{"id":2621,"date":"2013-08-08T12:18:31","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T16:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uropcbrp.com\/?p=2621"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:07:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T14:07:43","slug":"mary-sue-in-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/2013\/08\/08\/mary-sue-in-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Sue in Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to start by saying that this one\u2019s a bit of a downer.<\/p>\n

When we got the invite to go see Mary Sue Coleman address Detroit interns this summer my first thoughts were all positive. Just like any other sane person I like to be thanked for the work that I do, and for it be coming from our university president, well I thought it was pretty darn cool. Until we got there that is.<\/p>\n

Maybe it burst my Detroit bubble, but it seemed altogether pretentious compared to the somewhat humble and community based work that myself and the rest of this program had been working on all summer. This event was about the revitalization of Detroit through huge corporations and investment and entrepreneurship, which is important for the economic recovery of Detroit definitely. But my personal belief is that Detroit is where it is today not because of a lack of investment, but the root cause of this missing piece: racism and social degradation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost cute to think that you can just tell young people to come to Detroit and start new businesses and they\u2019ll be like, Yeah! Cool!<\/p>\n

Almost every young person I told about my experiences working in Detroit cringed away from the thought of working in this beautiful, black majority, civil rights laden history of a metropolis. And I absolutely believe that it is exactly the same as the old lady clutching her handbag when she sees a black man on the street, or Stand Your Ground, or ridiculous drug laws that specifically target certain races. And to think that the students of the University of Michigan are any different from the white suburbs that leech off of the infrastructure of Detroit is completely ridiculous, mostly because many students were born in raised in these suburbs.<\/p>\n

But then again, maybe I\u2019m the naive one. Maybe we aren\u2019t allowed to talk about these issues at pretty galas and events because they make people uncomfortable and that will hinder progress.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: I\u2019m left somewhat unsatisfied.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s a pretty picture of Amber and I enjoying the Detroit skyline = )<\/p>\n

\"image-22\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to start by saying that this one\u2019s a bit of a downer. When we got the invite to go see Mary Sue Coleman address Detroit interns this summer my first thoughts were all positive. Just like any other sane person I like to be thanked for the work that I do, and for […]<\/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":[2],"tags":[26,33,72,113],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cbrp-2013","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-detroit","tag-metro-areas","tag-university-of-michigan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621","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=2621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16475,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2621\/revisions\/16475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}