in 1990, two women—“gay but not lovers”—got kicked out of a Virginia bar for dancing together.

what comes next is a story about gay rights, racism, housing policy, and my attempt to understand a mean email I got yesterday

a thread—

https://twitter.com/justupthepike/status/1363239844244320257

in 1990 Dale was a house painter living in Silver Spring. She and her friend Gail would dance the Texas two-step at GW’s, a country & western nightclub in Alexandria. they’d dance with men and they’d dance together, then one night a bouncer appears—

every time La Casita gets a positive review I want more people to know about the little strip of Latin American businesses that surrounds it on Piney Branch Road and Sligo Avenue, or as @alexbaca calls it, Little Mount Pleasant
washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/… in Little Mount Pleasant you can buy paint, a refrigerator, a 6-pack of Ethiopian beer, a haircut, pupusas from at least four Salvadoran restaurants (including La Casita), then rent a car, board your dog, and drop your kid off at day care. truly a magical place

Sligo Creek is at a record height due to today's flash flood, which is a good time for a thread about floodplains in MoCo (please prepare for a thread) -

https://twitter.com/WeatherEric/status/1304140277104472065

growing up we'd drive out Georgia Avenue and I'd see this sign in Aspen Hill that said "Flood Area." every time we passed it I expected to see a flood, but there was none -

350 people crowding the cafeteria at Julius West MS in Rockville for a meeting on MCPS’ school boundary analysis—our front, officials told us the room is full and we might want to attend one of the other scheduled meetings meanwhile, protesters out front have signs and are handing out flyers that warn “FARMS (free and reduced lunch) rate trumps geography”

*MONTGOMERY COUNTY IS A PROGRESSIVE, DIVERSE COMMUNITY*

"White families are being punished"
“They won’t be able to keep up and they won’t study."
"It’s not our fault those children don’t have opportunities. You can’t put that burden on us."

ow.ly/Ph6b50p6Y75 I cannot tell you how triggered I am by reading this, twelve years of internalizing toxic nonsense from white parents and teachers in MCPS because we were Better Than Everyone Else so clearly this is how it was supposed to be

hey I went to One Loudoun today and I feel some kind of way about it. It’s an example of “Green Day urbanism”—purists say Green Day isn’t “punk” but it gets you into the harder stuff. So it goes here— (1/x) my partner grew up a few miles from here, but in 90s middle class suburbia. One Loudoun wants you to know you’re downtown—in a county of 400k, there is very little historic urbanism, save for Leesburg and a few small towns

two big events related to diversity in MoCo tonight: a town hall with @kojoshow on the achievement gap in schools, and a public hearing about making it easier to build accessory apartments, which I'm headed to soon

https://twitter.com/kojoshow/status/1100545147253739522

I'm going to livetweet as much of the @MoCoCouncilMD hearing on accessory apartments as I can, but may go home at a reasonable time, because after 13 years of this stuff I am trying to prioritize self-care 😬