Find ways to unite, not divide

I was very disappointed in your story ("Diversity Summit raises more questions than answers" (March 27, 2008). Had you stayed for the entire conference you would have heard high school youth talking about their efforts to support a day of silence and you would have heard members of our community talk about our own racial divide. Further I believe you distort Ms. Parkers comment which ended saying we have not been able to get this out of committee for more than a decade. I did not hear her plea to "if you want to get involved" as an attack, but as a call for support. Finally, I think we need some self-criticism as a community who neither fully offered the lessons we learned nor the resources of our organizations to help in the Prop 2 stuggles. MRDI deserves to be criticized for its lack of broader representation in its panels, but more than this was a lack of perspective on how to get beyond being pitted against each other. BTL has a history of bringing us together. Your article, reporting on only part of the conference did a disservce to all of us.
Shea Howell
Detriot