Rash of Car Break-ins Leads to Arrest
• May 21, 2015

A local man, Jahmar Thaxter, was arrested April 22 in connection with 19 car break-ins that took place across the District in areas from Tenleytown to Georgetown. According to court documents, Thatxer is also under investigation for the killing of a 76-year-old Korean grocery store owner last summer.

Thaxter, 23, was arrested after his GPS ankle monitor placed him at scene of thefts that occurred from late February through March, according to his arrest warrant.

He is believed to have been near the location of 10 other car break-ins (included in the total 19) at the times they occurred. As many as seven cars a day were entered in order to steal items such as laptop computers, purses and jewelry.

According to court documents, MPD detectives have sought DNA samples from Thaxter that may tie him to the homicide of James Oh, who owned Gold Corner Market in 16th Street Heights. Oh and his wife were assaulted during a robbery of their store in July 2014. He suffered multiple skull fractures, which led to his death four days later.

The arrest warrant does not explain why Thaxter was wearing a GPS monitor or what prompted police to track his movements. However, he was released from jail, following his arraignment on the conditions that he wear a GPS monitor and check in with a probation officer.

Murder Case of Albrecht Muth to Become Film, Starring Christoph Waltz
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The tragic tale of Georgetowners Viola Drath and wife killer Albrecht Muth will be made into a movie by Christoph Waltz, who will direct and also play the part of Muth.

The film, based on a New York Times Magazine article, “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown,” will begin production in October, Variety reported.

“Voltage Pictures has come aboard to fully finance and produce the picture, which will be sold at Cannes,” according to Variety. “The film will be produced by Waltz, Erica Steinberg (‘Inglorious Basterds’) and Nicolas Chartier. Zev Foreman and Jonathan Deckter will be exec producing for Voltage, alongside M. Janet Hill, who originally optioned the material. The script was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright David Auburn (‘Proof’).”

Waltz — who appears to be perfectly cast for the film — won Academy Awards for “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained.” He will make his directorial debut in “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown.” He plays the villain in the James Bond movie, “Spectre,” set for a November release.

Drath and Muth were known around Georgetown for their dinner parties and moved about in Washington society. In fact, Muth once visited the offices of the Georgetowner Newspaper to purchase tickets for a benefit. A staffer recalled that he was “totally creepy.”

The following is the sad, you-cannot-make-this-stuff-up story, as previously reported in the Georgetowner.

Albrecht Gero Muth was convicted of killing his 91-year-old wife Viola Herms Drath in 2011 in their Q Street home in Georgetown and given a 50-year prison sentence.

At the April 30, 2014, sentencing, Judge Russell F. Canan of D.C. Superior Court said he found the evidence against Muth “overwhelming” and scoffed at his hunger strikes in the hospital, where Muth remained during the trial and the sentencing and participated via videoconference. Muth’s lawyer Dana Page spoke on his behalf, reading a statement that claimed Muth was innocent and that his wife was killed by Iranian agents.

Drath was found dead in the third-floor bathroom of her home on Q Street on Aug. 12, 2011, after being strangled and beaten.

At the time, medical examiners determined Drath’s death to be a homicide – and not a result of falling, as Muth first contended. There had been not forced entry into the house. He was arrested a few days later on P Street, after being locked out of the house and wandering around the neighborhood and sleeping in nearby Montrose Park.

A veteran journalist and married previously to an Army colonel, Drath married Muth in 1990. The couple was known around town for their dinner parties with a mix of political, diplomatic, military and media VIPs. Drath was 44 years older than Muth.

Prosecutors argued that Muth showed a pattern of abuse against his wife and was motivated by money, saying he had no steady job and was not included in Drath’s will. “He was a good little con man,” prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told the jury.

During trial testimony, Drath’s daughters, Connie and Francesca (from her first marriage), talked about Muth’s money arrangements with his wife and of his emails to them about items he wanted upon her death.

Seen around Georgetown in faux military garb, the cigar-smoking Muth was perceived by neighbors and shopkeepers as an oddball. He said that he was a member of the Iraqi Army — which the Iraqi government denied. Muth went so far as to have arranged a 2010 ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery for Iraqi Liberation Day. He was also known around government and foundation lobbying circles as Count Albi of the EPG (Eminent Persons Group).

Baltimore on Edge — and on TV
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If reading about the news in a newspaper allows for a certain amount of detachment, perspective and evaluation, watching news being made on television is an altogether different kind of experience.

Depending on where you are—at home, gathered with friends, in front of your iPad—news as it happens covered by local or cable television news broadcasters is almost as chaotic as the images you see live in the here-and-now, mixed with repeated imagery from the hour or minutes before, accompanied by reporters reporting from the scene and anchors anchored to the breaking news desk.

This is pretty much what happened as we watched events unfold in Baltimore in the afternoon and early evening hour.  This was Monday, the sorrowful day when Freddie Gray—the young African American man who died after being arrested and held in custody by police of an apparent spinal injury—was mourned, eulogized and buried.   The funeral was, according to its organizers, a solemn occasion for mourning, grieving and perhaps the beginning of healing.

Gray’s death—punctuated by marches, and demonstrations for a week, including one that ended in violence Saturday night—was another in what to many has become an unconscionable long list of African African men dying violent deaths at the hands of police. The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August—in which no indictment was handed down—sparked a sea change nationwide, linking incidents in Cleveland, New York,  Arizona and South Carolina, among many.

All of the incidents were different in nature but were linked by reactions to them, reactions that included demonstrations, mostly peaceful, all over the country.

The circumstances in Baltimore, where so far no investigation has been completed into the circumstances of how Gray died, were reflective of the poor neighborhoods were Gray grew up, where police and residents lived in a state of long-standing tension.

What happened after the funeral was often confusing, often violent and chaotic.   It appeared from reports that police had received social media warnings that something was going to happen, and so they had gathered with their shields and helmets. After the funeral had broken up, youths from a nearby high school stormed out of the school and began running at police, pelting them with rocks, bricks and bottles.  More than a dozen policemen were injured, some suffering broken bones, two of them seriously.

After that, events developed almost as if in a kind of haze.  We watched as camera shots at Mondawmin Mall near Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue revealed first a trickle, almost casual group of young men broke windows and marched then ran into a CVS Pharmacy and begin looting, some pulling up in a motorcycle or car with tall trash bags. A police car was burned nearby.  Youths continued to jump on a destroyed police car.

All of this seemed to be happening in slow motion—people would rush at a store—including a check-cashing business, a liquor store, as well as the CVS, then action would slow down for moments. Neighborhood adult men in suits tried to dissuade the looters and angry demonstrators.  Then, they would head down the street to a another establishment.

For the hours after the funeral—which included an impassioned march by religious leaders going past some of the running, young men—there was no official word from the mayor’s office or the police commissioners.  Governor Larry Hogan promised to send the National Guard, but only if asked. 

Reporters from Washington, D.C., came to the scene in what was surely one of the more difficult assignments they had encountered.  On WRC, the station was fortunate enough to have on hand Tisha Thompson, a member of its investigative team who had lived and worked in Baltimore and knew the geography and streets of the developing story.

Television, especially on a live and rolling story, is at best a jumble, a kind of mash of the immediate here-and-now and flashbacks to 20 minutes ago, where images of looters , burning cars and running, yelling tended to blend together with much confusion.  Reporters appeared to have a hard time with assigning terminology and description to what they were witnessing,  calling looters “demonstrators” and vice versa,  but none resorted to the words used by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who called the looters “thugs” when she finally did speak, hours after the first events occurred.  Her initial silence was much puzzled over by the press, which parsed every official word spoken, including those of the governor, who called out the Maryland National Guard, after “the mayor finally called and made the request.”   Media took that word “finally” apart like a piñata, trashing it for meaning.

Reporters tried to show some sympathy—not for the looters so much—but the young people living under the circumstances that they did.  “This was for justice for Freddie,” yelled one of the youths.   Other observers decried the violence and looting, some remembering not only Ferguson but cities exploding in the 1960s.

One young man, interviewed by a D.C. reporter, yelled that the city had not helped the neighborhood when it needed it, that they couldn’t take it any more and that the death of Gray and the absence of information was the final straw. 

Reporters and anchor folks vacillated with the frustration that they were reporting, sometimes sharing it, and the queasy potential of danger that they were a part of.   But images also have a way of making the dramatic—fires, destroyed cars, looters running—seem a city-wide event, that we were witnessing a city-wide event when in actuality we were seeing repeated images interjected with live coverage.  Some Baltimore residents will tell you that the event itself was “overblown” in  terms of its coverage.

Nevertheless, a citywide curfew—10 p.m. to 5 a.m.—is now in effect for a week. Vandalized stores begin the tough job of clean-up and staying in business (or not). Wednesday’s Orioles games against the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards will be closed to the public.

Watching from Washington was a nervous experience.  This was not Ferguson, to be sure, but it was Baltimore—Fells Point, the Orioles,  Joan Jett, H.L. Mencken, the Peabody, a true city of multi-ethnic urban neighborhoods, as one resident pointed out, the city of “The Wire” and Johnny Unitas which was so close to Washingtonians.  It shook,  I suspect, a certain sense of complacency here: the belief that it couldn’t happen here, when in truth, we might be one confrontation away from the same events, down the street from where many of us live.
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GW’s Knapp: ‘Universities Key Part of Urban Cultural Landscape’
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When Steven Knapp became the 16th president of the George Washington University in 2007, one among many of the top priorities he set for himself was to enhance the school’s partnerships with neighboring institutions.

As he spoke at the Georgetown Media Group’s Cultural Leadership Breakfast at the George Town Club May 7, Knapp displayed voluminous knowledge about a host of subjects and laid out the criteria and the actions that have made the university a big cultural player in Washington, D.C.  He also probably laid the groundwork for future partnerships when all was done and said, which was a lot.

When you talk about enhancing partnerships with neighboring institutions you can’t get much more enhancement than that which George Washington University got during the last two years.

In 2014,  GWU joined together with the National Gallery  and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Corcoran College of Art and Design, thus saving and preserving the Corcoran legacy and the institution.  In the arrangement, the university took over the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and which was merged into GW’s Columbian College of Arts and  Sciences.

“This part of it was a great boost for our students, and the students at the Corcoran, who will now have access to a host of programs that will help them pursue their goals and expand the opportunities for learning and producing art,” Knapp said.

During that time, GW also  merged with the Textile Museum,  a relatively small and hidden museum, which moved from its former location on S Street (it had been closed since with 2013) to its current 21st Street, a 55,000-square-feet complex shared with the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection.

“I think universities are a key part of the urban cultural landscape,” Knapp said. “This is especially true today when the state of arts education at public school is not in very good shape.  It’s our responsibility to work with the city’s institutions, create partnerships with the schools, work with other universities in our consortium, to provide cultural experience, expand opportunities to create and make art. … I think in the case of both the Corcoran and the Textile Museum, we have made ourselves and the institutions better.  We have served our students as well as the cultural communities. “

Knapp, who seems plugged into Wikipedia as he speaks, displayed his diverse interests, flavoring the history of GW as a Washington (the city and George) instituton, by seasoning  GW’s march of progress to its current status as a top university with historical, biographical and just-so-you-know-if-you-didn’t bits of information.

He came to GW by way of the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught English literature and was a specialist in Romanticism,  literary theory and the relation of literature to philosophy and religion. After that he was Provost at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Knapp’s portrait of Washington as a city with a dense, diverse and major cultural profile provided a fitting end to the inaugural season of GMG Cultural Leadership Breakfasts, which have ranged from Deborah Rutter, president  of the Kennedy Center, Jenny Bilfied of  Washington Performing Arts, Kim Sajet, Director of  the National Portrait Gallery, Martin Wollison, director of the Clarice Performing Arts Center at  the University of Maryland,  Arvind Minocha , CEO of the Wolf Trap Foundation, and Ari Roth, the embattled former director of Theater J.
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One of Two ‘Good-Looking’ Thieves Arrested
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A suspect believed to be one of the two well-dressed, “beautiful” robbers who mugged two Georgetown students (at two locations) at gunpoint has been arrested.

The suspect, Ja’khori Ellerbe, was apprehended by the Georgetown University Police Department around 5 p.m. on May 8, according to GUPD Chief Jay Gruber.

He was reportedly in possession of a silver revolver, which was the weapon used in the robberies that took place on the Georgetown campus.

The robberies occurred on May 6, according to authorities. One robbery took place on the 3700 block of O Street, Northwest around 10 p.m., and the other on the 1000 block of 31st Street, Northwest around 11 p.m.

Ellerbe was charged with two counts of armed robbery and carrying a pistol without a license.

Authorities are still looking for a second suspect involved. The individual has been described as a black female in her 20s, tall, with a thin build and a light complexion. She was wearing a black ball cap.

Another “Sharp Dressed Bandit” was arrested in April in Arlington for committing a series of bank robberies in Dupont Circle, Old Town Alexandria and Ballston. His given name is Sunny Parekh.

Remembering Fallen D.C. Firefighter Kevin McRae
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Lieutenant Kevin McRae of the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department died on Wednesday morning, May 6, after combating a blaze at an apartment complex in Shaw. He collapsed after the fire was contained, and the cause of his death is not yet known.

The 44-year-old McRae, who lived in Waldorf, Maryland, began his career as a D.C. firefighter 25 years ago, working his way up through the ranks from cadet to lieutenant. He joined the fire department right after high school.

He was the 100th D.C. firefighter to die in the line of duty since 1856. This heroism ran in his family. McRae’s cousin, James J. McRae III, was the 99th firefighter to die in the line of duty. He died in 2007.

McRae is survived by his wife, Trell Parker-McRae, and his three children, Desmond McRae, Davon McRae and Kevon McRae. His children are ages 18, 19 and six, respectively.

McRae shared the love of his work with aspiring firefighters by teaching at the fire academy.

Flags in the District of Columbia are flying at half-mast in McRae’s honor. Engine 6 on New Jersey Avenue, where he worked, has black drapery over each of the station’s bay doors.
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Weekend Round Up May 7, 2015
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Opera on Tap D.C. Metro

May 7th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | FREE | kristina@operaontap.org | Tel: 8434377251 | Event Website

Our next show is Thursday, May 7 at Vendetta. Come celebrate opera classics and new works as we toast to Opera America’s “Opera Conference 2015” being hosted that weekend in our nation’s capital! We will be joined by the vocal stylings of Opera on Tap General Managing Diva Anne Hiatt and Board Prez Diva Krista Wozniak!!! So bring a friend and grab a Prosecco on draft and some Happy Hour specials and revel with Opera on Tap DC Metro!

Address

1212 H St. NE

Mother’s Day Afternoon Tea

May 9th, 2015 at 01:30 PM | $75-$95 | info@washingtonetiquette.com | Tel: 202.6707349 | Event Website](http://www.washingtonetiquette.com/)

Mothers, daughters and grandmothers alike will enjoy a full-service afternoon tea, etiquette lesson, terrace photo shoot & more!

Address

City Tavern Club; 3206 M Street, NW

Twilight Polo Opening Night in Great Meadow

May 9th, 2015 at 02:00 PM | $30 | [Event Website](http://www.greatmeadow.org/)

At this event, attendees can sip Virginia wine in Virginia horse country while watching the sunset and cheering on their favorite polo teams. Greenhill Winery will be on site with a selections of wines available for purchase. One pass admits a car-ful of family and friends.

Address

Great Meadow Polo Club, 5089 Old Tavern Rd., The Plains, Va

VinoFest DC

May 9th, 2015 at 03:00 PM | $45 | [Event Website](http://vinofest.co/)

Presented by Vinolovers, VinoFest DC is a curated wine and music festival that celebrates memorable wine experiences, flavorful music, passion for food, diverse communities, and charitable giving. This year, QuestLove will be headlining the event.

Address

Storey Park in NoMa – 1005 First St NE

Daikaya Celebrates Sumo May Season, Wrestling up Some Japanese Tradition

May 10th, 2015 at 05:00 PM | $7-$18 | info@heatherfreeman.com | Tel: 202-589-1600 | [Event Website](http://www.daikaya.com/)

In celebration of the Sumo May Season tournament, Daikaya, located at 705 6th Street, NW, will be showing these lively, full contact sport matches in the upstairs Izakaya, as well as showcasing sumo-themed offerings from Sunday, May 10th through May 24th during dinner service. Guests can eat like a true rikishi (wrestler) with Executive Chef Katsuya Fukushima’s mini Chanko-nabe, a smaller version of the traditional Japanese hot pot dish made with dashi, sake, mirin, chicken, fish, and vegetables

Address

705 6th Street NW

Mother’s Day Brunch at Rí Rá Georgetown

May 10th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | $11.95 – $25.95 | marycatherinecorson@rira.com | Tel: 202-571-2111 | [Event Website](http://rira.com/georgetown/)

Treat the most important woman in your life to the best in Irish hospitality on Mother’s Day! Sunday, May 10th, enjoy a special brunch menu & complimentary Baileys Buns. Accepting large group/family reservations from 10:00am – 4:00pm, please contact marycatherinecorson@rira.com for details.

Address

3125 M Street NW

It’s the Garden Tour but a People Show, Too
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Neighbors and visitors alike got a chance May 9 to see some of Georgetown’s “Edens Unveiled,” as the May 6th Georgetowner described this year’s eight select spots around town that show how great or small a garden might be.

It was time again for the Georgetown Garden Tour – the 87th annual – presented by the Georgetown Garden Club, an affiliate of the Garden Club of America. Beginning at Christ Church, the gardens-curious marched along the sidewalks, east and west, stopping at 30th and N Streets to see a classic backyard that contains the northeast boundary stone of “olde George Town” or basking in the expanse of the Cafritzes’ back lawn with pool and “the Architect’s Garden.” It was perhaps the biggest star on the tour.

On the west side, Mrs. Knight was welcoming many to her intimate side garden, at once enchanting and practical with its perfectly pruned trees and plants. The next door neighbor’s garden was equally impressive with its new refinements. Three blocks away, easily entered from the alley, were the Italianate garden of Patrick McGettigan and the perfectly remade Georgetown garden of designer Gwendolyn van Paasschen, along with a three-car garage and jacuzzi, to boot.

While the gardens’ plants, layout and the home thereof were the top draw for most, the Georgetown Garden Tour also sets up the added fun and ease of neighbors and friends meeting each other along the walkways. Plants are named, conversations go on and people linger in the sun-kissed, spring day.

The book, “Gardens of Georgetown: Exploring Urban Treasures,” sold briskly before and during the day of the tour and is on sale at GeorgetownGardenClubDC.org. It is not for sale at Amazon.com, as reported in last week’s newspaper.
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Friday Is Bike-to-Work Day
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This Friday, May 15, has been dubbed Bike-to-Work Day. Commuter Connections and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association aim to gather more than 17,000 area commuters for a celebration of bicycling as a clean, fun and healthy way to get to work.

Bike riders can stop by one of 79 pit stops throughout D.C., Maryland and Virginia to receive refreshments and enter into a raffle for a bicycle giveaway.

Each pit stop will also provide registered attendees with free t-shirts. T-shirts are available to the first 14,000 who register and attend.

Cyclists can visit as many pit stops as they would like on Bike-to-Work Day. However, the free Bike-to-Work Day t-shirt can only be picked up at the pit stop one chooses while registering.

The Georgetown Business Improvement District has invited participants to come by its pit stop, 7:30 to 9:30 a.m., at Georgetown Waterfront Park, where commuters can enjoy refreshments, snacks and bicycle-themed giveaways. Registration is free. The first 300 visitors will receive a Bike-to-Work Day water bottle.

Before the bike-themed festivities, the Georgetown Professionals, a networking group that hosts monthly happy hours, will partner up with Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Georgetown BID on May 12 to host an afternoon bike-from-work day happy hour at Malmaison, starting 4 p.m., at 3401 K St. NW. Send RSVPs for the happy hour to erinflynn09@gmail.com.

Visit www.BikeToWorkMetroDC.org for more details.

Obama at Georgetown: ‘It’s Hard Being Poor’
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A unique panel met May 12 at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall to discuss the difficult topic of poverty in America. One of the panelists happened to be the President of the United States.

President Barack Obama sat next to discussion moderator E.J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and Georgetown faculty member, along with Harvard professor Robert Putnam and Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute.

The four men looked for solutions and advanced perspectives that went beyond the everyday left-right rigidity in addressing the plight of poor Americans, a widening economic gap and how to advance opportunity for all.

If the dialogue was not quite a clarion call for concerted national action, it almost did become that, as the president showed a more personal side to issues about national policy.

The president first answered the question of why this panel and this discussion: “I think that we are at a moment — in part because of what’s happened in Baltimore and Ferguson and other places, but in part because a growing awareness of inequality in our society — where it may be possible not only to refocus attention on the issue of poverty, but also maybe to bridge some of the gaps that have existed and the ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress.”

“And there are a lot of folks here who I have worked with — they disagree with me on some issues, but they have great sincerity when it comes to wanting to deal with helping the least of these.  And so this is a wonderful occasion for us to join together,” Obama continued.

“Part of the reason I thought this venue would be useful and I wanted to have a dialogue with Bob and Arthur is that we have been stuck, I think for a long time, in a debate that creates a couple of straw men.  The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don’t care anything about culture or parenting or family structures, and that’s one stereotype.  And then you’ve got cold-hearted, free market, capitalist types who are reading Ayn Rand and think everybody are moochers.  And I think the truth is more complicated.”

Putnam, author of the recently published “Our Kids: the American Dream in Crisis,” spoke of the slowing of social and economic mobility — a given for Americans for decades.

“I think in this domain there’s good news and bad news, and it’s important to begin with the bad news because we have to understand where we are,” Putnam said. “The president is absolutely right that the War on Poverty did make a real difference, but it made a difference more for poverty among people of my age than it did for poverty among kids.” 

“And with respect to kids, I completely agree with the president that we know about some things that would work and things that would make a real difference in the lives of poor kids, but what the book that you’ve referred to, “Our Kids,” what it presents is a lot of evidence of growing gaps between rich kids and poor kids; that over the last 30 or 40 years, things have gotten better and better for kids coming from well-off homes, and worse and worse for kids coming from less well-off homes.” 

“And I don’t mean Bill Gates and some homeless person,” Putnam continued. “I mean people coming from college-educated homes — their kids are doing better and better, and people coming from high school-educated homes, they’re kids aren’t.  And it’s not just that there’s this class gap, but a class gap on our watch — I don’t mean just the president’s watch, but I mean on my generation’s watch — that gap has grown.”

“You can see it in measures of family stability. You can see it in measures of the investments that parents are able to make in their kids, the investments of money and the investments of time.  You can see it in the quality of schools kids go to.  You can see it in the character of the social and community support that kids — rich kids and poor kids are getting from their communities.  Church attendance is a good example of that, actually.  Churches are an important source of social support for kids outside their own family, but church attendance is down much more rapidly among kids coming from impoverished backgrounds than among kids coming from wealthy backgrounds.”

Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute answered the question on expanding the socio-economic safety net in a non-partisan way: “One concept that rides along with that is to point out — and this is what I do to many of my friends on Capitol Hill — I remind them that just because people are on public assistance doesn’t mean they want to be on public assistance.  And that’s the difference between people who factually are making a living and who are accepting public assistance.  It’s an important matter to remember about the motivations of people and humanizing them.  And then the question is, how can we come together?  How can we come together?”

“I have, indeed, written that it’s time to declare peace on the safety net.  And I say that as a political conservative.  Why?  Because Ronald Reagan said that; because Friedrich Hayek said that.  This is not a radical position.  In fact, the social safety net is one of the greatest achievements of free enterprise — that we could have the wealth and largesse as a society, that we can help take care of people who are poor that we’ve never even met.  It’s historic; it’s never happened before.  We should be proud of that.”

In response, Obama said: “We don’t dispute that the free market is the greatest producer of wealth in history. It has lifted billions of people out of poverty.  We believe in property rights, rule of law, so forth.  But there has always been trends in the market in which concentrations of wealth can lead to some being left behind.  And what’s happened in our economy is that those who are doing better and better — more skilled, more educated, luckier, having greater advantages — are withdrawing from sort of the commons — kids start going to private schools; kids start working out at private clubs instead of the public parks.  An anti-government ideology then disinvests from those common goods and those things that draw us together.  And that, in part, contributes to the fact that there’s less opportunity for our kids, all of our kids.

“Now, that’s not inevitable.  A free market is perfectly compatible with also us making investment in good public schools, public universities; investments in public parks; investments in a whole bunch — public infrastructure that grows our economy and spreads it around.  But that’s, in part, what’s been under attack for the last 30 years.  And so, in some ways, rather than soften the edges of the market, we’ve turbocharged it.  And we have not been willing, I think, to make some of those common investments so that everybody can play a part in getting opportunity.”

“Now, one other thing I’ve got to say about this is that even back in Bob’s day that was also happening.  It’s just it was happening to black people.  And so, in some ways, part of what’s changed is that those biases or those restrictions on who had access to resources that allowed them to climb out of poverty — who had access to the firefighters job, who had access to the assembly line job, the blue-collar job that paid well enough to be in the middle class and then got you to the suburbs, and then the next generation was suddenly office workers — all those things were foreclosed to a big chunk of the minority population in this country for decades.”

“And that accumulated and built up,” Obama continued. “And over time, people with less and less resources, more and more strains — because it’s hard being poor.  People don’t like being poor.  It’s time-consuming. It’s stressful.  It’s hard.  And so over time, families frayed.  Men who could not get jobs left.  Mothers who are single are not able to read as much to their kids.  So, all that was happening 40 years ago to African Americans. And now what we’re seeing is that those same trends have accelerated, and they’re spreading to the broader community. ”

The meeting was part of a three-day Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown. At the summit, put together by the university’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and the National Association of Evangelicals, attendees included leaders from various religious communities, policy makers, researchers and community organizers.
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