In the weeks following the mass shooting in Parkland, FL, communities called on their legislators and school administrators to effectively address gun violence. In addition to conversations about gun violence, the Parkland shooting sparked dialogue about mental health, safety, police in schools, and the alarming move to arm school faculty. To the detriment of Black and Brown students, the national conversation fails to acknowledge that an increase in police and guns in our schools harshly impacts young people of color. Many youth also wondered where was this support when they were protesting for their lives against police gun violence and for solutions to intra-community violence. While thousands will flock to the District for the March for Our Lives, Black Lives Matter DC wants to uplift the concerns of DC youth. So lets come together and discuss the real solutions for DC.
Family and Friends of Incarcerated People Present
The 10th Annual Public Safety Community Event
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Noon – 7:00 PM Anacostia Park, 1900 Anacostia Drive, SE East of the Sousa (Pennsylvania Ave) Bridge, near the roller skating rink
This will be a fun-filled day for the children of those incarcerated and those that may be at risk.
Event activities are designed to:
• Create harmony among our children
o Rebuild our communities
• Pass on valuable information
o Express ideas on how to help at-risk-youth
• Share a wonderful unselfish act of love
o For the safety of our community
On an early morning in the third week of June we packed a mixer, a pair of speakers, a microphone, and five mini-synthesizers into our car. We were on 270 heading west as the sun came up. By late afternoon we’d reached Detroit. We went there to participate in the Allied Media Conference and to present Beat Club, a digital music workshop that travels to neighborhood libraries and community centers in the DC area.
On Friday we set up our gear in a classroom in the Education building of Wayne State University. People began coming through the door. They headed for the seats but I invited them to stand around the table. As I demonstrated how to play the instruments, more people came in and joined the group. Everyone took a turn playing. Pretty soon a beat was going, bass lines were squealching, chords and notes began to come together. Grouped around their instruments, people laughed and encouraged each other. Freestyle raps began flying. Like any good party, it got too loud and after about half an hour we began receiving complaints about the noise from neighboring classrooms.
The next morning the streets around the campus were filled with marchers marking the 5oth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1963 march in Detroit. We set up at the campus conference center in a room designated as a play area for kids. Over several hours all sorts of people- kids, teens, adults – came by to play and ask questions. Parents snapped pictures of their kids making music. Eventually a nice man who was leading a session next door came over to ask me to turn the volume down.
I mixed down the recording from our Friday session and brought it to the temporary radio station set up for the conference so it could be broadcast. They were interviewing Quese IMC (who later hosted a great session). We left the next day, grateful to have met so many good people, both at the conference and in the city of Detroit.
Watch a vine of Beat Club at AMC2013 or listen to the recording
Washington, DC – On July 22, 2013 Mayor Vincent Gray, along with a handful of aides and scores of reporters, paid a visit to Petworth with the intention of cracking down on synthetic marijuana and drug paraphernalia being sold at small businesses in the neighborhood. “That’s illegal, man. Can’t do that. That’s drug paraphernalia,” warned the Mayor. This isn’t the first time that Mayor Gray has posed as a law enforcement official in order to bust local shops, in his effort with the group Advocates for Drug-free Youth.
The visit took an unexpected turn, however, when Gray encountered an Ethiopian clerk who had trouble understanding English. “You don’t understand? How do you sell anything if you don’t understand? If somebody asks you for something, do you know what they’re asking you for?” Mayor Gray chided. At one point, visibly frustrated by the language barrier, the Mayor told the clerk “I don’t even, I really don’t know how you are working here if you can’t communicate with the people who come in here.” Despite criticism from NBC4 reporter Mark Segrave, the Mayor denied that his remarks could be considered insensitive and said that the language barrier was “irrelevant.”
According to federal and local laws, DC government must provide interpretation and translation when interacting with limited- and non-English proficient individuals. By asking for interpretation and having his request denied, the clerk was deprived of his right to “equal and meaningful” access protected by Title XI of the Civil Rights Act and the DC Language Access Act of 2004.
Over 85,000 DC residents speak a language other than English at home, according to the 2010 Census. The most common languages include Spanish, Amharic, French, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. With these facts in mind and the law on his side, it is difficult to watch the Mayor tell the young clerk that his actions are illegal — not to mention while Mr. Gray himself is under federal investigation for corruption charges.
It isn’t the first time a PR move like this has gone wrong for the Mayor. Just this time last year, he brought a small army of city officials with him to Martin Luther King Boulevard in SE to demand that shop-owners stop carrying rolling papers and selling loose cigarettes. In many of the stores, Mr. Gray and the Director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) Nicholas Majett also encountered language barriers. Then too, the City Paper’s Alan Suderman picked up on the Mayor’s disregard of language access laws:
It did not seem like many of the foreign-born clerks would be able to read the letters without some assistance, as they often appeared to have no idea what the mayor was saying. Majett said it’s a common ploy for immigrant clerks to claim poor English skills whenever dealing with the DCRA. “We always get that,” he said. And Gray said they were still getting the message. “They don’t speak English well, but they understand this is an enforcement visit,” he said.
Following the Suderman piece, the DC-based organization Many Languages, One Voice revisited the stores to get reactions from the owners, most of whom were Korean and spoke little English. MLOV also responded to the most recent incident in Petworth in a video made by English language learner youth in their student organizing program, S.M.A.R.T. (Student Multiethnic Action Research Team):
Lidya Abune, a former S.M.A.R.T. member was surprised by the Mayor’s actions, saying:
“The fact that he’s making fun of him, I don’t expect that from the Mayor. I really respect Vincent Gray, but this is really immature. And definitely in DC, we have the Language Access Act and we have to respect it. DC is very diverse. We have a large immigrant community and you will be respected if you respect someone’s language, culture…it’s really critical. It is someone’s identity…You have to show respect for the people that you’re serving.”
Laws are on the books for a reason. As progressive as the DC Language Access Act is, it is born partly out of the violence and bloodshed of the 1991 Mount Pleasant riots. Incited when police openly shot and killed a handcuffed Latino man, the riots catalyzed big changes in the way government worked with non-English speakers, and immigrants more generally:
Ultimately, government and community leaders realized that language barriers, discrimination, and unequal access to services in the Latino community had created the conditions for the riots. But by denying the clerk’s right to an interpreter, the Mayor openly showed his ignorance of the law and its history or worse, that he doesn’t care about DC’s immigrant community.
In addition to getting trained on his responsibilities under the law, the Mayor ought to get a lesson in neighborhood demographics of DC — a step that might have prevented his surprise when encountering a store clerk who doesn’t speak English fluently. While Petworth is a historically African-American neighborhood, there is no denying the abundance of immigrant-owned businesses along its busiest avenue and the diversity of its residents:
Year
Total ANC-4C Population
% Children
% Black
% White
% Hispanic
% Asian/P.I.
Average Family Income
1990
19,875
19%
88%
6%
6%
1%
$77,679
2000
19,519
23%
72%
6%
20%
1%
$85,209
2005
19,540
17%
63%
14%
20%
1%
$92,009
2010
20,330
19%
57%
15%
26%
2%
n/a
With increasing demographic shifts and rampant gentrification in the District, I constantly see a faulty characterization of DC along Black/White racial lines. This mentality completely erases the history of so many immigrants who have come to call the District home. My family immigrated to DC from Ecuador in the early 1960s. As a 3rd-generation DC resident, I take issue with the mindset that immigrants are not part of this beautiful city. We live here, work here, go to school here, and most importantly, pay taxes here.
Mayor Gray needs to understand, our language is our right.
Youth from Ivy City from left to right, Stephanie Chloe, Dedrica (Drica) Clyburne, James Batts, Moniya Walker and Santasia (Tay) Scarborough
This summer, Empower DC hired several youth from Ivy City to help organize their community. What follows are the impressions of a few of the participants and a lovely video of Ivy City’s Annual reunion produced by two of the youth, Stephan Scarborough and Amari McCray.
Dedrica: I loved being the assistant community organizer for Ivy City because I used my voice for a better purpose. I feel Empower DC is doing an awesome job fighting for Alexander Crummell School. I got the opportunity to silently protest Mayor Gray’s plan to park 65 Bolt buses on the grounds of the historic Alexander Crummell School. And I feel I was good at getting people involved and wanting to stand up for the community they call home. I am definitely going to continue volunteering for Empower DC to keep the fight going in the community.
Moniya: One thing that I learned with empower DC is that you can always help with stuff. And that it was good to visit and learn new things. Empower DC changed me. I learned that you can always feel comfortable going and talking to an adult and how to have confidence. What I did not like was talking to people and getting people to come to meetings because at times they were rude. But even though people were rude there was a possibility they would attend the meeting. When I first started I was tired of walking around but I eventually got used to it. And I felt so happy when I would attend meetings and people I made contact with attended.
Stephon “Steph” Scarborough at 3.
Steph: Our amazing organization, Empower DC, has taught me a lot and it was a wonderful experience. Furthermore it was pretty excellent that the program was constructive, positive and productive. Our campaign that we are pursing has a good sense of justice and a large amount of significance. I am looking forward to starting an Empower DC band. The band will aim to reach out to people and tell them about our Ivy City community and all the hardships that we endure. Empower DC has been great to me and I will love to stay for future initiatives.
Amari McCray
Amari: My name is Amari. My summer with Empower DC was good while interning with the Grassroots Media Project. The experience was really good for me because I normally would be out with friends stealing bikes. While working with empower DC I learned how to operate the video camera and learned how to film different progressive events.
