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The Beauty Industry Marginalizing People of Color

Make-up is a huge aspect when dealing with colorism. Cosmetics are used as a mechanism to cover up dark spots. For dark-skinned individuals we are considered a dark spot. No matter your heritage there are issues with skin complexion.

When I was younger I used make-up as a highlighter and cover-up.   I used to wear make-up all the time but it became hard because I could not find one for my tone and always had to mix them. Most beauty stores in predominantly black neighborhoods have only selective shades of foundation that are aimed at those of a lighter complexion.

I did not feel pretty or acceptable without makeup. At one point I actually debated bleaching my skin when one of my schoolmates referred to me as a “dirty Jamaican.” Fenty Beauty by Rihanna has gotten so many praises and consistently sells out due to its range of foundation.  Her line is a make-up success for dark-skin girls and those with albinism. Many make-up companies do not offer varieties for darker complexions as they have centered around light-skinned women for so long. These companies buy large quantities of supplies in order to produce an abundance of supplies pertaining to its lighter skinned demographic. So despite being generally ignored or marginalized by mainstream magazines, black women spend billions of dollars on cosmetics, desperately searching for something that works.

Beauty expert Al-Nis Ward explains why there is such a variety shortage. According to Ward, “the only difference between a lighter shade and a darker shade is the ratio of pigmentation. All foundations contain the same four pigments.”   

This understanding is used to explain the main variations of “beige” foundation. According to Tasha Reiko Brown, a makeup artist in New York, there is no need for a variety of foundations; the real problem is the amount of blush used.  However, this does not make sense.  Foundation is a skin-colored application used to even out your skin tone, blur pores, hide imperfections and make your skin appear smoother.  Blush, on the other hand, is a cosmetic for coloring cheeks in a variety of shades. A body-painting cosmetic should have color variety since it is skin-color based. The use of color applied to your cheeks should not affect a beauty tool that is supposed to blend with your natural complexion. These foundations always appear too light or do not cover undertones.

Tasha also looks at the use of blush rather than foundation. She states that to pick the right foundation you should consider undertone, shade range and then the correct texture for skin tone. Blush is seen as lipstick that is a pretty color that becomes lighter on deeper skin tones that are more pigmented.  It is an issue when you have to buy multiple colors in order to make the perfect blend or when you must bring your own set of makeup while those of lighter skin do not.

African-American women spend $7.5 billion annually on beauty products, but shell out 80 percent more money on cosmetics and twice as much on skin care products than the general market, according to the research. This trial and error generates billions of dollars instead of marginalizing make-up for darker-skinned complexion. Black consumers define mainstream culture. According to the Atlantic, Black buying power is projected to reach $1.2 trillion this year and $1.4 trillion by 2020, according to a report from the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth. 24.3 million Black women are trendsetters and brand loyalists who play a vital role in influencing mainstream culture in fashion, beauty, television, music and civic engagement for women of all races. Realizing the large demographic dark-skinned individuals consist of questions why this market is ignored. This is when the issue becomes more than skin deep. Victims of colorism feel the need to cover up dark spots with three different types of foundation, they feel the need to sexualize themselves in order to appeal.

The Effects of Dating while being Dark-Skinned

As a victim of colorism, I realized that people of my own race and color prefer lighter variations of me. The borderline is when your personal preference is used to discriminate against another’s preference and glorify your own.

The other issue was finding a partner. Dating is hard because there is so many characteristics people want in their ideal partner. Comments about how individuals only date those of light complexion are a regular occurrence. These comments come from men or women and are often my complexion if not darker.  All this made me understand that there is a limit to my beauty and for me to not revert back to that dark place, I should just become ok with it.

An example is that my ideal partner is a woman with dreadlocks. This is my ideal type but I will not discriminate partners based on that preference. Meaning I don’t only date people with “locks” but I instead connect with a person. This level of singling out is a mild example of the self-hate that exists in every community. In India a bride refused to marry a groom because of his dark complexion. They also lighten the complexion of the bride in the marriage propasal ads. Pamela Bennett, an assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, found that multiracial people — such as Black-White, Asian-White or Native American-White — fall between Blacks and Whites in the American social hierarchy. Aesha Adams Roberts gives research that economists explored how dark skin has been associated with being poor, evil, ratchet or ugly and how this consequently has impacted whether or not someone is seen as attractive and therefore, valuable as a life partner. The realization of being a particular color makes you seen or looked at a certain type of way.

My dealings with this turned into my outlet for writing. My pain and frustration made me see myself as just a voice. I never wanted to be picked on or the center of attention but I wanted people to hear what I had to say. Over the years, my voice grew stronger along with my desire to be heard. To have people of your nationality or origin discriminate against you hurts; Especially when they are your shade or darker. You just have to expect it.

Not everyone is strong enough to handle these insults and strive. Many struggle with insecurities, commit suicide, feel the need to date outside their race as they are not accepted or don’t strive because they feel being the center of attention made them be ridiculed. Dr. Richard H. Seiden, professor of behavioral sciences at the University of California’s School of Public Health in Berkeley, states, “Blacks suicide is often a sign of the inner anger caused by the troubles of life, such as racism, that can take their toll – by suicide or even homicide.” In these same neighborhoods lies diversity that continues to cause ripples in today’s society.

The post How Colorism Subjugates Dark Skin Women Part 3 appeared first on Grassroots DC.

About 525 years ago, Christopher Columbus brought white supremacy to the islands of the Caribbean.  It wouldn’t be long before it made its way to Turtle Island (aka North America) where it soon became the law of the land.  This extended the European tradition of enshrining every human right and beyond to white men who own property (and by property I mean land, people, wives, children, etc.) while denying those rights and privileges to everyone else.  End result, the worst and yet least talked about genocide in human history. Despite this, or perhaps perversely because of this, President Franklin Roosevelt designated the second Monday of October Christopher Columbus Day in 1937.

Fast forward to 2016 and the United States elects a president that completely embodies the principles of white supremacy that Columbus unleashed on the indigenous people of the Americas.  So, no surprise that the Treaty of Fort Laramie that the Sioux rely on to protect their reservation is being ignored by Energy Transfer Partners as they build the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline a stone’s through from their water supply.

While the electoral college has helped to keep the philosophical descendants of Columbus in power, the descendants of all those others tended to side with the Sioux.   In an effort to stop construction of the pipeline, Sioux Water Protectors, along with many Native Nations and non-Native allies staged months of continuous protest at the Standing Rock Reservation.  The pipeline might have been stopped had we elected someone other than Donald Trump.  On the other hand, maybe not.  President Sanders would have either halted construction or routed it away from the Missouri River, but President Clinton?

If elected officials consistently put the desires of corporations over the needs of their constituents, does that make them philosophical descendants of Christopher Columbus?  His atrocities were committed to enrich the Spanish crown?  The most that non-aristocrats could hope for was that some of that wealth would trickle down to them.  Shaking the legacy of Columbus and the white supremacists who followed him is the job of a lifetime not a single campaign.  No one knows that better than the indigenous people of the Americas.

So, we should not be surprised that the Sioux Nation not only continues to fight to protect their water, they also continue to fight for the many things they need on the reservation.  But they’re not just fighting to insure that their water doesn’t end up contaminated, they also continue to fight for the many things they need on the reservation.  The tenacity of the Sioux Nation, and indeed all of the Indigenous nations who survived the genocide following Columbus’ arrival, provide us all with excellent lessons in tenacity.  Those who are new to the fight against white supremacy should take heed.

The video below of the 2016 Columbus Day demonstration by the DC Standing Rock Coalition is a reminder that victories can be won on many levels.

The post Remembering Standing Rock and Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day appeared first on Grassroots DC.

Fare evasion: the act of riding on public transport and avoiding payment for the required ticket of travel.

In July 2017, the Fare Evasion Decriminalization Act of 2017 was presented to the D.C. Council.  If passed, this act would make fare-dodging a civil act instead of a criminal act. The punishable fine would be no more than $100. The bill removes criminal penalties for fare evasion that currently subject violators to fines of up to $300, arrest, and imprisonment for up to 10 days.

Fare-dodging makes up 50% of all arrests in the metro system over a fare that could be as low as $2. Nearly 40 percent of the city’s commuters take some form of public transit. Many D.C. residents lack basic economic security and have been pushed away from jobs and schools; the increase in fares makes it harder for them to get to work.

The Save our System Coalition, a transit Union-funded activist group, is supporting Fare Evasion Decriminalization. Save Our System disputed WMATA’s characterization of fare evasion arrests, arguing that these policies disproportionately target low-income people of color.  Progressive activists and all but 4 D.C. council members state that the policy has a disproportionate racial impact. Studies show people of color are stopped more often than their white counterparts. Metro Police targeted metro stops heavily used by youth of color.  Fifteen percent of all stops in or around Gallery Place and 14% in or around the Anacostia station. Decriminalization will end this type of discriminatory action.

D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6)  even pointed out this racial discrimination as he himself stated being a white man in a business suit and avoiding to pay his fare has caused no penalties or discrimination.  “I  can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve tapped my card and it gave me the beep that said my balance had dropped below what the fare was,” said Allen, a daily bus rider. “And the driver just said, ‘Just fill it up when you get to the station.’ ” “I’ve never once thought, ‘I’m going to actually get a citation or have a criminal record for riding the bus,’ ” he said.

Another issue is homeless youth and their commute to school. Approximately one in every 24 students attending DC public schools and public charter schools is identified as homeless. The main barrier for homeless youth obtaining an education is transportation, which is important because if there isn’t a way to get to school then it becomes difficult to have an education.  Students between the ages 5-21 are offered free public transportation with a D.C. one card. If these students lose their cards then they do not have a reliable way to get to school unless they evade the fare. This moment can potentially result in a criminal record. The proceeds of such arrests go to the city where the incident took place and not to Metro. Since Metro is not being funded by such incidents, the argument about the amount of force necessary to make sure a payment is made is not persuasive.

Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld states people across demographic boundaries feel a sense of injustice that some people flout the rules and ride free, while others pay.  “It’s a fairness issue, across the entire community,” Wiedefeld said. “You have people in those same communities that they’re concerned about being targeted, who are paying their fares. And I think it’s right that everybody pay their fare.” Wiedefeld made a good point but ignored the bigger picture. Citations and arrests for fare jumping can severely impact low-income individuals and neighborhoods of color. No one knows another person’s financial situation but they may be dependent on the “free” bus trip for sanctuary. If all fare’s were free then the argument regarding how many individuals pay their fare would not matter.

WMATA’s recently completed Capital Needs Inventory (CNI) provides extensive detail of their infrastructure needs and the associated costs, which total approximately $25 billion, $15.5 billion of which are related to the safety and reliability of the system. Metro wants additional funding of $500 million each year that can be leveraged or used to issue bonds of high credit.

The D.C. Council has already raised the tax on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. As reported by Faiz Siddiqui, of Washington Post, the goal being to raise 178.5 million in new funding for metro.    

Public transportation is free in Belgium, Thailand, Estonia, Brazil, Poland, Miami, Baltimore, Boston, etc.  As a public necessity, some believe it should be free in the District of Columbia as well. 

 

The District of Columbia is an expensive city to live in. The cost of living is ranked 21 out of 538 cities in the world.  The average salary is $71,081 but the cost of living is 39.3% higher than the national average.  Therefore, a D.C. resident needs to earn $80,273 to live comfortably.  Financial struggles over transportation add another burden on commutes to work or school. 

If public transportation were free then the economy will save money on gas, reduce asthma and other illnesses linked to automobile generated pollution.  If there were more travel options to urban areas it would generate more efficient labor markets and a rise in business opportunities by making it easier for poor people to get to jobs.  

In order for public transportation to be free we would need a systematic plan.  Erik Olin Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin has one.  According to Wright, the key is to scale an already-subsidized industry with select free-fare groups into a system-wide program free to all.  “Of course public transportation has to be paid for,” writes Wright, “but it should not be paid for through the purchase of tickets by individual riders—it should be paid for by society as a whole through the one mechanism we have available for this, taxation.”  Public transportation shouldn’t be looked at just from an angle of reducing traffic and emissions. The right to public transit should not be seen as a behavioral mechanism, but instead a right available for all citizens.

 

The post Fare Evasion Decriminalization appeared first on Grassroots DC.

During the summer of 2018, the National Park Service approved an application for a group of white nationalists who planned to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Led by prominent white supremacist Jason Kessler, lead organizer of the original Unite The Right rally, the gathering, known as Unite The Right 2, took place in Washington, DC. Starting the march from the Foggy Bottom Metro station, participants eventually made their way to Lafayette Square, the park across the street from the White House.

In outrage, a number of community members and activists banded together to organize a counter-protest of the far-right demonstration. With Black Lives Matter DC as the lead organizers, the Rise Up Fight Back Counter-Protest took place alongside the Unite The Right 2 rally.

With DC-based Black activists such as Black Lives Matter DC’s Makia Green,  Institute for Policy Studies Fellow Khury Peterson-Smith and Reverend Graylan Hagler from the Plymouth Congregational Church taking the stage to speak on the importance of community involvement and grass-tops accountability.

 

The post Black Activists Organize Counter-Protest to White Nationalist Presence In DC appeared first on Grassroots DC.

A story we’ve been covering about tenants in Congress Heights who have been rallying against slum conditions in their apartment untis for the past five years received a huge win in their campaign this past July when Judge John Mott ordered CityPartners, a real estate firm based in Adams Morgan, to pay nearly $900,000 to finance repairs to the dilapidated buildings.

Read the full article of the win on CityPaper here, and to receive more information about how to support their campaign follow Justice First’s newsletter here.

The post Huge Win For Congress Heights Tenants! appeared first on Grassroots DC.

The District of Columbia is a sanctuary city, which means that the city government limits their cooperation with the federal government’s effort to enforce immigration law. As a sanctuary city, District law enforcement cannot report undocumented immigrants unless they commit a serious crime. Federal agents in D.C. have begun to make arrests that have lead to the deportation of undocumented immigrants. Details regarding the arrests remain vague, as many question how these arrests are possible given the regulations that a sanctuary city should abide by. Recently, in the District of Columbia reports were made regarding detainment of undocumented immigrants.

The Heavy Hand of ICE

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a US federal agency that enforces immigration laws while investigating criminal and terrorist activity. ICE detains and deports undocumented workers. ICE’S national fugitive operations program carries out raids through a specialized team. ICE often takes part in collateral arrests; a collateral arrest is defined as arresting undocumented immigrants who happened to be in the place they were raiding, even if there was not a warrant for them. Fugitive operations, the section of ICE responsible for raids, claims that its operations target the most threatening criminals and terrorist suspects.

Being an undocumented immigrant is a civil violation and not a criminal offense. It is a misdemeanor offense that carries fines and no more than 6 months of jail time if entering the country illegally. Undocumented immigrants have rights under the U.S. Constitution; for example, it is unlawful to hold an immigrant past their release. The rights bestowed by the constitution are not honored when residents are detained until ICE comes to deport them.

Data reported on sanctuary cities including crime, immigration and safety does not match the statements reported by the president. The crime rate of a sanctuary city is 15% less than non-sanctuary cities. According to Houston police chief Art Acevedo, deportation fears amongst immigrants have caused immigrants to stop reporting crime. Undocumented immigrants even assist police but the fear of deportation has caused a 42.8% decrease in reports of crime by undocumented immigrants. During Obama’s 8-year term in office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported over 3.1 million individuals. According to the department of homeland security, most apprehended people were convicted criminals and not law-abiding residents.

Obama vs Trump

The difference between Obama’s immigration policy and Trump’s is that Obama refrained from prosecuting adults with kids. He also tried to expand deferred action in 2014. Under United States administrative law, deferred action is an immigration status which the executive branch can grant to illegal immigrants. It does not give them legal status, but can indefinitely delay their deportation. Obama’s plan was to include the parents of children who were granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. The Supreme Court struck down the order in a 4-4 vote, making it impossible for the Obama to expand the DACA program as he intended.

Trump attempted to dismantle the DACA program but U.S. District Judge John Bates ordered the Trump administration to fully reinstate the DACA program. Danielle Bennett, an ICE spokesperson states, “these laws help protect against jobs for US citizens and others who are lawfully employed.” However, the idea that immigrants take jobs away from Americans is a myth. Economic experts report immigrants create more jobs than they fill, forming new businesses, investing capital and spending dollars on consumer goods.

Trump also signed an executive order that tore up previous guidance on how ICE should prioritize its operations. As stated by the White House press secretary Sean Spicer, “the goal is not mass deportation, but to eliminate exceptions President Barak Obama allowed keeping undocumented immigrants who weren’t a threat.” This policy priority makes virtually every undocumented immigrant in the country deportable. Trump’s administration also seeks to end catch-and-release, the practice of releasing immigrants apprehended at or near the border with the expectation that they will later show up before a U.S. immigration judge. Trump also changed the process for people claiming asylum in the US because they suffered persecution in the countries they fled based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group.

Under president Obama, ICE’s policy was to prevent enforcement activities at sensitive places. The locations include schools, places of worship, hospitals and rallies where immigrants could go without the fear of deportation. These sanctuary places have lost their meaning under Trumps reign. ICE raids have caused detrimental damage to neighborhoods, financial stress on families, disruption of school attendance for students and physiological damage to children by breaking up families.

Communities Respond to ICE

In response to the raids, communities have hosted fundraisers to help families with food, money, to deal with trauma and convince students it is safe to go to school. Trump plans to diminish the power of sanctuary cities by not funding them. DC claims to be a sanctuary city but by cooperating with ICE it actually, raids, arrests and ships its residents out of the country. ICE recently raided at least five neighborhoods in DC, tearing at least 12 of our neighbors from their families and filling our communities with fear. Reports indicate that ICE agents racially profiled and indiscriminately detained people on 16th St. Credible reports also suggest DC police colluded with ICE in at least one of these raids. The Sanctuary Not Silence rally, organized by a coalition of groups headed by Sanctuary DMV, was held in response to those raids. The rally purpose was to discuss actions that must be taken to make D.C. a true sanctuary city. The video below shows speakers at the rally.

The post D.C.’S Status As A Sanctuary City in Doubt appeared first on Grassroots DC.

As developers in Washington, DC continue to push residents out of their homes and develop overpriced businesses and condos, long-time residents continue to discover creative ways to prevent themselves from being displaced. In the video pinned below, residents of Congress Heights, a neighborhood in DC’s Southeast quadrant, who live in a building owned by developer Geoff Griffiths, march to his house in DC’s Northwest quadrant in protest of his refusal to maintain the apartment complexes he operates. With the help of community activists and a non-profit developer, the tenants intend to purchase these buildings and create units of affordable housing:

• Geoff Griffis, “master developer” of the Congress Heights redevelopment plan, obtains control of the Sanford Capital properties. This move is accompanied with renewed efforts to manipulate tenants into giving up their rights to purchase the building under TOPA (Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act). Some residents are bought out of their apartments for as little as $500.
• In response to these developments, tenants organize to establish the Alabama Ave./13th Street Tenant Coalition, their ultimate goal being the creation of 200 units of quality, affordable housing via their TOPA rights.
• On December 27, 2017, Griffis enacts a back door land transfer with Sanford Capitol to acquire the Congress Heights properties, which is very likely an illegal action.
• On February 10th, 2018, tenants marched down to Grifis’ house in Cleveland Park to protest their abhorrent living conditions.
• On February 16th, 2018, Judge Mott of the DC Superior Court authorized a $50,000 payment to the receiver of the Congress Heights properties. This money had been authorized in the short-term to address the immediate property issues, however, this money is not capable of acting as a long-term solution to the apartment’s conditions.

If you’re interested in supporting the Alabama Ave./13th Street Tenant Coalition in their efforts, use this link to send a letter in support of the coalition to DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser.

The post Congress Heights Residents Organize a 5-Year Rally Against Gentrification appeared first on Grassroots DC.

Growing up my cousins and I were raised together as siblings.  There were five of us including my twin brother and myself.  Our skin tone ranged from light to dark.  My cousin Alisha was raised as the golden child, given that she had naturally long curly hair 3ac 4ab, is racially ambiguous, and has a fair complexion. Her parents home schooled her because she was bullied at school for looks.

Eventually my cousin started to bully me. She would make comments like “guys are attracted to light skin girls”, “All the guys love me because I’m so pretty with pretty hair”, “No one likes dark skin girls”, and “You’re going to have to show your body and boobs to get people’s attention.” Those comments made me think that I’m not pretty, I won’t be accepted, and I began not to care about myself.

I did not see beauty within myself and I believed no one else did because of those comments. I became a tomboy and dressed like a boy. I wore cornrows and my clothes were a couple sizes too big. I went through puberty at a young age and I remember trying to cover up my boobs so no one would know I was a female. I even liked being referred to as a male because I did not have to deal with women’s standards of beauty.

It wasn’t until middle school when I saw that my cousin’s words had implications beyond me; light skin females are seen first and dark skin girls seen second. The other factor was my schoolmates. The “it” girls or popular girls always had light skin, “nice hair”, dressed well and always had guys asking for their numbers. The funny thing was that her side-kicks were always dark-skin girls that were not as well put together as she was. According to there standards, they looked good while she looked great. If she was not available, then they would go to her friends.

Once I went to high school I had a self-revelation. I basically felt that I do not need societal beauty standards inflicted on me in order to consider myself beautiful. I got into makeup, weaves, and wearing form fitting clothing. My issues with skin are still relevant but I became more accepting.

All those hateful comments made me feel contempt. “You’re pretty for a dark skin girl.” “Oh you are dark, and your name is weird. Let me guess, you’re African?”  And “She Jamaican? She dirty and her hair like a Brillo pad.”  Those comments on my appearance and smell, all associated with my skin tone, made me believe that I have to over-achieve in order to be seen. Beauty standards are color based but they should not be color based. In the words of the philosopher Confucius “Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.” Physical beauty will fade over time but true beauty is timeless. There are advantages to having a dark complexion that can have social and economic benefits. Melanin acts as a natural umbrella and prevents your skin from receiving radiation and skin cancers. Having dark skin causes youthful looking skin and aids in human reproduction. Your attributes, characteristics and personality is what defines you, not your skin. Skin color should not be a defining factor to victimize a person.

The post How Colorism Subjugates Dark-Skinned Black Women Part 2 appeared first on Grassroots DC.

While mainstream LGBT+ rights organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and the NOH8 Campaign receive increasing amounts of attention, their ability to represent, serve, and be held accountable to the realities of non-hetero/trans people of color continues to lack.

If you are a non-hetero/trans* person of color in Washington, DC, the organizations/groups listed below may be of service to you.

 

• Black Youth Project 100 DC Chapter – Taken from the website: BYP100 DC is a collective of around 40 Black activists who organize, protest, lobby, and create to fight for Black liberation in the DC metro area [aka, the DMV]. Our chapter was one of the original BYP100 chapters started in 2013 after the Trayvon Martin verdict galvanized young Black activists to start BYP100 to strive for justice. Since then, we’ve been turning up for Black people by engaging in political education, organizing direct actions and campaigns, working with coalitions, participating in lobby days, and doing cultural productions like mixtapes and zines. We focus on transformative change and work through a Black queer feminist lens, meaning that we understand that oppression is intersectional and layered, so we focused our efforts on empowering the most marginalized members of our community. Email dc.chapter@byp100.org to inquire about getting involved.

 

• DC Black Pride – inclusive Black-led pride events celebrating LBGT+ Black community. Events include night and day parties, open mics, and symposiums on sexual health If you have any interest in volunteering, fill out a volunteer form here.

 

• The DC Center – Taken from the website: The DC LGBT Center educates, empowers, celebrates, and connects the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. To fulfill our mission, we focus on four core areas: health and wellness, arts & culture, social & peer support, and advocacy and community building. Hosts support groups, cultural events such as film/literary festivals, and offers services for mental health. Visit this page to learn about volunteer opportunities, or other ways to get involved.

 

• The Garden Concert Series – a Spring/Summer concert series led by queer women/people of color. Organizers partner with local musicians, local chefs, and local farmers to curate outdoor music shows during which participants are served a dinner prepared by local chefs.

 

• HIPS – Taken from the website: HIPS promotes the health, rights, and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by sexual exchange and/or drug use due to choice, coercion, or circumstance. HIPS provides compassionate harm reduction services, advocacy, and community engagement that is respectful, non-judgmental, and affirms and honors individual power and agency. If you’d like to learn about ways to get involved, please visit this page.

 

• Latino GLBT History Project – Taken from the website: The Latino GLBT History Project (LHP) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit volunteer-led organization founded in April 2000 and incorporated in May 2007 to respond to the critical need to preserve and educate about our history. Our mission is to investigate, collect, preserve and educate the public about the history, culture, heritage, arts, social and rich contributions of the Latino GLBT community in metropolitan Washington, D.C. To accomplish our mission, the LHP creates educational exhibits from our historical archives collection showcased at cultural events such as, a Women’s History Month Reception, a Hispanic LGBTQ Heritage Reception and DC Latino Pride, educational presentations at local and national conferences and through our online virtual museum at www.LatinoGLBTHistory.org.

 

• Impulse DC – Taken from the Facebook page: Dedicated to sexual health education, advocacy, and breaking the stigma for gay men, both positive and negative. Supported by AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

 

• SMYAL – Taken from the website: Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders supports and empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth in the Washington, DC, metropolitan region. Through youth leadership, SMYAL creates opportunities for LGBTQ youth to build self-confidence, develop critical life skills, and engage their peers and community through service and advocacy. Committed to social change, SMYAL builds, sustains, and advocates for programs, policies, and services that LGBTQ youth need as they grow into adulthood. Visit this page to learn about volunteer opportunities, or other ways to get involved.

 

• SwapDC – a queer women of color led initiative. SwapDC encourages clothing trade to prevent the articles from entering the waste cycle while creating family-friendly event spaces in the process.

 

• Swazz Bar – a night-life event series whose focus is creating queer/trans centered, all inclusive dance parties, Swazz has begun to branch out to other types of events with its Swazz Bazaar, a holiday bazaar that will host queer vendors.

 

• National Black Justice Coalition – Taken from the website: The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) is a civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and same gender loving (LGBTQ/SGL) people, including people living with HIV/AIDS. NBJC’s mission is to end racism, homophobia, and LGBTQ/SGL bias and stigma. As America’s leading national Black LGBTQ/SGL civil rights organization focused on federal public policy, NBJC has accepted the charge to lead Black families in strengthening the bonds and bridging the gaps between the movements for racial justice and LGBTQ/SGL equality. Visit this page to discover ways to get involved.

 

• The National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance – Taken from the website: NQAPIA is a federation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) organizations. We seek to build the organizational capacity of local LGBT AAPI groups, develop leadership, promote visibility, educate our community, enhance grassroots organizing, expand collaborations, and challenge homophobia and racism.

 

• No Justice, No Pride – Taken from the website: As the once radical LGBTQ+ movement was consolidated into the non-profit industrial complex, Gay Inc. – a powerful network of nonprofits, wealthy donors, and political action committees – emerged to assimilate the movement into mainstream cis-hetero systems of power, including white supremacy, patriarchy, and settler colonialism, among other systems of oppression. This shift is most visible in Pride marches and celebrations – and here in DC and around the world – what was once a call to action for the liberation of our entire community has become a hodgepodge of corporate and state-sponsored interests directed by the most privileged members of our larger community. Visit this page to discover ways to plug in.

The post LGBTQ+ PoC Resource List appeared first on Grassroots DC.

Colorism, also known as shadeism, is discriminatory actions or comments based on a person’s skin color, tone or pigmentation. When you are told you are pretty for a dark-skinned girl that is colorism.  Colorism is not often seen as an issue or it is seen as “people just coming up with problems” or being “too sensitive.”

Colorism in the United States is the result of white supremacist ideology.  During slavery, Intercourse between whites and blacks created mixed-race offspring who had a social status, which set them above other, enslaved people.  Lighter-skinned African Americans maintained family and community ties that distanced them from their darker-skinned counterparts, this distance still persists today.  They were “to white to be black and to black to be white.” Researchers have documented the ways in which many black teachers in segregated schools during the pre-Brown vs. Board of Education era was infected with the attitudes that preferred lighter-skinned children over dark-skinned students.  Light complexioned African Americans who look down on darker-skinned African Americans were perpetuating a hierarchy of discrimination imposed by the white majority.

According to Leland Ware, Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Delaware:

“In the early decades of the twentieth century, colorism fueled conflicts among African-American leaders, including Marcus Garvey, who was the head of the Universal Negro Improvement Organization. Unlike the NAACP, which fought for integration, Garvey proposed migration to Africa as the answer to the “Negro problem.” In 1931, Garvey, who had a very dark complexion and African features, claimed that W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP practiced colorism: Du Bois fervently denied Garvey’s claim, but there was some truth to it. Walter White was the head of the NAACP from the mid-1930s until his death in 1955. White’s light skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes did not display a hint of his African ancestry. White’s colorism was reflected in the image of African-American women he actively promoted in Crisis, a periodical published by the NAACP. The editors used photographs of predominantly light-skinned, college-educated women in an effort to displace entrenched notions of Black women as “Jezebels” or sexual victims. The editors wanted to refashion the image of Black women, but in doing so they promoted colorism. Today colorism is still promoted in society and the industry. Many celebrities are those of lighter complexion, occasional exotic dark skin and those who can pass the brown paper bag test.”

This mindset did not just stem from slavery but Biblical origins such as the Curse of Ham. According to Wikipedia, the story’s original purpose may have been to justify the subjugation of the Canaanite people to the Israelites, but in later centuries, some Christians, Muslims, and Jews interpreted the narrative as an explanation for black skin, as well as slavery. In the ancient Indian scripture of the Ramayana, there’s a scene that depicts a fight between a noble, fair-skinned king from the north, and an evil dark-skinned king from the south. This trope points to how people view the source of a person’s skin color between darkness as bad or evil and white are pure, clean and good.

People believe that colorism can end if a loving family that expresses how important and beautiful your melanin is regardless of its shade raises you. This is not the real-world experience of dark-skinned people.

I will talk about my real-world experiences with colorism in Part 2 of this series.

The post How Colorism Subjugates Dark-Skinned Black Women appeared first on Grassroots DC.

The first Tuesday of August, neighbors of communities from all fifty states take part in the National Night Out.  Local police departments host block parties, festivals and other community activities. According to the event website, “National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.”

However, this cause is implausible when agencies fail to provide officers with policy guidance, hold officers accountable for misconduct and collect data about officer’s activities. Most problems arise when police patrol under-resourced neighborhoods. Patrolling is supposed to keep people safe but in reality patrolling forces residents to give up their rights and lose their sense of security within public and personal spaces. Policing is flawed because it profits from stopping, searching, ticketing, arresting and incarcerating people.

The District of Columbia is the capitol of the United States. Despite being the capitol, DC is not funded as it should be given its stature in America. Issues like food deserts, medical assistance, affordable housing, education funding and a poor infrastructure are serious problems for District residents. These topics all deal with public safety as they correspond to resident stability. A Night Out for Safety and Liberation is a community-driven alternative to the National Night Out. The event aims to create new understanding of public safety. Join us for:                  

Night Out for Safety and Liberation
Tuesday, August 7
5pm – 9pm
Maroon House
1005 Rhode Island Avenue NE

Goals such as building connections with neighbors, ending mass incarceration and ending for-profit bail are designed to help community members re-imagine what public safety is. This event is aimed at giving power to the community and showing that we have a right to govern ourselves. We as a community should be able to depend on one another, lend a helping hand, tutor the mis-educated and defuse potentially violent situations. Equity, equality and power are the goals for redefining a community. Fear, prosecution and conflict should not be the main reactions to situations in the neighborhood. Instead, we should give power back to the community by shedding light on existing community resources and the variety of options available for achieving public safety.

The post Night Out for Safety and Liberation appeared first on Grassroots DC.

This crosspost from Valerie Jablow is for all those DC education advocates who really want to understand some of what would be needed to have effective reform in DCPS.  Good teachers need to be trained, recruited and supported.  

Cross-Posted from EducationDC
written by Valerie Jablow

We know that teachers are the single most important school-based factor affecting student learning (Rice, 2003). Ensuring that students in all schools have access to effective teachers is critical for academic success. Yet, as in many other school districts, high-poverty schools in DCPS have fewer highly effective teachers compared with lower poverty schools (Gordon, Kane, & Staiger, 2006; Jackson, 2013; Sass et al., 2012).

Credit: Betsy Wolf, 2018. Graph was created using data Mary Levy obtained from DCPS responses to questions from the city council during performance hearings. The drop box with this information is posted on the council website.

Credit: Betsy Wolf, 2018. Graph was created using data Mary Levy obtained from DCPS responses to questions from the city council during performance hearings. The drop box with this information is posted on the council website.

One reason for such inequity is higher teacher turnover in schools with larger percentages of low-income students and students with low test scores, who are not on grade level–which affects many schools in DC.

Credit: Betsy Wolf, 2018. Turnover data for all staff (not just teachers) here is from the public drop box for the council education committee. PARCC data is from OSSE.

As DC public school analyst Mary Levy has documented, DCPS’s new hires alone leave at a rate of 25% per year, with staff leaving the 40 lowest-performing (and highest poverty) DCPS schools at an average rate of 33% per year. Studies of other jurisdictions have found similar results. For instance, a typical school in Chicago will lose half of its teachers within five years, and the 100 most disadvantaged schools there will lose 25% of their teachers each year (Allensworth, Ponisciak, & Mazzeo, 2009).

Credit: Betsy Wolf, 2018. Graph was created using data obtained via FOIA by Mary Levy from DCPS in SY2017–18.

As the graph above shows, teachers in high-poverty schools in DCPS have fewer years of experience in the system. That means that teachers are either moving to more affluent schools or leaving the system altogether, which creates teacher churn in our most disadvantaged schools.

The effects of such teacher churn are particularly pernicious, given that most of our publicly funded schools, particularly in DCPS, have large proportions of low-income students.

As it is, schools with high-poverty populations often have challenges that high-income schools don’t and thus need more instructional resources, including effective teachers, to increase student achievement. Yet in DC, low-income schools most often have fewer instructional resources—and less effective teachers—on average than high-income schools.

Since teacher mobility appears to be at the heart of the inequitable distribution of effective teachers in DCPS, to solve it we need to understand it. We know from research that effective teachers tend to leave schools serving largely disadvantaged student populations for schools serving more advantaged populations (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2005; Boyd et al., 2009; Feng & Sass, 2011; Feng & Sass, 2015; Hanushek, Kain, & Rivkin, 2004; Hanushek & Rivkin, 2006; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Xu et al., 2012).

One factor contributing to this pattern is that effective teachers tend to go to schools where teacher quality is most like their own, and thus end up in schools serving more advantaged students (Feng & Sass, 2011). Other factors, such as a school’s proximity to home or accountability pressure, also contribute to this pattern (Boyd et al., 2005; Feng, 2010).

At issue in DC as well are teachers’ perceptions that DCPS’s teacher evaluation system (IMPACT) is unfair to teachers who work in high-poverty schools. Under IMPACT, 50% of a teacher’s score comes from student learning gains, and 30% comes from classroom observations. In terms of increasing student learning, research has shown that a teacher who is effective is generally effective in any context (high- or low-poverty) (Glazerman et al., 2013; Lockwood & McCaffrey, 2009). However, research has also shown that teachers have lower returns on years of experience in high-poverty schools (Sass et al., 2012): it simply takes longer to reach a level of effectiveness because teachers there have to do so much more than just teach. In addition, classroom observations have been found to be negatively biased against teachers working in high-poverty schools (Steinberg & Garrett, 2016; Whitehurst et al., 2014).

The pressure inherent in such accountability can be a stressor by itself. If you know your job depends on how much students have learned, or how well they take a test on any given day, and you also know that your students are behind grade level so the likelihood of them scoring well is low under the best of circumstances, that’s stressful. If you know that someone is coming into your classroom to observe you and that will influence your rating (and thus your salary and your job), and you don’t know if a certain student will have a bad day and act out, that’s stressful.

As a result, teachers have many incentives to move to schools with less poverty–and DCPS is not doing much to stop them. Research shows that teachers move to schools where they can feel successful, and teaching in high-poverty schools is hard work. You’re not just teaching: you’re also trying to be a social worker and deal with trauma; acquire necessary classroom and technological resources; reach out to parents; and manage classroom behavior.

These hardships are often exacerbated by DCPS’s lack of support. Here are some examples just from my child’s school:

–Teachers don’t have working computers, yet the mandated curriculum requires blended learning, and student assessments are taken on computers. Teachers resort to Donors Choose to bring in computers, and then computers are trashed when they need repairs because there is no one to repair them.

–DCPS provides minimal support for kids experiencing trauma. A social worker told me it can take up to two years for an appropriate placement to be identified for a child who is particularly struggling. When a child is not in the right placement and/or doesn’t have adequate supports, it’s a lot harder for the teacher to manage classroom behaviors and focus on instruction.

–DCPS doesn’t consider class size to be an important factor affecting student learning, despite a general consensus among researchers that class size matters for children in high-poverty schools in grades K-3. Large class sizes for kids who are multiple years behind grade level makes for an impossible teaching assignment, even for the best of teachers. That’s because in these situations, teachers need to spend more one-on-one time with individual students, which is challenging when class sizes are too large.

To be clear, it’s not wrong to have rigorous teacher evaluation systems—but in a school district like DCPS, with relatively few ineffective teachers to begin with, why is weeding out teachers the most talked-about policy solution when it also results in losing effective ones as well? Also, because student learning gains (a key part of IMPACT) have been available for only 17% of teachers in DCPS (Dee & Wyckoff, 2015), to the extent that IMPACT has rigor it is not seen in student performance. (In fact, a recent report showed that more rigorous teacher evaluations systems do not improve student performance.)

A growing body of research suggests that teachers do respond to financial incentives to remain at high-poverty schools–but that such incentives may need to be large and recurring to retain effective teachers in those schools (Glazerman et al., 2013; Springer et al., 2016).

Moreover, research shows that working conditions are still very important to teachers, regardless of salary (Horng, 2009; Milanowski et al., 2009). For example, Horng (2009) was able to disentangle preservice teacher preferences via a survey for elementary school teachers and found that an $8,000 difference in salary was not as important to teachers in selecting a school as facilities, administrative support, class sizes, or commuting times. Findings by Liu, Johnson, and Peske (2004) also suggested that recruiting teachers was not adequate; more focus was needed on retaining teachers and building teachers’ capacity.

This suggests a path ahead for our publicly funded schools that simply has not been approached effectively in DC.

Although DCPS provides generous bonuses to teachers for teaching in high-poverty schools, those bonuses are provided only under two conditions: having a highly effective rating and permanently giving up rights under excessing. (DCPS provides smaller bonuses to teachers in low-poverty schools–with the same conditions; see page 35ff of the contract here.)

Possibly worse, effective teachers in high-income schools have few incentives to move to low-income schools because they may be concerned that the move will hurt their effectiveness rating.

In other words, DCPS’s system places all of the risk of teaching at high-poverty schools on teachers—with no additional supports. Worse, this lack of support goes in many directions. Every year, for instance, good principals ask their best teachers what they need to stay, but there’s only so much each school leader can change. A school leader can’t acquire computers if they are lacking or hire effective teachers in the middle of the school year.

Research also suggests that teachers may be more willing to work or remain in low-achieving schools if they have a group of effective peers. One study of Teach for America (TFA) participants found that teacher retention in a school improved when TFA participants were placed in groups in each school during the 2-year program (Hansen, Backes, & Brady, 2016). Emerging evidence from other reforms suggests that effective teachers were more likely to move to high-needs schools when other effective teachers were willing to do the same (Partee, 2014).

Given the harmful effects of the inequitable distribution of effective teachers in DCPS, the question is whether city leaders will avail themselves of this research and use it to inform their decision making and policies going forward. The simple act of going into schools and asking teachers what do they need to stay is the first step. The second is to use what has been proven to work. And the third step is to revisit both, with the active collaboration of teachers.

In a city where competition rules the day in so many things, including our public schools, collaboration may seem old-fashioned. But to recruit, and retain, effective teachers in low-income schools, collaboration is the first, perhaps most important, step.

[Ed. Note: This post would not have been possible without the expertise of DCPS parent Betsy Wolf on issues surrounding the distribution, recruitment, and retention of effective teachers in DCPS. Wolf is an assistant professor in the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins, where she conducts independent evaluations of K-12 reforms and policies. All academic citations not linked herein are listed in the bibliography at the end.]

Bibliography

Allensworth, E., Ponisciak, S., & Mazzeo, C. (2009). The Schools Teachers Leave: Teacher Mobility in Chicago Public Schools. Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2009). Who leaves? Teacher attrition and student achievement. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Boyd, D., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2005). The Draw of Home: How Teachers’ Preferences for Proximity Disadvantage Urban Schools. Journal of Policy Analysis & Management, 24(1), 113–132.

Dee, T. & Wyckoff, J. (2015). Incentives, Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 34(2), 267-297.

Feng, L. (2010). Hire today, gone tomorrow: New teacher classroom assignments and teacher mobility. Education Finance and Policy, 5(3), 278–316.

Feng, L., & Sass, T. (2011). Teacher Quality and Teacher Mobility (Working Paper No. 57). Washington, D.C.: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, The Urban Institute.

Feng, L., & Sass, T. R. (2015). The impact of incentives to recruit and retain techers in “hard to staff” subjects: An analysis of the Florida Critical Teacher Shortage Program. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.

Glazerman, S., Protik, A., Teh, B., Bruch, J., & Max, J. (2013). Transfer incentives for high-performing teachers: Final results from a multisite randomized experiment (NCEE 2014–4004). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.

Gordon, R., Kane, T. J., & Staiger, D. O. (2006). Identifying effective teachers using performance on the job. Discussion Paper Series (Hamilton Project), 1(1).

Hansen, M., Backes, B., & Brady, V. (2016). Teacher attrition and moblity during the Teach for Amercian clustering strategy in Miami-Dade Public Schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(3), 495–516.

Hanushek, E.A., Kain, J., & Rivkin, S. (2004). Why Public Schools Lose Teachers. Journal of Human Resources, 39(2), 326–354.

Hanushek, E.A., & Rivkin, S. (2006). Teacher Quality. In E. Hanushek & F. Welch (Eds.), Handbook of the Economics of Education (Vol. 2). Elsevier.

Horng, E. (2009). Teacher Tradeoffs: Disentangling Teachers’ Preferences for Working Conditions and Student Demographics. American Educational Research Journal, 46(3), 690–717.

Jackson, C. K. (2013). Match quality, worker productivity, and worker mobility: Direct evidence from teachers. Review of Economics and Statistics, 95(4), 1096–1116.

Liu, E., Johnson, S. M., & Peske, H. G. (2004). New Teachers and the Massachusetts Signing Bonus: The Limits of Inducements. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(3), 217–236.

Liu, K. (2010). Peer group effects on student outcomes: Evidence from randomized lotteries (Doctoral dissertation). Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

Lockwood, J. R., & McCaffrey, D. F. (2009). Exploring student-teacher interactions in longitudinal achievement data. Education Finance and Policy, 4(4), 439–467.

Milanowski, A. T., Longwell-Grice, H., Saffold, F., Jones, J., Schomisch, K., & Odden, A. (2009). Recruiting New Teachers to Urban School Districts: What Incentives Will Work? International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 4(8).

Partee, G. L. (2014). Attaining equitable distribution of effective teachers in public schools. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

Rice, J. (2003). Teacher quality. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

Rivkin, S., Hanushek, E., & Kain, J. (2005). Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement. Econometrica, 73(2), 417–458.

Sass, T. R. (2008). The stability of value-added measures of teacher quality and implications for teacher compensation policy (Brief 4). Washington, DC: National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Sass, T., Hannaway, J., Xu, Z., Figlio, D., & Feng, L. (2012). Value added of teachers in high-poverty schools and lower-poverty schools. Journal of Urban Economics, 72(2–3), 104–122.

Springer, M. G., Swain, W. A., & Rodriguez, L. A. (2016). Effective teacher retention bonuses: Evidence from Tennesse. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(2), 199–221.

Steinberg, M. P., & Garrett, R. (2016). Classroom composition and measured teacher performance: What do teacher observation scores really measure? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(2), 293–317.

Whitehurst, G., Chingos, M., & Lindquist, K. (2014). Evaluating teachers with classroom observations: Lessons learned in four districts. Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Xu, Z., Ozek, U., & Corritore, M. (2012). Portability of Teacher Effectiveness across School Settings. Working Paper 77. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

The post How To Have Effective Teachers In Every School (Or, What DC Doesn’t Do–But Should) appeared first on Grassroots DC.

You’re a progressive activists or organizer.  You show up for events that teach people about your causes and confront officials who are not, generally speaking, asked to account for their actions.  You learn things yourself that you didn’t know.  You want to share what you’re learning at these events  with your friends and everybody you know who you wish had been there but wasn’t. 

So you pull out your camera phone or your DSLR or your camcorder and you start recording.  You shoot a few minutes of one speaker and a few minutes of another and maybe get some crowd shots.   At the end of the day you load it up to your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your Youtube channel and hope for the best.

It isn’t until you play the footage back that you realize that you were too far away from the speaker for your recording device to really get what they were saying.   The conversation of the people standing next to you is pretty clear though.  Or maybe the shot looked okay when you were shooting, but now that you’re looking at it, the African-American speaker’s face is pretty dark.  The white folks standing next to her/him/they is fine though.  Is there racism in the camera?  Maybe.  But it isn’t anything that can’t be overcome with a few good tips.

Understanding how to adjust the exposure settings on your so-called point and shoot device, making  the best use of available light and placing the camera where the speaker not only looks good but can be heard are all techniques we’ll be teaching at Grassroots DC’s next Basic Videography Workshop.

There’s something to be said for sharing a few minutes of a good speaker at an event via social media.  But if you want to make sure your video looks good, sounds good and maybe even includes a specific call to action, like, when is the next event?  Who should they contact to join the cause?  What specific policy should they ask their elected officials to support?  Then this event is for you.

There will be food and young people are welcome.  Contact liane@grassrootsdc.org for more information.

The post Basic Videography Workshop at We Act Radio appeared first on Grassroots DC.

Two fracking well “derricks” and chanting protesters block First St. at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission./Photo by Anne Meador

Security at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission seemed caught unawares Monday morning when anti-pipeline activists blockaded the staff parking garage at the agency headquarters. In the middle of First Street, two people climbed up and perched high on bamboo structures made to resemble hydraulic fracking well derricks. FERC is responsible for approving or denying proposed interstate gas pipelines, most of them supplied by fracking wells.

“FERC greenlights all energy projects, paying no mind to how dirty or unsafe they are to the climate or community,” said derrick-sitter Jessica Sunflower Rechtschaffer of New York City. “We erected these towers in front of FERC to show how these towers are being placed all over the USA, disrupting people, their homes livelihoods and environment.”

The FERC critics from Beyond Extreme Energy (BXE) and other groups, numbering about two dozen, also unfurled a long banner in front of the main entrance, blocking it as well. They say FERC should no longer be “a rubber stamping agency” and instead dedicate itself to facilitating “a just transition off fossil fuels.”

FERC has long been accused of having a “cozy relationship” with industry with commissioners and staff enjoying a revolving door to and from gas industry jobs. Critics also say that it assists gas companies in breaking up projects into smaller ones which will more easily obtain approval, a practice known as segmentation. Meanwhile, communities must grapple with a complex and time-consuming permit process directed toward what seems like a predetermined outcome. FERC has also been accused of “cherry-picking” data to force pipelines through low-income areas and communities of color.

There has been a sustained initiative to draw attention to the broad impact of the agency’s work, as gas companies seize private property and dig up forests, streams and mountaintops with a massive expansion of pipeline networks. For more than four years, BXE has held similar protests at FERC headquarters and disrupted the Commission’s monthly public meetings. Their efforts may be paying off.

“We’re beginning to see cracks between the FERC commissioners,” derrick-sitter Drew Hudson of North Carolina said, pointing out that earlier this month, Commissioners Cheryl LaFleur and Richard Glick voted to vacate Mountain Valley Pipeline’s permit.

FERC recently embarked on a review of the process governing its permit approvals. There are indications that Democrats LaFleur and Glick are demanding analysis of the climate impacts of pipelines, which would be in accordance with a recent court ruling. But the three Republican commissioners want to shorten the timeline for permit applications and streamline any evaluation.

Swaying only the two Democrats on the Commission may not be enough to achieve BXE’s goal of turning FERC into an agency willing to facilitate a transition to renewable energy. “We need at least three and preferably all five commissioners on board,” Hudson said.

While communities continue to fight FERC, vast numbers of people around the country are affected or potentially affected by the pipelines it approves. An independent safety analysis ordered by Governor Cuomo just released by the New York Department of Public Service finds that FERC was aware that the Spectra Algonquin Pipeline involves unacceptable risks when it approved it in March 2015, according to Kim Fraczek of Sane Energy Project. The Algonquin Pipeline runs only 100 feet from the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant located 30 miles north of New York City.

“This agency is responsible of saying yes to this pipeline knowing that it was unsafe,” Fraczek, who was protesting at FERC on Monday, said. “It’s putting a population of 25 million at risk. If this pipeline blows up next to Indian Point, it’s game over for the metropolitan New York City area.”

Click to view slideshow.

The post Blockade by Pipeline Opponents Disrupts Work Day at FERC appeared first on DCMediaGroup.


Washington, DC — Thousands of people protesting systemic racism and poverty marched to the Capitol on Saturday but were barred from entering the grounds by U.S. Capitol Police. A long line of officers blocked the South Lawn and halted a march organized by the Poor People’s Campaign–a revival of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s movement 50 years ago—at the Capitol Reflecting Pool.

Rev. William Barber and Rev. Jesse Jackson pressed police to allow them to proceed to the Capitol Lawn and conclude their march with the delivery of petitions demanding Congress allocate resources for the poor and struggling workers. U.S. Capitol Police Captain John Erickson, however, refused on the grounds that a large group needed a permit to demonstrate. An agreement was eventually worked out for petition boxes to be carried by individuals one at a time to the Capitol steps.

Rev. William Barber (c) with Rev. Jesse Jackson (to his right) leads the Poor People’s Campaign march to the U.S. Capitol

Barber and Jackson gathered the crowd in prayer. “There is no black and white. We’re all precious in God’s sight,” Jackson said, leading the others in a call-and-response. He concluded with “We’ll all remember in November,” referring to the midterm elections.

The march wrapped up 40 days of protests, rallies and civil disobedience actions in Washington, DC and around the country. Many prominent civil rights activists took part, some of whom were founding members the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.

Rev. Barber reviewed the victories of the campaign so far, saying it had been the goal to shift the narrative and get the attention of the international community. They had engaged in simultaneous civil disobedience in 40 states, registered voters in poor communities and put issues on the record at a hearing in Congress. The campaign will continue as a multi-year organizing and get-out-the-vote effort.

“We know how to fight, and we’re committed to do it,” said Rev. Barber. “I got a feeling everything’s going to be all right, you know Martin’s done told us,” Rev. Barber sang with the crowd.

Drawing from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, Rev. Barber outlined actions Poor Peoples Campaign would pursue in the coming months. “We learned from our non-violence training that you only have the authority to shut it down when you have given your adversary clear understanding of what you want, why you want it, and you’ve attempted to give them the opportunity,” he said.

He was critical of police for not letting them deliver their demands to Congress. “We remember this month [June 1968] when they tried to kill the Poor People’s Campaign, snatched them away, ran them out even after they had permits. Now today they won’t even give you a permit to be on the mall,” he said.

Rev. William Barber and Rev. Jesse Jackson confer at U.S. Capitol as Capitol Police block the marchers from entering Capitol grounds.

A huge three-hour rally on the National Mall preceded the march. The severe humidity affected many of the older civil rights leaders. Rev. Barber appeared to suffer as he walked behind the lead banner, and several people offered him assistance in walking.

Actor Danny Glover was also among civil rights leaders walking with the lead banner. “We see the contradictions with this administration all the time. Now we have to gather a mass mobilization, a real mass movement to change and that’s got to take place in many ways,” he said. He urged anyone feeling discouraged to keep going. “When you hear the dogs barking, keep going. When you think they’re going to catch you, keep going,” he said, drawing from the words of Harriet Tubman.

The original Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 was a march of nine caravans from different cities to Washington, DC. Once they arrived, they set up Resurrection City, a tent area for permitted tent city of homeless on the National Mall. It was led by Rev. William Abernathy who took on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision after he was assassinated in April of that year.

Click to view slideshow.

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On July 12, 2016, the D.C. Council passed the Incarceration to Incorporation Entrepreneurship Program (IIEP), DC Law 21-159. The IIEP would provide entrepreneurship opportunities for returning citizens such as a General Equivalency Diploma program; college courses in entrepreneurship; apprenticeship training; leadership and character development; financial literacy instruction; and the availability of access to capital.

The IIEP is a successful model of entrepreneurship.  Similar programs regularly change the lives of returning citizens.  For example, Raising Tide Capital helps individuals start and grow businesses; Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) strives to promote innovation through career development, education, and mentoring, and Defy Ventures supports employment, entrepreneurship and personal and leadership development.  For more information about the Incarceration to Incorporation Program, go to our website, www.coalition159.com.

Despite the bill passing unanimously by the council, the Mayor refused to fund the measure in her last two budgets with the council following suit. This year, myself and the other members of Coalition 159, who’ve been fighting to get this bill passed and funded, felt confident that the council would fund the program this year.   Both Councilmember Elissa Silverman, chair of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee and Kenyan McDuffie, chair of the Committee on Business and Economic Development, had expressed support, leading us to believe that they would do what they could to fund the program.  [Unfortunately, we were wrong.]

As this legislation was being voted on in the committee, Councilmember Silverman expressed, “I really think this [entrepreneurship program] is a creative approach …. I think we as a District government need to think of all the ways in which we can engage our returning citizens. … I think this is a bill that will take a first step toward looking at how we address the entrepreneurship issue, ….”

Councilmember McDuffie, who chairs the Committee on Business and Economic Development, said during his April 11, 2018 hearing, “I think there are far too many returning citizens who lack opportunities in traditional employment. But I’d like to think there are some things the city can do more of around entrepreneurship for people who are returning from periods of incarceration.” Furthermore, he expressed that, “[i]f you look at $14.5 billion total budget, $100,000 in a year, is a fraction of what we should be investing to try to help these people successfully integrate.”

The one-hundred million plus $50,000 was the funding the Mayor budget for the Aspire to Entrepreneurship program.  [I don’t understand this last sentence.]  What’s more, Coalition 159 developed budget estimates for how much the IIEP would cost over four years that were 55% and 65% lower than the council’s $4.7 million financial impact of the IIEP.  Despite this and despite the praise for our program, there was still no consideration for start-up funding.

In Silverman’s committee hearing on April 18, instead of addressing why her position had seemingly changed with respect to the IIEP, she suggested I contact the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) because they supposedly had money available to fund entrepreneurship for returning citizens. To the contrary, Councilmember Robert White shared that “that funding did not have an impact on IIEP”. But, even if we were to have received outside funding, which we had been pursuing, we still would’ve needed additional start-up funding from the government. Ms. Silverman apparently didn’t seek to identify any funding for the IIEP nor mention any coalition testimony in her committee’s report.  For example, in the committee’s 2018 report, it mentioned “finding ways to assist returning citizens reenter the workforce and find employment that gives them access to a reliable career path is one of the most important issues in workforce development on the District.”

We even appeared before the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety in hopes that chairperson Charles Allen would have brought that “new sense of urgency and creativity” he talked about “to how we support returning citizens get their feet on the ground.”  Unfortunately, we didn’t see that sense of urgency from him as it relates to the IIEP in this budget cycle nor the last.

Since the IIEP was passed without funding for the second fiscal year, it’s subject to repeal in Fiscal Year 2020. We wonder why the mayor, nor the council has showed any sincere interest in funding this highly successful program model of entrepreneurship for returning citizens.

At the April 28 hearing, former director of Court Services and Offender Supervisor Agency (CSOSA), Nancy Ware, testified in support of the IIEP. Ms. Ware said that she’s witnessed the success that opportunities for self-sufficiency offered individuals to become productive tax paying citizens of the city. There was a substantial decline in the percentages of individuals revoked to incarceration, an increase in the successful completion of supervision, and decreased rearrest rates”

We must ask ourselves, why did the council vote unanimously to approve the IIEP legislation but not make funding it a priority?  Is it because [we already have] the Aspire program?  Or is it because the IIEP has the potential to generate $10 million dollars in the operation of an entrepreneurship program in which returning citizens would primarily benefit? I surmise that the answer is the same as why the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizen Affairs (MORCA) has be so terribly underfunded and understaffed since as far back as 2015. The Mayor’s budget doesn’t truly reflect the needs of returning citizen as a priority of her administration.

We believe returning citizens should be a priority in the District because, “on average, half of the men and women who come under the criminal justice system in DC are unemployed at any given time ….” Even more so, according to Ms. Ware, “those who are unemployed, slightly more than half of them are actually employable.”  Obviously, it’s more beneficial to employ our residents because crime generates substantial costs to society. Programs that directly or indirectly prevent crime can generate substantial economic benefits by reducing crime-related costs incurred by victims, communities, and the criminal justice system. Moreover, programs like RTC, Defy and potentially IIEP, yield high return on investment through low recidivism rates; job creation; increased income; and businesses launched with high survival rates.

I believe we have an opportunity to change the course of this city in this election for the better. But you must educate yourself and vote. I was at a Returning Citizens forum and heard a candidate say, “… and I’d fund the Incarceration to Incorporation Entrepreneurship Program (IIEP).”  These processes should ensure that the right questions are asked as it pertains to the IIEP.  In other words, why have those who’ve been on the council the last two years, and voted unanimously to pass the IIEP, failed to fund the program? And, since the law is to be repealed in the third year after enactment, what are the candidates plans to ensure it is funded and not repealed next year?

We’ve encouraged our supporters to intensify their efforts until the council records their final vote on the budget. In other words, it’s not over till it’s over. This year, it’s truly not over till it’s over. On June 19th D.C. voters will select nominees for council chairman, two at-large council seats and four ward level council seats. Many of the current council, including McDuffie, Silverman and Charles Allen, will have their seats challenged.  Some of those challengers, like candidate for chairman Ed Lazere, support funding the IIEP. Before you vote, The Coalition engages you to research the candidates and ensure your vote is for someone who will truly champion legislation for your communities.

You can exercise your vote to select those who you believe will alter the direction of the budget process in FY2020 to fund those priorities our communities feel provide a real “fair shot” for them. Remember, it’s not over till you say it’s over with your vote.

Kevin Smith is an advocate for returning citizens. In his recent efforts to get funding for the IIEP, he coordinated advocacy for the Working Coalition to Fund the IIEP. His views expressed here are his own and doesn’t reflect any members or supporters of the Working Coalition.

The post It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over, It’s Important to Vote on June 19 to be Heard appeared first on Grassroots DC.



Washington, DC — U.S. Park Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers forced a protest encampment at Dupont Circle to disband Monday evening. The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign set up the camp, which they called Resurrection City II, on Saturday to bring attention to worsening conditions experienced by poor people and the homeless. They had obtained a permit from the National Park Service to be in the park until Wednesday.

Police began gathering on the outskirts of the park in the upscale neighborhood of Dupont Circle around 7:00 pm but gave no prior warning to organizers that they would soon evict them. No one was arrested, but police confiscated tents and bedding. About 40 people staying in the park, many of them veterans as well as homeless, took refuge at a nearby church on 16th Street.

Police cited “noise complaints, permanent structures and obstruction of signs” as reasons to evict them and seize property, according to a PPECHR press release.

Cheri Honkala protests the eviction of Resurrection City as a violation of 1st Amendment rights/Screenshot Mark Apolloa FB Live

PPEHRC had set up a stage for outreach to the public to tell about their first hand experiences with poverty and homelessness in urban neighborhoods. They had also scheduled a series of punk and rap groups to perform original venues to attract hundreds each day to hear their stories.

The group had walked from the Kensington district of Philadelphia to Washington, DC over a 10-day period. They had named their occupation Resurrection City II, commemorating the original Poor Peoples Campaign March organized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 50 years ago. The original march of 1968 walked from Baltimore to Washington and formed Resurrection City on the National Mall.

Kensington is the poorest district of Philadelphia and one of the poorest per capita neighborhoods in the U.S. with more than 60% of its population either homeless, unemployed, receiving public assistance, or suffering from addiction.

Cheri Honkala, co-director and organizer of the Poor People’s March, had been released from custody earlier in the day after she was arrested for refusing to leave a sit-in at the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters. No sooner had she been released for trespassing than she was dealing with over 20 police officers from the National Park Service and DC Metropolitan Police.

Many first time activists took part in the Poor People’s March who had never participated in any protest activity before. They included poor and homeless families, veterans, disabled persons, those with addictions, newly returned citizens, and clergy.

A band plays at Resurrection City before police move in to evict Monday evening/Photo by John Zangas

The post Resurrection City II Evicted From Dupont Circle Park appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Dheri Honkala is taken from the lobby of HUD by Federal Protective Service officers/Screenshot from PPEHCR video

An advocate for the poor and homeless was arrested today at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) while attempting to speak with Secretary Ben Carson.

Federal Protective Services police took Cheri Honkala into custody Monday afternoon when she refused to leave the lobby of the HUD building.

“All I wanted is a meeting on behalf of poor, homeless families across the entire country,” she said as police pulled her toward a vehicle. “Poor people deserve to eat. One fucking meeting!”

The arrest took place during a protest at HUD organized by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, which has set up an encampment in Dupont Circle. Honkala was Jill Stein’s running mate and the Green Party candidate for vice president in the 2012 election.

Carson announced a plan in April that would raise rents for those receiving federal housing assistance by 20 percent, according to an analysis just released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The proposal would affect 2 million households immediately and an additional 2 million in the next six years.

Carson says reducing assistance will force the poor into the workforce and give them a path to self-sufficiency. “It’s our attempt to give poor people a way out of poverty,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

Honkala and about fifty others with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign had just arrived in Washington on Saturday after walking for ten days from Philadelphia. They began their walk in Kensington, the poorest district in Philadelphia, on June 2, the 50th anniversary of the original walk led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Baltimore to Washington in 1968.

They set up camp in Dupont Circle, in the midst of some the most costly properties with the highest rents in the District. Resurrection City II, as they call it, will remain indefinitely and serve as their base of operations for protest actions like the one at HUD today. They hope to highlight deteriorating economic conditions, rampant homelessness, hunger, job displacement, drug addiction and rising debt among the working class.

The new occupants of Resurrection City are advocating for themselves as poor Americans. Many of them are homeless and have never done anything like this before. Part of their message is that in order for meaningful progress in any movement, it must be led by those affected, according to Rev. Bruce Wright. “Any movement to end poverty must be led by poor people, homeless people, unemployed people and people impacted by it,” he said.

After 50 marchers arrived in Washington, they began to set up Resurrection City II/Photo by John Zangas

Rev. Wright was critical of Rev. William Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign, which has been underwritten by big monied interests such as the Ford Foundation. “No disrespect to him, he’s a good man, but I think he’s been co-opted by big money,” Rev. Wright said, adding that PPEHRC does not accept corporate sponsorships, big money donations or grants.

“Poor people are the ones that need to be heard,” said Wright. “Unless you have been homeless, unless you’ve been poor, unless you’ve experienced poverty, you have no right to dictate to poor people how their change should happen,” Wright said.

Leaders of large foundations and the Democratic National Committee are top-down organizations and want to take control, Wright said. This used against Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s, when leaders from political parties tried to intervene in his campaign. “They tried to co-opt Dr. King and tell him don’t say anything because [President] Johnson is doing all this for the poor, and he said ‘I can’t not say anything, this isn’t about political parties.’”

Organizers are asking for support at Resurrection City II, including food, water, medical supplies, and moral support. They are also requesting donations to help with transportation costs. The plan to stay in Dupont Circle at least a week or longer if hey can generate the support needed.



The post Homeless Advocate Wouldn’t Leave HUD, So Police Dragged Her Out appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Police form a line at 13th & K Streets NW as Inauguration Day protests dragged into the afternoon. They deployed concussion grenades and mace. Photo: John Zangas

Washington, DC–A defendant in the Inauguration Day protest trials was found not guilty by jury trial on Monday. Casey Webber was acquitted of all felony and misdemeanor charges against him stemming from the mass-arrests of 230 protesters during January 20 protests. The trials have come to be known as the J20 trials.

Three other defendants are still waiting jury verdicts in the trial, which began on May 14. The jury told Judge Katherine Knowles on Tuesday, that they were deadlocked but she returned them to the jury room until they reached verdicts.

Webber said that though his trial was over and has resulted in a positive personal outcome, he did not feel any relief due to seeing the three other defendants in his trial anguishing over the possible outcome. He also said he could not rest and would continue to support another 40 defendants who were awaiting trials.

The defendants faced a possible 60 years in prison for the charges of malicious destruction of property, conspiracy to riot, inciting a riot, rioting, and assaulting a police officer.

The May 14 trial was the second that had gone to a jury. Another J20 trial of six defendants in December of last year resulted in acquittals of each of six defendants for a total of 42 charges. Another 129 defendants had their charges dropped in January 2018 shortly after the first acquittals.

Webber said that there was no direct evidence admitted by the U.S. Attorney’s office that linked any of the defendants to any of the charges they faced.

Key Exculpatory Evidence Withheld From Defense

The U.S. District Attorney was forced to drop all charges in another J20 trial against 6 other defendants which had been set to begin on Monday, June 4. There were no grounds to pursue felony charges in the trial when it came to light that Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff withheld key evidence from defense attorneys.

District of Columbia Superior Court, Chief Judge Robert E. Morin had been hearing pretrial motions in the June 4 trial in regard to exculpatory evidence that Kerkhoff had in her possession. The key evidence in question was a video clip the prosecution was using to support felony charges against all defendants.

The Inauguration Day protests lasted the entire day and involved thousands of protesters throughout the downtown area. Photo: John Zangas

Defense attorneys argued the felony charges of conspiracy to riot and inciting a riot were not valid since they had not been provided an uncut version of the video during discovery. The defense team also learned from an email sent by the US Attorney’s office to Judge Morin that the Project Veritas evidence should have included an additional 65 videos and 4 audio recordings that had been withheld from defense during discovery. The videos had been also been recorded and provided to DC police by conservative media group Project Veritas, which had produced the videos when it infiltrated and secretly recorded Dissent J20 planning meetings.

Dissent J20 was an umbrella organization with which other protest groups coordinated to disrupt the Inauguration Day parade. On Inauguration Day, hundreds of police moved against a breakaway group of protesters and mass-arrested 230 of them, including journalists, photographers and independent media live-streamers.

Defendants in the May 14 trial have already been subjected to admission of the tainted Veritas Project video in their trial. Judge Katherine Knowles of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is presiding in this jury trial and had already admitted into evidence the edited Project Veritas video. It is not certain what the final outcome of this trial will be for the three remaining defendants but it gives credence to a strong defense on appeal in the event of conviction based on omitted exculpatory evidence.

Project Veritas Video Evidence Backfired Against Prosecutors

Project Veritas subsequently produced their heavily edited video from recordings of the Dissent J20 planning meetings and released it the day before the J20 protests in order to discredit the protesters. The video was produced to cast planners as endorsing violence during the Inauguration Day parade. Project Veritas provided the heavily edited video to Detective Pemberton, who then provided it the U.S. Attorney’s office. The video formed a basis for felony inciting riot and conspiracy to riot charges against all 230 defendants in the J20 trials.

Defense attorneys filed additional motions for dismissal of the felony charges once they discovered that the Project Veritas videographer could be heard saying that he believed the J20 planners did not know of a conspiracy during the J20 protests.

Defense attorneys argued the U.S. Attorneys office should have provided a copy of the omitted video clip but instead deliberately withheld it and in so doing, violated a foundational principle of due process known as the Brady rule. This legal procedure is compulsory during the discovery phase of pretrial procedures. The Brady rule requires prosecutors to share materially exculpatory evidence with the defense before an actual jury trial begins.

The defense attorneys argued that by not adhering to this legal requirement, the U.S. Attorney’s office denied defendants due process under the law. The Brady rule came out of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1963, which provided defense attorneys access to evidence prosecutors discover during the course of an investigation, which may assist the defendants in their case.

Chief Judge Sanctions Prosecutor

Judge Morin was said to have been incredulous at the revelation of the prosecutor’s multiple violations of the Brady rule. Judge Morin queried the stand-in prosecutor during the June 4 pretrial motions but the prosecutor could not answer for Assistant Kerkhoff because she was at that time prosecuting the ongoing May 14 J20 trial.

Judge Morin sanctioned Kerkhoff as a result of the Brady rule violations, thereby prohibited her from submitting any additional evidence in the course of future J20 trials, further weakening the U.S. Attorney’s ability to secure J20 trial convictions.

It is not yet clear which party edited the critical portion of the video clip. Whether it was Project Veritas, the police, or the U.S. District Attorney’s office, real damage has been done to the credibility and handling of the trials by the prosecution.

Inauguration Day protesters not being arrested gather at 13th & K Streets and confronted police while a block away more police kettled 230 protesters. Photo: John Zangas

The conservative Project Veritas media organization has previously been involved in a series of clandestine video traps. In operations against ACORN and Planned Parenthood, operatives penetrated business offices of these groups unbeknownst to them and recorded discussions which were later edited. The videos were then released to the public in an attempt to discredit the organizations.

The Project Veritas sting methods used against Planned Parenthood and ACORN have now also played a role in ensnaring the U.S. Attorney’s office in what is turning out at best to be chaotic records of trials.

Webber was pensive concerning the behavior of prosecutors and police and likened the justice system to a design to work exactly as it did. “The evidence was problematic from the beginning,” he said. “The charges were based on conjecture and there was never any material evidence presented on any person,” he said.

Webber believes the conduct of the prosecution was “closer to political persecution than criminal prosecution.” He also stated that the approach was to over dramatize the accusations so people would take pleas. “The prosecution obstructed evidence from defense council over the threat of built up charges for minor offenses,” he said.

Webber also pointed out the cost to the defendants and their families as well as the taxpayers. “The prosecution has cost the taxpayers millions in these cases,” he said.

Webber was found not guilty on all counts but he believes he likely would not have faced the charges had the defense attorneys been provided the full Veritas Project video during disclosure. Webber’s trial was unique in that he was seen by prosecutors as a prime Dissent J20 organizer who at the time worked as an officer for Industrial Workers of the World Union. He had since vacated his position because of the trial but remained a member of IWW.

More Defendants Have Charges Dropped

The defendants in the third trial (June 4) have had felony charges dropped with prejudice. This means the U.S. Attorney’s office cannot refile these charges against them. They will not face retrial on any of the felony or misdemeanor counts dismissed with prejudice.

Concurrently another set of dismissals were issued Monday, June 4 for another J20 trial which began pre-hearing motions on May 29. Chief Judge Morin had determined the Brady violations were so severe that he would not let the trial proceed.

As a sidebar to the unfolding court chaos under the watch of the Judge Morin and at the hands of U.S. Attorney’s office and Assistant Prosecutor Kerkhoff, a police officer who testified at the May 14 trial as a witness against J20 defendants, wore a shirt in the courtroom a few minutes after he testified. DC police officer William Chapman had fashioned a silk-screened shirt emblazoned with ‘Police Brutality…or doing what their parents should have,’ along with an image of a police baton and handcuffs. He plainly wore the shirt and message around the courthouse until he was seen leaving with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerkhoff.

The post More Acquittals, Dropped Charges in Inauguration Protesters’ Trials appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Cross-Posted from EducationDC
written by Valerie Jablow

What is outlined below happened thus far in 2018 in just one of our public education sectors. As far as I am aware, no DC public official has publicly commented with concern nor called for any investigation of the charter board’s actions.

–The charter board and its staff appear to be tied–in ways that remain unknown to the public–to a private organization that gets public money through contracts with charter schools regardless of its actual performance with those schools. Charter school staff have reported being afraid of the organization.

–Despite knowledge throughout 2017 of the fiscal woes of Washington Mathematics Science Technology high school (WMST), and with its own reportsshowing deep financial troubles as early as 2014, the charter board appeared to take no action to help WMST. Public notification of the school’s dire fiscal situation also was not apparent.

–In January, the charter board staff completed a 20-year review of WMST, which was posted on the charter board website. I saw the review in late February or early March and noted that it seemed only mildly concerned about the school’s finances. In April, I looked again for the review, but it was gone. When I asked about it, a staff member directed me toward this review, dated March 12, 2018. On that day, the charter board met in an “emergency” session to vote to begin revocation of the school’s charter. This version raises concerns with the school’s finances that I recollect the January review did not. I asked several charter board staff what happened to the January review. No one responded. The January review existed, as materials the City Paper received via FOIA regarding WMST (see hereand here) make reference to it (see in the first link pages 315, 428, and 623).

–These points together suggest that rather than allowing school performance to actually determine a school’s fate, the charter board (or its staff or both) determines which schools will be closed through the board’s own actions–or lack thereof.

–This week, I testified about WMST to the charter board. I noted that most of the city block where WMST is located was bought in May 2017 for $66 million by Douglas development and LLCs associated with it. The intention was to make a major development there. After that May 2017 Douglas purchase, the only properties on that block not owned by Douglas and its investors (who are publicly unknown) were WMST and a fast food restaurant on the corner of New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road. That meant that after May 2017, WMST was the only  impediment to a contiguous Douglas development there.

–In February 2018, WMST applied with the charter board to get a new location. Its application made clear that it would sell its property, but remain in it until 2019. In March 2018, around the time ground was broken for the Douglas development, the charter board voted to allow WMST to stay open only if it sold its property within a month, to raise money. In April 2018, Douglas bought WMST’s property for $6.25 million–well below its assessed value of nearly $10 million. The purchase price was enough only to pay off the school’s outstanding loan–but not to continue operations. The charter board executive director stressed repeatedly that the school’s value was much too high at $9 million.

–The charter board voted on April 23 to have DC charter schools report only contracts that are greater than $100,000, citing the “burden” to schools to do otherwise. It is not clear that the charter board has the authority to make that rule. Such rulemaking may require the scrutiny and approval of elected leaders, as it changes the guidelines of the School Reform Act, the authorizing legislation for DC charter schools.

–When the new contracts rule goes into effect later this year, no one in the public will be able to access or know about any contracts in any DC charter school less than $100,000, unless the schools themselves voluntarily disclose those contracts or the charter board asks them to. This is because no DC charter school is subject to FOIA. Charter schools in other jurisdictions are subject to FOIA.

–The transcript of the April 23, 2018 charter board meeting approving the contract change notes that there were 6 public comments on the rulemaking. But none of the comments are publicly available.

–The charter board violated the FOIA law, in not giving a complete disclosure of documents during the reporting on the board’s relationship with a private organization.

–When I filed a complaint with the board of ethics and government accountability (BEGA) about the actions of the charter board in regard to the oversight and closure of WMST, I was told that charter board staff are not considered public employees and thus are not subject to BEGA’s oversight. As a city agency under the control of mayoral appointees, BEGA recently refused to renew the contract of the director of the office of open government, Traci Hughes. Some years ago, Hughes overruled mayoral appointee and former deputy mayor for education Jennifer Niles and said that meetings of the cross sector collaboration task force must be open to the public. More recently, Hughes ruled that the DC charter board violated the open meetings act by approving a charter school expansion without public notice. And more recently yet, the city council took a preliminary vote to put the once-independent office of open government under control of BEGA. (A final vote by the council is June 5.)

–I also filed a complaint about the WMST oversight and closure with Attorney General (AG) Karl Racine. He told me that his office would investigate only what the school did; anything else they found about the actions of the charter board or its staff would be referred to BEGA or the Office of the Inspector General.

–Charter board executive director Scott Pearson made a donation of $1500 to AG Racine on March 8, 2018. He also made a $1500 donation to council chair Phil Mendelson on February 21, 2018. Both Racine and Mendelson are up for re-election. Pearson’s donation to Racine came 4 days before the charter board voted to initiate charter revocation of WMST. Both donations were also Pearson’s only local political donations recorded thus far this election cycle and constitute about a third of all Pearson’s donations to DC city politicians.

–The executive director of the charter board said that they do not enforce the lawregarding suspensions. He was under oath when he testified about that before the education committee of the city council.

–The public is not entitled to know anything except top level data about charter school facilities in DC. Building surveys of charter schools for the master facilities plan (due out later in 2018) are being paid for by the Walton Foundation, a major charter supporter. City officials have said this means the public will not be able to have that data. There was no explanation for why public funds could not be used for this purpose.

Remember, it’s an election year–and there are candidates offering something different than business as usual. There’s even a proposal for a truly independent education data group–for a fraction of the money spent in what is outlined above. Seems that once again, democracy sure beats the alternative.

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