'Too many white people' in Pittsburgh?

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.

Colin McNickle is Trib Total Media's director of editorial pages (412-320-7836 or cmcnickle@tribweb.com).