The July 21-22 Bedrock display that triggered outrage. (Facebook photo by Whitney Walker)
Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Detroit certainly struck a nerve when it posted a vinyl graphic showing mostly white Millennials and Gen Xers on a vacant storefront at Woodward and Congress in downtown Detroit. The display said: "See Detroit as We Do."
The photo seemed to trigger anger and provide added fodder for critics-- rightly or wrongly -- that the downtown comeback is all about young white people.
The public criticism prompted Bedrock to pull down the display July 22, less than a day after it went up. Gilbert then issued an apology, calling it a "dumb campaign slogan" and admitting "we screwed up badly."
On Sunday, a group of Detroiters posed in front of the same building to show a group far more diverse in age and mostly black, reports Candice Williams of The Detroit News. Forty-two people are in the photo.
Nicole Small, an organizer of the True Faces of Detroit photo shoot, tells the paper: “I wanted people who really had a vested interest in the city of Detroit, whether they were new to Detroit or they have lived here for quite some time. It’s a visual protest. We want the message to be strong and clear.”
The image, also snapped during the shoot by Metro Times reporter Violet Ikonomova and posted at its site, will be released Monday when the group delivers it with a letter to Gilbert’s real estate firm.
