“They enjoy interacting with other blacks,” Karyn Lacy, a sociologist at the University of Michigan, wrote in her book “Blue-Chip Black,” for which she interviewed dozens of parents in Prince George’s. “Scholars have focused so much on the burden of blackness that they have devoted scant attention to the possibility that there is something enjoyable about being black and participating in a community of blacks.”

Residential integration is not a goal, particularly for younger black professionals born after the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, said Bart Landry, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who has returned to Prince George’s for an update to his 1987 book, “The New Black Middle Class.” He said many residents find comfort, after spending the day in a predominantly white workplace, in returning to a home where all their neighbors are other African American professionals.

“They’re where they want to be,” Landry said. “They’re not thinking about integration. It’s not on their radar screen. . . . Their goal is to live in a community of like-minded, like-valued people, and these are other middle-class blacks.”

Whoa, black people are just like other people. Anyway, the only real issue I had with the story is that it seemed to paint too rosy a picture. It was a good study of the black upper-middle class, but had only one mention of the downsides of living in "Ward 9"—bad public schools—and no interviews with the poor folks living in the county.

Photo by ElvertBarnes via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Folks who bought FanZone parking passes on WJFK's web site and showed up to Saturday's preseason game with Pittsburgh found that Snyder had taken over the lot.

Yesterday, a marketing rep for CBS-owned WPGC, a WJFK sister station that was also promoting the parking lot, told me “some situations occurred” that led to Snyder’s takeover.

The marketing rep, however, would not go into detail over how the promotion, which positioned the FanZone lot as cheaper than Snyder's lots and without the new tailgating restrictions that so many fans are concerned about, fell apart.

Swanson says all the problems come from WJFK selling parking passes before getting the rights to use the land.

"[I]n a nutshell the Redskins, the radio stations and (I think) one other group were in separate negotiations to lease the lot as a parking site," Swanson tells me via email. "For reasons unbeknownst to us, the radio stations began advertising the lot without a contract and as negotiations were ongoing.  We entered terms and leased the lot for game day parking."

The Redskins did the fans who bought passes a solid for the Pittsburgh game, Swanson says: "[W]e decided to honor all of the passes the radio stations had already sold."

(AFTER THE JUMP: The sad tale of Bullets gaffer Dick Gibbs? Local rookie Brett Cecil makes his own blooper tape? Best of the decade time...already? AAU teammates Durant and Beasley make different sorts of news? Would only an idiot reference the Tom Boswell Curse?)

The radio stations are now scrambling to find a new parking lot. There's not much to work with in the area, however.

So, could FanZonegate™ be over?

Gosh, I hope not.

***

For years I've wondered what ever happened to Dick Gibbs. Thanks to the Des Moines Register, now I know.

Gibbs was briefly a Washington Bullet in the mid-1970s, but was responsible for one of the most memorable sporting moments of my formative years. Gibbs blew an uncontested, snowbird layup in the closing moments of Game 4 of the NBA Finals with the Bullets down by a point. His choke gave the Golden State Warriors a sweep and what was then regarded as perhaps the biggest upset in championship series history.

The miss made Gibbs a huge goat around here. In pickup games, me and my buddies would yell "Dick Gibbs!" at anybody going in for an uncontested layup, a euphemism for "Choke!" in hopes it would rattle 'em enough to blow the shot,  just like Gibbs blew his.

Gibbs didn't take well to goathood. He tells the Des Moines Register that the gaffe with the Bullets helped ruin his basketball career and his life.

He was traded the next season from the Bullets to Buffalo, but got the boot from the Braves after running into the stands to confront and spit in the face of a fan who heckled him about the layup that wasn't in Washington.

"How I remembered that for 25 years was that I went into the game, I missed a layup with hardly any time left, and I single-handedly cost us an NBA championship," Gibbs told the Iowa paper. "I took that one and carried it around with me."

He was living under a bridge for a while, with various addictions and mental breakdowns. Now I feel sorry now for using his name in vain all those years ago.

On behalf of all Bullets fans: We forgive you, Dick Gibbs.

***

Not to rival Gibbs's, but DeMatha alum and Toronto Blue Jays rookie pitcher Brett Cecil had his own Brain Lock Moment. Cecil's getting roasted up North for throwing a ball out of play before calling timeout during a home game against the Red Sox. The gaffe led to a Boston run in what turned into an 8-1 rout for the visitors.

The video is funny, just for the catcher's panic and the facial expressions on all concerned. But no matter what, if Cecil's living under a bridge anytime soon, he better not blame this.

***

Bad news for those just getting over Best of the Century/Millennium Lists: Best of the Decade lists are now coming out.

DCsportsfan.com just broke the crust with a poll of local boys who made good on the gridiron since 2000. The roster has too much Maryland, not enough Virginia, for my liking.

***

Michael Beasley, who'd make any list of the best basketball players to come from DC in recent years, has reportedly checked into a clinic to treat unspecified drug and emotional issues. Via the Great Dan Steinberg, happier news for Kevin Durant, Beasley's former AAU teammate from PG County and another sure all-decader: Durant scored 55 points in a Barry Farms showcase.

***

The Nats lose, if I'm carrying the one correctly, their 9th in 12 games since Tom Boswell returned from vacation. I'm not ready yet to start once again blaming all the losing on him or the Tom Boswell Curse. But I might in a loss or two...

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

I don't want the team to leave town. And though I grew up in the DC suburbs, the idea of building sports venues outside the city is so retro. Not good retro, like the opening riff of "Sweet Home Alabama."* Bad retro, like the Ayds Candy Plan.

The spots that United claims to crave are both in Landover, a corner kick from where Abe Pollin's Capital Centre* once stood. When Abe moved downtown and imploded his old building, I figured the era of the suburban sports venue was dead around here. Redskins fans already knew that they were stuck with a disaster in FedExField by then.

So I was surprised to hear so much support for a PG County site from United's fan base, which is, from my experience, smarter and younger and more cosmopolitan (and, of course, smaller) than any other local team's base. Their cheerleading for the soccer team bizarrely extends to management's whims, even when it'd be hard to argue that a move to Maryland would be good for current United supporters.

But, as I think the team and its fans will find out pretty quick, nobody in PG will be building any stadium for anybody any time soon. Maybe the feud between the team and the DC government will cool by the time the recession ends. Look for several more years of United at RFK, and then it's Poplar Point or bust.

*Skynyrd opened for the Who on Dec. 6, 1973, the week Capital Centre opened. A photo from that show was used in the poster that came with "Odds and Sods." Don't get me started...

Ciao, D.C.  Hope you're staying warm & enjoying the recession!  Now, some "news":

*Oh noez! Barista at the U & 16th Starbucks shoots self in leg, accidentally.

*More oh noez! Nathaniel R. Mines, Jr., a councilman in Fairmount Heights, stands accused of having impersonated a police officer. The Post reports:

...he was arrested outside a crowded dance early Saturday with a gun and bulletproof vest, police radio and several law enforcement badges.

Turns out he wasn't just playing dress-up: Mines actually seems to think he's the police commissioner. (His first arrest for impersonating an officer came in '96.)

*Also in Prince George's County: NBC Washington reports the release of a PG Police dashboard-cam video that "shows officers John Wynkoop and Scott Wilson beating and pepper-spraying a Latino driver last October. The officers can also be heard mocking the driver's accent on the tape." The officers are suspended and an investigation underway.

*14th & You examines the remaking of U Street's intersections.

*Bummed that you missed West School's Monday Family Reading Night & Pajama Party? Bum no more! The snow pushed it back to tomorrow night.

Photograph by ChrisB in SEA.