“People keep asking me how I’m different from Michelle Rhee. I’m different than her because she’s a petite Asian woman and I’m a large black girl,” Henderson told The Washington Examiner.
But the style of leadership that was necessary in June 2007 is different than what people crave now, Henderson says. “Rhee had to come in and break some china,” she says. “We’re tired of breaking china.” Rhee’s job was to create a revolution of reform; Henderson’s job is to smooth things out.
So she smiles more than Rhee, and she meets with skeptical education boards in the various wards, broaching topics like “healing” and “acknowledging missteps.”
But as Rhee’s deputy chancellor, Henderson was silently pulling the strings of the most high-profile, and most controversial, reforms that Rhee — and Mayor Adrian Fenty — took the public hit for.
Henderson was D.C. Public Schools’ chief negotiator of the union contract, which allowed Rhee to fire 165 teachers rated ineffective during classroom observations. Henderson led the team that developed Impact, the teacher evaluation tool that determined those firings.
Obligatory screen-capture to illustrate that this post is about a popular social networking program.
This is shocking. Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher‘s home was burglarized– and though he wasn’t home when the dastardly deed occurred, he saw the perp’s face:
Sometime between 10 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Friday, a burglar busted through our basement door — simply kicked through the 80-year-old wood panels — and took a bunch of stuff. My son, 15, got hit hardest; his laptop, iPod, savings bonds and cash were gone.
Just one more example of life in the big city. Except that the apparent thief didn’t stop with taking our belongings.
He felt compelled to showboat about his big achievement: He opened my son’s computer, took a photo of himself sneering as he pointed to the cash lifted from my son’s desk, and then went on my son’s Facebook account and posted the picture for 400 teenagers to see.
Think that chutzpah-powered picture will lead to an easy resolution of this crime? Wrong. Continue reading →
Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?
Elitism On A Food Stamp Budget? “We complain about and assume food stamp recipients are the dredges of society, all fat and miserable (and Black welfare queens) and eating up all the cheetos… but we’re angry as hell – collectively – when they prioritize health and wellness (and preservation of both) above all else? When they use the little bit of money they’ve got wisely? (Or are they?) Would we feel better about paying into a system that takes care of others if and only if they still appeared to be doing worse than we are? Is that element of superiority required here? That we feel superior to food stamp recipients?” (blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com)
Muslim employees of D.C. hotel say they were barred from floors where Israelis stayed “The one worker said that after he was barred from the floors in question, co-workers teased him about being a terrorist…He said he had worked in proximity to other VIPs, such as George W. Bush, with no security concerns. “I don’t care about Israel. To me, it’s just another country,” he said. “I work for [the hotel] 12, 14 hours a day, and they profile me like I’m a criminal, like I’m going to harm them. I’m like, ‘If I’m going to harm them, why would you keep me in your hotel even one day?’” (The Washington Post)
Nats Looking to Add a Curly W to Navy Yard Metro Station Name “At tonight’s ANC 6D meeting, Nationals vice president Gregory McCarthy asked the commission to support the Nationals’ request for a name change for the Navy Yard Metro station. But, instead of asking to add “Nationals Park” or “Ballpark” or “Baseball Stadium” or “[Insert Corporate Naming Rights Winner Here] Park” or some other permutation, the Nationals are asking that the Nationals’ “Curly W” red logo be added to Metro’s maps and signage instead.” (JDland: DC Redevelopment )
You already knew that Project Argo’s Matt Thompson is guest blogging here for a week, but I also received a bit of help with the morning roundup today, for which I am very grateful. A DCentric applicant contributed one of those six links and since I’m down with the flu, I am very happy for the help. That reminds me– WAMU is hiring another blogger for DCentric!
The new, open position is part-time (think: 25 hours a week), but I can vouch for how amazing an opportunity it is– in my email signature I refer to this as my “dream job” and that’s not hype. If you have experience with podcasts, never leave home without a video camera, understand why it’s redundant to “sign” blog comments and promise to never call a “post” a “blog”, holler at us.
If you have to ask how to reach us, this may not be the job for you (hint: my email is always on the site, even when we’re not looking for talent). Interest in race, class, history, gentrification, awkward situations and pancakes is a must. Your ability to follow directions, write clean copy and think outside the blog will be rewarded with an interview (or three) and quite possibly, the best job ever. Ready? GO!
Construction is underway on the massive new Marriott Marquis hotel next to the Convention Center. Several of the empty buildings around the hotel will give way to smaller Marriott properties. I took some snapshots to document the neighborhood as it looks today.
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were dreading dreaming of a White Christmas, we were out, gathering links!
Gandhi wants D.C. to be Bermuda on the Potomac “…do we really want to encourage gambling on our home turf? Brown would have to face the fact that gambling is a drug to poor folks and those already down on their luck. Why prey on them? Natwar Gandhi has a better idea: Let’s bring in dollars from rich corporations, namely banks and insurance companies who currently park millions of dollars abroad in island tax havens. Gandhi wants to change federal tax laws and make D.C. “Bermuda on the Potomac.”…”The financial center of the country is in Washington now,” Gandhi tells me. “All the trading can be done in New York, but the decisions are made here.” (Washington Examiner )
Pro-WikiLeaks denial of service attacks: just another form of civil disobedience. “…the DDoS attacks launched by Anonymous were not acts of civil disobedience because they failed one crucial test implicit in Rawls’ account: Most attackers were not willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions. This is the crucial difference between Anonymous and the civil rights movement. Those who participated in lunch counter sit-ins…knew that they would likely be arrested for it. Their faces could be photographed, their papers could be checked. The civil rights-era protesters knew that effective civil disobedience could not be carried out in complete anonymity; members of the Anonymous collective have not grasped this yet.” (Slate)
At Gray’s D.C. jobs summit, leaders express doubts about city’s progress in preparing workers “Employers repeatedly brought up obstacles – from government policies and labor disputes to social ills – that prevent them from hiring D.C. residents. Despite about 300,000 jobs that are expected to be developed in the District over the next decade, George Mason University professor Stephen S. Fuller opened the summit by challenging Gray (D). He and others urged the city to prepare residents for those jobs but also to bring in industry that could match the skills of the unemployed and underemployed. “There’s a large group . . . unprepared for the jobs being created,” he said.” (The Washington Post)
A photograph of Dr. John Thomas Quander from Metro Connection's slide show.
Last Friday’s Metro Connection had a wonderful story that would’ve inspired me to sit in my driveway vs. miss a moment of it, had I been in a car– it was about a local African-American family that defies the long-accepted stereotype that D.C. is a city for transients:
Rebecca Sheir introduces us to the Quanders: the oldest African-American family in D.C., and, possibly, the United States. Records show the family has been in the region since the late 1600s. These days, the family runs the Quander Historical Society, and keeps records at Howard University and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library.
The Quander’s family site has this very American story about their surname (and there’s even more about this in Rebecca’s piece):
The Quander Family is believed to have originated from an ancestor with the last name of “Amkwandoh” from Ghana, West Africa and “Quando” as the name appeared in the 1800s.
From learning about Quanders who worked at Mount Vernon to hearing about their epic, three-day reunion at Howard University in 1984 (which celebrated 300 years of documented presence with over 1,000 family members), the entire piece deserves a listen.
Being homeless has become Sheptock’s full-time occupation. It’s work that has provided him with purpose and a sense of community. But it’s also work that has perpetuated his homelessness and, in a way, glorified it.
Sheptock, 41, wouldn’t take a 9-to-5 job that compromised his advocacy efforts or the long hours he spends tending to his digital empire, he says. He wouldn’t move out of the downtown D.C. shelter where he has slept for the past two years if it would make him a less effective voice for change.
Walmart’s controversial arrival in the District has inspired newspaper articles, blog posts, tweets and now…a whole website. Check out “Wal-mart Free DC“:
As District residents, many of Ward 4 in particular, we are coming together to say “No!” to this; no to the the corporate takeover of our neighborhood, no to jobs that will be lost if Wal-Mart opens, no to the driving down of wages in other retail jobs that accompanies Wal-Mart, no to the closing of small businesses (current and future) due to Wal-Mart’s presence, no to the poverty wages that Wal-Mart pays their employees, no to the sweatshop wages that the workers that make many products for Wal-Mart stores are paid, no to the funding of conservative political candidates by Wal-Mart executives and PACs, some of whom oppose Statehood for the District, no to the tax burden that Wal-Mart adds by not paying its employees enough to afford the limited health care that it offers to some, no to the Wal-Mart’s discrimination against women, and on, and on, and on.
The most recent post is a call to march on “the Developer’s House” this Thursday.
Almost since the concept’s beginning, reality shows have existed to exploit cultural conflict. Take a mix of strangers from a variety of backgrounds and throw them together for a few weeks, and you’re almost certain to spark some quality reality television.
This might be why DC, with its mix of classes and cultures, loomed large in 2010 as a reality TV destination. Yet the contrast between DC and the city portrayed in the reality shows couldn’t be sharper, as Mike Riggs aptly pointed out in a recent City Paper essay. Reality television celebrates luxury lifestyle products, conspicuous consumption, haute cuisine. DC has all of these things, to be sure, but they don’t define life here for most of us. So we’re curious, what do the culture clashes of DC reality shows reveal?
Here are our picks for the best culture clashes of the year in DC reality television. Add your picks (and your thoughts) in the comments. Continue reading →
