DCentric

Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were rooting for the Cowboys last night, we were out foraging for delicious links!

What Everyone Is Missing About NPR’s WilliamsGate “Do I think NPR fired him because he is black? No. Do I think NPR kept Williams on for years, as the relationship degraded, because he is a black man? Absolutely. Williams’ presence on air was a fig-leaf for much broader and deeper diversity problems at the network. NPR needs…broadly, a diversity upgrade that doesn’t just focus on numbers, but on protocols for internal communication.” (faraichideya.com)

Black preachers who ‘whoop’ — minstrels or ministers? “Smith may have sounded like he was screaming. But those who grew up in the African-American church know better. He was whooping. He was practicing a art form that’s divided the black church since slavery. Whooping is a celebratory style of black preaching that pastors typically use to close a sermon. Some church scholars compare it to opera; it’s that moment the sermon segues into song.” (CNN)

Culture Cuts Both Ways – Ta-Nehisi Coates “People talk about reading books as being written off as “acting-white.” I guess. Here’s what I know about that: When I was eighteen, binge-drinking and snorting coke was “acting white.” I was at Howard then, where a large swath of the student population hailed from high schools where most people didn’t go to college. Most of us had watched the crack era unfold firsthand. The notion of coming to college and essentially tempting suicide was seen as the province of “The Culture Of Affluence,” of the rich and the foolish, of the white.” (The Atlantic)

DC charter schools should centralize admissions “…most of the real sorting happens after the lottery. School operators spend all spring and summer working down their list contacting “next in line” parents once they learn that students accepted through the lottery are not in fact planning to enroll…School operators can work extra hard to get “desirable” students or even submit to the will of the pushy parent who spends the most time checking in, thereby subverting the intent of open admissions.” (Greater Greater Washington)

Georgetown administrators respond to Saturday’s DMT arrests “Although Olson confirmed that DPS officers responded to a strange odor, he would not comment on the possibility that authorities received a tip that drug sales took place in that room, too. According to a sworn statement filed with the D.C. District Court, MPD and DPS officers “received information that there were individuals selling drugs” at the dorm room.” Olson also confirmed that the dormitory’s fire alarm system malfunctioned during the evacuation, as originally reported by Vox. (blog.georgetownvoice.com)

‘Daily Show’ kicks off visit to D.C. “Williams was guilty of violating NPR’s “never-say-anything-interesting policy,” correspondent Samantha Bee said during the show’s opening segment, which also spotlighted Fox News’s visceral reaction to the firing. “NPR, you just brought a toteful of David Sedaris books to a knife fight,” said host Jon Stewart, after running clips of Fox’s talking heads railing against the dismissal.” (The Washington Post)