Dog Parks and Swimming Pools

Access...or lack thereof...is one of three reasons why Black people don't swim. In most cities of America...there are no pools in the ghetto...or if there are pools...access was limited to white people...who either made it a private club...or posted sentries at the gate to keep certain people out...

I'm not talking about way back in the day...well maybe a little...when I was born...Black people weren't allowed to swim at Coney Island...not until it was desegregated due to protests led by Marian Spencer back in 1957.

By 1967 my family had moved from Cincinnati to Mt. Healthy and I was taken out of Walnut Hills High and forced by my parents to go to Mt. Healthy High....

Even though our move was only ten miles, Mt. Healthy is a city in its own right and had its own parks and pool system.

Shortly after moving in to our new house...my sisters and I were turned away at the gate of the pool and told the park was only for residents...

We were residents....just not white residents...that apparently was the difference...Even with proof of residency, we could not get in...which is why I have never, ever been to a park in Mt. Healthy, to this day....

70% of all accidental drownings in America are Black people....The most recent having taken place in Louisiana where seven members of one family drowned in a horrific accident a few weeks ago.

You can read it here.

Access to swimming pools is pretty good in Cincinnati. There is or was at least one pool in every neighborhood. There are also the YMCA pools all over the city.

The more recent problem has been money to keep the pools open all summer. Cincinnati has done a pretty good job of finding the funds to keep them open most of the time, too.

So with obvious need for swimming pools in the ghetto and all the common sense surrounding swimming pool access in Cincinnati, why the hell tear one out and replace it with a dog park?

I'm talking about what is going on in Washington Park, where the renovation calls for putting a dog run in the space where the kids swim. In a nod to the children, the plans call for a water play area, but that is totally different from having a place to swim, or learn to swim.

You don't learn water safety from a moving hose squirting water at you.

Why are dogs more important than the neighborhood kids? Or is the plan to move the kids out of the neighborhood along with their more impoverished parents?

You can't make me believe that there are enough foo-foo dogs moving in to justify getting rid of a swimming pool and playground...

Because what is happening is that Washington Park is being changed from a kid friendly place to a gathering place for the upwardly mobile and their four legged friends...

The pool and basketball court....are gone...or soon to be gone....The city has signed off on this travesty..and nobody seems to give a damn...

Progress...new and better ways to segregate...

Cincinnati Race for Mayor

Avondale the Forgotten Territory

“This week, Wenstrup's campaign blanketed Cincinnati with two mailings - one that goes after Mallory for his many trips around the country and the world and another that challenges Mallory's assertion that Cincinnati is a safer city than it was when he took office nearly four years ago. “

Blanketed Cincinnati with two mailings....Really?!

I live in Cincinnati...I wasn't blanketed....Okay maybe my mail person took one day off...it happens...

Or maybe the “blanket” came on the day the mail guy who is afraid of my dogs and won't deliver when he hears them bark from inside my house, was working....He apparently thinks my dogs can unbolt two locks, as well as unchain the screen door to get to him on the porch...

that would explain missing one of the “blanket mailings.”

However...I don't think the mail person took both days off...and I missed BOTH mailings...I know the Post Office is cutting back.

But missing two mailings.....Hmmmmmmmmmmm....Don't think so...

You know what....it's me....My bad...

I keep forgetting.....I live in Avondale....and many, many people down at City Hall, as well as many of those who want to be at City Hall...

Refuse to acknowledge that Avondale is a part of Cincinnati...

Oh, they remember us when talking about crime in the city. And how dangerous it is to live in Cincinnati despite national statistics to the contrary.....or when they need to prove to the Feds that there are Black people living in Cincinnati...we're good at bolstering their Census cred...

And we have plenty of baby mamas to draw all the federal funds they need to fill their coffers on Plum Street.

But asking us to vote them into office...coming onto our turf to find out what we Avondale residents may be thinking....nah!

You'd think a trip down Reading Road, over Gilbert Avenue or up Victory Parkway, was like traversing a dangerous foreign country....like Over the Rhine...or the West End....

The last time I saw a politician on my door step was a Black guy asking me to vote for Steve Chabot..

I know a lot of political mailing is going on....I get stuff from Qualls...I get stuff from Winburn...I get stuff from Harris...and Mallory.....and Crowley....and even Ted Strickland.....

But Brad Wenstrup.....If I hadn't taken a bus trip through Pleasant Ridge a few days ago and seen the yard signs....I would not have known that Mallory was being challenged for his seat..

But seriously Dr. Wenstrup...If you're running for mayor...you need to understand that you will represent all of us if elected...not just the westside and some of the neighborhoods on the east side....like Hyde Park, East Walnut Hills, or Mt. Adams...

Cincinnati is a very diverse city and really not as dangerous as you would believe...or have the rest of the world believe....

You would know that...if you really had the courage to campaign as a man who really, really wants to represent all of us residents of the Queen City...

C-ya on election day!