Charlie LeDuff on Detroit in Mother Jones

[Carey]

Charlie might be gone from the Detroit News, but he continues to report on Detroit for a national audience. In this interesting story, he discusses the death of Aiyana Stanley and other Detroiters, mainly young ones; scrapping; Geoffrey Fieger; graduation rates; Henry Ford; the Packard plant; fire fighters; Warren Evans; Charlie's childhood; the morgue; A & E and migration to Detroit, among other things.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010...-jones-detroit

[Gannon]

I don't care what anyone says. Charlie LeDuff is the real deal and a Detroiter to his core.

Like many who win accolades, his ego grew. He adjusted and is back to earth now.

I know of some of what he said in this article. He speaks the truth.

[Fnemecek]

Best damn piece of writing about Detroit I read in years.

[Brock7]

It is not pronounced Grass-shit!

[eastsidechris]

I agree...must-read material. Amazing how much of the "rest" of the story was missed out because the newspapers are so understaffed that they would not send someone out to do the legwork on a follow-up story after the hype of the two shootings finally died down. The article not only provides great anecdotes/quotes about the aftermath of the shootings [[Her family used Rosa Parks' hearse, Horace Sheffield had to foot the bill for the funeral, the boy's body was in the morgue for a while because his mother couldn't afford to bury him, the father believes that environment has no effect on the lives of children?!), but great historical context about the city of the Detroit. Excellent stuff!

PS--I agree...as far as I've heard in my 12 years here, the commonly accepted pronunciation of Gratiot is "gra-shut"!

[gnome]

Charlie is a fine feature writer. He is missed.

[TKshreve]

Good read! Much better than some of his "Travels with Charlie" pieces he was doing like coon-man and so forth.

[Blarf]

Glad that sensationalistic hack is out of town.

[Lowell]

His style of writing reads more like a screen play than investigative report, or this case since he asks a question, an essay. So we end up with another grim Dickensian portrait, a string of anecdotes retelling and highlighting the litany of well-known [to us on this forum] ills... Fade out with a waif in diapers playing among the ruins.

My problem with this article is that I don't think he answers his question.

What I found more revealing was how his viewpoint appears to be darkly colored by his own Detroit past, the 'Arab' store owner with gold bracelets [what does Arab and gold bracelets matter? ] who killed a man for... For what? Our reporter chooses to let that thread drop. Ditto for a sister who "died a violent death in a filthy section of Detroit a decade ago". Was she murdered; kill in a hit run accident? We learn his mother's flower shop, now pile of bricks and that a sister's daughter OD's on heroin.

And the answer is? We are left with this -- not an answer but a highlight reel of his previous articles.

But is she responsible for police officers with broken computers in their squad cars, firefighters with holes in their boots, ambulances that arrive late, a city that can't keep its lights on and leaves its vacant buildings to the arsonist's match, a state government that allows corpses to stack up in the morgue, multinational corporations that move away and leave poisoned fields behind, judges who let violent criminals walk the streets, school stewards who steal the children's milk money, elected officials who loot the city, automobile executives who couldn't manage a grocery store, or Wall Street grifters who destroyed the economy and left the nation's children with a burden of debt? Can she be blamed for that?

I really don’t mean to be hard on him. He clearly has talent and investigative skills. But his one is too big for him, maybe for all of us. It is the big question and no one has really answered it yet. I have participated in many efforts of outside media to come to grips with this challenge and they have all walked away shaking their heads and fumbling for explanations. I have dubbed this coming to "stare into the abyss" and the nub of the answer has always been, "It is deeper than I ever thought and I couldn't see the bottom."

[JBMcB]

I really don’t mean to be hard on him. He clearly has talent and investigative skills. But his one is too big for him, maybe for all of us. It is the big question and no one has really answered it yet.

Of course it's the big question - but he isn't bringing it up to Detroiters per se. This article is meant for a national/worldwide audience who isn't familiar with Detroit's problems.

The kind of misery experienced by the families in this article is prevalent in every major city in the world. The difference is, usually, those cities have functioning governments to keep them in check or, at least, provide some sort of resolution. In Detroit, the city government is as broken as everything else. You can take your problem all the way up the food chain - nobody cares.

Everyone in Detroit government needs to go.

[Lowell]

In Detroit, the city government is as broken as everything else. You can take your problem all the way up the food chain - nobody cares.

Everyone in Detroit government needs to go.

I fail to see how that would solve matters. Go and then what? Besides, for a number of reason, constitutional on down that could never happen. Also there are many conscientious civic employees who are doing a good job under very difficult circumstances.

The solutions have to come from within, electing competent, concerned and honest officials while rooting out the corrupt [much advances in both directions recently IMHO] and from without, sharing of Detroit's indigent, insurance, crime and tax burdens while exploiting unused opportunities, suggestion for which I have offered here.

Solutions from without requires action at the state and federal legislative level and can realistically only be done by Republicans with a huge push and support from their big business allies. It is kind of like only Nixon being able to go to China or Clinton to guide welfare reform because for someone of the other party to do so would be politicized and gridlocked.

With Snyder and Bing I think there may be a glimmer of hope but it requires spending a lot of political capital on the part of both with their reluctant constituencies.

[KOMPOST]

I really wanted to give "Bart's People" one more chance. So I read this piece. I burped up bile when I came to the obligatory photo of the dollhouse positioned neatly in the ghetto.
Sorry, Charlie is just not for me.

[JBMcB]

I fail to see how that would solve matters. Go and then what? Besides, for a number of reason, constitutional on down that could never happen.

Bankruptcy. Lets you do, more or less, anything you want. Fire incompetent staff. Break union contracts.

The solutions have to come from within, electing competent, concerned and honest officials while rooting out the corrupt

Corruption seems to be ingrained into the culture of the city government, and the overall power structure of Detroit. If the elected officials start making noise about rooting out corruption and grift, the community leaders and/or union leadership on the receiving end of that largess go after them.

With Snyder and Bing I think there may be a glimmer of hope but it requires spending a lot of political capital on the part of both with their reluctant constituencies.

I don't think it would require a ton of political capital. The national news has been filled with stories of the endemic corruption in the city. If a bipartisan platform is established at the state level to clean house, I think everyone except those involved with the corruption would be all for it.

[proc2000]

What a well-written article. Tragic, haunting and brimming with despair. It shows how insulated Detroit is. I'll miss LeDuff's writing for the News.

[Lowell]

Bankruptcy. Lets you do, more or less, anything you want. Fire incompetent staff. Break union contracts.

That will probably happen and essentially a Robert Bobb situation will ensue. However I don't think that gets to the root problem of population loss=income / revenue loss=service loss=more population loss, as Bobb has discovered.Indeed it will probably accelerate that spiral. Outside resources and long term commitment and determination are needed as much outside demands and oversight.

Corruption seems to be ingrained into the culture of the city government, and the overall power structure of Detroit. If the elected officials start making noise about rooting out corruption and grift, the community leaders and/or union leadership on the receiving end of that largess go after them.

Please name instances of community and union leaders objecting to the rooting out of corruption. I really don't think anyone objects to that. Sweeping statements like that unfairly tar the big majority who are doing the right thing. After all, corruption steals directly from their constituents. On the other hand much is being done to correct that and as I suggest above it is coming from the state and federal level. Those levels now need to get involved with the same intensity in rebuilding of the city.

[Gannon]

Lowell,

I heard the most outrageous complaint regarding Council-by-District from a young woman who had obviously been stuck so deeply within her culture that she didn't realize what she was saying. I state that precisely to allow her some wiggle room, and don't wish to pigeon-hole her into a place where she cannot learn and grow a bit. [[If she does it right, she'll be able to fly.)

She said areas of the city are filled with people who want to insure that someone on council looks like them.

She is influenced by those leaders who are entrenched in the current system, no doubt.

As long as they are getting theirs, they do not SEE how corruption taints anything. They may be too selfish to see the whole picture. This is basic human nature, as far as I can tell.



I agree that much is being done to correct the current system. The next meeting of the committee to rewrite the city's charter will be one week from this coming Saturday. Any interested parties are welcome to join the public conversation, very truly ALL input is welcome.


Cheers!

[bartock]

I thought it made for a good read. Some of the comments afterward lacked perspective. Not to be snobbish, but I people reading these stories and not from the area really cannot understand it. In terms of this story, I believe that in order to begin to understand, people who are unfamiliar would have to drive up/down Charlevoix or Kercheval between say Cadieux and the Chrysler plant. The incredible juxtaposition between the devastation/abandonment/prarie seen on the Detroit side and the Grosse Pointe side cannot be understood otherwise. Even those pictures of abandoned homes on one block [[black/white, nice touch) have to be seen to be truly felt.

[Swimmaven]

I agree...must-read material. Amazing how much of the "rest" of the story was missed out because the newspapers are so understaffed that they would not send someone out to do the legwork on a follow-up story after the hype of the two shootings finally died down. The article not only provides great anecdotes/quotes about the aftermath of the shootings [[Her family used Rosa Parks' hearse, Horace Sheffield had to foot the bill for the funeral, the boy's body was in the morgue for a while because his mother couldn't afford to bury him, the father believes that environment has no effect on the lives of children?!), but great historical context about the city of the Detroit. Excellent stuff!

PS--I agree...as far as I've heard in my 12 years here, the commonly accepted pronunciation of Gratiot is "gra-shut"!

My mother used to pronounce it as, " Grat-e-o".