Our group meetings have provided us with information about the history of Detroit (such as our walking tour, the speech and panel at Concert of Colors, and our visit to the Semester in Detroit dialogue about the Algiers Motel), ideas about what people are doing now to help Detroit in its comeback (Davida at Food Lab Detroit, Naim at Voices for Earth Justice, and Cindy at Brilliant Detroit), and fun and interesting things to do in Detroit now (like bowling, visiting parks, or biking). Interwoven throughout many of these events and throughout our work in the internships is the idea of the power we have as the next generation to really enter into all of this. These are the ideas that these meetings have reinforced in my views of Detroit.
Detroit is a city that is very stereotyped- in the news, on TV, even in the way that people talk about it. Stereotypes too often simplify their subjects and stereotypes of Detroit are no exception. Detroit is not just the stereotypes of crime and poverty, but something much greater and more complex that cannot be simplified into just a couple of sentences. Even as I know that, I also recognize that I have not seen all of Detroit, or even close to it. I see only a small portion of even the neighborhood I work within and I see mainly midtown and downtown outside of work. Neither the city as it is now nor the history we are often told of Detroit is the whole story and we need to make an effort to break through these simple stories in Detroit and in other places we will travel throughout the rest of our lives and then work to tell others these complexities too.
Detroit is also a place that people can take a lot of pride in. From the non-profits I have visited, community projects I have seen, and stories I have heard many people spend their time here working to make their communities better and better and that is always something to take pride in. These efforts show us that history is important- we cannot forget why we experience what we are experiencing here now. It isn’t just something that happened in the past that now we can all move on from. It is something that we need to consider and use to shape how we move on.
