Hi Everyone:
I just got this today and I am so disheartened that the time was so short for such an important topic. As many of you know, I am not only an anthropologist, but a biological and cultural anthropologist with a background in community-based participatory research in public health. I also have lived between the social class worlds of the 'hood in Chicago, Hyde Park/University of Chicago neighborhoods in Chicago with the Black bourgeoisie -- as sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier would call it -- and the unbelievable wealth, status and privilege found in Menlo Park and Palo Alto --the heart of Silicon Valley and Stanford U on the San Francisco Peninsula.
With my move to the District in Bloomingdale on that corner of 2nd and Thomas Streets, I had a chance to see the transformation of the house that Frank Coyne now lives in with his family on Thomas go from a drug-crack, prostitution loony-bin to a home where a regular family has put down roots. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
What I have also witnessed, as I have often mentioned to John Salatti during his reign as ANC Commissioner was the clash of cultures. I told John that at some point I would love to offer an insightful presentation to the community based on my expertise and training in race relations, public administration and community development. Unfortunately, time and fire took up much more of my time than I imagined.
I hope this meeting will be not be the last and I will be able to adequately participate. One thing, I would like to say, since I will not be able to attend. It is so unfortunate that much of what is really a generational, cultural and intragroup behavioral differences between the longtime Black residents and the new and primarily younger White residents has been racialized. Some of the racialization has been by design in both groups. (I say both groups, not to leave out the other dynamics of Hispanic, multiracial and the like).
No matter what one thinks about the arguments between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, Washington was quoted as saying:
My take on it is this:
Some people are just plain gripers, kvetchers and whiners. Nothing anyone can do about that.
However, some longtime Black and brown residents feel genuinely slighted and from some of the scenes I've seen, again from the many perspectives I've experienced, they should feel that way.
Most of the longtime African American residents in these urban neighborhoods, who have maintained their homes, their yards, their children and themselves, all during segregation when no one White wanted to live near them, through culture and necessity, created "mutual aid" societies -- whether formal or no. Neighbors looked out for one another, kept the "riff-raff" away and banded together. That's not necessarily race-oriented, but rather outreach of humanity for one's fellow man or sister who just looks like one another. Sort -of a "got your back" aspect to life.
However, I've seen many new White neighbors and residents look away while walking down the street and passing a Black elder -- almost a blasphemic, "no-no" in the community. The other aspect to the stylistic changes are most Black folk in the mid-town neighborhoods in Ward 5 are either from the South -- most likely the Carolinas, or have Southern ways and mannerisms. Those are also the ways of Latinos, Asians, Caribbeans, and Africans. Respect for elders. Building in enough serendipity in your day to, as the old folks say, "exchange niceties" or "sit a spell." For many, Gen Xers, and Millennials, there is more communication through social media, uplinking, Ipoding or Androiding than speaking to Miss Annie or Mister Hayes (fictional).
Sometimes this cross- cultural exchange can take the form of planting flowers in the elders' tree boxes. Find the elders and as one is adding to the value of the ecological spaces in the community, knock on Ms. Hattie's door and ask if she would like some flowers in her tree box. She'll be not only delighted, but you may just find you're the recipient of a fine, homemade apple cobbler or banana pudding or fresh-down-home, pop-open, buttermilk biscuits.
For the long-term, "Old Guard" residents; rather than throw a blanket indictment over a generic group, called "White folks," remember my father's wise words. "A clinched fist -- while you can't take anything from it, you can't put anything into it, either." Many of our new neighbors have skills, education and good and exceedingly kind hearts. In Menlo Park, I can't tell you how many folks volunteered to teach computer skills to kids in East Palo Alto. We took a survey of the community deficits and those of us who were privileged enough or who had enough cross-cultural outreach and exchange currency soon leveraged our skills to getting kids in college and not incarcerated.
It takes a sit-down. Not a polite, pinky-in-the-air, "let's all get along group hug moment." Sometimes the sit-down turns into a psychological smack-down , complete with hurt feelings, accusations and tears. But it's worth every minute. Part of the payoff is when new neighbors find out that having a nosy, older lady next door who knows the riff-raff and tells them, "Not that house!" -- that's worth more than a fancy burglar alarm.
Holding a tutoring session and seeing the light in your neighbors' grandson's face when he finally gets it -- it's priceless. Finding you have a babysitter right next door who's raised healthy, educated, professional children, might not be so bad. These are all community efforts, not race exchanges.
Again, I am disappointed that I won't be able to make it tonight, but I thought some of my thoughts, ideas and histories might be a contribution to the bucket. Have a great meeting. Make sure you hold another one with more notice. And for the pièce-de-résistance, I actually have some creative ideas about Sunday double-parking for church versus getting out to go to the store and you're blocked in. I might bring them to the next meeting.
Kate Reed
news2organizations4kate@yahoo.com
I just got this today and I am so disheartened that the time was so short for such an important topic. As many of you know, I am not only an anthropologist, but a biological and cultural anthropologist with a background in community-based participatory research in public health. I also have lived between the social class worlds of the 'hood in Chicago, Hyde Park/University of Chicago neighborhoods in Chicago with the Black bourgeoisie -- as sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier would call it -- and the unbelievable wealth, status and privilege found in Menlo Park and Palo Alto --the heart of Silicon Valley and Stanford U on the San Francisco Peninsula.
With my move to the District in Bloomingdale on that corner of 2nd and Thomas Streets, I had a chance to see the transformation of the house that Frank Coyne now lives in with his family on Thomas go from a drug-crack, prostitution loony-bin to a home where a regular family has put down roots. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
What I have also witnessed, as I have often mentioned to John Salatti during his reign as ANC Commissioner was the clash of cultures. I told John that at some point I would love to offer an insightful presentation to the community based on my expertise and training in race relations, public administration and community development. Unfortunately, time and fire took up much more of my time than I imagined.
I hope this meeting will be not be the last and I will be able to adequately participate. One thing, I would like to say, since I will not be able to attend. It is so unfortunate that much of what is really a generational, cultural and intragroup behavioral differences between the longtime Black residents and the new and primarily younger White residents has been racialized. Some of the racialization has been by design in both groups. (I say both groups, not to leave out the other dynamics of Hispanic, multiracial and the like).
No matter what one thinks about the arguments between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, Washington was quoted as saying:
" There is another class of coloured (sic) people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs...There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well."
Without sounding Romney-esque, I've been in enough Washington DC "Old Guard" gatherings to see clearly Blacks in the District who are ready for both adaptation, change and opportunity based on the "new" markets of middle- and upper-class Whites who are moving into the once all-Black neighborhood. Take for instance the change at the Fish Market, renamed "Fish in the Neighborhood".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gentrification-spelled-out-fish-in-the-hood-renamed-fish-in-the-neighborhood/2012/05/28/gJQAYfEiyU_story.html
and read
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20blow.html?_r=0 (Op-Ed Columnist, Charles M. Blow's article: "Let's Rescue the Race Debate"
Then there are those who are consistent gripers about "White folks moving in my neighborhood and think their taking over." Without sounding Romney-esque, I've been in enough Washington DC "Old Guard" gatherings to see clearly Blacks in the District who are ready for both adaptation, change and opportunity based on the "new" markets of middle- and upper-class Whites who are moving into the once all-Black neighborhood. Take for instance the change at the Fish Market, renamed "Fish in the Neighborhood".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/gentrification-spelled-out-fish-in-the-hood-renamed-fish-in-the-neighborhood/2012/05/28/gJQAYfEiyU_story.html
and read
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/opinion/20blow.html?_r=0 (Op-Ed Columnist, Charles M. Blow's article: "Let's Rescue the Race Debate"
My take on it is this:
Some people are just plain gripers, kvetchers and whiners. Nothing anyone can do about that.
However, some longtime Black and brown residents feel genuinely slighted and from some of the scenes I've seen, again from the many perspectives I've experienced, they should feel that way.
Most of the longtime African American residents in these urban neighborhoods, who have maintained their homes, their yards, their children and themselves, all during segregation when no one White wanted to live near them, through culture and necessity, created "mutual aid" societies -- whether formal or no. Neighbors looked out for one another, kept the "riff-raff" away and banded together. That's not necessarily race-oriented, but rather outreach of humanity for one's fellow man or sister who just looks like one another. Sort -of a "got your back" aspect to life.
However, I've seen many new White neighbors and residents look away while walking down the street and passing a Black elder -- almost a blasphemic, "no-no" in the community. The other aspect to the stylistic changes are most Black folk in the mid-town neighborhoods in Ward 5 are either from the South -- most likely the Carolinas, or have Southern ways and mannerisms. Those are also the ways of Latinos, Asians, Caribbeans, and Africans. Respect for elders. Building in enough serendipity in your day to, as the old folks say, "exchange niceties" or "sit a spell." For many, Gen Xers, and Millennials, there is more communication through social media, uplinking, Ipoding or Androiding than speaking to Miss Annie or Mister Hayes (fictional).
Sometimes this cross- cultural exchange can take the form of planting flowers in the elders' tree boxes. Find the elders and as one is adding to the value of the ecological spaces in the community, knock on Ms. Hattie's door and ask if she would like some flowers in her tree box. She'll be not only delighted, but you may just find you're the recipient of a fine, homemade apple cobbler or banana pudding or fresh-down-home, pop-open, buttermilk biscuits.
For the long-term, "Old Guard" residents; rather than throw a blanket indictment over a generic group, called "White folks," remember my father's wise words. "A clinched fist -- while you can't take anything from it, you can't put anything into it, either." Many of our new neighbors have skills, education and good and exceedingly kind hearts. In Menlo Park, I can't tell you how many folks volunteered to teach computer skills to kids in East Palo Alto. We took a survey of the community deficits and those of us who were privileged enough or who had enough cross-cultural outreach and exchange currency soon leveraged our skills to getting kids in college and not incarcerated.
It takes a sit-down. Not a polite, pinky-in-the-air, "let's all get along group hug moment." Sometimes the sit-down turns into a psychological smack-down , complete with hurt feelings, accusations and tears. But it's worth every minute. Part of the payoff is when new neighbors find out that having a nosy, older lady next door who knows the riff-raff and tells them, "Not that house!" -- that's worth more than a fancy burglar alarm.
Holding a tutoring session and seeing the light in your neighbors' grandson's face when he finally gets it -- it's priceless. Finding you have a babysitter right next door who's raised healthy, educated, professional children, might not be so bad. These are all community efforts, not race exchanges.
Again, I am disappointed that I won't be able to make it tonight, but I thought some of my thoughts, ideas and histories might be a contribution to the bucket. Have a great meeting. Make sure you hold another one with more notice. And for the pièce-de-résistance, I actually have some creative ideas about Sunday double-parking for church versus getting out to go to the store and you're blocked in. I might bring them to the next meeting.
Kate Reed
news2organizations4kate@yahoo.com
Kathleen Rand Reed, MAA
President/CEO
The Rand Reed Group
P.O. Box 55181
Washington, DC 20040-5181
Tel: 202-907-6949
therandreedgroup@verizon.net
West Coast: 2405 NW Irving Street, Suite 18
Portland, OR 97210
http://www.cusag.umd.edu/people.html
University of Maryland, College Park
Anthropology Department
President/CEO
The Rand Reed Group
P.O. Box 55181
Washington, DC 20040-5181
Tel: 202-907-6949
therandreedgroup@verizon.net
West Coast: 2405 NW Irving Street, Suite 18
Portland, OR 97210
http://www.cusag.umd.edu/people.html
University of Maryland, College Park
Anthropology Department
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From: KPW <WKPW3@aol.com>
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Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2012 09:30:50 -0400 (EDT)
To: <ward5@yahoogroups.com>
ReplyTo: ward5@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ward5] Re Today-Monday, Oct. 8th, Race Relations/Unity Community Dialogue at BCafe, 3740 12th Street, N.E ?
Race Relations/Unity Community Dialogue
Monday, October 8, 2012
6:30 PM
BCafe/Brookland Cafe
3740 12th Street, N.E
Washington D.C 20017
Contact: Jerome Peloquin, jpel@fastmail.fm
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