DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were out getting arrested for a good cause, we were searching the woolly wide web for links!

Va. teacher holds mock slave auction An elementary school teacher tried to enliven a history lesson by dividing her class by race…so that the white students could buy their black and multi-racial peers. The class is 40 percent white and 40 percent black. “The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation,” said Sewells Point Elementary School principal Mary Wrushen, in a letter to parents which was sent last week. The teacher has been with the school for six years; a spokesperson for Norfolk public schools issued a statement indicating that they are taking “appropriate personnel action”. (The Washington Post)

Deanwood Plays Hardball With Liquor Stores Deanwood residents are protesting Uncle Lee’s application for an alcohol license, who say they need to sell booze and lotto tickets to keep their business alive. “The owners of Uncle Lee’s are being stubborn, and maybe they could make a go of it with groceries instead of booze on that high-visibility corner. But with things as they are, the crusade against their right to sell liquor might just end up driving them out of business entirely (which would be a shame for local food options; the crabcake sandwich isn’t bad). That could allow another entrepreneur with more startup capital to buy the place and set up something the locals would like. Or it could result in the corner sitting empty for years to come.” (Washington City Paper)

African-Americans and the White House In case you missed last week’s show, give this interview a listen to get a sense of the history of black Americans and the White House. “The White House is a symbol of American power all over the world. But for many African-Americans, this most famous of American homes also represents a rarely discussed history of exclusion and inequality.” (WAMU/Metro Connection)

Abortion Limit Is Renewed, as Is Washington Anger Some insight into why Congress is meddling in D.C.’s affairs? “Republican lawmakers say they tinker mostly because they can. ‘Because D.C. is primarily financially under Congressional oversight, I think people feel more empowered to specifically have input there more so than other states,’ said Representative Tim Scott, a freshman from South Carolina who is on the Republican leadership slate in the House. ‘I don’t think there is much more to it than that.’” Hm. Good to know. (New York Times)

‘Black in Latin America’: The Other African Americans Latin American countries had more black slaves than the United States — 4.8 million ended up in Brazil alone, compared to 450,000 who arrived in the U.S. “So, in one sense, the major ‘African-American experience,’ as it were, unfolded not in the United States, as those of us caught in the embrace of what we might think of as ‘African-American exceptionalism’ might have thought, but throughout the Caribbean and South America, if we are thinking of this phenomenon in terms of sheer numbers alone.” (The Root)