OPEN LETTER TO ORLANDO This picture was taken at building 26 in Carver Court.Some of my best memories involve people and places In Parramore, I have never been ashamed of living and growing up there, why? Because it made me who I am, a man of honor and respect unapologetic of where I come from and my culture. Parramore when i grew up was restaurants, shops doctors office barbershops music and culture. It was safe, you knew your neighbors you walked to church. Kids didnt disappear or get murdered, we looked out for each other. I can remember my single mom feeding people who may not have had as little as we did, but we had heart, love and morals of doing the right thing and doing right by each other and to each other. Had Parramore not got in the sight of developers and greed it would have remained that way. I have watched through the years as people who have no idea or connection to that community tear it down or pimp it for their own goals and agenda. Parramore has been a target simply because it was and is a black community that powerful white people in this town have always saw as those they could easily make victims because the rest of the city would not care about black folks, except to take what they had. No other neighborhood in Orlando has face the odds, prejudice and energy that has gone into destroying the families, business and people there. each decade has been filled with renewed lies to revitalize it, yet with the past of each year there is less and less to save. We the black community have also contributed to that decay as well by turning our back on it disowning it, and the people that remained there. When I left Orlando in the summer of 1980, Pine-hills was still pretty much 90% white when I returned in the 1990s to stay briefly it was about 90% Black as people where quick to abandon black neighborhoods perhaps in some misguided idea that these other places had greener grass. I know of to many people who did grow up in Parramore would not own up to it in front of mixed company, I have heard the Parramore slurs, by white people too often in both professional and leisure settings, as if to allude to those people. I was asked at a very well know eatery in the Dr. Phillips area as to which part of Parramore had the best weed, by someone white employee, I guess my being black means I know either every weed man or weed spot. I get that people not from there refuse to see the human part of it. People are always asking for solution, yet I and others have offered numerous approaches, but are told no thats not gonna work, what else have you got?....naw thats not gonna work either do you have something else?.. See i knew all you wanted to do was talk like everyone else...1st step solutions will require work and getting rid of everything else you did before why? Because the current state indicates that those things did not produce the desired outcomes, otherwise we would not still continue to talk about fixing our community. Sadly most leaders are simply part of the exploitation, seeking to get what they can get and cash in. There is no secret formula to fixing Parramore or any other community of color, the only way they will change is the people become feed up enough to put aside pettiness and personal agendas as well as egos and work together to make a difference. No program, grants or super hero will be able to change the fact that people will need to work.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 03:52:36 +0000
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