Real race talk

In times of racial crisis, leaders call for a public conversation on race, but it never really starts. We protest and chant, but we are, frankly, terrified to face each other and discuss racism.

Recently more than 200 of us — courageous Muslims, Jews, African Americans, whites, Haitians, Latinos and others gathered at the Miami Dade College downtown auditorium for the MCCJ’s annual dialogue “Can We Talk? ... Really, Can We Talk?” It was exhilarating, tearful, argumentative, heart-pounding and brutally powerful.

Meant to air the concerns of all groups, it stubbornly kept returning to the most insidious divide — between whites and blacks.

We felt the healing that comes when we chatter, even for just two hours, the centuries of devilish silence that still lets whites ignore ongoing racism and sidestep black loss and suffering.

Miami has incredible tools, including the MCCJ and the Miami-Dade Community Relations Board, to form an ongoing countywide dialogue or truth commission.

This story was originally published December 13, 2014 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Real race talk."