“Politics makes strange bedfellows”, as the saying goes, has resurfaced in a Freep article by Tom Walsh. Having the support of Malik Shabazz, whose profile was considerably raised via his dollar-waving performance in the Daily Show mockumentary not to mention his support of the Moroun ballot initiative, might seem like a toxic distraction.

In the quote below, Duggan deflects potential stigma rather deftly. In what seems bound to be a bruising multi-candidate primary Shabazz seems to be a piece in Duggan’s puzzle.

Mike Duggan makes his case for mayor

But a few minutes later, a story about Minister Malik Shabazz drew howls of laughter.

Shabazz is the activist minister with New Marcus Garvey/New Black Panther movement who publicly railed about possible state imposition of an emergency financial manager on Detroit as "white supremacy," adding, "before we will let you take over our city, we will burn it down first."

Shabazz also is supporting Duggan for mayor. He confirmed that to me Thursday, saying: "Mike Duggan is a crisis manager. He is a master at fixing broken things. And our city is broke down and totally collapsed."

Duggan told the group at Taylor's home that having Shabazz as a supporter does have its downside, referring to a Shabazz speech online that said that there are "only five good white men in America."

When Duggan called Shabazz and howled, "Malik you can't do this stuff, it's divisive, and we've got to be uniting people, pulling people together," he said Shabazz replied, "It's OK, Mike. ... You're one of the five."

What Duggan and Shabazz have in common is their aggressive posture toward shutting down drug houses in the city, which Duggan displayed as prosecutor and Shabazz's group does by banging pots and pans on the sidewalks outside of known drug dens.