Last night, walking home from U st, touched suddenly by an urge to feel more air on my body, I took off my shirt. It was an odd feeling to revisit after all these years of being shirted in summer, how the still, warm, wet air settles on skin, and you feel the little changes in it as you move; how being shirtless under city street lights now seems juvenile, almost whimsical, liberated, plugged-in, and something else, darker, that I can’t quite describe. It reminded me of those long summer evenings in Anacostia, kickin it with the neighbors, no worries at all, even as the ghetto hummed with its slow, low, desperate, dangerous intensity.
"During the decades that Washington had a black majority, national policy makers and investors left the city’s aging infrastructure for dead. So it is astonishing to witness the about-face that has accompanied the influx of white professionals in the past decade. Now there are urban-friendly transportation policies, lavish corporate spending on education and billions in private real estate investment and development. As residents finally get the city they have always deserved, many black Washingtonians are feeling the rage of the loyal first wife, kicked to the curb as soon as things started looking up."
—
Natalie Hopkinson, “Farewell to Chocolate City”
Hits the same notes as my piece, “The Souls of DC Folk” from a couple months back.
(Source: The New York Times)
