Prince George's County

Study: Four Maryland Cities Among Most Ethnically Diverse in State

Stacy M. Brown WI Senior Writer

Four Montgomery County cities – Silver Spring, Rockville, Germantown, and Gaithersburg – count among the top 10 most ethnically diverse in the nation, a new survey revealed.

With a population of nearly 262,000, Jersey City, N.J., topped the most ethnically diverse cities in America list.

With a population of about 68,000, Gaithersburg is second, and Germantown, with a population of nearly 91,000, is third.

Silver Spring and Rockville finished at fifth and seventh respectively, with New York City sandwiched between the two Maryland cities.

In light of discussions of racial and ethnic equality that have been prominent in the past year, the personal-finance website, WalletHub, said it took a snapshot of America’s current cultural profile.

Researchers compared more than 500 of the largest U.S. cities across three key indicators of diversity – ethnicity and race, language, and birthplace.

The District ranked 102 overall. Its highest score was 31st in the category of birthplace diversity.

Parkersburg, W.Va., Hialeah, Fla., Clarksburg, W.Va., Barre, Vt., and Watertown, S.D., were the country’s five least ethnically diverse cities.

Jackson, Miss., has the highest concentration of African Americans (82 percent), while Green River, Wyo., has the lowest (0.01 percent).

Saco, Maine, has the highest white American concentration (95 percent), while Hialeah, Fla., had the lowest (2.68 percent).

Hialeah also has the highest concentration of Latinos (96 percent), while Greenville, Miss., has the lowest (0.58 percent).

“Diverse cities provide residents with a fuller array of Americana,” stated Dr. Rodney D. Coates, a WalletHub expert and professor of Global and Intercultural Stud-

New Information Fuels Case of County’s Black Police Officers

William J. Ford WI Staff Writer

An ongoing lawsuit against the Prince George’s County police department illustrates additional incidents of racially-motivated and retaliatory conduct against Black and Latino officers and citizens, based on new unredacted information released Monday, Feb. 22.

The information filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt includes a report written last year by former Los Angeles County Sheriff Michael E. Graham on behalf of a group of current and former Prince George’s police officers who filed a suit in De-

5 New allegations citing police incidents from a report on Prince George’s County released Feb. 22. (William J. Ford/The Washington Informer) cember 2018.

Some of the new information includes a case of two white officers who posted racial epithets on their social media accounts. One of the officers, a sergeant at the time, posted a message on a Yahoo chat group for current and retired Prince George’s officers.

In part, according to the Graham report, he called members of his command staff “baboons” and later posted, “Unless you’re in the ghetto-fide, butt-slappin, high-fivin, incompetent retard . . . you will always be wrong . . . specially if you don’t speak Ebonics.”

The report states the department reduced his rank and fined him $250 with the case closed in January 2013.

“He was retained by the Department and in February 2018 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant,” the Graham report alleges. Other allegations include the department’s failure to investigate three complaints in 2016 and 2018 from the constituents of former Del. Jimmy Tarlau and council members Dannielle Glaros and Den Taveras. The

5 Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland (Courtesy Livability)

complaints went directly to former police chief Hank Stawinski, the report states.

The county released a statement Monday in regards to the judge’s decision to release the unredacted Graham report. However, the county hired former police veteran J. Thomas Manger who countered the “assumptions” made in the Graham report.

“The Manger Report repeatedly points out instances where Mr. Graham failed to review or consider essential documents, misstates key facts and dates, takes statements and events out of context and relies solely on the allegations of some disgruntled and discredited officers,” said Rhonda L. Weaver, an attorney in the county’s Office of Law. “The Manger Report concluded that, on the whole, the Department has complied with its policies for addressing harassment and discrimination complaints, which are commensurate with best practices and industry standards.”

According to a redacted report from Manger dated Oct. 19, the county disputes a discrimination charge in regards to former Capt. Joe Perez being promoted to the rank in February 2016. Perez sought a pro-

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ies and the coordinator of Black World Studies at Miami University in Ohio.

“It allows them to learn how to cope with and deal with the future when we as a Nation are more diverse. It helps us to realize that we are not a monolith but a mosaic,” Dr. Coates remarked.

He added that diversity and difference are hard because it requires everyone to learn to set aside prejudices and stereotypes.

Ethnic diversity is not typically just about culture. Still, other variables, particularly economics, are often made more complicated, stated Jennifer Hamer, a WalletHub expert, and professor in the Department of African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

“The challenges of living in an ethnically diverse city are not natural but socially constructed. Ethnic diversity does not mean that there is ethnic equity among the different demographic groups,” Hamer insisted.

When ethnic diversity is coupled with economic inequity, and this inequity tends to be structured along ethnic lines, groups may compete for resources rather than recognize their shared interests in cooperation and collaboration, Hamer added.

“Negative stereotypes – new or old – often guide interactions and can be used to justify how those of low income are treated by those of means or to justify policies that protect the space of middle and upper income from those of lesser means, etcetera.”

WI @StacyBrownMedia

While Some Prince George’s Students are Returning to School, Some Are Not

William J. Ford WI Staff Writer

Michelle Daniels and her husband decided their son, Ted III, can return back to the classroom when Prince George’s County public schools reopen in April.

As a physician assistant, Daniels understands the science behind the coronavirus pandemic. Both have received both COVID-19 vaccines.

She felt reassured her son can receive in-person instruction after Greenbelt Elementary School principal held two Zoom sessions with parents. In addition, her son’s first-grade teacher got administered a vaccine.

“It made us feel better that we can change our minds and we can pull him out,” Daniels said. “It’s just twice a week and it’s only 27 days [until the end of the school year]. If we are ever going to get back to the swing of things, we’re going to have to step out there.”

Daniels joins thousands of other Prince George’s parents making the choice on whether to return their child back to the classroom.

Prince George’s Schools CEO Monica Goldson announced last week a hybrid schedule will begin April 8 to return all special education students and other students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and high school seniors.

Students in the seventh through 11th grades will come back April 15.

The school system will allow parents to decide on keeping their children at home to continue virtual learning for the rest of the school year scheduled to end June 15.

Parents such as Phyllis Wright plans to keep her children at home.

“I have two daughters. Both are honor roll students. They tell me, ‘Mommy, we are scarred to [go] to school and get sick,’” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable with sending my children to the schools.”

Parents are asked to complete a survey by Feb. 28 on whether to have their children return to the classrooms.

According to a reopening parental guide at https://bit.ly/3kaeAnu, will utilize a hybrid schedule for classroom instruction for two days a week and virtual learning the remaining three days.

Students with last names that begin with the letters A through J will be in class Monday and Tuesday. Last names that begin with K through Z will see come to school Thursday and Friday.

Classroom occupancy for early childhood centers and pre-kindergarten tis limited to 10 students. Occupancy increases to 15 students for kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms.

In each room, a teacher is to sit at a desk in front of the classroom providing instruction on a computer for students in class and at home. Each student is to use an iPad provided by the school or, for high school students, a laptop.

All students will have virtual learning on Wednesdays.

During a conference call Thursday, Feb. 18, Goldson summarized a medical advisory team comprised of county health officials and medical professionals helped to assess on students returning to school. For instance, they analyzed confirmed

5 Michelle Daniels and her family with husband, Ted Daniels, Jr., and their children, Ted III, standing in front of his father, and daughter, Melody. (Photo courtesy of Michelle Daniels)

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Prince George’s Established Aviation for Black Pilots

William J. Ford WI Staff Writer

A part of Prince George’s County’s history remains known for its various slave plantations now transformed into suburban subdivisions housed by thousands of Black residents.

Land near the current Patuxent River Park in Upper Marlboro established Black History when it comes to aviation, according to photos and documents from the College Park Aviation Museum.

“I am a straight, cis gendered white guy. Throughout history, there’s ton of documentation about people who look like me and belong to the same communities as me,” said Daniel Graham, education coordinator at the museum. “But when you look into the history of Black aviation, not only were there just fewer people who had these opportunities, there is just less documentation. As historians, we have to look more harder to…uncover these stories.”

The museum hosted a virtual lecture Saturday, Feb. 20 on the history of Black aviation in the county.

C. Alfred Anderson, a Black pilot who flew in a piper cub plane for the late President Eleanor Roosevelt, taught other Blacks to fly in the D.C. area to established The Cloud Club in 1940.

Anderson taught Black pilots at Howard University in Northwest and then Tuskegee University in Alabama.

He also taught these four Black men, John Pinkett Jr., Roland Brawner, Link Johnson and Harold E. Smith, who combined their money and other resources to build an airfield on a 450-acre potato field in Croom, an unincorporated neighborhood in Upper Marlboro.

The airport they called Riverside Airfield became the first Black coronavirus daily cases began to decrease an average of 12 per day since Jan. 22.

However, the county continues to lead the state of Maryland with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases. As of Saturday, Feb. 20, the county received the lowest percentage of first and second doses administered in the state at 6 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

The state’s first phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout includes teachers and other school staff.

So far, at least 1,500 received a vaccine and more are scheduled through Kaiser Permanente Lanham Rehabilitation Center. The school system has about 22,000 employees.

Each school will have plexiglass barriers installed along with air purifies, daily cleaning by custodial staff and other personal protective equipment.

owned and operated licensed airport in the country in 1941.

Devon Valera, an educator with the College Park museum who conducted the lecture, said Robbins Airport in Robbins, Illinois, garners the designation as the nation’s first Black airport established, but didn’t have the civil aviation authority license.

Thanks to John W. Greene Jr., the Prince George’s County airfield became an established place to not only teach Black pilots, but also a community center.

However, some of Greene’s personal information remains unknown such as his exact date of birth.

“We think he was born in Georgia in 1898. Although he’ll change the numbers around a bit in his documentation later in life,” Valera said.

He did graduate in 1923 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Hampton Institute, now known as Hampton University in Virginia.

Greene moved to Massachusetts and enrolled at the Boston Trade School and received an airplane mechanics degree.

He earned many African-American aviation achievements such as first pilot in Massachusetts in September 1930; first to receive a mechanic’s license for civil aircraft in 1931; and third in the nation to receive a transport pilot’s license in 1935.

Word traveled to Greene about an instructor needed to teach a new aviation mechanics program at Phelps Vocational School in D.C. in 1940, the same year The Cloud Club got created in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland.

When he arrived in D.C., the club sought an instructor for Riverside Airfield and Greene accepted.

During World War II, the U.S. Navy took control of the airfield. The Cloud Club managed it for only a few months, Valera said.

When the Navy decided to re-

5 An undated photo of John W. Greene Jr. sitting in a plane. In 1931, he became first African American to receive a mechanic’s license for civil aircraft. (Photo courtesy of M-NCPPC)

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