August 31, 2011 | 11:11 AM | By

On Blaming the Black Middle Class

Flickr: afagen

“Stop Picking on the Black Middle Class; It didn’t abandon urban communities, despite what some say,” is the headline of Natalie Hopkinson’s article in The Root.

The piece references a recent Washington City Paper article, which asked “As parents in places like Capitol Hill embrace neighborhood schools, has D.C.’s black middle class given up on them?” Hopkinson answers, “If I were looking for a culprit in a racial group, the black middle class is the very last place that I’d be sniffing around.”

Hopkinson also describes her attempt to stop her next-door neighbor from selling crack. Confronting the man and shaming his customers didn’t work, so she called 311 and spoke to a black city employee who suggested that she do what the “white folks” did. Hopkinson wasn’t interested in that advice:

I was too furious to hear the rest. What in the Tiger Mom hell did my being white, black or purple have to do with the fact that this man was selling crack? “Just get someone over here!” I barked, and hung up the phone. Still, crickets.

Sadly, this attitude is par for the course in D.C. When you’re white — maybe especially in a very black city like Washington, D.C. — people pay attention. Some of it is the sheer novelty of whites living in previously all-black neighborhoods. Some of it is historical, and the socioeconomic position of whites in relation to blacks.

Whatever the reasons, as the city continues to gentrify, getting whiter and richer, progress is credited to white folks. It’s as if they deserve gold stars for consenting to live among the Negroes and cleaning up the Negro mess. Never mind the complicated cocktail of race, class and history that has shaped the city’s fortunes over the years. If you’re black, well … just try to be more like white people!

In the original City Paper feature, Jonetta Rose Barras wrote:
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, Gentrification, Race and Class
August 31, 2011 | 9:40 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – More Michael Vick, Emulating Beyonce and Misusing HIV/AIDS Money

Why We Should All Stop Obsessing Over Michael Vick’s Criminal Record “Being among the best in the world at anything can easily lead to inflated egos, and kids who rebelled against more typical career paths to follow unlikely dreams of becoming pro athletes are probably somewhat more likely to ignore authority in other parts of life as well. Plus, many talented athletes—Vick included—grew up in tough situations, making them more likely to fall into crime.” (Good)

“What do you think of interracial marriage? It would be hard, offhand, to think of a question less relevant to libertarianism” “Intermarriage and mixing–of people, of categories, of ideas–leads directly to more pluralism, more trade, more possibilities, and fewer opportunities for the majority to inflict its preferences onto less desirable minorities by force and exclusion.” (reason.com)

On Race: The Relevance of Saying ‘Minority’ From an NPR listener in New York: “Many people use [minority] when they really mean African American or Latino. That it is not only inaccurate, but it is also offensive…Does NPR really think that the population of America is composed of only two elements — whites and minorities? I don’t think so. And if not, isn’t it time to retire that insulting word and use more specific designations instead?” (npr.org)

One City, New and Improved? “Today, Mayor Vince Gray announced two new major senior appointments for his troubled administration — Chris Murphy as his Chief of Staff and Andrea Pringle as his Deputy Chief of Staff. her position…Murphy’s ascendancy to the job is seen as something of a reset for the Gray administration — during today’s press conference, Gray said that there was ‘no question we have taken some hits, and some of them are self inflicted’” (DCist)
Continue reading →

August 30, 2011 | 12:56 PM | By

Five Factors Behind the ‘Alarming’ HIV Infection Rate for Young Black Gay and Bisexual Men

Stephen Chernin / Getty Images

A young man inserts the Rapid HIV test swab into its tube.

The HIV infection rate for young black men who have sex with men is growing at an “alarming” rate.

That’s according to a report released this month by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC studied HIV infection rates from 2006 to 2009, and found that the rate increased by 48 percent for 13 to 29 year-old black men who have sex with men. Meanwhile, infection rates have remained relatively stable for all other groups.

Healthcare providers and organizers in D.C., where 3 percent of the population has HIV/AIDS, are seeing the trend. Justin Goforth is the director of community health at Whitman-Walker Health, a center offering medical, counseling and legal services to D.C.’s LGBT community.

“This is who we see come in every day that’s testing positive: young black gay men,” Goforth says.

Below are five factors contributing to higher infection rate among this group:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, CDC, Health disparities, HIV/AIDS, Whitman-Walker Health
August 30, 2011 | 11:27 AM | By

“When you live in the ghetto, all this happens.”

Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry arrived at the Wilson Building in a damaged car. According to reports, he says he was the victim of a hit and run.

@kitastew
Nikita Stewart
Council member Marion Barry arrived at JAWB with the back bumper of his Jaguar hanging off. “When you live in the ghetto, all this happens.”
Aug 30 via Twitter for BlackBerry®FavoriteRetweetReply

August 30, 2011 | 7:42 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Loving Black Men, Split on Barry and Integrating D.C. Schools

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are the links we’re reading, right now:

Call Me a Fool for Love: I Heart Black Men “I don’t begrudge any Black woman for stepping beyond the boundaries of race to find her man. More power to those who have and will. It’s just not my twist. Experts may warn and studies may show that I should give up on the brothers. And even in my own experiences, I’ve had them pass me over for a white chick, but it hasn’t happened often enough to make me quit cheerleading for their team.” (Clutch)

Ward 8 Residents Split on Barry Re-election Bid “Barry is known as a seasoned, passionate legislator and one who does not hold his tongue when it comes to fighting for the issues that he cares about…there are some residents who say that he has not done much for the ward since his since his first re-election in 2004. Ward 8 has the highest unemployment rate in the city at approximately 25 percent according to D.C. Department of Employment Services and the lowest homeownership rate of any ward, 24 percent, according to city statistics.” (Washington Informer)

Montgomery County proposes flash-mob law “Mr. Rice, a Democrat, also refused to draw any conclusions from the fact that those involved in the Germantown incident were black. ‘This is not an African-American problem,’ he said. ‘This is a problem with youth and making sure they understand the repercussions and the seriousness of the crimes that were committed.’” (Washington Times)
Continue reading →

August 29, 2011 | 1:49 PM | By

Why The Uninsured Aren’t Aware Of Health Care Reform Benefits

e-Magine Art / Flickr

Politicians who pushed for federal health care reform focused much attention on how the law would help the uninsured. But a new poll shows many uninsured Americans don’t see the legislation as beneficial, nor do they know about provisions designed to help them.

The Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows that 41 percent of uninsured Americans said that the new law won’t make a difference to them, while 14 percent said the law will hurt them. Nearly half of uninsured respondents don’t know about the law’s low and middle class tax credits. And the reason? People who can’t pay for insurance are quite occupied with trying to make ends meet. Politico reports:

Drew Altman, [president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation], said the figures do not reflect a communications failure. He says busy people — particularly those struggling to afford insurance now — will only understand the law when it becomes tangible for them.

“When there is real insurance coverage available for people who don’t have it, they will be more aware of it, and they will be able to render a judgment about whether coverage is affordable for them,” Altman said.

In D.C., about 11 percent of the population is without insurance, which is actually lower than the national average of 17 percent, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.

FILED UNDER: The People, Class, Health
August 29, 2011 | 7:13 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – MLK and Hip-Hop, Abandoning Neighborhood Schools and Ramadan Spending

Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream has a place in hip-hop — but it wasn’t always that way “King’s absence makes sense to some. ‘The philosophy of nonviolent protest or redemptive suffering runs counter to the confrontational tone of so much hip-hop,’ says Adam Bradley, co-editor of the groundbreaking ‘Anthology of Rap’ (Yale University Press)…Even Common, for all of his use of King’s iconic speech, agrees. ‘Malcolm just represents more of the . . . the fire of hip-hop,’ he said.” (The Washington Post)

Returning to the ‘hood “But, my criticism of Brown and other middle-class blacks is that far too many of them have abandoned their neighborhood schools, fleeing to charters or out-of boundary DCPS facilities. Their exodus leaves communities, particularly those in Wards 5, 7 and 8, bereft of important leadership critical to significant and lasting reform.” (Washington Examiner )

Should UDC finally be able to take money the feds give D.C. kids to go someplace better? “The D.C. TAG program was established to compensate for the fact that D.C. didn’t have a quality four-year institution of higher learning. UDC, however, contends that it’s on the road to becoming one, and that students should be able to use their TAG money there. ‘It blows my mind,’ says UDC spokesman Alan Etter, of UDC’s singular ineligibility. ‘You want to go riot about something, that’s something to riot about…It puts the city in peril. We’re paying people to go away and not come back.’ (Washington City Paper)
Continue reading →

August 26, 2011 | 10:00 AM | By

Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial’s Sculptor is Chinese: Does It Matter?

Mandel Ngan / Getty Images

The "Stone of Hope" sculpture of Martin Luther King by Chinese artist Lei Yixin is the first on the National Mall to honor a person of color.

D.C. is abuzz with activity with Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication events, but there’s still plenty of debate over the memorial’s design and the nationality of the sculptor.

Some criticize that King’s face is too stern or militant. Others take issue with the selection of Lei Yixin of China, rather than an African American, as the sculptor. The project’s leaders have said there were no qualified black sculptors who could work with stones of this size or type. The Washington Post‘s Courtland Milloy writes, “Who gets the job? A Chinese national with an apparent preference for the heroic and authoritarian.” He continues:

Surely, having a black sculptor of a black civil rights icon — working on ground once toiled by black slaves, on the National Mall, designed and surveyed with the help of a black mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker — would have added to the King memorial’s symbolic power.

So, yes, it stings when, centuries later, creators of the King memorial say they couldn’t find a qualified black sculptor.

We asked DCentric readers on Facebook and Twitter to post their thoughts and comments on the memorial’s design and sculptor. A few responded on Twitter by recalling King’s message of unity among races:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: History, Martin Luther King Memorial
August 26, 2011 | 7:11 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Reverse Migrations, Imagining a White Michael Vick and New ‘Gayborhoods’ in D.C.

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are the links we’re reading, right now:

Why Blacks Are Moving Back South: The Reverse Migration “Of course, African Americans aren’t the only ones heading south. But this trend is a definite shift in the pattern for most of the 20th century, when, from World War I to the 1970s, African Americans left the South for the North, Midwest and West in search of economic opportunity and a relief from racial violence and discrimination.” (The Root)

Imagining Michael Vick as a white quarterback in the NFL “Race is an undeniable and complex element of Vick’s story, both because of his style as well as the rarity of black QBs in the NFL. A decade after he became the first black QB to be drafted No. 1 overall, about one in five of the league’s passers is African-American, compared with two-thirds of all players. But after his arrest for dogfighting, so many people asked: Would a white football player have gotten nearly two years in prison for what Vick did to dogs?” (ESPN)

Mapping the New ”Gayborhood”: Census shows number of gay couples increasing, moving beyond traditional enclaves “In the District, the precincts with the highest number of same-sex couples has moved eastward from the Dupont Circle neighborhood, traditionally regarded as having a relatively high concentration of gay residents, to places such as Logan Circle, Shaw and Bloomingdale. There has also been a northward push into the U Street corridor, Columbia Heights, Mount Pleasant and Crestwood, just south of Carter Barron Amphitheatre and Rock Creek Park.” (Metro Weekly )
Continue reading →