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Kenyan McDuffie Candidate for Ward 5 (by Tyler Nelson)

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed I’ve been talking a lot about Kenyan McDuffie lately. Tom and I plan to vote for him for Ward 5 Council, we’ve donated to his campaign, and we held a meet and greet in our home a few nights ago so our neighbors and fellow bloggers could get to meet him. (In fact, this photo was taken in our dining room.)

The mayoral race in DC this year has devolved into the oversimplification that the incumbent mayor only cares about the affluent, white, yuppie newcomers, while the challenger (currently chair of the Council) cares about the less affluent black residents who have lived in the District for years (generations, even).

Being one of the aforementioned white, yuppie newcomers, I have found this to be a frustrating false dichotomy. Yes, I like bike trails and dog parks and coffeeshops that sell wine in the evenings (the things my neighbors scoff at), but I also like it when my neighbors have jobs and access to healthy food. I would like the library in my neighborhood to get a long-overdue upgrade, even if I don’t make the time to get there much myself. We all benefit when our neighbors have nice places to live and steady paychecks and high quality community institutions. Appreciating and supporting the addition of bobo amenities like dog parks doesn’t mean I don’t care about the basics.

One of the many things I appreciate about Kenyan McDuffie is that he embraces both types of Ward 5 residents, and understands that the yuppie newcomers aren’t buying houses in Ward5 so they can then NOT care about the vitality of their neighborhoods.