Local diversity festival draws fire from some minority communities

A few members of minority communities are questioning whether the “Everybody Welcome” diversity festival scheduled for Aug. 18 lives up to its name.

The festival will be in downtown Colorado Springs and feature dancing, music, crafts and cultural demonstrations. It’s intended to celebrate the city’s diverse cultures.

Mic Robertson, a longtime resident of Colorado Springs, said holding the event on a Saturday will exclude some Jewish people.

“Some may choose to attend this event as it does affect the entire community of Colorado Springs, and it is a ‘good’ thing to be involved, a ‘Mitzvah,’” Robertson said in an e-mail to The Gazette. “For some Jews, the Sabbath is set aside for the study of the Torah, for me it is a day to consider the betterment of humanity. I just wish I wouldn’t be put in the position to decide what and when to attend such events.”

Colorado Springs resident David Horowitz expressed a similar view in an e-mail.

“As a transplant from Boston, I have been appalled at the lack of respect and acknowledgment of the Colorado Springs Jewish community by the greater Colorado Springs community,” Horowitz said.

Other concerns about the festival are coming from James Tucker, the publisher of the African American Voice newspaper.

Tucker said organizers of the Everybody Welcome festival should focus on supporting long-standing events that celebrate minority groups. The festival is put on by the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum, a group started in 2005 whose membership includes large area businesses and a number of civil rights advocacy groups such as Citizen’s Project, the Urban League and the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado.

Tucker said the forum’s members are disconnected from minority communities.

“They don’t have a clue about the black community, they don’t have a clue about the Latino community, they don’t have a clue about the Native American community nor the Asian community,” he said. “They don’t have history of speaking to black issues and Latino issues and dealing with our issues. Therefore, it’s an agenda I don’t understand.”

The Colorado Springs Diversity Forum would welcome anyone to participate, including Tucker and members of Jewish groups, said Jay Patel, co-chairman of the group. Patel said the group didn’t intentionally pick the Jewish Sabbath for the event.

“It’s unfortunate . . . but in terms of organizing it and getting the permits from the city and what have you, that was decided a long time ago,” he said.

The other co-chairman, Jeff Murrell, said the forum is trying to live up to its mission, encapsulated in the name of the festival. Black businesswoman Fannie Mae Duncan put a sign reading “Everybody Welcome” in the window of her nightclub, the Cotton Club, which opened in the 1950s when Colorado Springs was a mostly segregated city.

“What we are about is really elevating the discussion beyond the agenda of any one particular group,” Murrell said. “It’s about recognizing the value of including people from all different backgrounds.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0187 or perry.swanson@gazette.com

DETAILS

The festival is put on by the Colorado Springs Diversity Forum, a group whose membership includes large area businesses and civil rights advocacy groups such as Citizen’s Project, the Urban League and the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado.