October 26, 2010 | 11:08 AM | By

Liveblogging Juan Williams on WAMU

Today, erstwhile-NPR Analyst Juan Williams was on the second hour of the Diane Rehm Show, here at WAMU. I listened in…

Interesting: Juan and Diane are good friends, have been for many years; he has been on DR show several times. He thanks her for speaking to him during this “turmoil”. It’s a nice reminder that he’s an actual person, with a long history beyond this and not just a political football or insensitive panderer.

The NPR ombudsman has received 22,000 messages about this? Wow.

“Diane I’m the same person in both venues (NPR and Fox), but I’m aware of the differences in both venues.

“When I was fired, last Wednesday, the woman who called me said, “would you have said the same thing on NPR?” and I said, “of course”…(she tried to say I had violated journalistic ethics)…it would violate my journalistic ethics if I didn’t tell the truth!”

Diane is playing the actual exchange between Williams and O’Reilly for us.

DR: Do you have any regrets…
JW: None!

Williams says that his comment about Muslims is not analogous to the comparisons his critics are making to negative speech about African Americans (i.e. “How would he feel if people said something similar about Black people?”): “There’s no history of black people getting in airplanes and…”. He goes on to describe how fear can be appropriate, even in “small town America”, because “it’s a matter of being aware of your environment”. He clarifies that he wasn’t advocating profiling or extra scrutiny, saying “I simply admitted to my feelings.”
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FILED UNDER: Media, NPR, WAMU
October 26, 2010 | 8:01 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – More Juan Williams, “Acting White” and that DMT-bust in Georgetown

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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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Roundups
October 25, 2010 | 5:55 PM | By

Juan Williams on WAMU, tomorrow!

Fairfax County Public Library

Juan Williams

A few of you have emailed and asked if I’m going to comment on Juan Williams– how about hearing from a far more distinguished employee of WAMU, instead? I’m referring to Diane Rehm; Williams will be on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show, tomorrow.

Juan Williams is a political commentator for Fox News and until last week he was also a news analyst for NPR. He joined NPR in 1999 as the daily host of Talk of The Nation, and in recent years he’s served as an NPR senior national correspondent. His comments on Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor last week prompted a seemingly abrupt dismissal from NPR. Juan Williams talks about his career, his roles as news analyst and commentator, and his reaction to the recent controversy over his dismissal from NPR. [link]

Tune in to 88.5 FM  at 11am to hear everything.

FILED UNDER: Media, Diane Rehm, WAMU
October 25, 2010 | 4:19 PM | By

“How can you be both Black AND American?”

hoyasmeg

Children in Cameroon (not Faison's students).

Howard Alum Heather Faison is currently living in Buea, Cameroon, where she is teaching at a grammar school. She chronicled some of her experiences in a blog post titled, “For African Girls Who Considered White When Black is Enuf“. As someone of South Asian descent, her post resonated with me. Issues like colorism, identity and the yearning to look like everyone else are universal:

Black is not beautiful here. Women open umbrellas when the sun comes out for fear their skin will become darker. They use skin whiteners with chemicals so strong I often see light patches on their face and hands.

I came to Africa with this idealistic expectation of Black pride, natural hair and cultural unity….Then, one of the kids I teach asked the question that I have yet to shake:

How can you be both Black AND American?

I went to Howard University. That bears mentioning because at Howard, Pan-African themes are deeply woven in the fabric of the university. All students are required to study African-American history dating back to the transatlantic slave trade, and are quickly indoctrinated with Back to Africa theories drilled by professors in loud Kente fabrics.

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FILED UNDER: The People, Howard University, Race and Ethnicity
October 25, 2010 | 2:45 PM | By

Soon: Mengestu.

"The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears"

Last week, when I mentioned that I wanted to read something by Georgetown Alum Dinaw Mengestu, DCentric reader Danielle (who–if I have guessed from her profile correctly– is Visual Arts editor of the grassroots publication Liberator Magazine) helpfully pointed me towards the bookstores at Busboys and Poets.

I appreciated Danielle’s suggestion because I prefer the immediacy of walking out of a building with a book in my hands vs. buying online, saving four dollars and waiting a week for a cardboard box to arrive in the mail. And about that cardboard– I’m thrilled my apartment building has started offering more options for recycling, but I still feel guilty, as I break down boxes and dutifully trudge to the trash room to stack them up. That’s a discarded, dead tree…used to convey another dead tree.

Fortunately, I get a kick out of supporting independent Booksellers, so that usually prevents cardboard-induced guilt when it comes to procuring reading material. Last night, I unexpectedly had to run an errand near P Street, so I impulsively ran up to Kramerbooks and asked for some fiction. They had both of Mengestu’s books in stock. Huzzah! I’m excited about starting “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears”, especially because it takes place right here in D.C. I’d tell you what I think of it so far, but I’m finishing this book, first.

FILED UNDER: Culture, Delightful City, Hoyas, Immigrants, Literature
October 25, 2010 | 12:58 PM | By

“Speak properly, be attractive, stylish and professional.”

If I’m not out trying to track down a story, I spend the majority of my time reading. Everything. That’s why I noticed a comment left at the Washington Post– but first, some context. Last week, in this morning roundup, I mentioned that a developer wanted to bring a luxury hotel to the heart of Adams Morgan (and that he might get quite a tax break for doing so). Today, the Post reported:

For the past six years, developer Brian Friedman has been pushing a complex project that he says would reinvent Adams Morgan as a bustling attraction at all times of day, not just in the evenings. He has proposed transforming a historic church, formerly the First Church of Christ, Scientist, into a 174-room luxury hotel. His plan calls for preserving the church building and constructing a 10-story connecting building behind it, where there is now parking.

And he is asking for the city’s help, suggesting that the new hotel not be required to pay property taxes for 15 years after opening.

This article inspired a commenter named MadasH to write (and I really wish WaPo gave us a way to link to individual comments):

Do not give this development any DC tax incentives unless they promise and keep the promise to hire a high percentage of DC residents.We are sick and tired of subsidizing businesses in DC that in return bring all of their out of town friends here to work in jobs that should go to Washingtonians.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Adams Morgan, Business, Roundups
October 25, 2010 | 9:33 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – that Georgetown Drug Lab, plus the Tea Party is RIGHT!

Good morning, DCentric readers! Pour yourself a cup of coffee– your daily distraction from work dose of links is here!

About those Georgetown Students charged for manufacturing DMT in their Dorm On one of the suspects: “A little socially awkward, but a really wonderful kid with a good heart, and very intelligent. One of the most genuinely nice guys I’ve ever met. Obviously made a REALLY bad choice. But seriously, these are smart boys who made a really dumb decision to do something ‘badass’ and possibly make some money in broke college times. They aren’t drug lords trying to support their brothel or anything like that.” (blog.georgetownvoice.com)

The tea party warns of a New Elite. They’re right. “The more efficiently a society identifies the most able young people of both sexes, sends them to the best colleges, unleashes them into an economy that is tailor-made for people with their abilities and lets proximity take its course, the sooner a New Elite…becomes a class unto itself. It is by no means a closed club, as Barack Obama’s example proves. But the credentials for admission are increasingly held by the children of those who are already members. …how relentless this segregation would be.” (The Washington Post)

Museum of Unnatural History, 826DC open on Saturday “…I’d forgotten all about the faux-museum’s purpose as a storefront for 826DC, the non-profit writing center that’s been running programs in D.C. public schools for the past two years, serving more than 1,000 students. Only now, though, does the center have somewhere to call home, an ample retail space sandwiched between a Pollo Campero and FroZenYo in Columbia Heights Plaza.” (tbd.com)
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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Roundups
October 22, 2010 | 3:10 PM | By

“It is an entitlement thing.”

Another response to Megan McArdle’s “Gentrifiers Lament” for The Atlantic, this time from local blog In Bloom. One of McArdle’s neighbors in Bloomingdale penned this:

Gentrification is also hurting middle-income African-Americans and minorities. By “middle-income,” I don’t mean middle-class, because I am far from that monetary threshold. By “middle-income,” I’m talking about myself, friends, and others who are like me: young, educated professionals who make above the poverty level, but not quite enough to afford to buy or to rent in a neighborhood that is ideal to what we are looking for. Whether it’s due to the market, neighborhood, or gentrification, landlords and owners are pricing the rent at such an unaffordable rate that the $30,000-$45,000 income we earn annually looks even more dismal…

my plea to you, gentrifiers *, is to make sure to make this a mixed-income, or rather a melting-pot neighborhood with various incomes and socioeconomic statuses. Yes, the median neighborhood income is probably now well above my $39,000 annual income, but I’m a responsible citizen who works, goes to school, and adds value to our neighborhood and community at large. Please understand that this isn’t so much of a race thing as it is an entitlement thing.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Bloomingdale, Gentrification, Race and Class, Real Estate
October 22, 2010 | 2:03 PM | By

On Being Black…and more.

Racialicious

The Intersection of Race and Pop Culture

What am I reading, right now? A post on Racialicious, “The Tragic Mulatto Myth Debunked: Holding Tight to All of Our Roots“:

Throughout my twenty one years, as various people have approached me with questions —“Why are your eyes so chinky?” or “Why does your father look White? Are you adopted?” or the all-time favorite “What are you?”— I have been forced to contemplate my multi-racial heritage and, from that, build my ethnic and racial identity. I, Aisha, identify as a Black-Mixed woman. In that order. If people want to know more I will tell them that I am of Black, Japanese, and White descent.

Again, a self-identifying statement from a multi-racial person with Black heritage—which includes his or her various racial and ethnic heritages—is not automatically evidence of his or her desire to remove Blackness. It is completely acceptable for me to make the true statement that I love my Blackness. It is less acceptable to claim the same for my White or Japanese ancestries, which not only helped to shape the curl of my hair and the slant of my eyes, but also were essential in my cultural upbringing.

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FILED UNDER: Media, Now Reading, Race and Ethnicity