Flickr: aliciagriffin

Columbia Heights Metro, as seen from 14th Street NW.

There are some lessons that can be learned from an incident late last month when five women were assaulted by two men near the Columbia Heights Metro, according to observers. Originally, the men were flirtatious, but when one of the women identified another as her partner, the men shouted homophobic slurs, then physically attacked them.

Chai Shenoy of Holla Back DC noted that it was a bystander who called police. “Kudos,” Shenoy said. “Community engagement is key to creating safe spaces in DC.”

She said Police Chief Cathy Lanier was smart to send a strong signal by investigating the police officers who were involved.

Shenoy said that’s key “with the increase of gender-based crimes happening in the LGBTQ community.”

D.C. residents used social media to air their concerns about the case:

Folks not tuned into the local LGBT community are most familiar with June’s Capital Pride, a 12-day long event with an award-winning parade through the streets of Dupont and Logan circles and a festival that draws 250,000 people. Meanwhile, DC Black Pride, held over Memorial Day weekend, remains a more low-key event with a festival, poetry slams and a dozen workshops.

DC Black Pride started 20 years ago as a celebration and fundraiser for HIV/AIDS organizations serving the black community. Other cities were already hosting such events, but D.C.’s was the first dubbed “Black Pride.” Now, there are more than 30 black prides nationwide, which focus on black LGBT issues.

tedeytan / Flickr

Capital Pride culminates in a festival held along Pennsylvania Avenue.

The D.C. event grew popular in the early days as there was “a feeling that Capital Pride was less inclusive at the time,” according to DC Black Pride board member Earl Fowlkes.

But since then, events catering to diverse segments of the LGBT community have been held during the Capital Pride celebration. Capital Pride board chairman Mike Lutz says the 12-day long celebration is “very representative” of people of all ages, orientations, races and religions.

“Capital Pride is for everyone,” Lutz says.

In recent years, Black Pride has scaled back. This year’s event was smaller because the organization plans to host year-round events, but also due to less funding. Meanwhile, Capital Pride has grown in size and demographics.

So is there still a need to host a black pride event?

“I don’t see it as a separate thing as some people do,” Fowlkes says. “But obviously, whether I felt the need or not, 300,000 people come every year to [black] pride” celebrations around the country.

Yet, Fowlkes says he still doesn’t see many people of color attending the Capital Pride festival along Pennsylvania Avenue.

“That’s a very large open space. A lot of tourists and buses pass through. The press is out there, news cameras. If you’re not comfortable to be visible… that’s not the place to be,” he says. “Even though D.C. is one of the black gay Meccas in the country, there are still a lot of people who don’t feel as comfortable in public spaces.”

ElvertBarnes / Flickr

DC Black Pride's festival is usually held in a public park.

Black Pride is a safer space where people who are black and LGBT can “celebrate our culture,” Fowlkes concludes. The festival has been held in parks such as Fort Dupont, a public venue indeed, but “you’re not going to really be in Fort Dupont unless you’re going to the event,” Fowlkes says. “We’re certainly not going to hide… We’re trying to keep a space where people feel comfortable with themselves and not feel their expression is going to be compromised in any way.”

“It’s homophobia, external and internal, in the black community,” Fowlkes continues. “I’m not saying everybody in the black community is homophobic, but there’s a veil of homophobia that stresses throughout the LGBT community, and everyone feels that.”

Now, there’s been plenty of heated debate over whether homophobia is a bigger problem in the black community than in the white community, particularly following the defeat of California’s Proposition 8. But many commentators say homophobia is just as much an issue, if not more of an issue, among whites than blacks.

DC Black Pride had to very publicly deal with an incident organizers described as homophobia just last year. Rapper Wale was blasted when his team cancelled a paid performance at DC Black Pride after discovering it was a LGBT event. The backlash spurred Wale to attend anyway to issue an apology, writes The Root‘s Natalie Hopkinson:

Frank discussions about homosexuality are rare in hip-hop — and the rest of the black community. (Never mind that gays and lesbians are frequently at the heart of religious and cultural institutions, from the church choirs to museums to theaters to dance companies.) Before Wale’s moment, I can’t think of a time when a hip-hop figure (or a Baptist preacher for that matter) was compelled to publicly atone for their homophobia. After all, reggae/dancehall star Buju Banton, who once encouraged murder of homosexuals on wax and continues to taunt gay activists, still has a career. At the festival, Charles Hicks, a 65-year-old community activist, told me the apology showed that ”silent majority” of black people who are against gay bashing are finally being heard.

Flickr: laverrue

Wedding Cake figurines.

Over at TAPPED, Jamelle Bouie explains it all, if by all we mean “Black People and Gay Marriage”:

The broader question is this: Why aren’t black people energized about gay marriage, despite having high rates of religious attendance? Easy answer: It’s class, stupid. To channel Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels for a moment, the culture wars are mostly fought between Republican and Democratic elites; after all, it’s easy to obsess over gay people when you’re not worried about paying your bills.

For African Americans, who are disproportionately lower-income, gay marriage is far less important than jobs, health care, and economic growth (this is also true of working-class whites, though to a lesser extent). When you couple this with extremely high support for President Obama — and also, the fact that black people hold different opinions on different things — it’s no real surprise that African Americans, as a class, are less than interested in whether gay people can marry or serve openly in the military.

Flickr: Serena Epstein

Tyra Hunter was a popular African American hair stylist in Washington, D.C. In 1995, she was in a serious car accident at 50th and C Streets SE. The emergency personnel who arrived on scene started to rescue her, but they stopped abruptly; instead of providing Hunter with aid, they mocked her. When she finally reached a hospital, Doctors didn’t help her, either.

Sounds outrageous, right? It was. Hunter’s mother sued the city for negligence and malpractice– and won $2.8 million.

At this point, you might be wondering– “Why would EMTs and Doctors withhold care from an accident victim?”

Well, Hunter was transgendered. According to Monica Roberts of The TransGriot, when firefighters discovered that fact after cutting through her clothing, they discontinued care and insulted her.

A firefighter) began joking with the other fire department personnel at the scene as the bystanders pleaded with them to resume working to save Tyra’s life. One bystander is quoted as saying, “It don’t make any difference, he’s [sic] a person, he’s a human being.”

Indeed. I first learned about this appalling case via Colorlines, which “has been building a home for journalism in service to racial justice since 1998″. In their recent article, “Still No Freedom Rainbow for Transgender People of Color”, Hunter’s memory was invoked to demonstrate how little progress has been made:

The fact is that transgender people—in particular, transgender people of color—have simply not experienced the same strides forward as their lesbian, gay and bisexual brothers and sisters. A landmark new report, “Injustice at Every Turn,” presents undeniable proof. This report, released on Friday, is based on a comprehensive survey of over 6,000 transgender people and the findings are too shocking to ignore, especially when it comes to African-American transgender people.

Our transgender brothers and sisters are far more likely to lack proper medical care, to be unemployed, to live in extreme poverty, and to be HIV-positive—and that’s when compared to their white transgender counterparts, not just the general population. The survey’s respondents were four times more likely than the general population to live in extreme poverty. One in five reported having been refused a home or apartment, another one in five report having been refused health care. More than one in five, 22 percent, reported having been harassed by law enforcement, and nearly half reported fear of seeking assistance from police. African American respondents reported all of this in even higher numbers.

Colorlines goes on to connect the dots:

There is clearly an intersection between a broader, structural racism throughout our society and the pervasive prejudice against transgender people. For instance, because black transgender people tend to start out from a position of greater poverty than their white counterparts, they all too often have no strong safety net to support them if they come out and are rejected by their families. As a result, many black transgender people wind up on the streets, too often trading sex for physical, or emotional, survival. So no wonder that black transgender people in the survey reported a rate of HIV infection over 41 times higher than the national average (for comparison, the total respondent pool reported a rate of “only” four times the national average).

Finally, if you think Tyra Hunter would be treated with more compassion today, more than 15 years after her death, a commenter’s reaction to the Colorlines piece proves depressingly otherwise:

unfortunately, having been around EMS workers for awhile, I can see Tyra Hunter’s ordeal happening today. I remember about a year ago reading about a trans woman on facebook who was coughing up blood (a symptom of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lung, which is pretty serious, because it restricts the O2/CO2 exchange), who was asked about her history of “transvestitism” rather than having a meaningful medical history taken. Hopefully, being that I’m a trans woman training to be a paramedic, I can make a change for the better on that front in my community.

DCentric

Today’s WAMU commentary is from Joel Carela, who is part of WAMU’s Youth Voices program in partnership with Youth Radio and D.C’s Latin American Youth Center.

I’ve always been put off by TV shows and movies that glorify casual sex. Like the “American Pie” movies, whose main characters are always in search of a quick and easy hook-up. They make the guys who can separate sex and emotions seem normal and emasculate the ones who develop feelings beyond the mattress.

As an emotional person, I never liked that message — but I guess somehow it seeped into my brain.

Last fall, I started college and moved into a dorm with more than 100 other hormonal teenagers. Suddenly, we had easy access to all sorts of things that were out of reach back home: alcohol, drugs and each other.

It wasn’t long before I started to connect really well with a guy in my international politics class, who also happened to live across the hall. We shared an affinity for baroque-era choral music and an interest in the British monarchy.

You can listen to it, here.

One of the DCentric-related possibilities that delighted me when I started this job– at a station I have loved and listened to for twelve years–was the idea that like our @FrontDeskAmy on Twitter, I could occasionally give you a little glimpse in to what it’s like to be here.

Many of my friends who are journalists of color lament that their workplaces aren’t very diverse– I don’t feel that way at WAMU, where my boss is African-American, the reporter who sat behind me was South Asian and our General Manager is a woman of color, too. Some may scoff at a word like “diversity”– why should it matter, right? The news is news, reporters and commentators should just do their jobs and do them well. That is true, but so is this– our identities shape who we are, and sometimes, they shape our stories, adding an element or detail with which some of us can identify.

Flickr: kate.gardiner

Now reading: Amanda Hess’ piece on “Gay bars, gentrification, and homophobia” in TBD:

LGBT establishments have a complex history with the gentrification of cities. At a glance: In response to discriminatory zoning laws and social ostracization, gay bars traditionally set up shop in underdeveloped urban areas with lower rents and looser regulations. Around these establishments, LGBT neighborhoods formed, later attracting more well-to-do members of the community—and eventually, more affluent straights, too. The gentrification of a gay village signaled a certain mainstream social acceptance of gays—but it also meant pushing less affluent members of the LGBT community back on the social fringes. Straight gentrifiers of gay villages may be willing to tolerate wealthy gay yuppies, but they can also facilitate the marginalization of others in the LGBT community.

Flickr: thisisbossi

"Gray Pride" at the Gay Pride Parade, this year.

The social web is buzzing about Mayor-elect Gray’s broken campaign promise to the LGBT community; while campaigning, one of Gray’s answers to the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance questionnaire included a promise to include LGBT community members in a search for the new police and fire chiefs. That didn’t happen:

The key point is that Mr. Gray did not invite anyone from the LGBT community in the search process. It isn’t clear that he checked with anyone outside of his transition team’s inner circle. Arguably, Chief Lanier is not “new” but that’s really being Clintonesque.

Chief Lanier essentially disbanded the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) at a time when anti-LGBT hate crimes are on the rise. The true value of the GLLU was community involvement. There was a time when the GLLU would visit community groups, bars, and social events just to introduce themselves and say hello. That was a time when the community started to trust the police. Lanier squandered that good will. I don’t recall the last time that I saw someone from the GLLU at any event. I did see them at a couple of the Pride events where they were not talking to anyone in the community. It was quite a waste of an opportunity. Unlike Chief Ramsey, Chief Lanier does not meet with us regularly, and would only do so if she had no other choice. It would be nice to have a police chief that treated us like a welcome part of the community. Mayor-Elect Gray says that she is an advocate of community policing. My experience is that she opposes that policy.

I don’t know Chief Ellerbe. I certainly wish him well. I hope that he will be smart and engage the community as a regular practice. It will be to his benefit.

Michael Paolantonio

Andrew Barnett of SMYAL

I wish I had seen this earlier, so I could have posted it when you were all bored at work and more likely to see it. After reading the following preview, I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Kojo Nnamdi show and I thought some of you might be interested in it, too:

Bullying and suicide often come to mind in daily conversations about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. But young people from these communities confront a wide range of challenges their straight peers never see, often with little support from their families or schools. We hear about the personal experiences and activism of local LGBT youth.

One of the scheduled guests, Andrew Barnett, is Executive Director of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL). The KNS website has the following video of a local 16-year old named Sydney, who goes to SMYAL just so she can “be (herself)”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75K3K1ajzPc&feature=player_embedded

Photography by Jason Pier @ www.jasonpier.com

2009 National Equality March

Over at TBD, Amanda Hess looks at “How D.C. hate crimes compare to the nation’s“:

The District of Columbia is the rare jurisdiction where crimes based on sexual orientation dominate hate crime stats. According to the report, almost half of the nation’s hate crimes—48.8 percent—are committed based on the victim’s race. But in D.C., as many as 85 percent of hate crimes reported to federal law enforcement are based on the victim’s sexual orientation.

Further down in her piece, Hess reported that hate crimes in D.C. which target sexual orientation “most often involve black suspects” targeting victims of various races.

In 2008, the District reported 30 offenses based on sexual orientation, eight based on race, three based on ethnicity, one based on religion, and zero based on disability. Last year, D.C. again reported 30 based on sexual orientation, but noted a decline in other kinds of hate crimes—2009 recorded three incidents based on race, two based on ethnicity, and zero based on religion or disability…

It’s depressing to consider, because when I usually talk to people in this city about gentrification, the most optimistic types hope for an arrangement which sounds…exactly like the 1400 block of R Street, where the affordable R Street Apartments sit next to more expensive homes, creating a neighborhood full of ethnic and economic diversity. Unfortunately, Amanda’s investigation uncovered intimidation and what sound like hate crimes at R Street Apartments, which leads me to wonder if affordable housing can coexist with market-rate real estate? If off-duty cops are afraid to walk on a certain block of R Street, why isn’t more being done to make it safe?

Additionally, I’m uncomfortable with the binary nature this exploration takes on– poor blacks vs gay whites. I’m sure there are black residents of R Street who would prefer that no one gets attacked and left in the middle of the street. At the end of the article, Hess states that R Street is under new management, from Edgewood Management Corporation, and that some of the new staffers are gay themselves. I hope that such a change is enough to usher in a more peaceful environment for all residents of R street, no matter where they live. After reading this comment left on the TBD piece from a resident of that block, I am not optimistic:

I’m a resident on that block, and though I hadn’t heard news of this violence, it doesn’t come as a suprise. Metro PD cruisers, lights blazing, are daily guests on our block, mopping up whatever the episode-du-jour is at the R St. Apartments. As you allude to in the article, despite the maddening frequency of police visits, nothing visible has been done to reduce the thuggishness of the block that is at their root. Outside of the threat of physical harm, cars are routinely broken into in the alley across the street from the apartments, and recently signs went up over the neighborhood complaining of stolen bicycles at the intersection. Frankly, it’s an absolute disgrace that the authorities continue willingly to turn a blind eye on the folks so hellbent on creating a haven for violence and crime. Gentrification is a double-edged sword, yes, but one of the nice things about this portion of 14th is that the cookie-cutter buildings have yet to invade (though admittedly that state of affairs is not likely to continue for long). Anti-gentrifiers are often justified in their complaints that gentrification stamps out diversity to make way for the highest (often, but not always, white) bidders. The irony here, though, is that the city and other responsible authorities, in a bid to beat back gentrification, are effectively endorsing those who violently enforce a lack of diversity and civility. Pathetic.