"A rarity"
and we weren't referring to gemstones. Often I hear this response when I share with new acquaintances that I'm a native Washingtonian: "Oh really? That's rare!" Other friends from the area are probably nodding and thinking of similar conversations where they were momentarily an oddity escaped from the Museum of American History: see the "native Washingtonian."
But there is truth their response. In a different age, the lines of demarcation were pretty clear. We shared 1600 Penn., Capitol Hill, and part of NW with non-Washingtonians. Everywhere else... DC folk. Now? Seems like no one is from DC anymore.
Sam Cooke's prophetic change has come and the city I love is radically different. New neighborhoods and neighbors, restaurants and shops, museums and theatres. What is this place?
I'm no more an expert on the city than my being raised here allows, so I don't claim to have all the answers. Just questions and a curious eye. Stay posted for what I see.
But there is truth their response. In a different age, the lines of demarcation were pretty clear. We shared 1600 Penn., Capitol Hill, and part of NW with non-Washingtonians. Everywhere else... DC folk. Now? Seems like no one is from DC anymore.
Sam Cooke's prophetic change has come and the city I love is radically different. New neighborhoods and neighbors, restaurants and shops, museums and theatres. What is this place?
I'm no more an expert on the city than my being raised here allows, so I don't claim to have all the answers. Just questions and a curious eye. Stay posted for what I see.
posted by Rhonda Henderson at 7:04 PM
3 Comments:
Rhonda,
I see the change, too. It's exciting at times and uncomfortable at others. History is too important to me for the changes not to threaten my sense of the DC that inhabits my mythos of the city. I think that we are all wondering if we are witnessing the demise of the Chocolate City after almost a century of its existence. Or more to the point, I guess I'm wondering where the change will take us. How will the rising population of Latinos, Africans, and other immigrants change the city's character? Etc. (Among other things, I recently read that DC has one of the most active salsa subcultures in the U.S.... Who knew?)
I also recently learned that the MEDIAN income in DC is now $91,000. When you consider that about a third of the city lives below the poverty line, that leaves about 1/6 of the population making up a middle class. Perhaps the skyrocketing income disparity will be the factor that exercises the greatest influence upon our city's future character. While this is inevitably linked to the racial and ethnic make up of DC's population, it also points to other potential problems for the city -- with no substantial middle class, who will support basic services and civic institutions (assuming that wealthy classes often opt out in favor of more exclusive private institutions)?
So, the question to ask is not just "chocolate, white chocolate, vanilla, or cafe con leche?" It might also be "Swiss Miss, Hershey's, or Godiva?"
dk
Rhonda,
Another thought on grappling with the psychological and emotional impact of the perceived demise of "Chocolate City"... As I crawled into bed last night, I reflected on the impact that my personal background has had upon my ability to understand the trauma that many DC natives (and Black DC natives, in particular) are experiencing as the city changes before our eyes.
Though I identify with DC as my home more than anywhere else (it has been home most of my adult life), I cannot escape the fact that I was born in Manhattan and grew up in Chevy Chase, MD (and I can claim to be a delicious "white chocolate," at best). This means that although I can assert some understanding of the issues inherent in the changes I see around me, my insight does not come effortlessly. It is not "autonomic" in nature. I have to *think*.
So, I referenced familiar cultural themes for myself. I tried to imagine New York City without Jews; Boston without its Irish; San Francisco without the Castro; etc. I remembered trips that I took as part of a Jewish day camp up to the Lower East Side in Manhattan to learn about "our" heritage... as if my family had actually once lived there (they had settled in Brooklyn, not the Lower East Side). I recalled how it had been a matter of pride for me that I could trace my grandfather through Ellis Island. And I thought about my recent trip to Budapest where I visited a synagogue on Saturday morning to see only 15 or so old men praying together -- one of whom asked me with a touch of awe and wistfulness if there were many Jews in DC. I chuckled and answered "Yes. Many." And suddenly I was thankful that I had a place to call home... someplace safe that I felt was "mine."
That is "Chocolate City." In the end, it is something that people can call "mine." For close to a century (I think) it has been a majority Black city with (more recently) a majority Black power structure. Black political might matured in DC with nascent home rule emerging from America's Civil Rights Movement. Were it a state, DC would turn the traditional political race dynamics upside down. What a fascinating phenomenon it would be. What unprecedented potentials for political influence one can imagine. Again, home. Security. Mine. Is it any wonder that so many rage against the thought of Chocolate City going quietly into that good night. It is too precious culturally, too. It is Ben's Chili Bowl. It is the Howard Theater (maybe some day it will reopen). It is Howard U., the Florida Avenue Grill, the Shrimp Boat, a gogo beat played on plastic buckets. It is the family BBQ in Rock Creek Park, Duke Ellington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Frederick Douglass, and more churches than I can name.
I visit the Lower East Side now, and it has been swallowed almost entirely by an ever expanding Chinatown. Essex street still houses a few Judaica shops, and you can still see some Yiddish stenciled on the steps. But Gus's pickles (the best in NYC) had to move, and was last seen operating out of the basement beneath the Tenement Museum. Kossar's Bialys (the best in the USA according to a colleague) is still there around the corner. But not much else remains. I don't think New York is in any danger of losing it's (sometimes derogatory) nickname as "Jew York." Yet, I find myself thinking about the Lower East Side in particular... and I look at what was once Shaw (realtors now call it "Dupont East")... Have we already begun to move toward a time when Ben's Chili Bowl and the Bethune statue in Lincoln Park will stand as singular reminders of the heritage that was ours (as Gus's and Kossar's do for me)? And how much does it matter since we carry our heritage with us? Where does "home" reside? And what can we all call "mine?"
BTW - Though the question is in some ways of existential importance for the Black community, don't fool yourself into thinking it doesn't matter for the rest of us who call DC our home. It is often true that you don't know what you had until it is gone. I'll never forget my first arrival in Cambridge, MA last year. I would live there for several months, but when I first arrived in August, I walked through Harvard Square. Most of the students had not yet arrived, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable. At first, I could not put my finger on the cause. Then I promptly called a friend in DC on my cell -- "Lynn," I whispered as my shoulders grew tense, "There are no Black people here."
Just another rumination.
dk
I’ve enjoyed both the blog and the comments. The first comment posting introduced some interesting questions about race, ethnicity, and class. But, I found the questions somewhat hollow; standard talking points strangely without context. What does the 91,000 median income mean in light of the DC’s housing bubble? Hasn’t DC been since its inception a city of stark income and power disparities? And wasn’t the consequent segregation central to the formation of the ‘Chocolate City’ identity? Wouldn’t the rising tax base, driven in part by an increase in population that has little need for basic services, increase the resources available to the city for those services? Given that DC has been under-resourced for years, isn’t that a good thing? Etc.
But, it was the second posting that I found so curious and felt merited a quick response. I found it brutally ironic in that it was so shockingly paternalistic. The writer takes pains to point out his socio-economic status and that he is neither chocolate nor from the city but that he can somehow intellectualize the African-American experience of ‘Chocolate City’ and in that way lay claim to it (or a portion of it.)
Personally, I don’t think that the experience of persistent dehumanization and marginalization of people of color can be intellectualized. It is precisely that experience that transforms ‘Chocolate City’ into more than a place to call home, but a necessary existential oasis, a refuge. In that context, the experience of loss of ‘a place to call ‘mine’…’ for a community that has so few of those places historically is vastly different from ‘the rest of us that call DC our home.’ And by equating his need for security and ownership with a marginalized community’s need for refuge, the writer devalues that need and that experience, in effect carrying out the same dehumanization that make places like a ‘Chocolate City’ so important to the people of color who live there.
Lastly, even ignoring the relationship DC has with the Federal government and its limited self-rule, why is the idea of political self-determination by people of color so quaint? A fascinating phenomenon?
Just some thoughts.
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