Skip to main content

What Is Wrong With This Picture?

Take a look at the photos from Saturday's rally for the old (Cy Paumier) Symphony Woods park plan. As the old controlled vocabulary readers would say,

Look, look, look!

See, see, see!

Are you ready? Who do you see? No, really. This is a test. Look at the pictures. I'll wait.

*****

These photographs are shocking in their complete absence of generational diversity. To give you an idea of what I mean, I'm going to run down a list of the kind of people I know and hang out with in Columbia:

  • Kids under the age of five.
  • Elementary aged kids.
  • Middle school kids.
  • (We don't socialize with many high schoolers, but my husband teaches them daily. Same with college-age kids, the ones we know are primarily my husband's former students.)
  • Twenty-somethings making their start in Columbia.
  • Folks in their thirties and forties: parents, bloggers, community activitists, school volunteers, some getting involved in politics.
  • Folks in their fifties--more of the same but perhaps less school stuff and more politics.
  • Active, involved sixty and seventy/somethings who love Columbia and are excited about its future.

These are my friends. These people are Columbia. And NONE of them are in the picture. What kind of a plan for the future of Symphony Woods doesn't include them and doesn't care?

If you care, speak up. One narrow slice of the community wants to take away the voice of diversity that the People Tree was meant to represent. If you don't speak up, you are giving your voice away.

Vote in your Village Election, and vote for the candidate who advocates for all generations in Columbia.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

F ³: Who Belongs at the Library?

  One of these things is not like the others One of these things doesn't belong Can you tell which thing is not like the other By the time we finish our song?* Did you guess which thing is not like the others? Did you guess which thing doesn't belong? If you guessed this thing is not like the others Then you're absolutely right.  Our library promotes equity. Our library promotes literacy for adults who have come here from many places. Our library promotes accessibility to materials and opportunities. Our library is hosting multiple Harry Potter themed events?  Tell me this isn’t so. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter book series, has and continues to use the profits from those books to advocate for laws that diminish the rights of trans people. She has and continues to use her fame to influence public opinion to view and treat trans people negatively. In short, Ms. Rowling is using the Harry Potter book series to make transgender people around the world less safe....