DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! We’re a few days late, but we have a gift for you! New breakfast links!

Head-Roc’s Mouth: “Umoja on U: A Kwanzaa Celebration” “Sunday’s event is called “Umoja on U: A Kwanzaa Celebration,” and for me it represents an earnest, sincere, and knowledgeable attempt to, for at least one day, restore the magic and glory that once filled the Lincoln Theatre’s great hall with expressions of what I like to simply call: Black Love…In their heyday, black entertainers were banned from playing the coveted Broadway entertainment strip in New York City. and right here in D.C. is where we built and managed our own “Black Broadway”…” (Washington City Paper)

Wards of city held in burglary in toney NW neighborhood “The thwarted burglary attempt stands out for adding to the emerging trend of youths under the supervision of DYRS traveling from crime-ridden parts of the inner city to commit robberies and burglaries in suburban and affluent parts of the city and surrounding counties – sometimes with deadly consequences. In October, Deandrew Hamlin, 18 and a DYRS ward, was arrested in the District and charged with driving a Jeep stolen from Sue Ann Marcum, an American University professor found dead in her Bethesda, Md., home in what police say began as a burglary attempt. So far no murder charges have been filed.” (Washington Times)

The plight of the high school homeless “…when he left campus, that veneer disappeared. Brewer, 18, slept at a bus stop in Reston and kept his belongings in a garbage bag hidden behind a bush. After his grades started slipping and a teacher caught him dozing off in class, the ugly story tumbled out. Homelessness had come as a swift, unforgiving series of blows. First, his parents, whose marriage had imploded, disappeared. A few days later, Brewer came home from school to an eviction notice posted on the front door. Suddenly, he was one of a growing number of teens without parents, guardians or reliable shelter in one of America’s richest communities.” (The Washington Post)

Region’s low-income households carry greatest cost-of-living burden “Low-income families tend to pay higher interest rates on their mortgages, experts said. They also tend to pay more for utilities because their houses are less insulated and the appliances are older. Home insurance is also more expensive as the neighborhoods tend to be less safe. “It’s a sweeping phenomenon in our country that acts as a powerful barrier for low-income households to convert their wages to economic mobility,” said Matt Fellowes, a consumer finance expert and CEO of HelloWallet in D.C.” (Washington Examiner )

As RNC conservatives launch Dump Steele effort, race returns to fore “I know that liberals view any criticism of someone’s conduct to be ‘hateful,’ if the person happens to be black, etc, but I was unaware that we at the RNC had adopted such a political speech code,” he wrote. “In my view, it is not ‘hateful” to decide not to vote for Steele because one views his conduct in office to be detrimental to the interests of the Republican Party and the country, even though he happens to be black. To suggest otherwise is playing the race card, again…” (politico.com)

Teena Marie, known as ‘Ivory Queen of Soul,’ dies “Marie made her debut on the legendary Motown label back in 1979, becoming one of the very few white acts to break the race barrier of the groundbreaking black-owned record label that had been a haven for black artists like Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, the Supremes and Marvin Gaye…The cover of her debut album, “Wild and Peaceful,” did not feature her image, with Motown apparently fearing black audiences might not buy it if they found out the songstress with the dynamic, gospel-inflected voice was white.” (The Washington Post)