July 12, 2011 | 4:28 PM | By

Black Home Ownership and ‘the American Dream’ in Ward 8

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry wants to encourage home ownership in majority black Ward 8, where only 24 percent of residents are homeowners. How? By banning construction of new apartment buildings. He tells Washington City Paper‘s Lydia DePillis:

“The American dream is to own a home. And black people have not gotten the American dream as much as they need to,” Barry says. “Somebody can rent for 20 years, and has no equity in their unit at all.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

Renters are the most vulnerable to forces of redevelopment and gentrification, since they can’t really profit from leaving a neighborhood with exploding housing prices the way a homeowner can. But owning a home, and having equity tied to it, doesn’t necessarily buffer one from poverty, either. As noted yesterday, one of the contributing factors to the decline of the black middle class is the fact that African Americans generally had more of their wealth tied up in housing than white people did at the start of the recession — 63 percent versus 38.5 percent. Declining housing prices and foreclosures meant the loss of a lot of black wealth — between 2004 and 2009, the median net worth for black households dropped by 83 percent. For white households, it dropped by 24 percent.

On the other hand, the value of homes in D.C. as a whole hasn’t dropped at drastic levels since the peak of the bubble. Only a few portions of Ward 8 saw home values decline at higher rates than the national metro area average.

Even still, there are plenty of questions as to whether banning new apartment construction would even be effective in increasing home ownership. Matthew Yglesias of ThinkProgress writes:

There’s just no way that zoning policy in Ward 8 of Washington, DC could possibly influence black people’s ability to own homes. Banning apartment buildings will reduce the supply of affordable housing and reduce construction jobs. That’s it.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Government, Housing, Marion Barry, Renters
July 12, 2011 | 1:25 PM | By

More Pho Options in D.C.

Joshua Rappeneker / Flickr

Pho, delicious pho.

D.C.’s food truck scene just got a little more diverse with the start of Phonomenon, the city’s first pho truck. Look out, San Francisco!

The prevalence of the Vietnamese noodle soup in the District-proper has grown in recent months. Pho DC opened its doors in Chinatown this past winter, and Instant Noodles, which serves pho in addition to other dishes, opened this month in Adams Morgan.

Most of the District’s estimated 1,600 Vietnamese residents reside in the Columbia Heights area, where Pho 14 and Pho Viet are located. But those searching for a plethora of Vietnamese restaurants and businesses may find themselves leaving the District — Fairfax County, Va., where an estimated 26,000 Vietnamese reside, is also home to Eden Center, a large Vietnamese shopping center and self-proclaimed “heart and soul” of the East Coast Vietnamese community.

FILED UNDER: Restaurants, Eden Center, Pho, Vietnamese Americans
July 12, 2011 | 7:00 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Ward 8 Renters, Colonias and Immigrant Celebrities

Barry: No More Renters in Ward 8! Ward 8 D.C. Councilman Marion Barry plans to introduce a bill today that would prevent the construction of new apartment buildings in the underserved ward. He would rather see an increase in home ownership. He tells reporter Lydia DePillis that “renters, by their very nature, don’t keep up their neighborhoods like homeowners would… Renters will allow drug dealers in the neighborhood. It’s a fact. It’s a doggone fact.” (Washington City Paper)

African American Civil War Museum To Hold Grand Opening D.C.’s African American Civil War Museum reopens next week in a space that’s seven-times as large as the old museum in the U Street corridor.  (WAMU)

Do white people watch black movies? - Even though African Americans tend to see movies of all genres at higher rates than whites, a new study shows that whites don’t tend to see movies with majority or all-black casts. (The Washington Post)

Impoverished border town grows from shacks into community Texas “colonias” are unincorporated settlements that may lack basic services, like running water. Life in one such colonia on the Texas-Mexico border is slowly improving for residents. (CNN)

Immigrants who were celebrities in homeland face abrupt change in status Local immigrants who once had fame in their homelands have a difficult time adjusting to thankless jobs in the U.S. But many of the immigrants interviewed preferred staying in America to returning to their countries of origin.  (The Washington Post)

July 11, 2011 | 2:49 PM | By

Five Factors Causing the ‘Decimation’ of the Black Middle Class

Alex Wong / Getty Images

The Rev. Jesse Jackson (L) hold the hands of Angela Walker (R) in Suitland, Md. after a rally against foreclosures in the hard-hit, majority-black county. Walker is recently unemployed and facing foreclosure.

The recession from 2007 to 2009 has hit nearly all sectors and communities in the American economy, but minorities, and particularly African Americans, may have been affected the most. Jesse Washington’s recent Associated Press story about how the recession reversed many of the economic gains that took the black community many years to attain contains some grim statistics: in 2009, the average black household had only 2 cents for every dollar of wealth held by the average white household, and in April 2010, black male unemployment hit its highest point since the government began tracking it in 1972.

“History is going to say that the black middle class was decimated,” Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion, tells Washington. “But we’re not done writing history.”

What has led to such extreme losses? Here are five factors contributing to the “decimation” of the black middle class:
FILED UNDER: History, The People, Black Middle Class, Economy, Housing, Recession, Unemployment
July 11, 2011 | 10:28 AM | By

Indian Americans Increasingly Pursuing Creative Jobs

Indians comprise the largest Asian group in the D.C.-area, and although many are working professional jobs, not all are. But another interesting trend has taken hold in the Indian-American community: the number of Indian Americans who have taken up jobs in the arts, entertainment and food industries has doubled in the past decade from 2.9 percent to 6.1. percent, reports Chicago Business. This video the network produced features Indian Americans who have taken up jobs as chefs and comedians:




This is similar to what I’m witnessing, at least anecdotally, among my fellow Iranian Americans. Members of my parents’ generation have traditionally viewed doctor, dentist or engineer as the predestined careers for their children. It makes sense — they’re relatively stable jobs, and if you’re a new arrival to this country, particularly without a network of friends and family, you may not feel secure enough to go after a “risky” career.

But those of us who were born here may have more stable-footing than our parents did — we have families, institutions and communities here that raised us and that we can rely upon.  We may even have a measure of accumulated family wealth, thanks to the hard work of our parents. Perhaps that’s part of the reason I felt comfortable with pursuing journalism (not the most stable or well-paid of professions), and my brother, who once seriously considered medical school, is now an aspiring film-maker.

I’m curious — are others experiencing something similar, or is the pressure to follow a more traditional career paths still strong?

FILED UNDER: The People, Employment, Immigration
July 11, 2011 | 8:22 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Recession’s Impact, Food Deserts and ‘Chinacorner’

Black economic gains reversed in Great Recession All groups were affected by the recession, but the black community was particularly hit-hard. Many in the middle class were knocked back into poverty, reversing years’ of economic gains. “In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents,” explains Algernon Austin of the Economic Policy Institute. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Food deserts: If you build it, they may not come Building supermarkets in U.S. Department of Agriculture -designated food deserts doesn’t necessarily mean people will eat healthier — especially given that over the past four years, the price of the healthiest foods has increased at a much faster rate than the price for junk food. (Economist)

Wah Luck House maintains culture in dying D.C. Chinatown About half of the remaining Chinese residents in Chinatown live in Wah Luck House, a 10-story building constructed by D.C. to house people being displaced by development in the 1980s. And many residents have no plans on leaving. (The Washington Post)

The Mental Burden Of A Lower-Class Background Climbing up the social ladder doesn’t mean you’ll ever fully know the cultural rules of the upper class, explains Ph.D. Gwen Sharp, who grew up in rural Oklahoma. (Jezebel)

Black women take their place in D.C.’s bike lanes Some experts believe the popularity in bicycling hasn’t grown at the same rate among African Americans as it has among whites. Black Women Bike DC aims to support women who want to bike and serve as a reminder to others that biking isn’t “a white thing.” (The Washington Post)

July 8, 2011 | 2:26 PM | By

Seniors in Need Get Free Lawn Service

miggslives / Flickr

These humid summer months make mowing a lawn an arduous task, and District residents with grass more than 10 inches high could be slapped with a $500 fine. But not everyone is physically capable of mowing a lawn or can afford to pay someone else to do it.

Thankfully, there is some help out there. Starting Saturday, senior citizens in all D.C. wards are eligible to have youth mow their lawns for free. The D.C. Department of Employment Services’ youth division is expanding its free lawn cutting service, which started in Ward 5 last year. Supervised youth working D.C. summer jobs will mow lawns of any size.

If you have an elderly neighbor or relative who could use the help, act quickly — the deadline to ask for this service is 5 p.m., Monday. Priority will be given to disabled seniors who live alone. Contact the Office of Aging at 202-724-5622 or DOES at 202-724-7000.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Government, Seniors, SYEP, Youth
July 8, 2011 | 11:47 AM | By

Latest Government Job Cuts May Hit African Americans Hardest

 

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The latest jobs report released Friday shows that unemployment has risen from 9.1 to 9.2 percent, with government jobs getting the most cuts. And such public sector losses disproportionately affect African Americans, given that a larger percentage of working black adults hold government jobs than working white or Hispanic adults [PDF].

June saw the loss of 39,000 government jobs. And the June unemployment rate for whites was 8.1 percent; for blacks, it was 16.2 percent; and for Hispanics, 11.6 percent. The huge public sector losses may be contributing to the disparity in unemployment rates, reports Huffington Post‘s Janell Ross:

The loss of government paychecks erodes one of the great equalizing forces at play in the American economy for more than a century. A government job has long offered a pathway for African Americans to sidestep discrimination that has impeded progress in the private sector, where social networks often determine who has a shot at the best jobs, say experts….

“Many of the black people you don’t hear about on the news, the black people who own homes, who can afford to send their children to college and have modest savings, many of them worked for some branch of government before the recession began,” said Steven Pitts, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education. “There is good reason to be very concerned about what will happen when this work disappears.”

D.C.’s unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in May. But the rates differ ward-by-ward [PDF]. The District’s poorest and nearly all-black wards saw May unemployment range between 16.8 and 24.9 percent. Conversely, the city’s wealthiest, and whitest, ward saw a May rate of 2.6 percent.

FILED UNDER: Government, Economy, Unemployment
July 8, 2011 | 7:00 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Immigration Museum, Casey Anthony Coverage and D.C. Obesity

Lawmakers want immigration museum in D.C. Several congressmen want a National Museum of the American People to tell the story of immigration to America. And one of the supporters, Virginia Rep. Jim Moran (D), is also one of the biggest critics of individual “ethnic” museums on the Mall. (The Washington Post)

Why you’ve heard of Caylee, but not Brisenia or Marchella The Casey Anthony case has garnered a lot of media attention, but cases involving the deaths of children of color? Not so much. An expert from The Poynter Institute explains the seeming disparity in coverage. (Multi-American)

Photo History: The Fashions Of Women Of Color Fashion history often focuses on white women, but women of color were fashionable too. Here, some photographic evidence. (NPR)

Study Names D.C. As Second “Least Obese” State In Country D.C. is rated as one of the least obese “states” in the country. But, surprise! Race and class disparities exist. Obesity rates are higher among the city’s adult black population compared to the adult white population. (WAMU)

Washington home to 15% of largest black-owned businesses A list of the 100 largest black-owned businesses in the country includes 15 D.C. companies. Their combined total revenue: $2.15 billion. (Washington Business Journal)

July 7, 2011 | 4:04 PM | By

DCentric Picks: Evolution of the Go-Go Beat

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.

Chris Graythen / Getty Images

Chuck Brown is considered the “godfather of go-go,” helping to create D.C.’s genre of music.

What: “Evolution of the Go-Go Beat”

When: 1 p.m., Saturday.

Where: Anacostia Community Museum (1901 Fort Place, SE).

Cost: Free.

Why you should go: Go-go is the music of D.C., even though shows are increasingly being pushed to the suburbs. Get a history lesson on how the genre began and where it’s headed. Musicians Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliot and Sweet Cherie are among the speakers, and Faycez U Know will perform.

Other events to consider: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival wraps up Monday. The free event at the National Mall focuses on Colombia, rhythm and blues and the Peace Corps. Also, La Clínica del Pueblo is hosting a screening of “The Other City,” a documentary on racial and class disparities among D.C.’s HIV/AIDS patients. Tickets cost $15 and the event takes place 6:30 p.m., Tuesday at GALA Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th Street, NW).

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, Museums, Anacostia Community Museum, DCentric Picks, Go-go