Government

All politics is local in the most political city in America.

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April 29, 2011 | 10:30 AM | By

‘Where Are You From?’: Thoughts From A Second-Generation American

Flickr: The White House

President Barack Obama

Aside from the politically-charged debate surrounding President Barack Obama’s decision to reveal his long-form birth certificate this week, the story highlighted something for me on a highly personal level: questioning the “American-ness” of second-generation Americans.

First, a word about me: I’m Iranian-American, born and raised in D.C. and Maryland, respectively. And on the numerous occasions I’ve been asked, “Where are you from?” I give the accurate response to that question: D.C. and Maryland. Rural Maryland, in fact, where bringing cowbells to both football games and high school graduations is the norm, and a common excuse for being late to class is claiming you got stuck behind a tractor on a two-lane road. I can’t think of anything more stereotypically small-town American.

My response is typically met with a blank stare, and perhaps a follow-up of “No, really. Where?” I know the answer I gave is not the one wanted, despite its accuracy.

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FILED UNDER: Government, The People, Identity, Second-generation
April 27, 2011 | 4:14 PM | By

D.C. At-Large Race: Orange Took Majority-Black Wards

Courtesy: Patrick Madden

The scene outside one of the polling places in the District Tuesday.

Democrat and former D.C. Councilman Vincent Orange won D.C.’s special election to fill an At-Large council seat, besting opponents in a crowded field. The breakdown for this particular election seems to mirror what happened in the 2010 mayoral race: election returns showing a schism between the city’s majority white and black wards.

The unofficial results don’t give us numbers on the racial breakdown of voters, but they do show Orange won in all of the city’s majority black wards: Ward 4 (35 percent of votes) ,Ward 5 (55 percent of votes), Ward 7 (61 percent of votes), and Ward 8 (66 percent votes). Did the racial undertones of the campaign have an effect on the result? The Washington Post reports that Orange’s name-recognition helped him pull in votes:

On Tuesday, several residents said they voted for Orange because they thought he was experienced and they didn’t know enough about the other candidates.

“Rest of these guys, it’s their first time out,” said George Poynter, 87, who voted at Patterson Elementary School in Washington Highlands, in Ward 8. “We’d be right back where we started.”

Yet Orange struggled to win over voters in neighborhoods in the western part of the city, resulting in an electoral split similar to last year’s mayoral race, in which Gray unseated Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Two of those majority-white western wards — Wards 2 and 3 — were carried by Republican Patrick Mara, who also took majority-white Ward 6, while Democrat Bryan Weaver took his home Ward 1.

FILED UNDER: Elections, D.C. City Council, Vincent Orange
April 25, 2011 | 3:03 PM | By

D.C. Special Election Round-Up: Race-Baiting, Apologies and Discrimination

The special election to fill an At-Large seat on the D.C. City Council will be held Tuesday, and a demographic shift could result: depending on the results, the council may be majority white, majority black or have its first Hispanic member. And since no D.C. election is complete without race and class issues coming to the fore, here is a quick recap:

–The latest back-and-forth originated after Sunday when Democrat Vincent Orange was out in Ward 8, handing out fliers developed by a group of residents that included this statement: “He walks like us. He talks like us…” The incident led to some pondering over what it means to walk and talk like Orange, and also denouncements over such a tactic.

DC is making some progress. Race cards not drawn until final weekend of the election. Very sad to see that happen at all.
April 24, 2011 4:33 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@DaveStroup
Dave Stroup

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FILED UNDER: Elections, Bryan Weaver, Patrick Mara, Sekou Biddle, Vincent Orange
April 22, 2011 | 1:20 PM | By

A $26,000 Student Bus Pass

Art by a special education student from the Bronx.

Flickr: vanessastories

D.C. doesn’t have adequate programs to serve children whose needs cannot be met in an ordinary classroom, so we bus them elsewhere. At great cost, apparently:

The city has 4,000 special-needs students who are served by Individualized Education Programs, and must be bussed to schools around D.C. and as far as Baltimore. This year, the mayor requested $150 million for tuition to those private programs, which is a $7.8 million decrease from last year. And just to get them there, the budget includes $93.6 million for 74 bus lines–that’s $26,000 per student per year.

Which makes leased Navigators look like peanuts.

FILED UNDER: Education, Government, Children, Money
April 21, 2011 | 2:29 PM | By

What can vouchers do for D.C.?

Flickr: NCinDC

Sidwell Friends.

Two weeks ago, Congress struck a last minute budget compromise to avoid a government shutdown. Part of that deal included restarting a voucher program in D.C. that had ended in 2009. Over at The New Republic, Matthew McKnight wonders if vouchers can provide a viable alternative to public schools–especially when the quality of private schools can vary dramatically:

Tuition at the city’s most elite, highest-achieving private schools are far too expensive for both the previous voucher allotments ($7,500 per year) and the increase proposed in the new bill ($12,000 per year). A smaller number of students were able to make up the difference from other funding sources in order to attend the more costly private schools. But, this means that most students with vouchers can only afford to attend private or parochial schools that, in many cases, are only marginally less bad than their public schools.

Lower school tuition for Sidwell Friends, the private school the Obama children attend, is nearly $32,000 for the 2011 school year. Sidwell offers financial aid to nearly a quarter of its student body–awarding an average of $20,965 to eligible students– but tuition is only the first hurdle to cross. McKnight interviewed an African American senior at the prestigious school who discussed feeling like an outsider who had to overcome obstacles like “sharp racial imbalances”…and that Senior wasn’t even a voucher student.

FILED UNDER: Education, Children, Politics, Race and Class, Schools
April 20, 2011 | 3:45 PM | By

“A Southern Plantation in law enforcement”

Flickr: Jonathon D. Colman

Yesterday, over 50 African American employees began the process of filing a discrimination complaint against the Capitol Police, a federal police force tasked with protecting the United States Congress:

In a press conference, members of the U.S. Capitol Black Police Association announced they intended to file a classwide request for counseling with the Office of Compliance, which will “initiate a process that will in all likelihood lead to yet another discrimination complaint” filed against Capitol Police, according to association member and Capitol Police Lt. Frank Adams.

Cited as reasons for the action are reprisals, hostile work environment and discrimination committed against black employees by the Capitol Police, the Capitol Police Board and the senior employment counsel for both, Frederick Herrera.

“The United States Capitol Police Department continues to project a model culture of discrimination as reflected in a ‘modern day version of a 19th Century Southern Plantation in law enforcement,’” Adams said.

The U.S. Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A decade ago, over 300 Capitol Police employees filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit which has yet to be resolved.

FILED UNDER: Government, Discrimination
April 18, 2011 | 12:57 PM | By

Private School Grads Fixing Public Schools

Flickr: TopRow

Maumee Valley Country Day School, Michelle Rhee's alma mater.

The New York Times points out something important about the school reform movement– those involved, including former D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee and President Barack Obama, did not attend public schools:

Those who call themselves reformers are a diverse group, men and women of every political stripe and of every race and ethnicity.

But there is one thing that characterizes a surprisingly large number of the people who are transforming public schools: they attended private schools.

Which raises the question: Does a private school background give them a much-needed distance and fresh perspective to better critique and remake traditional public schools? Does it make them distrust public schools — or even worse — poison their perception of them? Or does it make any difference?

FILED UNDER: Education, Michelle Rhee, Schools
April 15, 2011 | 12:11 PM | By

Huge Rooftop Vegetable Garden Coming to D.C.

Anna John

Bread for the City expanded its northwest center, reopening in January.

No room to grow a vegetable garden? Just go to your roof.

That’s what nonprofit Bread for the City will begin building this weekend on top of its recently renovated Northwest center, creating one of the largest rooftop produce gardens in D.C.

The idea came out of an initiative by a couple of employees at the organization’s Southeast center, where they had planted some herbs and vegetables on the patio. Development Associate in Communications Greg Bloom says the organization then decided to turn the Northwest center’s new green garden into one that grew more than just plants that absorb rain water.

DC Greenworks will provide assistance and clients will help maintain the garden.

The Bread for the City garden will be 3,500 square ft. large with 30 raised beds, and all the more poignant for Bloom is the fact this garden is going on the roof of a building that houses a medical clinic and food pantry at 7th street NW between P and Q streets.

“D.C. is notorious for really bad food deserts, especially in low income parts of the city,” Bloom says.

Bloom says the problem of food insecurity and malnutrition is “more complicated than where can you find food in your neighborhood, and the solutions to it are also more complicated than, ‘we can’t grow all the food we need.’”

Produce will be planted in raised beds on the roof.

Courtesy of Bread for the City

And indeed, this garden won’t be able to feed all Bread for the City clients (the organization serves 4,500 families a month — that’s a lot of food for a roof to produce). Instead, it will primarily serve as a way to educate clients and the community about food justice and also serve as a green space “to foster reflection” and spur dialogue between and among clients, community organizers and donors about food sustainability.

“All too often the question of food sustainability and environmental sustainability, it’s actually a really elitist conversation in that the people who are talking about it are the ones with the resources to experiment and buy high-end produce,” Bloom says. “We don’t think it has to be that way…. And it’s important for us to create at least one space for that.”

Work on the garden will begin Saturday (weather permitting) and ramp up, continuing April 23. And, yes, you can help.

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, Education, Bread for the City, Sustainability
April 14, 2011 | 2:08 PM | By

D.C. a Plantation, Congress its ‘Massuh?’ Councilman Explains.

D.C. Councilman Michael A. Brown appeared on conservative talk radio WMAL, and as noted by Mike DeBonis and DCist, offered these thoughts:

“They can treat us as their guinea pigs, they can treat us as a petri dish, and as I called it, they treat us as a colony or a plantation,” said Michael A. Brown, DC council member at-large. Brown was one of six council members arrested along with Mayor Vincent Gray at a protest fueled by anger at the federal government’s budget deal.

“What’s next, we have to call them ‘massuh’?” said Brown.

Flickr: Andrew Bossi

D.C. Councilman Michael A. Brown was arrested April 11, along with other city officials, during a protest against the Congressional budget deal.

We asked Councilman Brown to explain his comment further after his appearance on the Kojo Nnamdi Show today, and he said it was “a little taken out of context.”

“I definitely said it, and I’ve said it before. But in context, some of the folks on the Hill treat us like a plantation here in the District of Columbia,” he said. “And when you use the term plantation it means, in context, it means folks want us to call them massuhs. But it’s in context of the plantation discussion as to how we’re treated on the Hill.”

The rhetoric surrounding D.C. statehood has been growing more and more heated in recent weeks, most notably with Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton saying Congress’ budget actions were the equivalent of “bombing innocent civilians.” It also isn’t new to use the history and legacy of slavery power dynamics when talking about D.C. independence. In 2007, then-Mayor Adrian Fenty declared that D.C. Emancipation Day would be dedicated to “the continued pursuit for full democracy” with a voting rights march to the U.S. Capitol to demand representation in Congress.

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FILED UNDER: Government, History, Media, D.C. Statehood, Michael Brown, Slavery
April 13, 2011 | 3:11 PM | By

D.C. Needle Exchange: What a Budget Axe Could Have Done

Flickr: Staxnet

D.C. needle exchange providers are breathing a collective sigh of relief after news broke yesterday that the impending temporary budget bill wouldn’t cut their funding after all.

But the possible loss of such funding spurred us to ask: how do needle exchanges work, anyway and who would be most affected if such a cut went through?

A few organizations in the District run needle exchange programs, including Helping Individual Prostitutes Service (HIPS), which works with commercial and informal sex workers in the District. Executive director Cyndee Clay says her group works with about 1,000 people a year, exchanged 8,000 syringes in March and about 65,000 in 2010.

Different providers handle needle exchange differently. For HIPS, clients register and then can exchange dirty needles for an equal number of sterile ones. In addition to the exchange, HIPS workers often take the opportunity to provide health counseling and other drug intervention services.

The majority of clients are African Americans and they are about evenly divided among women, men and transgender men and women, says Clay.

“These populations often never go through the door of a social agency, so those people would effectively be cut off from any services except for law enforcement” if needle exchanges ceased, Clay says.

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FILED UNDER: Government, The People, Budget, Needle exchanges