Week Three: the structure of this is bad but thanks for reading

I feel so grateful that my site coordinator had me set up introduction interviews with every member of the team individually during the first week. Getting to hear about the journeys the women I work with have taken to get to this point in their lives was helpful for me, both in a professional sense and a personal philosophy sense. Professionally, a couple of the conversations were eye-opening in terms of how many career opportunities there are within education outside of being a teacher. One of the women discussed how she started in Washington DC working in policy, then started working in more localized positions of authority (even chartering her own school after being the principal at a few others!) until she found that the best place for her was in this area because she could both have a strong impact and take care of her own wellbeing.

Something that strikes me when reflecting on these intro interviews is how “un-special” this team portrays the work they’re doing (I know it’s not a great way to word it so if you have a better phrasing, please let me know). While the initiatives of this organization are strong and the community ties their trying to forge are super important, they’re much more focused on action than on highlighting how much the community needs them. I believe that, as someone who has no ties to Detroit, it’s very easy to before entering to pick up the narrative that any organization (homegrown or otherwise) trying to “build up” Detroit is automatically heroic and should be showered with praise. Maybe this is true for all organizations, but actually experiencing the working environment of this team doesn’t feel like the pat-on-the-back, self-congratulatory message that it seems some Detroit revitalization projects portray themselves as. To these people, it’s meaningful work but they aren’t giving to those who are “less fortunate.” It’s just necessary. Something that needs to happen to strengthen the community from within. If you feel like answering this, how are you feeling in relation to your site and how they discuss their mission/work? Do the people treat it as truly a grassroots, down-to-earth movement, or are you seeing any hints of self-gratification in the work they do?

In my intro interviews, the opinions on the “revitalization” of Detroit really reflected some of the sentiments found in How to Kill a City; at least, the fact that gentrification can seem like a hopeless dead-end for those who don’t benefit from the influx of capital.

Cynthia