Labrea, 38
“I mean, I never really noticed any racially motivated incidents…my mother grew up here and spend her whole life in gray’s ferry; of course back then, it wasn’t known as gray’s ferry the way it’s known today…there was some separation but nothing that you wouldn’t see today. I know there was an incident here a while back with a little boy but I’ve never seen anything like that. I mean, look around here [playground]; how many black kids and white kids are playing together? They don’t seem to have the same issues around race that maybe my parents or grandparents or even I might have faced…different times I guess”
Kim, 25
“My friends and I rented an apartment here right before the big apartment boom. We had the worst landlord…he didn’t really take care of anything…typical white landlord from the suburbs. He was actually sitting on a lot of property around the area, waiting for the right moment to sell…actually, when the right moment came, my roommates and I—who had been on a month to month lease, were asked to leave. He then fixed it up and sold it for a ridiculous amount of money. That’s gentrification for you.”
Daishana, 5
“My mom is white, my dad is not white. But we [all the children] play together. We like having lots of friends. White, black, purple. Friends are friends.
Mike, 54
“I’m Irish, my dad’s Irish, my mom’s Irish, all my friends are Irish. That’s all we know. Sometimes it’s difficult to be as Irish as we want to be without them getting upset that we’re discriminating against them…me? I just want to be able to celebrate my culture without fear and without worrying about someone else. They have their space and we have ours”
