Early Learning Leads to Positive Outcomes

The increase in violence in D.C. and across the DMV involving teens as the perpetrators and children as the victims is shocking and unacceptable. Reports of 14-year-olds on the streets after midnight engaged in armed carjackings, burglaries, and random shootings is horrifying. Their actions are leading to unintended injuries and deaths of younger innocent children who happen to be where they should be during those hours which is at home in bed. This is clearly a crisis that has gotten out of hand, yet, the Centers for Disease Control indicates that youth violence is common. According to the CDC, homicide is the third leading cause of death for young people ages 10-24 and the leading cause of death for non-Hispanic Black or African American youth. Emergency departments treat more than 1,000 youth for physical assault-related injuries each day stemming from fighting, bullying, threats with weapons, and gang-related violence. The CDC has declared youth violence as a public health problem.

Observers often ask, where are the parents, and why isn’t the city doing more to stop the violence? It’s a fair question despite what many already know, and that is violence is often the consequence of poverty, racism, inequitable access to safe housing, quality health care, and affordable child care.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released its 2023 Kids Count Report focusing, this year, on access to child care and its impact on parents. Additionally, the D.C.Kids Count report makes clear the fact that “all children can be lifted up to reach their full potential with education.” D.C. child advocates commend city leaders for passing the “groundbreaking” Early Childhood Pay Equity Fund that provides much-needed payments to historically underpaid childcare providers. The D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) is encouraging newly hired and newly eligible early childhood educators to apply to receive up to four payments of up to $3,500 each before the September 2023 deadline. Access to these funds will help to reduce the attrition of childcare workers while sustaining the number of providers throughout the city, particularly in the city’s poorest communities where quality childcare is also greatly needed.

Access to quality childcare and early childhood education is the only hope for many of our city’s children. It is the key to giving them a good start in life that can result in more positive outcomes.

‘Someday We’ll All Be Free’

It’s still Black Music Month and days after Juneteenth, so it’s only appropriate to reference the late, great Donny Hathaway to reflect on the true meaning of freedom.

In 2021, President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday. Juneteenth marks the moment when the final enslaved people in Texas learned of their liberation in June 1865.

“Today, we consecrate Juneteenth for what it ought to be, what it must be: a national holiday,” Biden said on June 17, 2021. “A holiday that will join the others of our national celebrations: our independence, our laborers who built this nation, our servicemen and women who served and died in its defense. And the first new national holiday since the creation of Martin Luther King Holiday nearly four decades ago.”

While the holiday celebrates freedom, it carries the tragic truth that for two-and-a-half years, people remained enslaved, facing dehumanizing and fatal instances and conditions.

At the 2023 Juneteenth Honors, award recipient Tamika Mallory reflected on the double-or-more-injustices the illegally enslaved Texans faced.

“Two years later, some of our people still didn’t know they were free, and that’s very powerful, when you think about the thugs that were holding them captive,” Mallory said in her acceptance speech.

The renowned activist considered all the oppression Black people face to this day.

“It made me think about all the people in our communities that still don’t know they’re free, because even today, what we experience, what we feel, the oppression, the pain, the abuse, the rape, the murder still continues,” Mallory added.

It’s hard to celebrate liberation when all people aren’t free.

In the celebrated words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere,” or as Fannie Lou Hamer famously noted, “nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Juneteenth, in itself, proves that “inescapable network of mutuality,” Dr. King talks about when examining the meaning of true freedom.

For instance, the District of Columbia was the first place Lincoln signed legislation freeing enslaved Black residents on April 16, 1862– known in the District as Emancipation

New Mall

Thanks for informing us about the new open-air mall in Congress Heights! What a gorgeous building. I look forward to supporting the retailers.

Elaine Howard Washington, D.C.

To The Editor

More Rent Control

I’m grateful that the D.C. City Council passed the emergency legislation to halt rent increases. At the same time, I’m not sure if that’s enough. It’s capped at 6% until 2025, but even 6% percent is enough for someone to fall behind and not be able to make their payments. When will the root issues be resolved? This exorbitant cost of living is not sustainable.

Debbie Funches Washington, D.C.

Day. However, the national and more renowned holiday– Juneteenth– commemorates the day when the last group of enslaved people learned of their freedom.

As systemic racism persists, and with legislative efforts to reverse rights, erase history and enforce oppressive ideals, are all people truly free? Or consider Washingtonians, who are taxed without voting representation in the House and Senate– are D.C. residents fully free?

While we celebrate the semblances of liberties in this country, it is also important to consider necessary steps toward true freedom.

If people focus on true liberation for all, then perhaps there’s hope that Donny Hathaway was right that “someday we’ll all be free.”

In a world where lawmakers are trying to erase the teaching of slavery and racism in this country, it might seem like a far stretch at times to consider true freedom as a reality; but optimism is what leads to action, which can ultimately lead to change.

Guest Columnist

Ben Jealous