Grassroots DC
#MeToo in D.C.’s Ward 8
Grassroots DC, in collaboration with Reclaiming Our Bodies DC and Collective Action for Safe Spaces, will be screening the documentary Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture in D.C.’s Ward 8, because the #MeToo movement is different East of the Anacostia River.
trailer
Since revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein came to light, there has been a litany of men accused of, or admitting outright to being sexual predators. An alien studying the planet by monitoring the mainstream media might believe that only white women are victims of sexual harassment and assault. In truth, Black women and other women of color are valued less in our society and so their stories rarely make it to the airwaves. But something began in the summer of 2017 that challenges these assumptions about Black women.
On July 23, 2017, community activist Schyla Pondexter-Moore and her two teen-aged daughters attempted to get a meal from a food table in the Bellevue neighborhood of Ward 8. A local nonprofit, founded by Black men native to the District, set up the table once a month in the parking lot of the neighborhood shopping center. Instead of getting a meal, Schyla’s 16-year-old daughter was harassed, followed and threatened physically by a group of men. Rather than stopping the harassment, the men from the nonprofit running the community food table joined in.
The incident led to a Speak-Out Against Street Harassment organized by a group of Black women who came together in the same parking lot where the incident occurred, to speak out against street harassment and rape culture. Grassroots Media DC documented the event on video, capturing the perspectives of people who were there—those who agreed, those who vehemently disagreed and those somewhere in the middle. The result is the 30-minute documentary Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture in D.C.’s Ward 8. The event itself was both powerful and telling. Should Black women and girls have agency over their bodies and lives? For many, the answer is not so obvious.
The organizers hoped that women from the neighborhood, being all too familiar with street harassment, would be able to speak about their experiences, validate each other and come together to demand change. As is clear in the video, it starts out that way but ultimately, the forces in play that keep rape culture firmly entrenched in low-income, African-American communities, overwhelm everyone’s best efforts.
The premiere screening of Triggered took place November 9th at the Greenleaf public housing complex in Southwest Washington, D.C. The film’s evocative subject allowed many women in attendance to share their personal stories of sexual harassment, abuse and assault. The post screening discussion lasted for almost two hours.
The dialogue needs to continue. Clearly, the Speak-Out touched on issues that reach beyond that one incident. While most of the media focuses on sexual harassment among the political elites and Hollywood insiders, the rest of us are dealing with it in the streets. More safe spaces must be made available for women and girls to discuss not only victimization but also survival. Grassroots DC invites you to join the discussion. We intend to hold more screenings and discussions starting in 2018. Together we will uncover the truths behind street harassment and the wider problem of rape culture.
Our next screening will be at Covenant Baptist Church, just two blocks from the location of the original incident of harassment and the speak-out. Join us.
Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture in D.C.’s Ward 8Screening and Panel Discussion
Thursday, February 8, 2017
6:00 – 8:30 Pm
Covenant Baptist Church
3845 South Capitol Street SW
Washington, DC 20032
Scheduled Panelists Include:
Schyla Pondexter-Moore: Affordable housing and anti-harassment activist with Reclaiming Our Bodies DC.
Aja Taylor: Affordable housing advocate at Bread for the City and an anti-harassment activist with Reclaiming Our Bodies DC.
Tony Lewis, Jr.: DC native and author of the book Slugg: A Boys’s Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration
Steve Hicks: Co-director of Collective Action for Safe Spaces’ Rethinking Masculinity Program
Dr. Pamela Brewer: Clinical Social Worker and Therapist, and host of long-running podcast MyndTalk.
For more information or to request a screening for your organization contact liane@grassrootsdc.org.
The post #MeToo in D.C.’s Ward 8 appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Community Control Over Police: A Proposition
Cross-posted from The Next System Project
IntroductionWhile it might be fair to say that the police enjoy support among the majority of the white population, the police enjoy no such support among the majority of Black people, who endure more frequent and harsher interactions with cops than whites.
To be sure, white support for the police decreases proportionately with income. That is to say, poorer whites tend to support the police less because the police interact with them differently than with their wealthier white counterparts. By the same token, support for the police among Blacks tends to increase proportionately with increases in income, wealth and other privileges. Overall and within each economic stratum, however, white support for police is higher than Black support.
Similarly, largely as a consequence of physical or sexual assaults by men against them, many women find themselves in need of protection against assaults and most often turn to the police because there are few other legal or viable options. At the same time, low-income Black, Latina and Native American women can find themselves in need of protection from assault and, simultaneously, fear being dismissed, belittled or even assaulted by the very police they turn to for protection from assault. In instances of familial or intimate partner violence, women often fear that instead of acting as a third party mediator, police will brutalize the person that they want protection from and—simultaneously—want to protect.
This tension between needing an institution for protection and living in fear of that same institution is compounded among gay, lesbian, and transgender people, who experience scorn and sexual assault at the hands of police at even higher rates than cis-gendered women. While these tensions are disproportionately visited upon under- and working-class people, they exist across class lines based on identity or perceived identity.
One’s relationship with the police, then, is not merely a function of personal preference, but is deeply rooted in realities of class, race, sex and gender, or perceived gender, identity. One’s disposition towards the police, then, is not merely an individual choice, or a trend fueled by social media, but rather a consequence of lived class and group identity experiences. The pandemic of police brutality, therefore, cannot be addressed on the individual level, but only on the structural level.
For the majority of American history, the evolution of the structures and institutions of policing occurred not just outside of the participation of Black people, but in a manner and direction that is fundamentally antagonistic to the development of the Black community. The institution of policing in what would become the United States began as private patrols of white men tasked with capturing runaway slaves. Not incidentally, those patrols were often rewarded with the bodies of Black women. After the Civil War, slave patrols morphed into an organized government structure tasking white men with enforcing the Black Codes, a series of laws crafted to criminalize and control the population of former slaves, including any imagined infringement upon the sanctity of white women.
One’s disposition towards the police is not merely an individual choice, or a trend fueled by social media, but rather a consequence of lived class and group identity experiences.The police are not simply here to stop crime and make our neighborhoods safe. The police as an institution with a defined role in society cannot be properly understood outside of the context of class, race, and gender.
Black Communities as a Domestic Colony and Police as an Occupying ForceIn his groundbreaking 1967 “Where do we go from here?” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. argued that beyond the laws and customs of segregation, “the problem that we face is that the ghetto is a domestic colony that’s constantly drained without being replenished.”
That same year, the seminal book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and V. Charles Hamilton forcefully argued that Blacks “stand as colonial subjects in relation to the white society. Thus institutional racism has another name: colonialism.”
While traditional colonies are lands geographically distant from the controlling metropole—think of African or ‘new world’ colonies and their European metropole—the primary aspects of colonialism are not distance, but exploitation and oppression.
Majority Black communities in counties or cities are forcefully segregated and provide advantages for those in power and those who identify with that power. These communities are sources for cheap labor in factories or government jobs. They serve as a dumping ground for cheap or unsafe products, such as the meat no longer good enough for nice neighborhoods, used clothing that can be resold instead of trashed, and housing that turns a profit without the need for repairs. They provide the functional equivalent of raw materials in the form of ‘customers’ in for-profit prisons or as bodies to justify government contracts in health, social services, or a number of other sectors. And the residents of Black communities provide the powers-that-be and middle class white communities with an eternally useful bogeyman for any range of social ills.
In form and in function, Black communities are a domestic colony inside of the United States. If Black communities are a domestic colony, then that colonial relationship of exploitation and oppression is maintained by an occupying force: the police.
The harsh reality is that the relationship between US police forces and residents of low-income Black communities more closely resembles that of the US army and citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan than of the police and residents of wealthy majority white gated communities. In both ghettos and invaded countries, residents fear—even hate—the occupiers, but have no say in how that force carries out its mission to ‘protect’ them. In both instances, the job of the occupying force is to defend business assets from poor people. Most telling, when cops or soldiers murder a colonial subject, the entire occupying force protects their own, the media demonizes the dead while humanizing the murderer, the colonial government protects their armed representative from any semblance of justice, and citizens of the metropole, who benefit from this colonial relationship, rally in support of their troops.
In form and in function, Black communities are a domestic colony inside of the United States.In practice, the police serve as a hostile occupying force, enforcing the colonial status of Black communities in America. The undemocratic nature of policing undermines the ambitions of Black and other communities to exercise self-determination.
Because colonial occupation is inherently unjust, attempts to reform the occupation is inherently futile. This is why proposed “solutions” like community relations boards are fundamentally flawed.
Working at peak effectiveness, community relations boards help the occupiers better communicate the terms of occupation with the occupied. When granted teeth, civilian oversight boards help insure that the occupiers adhere to the rules of occupation established by the occupiers. Even if all police were properly trained to the highest standard imaginable, the result would be an occupation by a well-trained force.
End the Occupation and Shift PowerVirtually all theories of democracy and laws governing international human rights concur that functional democratic institutions must be firmly grounded in the informed consent of the governed. By definition, however, no people grant consent to colonization or occupation. In practice, Black people in America have never been afforded the opportunity to grant consent to an armed force empowered to stop, detain, arrest, and even take the life of members of our community.
This historic moment calls for something more significant than additional training or even civilian oversight boards.In the face of protests against police brutality and abuse, the real question, then, is not about community relations, civilian oversight, appropriate levels of training, or even well-intentioned slogans. The core issue is one of democratic power. For all of the complexities of this time in history—and there are many complexities—the underlying issue is one of power.The fundamental function of police in any society is to enforce the will and mores of those in power, whether that will is formally encoded in law or informally ingrained in social custom. Because they are the enforcement wing of the system, any campaign whose primary objective is to convince the police to disobey the will of those in power—to disobey their boss—and, instead, adhere to the wishes of those with no power, is not only illogical, it is doomed to fail.
The only way the police can represent and enforce the interests of the Black community—rather than the interests of outside colonial powers—is to shift power so that the Black communities have power over their own police departments. This historic moment calls for something more significant than additional training or even civilian oversight boards. We must fight for Community Control over Police.
Community Control over PoliceCommunity Control over Police is both a principle of democratic self-determination and an objective of a social movement determined to end abusive practices that are inevitable in the context of colonial domination. However, while most support the concept of local democratic rule, that abstract idea must be converted into concrete proposals around which the Black community, and the broader social justice movement, can coalesce.
Ending the rampant abuses at the hands of police, and the criminalization of entire segments of the population to feed the prison industrial complex, is entirely dependent upon the creation of institutions and mechanism that enable low-income Black communities to control the priorities, policies, and practices of the armed forces patrolling their neighborhoods.
The drive towards Community Control over Police begins by organizing the target city (county or town) into clearly identified policing districts. These districts can be identical to existing commission districts, wards or other political boundaries, or can be drawn up entirely from scratch. The districts should be physically, economically and socially contiguous, enabling Black communities to have their own policing district or districts.
Once each district is delineated, the next phase is to launch a Community Control over Police ballot initiative, wherein each policing district faces a choice: keep their existing police department or start their own. While the rules for launching a ballot initiative differs from one locale to the next, the overall objective is the same in that each community or section of the city has the right to vote for the police department they want.
The process is identical to voting for commissioners, council members or alderpersons for single member districts. Voters in each district receive unique ballots that apply only to their district. Residents of District 1, for example, have no say in the determination of residents in District 5. Residents of the two districts can reach identical or opposing conclusions and one will have no impact on the other.
Do you like how your local police treat you and your neighbors? Vote to keep them. Do you think the police are unfair to you and your neighbors? Vote them out. Both voices can prevail without infringing upon the aspirations of the other.
For the first time, people will have a direct say in who has the right to carry a gun, detain, arrest, and use force in their community in the name of the state. For all of the controversy surrounding this proposal, there are few clearer examples of democracy in action. As such, this is a contest all sides of the debate should be eager to wage.
Do you believe Black communities support the police? Great! This is the chance to prove it and temper the voices of dissent. Do you believe Black communities want self-determination? Great! This is the chance to offer a direct vote on an alternative, a choice never offered by the two-party system. In the end, some communities will vote out the existing police department and vote to build a new one from scratch.
For those who scoff at the vision of multiple agencies, it is important to note that most county police departments already work with multiple city agencies, and that many large jurisdictions already contain a plurality of different police forces operating side-by-side. For example, in addition to its own police department with jurisdiction throughout the county, Miami-Dade County, Florida has over 30 municipal police departments, at least two university departments, and a railroad police force. Beyond that, there are multiple police agencies with jurisdiction throughout the entire state of Florida, not to mention the federal departments, such as the FBI, with jurisdiction across the country. Far from an exception, the presence of multiple police departments is currently common practice throughout the country.
For the first time, people will have a direct say in who has the right to carry a gun, detain, arrest, and use force in their community in the name of the state.Because democracy is a process and not a destination, the plebiscite on policing will reinvigorate political participation in many communities as both supporters and opponents of the local police mobilize their bases. Those organizations engaged in electoral politics and ‘get out the vote’ efforts will witness a record number of newly registered Black and Latina voters (“So let me get this straight, you are telling me I can vote out the police?”).
At the end of the vote, districts satisfied with their police will see no difference in their department. In districts that vote for a new department, the police will retreat to within its new boundaries to allow the new force to serve their new bosses.
To be clear, this vote is not to take control over an existing police department, but to establish a new one. No colony seeks control over the occupying army, they pursue an end to colonialism and realization of self-rule. In this instance, the vote is to establish a Civilian Police Control Board.
A Model: The Civilian Police Control BoardThe primary institution for the exercise of Community Control over Police is the Civilian Police Control Board (CPCB).
To be clear, the power of this body is to exercise control and power over the police, not review or oversight. This is not a review board: at this stage in history, review boards represent a step backwards and one that further entrenches existing power relationships instead of upending them in favor of the oppressed. We are no longer satisfied with the ability to review abuses of our communities, we are in pursuit of the power to end those abuses.
The CPCB must be empowered to establish police priorities, set department policies, and enforce practices of the new police force.
Even though they do not make the laws, every police department, and even each district inside of a department, establishes policing priorities. For example, police districts serving downtown areas often prioritize preventing human beings without homes from damaging alleys, sidewalks, and parks with their urine, even though they have nowhere else to respond to calls of nature, and aggressively seek to arrest those who transgress these priorities. The CPCB, by contrast, can prioritize the protection of human beings without homes over the protection of sections of cement from those humans.
We are no longer satisfied with the ability to review abuses of our communities, we are in pursuit of the power to end those abuses.Policies can include uniform specs, appropriate interactions with civilians, required levels of training around courtesy with people, and a use of force matrix. In order to enforce these policies, the CPCB must have the power to hire and fire individual police who are not serving the public interest.
With such a broad range of powers, the CPCB would likely consist of a bi-cameral board, with one half dealing with establishing priorities and policies and another with enforcement of these policies in practice.
This is Community Control over Police.
The CPCB must be comprised entirely of civilian adult human beings—not corporations or human representatives of corporations—residing in the police district. To be explicit, residing means living in, not just owning property in. And this residency requirement should be evaluated without regard to citizenship status or criminal history.
While some envision an elected board, we propose something entirely different: a board selected entirely at random among residents of the policing district.
There are two main constraints to an elected board. First, elections in the US are thoroughly corrupted by influences of corporate finance on one side and two party electoral politics on the other. Even if multiple communities were to win control over their police, it is not difficult to imagine that after one or two election cycles, your local CPCB would be a corporate board brought to you by [ insert name of powerful corporation here ]. For this board to shift power, instead of becoming another institution to maintain power, it must break through the limitations of electoral corruption.
Second, even elections with minimal levels of corporate or party influence, still occur in a social context. In this social context, elected officials are disproportionately white, male and wealthy—the exact population with the highest level of support for the police. We must devise democratic systems that encourage active participation from those least likely to engage, not those most likely to benefit.
Sortition—government by random selection—is the best way to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to exercise power. The rich and poor, straight and gay, male and female, white and Black all have an equal shot at making decisions through random selection. If we believe that democracy is for everyone, then random selection of officials is the best way to ensure each person can exercise power.
Not incidentally, there are numerous studies on sortition, including a few theories that suggest the practice would instill better government in Washington, DC than the current practice of corporate elections.
However, for those with deep reservations about allowing randomly selected people to judge police or engage on this level of decision making, we are willing to meet you halfway. We are prepared to concede the point, and publicly support the position that ‘randomly selected’ people are not qualified to make these decisions and work to find a viable alternative that does not involve unqualified randomly selected individuals.
Right after we empty the prisons.
Guilt and innocence, imprisonment and freedom, even life and death are determined by unqualified randomly selected individuals that we call ‘jurors.’ Anyone who is not qualified to determine how their taxes are used to arm officers of the state or to decide if those officers have behaved inappropriately towards the people they serve, cannot possibly be qualified to determine if someone represented by an overworked public defender or prosecuted by an unscrupulous district attorney is guilty or innocent in a case with any level of complexity. Empty the prisons and we will work together on a better system for both.
Randomly selected board seats, refreshed on a regular basis, make subversion of the democratic process virtually impossible. Special interests would be forced to bribe entire communities in order to assure some level of voting pattern stability. If bribery is special treatment or rewards for the official in question, randomly selected board members would compel the corrupting force to provide special treatment for every adult in the given community, an act which more closely resembles a perk or amenity than bribery. Kind of like a neighborhood pool or rec center.
Equally as important, the job of ‘qualifying’ community members for board service will fall to social justice organizations. Building robust and wide reaching political education and leadership development programs will make community organizing relevant like never before as we attempt to reach the next board member before their appointment. The person with the deciding vote on the priorities of the police might be the undereducated high school dropout who hangs out near the corner store most of the day. In order to get justice, we would have to politically educate and organize our entire community.
VisionThis movement moment, in which people are rising up against police abuse, presents this generation with a unique historic opportunity to shift powers on numerous levels.
The fight for Community Control over Police has the potential to remove us from the indignity of having to manage the public relations aspects of colonial occupation. A Community Police Control Board holds the potential to not only shift power into the hands of the Black community, but to transform the very definition of power itself. The levers of power will no longer be protected behind velvet ropes, with guards ensuring the exclusive nature of the club by checking for education, diction, and money to make sure only the ‘right’ people get close. Every member of the community will have the power to decide how the armed force of the neighborhood is supposed to act.
Once we are able to secure Community Control over Police and ensure that entire communities are empowered to exercise such control, we will be free to re-imagine and re-envision the very nature of policing itself.
We suspect that this vision, and its implementation, might be so radically different and unrecognizable from what we today call ‘policing,’ that we just might be forced to rename the institution.Imagine, a low-income Black community with 100 full time, paid community workers with sophisticated communications equipment, access to government information, and even vehicles. Now imagine those community workers operating under the control of low-income Black women who form the majority of the control board. By unleashing our power and creative energy, we can build a new vision of what police can do to truly serve and protect our communities.We suspect that this vision, and its implementation, might be so radically different and unrecognizable from what we today call ‘policing,’ that we just might be forced to rename the institution.
But to get there we must fight for power. We must fight for Community Control over Police.
Max Rameau is a Haitian born Pan-African theorist, campaign strategist, organizer, and author. more
The post Community Control Over Police: A Proposition appeared first on Grassroots DC.
D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools
Cross-Posted from DC Area Educators for Social Justice
We invite you to endorse and participate in the D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools from February 5-9 to bring social justice issues into the classroom and empower students of color across the D.C. area. Sign up, download resources, and more: http://www.teachingforchange.org/black-lives-matter-week-action
Teaching for Change, Center for Inspired Teaching, Washington Teachers’ Union, D.C. area educators, as well as community members are collaborating on D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools. This week of action builds on the momentum of the The National Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Our Schools campaign taking place in cities across the U.S. to promote a set of local and national demands focused on improving the school experience for students of color.
In these times of emboldened racism and xenophobia, we must listen to and elevate the voices, experiences, and history of our fellow citizens and communities under attack. The thirteen guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement will be highlighted during this week of action as a means of challenging the insidious legacy of institutionalized racism and oppression that has plagued the United States since its founding. The Black Lives Matter movement is a powerful, non-violent peace movement that systematically examines injustices that exist in the intersections of race, class, and gender; including mass incarceration, poverty, non-affordable housing, income disparity, homophobia, unfair immigration laws, gender inequality, and poor access to healthcare.
Each day will explore two to three of the Black Lives Matter movement thirteen guiding principles. In school, teachers across the district will implement Black Lives Matter Week of Action curriculum designed for pre-K through 12th grade classrooms. In the evening, there will be events for educators, students, stakeholders, and community members to actively engage in the movement.
The goal of the Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools is to spark an ongoing movement of critical reflection and honest conversations in school communities for people of all ages to engage with critical issues of social justice. It is our duty as educators and community members to civically engage students and build their empathy, collaboration, and agency so they are able to thrive. Students must learn to examine, address, and grapple with issues of racism and discrimination that persist in their lives and communities.
If you are interested in obtaining curricular resources, learning about the events and or exploring the different ways you can get involved visithttp://www.teachingforchange.org/black-lives-matter-week-action
The post D.C. Area Black Lives Matter Week of Action in Schools appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Third Annual #ReclaimMLK Week of Action!
Guest Contributor: Black Lives Matter DC
“Martin Luther King Jr’s life’s work was the elevation, honoring, and defense of Black Lives. His tools included non-violent civil disobedience and direct action. Dr. King was part of a larger movement of women, and men, queer, and straight, young and old. This movement was built on a bold vision that was radical, principled, and uncompromising. The freedom fighters who believed in this vision were called impractical, rash, irrational, and naive. Their tactics were controversial. Some elders distanced themselves from what was then a new movement for change. Some of the older generation joined in. Our movement draws a direct line from the legacy of Dr. King.
Unfortunately, Dr. King’s legacy has been clouded by efforts to soften, sanitize, and commercialize it. Impulses to remove Dr. King from the movement that elevated him must end. We resist efforts to reduce a long history marred with the blood of countless women and men into iconic images of men in suits behind pulpits.
From here on, MLK weekend will be known as a time of national resistance to injustice.
This MLK weekend we will walk in the legacy of Dr. King and the movement that raised him. We will #ReclaimMLK.”
– Ferguson Action
Three years ago, the #ReclaimMLK Week of Action was the first public event Black Lives Matter DC put on. Every year the week is phenomenal, touching hundreds of people and highlighting issues unique to Black DC communities. Kicking off each new year with a sense of purpose, focus, and a solid group of folks ready for strategic, principled, and organized resistance is amazing. This year will be no different and we hope to see you all there!
In addition to coming out to enjoy the events (listed below and attached to this email), we are looking for volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering please fill out this form as soon as possible. We would love your help collecting more items for the Silent Auction on Friday 1/19. If you or anyone you know wants to donate, please have them fill out this form.
Lastly, critically important events like these cost money to put on. We are an all volunteer grassroots chapter and need your help to cover the costs associated with this week. We have been able to secure many in-kind and other donations through hard work and relationships we have built. However, we still need your support to cover what remains. Please donate generously here today and encourage your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, etc. to do the same! Your help is greatly appreciated.
MLK Holiday DC Theme: Where do we go from here? Chaos or community?
FACEBOOK EVENTS (full flyer attached):
MLK Holiday DC Peace Walk, Parade, and Holiday Health Fair
2018 Theme: Where do we go from here? Chaos or Community.
Revolutionary Mothering: Mothers Building Community After Loss
Resisting Chaos Through Organized Resistance: A Direct Action Training
#J2018- Year Anniversary of the Inauguration.
In Love and Solidarity,
Black Lives Matter DC
Text “KeepDC” to 91990 for alerts, updates, and urgent actions.
The post Third Annual #ReclaimMLK Week of Action! appeared first on Grassroots DC.
The Winter Solstice Holds Both Promise and Pain – In Memorium
Cross-posted from the Washington Legal Clinic
Remarks from Patty Mullahy Fugere at the memorial honoring those who passed this year while experiencing homelessness in DC.
In MemoriumIndividuals who passed away without the dignity of a home in 2017
Chris Mason
Darius Duncan
Galaxina Robinson
James King
Lisa Jennings
Mark Jenkins
Michael Kelley
Michael Dunne
“MS”
Mweane Sikuzote
Nick
Norman Anders
Joseph Watkins
Wilkie “Bill” Woodard
And thirty unnamed residents
***
December 21st. The winter solstice. I’ve come to look forward to this day with both relief and dread….relief that we have reached the point of maximum darkness and we’ll start squeezing a few more moments of sunlight out of each coming day, and dread that we must once again gather to celebrate the lives and mourn the loss of our brothers and sisters who have passed in 2017 while experiencing homelessness. December 21st holds both promise…and pain.
When I was a kid, my mom received a phone call on the morning of December 21st, 1970, from her older sister, with whom my grandmother – my beloved “Nanny” – lived. Nanny, who had spent the evening of December 20th sitting at the kitchen table with her cigarette, her pilsner glass and her crossword puzzle, went to bed, and then never awoke. She had passed unexpectedly during the night…in the warmth of her own bed, after going through her treasured routines, and, if I know my Nanny, after kissing my aunt and uncle good night and getting down on her knees to ask God to bless us all. It was, in a sense, a perfect, dignified, passing.
Placard bearing the names of people that died while homeless in the District of Columbia.
There were 45 deaths this year of people who lived unhoused in the nation’s capital that were very far from perfect passings…deaths of women and men who had no kitchen table, no warm bed, no family members to kiss goodnight, and for some, not even a floor to kneel upon for a prayer at the end of the day.
How is it that this continues to happen? Last year, we read out 51 names. In 2015, it was 41. In 2005, there were 34.
How is it, that in this nation’s capital, in this progressive city that has declared itself to be a human rights city, in this community that has committed itself to “making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring,” how is it that we can continue to let this happen?
Read the entire article on the Washington Legal Clinic blog.
The post The Winter Solstice Holds Both Promise and Pain – In Memorium appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Investigating Ballou Means Investigating Ourselves
Cross-posted from EducationDC
[Ed Note: On Friday, December 15, the education committee of the city council held TWO related hearings on graduation rate accountability, arising from reporting that students at DCPS’s Ballou high school graduated without earning appropriate credit. Below, DC education activist Peter MacPherson puts the official investigation of what happened at Ballou into historical and civic perspective.]
It’s a big deal in a democracy when two branches of a government decide a third just isn’t working well, needs to depart this mortal coil, and then administers the coup de grace. That’s what happened in 2007 when former Mayor Adrian Fenty and every member of the city council—save one—decided to dispatch the elected Board of Education from this realm. It was a decision made by a small number of actors, with the support of elite institutions like the Washington Post and with no meaningful opportunity for District residents to express whether they wanted one of the city’s few vestiges of democratic life to disappear.
The elected Board of Education has now been gone for a decade. Those who eliminated it made the argument that putting the final authority for DCPS under the aegis of a single person, namely the mayor, would be the antidote for what was commonly described as a failing school system. It’s been a popular narrative in our country: that uninhibited executive power is what’s needed to fix the badly broken. Fire the non-performing and eliminate the bickering and the need to build consensus on an elected board. Develop a bold plan for improvement and then implement it without the barriers that an elected board represents.
After a decade of mayoral control, few would say that the city’s schools are actually fixed. Huge improvements have been made in renovating or reconstructing school buildings. But the benefits of the school modernization program have not been experienced equally, with improvements closely tied to race and class. The achievement gap between white and non-white students remains as jarring as ever.
Nonetheless, there is a persistent narrative that our schools have dramatically improved, that DCPS is “the fastest improving urban school district in the United States,” as the mayor and her lieutenants frequently note. These kinds of statistics are often cited by the editorial page of the Washington Post.
Besides scores on standardized tests, significant improvements in high school graduation rates are also mentioned as evidence of improvement. The latter, if the numbers are to be believed, is a success that DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson wishes to build on: In the next 5 years, he wants 85% to graduate from high school within four years and 90% within four to five years.
But it’s difficult to judge that goal, because the current state of achievement in our schools is actually unknown.
For instance, reporting by WAMU and NPR has raised considerable doubt about the actual graduation rate at Ballou in Ward 8. The school had reported an improvement in its graduation rate from 50% in 2012 to 67% in 2017. And the school also reported that all of its 2017 graduating class had been accepted to college. However, the WAMU/NPR reporting makes clear that those numbers are illusory. Evidence of excessive absenteeism on the part of students as well as the massaging of grades indicate that many were allowed to graduate when they in fact were not eligible to do so.
Our mayor and chancellor desperately want this scandal to be isolated to a single school. And if only Ballou is investigated, that’s where it will remain. As it now stands, the Office of the State Superintendent for Education plans to only investigate Ballou.
This is exactly why education reform in the District of Columbia is failing.
Those running education in the District are deeply invested in the reform model adopted a decade ago. Eliminating the elected school board and embracing a high-stakes testing paradigm were supposed to transform our schools. Those brought in to run the schools were sold as pedagogic alchemists who possessed the secret formula.
That narrative is paramount: The political and media class are not invested in all students succeeding academically. Essentially, they care about the perception that students are learning and achieving in our schools. When scandals appear, like the one involving cheating on standardized tests that USA Today uncovered (and even more since then), scenarios have been constructed to give the appearance that what was reported was limited to a few isolated examples. Unlike in Atlanta, where a similar scandal had taken place and a fulsome investigation conducted, much more limited inquiries were conducted in DC. In Atlanta, school system officials went to jail for their role in the cheating scandal.
No such sunlight was brought to bear on events here in DC. Cheating took place that was engineered by adults. And no one in DC went to jail.
District stakeholders have every reason to be skeptical of how city students are faring in our schools. The problem is that the civic bodies in DC that ensure accountability–the mayor, city council, OSSE, the media, the charter board–are so heavily invested in a particular narrative that they have largely forsaken their actual roles.
Before 2007, we had relatively poor oversight, and many schools and educational situations that were demonstrably bad. After the elimination of the democratically elected school board, all that has happened is a continuous storyof improvement. Actual and honest assessment has been abandoned. In fact, challenging the current educational orthodoxy seems as perilous as criticizing Joseph Stalin in Russia in the 1930s. Critics are forced from the system or characterized as dead-enders clinging to a sclerotic old order.
Common sense says we should be skeptical about what our city’s educational agencies are telling us about the progress of our students. The PARCC—and the DC-CAS that it replaced–have consistently shown that many District high school students have low scores on these tests. These test results, where some high schools have single digit percentages of students scoring proficient in both reading and math, should make everyone skeptical that 72.4% on average (the current graduation rate for the city) were able to credibly graduate.
We do not need an investigation just of Ballou. We need a comprehensive investigation of high school graduation rates at every high school.
And, as council member Robert White has asked, this investigation needs to be done by an entity that has no direct connection with the District government. The findings should be released independently and not filtered by the mayor, chancellor, charter board, or the state superintendent for education, all of whom have a stake in ensuring a positive narrative emerges no matter how egregious the treatment of students actually is.
During the past decade, those with direct responsibility for education in the city have placed the credit or blame for levels of student achievement on teachers and principals. The current education orthodoxy, which has been relentlessly defended for the past 10 years by city politicians, the media, and the business community with little questioning, has to be abandoned in favor of a far more rigorous assessment of what our students actually need. Their success or failure is not just a function of the schools or programming or personnel. It’s also very much about the context in which many DC children live their lives. Poverty matters. Food insecurity matters. Domestic violence matters. If we can start having reliable information about how students are actually faring in schools, we can start having honest conversations about how to help kids get the education they need.
But doing so requires the grownups–the actual adults in the rooms where these decisions are made every day–to start being honest. It’s hard to imagine anything more pernicious than a willingness to misrepresent what is happening to children in school.
The post Investigating Ballou Means Investigating Ourselves appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Organizer & Media Activist Meet and Greet
Grassroots DC exists to support progressive social change activism in the District of Columbia. We publicize events through videos, podcasts, press releases and blog posts. We also hold public education events in public housing communities and other public spaces.
In 2018, we will continue this work but we hope to do more. Unfortunately, as a small conglomeration of videographers, podcasters and bloggers we only have the capacity to support a limited amount of work each year. So we’re looking for a few good media activists to help us expand our reach.
Grassroots DC Winter SolsticeOrganizer & Media Activist Meet and Greet
Sunday, December 17, 2017
1:00 – 3:45pm
Dorothy I. Height/Benning Heights Library
3935 Benning Rd NE
Join us and learn how Grassroots DC can support your organization and how you can become a better media activist.
The post Organizer & Media Activist Meet and Greet appeared first on Grassroots DC.
What You Don’t Know About the Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017
The Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017 is currently under DC Council review. After mulling over the latest amendments they will vote on it again December 5, 2017. Before that happens, we’d like Grassroots DC readers to have some basic information about this bill so we’ve cross-posted the following from the Fair Budget Coalition, which describes what happened during the debate of proposed changes to the bill on November 7, 2017.
“AT SOME POINT, WE HAVE TO DRAW THE LINE”So said Ward 1 Councilmember, Brianne Nadeau, chair of the Committee on Human Services regarding the time-limit for the District’s Rapid Rehousing Program, a highly criticized program that places families from shelter into temporary housing. When the subsidy cuts off, families often find themselves unable to afford the market rent of the unit they occupy and soon end up in eviction court, and then circle back to the shelter door with a new eviction on their rental history.
During debate on the proposed changes to the Homeless Services Reform Act on Tuesday, November 7, Ward 8 Councilmember, Trayon White, introduced an amendment that would extend the rapid rehousing time-limit and introduce common sense measures to assess whether a family received proper case management services or is financially stable enough to afford their unit. However, this amendment was rejected 6-7, with Anita Bonds casting the deciding vote because, as she put it, “I was told to vote no.” (The Councilmembers who voted against extending people’s time in rapid re-housing under these circumstances were Mendelson, Nadeau, Todd, Allen, Cheh, Evans and Bonds.)
Though earlier this year, Nadeau championed the legislation that ended arbitrary time-limits for the District’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF), she took a hard line on extending the temporary housing subsidy for the 1300 families currently in the program. “I understand your compassion,” she says, “but at some point we have to draw the line. This is a short-term program. We have other programs.”
A quick review of the housing programs funded in this year’s FY18 budget, reveals that this is not exactly the case.
There are currently 1166 families experiencing homelessness, according to the annual Point in Time Count. Additionally, there are over 1300 families in our rapid rehousing program, and an additional 40,000 families on the DC Housing Authority’s waitlist for housing.
In FY18, there was funding to support 174 families in the Permanent Supportive Housing Program and 186 families in the Targeted Affordable Housing Program and approximately 250 families from off of the waitlist. That means that there are permanent housing opportunities for about 610 families of the 42,266 families in the District who are not stably housed.
This basic math problem cuts to the core of our affordability crisis. Families don’t make enough money to afford market rate housing. The District has lost its stock of market-rate affordable units. Our Mayor and Council have not allocated enough money in the budget to provide housing for those who need it.
Rather than voting for solutions that would help solve this problem (funding more affordable housing), the Council took a punitive approach by supporting changes to the Homeless Services Reform Act that would make it more difficult for families to get into shelter, make it easier to get kicked out from shelter, and institute arbitrary time limits for the rapid rehousing program.
And to make matters worse, right before this vote, the Council voted to give $82 million away to developers to build around Union Market, including $36 million to fund a parking lot, with no evidence whatsoever that this huge subsidy was even needed. There was not a single requirement that the jobs created are good quality, or that the developers subsidize affordable housing. All while claiming that we don’t have enough resources to serve the families in our “hemorrhaging homeless services system.”
In reality, it is this kind of unchecked development that drives up the cost of housing and ultimately push people out of their homes either into homelessness or into more affordable regions like Prince George’s County. It is District residents who have been displaced because of publically subsidized development that are flooding our homelessness services systems. By continuing to fund development while narrowing the door to shelter, the Council is exacerbating the problem, not fixing it.
When At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman tried to redirect the parking lot funds to support affordable housing and transit options, she only got support from At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, and was repudiated by the rest of the Council. Chairperson Phil Mendelson referred to the affordable housing crisis as “rhetoric,” and the rest of the council rolled their eyes. They funded luxury housing instead of affordable. Then they pivoted to blame homeless people from outside of the District for flooding our system, and disparaged the homeless families who they claim are lying to get into shelter when they have safe places that they could otherwise go.
This post is about accountability. It’s about the fact that the Chair of our Council does not believe that there is an affordable housing crisis and propagates the stereotype that poor Black people are lying to get into shelter, taking advantage of the system, and don’t know what’s best for their families. He re-introduced a harmful provision of the HSRA that was removed during the Committee mark-up that creates a “presumption” that families are lying about needing shelter if they are on a lease or “occupancy agreement” and demands that homeless families provide “credible evidence” that they have no safe housing to get shelter on a freezing night. He believes that the Mayor knows better than they do that they have a safe place to go, and this harmful philosophy was supported by Councilmembers Nadeau, Cheh, Evans, McDuffie, Todd, Allen and Bonds.
What we saw at the Council was an affront to progressive values. To vote to give away that sum of money to developers while claiming there is not enough money to support homeless families was a slap in the face to every single District resident who has struggled to find affordable housing, who has come out to support homeless services, and who voted for “progressive champions” who would advance an affordable housing agenda. Hundreds and thousands of emails and phone calls and tweets, countless letters supported by scores of organizations throughout the city urged councilmembers to vote “no” on this bill. Elissa Silverman told advocates that she had not received a single e-mail telling her to vote for this bill. Yet, at the end of the day, the bill passed 11-2, with only Councilmembers Trayon White and David Grosso opposing.
In just a few hours, our Council drew the line by prioritizing corporate subsidies over the lives of homeless children.
The post What You Don’t Know About the Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017 appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture In D.C.’s Ward 8
One can make the argument that it began on July 23, 2017, when community activist Schyla Pondexter-Moore and her two teen-aged daughters attempted to get a meal at a community food table in Ward 8 set up by the nonprofit Quest2Change. Instead of getting a meal, they got an earful about how a tied t-shirt and a leggings justified harassment by the men in the community, including the men who were serving the food. Schyla and her daughters left when the harassers, seven grown men, threatened them with violence.
The incident led to a Speakout Against Street Harassment sponsored by the newly formed group Reclaiming Our Bodies DC. I went with my camera, expecting to get a few good soundbites, and to put together a 3-5 minute video about street harassment. But the footage gathered that day has required a little more attention. The result is the 30-minute documentary Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture in D.C.’s Ward 8.
The first screening will be followed by a panel discussion about street harassment. Details are below.
It was clear at the Speakout that Reclaiming Our Bodies DC had touched on an issue that was about far more than one incident. While most of the media focuses on sexual harassment among the political elites and Hollywood insiders, the rest of us are dealing with it in the streets. Grassroots DC invites you to join the discussion.
The post Triggered: Street Harassment and Rape Culture In D.C.’s Ward 8 appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Black Lives Matter Long-Term Goal: Full Implementation of the NEAR Act
By Eugene Puryear
Stop Police Terror Project DC
WHAT IS THE NEAR ACT?
The NEAR (Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results) Act establishes a set of long-term programs and policies to address public safety in DC specifically through a public health lens. These programs and policies have been empirically proven to reduce shootings and violence in cities around the US.
In its fullest form, the NEAR Act would begin to de-emphasize the use of policing and force as the primary tactic for ensuring neighborhood safety in DC. It would protect vulnerable and minority (namely Black and Latino) residents in high-crime areas of our city from further harm. It would support individuals involved in potentially violent situations instead of turning to incarceration or violence to resolve the issue at hand. The policy would thus pave the way for the long-overdue transformation of these vulnerable populations and neighborhoods towards a deeper culture of safety, support, and opportunity.
WHY WE NEED YOU NOW:
After passing the DC Council unanimously in 2016, and being fully-funded in 2017, the NEAR Act is now in its next phase: implementation. Despite being fully-funded, most of the provisions in the NEAR Act have not been implemented. As such, the NEAR Act remains largely unfulfilled as promised in 2016.
In order for the NEAR Act to reach its full potential, it is going to require us as DC residents to make sure our elected officials fully and faithfully implement all of the comprehensive approaches in the NEAR Act. To do so, we want to create a corps of “NEAR Act Ambassadors” to show up to DC Council hearings, community events, ANC meetings, and candidate fundraisers and campaign events. In doing so, we have an opportunity to hold DC Council to their word and to begin the process of protecting the most vulnerable neighborhoods in our city from further violence with a better approach.
We would like to invite you to take part in a training that will equip you with the knowledge and skills to hold our DC elected officials to their word of fully implementing the NEAR Act, to move away from the failed approach of policing and incarceration, and to make DC an example for a better way to prevent and reduce violence while empowering and uplifting all of its residents.
THE TRAININGS:
The Stop Police Terror Project will be running a number of trainings in November for each Ward to provide interested individuals the skills and knowledge they need to be NEAR Act Ambassadors, to let our elected officials know that the NEAR Act is still alive in our minds as a priority for our city. Through these trainings, you will gain the knowledge and skills to mobilize your local neighborhoods/networks to show up to these events prepared to pressure our elected officials towards full implementation of the NEAR Act.
NEAR Act Ambassador TrainingWednesday, November 8, 2017
We Act Radio Station
1918 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE
We encourage you to attend the event for your Ward if possible, as there will be some Ward-specific information covered. BUT, everyone is welcome at any of the trainings, so please come to the one that works best for you even if it isn’t your home Ward. If you don’t know what Ward you live in, you can find out here: https://planning.dc.gov/page/wards-district-columbia.
Please share these events with your networks, and let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you at a training, and to working with you to ensure the promise of the NEAR Act becomes reality.
The post Black Lives Matter Long-Term Goal: Full Implementation of the NEAR Act appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Remembering Big Mike: Line Dance Instructor and Inspiration
I met Michael “Big Mike” Ballard four years ago when Grassroots DC moved into the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. He made regular use of our Community Resource Center creating flyers for the dance classes he taught and using the computers and the Internet access working for his church and the nonprofit he was involved with Sistahs with Purpose. He taught at Knox Hill, Turkey Thicket Recreation Center and Potomac Gardens. He passed on October 10. He is survived by his mother Linda, sister Theresa and dozens and dozens of students and friends. He was a kind and compassionate person who will be missed. What follows is an article I wrote about him in 2015.
Kids can be mean. Few know this better than 36-year-old DC native and Potomac Gardens resident Michael Ballard. Michael Ballard was heavy all of his life. The kids called him Fat Mike. His mother suffered from weight problems also so she understood what it was like to be teased and humiliated at school. It was only natural that they would become extremely close.
Michael continued to put on weight throughout school. By the time he graduated high school he weighed 300 pounds. Many people assume that anyone that weighs that much can’t do anything. Michael proved them wrong by going to work right out of high school. From 2000 to 2005 he worked for Goodwill Industries in housekeeping, a job he enjoyed. In 2005 Goodwill lost their contract with the Armed Forces Retirement Home and Michael went to work for Melwood, a nonprofit that creates jobs and opportunities for people with disabilities, in their housekeeping department.
At Melwood, Michael faced discrimination. His co-workers claimed that he had body odor; that he took up too much space; that he moved too slowly and was unable to complete his tasks because he couldn’t fit into the bathroom. It was high school all over again. Within just a few months Michael had left Melwood and returned to Goodwill Industries. But the stress at Melwood had caused Michael to put on more weight. He had a different project manager at Goodwill, one who didn’t know him well and he faced discrimination at Goodwill as well.
He was accused of sitting on and breaking Goodwill’s second-hand chairs. To address the problem, the Government Service Administration brought a bench to his job site exclusively for Michael to use. Unfortunately, his project manager, unwilling to find ways to accommodate an employee of Michael’s size, threw the bench into the trash.
Besides the stress of the hostile work environment, Michael developed an upper respiratory infection from working in Goodwill’s Garage. Despite all this, Michael continued to work at Goodwill from 2006 until 2013, when he was let go.
After losing his job, Michael’s health deteriorated. Due to his extreme weight, Michael had for years suffered from lymphedma— a condition that causes swelling in the arms or legs as a result of a blockage in the lymphatic system that prevents lymph fluid from draining well—on the bottom of both his legs. Michael also developed cellulites—a noncontagious bacterial skin infection—which spread from the bottom of both of his legs to his pelvis. This condition landed him in Washington Hospital for a ten-day stretch in March of 2013. From there he was transferred to Saint Thomas Moore Rehabilitation Center where he was bed bound for two months.
Two months of having to eat in the bed, having the bed made while lying in it, having his body turned and cleaned in the bed was more humiliating than years of being teased. Michael’s weight had made him a target for mockery but now it was risking his life. Michael knew that the only way to escape the derision and to save his life was to control his weight.
In May 2013, he went from being bed bound to being wheel chair ridden. Once in the chair, he was able to begin participating in physical therapy. Soon he was able to move around with a rollator. In December of 2013, Michael was well enough to move back home to Potomac Gardens but not without the use of two portable oxygen tanks.
By this time, his mother was in trouble. Being overweight herself, she had a hernia that had grown to the size of a soccer ball. In 2014, Michael’s mother had surgery at Georgetown Hospital. Terrified that he might lose his best friend, Michael’s stress levels soared along with his eating. While his mother was recovering, Michael’s weight ballooned. At 700 pounds, hospitalization was inevitable.
This time, Michael was offered the option of a sleeve gastrectomy, a procedure that removes all but twenty-five percent of the stomach and greatly limits the patient’s food intake. The operation was performed by Dr. Paul Lin at George Washington University Hospital in March of 2015. Seven months later, Michael had lost 301 pounds.
How did he do it? In addition to the gastrectomy, Michael started exercising with regularity and intensity. For three hours, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he does water aerobics. His real passion is line dancing, which he does from 6:00 – 8:30 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center. In fact, Michael has been line dancing for five years, but this December 1st will be his one-year anniversary line dancing at Turkey Thicket with a group that calls themselves The Line Dance Addicts. Michael no longer needs to use the portable oxygen to get around, although he still uses it at home. He is well on his way to full recovery from a lifetime of weight-related issues.
He is grateful for his second chance and is working to spread what he’s learned to the community around him. He has begun teaching line dancing to Potomac Gardens’ and Hopkins Apartments’ residents. Classes cost only $2 and it’s already proven popular with those of all ages and all sizes. Line Dancing with Big Mike teaches you more than the Nae Nae and the electric slide; line dancing with Big Mike teaches you that overcoming even extremely large obstacles is possible and easier when your community has your back.
The community that has Michael’s back as he continues to lose weight includes but is not limited to: Cheryl Thompson Walker, Kembal Bonds, Russell, Jordan, Miss Rita and Rita from Turkey Thicket, as well as Miss Paula Allen, Miss Reshida Young and the entire Line Dance Addicts family; Dee, Reggie, Adrienne Jenkins and Dr. Cristina Schreiber from George Washington University Hospital; Sisters With A Purpose and the entire Master’s Child Church Family under the leadership of Bishop Melvin Robinson junior and his wife and church co-founder Erma Robinson-Fitzgerald; and last but not least the Lord, his mom and grandparents.
The post Remembering Big Mike: Line Dance Instructor and Inspiration appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Many Languages One Voice Community Day
On September 24, 2017, Many Languages One Voice (MLOV) held an Emergency Planning & Community Defense Day (Día de Planificación de Emergencia y Defensa Comunitaria).
The event was designed to bring the community together to learn about our rights as immigrants in DC, prepare together, and celebrate our communities’ strength and resilience!
¡Nos reunimos para aprender nuestros derechos como inmigrantes en DC, prepararnos juntos, y celebrar la fuerza y la resiliencia de nuestras comunidades!
Workshops included:
– Know Your Rights in DC / Tus Derechos en DC
– Emergency Preparedness Plan Against ICE / Planes de Emergencia en Contra de ICE
– Legal Advice / Consejos Legales
– Community Defense / Defensa Comunitaria
Video byBen Parisi with subtitles byJuan Carlos Vega.
According to MLOV Executive Director Sapna Pandya, “It was an incredible day, grounded in Puerto Rican and Mexican resilience & music, with opportunities for dance, joy, and important discussions of the threats to our communities & how we will combat them together organizing towards #ExpandedSanctuary in DC. We built a beautiful community altar, answered questions about immigration and employment abuse, and got folks connected to needed services.”
MLOV’s next community event, Dance in the Round: Circle As Sanctuary, is scheduled for Sunday, October 8, starting at 2:30 pm at the Columbia Heights Civic Plaza.The post Many Languages One Voice Community Day appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Metro Service Meeting: Make Your Feelings Known
Tired of Metro fare hikes with no real improvement in service? Even if you appreciate the fact that Metro service allows many within the DMV to get by without the hassle and expense of a car, you may still wish their service were better. Now is the time to make your feelings heard.
The post Metro Service Meeting: Make Your Feelings Known appeared first on Grassroots DC.
DC State Fair (Who Knew?)
Sunday, September 24, in Southwest Washington, DC, will see the arrival of the eighth annual DC State Fair from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. At Waterfront Station, the public is invited to enjoy contests that crown the city’s best growers, crafters, and cooks; performances from local musicians and dance troupes; and more than 55 food, art, and craft vendors showcasing and selling their wares.
This daylong celebration of all things homegrown is unique among local fairs and festivals: it is run entirely by volunteers, is free to attend, and is held in different neighborhoods from year to year, making the Fair accessible to all DC residents and visitors. This year, the DC State Fair is located at the Waterfront Metro Station at 375 and 425 M Street SW.
The post DC State Fair (Who Knew?) appeared first on Grassroots DC.
White Supremacy & the Police, A Love Affair
The post White Supremacy & the Police, A Love Affair appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Free Computer Classes
The post Free Computer Classes appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Many Languages One Voice Defends DACA and Beyond
Written by Ray Jose
MLOV Youth Justice Organizer
On Tuesday morning at 11 AM, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Trump and his administration has decided to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). This means that the Department of Homeland Security will stop accepting new DACA applications (i.e. from people who are eligible but do not already have DACA). Individuals who already have DACA and whose work permits will expire between now and March 5, 2018 will be able to apply for a two-year renewal if they apply by October 5, 2017.
This news has obviously been devastating as we remain concerned about the pending uptick in immigration enforcement & raids that this announcement foretells. We also must remain vigilant that any calls for policy change (i.e. DREAM Act, etc.) do not use undocumented youth as pawns for a white supremacist agenda that calls for border militarization or walls, military service requirements, furthering the Muslim ban or expanded cooperation between police and ICE. In fact, we are already feeling the immediate impact of this announcement – just hours ago, workers from Matchbox came in to MLOV’s offices to say that 40 of their colleagues had been forced to resign yesterday due to their immigration status. Following the announcement from Jeff Sessions came DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s statement, “[calling] on Congress to quickly pass the Dream Act so that DREAMers across our country can continue to build a safer, stronger, and more prosperous country for all…Washington, DC will continue to stand with our nearly 800 DREAMers and the thousands of immigrants who live in the District. We are proud of our DREAMers and our support will be unwavering.” While Mayor Bowser says she “stands unequivocally with DREAMers,” in the same breath she is complicit for not holding Trump accountable for terminating DACA. At the same time that Mayor Bowser says she and DC are “standing with the DREAMers,” the District continues to tolerate dangerous loopholes in policies that have led to our immigrant residents being deported, police violence on Black and Brown communities, abusive employers who continue to engage in wage theft, displacement of long-term residents, and an education system that is failing our youth of color. In this moment, words are not enough. We need a real #SanctuaryDC that keeps all DC residents safe, and MLOV will hold all politicians accountable for their actions or lack thereof.LOOKING FOR WAYS TO SUPPORT DACA YOUTH AND OTHER UNDOCUMENTED YOUNG PEOPLE IN DC?
HERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY: 1. Donate to support three of MLOV’s undocumented immigrant youth organizers by clicking here. These youth participated in the Summer Youth Employment Program but didn’t receive stipends because they are undocumented. When we reach our donation goal, extra funds will go to DC youth needing help paying for DACA renewal (cost is $495) and related costs. 2. Encourage DACA youth and their families seek mental health support through local agencies:- Mary’s Center
202-846-8053 - Latin American Youth Center
(202) 319-2229 - La Clinica del Pueblo
(202) 462.4788
Click on this link to register for an upcoming Rapid Response training by SanctuaryDMV! 4. Follow Many Languages One Voice on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on how you can support our members’ demands for Sanctuary in Schools. This summer, MLOV trained 15 mostly undocumented immigrant youth to be community organizers – preparing them to protect themselves, their peers, and their families. As a result of holding local politicians like Mayor Bower accountable, funding for these youth participants’ stipends has been in jeopardy. You can support our immigrant youth organizers by clicking here to donate. Despite this threat, our youth have developed five critical steps that educators and administrators in the DC school system can take to keep them safe and support their education. LEGAL SERVICES FOR DC IMMIGRANTS
As a result of organizing by MLOV in November 2016, Mayor Bowser released funds enabling local community organizations to provide pro bono legal services for DC immigrants. Refer individuals needing to renew their DACA or with other questions about their immigration status to the following MLOV partners:
- AYUDA
202-387-4848 - Catholic Charities
202-772-4352 - DC Immigrant Rights Project (collaboration of Ethiopian Community Center & Lutheran Social Services)
(202) 844-5430 - Whitman Walker Health Legal Services
(202) 745-7000 - CARECEN
(202) 328-9799 - CAIR Coalition
(202) 331-3320
The post Many Languages One Voice Defends DACA and Beyond appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Black August Finale
Black August is almost over. What is Black August? I found the following at The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement:
“Each year officially since 1979 we have used the month of August to focus on the oppressive treatment of our brothers and sisters disappeared inside the state-run gulags and concentration camps America calls prisons. It is during this time that we concentrate our efforts to free our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, and all other captive family and friends who have been held in isolation for decade after decade beyond their original sentence. Many of these individuals are held in the sensory deprivation and mind control units called Security Housing Units (S.H.U. Program), without even the most basic of human rights.” – Shaka At-Thinnin Black August Organizing Committee from “THE ROOTS OF BLACK AUGUST”
If you haven’t made it to any events yet this month, here’s your opportunity to make it to one final event.
The post Black August Finale appeared first on Grassroots DC.
Charlottesville and It’s Aftermath: D.C. Alternative News Round Up
A quick search revealed no reports from local television news of last weeks events in Charlottesville or the solidarity marches that followed. Fortunately, the District also has reporters who routinely imbed with the activists and organizers at these events. Here is reporting from two of them.
One Dead After Car Plows into Anti-Racist March in CharlottesvilleWritten by John Zanga
DC Media Group
Charlottesville, Va. — Anti-fascist and anti-racist counterprotestors confronted a planned white nationalist gathering in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday. Multiple angry clashes between groups in the morning resulted in many injuries.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and Virginia State Police moved in to end the protest. The Virginia National Guard was deployed and began patrolling Charlottesville.
But, in the early afternoon, a silver Challenger driving at high speed plowed through a march of anti-racist counterprotestors forming on 4th Street, tossing several people into the air like rag dolls before ramming into the rear end of another car. It appeared the car was driven deliberately into the crowd, then reversed and sped backwards.
One person was killed and 19 people were injured.
Charter said that moments after the car backed up, medics were on the scene helping the inured. He was shaken up by the incident.
As many as 30 right-wing groups, led by Alt-Right personality Richard Spencer and accompanied by known supremacist David Duke, rallied at Emancipation Park over city plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The clashes erupted almost from the start of the permitted protests, which began at 10 a.m. Elements from the KKK, Neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right, were met at every turn by about 1,000 counterprotesters.
Mace and tear gas was sprayed with bottles, sticks and smoke grenades thrown by White Nationalists toward Antifa. Antifa returned volleys as White Nationalists waded into the Antifa to attack them with sticks and smoke grenades.
Police formed lines between two rows of barricades, separating Nationalists from counterprotesters. But for an unknown reason police pulled back as more Nationalists arrived, marching in a column down Market Street to confront Antifa. It was at this point that the confrontations saw their most bloody moments.
White supremacists have descended on Charlottesville since City Council voted to take down a statue of General Lee in an effort to remove Southern Heritage symbols of the Civil War. On Friday night, Neo-Nazis carried torches through the Grounds of the University of Virginia, chanting Nazi Germany slogan “Blood and Soil.” They attacked, beat and maced anti-racist protestors. Conflict also broke out when anti-fascists confronted White Nationalists at the Lee statue.
Update: A police helicopter which had been monitoring the protests crashed following the dispersal. Initial reports are that two died in the crash.
DC Remembers Charlottesville with march from WWII Memorial to Confederate statue by MPD
written by Luke
DC Independent Media Center
On the 13th of August, DC area residents protested the Nazi outrages in Charlottesville, VA. What began as a medium size march from the WWII Veterans Memorial to the White House mushroomed into a huge march from the White House past Trump Hotel to the Albert Pike (Confederate) statue by MPD. https://archive.org/details/DCCharlottesville8132017540p
Yes, DC has it’s very own statue commemorating a man who loved slavery and the Confederacy so much he moved there from the north to become a Confederate general. A similar statue of Robert E Lee in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, VA has sparked a controversy over its pending removal blocked by a court. This has been the excuse for ever-larger KKK and Nazis rallies there that culminated in the death of one counterprotester and serious injuries to 19 more on August 12, 2017.
One demand of the protesters here in DC is that a staute commemorating slavery and murder be removed. This should be done before it becomes a magnet for neo-Nazi torchlight parades and terrorist attacks. Oddly, two videographers were nearly run down by a car driving on the sidewalk near 7th st about a half hour after this DC protest ended, but preliminary indications are this incident was only a “normal” drunk driver rather than another terrorist attack.
The deliberate and deadly, ISIS-style vehicle attack on anti-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville by comparison cannot be called anything other than terrorism and murder. All that hate came from somewhere. There seemed to be a consensus in the streets that it comes right from the top. The crowds in DC responded to Trump Hotel with massive boos and chants of “Shame shame shame,” holding Trump himself responsible for the river of hate that has inundated the US since he began his campaign.
In nearby Alexandria, VA, protesters marched on the home of notorious (and notably punched) neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer. The IWW showed up there with their flags and remembering Heather Heyer, though DC IWW reports that (contrary to earlier rumors) she was not an IWW member. Richard Spencer hid on his roof, with just his cellphone camera peeking over the side.
Video of the massive DC marches for Charlottesville Includes bonus footage from Charlottesville providing 1 min synopsis(0:31 to 1.38)
The post Charlottesville and It’s Aftermath: D.C. Alternative News Round Up appeared first on Grassroots DC.
The NEAR Act and the Future of Policing in the District of Columbia
The post The NEAR Act and the Future of Policing in the District of Columbia appeared first on Grassroots DC.