About three weeks into the program, I took a trip to Atlanta for the weekend. Unfortunately, my departing\u00a0flight was delayed for an hour and a half. As I was sitting in the McNamara terminal, a tall, middle aged man took a seat across from me. We engaged in small talk for a few moments. In the short conversation that followed, I learned\u00a0that he was from Panama City, Florida, was an avid supporter of Donald Trump, and that he couldn’t wait to catch his connecting flight and get home.<\/p>\n
He asked me if I was from Michigan. I happily replied that I was. I explained that\u00a0I had grown up in the suburbs, but recently started living and working in Detroit for an internship.\u00a0His expression suddenly turned grim.\u00a0“Oh, really? And how is that going?” He went on, “You know how you have a mental image of places\u00a0when you hear about them? Well, I’ve never had a good picture when it comes to Michigan.”<\/p>\n
Here we go.\u00a0<\/em>I thought. I was curious to know who or what was painting such an ugly picture for him. I think I already knew the answer.<\/p>\n “Does everything you know about Michigan come from things you’ve heard about Detroit?” I asked him, in what was probably an accusatory tone.<\/p>\n He confirmed this with a nod, and body language that said well duh<\/em>. He explained he had only been to the area\u00a0for business, and never really\u00a0cared to explore outside of the walls of the skyscrapers he’s visited.<\/p>\n I emphasized\u00a0that the narrative he had heard in the media will not be and should not be<\/strong> the narrative he hears in the future – that the narrative he hears now neglects the voice of the communities that I’ve seen thriving in the short time I’ve been here. I know the narrative that he is hearing is tainted by an outsider’s lens. I wish the\u00a0stories about the good people in Detroit got as much attention as those stories that focus on corruption, bankruptcy, blight, and that damn M-1\u00a0rail.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I challenged him to come back soon, and venture out of the exclusive\u00a0downtown area. I told him that there are many tight knit communities that are and have been<\/strong> working to bring about positive community change for decades. I challenged him to visit the beautiful art parks, bike paths, museums, theaters, and eateries\u00a0that sprinkle the city, and\u00a0give it it’s unique and colorful personality.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, my insights seemed to fall upon deaf ears.”Don’t worry,” he started, “Trump will fix it.”\u00a0I laughed nervously as I realized he was – for some\u00a0reason – trying to console me. He could not see that that type of top-down, invasive change was exactly why I am worried.<\/p>\n Detroit is not and has never been a city that “needed saved” by anyone. Perhaps the first step – the step that is so often skipped\u00a0– is simply to\u00a0engage in conversations and actually listen to<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>those that live here and are most effected by the decisions that are made. You know, instead of hiring an emergency manager in an attempt to silence their voices.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n As a middle-class, suburbanite I cannot by any means articulate the problems faced by\u00a0long-time Detroiters. But the very least I can do is\u00a0advocate against ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About three weeks into the program, I took a trip to Atlanta for the weekend. Unfortunately, my departing\u00a0flight was delayed for an hour and a half. As I was sitting in the McNamara terminal, a tall, middle aged man took a seat across from me. We engaged in small talk for a few moments. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dcbrp-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15891,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10210\/revisions\/15891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}