DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! Who’s ready for some links?

NYT: Hey, this professor makes a good point when he compares global warming skeptics to defenders of slavery! “Just as few people saw a moral problem with slavery in the 18th century, few people in the 21st century see a moral problem with the burning of fossil fuels,” Professor [Andrew] Hoffman [of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources] said. “Will people in 100 years look at us with the same incomprehension we feel toward 18th-century defenders of slavery?” (Washington Examiner )

In Which We Express More Indignation Over D.C. Voting Rights “The Founders were pretty bright people. They chose, for reasons that they had, to not have voting rights in Washington, D.C. The folks who live there know that. They can live there or they can not, and it’s their choice to live there. I’m not in favor of tampering with the Constitution unless it absolutely must be done. It’s unfortunate that they don’t have the right to vote. … The fact is that the part of Washington, D.C. that is in Virginia is now part of Virginia. Why don’t we make the part of Washington, D.C. that’s in Maryland part of Maryland?” said Fimian. (DCist)

Census Violence: Redistricting Ward Boundaries Could Fracture D.C. Council “Barry frequently decries the income gap between white households and black households in the city, and he says he plans to mount a campaign to draw new lines that make wards more economically diverse. He says the wards, including his own, need to get more racially diverse, too. Redistricting, Barry says, is a good way to do both.” (Washington City Paper)

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Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?

Harbin freshman arrested for “use of a controlled substance” Same dorm as the DMT bust: “At her arraignment, Baltazar pled not guilty to charges of unlawful possession of and intent to sell marijuana and the sale of drug paraphernalia. The judge released her from custody but recommended that she undergo drug testing and treatment. Her attorney, Brian M. Heberlig, said during the arraignment that Baltazar will be meeting with the head Georgetown’s student disciplinary board on Friday.” (blog.georgetownvoice.com)

GOP Social Club Sued For Racial Discrimination “Kim Crawford, who says she worked as the club’s assistant comptroller and human resources manager for more than ten years—the last eight without a raise—has filed a complaint in federal court [pdf] alleging she was repeatedly passed over for raises while “less qualified, less deserving male and white counterparts were given” pay bumps. And she says she was fired in July after taking seriously, and investigating, a racial discrimination complaint from the club’s acting executive chef.” (gawker.com)

Science and Faith in the Black Community ”The Black Church’s policing of the bodies and destinies of black women and the lives of black gays and lesbians represents a bankrupt ‘morality’ which is just as pernicious as that of the Religious Right…Insofar as atheism and humanism provide an implicit rejection of both black patriarchy and ‘authentic’ blackness, those who would dare to come out of the closet as atheists are potential race traitors.” (Racialicious)
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Good morning, DCentric readers! Last night, while you were pretending not to watch Glee, we were out searching for links. Enjoy!

District gets winter plan for sheltering the homeless “The homeless will increasingly be placed in apartments and single rooms in the District this winter, under a plan approved Tuesday, with barely a week to go before the city’s cold-weather season officially begins. The plan approved by the Interagency Council on Homelessness, a coalition of D.C. agencies and nonprofit groups, lists 185 units that will be used for families when emergency shelters are full.” (The Washington Post)

High-Heel race won’t be charged for police overtime “The District won’t be able to recoup costs for police overtime spent on closing down streets for the High Heel Race because the annual jaunt around Dupont Circle in which men dress up as women has been labeled a “First Amendment event.” E-mails among police officials obtained by The Washington Examiner show that Mayor Adrian Fenty designated the Halloween-season event as a protected First Amendment event in September 2009.” (Washington Examiner )

A Walk With: Sandra Butler-Truesdale – Housing Complex “As we walked, Butler-Truesdale, always attuned to racial interactions, noticed that loitering black men looked at the pair of us—a white reporter and an older black woman—with suspicion. “You know what they’re thinking?” she asked. “First of all, ‘what is she talking about?’ And ‘is she giving away our secrets?’” (Washington City Paper)

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Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were rooting for the Cowboys last night, we were out foraging for delicious links!

What Everyone Is Missing About NPR’s WilliamsGate “Do I think NPR fired him because he is black? No. Do I think NPR kept Williams on for years, as the relationship degraded, because he is a black man? Absolutely. Williams’ presence on air was a fig-leaf for much broader and deeper diversity problems at the network. NPR needs…broadly, a diversity upgrade that doesn’t just focus on numbers, but on protocols for internal communication.” (faraichideya.com)

Black preachers who ‘whoop’ — minstrels or ministers? “Smith may have sounded like he was screaming. But those who grew up in the African-American church know better. He was whooping. He was practicing a art form that’s divided the black church since slavery. Whooping is a celebratory style of black preaching that pastors typically use to close a sermon. Some church scholars compare it to opera; it’s that moment the sermon segues into song.” (CNN)

Culture Cuts Both Ways – Ta-Nehisi Coates “People talk about reading books as being written off as “acting-white.” I guess. Here’s what I know about that: When I was eighteen, binge-drinking and snorting coke was “acting white.” I was at Howard then, where a large swath of the student population hailed from high schools where most people didn’t go to college. Most of us had watched the crack era unfold firsthand. The notion of coming to college and essentially tempting suicide was seen as the province of “The Culture Of Affluence,” of the rich and the foolish, of the white.” (The Atlantic)

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