By JOHN NORTH

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UNC Ashevlle’s Leadership Asheville program hosted a lively panel discussion that covered many issues, but eventually drifted to what were characterized as the concerns of some — perhaps many — blacks and other minorities in Asheville that they not only feel completely left out of an otherwise “connected community” of whites, but, through gentrification, they are getting a clear signal that they are unwanted here and should move elsewhere.

 The first session of the 2019 Summer Buzz Breakfast Series, held June 20 at West Asheville’s Crowne Plaza Expo Center, drew a turnout of more than 160 people — predominately white.

The program’s topic was to be “How Do We Build a Connected Community?” Also discussed was the question of “What Is a Connected Community?” Future monthly Summer Buzz Breakfast programs in the series will continue to deal with the “Connected Community” theme.

The program, centered around a panel discussion, reached a point where the participants seemed to agree that the overwhelmingly white Asheville likes to entertain the notion that the city is “diverse” and features terrific community connections, when, in reality, according to panelist Kimberlee Archie, many African-American residents and other minorities “don’t feel a part of this place or of the people” — and the city’s “diversity” is a myth.

“They (many blacks) feel there is no unified community because ‘it (Asheville) is all about tourism,’” a sector that they feel displaces them.

Also, Archie, with others agreeing, said that, with gentrification — and blacks continuing to dwindle as a percentage of the population, “people of color” are feeling as if they are being “pushed out of Asheville.”

Panelist Kenyon Lake lamented that Asheville is “one of the (few) places in the United States that has a dwindling African-American community.” To that end, he said, “There’s nothing for African-American youths” (to do) in Asheville.”