#walenation

Wale - DC Or Nothing

(Album: Ambition)

Hot off his new ‘Ambition’ album, DC rapper Wale is reppin’ his hometown to the fullest with this track. As a GW student and fellow DC resident I feel obligated to give this song a listen, and  I can’t help but love it because he discusses a topic that is far too often ignored in the classrooms and political debates in DC - the serious racial divides and inequities that plague our nation’s capitol.

Poverty, AIDS, drugs and gang violence are a daily reality in the lives of thousands of DC residents in the Anacostia  and Prince George’s County regions of DC, but many people don’t turn an eye to these communities because nobody ever talks about this side of the District. I have never been to Anacostia, because it is so dangerous and violence is rampant, but some of my close friends have participated in community service projects and know the situation is more dire than people can ever imagine. What we see and hear on the news is only a fraction of the dangerous reality of thousands of black people in DC. Parts of Anacostia look like a third world country even though the area is only 2 miles away from some of the wealthiest and most powerful institutions in the world.  Poverty in DC is everywhere, but we are so good at focusing on our own first world problems to pay mind to the countless African American people stuck in a poverty trap only a few miles away from our safety net. Wale grew up in Prince George’s County and bears witness to the type of life lead by countless of African Americans who live in poverty aside politicians, pundits and professors who are too busy trying to fix the rest of the world to start fixing problems in their own backyard.