just makes me want to shake my head. No one helped. Everyone filmed. This city’s social fabric is fraying everywhere and in some spots, it is worn through:
On Sunday night, Allen Haywood was randomly and viciously attacked by two kids on the platform of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. Dozens of people witnessed it. Several people filmed it. Nobody helped.
Haywood was trying to transfer to the Yellow Line around 7:15 p.m. when the assault happened. He was headed home to Fort Totten after working out at Results on Capitol Hill, a gym bag slung over his shoulder and a book in his hands. As he read with his back to the station wall, “all of a sudden someone whacked me on the back of the head really hard,” he recalls…
Haywood looked to strangers for help, but all he saw were other kids with their cell phones out, recording the scene and laughing. Judging from his voice-over, the man shooting the YouTube video above doesn’t appear to be part of the group. The video showed up yesterday on Unsuck D.C. Metro, which posted an anonymous account of the attack Tuesday.
“I can understand people not wanting to get physically involved,” says Haywood, who’s 47 and works in a Friendship Heights flower shop. “But nobody pressed the emergency button or went to the booth,” as far as he knows.
One of those kids offered to sell him the video of his own beating. I used to think the scariest thing about Metro was the broken escalators (the extra long ones make me queasy); now I think it’s the terrifying lack of a response to crime, whether from the people paid to work there or the commuters who look the other way.
January 6, 2011 | 8:21 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were watching Top Chef, we were out foraging for links! To us, they’re as valuable as truffles.
Outsourcing Troubled Kids: D.C. is addicted to the most costly, most scary way of treating vulnerable youngsters. “Jumiya had come into the system as a victim, not a criminal. In July 2008, her grandmother called police after spotting jagged welts on Jumiya’s arms…The District’s safety net had caught Jumiya, but now it had to parent her. For a kid like Jumiya, this meant group homes and curfew checks, lots of tough kids but few nurturing adults. She ended up running away a lot. To her social worker and other government caregivers, this meant she was unstable, a liability. It didn’t matter that she always ran home to family.” (Washington City Paper)
GWU honors Gray’s athletic legacy from time of segregated sports “In the early 1960s, the varsity basketball team and the fraternities at George Washington University were all-white clubs, but change was in the air. A lanky black kid who came to GWU from the District’s Dunbar High School was literally barred at the door of one fraternity but then connected with Jewish students who were ready to break the color line. And that same black student, a fellow by the name of Vincent C. Gray who had a pretty layup, joined with other African Americans and Jews to make up an intramural basketball team that broke barriers and captured the imagination of fellow students.” (The Washington Post)
Metro train operator reprimanded after filmed chatting with rider “It’s the latest case of Metro workers getting in trouble through riders’ videos and photos. In July 2009, Metro officials cracked down on employees using their cell phones behind the wheel after riders photographed bus drivers and train operators texting and talking on the phone while in motion. The agency toughened its three-strikes-you’re-out policy, creating a zero-tolerance policy in which drivers would be fired the first time caught using a cell phone. The new policy is even stricter than the agency’s policy on drug and alcohol use.” (Washington Examiner )
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January 5, 2011 | 7:45 PM | By Anna
Flickr: KC Ivey
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton
I keep seeing tweets about how stripping Delegate Norton of her vote disenfranchises the 600,000 people who live in D.C…it just occurred to me that the majority of those residents are people of color. And that Congress isn’t the most diverse place, either. This move by the new Congress is unfortunate, on so many levels (via TBD):
“To me it is unseemly in the 21st century that anyone would be stripped of a vote,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has represented Washington D.C. since 1991.
Norton said the loss of limited voting rights was a “very bitter pill” for the people of the District, who a year ago where within sight of gaining a full vote in the House. The Senate voted to give the District a fully vested representative, but attached an amendment to weaken the District’s tough gun control laws that was unacceptable to some House Democrats.
New Washington Mayor Vincent Gray said at a protest rally Tuesday that the GOP move to remove Norton’s remaining voting rights was “the most outrageous insult imaginable.”
Norton sought to prevent adoption of the new rule by offering a motion to set up a special committee to study the delegate voting issue, but it was defeated on a party-line vote.
