DALTON GARDENS: Time to fight back

Imagine: Your family has lived in Dalton Gardens for generations. Some of them pioneered there. Dalton Gardens is all your family and friends have ever known.

A group of people with power and influence move into the neighborhood. This group gets control of how the city grows. The leaders make laws benefiting just them, allowing them to expand their land holdings. This group takes the best jobs. When members of your family or your friends apply, they are told they can’t have those jobs. They segregate the schools. Their kids get to go to the best schools, and the schools left are for everyone not belonging in their group. 

Your family and friends get crowded into one section of Dalton Gardens. No one in your part of town is allowed to have housing anywhere else. Your right to vote is taken away. You must shop at stores just for your group. Patrols appear on your streets. You are no longer allowed to go to other parts of Dalton Gardens without permission from the government, without the proper documentation, which they also regulate. You are not allowed to have weapons, you are not allowed to protest. The patrols monitor all your movements. They are allowed to question you and everyone in your area anytime they want. Some are put in jail or disappear. Life gets harder and harder for your family and friends. Your group is attacked and beaten up regularly. Everything you’ve tried has not worked. Will you fight back?

GERI HAGLER

Coeur d’Alene