Inequities at Parks

I’m a country boy from Pennsylvania. I didn’t know too much about racism when I was growing up. Blacks and whites worked together.

I left home when I was 16 years old. Since then I’ve lived in Texas, Oklahoma, and I’ve been through Arkansas. Living in these places, I learned about the hate one man has for another because he is white, black or Mexican.

Pertaining to our parks in Southeast San Diego and in Barrio Logan where I live now, they are a mess, they are filthy and they stink. They don’t have to be that way.

I don’t want to hear about the problem with graffiti because that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m saying that the restrooms need to be fixed so they can be used properly, so that when they are flushed they will not back up. Everything has to be fixed: barbecue pits, park benches, the children’s slides and the rest of the things that the kids play on.

The worst kind of racism I know is when you keep things away from the children.

Why can’t the city give the same kinds of parks to us as they do to La Jolla and other places? Just because we have low-income people in San Diego, that doesn’t mean we can’t vote or think or even have feelings. We make up the population of the City and County of San Diego just as much as anybody else does.

HARRY SNYDER

San Diego