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Editor, Asbury Park Sun,

I remember a Scripture that says something like this: A prophet is without honor in his hometown.

This does not apply to me. I have been humbled as I have been honored in Asbury Park. The City Council, Second Baptist Church, St. Stephens AME Zion Church, AP Kwanzaa, the T. Thomas Fortune Project in Red Bank, and others have honored me and others.

But, I send this ‘Open Letter’ to the Asbury Park community with the following observations and questions:

1. I was more than shocked when I read that Kay Harris, one of the few African American business persons in our city is closing her boardwalk business. Imagine, you John Lennon fans, if 95 percent of the businesses in our city were owned and operated by African Americans, Haitians, and Latin Americans. White person would experience what people of color experience in Asbury Park; a sense of invisibility and being left out.

2. Asbury Park, what kind of efforts are being made to attract people of color who have the economic means to purchase or rent, some of the highly priced housing in our city? When we moved here nearly 10 years ago, we thought Asbury Park would have a bit of the economic middle class ‘people of color’ that we have experienced on Martha’s Vineyard, and read about exists in Sag Harbor. Are people coming to Asbury Park from New York to get away from people of color who have the same economic means they have?

3. What’s the story about the West Side Community Center? Does the African Proverb apply – ‘When elephants fight, only the grass beneath them suffers.’ I understand that some African Americans who have a long history with Asbury Park, are like elephants; ‘fighting’ while the community [the grass beneath the] suffers. Is it rumor, history, personality, ego, hurt, anger, money, misunderstanding, or something else that can be cured responsibly? Or, is there some unspoken ‘game plan’ that is responsible for what is taking place? An institution that has the Black History that the West Side Community Center has ought to experience resolution and reconciliation as Black History Month, February 2018, approaches.

4. The word ‘racist’ has the capacity to create strong reactions from people when it is suggested that the word describes them. Our President says he is ‘the least racist person you will ever meet.’ But it is not what a person is called, but what he/she/they do, or do not do, that defines the word. There is work, a city like Asbury Park that boasts of its human diversity, must do to walk its talk.

5. Are there some persons among us, who knowingly or unknowingly, would not be ‘happy’ if persons of color were present in every nook and cranny in Asbury Park? I still want to believe that a city, Asbury Park, that can be wonderfully ‘LGBTQ friendly’ can be ‘People of Color Friendly’ as well.

Am I right or am I wrong?

Rev. Gil Caldwell

Ocean Avenue

Asbury Park

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