http:\/\/news.streetroots.org\/2018\/04\/27\/detroits-canary-mine-portland-says-water-equality-activist<\/p>\n
I’m always happening upon familiar faces from UMich in the city. This time, it was my dear saintly chum, Luke Liu. I was overjoyed to see him, and I demanded we go get pizza at the Woodward mainstay, Sgt. Pepperoni’s, to celebrate. As we caught up on our way, Luke asks me the question we are all always inevitably asked: “What’s your favorite part of the city?”<\/p>\n
The answer changes every time first and foremost because I discover more and more of the city’s nuance each day. This nuance usually comes in the form of new and even subtler contradictions: seemingly impossible circumstances that have somehow manifested in Detroit. This article is certainly chock full of them.<\/p>\n
What is so special — indeed, so horrible, about the impoverished in Detroit? What convinced lawmakers in the city to give Detroiters no more than 30 days to get their water bill payed off before they plugged the pipes? Most cities in this country will allow at least two or three bill cycles to pass before they even threaten <\/em>to\u00a0shut the water off. Many cities allow their citizens to accumulate as much debt as they must and never end up pulling the proverbial plug. I’m not one to propagate alarmist messages and ideations, but the “blue line of shame” reminds me very much of the marks that cartels and other gangs put on the streets in front of the those peoples’ homes who they intend to murder. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to get overdue notices in the mail and then walk outside and find your home marked ominously and wordlessly. Christ, it’s the homeowner’s equivalent of a break-up text.<\/p>\n These are the things I consider when I answer questions like the one that Luke Liu asked me. I still think about that Juneteenth event; beautiful and moving, but harrowing and disheartening as well. It was a manifestation of tumult and unsustainability. A night like that has to come to an end, just like the state of Detroit’s poverty and its outdated and seemingly nonsensical “solutions.” That night has become a concrete emotional and intellectual representation of what Detroit is for me.<\/p>\n However, that night did not have to end because it was too ugly or unpleasant. Like Detroit, it was unequivocally spectacular and uplifting. Detroit, as it is, is beautiful. However, the variety of beauty occupies a spectrum with Zone 8 on one end and Campus Martius on the other.<\/p>\n My most recent Uber driver spoke about how much he liked the city. He was very excited about all the changes and the tall buildings, referring frequently to the separate, “crappy,” and antiquated Detroit. That sort of thinking is dangerous because, although Woodward is shiny and new, it is merely the aftermath of a metaphorical bulldozer running rampant down the middle of the city. I’m gonna use a heavy-handed analogy so humor me: it is a piece of art arbitrarily deemed to be lesser and painted over: a recycled canvas, and the original painting forgotten. However, it makes no more sense to paint over the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel than it does to “revitalize” Detroit this way. Yes, it may be old, dusty, and chipped in some places, but it also holds a heritage and culture that is iconic in even the contemporary world artscape. It’s also certainly a great deal more than a painting; every brushstroke has a place and just as much right to be there as any other splotch of paint or pastel.<\/p>\n That’s what I told Luke Liu when he asked, or something like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" http:\/\/news.streetroots.org\/2018\/04\/27\/detroits-canary-mine-portland-says-water-equality-activist I’m always happening upon familiar faces from UMich in the city. This time, it was my dear saintly chum, Luke Liu. I was overjoyed to see him, and I demanded we go get pizza at the Woodward mainstay, Sgt. Pepperoni’s, to celebrate. As we caught up on our way, Luke asks me the question […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13249","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=13249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15498,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13249\/revisions\/15498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}