Day: April 6, 2006

The Post might be a race baiting newspaper but I’m keeping my subscription

1. I’ve already set up automatic payments. I don’t look forward to trying undo that.
2. The Washington Times? Phooey. I spit on the Times.
3. Comics, sales papers & coupons.
4. Classified (Jobs, Houses for Sale, etc) section better than City Paper’s.
5. Paper handy for craft projects.
6. I really, really like the Style section.
7. Cheaper than a NYT or Wall Street Journal subscription.
8. Food section is good too.
9. I use it to clean windows.
10.Thursday District section has Animal Watch (aka Stupid Humans).

Okay, I sense a theme. [sarcasm]Middle class white people are evil. Well at least the ones who live outside their designated areas.[/sarcasm] Designated areas are neighborhoods west of the park, maybe west of 16th Street, small sections around Capitol Hill.
The Post gentrification stories pretty much harp on a certain theme as Truxtonian pointed out. Find two opposing sides, mix in race and stir. Over at Frozen Tropics there has been a flurry of comments about the Schwartzman article on H St. In it some residents were dismayed over comments in the article by Martini Lounge owner Clifford Humphrey, who (I guess- ID is so hard on these things) said he was misquoted. Personally, I’m willing to accept that was the case, not he’s the first person to be misquoted or have words taken out of context by the press. As I remember when there was an article about the corner of T & 14th that painted a picture of Mike Benson (owner of Bar Pillar & Saint X) in a certain light that didn’t really jive with the Benson I know. Heck, Jimbo pointed out to me in last week’s WP Express a quote taken from my blog, made me look like an anti-church anti-Christian. The words were mine, but cropped giving it another feel. And by the way my regulars know I’m a regular church going Episcopalian (except for Christmas and Easter). So I’m willing to cut Humphreys some slack.

The media

Well, the Post has covered the story of St Martin’s and Eckington’s opposition to the project. The story is worth a read. I think the opposition to the plans is a more complex issue than the amount of ink they received, but at least it is being covered. I continue to be shocked by things said by Father Kelley as well as some of Sharon Robinson and Neal Drobenare’s “messaging” tactics. But that’s for another post to the blog…

While the St Martin’s project is an interesting issue to be played out (I’ve posted before I, personally, am not supportive of the plans as they stand), it reminded me of the story in the Post this week about changes coming to H Street. On Frozen Tropics the story set off a comment storm. Many people seem to take issue with some of the quotes attributed to people in the article. However, there seemed to be a consensus that the writer went out of his way to push an angle for the story that isn’t actually there. Richard Layman’s post on the issues raised in the article is well worth a read when you have a moment and really covers the true issues.

My point of bringing this up is that this is unfortunate that the media appears to be picking up and playing race issues a lot recently, and it’s not just the Post in these two stories. I don’t agree with the way such a complex issue for Washington, DC is being covered in such a shallow name-calling sort of way.

However, I realized last night that Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 and the DC riots were from April 4-8th. I can’t help but wonder if these stories are being printed now in some great, ironic, coincidence or whether there is some editorial knowledge of the significance of this week in DC history. I wasn’t around for the riots in DC but all who are living in these parts of DC live in the legacy of those riots. If you want to read more about the riots, there are many resources on the web to turn to, including Wikipedia. There’s also this excerpt from “Ten Blocks From The White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968″, which was written by WaPo staff in 1968. Note: I haven’t deciphered the politics of the site that hosts that excerpt, nor have I checked the accuracy of the reproduction of text from the book.