jonetta rose barras: Breaking out and dancing in DC

Let’s all shout “Hallelujah!” 

Earlier this week, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the lifting of most public health emergency restrictions at facilities across the city on May 21, providing the road map to recovery that business leaders and DC Council members, specifically Ward 5’s Kenyan McDuffie and Ward 2’s Brooke Pinto, had sought. Their recent letters to Bowser presented the case for a more aggressive reopening, especially since Maryland and Virginia were moving full speed ahead.

In a statement released just hours before the mayor held her regular coronavirus briefing on Monday, McDuffie argued that this is the time of year that “DC businesses rely on the warm weather and spike in tourism to generate enough income to sustain operations for the rest of the year, and workers rely on consistent and reliable employment.

“Without this activity, businesses will continue to face staggering losses in revenue and employment,” he continued. “This call for a reopening roadmap comes as our regional partners have eased capacity restrictions and other large localities like New York City announced 75% indoor capacity while D.C. remains stuck at 25% with no publicized plans to update guidelines.”

That call to action followed the May 7 letter he and Pinto sent to Bowser, noting that residents and businesses have “sacrificed so much over the past 14 months. … Our children need to be able to play outdoor sports. Our restaurants need to be able to  increase their capacity so they can hire workers and earn more revenue.

“Our entertainment venues need to be able to host events and allow patrons to dance at their weddings,” the duo added.

Yes, dancing. The mayor’s decision, effective May 1, to “restrict standing and dancing receptions,” including those held in celebration of marriage, caused a major dust-up, bruising the national image she has assiduously polished during the dark era of President #45 and the even darker era of the coronavirus pandemic. It became a talking point on CNN and particularly Fox News, where bride-to-be Margaret Appleby announced Wednesday that she intends to sue the city.

When Bowser made her announcement, I kept hearing Whitney Houston, belting out the song written by Shannon Rubicam and George Robert Merrill: “I wanna dance with somebody//I wanna feel the heat with somebody//Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody//
With somebody who loves me.”

Even at the height of the pandemic, neighbors on blocks all around America participated in dance parties from their doorsteps or on Zoom, whenever they could. Outside of the United States, people were dancing, too. They remembered apparently what the mayor and her minions forgot: Dancing can heal a grieving heart and a broken spirit. It can heal a traumatized and nearly wrecked mind. Dancing is what we all need.

“Don’t you wanna dance?” 

Apparently, Bowser changed her answer to yes. Among the prohibitions lifted for May 21 is dancing at weddings. The full reopening of District businesses is scheduled for June 11, when bars, nightclubs and sports and entertainment venues can return to full occupancy. DC government employees are expected to return to their offices by July 11.

The mayor and her people have said that they responded to DC’s health metrics — not any advocacy by business owners or legislators. They can couch their actions as they choose.

For the rest of us, the celebration — if not the dancing — has already begun. And for good reason. 

The death march has slowed. During the pandemic’s height, more than a half million U.S. citizens died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. It consumed the lives of more than 1,100 DC residents. 

With most people locked in their homes and many downtown offices closed — some permanently — much of the nation’s capital became a ghost town. That scene was disturbed by white supremacists and insurrectionists who laid siege to the Capitol building, hoping to disrupt democracy and prevent the congressional certification of the Electoral College results electing Joe Biden as the 46th president. Local residents were subsequently barricaded from some sections of the city’s monumental core, while other parts were wrapped in barbed-wire fencing. 

Bowser and her team, including DC Health director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, guided the city through all of that in concert with the council, headed by Chairman Phil Mendelson. In fact, an audit prepared by Talus Analytics and the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security on behalf of the Office of the DC Auditor found that the District did better than most states. “The mobility changes in D.C. also indicate that policies worked — the initial stay at home orders had the largest impact, but D.C. residents stayed at home more often than people in Maryland, Virginia and across the United States,” auditors wrote in “Bending the Curve: Policies to Mitigate COVID-19 in D.C. & the Region,” which was released last month.

Translation: District residents were — and are — a fairly obedient bunch, which helped keep most of us safe. 

Many, myself included, have received either the Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Some have hesitated, but with greater accessibility (including walk-in vaccination sites), the numbers of the inoculated are sure to increase.

As a tangible sign of things to come, just as Bowser announced the upcoming removal of certain restrictions, federal officials opened Lafayette Park, which fronts the White House, to the public.

There is still much to be done, however. A massive recovery program must be advanced, including how to help the city’s artists. New York recently announced creation of the City Artist Corps, a $25 million initiative to help provide jobs for more than 1,500 artists. The District could resurrect Arts DC, its own successful arts employment program; while it hasn’t operated since the 1980s, the model could easily be replicated for these times. City officials also must consider how to revive some of the hardest-hit commercial corridors, without overburdening businesses with payback loans. 

Is the worst behind us? That’s the question running through the minds of many residents. They look at the surges of last year and even early spring and worry. 

Undoubtedly there are risks. Bowser and her team offered a word of caution, urging people, particularly the unvaccinated, to continue wearing masks and to hew to social distancing guidelines. I don’t know anyone who is ready to fully abandon safety protocols.

We are ready, however, to get out and reclaim our city. We are ready to browse library shelves, stroll the streets, sit in cafes, bars, restaurants and, yes, to dance, once again. 

I can hear Danny Kaye singing those all-too-true lyrics: “The best things happen while you’re dancing.”

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jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.