Q-Com Article Sample

Young Professionals of Milwaukee Article - Café Mosaic

As seen on:

YPM EXAMINES THE MILWAUKEE MOSAIC

By Greg Quigley

Over 300 young professionals and other community members packed historic Turner Hall last Tuesday night to talk about one thing: diversity in Milwaukee.

The event was titled Café Mosaic and was put on by the Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM). The evening’s activities included a video about diversity in Milwaukee and a “café” format discussion. YPM partnered with the Milwaukee Urban League, Hispanic Business Council, Milwaukee Artist Resource Network (MARN), United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF), Milwaukee LGBT Community Center and Public Allies, forming a group called Team Mosaic, which helped develop the event.

Starting off the evening, YPM president, Jeff Sherman, stated that the Milwaukee community does have a lot of issues with diversity, and that we shouldn’t expect a quick fix. “Café Mosaic won’t fix these issues, but it will help,” said Sherman. “Tonight is about taking a look at the people who make Milwaukee, Milwaukee and facilitating an open conversation about diversity and segregation in our community.”

Prior to the café format beginning, those in attendance were shown a video titled Mosaic Milwaukee. The video was created by YPM for the community and will be made available for sale. Young professionals, James T. Harris and Rebecca Ryan hosted the video, and were shown visiting Alterra Coffee, UWM and the Shops of Grand Avenue, where they discussed diversity with members of the community. As the Mosaic Milwaukee video ended, the words “It’s about you; It’s about me; It’s about us,” flashed across the screen and made a perfect opening for the café discussion that was about to take place.

Taking the lead from the video, the group of over 300 sat at tables and discussed diversity and segregation in four, 15 minute segments. A “host” remained at the same table throughout the night, while others moved to different tables every 15 minutes. The table host recorded answers to two questions: “Metro Milwaukee has the rap of being segregated, how does it hold us back as individuals and as a community?” and “what have you seen, heard or personally experienced that indicates our moving forward?"

The answers will be used by YPM and Team Mosaic to develop a set of questions for the next café. YPM plans to hold six cafés on diversity throughout the coming year. “We truly want to shift attention from training diversity to living diversity and that begins one conversation at a time over and over again,” said Shelley Jurewicz, executive director of YPM.

As Shelley said, living diversity begins with one conversation at a time. In case you missed the conversations at Café Mosaic, here are some of the points brought up by those in attendance (note that this is just a sample of thoughts - to get the whole effect of a café you’ll have to attend one yourself.)

A few thoughts on Milwaukee’s diversity from those in attendance:

“It’s OK to feel uncomfortable. It’s how we grow as people.”
“As I look around this room, I see Milwaukee’s future leaders and know we’ll be alright.”
“Milwaukee is a melting pot, the only problem is we’re not melting together.”
“Living diversity starts in the schools.”
“We need to improve the socioeconomics of our neighborhoods.”
“Companies aren’t locating in Milwaukee because of our segregation.”
“There has been more press on the issue. Good or bad press, it’s still press so at least people are starting to talk about it.”
“The youth need to help the older people understand the importance of the issue.”
“There are so many cultural activities that aren’t advertised. We need to promote these more.”
“We need to make sure lower income persons still have the opportunities for higher education.”

Greg Quigley is a member of the YPM Creative Council and a freelance business writer. He can be reached at www.qcomnet.com or 414-347-0660

Q-Com - Milwaukee, Wisconsin