A white woman’s assumptions about — and in — Grangebel Park

I did something this week I shouldn’t have, something I always regret when I do it. But I couldn’t help myself. Again.

I got into an argument on the RiverheadLOCAL Facebook page.

When people start bashing other people who are trying to make a positive difference in the community and they start dumping on our town, spewing misinformation and lies — their words are obviously fueled by ignorance and bigotry — it pushes me over the edge.

We posted a story this week about a downtown restaurateur who’ll be selling wraps, salads and soft drinks from the old pump house in Grangebel Park during lunch time on weekdays. Dark Horse owner Dee Muma says she’s hoping to draw a lunch crowd to the underutilized downtown park.

The chorus of naysayers began. The all-too-familiar refrain went something like this. Good luck with that — it will never work. Who would want to go there for lunch — with all the drug dealers and prostitutes in that park? Blah, blah, blah. They said the same things about why the community garden was doomed to fail. And why building a playground and reopening the public bathroom next to the garden would be nothing but a disaster.

Our office is right up the street from the park, on Griffing Avenue. I visit Grangebel as frequently as this crazy work life of mine will allow. The things people were saying made it sound like Grangebel Park was the infamous Needle Park in Manhattan, or a city park in Fort Apache, the Bronx. That was not my impression of Grangebel at all. Had they actually ever been inside the park, I wondered.

Yesterday, I had lunch in Grangebel Park with my daughter Katie, who wrote that story about Dee Muma and the pump house lunch spot. After we ate and enjoyed the pretty scenery, I did something I hadn’t done before. I walked through the park and randomly spoke to as many people as I could. This wasn’t too hard to accomplish, since, though it was lunchtime on a Thursday afternoon, the park wasn’t very crowded.

There were a few people having lunch. Small groups of people sat in the shade of trees to escape the heat. One person was sunbathing. Others were walking along. Two women I spoke to were about to enter the community garden to pick some vegetables. Another woman was playing with her son on the playground. Another was sitting on the edge of the river with her two-year-old daughter, feeding the ducks. Latino, African-American, white — they had all come to enjoy the park on a warm June day.

Nobody was selling drugs, drinking alcohol or smoking pot. Nobody was even smoking cigarettes. I didn’t encounter any hookers or passed-out drunks.

Getting in touch with your inner ugly
The hard part of what I did? Letting go of my assumptions — my middle-class, middle-aged white woman assumptions, about Latino and African-American men in particular. To do that, first you have to get in touch with what your assumptions are. And own up to ‘em. Even when they’re uglier than you’d like to admit.

A group of three Latino men sat under a tree not far from the bench where Katie and I ate our lunch. I figured — assumed — they didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Spanish, but we went over to say hello. I was wrong. Paul spoke fluid English, his friend Juan spoke English passably. The third guy didn’t say much. Paul said he’s lived in Riverhead 15 years. They like coming to the park in the summer to take a break and sit under a tree to enjoy the shade and the water.

“This is a nice park,” Paul said. “Three years or so ago, it looked really beautiful. There were a lot of flowers everywhere. Very pretty. Now, some things have died and there are no flowers blooming. And the walkways are coming up,” he said.

“I guess the town has no money to fix these things,” Paul observed. “But they keep it very clean.”

Asked if they ever felt threatened or unsafe in the park, they said no. “Not in the daytime, anyway,” Paul added.

Four people sat on a bench near Peconic Paddler, a canoe and kayak rental place on Peconic Avenue. The owner of the rental wrote a letter to the Riverhead town supervisor last week complaining about intoxicated people sitting on that bench cursing and throwing beer cans and bottles onto his property. Jim Dreeban, the business owner, gave RiverheadLOCAL a copy of the letter. As I approached the people on that bench yesterday, I wondered if these were the people causing him trouble and how my conversation would go. I’ll admit I was a little nervous. And it’s probably got something to do with persistent racially based assumptions deep inside my white psyche.

The three men and a woman, all African-American, at first seemed to regard us with caution. People, especially white women, just don’t usually walk up to strangers, especially black men, and strike up a conversation.

I explained that I’m a reporter and was just walking around Grangebel talking to whoever happened to be there, asking them what they thought of the park. These four people — Fred, Yvonne, Jeff and Davis — were all about my age, which is to say in their 50s. They’d all been living in downtown Riverhead a long time. Things are a lot better now than they were in the 70s and 80s, they said. There’s a lot less crime and it’s a lot safer, they said.

“This park is a nice place. They did a really great job with it. I mean, where else can you find nice shade like this and a beautiful view on a hot summer day in downtown?” Yvonne said. “It’s too bad more people don’t come here to enjoy it.”

(It’s because people like me are afraid of people like you, a little voice inside my head chirped derisively.)

I spoke also with a man who’s lived on Woodhull Avenue in Riverside for 40 years.

“I’ve been walking in this park for the past 40 years and I don’t know what people are always complaining about,” he said. Bob, a white man who looked to be in his 60s, said he’s never had any trouble in the park. “It’s nice.”

The women at the garden said the same thing. They’ve never been accosted. Never felt threatened or afraid.

So why does Grangebel Park have this negative reputation — at least among white people who don’t live in downtown Riverhead?

The hard work of letting go of your assumptions
The answer lies in assumptions — the assumptions people make about other people based on their race or the color of their skin. Assumptions about who they are, and what they do. Assumptions about criminal activities. Assumptions that because a place is populated by people whose skin color is darker than yours, it’s a “bad” place.

At this particular racially charged moment in our nation’s history, as we try to make sense of too many senseless murders of black people, as we try to wrap our heads around what we might do to bring healing to our country and an end to such violence, it’s time to take a hard look at assumptions. Not just the assumptions of the killer who gunned down nine innocents because he believed black people “rape our women” and are “taking over” our country. It’s time to examine our own assumptions, the ones inside our own heads, the ones that put you on edge when you encounter people who are different from you. They are the seeds of bigotry and hatred, which cause people to react with fear and suspicion to people they don’t even know, sometimes leading to violence.

I challenge you — yes, you — to spend a half-hour in Grangebel Park next week. Bring your lunch, and, especially if you’re white like me, spend that half-hour being in touch with your assumptions about the people you encounter there.

People are all just people, regardless of the color of their skin, where they were born or what language they speak. We all have the same basic needs and desires: putting a roof over our heads, feeding and clothing our kids, finding friendship, love and meaning in life, having a community to call home, and the opportunity to better our circumstances. Those things are universal. They inspired our ancestors to travel great distances in great adversity to seek a better life in America, just as they inspire today’s immigrants to risk their freedom and sometimes their very lives to come here.

If we replace our negative assumptions with new ones focusing on what we have in common rather than what sets us apart, we may find ourselves smiling at strangers, saying hello and maybe even talking to one another and making new friends.