Initially, I was going to write about something else for this week’s post but after our Thursday meeting today, I would like to take the time out to thank Lia, Chloe, Skylar, and Charlie for choosing this event for the group. The event was the Third Thursday Speaker Series: Detroit: A Tale of Two Cities and the event featured panelists discussing topics about the city of Detroit that need to be said and heard. As I imagine most people did, I took in a lot of information from the event and as a Detroit native, born and raised, I always find it heart warming to see people from the community come out and make sure their voices are heard. I think that something (among the tons of other things) that many of these gentrified cities and areas lack is empathy for others and respect for humanity. Everything is about money, money, money, and then more money. I’m grateful that within the last year or two that I have had the opportunity to learn more about what’s actually going on in the communities as opposed to being like many other people I know from the city who are so focused on just trying to work to survive that they can not even follow what’s happening in the city or around them. I’m not really sure how to conclude this because I am bad with concluding things, but if you are reading this, I want you to remember (months or years from now) all of the things you learned about Detroit during Summer 2018 while living here and not let it just fall into a distant memory. If you do, you have to ask yourself this: “Did I really care?”
2 thoughts on “Week 7”
Comments are closed.
I completely agree Rai, after attending this event tonight I knew that my experience listening to these panelists engage with the audience was one of the most impactful events I’ve attended during this program and what I also wanted to write about. When that one man brought up that money shouldn’t be what matters most, because you can’t take it with you to the grave, I hope people in the room heard that and took it to heart. Cities aren’t made up of land and buildings and profits, they are PEOPLE and I’m so happy that you agree. It was fun sitting in the same row with you and reacting to the information and statements that were being shared.
I’m glad you enjoyed the event, Rai! It really energized me, too, and I loved hearing from longtime activists. I agree that it is important that we ask ourselves if we really care about our time here, and make sure we continue to care as we get ready to go back to school.