I’ve thought about writing about Detroit for years. I’ve often felt that urban issues get little notice around here, but I try not to fall into those complaints about what "Daily Kos is doing wrong." This is a community, I feel, and if something is missing community members can take it upon themselves to fill the void. As an infrequent diarist, I wasn’t willing to complain about urban issues being ignored if I wasn’t willing to do something about it myself. But this has been bugging me, so I’m going to go ahead and jump on in.
I’d like to be a Detroiter one day. I don’t think it’s fair to claim that title currently. I grew up in suburban Detroit. I spent four years living in the city. Midtown Detroit, to be specific. To be even more specific, it was on a campus university, a cloistered experience compared to those who live in the neighborhoods. When it was no longer feasible for me to live in the city (read: I graduated and needed somewhere to live), I moved back to the suburbs-essentially the same sprawling suburb that I grew up in.
Mind you, this suburb with its excellent schools had teachers who referred to urban dwellers as "Negro Detroiters." In class. And the administration didn’t care--I’m sure they felt the same way. Then there was the teacher who regaled us with a tale of running out of gas in the city with a small child in the car. Oh, how this teacher was horrified! Hir played the whole thing as a terrifying yet amusing escapade, but, of course deemed the subject of poverty and a failed educational system unworthy of discussion.
You see, it’s perfectly in fashion to mock and deride Detroit as an urban wasteland. And in many ways it is. But there’s no effort to talk about why and there’s certainly no effort to talk about who.
Every time you joke about Detroit, remember that you’re joking about hundreds of thousands of people. Most of these people are a huge part of our Democratic coalition: African Americans, an increasingly large and active Latino population, and, of course, predominately the "underclass" or urban poor. People we rely on to win elections, while simultaneously mocking and deriding. People whose issues are often ignored for those who live in the suburbs. People who have been failed by their neighbors, community, businessmen and women (including the Big 3), mayors, councilmen and women, representatives, senators, and on and on.
Of course, when we ignore the people involved, it becomes that much easier to say, "Let Detroit die." I imagine it’s easier to oppose the auto-industry bailout. After all, if you’ve spent your time belittling the area and disregarding the people, then it’s not like anyone real would be affected by demolishing the Big 3 and all it’s suppliers.
The saddest part is that it’s not even Detroit anymore. I mean, seriously people.
And Chrysler is in Auburn Hills for fuck’s sake.
But we’ll ignore all that, and just refer to it as the Big 3 or "Detroit" because if it’s Detroit, then we can justify letting it fail. We’ve been doing that for years, after all.
Our Katrina.
I’ve heard that too. This is "Detroit’s Katrina" or, for those who realize that the Big 3 don’t exist in a vacuum, "the Midwest’s Katrina."
I think it’s a somewhat apt in that allowing the auto industry to go bankrupt is specific, tangible event, but on another level, it’s so, so wrong.
Our Katrina has been happening in slow motion for decades. It’s been happening ever since the Federal Housing Administration wouldn’t loan to African Americans, and real estate agents would "block bust," and redlining, and the white flight, and restrictive covenants, and greenfields, and cream skimming, and the brain drain, and cars, and declining home values, and highways ripping apart neighborhoods, and concentrated poverty, and the riots, and...and...and...and...and...
Detroit’s present is so very out of synch with it’s past. We have Kwame Kilpatrick, the failed and jailed mayor, convicted felon. But we had Frank Murphy, a former mayor and eventual Supreme Court Justice who dissented in Korematsu v. United States and presided over the Ossian Sweet trial.
We have crumbling infrastructure and buildings. But we have great art deco architecture.
We have the failing Big 3. But we were the Arsenal of Democracy.
Bright lights, big city.
And, hopefully one day, home.