Culture

Beneath the buttoned-down surface of the city, DC is full of history, diversity, joy and life.

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June 9, 2011 | 12:44 PM | By

DCentric Picks: Faces and Stories of D.C. Youth

Looking for an event that relates to race or class in D.C.? DCentric will be regularly posting event listings we believe will be of interest to our readers.  If you have an event you think we should feature, email dcentric@wamu.org.

Courtesy of Critical Exposure

This exhibit runs until the end of June.

What: Critical Exposure presents “Both Sides of the Lens: The Faces and Stories of D.C. Youth.”

Where: 702 8th St., NW.

When: Thursday, 6 to 8 p.m.

Cost: By donation.

Why you should go: This is the nonprofit group’s sixth annual exhibit of student works. More than 80 works from 50 D.C. youth will be on display, providing a unique perspective into life in the District. Check out DCist’s profile of the group and the students’ fight to improve their school libraries.

Other picks this week: Consider attending the Mount Pleasant Music Festival on Saturday or “Crossing the Color Line: The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union” on Friday.

FILED UNDER: Culture, Delightful City, DCentric Picks
June 7, 2011 | 2:55 PM | By

Why Rock Bands are Playing D.C.’s Ethiopian Restaurants

Courtesy of Bora Chung

Brian Waitzman plays with pop-Americana singer Flo Anito at Almaz on Sunday. An Ethiopian flag hangs behind him.

On Sunday afternoon, Ethiopian music blared from speakers in the first floor dining room of 1920, a Habesha restaurant in the heart of Little Ethiopia. But the sound of a woman crooning in Amharic was overpowered by Bake Sale, a post-pop rock band playing on the second floor.

All up and down the U Street Corridor this past weekend, bands representing an eclectic range of rock music played in Ethiopian and Eritrean restaurants as part of the first Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie Music Festival. Six Habesha-owned or themed restaurants took part.

Organizer Dave Mann said when he first hatched the idea to hold a two-day rock music festival, he asked the city’s more traditional rock venues to host shows, “but they weren’t into it.” Some already had booked calendars and this was the first STPP festival, so it was uncertain how much revenue it’d bring in.

Then Mann met Mike Naizghi, the Eritrean owner of Bella Café, who was looking for music to fill the second-floor of his café that serves American and Eritrean fare. He then introduced Mann to more Little Ethiopia restaurant owners, and soon six were on board. The restaurants made money through drink and food sales, the bands made money through merchandise sales and all shows were free. Mann brought more than 100 bands to the restaurants and he plans to hold a bigger festival in October.

“The consensus of all of the owners of the Ethiopian restaurants is, they say to me, ‘Look, there are tons of Ethiopian places in D.C., so obviously a lot of them aren’t going to have the same amount of business as the others. We need a different clientele,’” Mann said.

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FILED UNDER: Culture, Restaurants, Little Ethiopia, Music, Small Business, Sweet Tea Pumpkin Pie
May 25, 2011 | 1:38 PM | By

Five Ways To Be a Good Gentrifier

Flickr: Daquella Manera

Does this street art make you feel guilty?

Are you a middle or high-income earner, who is probably white (but not necessarily!) and has moved into a predominantly black or Latino low-income neighborhood? And is that neighborhood rapidly changing, as longtime residents move to less expensive suburbs because they can’t afford to live in the neighborhood’s revamped, much pricier apartments? Check off a bingo card if you must: you live amongst hip coffee shops, with white people where white people never dared to go before and patronize yoga studios that were once corner stores. Face it: you’re a gentrifier.

For the self-aware and well-meaning among the gentry, the guilt can be almost akin to white guilt — your very existence can make you feel bad. But if you’ve moved into a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, there are ways you can be a good neighbor. Here are five things to get you started, and feel free to suggest more in the comments section:

1. Get involved, but first listen and learn.

    Diane Levy, a senior researcher for the Urban Institute who studies neighborhood changes, suggests getting involved in neighborhood organizations and civic associations in an effort to get to know the community. And that’s something that makes sense when moving into any community, gentrifying or not.

“Not everything in a community is easily knowable, but try to get to know the community before coming in and pointing out, as the new person, what needs to be done differently,” she says. “In the case of gentrifying areas, it’s easy for somebody to come in with a certain view of what makes for a good neighborhood and focus on what they see as negative without trying to understand what makes the neighborhood what it is.”

I hear that neighborhood blogs are good places to get to know a community, no? Sure, Levy says, but be careful of what you write, even if it’s an anonymous comment.

“Some of the comments people will post, it’s anonymous and people think they can say anything and no damage done. But write things you would be willing to say directly to somebody’s face,” Levy says. “Because even though it’s a virtual space, it’s real. It can have an impact.”

The impact cuts both ways — negative comments perpetuate stereotypes of the neighborhood, but they can also perpetuate the stereotype that all gentrifiers share the same negative feelings.

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FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Gentrification, Urban Institute
May 19, 2011 | 11:43 AM | By

D.C. Fusions: Pork Belly Doughnut

Sister blog Multi-American‘s series on unsung ethnic food delicacies has left me thinking: Sure, D.C. may have plenty of the kitfo mentioned, but this is also the city where cultures and worlds collide. What about fusions?

Courtesy of Seannie Cameras/One Vision Productions

Try pork belly meat, sandwiched between two glazed doughnut buns.

Enter the pork belly doughnut, which will debut this weekend at U Street Music Hall. Pork belly is common fare in many Asian cuisines, and its popularity in the U.S. is growing. And doughnuts, well, Homer Simpson, stereotypical cops, Krispy Kreme – need I say more? These two treats were brought together by Toki Underground chef Erik Bruner-Yang, the same man behind the pho dog. U Street Music Hall owner Jesse Tittsworth recalls on his blog what he thought when Bruner-Yang first presented him with the pork belly doughnut:

“I already know this sounds like the most bizarre combination on the face of the planet, but I’m fairly certain I fell in love at first glance…. The pork was deliciously fatty, perfectly seasoned, tender and the saltiness was beyond amicable with the sweet, crisp outer shell of the grilled [doughnut].”

Alright D.C., the challenge is on: can you think of a more unusual, yet delicious, fusion than the pork belly doughnut? Let us know!

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, Restaurants, Fusion food, U Street Music Hall
May 18, 2011 | 2:12 PM | By

D.C. Youth On Mixed-Race Ancestry: It’s Complicated

Students of School Without Walls in D.C. speak about their personal and cultural identities in “Finding Self: Asian America’s Youth.” The short film, produced by  Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co.’s Asian American Youth Program, profiles multiracial and mixed-Asian ancestry students. We’ve written before about how multiracial residents fit into D.C.’s landscape, but as these youth point out, mixed identities often go unacknowledged by others. One student states:

“There’s genetic identity, there’s cultural identity, there’s who you are compared to everyone around you. People expect everyone to be a single thing, like you can only be Asian, or someone can only be white, or only black or whatever. And I think everyone in that sense is a hybrid. No one is like a pure Asian, or a pure American.”


And sometimes other people’s perceptions trump your own reality. One student talks about her Chinese ancestry, but then mentions:

“People who are full Chinese never think I’m Chinese. Like they just straight up don’t believe me when I say I’m a quarter Chinese. They just say, ‘No, you’re white.’ It doesn’t really bother me because I know I’m Chinese and I have a relationship with my Chinese relatives.”

FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Multiracial, School Without Walls, Youth
May 13, 2011 | 10:30 AM | By

Unwrapping the Controversy at Chipotle

Courtesy of www.stiffjab.net

The protest at Chipotle was preceded by a march through Columbia Heights.

Thirty-five people marched last week from a local church to the Columbia Heights Chipotle to protest how the restaurant chain fired 40 employees for allegedly lacking forms that prove they’re allowed to legally work in the U.S.

According to the workers, when they returned from a 30-minute break, they found their replacements were already behind the counter. The workers allege that they were not offered any proper notice before or due compensation after the mass termination and “could not even have a lawyer, organizer, or any other person present in order to discuss their demands,” wrote Aaron Morrissey, at DCist.

Courtesy of www.stiffjab.net

Fired Chipotle employee Miguel Bravo, demonstrating on 14th Street.

“We are here to protest the bad treatment of workers. We were fired in a very unjust manner and we feel that’s another form of discrimination against the Latino workers of this place. After they fired us unjustly, they told us they were going to give us a severance payment of $2,000 and now they have refused to follow through with that promise and we are here to demand that they pay us,” Miguel Bravo, one of the workers said at the rally last week with the help of a translator.

Chris Arnold, communications director of Chipotle, denied workers’ allegations that they were treated unfairly. He said the company is responsible for ensuring it is hiring employees without breaking the law.

“The circumstances here relate to a group of about 40 employees, all of whom provided new documents to verify their work authorization status over the span of just a few days. All of those documents proved to be fraudulent. Under the law, we cannot employ any individual who is not legally authorized to work in this country. When we communicated this to the employees, most of them simply walked off the job, others were let go. But there was no mass firing during a break,” Arnold said.
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FILED UNDER: Restaurants, Chipotle, City Council, Columbia Heights, Food, Immigrants
May 10, 2011 | 11:11 AM | By

‘Arts Are For The Wealthy?’

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Children's Chorus of Washington is one D.C.-based arts organization facing a possible 6 percent ticket tax.

The latest piece in the D.C. budget debate: whether art patrons will have to pay a 6 percent tax on ticket sales.

The current proposal, if approved, would tax arts and performance tickets in the District (except those put on by federal institutions). The Washington City Paper reports that among those who testified against the tax Monday was Linda Levy Grossman, president and CEO of the Helen Hayes Awards, who had this to say:

Grossman said the “inaccurate assumption” that arts patrons have the spare cash to pay more for a ticket “further perpetuates the erroneous assumption that arts are for the wealthy.”

Since this tax is a flat one, it is regressive, meaning it applies to all people the same regardless of income levels. And such a tax affects lower income people more than the rich.

Representatives of other arts organization, such as Step Afrika! director Brian Williams, said they already charge patrons less than what the tickets are worth, and they make up the difference by securing sponsorships.

FILED UNDER: Culture, Government, D.C. Budget, Helen Hayes Awards, Step Afrika!
May 9, 2011 | 12:11 PM | By

Combating Anti-Muslim Stereotypes Through Art

Last week, co-blogger Anna John reported on how D.C.’s South Asian Muslims reacted to the death of Osama bin Laden. Afshan Khoja, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, told John:

“When I heard the chants of ‘U-S-A, U-S-A,’ I felt fear. I don’t understand why, but I wanted to lock my doors. This morning I heard about vandalism and graffiti at a mosque. Between yesterday and today, three people have already asked me why the Pakistani government didn’t know that Osama was in Pakistan for years – I don’t know!

“The fact is, regardless of this news, none of that has stopped. This may be a significant blow to a terrorist network, but for a Pakistani Muslim living in the U.S., I’m not sure if it changes anything.”

Crescent Moon Nights

A group of young Muslims in D.C., aware of the negative stereotypes against them, started a monthly open mic five years ago in an effort to build bridges across cultural and religious divides. WAMU’s Matt Laslo reports that Crescent Moon Nights is still going strong. Co-coordinator Tahir Amin Kayum tells Laslo:

“Pretty much it is different people of all backgrounds, cultures and nationalities, for them to come, express and share on the open mic,” says Kayum. “So we have featured artists for the evening, and we have various artists just come up, poets, singers, rappers, whatever, just coming up to share from different backgrounds.”

FILED UNDER: Culture, Delightful City, The People, Crescent Moon Nights, Islam
April 13, 2011 | 11:59 AM | By

Who is Tagging the Red Line?

Red Line D.C. Project/Katrina Paz

Saaret Yoseph has been riding the Red Line since she was a kid, and for years she casually observed the graffiti scrawled along the route from Silver Spring to Union Station. But then she became curious about it. Who was doing this?

“Around last spring or last summer, I kept seeing this one name, Ju,” she says. “He would always have images next to his tags, like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Kanye West bears, and I just got really, really curious about this one tag. It became kind of a personal hunt but at the same time I became very curious as to what other people thought about it.”

She started talking with a variety of folks: graffiti writers, artists, community organizers, D.C. officials and others, and the conversations weren’t just about art. Discussions about public space, access, revitalization versus blight and D.C.’s changing neighborhoods were all intertwined with the graffiti seen on the Red Line. Thus began The Red Line D.C. Project, Yoseph’s documentary project and associated blog that proclaims “in Washington, D.C., the most accessible art form isn’t in the museums. it’s on the Metro.”

“I’m hoping I’m representative of other commuters who want to have a talk back. The way graffiti is, it’s kind of this one-way conversation,” Yoseph says.

She is now using the project as a way to launch a dialogue (it’s partially funded by nonprofit Words Beats & Life) and she has even folded it into her master’s coursework at Georgetown University, where she is earning a degree in communication, culture and technology.

Yoseph sees graffiti “almost in the same way I look at street signs. For me, it’s what’s the difference between this and looking at Ben Ali Way? It’s really just a marker of the people who have been there and existing in that space.”

One of the things that has most surprised Yoseph is the demographic profile of many — but not all — of the Red Line’s most prominent graffiti writers: white teens or young adults living in Maryland suburbs.

As for why that’s the case, Yoseph isn’t so sure.

“There’s plenty more people to talk to, and more graffiti writers I want to chat with. I’m kind of an outsider coming into it,” she says. “For me, it’s almost about asking ‘why?’ to everything.”

FILED UNDER: Culture, Public Transportation, The People, Graffiti, Metro, Public Art, Red Line