"Brooklyn 'jail' playground could be rebuilt as White House to mark one of America's historic moments,"
By Michael Daly - New York Daily News

The word "jail" has been painted over, but on close examination you can still see the letters.

And there remains the mystery of how the city allowed a jail to be part of a play set at a Brooklyn housing project for six years.

Another question is: What should be done with that playground now?

How about putting in something to mark a giant leap forward the whole country took, a leap that still seemed all but impossible when the "jail" was installed back in March of 2004?

How about replacing the city's only jail playground with its very first White House playground?

Until Barack Obama was actually elected, many people believed that an African-American could not become President.

Obama proved that America had finally become a place where anybody really can grow up to become President.

A kid-sized White House would have a perfect backdrop with the huge portraits of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X that presently adorn a handball court wall facing the playground.

And, where steps and a bridge once led to a jail cell, youngsters would be ascending to the highest office in the land, one no longer barred to a person of color.

I was lucky enough to be down in Washington on inauguration weekend and I remember watching 5-year-old Marcus Scott of Brooklyn, a descendant of slaves, doing a happy dance with an American flag.

"It's nice to be able to wave the flag and say we belong here," said his mother, Alison Scott.

I also remember seeing Elaine Cope of South Carolina point her camera between the iron bars surrounding the White House.

"How many times I've been to Washington and I've never wanted to take a picture of the White House," Cope said.

Obama remains our President even if the Tea Party nuts rail against him with such fury that you have to figure race is involved.

As the health bill was finally nearing passage last week, some of that came to the surface. A tea party protester spat the N word at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga).

"It surprised me that people are so mean and we can't engage in a civil dialogue and debate," Lewis said afterwards.

Lewis is a civil rights champion who addressed the same rally where King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. The modern day haters seem exasperated by the reality that part of the dream has been realized with Obama's election.

I do not include Sarah Palin in that group. She is even worse. She fans the flames to her own ends.

She is no hockey mom.

She is a hockey player and she looks to win.

But maybe she was a blessing during the election. She was such a bad candidate that whites who probably would never have voted for a candidate of color ended up going for Obama.

The right wing has grown so wild and wacky that the one-time embarrassment Palin is stepping in to help her former running mate, Sen. John McCain.

In the midst of this mad meanness, we would do well to remind youngsters of the continuing victory that preceded it.

That will becomes all the more important as the city and state budget cuts begin hitting the schools and leaving the streets more dangerous. As always, the poorer neighborhoods will feel the cuts most keenly.

Doing well in school could become even tougher. Falling into trouble could become even easier.

Just as the playground "jail" carried a bad message, a White House would carry a good one: However tough things may get, we have overcome one obstacle that was so important because it never should have been there in the first place.

In the meantime, even a city going broke can afford to replace the ragged American flag flying in front of Public School 59 across Throop Ave. from the playground.

As a playground White House would remind the kids, the flag does indeed belong to everybody, as much to them as to Sarah Palin and her Tea Party pals, or anybody else.