Posted on 08/03/2015 6:17:58 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Did you know that there are too many white people in Pittsburgh?
That's what the deputy director of the Allegheny County Department of Health's Bureau of Public Policy and Community Relations told NEXTPittsburgh.com.
“My two main gripes (about Pittsburgh) are: too many white people and not enough public transportation,” Abby Wilson is quoted as saying in a July 20 profile written by Gina Mazza. Ms. Wilson also cited Pittsburgh's “homogeneity and provincialism that accompany working here.”
Wilson's comments were part of Ms. Mazza's profile of “four movers and shakers who have recently returned to Pittsburgh” on a site that touts itself as “the must-read online magazine about the people driving change in our city and the cool and innovative things happening here.”
A reader who came upon the Wilson comment, and who forwarded it to this scrivener, found it “rather bizarre and amusing for someone who's in charge of community relations.”
“Comments like that hardly promote good community relations, wouldn't you agree?” the reader asked.
Which is exactly the question I posed to Wilson in a Thursday email.
“Can you put in better context your comment to NEXTPittsburgh ... and how does such a statement comport with your charge of building community relations?”
“That was part of a much larger conversation,” Wilson told me in a subsequent telephone call. “(It was) a bit of a slip,” she said.
“I don't think there are too many white people in Pittsburgh,” she added, noting that if she had to say it again, she would have said that she hoped the Pittsburgh region would keep diversifying.
OK. Fair enough. Who among us hasn't made inartful comments that could be construed as racially incendiary? Ahem.
But almost concomitantly, and unfortunately, Wilson worked her way back into the corner from which she had just extracted herself.
“It was taken out of context,” she claimed.
So, was Wilson's statement about there being “too many white people” taken out of context?, I emailed NEXTPittsburgh's Mazza.
“Why do you ask?” Mazza responded.
“Well,” I said, “it's a rather provocative and inartful comment.” Wilson confirmed making it but said it was taken out of context, I told Mazza. “Was it?”
“(Wilson) was giving her perspective as someone who has worked and lived in various other places,” Mazza wrote back. “Every city has its pluses and minuses and she was answering that question. As you will see, another person who was interviewed for this article had a similar perspective.”
Well, not quite. One of Pittsburgh's deficits, said Bryan DeCecco, the director of business development for Campos Inc. (the former Campos Market Research), “is the lack of diversity, especially in the professional world,” he said in the same NEXTPittsburgh article.
That's more than a wee bit different from saying there are “too many white people” in Pittsburgh. If anybody thinks otherwise, then words have no meaning.
Back to Mazza: “(Wilson) was simply making the comment that increasing diversity here would be a good thing. I certainly hope you don't read more into this than what's there.”
Or, in this case, what wasn't there, contextually.
“Do you disagree that saying Pittsburgh has ‘too many white people' is an inartful way to say that increasing diversity would be a good thing?” I then asked Mazza.
“I would say based on what you wrote (above) that you ARE taking it out of context,” Mazza responded.
Mazza, who repeatedly asked what my “intent” was, is, among other things, a self-described “intuitionist.” Sans context, it appears NEXTPittsburgh readers needed to be intuitionists, too, to not improperly adjudge Abby Wilson to be an ugly something that she says she is not.
Quite honestly that is one of the nicest parts of Pittsburgh.
Because of the terrain there are many groups of people that stay in their neighborhoods. They have many generations in the same neighborhood and everybody knows how to navigate that neighborhood and how to get downtown and out of town, but can’t get anywhere else in the city. Too confusing.
here is the crunt getting money from the commie tides foundation
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/portfolio/2008/11/07/Right-Here-GLUE-gets-young-people-to-stick-to-the-Rust-Belt/stories/200811070210
Dem Diversity and da multiculturalism really sucks! Right Pittsburgh!!!
that liberal commie crunt needs to be fired immediately. She is a commie hack plant attempting to bring thousands of illegals to pittsburgh. Wake up Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh has done a remarkable job of re-inventing itself after all the heavy industry which was its historical economic backbone was government-regulated out of the US.
Pittsburgh is now frequently cited as among the most livable cities in America, among other accolades.
However, if this ignorant, obnoxious, Marxist twit is truly a mover and shaker in Pittsburgh then the city will face fundamental transformation pressures to become a craphole like so many other liberal cities in America have become.
all the other urban areas b1tch the white people have left and they’ve lost revenue.
can’t win with libtards, so don’t even try to placate them at all. just do what you’re gonna do.
This is the first time I ever heard of someone complaining there was not enough crime in their city. She should move to Baltimore.
100% Black, Diverse
100% Mexican, Diverse
100% Asian, not diverse
51% White, Not Diverse
At the 2010 Census, there were 305,704 people residing in Pittsburgh, a decrease of 8.6% since 2000. 66.0% of the population was White, 25.8% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 4.4% Asian, 0.3% Other and 2.3% mixed. 2.3% of Pittsburgh's population was of Hispanic or Latino origin of any race. Non-Hispanic Whites were 64.8% of the population
What is the "nicest part" of Pittsburgh?
You continued with;
Ok. WHAT neighborhoods
Too confusing? Like, less than clear as to what particular "part" of Pittsburgh you are talking about? Unless you meant that "too many white people" was a "part"?
Sneaks, thanks for the pingy...
Boycott, my guess Girlfriend doesn’t live in a bubble...more likely a gentrified flat in Shadyside; somewhere “north of Forbes;” or the Southside flats. I doubt she lives anywheres near “diversity.”
I grew up with enough “diversity” to last my lifetime (in what is now known as West Oakland). Around the corner from a (long gone now it’s a senior citizen bldg) section 8 apt bldg. Oh the “diverse” stories I could tell.
Discrimination = no white people taxes.
Are there too many white tax dollars there???
Racism straight up. The statement is not “inartful”. It is racist.
A few months in the more diverse neighborhoods of Philly, Baltimore, Camden, or Richmond would knock a little sense in her, I think.
I have heard that Camden is now mainly Hispanic.
What is the evidence that increasing diversity, anywhere, is a "good thing"?
I took a wrong turn off Rte 70 into Camden about 2 years ago and swore I was in Nogales, Mexico.
Yep. Pittsburgh's unofficial motto: You can't get there from here.
And that anyway has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with Pittsburgh's hills, valleys, and rivers. Miss a turnoff for a particular bridge, and the next thing you know you're in Ohio. Check out this short Pittsbughese video:
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