DC Council Shocks SW Residents in Webinar

Southwest Voice recently arranged two conference calls between Southwest African American leaders and DC Councilors – Chairman Phil Mendelson and at-large Councilmember Robert White. The impetus for the meetings pertained to current efforts to revise the city's Comprehensive Plan – the single most important document for neighborhood planning and development. While the Southwest community appreciated members for their time to discuss the issue of growing racial inequity in Southwest, African Americans were left in a state of shock – vacillating between elation, disappointment, and even anger. Both councilors were mostly sympathetic, as with Mr. Mendelson's declaration of “environmental racism” in Buzzard Point, but offered few concrete policy solutions to attenuate the crisis in Southwest. Mr. White's policy proposal for the District to buy existing buildings to increase affordable housing was an attractive, cost-efficient option. At other times, the gravity of the situation in Southwest did not resonate: increasing poverty, decade-long decline of the Black population, fair housing violations, and the flourishing of applied racism. Most troubling, council members' responses were downright tone-deaf to the plight of African Americans in one of the District's most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Southwest Voice editor-in-chief Christopher Williams began each meeting with a brief summary of SW data.

SW Meetings: Councilmember Robert White | Chairman Phil Mendelson

Not the Robert White We Thought We Knew
Mr. White (left) expressed that he is concerned about housing for “all incomes” in response to the first question about the District including one-person households making $70,000 as “affordable housing.” That was met with a strong rebuttal by Commissioner Rhonda Hamilton who countered that households making upper incomes had many more housing choices to remain in the city than low-income residents – an unassailable fact. Mr. White's suggestion that All Incomes Matter (our words, not his) was anathema to the room full of African Americans, the equivalent of saying “All Lives Matter”. Mr. White dug in, using a hypothetical recent college graduate making $70,000 as illustration of the increasing affordability crisis. The problem with Mr. White's example is that this graduate could afford $2,000 in housing costs, which is on par with the average rent in DC and far beyond Black median annual income of $45,000. In the next question, Mr. White did not waver, focusing on “how to force the development of specifically middle income housing” After a moment, he belatedly added “…and low-income housing.”

On the issue whether the Comprehensive Plan should assign equal affordable housing priority to a one-person household making $70,000 and a family making $50,000, Mr. White is very wrong and lives in an alternate reality from the lived experiences of African Americans and modest income households generally. This was not the Robert White we thought we knew. “The way that I feel that you're explaining the situation is as if we're invisible,” said Mrs. Brown who was exhausted by Mr. White's clumsy and poor explanations. Though he is quick to tout being a DC native and discuss his own family being priced out of the city, Mr. White struggles to show he possesses a fund of knowledge about racial and class differences in his hometown. He later backtracked on his remarks in response to Mrs. Brown. Mr. White is himself African American.

Neither Mr. Mendelson nor Mr. White acknowledged that the Office of Planning (OP) – an office under the mayor that is closely aligned with DC's development cabal – promulgated falsehoods and distortions about basic laws of economics in its draft of the Comprehensive Plan. OP fundamentally misrepresented the forces shaping the housing market. Namely, it is the failure of the District's misguided largess in the form of public subsidies, tax abatement, and public land giveaways, tepid inclusionary zoning, and underwhelming negotiation for affordable housing production that have contributed to the current affordability and displacement crisis, especially in Southwest.

Instead, the Housing Authority is telling community members that it is considering an option of moving Greenleaf Gardens residents to the Senior Building or even trying to work with Capitol Park Plaza to use one of its parking lots for a Build First site – a bizarre and unrealistic statement if true. Another option was using Westminster's second building with market units as a Build First side, which is just as unlikely because it is the market side that makes the whole development possible. Further, conversations between DCHA and community members included at least one official saying that the development team did not expect to take the agreement back to the DCHA Board of Commissioners. If that is true, then that would directly contradict what it told the Board in October and November and portend displacement. It has never been clearer that DC Council needs to move on reforming DCHA. Several bills have been introduced in the last several years including bringing DCHA under the mayor and adding Council appointees to the Board. Now is the time for DC Council Committee on Housing to act.

The public will be encouraged to visit the temporary memorial at the Southwest Duck Pond between Friday, April 15th (DC Emancipation Day) and Sunday, April 18th. Reverend Ruth Hamilton, convener of The Pearl Group along with Southwest resident Vyllorya Evans, said, “So few people know about this important part of DC’s history. Members of The Pearl Group hope this commemoration will renew interest in the story of the Pearl and that it will be the first of yearly remembrances. We also honor the long-standing work of The Pearl Coalition founded by the late Lloyd D. Smith, and carried on by his grandson, David Smith.” The Pearl Group included: Vyllorya Evans (convenor), Reverend Ruth Hamilton (convener), Audrey Hinton, Vania Georgieva, Dr. Sheila S. Walker, Georgine Wallace, Kenneth Ward, and Southwest Voice editor-in-chief Christopher Williams.

DC Emancipation Day is Thursday, April 16

Editorial: I Use 'Enslaved Families' And Not 'Slaves' To Refer To My Ancestors. Here’s Why You Should, Too.
 

'The Tears of an Enslaved Person'
By Africus-Freedom’s Journal, March 14, 1828

Adieu, to my dear native shore,
To toss on the boisterous wave;
To enjoy my kindred no more,
But to weep—the tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON!
By the sons of freemen I’m borne,
To the land of the free and the brave;
From my wife and children I’m torn,
To weep—the sad tears of a SLAVE!
When, I think on mother and friends,
And the joy their countenance gave;
Ah! how my sad bosom it rends,
While weeping—the tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON!
Ah! now, I must labour for gold,
To pamper the pride of the knave;
Ah! now, I am shackled and sold
To weep—the sad tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON!
Keen sorrow so presses my heart,
That often I sigh for my grave;
While feeling the lash-cruel smart!
And weeping—the tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON
Ye sons, of the free and the wise,
Your tender compassions I crave;
Alas! can your bosoms despise
The pitiful tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON!
Can a land of Christians so pure!
Let demons of slavery rave!
Can the angel of mercy endure,
The pitiless—tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON!
Just Heaven, to thee I appeal;
Hast thou not the power to save?
In mercy thy power reveal,
And dry—the sad tears of an ENSLAVED PERSON.

*The word “slave” has been changed to the more appropriate word, “enslaved person”.

SUBMISSIONS: Poetry Column and Call for Submissions: Each edition will feature a poet sharing original poetry or prose. ALL POETS ARE WELCOME! Submissions should be no more than 150 words and seek to inspire and enlighten readers. Submissions must be submitted by the 5th of each month. Please include a photo (if desired) and a one to two sentence bio describing your writing passion. Youth submissions are also encouraged! Submit your work to Poetic Voice editor and Editorial Board member, P.S. Perkins at psp@hci-global.com. Authors retain rights to printed work and will be notified before publication. Inquires welcome.