The passage in question now says:

Anyone who's lived in D.C. is aware of the city's dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid that the wealthy northwest rarely engages with the swathe of low income people who share their city.*

And the asterisk-clarification:

It seems I've aggravated a lot of people with my reference to apartheid. I agree it was a poor choice of words, which unfairly exaggerated the social and class issues we have in DC. I've reworded that sentence to more accurately reflect my intention, which was to highlight the fact that there are two distinct class worlds in DC: an affluent group that clusters in the north west and a much poorer community whose work helps enable the higher living standards of the richer residents. It's also a reality that, like in many urban areas, a majority of those who live in DC's poorer areas aren't white. Those areas have worse schools and less access to services. In my mind, the contrast is stark and unjust, and in order to remedy this unfairness, DC residents should be conscious and open about the class politics surrounding them. But I admit that's a very different situation than in South Africa, and the analogy was a bad one.

Among the aggravated: Kwame Brown.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

A day after City Desk wrote about Katie Connolly's reference to "apartheid" as D.C.'s "dirty secret" in a post in Newsweek about race, class, and the city's low marriage rate, At-large Councilmember Kwame Brown has weighed in.

"As an elected official in DC, I'm appalled that a reporter at Newsweek would compare our system of government to apartheid," Brown said in a statement. "The article simplified the complex issue of marriage by pitting DC residents against each other and race against race. In fact, District residents are united in our efforts to alleviate poverty, reform our schools and create a city where families thrive. Our only remaining form of oppression comes not from each other but from our lack of full voting representation in Congress. Anyone who's lived in DC should be aware of that dirty little secret."

As we said yesterday, terminology matters.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

Connolly wrote:

Anyone who's lived in D.C. is aware of the city's dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid. In general, affluent, college-educated white folks with decent, steady incomes are clustered in the northwest quadrant. Their needs are serviced by a massive underclass, consisting largely of underprivileged immigrants, African-Americans, and Hispanics, that inhabits the remaining three quarters. Visitors to the city rarely glimpse this side of the city because there's little reason to venture beyond the fancy hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

Apartheid? Her use of that term caught the attention of Greater Greater Washington readers today after that site linked to Connolly's post; several commenters suggested it was "extreme" and "horrendously oversimplified," and that seems about right to me.

If it was unintentional, it was, at best, a sloppy reference; if she meant it, it was hyperbolic and inaccurate (even with that "unwritten" thrown in there). Apartheid has a very specific meaning beyond just racial segregation. And what Connolly described: That's segregation.

There certainly is no disputing the segregated nature of this city (and many others). And there is no disputing all of the disparities, along racial lines, that exist within it, in areas ranging from education and income to health care and beyond. But let's not call that apartheid. Terminology matters.

Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.

"The accompanying story by June Kronholz is, as the picture suggests, almost uniformly admiring. Although it doesn't address what happened to the real Braveheart, Scottish rebel William Wallace, who was hanged, disemboweled, beheaded and quartered in 1305 for rising up against the British crown."

One commenter brings the discussion back into the current millennium: "I don't want Rhee to be beheaded, I just want her to resign."

Since Rhee took office in 2007, it's become quite trendy to follow the fiery Chancellor around for awhile and then write a breathless profile about her crusade to fix D.C.'s schools. C'mon, Education Next, all the cool kids are doing it. For interested readers, here's a sampling:

September 2007: "Can Michelle Rhee Save DC Schools?" Washingtonian.com.

October 2007: "A hard road to hoe: teaching poor children." The Economist.

August 2008: "An Unlikely Gambler." Newsweek.

November 2008: "Rhee Tackles Classroom Challenge." TIME.

November 2008: "The Lightning Rod." The Atlantic.

January 2009: "Is Michelle Rhee the new face of education reform?" Christian Science Monitor.

March 2009: "Education's Ground Zero." Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times.

(Note: Most of them are "almost uniformly admiring.")