"Stay and fight."
I've long wondered about those words, often uttered in conversations about staying in Detroit versus moving to the suburbs -- or exurbs -- for safer, supposedly greener, pastures.
I don't have to tell anybody on this forum that, historically, the people who talked and thought about staying and fighting, or leaving, have been white, although that has changed a bit in recent years.
Some of the other threads here, especially posts by woodwardboy and many of the responses to them, have this question churning again: What exactly are those who "stay and fight" fighting?
On one hand, there's a straightforward, innocent answer: They're fighting to keep neighborhoods safe, improve schools, services and a sense of community, and maybe fighting for jobs, opportunities and better political representation.
On the other hand, in the context of Detroit [[and other big cities), the subtext [[and it's not really that sub) is, they're fighting black people.
The phrase has a dual meaning, which is why I avoid applying it to myself.
Here's the larger problem, the one that keeps me awake at night: Despite all their intentions [[I'm not saying the intentions of all of them are good, but clearly some are), all their work, the ones who "stay and fight," black or white, are losing the battle. The history of Detroit over the last 50 years [[yes, there have been sucesses, and I witnessed some of them) does not bode well for any large-scale "victory" [[hard to say what that would even look like at this point).
I would appreciate fellow forumers' reflections on this topic, and specifically how they've used, not used, or reacted to hearing, the words "stay and fight."
For the record, I'm white and spent much of my teens and 20s in Detroit. My family owned a home there for 30 years. I did not "stay and fight." But I live barely a mile from the city in a border suburb and regularly take the bus downtown to work. Make of all that what you will.