The Post's Vanessa Williams goes in search of the "cosmopolitan canopy" in Washington region—where people of different races feel comfortable mixing. And apparently it's in Langley Park, Md.:

Nancy Navarro says she finds diversity when she shops at the Red Apple Market in Langley Park, which she often leaves with more than the ingredients for dinner after perusing the contents of the cozy grocery store that specializes in African, Caribbean and Latin meats, produce and spices.

Like the time she was picking over the avocados when a Jamaican man standing next to her offered advice on how to choose the best ones.

“People from Africa sharing stories about a particular ingredient with people from Central America and vice versa,” said Navarro, a native of Venezuela, describing the interactions that take place at the market near the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard.

Within city limits, I've observed that D.C. also has lots of places where residents of different races and socioeconomic status meet: Fish markets, (some) farmers markets, specialty Caribbean or Asian grocery stores, liquor stores, Ben's Chili Bowl, and the food lines at Nationals Park.

But food-based diversity is pretty cheap. Getting advice on picking out fresh fish or which spice will complete a meal, while useful, isn't quite the same as diversity in the classroom or an office. It's all well and good to celebrate the diversity of the region and the city—and food is a huge part of the reason—but real diversity, where people develop empathy for those who are "different," is still pretty hard to come by.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

A Metro section-front story reports how Espina’s son, Manuel de Jesus Espina Jacome, who watched his father die, stood up at a community meeting last week and asked county police officials: “What are you doing with assassin police officers?”

It’s not the first time Jackson’s version of an arrest didn’t jibe with other facts.

The Post has another story today about a traffic stop Jackson made in Hyattsville in May last year that led to the arrest of Shawn M. Leake. In his report, Jackson said Leake came out of his car swinging and “even tackled me to the ground.” The only problem is the police video, obtained by Leake’s lawyer and given to the Post, shows Jackson pulling Leake out of the car, slugging him and throwing him to the ground.

County prosecutors dropped the charges against Leake. Nevertheless, Jackson was cleared by an internal police investigation.

About three months after arresting Leake, Jackson shot and killed Espina while moonlighting as a security guard at the apartment complex where the confrontation occurred. Jackson has maintained that Espina was violently resisting arrest. But his son and another witness allege he was on the ground and not trying to fight back when the officer beat him and then pulled the trigger. While he wasn’t on the police payroll that night, Jackson is still on administrative duty until the internal inquiry into Espina’s death wraps. That investigation has dragged on for so long one can’t help but question whether the department is waiting for the case to fade from public view before deciding Jackson’s fate.

It makes you wonder what’s going on inside the P.G. County police force. Two other officers are also on administrative duty pending the outcome of an investigation into another traffic-stop incident involving a Latino, the Post reports.

Today’s Post goes through the motions of listing “signs” that police and the Latino community are rebuilding their tattered relationship. But it smacks of public relations spin. The fact that Jackson remains on the force nearly a year after Espina’s death – especially since it wasn’t the first time his version of events clashed with other evidence – seems sign enough that little has changed.