Abandon Detroit, Abandon Black America

[English]

Found this article on the Atlanta Post website last week...

Abandon Detroit, Abandon Black America
http://atlantapost.com/2010/06/02/op...black-america/

Detroit is a microcosm of Black America. I believe if you cannot love Detroit, you cannot fully love Black people. The Detroit Metropolitan area represents the best and the worst that Black folks in this country have to offer. The Black middle class was solidified in and around Detroit with steady unionized blue collar labor in the auto industry.

The middle class expanded as more Black folks with college educations occupied managerial positions. Detroiters experienced and vigilantly fought the racisms of housing redlining, riots, as well as White and Black flight. Detroit has benefited and suffered at the hands of White and Black leadership. If there is a city that tells us about the promise and perils of Blackness, it’s Detroit. I’m so interested in what happens in Detroit because if we can turn it around, we can turn around the rest of our cities.

I'm interested in what people think about Lewis' ideas. Here are my views...

I don't want Detroit to be viewed as a black city any more than New York or Chicago is viewed as just a black city. We need to broaden our conceptualization of who a Detroiter is. To be honest, many whites just don't feel comfortable living in Detroit because they feel they are not welcome. An earlier generation of black people with lived memories of pre-Civil Rights America may have felt that turnabout was fair play, but the majority of us under 45 don't have that excuse.

I believe that Detroit needs to clean up both its image and its reality first. Then it needs more people from all backgrounds, and a huge flood of immigrants [[please oh universe, please please please...).

[DumplingDude]

New York is not viewed as a black city. Not in the least. I live here and we happened to be multi-cultural.

I can't comment on the article because I find blacks and whites have too much animosity against one another because of history and lies abour both of our histories in this nation.Complete utter lies fabricated by politics to keep control over both of our people and to keep us at each others throats.

Besides, those comments linked to that article are far beyond racist for my taste.Mayor Coleman Young a savior to the city? The city blockaded by Colonial rule?

Too laughable.Insanity at its best .

[English]

^ The comments are pretty nasty on both sides of that article. Happens all the time on unmoderated boards online.

I refuse to believe that we have to be this divided forever, though. Thank God for young people. They are truly our hope for the future.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

All I saw was a bunch of racist and negative comments disrespecting Blacks and Detroit in general.

[Russix]

The Black label is not a good thing. Racists collectivize the negatives and then place blame. Unfortunately I don't think you can have a predominately Black nice successfully city because everyone will want to live their and the demographic will diversify.

[iheartthed]

Both New York and Chicago have more residents who self-identify as white than residents who identify as black. New York is 28% black, and Chicago is 35% black. Detroit, on the other hand, is over 80% black.

But honestly, most people without personal ties to the Detroit area don't realize that it's a majority black city. I doubt that the city being known as a black majority city would do much to harm its image than what it is now. Besides, Atlanta has seemed to embrace the capital of black America image with a bit of success, and that city is nowhere near as black as Detroit proper.

[Bearinabox]

Found this article on the Atlanta Post website last week...

Abandon Detroit, Abandon Black America
http://atlantapost.com/2010/06/02/op...black-america/



I'm interested in what people think about Lewis' ideas. Here are my views...

I don't want Detroit to be viewed as a black city any more than New York or Chicago is viewed as just a black city. We need to broaden our conceptualization of who a Detroiter is. To be honest, many whites just don't feel comfortable living in Detroit because they feel they are not welcome. An earlier generation of black people with lived memories of pre-Civil Rights America may have felt that turnabout was fair play, but the majority of us under 45 don't have that excuse.

I believe that Detroit needs to clean up both its image and its reality first. Then it needs more people from all backgrounds, and a huge flood of immigrants [[please oh universe, please please please...).

To me, this is the key piece of the article:

It’s about time that we stop looking at Detroit and begin doing something with and for Detroit. As legendary Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs said, “you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it.�

Whether or not we want to be seen as a black city is irrelevant, I think. We are seen as one, and that fact informs much of the local and national discourse about us. Metro Detroit, and America as a whole, doesn't see itself as "belonging to" Detroit or "responsible for changing it," and I think race is certainly a factor in that. Lewis didn't make that up, and it wouldn't have gone away if he'd chosen not to write about it. I do think it's more productive to examine Detroit as the black section of a segregated metropolis, where the segregated environment we've created allows us to draw neat political boundaries around the "not-our-problem" zones and pretend Oakland County exists in a vacuum, but I think that's getting away from the scope of this article.

[English]

But here's the thing. Detroit wasn't 80% black in 1967. I just don't understand why there were riots in every major city in the 1960s, but Detroit in 2010 is the only one that's still being defined by that riot on both sides of the divide.

[Bearinabox]

But here's the thing. Detroit wasn't 80% black in 1967. I just don't understand why there were riots in every major city in the 1960s, but Detroit in 2010 is the only one that's still being defined by that riot on both sides of the divide.

Why do you say that we're "defined" by the riot? I'm not contending that we are or aren't, but I liked that Lewis didn't dwell on it like most outsiders who write about Detroit.

[mpf]

I don't want Detroit to be viewed as a black city any more than New York or Chicago is viewed as just a black city. We need to broaden our conceptualization of who a Detroiter is. To be honest, many whites just don't feel comfortable living in Detroit because they feel they are not welcome.

I don't view it as a city based on race, but one of manufacturing! But, yea, it's a scary place for us white guys, too much crime & poverty...caused by lack of jobs, mostly, with some help from substance abuse...

Then it needs more people from all backgrounds, and a huge flood of immigrants [[please oh universe, please please please...).

Huge flood of immigrants? I doubt that is going to help out...having "some", yes! Ask a southern border city dweller about a flood of immigrants, it's burdensome on all resources!
The best thing would be large-scale gentrification, where former city residents return and rehab, spending tons of $$, IMHO.
Or, encouraging, thru tax forgiveness [[a TIFF district, they are all over here, chicagoland) the return of businesses, hence jobs.
Tough to pull off, though, with all the cheap stuff coming from china. I gotta compete against these guys every day! [[manufacturing)

[iheartthed]

But here's the thing. Detroit wasn't 80% black in 1967. I just don't understand why there were riots in every major city in the 1960s, but Detroit in 2010 is the only one that's still being defined by that riot on both sides of the divide.

Back in the 1960s, the demographics of Detroit were a lot more similar to those of Chicago and New York. But since then Detroit has greatly lagged behind the other two cities in attracting immigrants [[foreign or domestic). That's probably had a lot to do with other cities being able to change the conversation, while Detroit hasn't, since many of the residents in other places don't have legacy ties to the social unrest in the 1960s and 1970s.

[Detroitej72]

Back in the 1960s, the demographics of Detroit were a lot more similar to those of Chicago and New York. But since then Detroit has greatly lagged behind the other two cities in attracting immigrants [[foreign or domestic). That's probably had a lot to do with other cities being able to change the conversation, while Detroit hasn't, since many of the residents in other places don't have legacy ties to the social unrest in the 1960s and 1970s.

I believe Mayor Daley might beg to differ with you.

[Detroitej72]

I don't view it as a city based on race, but one of manufacturing! But, yea, it's a scary place for us white guys, too much crime & poverty...caused by lack of jobs, mostly, with some help from substance abuse.

What, you think its open season on white guys in Detroit?

Huge flood of immigrants? I doubt that is going to help out...having "some", yes! Ask a southern border city dweller about a flood of immigrants, it's burdensome on all resources!

Hamtramck has benefited immensely from having huge floods of immigrants for the last 100 years. Most of my neighbors are from Albania, Ukraine and Poland. All they do is rebuild the houses on the street, gutting them from the inside out, and making them better than when they first moved in. I would hardly call that burdensome. In fact, most of my immigrant neighbors are harder workers than the "native born Americans" who tend to be lazy and enjoy living off government entitlements.

[LeannaM]

I believe if you cannot love Detroit, you cannot fully love Black people.

So, if you don't love Iowa you can't love white people, because most people in Iowa [[and some other states) are white. I understand that Detroiters are almost all black, but that doesn't mean that they [[or anyone else) has to like the city.

I understand that blacks like having their own cultural identity. So do many other groups of people. That is great, because culture encourages us [[of all races) to express ourselves. However, that doesn't mean that Detroit is the only place to find black culture. And I don't think disliking any city makes you a racist. Perhaps some people dislike Detroit because of the black majority. That is not right. But a lot of people don't like Detroit because [[fair or not) they have certain ideas about it being rundown and unsafe.

[LeannaM]

One thing in the comments:

New Orleans and E St Louis are our sister cities and we will prevail, too.

I've only been by East St. Louis on the interstate, but I don't think New Orleans will like being compared to it. If we're talking about French cities, St. Louis is the one that has Mardi Gras, not East St. Louis. Either that, or she means that all are majority black cities, but she leaves out Atlanta and a few other cities. Or she means cities that have declined, but New Orleans still seems to have pretty good tourism [[though maybe not to the extent that it had pre-Katrina). I think she means these three are majority black cities that have been oppressed by the government, but there are other cities she could have included.

I don't think New Orleans would appreciate being compared to East St. Louis.

Many of the other comments are just too stupid and racist for words.

[royce]

So, if you don't love Iowa you can't love white people, because most people in Iowa [[and some other states) are white. I understand that Detroiters are almost all black, but that doesn't mean that they [[or anyone else) has to like the city.

I understand that blacks like having their own cultural identity. So do many other groups of people. That is great, because culture encourages us [[of all races) to express ourselves. However, that doesn't mean that Detroit is the only place to find black culture. And I don't think disliking any city makes you a racist. Perhaps some people dislike Detroit because of the black majority. That is not right. But a lot of people don't like Detroit because [[fair or not) they have certain ideas about it being rundown and unsafe.

LeannaM, the writer of the article was a guy. I think when he said, "if you can't love Detroit then you can't love black America," he was speaking to other blacks only. Since this was a post from Atlanta, a predominantly black city, he was trying to say to other blacks that they can't give up on blacks in Detroit. To do that would mean giving up on black America because the experiences of blacks in Detroit can be compared to every city in the U.S. with large black populations. I don't think he was speaking directly to white America.

[LeannaM]

I understand that. I just don't agree with that statement. Obviously if I were black I may have a different opinion on it. I just don't feel that disliking any city makes someone a racist.

[daddeeo]

Hey, even black people are getting the hell out if Detroit. No one wants to live where
they don't feel safe.
They aren't abandoning it, the City abandoned them.

[Bearinabox]

Hey, even black people are getting the hell out if Detroit. No one wants to live where
they don't feel safe.
They aren't abandoning it, the City abandoned them.

Let me guess, you didn't read the article.

[English]

Why do you say that we're "defined" by the riot? I'm not contending that we are or aren't, but I liked that Lewis didn't dwell on it like most outsiders who write about Detroit.

Well, Lewis doesn't dwell on the riots, but his formulation of Detroit as a "Black city" is a direct result of 1967. Without the 12th street riot, Detroit's white flight may not have been quite as pronounced.

Someone upthread said that New York is multicultural. Well, Detroit used to be multicultural, and 30-40 years ago, New York City was absolutely not the NYC of today. In fact, our cousins from NY used to pride themselves on telling us that Detroit was a country town compared to them, and that if we set foot in certain parts of Harlem, the Bronx, or Brooklyn, none of our Detroit street sense would help us.

When I finally made it to NYC for the first time in 2002, post-Giuliani and post-9/11, I was absolutely shocked. Of course there are still rough spots, but compared to the New York in my mind, it seemed more like a sanitized Epcot version of it. And by my second trip in 2007, I was trying to find the poor people in Manhattan neighborhoods I'd been reading about all my life... and found very few. The NYC of my literary imagination had pretty much been gentrified.

NYC is just a case in point. Cities declined all over the country in the 1960s. Something happened to the other great American cities in the 1980s and 1990s that didn't happen to Detroit. I don't get why there were riots all over the country in the mid to late 1960s, but somehow, white ethnic neighborhoods didn't empty out, and the exclusive neighborhoods within city limits remained just as exclusive. I just don't get what happened here.

[fryar]

Good point, English. Something happened to the other great American cities in the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's that didn't happen in Detroit. Not an uplifting thought, perhaps, but probably more constructive than taking the view that Detroit is defined by the riots.

There is a box, contents unknown, of stuff that didn't happen here that "defines" Detroit [[vis-a-vis successful great cities of America) to a greater degree than the riots.

I'll take a pot-shot at it, and we'll see if anything sticks. Bear in mind that this is a box of stuff that didn't happen in Detroit:
1) Economic diversity. San Francisco surely benefits financially from nearby Silicon Valley, but it has other things to offer.
2) Diversity through immigration. This one's actually really important, in my mind. It brings in labor and investment, even if it's just a diner or bar, and it renders some of the conflicts we have inherited from our ancestors a little less meaningful.
3) Density. In some cases, sprawl was limited by geographic [[Manhattan), legal [[Portland), or perhaps other factors. There are successful cities that do not fit this description, however.
Those are just my 2 cents. I don't have a degree in this stuff or anything, so I can't back any of it up much, but those are some ingredients, I think.

The riots get too much attention.

[English]

Perhaps Detroit was just the perfect storm, and it's an anomaly. Pity that it had to be us, and not some other place.

[iheartthed]

Without the 12th street riot, Detroit's white flight may not have been quite as pronounced.

Well, many things are possible, but I think it highly unlikely that the '67 riots played a major role in Detroit becoming a super-majority black city. I mean think about it, white Detroiters were the overwhelming majority of the city's population into the 1960s. Detroit didn't even break the 50% black threshold until the 1970s. At its peak population, Detroit was 16% black. How rational is it to believe that the 16% minority drove much of the 84% majority to leave the city?

If anything the riots are used as a scapegoat to mask the long list of other likely reasons why Detroit's population declined dramatically.

By 1960, Detroit's white population had decreased by 24% [[going from 1.5M to 1.1M) from the high mark in 1950, and the black population had grown by 60% [[going from 0.3M to 0.48M) in that same time. The trend was in place well before 1967, and it mirrored much of what was going on in most other parts of the Manufacturing Belt.

[fryar]

I couldn't agree more, let's get away from blaming the riots, it's a red herring.

[English]

How rational is it to believe that the 16% minority drove much of the 84% majority to leave the city?

Oh, I'm being somewhat hyperbolic in my arguments, and I'm aware of that. There's a reason for that... bear with me for a sec.

This statement of yours -- the majority of people from 20th century Detroit not only find it rational, but they have internalized it. In the popular consciousness of this region, this statement is why the majority left. It especially doesn't make any sense when one takes the time period into account -- before the 1960s, that 16% minority couldn't drive anyone from the majority out of anywhere, because any attempt by that minority to threaten the economic, social, or physical interests of the majority was brutally suppressed.

Well, why do we keep saying that it was black crime that drove the white and now black middle class out of the city? Did the 16% minority suddenly become all criminal in the 1960s? What happened?

I think it's important to throw the cliches and conventional wisdom into the winepress, press them out and refine them a bit. I'm not saying that people on DYes believe that it was the riots and black crime that decimated Detroit, but it is what most of the nation believes, and it is the tale that many from the region tell.

Why not tell the truth? Obviously, Detroit was undesirable for other reasons during its Golden Age that caused people to flee instead of retrench themselves and fight. We sigh over Detroit of the 1960s and before, but what seeds were planted in the first six decades of the 20th century that led to the city of today?