Around the City

Urban affairs, neighborhoods, subways and the people who are affected by them all.

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September 8, 2011 | 2:30 PM | By

DCentric Picks: 9/11 Unity Walk

Courtesy of 9/11 Unity Walk

What: The 7th annual 9/11 Unity Walk.

When: 1:30 p.m., Sunday.

Where: The event starts at the Washington Hebrew Center at 3935 Macomb St. NW, from where participants will walk to other religious centers.

Cost: Free, but there is a $10 suggested donation (you can register here).

Why you should go: The 9/11 Unity Walk started in 2005 as a response to religious and ethnic intolerance in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This year’s walk will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks. All are welcome to learn about Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions. There will be a call to prayer, church tours, a “Ghandi-style” walk and other events.

Other events to consider: After the walk, Busboys and Poets at 14th and V streets NW will host “E Pluribus Unum: Out of Many, One,” an interfaith dialogue led by local Muslim leaders. It takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. and is free to the public.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Delightful City, 9/11, DCentric Picks
September 8, 2011 | 1:16 PM | By

When a Grocery Store is Labeled ‘Ghetto’

Steve Snodgrass / Flickr

A hallmark of neighborhood change and gentrification are shiny, new grocery stores. The 32-year-old O Street Giant in Shaw closes today to make way for a modernized Giant set to open in 2013. It’s part of the multi-million dollar CityMarket at O development, which includes 600 condos, a boutique hotel and 84 affordable senior housing units.

The O Street Giant has gotten a bad rap throughout the years; there have been health inspection problems, rancid food and rodents, as TBD’s Jenny Rogers reports. Some who regard the store with disdain refer to the place as “Ghetto Giant,” a problematic moniker implying poor and black. But when the store first opened in 1979, it was “declared a triumph for a neighborhood still recovering from riots and struggling with crime,” Rogers writes:

The Washington Post printed that it “symbolizes the transformation that has occurred in Shaw, once the city’s worst slum.” Then-mayor Marion Barry cut a white satin ribbon and proclaimed, “It’s the good times for Shaw.”

According to reports at the time, the O Street Giant was the first new grocery store to open in the District in 10 years. Post writer LaBarbara Bowman noted its “gourmet foods”—including caviar, pickled mushrooms, and Swedish pancake mix—and “gourmet produce”—pomegranates and papayas. For less discerning shoppers, the store offered “pork and beef neckbone, large galvanized trash cans and large packages of rice and beans.” These diverse offerings, it was predicted, would serve both Shaw’s poor and its newly returning middle-class residents.

Decades later, the store certainly doesn’t symbolize neighborhood transformation, nor is it a model of serving low- and middle-income residents. But despite all of its problems, the O Street Giant remained quite busy. It was open 24 hours a day, and more importantly, it was the only full-service supermarket in the neighborhood. Safeway and Whole Foods, more expensive than Giant, are quite a hike away (about .05 to 1 mile away). If you don’t have a car or have kids in tow, O Street Giant is all you had.

Giant is offering a free shuttle to the Columbia Heights Giant, which picks up on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. and Sundays at noon, which is far from convenient.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, Ghetto, Giant, Supermarkets
September 7, 2011 | 1:43 PM | By

How Not to Claim Racial Bias

Courtesy of Armando Trull / WAMU

Cornell Jones is accused of using HIV/AIDS money to renovate Stadium, a D.C. strip club.

The nonprofit leader accused of using D.C. HIV/AIDS funding to renovate a strip club has claimed racial bias is the reason behind the probe. And then he went on to use an anti-gay slur against city leaders.

Cornell Jones, who is black and runs a nonprofit under investigation by the D.C. Attorney General, made the remarks during his WOL-AM 1450 Saturday radio talk show, The Washington Times reports. He said the investigation is the result of racial bias from white city leaders and then described two white and openly gay D.C. Councilmen — David Catania (At-Large) and Jim Graham (Ward 1) –  as “a couple of gay guys who sometimes get to acting like little faggots.” Councilman Catania urged the attorney general to launch the probe, and Councilman Graham has been vocal about his outrage over the findings, the Times reports.

Some have taken to Twitter to urge people to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission over Jones’ use of the slur on air.

Jones, a self-described former drug kingpin, runs the nonprofit Miracle Hands. A lawsuit brought by the D.C. Attorney General alleges Jones’ nonprofit was given about $330,000 in public money intended to renovate a Northeast warehouse into a job training facility for District residents with HIV/AIDS. The suit claims Jones used the funds to build out Stadium, a strip club that shares an address with the Miracle Hands.

 

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Media, HIV/AIDS, Miracle Hands, Race, Stadium Nightclub
September 7, 2011 | 11:38 AM | By

D.C.’s Unemployment Divide and How to Fix It

Brenda Gottsabend / Flickr

The unemployment rate in D.C. is higher than the national average, but as Metro Connection’s Sabri Ben-Achour reports, the pain isn’t being felt evenly along racial and class lines. He recently spoke with economist Benjamin Orr of the Brookings Institution about the imbalance and ways to fix it:

“Ward 7 is, based on some calculations I’ve done, at 22 percent unemployment rate, which is actually now higher than the unemployment rate in Ward 8, which is at about 20 percent,” Orr says. “This is practically depression era levels of unemployment.”

In Ward 3, Orr says, unemployment is 4 percent.

“That’s a significant divide,” Orr says. “That’s a completely different reality for those two wards.”

Wards 7 and 8 are majority black with high numbers of low-income residents; Ward 3 is mostly white and wealthy. Orr goes on to say long term solutions to the employment divide include improving education, access to transportation and job training programs. You can listen to the entire segment here.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Metro Connection, Unemployment
September 6, 2011 | 12:06 PM | By

Whole Foods Opens in Foggy Bottom

Richard / Flickr

Whole Foods now has four locations in D.C., including the P Street Whole Foods pictured above.

D.C. gets another Whole Foods today. The grocer, viewed by many as one of the most obvious signs of gentrification, has opened the doors at 22nd and I Streets NW in Foggy Bottom.

Foggy Bottom is a far cry from a rapidly changing neighborhood — it’s been decidedly wealthy for a couple of decades. But it wasn’t always that way. Washington Circle, a stone’s throw from the new Whole Foods, was an Irish gang crossroads in the late 1800s. Tenement dwellings, smoke stacks and slums dominated Foggy Bottom through the first half of the 20th century, when most residents lived in abject poverty. Much different from expensive homes and grocers with organic salad bars.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Foggy Bottom, Supermarkets, Whole Foods
September 2, 2011 | 12:29 PM | By

On Sagging Pants and Race

Flickr: Susan NYC

Pull your pants up, was the advice given to a young man asking about job prospects during last month’s National Night Out event led by D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander and D.C. Fire Chief Kenneth Ellerbee, according to The Root DC.

The adults offered one place to start: pull up your pants.

“Oh, you’ve got Ralph Lauren,” Alexander told one of the young men. “I guess you want to show that off.”

What would happen, she asked, if they dressed like that and a nice, white lady walked by. “Do you think she might cross the street?” Alexander said.

One reader, MSTanya, took issue with Alexander’s attempt to illustrate her point:

Why did it have to be a “nice white lady” who walked by. Aren’t there any nice African American ladies who could have been used as an example? Yes, there definitely are, but as per the norm, it’s always a white person being looked at as nice…

We’re still waiting to hear back from the Council member’s office regarding her remarks.

According to “Anthropology off the Shelf,” low-slung pants are a symbol of incarceration. The book notes that “sagging as a style was adopted from prison culture, where belts are prohibited and ill-fitting prison garb is the norm.”

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, The People
September 2, 2011 | 10:00 AM | By

MLK Library To Close On Sundays

Paul Simpson / Flickr

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library is located at 9th and G streets, NW.

D.C. libraries offer major resources to residents, particularly for those lacking computers or Internet access. And the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, the system’s largest and it’s central library, stays quite busy.

But starting Oct. 2, patrons will have to look elsewhere on Sundays. The library will join the city’s other neighborhood libraries, which have been closed on Sundays since last year.

The new hours at MLK  are a result of a budget shortfall; this particular library has about $700,000 less to work with this coming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

But library spokesman George Williams says that Sunday has been one of the least busy days for the MLK library, when it’s only open from 1 to 5 p.m. The neighborhood libraries, however, had been quite popular on Sundays until 2010 when Sunday hours were cut.

“When the decision was made to close Sundays at neighborhood libraries, patrons made the adjustment” and started coming on other days, Williams says.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, Digital Divide, Libraries
September 1, 2011 | 2:03 PM | By

Why D.C.’s Latino Population is Up When It’s Black Population is Down

Cameron Nordholm / Flickr

A woman waves the Salvadoran flag during Fiesta DC in Mount Pleasant, one of D.C.'s longtime Latino centers.

Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant, traditionally the center of the D.C.’s Latino community, are much different places now than they were 20 years ago. Big box stores sit upon formerly vacant lots. Pupuserias now have vegan cafes as neighbors. House values have exploded. Ward 1, where these neighborhoods are located, has lost more than 2,000 Latinos over the past decade.

Travel a few blocks south and you see a similar transformation. The U Street area, formerly “Black Broadway,” was 77 percent black; it’s now only 15 percent black. Many longtime residents who had bought homes at modest prices have sold them for large sums. Others were priced out by rising rents. Luxury high-rise condo buildings have sprouted up.

But while the number of African Americans throughout D.C. is declining — by 11 percent over the past decade –the number of Latinos actually increased, by about 21 percent. This growth happened despite the fact that rapidly increasing housing prices have particularly affected longtime Latino neighborhoods, according to the District’s 2009 State of Latinos report.

So why is D.C.’s Latino community growing while it’s black community shrinks?

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, 2010 Census, D.C. Population, Hispanics
August 31, 2011 | 11:11 AM | By

On Blaming the Black Middle Class

Flickr: afagen

“Stop Picking on the Black Middle Class; It didn’t abandon urban communities, despite what some say,” is the headline of Natalie Hopkinson’s article in The Root.

The piece references a recent Washington City Paper article, which asked “As parents in places like Capitol Hill embrace neighborhood schools, has D.C.’s black middle class given up on them?” Hopkinson answers, “If I were looking for a culprit in a racial group, the black middle class is the very last place that I’d be sniffing around.”

Hopkinson also describes her attempt to stop her next-door neighbor from selling crack. Confronting the man and shaming his customers didn’t work, so she called 311 and spoke to a black city employee who suggested that she do what the “white folks” did. Hopkinson wasn’t interested in that advice:

I was too furious to hear the rest. What in the Tiger Mom hell did my being white, black or purple have to do with the fact that this man was selling crack? “Just get someone over here!” I barked, and hung up the phone. Still, crickets.

Sadly, this attitude is par for the course in D.C. When you’re white — maybe especially in a very black city like Washington, D.C. — people pay attention. Some of it is the sheer novelty of whites living in previously all-black neighborhoods. Some of it is historical, and the socioeconomic position of whites in relation to blacks.

Whatever the reasons, as the city continues to gentrify, getting whiter and richer, progress is credited to white folks. It’s as if they deserve gold stars for consenting to live among the Negroes and cleaning up the Negro mess. Never mind the complicated cocktail of race, class and history that has shaped the city’s fortunes over the years. If you’re black, well … just try to be more like white people!

In the original City Paper feature, Jonetta Rose Barras wrote:
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, Gentrification, Race and Class
August 30, 2011 | 12:56 PM | By

Five Factors Behind the ‘Alarming’ HIV Infection Rate for Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men

Stephen Chernin / Getty Images

A young man inserts the Rapid HIV test swab into its tube.

The HIV infection rate for young black men who have sex with men is growing at an “alarming” rate.

That’s according to a report released this month by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC studied HIV infection rates from 2006 to 2009, and found that the rate increased by 48 percent for 13 to 29 year-old black men who have sex with men. Meanwhile, infection rates have remained relatively stable for all other groups.

Healthcare providers and organizers in D.C., where 3 percent of the population has HIV/AIDS, are seeing the trend. Justin Goforth is the director of community health at Whitman-Walker Health, a center offering medical, counseling and legal services to D.C.’s LGBT community.

“This is who we see come in every day that’s testing positive: young black gay men,” Goforth says.

Below are five factors contributing to higher infection rate among this group:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, CDC, Health disparities, HIV/AIDS, Whitman-Walker Health