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Originally Posted by
English
Tell that to the city officials who keep bringing it up. Shall I provide links to the comments about "outsiders" and white people which Detroit politicians have uttered over the last few years, or can we just go ahead and stipulate it?
Okay, I'll give you that this is a new city council, and most of the glaring idiots have been shoveled out. So I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt -- for awhile. The early returns, in at least one case, doesn't look promising, though.
But how can you deny that race remains an issue? I know what you're saying, and I can dig the Utopia thing you're putting out there. But this is the real world, as you reminded me earlier.
There are people who still insist the whole Kwame Kilpatrick saga is about race. Last week, a mistrial was called, which several jurors attributed to a black juror who refused to deliberate because she was convinced the whole thing was a setup to "hang the black man."
Do I need to provide you with more reminders that, while this visionary Utopia you desribe might be nice and all, we aren't there yet?
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In the same decade that Detroit produced Kwame Kilpatrick, Newark produced Cory Booker. Similar age, generation, and racial/ethnic background. Very different outcomes for cities that were similarly maligned and impoverished.
Well, maybe Booker isn't a lying, thieving criminal like Kilpatrick is. Seems like a simple answer.
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If you think that the inner city Newark voters don't view things through the prism of race, please watch the documentary Street Fight. Booker lost his first mayoral race because he was perceived as not black enough. He tried again and won.
You make my point for me. He lost his election because the black voters said he wasn't black enough. People still look at things through this prism. And as long as that continues then we will never be able to get the best and brightest. By most accounts Booker has done a fine job as mayor. And yet, the voters dismissed him out of hand the first time around because they felt he wasn't black enough. How would they treat a white candidate who didn't have parents who were, to quote wikipedia, "African American trailblazers"??
Based on what you've said, the voters probably would deem a perfectly good white mayoral candidate with the talent to pull their city out of the crapper "not black enough." And as long as people think like that, nobody -- Detroit, Warren or Grosse Pointe -- will get the best and brightest to run their city.
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The point is that this is about VISION. Without vision, Detroit will never return. And those who do have the vision are moving on with the transformation of the city. They are not waiting for Detroit voters to sing "We Shall Overcome" or blue-collar suburban conservatives to say "sure, you can come marry my daughter!" They are moving into new neighborhoods, starting businesses, building an arts community, and volunteering. Their vision is radical, and they see the conversations that people like you and I are having as so much 20th century bullsh**.
Well, good for them. Sounds like a Utopian community you've got going there and I hope it spreads.
But here under the flickering streetlight that only works half the time, in the real world, we still live in a situation where people, as you point out, select candidates based on whether they are "black enough" [[or in the suburbs, "white enough.")
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The movement is here and now, and nothing will be able to stop it. Mwilbert upthread typed the only thing worthy of consideration in this discussion, including my own posts. The activists of a new Detroit do not want to make it what it was, and it doesn't want to imitate late 20th/early 21st century "prosperity" a la Sun Belt City in the Snow Belt, USA. What we shall be, we do not know... but whatever it is, it will be different from anything else in the nation.
I'm glad you're thinking that way, but throughout the history of Detroit, there have been ideals such as those you put forth that have been crushed by the weight of the dirty, rotten reality: Unless you're willing and able to start greasing palms, it's very difficult to get anything done in this city.
You're right; we need leaders with vision to move things forward. Now tell me who in our city's government has shown that type of vision. 'Cause I sure as hell can't think of any.
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Someday in the future, people with clearer vision than any of us can have will analyze what happened and why. The city that they live in and know will be radically different from the one we love and know so well. I may not see that day in the flesh, but I look toward it and smile.
Then again ... things could always get worse.