Originally Posted by
Detroitnerd
I think you may be having a hard time understanding this as a class issue -- and, to a lesser extent, as a race issue.
To be poor is almost by definition to not have the same resources and choices as other people.
But when you have money, you are a lot less likely to get warrants for your arrest. Bear in mind, you can have a warrant for something as piddly as not paying a ticket. When you have money, you pay your tickets. And when you have money in the first place, you don't get those tickets for broken turn signals, busted headlights and missing mirrors that people living paycheck-to-paycheck do. So there you go: Live poor for a year and you can rack up a few warrants because, first you couldn't pay to fix the problem, now you can't pay the ticket you got for not fixing the problem.
And people are messed up all over, not just in the city. It's just that people with money have the privilege of papering over a lot of the social problems that we all have, whether it's an alcoholic family member, a relative with a gambling problem, or a neighborhood kid who's up to no good. Having money means you can lock horns with the system a lot more effectively.
People with money commit crimes, but they are harder to arrest and jail. Having money means you can do illegal drugs in your secure, gated homes, someplace police would think twice about bursting through the door. Heck, having money means you can pull off grander, white-collar crimes, and walk away from a shell of a corporation scot-free.
And, frankly, Detroit police have a justice system that is strained to the breaking point because it's so full of poor people who do whatever it takes to get by. These prisons aren't full of hardened, grizzled criminals so much as not-very-bright people who don't have the means to fight their cases. And police know this, and so, for years, I don't think they've been really proactive about running every guy with a warrant downtown. Right or wrong, it's a decision based on realities that are much more troubling.
And that's just class. There's a whole other layer of race. There are long-demonstrated biases that result from institutional racism.
So, when I heard these calls to "enforce the law fairly and equally," I am reminded of that quote from Anatole France: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both the rich and poor to steal bread and sleep under bridges."
In other words, the laws are against things poor people might have to do to get by, and things that the rich would never have to dream of. Right? It's funny! Mike Duggan is never going to get a warrant for not paying a traffic ticket. But a lot of poor people will.
And that's fucked up, people. Striking a pose of equality while knowing that the poor people you don't like are gonna get ground down nice and hard by this is a shitty attitude, and it's indicative of the deep class and race divisions in our region. Oh, not that anybody who feels that way will ever admit to it. There's a very Frank Rizzo-like thing about it in that way: Some people rubbing their hands over socking it to society's losers while talking about fairness and equality...
Anyway, feel free to dismiss me or write me off. I know you will. But hear me out: If I never say another word about it, you haven't heard the last about this "fair and equal" treatment of Detroit residents on Belle Isle.