I met Michael “Big Mike” Ballard four years ago when Grassroots DC moved into the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. He made regular use of our Community Resource Center creating flyers for the dance classes he taught and using the computers and the Internet access working for his church and the nonprofit he was involved with Sistahs with Purpose. He taught at Knox Hill, Turkey Thicket Recreation Center and Potomac Gardens. He passed on October 10. He is survived by his mother Linda, sister Theresa and dozens and dozens of students and friends. The memorial service is scheduled for Saturday October, 28th at Hunt Funeral Home, 908 Kennedy Street NW 20011 at 12 noon. Michael Ballard was a kind and compassionate person who will be missed. What follows is an article I wrote about him in 2015.
Kids can be mean. Few know this better than 36-year-old DC native and Potomac Gardens resident Michael Ballard. Michael Ballard was heavy all of his life. The kids called him Fat Mike. His mother suffered from weight problems also so she understood what it was like to be teased and humiliated at school. It was only natural that they would become extremely close.
Michael continued to put on weight throughout school. By the time he graduated high school he weighed 300 pounds. Many people assume that anyone that weighs that much can’t do anything. Michael proved them wrong by going to work right out of high school. From 2000 to 2005 he worked for Goodwill Industries in housekeeping, a job he enjoyed. In 2005 Goodwill lost their contract with the Armed Forces Retirement Home and Michael went to work for Melwood, a nonprofit that creates jobs and opportunities for people with disabilities, in their housekeeping department.
At Melwood, Michael faced discrimination. His co-workers claimed that he had body odor; that he took up too much space; that he moved too slowly and was unable to complete his tasks because he couldn’t fit into the bathroom. It was high school all over again. Within just a few months Michael had left Melwood and returned to Goodwill Industries. But the stress at Melwood had caused Michael to put on more weight. He had a different project manager at Goodwill, one who didn’t know him well and he faced discrimination at Goodwill as well.
He was accused of sitting on and breaking Goodwill’s second-hand chairs. To address the problem, the Government Service Administration brought a bench to his job site exclusively for Michael to use. Unfortunately, his project manager, unwilling to find ways to accommodate an employee of Michael’s size, threw the bench into the trash.
Besides the stress of the hostile work environment, Michael developed an upper respiratory infection from working in Goodwill’s Garage. Despite all this, Michael continued to work at Goodwill from 2006 until 2013, when he was let go.
After losing his job, Michael’s health deteriorated. Due to his extreme weight, Michael had for years suffered from lymphedma— a condition that causes swelling in the arms or legs as a result of a blockage in the lymphatic system that prevents lymph fluid from draining well—on the bottom of both his legs. Michael also developed cellulites—a noncontagious bacterial skin infection—which spread from the bottom of both of his legs to his pelvis. This condition landed him in Washington Hospital for a ten-day stretch in March of 2013. From there he was transferred to Saint Thomas Moore Rehabilitation Center where he was bed bound for two months.
Two months of having to eat in the bed, having the bed made while lying in it, having his body turned and cleaned in the bed was more humiliating than years of being teased. Michael’s weight had made him a target for mockery but now it was risking his life. Michael knew that the only way to escape the derision and to save his life was to control his weight.
In May 2013, he went from being bed bound to being wheel chair ridden. Once in the chair, he was able to begin participating in physical therapy. Soon he was able to move around with a rollator. In December of 2013, Michael was well enough to move back home to Potomac Gardens but not without the use of two portable oxygen tanks.
By this time, his mother was in trouble. Being overweight herself, she had a hernia that had grown to the size of a soccer ball. In 2014, Michael’s mother had surgery at Georgetown Hospital. Terrified that he might lose his best friend, Michael’s stress levels soared along with his eating. While his mother was recovering, Michael’s weight ballooned. At 700 pounds, hospitalization was inevitable.
This time, Michael was offered the option of a sleeve gastrectomy, a procedure that removes all but twenty-five percent of the stomach and greatly limits the patient’s food intake. The operation was performed by Dr. Paul Lin at George Washington University Hospital in March of 2015. Seven months later, Michael had lost 301 pounds.
How did he do it? In addition to the gastrectomy, Michael started exercising with regularity and intensity. For three hours, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he does water aerobics. His real passion is line dancing, which he does from 6:00 – 8:30 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center. In fact, Michael has been line dancing for five years, but this December 1st will be his one-year anniversary line dancing at Turkey Thicket with a group that calls themselves The Line Dance Addicts. Michael no longer needs to use the portable oxygen to get around, although he still uses it at home. He is well on his way to full recovery from a lifetime of weight-related issues.
He is grateful for his second chance and is working to spread what he’s learned to the community around him. He has begun teaching line dancing to Potomac Gardens’ and Hopkins Apartments’ residents. Classes cost only $2 and it’s already proven popular with those of all ages and all sizes. Line Dancing with Big Mike teaches you more than the Nae Nae and the electric slide; line dancing with Big Mike teaches you that overcoming even extremely large obstacles is possible and easier when your community has your back.
The community that has Michael’s back as he continues to lose weight includes but is not limited to: Cheryl Thompson Walker, Kembal Bonds, Russell, Jordan, Miss Rita and Rita from Turkey Thicket, as well as Miss Paula Allen, Miss Reshida Young and the entire Line Dance Addicts family; Dee, Reggie, Adrienne Jenkins and Dr. Cristina Schreiber from George Washington University Hospital; Sisters With A Purpose and the entire Master’s Child Church Family under the leadership of Bishop Melvin Robinson junior and his wife and church co-founder Erma Robinson-Fitzgerald; and last but not least the Lord, his mom and grandparents.
This past summer, much media attention was given to what has been called a “surge” of violent crime in DC. Resident reactions to the violent crime have been particularly severe on Capitol Hill, a neighborhood straddling the Northeast and Southeast quadrants of the city. Increasingly alarmed by feelings of insecurity and danger, Capitol Hill residents took to the ‘New Hill East (a name given to the area by developers to appeal to potential real estate buyers) listserv to discuss best practices for addressing public safety as well as the needs for Capitol Hill’s entire community. However, before we are able to adequately address complex social issues we must, as best as we can, take into account the various historical, social, psychological, and economic factors influencing them. Otherwise, potential insights and solutions will go unobserved and circumstances contributing to the current predicament may even be reproduced. Sadly, most Capitol Hill residents are looking a swift and cursory cure for their anxieties.
One of the most outspoken Hill residents on the listserv, Richard Lukas, who claims to have lived on the Hill for fifteen years, dubbed the spike in crime a ‘reign of terror’ in an email sent out to the listserv on Oct. 15th, claiming that “a very active segment of marauding at-risk youths who find satisfaction from terrorizing people on a daily basis” are responsible for the inflated crime rate.
Continuing to speak of the crime spike as a ‘reign of terror’, in an article Lukas wrote for HillNow, Lukas identifies public housing complexes, like Potomac Gardens, as “hotspots” of criminal activity—even suggesting “sentinel stations” be placed near, or within, public housing complexes. The harsh, frenzied nature of Lukas’ sentiments are not to be taken lightly—especially while presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to receive support from US citizens despite his blatant racism and xenophobia. What’s concerning is how national and local policies will be influenced by sentiments voiced by people like Trump and Lukas.
However, what worries me most is Lukas’ lopsided understanding of how gentrification, poverty, and crime work in tandem. On his HillNow post, and in the New Hill East listserv, Lukas writes:
I do think that things will get better due to the slow churn of progressive policy reforms being made in our education system and social services, but also due to the increased density through city development. (Even though people like me could never afford that $500,000 one-bedroom condo!)
Here, Lukas doesn’t seem to comprehend that increased city development, also known as gentrification, may be contributing to the recent spike in crime and that, eventually, “people like [him]” may not eventually be able to afford living in the city itself. Presently, the rift between the city’s wealthy and the city’s poor is already staggering. As gentrification advances, and costs of living subsequently increase, this rift will widen—creating conditions in which low-income people will find living in the city even more financially taxing.
As the cost of living increases, and economic resources continue to be distributed inequitably, understanding the relationship between crime and poverty is vital to develop an intelligent and compassionate perspective on the events that took place during the summer. Rather than pinning people who are poor as inherently violent and/or willing to engage in criminal behavior, it is important to understand that poverty often causes people to engage in criminal and/or violent behavior to make ends meet.
Poverty’s effects on the psyche often goes ignored as well, an experience brilliantly encapsulated by the writer James Baldwin when he said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”. As stated by the researchers at Poverties.org, “It’s only when people witness the starkest wealth differences that they can start complaining about injustice.”. In an area that has recently undergone tremendous development, such as DC, the city’s disenfranchised residents have been extremely vocal about their frustrations. And, as the DC’s gentrification becomes increasingly visible, the residents’ frustrations will increase as well. Contributing to the inherent tensions across lines of class inflamed by gentrification, in DC, race, and histories of white supremacy in the United States, add another layer of complexity to the issue. For Black people in the United States, gentrification must be situated within a history of displacement by white people, beginning with the Middle Passage. For example, until the 1950’s, there existed a multitude of Black-owned homes and businesses in Southwest DC. However, these residents were forced to relocate to other parts of the city by the order of the DC government.
Throughout history it has not been uncommon for Black people to be murdered, tricked, or terrorized off of land they’ve settled on. Therefore, gentrification, and the resultant increased costs of living which prices people out of gentrifying areas, is a point of contention for Black people across the country. In regards to DC specifically, Black people’s identification with the city itself must also be considered when attempting to understand why DC’s Black residents react to gentrification with intense scorn. After the rebellions of 1968, sparked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., DC’s middle-class, white and Black, fled the city, leaving the city to a predominantly Black low-income population. While systemic racism and poverty created hardships in the lives of post-rebellion DC residents, cultural forms, such as go-go, were produced as well—making spaces for community to be built based on shared culture, a cultural identity heavily attached to location of birth. Therefore, a unique form of resentment simmers in the hearts of DC’s long-time Black residents as ‘Chocolate City’ becomes less and less ‘chocolate’.
Sadly, those remaining long-time residents are in danger of recent DC transplants mistaking them for criminals—which was addressed by New Hill East listserv participant Linda who sent,
A post to the man walking a white hound on C St SE between 17th and 18th between 6:30 and 6:45 PM tonight: I was only asking you which side of the sidewalk your dog preferred to pass on – not demanding your money/phone/wallet… We can’t be a community if you fear/think that every person of color who passes you on the sidewalk is about to mug you. I cannot imagine what this man was thinking in how he treated me, but his treatment of me made me feel unwelcome and unsafe in my own fricking neighborhood… As long as you approach this crime issue with an “us” against “them” mentality – with the “them” being every Black person on foot, on bike, or in car, you’ll never feel safe and you’ll never truly be a neighborhood.
As a result of stereotypes about Black people proliferated by the media, many white people live under the impression that Black people are dangerous—prone to committing random acts of crime and violence. This fear of Black people has been shown to have severe, even lethal, consequences for Black people who are perceived as threats. Also, a heightened police presence has also been linked to gentrification and, due to years of brutalization by police forces, Black residents in gentrifying neighborhoods are distrustful of more recent, often white, residents who are prone to calling the police. The call for more police appears more than once in the New Hill East listserv, even by those who aren’t as hysterical as Lukas, and others who react in a similar fashion. Jennifer, who believes the response to the crime wave requires a “two-pronged approach” and is willing to address systemic inequality also wrote, “…a short term police presence again, like we had a month or so back, seems in order given the ridiculous spike this week.” Ultimately, both Lukas and Linda are both tragically confused about how to address crime in DC. In Lukas’ case, the gentrification he claims will improve quality of life in the city may end up displacing him along with the “marauding at-risk youth” he is so concerned about. And, in regard to Jennifer, calling the police into the community she’s attempting to support will only further the divisions between herself and her neighbors. To address crime in a just, equitable fashion, one must push for policies that bring job creation, living wages, high-quality education, and affordable housing into the city. Only when the masses have access to a high quality of life will criminal activity become an irregularity.
Kids can be mean. Few know this better than 36-year-old DC native and Potomac Gardens resident Michael Ballard. Michael Ballard was heavy all of his life. The kids called him Fat Mike. His mother suffered from weight problems also so she understood what it was like to be teased and humiliated at school. It was only natural that they would become extremely close.
Michael continued to put on weight throughout school. By the time he graduated high school he weighed 300 pounds. Many people assume that anyone that weighs that much can’t do anything. Michael proved them wrong by going to work right out of high school. From 2000 to 2005 he worked for Goodwill Industries in housekeeping, a job he enjoyed. In 2005 Goodwill lost their contract with the Armed Forces Retirement Home and Michael went to work for Melwood, a nonprofit that creates jobs and opportunities for people with disabilities, in their housekeeping department.
At Melwood, Michael faced discrimination. His co-workers claimed that he had body odor; that he took up too much space; that he moved too slowly and was unable to complete his tasks because he couldn’t fit into the bathroom. It was high school all over again. Within just a few months Michael had left Melwood and returned to Goodwill Industries. But the stress at Melwood had caused Michael to put on more weight. He now weighed ?? pounds. He had a different project manager at Goodwill, one who didn’t know him well and he faced discrimination at Goodwill as well.
He was accused of sitting on and breaking Goodwill’s second-hand chairs. To address the problem, the Government Service Administration brought a bench to his job site exclusively for Michael to use. Unfortunately, his project manager, unwilling to find ways to accommodate an employee of Michael’s size, threw the bench into the trash.
Besides the stress of the hostile work environment, Michael developed an upper respiratory infection from working in Goodwill’s Garage. Despite all this, Michael continued to work at Goodwill from 2006 until 2013, when he was let go.
After losing his job, Michael’s health deteriorated. Due to his extreme weight, Michael had for years suffered from lymphedma— a condition that causes swelling in the arms or legs as a result of a blockage in the lymphatic system that prevents lymph fluid from draining well—on the bottom of both his legs. Michael also developed cellulites—a noncontagious bacterial skin infection—which spread from the bottom of both of his legs to his pelvis. This condition landed him in Washington Hospital for a ten-day stretch in March of 2013. From there he was transferred to Saint Thomas Moore Rehabilitation Center where he was bed bound for two months.
Two months of having to eat in the bed, having the bed made while lying in it, having his body turned and cleaned in the bed was more humiliating than years of being teased. Michael’s weight had made him a target for mockery but now it was risking his life. Michael knew that the only way to escape the derision and to save his life was to control his weight.
In May 2013, he went from being bed bound to being wheel chair ridden. Once in the chair, he was able to begin participating in physical therapy. Soon he was able to move around with a rollator. In December of 2013, Michael was well enough to move back home to Potomac Gardens but not without the use of two portable oxygen tanks.
By this time, his mother was in trouble. Being overweight herself, she had a hernia that had grown to the size of a soccer ball. In 2014, Michael’s mother had surgery at Georgetown Hospital. Terrified that he might lose his best friend, Michael’s stress levels soared along with his eating. While his mother was recovering, Michael’s weight ballooned. At 700 pounds, hospitalization was inevitable.
This time, Michael was offered the option of a sleeve gastrectomy, a procedure that removes all but twenty-five percent of the stomach and greatly limits the patient’s food intake. The operation was performed by Dr. Paul Lin at George Washington University Hospital in March of 2015. Seven months later, Michael had lost 301 pounds.
How did he do it? In addition to the gastrectomy, Michael started exercising with regularity and intensity. For three hours, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he does water aerobics. His real passion is line dancing, which he does from 6:00 – 8:30 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center. In fact, Michael has been line dancing for five years, but this December 1st will be his one-year anniversary line dancing at Turkey Thicket with a group that calls themselves The Line Dance Addicts. Michael no longer needs to use the portable oxygen to get around, although he still uses it at home. He is well on his way to full recovery from a lifetime of weight-related issues.
He is grateful for his second chance and is working to spread what he’s learned to the community around him. He has begun teaching line dancing to Potomac Gardens’ and Hopkins Apartments’ residents. Classes cost only $2 and it’s already proven popular with those of all ages and all sizes. Line Dancing with Big Mike teaches you more than the Nae Nae and the electric slide; line dancing with Big Mike teaches you that overcoming even extremely large obstacles is possible and easier when your community has your back.
The community that has Michael’s back as he continues to lose weight includes but is not limited to: Cheryl Thompson Walker, Kembal Bonds, Russell, Jordan, Miss Rita and Rita from Turkey Thicket, as well as Miss Paula Allen, Miss Reshida Young and the entire Line Dance Addicts family; Dee, Reggie, Adrienne Jenkins and Dr. Cristina Schreiber from George Washington University Hospital; Sisters With A Purpose and the entire Master’s Child Church Family under the leadership of Bishop Melvin Robinson junior and his wife and church co-founder Erma Robinson-Fitzgerald; and last but not least the Lord, his mom and grandparents.
Meet Charles Wright. He’s a tenant at 1229 G Street SE, which is home to about 140 seniors and persons with disabilities inside the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. Charles is a senior with a seizure disorder. He also has HIV. He was diagnosed in 1999 or somewhere there abouts. A number of people living at 1229 G Street SE are HIV positive or living with AIDS, but not many are willing to talk about it. As a volunteer at Whitman Walker Charles is not shy about the disease, his condition or how he got there.
Charles Wright was born and raised in the District of Columbia. He and his family lived on Euclid Street Northwest in Petworth, which even then was a relatively fashionable. He fully admits that he was very spoiled. He bought his clothes at Woodies and Landburgh’s. His father bought him a Triumph Spitfire. Plenty of girls were interested in Charles but there was only one girl for him. Yes indeed, Charles Wright was a big man at Roosevelt Senior High School. Like the other popular boys, he played basketball in a park on Hamilton Street and smoked reefer with his best friend Ronald and the other guys playing pick up ball on the court. Eventually, the reefer led to harder drugs, heroine, cocaine and eventually crack.
It’s hard to say when Charles contracted HIV. Despite his drug use, he functioned reasonably well. After high school, he went to Maryland Eastern Shore for accounting, but he left after two years. It was enough to land him a job at the United Planning Organization and later a better job as a tax accountant at the Department of Finance and Revenue. But the money he was making, didn’t allow him to live the spoiled life to which he had become accustomed. He needed money, not just for the drugs but to dress well and look good when he went to the clubs. So Charles started forging checks and credit cards.
His drug use lost him his high school sweet heart, but looking good at the clubs got him a new girl. “We met at Tiffany’s,” Charles remembers fondly. “She had pretty feet. In fact, that was my pick up line, ‘you have cute toes.'” They danced the Hustle and because it was pay day, Charles bought everyone at the table a drink. The rest is history. They fell in love, moved into an apartment together in Northeast DC and had a son.
All was going smoothly until he got caught for his forgery and found out that he was positive for HIV. Fortunately, he hadn’t infected his partner and so his son was spared as well. He spent eight years in a low-security prison. When he got out, he was still using drugs but this time without the steady accounting job or the illegal income. Charles and his son’s mother continued to get along well, but he didn’t move back in with her. She didn’t ask for child support and encouraged him to be a part of their son’s life. He admits that he might have been more present for his son, if he hadn’t been chasing the drugs. Somewhere during this time, Charles’ high school friend Ronald died of an overdose.
Fortunately, for Charles he found Whitman Walker and his life began to turn around. Having finally decided to quit using drugs, he started going to their Narcotic Anonymous meetings. Eventually, he was allowed in their drug rehabilitation program, which unlike the vast majority of in-patient treatment programs, was entirely free. That was three years ago. Charles stayed off drugs for two of those years but eventually, overcome by loneliness, he started using again. “I was frustrated and mad,” he says, “so I started using weed and crack again. The loneliness is the hardest part about drug use. You get in your apartment and you just get lonely. And then you go and do what happens.”
Charles still struggles to keep from using but he is trying to quit again. He has a new girl friend. She does not like his drug use and Charles wants her to be proud of him. So, he’s started going to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings at Whitman Walker again. “In the beginning, they know you won’t be clean,” he says, “but by taking the meetings, they expect you to get strong enough to get clean.” Charles hopes to go through Whitman Walker’s drug treatment program again when they agree he’s ready. In the meantime, Charles volunteers on the Whitman Walker outreach truck, passing out condoms and teaching the public how to avoid infection. He advises Lifestyle condoms over Trojans and for heterosexuals, female condoms over male condoms.
Charles is open about his status because he wants to make a difference. Whitman Walker is known for working with Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender individuals, but they welcomed Charles who fits into none of those categories. Potomac Gardens is proud to count Charles Wright as a member of the community. We are also grateful to Whitman Walker for opening its doors to the public housing community, whose members are too often stigmatized and rarely given the second and sometimes third chance that everyone deserves.
Charles was interviewed for the Whitman Walker promotional video above. In it, he is given the last line. You’ll have to watch it all the way to the end to find out what that line is.
I met Michael “Big Mike” Ballard four years ago when Grassroots DC moved into the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. He made regular use of our Community Resource Center creating flyers for the dance classes he taught and using the computers and the Internet access working for his church and the nonprofit he was involved with Sistahs with Purpose. He taught at Knox Hill, Turkey Thicket Recreation Center and Potomac Gardens. He passed on October 10. He is survived by his mother Linda, sister Theresa and dozens and dozens of students and friends. The memorial service is scheduled for Saturday October, 28th at Hunt Funeral Home, 908 Kennedy Street NW 20011 at 12 noon. Michael Ballard was a kind and compassionate person who will be missed. What follows is an article I wrote about him in 2015.
At Melwood, Michael faced discrimination. His co-workers claimed that he had body odor; that he took up too much space; that he moved too slowly and was unable to complete his tasks because he couldn’t fit into the bathroom. It was high school all over again. Within just a few months Michael had left Melwood and returned to Goodwill Industries. But the stress at Melwood had caused Michael to put on more weight. He had a different project manager at Goodwill, one who didn’t know him well and he faced discrimination at Goodwill as well.
