June 27, 2011 | 2:10 PM | By

Former Principal Speaks about White Families and DCPS

Wendy Carlson/Getty Images

A Washington Post profile of an outgoing D.C. Public Schools elementary school principal provides some insight into the racial divisions in school enrollment. Bill Kerlina left his post as principal of Phoebe Hearst Elementary School, located in the mostly white Ward 3, due to what he calls the dysfunction of the school system.

Hearst’s student body was comprised of mostly out-of-boundary black students. A few days before he quit, Kerlina received a positive evaluation from an instruction superintendent who asked him why there were not more white families at the school. Kerlina wrote back to the superintendent to lay out “a taxonomy of Northwest parents in an effort to show the hurdles to recruiting more neighborhood families:”

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FILED UNDER: Education, DCPS, Race and Class
June 27, 2011 | 9:41 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — End of Chocolate City, Minorities on the Big Screen, Caribbean Festival Aftermath

Is Chocolate City Over? Recent political scandals in D.C. have left a cloud hanging over City Hall. Given the demographic changes in the city, and the mayor’s low approval ratings, could 2014 bring the city its first white mayor? (The Root)

Final Thoughts on the Caribbean Day Festival The violence that erupted during Saturday’s Caribbean Carnival left one dead and three injured. Some have called for an end to the festival and parade along Georgia Avenue, but Prince of Petworth writes, “If we abandon the Caribbean Festival I personally believe we will be abandoning a piece of our soul, a piece of who we are.” (Prince Of Petworth )

Minorities At The Movies Fill Seats, But Not Screens African Americans see movies more often than the general market. And they are going to the exact same movies as their white counterparts, dispelling the “assumption that this is the only type of movie that black people want to see.” (NPR)

Survey Says: Capitol Hill’s Staff Is Lily White A recent survey shows that 93 percent of top Capitol Hill staffers are white, and that can end up affecting what legislation gets considered and which kind of experts testify on pieces of legislation. (Colorlines)

The Yards to bring Harris Teeter, other tenants Grocer Harris Teeter will be moving into the new Forest City development in D.C.’s Capital Riverfront neighborhood in Southeast. A number of other tenants, including a sushi restaurant, will also be moving into the development by 2013. (Washington Business Journal)

June 24, 2011 | 10:33 AM | By

Why Black Men are Wearing Prison Jumpsuits in Chinatown

Courtesy of Aaron Ginoza

An employee of the National Museum of Crime & Punishment hands out coupons to pedestrians in Chinatown.

Pedestrians in Chinatown are inundated with advertising and gimmicks, from free burritos to digital billboards. And joining the marketing blitz on a recent sweltering Saturday afternoon was a group of young black men handing out coupons — wearing orange prison jumpsuits.

They were employees of the National Museum of Crime & Punishment. Some passersby politely took the coupons; most ignored or avoided them. But given the stereotypes associated with black men and crime, others took offense at the sight of black men being hired to wear the jumpsuits.

“It’s got kind of a rough edge to it,” said Wes Brown of D.C., who first saw the men last year. He said they’re dressed “like criminals” and “people see them and probably think that.”

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Brown, who is black, said.

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FILED UNDER: Media, Museums, Crime and Punishment Museum
June 24, 2011 | 7:00 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Vargas Backlash, Fired Over Hijab, Caribbean Carnival Closures

The Media World Is Deeply Conflicted Over This Vargas Story Everyone has got something to say about former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas coming out as an undocumented immigrant, and not least among them are other journalists. Media critics have been asking whether Vargas can be viewed as having been a reputable journalist given he had lied for so many years about his immigration status. (The Atlantic Wire)

Muslim Woman Accuses Air France of Discrimination A Muslim woman from Northern Virginia was fired from her job at Dulles Airport, working for Air France, because her hijab didn’t conform to the company’s uniform. Although France has passed such restrictions on religious dress, a coalition speaking on behalf of the woman has written that “Air France must follow American law and grant reasonable religious accommodations for its employees.” She’s calling for a boycott until she receives an apology from the airline. (NBC Washington)

House panel approves D.C. funds, defeats effort to remove abortion ban Remember that federal budget rider that banned D.C. from paying for low-income women’s abortions? Well, efforts to get that removed have been thwarted by a House panel. (The Washington Post)

Caribbean Festival preparations The Caribbean Carnival is tomorrow! Although this year’s parade is shorter than previous years, there are still a number of road closures to be aware of, and The Brightwoodian provides us with a list. The parade begins at 11 a.m., and the festival ends at 8 p.m. (The Brightwoodian)

June 23, 2011 | 10:29 AM | By

DCentric Picks: ‘The Gentrification of Chocolate City’

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.

Flickr: Carlos Martinez

What: The Thursday Network‘s general body meeting tonight is on the theme “The Gentrification of Chocolate City: Reality versus Perception.”

Where: NPR Building, 635 Massachusetts Ave. NW.

When: 6:45 p.m., Thursday.

Cost: Admission and parking is free.

Why you should go: Attend if you can’t get enough of elevated discussions about gentrification, or if you just want to get a sense current and future development in D.C. Panelists include Jalal Greene, former director of D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, and  Veronica Davis, Ward 7 activist and Nspiregreen partner.

Other events to consider: Joy DeGruy, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, will discuss the “unique kind of stressors African Americans are trying to cope with,” coping mechanisms they’ve developed and special challenges faced by children and youth. She begins her talk at 5 p.m., Sunday at RFD Washington (810 7th St. NW).

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, History, DCentric Picks, Gentrification
June 23, 2011 | 6:30 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — A New Coming-Out Movement, Super-Rich Dairy Execs and Food Aid

Good morning, DCentric readers. There’s a lot to catch up on today in the news, so let’s get to it.:

Why a Pulitzer winner is coming out as undocumented Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter, has joined the ranks of other undocumented immigrants in the growing coming-out movement. Many young people brought or sent here as children, such as Vargas, feel that “the more ‘out’ one is, the more support there is, especially if one is marked for deportation,” writes Leslie Berestein Rojas. (Multi-American)

Why Food Aid Still Matters A House subcommittee has taken aim at food aid for children and pregnant women in an effort to trim the budget. But some argue that such assistance actually saves the government money by preventing higher healthcare costs. (Post Bourgie)

With executive pay, rich pull away from rest of America Company executives are making way more money than their predocesors, and it’s them, the captains of the dairy industry and other “relatively mundane fields” who are making the gap between the rich and poor wider than ever before. (The Washington Post)

Is Internet access a human right? Prompted by uprisings in the Middle East, the United Nations has affirmed that access to the Internet is a human right. It’s an interesting perspective, especially as we Americans continue to grapple with our own digital divide. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Study Suggests Lighter Skin = Shorter Sentence for Black Female Prisoners A new academic study found that light-skinned black women convicted of crimes had, on average, prison sentences that were 12 percent shorter than dark-skinned black women. The researchers controlled for a number of factors and analyzed cases of more than 12,000 women between 1995 and 2009. (Clutch)

June 22, 2011 | 3:16 PM | By

Former Post Reporter Comes Out as Undocumented Immigrant

“Undocumented immigrant” is trending locally and nationally on Twitter after news broke that former Washington Post journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas is an undocumented immigrant.

Vargas came out about his immigration status through a New York Times Magazine story, which was published online today. Vargas, originally from the Philippines, spent years working his way through the Post newsroom ranks in D.C., and chronicles his personal history and what led him to come out:

Last year I read about four students who walked from Miami to Washington to lobby for the Dream Act, a nearly decade-old immigration bill that would provide a path to legal permanent residency for young people who have been educated in this country. At the risk of deportation — the Obama administration has deported almost 800,000 people in the last two years — they are speaking out. Their courage has inspired me.

There are believed to be 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. We’re not always who you think we are. Some pick your strawberries or care for your children. Some are in high school or college. And some, it turns out, write news articles you might read. I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.

Vargas’ story struck me in particular because he spent so much time living and reporting here in D.C. He writes that during his time at the Post, “I began feeling increasingly paranoid, as if I had ‘illegal immigrant’ tattooed on my forehead — and in Washington, of all places, where the debates over immigration seemed never-ending.”

Vargas has now left traditional reporting to start Define American, a campaign meant to raise awareness about immigration. Watch this Define American-produced video to hear Vargas talk about his childhood and meet some of the individuals who have helped him along the way:

FILED UNDER: Media, The People, Immigration
June 22, 2011 | 12:58 PM | By

When Names are ‘Americanized’

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, I wrote about my decision to drop my “Americanized” name in favor of my Persian birth name, and a number of you chimed in about the perils and pitfalls of having a foreign name in the U.S.

The choice to drop or legally change such a name can be complicated. For some, birth names don’t match the common name structure in the United States. Commenter Curtis Alia writes that U.S. officials documented the wrong last name for his Arab father when he immigrated to the U.S. due to misunderstanding the Arab naming structure:  “When I was born, I was given that same incorrect last name, and only until 1994 did we finally change our names to the actual family names from back home.”

Some immigrants make the decision to legally change their names rather than adopt an informal nickname, and marriage presents a convenient opportunity to do so. But that decision could mean losing a meaningful connection. Commenter island girl in a land w/o sea, who is an immigrant with a Spanish name, writes:

When I got married, I changed my name to my husband’s more “American” family name — a choice that i still struggle with. At the time, I was tired of people mangling my last name and making assumptions based on it. Yet now that my parents are gone, I sometimes wish that I had retained my father’s name, or at the very least, come up with some sort of compound-name compromise.

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FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Identity, Immigration, Maz Jobrani
June 22, 2011 | 6:30 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — History and Housing Edition

Good morning, DCentric readers. Here’s what we’re reading today:

London’s poor facing squeeze amid housing-benefit cuts England is looking to make drastic cuts to state aid, namely housing assistance, meaning that many Londoners will no longer be able to afford to live in the very expensive city. Some fear this will push the poor people out and give “rise to American-style ghettos.” (The Washington Post)

Washington housing sales fall D.C.-area housing prices may be rising, but it seems people aren’t that eager to buy. Housing sales declined sharply when compared to last year. (Washington Business Journal)

As Survivors Dwindle, Tulsa Confronts Past A brutal race riot in the 1920s left hundreds of African Americans dead and thousands homeless, but it was only recently that people in Tulsa, Okla. learned out about it. Now, the few survivors left fear that with their passing, so will go memory of the riots. Some lawmakers are hesitant to give survivors payments for damages because it could open the doors to reparations.  (The New York Times)

Manassas Park Seeks Exemption From Parts Of Voting Rights Act, Gets Support The Voting Rights Act requires mostly Southern states to get federal approval any time they make changes to voting laws or procedures. But now Manassas Park, Va. is seeking exemption from certain parts of the law, which would be granted it if they prove they have “a clean recent history regarding voting discrimination.” (WAMU)

June 21, 2011 | 5:16 PM | By

Homicide Rate in D.C. Dropping, but Racial Disparity Still Large

Flickr: Tony Webster

D.C.’s homicide rate is dropping, but blacks are still disproportionately affected, according to Metropolitan Police Department statistics. Greater Greater Washington reports:

D.C.’s black homicide figures are still much higher than comparable rates at the national level. In fact, on a per resident basis, blacks in the District face over double the homicide rate as blacks in the nation as a whole.

There were 1.3 homicides per every 100,000 white D.C. residents in 2010, the same year that saw 37.7 homicides per every 100,000 black D.C. residents.

Homicide Watch D.C. editor Laura Amico, whose mission is to document every homicide in the District, wrote in a GGW comment:

It is so tragic to add victim photo after victim photo to the albums and see young black man after young black man (with some exceptions). Sit through court and you see much the same parade. The one thing that becomes so clear is that in homicides, there are so many more victims than just those that are killed. All the families and so many friends, of both victims and defendants, are impacted and affected by the deaths, too.

Communities are affected by violence in multiple ways. Take health: violence, or even the perception of violence, can prevent young and old alike from being physically active, as we’ve previously noted:

Obesity rates are higher in Wards 6, 7 and 8 than elsewhere in the city. Ward 8, which has the highest homicide rate, also has the lowest physical activity rate. According to D.C.’s Overweight and Obesity Action Plan, 15 percent of all deaths in the District are a result of obesity. But in some parts of the District, the fear of getting shot while walking in your neighborhood can trump the more subtle reality of dying from an obesity-related illness.

FILED UNDER: The People, Crime