Ooh, there was a sickening crime in Detroit ...

[Detroitnerd]

It's the rampant crime in the City Rizzo that you don't want people to talk about that feeds the growing insecurity and results in people leaving; and as you put it in your opening letter "It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure that out, right?" I guess if we want surgery on our rockets we will have to bite the bullet [[a bit of crime lingo) and come to the city.

Well, now that you bring it up again, perhaps you might fit the profile of somebody who wants to beat that crime drum good and hard. Somebody who's so wedded to the idea that Detroit is awful [[and the suburbs, therefore, are God's Green Earth) that it's somehow hurtful and threatening to point out the good things about it. That might explain the intense emotional reaction this thread seems to produce in you ...

[coracle]

Nah! you're just clutching at straws again hoping one of your stupid points sticks. It isn't Detroit that pisses me off it's your condescension when you write what you claim somebody else thinks through the mind of a fictional character. It's Bull shit of the highest level. Go and see your rocket surgeon on Obamacare.

[oladub]

Yeah, um, that's also not what I was talking about. Not that I'm against what you have to say, but you might have the decency to start your own thread about your ideas and what you want to talk about ...

What you weren't talking about is how to fix Detroit. Your solution seems to be that if everybody just pretended the crime elephant wasn't in the room and ignored it or pretended it was a rainbow colored unicorn, then Detroit's would turn around.

Your thread is about censoring or self-censoring being a partial solution. Now I'm indecent for not commenting on 'your thread' the way you want. At least you're a consistent censor.

[Vic01]

How about this?

Speak no evil of Detroit or of its suburbs.

Swallow the hurt and and turn that hurt energy toward mutually beneficial outcomes.

We get nowhere by tearing each other down except torn further apart.

Thanks, Lowell. The most sensible post in the thread...

[Detroitnerd]

What you weren't talking about is how to fix Detroit. Your solution seems to be that if everybody just pretended the crime elephant wasn't in the room and ignored it or pretended it was a rainbow colored unicorn, then Detroit's would turn around.

Your thread is about censoring or self-censoring being a partial solution. Now I'm indecent for not commenting on 'your thread' the way you want. At least you're a consistent censor.

OK, oladub. This should be an easy assignment, then. Go back in the thread and copy and paste exactly where I said that people should censor themselves when they said negative things about Detroit. I wanna see this. Go on, oladub. Do it. What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? Show me where I said that.

You can't do it because I didn't say that. In fact, I admitted that the crime in Detroit was bad. And I didn't offer any solutions at all.

What I did say was that the relentless and increasing drumbeat of "crime ... crime ... crime ... crime" on this board seems to be a function of some suburban insecurities. The same ones that I feel are driving the petulant and ad hominem complaints of posters like coracle.

So there ya go.

[Dan Wesson]

This whole exercise was confusing at first and I didn't put forth the effort to find out why. But as more folk responded to the OP I find it becoming clearer.

The strawman, the censorship, the rose colored glasses but the fact remains one has to be diligent to ones surrounding or else become a statistic.

[SWMAP]

WHO is Frank Rizzo from Centerline?

[Dan Wesson]

WHO is Frank Rizzo from Centerline?

The strawman...

"A misrepresented argument, in this case a fictional character, created to make it easier to attack.

By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate."

[Scottathew]

The reality is that suburban whites would rather try to raise their kids in places where they can go to school, learn something, and then proceed to a career. They do not want to send their kids to schools where they get beat up and where standards are so low they won't learn much.

Even black people who try to be successful and do the right thing are sometimes outcast for trying to be "white".

It's not black vs. white anymore. It's the people who can afford to leave, and the people who can't.

Once Detroit fixes its problems, people will start returning. I've already seen remarkable progress in the past few years. Downtown is booming. Midtown is growing and receiving investment.

Before we had Kilpatrick, who pretended to do things for the neighborhoods. Then we had Bing, who only did things for downtown and hid the rest of the time, and now we have Duggan, who appears to actually be improving the neighborhoods.

Over the next few years we will hopefully see Duggan lay the groundwork for a major milestone, the time the bleeding stops, the time that people stop moving out of Detroit, and starting moving in. I think that time, if it occurs, will happen in the next decade, but it's possible that we're watching the seeds being planted right now.

[terryh]

The reality is that suburban whites would rather try to raise their kids in places where they can go to school, learn something, and then proceed to a career. They do not want to send their kids to schools where they get beat up and where standards are so low they won't learn much.

For all the people in Detroit, mostly black, who give it their all to make Detroit a better community, it is not enough. The bad guys still have too much power. What is needed are radical changes to end the crime problem. I remember reading that for awhile Black Muslims were policing one of the housing projects. Whatever they were doing seriously reduced the crime rate. Was it fear of consequences? I don't know but that is vigilantism which is discouraged by our legal system.

Back to 'radical'. From time to time, I suggest large 6,000-50,000 population gated communities in Detroit to reclaim Detroit 10-50 blocks at a time. That proposal always draws the ire of people who are so adverse to the word 'gated' that they seem to prefer squalid crime ridden streets where half the streetlights don't even work to jobs and tax revenue.

At the State and federal level, programs should encourage and reward doing things right. Sorry, but fatherless homes should not be subsidized and thus encouraged. Over half of all under age 30 births now, for all races, are to unmarried women. Children with live in fathers do much better. Teens who have to get past Dad to get out the door and are rewarded for doing things right within the family statistically do much better.

Also, and this is getting back to the temporary Black Muslim crime prevention story, there has been a spate of bad guys being gunned down in home break ins and carjackings lately. Since there just isn't money for good police protection in Detroit now, I wonder what would happen if everyone in a Detroit neighborhood with no recorded crimes in their families was provided with a self-defense weapon. If the bad guys had to consider that every fourth person or so might be packing, it might change their perceived risk/reward ratio.

There are couples that stay together and take responsibility without marriage...but yeah the Detroit pubic school system and urban society is extremely dysfunctional

[TKshreve]

Oladub..... high praises to you for your rational dialogue in a baited thread about division and borders. I appreciate the fact that time and again you offer direct substance to conversations here on Dyes while avoiding the ubiquitous rat traps.

For the record, your opening paragraph gets a Standing O. And I equally agree with you on the topic of "radical".

[sumas]

Living Detroit has its poignant moments. We are very involved with our community which is predominantly black. It is a very special community with 2nd, 3rd forth generation folk. I guess I should be flattered that these same people forget we are white. A neighbor dropped in to complain that too many white folk are moving in!, Mentally, I did huh? That is because up the street are two communes, many of these kids from Europe. They bother me not at all. In fact we know most of their names and many attend our meetings.

[sumas]

My thoughts are a little fractured. Home invasion is on the uptick which is not at all normal here. We alarmed our home and garage as a result. Our new to us car is alarmed too.

The only crime we have encountered in our years here have been damage to my car tires. That was two buck Bobby's doing. Two buck Bobby has since moved further away and is living with Kool Aid. Thank you Gistok, I don't make this shit up.

Since then James has moved in and sure enough put a screw in one of my tires. He did a great job and though we noticed it it acted as its own plug. Disappointed, he came back and added a nail. That did the trick.

Our crime was, we let our dogs out every-time he tried to make a drive by drug purchase across the street from us.

Funny thing though the tire people up on Mack and Vandyke though know us and had donuts ready [[we brought the coffee).

[Honky Tonk]

WHO is Frank Rizzo from Centerline?

He's a fictitious character contrived by a guy who has long since moved out of Detroit for the very reasons he chastises others for moving.

[Hermod]

Well, Frank Rizzo and his buddies Casimir Kowalski, Andy Mraz, Marco Vucic, Charlie Gruebner, Jim Gonyeau, and Nick Patru all got together out at the Waldenberg Inn on 24 Mile. A couple of generations back their families moved to Detroit from Europe and built some beautiful churches, a wide range of parochial schools, and ethnic social clubs. Their hard work also created the auto industry [[though Grosse Point ran the show) and fueled the "Arsenal of Democracy" that won World War II.

What was their topic of conversation over a few long necks? It was all about the Detroit that once was and that they loved. They reminisced about Belle Isle, shopping at Hudsons, and their old neighborhoods.

They were the great Detroit ethnic diaspora driven from their homes and neighborhoods by the threat of the urban terror which now consumes Detroit. They abandoned their homes, churches, and schools and rebuilt them anew in the empty fields to the north of Detroit.

[Detroitnerd]

Yup, Frank Rizzo sure upsets a lot of you guys. I've been very up-front and honest with you that Rizzo is a fictional character designed to talk about race relations in suburban Detroit. I guess I'm glad Frank gets such strong, emotional reactions out of posters here, because I think it shows that a lot of white suburban Detroiters DO have very strong feelings about race and black people in particular.

Is it dishonest to have created Frank Rizzo? Not really. I believe we all realize Frank Rizzo is an invention. If anybody was confused, this post should set them straight. But is it dishonest? No more dishonest than many other fictional creations that are used to typify certain kinds of American banality. Henry Babbitt, Patrick Bateman and Zadig are all examples of fictional characters who symbolize the psychoses and shortcomings of particular demographics. Certainly you would not argue with a literary historian that these are "dishonest" contrivances. They are fiction, and that is where the books are, and that is the context in which Frank Rizzo strode out of the mist and onto this forum.

What you really object to, of course, is being typified at all. That is the real objection. That most of the people who object to Rizzo, his status, his creation, are really deeply troubled by the topic of how white suburban Detroiters feel about metropolitan Detroit, the city and black people in particular.

Actually, very gratifying to know that it has upset some of you so much that you follow my posts if only to be outraged. It is quite an honor you give me when you post in reply to me. I thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seC5_2Q4TPM

[313WX]

Well, Frank Rizzo and his buddies Casimir Kowalski, Andy Mraz, Marco Vucic, Charlie Gruebner, Jim Gonyeau, and Nick Patru all got together out at the Waldenberg Inn on 24 Mile. A couple of generations back their families moved to Detroit from Europe and built some beautiful churches, a wide range of parochial schools, and ethnic social clubs. Their hard work also created the auto industry [[though Grosse Point ran the show) and fueled the "Arsenal of Democracy" that won World War II.

What was their topic of conversation over a few long necks? It was all about the Detroit that once was and that they loved. They reminisced about Belle Isle, shopping at Hudsons, and their old neighborhoods.

They were the great Detroit ethnic diaspora driven from their homes and neighborhoods by the threat of the urban terror which now consumes Detroit. They abandoned their homes, churches, and schools and rebuilt them anew in the empty fields to the north of Detroit.

Where were you trying to go with that post?

[Hermod]

Where were you trying to go with that post?

That the current Detroit is the result of years of ethnic cleansing?

[noise]

Yup, Frank Rizzo sure upsets a lot of you guys. I've been very up-front and honest with you that Rizzo is a fictional character designed to talk about race relations in suburban Detroit. I guess I'm glad Frank gets such strong, emotional reactions out of posters here, because I think it shows that a lot of white suburban Detroiters DO have very strong feelings about race and black people in particular.

Is it dishonest to have created Frank Rizzo? Not really. I believe we all realize Frank Rizzo is an invention. If anybody was confused, this post should set them straight. But is it dishonest? No more dishonest than many other fictional creations that are used to typify certain kinds of American banality. Henry Babbitt, Patrick Bateman and Zadig are all examples of fictional characters who symbolize the psychoses and shortcomings of particular demographics. Certainly you would not argue with a literary historian that these are "dishonest" contrivances. They are fiction, and that is where the books are, and that is the context in which Frank Rizzo strode out of the mist and onto this forum.

What you really object to, of course, is being typified at all. That is the real objection. That most of the people who object to Rizzo, his status, his creation, are really deeply troubled by the topic of how white suburban Detroiters feel about metropolitan Detroit, the city and black people in particular.

Actually, very gratifying to know that it has upset some of you so much that you follow my posts if only to be outraged. It is quite an honor you give me when you post in reply to me. I thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seC5_2Q4TPM

You've always appeared to be pretty full of yourself, but this one really takes the cake. Wow.

[Dan Wesson]

You've always appeared to be pretty full of yourself, but this one really takes the cake. Wow.

Takes all kinds to make this world go round.

That post is text book Narcissism.

I second the wow.

[Detroitnerd]

The poster referred to in the OP just proposed of Detroit:

"Build a wall around it. Let Rambo run it. Rename it Guantanamo Heights."

This sounds straight from the script of Frank Rizzo. The fact is that there are plenty of white people in Detroit's suburbs for whom crime in Detroit is not something to deplore but something to celebrate and publicize. Seems worth discussing ...

[Zozo]

Yup, Frank Rizzo sure upsets a lot of you guys. I've been very up-front and honest with you that Rizzo is a fictional character designed to talk about race relations in suburban Detroit. I guess I'm glad Frank gets such strong, emotional reactions out of posters here, because I think it shows that a lot of white suburban Detroiters DO have very strong feelings about race and black people in particular.

It's amazing the delusions unemployed leftoids dream up in their never ending attempt to shame whites and rewrite history.

[Detroitnerd]

I think it's amazing the energy some people put into mischaracterizing discussions, lobbing ad hominem attacks and blaming messengers when a nerve is touched that makes them defensive. Kind of cute to watch. Who wants to line up next?

[Zozo]

Who wants to line up next?

Oh, we're lining up. The clown's giving a free show.

[donpablo]

when a nerve is touched that makes them defensive.

Absolutely true.