http://www.freep.com/article/2014013...ankruptcy-plan

After a blissful hiatus, Rochelle Riley has come back to shit out a banal and fact-devoid column of pleasantries.

One of Detroit's many little secrets is that it has been providing the Charles H. Wright Museum with over $1,000,000 per year from city coffers. Riley and others seem to imply this continue, despite inevitable pensioner haircuts, the DIA raising $100,000,000 simply to not be gutted, and the Detroit Historical Museum willfully surrendering the meager city funding it used to get.

So why does the Charles H. Wright get special treatment? Well, I think we know the answer to that. Racial politics.

For the record, I think we absolutely should have an African-American History Museum, and am delighted that we have one in the city. However:
1) If you want me to get into the specifics, I can, but while the Charles H. Wright is decent quality, it is a sometimes baffling mix of history and traditional Black Nationalism.
2) The building is simply far too large to be sustained. It was too grandiose project. There are plenty of ethnic museums throughout the United States which are much more modest and sustainable affairs.
3) Like the DIA and the DHM, which found creative ways to obtain funding to stay viable, totally independent of the City, they should too. There should actually be outrage that a city with abysmal services has been providing the CHW with millions of dollars each year - far more than the DIA and DHM combined, have received.

Leave it to Riley and her combination of laziness and deceit to leave out these critical details.

There is also a bit of creative deceit on the part of the CHW. They claim they can afford programming but not operations. While some grants and funds are earmarked, the fact of the matter is, most Annual Fund gifts to Museums are not specific in what they can be used for. Basically they can't raise enough money and balance their budget.

Well that's their damn fault. My tax dollars should pay for the DIA because we passed that millage. My private donations [[hundreds of dollars per year) are what pays my share of the DHM. However my municipal tax dollars should not pay for an ethnic museum when the police don't come when I call.