Gentrification is an emotionally-charged subject — so much so that an entire television series will be devoted to documenting a neighborhood in transition.
Premium cable network HBO is developing a new drama series following longtime Latino residents as they face gentrification and an influx of white professionals into their Los Angeles neighborhood. The show will be based on the book “The Madonnas of Echo Park” by Brando Skyhorse.
If D.C.’s gentrification were to get the HBO-treatment, which neighborhood’s story should be told?
The Madonnas of Echo Park will examine the lives of the Latinos who built their Los Angeles neighborhood from their personal relationships to their careers as they struggle to make peace with the changes to their home from an influx of hipsters who are rapidly changing the face of the area. The novel looks at the complexities of two different groups sharing a home and attempting to live with each other’s differences. The plotline seems to echo the sentiments of many such neighborhoods facing gentrification and fighting to keep their cultural identity, and may well resonate with those audiences.
Race looms large in the story of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager shot and killed by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claimed self-defense in the Feb. 26 incident and hasn’t be charged with a crime. The lack of charges have led to nationwide protests by those who believe Zimmerman would have been charged had Martin not been black.
But how much does the race of the shooter matter in the story? Zimmerman’s father is identified as white and his mother as Hispanic. Many believe Zimmerman racially profiled Martin, but Zimmerman’s family has used his ethnic heritage as a defense against such claims.
A number of you weighed in on the role of race in the story and the complexity of racial identity for Hispanics, who are considered a minority group in the United States. C_vs writes that Hispanic is an ethnicity, referring to “people of various backgrounds who are united by the Spanish language and Latin-American culture.” But Hispanics can be of any race.
Laribos writes that the Martin case highlights the need for more nuanced ways to identify Hispanics:
A number of longtime black churches in D.C. are smack-dab in the middle of rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, such as John Wesley AME Zion on 14th Street NW. Many parishioners are older or no longer live in D.C., while many new neighbors are young and white.
But rather than fight the changes in their neighborhoods, some church leaders are exploring ways to remain relevant, The Washington Post reports. Wesley wants to rent its facilities for banquets and wedding rentals, and maybe even host jazz nights to attract new, mostly white, neighbors.
Terry Lynch, head of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, said strong pastoral leadership is also crucial for “reaching out and embracing’’ new residents and new realities.
It often isn’t easy. Wesley says its new neighbors are welcome, but some recent arrivals complain about how church members double-park outside the church on Sunday mornings, or about how tough it is to get alcohol licenses for new restaurants. [Church member Clennie] Murphy said the church’s relationship with its new neighbors is improving. But so far, the recruits haven’t really materialized.
A number of unresolved questions remain in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black Florida teen killed by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman. Did Zimmerman mutter a racial slur when calling 911 to report Martin as “suspicious?” Did Zimmerman really act in self-defense? Whose cries for help are heard on a neighbor’s 911 call, Zimmerman’s or Martin’s?
As authorities continue to investigate month-old case, the continued lack of charges against Zimmerman has spurred a dialogue on race and led to countrywide protests and social media campaigns. Many such protests have utilized the hoodie, which Martin was wearing at the time of his death, as a symbol of standing in solidarity with the Martin family. The latest such campaign to come across our radar is from a group of D.C.’s Howard University students. In the video below, black male students and alumni introduce themselves and mention their credentials. They then don hoodies and ask, “Do I look suspicious?”
Do you think focusing on the hoodie is effective, or does it detract from the national debate on racial profiling?
The city anticipates a $172 million shortfall next year, and Mayor Gray wants to fill the gap mostly through cuts — about $102 million worth of them — while raising the remaining $70 million. The D.C. Council will spend the next couple of months digesting, debating and changing the budget before finally voting on it.
Let’s take a look at a few highlights:
No new taxes
Last year’s budget battle included a debate over whether to create a new tax bracket for wealthier residents. The council eventually approved a new tax bracket for households making more than $350,000 a year. This time around, Mayor Gray isn’t suggesting further raising taxes on the wealthy to balance the budget. Instead, he’s looking to make money by extending the hours alcohol can be sold and expanding the traffic camera program.
Healthcare
The DC Healthcare Alliance provides insurance for the approximately 20,000 low-income D.C. residents not covered by Medicaid. Mayor Gray proposes cutting $23 million from the program, transforming it from offering comprehensive coverage to just primary, preventative care.
The lack of racial and gender diversity at Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has come under scrutiny, particularly given that the semi-public agency is one of the region’s largest employers. All but 3 percent of Metro’s more than 3,000 bus and train drivers are black. Six of the drivers are white women.
The Washington Times interviewed dozens of current and former employees, some of whom have sued the agency for discrimination. The paper found a trend of black employees being paid more and promoted more quickly than white employees.
Union President Jackie L. Jeter noted that the union isn’t in charge of hiring and said that whites, women and Hispanics must not be applying for jobs.
“If Caucasians or Hispanics want to put in for jobs, they have ample opportunity to apply — and once they become bus operators, they can go work in Southeast,” she said.
White women say those words are uttered repeatedly to those who apply for jobs and those in their first years, but that it is more of an attempt at intimidation than a reality.
The United States is becoming an increasingly diverse nation, and its surnames reflect that diversity, as shown in this National Geographic map. It documents the proliferation of certain last names.
The D.C.-area’s surnames mostly originate from England, Scotland and Wales. Travel westward, and surnames from Spanish, China and other regions become more common. Do you see your surname on the map? Click the link below to see more.
America is a nation of Smiths, Johnsons, and Sullivans—but also of Garcias and Nguyens. Zoom in on the map below to see what surnames proliferate in your part of the country.
Unemployment in some D.C. neighborhoods is as high as 25 percent. At the same time, cranes fill the skies in pockets of the city, signaling economic activity. So why not encourage hiring unemployed D.C. residents for those projects?
That was the intent behind tightening the District’s hiring rules for projects receiving city money. But now builders and contractors say that the new hiring standards are impossible to meet because the city simply lacks qualified workers.
Such sentiments can be frustrating to those D.C. residents who have completed training programs but still have trouble finding work. But at the same time, many people do face major barriers to getting hired: one in 10 D.C. residents has a criminal record, and in Ward 8, which has the highest unemployment rate, one in five adults hasn’t completed high school.
The D.C. Building Industry Association has not yet decided whether to fight the new law, according to the group’s president, Ernie Jarvis. Jarvis, senior vice president at First Potomac Realty Trust, said he wasn’t sure how many projects each year would be affected by the new rules but said he hoped that the council would reconsider the hiring requirements because he didn’t think there were a sufficient number of qualified D.C. residents to fill those positions.
“We want to employ D.C. residents,” Jarvis said. “You have to first improve K-12 education.”
Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black Florida teenager killed by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, was wearing a hoodie at the time of the shooting. Zimmerman, who hasn’t been charged with a crime, told a 911 dispatcher that Martin “looks like he’s up to no good, or on drugs or something,”
I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable, he should be prosecuted. But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.
Rivera went on to say that he tells his “dark-skinned” son Cruz to not leave the house wearing a hoodie because “people look at you and they — what do they think? What’s the instant identification, what’s the instant association?”
Many then took to Twitter to criticize Rivera, who then tweeted this:
Its sad that I have to be the one reminding minority parents of the risk that comes with being a kid of color in America--channel the rage
Rivera’s advice shifts responsibility from aggressors to victims, much like saying rape victims were “asking for it” because of what they were wearing. But Rivera’s statements also somewhat allude to the painful decisions that many parents have to confront, of how to protect their black and brown children in a world where racism exists and can costs lives.
With the national spotlight on the Trayvon Martin story raising questions of racial stereotyping in the name of maintaining public safety, New York lawmakers are debating a police practice opponents say sanctions racial profiling. Under New York City’s stop-and-frisk practice, officers can stop, question and frisk people on the street deemed suspicious.
By and large, lawmakers who oppose the stop-and-frisk tactic are racial minorities, some of whom say they have been stopped by police because of their race. Many white lawmakers, however, have been silent on the issue or support the practice.
Gov. David A. Paterson, the state’s first black governor, told The New York Times that he’s been stopped three times by police. “It’s a feeling of being degraded. I think that’s what people who it hasn’t happened to don’t understand.”
Supporters and police officials have said that the practice helps reduce violence that has disproportionately affected black and Latino communities.
“There’s more police assigned to a place like East New York than, say, a precinct in Riverdale,” said the Police Department spokesman, Paul J. Browne, “so the police are going to be in a position to observe suspicious behavior more frequently.”
The Police Department has said that it conducted a record 684,330 stops last year, and that 87 percent of those stopped were black or Hispanic. About 10 percent of the stops led to arrests or summonses and 1 percent to the recovery of a weapon, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has examined police data.
But the Police Department frames the numbers in a different way: last year, it said, it recovered 8,000 weapons, 800 of them handguns, via stops. And over the last decade, the number of murders has dropped by 51 percent, “in part because of stop, question and frisk,” Mr. Browne said.
