DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are the links we’re perusing today:

Omega Psi Phi brothers celebrate centennial at D.C. birthplace “Indeed, the next four days are a time of fraternity for the brothers, much as it was a hundred years ago when three Howard University students and their faculty adviser established the first black fraternity at an all-black university. The two other all-black fraternities at the time had been founded at white institutions.” (The Washington Post)

His parents said, ‘Not with a white girl’ “I couldn’t fathom that my race could make me the ‘wrong kind of girl’ for anyone. Yes, it was white privilege that blinded me to the fact I might be the bottom of the barrel on someone else’s race card.” (CNN)

Mayor Gray’s Interfaith Council has a Scientologist on it “Guess how many Buddhists, Mormons, Hindus, and Jehovah’s Witnesses there are? Zero.” (TBD.com)

Everybody Loves D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier “A poll released by Clarus Research Group in March puts her approval rating at a cosmic 84 percent…’Who else has an approval rating like that?’ asks political consultant Chuck Thies. ‘Just the Dalai Lama.’” (Washington City Paper)

Black professionals leading the charge of gentrification across Anacostia “Just who is a gentrifier?…Although gentrification in much of the city means an influx of young white professionals, in communities east of the river it’s overwhelmingly young black professionals who are moving in — or, in some cases, moving back.” (The Washington Post)

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your Monday links:

D.C. councilmen don’t send kids to neighborhood schools “D.C. Council members are sending their kids to pricey private schools instead of putting them in the city’s troubled public system that they urge other parents to invest in.” (Washington Examiner )

Proposed Redistricting Creates Predominantly White Ward “Councilman Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) defended the proposal claiming that the committee adopted what it thought was more logical. “There is no doubt that Ward 6 will have less African Americans. However, we took the outline with the best connections across the river. Somehow we thought that was more important,” said Mendelson.” (afro.com)

The persistence of hate “This gets us back to what’s become of North-South racism in the United States since the 1950s. America is a country of immigrants, and more important, a country with high mobility within its borders, particularly over the last century. This doesn’t mean that racism has disappeared, though perhaps we can expect it to be distributed more evenly. There’s some evidence that America’s melting pot is having exactly this effect. For example, in response to the 2005-07 World Values Survey, whites living in South Atlantic states were no more likely than New Englanders to say that they wouldn’t want a black neighbor.” (Slate)

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Recaptured D.C. teen has history of escape “One of the D.C. youths who escaped from a secure residential facility in Northwest last week walked away less than a month earlier from a South Carolina facility and a “low risk” group home in the District prior to jumping from a third-floor window of the locked facility last week, according to sources within the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS).” (Washington Times)

Is racism on the way out? “When veteran journalist Ellis Cose wrote “The Rage of a Privileged Class” in 1993, his editor was so shocked by his thesis — that black middle-class professionals were deeply frustrated by enduring discrimination in the workplace and remained unable to achieve the same level of success as their white colleagues — that he pulled him aside to ask if it was really true…Now, nearly two decades later, Cose is revisiting the black middle class in his new book, “The End of Anger,” and finds that much has changed.” (Salon)

ICYMI: District Veterans Recall Army’s Only All-Black Ranger Unit “Paul Lyles, who’s now 83, is one of the several District residents who belonged to 2nd Ranger Company in the early 1950′s. ‘It was just beginning to be desegregated. Because Truman had signed the law,” he says. “But we had a lot of generals who were bigots and didn’t want any blacks in the unit.’ Thrust into action during the Korean War, Lyles says 2nd Ranger Company eventually proved those generals wrong. ‘We never lost a hill. Once you got on a hill, you never lost a hill,” he says. “Nobody ever beat us. We always held our ground.’” (wamu.org)

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Greetings, DCentric readers. Here are the five things we’re reading:

Redistricting Roils Wards 6, 7 and 8 "Frances Campbell is a firm believer in elected officials heeding the concerns and interests of those they serve, but during this redistricting process, he said, Ward 6 residents have been ignored. The District’s plan to move a section of Ward 6 into Ward 7 has left the 60-year-old incensed. 'We have done a remarkable amount of work so far, things turned around and the quality of life has improved,' said Campbell, a five term ANC commissioner. 'There was a time when we had assaults and murders and now that we have turned all this around, they want to come and take a piece of the ward.'" (Washington Informer)

Congress Mulls Cuts to Food Stamps Program Amid Record Number of Recipients "Congress is under pressure to cut the rapidly rising costs of the federal government’s food stamps program at a time when a record number of Americans are relying on it….More than 44.5 million Americans received SNAP benefits in March, an 11 percent increase from one year ago and nearly 61 percent higher than the same time four years ago." (ABC News)

One-fifth of Metro's escalators out of service "The outages aren't just wearing on the riders. Two escalator repairmen, who asked their names not be published for fear of retribution, said they showed up to shifts recently to be told they needed to work mandatory overtime that night and every night that week. Such orders usually are reserved for emergencies, such as snowstorms, one said. And it didn't matter if they had other plans — or had parked their cars in places where they would get towed. They said they were told they would be written up if they didn't work the extra hours." (Washington Examiner )

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Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?

Why an Apology from Obama on Geronimo is Unlikely “It soon became clear that Obama would not apologize, nor did he seem to understand that there was even a controversy boiling in Indian country. In an appearance on May 8 on 60 Minutes, none of this seemed to trouble him. ‘There was a point before folks had left before we had gotten everybody back on the helicopter and were flying back to base, where they said ‘Geronimo’ has been killed,’ Obama told journalist Steve Kroft with a look of pride in his eyes. ‘And Geronimo was the code name for bin Laden.’ The look, meanwhile, in the eyes of many Indians was quite different.” (Indian Country Today)

New crack-cocaine law could impact hundreds of old cases in D.C. region “Since the 1990s, advocates have complained that crack offenders are treated more harshly than those arrested with powdered cocaine. Many critics view the disparity as racial discrimination because black drug offenders are more likely to be charged with federal crack offenses and to serve longer prison terms than other offenders. The Fair Sentencing Act, signed by Obama in August, attempts to remedy that disparity by changing the amount of crack cocaine required to trigger five and 10-year mandatory sentences.” (The Washington Post)

Cheating Investigation Casts Shadow on Testing“‘This is a very pro-test period in American education,’ said Washington Teacher Union President Nathan Saunders. ‘As a result of teacher performance and school closures being directly related to tests, unfortunately some educators have used alternative schemes, including cheating to meet the mandates.’ Some critics disdain the tests themselves and the commercial motives of the companies supplying them. The Washington Post Co.’s Kaplan division has attracted scrutiny. Kaplan Inc.’s testing and “university” is the Post’s primary revenue generator, yet in reporting about the testing dust-up, Post reporters have apparently not bothered to note this, which some observers consider a possible conflict of interest.” (afro.com)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Why not start your holiday weekend with some links:

Southeast students served raw onions as snack “No matter how you slice it, the days of milk and cookies are long gone as schools aim to provide students with healthy fruits and vegetables as snacks. But raw onions? That’s what several classes of students at Southeast’s Turner Elementary were fed Tuesday, instead of the zucchini slices the school’s food provider, Chartwells, said it would serve as part of a federal initiative to provide healthy food to young learners.” (Washington Examiner )

Fast Gourmet fills ’em up “’The city is where everyone wants to live now. If D.C. had 50 more creative places like this — great food in a gas station — then this would be a really great place to be. It would be, well, Brooklyn,’ says Blair Ruble, a Washington historian and chronicler of U Street, as he tucks into a juicy Peruvian-chicken lunch. Ruble talks about the significance of Fast Gourmet being in a gas station, a symbol of the open road and of the dated suburban American dream. The Washington area has the second-highest subway ridership in the country, after New York. And this Lowest Price station has a new identity: It’s a way station that’s now a destination.” (The Washington Post)

D.C. Mentors Seek To Strengthen Father-Son Relationships “Some advocates estimate that 70 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock, and most of those are raised by single, African-American women. ‘There’s a significant difference when the father is not in the house versus when the father is in the house,’ says (Nate) Murrell. That’s why Murrell put together the new mentoring program for boys age 13 to 18. Alpha Omega will help teens set goals, both academic and personal, and involve young people in service work and weekly activities.” (WAMU.org)

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Good morning, DCentric readers! For your enjoyment, some links:

D.C. region’s Asian population is up 60 percent since 2000, census data show “Asians are drawn here by the same magnet of opportunity that has attracted so many other ambitious people, making Washington the city with the biggest share of college graduates in the country. ‘D.C. is similar to New York and Northern California,’ said Amanjot Singh Dhaliwal, an officer in the South Asian Bar Association of Washington, D.C. ‘The most opportunities are here. You want to go where you have the most opportunities to make money and have a career.’” (The Washington Post)

Proposed DC Redistricting Maps Released “The new proposed redistricting plan for Washington, D.C. has just hit the web. Federal law requires leaders to draw the lines depending on how the population is spread out. Capitol Hill residents hit the streets in protest Tuesday over the proposal, worried that some neighborhoods in Ward 6 may be broken up into other wards.” (myfoxdc.com)

Charge Dropped In Wheelchair Arrest Case, Metro Police Lose Arrest Powers “Fifty-five-year-old Dwight Harris was snatched from his wheelchair, tripped and then thrown to the ground where his head was swimming in a pool of blood. Witnesses to the arrest and people who viewed the video agreed with the U.S. Attorney who decided to drop the resisting arrest charge against Harris. They also approved the suspension of police powers for the two Metro Transit officers pending a review by prosecutors and Metro’s police chief.” (WUSA Washington, DC)
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Good morning, DCentric readers. Whew, it’s already Wednesday!

White Folks Shouldn’t Worry “Racism is not a zero-sum game, but opportunities for limited resources are. This includes jobs that pay well and a quality education. When white people perceive that they are disadvantaged by a level playing field, they are correct. We’ve always known that anti-black bias is purposeful; it turns out, though, that the object isn’t to protect white women’s purity. It’s the economy, stupid.” (The New York Times)

No, You Are Not ‘Less Physically Attractive’ “Last week a piece called ‘Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?’ made the rounds on twitter, eliciting a throng of denunciations…In general, my experience has been that scientists who treat the measures of nebulous and ill-defined qualities as strident inarguable fact, are not so much practicing modern science, as they are practicing modern phrenology.” (The Atlantic)

Obama and Black Americans: the Paradox of Hope “But for all the ways black America has felt better about itself and looked better to others, it has not actually fared better. In fact, it has been doing worse. The economic gap between black and white has grown since Obama took power. Under his tenure black unemployment, poverty and foreclosures are at their highest levels for at least a decade. Millions of black kids may well aspire to the presidency now that a black man is in the White House. But such a trajectory is less likely for them now than it was under Bush.” (thenation.com)
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