DC rallies to dispel fear mongering stereotypes about the Anacostia neighborhood

Okay, so that wasn't the title of the Washington Post article but that pretty much sums up what happened. The Advocate is not posting the title of the Washington Post article because while the subject of the post is to highlight a poor (and frankly inaccurate) comment made my an anonymous State Department official in a New York Times article I don't want someone to accidentally get the wrong idea. 

Anacostia (which we all know is a small neighborhood in Ward 8) is a great place to live, work, and enjoy one of best arts districts in the region. 

We should all be so lucky to live in Anacostia. #SoutheastLove all the way!

Go HERE for the Washington Post article.

Excerpt:

Anacostia is often used to broadly represent all of Wards 7 and 8 and everything dangerous about the city. 

That was the case last week when The New York Times quoted an anonymous American official in Kenya referencing Anacostia to argue that some cities in Kenya aren’t that dangerous because, well, at least they’re not Anacostia. 

Here’s the quote that was featured in a front page article, Feb. 23 about Kenya’s coastal tourism industry, which is hurting because of Western travel warnings that were issued there after “a round of violence last summer.” 

“Our policy doesn’t make much sense,” said the American official in Nairobi. “There are neighborhoods in Washington, Anacostia, for example, that are way more dangerous than Nyali or Diani,” he said, citing two relatively quiet Kenyan beach towns.

And then of course The Advoc8te had to throw her two cents in:

The point this official is trying to make is that the U.S. State Department is overreacting with its strict travel advisories and hurting the Kenyan economy, which could create a more favorable environment for terrorism. But using Anacostia to make this case, is, as Nikki Peele — a Congress Heights resident who writes about Ward 8 issues for her blog, Congress Heights on the Rise – put it, “derogatory.” 

“People use those type of derogatory comments to show how in the know they are of D.C.,” Peele said. “But what happened in the past three to five years is that people look more ignorant than anything.”