Iva Bozovic

What really helps in a natural disaster is a community to shield and support. That is something to be respected and nurtured. But for the things that we can buy....

My history with #UNICEF goes even further back than @igorbobic.bsky.social. #UNICEF was organizing essential vaccinations drives in schools in the 1980's. It is thanks to them that my generation did not suffer from basic communicable diseases. It was not "crap" to us! It was life and health.

Where history plays a role is that it encouraged Black homeowners to coalesce in Altadena, and for families to purchase homes near one another. When the fire took out our town, it wiped out multi-generational homes, and took out blocks inhabited by Black owners who built/purchased on nearby lots.

This was a natural disaster, a rare one, but probably fueled by global climate change. Also, to suggest that the fire was caused by inattentiveness of Black owners to vegetation-caused fire risk reads offensive to me.

As an "Altadenian" let me make one correction and one additional observation. Altadena is NOT fire prone. It is an urban area next to the mountains which do occasionally burn in Santa Ana winds. However, the same winds don't normally spread embers across the distance of 20 city blocks.

The parallels are inescapable and it feels like we're screaming into the void. We know how this morhps into opression and stagnation and ....war.

Is it strange that Michigan was "allowed" on the field AFTER the National Anthem?