Front Yard Garden
09/23/2010
Tonight on the way over to Doyne County park to check on the basketball rims I took the picture of my front yard, the falling beauty, that I promised in my post the other night. Here it is.
I got to the park to find it full of activity, youth playing soccer, people on the golf course, persons walking, biking and running on the trail, children on the playground but No basketball rims on any of the four backboards. I saw a young man from the other night standing on the courts with a basketball in hand. He said he had been there for about 15 minutes. And there were no rims although there was plenty of daylight remaining. Either the ground crew had forgot to put up the rims today or had taken them down early.
Talking with this young man from a few blocks away who just wanted to shoot some hoops after a long day at work I became more convinced of the need to struggle to bringing back the basketball courts, especially the full court that so many youth and young man, age 13–35, have enjoyed over the years.
The tactic of writing emails to the County Supervisor responsible for taking down the rims with facts and comments on the situation certainly does not work. The more I write the more she attacks me, making me the enemy so she can ignore the message: The full court basketball players are not responsible for all the woes of neighborhood complaints she claims to receive. She certainly did not appreciate my applying wiki definitions of discrimination and scapegoating to the situation, although in my opinion of the truth they certainly do apply.
One neighbor today called to suggest that we call a neighborhood meeting at the local church on this issue, and seeing all the activity today in the park, except basketball, suggested to me making a web page of the story of the fear of the rims at Doyne Park.
This situation calls for creative nonviolent ways of speaking the truth civilly about the rims removal. Any ideas?
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