The People

Key topics in this category:

RECENT POSTS

May 18, 2011 | 1:04 PM | By

Reducing Racial Infant Mortality Rate Disparities– On Wheels

Courtesy of Jessica Gould

D.C's maternal mobile unit parked in Anacostia.

This post comes courtesy of WAMU Web producer Dana Farrington.

For many women of color in D.C., having a health baby is a challenge unto itself.

The city’s infant mortality rates show marked disparities that cut across racial and class lines. One way the city is looking to address the racial gap is through the D.C. Health Department’s maternal mobile unit, a clinic-on-wheels that drives to the poorest parts of the city — its funded to serve Wards 5 through 8 — to offer pregnancy tests and connect expectant moms with adequate prenatal care.

The unit, which receives funding from the federal Healthy Start program, had to be taken off of the streets for six months for maintenance. It’s been back in commission since February, and 67 residents have received service on the unit since.

WAMU reporter Jessica Gould spoke to Tamika, a 17-year-old Anacosita resident who received a pregnancy and HIV test once it came back in service. She told her that more women should follow her lead:

“So we can know… ‘Cause a lot of people don’t take time out and go to the doctor. For us to have this on the street you could just walk up and take 20 minutes to get tested and you’ll know.”

In D.C. the infant mortality rate was 10.9 deaths per every 1,000 live births in 2008, compared to the national rate of 6.9. The District’s rate is comparable to other large U.S. cities, but it’s the worst when up against the 50 states [PDF]. D.C. also ranks poorly when it comes to infants born with low birth weight.

But the outlook is worse for black women. In D.C., black women had an infant mortality rate of 17.2 deaths per every 1,000 live birth in 2007 — more than 4.5 times the rate for white women. The rate for Hispanic women in the District was 9.4

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, D.C. Department of Health, Infant Mortality Rate
May 17, 2011 | 1:53 PM | By

Tweet of the Day, 05.17

@DCntrc for all the bias against renters they are more tight knit than single family homeowners, i think.
May 17, 2011 11:34 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@anc7c04
Sylvia C. Brown

This tweet was sent in response to our post on tightly-knit communities in Anacostia.

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Renters
May 16, 2011 | 3:40 PM | By

In Your Words– Psychology Today on Black Women and Beauty

Psychology Today blogger and evolutionary scientist Satoshi Kanazawa set off a firestorm of tweets today with his post, “Why are black women less physically attractive than other women?”:

science also proved the earth was flat... so i can't be that mad that they "proved" black women less attractive...
May 16, 2011 12:21 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@dscribefreeman
David Meares

A collection of local reactions, below the jump.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, Racial Divide, Social Media, Twitter, Women
May 16, 2011 | 3:26 PM | By

On Asking ‘Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive?’

Talk about a problematic question: in a blog post on Psychology Today’s website, Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, wonders why black women are less physically attractive.

If you try to look at the post, you’re out of luck. It was published on Sunday, but in an email to DCentric, a Psychology Today editor confirms that the post was permanently removed from the website for editorial reasons. The publication had no official comment on the post, but the move came on Monday afternoon after Kanazawa’s writing had already caused a firestorm on Twitter.

Screenshot: Psychology Today

Satoshi Kanazawa's blog post on black women and beauty was taken down permanently.

Kanazawa developed his question using data from the Add Health study, in which a representative sample set of adolescent Americans have been interviewed three times in the past seven years. At the end of each interview, the interviewer rated the physical attractiveness of the participant on a five-point scale. This total was then averaged out, and based on that, black women were found to be less attractive than their white, Asian and Native American counterparts. Kanazawa calls this an “objective” rating.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Psychology Today, Race
May 12, 2011 | 3:30 PM | By

Eating Healthy is not Always an Option

Flickr: mswine

In “If You Haven’t Been On Food Stamps, Stop Trying to Influence Government Policy,” Latoya Peterson leads with a request to bloggers and journalists to “stop the madness” with regards to how we write about government assistance. Further down in her essay, she shares this haunting anecdote:

I have a memory, from long ago, where I am sitting in the parking lot of a McDonalds, with my mom, trying to count out 63 pennies from the floor around the car, the change jar, and the pavement around the car in order to purchase two hamburgers from McDonalds for our evening meal. Cheap food exists for a reason. 63 cents doesn’t go far in the grocery store if you want a hot meal, and have no where for food prep. (Something that people also conveniently forget about – a lot of eating well on a budget requires prep with at least a hot plate, running water, and basic utensils. If you don’t have these things, you have to eat ready made food. Needless to say, living out of a car doesn’t provide you with consistent access to these things.) But a whole hamburger meant a lot to a seven-year-old stomach that was going to go hungry…These are broke people choices.

I’m sure that if I shared this story on the NYT Health blog, there would be people berating my mother for buying me a hamburger and not, say, an apple or something. Or maybe some dried lentils we could have soaked overnight on the carburetor using a car fluid funnel and woken up to a wonderfully healthy and cheap pinch of beans.

Peterson also discusses food deserts, race and class and how unrealistic it is to expect “farmer’s markets to magically replace a missing food infrastructure.” Read the rest, here.

FILED UNDER: The People, Food, Privilege, Race and Class
May 12, 2011 | 2:42 PM | By

U.S. Population Growth Minority-Driven, But Not in D.C.

Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Official U.S. Census form.

DCentric sister blog Multi-American directs our attention to the Pew Center’s Daily Number feature for today that shows the country’s population growth between 2000 and 2010 was almost exclusively driven by minorities:

Overall, racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 91.7% of the nation’s population growth over the past 10 years.

The non-Hispanic white population has accounted for only the remaining 8.3% of the nation’s growth. Hispanics were responsible for 56% of the nation’s population growth over the past decade. There are now 50.5 million Latinos living in the U.S. according to the 2010 Census, up from 35.3 million in 2000, making Latinos the nation’s largest minority group and 16.3% of the total population. There are 196.8 million whites in the U.S. (accounting for 63.7% of the total population), 37.7 million blacks (12.2%) and 14.5 million Asians (4.7%). Six million non-Hispanics, or 1.9% of the U.S. population, checked more than one race.

That certainly isn’t the case here in D.C., where population growth was driven by non-Hispanic whites. Between 2000 and 2010, the black population declined and the Hispanic population rose from just 7.9 percent of the city’s population 9 percent.  But we can look to the surrounding suburban counties to see a more representative picture of what’s happening across the country.

FILED UNDER: The People, Census, Pew Center
May 11, 2011 | 1:32 PM | By

Tweet Of The Day, 05.11

Harry Jaffe says no people making over $200K live in Cleveland Park. A 25-yo couple w/2 lawyers makes over $200K. Lots in CP @TBDNewsTalk
May 11, 2011 10:36 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
@ggwash
Grtr Grtr Washington

This is in response to Washington Examiner columnist Harry Jaffe’s appearance on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt.

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Class, Harry Jaffe
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
May 5, 2011 | 11:09 AM | By

Go-Go In D.C.’s Neighborhoods: Soon To Be a Thing of the Past?

Flickr: Steven Snodgrass

D.C. street musicians play go-go, but full-fledged city shows are becoming more and more scarce.

This post comes to us courtesy of Anne Hoffman, an intern producer for the Kojo Nnamdi Show. Nnamdi will discuss the past, present and future of go-go at 1 p.m., Thursday.

“If go-go stopped, I don’t even know,” says musician Sweet Cherie, “it would be like Armageddon or something.” But go-go, for some the heartbeat of Washington D.C., the city’s answer to a regional sound, is losing territory. For many years now, go-go venues have been shut down inside D.C. due to club violence and liability issues, pushing the music further out into the Maryland suburbs like Prince George’s  and Charles counties. Meanwhile punk rock, another D.C. musical mainstay, is not experiencing the same bad luck.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, The People, Go-go, Kojo Nnamdi Show
May 4, 2011 | 12:50 PM | By

Prince Charles Visits D.C. Urban Farm — Next Time, Also Do ‘The Dougie?’

Just days after the royal wedding, England’s Prince Charles visited D.C.’s largest urban farm.

Prince Charles, a sustainable agriculture advocate, visited Ledroit Park’s Common Good City Farm Tuesday as part of his D.C. trip. WAMU’s Courtney Collins reports that:

Common Good City Farm is a farm and education center that grows food for low-income Washington D.C. residents and encourages members of the community to volunteer.

Amanda Formica works at the farm every Tuesday and thinks Prince Charles is a fitting ambassador for sustainability.

“England is way ahead of the U.S. as far as its commitment to sustainability and global warming and creating green spaces,” says Formica.

Courtesy of: Courtney Collins

Prince Charles took time out of his farm tour to visit with community members standing outside the wooden fence.

Urban farming is cropping up throughout the city; just last month non-profit Bread for the City began work on “the largest” rooftop vegetable garden in the District.

Are these efforts the answer to D.C.’s food deserts? The mission behind most of them is to educate people on sustainable food and healthy eating, quite important points to make, but they can’t literally feed everyone in a food desert. Rather, advocates say such efforts help foster a more accessible conversation around these topics. Bread for the City communications development associate Greg Bloom has said about his group’s garden that:

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. We don’t think it has to be that way…. And it’s important for us to create at least one space for that.

Common Good City Farm is another space for that, as well.

As we noted before, there are exercise deserts in D.C., too. So although Prince Charles highlighting sustainable agriculture is important, perhaps next time he can also encourage exercise — may we suggest replicating First Lady Michelle Obama leading middle schoolers in doing “The Dougie?”

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, The People, Bread for the City, Common Good City Farm, Food Deserts, Ledroit Park, Urban farms