Enjoys View Park Area

John Mitchell’s Q & A with View Park realtor/resident Jo Ramsey (Times, July 7) left us breathless with indignation. In our aggregate decade of living in View Park, we have run into the elitist, classist views attributed to the residents by Mrs. Ramsey--but only when talking with Mrs. Ramsey (from whom, by the way, we bought our house).

She says that neighborhood residents shun nearby services and businesses, many of which are black-owned. But we frequently see our friends and neighbors shopping in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw mall, as well as in several businesses along the Crenshaw strip. Apparently these folks do not share Mrs. Ramsey’s disdain for Crenshaw, which we see as an extension of our neighborhood and an important supplier of the services she so proudly touts.

According to Mrs. Ramsey, a tidy lawn and straight shutters, sans burglar bars, are essential ingredients in the formula for community responsibility. But the people we know here have a different interpretation: Myriad residents are involved in church and civic volunteer work that benefit the wider black community; apparently they feel it is imperative to reach back and extend a hand--even while Mrs. Ramsey refuses to hold hers out.

We enjoy living in View Park and plan to stay and raise our child here. He can join the hordes of nonexistent children the article mentions, the same little bodies that sprawl across our lawn and play ball in the park across the street. But when it comes time to search for a larger house, you can bet Coldwell Banker won’t get our business. Not if their lead agent in the neighborhood has such contempt for the larger black community in which it is located.

BRUCE and KAREN TALAMON

View Park