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It was hard to get a clear understanding of what 'Dateline: NBC' was trying to say about Detroit the other night.
The overall message was that Detroit is a mess and is basically in last place in just about every urban category: schools, jobs, crime, infrastructure, etc. Okay, okay, we get the picture. The city is New Orleans without the hurricane. The city has been hit by a perfect storm of municipal destruction over the years, including political corruption, the fallout of the auto industry and incompetent bureaucrats.
But to me, a Detroit native now living in New York, the underlying message in the 'Dateline' episode is that the city's woes should be laid squarely in one place: black folk.
For the 30 years that I lived in Detroit, there was no doubt I was witness to some of the best and worst the city had to offer. The 1967 riots were before my time, but I'm basically a product of them. I remember witnessing the white flight from my west side neighborhood. I remember how the suburbanites then made it a vocally public point to segregate themselves from the inner city, creating fiefdoms of Americana, daring blacks to cross their borders, then having the nerve to bash then-Mayor Coleman Young for telling criminals to "hit 8 Mile," because he wanted to crack down on crime.
In fact, the blaming of blacks for Detroit's downfall has always been suspect to me. Maybe I'm biased, because I'm a black Detroiter. But nobody complained when the Irish took over Boston two centuries ago. Nobody was pissed when the Cubans took over Miami, even as violent as it became in the 1980s. But blacks become a power majority in Detroit, and there is seething resentment.
Now, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of incompetence and corruption all up and through Detroit over the past 40 years. Unmonitored open doors to opportunity led to cronyism, which led to nepotism, which led to corrupt dealings like the Synagro scandal that so far has jailed former City Council President Monica Conyers and could possibly result in more people being lock up. Hush-hush operations were also the Achilles' heel for former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (pictured above), who infamously got caught up in a sexting scandal.
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More crimes have gone unpunished under the blanket of bureaucracy in Detroit then you'd have time to read here. The neighborhoods have suffered for it, the children have suffered for it. That, I can say with candor, is true, and Detroiters know it. But the inference that the city's being taken over by blacks led to its downfall is insulting because it ignores history.
For example, the Mafia goes way back in the city's lore. During prohibition, the Purple Gang used to hustle liquor across the Detroit River out of Canada and sell it to Al Capone, who became fabulously wealthy as the Ricky Ross of his day. In fact, the Mafia's so-called "Detroit Partnership" ran most of the crime there after prohibition for years and had its fingers well-entrenched in the police department and City Hall. The late Mayor Albert E. Cobo agreed to let the federal government drop I-75 in the middle of the city's Black Bottom neighborhood, essentially destroying a crucial part of Detroit's African American history. Just a few years later, Mayor Louis Miriani literally authorized one of the nation's first racial-profiling campaigns by the police. Old timers will still tell you about "The Big Four," who roamed the streets in unmarked cars, knocking heads wherever they felt like it.
Both these mayors gave in to racist pressures that would create segregated communities as early as the 1950s, for example, the veto of the Schoolcraft Gardens Housing Cooperative, which still stands as an example of racist housing tactics in the United States. Later on, Mayor Jerome P. Cavanaugh was caught dumbfounded by the riot that started on 12th Street (now Rosa Parks Blvd.) and spread all over the city in 1967. But by this time, racist redlining practices had already guaranteed whites their kingdoms in the suburbs, while blacks still suffered the social chaos caused by the scattering of Black Bottom.
By the 1970s, Coleman Young had come along to pick up the pieces. Did he make mistakes? Yes. Are his hands clean? No. But at the same time, in the mid-1970s, when the auto industry wanted to abandon Detroit, Young persuaded Henry Ford II that Detroit was a good place to work and built him the Renaissance Center, which still anchors the city's skyline. In the 1980s when GM was breaking down doors to get out of Detroit, he laid out space -- at the expense of a very old, historic Polish community -- to build the Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant, which is still one of GM's most important installations and is the center of a circle of auto suppliers. So to use him as an example of black power in Detroit scourging the city is wrong.
Yes, the city should have long since attracted other industries besides the automobile industry. It should have never been so controlled by the Big 3. Checks and balances should have been applied to the school system in the late 1960s to ensure that one of the nation's most productive systems never went to one with a 75 percent dropout rate. Federal money should have been fought for by Young and former Gov. William Milliken to ensure an infrastructure for small and medium-sized= businesses that stayed in place during the 1980s.
But 'Dateline NBC' is late to the game. Maybe you can only do so much in an hour-long special. Maybe it's tough to explain all the things I listed above in such a short time. It does take lots of study, actually. Still, Chris Hansen and crew, though well-intentioned, painted a picture of a once-great city without understanding the texture of the canvas.
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Comments: (9)
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By: Vickiss on 4/20/2010 4:28PM
"Fair" is a very interesting word to use.
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By: k on 4/23/2010 1:01AM
mike get off our web with negativity validation from you or yours is soooo not important you dig now to blacks if there something you don't like change it the power is within you take control through voting and unity read your history as to not allow to repeat know where you have been to understand where you must go this is your country take it
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By: MsBlase on 4/23/2010 11:50PM
K, are you familiar with punctuation? Mike is right. I am a black woman living in the Chicago area. If too many black people move into my neighborhood, I'm moving the hell out. There is no way I am going to live around a bunch of people with a bunch of excuses about why they can't make it.
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By: Evelyn on 4/22/2010 11:41AM
I'm so happy to know that I'm not the only one that understands how one can feel when our history is stepped on without any remorse. To read the statement
( But nobody complained when the Irish took over Boston two centuries ago. Nobody was pissed when the Cubans took over Miami, even as violent as it became in the 1980s. But blacks become a power majority in Detroit, and there is seething resentment.)
I was born and raised in Miami, moved away in 1982, tryied moving back in 2006 and 2009, never to return and live again. Its so painful to watch how the influx of Cubans, whom we opened our arms to, are so arrougant and feels so entitled that it makes you want to vomit. As a young adult, we were so proud on our jobs to reach out and help. We always knew as we would say, "We have new Ni--gers in town. Little did we know that these light skinned new folks would one day become so arrougant and after pushing blacks further back into poverty would one day claim their fame and fortune is a result of hard work. What about all the stuff you stole Cuban America? I remember. I may be 61 now but, you stole and stole and stole and even now, you do nothing to help the Black community out of poverty. Gloria Estafan and Alonzo Morning can't do it all by themselves. When the documentary came out "FROM RAGS TO RICHES," I was sick. Or when you tried to change the primary language to Spanish and have my elders needing to speak Spanish? If you don't like English, go back to Cuba? You're only here because America is so ignorant and open their arms to everyone. The things you get away with here, you wouldn't dare try in Cuba. What about the double names you had and was collecting food stamps double and selling them? What about all the 18 KT Gold that popped up as soon as you started arriving yet, you can with the clothes on your back supposedly? What about the money that the government gave each individual, whether they had a job or not when they arrived to get them on their feet? If our government would have given those approximately one hundred dollars to every black person and allowed them to work while collecting it, they would go from rags to riches too. It didn't matter if 10 people lived in a house, they all got checks while working and owning 6 or 7 cars in that same house. Do you really think that Black America is so stupid that they don't know what really happened here? I'm amazed that even the fabic of our country is changing, especially our Christanity, to accomodate people that came here to live. Would one change the fabric of their family to help an outsider that comes to live in their home? I don't think so. Why are we giving up the very thing that this country was founded on? Seeing that it isn't working. Things will get work because the GOD that use to protect this country doesn't live in it anymore for you people supposedly in charge. So when all the disasters and all the things happening on our forefront, why is it so surprising? Your kids can't bless their food at school, can't meet for a prayer and can't acknowledge the very GOD you prayed to for that healthy child. God help us all.
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By: Jolie on 4/26/2010 10:08PM
Everyone has a part in this game. Even people like you.
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By: From "tha D" and Proud on 4/23/2010 1:49AM
I may come off angry but the author needs a reality check. I totally agree that you are bias because you are a black detroiter and just as Detroit, this article is a mess! Im not sure if you have taken a ride around the city lately but the majority of Detroit looks like an atomic bomb has hit it and yet you still continue to blame the "Whiteman" for what it is. White people have lefted the city years ago and the only problem with Detroit is "Us" including our so called leaders. Im so sick of our race trying to right our wrongs by comparing what other races do. (LOL Irish?!, Cubans?!) That has nothing to do with nothing! Take responsiblity for your own actions. Face it, black detroiters do/did/in the process of as I type, destroy(ing) their own stuff. Yes I do agree with 10% of your bias opinion because whites in the 50's and so forth did draw the blueprint for Detroit's failure. That ummm "history lesson" would pull the wool a non Detroiter's eyes but let's be real, blacks have been in control of the city since coleman young and yet we still managed to achieve worst damage then the white folks intended.
I have a 1st person point of view. First, I am a 22 year black woman born and raised on the eastside of Detroit. Ive been here all my life. Ive graduated from the Detroit Public School system and currently live here in "tha hood" attending my last year of college and I work downtown. I know Im only 22 but living here makes me feel like ive seen it all. Out of control youth; decrepit,fire damaged bulidings that have been eyesores for decades; slow public services (police, firefighers, ems, dog catcher etc.) overwhelmed because of the lay offs and department closings; over worked and under paid teachers;and rouge political leaders. I understand Detroit is not the only city going through these issuses but non to this extreme. It is sad and you have to see it to believe it.
The biggest problem here is that no one cares. The police, firemen, school board, parents, religious organizations etc. and part of this stems from being over-whelmed. Our community backbone is broke and we do not stick together. Everyone here is out for themselves and too many just mind their own business and try not to get involved. I believe that the youth and my peers are the only route to success because the old Detroit is dead. We have to start over.
Jobs and schools are the only way to get the Detroit ball rolling agian. Yet we have our counsel members and church leaders focusing on senseless issues such as restricting strip clubs liquor licenses and making the dances wear pasties!! Those are not important issues that need to be addressed now. Ive graduated HS in 05 and the school system has been a mess beyond that. I remember being in a class with 40 students and only 1 teacher, about 30 desks and only a few had a book. Yet they continue to close schools. How can anyone learn in this environment? The adults that run things have to get controll to install hope into the future youth.
I choose to stay here because I love my home and it is like a concrete rose. After doing a little traveling in my life, I wouldnt mind starting and family here (not all the areas look like a 3rd world country. I would never turn my back on Detroit because that would just add to the problem. Many have jumped ship (which i can not be mad) but everyones situation differs. I invest in the city by working, going to school, and doing my share of community work and I know there are many others as myself. I believe dateline did a fair job of showing the "little" people and how they have suffered because i am apart of that group.
I just wish people would stop pointing the finger at who is to blame and find at solution.
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By: Tech1 on 4/23/2010 5:58PM
Tha "D" it's so nice to read your comment and I wish you good luck and all the best! I'm white but when I grew up Detroit was the heart of the American economy and GM was the largest employer in the USA until about 1980. I lived in Lowell, Mass where the industrial revolution began and have seen similar sights. However what happened isn't the peopele's fault it's the bankers in NYC and globalist CEO's who think short term and outsourced our real economy. NAFTA was the end and America itself is bankrupt with over 120 trillion in debtas and unfunded liabilities. Racism is very real most places here but as for the car industry? Take a look at Germany where they have strong unions, high wages, cheap healthcare, education and make Audi, Mercedes, Porchse, Volkswagon, BMW, Rolls Royce, Bentley etc. and are the economic powerhouse of Europe. It isn't the unions it's our corrupt bankers and leaders who sold us out to China etc. Germany took care to protect their industry and America needs to do that too. Detroit will rebuild someday but it will be different and hopefully better.
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By: MsBlase on 4/24/2010 12:08AM
Evelyn, are you out of your mind? Cubans are not getting rich because they are selling food stamps or getting $100 checks from the government. I don't know what's happening where you are, but here in Chicago there a thousands of black people abusing food stamps and getting welfare checks. Black people don't need anybody to come and save them. They need to savethemselves. You need to focus on educating yourself and your children. Black people need to be serious about MAKING their children be better people and quit using these dumb ass excuses about not getting enough help. Have you read the stories about the young black woman who is the valadictorian at Notre Dame? That is who our children should be emulating. But instead we are sitting on the stoop complaining about not getting help when a book is all the help we need.
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By: Don Jones on 2/10/2011 6:59PM
Typical of the porn ruin camera clubers who flock to the Packard Plant and MCS but haven't a clue or a care about how the city got this way. Ill bred and not too well read.
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