Around the City

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

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October 19, 2011 | 2:35 PM | By

(Video) Deportations and Uncovering Hidden Abuses in Detention Centers

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting police officers from questioning the immigration status of those arrested. This comes the day after the U.S. government announced it deported a record number of undocumented immigrants in 2011.

But the District may have to eventually implement Secure Communities, a controversial federal program that requires law enforcement officials to share arrest information with immigration officials. A new Frontline series focuses on Secure Communities, the deportation process and hidden abuses in immigrant detention centers. The program, “Lost in Detention,” was the result of a collaboration with American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop

Reporter Maria Hinojosa recently spoke with PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan about the possibility that more sexual abuse is taking place in detention centers than is reported.  “If you’re an immigrant who is detained in a detention center,” Hinojosa said, “and you’re an immigrant with papers or without, if you are sexually assaulted by a guard while you’re in a detention center, you may not have any legal right to hold anyone accountable.”

You can watch the first part of the Frontline series below:

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FILED UNDER: Government, The People, Frontline, ICE, Immigration
October 19, 2011 | 9:52 AM | By

The Rise of Interracial Marriage

Adele Booysen / Flickr

The changing attitude surrounding interracial marriages, which now make up 7.4 percent of all American marriages, was the subject of a recent NPR  piece that aired on All Things Considered.

According to recent data, the least common pairing is between black women and white men, followed by white women and black men. The most likely interracial marriage is between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, followed by those between white men and Asian American women. So what does that tell us about race in America? From NPR:

“It reflects the status hierarchy,” says Roderick J. Harrison, a demographer at Howard University. “If you’re trying to marry up, clearly whites are it. If you’re trying to avoid marrying down, it would still look like blacks might be the least preferred.”

But even though a relatively small percentage of all American marriages are interracial, attitudes have changed much more rapidly in recent years. In 1987, 48 percent of Americans felt it was okay for whites and blacks to date. By 2009, it jumped to 80 percent. And in 2008, almost 15 percent of all new marriages were interracial, a record number according to the Pew Center.

D.C. is a diverse, vibrant city, and the number of multiracial people living here has increased by about 2 percent over the past decade. By 2010, about 17,316 D.C. residents were multiracial, about 7,000 of whom reported to be black and some other race.

What do you think: do attitudes in D.C. reflect the national increase in interracial marriages? Is it more accepted in D.C. than in other places or is there still a taboo? What have been your experiences with interracial dating and marriage?

FILED UNDER: The People, Interracial dating, Interracial Marriage, Multiracial
October 18, 2011 | 2:15 PM | By

ICE Deportations Reach Record Levels

John Moore / Getty Images

Undocumented Guatemalan immigrants are body searched before boarding a deportation flight to Guatemala City, Guatemala at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on June 24, 2011 in Mesa, Arizona.

The United States has deported more people over the past fiscal year than ever before, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE deported 396,906 people between October 2010 and September 2011. About 55 percent of those deported had been convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.

“These year-end totals indicate that we are making progress, with more convicted criminals, recent border crossers, egregious immigration law violators and immigration fugitives being removed from the country than ever before,” ICE Director John Morton said in a press release.

ICE officials see the deportation numbers as positive, but the agency has come under heat for its recent practices, particularly over the controversial Secure Communities program. It directs local police departments to share finger prints and other arrest information with immigration officials. Critics say domestic violence victims and witnesses have been deported as a result, and that can foster distrust between immigrant communities and police. Federal officials have announced reforms, although there is still skepticism over how such changes will be implemented.

D.C. has yet to implement Secure Communities, but it may soon be mandatory around the country.

 

FILED UNDER: The People, ICE, Immigration
October 17, 2011 | 5:26 PM | By

MLK Memorial: A Complex D.C. Legacy

PBS NewsHour / Flickr

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, dedicated on Sunday as a tribute and reminder that King’s vision of equality isn’t yet fully realized, evokes an additional memory for those living in D.C. The statue is a reminder of the pain and frustration felt after King’s assassination, which gave birth to the 1968 riots that forever changed D.C.’s landscape, setting the stage for the gentrification the city is undergoing today.

One of Sunday’s speakers, president of the Children’s Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman, shared this moving recollection from that moment in time:

The day after Dr. King was shot, I went into riot-torn Washington, D.C. neighborhoods and schools, urging children not to loot, get arrested and ruin their futures. A 12-year-old black boy looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Lady, what future? I ain’t got no future. I ain’t got nothing to lose.”

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FILED UNDER: History, The People, Gentrification, Martin Luther King Memorial
October 13, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

‘Occupy the Hood’ and How to Boost Protest Diversity

Dan Patterson / Flickr

A protestor holds an "Occupy the Hood' sign in New York City.

The Occupy protests against corporate greed have brought together a broad coalition of people, but there have been questions about whether the crowds assembled are racially representative.

Enter Occupy the Hood, a sub-movement that started in New York and Detroit and is now spreading to other cities, including D.C. The goal is to get more people of color involved in Occupy protests and ensure their voices are heard. Friends Julian Liser, 21, and Drew Franklin, 24, started the D.C. branch last week. They say the protests in D.C., where 61 percent of the population is non-white, should be attracting more people of color, particularly from economically depressed communities since they are hardest-hit by the economic woes at the center of the movement.

“It’s important that minorities are also aware of what’s going on, and they should also feel this movement is important for them, too,” Liser, who is black, says. “It’s kind of hard to explain that to them because they just see people around K Street protesting something. They don’t see how it affects them.”

Liser’s story is similar to many of the white protestors on K Street. He’s unemployed and was motivated to join Occupy DC after learning about the new Bank of America debit card fees. Such fees are “killing my account,” Liser says.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Occupy DC, Race and Class
October 7, 2011 | 12:19 PM | By

Occupy Protests: Are They Representative?

Andrew Bossi / Flick

A protest sign during the first day of Occupy DC.

The Occupy Wall Street protests have spread to other cities, including the District. Protesters are are calling for an end to corporate greed and proclaiming the vast majority of Americans suffer while the rich haven’t.

More than a hundred people gathered at Freedom Plaza on Thursday, some wielding signs with statement like “We are the 99%.”

It would make sense that such a movement would have particular relevance for communities of color, who are facing higher unemployment rates and are largely on the losing side of the wealth gap. So some have wondered why the crowds in some cities have been mostly white.

Racialicious compiled a number of dispatches from activist reporting many people of color are absent from leadership positions or feel marginalized at the New York protests. Such rumblings helped spur the formation of “The People of Color Working Group,” which issued a statement:

… The economic crisis did not begin with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008. Indeed, people of color and poor people have been in a state of crisis since the founding of this country, and for indigenous communities, since before the founding of the nation. We have long known that capitalism serves only the interests of a tiny, mostly white, minority.

The vast majority of the crowd at Occupy DC’s Thursday protest was white, but a number of people of color said they felt speakers’ messages and the crowd assembled was representative of those who are suffering.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Occupy DC, Race and Class
October 6, 2011 | 5:52 PM | By

DCentric Picks: ‘The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975′

Flickr: Runs With Scissors

Mural of Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. During the 1968 riots, Carmichael, who was a leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) obtained special police permission to allow Ben’s Chili Bowl to stay open after curfew to provide food and shelter for activists and public servants who were working to restore order in D.C.

What: Film: “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975” (2010)

When: Weekend screenings include: 10:30 a.m.,‎ ‎12:45 p.m., ‎ ‎3:00 p.m.,‎ ‎5:15‎ p.m., ‎7:30‎ p.m., ‎9:45 p.m‎. Check here for updates.

Where: Landmark E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. NW.

Cost: $11 for general admission. More details here.

Why you should go: As the New York Times put it,

The film begins at a moment when the concept of black power was promoted by Stokely Carmichael, a veteran of the freedom rides early in the decade, who, like many young black activists, had grown frustrated with the Gandhian, nonviolent philosophy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Carmichael, who later moved to Guinea and took the name Kwame Ture, is remembered for the militancy of his views and his confrontational, often slashingly witty speeches, but the Swedish cameras captured another side of him. In the most touching and arresting scene in “Mixtape,” he interviews his mother, Mable, gently prodding her to talk about the effects of poverty and discrimination on her family.

Other events to consider: Fans of conscious hip-hop and global music can combine their passions with one FREE show at the Kennedy Center’s Millenium Stage, where Jewish Israeli recording artist and producer SHI 360 performs on Sunday, Oct. 9 at 6 p.m.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, DCentric Picks, Films
October 6, 2011 | 12:13 PM | By

Battling Unemployment Among D.C.’s Low-Income, Black Youth

Many of D.C.’s young people who live way below the poverty line, aren’t in school or looking for work are black, a new report finds.

Researchers at The Brookings Institution examined these disparities in an effort to propose some solutions. About 28,000 D.C. residents aged 16 to 24 lack a bachelor’s degree and live 200 percent below the poverty line. And 22,000 of those young people are black.

Low-income D.C. black youth lacking bachelor’s degrees

The Brookings folks propose a few solutions, and among them is abandoning the “college for all approach.” But, as they note, there is a history of discrimination when it comes to who has been deemed worthy of higher education (emphasis mine):

Integrating employment and occupational skills into the high school and post-secondary curricula is often disparaged, with career and technical education (previously known as vocational education) seen as a dumping ground for students not deemed “college-ready.” The legacy of tracking, segregation, and discrimination in the educational system certainly provides support for that view— education can be a vehicle for upward mobility but it can also perpetuate inequality based on race and class.

Here are a few more recommendations in the report:

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FILED UNDER: Education, The People, Race and Class, Unemployment
October 3, 2011 | 11:26 AM | By

DC Circulator Starts Traveling East of the River

Wayan Vota / Flickr

DC Circulator, the inexpensive, reliable and quick way of getting around the city, made its first trip east of the Anacostia River today. The new line travels from the Potomac Avenue Metro to Skyland via Barracks Row.

Getting across the Anacostia River to where most of the city’s jobs are located can be a time-consuming or expensive undertaking. That can be a particular challenge in Ward 8, where 20 percent of people earn less than $10,000 a year. Circulator trips cost a dollar and buses arrive every 10 minutes between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The D.C. Department of Transportation was able to expand across the river after canceling the Convention Center-SW Waterfront route due to low ridership.

DDOT

The new Potomac Ave. Metro - Skyland Circulator route is in orange.

FILED UNDER: Public Transportation, DC Circulator, Unemployment, Ward 8
September 30, 2011 | 2:55 PM | By

There are Only 90 Doctors East of the River

Flickr: NCinDC

Howard University Hospital

If you reside in Columbia Heights, Dupont Circle or Friendship Heights, chances are, you live near a practicing physician. For D.C. residents who make their home east of the river, it’s a very different situation, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, which focused on a potential shortage of doctors in this city. One part of the article stood out to us; when it comes to a lack of practicing physicians, certain areas in D.C.- have it much worse than others.

In Ward 3, for example, there is an abundance of physicians, with “literally hundreds of doctors to choose from,” said Michael Williams, chief of health-care operations for the nonprofit D.C. Primary Care Association. But he said only 90 doctors list a business address east of the Anacostia River.

The District has a “severe mal-distribution of physicians” rather than a shortage, given that roughly 23 percent of the population lives east of the river but only a tiny fraction of physicians have a business location there, he said.

The Post reported that there are 4,000 full- or part-time physicians in D.C. but it’s important to keep in mind those doctors are sometimes seeing patients who work in the city, but live in Maryland or Virginia. So doctors who maintain a practice in the city are treating patients from across the region, which for locals makes finding a doctor even more challenging.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Health, Health disparities, Race and Class