Welcome To Detroit Dialogue

Hi!

This evening I attended the Third Thursday Speaker Series at Detroit Historical Museum and I would like to talk about my experience in this post. The topic of the panel discussion was titled, “Detroit: Tale of Two Cities”. Among the four speakers, it seemed that they were evenly split on each side of the “cities” perspective.

I thought it was simply going to be another discussion covering how gentrification hurts poor people and that everyone would agree that it’s not human to allow gentrification, but no one would provide an answer or movement forward for us as a group. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that much more content was uncovered than what I had originally expected. Instead of looking solely at gentrification from the social justice angle that I’ve become accustomed to through my coursework, interactions, and this program, it was interesting to hear the reasons behind why many individuals view capitalism as a solution instead of a racist threat to residents.

“Welcome to Detroit” was a common theme. The two panelists, both very strong women with statistical evidence and personal experiences to back up their positions on gentrification and redevelopment’s negative impact on Detroit, stood firmly in their case that Detroit is unlike any other city in America. The dialogue around this theme began at the event as a reaction to one of the men saying that he was from South Carolina, Georgia, and has worked many other places, and he was astonished that “we’re still thinking about things going on right now instead of looking at the future”. There was a misstep in communication between the economic developer and the community member- the member basically said that while we’re incentivizing companies and allowing them to make “20 year plans” we have homeless individuals that statistically die ~15 years earlier than the average resident… So, what are we going to do today? Welcome to Detroit, yes, we are still having this conversation.

The issues of housing insecurity and job destabilization cannot be generalized by a few textbook names, and most certainly cannot be simplified down to “there is only one solution and you must deal with some of the negative side effects” (which include people actually dying in their homes). You say 5000 jobs? Okay, we say how about they need to all be filled by people that live in Detroit for once and not by people that need to be “brought in”? Why are we investing in big corporations instead of locally owned and operated businesses, especially by people of color? Money needs to be jumpstarted in the local economy.

If you invest in the current residents of Detroit, give them jobs that pay a *livable* wage, not a minimum one, then you have people that want to buy homes, they can afford to pay property taxes and then Detroit can have revenue to invest in one of the most integral parts of our communities- our public schools. An idea covered tonight at the event that commanded attention from me was why are we voting for people that decide it’s a better use of resources to build a new prison but let public schools shut down and displace children in our communities? If politicians, our representatives and our mayors, have the ability to decide our children’s futures like that, we have the ability to decide if they are representing our real needs and vote based on that.

The community members that were present in front of the panels engaged in a passionate, electric proclamation of how the difference in these two perspectives have been hurting the people of the city. As one panelist put so eloquently, “the city is not land or buildings, the city is the people that are in it”. As we watched the president and CEO of an economic development/investment corporation sweat when he realized that he was facing the anger of the very people whose intentions for their own community he has ignored grab a microphone to explain that to him and every person in the room, it was apparent that he had never taken the time to think about that Detroit.

It was a bit insulting, to hear him call Detroit an “intentional miracle” when he would not drop the false and unrealistic narrative that Detroit is something that needs to be saved by capitalism. Capitalism means one person wins and a large number of other people lose. One of the most noteworthy comments made by Detroiters in the room for the conversation tonight, while all were excellent and vital to contribute, came from Jamon Jordan, who we took our tour of downtown Detroit with on our very first group meeting together through this program. Without needing to state his credentials, he asserted the undeniable relationship between capitalism and racism, and how the idealist’s capitalism will never be able to support Detroit. I was in awe.

In the very end of the event, with so much emotion still pulsing through the air as people took a deep breath for the first time, a lovely woman asked us to clap if we heard something, from the panelists or audience members, that we agreed with. Then she asked us to clap if we heard something we did not agree with. Every single individual in the room clapped, and it became clear to me that the dialogue about these “two cities” in Detroit is nowhere near finished.

Kind regards,

Scarlett Bickerton