Pride on the East Side

East Tacoma now has a blog

By Paul Schrag on May 24, 2007

Roxanne Murphy, community relations specialist for the City of Tacoma, has one word for thugs, hookers, gangsters and drug dealers inhabiting Tacoma’s East Side.

“Rawwwrrrr!”

That, for the apathetic among you, is the primal scream of a community activist. Hear it in your head, feel it, recognize what it represents, and read about it at www.eastsidepride.blogspot. com.

EastSidePride creator Murphy emphasizes that the recently-debuted blog is really a newsletter celebrating community pride, involvement, amenities, activities and success stories in Tacoma’s sometimes maligned East Side.

“I’ve lived in this house on the east side for three years, and I don’t want people to think this is a terrible place to live. It’s not. It’s beautiful,” she says. “It’s been such an amazing investment — we have beautiful homes, beautiful views, international businesses that you don’t get anywhere else in Tacoma. I live in a diverse neighborhood by choice. When people start to clown the east side, I say that I live here by choice.”

Part of that choice, says Murphy, includes getting involved in the neighborhood, which receives more attention for its shortcomings than its beauty and community spirit. EastSidePride will battle those tendencies in several ways — as a pipeline for good news in the East Side; as an information nexus for community organization and action; as a place to find practical ways to battle crime and community erosion; and as an invitation to get involved.

“We spend a lot of time trying to blame the police department, when the reality is that community standards have fallen,” says Murphy. “We need to let people know that the community standards are higher now. We need to respond directly and together instead of being apathetic and pointing our fingers. Rawwwwrrrr!!!”