Scar of Racism

I spent today helping a friend helping other friends to paint the outside of their house to meet the codes of city inspection. On the way home I stopped at Doyne Park across the street. Driving in to the park I had a clear view of the three basketball courts. Again today, as most of this week, there were only a few in the park playing basketball, golfing, on the soccer field or on the playground. It looks like there was never a fourth pole, backboard and rim allowing full court basketball playing. But if you look closely on the court you will see a scar where the basketball pole, backboard, rim and net used to be.

Full Court basketball playing, as far as I can discover, had been in this County Park since the early 70’s when it was built on where a garbage dump used to be. When I moved in the neighborhood about eleven years ago I do remember any concern about youth and young adults playing full court basketball. I did notice that the white and Asian youth and young adults were joined by some African American basketball players. I saw no problem with this and was surprised after the renovation of the park in 2010 when suddenly there was a cry that the full court basketball playing and basketball players in general, bring crime and violence to the neighborhood. It soon became clear that when some talked about ‘basketball players’, especially ‘full court basketball players’ there were really talk about African American young adults.

During a neighborhood meeting a few years ago when I asked some neighbors why did not just talk with the youth who were playing basketball about the issues, they said they were warned by local politicians not to do so. When I talked to one of the groups playing full court basketball I found out they were a group of family and friends who used to play basketball in another neighborhood that was mostly white. One day they showed up and the rims were gone and thus they started for another court and came to Doyne Park.

The fourth rim was down and up for a while but in 2013 all four rims were restored and all was well, so I thought. Some gun fire in June and July, not related to full court basketball playing, was an excuse for the local neighbors to decry basketball playing in the park. The County Park, this time, succumbed to people, not all the neighbors, who blamed African American male basketball players for everything in the neighborhood that was undesirable. Not only the rim, but the backboard and pole were taken down to stop full court basketball playing. Now some of the same neighbors want all the basketball poles, backboards, rims and nets down. There was no connection shown between basketball playing by blacks and crime and violence but reason does not matter when there is racial hatred. Young African American males are becoming an endangered species as they are often the victims of gun violence and fill our prison system.

No one will call it discrimination or racism but the scars are there, scars of racism, if you look closely at the basketball court.

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