WASHINGTON POST 02/04/13 By Michael Shank As Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated last month with community service ads and intimations in President Obama’s inauguration speech, I wondered, as I do every year, how the nation can commemorate a leader so disingenuously. We will likely do the same during […]
AL JAZEERA 12/23/12 By Michael Shank Now that the National Rifle Association is playing hard ball by suggesting today that we provide armed guards in every school across America at a cost of nearly $6bn, it is quite clear that this conversation has gotten completely out of hand. The idea […]
WASHINGTON POST 12/05/12 By Michael Shank and Lindsay Schubiner D.C. Council member Marion Barry’s ex-offender bill, which is on the city’s legislative hopper and addresses discrimination by granting employment protections, is needed not only in the District but also across America. It is needed for an estimated 65 million Americans, […]
BET 11/16/12 By Cord Jefferson The nation’s capital now has the worst racial achievement gaps in the country when it comes to educating children. A new op-ed in the Huffington Post dredges up a well known but important topic of conversation: the growing and increasingly entrenched disparities between whites and […]
WASHINGTON POST 11/14/12 By Michael Shank Of the two rivers that cup our nation’s capital — the Potomac and the Anacostia— the latter of the two is, perhaps, the most apt reflection of where America is at socio-economically. The Anacostia River, the Anglicized namesake of which was first officially recorded […]
POLITICO 11/09-11/12 By Michael Shank Of the two rivers that cup our nation’s capital – the Potomac and the Anacostia – the latter of the two is, perhaps, the most apt reflection of where America is at socio-economically. The Anacostia River – the Anglicized namesake of which was first officially […]
AL JAZEERA 10/09/12 By Michael Shank If someone got physically violent on the Metro in Washington, DC, they would get kicked off the train or bus. Similarly, if someone indecently exposed him or herself (as noted in the new Metro ads threatening action against indecent exposure) or yelled incendiary, racist […]
WASHINGTON CITY PAPER 04/25/12 By Shani Hilton Elahe Izadi asks a provocative question in a story at DCentric: Can a party change Anacostia? People really only go places because they have a reason, whether it’s work, friends or attractions. Nikki Palmer of Bloomingdale made her first visit to Anacostia to […]
WAMU 04/24/12 By Elahe Izadi Trapeze artists hovered above a crowd. A band played electronic music as green lasers flashed through the room. Nearby, people created silk-screened T-shirts, a video installation played against the wall and the crowd tossed a large, clear plastic bubble filled with pink balloons in the […]