July 18, 2011 | 8:54 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Housing Fund, Black Civil War Museum and ‘Sweat Equity’

Advocacy Groups Urge D.C. Council To Restore Funding To Housing Production Trust The District has money set aside to help tenants purchase their buildings once their landlords want to sell. But that fund is dwindling.  (WAMU)

African American Civil War museum dedication honors black soldiers The African American Civil War Museum opened in 1998 with 700 square feet of exhibit space. It reopens today in a new location with 5,000 square feet of exhibit space. (The Washington Post)

Homeless To Rehab Houses In D.C.’s “Sweat Equity” Program A new program in D.C. aims to train the homeless or formerly homeless in construction work. They will then help rehab vacant homes throughout the District that will eventually house the homeless. (WAMU)

Mt. Pleasant Residents Seek Answers in Police Shooting A longtime Mount Pleasant resident was shot and killed by D.C. police officers during a stand off a month ago. Residents question whether police acted too aggresively to apprhend the man, who was mentally unstable.  (DCist)

Northwest’s Ruff & Ready to move on A longtime business along 14th Street will be closing by the end of August. No word on why the landlord isn’t extending the antique shop’s lease, but rents in the neighborhood are on the rise. (Washington Times)

Apartment construction remains hot There may not be many new houses being constructed, but at least apartment construction is up by 50 percent. (Washington Business Journal)

July 15, 2011 | 1:47 PM | By

A Tale of Two Pride Festivals

For decades, D.C. has been home to two large LGBT– lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender — celebrations: Capital Pride and DC Black Pride.

Folks not tuned into the local LGBT community are most familiar with June’s Capital Pride, a 12-day long event with an award-winning parade through the streets of Dupont and Logan circles and a festival that draws 250,000 people. Meanwhile, DC Black Pride, held over Memorial Day weekend, remains a more low-key event with a festival, poetry slams and a dozen workshops.

DC Black Pride started 20 years ago as a celebration and fundraiser for HIV/AIDS organizations serving the black community. Other cities were already hosting such events, but D.C.’s was the first dubbed “Black Pride.” Now, there are more than 30 black prides nationwide, which focus on black LGBT issues.

tedeytan / Flickr

Capital Pride culminates in a festival held along Pennsylvania Avenue.

The D.C. event grew popular in the early days as there was “a feeling that Capital Pride was less inclusive at the time,” according to DC Black Pride board member Earl Fowlkes.

But since then, events catering to diverse segments of the LGBT community have been held during the Capital Pride celebration. Capital Pride board chairman Mike Lutz says the 12-day long celebration is “very representative” of people of all ages, orientations, races and religions.

“Capital Pride is for everyone,” Lutz says.

In recent years, Black Pride has scaled back. This year’s event was smaller because the organization plans to host year-round events, but also due to less funding. Meanwhile, Capital Pride has grown in size and demographics.

So is there still a need to host a black pride event?

“I don’t see it as a separate thing as some people do,” Fowlkes says. “But obviously, whether I felt the need or not, 300,000 people come every year to [black] pride” celebrations around the country.

Yet, Fowlkes says he still doesn’t see many people of color attending the Capital Pride festival along Pennsylvania Avenue.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Capital Pride, DC Black Pride, LGBT
July 15, 2011 | 10:51 AM | By

Housing Discrimination Against Minorities, the Disabled Persists in Nation’s Capital

Shane Adams / Flickr

It’s been four decades since the first federal fair housing laws came into the books, but a new report finds that D.C. needs to ratchet up its enforcement against discrimination in housing.

The report, issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and posted below, found that builders are constructing apartment buildings that aren’t handicapped-accessible. It also found that some District landlords still practice racial discrimination against African Americans, and that there’s a lack of subsidized housing units west of Rock Creek Park, in a predominately wealthy and white part of the city.

When a person feels they are a victim of housing discrimination, they can file a complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The office received 397 house discrimination cases from 2002 to 2010. Complaints, which can contain more than one basis for discrimination, were filed based on the following categories:
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FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Class, Disabled, Discrimination, Housing, Race
July 15, 2011 | 8:19 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Plantation Weddings, Tenant Purchase, New MLK Drive

Why Are People Still Having Weddings at Plantations Slaves Built? Southern weddings are trendy this summer, and many women find justifications for holding them in historical mansions built on slave labor. (Good)

‘Martin Luther King Drive’ is coming to D.C. A four-mile stretch of road will be renamed Martin Luther King Drive. It will connect Southeast to the new memorial for the slain civil rights leader. (The Washington Post)

Tenant purchase preserves affordable housing in D.C. A primer on the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives tenants the first right to buy their building if the owner wants to sell it. (Greater Greater Washington)

Studios try to ‘crack the code’ on Latino moviegoers Hispanics make up 23 percent of the frequent movie-going audience, but marketing to the demographic thus far has been quite homogeneous. (CNN)

Report: Fewer immigrants are coming from Mexico, but fewer are going back The recession may be the cause of the drop in return migration over recent years. (Multi-American)

July 14, 2011 | 1:24 PM | By

DCentric Picks: Civil War Museum, Sulu DC and African Festival

There are a number of events this weekend that deserve the DCentric Picks treatment, so we’re highlighting three in equal measure for this installment:

Courtesy: DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities

  • This month’s installment of Sulu DC features an all-female lineup of Asian-American and Pacific Islander hip-hop artists. The shows takes place at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at U Street Music Hall (1115 U Street, NW). Advance tickets cost $10 and $15 at the door.
  • The second annual DC African Festival takes place from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday at the Takoma Recreation Center (300 Van Buren Street, NW). Food vendors, fashion shows, drum circles and a blogger exhibition will all be a part of the city-sponsored event.

Looking for an event that relates to race or class in D.C.? DCentric will be regularly posting event listings we believe will be of interest to our readers.  If you have an event you think we should feature, email dcentric@wamu.org.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, Museums, DCentric Picks
July 14, 2011 | 9:46 AM | By

D.C.’s ‘Gulf’ Between Rich and Poor

Jim Watson / Getty Images

Pedestrians pass by a homeless man as he rests with his belongings on K Street, NW.

How are the poor treated by the media, politicians and society?

Experts on Wednesday’s Kojo Nnamdi show discussed the state of poverty in America and popular perceptions of the poor.

In the District, nearly 1 in 5 individuals live at or below the poverty line — which is about $22,000 for a family of four. Olivia Golden, former director of D.C.’s child and family services agency, told Nnamdi there is a “gulf” between the rich and poor in the District:

One of the reasons that people don’t get distressed by the gulf as we’d think they would is they’re deeply cynical and pessimistic about public investment and public involvement. And so, even if they think,’Well, maybe it shouldn’t be this way,’… they think that anything we could do to fix it might be worse.

An interesting debate then ensued as to whether public assistance programs help the poor, or whether they contribute to the cycle of poverty. The whole segment is well worth a listen.

 

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Kojo Nnamdi Show, Poverty
July 14, 2011 | 7:00 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — End of Foreclosures, Racial Profiling and Back Taxes

Many in Washington area seeing an end to foreclosure crisis Foreclosure filings have decreased dramatically in the District this year, but not so much in neighboring Prince George’s County. This spring, nearly 50 percent of sales in the county were foreclosures. (Washington Examiner )

Montgomery County Police Investigating Hate Crime In Cloverly Racist and homophobic slurs were spray-painted on a number of cars in Silver Spring’s diverse Cloverly neighborhood. Neighbors suspect the vandals were a group of teenagers “who are angry and are taking it out on whomever they can target.” (WAMU)

Driving While Immigrant Changes to U.S. federal immigration program Secure Communities are meant to provide leniency for certain people facing deportation — including veterans and domestic violence victims. But opponents say changing the rules for those already arrested does little to remedy what they view is one of the programs biggest flaws: encouraging racial profiling. (The Nation)

Developers, Church and Bank Properties on Tax Sale List Developer Douglas Jemal owes $1.5 million in back taxes for 41 District properties. Minority-owned businesses along the H Street, NE corridor say they have been hit-hard by the increase in tax bills as the neighborhood is gets gentrified. (Afro)

Undocumented Students Arrested at “Coming Out” Rally Undocumented students protesting at San Bernadino Valley College have been arrested, but for unlawful assembly, not for their immigration status. (angry asian man)

July 13, 2011 | 1:24 PM | By

Fast Food and Food Deserts

Paul J. Richards / Getty Images

This Burger King hamburger has 1,010 calories and the fries have 500 calories.

Many of the tactics cited to fight food deserts focuses on encouraging supermarkets to open in neighborhoods where there aren’t many. But a new study shows that simply bringing in a grocer doesn’t translate into healthier eating habits.

The Archives of Internal Medicine published the study, which shows that having more grocery stores in neighborhoods didn’t have much of an impact on how many fruits and vegetables people ate. The study does, however, find another link between income and fast food, reports Reuters Health:
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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Restaurants, Food Deserts, Income
July 13, 2011 | 11:41 AM | By

The Pressure to Follow ‘Traditional’ Careers

jasleen_kaur / Flickr

Earlier this week, we noted that the number of Indian Americans pursuing creative jobs has doubled over the previous decade. And a number of South Asian readers joined the conversation, sharing stories about familial expectations and jobs.

Commenter Anupama Pillalamarri writes “there was a lot of pressure on me to pursue a traditionally brown person career until I had a meltdown.” I followed up with Pillalamarri to find out more. She wrote to me:

My interest was in politics and history, but when I mentioned majoring in either of those, my mom told me to pick whatever engineering I liked best and major in that. Another time I told her I was taking a film class and she told me they “weren’t paying blah blah dollars a year for me to watch movies.”

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FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Jobs
July 13, 2011 | 8:20 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Online Dating, Rent Assistance and White Male Essence Editor

Race And Craigslist Dating: An Experiment A half-Vietnamese woman in Texas ran an experiment on Craigslist’s dating section: if she specified her race, what kinds of responses would she get? It turns out, detailing what you’re not rather than what you are could generate the most interesting, and thoughtful, responses. (Jezebel)

Essence Hires White Male Editor to Manage Workflow Black women’s magazine Essence recently hired Michael Bullderdick, a white man, to serve as the publication’s managing editor. Magazine sources say he will only be involved in workflow and production and will not have a say in editorial content. (Maynard Institute)

D.C. Running Out of Emergency Rental Assistance The District’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program is nearly exhausted. The fund is meant to prevent evictions and aids low-income District residents who are elderly, have children or are disabled. (Blog for the City) Continue reading →