Last week, a tense video went viral, showing older dudes in Dropbox shirts telling younger kids in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood to get off a soccer field because the older dudes had a permit.
Today in City Hall, those kids and their supporters held a “Playground Is Not For Sale” rally that drew about 150 people. One of our Rebeldes, @minsd, was on the scene.
She took photos.
She heard speakers.
She even spoke with one of the organizers, @EdwinLindo of the Latino Democratic Club.
Lindo shared the community demands to List of community demands presented to Phil Ginsburg and the San Francisco Recreation and Parks department:
a) No field permitting at Mission Playground for adults from 7-10 pm
b) A full time staff at Mission Playground
c) Create Park and Rec community based council based on city districts that determine the programming and staffing regarding parks in the district. This council must implement a community process that will allow for community feedback. Rec and Park dept shall not interfere with the final decision of the councils; they can however, provide guidance of capacity and rules.
d) Better park patrol response to park and recreation centers to address safety concerns
e) Ensure equity among neighborhood parks. Disclose financial investments made in each park and recreation center through out the city.
f) Identify each violation of the San Francisco Language Access ordinance and within 6 months ensure that SF Parks & Rec is no longer in violation
g) A follow up meeting with the youth and the community regarding all of the above.
The the group went inside to meet with city officials. We were literally in the middle of prepping this post to share with our community, when suddenly this happened:
The Recreation and Parks Department has confirmed that, effective immediately, no adult permits will be issued for use of the soccer field at Mission Playground, though youth league permits will still be available until 7:00 p.m. every day.
Kids 1, Dropbox Dudes 0.
[…] This outcome was uncharacteristically positive, in the short term. A petition and City Hall rally followed, after which the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department ruled that “adult permits” would no longer be issued for the Mission Playground soccer field, according to Latino Rebels. […]
[…] The argument that gentrification represents a kind of urban neocolonialism is hard to miss. Spike Lee made it clear with his viral rant against “Christopher Columbus syndrome” in Brooklyn. Indeed, after decades of “white flight” to the US suburbs, since 2010 American cities have seen increases in white populations. Protests in 2014 targeted Microsoft’s corporate shuttle buses in Seattle; not only did they raise rents, went the argument, they didn’t integrate, adding to social tensions in a city where working-class African-Americans were being pushed out. That same year, a video went viral of (older, whiter) Dropbox employees trying to get rid of mostly Latino young people from a football pitch in San Francisco’s Mission district. (The Latinos protested, and won.) […]