Cross-Posted from Media Matters written by Brian PowellL & Libby Watson video credit Benjamin Hancock
Kwame Rose, the Baltimore resident who confronted Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera over media’s biased coverage of the city, responded to Rivera’s personal on-air attacks in an interview with Media Matters. Rose reacted to video of his interaction with Rivera going viral, discussed the media landscape in Baltimore, and highlighted racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
National media has swarmed to cover the Baltimore protesters who have taken to the streets to voice concerns about the criminal justice system following the shocking death of Freddie Gray, a young Baltimore resident whose spine was fatally severed while in police custody. Fox’s Rivera was among those pundits reporting on the protests when Rose confronted the Fox personality and expressed frustration that the network failed to spotlight Gray’s death in favor of hyping the unrest that ensued, an exchange that quickly found a large audience online.
Rivera later used his platform on Fox News to bash Rose as a “vandal,” “annoying,” and an “obstructionist” on-air. He accused Rose of displaying “exactly that kind of youthful anarchy that led to the destruction and pain in that community.”
Rose has responded to Geraldo and to the video’s popularity, in an email exchange with Media Matters.
“I want people to know that this issue is bigger than some clip of me, it’s about Black Lives,” said Rose, after emphasizing that being featured in a viral video was never his intention. His frustration lies with establishment media and its depictions of Baltimore in the wake of the unrest.
“I have been out protesting for almost two weeks now without being on one camera,” Rose explained. “After Monday night when the media started pouring in, I sat at work and watched how the media basically forced people to believe that Baltimore was some Third World city. I just wanted to set the record straight and let it be known that this generation refuses to be misinterpreted.”
Rose noted how the media paid attention to the violence in Baltimore, but failed to cover the community’s efforts to unite and clean up the city.
“I sat and watched the media set up their camps in front of boarded up homes … while we were cleaning up the streets as one community. The cameras weren’t rolling, nobody cared. Outside agitators such as Fox News came onto the scene trying to exploit the situation. I don’t care about the people watching Fox News, but I will not let you report lies about the people of this city.”
Rose appeared largely dismissive of Geraldo and his personal attacks. He explained that in the minutes before the interaction captured on video, Geraldo was “walking around taking selfies and telling jokes.”
“When I approached him he continuously kept trying to avoid any intellectual conversation,” said Rose.
“Geraldo is like the majority of America,” Rose continued. “He fears a Black man so much that he [would] rather try to instigate a fight than to engage in a conversation. If you’ve seen the full clip of the video you’d know that his verbal assaults were a waste of breath.”
Rose also addressed the tendency of conservative media to deflect from stories about police brutality in favor of discussions of black-on-black crime, even though they “are incomparable subjects.”
On March 20, 2015, the CEO of Exelon Chris Crane will testify before the DC Public Service Commission about his company’s efforts to buy Pepco Holdings, a company that owns three distribution utilities serving customers in Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia. According to Wikipedia, Exelon Corporation produces, trades and distributes energy in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. If the deal goes through, Exelon will become (if it isn’t already) the largest competitive U.S. power generator and the dominant utility in our region. Little wonder that the DC Office of the People’s Counsel (OPC) considers the proposed merger to be “by far the most significant undertaking in the local electric industry since Pepco’s divestiture of its generation plants in 2000.”
The sustainability contingent of DC’s progressive community has come together to oppose this merger under the umbrella organization Power DC. We should know in the next few weeks whether their efforts will prove effective. I for one am on the edge of my seat. Although, I’ve been receiving emails from progressive list serves for months about this issue, I’m still trying to get my head around the deal itself and what it would take to stop it.
Stop it, you ask? We live in a capitalist country where corporations have the same rights, if not responsibilities, as citizens. As long as they have the money, what’s to stop them? Well, some things that we all agree everybody needs in order to promote the general welfare—schools, healthcare for the poor, roads, public utilities, etc—are regulated by the government. So, if the government and presumably its citizens don’t approve, then no merger. Where do things stand now?
The hoops that must be navigated in order for the merger to take place include approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will weigh Exelon’s potential market power, an antitrust review by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as approval by the public service commissions in the three states where Pepco operates and the District of Columbia. The deal has already been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which seems to suggest that federal regulators consider a lot of market power a good thing, given Exelon’s size that is. The Public Service Commissions of Delaware and New Jersey are also on board. The Maryland Public Service Commission came out against the initial proposal but Exelon has filed an appeal.
The DC Public Service Commission is still considering it but before they can approve the deal, Exelon needs to prove that it will benefit Pepco customers. So, what would we get out of the deal? If you happen to be a Pepco shareholder than the deal is good for you, at least financially. Exelon is offering Pepco $6.8 billion dollars despite the fact that Pepco is only worth $4.3 billion, which sounds hinky to me. So, I turned to the comprehensive reporting on this issue provided by the Grist and Utility Dive. Here’s what I learned that makes this merger more than palatable for Exelon’s shareholders.
Exelon makes the majority of its money via a sizable fleet of nuclear power plants. In 2013, 81 percent of the electricity it produced was nuclear, which accounted for some 60 percent of it’s revenue. Thanks to competitive pressure from cheap natural gas, rising renewables, and stagnant electricity demand, Exelon’s revenues have declined by about 40% in recent years. What’s the fix? Acquire distribution utilities like Pepco with a large customer base (Pepco Holdings, Inc., serves about 2 million customers) and a more stable and predictable revenue stream. If the merger goes through, all of these new customers will help to shore up Exelon and by extension the nuclear power industry. Hey, at least it’s not fossil fuels, right?
What’s most troubling to the sustainable-development contingent of DC’s progressive community is that all the work they’ve put into trying to make DC green may be put at risk by this merger. Thanks to their efforts, the District of Columbia’s official Sustainable D.C. plan calls for 50 percent renewable energy, a 50 percent decline in energy use, and a five-fold expansion of green jobs by 2032. If history is any judge, Exelon will do little to support DC’s efforts to promote sustainable energy and may in fact do what it can to put the kibosh on the whole thing. Evidence of their pro-nuclear, anti-renewable lobbying efforts are pretty numerous, but the Nuclear Information and Resource Service’s report Killing the Competition: The Nuclear Power Agenda to Block Climate Action, Stop Renewable Energy and Subsidize Old Reactors is pretty comprehensive.
Is an unwillingness to support renewable energy necessarily bad? You and I may roll our eyes at this question, but Exelon has only to prove to the District’s Public Service Commission that the merger will benefit Pepco customers, not that it will support renewable energy, especially when doing so will impact negatively on its bottom line. To that end, Exelon has agreed to set up a $100 million customer investment fund which would give Pepco customers benefits such as rate credits, assistance for low income customers and energy efficiency measures. Sounds like a lot but that comes out to $50 per customer and there’s a good chance that would be delivered in the form of a one-time rebate.
But $50 may not be all that customers get out of the deal. Plans for improved service and reliability detailed in Exelon’s proposal, sound great. Certainly, no one denies that Pepco struggles more than other utilities with downed power lines and outages. Not surprisingly, DC’s sustainability activists prefer that we support Pepco in their efforts to improve their service rather than turn over energy distribution to a Chicago-Based firm over which we will have little control.
Expose residents and businesses to rate increases aimed at supporting Exelon’s struggling business model
Undermine the District of Columbia’s renewable energy initiatives
Expose Pepco customers to long-term risks significantly larger than the short-term protections and public benefits claimed by Exelon.
Despite the chorus of opposition, the jury is still out on what the DC Public Service Commission will decide. Activists in opposition are working to get the DC City Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to officially oppose the merger. It’s possible that Pepco Board members, which include such regional heavy hitters as Lawrence Nussdorf, chief operating officer of the construction giant Clark Enterprises; Terence Golden, founder of Bailey Capital and former chairman of Host Hotels and Resorts; and Barbara Krumsiek, president of Calvert Investments are lobbying in the other direction. Who wins will have implications nationwide for the future of public utilities and attempts to push slow-moving energy policies towards a more sustainable future.
In January 2014, a randomly selected group of Potomac Gardens’ and Capitol Hill residents who live in the townhouses and market-rate apartments and condominiums surrounding Potomac Gardens found the following letter in their mailbox or attached to their door.
Hello Neighbor-
As a resident of Potomac Gardens and/or Capitol Hill, your opinions about the community are important. What are the neighborhood’s advantages? What are its shortcomings? What would make Capitol Hill a better place to live? With the support of the Humanities Council of Washington, Grassroots DC, a nonprofit that provides basic computer and media production training to low-income and working-class District residents, is producing a documentary about the changing demographics of Capitol Hill with a focus on Potomac Gardens and the area surrounding the public housing complex.
On (date here) between noon and 6pm, representatives of Grassroots DC, will conduct a survey on your block/in your building. The survey will be used to help us decide what issues to include in the documentary. We want to represent the viewpoint of Capitol Hill and Potomac Gardens residents as honestly as possible. Therefore, it is crucial that we get as many survey participants as we can.
We hope that you or someone else in your household will be available to take the survey on the afternoon of (date here). If you would like to participate but are not available at that time, please contact me, Grassroots DC’s coordinator Liane Scott at (202) 608-1376 or liane@grassrootsdc.org.
Thank you for your time.
Liane Scott
Coordinator, Grassroots DC
1227 G Street SE, Ground Floor
Washington, DC 20003
(202) 608-1376
As the letter indicates, teams of Grassroots DC members went door-to-door for about three months, in preparation for the documentary Potomac Gardens Inside and Out, which is a community-driven documentary project that explores the changing demographics of the Capitol Hill neighborhood surrounding the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex and the divide between those who live within Potomac Gardens and those who live outside of Potomac Gardens. What are the barriers to communication between the two groups and how can they be overcome? Here’s our trailer.
It took us about four months to complete the surveys. We began interviewing folks on video in the spring and summer. By the fall we were transcribing and editing the footage. This week, our website PotomacGardensInsideAndOut.com went live. There’s still much more to be done–more interviews, more editing, more surveys, etc. We’ll post updates about the project here, but for the most complete picture of the project, visit the site.
On Friday evening, the Annual DC Historical Studies Conference hosted “The Legacy of Marion Barry” roundtable discussion. It was a fascinating discussion, but there is so much more to say about his legacy. This is especially true, given that Marion Barry passed away this morning.
University of Maryland, Baltimore Country, history professor G. Derek Musgrove and I organized the roundtable, with the support of the chair of the conference organizing committee Matthew Gilmore. The roundtable brought together authors (and one filmmaker) who had written or are in the process of writing about Marion Barry:
Steven Diner, Professor of History, Rutgers – Newark, and author of “Washington, The Black Majority: Race and Politics in the Nation’s Capital,” in Snowbelt Cities: Metropolitan Politics in the Northeast and Midwest since World War II. 1990.
Dana Flor, filmmaker, “The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.”
Maurice Jackson, Professor of History, Georgetown University. Working on a social, political and cultural history of African-Americans in Washington (1700s until the present).
Harry Jaffe, journalist, Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. 1994.
Jonathan Agronsky, journalist, author of Marion Barry: The Politics of Race.
G. Derek Musgrove, Moderator and Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The speakers offered many amusing stories. At the same time, the history professors Maurice Jackson and Steven Diner worked hard to pull the discussion away from its persistent focus on the personal life of Barry and his character flaws. Jackson stated that he did not consider Barry the savior of African Americans, nor did he consider him a pariah. Barry was part of much broader social and political movements that shaped the city we have today. Barry did not end poverty in DC, but, Diner emphasized, others mayors across the country have not eradicated poverty either. Like all cities in the US, DC suffered from the very American and very global urban crisis of the 1970s through 1990s. Jackson and Diner sought to capture the world created in DC during the 1970s in which Barry was one of many important actors.
Jackson provided a progressive analysis of Barry that recognizes the complicated class nature of Barry’s legacy:
While white residents may condemn Barry, Barry has been a long-time ally of white gentrification. He worked to gentrify downtown DC, supported the revitalization movement, voted against rent control, and provided benefits to both white and black elites. Jackson said that both white and black elites were responsible for Barry remaining in office and for the urban crisis. [Jackson later gave this further clarification: both black and white elites financially did well during the Barry years but that the Reagan years and federal budget cuts played a major role in the urban crisis of the 1990s; I would say that the elites could also be seen as having a role in the urban crisis.]
At the very same time, Barry has been one of the only leading politicians that speaks for the poor in DC, not in a condescending way or from the viewpoint of charities, but as an equal. Barry represents hope for, and provided needed jobs and services to, low-income residents in particular. In a previous post, I discussed a Washington Post article about long-time supporters of Barry, including a Richard Butler:
“But even if Skyland gets a Walmart, Richard Butler won’t have the mayor he wants most. Butler, 50, learned to cook while he was locked up. He’s now doing well as a line cook in one of the city’s new restaurants. Have any of the recent mayors made his life better? ‘All I want is Marion Barry,’ said Butler, who is African American and a permanent resident of Barrytown. ‘He’s the only one who ever looked out for the people, always said the right things to us.'”
Agronsky similarly noted that many low-income residents see Barry as the “Black Rocky,” “someone who keeps on fighting until the end.”
Flor observed that “who Marion Barry is is who you are.” For example, if you or a family member gained a job through Barry’s summer youth jobs program or a job in the DC government, then you would likely feel much gratitude toward Barry. Jaffe noted that Barry opened the city government to African American employees and should be given credit for that. An audience member, who had worked for Barry in the late 1980s and early 1990s, discussed how people sought to work for Barry because he was a “visionary” with “a genuine spirit of public service.” After years of Congress’ mismanagement of the city, Barry got the city’s budget in order and began building a new kind of city, “a modern city.” Jaffe recognized Barry as “the best politician in DC” with a deep understanding of the political structure with which he had to contend to build this new city. In his autobiography, Barry writes:
We spent a lot of time fighting against folks who were not affected by poverty, unemployment, homelessness, inequality or the citywide deficiencies in education. As the mayor and the leader of the local government, I saw that we could use budgets and more city revenue and resources to try and create more opportunities for those who did not have opportunities, while still managing a major city to do well. That was my job as the mayor, not to be satisfied with the status quo, but to build a much better Washington for everyone. (p. 158)
And, yes, there is much more to say about his legacy.
To promote social change through the use of art and media.
The above audio is an interview of New Lens, recorded for This Light Sounds for Social Change, a Washington, D.C. based radio series featuring activist artists from across the globe.
New Lens is a youth driven social justice organization working to assist youth in making art and media about often-underrepresented perspectives. The work is used to address systemic problems, facilitate dialogue, shift perspectives and stimulate action. New Lens believes that a youth perspective can inspire change. U should love us because… WE SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY
This interview features Executive Director Rebecca Yenawine and youth leader Chelsea. For more information go to http://www.newlens.info/
Comments are closed 
