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May 19, 2013 | 05:07 PM
jonetta rose
Washington D.C. weather

Jonetta Rose Barras

Columnist

Jonetta Rose Barras is a columnist for The Washington Examiner. She is the author of the critically acclaimed The Last of the Black Emperors, and former associate editor of the Washington City Paper. She has appeared as a commentator for CNN, C-SPAN, and PBS and is widely considered one of the freshest female voices speaking for the African-American community today.
  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Bonds sings the same old song

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Fri, Apr 12, 2013

    If there were doubts about whether Anita Bonds deserves to retain her at-large seat on the D.C. Council, she ably put them to rest this week. She reached back for an ancient, predictable and discredited political organizing tool: race. While participating in a candidates' forum on WAMU radio,...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Patrick Mara for D.C. Council

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Tue, Apr 9, 2013

    The D.C. Council desperately needs transforming. Its organizing model, style and problem-solving approach are anachronistic, dating to the mid-to-late 20th century. It lacks a range of voices; each member sounds -- and often thinks -- like the other. Many voters have determined that without...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: The budget as campaign tool

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Fri, Apr 5, 2013

    When Mayor Vincent C. Gray informally presented his proposed $12 billion 2014 budget to D.C. Council members last week, those gathered in his ceremonial office in the John A. Wilson Building might have thought him Pope Francis incarnate. Legislators offered platitudes and seemed ready to kiss...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Another progressive voice on the council?

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Tue, Apr 2, 2013

    If there were a sound track to Elissa Silverman's campaign for the at-large seat on the D.C. Council, it might be the song "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." She has had a difficult time removing the tax-and-spend liberal label stitched to her after she joined the D.C. Fiscal Policy...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Is the third time a charm for Mara?

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Fri, Mar 29, 2013

    Surely Patrick Mara has mastered the science of citywide campaigns. He has run twice for the at-large seat on the D.C. Council. The April 23 special election will be his third attempt. He's racked up several endorsements -- the D.C. Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee, for example...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Frumin: More than the money man

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Published: Mon, Mar 25, 2013

    Since he jumped into the at-large D.C. Council race, hoping to win the April 23 special election, Matthew Frumin has raised lots of money. At last count, he had $98,000 in cash on hand -- much more than his competitors. He has been nicknamed "Money Man." But the chairman of Advisory...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Hear Anita roar

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Published: Thu, Mar 21, 2013

    "When are we going to go and take the mantle from the men?" That question anchors at-large D.C. Councilwoman Anita Bonds' campaign to win a more permanent post in the legislature. "Women are really stuck at the very bottom," she told me in a recent interview. Bonds is one of seven candidates,...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Michael Brown -- Not again

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Tue, Mar 19, 2013

    What part of no doesn't Michael A. Brown understand? The one-term D.C. councilman was kicked out of office just last November. Now, he's trying to return to the John A. Wilson Building, offering a narrative that is more fiction than fact. For example, Brown has said he has been cleared by...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: Looking for D.C.'s public safety czar

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Fri, Mar 15, 2013

    "Now is the time to restore coordination and accountability in the District's public safety operations." That's what newly elected Mayor Vincent C. Gray said in 2010, resurrecting the position of deputy mayor for public safety and justice and asserting that Paul A. Quander Jr. would "help...

  • Jonetta Rose Barras: At last, education leadership in D.C.

    Jonetta Rose Barras

    Updated: Mon, Mar 11, 2013

    In just a few months, at-large Councilman David Catania has demonstrated why many people were excited about his appointment as chairman of the Committee on Education and Libraries. He has awakened the District's comatose education reform movement, bringing to the public square issues Mayor...