Disclaimer: I am in favor and have advocated for either an EM or a Consent Agreement.

I had the rare occasion of reading a persuasive column explaining very succinctly the rationale behind political resistance to state intervention.

http://michronicleonline.com/index.p...ritical-factor

Here is the conclusion to which I've come. For any community leaders, influential citizens, or future leaders out there...the effectiveness of militant behavior and militant speech has reached the point of diminishing returns.

If the JoAnn Watson's, Kwame Kenyatta's, and Malik Shabazz's of the world simply argued the above concepts in the public debate, not only would they be taken more seriously...but many of their concrete concerns could and would have been seriously addressed.

Of course, instead, they've chosen to be ornery, obstinate, uncooperative, argumentative, and hostile.

Perhaps there was a time and place where such behavior was a necessary component of getting things done in politics. The "By Any Means Necessary" strategy certainly has had its place...though my position is that this strategy should be reserved only until all other strategies have been exhausted. Adding fuel to the fire is this notion that our current struggles are political, when the reality is that they are no different from the struggles of GM, Ford, and almost any other institution whose structure was solidified 60 years ago, in a time where the world was different and different financial rules apply.

As I've said before...this is not a political battle. It's a battle against math.

The tragedy is that the unnecessary hostility coming from this most vocal segment is actually counterproductive to them achieving their REAL goals...which is to find a way to restructure our city government into an organization which better serves our citizens in a more sustainable way.

Or, a more blunt political analysis, "You wanted financial help from the state? Storming into Lansing, attacking everyone in sight, and then making demands is probably not the best way to do it."

I was not around during the civil rights era, and my family didn't immigrate to Detroit until the late 70s. So you'll have to forgive my ignorance to some of the events that pre-dated my awareness. But this isn't a story of Detroiters to go sit at the back of the bus. Hell, our people don't just ride the bus...they RUN THE BUS COMPANY.

Detroiters are reasonable to be skeptic. It will take real leadership, real communication, real trust building in order for us to find solutions. I think that Lansing and most of Detroit's civic leaders are on board. But we still have a handful of people that are sitting, looking away, arms crossed in denial.

That may have been the leadership we needed in 1963. We need to step up our game and do better than that in 2012.