May 31, 2011 | 4:25 PM | By

A College Degree Doesn’t Mean You’ll Get a Job, Especially if You’re Black

The jobless rate for black men ages 16 to 19 is 45 percent. The Washington Post chronicles the job hunt of one black male teen, Kenneth Roberson of Memphis. The recent Booker T. Washington High school graduate was a top-ranked student at his school, which was described by President Barrack Obama as one of the nation’s most inspiring.

For Roberson, the implications of 45 percent are more immediate and more personal. It means a 45 percent chance he will have to borrow money for school or risk forgoing his partial scholarship to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; a 45 percent chance that he will be stuck without a car in a house with his mother and four siblings, sleeping on a futon in the room he shares with his brother; a 45 percent chance that he will go “crazy or something,” he said, “because I hate sitting in the house and having that feeling of just waiting around and being worthless.”

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty

President Obama greets Christopher Dean during Booker T. Washington High School's May 2011 graduation ceremony. Obama called the school one of the country's most inspiring.

Roberson and his peers face an uphill battle in trying to find jobs to help pay for school. But what if he was a little older and already had his college degree — would finding a job be more difficult for him than for a white college graduate?

Colorlines has posted a number of illuminating graphics that indicate, yes: Jobless rates are much higher for black and Latino college graduates than their white peers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the jobless rate for black college graduates under 25 was 19 percent in 2010. For whites, it was 8.4 percent. Colorlines reports:

Even among those who’ve made the right choices—be it finishing high school or loading up debt to get a college degree—jobless rates are shocking. And the longstanding racial disparity among college graduates has grown markedly worse in the course of the downturn.

In D.C. as a whole, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent in April, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But in predominately black Wards 7 and 8, it’s as high as 20 percent. And teens looking for work may be out of luck this summer, as the city’s summer jobs program faces funding cuts and will be accepting 8,000 fewer youth than last year.

FILED UNDER: Education, The People, Race, Unemployment
May 31, 2011 | 2:20 PM | By

Housing Prices Drop in Major U.S. Cities, Except in D.C.

Flickr: Andrew Bossi

D.C. homes are just getting more expensive.

Buying a home may be getting cheaper elsewhere, but not in D.C. The District is the only city on the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which measures the value of real estate for 20 major cities, in which housing prices increased in March and over the past year.

According to the data released Tuesday, home prices rose by 4.3 percent between March 2010 and March 2011 in D.C. Compare that to New York City, where they dropped by 3.4 percent [PDF].

Increased home values can be good for longtime residents, so long as they own their homes and can afford increased property tax bills. But increased real estate values also means there’s increased incentive for landlords to convert more affordable rental units into pricier apartments and condos. And that can lead to low-income renters being priced out. Renters constitute 55 percent of the city’s population, and rents citywide are expected to increase by about 5.4 percent this year.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Housing
May 31, 2011 | 11:06 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes — Buffalo Soldiers, Gil Scott-Heron Remembrances and a Bleak Job Market

Good morning, DCentric readers. Ready to get back to work after the Memorial Day weekend? Here are some links to get you started with your week:

D.C. Kids Prep For A Summer With Far Fewer City Programs Summer youth programs are facing funding cuts due to D.C’s budget shortfall. “For the past three years, approximately 20,000 teens have been employed through D.C.’s summer jobs program. This year that number is 12,000. And that frustrates students such as 16 year old Michael Burrell. He’s had summer jobs through the city that paid more than $7 an hour. Not this year. ‘It’s been very difficult. They told me it was full… at capacity,’ he says. ‘I really wanted to work this summer. It would be nice to have something to do in the summer rather than just laying around.’” (WAMU)

U Street: ‘Buffalo Thunder’ Honors African American Soldiers “Thousands of members of Buffalo Soldiers and Troopers from chapters across the country from gathered Sunday at the African American Civil War Memorial on U Street. They were there for ‘Buffalo Thunder,’ which honored African Americans who served in the U.S. military.” (Borderstan)

Musician Gil Scott-Heron Dies At 62 In the wake of legendary musician and poet Gil Scott-Heron’s death, NPR reflects on his notable body of work. “Scott-Heron’s 1970 debut album included the song many critics call his masterpiece, ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.’ It’s a diatribe, a clarion calling out to a black community that seemed paralyzed by what he saw as the mass media’s trivialization of the social upheaval, poverty and other challenges affecting people of color. In 1985, he told NPR, ‘Well, I always thought if a song wasn’t going to say anything it ought to be an instrumental.’” (NPR)

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May 27, 2011 | 1:16 PM | By

Fishing in the Anacostia a Dangerous Alternative for the Hungry

Courtesy of: Jessica Gould

Bobby Jones spends most of his days reeling in river catfish from the Anacostia River.

Exactly how many people are fishing in the Anacostia River’s polluted water is not yet known, but Anacostia Watershed Society advocacy director Brent Bolin tells us that he’s seen a large increase in the number of fishermen since the recession began.

WAMU’s Jessica Gould reports that starting in June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be sponsoring a survey to find out who is fishing in the river and why.

Many of the fishermen Bolin sees have coolers used to store caught fish, which leads him to believe they are likely taking them home for food.

Gould spoke with one such fisherman, Bobby Jones.The District resident has been out of work for about five years, and Gould reports that catfish from the Anacostia constitute “a big part of his diet.”

But Anacostia Riverkeeper Dottie Yunger, who advocates for clean water, says eating catfish can be dangerous. She says studies show many of the brown bullheaded catfish in the Anacostia have contaminants in their tissues and cancerous lesions on their bodies.

“Will you get immediately sick from eating a fish from the river that might be contaminated? Probably not,” she says. “You may not feel any effect. But there are effects that are happening at the cellular level, at the molecular level. It’s affecting brain development, it’s affecting memory. It’s affecting cognitive skills.”

Despite the danger in eating the river’s fish, Bolin says fishing is quite common off of the Maryland and District shores of the Anacostia River.

“There are a few spots in which you almost always see someone out there. I think it’s pretty prevalent and it’s growing,” he says. “One of the problems is the warnings about how many fish you can eat. For one thing, they’re grossly out of date. And in D.C., you get the notice when you get your fishing license. Well, how many people do that? Especially someone with a language barrier?”

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FILED UNDER: The People, Anacostia River, Hunger
May 27, 2011 | 9:39 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Kids Served Raw Onions, Another DYRS Escape and Don’t Eat the Fish

Good morning, DCentric readers! Why not start your holiday weekend with some links:

Southeast students served raw onions as snack “No matter how you slice it, the days of milk and cookies are long gone as schools aim to provide students with healthy fruits and vegetables as snacks. But raw onions? That’s what several classes of students at Southeast’s Turner Elementary were fed Tuesday, instead of the zucchini slices the school’s food provider, Chartwells, said it would serve as part of a federal initiative to provide healthy food to young learners.” (Washington Examiner )

Fast Gourmet fills ’em up “’The city is where everyone wants to live now. If D.C. had 50 more creative places like this — great food in a gas station — then this would be a really great place to be. It would be, well, Brooklyn,’ says Blair Ruble, a Washington historian and chronicler of U Street, as he tucks into a juicy Peruvian-chicken lunch. Ruble talks about the significance of Fast Gourmet being in a gas station, a symbol of the open road and of the dated suburban American dream. The Washington area has the second-highest subway ridership in the country, after New York. And this Lowest Price station has a new identity: It’s a way station that’s now a destination.” (The Washington Post)

D.C. Mentors Seek To Strengthen Father-Son Relationships “Some advocates estimate that 70 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock, and most of those are raised by single, African-American women. ‘There’s a significant difference when the father is not in the house versus when the father is in the house,’ says (Nate) Murrell. That’s why Murrell put together the new mentoring program for boys age 13 to 18. Alpha Omega will help teens set goals, both academic and personal, and involve young people in service work and weekly activities.” (WAMU.org)

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May 26, 2011 | 4:45 PM | By

Examining Class Disparities in D.C.’s Growing Indian Population

The Asian American population in the D.C.-area increased dramatically over the past decade, The Washington Post reports:

Indians are the latest wave of Asians transforming the region, having leapfrogged over Koreans a decade ago. For the first time, they make up the biggest group of Asians in Virginia, largely because they have moved to the Washington suburbs.

Their increasing presence reflects the growth of information-technology jobs in the region. Most came for jobs, having attended school elsewhere in the United States or in India, said Qian Cai, head of demographics at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.

With their high levels of education and income, Indians are pushing up those averages for the entire region.

“The ability to attract the Asian Indian community here helps to increase the knowledge base of our metro area,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “These are the cream of the crop, in terms of people who have high skills. Their kids are going to our schools and improving the schools in the process.”

While many Asians in the D.C.-area have high levels of education and income, and particularly those settling in wealthier counties such as Loudoun and Fairfax in Virginia, there are Asian Americans who don’t fit the mold.

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FILED UNDER: The People, Census, South Asians
May 26, 2011 | 8:52 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Asian Population Up, Redistricting Maps Released and D.C. is Not Stressful

Good morning, DCentric readers! For your enjoyment, some links:

D.C. region’s Asian population is up 60 percent since 2000, census data show “Asians are drawn here by the same magnet of opportunity that has attracted so many other ambitious people, making Washington the city with the biggest share of college graduates in the country. ‘D.C. is similar to New York and Northern California,’ said Amanjot Singh Dhaliwal, an officer in the South Asian Bar Association of Washington, D.C. ‘The most opportunities are here. You want to go where you have the most opportunities to make money and have a career.’” (The Washington Post)

Proposed DC Redistricting Maps Released “The new proposed redistricting plan for Washington, D.C. has just hit the web. Federal law requires leaders to draw the lines depending on how the population is spread out. Capitol Hill residents hit the streets in protest Tuesday over the proposal, worried that some neighborhoods in Ward 6 may be broken up into other wards.” (myfoxdc.com)

Charge Dropped In Wheelchair Arrest Case, Metro Police Lose Arrest Powers “Fifty-five-year-old Dwight Harris was snatched from his wheelchair, tripped and then thrown to the ground where his head was swimming in a pool of blood. Witnesses to the arrest and people who viewed the video agreed with the U.S. Attorney who decided to drop the resisting arrest charge against Harris. They also approved the suspension of police powers for the two Metro Transit officers pending a review by prosecutors and Metro’s police chief.” (WUSA Washington, DC)
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May 25, 2011 | 1:38 PM | By

Five Ways To Be a Good Gentrifier

Flickr: Daquella Manera

Does this street art make you feel guilty?

Are you a middle or high-income earner, who is probably white (but not necessarily!) and has moved into a predominantly black or Latino low-income neighborhood? And is that neighborhood rapidly changing, as longtime residents move to less expensive suburbs because they can’t afford to live in the neighborhood’s revamped, much pricier apartments? Check off a bingo card if you must: you live amongst hip coffee shops, with white people where white people never dared to go before and patronize yoga studios that were once corner stores. Face it: you’re a gentrifier.

For the self-aware and well-meaning among the gentry, the guilt can be almost akin to white guilt — your very existence can make you feel bad. But if you’ve moved into a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, there are ways you can be a good neighbor. Here are five things to get you started, and feel free to suggest more in the comments section:

1. Get involved, but first listen and learn.

    Diane Levy, a senior researcher for the Urban Institute who studies neighborhood changes, suggests getting involved in neighborhood organizations and civic associations in an effort to get to know the community. And that’s something that makes sense when moving into any community, gentrifying or not.

“Not everything in a community is easily knowable, but try to get to know the community before coming in and pointing out, as the new person, what needs to be done differently,” she says. “In the case of gentrifying areas, it’s easy for somebody to come in with a certain view of what makes for a good neighborhood and focus on what they see as negative without trying to understand what makes the neighborhood what it is.”

I hear that neighborhood blogs are good places to get to know a community, no? Sure, Levy says, but be careful of what you write, even if it’s an anonymous comment.

“Some of the comments people will post, it’s anonymous and people think they can say anything and no damage done. But write things you would be willing to say directly to somebody’s face,” Levy says. “Because even though it’s a virtual space, it’s real. It can have an impact.”

The impact cuts both ways — negative comments perpetuate stereotypes of the neighborhood, but they can also perpetuate the stereotype that all gentrifiers share the same negative feelings.

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FILED UNDER: Culture, The People, Gentrification, Urban Institute
May 25, 2011 | 10:40 AM | By

Five Ways Hunger Affects the Latino Community

Flickr: Walmart Stores

Last week, Latino leaders from across the country gathered in D.C. for the No Mas Hambre – “No More Hunger” – conference to raise awareness about food insecurity in their community. Here are five ways hunger, which is defined as “physical, emotional and psychological distress arising from lack of access to adequate, nutritious food” affects this rapidly growing group of Americans:

1) More than a quarter of Latinos struggle with hunger — compared to 14.6 percent of the general population, according to Bread for the World, a D.C.-based non-profit that works to end hunger in America and abroad.

2) Latino children are more likely to go hungry than their peers. While one in four American children is hungry, “child hunger is even more prevalent among Latino households — one in three Latino children is food insecure”, according to Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, a non-profit working to help America’s hungry through a national network of food banks.

3) Nearly 60 percent of Hispanic families with young children receive food from a program called Women with Infants and Children (WIC), according to the National Hispanic Leadership agenda, a nonpartisan association of major Hispanic national organizations and leaders. WIC provides low-income women and their young children access to nutritious foods, education and other resources.

4) A third of Latino kids use emergency food service programs. The 2010 Hunger in America study conducted by Feeding America found that one out of every three Hispanic children received services from their national network of emergency food providers or food banks.

5) Almost half of all eligible Latinos do not receive food stamps, according to the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.That may be because applying for food stamps, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, can be complicated, according to a brief from the Urban Institute; “it is possible that Hispanic families more often than others find SNAP inconvenient because they are more likely to be working, as many SNAP offices are open only during regular work hours”.

FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Food, Hunger, Immigrants
May 25, 2011 | 9:00 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Practicing Modern Phrenology, Doing Worse Under Obama and National Black Museum

Good morning, DCentric readers. Whew, it’s already Wednesday!

White Folks Shouldn’t Worry “Racism is not a zero-sum game, but opportunities for limited resources are. This includes jobs that pay well and a quality education. When white people perceive that they are disadvantaged by a level playing field, they are correct. We’ve always known that anti-black bias is purposeful; it turns out, though, that the object isn’t to protect white women’s purity. It’s the economy, stupid.” (The New York Times)

No, You Are Not ‘Less Physically Attractive’ “Last week a piece called ‘Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?’ made the rounds on twitter, eliciting a throng of denunciations…In general, my experience has been that scientists who treat the measures of nebulous and ill-defined qualities as strident inarguable fact, are not so much practicing modern science, as they are practicing modern phrenology.” (The Atlantic)

Obama and Black Americans: the Paradox of Hope “But for all the ways black America has felt better about itself and looked better to others, it has not actually fared better. In fact, it has been doing worse. The economic gap between black and white has grown since Obama took power. Under his tenure black unemployment, poverty and foreclosures are at their highest levels for at least a decade. Millions of black kids may well aspire to the presidency now that a black man is in the White House. But such a trajectory is less likely for them now than it was under Bush.” (thenation.com)
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