Observations on First Commute

It’s my first day commuting to my internship and I soon realize that as I commute from Union Station to my internship site in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, I am going against a large traffic of people. I am one of the few that is walking away from the capitol.

As I noted last summer when I was here, it is great to see the fashion that people practice as they walk to work-a nice business suit or dress and your choice of tennis shoes or flip flops! Pack your heels or uncomfortable professional shoes, you wear in your office building, and you’re golden. Even now with the humidity of the summer, put your dress shirt on a hanger and make your commute in a t-shirt or undershirt and like the shoes, put the dress shirt on once you have arrived to work.

Fashion was not the only observation I made on my commute. As I rode the metro towards the Gallery Place/Chinatown stop, transferred to the green and yellow line, I noticed various differences in the people around me. At the Union Station stop, there were individuals with business clothes, a few tourists, and the majority ethnic group was white. My commute continued, hopping from train to train, I noticed the decrease of white people around me. The majority had changed from white to African American. I even looked at the semi-full metro car and thought to myself, “wow, not a single white person”. I searched again-and found only one.

I had to ponder and analyze these circumstances. To me, it seemed that mostly white individuals were working on the hill while the majority of African Americans were still considered blue-collar workers or in poverty in many neighborhoods of D.C. This was further emphasized, once more, by my experience last summer. As I interned at the Superior Court, most residents that brought their claims were African American. Why is there still this socioeconomic difference between races? Why is it that there are so many poor and hungry individuals and families, not only on the nation’s capital but also in the nation as a whole? How can this be fixed? This is a subject matter that people have asked themselves throughout history.

I was told that the Columbia Heights neighborhood was up and coming, meaning; more yuppies had moved in-they had even installed a Target! On my short walk from the Columbia Heights metro stop to my internship site this notion was evident to me. I could see the (what I assumed to be) homeless or very poor individuals (again, mostly minorities) and the “yuppies” that added the white color into the mixture. This fed as well to my questions stated above.

These were complicated thoughts to have as I rode the metro to my first day of the internship. But I felt a little better knowing that the organization I am interning for helps the families in the Columbia Heights neighborhood to succeed by providing numerous resources.

CFC