Detroit Snob

Planned Parenthood has a few laughs in the face of historic attacks against choice

2012-01-26T09:01:00.001-05:00

Host Mike Evitts

A big thanks to a group of comedians who put on a show last night at the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase to benefit Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan.

It was nearly a year ago that comic Mike Evitts approached Planned Parenthood about doing a benefit. A 2008 Eastern Michigan University graduate, Evitts was concerned about all the conservative political attacks facing the organization, despite the fact that 97 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services are essential, reproductive health care like birth control, annual exams, cancer screenings and HIV tests.

“I was sick of seeing the attacks against Planned Parenthood,” he said. “I asked, ‘What can we do?’”

A year later, the political landscape for Planned Parenthood hasn’t improved. While the state wallows in economic decline, the Michigan Legislature has wasted time proposing more than 30 anti-choice bills that have nothing to do with jobs or the economy.

Last night, Evitts offered nearly 100 supporters of Planned Parenthood a chance to laugh at the bizarre conservative obsession with the organization that does more than any other to help people avoid unplanned pregnancies. A handful of anti-choice protestors gathered outside of the Ann Arbor Comedy Showcase, which is located in the basement below Seva, a vegetarian restaurant. (By the way, Seva now has a location in Detroit. The food is YUMMY!)

“Have you seen those graphic signs that those protestors always carry?” Evitts asked the audience. “I think that’s really tasteless. Especially in front of a vegetarian restaurant.”

Joining Evitts were Katie Brindle and Andy Beningo. Beningo, who brought an affable “Animal House” humor to the stage looked over the audience, noting how many women were present.

Andy Beningo

“Either this is a Planned Parenthood event, or eHarmony screwed up,” he said.

The headliner was Dwayne Gill, a Michigan State Police officer. Gill was on the security detail for Governors John Engler and Jennifer Granholm, and spent 10 years in the Marines.

“I’m a cop by day and a comic by night,” he said. “Like a superhero.”

The Detroit native joked about his own experience as a black police officer working in Ionia, which was like “sending P. Diddy to Paw Paw,” he joked.

Dwayne Gill

“I responded to a call about a stolen John Deere tractor,” he said. “I asked them ‘What color was it?’”

Gill pulled no punches with his politically-incorrect comedy that had the audience in stitches. His main goal was to entertain while helping to call attention to an important cause.

“With cuts in funding, more women of modest means will seek birth control counseling from organizations like Planned Parenthood,” he said the married father of three.
To support Planned Parenthood’s advocacy efforts, click here.

CeCe, Rae, Dwayne Gill and Desiree

MLK Day: A tribute to all who made my world possible

2012-01-16T08:33:00.000-05:00

My father, Willie Cooper, with his favorite 1954 Buick, "Old Betsy."

On this Martin Luther King Day, I'm full of gratitude. The very things I take for granted would not have been possible without his sacrifice, and the courage of countless others who fought beside him for justice.

I'm a black woman who earned a law degree at the public University of Virginia. Virginia is a state that once shut down all of its public education to avoid having to integrate its classrooms.

I was born in Japan, the child of an Air Force sergeant. I've lived all over the United States, and rarely had to think about whether anyone is going to throw me out of a public place because of the color of my skin. If I suspected something untoward is happening, I know I can complain, I can sue, I can raise a ruckus, and get results.

I vote without fear. I travel without wondering if a hotel will allow me to spend the night there. I am never required to go through a back door.

It wasn't always this way. What amazes me is that it wasn't always this way even in my own lifetime. I am in awe how Martin Luther King, and others who stood for civil rights along with him, forced this country to make a seismic shift in only a few years, reversing centuries of American apartheid. It's a demonstration of the power of divine will.

A few years ago, I recorded this tribute to my father, one of the people who pushed the boundaries of race daily. I'm grateful to him, and to all, who sacrificed to make my life possible.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Watch this video "I'm a Detroit Snob"

2012-01-09T08:10:00.000-05:00

Hob-Snobbing--Detroit author recounts her childhood in Southwest Detroit

2012-01-06T14:25:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, Jan. 7 at 2 p.m., avowed Detroit Snob and venerable author, Mary Minock, will be holding a book release party for her new memoir, “The Way-Back Room” at Lido Gallery, 33535 Woodward Ave., Birmingham, MI (248-792-6248).

Mary’s memoir is about her difficult childhood growing up in Southwest Detroit. She now lives in her childhood home. The memoir comes for a true place of love about the city and all its beauty and blemishes.

Ahead of her big day, Mary took a second to talk to me about her book.

Des: Why did you feel compelled to write a memoir about your childhood in Detroit?

Mary: I’ve been a long-term poet, and I’ve held a constant attachment to the city and the neighborhood, even when I’ve lived in other cities.

When I was lucky enough to inherit my childhood home on Clark Street, and moved back into it in 1996, I discovered immediately that some things were exactly the same—for instance, the moon rising over Clark Park, the light, the earth, the pattern of spring mud puddles, the snow flying on my birthday. These things triggered many memories.

And then there were the friendly ghosts—my mother, my father, the old man who lived downstairs who built the house and was still alive when I was a little girl. The continuity, the way people who live in the neighborhood negotiate the spaces in similar ways to people who came before, got me to thinking, feeling and remembering.

And also a mission: besides the personal one of chronicling my own story, the attempt to re-create a dense fabric of our lives back then. People need to remember in detail. They need to remember both the good and the bad. For so many Detroiters whose neighborhoods changed drastically, and who got cut off from the city, it seems the best way to honor it is to paint those detailed memories.

Des: There's a widely-held conception that rioting by inner-city blacks in 1967 sparked white flight. Your book challenges that assumption. What light do you shed on that notion?

Mary: The idea that the 1967 Riot sparked white flight is just preposterous, even though it seems to explain things among people who don’t know or understand the history of the city. During the time I write about in the 1950s, in my totally white, mostly Irish Southwest Detroit neighborhood, the suburbs were being sold by developers. Veterans had access to insured mortgages through the G. I. Bill. Expressways were being built so that people’s sense of reasonable spaces lengthened. Along with building the cars, workers were encouraged to buy the cars, and so the system of mass transit was weakened. A house and a car in a suburb—it didn’t matter whether it was a modest or rich suburb—seemed to reflect the notion of “moving up.”

In the book I chronicle some of the conflicts in Holy Redeemer Parish in the middle 1950s when there was a flurry of people moving away. Since patterns of segregation in the city were still very strong, hardly anyone even considered blacks moving in. Instead, Protestant white southerners moved into our neighborhood.

There was also that strong cultural conformity of the 1950s, the consumerism, that made people think that anything new—a house, a car, an appliance—made them happier than the things that were old. The only place to build a new house was in the suburbs. It was the dream of the suburbs that lured folks out of the neighborhood.

And there was even more to it. The patterns of “urban renewal” during the Albert Cobo administration insured that many viable ethnic neighborhoods—Chinatown and Black Bottom, for instance—were either decimated or cut in two. That led to more instability in the city—people had to move somewhere. All of this happened long before the 1967 Riot.

Des: People often talk about being "culturally Catholic" even after they've essentially left the Catholic Church. Is Detroit also "culturally Catholic?"

Mary: Well, that’s a good question. During the time of my memoir, the Catholic Church was immensely powerful among so many ethnic groups who lived in dense ethnic neighborhoods. We thought of neighborhoods by parish—Holy Redeemer, Saint Hedwig’s, Saint Gabe’s, Sainte Anne’s, and so on, and we knew immediately which ethnic group belonged there—Irish, Polish, Hungarian. Yes, I’d say that during the time of the memoir, you could call Detroit “culturally Catholic.”

There were also neighborhoods that were intensely Protestant, or intensely Jewish. I think the answer lies in the close connection of people living in neighborhoods of the same ethnic and religious background. I guess that Detroit is still culturally religious. Religion provides the glue to keep people connected to the community.

Mary Minock's house in Southwest
Detroit circa 1942

And, of course, for so many of us who left the Church, the connection between what we were taught, what we thought, and how we experienced the world, stays with us forever, and ultimately, for me at least, provides a great deal of humor and comfort.

Des: Southwest Detroit has changed significantly from the enclave that you grew up in. What are the differences?

Mary: Many of the differences are ethnic. The neighborhood changed from being densely Irish, to being densely white Southern, to being densely Mexican-American to being densely Latino. The continuity is that it’s still ethnic. Some of the same buildings on Vernor that I remember as Irish pubs became hillbilly honky-tonks and are now Mexican restaurants. Traffic still crawls up and down Vernor Highway.

The biggest negative difference, that neighborhoods face all over Detroit, is the lack of amenities that we took for granted back in the 1950s. Commercial strips, for instance, like Fort Street, pretty much looked like neighborhood streets in New York City today. We could live in the city and walk. Even as children, we could hop on a bus and get practically anywhere we wanted to go. It’s very sad to see and live with that difference.

Des: What has been the reaction to the book? What is the most common question that you get?

Mary: People are loving the book, if I do say so myself. They identify with the characters. They enjoy the detail. They also seem to accept that I needed to tell the good and the bad side of the story—that to neglect the real story of loss and grief along with the resourcefulness and humor—would have made the book dishonest. I’m so gratified to see that so many people accept my story. That’s quite a gift for me. Mostly, though I’m glad to see that others are using the book to remember their own experiences of childhood in and out of the city. And not just remembering the sentimental. The book has avoided being one of those sentimental “remember-what-a-good-time-we-had-in-Detroit” when we and it were young.

Des: You have embraced the idea of "Detroit Snob." What does that mean to you?

Mary: Well, to me a Detroit Snob (I like it without the Caps—“detroit snob”) is someone who lives in and embraces the city and understands how we go about living in it now. And perhaps embraces too that it’s become quite eccentric, and there’s a lot of humor to be had in the impossible situations we find ourselves in—people we meet, surprises, transcendent acts of kindness. And the generosity of its inhabitants.

I just don’t think anyone who doesn’t live here, or at least who doesn’t come here regularly, can appreciate the love and humor of its inhabitants. It’s still a city, and there’s a great deal of city sophistication that comes with living among all types, even in being surprised when something like a street light works.

Finally, I like the word “snob” to show cohesion. We’ve got something you can’t find elsewhere. Why not be proud of it? And detroit snobs are pretty humble—they don’t even capitalize snob when they announce it on a tee shirt.

Hob Snobbing: What it really means to be a Detroit Snob

2012-01-03T06:30:00.022-05:00

Nichole Christian with her grandmother, Mrs. Odom, her grandson

Larry Lewis and his son Landon, one of Mrs. Odom's

seven great-grand children.

When I started Detroit Snob about seven months ago, I had no idea how far it would go, or what a deep vein it would tap. It wasn’t long before I understood that Detroit Snob was about more than t-shirts – it was a way to herald the good things about the people who live in this region.

The media can point to all of the rumors of bankruptcy, all the pictures of “ruin porn,” all of the down-and-outs and has-beens. But Detroit Snobs don’t need others to tell our true story. Detroit Snobs are tireless, compassionate people who want the best for the city and are working against all odds to achieve just that.

The clearest demonstration came right before Christmas. I had recently reconnected with fellow journalist, Nichole Christian, after missing each other for months. Both of us were laid off from the Detroit Free Press in 2009, and since then, reinventing ourselves had become our singular obsession—and joy.

Then I got word. Nichole’s childhood home on Detroit’s Northend had gone up in flames in the wee morning hours of December 21.

According to Nichole, a longtime neighbor who lived directly across the street saw the flames shooting from the house. The neighbor and her father rushed across the street to attempt to help Nichole’s grandmother, Mamie Odom, 90, and her two daughters, Minnie Lewis, 65, and Louise Warren, 70. Everyone escaped with just the clothes on their backs.

“It was a three-story house that my grandfather purchased in 1946—cash,” said Nichole. “He was a Ford Motor Company assembly worker. My grandparents had been lured to Detroit by the promise of good work. He promised my grandmother that with the good wages, he would buy her a house.”

Photo from the Odom Family
Support Page on Facebook

The family gathered in a neighbor’s house and watched everything go up in flames: photos, furniture and three generations of memories.

After the shock of the early morning call, Nichole went into her “fix it” mode. She posted her family’s tragedy on Facebook, then waited until dawn to get help the old-fashioned way—on the phone. She called the WARM Training Center in Southwest Detroit for the name of a reputable construction crew to board up the house. Instead of referring her to another agency, Chris Rutherford, director of Warm's training programs, sent a truck load of volunteers and supplies.

“They acted from the kindness of their hearts, refusing to accept anything but a few slices of Little Caesars Pizza,” said Nichole. “They worked into the night.”

Me and Rachel Lutz, owner of The Peacock Room

I was grief-stricken, but taking Nichole’s lead, decided it was time for action, not tears. I posted an appeal on the Detroit Snob Facebook page for clothing donations. I contacted one of my retail partners, Rachel Lutz of the Peacock Room. Without hesitation, Rachel agreed to be a central location for donations.

The Detroit Snobs responded immediately. Within days, we had enough sweaters, coats, socks, blankets, pants and robes to keep Mrs. Odom snuggly for the next few months. We were able to deliver most of the clothing before Christmas.

“I've been overwhelmed watching the depth of Detroit's kindness, words and acts on behalf of my family,” said Nichole. “They’ve cooked, gathered clothing, nailed boards to the remains of the house, provided social service strategies and resources, supported a cash donation drive and shared amazing hugs with me and my cousins as we work to bring normalcy back to our family. The Detroit Snob clothing drive in particular returned an immediate sense of dignity."

When I arrived with the suitcases and hangers of clothing, Nichole was overcome. “ ‘How sweet the snobs of Detroit are!' was all I could think when you brought the heaps of coats, sweaters and other items to my door,” she said. “No city opens its heart wider than Detroit.''

As former newspaper journalists, both of us had often felt underappreciated for writing “feel good stories.”

“But in real life, those feel good stories are lifelines, a hand-up to people who can easily see themselves as forgotten,” said Nichole. “I never imagined my family would become the subject of a ‘feel good’ story. But I'm grateful that they have. Thanks to Detroit, my family has been given an amazing lifeline, blanketed by the kindness of friends, old neighbors and caring strangers.”

In particular, Mrs. Odom loved the black and white long sleeve coat donated by a Detroit Snob because it was reminiscent of a coat she once owned. "Tell 'em I say thank you for remembering me,'' Mrs. Odom said."People don't have to care about you. I'm glad they did.''

Nichole said that her grandmother is faring well, and her Aunt Minnie is equally grateful to all of those strangers who have pitched in. Her Aunt Louise is still in the hospital, being treated for breathing complications.

“Throughout this ordeal, I've been reminded of a Southern adage my grandmother told me, over and over, as a little girl,” said Nichole. "Treat people nice, with a kind smile and good word ‘cause you never know when you're gonna need them.''

Nichole and I both know that it’s not just a Southern adage. That’s how Detroit Snobs roll.

Photo by Nichole Christian

Happy New Year, Detroit Snobs!

To help Mrs. Odom and her family, CLICK HERE.

The Guru of Safe Spaces

2011-12-16T07:57:00.000-05:00

(A version of this story first appeared in Between the Lines.)

You might say that Adrienne Maree Brown is an exorcist for social justice.

"I help social justice groups align themselves with their vision," said the 33-year-old Detroit resident. "So much is wasted on small, petty things, or harboring bitterness, grief and trauma. I try to exorcise those feelings."

The work of healing progressive movements requires Brown to be everything from an organizational guru, to a facilitator, networker and life coach. Since her early 20s, she has worked on the ground floor of social movements in order to hone her skills. From 2006 to 2010, she was the executive director of The Ruckus Society, a California-based organization that trains activists in non-violent direct action.

"My role was moving Ruckus from a white, male organization to one that included more queer people and people of color," she said.

She worked with a green building project in New York's Hudson Valley, and eventually brought her skills to Detroit.

"I first met Adrienne when she was the host of the Allied Media Conference in 2008," said Shea Howell, a community activist and chair of the Department of Rhetoric, Communication & Journalism at Oakland University. "Adrienne provided the warm, loving welcome to Detroit (even though she had not yet moved here). It was clear she felt the Detroit pull."

In 2006, Brown was invited to consult with Detroit Summer, a multi-racial, inter-generational collective that has been working to transform communities through youth leadership.

"I was so blown away by what they were doing and saying," said Brown. "You have to transform yourself to transform the world. They were forging deep intergenerational relationships."

"She started doing anti-oppression training with the participants but she quickly became an advisor to the collective," said Howell, who is also a co-founder of Detroit Summer. "She has been a major force in guiding them into rethinking the role of Detroit Summer and its strategic vision - something she has helped a lot of organizations in the movement do."

Through her work in Detroit, Brown met Invincible, the Detroit rapper who is now her same-sex partner. "My father used to say that he'd always dream I'd fall for someone like him," said Brown. "Well, I have."

Coming to terms with coming out

Brown is the daughter of a white mother and an African American father who served 30 years in the U.S. Army. Born in El Paso, Texas, she grew up in Germany, Georgia, New York and California.

"My father was raised in poverty in South Carolina; he joined the military to escape that," said Brown, acknowledging the way racism, capitalism and militarism have intersected to impact her life. "Because of his choice, we had a good life."

Although she experienced same-sex attraction early in life, "In the military environment, I don't remember homosexuality being anywhere in my world," she said. "It wasn't possible."

In her early teen years, Brown was sexually assaulted. After that, she went through "an asexual phase." She attended Columbia University in New York to study African American Studies, political science and voice.

"After I left college, I started to ask who I am in my body," said Brown. "I started wearing clothes that would draw attention to me. I dated effeminate men and men who were studs. But I didn't do relationships. I focused on my work. I saw relationships as drama."

Coming out to her nuclear family when she was in her 20s wasn't difficult. "I told my mother the first time I slept with a woman," Brown said. "I was never encouraged to silence myself."

But she had to come to terms with her own internalized homophobia. "I thought if I was a lesbian, I would never have kids, etc.," she said. "I had accepted what I'd been told it means to be gay, versus what it's really like to be gay."

Her maternal grandparents, however, were less than accepting.

"They were Southern Baptists," said Brown. "They sent me scriptures to read. It was just like it was when my mother came home with my dad. They were opposed to the interracial relationship as well."

Her sisters came to her aid. "They told my grandparents that if I wasn't welcome in their home, they weren't coming either. About two years later, I had a powerful conversation with my grandfather. I told him I was a spiritual person doing holy work in the world. I made real peace before my grandfather passed."

Spaces without compromise

When Brown began to date Invincible five years ago, she not only fell in love with a Detroiter, she also fell in love with Detroit. While her organizational consulting takes her nationwide, her home base is Detroit's Cass Corridor, working closely with groups like the Food Justice Task Force and the East Michigan Environmental Council. In 2010, she was a co-host for the U.S. Social Forum that brought thousands of progressive activists to the city.

"She continues to be a force with Detroit Summer," said Howell. "Everything from dinners at her home, to running weekend long retreats where, as she says, she creates and holds the space, so that people can bring their best selves to deciding what needs to be done."

"The way I work is being 100 percent myself," said Brown. "I come in as a bisexual, biracial woman everywhere I go. My work tends to be cross-constituency. I support queer people at the intersection of poverty, race and ability."

Although she is bisexual, Brown does very little work exclusively within the LGBTQ community.

"The evolutionary goal is to live openly in all spaces without compromise," she said. "Once you can be open about one thing, you can open the gate to other things. That's how new kinds of families, traditions and ideas can emerge. One of the biggest mistakes we make as a society is trying to pull the conversations apart, as if racism isn't related to sexism which isn't related to homophobia.

"I don't want gay to be so normal no one ever notices it," she added.

Will Detroit Works Work for Everyone?

2011-12-06T21:21:00.000-05:00

(My full report on Detroit Works aired on The PBS News Hour on 12.6.201. It was produced at WTVS, Detroit Public Television. To see the full report, click here.)

When I moved to Detroit in 1984, folks gave me this welcome pitch: “This city has nowhere to go but up!”

Not so. The abyss seems to have grown deeper as the city totters on the edge of bankruptcy. When will the city’s 700,000 die-hard residents get a little dose of hope?

That’s what the Detroit Works project was supposed to be about. In September 2010, the Mayor’s office set upon an aggressive plan to rework the city so that it makes sense, economically and socially. The project quickly hit major, predictable speed bumps, especially given the mayor’s inability to supply what any aggressive plan for change must have—charismatic, strong leadership. Instead, the process bogged down in Balkanized squabbles. Residents openly rebelled during town meetings. Department heads kept getting fired or quitting, making it impossible to hold people accountable, or even to achieve a semblance of continuity.

In July, the project was reshuffled. Maybe instead of tackling the issues citywide, it was more prudent to start in smaller, demonstration areas. The idea was to select patches of the city where steady, transitional and distressed neighborhoods co-existed and focus city resources on strengthening those areas.

Karla Henderson

This fall when I talked to Karla Henderson, the Mayor’s Group Executive of Planning & Facilities, she made it clear that the demonstration projects didn’t mean that City Hall was giving up on the rest of Detroit. Everyone’s trash was still going to get picked up. The difference was that when it came to public subsidies for housing or commercial projects, the city was no longer going to spread its thin resources outside of the demonstration areas where the real effect of development could be felt.

What did that mean for the city’s outliers? When unveiling the short term plan, Mayor Bing said, “We will not force anybody to move. We’re hopeful that we can create the right kind of environment, the right kind of amenities, the right kind of services that people will want to move into an area where they know it’s going to be strong and they can get city support on an ongoing basis.”

But when I talked to organizations like the Lower Eastside Action Plan (LEAP) and the Brightmoor Community Council, I found many well-educated activists who’d done their own action plans. They weren’t buying into density as the key to Detroit’s revival. I remember talking to LEAP’s Khalil Ligon while standing in a gigantic, empty field alive with the sound of crickets. She said to me that they city is thinking about neighborhoods of streets lined with houses. But maybe someone on the eastside wouldn’t mind having an apple orchard next door, instead of neighbors.

Rev. Larry Simmons, Sr.

On the west side, Rev. Larry Simmons is the pastor of Baber Memorial A.M.E., and he also sits on the Brightmoor Community Council. He outright rejects the notion that the value of an urban community is determined by its density. “What’s the least dense community around here?” he asked. “Bloomfield Hills. Nobody’s talking about re-densifying them.”

Instead, many in these outlier neighborhoods believe that through cohesion and asset-based development, the city can accommodate all kinds of lifestyles—rural, suburban and urban—within Detroit’s borders. There are those in Brightmoor who actually call their sparsely-populated neighborhood that’s dotted with community gardens, the “Brightmoor Farmway.”

On Monday, December 05, 2011, Mayor Bing announced a new long term structure for the Detroit Works. But with few resources, neighborhoods from Palmer Woods to Yorkshire Woods aren’t waiting for anyone to ride in on a white horse. This has always been a DIY town, and now more than ever, the survival of Detroit is going to depend on what neighborhoods can do to help themselves.

American Black Journal: Is Herman Cain borrowing a page from Clarence Thomas or Milli Vanilli?

2011-11-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

On Sunday's American Black Journal I got to sit in on a great panel with Kim Trent and Eric Foster. We touched on Herman Cain's "Milli Vanilli" campaign, Wayne County Executive Bob Ficano's ethics problems and the horrific child rape scandal at Penn State. And Bankole Thompson stopped by to discuss his new book.

Check it out!

Hob Snobbing: An original Detroit Snob reinvests in the city that he loves

2011-11-04T07:54:00.001-04:00

Detroit photographer Ara Howrani, 29, may be mentioned everywhere from the New York Times to CNN, but his heart is in one place: Detroit.

He’s just as big on the city as was his dad, famed photographer Ameen Howrani. It was Ameen who established Howrani Studios a commercial photography studio, more than 35 years ago. When Ameen fell ill in 2005, Ara stepped in.

Last month, Ara renewed his commitment to his father’s legacy--and to Detroit--by renovating the facade of their century-old building at 2820 East Grand Blvd. He topped off the project with a fantastic Howrani Studios 2.0 Launch Party, a nod to the soirees his father used to throw back in the day. There were more than 300 guests, clients and friends. More than anything, the diversity of the crowd was telling. Ara not only loves Detroit, but the glorious patchwork of people who continue to love and support the city.

Photo by Peggy Kramer, gotyourphoto@aol.com

I asked Ara, who believes that Detroit’s cool lies in its wonderful old buildings, why he decided to invest in the studio. “To show my commitment to the city and our neighborhood,” he said.

Ara was one of the first people I ever met to call himself a Detroit Snob. I asked him why: “Because I live, work and play in the city,” he said. Then he snobbily added: “Occasionally, I‘ll go out of the city limits.”

Congratulations to Ara, and here’s to a bright future as a photographer and a Detroit Snob!

Trans and Triumphant

2011-10-27T10:55:00.000-04:00

(A version of this story first appeared in Between the Lines)

DETROIT LGBT LEADER: RYAN OLIVER from Model D TV on Vimeo.

Ryan Oliver, 28, can tell you a thing or two about what it really means to be an African American man. Like knowing how to be a "brother to brothers," and showing compassion for other men. And like showing the utmost respect for black women.

"I don't call the black women in my life the b-word," he said. "And I know that I don't have to emulate the man who stands outside of the liquor store in baggy pants and a doo rag in order to be a black man."

At 28, Oliver's view of manhood has been hard-won. From his youth in a violent Detroit neighborhood, to his isolation as a black college student in a white environment, he has struggled to define himself and his masculinity. It's a challenge that's been even more daunting because Oliver is biologically female.

Life under pressure

If there was one word to describe Oliver's childhood, it would be "pressure."

First, there was the pressure to fit in. As a little girl being raised by a mother and grandmother, he had urges that he feared others couldn't understand.

"I remember walking into the men's dept as a young child and having a physical reaction to the clothes," he said. "The suits and ties - I wanted to be a part of that. I never felt connected to my female body. I would buy bra and panty sets because women do that, but it wasn't natural. I wanted boxers."

There was also the pressure to succeed.

"I was the only grandchild to go to college and complete it," said Oliver, who earned both a bachelor's in sociology, and a master's in sociology and education from Eastern Michigan University. "I felt like I was the one who had to break the cycle. Education became my focal point."

And there was the basic pressure to survive in his deteriorating neighborhood on Detroit's east side.

"Around the age of 12, I was noticing my neighborhood in Detroit changing," he said about the 7 mile and Van Dyke area. "I remember there was a drive-by shooting and a girl was killed. The girl's father was a well-known drug dealer. He had to be carried down the street, he was in so much grief."

When Oliver was taunted by a next door neighbor, his mother came to his rescue. Days later, the neighbors attacked his mother as she sat on the front porch. The incident still makes him choke with tears. "I had never been exposed to anything like that," he said.

The summer before he matriculated at Eastern Michigan University, Oliver felt more like a fugitive than a high school graduate. A friend in the neighborhood heard that Oliver was going away to college, and predicted, "You'll be back."

"I said, 'No, I won't'," Oliver remembered. "He said, 'They always come back.' He was saying that when I got to Eastern, I would realize I didn't belong there. There was nothing better out there in the world for me."

A late bloomer, Oliver began to explore his sexuality at EMU. He dated boys, but said that the relationships felt artificial--like he was trying too hard. Finally, one date finally suggested that Oliver might be a lesbian. He scoffed at the notion because it didn't fit with his family's view of the world.

"Girls date boys and I would never do anything that wasn't acceptable," he said of the way he was brought up. "But even after I started exploring the possibilities of dating women, the term 'lesbian' never fit for me."

Exploring his sexuality was liberating, but Oliver began to lose his footing culturally. Suddenly thrust into a predominantly-white environment, his confidence suffered, and he wondered if his childhood friend had been right--would he end up back in his Detroit neighborhood with no options?

He shared his misgivings with his sociology professor. The professor, who had grown up "a poor, white, barefoot girl from Ohio," told him that she'd felt the same way when she went to college. "She was never supposed to amount to anything," Oliver said.

The professor ignited Oliver's passion for sociology. "All the things that I had been feeling suddenly had words," he said. "Educational disparity, prison mentality, racial disparity. It all started to connect."

The man in the mirror

Even after Oliver graduated from college and entered grad school, he couldn't seem to shake a lurking sadness.

"There was something I couldn't put my finger on," he said.

At 24, he attended a conference in Milwaukee of transgendered youth. That's when his true nature began to dawn on him. He realized that he had only adopted the label "lesbian" because of his biological gender. After he began working as a youth services manager at Affirmations in 2008, he slowly transformed his outward appearance to match his male sexual identity. By 2008, Oliver was known to most people as Ryan. But at home, he was still Nikki.

His mother, who always worried about his safety growing up in Detroit, now also had to worry about him as a transgender male. But Ryan is willing to risk his safety in order to be who he is.

"For the longest, I've lived and breathed by my family's rules," he said. "They are low key, they are subtle. They watch the 11 o'clock news, sip tea and go to bed. This is hard for them."

He now uses the passion that was ignited by his college sociology professor to advocate on behalf of the invisible transgendered community.

"I'm committed to there being a more visible trans movement in our society - a more confident movement," said Oliver, who is now working in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. "I've grown to learn more about my identity and to be OK with it. I want people to ask me questions and I want people to understand."

Unfortunately, his self awareness hasn't alleviated the sadness he's felt since childhood. "It's still present because I haven't fully transitioned," he said. "I live my life a particular way, but my physical makeup holds me back. For many of us, being trans is a matter of life or death. Once you understand what you are, you can't live in the middle."

He is interested in top surgery and hormone treatments to enhance his masculine appearance. "I want people to look at me and see me as male," he said. "But I'm already a man, no matter what I do."

Kirsten Ussery urges people of color to come out and step up

2011-10-03T07:07:00.000-04:00

(A version of this story first appeared in Between the Lines.)

Detroiter Kirsten Ussery is not afraid of a challenge. At 33, she has done communications for a global auto supplier, and for a group of top-flight Michigan business leaders. She is now the media specialist for the president of Detroit’s City Council.

So what could possibly give a powerful woman like Ussery pause? Until recently, it was having to tell her co-workers that she was a lesbian.

“Looking back, I think I put a lot of stress on myself,” said Ussery. “Every time I’ve come out to someone at work, I’ve never had a bad experience. But that didn’t matter. Afterwards, I’d think, ‘That went well,’ but then I’d worry about what the next person would say.’”

The only gay person in the world

For Ussery, growing up in Hickory, North Carolina was an exercise in being different.

Even as a child, Kirsten (seated in her grandmother's lap) knew she was different.

“I loved alternative music which was different from the black people I was socializing with,” said the only child of a single mother. “I was also into politics, including (Black Muslim leader) Louis Farrakhan, so I didn’t fit in with the white people, either.”

But the major difference was not so black and white. “In 9^th grade, I had a crush on a girl on the basketball team,” said Ussery. “I knew it wasn’t acceptable.”

By the age of 15, she had come out to her inner circle, including her mother. “She said, ‘I love you anyway,’ but we never talked about it again,” said Ussery.

Her friends helped her get a love note to her heartthrob on the basketball team, but the athlete was already in a relationship. When word got out about Ussery’s crush, many of her male classmates became aggressive and cruel.

It all happened just as Ussery’s popularity was emerging. As a member of the track team, she had friends and she had sports—she wasn’t willing to give them up in order to make a stand for her sexual identity. “Plus, the girl on the basketball team was graduating,” said Ussery. “I didn’t want to become the school’s Gay Person. I thought I was the only one.”

So Ussery went back into the closet, and started dating a boy in the neighborhood. “My mother probably thought that my coming out had been a phase,” she laughed, “and she was glad to think that.”

Ussery continued to date her boyfriend after she went to the University of North Carolina- Charlotte on a track scholarship. In college, she blossomed as an activist. She became involved with the Black Student Union and founded the first chapter of 100 Black Women to be established on a predominately white campus.

Then one night in her junior year, she went to a club and danced with a woman for the first time.

“My mind exploded,” she said. “The next day my boyfriend came to see me and I broke up with him. He was devastated.”

She wasn’t the only gay person in the world, after all.

Outed by Google

From there, Ussery’s transition was swift. She quit the track team, met a woman from Detroit, fell in love, and convinced the university to let her graduate in absentia, so that she could follow her girlfriend to the Motor City in 1999.

“When I told my mom that I was coming out again and moving to Detroit, I thought she was OK, and going with the program,” said Ussery.

The first inkling that she had that her mother wasn’t OK, was five years later when she broke up with her girlfriend. “My mother’s first reaction was to beg me to come home,” she said. “It felt like she wanted to come back and be the way I used to be.”

Ussery didn’t return to North Carolina. By then, Detroit was her home, and she had new friends and even had earned a master’s in education from Wayne State University. But as she started to grow professionally, so did the stress of keeping her personal and professional lives separate.

“Even though I had a good job, it was making me sick to go to work,” said Ussery, who remained closeted in the workplace. “I’m not a person who can fabricate things, so when people were talking about their weekends, I just didn’t say anything. I felt alienated. I’d come home stressed and unhappy.”

The professional pressure mounted when Ussery met Erika Boyd, whom she married in Windsor in 2009. It was then that she realized that her mother wasn’t as accepting of her sexuality as Ussery had believed. “She told me that she wasn’t going to come to the wedding and that what I was doing was a sin,” said Ussery. “I was blindsided. I found out that all of this time, my mother thought I was going through a phase and that at some point I’d snap out of it and come home.”

Family members eventually convinced Ussery’s mother to attend the ceremony and today, the two are rebuilding their relationship. But Ussery was bruised.

“That experience really affected my work life,” she said. “I learned that you don’t talk about being gay—bad things might happen if you do.”

In fact, when Ussery took a job with Business Leaders for Michigan in 2008, she didn’t mention in the interview that she was planning a wedding and a honeymoon. She got the job, and only two days before the wedding, she pulled aside her boss and revealed her personal life.

“She said, ‘We know. We Googled you when we hired you,’” laughed Ussery. A Google search quickly revealed Ussery’s work on behalf of LBGT children in the Detroit Public Schools and her leadership in the lesbian women of color support group SPICE (Sistas Providing Intelligence Creativity and Empowerment) “It was such a relief,” Ussery added. “From that point forward, I’ve been completely out.”

Detroit LGBT leader: Kirsten Ussery from Model D TV on Vimeo.

Out-standing leadership

It’s in Detroit where the tentative Southern girl has come into her own.

“I’m older and more confident in myself,” she said. “I know I’ll be OK if I run into someone who won’t hire me because I’m gay. My faith has increased and is evolving. I know I will continue to be blessed.”

She has also become part of the young brain trust dedicated to the city’s renaissance. She belongs to the inner circle of one of Detroit’s most influential politicians, serving as Media Specialist for City Council President Charles Pugh. In 1999, Pugh ran as an openly-gay candidate. Working closely with organizations like the Downtown Detroit Partnership and Business Leaders for Michigan, she has been privy to plans for the city’s revitalization.

“I know that if we can just get the people who live here to share in the energy of renewal, some of those plans will happen,” said Ussery, who, as president of the board of the Villages Community Development Corporation, is working at a grassroots level to improve the city’s neighborhoods.

But it will be difficult for the city to effectively use all of its valuable human resources, she said, until the LGBTQ community is more comfortable exerting its leadership.

“People are still afraid about their jobs and their families,” she said about the issue of coming out. “We need to help people get out of the closet. We need to grow more leaders—there’s a lot of potential out there.”

Snob Hobbing: Rachel Lutz uncovers a Detroit treasure

2011-09-26T23:53:00.001-04:00

Rachel Lutz has always been able to sift through cast-offs to find hidden treasures. That's why she's particularly well-suited to open an upscale clothing consignment shop in Midtown this year, the Peacock Room.

This summer, Rachel leased space in Detroit's Park Shelton building next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. But even she had no idea that she was sitting on architectural gold.

"I had a vision for the Peacock Room," said Rachel. "When I stumbled upon the space in the Park Shelton, I took it, even though I was a little disappointed that it was so plain."

Workers began renovations on the space, and she got a shock. Behind the drywall lay ornate, mirrored walls and wet plaster friezes. It turns out that the space had been part of the 1926 dining room in the historic building located at 15 E. Kirby and Woodward.
Rachel can't help but feel like the space fell into her hands for a reason.

"My parents met in Detroit and used to live in this building when they first got married," said the 31-year-old who attended Wayne State University. "I feel that it was meant for me."

Maybe so. Anyone else starting a small business might be tempted to slap up new drywall and get on with the work of opening her shop. But Rachel is a second-generation Midtown entrepreneur AND preservationist. Her father ran his data technology consulting business in the area for years out of the Whitney mansion.

Rachel stands in front of an historic photo of the dining room.

"He also helped save Orchestra Hall from the wrecking ball," said Rachel. "When I was a kid, I would dress up in my mother's fur and he'd take me to chamber music concerts, and then to the Whitney afterward. Now that I've discovered the history of this room, there's no way I would hide it again."

Rachel hangs with building resident Gizmo and his owner, Frank.

I met Rachel at the Park Shelton over the weekend. She was still uncovering incredible aspects of the space, including the marble floors beneath the dusty carpet. "It's just sinking in about the work this is going to require," she said, undaunted. "I'm going to redesign my logo, rethink my furniture, colors, everything. I want to respect this space."

Which made me wonder why she didn't just open a shop closer to her home in Bloomfield Township.

"Oakland County doesn't need another shop," she said. "I love Detroit and have lived in the city twice before. Some people have told me to my face that I can't succeed here, but I say right back to them, they're wrong."

She said that because she's young, people assume that she's a newcomer to the city who is just riding a hot trend. But she has news for them: "I'm not just passing through. Detroit is a magnet for people who see opportunity - I'm one of them."

I've one of them, too. I've launched a new t-shirt line called "Detroit Snob." Rachel will carry the line in her shop when it opens.

I asked her what it means to be a Detroit Snob.

"Being a Detroit Snob means that I not going to waste my time defending a city that I feel doesn't need defending," she said. "There are those who get it, and those who don't. I don't waste a lot of breath on those who don't."

Knighting the Black Men of Detroit

2011-09-12T21:34:00.001-04:00

Look around you. There’s a hero on your block.

That’s the theory behind the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Black Male Engagement challenge. The premise of the project is that, while plenty of attention is paid to the negative behaviors and struggles of black men in America, far less attention is paid to those who are positive leaders in the community—there are oodles of inspiring stories out there that never get told.

As a columnist in Detroit for more than a decade, and a former city resident for 25 years, I can attest to the fact that I never wanted for a story about ordinary men doing extraordinary things for their families, friends and neighbors in Detroit. My only frustration was that there never seemed to be any interest or enough space to run the stories.

“In Detroit what I’ve observed is that this is a community of natural leaders,” Rishi Jaitly told me earlier this summer on WDET. Jaitly is Knight’s Detroit program director. “So what we ought to be doing more of, is creating easy opportunities for Detroiters themselves to take first steps in community participation.”

So the Knight Foundation is piloting the Black Male Engagment challenbe or BME (pronounced “Be Me”) in Detroit and Philadelphia. Through the end of September, the foundation is accepting nominations of inspirational black men who are providing “everyday” community leadership. The stories will be publicized and the nominees will be acknowledged. In January, some of them will even be granted between $5,000 - $50,000 to support their community efforts.

So keep your eyes peeled for the hero right under your noses. I actually ran into one a few weeks ago while working on the west side.

Behind the Redford Branch of the Detroit Public Library I spotted a lush, gorgeous garden. Standing along a wall next to the garden sprouted the heads of about 10 boys, the young farmers who tended the garden. They were part of the library’s Green Thumbs Garden Group. Mentoring them was Khalifani Wright, an affable ex-Marine who was giving the boys a lecture about public speaking.

He was preparing them for the program’s closing ceremony. One of his best participants was 12-year-old Ja’Ron Alexander. When I asked Ja’Ron about how he felt about gardening, he said:

“When you put the seeds into the ground, it feels like another life is forming. Everybody should have a garden in their yard to help the earth. I walk around and see abandoned houses and it’s not right. People just don’t care.”

A very Zen response for a kid who’s growing up in Brightmoor, one of city’s most distressed neighborhoods.

Wright was not far away, listening to me talk to Ja’Ron. Wright was quick to tell me that the boys, who would usually gravitate to sports or mischief, have really come to love gardening.

“I’m teaching them to care and respect the next person’s space,” he said. “They are learning patience and how to interact with other people. They are learning how to use tools. With kids using tools, you can be guaranteed that someone is going to need a Band-Aid!”

He’s also teaching them a little about economics. “They are going to be the future leaders of 10 different households,” he said. “So they need to know how to spend their money wisely, how to eat healthy fruits and vegetables, and how to use coupons to get the best deals.”

“We were talking about how many pounds of vegetables we can sell,” said Ja’Ron, who likes his tomatoes right off the vine, “We are seeing how much we can charge. It’s a way to make money and to save.”

“I don’t know if there are many programs out there teaching our kids about money,” added Wright. “Unless you count hip hop artists. Young Jeezy shouldn’t be teaching my son how to earn money.”

For Wright, gardening is about personal responsibility. “Our Commander-in-Chief wants us to pick up our shovels and rakes and grow our own food so that we’re less dependent on food stamps and government assistance for daily living,” said Wright, referring to President Obama as a military leader. “This is not an economic solution for Detroit, but it’s a way to keep people from littering, and it’s a way to give people who are aimless something to do.”

He even imagines that one day, the unemployed should be able to work in a community garden in exchange for college tuition or job skills training, so that they would not be stuck in low-skilled jobs.

It was only after talking to Wright for nearly a half hour that I found out that the was the married father of one teenaged boy who doesn’t even live in Brightmoor. I asked him what he did for a living, and he waved to the boys and the garden and said, “This.”

“But you’re only getting a gas stipend to do this,” I said. “Do you mean that you’re unemployed?”

He shook his head. “I don’t consider myself unemployed. My work is these kids.”

NOMINATE YOUR HERO. GO TO WWW.BMECHALLENGE.ORG NOW!

About Desiree Cooper

2011-09-02T12:13:00.000-04:00

Desiree Cooper is a lawyer, an award-winning columnist and a former public radio personality. She is currently a new media content specialist who helps non-profits communicate the extraordinary impact they have upon the people they serve.

A columnist with the Detroit Free Press for 11 years, Cooper was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2000 and 2001, for her coverage of the trial of Nathaniel Abraham, an 11-year-old Pontiac who was tried as an adult for murder.

Cooper has been a frequent commentator for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” the BBC’s “Americana,” and WNET’s “Need to Know.” She has also co-hosted and served as senior correspondent for the American Public Media’s “Weekend America.”

She is also an award-winning fiction writer. Her short story, “Night Coming,” is included in Best African American Fiction 2010, guest edited by Nikki Giovanni. Her novella, “New Birth” was included in Other People’s Skin, (Atria 2007). Cooper’s interest in the human condition was shaped by her childhood as an Air Force dependent. Born in Itazuke, Japan, she spent nine of her formative years living on three different Japanese islands. She also has lived in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Maryland and Michigan.

Cooper graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1981 with a double major in journalism and economics, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Kappa Alpha. She obtained her law degree from the University of Virginia in 1984. She and her family reside in suburban Detroit.

http://www.descooper.com/

Flint teen explores common ground with MTV's famous “Teen Mom”

2011-08-29T08:48:00.005-04:00

"Teen Mom" Catelynn Lowell addresses teens in Ann Arbor

It’s not every day that a teenager from Flint, Michigan gets to chat about sex with a reality TV star. But that’s what happened in April 2011 at Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan, when Flint teen Jenay E. gathered in the Ann Arbor board room with nine other peer educators. Joining them for a session about pregnancy prevention was MTV “Teen Mom” star, Catelynn Lowell.

Catelynn and her boyfriend, Tyler Baltierra, came to the nation’s attention in 2009 when MTV televised their decision to place their daughter in an open adoption on the reality show, “16 & Pregnant.” Catelynn is now part of the cast of the spin-off series, “Teen Mom.” To open Season 3 of “Teen Mom” in the summer of 2011, MTV producers decided to do a an adoption special to follow up on two of the three teenagers who had placed their babies with adoptive families.

“Since Catelynn was from Michigan, they Googled to find a Michigan teen group that might be able to highlight the issue of prevention during the documentary,” said Valarie Arington, education manager at PPMSM. “That’s how they ended up at Planned Parenthood.”

“It was surreal,” said Jenay, 18. Until meeting Catelynn, Jenay had been skeptical about the authenticity of the struggles the teens faced in the MTV series. “To see Catelynn, I realized that they are real people who have really endured pain.”

During their meeting, Catelynn encouraged Michigan peer educators to ask her questions about the adoption process. Jenay weighed in with the most poignant comment:

“I really like that you chose an open adoption because I’m adopted,” she said. “I have a closed adoption, and I don’t know who my family is.”

Get More:
Teen Mom (Season 3), MTV Shows

A child of choice

Jenay doesn’t remember the moment she found out that she was adopted, or maybe she has simply learned to block it out.

“I think I was in elementary school,” said the Flint teen. “I know that I didn’t take the news well. I was raised with my adoptive brother and mother. Growing up, I always wanted to have a father. Then I found out that I didn’t even have a mother.”

For several years, Jenay’s birth grandmother would come to visit, but soon the visits stopped. Jenay learned to live with emptiness of not having any way to contact her birth family.

Many times, she imagined what her life would have been if she had not been adopted. But after observing the lives of the many foster children that her adoptive mother took in, she began to realize that her life with her birth mother may not have been an easy one.

“My birth mother was addicted to drugs,” said Jenay. “Many of the foster children had drug-addicted parents and the children had been molested or beaten or hurt. My adoptive mom raised me in the church the way I was supposed to be raised. Maybe I should consider myself lucky.”

Jenay tried to stop thinking about her birth family, but the questions continued to haunt her.

On her own terms

According to the 2011 Michigan Kids Count report, Flint has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the state. In 2009, 20.5 percent of the babies born in Flint were to mothers under the age of 20 (compared to 12.8 percent in Grand Rapids and only 2.9 percent in Ann Arbor.)

For Jenay, the number of teen births in her home town comes as no surprise. She has only to look at the path that her own life has taken.

Her adoptive mother was over 70 years old as Jenay grew into puberty. “I found out everything on my own--menstrual cycles, sex, everything,” she said. “The first time I had sex at 14 I got pregnant. I didn’t know anything about STDs. I thought condoms were for grown people. I was just learning from my friends.”

The pregnancy ended in miscarriage, but it was a wake-up call for the young teen. She began to think about social work as a career, so that she could counsel adopted children. When she heard on the morning announcements at school that Planned Parenthood was hiring peer educators, she applied.

“My friends said I would be giving condoms to people, but it’s so much more,” said Jenay, who spent her senior year as a peer educator. “There are so many young people who are unaware of Planned Parenthood. I was one of them, and I live up the street. It’s a place where you can get free condoms, birth control, and STD tests. That’s so important, especially in a place like Flint where it’s hard to get information. Sex is such a shunned topic, but everyone’s doing it. If you don’t have someone reaching out to you, you are lost.”

One of her key messages to young women is to wait to have sex until they are ready. “When I got pregnant, I was looking for a father, a man in my life who will protect me,” she said. “Instead he got me in trouble. I’ve always wanted to be loved, but sadly, it’s been on someone else’s terms. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Questions of the past, hope for the future

In the United States, 730,000 teen get pregnant every year, resulting in more than 400,000 births to teen moms. Only 1 percent of those teens who give birth choose adoption.

As a peer educator for Planned Parenthood, Jenay tells the students about her personal experience with unplanned pregnancies – both as an adopted child and as a pregnant teen.

“I feel that you shouldn’t have to experience anything if there’s someone who can tell you ahead of time and protect you from it,” said Jenay, who is preparing to go to Texas Southern University in the fall of 2011 to study criminal justice. “It’s bothering me that I have to leave the program now when there’s still so many girls who need help.”

Not the least of them is Jenay herself, who hasn’t given up her quest to find her birth family. In fact, the obsession has been reignited as she has gotten older.

“I have friends who were also adopted, but they have letters from their birth mothers to open when they turn 18,” she said. “I have nothing.”

Which was why she listened with particular intensity as MTV’s Catelynn talked about the gut-wrenching decision to give Carly up for adoption.

“The hardest thing to accept,” Catelynn said in the “16 & Pregnant Adoption Special, “was that Carly deserved better than (Tyler and I).”

When Jenay told Catelynn about her own adoption, Catelynn was moved. “I’m pretty sure your birth mom thinks about you every day, because there’s not a day that Carly does not pass my mind,” she said.

Jenay nodded and smiled sadly. “I hope so.”

Detroit Urban Farming: A Harvest of Hope?

2011-08-20T00:16:00.000-04:00

(For more about urban farming in Detroit, tune into: Sustainable Detroit: Episode Two "SEEDS OF PROGRESS" Sunday, August 21, 12:30 p.m., Detroit Public TV Channel 56)

Leave it to Detroit to be gentrified by people who don’t own a hill of beans. The latest immigrants to Detroit are not flocking here to find abandoned properties to flip. They’re not coming to hoard land for a future industrial park. And they’re definitely not coming here to push up the rents in troubled neighborhoods or turn blight into a tourist attraction. They are coming to be urban farmers planting healthy harvest of – of all things—hope.

I met one new Detroiter while she was tending to a community garden called Feedom Freedom Growers on the city’s east side. Jessi Quizar, 25, grew up in Denver, and went to graduate school in Los Angeles. She’s working on her Ph.D. in American Studies.

But she believes that her real classroom is in a modest plot beside the home of Feedom Freedom Growers founders Wayne and Myrtle Thompson Curtis.

“This is where I want to be,” said Jessi. She’s even been looking to buy a house nearby. “I love the folks here. This feels like the kind of community that I want to be in for a long, long time.”

It’s been awhile since I’ve met someone who voluntarily left a city like L.A. to live in an unstable Detroit neighborhood and help sow the seeds of change. But Jessi isn’t alone. These days the city is teeming with 20- and 30-somethings who are attracted to the land and the Detroiters who farm it. Jessi said that Detroiters are doing something through urban farming that no other city is doing. They’ve decided that the solution to their problems is not attracting major corporations to come in and save them, she said. Instead, they are taking leadership into their own hands, taking stock of their assets, and saving themselves.

“We have resources, we have people, we have knowledge, we have an incredible history of organizing in Detroit, and we have a lot of land,” said Jessi. “Urban agriculture involves very, very localized kinds of economies where people are able to build up a certain kind of cooperative way of engaging with each other to provide the things that are necessary for life.”

Lest you think I’ve sipped the Kool-Aid, I haven’t traded in my skepticism of urban agriculture for a hoe. I love to garden, I swoon at the smell of fresh herbs and have been known to bite into a big, sun-warmed tomato right off of the vine. But there’s no way that agriculture is the future for Detroit—not economically speaking. Unless our future economic model is slavery.

I pushed Jessi on this subject and she agreed: “Yeah, well some of the worst paid and most food insecure people in this county work in agriculture. And living in California, you can really see that the industrial agricultural system in this country is very, very exploitative of its workers. That’s not a step up.”

What IS a step up, she said, are small family- or community-run gardens. The micro focus has the potential for a more long term pay-off than the corporate model: repair of the city’s social fabric.

“If you’re a caring person and you’re surrounded by what seems to be just nothingness, it’s a heavy, heavy burden,” said Myrtle, adding that the gardens are a visible sign that someone on the block values the land, themselves and others. “When property is neglected, it says, ‘We don’t care, we can get away with dumping, and we can get away with vile behavior because nobody is watching.’”

What they are really planting, said Myrtle, is a revolution in values.

These days, the nonprofit Greening of Detroit provides support to more than 875 urban gardens in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park through its Garden Resource Program. And many of those gardens are attracting young, hopeful talent like Jessi, who have come here to learn about community empowerment.

She may be right: A hopeful future is budding in Detroit.

Watch this video as I explore the topic more deeply on Public Television's Need to Know: "Seeds of Progress."

Children of "The Help"

2011-08-18T15:21:00.001-04:00

In my last blog, I talked about the deeper complexities of interracial relationships that "The Help" explored, however ineptly. (To hear my interview about the movie on The Takeaway, click the play button below.)

I can't believe how many people responded to that blog, including my good friend, Jackie Victor. Those of us in Detroit may know her as the co-founder of Avalon International Breads, a small business that has had a ginormous impact on Midtown Detroit. Avalon was there in 1997, long before Midtown was cool, and many people thought Jackie had flipped her lid to locate a business there. She and Ann have shown the city what dedication, commitment and love can prove.

My biggest question has been, "Why?"

I got a hint about what makes Jackie tick after she read my blog and sent me this response. I was awed by her honesty. Here goes:

You may not be surprised, but I was on the other side of "The Help". The woman who largely raised me, Geneva Powell, was a primary force in my life from birth until 18. Although my mom was wonderful and loved me dearly, there was something missing in her raising of me...primarily confidence.

In any case, Geneva's presence was deep and powerful, protective and full of contradictions. My deep relationship with her until the day she died has informed every part of my life: from living in Detroit, to starting a business that contributes to revitalization of the city, to overcoming my own fears of the city 25 years ago and moving here from U of M, when few if any of my peers were making that move. All those choices have given me gifts I could never have imagined years ago. And so her legacy continues to feed my soul.

I also named my daughter, Rafaella Geneva (doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, I admit), in tribute to the love and truths that Geneva taught me. Rafaella means "one who heals with G-d". To me, Geneva means simply, love.

The book reminded me of the excruciating truths that I painfully know, albeit from my position of privilege: the sacrifices that Geneva made to raise me, the great indignities and humiliation she endured, even working for a "liberal, Jewish" family from the North. I could go on and on. I felt like the book could easily have been set in Bloomfield Hills in 1970.

These are painful topics, that I have broached openly only periodically. Yet I have tried to live a life that would make Geneva proud. And give back a portion of what she gave to me. An impossible task, but certainly one that could keep me moving forward for my lifetime.

Thank you for opening up the dialogue in a brave and honest way, as is your strength. I welcome any dialogue that opens our hearts and deepens our mutual understanding, albeit painful and dangerous terrain.

In Gratitude,

Jackie Victor

Help Navigating "The Help"

2011-08-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

I have very mixed feelings about "The Help," emotions that I feel are being quashed by the African American History Police.

I read the book when it first came out and saw the movie yesterday and was surprised at how much I liked it. The film has been criticized for sugar-coating the black experience. No, it wasn't the gritty look at real life in apartheid America. But it certainly hinted at the thousands of daily indignities that black maids endured everyday to work with white people. How much misery can you really pile into a movie and still expect people to see it? Folks, this is Hollywood.

Photo from "The Help"

What I applaud is the effort of whites to explore their own racism and to consider their culpability in perpetuating the system. Even the nicest person in the movie (a Junior League outcast) was "forced" to hire a maid in order to function at the level expected among her peers. There were many scenes where white women fired or refused to hire wonderful, dependable black women simply because of peer pressure - they didn't have the balls to speak up against injustice. As long as whites complied with the Jim Crow laws and the racist social mores, they participated and benefited from racial oppression. And this is explored in the movie.

What I think rubs us the wrong way is the depiction of the genuine feelings that the maids and nannies developed for the women they worked for and the children they raised. It seems anathema to the concept of involuntary servitude and caste structures. But I ask you: Doesn't it further degrade the experience of the black maids to deny that they were able to love the very people who oppressed them?

My grandmother, Annie Cooper,
was a maid for the Parker family.

I came across this troubling contradiction with horrific clarity in my own family. My mother and father were raised in a one-horse town near Richmond, Virginia. My father has often spoken of the humiliating, soul-breaking racism they endured. The dusty work of “chopping cotton,” sharecropping, the indignity of not being allowed to have jobs handling money, etc. My uncle told a story every family reunion about having to plow a field standing behind a white mule all day. As the sun beat down on him and the mule continued to lift its tail and crap in front of him, my uncle vowed he’d never stand behind anything white again.

The women in my family were all laundresses and maids. The highest dreams they had for their daughters were for them to become teachers.

My parents escaped that little town as soon as they could. When his college scholarship ran out, my father joined the Air Force and my parents traveled the world.

Years later, I went with my mother to antique shop in Norfolk, Virginia. After living in Detroit for decades, I sensed that the white woman at the cash register wasn’t exactly warm to two black women coming into her shop. (Whenever Northerners cross the Mason-Dixon line, they are ever-vigilant for the Klan, as if racism only happens in Georgia or the Carolinas.) I ignored the woman and started rummaging through old photos. My mother, because she was raised with the genteel manners of the South, greeted the shop owner brightly. They even started chit-chatting.

Suddenly, there was a squeal, like the sound of teenagers greeting each other at the mall.

“Bobby Goode?” the white woman gushed, throwing her arms around my mother.

“Nancy Parker!” Mom exclaimed, hugging her back. “My mother-in-law worked for your family for years!”

I was embarrassed, angry and shamed. I wanted to drag my mother out of there for shining up to the family that had essentially enslaved my father’s family. What was she thinking? Didn’t she remember the horrible way they must have been treated? Wasn’t she resentful of the way that the white Parker children built opportunity on the backs of our family?

But then the women, wiping away tears, starting going through family members, giving updates, telling who had died, who had children, where they lived now.

I realized with horror that I was watching a family reunion. In that moment, I understood that racism was experienced differently for women than for men. Black women were brought into the intimate recesses of white family life. Indeed, they were sometimes the linchpin of the white family. It was inescapable that genuine, deep and lasting bonds would sometimes develop. Dare I use the words “love” and “affection?”

I know that the relationships were not equal. But if deep love and affection can happen in marriages where power imbalances, oppression and even violence occur, why can’t we believe that they happened between whites and blacks in the Jim Crow South?

This is dangerous territory for African Americans to concede. If we allow that whites and blacks forged friendships, affections and even fell in love with each other in the midst of slavery and segregation, can we still villainize whites as our oppressors?

This is the aspect of “The Help” that seems to make us the most uncomfortable. Yet, until we allow whites to explore their agency in apartheid, until we allow a discourse about the difference between their realities and ours, we will never move closer to a collective understanding of our histories.

“The Help” is definitely imperfect. But I’m open to the dialogue it can spur and to a deeper understanding of the complicated interracial relationships that we have yet to explore.

Les Michigan Miserables: Locking up the Poor

2011-08-07T20:42:00.000-04:00

I’ve started noticing a troubling trend in the news lately:

May 14, 2011 - Diapers were among the items taken during a breaking and entering at an apartment in Flint. The female resident said some time between 12:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. someone broke into the home by prying the front door open, according to police reports. Once inside, a 32-inch flat screen television, DVD player and baby diapers were removed.

June 9, 2011 – Police are looking for a white male who has taken liquor and baby formula from Kroger stores in Birmingham and Troy.

June 22, 2011 – An employee of a grocery store in West Bloomfield reportedly watched a 67-year-old woman place items in her carry basket into her purse. When confronted at the exit, police said her purse contained body lotion, flaxseed oil and Omega-3 fish oil worth $90.

July 6, 2011 – A man allegedly tried to shoplift 10 cans of baby formula worth a total of $137.40 at a supermarket in West Bloomfield. When approached by security, he dropped the formula and ran out of the store. Police tracked down the suspect’s Ford Taurus, and he reportedly admitted to attempting to take the formula.

As we continue to slog through this Next Great Depression, this is what new crime looks like. I’m trying to imagine myself as a security guard arresting a 67-year-old woman for stealing vitamins, or a couple skirting away with diapers and baby formula. Would I just turn a blind eye? Would I pay for the stolen items myself? Or, would I turn them in?

It all conjures up nightmares of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, where Jean Valjean spending the bulk of his life in debtors’ prison over a loaf of bread.

Debtors’ prison. Now there’s a word I never expected to hear outside of fiction. Unfortunately, it’s all too real for some metro area residents who are landing in jail not for their desperate crimes, but for their inability to pay their fines. According to the ACLU of Michigan, people across the state are being jailed for crime of being poor.

Here's Dewitt and his family.
(Photo taken from the ACLU's webpage.)

Case in point: 19-year-old Kyle Dewitt went fishing for rock bass in May. He’d lost his job last year and hasn’t been able to find anything steady since. (I even have to wonder if his fishing trip wasn’t just an attempt to find some R & R, but a real mission to put food on the table.) When he hooked a small-mouth bass out of season, he got slapped with a ticket from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

OK, that’s fair. The rules are the rules. But when Dewitt couldn’t pay the ticket, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. He turned himself in on July 25, 20ll, and an Ionia, Michigan district court judge ordered him to pay $215 by the end of the day or spend three days in jail. Dewitt offered to pay $100 the next day and the remainder the next month.

No go. The judge threw him in jail, even though Dewitt had never even pled guilty to the offense of catching the wrong fish in the wrong season. Seriously?? Lucky for Dewitt, the ACLU got him sprung pending a trial on the underlying offense.

In good times, fines may seem like an efficient way to slap the wrists of law-breakers. But in bad times, fines start to draw a bright line between the haves and the have nots. Should you really lose your freedom over not being able to pay traffic tickets or other misdemeanor fines?

“Long thought to be a relic of the 19th Century, debtors’ prisons are still alive and well in Michigan,” my good friend, Kary Moss, ACLU of Michigan’s executive director, said in a press release. “Jailing our clients because they are poor is not only unconstitutional, it’s unconscionable and a shameful waste of resources. Our justice system should be a place where freedom has no price and equality prevails regardless of a defendant’s economic status.”

But a 2010 multi-state study by the ACLU entitled, "In for a Penny," showed that Michigan is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to jailing people who are too poor to pay fines.

"Michigan, a state hit harder than most by the recession, is trying to find operating funds in the most unlikely of places: the pockets of poor people who have been convicted of crimes," concluded the report. "Though the Michigan Constitution forbids debtors’ prisons and state laws explicitly prohibit the jailing of individuals who cannot pay court fines and fees because they are too poor, judges routinely threaten to jail and frequently do jail poor people who cannot pay."

This year, the ACLU has challenged five cases where an indigent citizen was told to "pay or stay," without any inquiry into the defendant's ability to pay immediately or over time. Thank goodness the ACLU is here to stand for people who cannot fend for themselves. I fear that Victor Hugo had it right when he wrote in Les Miserables, “There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.”

Co-creator of The Daily Show Lizz Winstead rocks Pontiac to support Planned Parenthood

2011-07-10T21:20:00.000-04:00

Don't take it from me. Click here to hear Lizz Winstead's videoblog about the welcome she got in Pontiac last night. We were expecting about 150 people - we got closer to 350. There were anti-choice protesters who tried to shout down our proud supporters who gathered before the performance. But it just didn't work.

You have to be a moron to oppose both birth control AND abortion. Planned Parenthood is all about prevention and equal access to reproductive health care. WTF - this is 2011 - How can that STILL be controversial???

My son, Lizz Winstead and me!

But it is. The extremists are hijacking the dialogue. One guy stood in my 23-year-old son's face and lectured him non-stop about abortion and the black community. Are you serious??? How demeaning is that to imply that black women have no sense but to fall prey to evil people trying to abort their babies?

Here's the bottom line: Women are unlikely to terminate a planned pregnancy. A planned child is a wanted child in any community. If abortion is a problem in the black community it's because black women do not have equal access to family planning. To address the problem, we have to provide more education, information and access to birth control. That's why 97 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are preventive - to avoid the other three percent of our services.
I was proud of the way my son held his ground, was respectful of others' opinions, and yet did not yield to the anger that was being spewed at him.

Inside the Eagle Theater, Lizz Winstead showered the audience with her witty observations, searing humor and political satire. She ended with a wonderful reading from her upcoming memoir that talks about how she found herself, Catholic, smart, and very pregnant at 16.

Listen, y'all, it's time to stop sitting on the sidelines. One out of every five women will go to a Planned Parenthood in her lifetime. THAT'S A LOT OF FREAKIN' PEOPLE. That means that you or someone you know needs us. We are not underground, we are not a secret, we are not extreme - WE ARE MAINSTREAM.

So where are you all? Why won't you come out and just tell America, "Planned Parenthood: WTF (What's the Fuss)?"

Here's the easiest way to help. Just click here to donate $10 or share your story with us.

Joan Rivers on women's health care: Can we talk?

2011-05-01T15:03:00.001-04:00

Photos by Elayne Gross Photography

I don’t know what I was expecting last week from Joan Rivers when she addressed the 17th Annual Tribute Luncheon to benefit Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan. Certainly, some jealous dishing about skinny celebrities. And some searing wisecracks that make you feel ashamed for laughing.

But what I wasn’t expecting was a poignant, affirming message from a woman who’s better known for policing fashion, hawking jewelry and terrorizing her daughter, Melissa. The sell-out crowd at the Troy Marriott—many of whom were long-time soldiers for a woman’s right to choose—left feeling rededicated to the fight despite the mounting political challenges.

As the communications director for Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan (PPMSM), I’ve had my work cut out for me this year. Planned Parenthood has been under the gun nationally (yes, they really were about to shut down the government over the funding of women’s health care!) and locally (there are currently 17 bills pending in the Michigan Legislature designed to restrict access to women’s reproductive health care).

Joan Rivers and Lori Lamerand

But, as PPMSM President Lori Lamerand said at the luncheon, “I’m not sure that anti-choice politicians knew exactly what tiger they were poking a stick at.” The attacks have only emboldened our quiet but loyal supporters. And they have awakened a new generation which grew up in a world where sex isn’t a four-letter word. (Check out this video made by the students at Wesleyan University.)

It comes as a complete surprise to young people that birth control could be controversial, much less STD tests and treatment or annual exams, which make up 97 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services. No one plans for an abortion or goes happily to seek one, but this generation also assumes that it is an option open to them, should they ever be faced with an unplanned pregnancy. (Civics refresher – no federal money can be used to fund abortions, despite the fact that anti-choice politicians insist on creating the opposite impression.)

Maybe that’s why the event sold out early, with more on a waiting list. People are sick and tired of the radical Right’s attacks on family planning. Rivers showed up with the guns blazing. “I’m thrilled to be here,” she said. “I think that anybody who doesn’t believe in Planned Parenthood is a moron.”

She added: “I think the organizational poster – you know, the circle with the line over it –should be Kate Gosselin. When she was on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ every time she twirled around, three more kids came out.”

The 77-year-old Rivers supports birth control (“Of course at this age, birth control is a lighted bedroom.”), including emergency contraception. Sometimes called the “morning after pill,” emergency contraception can prevent pregnancy if taken within 48 hours of unprotected sex. If a woman is already pregnant, it will not terminate the pregnancy.

“Melissa told me before I came, ‘Don’t forget to talk about the morning after pill!’” said Rivers. “I told Melissa that we had the morning after pill in my day. It was called ‘throw yourself down the stairs.’”

The comedian’s message was one of triumph. She accused Americans of being a nation of whiners, even as we live in relative wealth. She talked about the well-publicized ups and downs in her own life: Her breakout performance on the Johnny Carson Show, her marriage to Edgar, the birth of her daughter Melissa. For eight years, she was flying high. Then Edgar had a heart attack and sunk into depression. She got her own show on Fox, but it cost her friendship with Johnny Carson, who never spoke to her again. When her husband starting fighting Fox, they canceled her show. Three weeks later, her husband committed suicide.

Rivers said she was in the hospital having liposuction when her daughter Melissa got the call that her father had killed himself.

“It shattered her,” said Rivers, her eyes flooding with tears. “I remember looking at Melissa’s face after Edgar died and I couldn’t recognize her. Her childhood was gone.”

Soon after the suicide, Rivers learned that her contract to perform in Las Vegas had been rescinded—“They told me that no one will laugh with someone who has been through all this,” she said.

It was a dark time. “I used to wake up in the middle of night and think if I didn’t have a child, I’d be out of here,” she said. “Back to Planned Parenthood. Once you have a child, it’s not about you anymore. If you are taking on the responsibility of a life, you are there at least until she’s 18 and married rich.”

Luncheon co-chairs Diane Orley (left) and

Kim Chesbrough are activists for Planned Parenthood.

She reminded the audience that good times go away, but so do bad times. “Everything is cyclical,” she said. The way to overcome is not to simply survive, “but to stop whining and face your problems,” she admonished the audience.

Indeed. Even as women have more freedom than they have enjoyed in American history, the attack against women’s health care has only gotten more intense. It’s a cycle that will prove to be more daunting than any Planned Parenthood has faced in its quest to provide women basic, safe reproductive health care regardless of ability to pay.

I hope that those who attended the luncheon – and all those who support Planned Parenthood—are ready to follow the advice of Joan Rivers when it comes to the vicious attacks against women’s health care. It’s time to stop whining and do something about it.

I was honored to meet Joan!

Facing Child Abuse in the Black Community

2011-04-17T12:31:00.001-04:00

(Listen to my live interview about Fiction with a Mission at the Motown Writers Network!)

Since the late March release of our anthology, My Blue Suede Shoes, many people have asked me why I wanted to write a story about domestic violence. When a lot of people think about domestic violence, they think about male-female partners sparring and fighting with each other, a la Chris Brown and Rihanna. But that is really just the tip of the iceberg. One of the most devastating and least explored aspects of domestic violence is child abuse.

I’m really quite lucky because I had a wonderful childhood, a miracle considering that both of my parents were children of alcoholics. I also think I managed to raise my children with only a few abusive episodes (I don’t know if my kids would agree!). But as a parent and as a journalist, I noticed that child abuse is something many people limit to child sexual abuse. In the black community, we don’t necessarily see “disciplinary action” as abusive. While there’s a cultural conversation around whether spanking is abusive or not, there’s certainly a line over which we all can agree that abuse is abuse. That goes past discipline, past trying to restore order in a dangerous situation. That really goes to intimidation, humiliation and constant degradation of the child and the child’s spirit.

I really wanted to write about how that looks in the black community.

When you talk about child sexual abuse, it’s more typical to hear about men being perpetrators. But when you talk about child abuse in general, over 80 percent of children are abused by their parents, male or female. I wanted to talk about the mother as the perpetrator because we have this fantasy about the Madonna Mother, always cuddling their beautiful, innocent child. What we’re seeing now, especially in the black community where young girls are having children outside of marriage, is young mothers who are not ready to share emotional space with a child.

What happens is they end up feeling threatened by their own children. I see this a lot, not just with young mothers but with single mothers who feel like they have to compete with their own children to get their needs met. You see mothers becoming intimidated or threatened by the attention and neediness of their own children. That threat becomes fear, becomes anger, becomes resentment…and before you know it, the mother becomes abusive with the child. At the bottom line, child abuse is a power struggle between parent and child.

The mother in my story, "Breakin' it Down," is a talk show host who is very popular. I wanted to write about someone that’s heady with power and from all outward appearances, it looks like she’s got it together.

But beneath that mask lies deep insecurity. She has adopted a child in order to wrap herself in that cloak of the Madonna. “Oh look, isn’t she a saintly woman for adopting a child!” The child is part of her image, the same way her house and her car are part of her image.

But inside, she’s still a neglected little girl who wants her mother to love her. She finds her daughter’s needs conflict with her own need to be the center of attention, praised and loved. Pretty soon as you might imagine, things go terribly wrong and she finds herself out of control with her little girl.

We call our series of books “Fiction with a Mission” for a reason. If you’re writing something autobiographical, people might read it and think, “That’s their story, that’s not my story.”

With fiction, people can fall into a character or circumstance and think, “I used to know someone like that,” or “Yeah, that’s exactly how I felt,” because it’s impersonal and not “real.” Through fiction, you can get people to question why they’re relating to the main character, or ask themselves “was that abusive when I did that?” People can really start to interrogate their own lives or people around them with a lot more honesty when they’re not reading something that’s blaming or preachy.

We’re hoping that through these stories, people will start coming together, thinking about the issue, dissecting their own behaviors and thinking about the behaviors they need to interrupt. It’s great for a book club because it deals with different aspects of abuse. My story in the anthology is about child abuse, but one story deals with incest, a very difficult topic. Another deals with a woman who is abusive to her partner.

And one of my favorites, Elizabeth Atkins’ “The Wrong Side of Mr. Right,” is about a woman who is headed to the altar with a man that’s becoming increasingly abusive. But she’s caught up in the wedding and ignoring her intuition.

By looking at these stories as entertainment, we can help our community learn, and ultimately, transform.

For excerpts, author bios, book club questions and Q & A's, go to http://www.empowerourselves.wordpress.com/.

Join our discussion on FACEBOOK!

Women's Bodies and Civil Rights: The Legacy of Rosa Parks

2011-03-24T22:58:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week, I posted a link on my Facebook page. It was about a beautiful, dignified woman, Recy Taylor. At 91, she has received something she was owed decades ago—an apology.

Recy Taylor, 91. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack, AP

Back in 1944, Ms. Taylor had been walking home from church in her native Henry County, Alabama, when she was confronted by a group of white men. They abducted and gang-raped the young wife and mother and left her on the side of the road in Abbeville.

Two all-male, all white juries failed to bring charges against the perpetrators, who are now presumed dead. Ms. Taylor has lived her life for the seven decades hence, denied justice. But this week, the Abbeville mayor, a probate judge and a Democratic state representative gathered to apologize to Taylor for the bungled investigation.

I was moved by the story, but I had no idea how intertwined it was with my life here in Detroit. I am currently the communications director for Planned Parenthood, an organization that has been protecting the integrity of women and their bodies for nearly a century. On Tuesday, our organization co-sponsored a Women’s History Month event with the Metropolitan Christian Council: Detroit-Windsor. The title of the event was “Rosa Parks: Beyond the Myth and Legend.”

Author Danielle McGuire (l), Elaine Flowers (r)

The speaker was Wayne State University history professor Danielle McGuire. She spoke at length about the intrepid activism of Rosa Parks, a woman that history has painted as a mild-mannered old lady with aching feet who inadvertently sparked a movement. In reality, Mrs. Parks was steeped a tradition of radical activism. Her father, said McGuire, was a devotee of Marcus Garvey. Mrs. Parks and her husband were vocal supporters of the Scottsboro Boys, and she was involved with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

In the 1940s, Rosa Parks was the NAACP’s lead investigator on cases of sexual violence perpetrated by white men against black women—crimes that generally went unpunished. In fact, after she investigated one particularly heinous crime, Mrs. Parks started the “Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor.” Rosa Parks struggled—without success—to get justice for the young Recy Taylor.

It was a connection that I never made to the link I posted on my Facebook page.

McGuire contends that it’s a connection most of us fail to make: That women were at the forefront of the Fight for Freedom. That they didn’t just boycott stores, or take notes at church meetings. They were strategists, leaders and warriors. She posits that it was the courageous (not passive) activism of Mrs. Parks in the 1940s on behalf of rape victims that made the Montgomery Bus Boycott possible. Her groundbreaking research is the subject of her book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.

The real courage of Rosa Parks has been obscured by a history that prefers women to be prim, polite and silent. I’m glad that she refused to accept the sexual violation of women in the 1940s, and that she stood up for the sexual self-determination of women decades later as a member of the Board of Advocates of Planned Parenthood.

And I’m glad that Planned Parenthood is still here for women, refusing to be prim, polite or silent.

STORIES ABOUT 'SHOES' TO KICK ABUSE

2011-03-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

(This story first appeared in the West Bloomfield Beacon)

By: ERIC CZARNIK C & G Staff Writer
Published: March 2, 2011

To Desiree Cooper, a pair of blue suede shoes means more than fancy footwear or rock 'n' roll. The West Bloomfield author and former Detroit Free Press columnist joins three other female authors in releasing their fictional anthology "My Blue Suede Shoes" in late March. According to Cooper, each of the anthology's four stories deals with themes of domestic violence and abuse, which are instigated by both men and women. Her contribution "Breakin' it Down" is about a TV talk show host who abuses her 7-year-old daughter.

Cooper said fiction makes it easier to approach tough topics. "It's easier when you're talking about a character in a book," she said. "People see themselves or someone that they know." Writing a novella is different from writing a newspaper column because the former can be lengthier, and that means there is more room to work with the complexities of a narrative, Cooper said.

She said her story, like the others in the anthology, uses a pair of blue suede shoes as a symbol of awareness about domestic violence. And each story offers a path of escape from the female protagonists' times of trouble - even if that doesn't always happen in real life.

"We did want to write from the point of view that there is hope," Cooper said.

"My Blue Suede Shoes" is the second book of the four coauthors' Sister 4 Sister Empowerment Series.

Cooper said she learned about her co-authors through writing groups and networking relationships. She said she was probably the last person brought aboard the project.

"The four of us have never all been in the same room together," she said.

Cooper is not the only participant from Michigan. Elizabeth Atkins of Detroit said her story "The Wrong Side of Mr. Right" is about a woman who realizes that her apparently perfect fiancé turns out to be anything but, as his emotional abuse escalates to physical violence.

For instance, he exerts controlling behavior and belittles her appearance, clothing style and eating habits.

"She needs to get away from him as soon as possible," Atkins said. "It's so easy to get caught up in the romance and excitement of it that you really don't want to notice those red flags." Atkins said she has written more than a dozen books, and she explained that she creates realistic characters by drawing upon her journalism experience at The Detroit News and Fox 2 News. "It's really easy for me, just by observing people and reading news all the time and watching interviews," she said.

She hopes that her contribution to "My Blue Suede Shoes" will help women empower themselves with courage and knowledge. "It takes awareness and a plan," she said.

Authors Tracy Price-Thompson, TaRessa Stovall, Elizabeth Atkins and Desiree Cooper will release "My Blue Suede Shoes" March 29. Place your order now - CLICK HERE.

To learn more, visit http://empower%20ourselves.wordpress.com/.

You can reach Staff Writer Eric Czarnik at eczarnik@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1058.

Detroit Does it in Style

2010-11-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

Detroit may not be the Mecca of fashion, but you can’t say it doesn’t have style. Especially if you define style the way fashion journalist Robin Givhan defines it: “Having a clear sense of who you are and communicating that succinctly with your clothes.”

If Detroiters know anything, it’s who they are---and the rest of the world had better get over it:

Judge Craig Strong and Kid Rock show off their Detroit flair.

This is exactly the kind of town where a fashion show would include a high-brow debate about the politics of fashion. Detroit’s B.L.A.C. (Black Life, Arts & Culture Magazine) and public radio’s WDET 101.9 joined forces last week to present “Style!” In addition to a short fashion show, the event at the Gem Theatre featured a wide-ranging conversation between “Tell Me More” host Michel Martin and Washington Post Columnist and Fashion Editor Robin Givhan. Givhan is the only fashion writer to ever have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Michel Martin (l) and Robin Givhan (r) talk style in Detroit,

First things first – both women resisted the urge to out-Vogue each other or the audience. They both were a vision of glorious restraint, especially Givhan who sported the traditional little black dress.

“Detroit has a distinct style,” said Givhan. “Like City Slicker gators that match your suit. Men tend to be conservative when it comes to style, but I do advocate exuberance.”

Together, Martin and Givhan lamented the end of attention to style in the black community, where, even in the midst of Civil Rights protests, men were rarely seen without hats, suits and ties, and women wore hats and gloves. “I think of Dorothy Height and the photos of her with Martin Luther King,” said Givhan. “She had on a hat, panty hose, gloves, and the temperature was in the 80s. She didn’t care. Back then, African Americans were focused on announcing their dignity and self-respect.”

Martin observed that clothing still makes the man when it comes to the black community. “Let’s face it—we spend a disproportionate amount of our income on clothing. Do you think we make too much over clothes?”

“No,” said Givhan. “We don’t make too much of clothes, we make too much of status. That includes clothes, cars, everything. But you have to remember where we come from. It’s important to African Americans not to be mistaken for guy who parks the cars. But I think in the process, we forget that respect comes from within.”

The two also talked about how differently men and women see clothing. “A man will go into the dressing room and when things don’t fit, he’ll say, ‘What’s wrong with these clothes?’” said Givhan. “A woman will beat herself up and say, ‘I need to lose ten pounds.’”

That’s when fashion become oppression, said Givhan. “Every day that you get up is an opportunity to reinvent yourself,” she said. “It shouldn’t be work, it should be fun.” (Hmm, I’m not sure I get that. It feels like for women, every day is a test to prove that you can be 25 forever. It’s a test we’ll never pass!)

It was really fun when the panel was joined by B.L.A.C. Editor Lori Robinson and the women commented on the style of many fashion icons. Here’s the skinny:

Lady Di – She was a fashion icon because her clothing mirrored her fairytale life.

Jill Scott – Plus-size women should be celebrated, but not so much that we forget the dangers of obesity. (Same with Monique, except her “style” calls up common stereotypes about large, black women.)

Jackie O vs. Michelle Obama – The comparison is ridiculous. When Michelle Obama goes sleeveless, she looks athletic and strong. They see strength in a black woman. She has what is called “Post-Title IX arms.”

Diana Ross -- Her style in "Mahogany" says it all.

And, of course, there was a brief but heated discussion about hair and fashion. Black women’s hair. Black women’s natural hair. Givhan thought we were a post-nappy society that is ready to get over it if black women would just get over it. Martin vehemently disagreed, pointing out how, as a correspondent for ABC, she was the only black woman on TV news with natural hair. “It’s still true that the only place you can work with natural hair is a magazine or Starbucks,” she said.

Can you really be a Texan without being blond?

Joy Sewing, the fashion/beauty editor for the Houston Chronicle was in the audience (yes, that’s her real name). She added that ALL women struggle with their hair. Even in Houston, she attends events where 80 percent of the white women have dyed their hair blond.

(For more on hair, click here to read my blog, “The Bald Truth about Good Hair,” or check out the anthology, “Other People’s Skin.”)

I had a great time, and am looking forward to more joint events between B.L.A.C. and WDET. Whatever they come up with next, I know they’ll do it in style.

WDET Program Director Ron Jones and wife, Marcy

(L to R) Dr. Glenda Price, Desiree Cooper, Robin Givhan and Lori Robinson

Here's a ticket to success for Detroit students

2010-10-19T21:25:00.001-04:00

Present and former members of the Citywide Poets

Enough complaining about poor student performance in the Detroit Public Schools. There are amazing kids in the system doing amazing things. But what they lack is people like YOU to support programs that are proven to bolster attendance, test scores and overall school performance.

I’m talking about programs like InsideOut Literary Arts Project (IO) that's holding its annual gala on Thursday, Oct. 28 at the Gem Theatre at 6 p.m.

InsideOut was awarded a Coming Up Taller national prize in 2009 by First Lady Michelle Obama. If she can see the worthiness of such an amazing local program, I hope you can, too. Come out and support the program! (Click here to get your ticket now)

Me with Detroit Poet Laureate
Naomi Long Madgett

At the gala, IO will be honoring Detroit Poet Laureate Naomi Long Madgett, who will be introduced by award-winning poet and former Detroiter, Toi Derricotte. On top of that, Marilyn Nelson, three-time finalist for the National Book Award, will be there to read from her book “Sweethearts of Rhythm” with jazz accompaniment.

Marilyn Nelson

“Given the statistical evidence which indicates the value of the arts in the learning process,” said Nelson. “I can’t understand why the arts are the first things that are cut.”

Nelson has embraced a term that one 7th grader used to describe her: a lyrical historian. “I put a lot of factual information in my books of poetry so that people can learn about history,” she said. “My books are often marketed to children and young adults, but that’s a label publishers put on my books. I’m writing for people from 8 to 88 who have a love for learning.”

That’s certainly true of her book, “Sweethearts of Rhythm,” which is about a multicultural, all-girls’ swing band during World War II. The band, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, performed in Detroit’s Paradise Valley and were managed by Maurice King, who eventually became a music director with Motown. Who knew?

Recently, I got a chance to talk to one of IO’s graduates, Will Langford, IV. As a student at Cass Technical High School, Will was part of IO’s Citywide Poets, a rigorous club for teens interested in writing and performing poetry. Today, Will is a senior at Michigan State University with a 3.95 g.p.a. He started the MSU Slam Poetry team and was even commissioned to write a poem to celebrate the groundbreaking of the university’s Wells Hall, home to the College of Arts and Letters.

He attributes much of his development as a poet to IO. But at the same time, it bothers him that people would find him “exceptional.”

“I’m aware that people may look at me and think, ‘There’s this kid from Detroit who defies these expectations,’” he said, adding that there are plenty of young people like him who are succeeding. “InsideOut is a story that doesn’t get told. I give it a lot of credit for helping me to become a whole artist.”

Will Langford reciting his poetry at Michigan State University

Buy a ticket to the "Star by Star" InsideOut Literary Arts Project Gala, on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Gem Theatre. Click here or call 313-965-5332.

The road to a renaissance is lined with bike racks

2010-10-10T21:15:00.000-04:00

Last month I attended one of the Detroit Mayor’s neighborhood forums on the re-imagining of the city. I was amazed at the diversity at the huge gathering (translation: many white people were there). When the residents started voicing their complaints, I heard many of the predictable gripes: Stop the foreclosures! Get rid of abandoned buildings! Fix the public schools!

And then one man raised his hand to be heard. He was young, white and a new Detroit resident. “Where are the bike racks?” he asked indignantly.

The room went silent for a minute. You didn’t hear one “Amen.” With all that faces the city, were we really going to haggle over places to park a Schwinn?

The surprising answer is yes; Detroit’s future might just lie in bike racks.

According to recent Census figures, white flight has finally begun to reverse itself after 60 years. While middle-class blacks continue to forsake the city (I left a year ago after having lived in Detroit for 25 years), whites are leading a pilgrimage back to Michigan's largest urban center. The percentage of Detroit’s white population jumped from 8.4 percent to 13.3 percent in 2008.

Leading the charge are young whites without children and empty nesters. Or, families like the one I met after work yesterday while sunning at Vicente’s Cuban Cuisine. John and Sue, natives of Port Huron, moved to Midtown in 2007. They were joined by their 22-year-old daughter, Kristen, when she wasn’t able to find a job after graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Music. (Jobs for young people – that’s another sine qua non of a true Detroit renaissance. But I digress.)

I noticed Sue’s bicycle helmet on the table and couldn’t help asking them about their move to Detroit.

“One of the biggest surprises for us has been the crime issue,” said John, who feels comfortable in their diverse Detroit neighborhood. “The negativity in the media is totally off base. You’ve got to use common sense wherever you live.”

The couple traded their house in Port Huron with a garage, attic, swimming pool for a 2,400 sq. ft. Detroit townhouse, but “it has been wonderful,” Sue said. “We have always loved Detroit for things like the theater and sports. We got tired of the drive and wanted to be a part of the renaissance.”

Now they’re looking forward to a Slow’s Barbecue opening in their neighborhood. They shop at the Honey Bee Market in Mexicantown and ride their bikes from Eastern Market to the Fisher Building and the Riverfront.

That explains why I’m starting to see those bike racks popping up like daisies all over the city.

“We can’t possibly identify with someone who has lived here for decades, and has had to deal with issues like foreclosure and crime,” said Sue of the concerns she heard residents air at one of the Mayor’s Town Hall meetings. “Or to the 70-year-old woman whose house is the only one left on the block and she’s afraid that they will make her move.”

Still, Sue and her family believe that their needs must be addressed as well. “We’re the ones moving back here,” she said. “I can see where bikes don’t seem to be on the same level of importance. But somehow, all of these concerns have to be addressed side-by-side.”

Nikki Giovanni is out of this world

2010-10-02T22:26:00.000-04:00

Photo by Greg Thrasher

Nikki Giovanni is a space cadet.

I was pleased to find that out when she lectured last week at Wayne State University. (They had to move her lecture to a larger venue after more than 600 fans registered to hear her speak.) Giovanni, an activist, commentator, and forceful member of the late-1960s Black Arts Movement, is now a diminutive, 67-year-old distinguished professor at Virginia Tech. But her quick mind and searing commentary is still out of this world.

“Did you know they just discovered another planet like Earth?” Giovanni asked, referring to Gliese 581g, a planet about 120 trillion miles away that is just the right temperature for liquid water. “I’m a big fan of life in space. It’s just human arrogance to think that we’re the only living things in the universe.”

Giovanni went on to describe one of the highlights of her career: Speaking to NASA. What would possess NASA to invite a black, female poet to come speak to them? “That’s easy,” she said. “It was February.” The audience roared in laughter, understanding that Black History Month is often the time of year that leaders in the black community find themselves in the most unlikely places.

Of her experience speaking at NASA, Giovanni quipped: “Have you ever watched 600 white boys pout?”

I got to travel to NASA a decade ago, not as a Black History Month speaker, but with my daughter’s fifth grade class when they went to Space Camp. For four days, I played out my life’s fantasy of becoming an astronaut, spending my 40th birthday wearing a mock flight suit of a shuttle commander.

We arrived at the Kennedy Space Flight Center where a garden of rockets needled the sky. When they played the national anthem before we entered, the kids yawned bored. I cried embarrassing tears. To me, the exploration of space says everything about human courage and our connection with God.

But until I heard Giovanni speak, I had never connected my yearning for space with my own ancestral journey to America.

“It is my understanding that it would take one year for us to travel to Mars,” said Giovanni. “Assuming that astronauts spend a year exploring before they journeyed back, that would be a three-year journey.”

How well-suited are humans to make such a trip? How would they fare psychologically with the isolation, the physical confinement, the constant pressure of facing the unknown, the knowledge that they may never again see Earth again?

“In order to solve that problem, NASA need only look to the Middle Passage,” said Giovanni. “The answer lies with black people.”

The parallels are indeed astounding. Untold millions were snatched suddenly from their families and communities in Africa, sardined into the belly of a boat, and hijacked to a foreign land. Not only did they not speak the language of their captors, they didn’t even speak the language of their fellow captives. They had no idea where they were going or why, if they’d ever see home again or what would we awaiting them if they survived the voyage.

They were confined in darkness, living in unspeakable filth, shackled to corpses. So many died and were thrown into the sea, that sharks escorted the ships westward.

“How did they maintain their sanity, these great people?” Giovanni asked. To understand how Africans survived the Middle Passage—and the enslavement they suffered after such a harrowing journey—is to understand how to traverse the cosmos while maintaining our humanity.

Just like Nikki Giovanni, I am mesmerized by the idea of space travel. But it wasn’t until I listened to her talk about exploring the universe that I came to understand that the real final frontier lies within.

(P.S. – A moment of shameless self-promotion: Nikki Giovanni was the guest editor who selected my short story, “Night Coming,” to be included in Best African American Fiction 2010. )

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We're Going to Mars)
By Nikki Giovanni

We're going to Mars for the same reason
Marco Polo rocketed to China
for the same reason Columbus
trimmed his sails on a dream of spices
for the very same reason Shakelford
was enchanted with penguins
for the reason we fall in love
It's the only adventure

We're going to Mars because Peary
couldn't go to the North Pole
without Matthew Henson
because Chicago couldn't be a city
without Jean Baptiste DuSable
because George Washington Carver and his
peanut was the right partner for Booker T.
It's a life seeking thing

We're going to Mars because whatever is
wrong with us will not get right with us
so we journey forth carrying the same baggage
but every now and then leaving
one little bitty thing behind:
maybe drop torturing hunchbacks here;
maybe drop lynching Billy Budd there;
maybe not whipping Uncle Tom to death;
maybe resisting global war.
One day looking for prejudice to slip ... one
day looking for hatred to tumble by the wayside
... one day maybe the whole community
will no longer be vested in who sleeps with
whom ... maybe one day the Jewish community
will be at rest ... the Christian community
will be content ... the Muslim community will
be at peace ... and all the rest of us will get
great meals at holy days and learn new
songs and sing in harmony

We're going to Mars because it gives us a
reason to change
If Mars came here it would be ugly
nations would band together to hunt down
and kill Martians
and being the stupid undeserving life forms
that we are
we would also hunt down and kill what
would be termed Martian Sympathizers
As if the Fugitive Slave Law wasn't bad
enough then

As if the so-called War on Terrorism isn't
pitiful now
When do we learn and what does it take to
teach us things cannot be:
What we want
When we want
As we want
Other people have ideas and inputs
And why won't they leave Rap Brown alone
The future is ours to take

We going to Mars because we have the
hardware to do it ...
we have rockets and fuel and money and
stuff and the only reason NASA is holding
back is they don't know If what they send
out will be what they get back
So let me slow this down:

Mars is 1 year of travel to get there ...
plus 1 year of living on Mars ...
plus 1 year to return to Earth ...
= 3 years of Earthlings being in a tight
space going to an unknown place with an
unsure welcome awaiting them ...
tired muscles ... unknown and unusual
foods ... harsh conditions ... and no known
landmarks to keep them human ...
only a hope and a prayer that they will be
shadowed beneath a benign hand and there is
no historical precedence for that except this:
The trip to Mars can only be understood
through Black Americans
I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood
through Black Americans

The people who were captured and
enslaved immediately recognized the men
who chained and whipped them and herded
them into ships so tightly packed there was
no room to turn ... no privacy to respect ... no
tears to fall without landing on
another ... were not kind and gentle and concerned
for the state of their souls ... no ... the
men with whips and chains were understood
to be killers ... feared to be cannibals
... known to be sexual predators ... The
captured knew they were in trouble ... in an
unknown place ... without communicable
abilities with a violent and capricious
species ... But they could look out and still
see signs of Home they could still smell the
sweetness in the air
they could see the clouds floating above the
land they loved
But there reached a point where the captured
could not only not look back
they had no idea which way "back" might be
there was nothing in the middle of the deep
blue water to indicate which way home
might be and it was that moment ... when the
decision had to be made:
Do they continue forward with a resolve to
see this thing through or do they embrace
the waters and find another world
In the belly of the ship a moan was
heard ... and someone picked up the
moan ... and a song was raised ... and that
song would offer comfort ... and hope ... and
tell the story ...

When we go to Mars ... it's the same
thing ... it's Middle Passage
When the rocket red glares the astronauts
will be able to see themselves pull away
from Earth ... as the ship goes deeper they
will see a sparkle of blue ... and then one day
not only will they not see Earth ... they won't
know which way to look ... and that is why
NASA needs to call Black America

They need to ask us: How did you calm your
fears ... How were you able to decide you
were human even when everything said you
were not ... How did you find the comfort in
the face of the improbable to make the
world you came to your world ... How was

your soul able to look back and wonder
And we will tell them what to do:
To successfully go to Mars and back you will
need a song ... take some Billie Holiday for
the sad days and some Charlie Parker for
the happy ones but always keep at least one
good spiritual for comfort ... You will need a
slice or two of meatloaf and if you can man
age it some fried chicken in a shoebox with
a nice moist lemon pound cake ... a bottle of
beer because no one should go that far
without a beer and maybe a six-pack so that
if there is life on Mars you can share ...
Popcorn for the celebration when you land
while you wait on your land legs to kick in ...
and as you climb down the ladder from your
spaceship to the Martian surface ... look to
your left ... and there you'll see a smiling
community quilting a black-eyed pea ...
watching you descend

Is the Mayor's "Detroit Works" strategy working?

2010-09-25T09:29:00.001-04:00

Recently, I blogged about the first meeting I attended for Detroit Mayor Dave Bing's Detroit Works Project. Since then, the process has been changed to be less of a corporate-styled strategic planning process to more town-hall styled gatherings.

What the forums now lack in productivity, they may have gained in compatibility with the grassroots.

In the meantime, I got to talk about the process on Detroit Public Television's "American Black Journal." It was a lively discussion with host Stephen Henderson and panelists Austin Black II of City Living Detroit and the NAACP's Heaster Wheeler. Both Austin and Heaster are on the advisory task force for the Detroit Works Project.

And, the discussion would not have been complete if I hadn't been able to take a moment and diss my favorite economic development plan(tation): urban farming.

Click here and watch the show!

Is Detroit boxed in by a lack of imagination?

2010-09-14T23:30:00.000-04:00

“Think outside of the box.”

That slogan is such a cliché that my good friend Teja Arboleda (a brilliant teacher/entertainer about the artificiality of race) puts this at the bottom of each of his emails: “There is no box.”

I love how he challenges the idea that we are boxed-in in the first place. We are really only trapped by the limits we place on ourselves, he argues.

Someone should have told that to the throngs who crowded into Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple tonight. The City of Detroit held the first of five major community forums to discuss the city’s future. It's part of the Detroit Works Project, an 18-month plan to move Detroit forward. The forums have been clearly billed as “Listen and Learn” opportunities for the mayor’s office to hear from the people. Ironically, the people who gathered tonight felt that THEY should be the ones listening, and the Mayor should do all of the talking.

Like so many doomed voyages, the evening started out with promise. Greater Grace Temple is a stunning facility where cheerful volunteers welcomed Detroit residents in the parking lot and in the hallways. Although they were admittedly overwhelmed the outpour, the volunteers managed to get people through registration and into the plenary session quickly. An added surprise: They even fed the after-work crowd a satisfying snack featuring chicken drumettes and sweet tea.

But out of nowhere, the convocation steered toward the iceberg. At the helm were the City’s Deputy Director of the Planning and Development Department Marja Winters and nationally renowned urban planner Toni L. Griffin. They greeted the crowd, then urged the massive gathering to divide into break-out sessions to discuss one of four topics: Innovating our Neighborhoods for the 21^st Century, Creating a City that Works, Connecting Detroit & the Great Lakes Region, or Growing a Thriving Economy for the 21^st Century.

An angry tide washed over the crowd. “You mean the mayor isn’t going to speak?” people balked.

“We need to know what the Mayor’s vision is first, then we can help!” objected Wanda Hill. “It’s disrespectful that he’s not here.”

The staff tried to quell the dissention, assuring everyone that the mayor would be visiting each of the breakout groups to listen to citizen feedback. But people didn’t believe them. “He’s not coming here,” the man next to me mumbled.

I have been in Detroit for more than a quarter century, but I hadn’t realized how deeply the learned helplessness had soaked to the bone. There was a time when top-down planning would have caused an uproar in Detroit. Not anymore. It’s time for us to decide what our city should look like and how we can get there, and all we can do is fling ourselves against the walls of a very small box. Maybe Detroiters have lived so long with so little hope, that blue-sky thinking has become impossible.

(Note to my fellow Detroiters: No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. )

We finally did break into smaller groups, but the negativity continued. Soon, to everyone’s surprise, in walked the Mayor.

“I’m here to listen to you because I don’t want to make assumptions that I know what’s right for you,” he said with an Obama-like, preternatural calmness. “We will take all of your input, massage it, put it together in a plan, then bring it back to you. We’re not going to dictate to you.”

The Mayor eventually left to visit other break-out groups, but not before being barraged by pointed questions.

Ultimately, the facilitators did manage to get the group to focus on the task at hand. Some of the suggestions for innovating our neighborhoods included:

Sponsor an international architecture competition for new housing in Detroit
Make existing homes more energy efficient
During the census, count prisoners based on their last permanent residence, not where they are imprisoned
Monitor unfair practices of the public utilizes, and crack down on absentee landlords in Detroit
End mortgage fraud
Tap the geothermal energy beneath Detroit
Instead of massive demolition, have “Adopt-a-House” programs to preserve existing housing
Put solar panels on all roofs, explore alternative energy
Create spaces that nurture families and children
Make the city wireless and make sure each household has a computer
Stop foreclosures and property speculation

Just as the session was starting to spur constructive discussion, it was interrupted. The Mayor decided to bring everyone together again to reiterate that the process was going to be bottom-up, not top-down.

I hope that tonight’s experience was part of a learning curve for both the Mayor and the people he represents. Otherwise, if Detroit is waiting for its ship to come in, that ship better have one thing on it: A boatload of imagination.

Camp We All Just Get Along?

2010-09-03T21:25:00.000-04:00

I love camping. I love the big sky, the cold mornings, the tinge of soreness from sleeping on the ground, the freedom from laundry and shopping and busyness. I love how when you go camping, cooking is everyone’s job, not just mine. I love the boredom and the wonder. I love the char of food cooked on an open fire. I love smores. I love long talks around a bonfire, and the starlit ghost stories.

I haven’t been camping since our kids graduated from high school four years ago. But when they were growing up, our family used to venture into the woods to rough it with two other African American families. (Actually, one family even packed a portable toilet, a portable fridge and a three-bedroom tent, but I digress.)

It wasn’t long before I realized that our merry band of black campers was quite an aberration. Michigan is full of lakes and pristine forest, but you can go an entire season and not see another black person paddling a canoe or hiking the falls. The sad truth is that African Americans don’t camp—or hike or hunt or fish. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, 96 percent of all hunters in the United States, 93 percent of wildlife watchers and 92 percent of anglers were white in 2006. The Outdoor Foundation contends that 80 percent of outdoor recreationists are white, across all age groups.

I once mentioned this to my mother who shrugged and said, “When you grow up without electricity and no indoor plumbing, camping isn’t a vacation, it’s real life.”

That may be true for a Depression-era baby who grew up in rural Virginia—but that certainly wouldn’t explain why so many African Americans don’t engage with the Great Outdoors. Psychologists offer a far more insidious explanation: The traumatic kidnapping of our ancestors across the bloody waters of the Middle Passage, the grueling toil under the slave sun, cross burnings in midnight forests, trees bearing that “strange fruit.” Shelton Johnson, an interpretive specialist at Yosemite National Park told the UPI last year that the apartheid of outdoor life is “bigger that just African Americans not visiting national parks. I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America.”

What we as African Americans need to understand is that much of this is memory, not reality. According to the FBI, only about 1.2 percent of all hate crimes in 2008 happened in a field or the woods. About one-third (2,480 cases) happened at home with another third occurring on an urban road/alley or at an educational institution.

It’s great to see that this is an issue that is now getting some attention. Connecting youth with nature has increasingly become a tactic for easing violence and anti-social behaviors. That, coupled with the Green Movement, is moving urban blacks closer to the land and spawning a new generation of urban farmers.
As far back as 1993, a group of African American RVers gathered in suburban Detroit for the largest camping convocation of its kind. The outcome was the National African American RVers Association, which today has flourished into five regions and a National Annual Camp Rally.

As Dianne Glave wrote in the introduction to her book, “Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage,” “Long before the birth of the environmental movement, African Americans practiced environmentalism through the lenses of religion, agriculture, gardening and nature study. These practices have been documented in Africa as well as during enslavement, through the twentieth century, and even today.”

Maybe it’s not so much that African Americans don’t appreciate the outdoors, it’s just that we appreciate it differently. When I think about it, we are always fishing off of piers and docks, we are always growing flowers in the backyard and planting tomatoes along a hot brick wall. We are a community of front porches and evening fireflies. And we wade into rivers to profess our faith in God.

It’s little-known that novelist Richard Wright, famous for his searing depictions of racism and the alienation of urban America, sat quietly over the years contemplating nature. He left behind thousands of traditional Japanese haiku that harked back to the synergy of the natural world and the black soul:

In the silent forest
A woodpecker hammers at
The sound of silence.

P.S.
You might also be interested in reading, "Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry," edited by Camille T. Dungy

She's Still Got More Hell to Raise

2010-08-22T09:40:00.002-04:00

Bettye LaVette took the stage at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit last night and sang away the rain with her hard-scrabble testimony. The Muskegon-born and Detroit-raised blues rocker didn’t start her career in church like so many other artists of her genre, but when she took the main stage at the African World Festival, she carried the audience from sin to salvation.

I first heard of LaVette through National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air.” You might have seen her sing a duet of Sam Cooke’s 1964 “A Change is Gonna Come” with Jon Bon Jovi last year at President Obama’s Inauguration. But she's been around a long time.

LaVette first tasted fame at the tender age of 16, when she recorded "My Man - He's a Lovin' Man,” with Johnnie Mae Matthews. It became a Top Ten R & B hit in 1962, and she ended up touring with the likes of Otis Redding. But she and other black artists were swamped by the British Invasion, a movement that borrowed heavily from the R & B and blues artists that it eventually buried. She had some hit singles and even a run on Broadway in “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” but never got the limelight she deserved.

That is, until a French R & B collector heard some of her unreleased master recordings for Atlantic Records (the company that deep-sixed her project in 1972 without explanation) and resurrected her career. Since then, she won the 2004 W. C. Handy Award for “Comeback Blues Album of the Year” for her CD, “A Woman Like Me.” In 2005, she released the groundbreaking "I've Got More Hell To Raise," a collection written entirely by women, including Fiona Apple and Dolly Parton. And her 2007 “The Scene of the Crime” album was nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Album. ”

“Six years ago, they raised me from the crypt,” she joked on stage. Well, it’s been one heck of a resurrection.

Terry Mathis, Randall Coats, Bettye LaVette and Marissa Ross

Backstage, LaVette sat backstage sipping champagne and surrounded by a close clatch of family and friends. Old, old friends. They laughed and told stories about being on the road, while her daughter, Terry Mathis sat close by. Terry’s children, Randall Coats and Marissa Ross, were there too. Marissa will be a freshman at Western University in a few weeks, but not before accompanying her grandmother to performances out west.

On stage, the svelte 65-year-old, (who, by the way, danced in sexy stilettos the whole time), delivered a series of songs from her newest release, “Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook,” that were raw and personal. Her rendition of the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” was so piercingly honest, it was hard not to flinch. She sang several other songs from “Interpretations,” including Elton John's“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” but you couldn’t help but think that’s the way the songs should have been sung in the first place.

Everyone who ventured out in the chilly drizzle of late summer was rewarded by a performance to remember. But just watching LaVette give her all on stage, you knew that she’s beat back a lot more than a little bad weather.

African Americans and Asian Indians - Who's got the corner on blackness?

2010-08-09T15:46:00.001-04:00

Desiree chats with Dr. Mahalingam about skin color on WDET

Several weeks ago, I blogged about the intersection between Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and the Dalit (Untouchable) struggle for equal rights in India. Today, I was on the Craige Fahle Show, 101.9-FM WDET, talking about the fascinating similarities for an hour.

We needed YEARS to unpack the joint experiences of colonial oppression, and how both groups have learned to oppress themeselves with prejudices against darker skin. If African Americans thought they had the corner on being "color struck," it pales (literally) in comparison to the Indian obsession with light skin.You'll have to hear it to believe it.

The conversation gets deep when Neena Pottore shares her American experience as a dark-skinned Indian.

After you've had a listen, you might want to check out the websites/papers online authored by my guests:

Dr. Ram Mahalingam, Psychology, University of Michigan

Daniel Immerwahr, History, University of California-Berkeley

Two views of Detroit

2010-07-26T17:06:00.000-04:00

Despite the cold economy and scalding weather this summer, Detroiters insist on finding something to celebrate. I’m a lucky girl that I can see the first base line from my office window overlooking Comerica Park. This season, more than any other season since I moved to Detroit in 1984, I’ve been hanging out at Tigers’ games, enjoying the great American pastime.

From a seat in the stadium, it’s easy to imagine Detroit in its glory days. The skyline is gorgeous, and the stadium is packed with happy sports fans. From the bleachers—armed with a hotdog and popcorn—one can almost imagine that all is well in the Motor City.

But just blocks away, there are always stark reminders...

This photo was taken by my dear friend, Bruce Giffin

Detroit Red and the Untouchables

2010-07-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

(A version of this blog first appeared at The NAACP Legal Defense Fund's Defenders Online)

This year marks the 85th birthday of Detroit Red, the man the world knows as Malcolm X. The Muslim civil rights activist spent his younger years in Lansing and Detroit, Michigan. In 1953, he became assistant minister of the Nation of Islam's Temple Number One in Detroit.

I’ve noticed that the mainstream media still talks about Malcolm X as “controversial,” although he seems to be embraced more widely today than he was when he was living. But it wasn’t until I met Meena Kandasamy that I realized just how broadly Malcolm X not only influenced the course of civil rights in the United States, but the worldwide struggle for equality as well.

Meena is slightly built, with a mane of dark hair and a disarming smile. Underneath, she is a fireball poet-revolutionary, full of an indignation reminiscent of the young Malcolm X. A resident of Chennai, India, Meena was born a Dalit, or Untouchable. The word “Dalit” means crushed, broken down, torn apart. There are more than 160 million Untouchables in India, a group that is reviled as the lowest rung of the caste system, much like African Americans before the Civil Rights Era.

“The Dalit struggle for the last two centuries has sought for the right to use public roads, public transport (recently, a Dalit was beaten up for daring to sit next to an upper caste man), enter public places of worship, and so on,” Meena said.

It’s interesting that while the black Civil Rights Movement looked to Gandhi as a model of social change, Dalits look to African American militant movements.

“For us, Malcolm X is iconic,” she said. “The Dalits also borrowed from the Black Panther Movement when they realized that they had to deal not only with a discriminatory society, but with ruthless state terror in the form of police atrocities. The crimes against Dalits were seldom taken care of by the state, and in most instances, the worst hit were the women.”

The lack of police protection led the Dalit people to escalate their violent discourse: “They said, if you touch our sister, you will not have that hand,” said Meena, who is an English lecturer in Anna University in Chennai.

The early Dalit militant movement, which began in the state of Maharashtra, even called itself the Dalit Panthers. Dalit activists translated black poets like Langston Hughes.

When will the caste structure finally be decimated? Despite her commitment to the cause, Meena is not optimistic.

“The system operates through distrust: and a preconceived notion that we are not only low, but also evil,” she wrote in the Himal Southasian, in April 2010. “Demonizing us, and dehumanizing us, allows caste Hindus the luxury of having an argument to defend their case, and to gloss over all the social injustices with which the system has been permeated.”

Which is why, she wrote further, that the quest for equality is too often seen by the “upper” castes as a movement to “humanize,” “civilize” and educate the Dalits. Sound familiar?

Here’s another connection between African Americans and Dalits—it turns out that the culture of segregation is not only about law, but about mindset. Meena told the story about a fellow Tamil Dalit who was driving through Denver with another caste Hindu.

"Seeing the poor African Americans there, the rundown neighborhoods and obvious poverty, the caste Hindu, said, ‘Namba ooru cheri maadiriyae irukku illa?’ (It is exactly like the Dalit settlements in our village, isn’t it?),” Meena wrote. “That is the problem with the caste-Hindu mind: it is trained to recognize caste everywhere, and to replicate its order.”

That’s why, she continued, an Indian living in the United States will perpetuate the caste distinctions, imposing them on the African American culture. He might wonder, “‘How do I face my relatives and family back in the village if my daughter marries a kallu (black)?’” wrote Meena. “His fear is as heartfelt as that of a 15th-century Brahmin facing excommunication for transgressing caste boundaries.”

She added that President Barack Obama might be astonished that his black brothers and sisters are not only seen through a racial perspective, but also in a casteist manner—a point of view that hampers African American—Indian relationships. “Until there is a change in this mindset,” she wrote, “wishing away caste is going to be a pointless pastime.”

But at the most basic level, there may still be more to connect Dalits and African Americans than what separates them.

"I believe that a lot of common work is possible,” said Meena. “Discrimination on the basis of race and on the basis of caste are basically signs of xenophobia and birth-based discrimination. When society fails to treat people with dignity, deprive them of equal opportunity, make them victims of violence and unduly criminalizes these communities and denies them access to the best education there is a lot to be shared—not just in terms of solidarity and support, but also in terms of dialogue and engagement and lessons from each other's experiences of resistance.”

We real hot
By Meena Kandasamy
(Inspired by "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks)

We real hot. We
Ne'er rot. We
Know knack. We
Beat back. We
Shock stars. We
Win wars. We
Ne'er late. We
Fuck Fate.

http://www.meenakandasamy.com/Interviews.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0602_030602_untouchables.html

Lights, Camera, Action Everywhere!

2010-06-30T10:39:00.002-04:00

Here's something you don't hear often in Detroit --- I'm sick of all the movie stars.

Yesterday, I was just trying to get my favorite fattoush salad at Al's Paradise when suddenly I found myself in Paris, circa 1980. A crew filming Richard Gere's new independent movie, "The Double," had transformed nearby beer and burger joint, Coaches Corner, into Le Petit Escargot. The park was suddenly lined with red umbrellas and artists easels, a la Paris's Left Bank. Strange European cars lined the street.

I hung around and took pictures until a security guard walled me off. Never did get my fattoush..and never saw Richard Gere.

On Monday, I blogged about the reality show "Parking Wars" filming in Detroit. This week, they've been running a marathon on A and E, which I finally watched until the bickering got the better of me. One of the Detroit parking violation stars is "Ponytail," a man whose nickname is self-explanatory. When I drove up to work this morning, who should be out front writing parking tickets? PONYTAIL!!!!

He's quite a celebrity and very friendly when he's not putting a ticket on your windshield. We chatted until the man at the expired meter discovered a City of Detroit love note on his windshield. I snapped a picture of the confrontation, but, unlike the cameramen in "Parking Wars," left the scene before things got too hot.

There's so much filming happening in Detroit, I just might start wearing make-up everyday.... Naw.

Just what Detroit needs--more reality

2010-06-29T11:22:00.000-04:00

I'll admit it. I LOVE reality shows: "Project Runway," "Top Chef," "Hell's Kitchen," "House Hunters" and even "American Idol." It's a blast to peek into other people's lives and watch them overcome life's challenges (even if it's contrived).

There are few cities in the United States where people are facing more challenges than in Detroit. (On the reality show "Last Comic Standing" last night, one comic said that Haiti will soon be sending aid to Detroit.) That makes Detroit fodder for some great reality shows--until recently.

In May, 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed by a policeman's bullet during a morning raid. The police had been trailing a murder suspect who was thought to be hiding in her home. Questions still swirl as to whether the horrible accident was fueled by the fact that a TV crew was along on the raid. They were filming for a new, A and;E reality show, "The First 48," about police tracking down murder suspects.

The city has been outraged, and the Mayor has even banned TV crews from tagging along on police raids.

But that hasn't stopped the cameras from rolling. In August, NBC will feature a reality show, "School Pride," in which Detroit's Communications and Media Arts High School will get a makeover. The school had been slated for closing until it won a spot on the show.

And who doesn't love "Animal Cops: Detroit," on Animal Planet?

My friend Booba is always casting for a hypothetical "Real Housewives of Detroit." The clear choices are: Former City Council President Monica Conyers (who will soon serve a prison sentence for corruption), no-nonsense Wayne County Chief Operating Officer Bella Marshall (married to cable pioneer, casino magnate, and businessman Don Barden), Democratic political activist Debbie Dingell (married to Rep. John Dingell), businesswoman and publisher Denise Ilitch, lawyer and political junkie Sharon McPhail and, of course, Aretha Franklin.

Monica Conyers

Sharon McPhailDebbie DingellDenise IlitchAretha Franklin

Bella Marshall

Recently, I was hanging out in front of Garden Bowl on Woodward (built in 1913, it's America's oldest active bowling center). A city parking officer drove up and started writing a parking ticket. Since it wasn't my car, I really didn't pay any attention--until the TV cameras showed up. Turns out, they were filming for "Parking Wars Detroit," a reality TV about our public servants who write tickets and boot cars. I gawked for awhile waiting for the drama to unfold.

Where was the inarticulate, dentally-challenged, doped-up, victim of foreign hair-dos when you needed him? The whole scene was very Zen, since the ticketee never showed up. Evidently, the real reality show has a bit more grit. Check it out.

Honestly, I think that the last thing Detroit needs is more hard reality. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a fictional show based in Detroit called "Full Employment."

Not Diggin' It: Is Detroit's Future Really an Agrarian Past?

2010-06-23T00:38:00.000-04:00

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. ~Orson Scott Card

Detroit has had its share of sacred cows: The Big Three, Motown and even former Mayor Coleman Young. But they don’t hold a candle to the latest Mother of All Bovines—urban farming.

City farming is not exactly a new trend; people have been serious farmers in their backyards since...well since Detroit started in the 1700s. But these days, the idea is the darling of the green movement and has been idealized by the media. Since Detroit is out of options, the story reads, it may as well turn to The Good Earth.

It's an easy way to make hay of Detroit's 40 square miles of vacant land, that's for sure. Would-be commercial farmers like John Hantz, a businessman who intends to invest $30,000,000 over the next ten years, plans to build a 5,000-acre, corporate farming concern smack dab in the ‘hood.

"Farming is how Detroit started," Michael Score, president of Hantz Farms, told the L.A. Times last winter, "and farming is how Detroit can be saved."

Stop right there.

I understand how farming can alleviate hunger. I get how it can create oases in the urban food desert, raise community consciousness and even sprout micro-businesses. My own garden (yes, I’ve grown flowers, tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, and cukes for years) used to have a sign that said, “To garden is to be next to God.” I get the many human, social and spiritual benefits of gardening—all of which are needed in Detroit.

But I can’t buy that Detroit’s economic future lies in an agrarian past. Are they for real????

As enticing as the urban commercial farming appears, it’s only possible because of the jaw-dropping, low property values in urban centers like Detroit. Anywhere else, taking swaths out of a city to only employ 100 people in low-wage positions might be called a lot of things, but economic progress isn’t one of them.

(Honk if you've seen "farmer" on any list of the ten most lucrative professions of the future.)

I recently heard a story on Michigan Public Radio that dared articulate this concern. Chris Bedford, founder of Sweetwater Local Foods Market in Montague, Michigan was in the room when Hantz Farms discussed its urban commercial farming plan over a year ago.

“The word plantation came up,” Bedford told public radio. “In the guise of helping Detroit, he’s grabbing square miles of land to do something that’s not really helping people of Detroit. He’ll have a few low-wage jobs, but it’s better to have the land owned by the people, gardened by the people, growing food for themselves and neighboring communities. It’s just the opposite of what Detroit needs.”

I found it interesting that the reporter quoted a source that far outside of the city limits. Trust me, this is not a popular thing to say inside Detroit, where everyone seems to be drinking the urban farming Kool-Aid. But I, too, have heard the “plantation” word grumbled at many community meetings about urban farming. Although the word has distinctly racial overtones, I think the term plantation is being used to point out the antiquated economic model of urban farming—to employ a few at very low or subsistence wages for the economic benefit of a large landowners. That’s an economic development model that proved to have a few kinks two centuries ago. And I ain’t whistlin’ Dixie.

Bill Knudson, an agricultural economist at Michigan State, raised another roadblock when interviewed by the L.A. Times. Right now, being a locavore (eating locally) is a hot trend that is creating a hot local market.

"The million-dollar question is whether that local-food trend is permanent," Knudson told the Times. "If it is, then this plan works because you have more than a million consumers in the city and nearby areas to sell to. If not, you're going to have a hard time getting enough acreage put together to make the costs of running a commercial operation feasible."

Of course, this isn’t news to Hantz. He recently told the Atlantic: “When it comes to farming, scale is crucial. Depending on what you start with, you have a range between three and seven years to become profitable and have cash flow.”

To be fair, I have heard about some urban farming models that seem to make more sense. They are not top-down, corporate models, but community empowerment models. Like the proposed Recovery Park, a public-private-nonprofit, 2,000-acre development headed by the Shar Foundation. A 30-acre pilot farm will be only one component of the development that will also include housing, commercial development, educational programs and green spaces.

At $220 million, the project promises 4,000 permanent jobs over the next 10 years. That number of jobs is high but hopeful, since the project isn't only about farming but also about housing demolition, soil preparation, food processing, hydroponics, indoor fish farms, an equestrian boarding operation. It will even include a for-profit clothing business, according to Crain's Detroit Business.

Look, I am all for neighborhood economies around locally grown food. But if turning Detroit into a city of farm workers is the best plan we have for economic development, that's a tough row to hoe.

Quiet Riot: The U.S. Social Forum Comes to Detroit

2010-06-18T16:16:00.000-04:00

There’s going to be another uprising in Detroit this summer, but this one will be a quiet riot. From June 22 – 26, tens of thousands of activists will converge upon Detroit. And this time, it will not to be to vent anger, but to exude positivity. It’s called the 2010 United States Social Forum, a convocation of global, progressives who will descend upon the city to imagine a better world—and ways to make it happen.

"All over the country, people are talking about an economic crisis that Detroit has been dealing with since the ‘70s,” said William Copeland, one of the local coordinators of the Forum. “Because of what we’ve been through—and because of our legacy of activism in civil rights and labor that carried the nation for so many years—Detroit will blow people’s minds.”

What is the U.S. Social Forum?

I think Copeland has a point. It’s easy to see what Detroit is not accomplishing these days. But it takes a willingness to go into communities to understand how much Detroiters have taken upon themselves to hold up in the absence of business investment and in the face of government shortfalls.

When I first moved to Detroit, I couldn’t believe how much housing was built by neighborhood community developers, how many children were safehoused after school by community volunteers, how many streets were patrolled all night by neighborhood watch crews. The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation lists more than 45 church and community-based organizations building affordable housing in the city. Detroit is a do-it-yourself town, one that has many lessons to offer the rest of the nation as the recession lingers.

That’s why Detroiters have been included in the more than 1,000 workshops that will be offered over the course of four days during the Forum. The workshops/conversations are centered around 14 topics, including: Capitalism in Crisis; Tearing Down Poverty; Building Economic Alternatives and a Solidarity Economy; to Climate Justice; Sustainability, Resources and Land; to Displacement, Migration and Immigration.

The Forum is not a traditional, top-down conference. It is more like a “meet-up,” an opportunity for like-minded progressives to interact and build upon past successes. Four organizations are collaborating to plan the forum: the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, Centro Obrero de Detroit, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Southwest Michigan Jobs with Justice.

“At the Forum, we won’t necessarily be handing out meals to the homeless,” said Copeland, pictured here. “We will be creating a space where the homeless can attend and connect with others nationally about the causes and solutions.”

A Global Idea Goes Local

The seeds for the U.S. Social Forum go back to November 1999, when protests against the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, Washington were met with violence. Often referred to as “The Battle in Seattle,” tens of thousands of people—mostly young and white—protested against the global economic policies that were contributing to entrenched poverty, environmental degradation, global warming and human rights violations.

The unrest was seen as an opportunity for pro-active global organizing around progressive ideals. The World Social Forum (WSF) held its first meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001, under the banner, “Another World is Possible.”

Atila Roque, of Basilia, was among the group of people who planned the first WSF, and is now the co-director of the Institute of Economic and Social Studies in Brazil.

“When we started talking about putting together a World Social Forum,” Roque said, “we were convinced about the need for a space where movements and organizations from everywhere could come together to exchange, network and learn from each other’s experiences. We also wanted to coordinate around common agendas.”

Since then, the WSF has been held annually in places like Mumbai, India and Nairobi, Kenya. As the global movement grew, talks began for a social forum in the United States by 2004, “not only due to the United States’ ‘imperial’ role in the world, but even more importantly, because of the intensity of the struggles taking place there, particularly those conducted by grassroots, people of color and immigrants,” said Roque.

Project South, a 24-year-old youth development organization, was part of those preliminary discussions. “We felt strongly that any effective social movement in this country had to confront white supremacy,” said Emery Wright, part of Project South’s executive leadership team. Wright is also on the national planning committee for the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. “The South has played a critical role, both in terms of the vicious human rights violations and the most visionary movements to oppose them,” Wright said. “The South is very poor. Because the Social Forum is about dismantling oppressive systems, we felt strongly that the first U.S. Social Forum should be held in Atlanta.”

Not only did organizers agree that the forum should take place in Atlanta, they also felt it should be more racially inclusive. Following “The Battle in Seattle,” the movement had been perceived as a white one that largely inspired young, educated activists.

“We wanted the U.S. Social Forum to be led by the people who were suffering the most under oppressive policies,” said Wright, who is African American. “We told them to slow down and let us develop grassroots buy-in.”

Preparations were in place when Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. Due to the devastation of the region, the first U.S. Social Forum was delayed until 2007. But the severe economic and racial inequities laid bare by the Katrina disaster helped demonstrate the relevance of global social action to the black community. In the end, a diverse group of more than 12,000 people attended from all 50 of the states, Guam, Puerto Rico and 68 countries.

Now the group is looking forward to a different experience in Detroit.

“The context, both domestically and internationally is now totally different,” said Roque, who noted this is the 10th anniversary of the WSF. “For one, there is the new Obama Administration and the wave of optimism his campaign and election spread around the world. Detroit itself will be a unique opportunity for participants from overseas to experience the deepness of this change and the challenges Americans are facing.”

What is activism?

One barrier to black engagement in the social forum has been the perception that it is the purview of white activists. In fact, Cara Page, an African American who helped plan the Atlanta forum, refuses to call herself an activist.

“I identify as an organizer,” said Page, a healer who is concerned about healthy, safe environments. “Organizers work within communities to meet the needs of the grassroots.”

“This is something we learned in Atlanta,” said Detroit’s Hicks, who is working with Page to plan the Detroit forum. “Not everyone is engaged in issues, but they are engaged in their communities. We have to make people aware that no matter what their engagement is, they have to begin to reach out and improve their awareness of the bigger issues. We can’t wait for the missionaries, carpetbaggers and politicians to save us.”

NOTE: A version of this story first appeared on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's website: http://www.thedefendersonline.og/

True Crime: A Suburban Story

2010-06-12T19:46:00.000-04:00

Last summer, I moved from the City of Detroit where I had lived for more than 25 years to West Bloomfield, a Detroit suburb. It’s been a culture shock, for sure.

One of the biggest changes has been a heightened feeling of security in the suburbs, real or imagined. Nowadays, we are deliciously relaxed when it comes to crime reports. I go to sleep to the sound of tree frogs and crickets instead of sirens and explosions. We use our garage door opener instead of front door keys (our 75-year-old home in Detroit didn’t have an attached garage). And we rarely engage the security alarm.

But all is not well in paradise. Recently, my son came home and asked, “Mom, did you go into my car?” Evidently, someone had rummaged through the glove compartment, leaving it open but leaving everything intact. (I didn’t do it!) Another one of our cars had received the same treatment—riffled but nothing stolen, not even the loose change or the CDs.

“Kids,” I thought, and didn’t think anything more.

When my son called me at work the next day and said that someone had cracked the passenger side view mirror, I began to get annoyed. The dealership said would cost $250 to replace.

A few days later, I got a frantic call from my neighbor. “Someone is going through cars in our neighborhood!” she said, adding that she hated having to share such bad news. “Be careful and make sure you lock your cars.”

I confessed to her that we had already been vandalized. She was silent for a minute, then said, “Oh, I thought I was calling to warn you, but I guess I was too late.”

Here’s what I knew was unspoken: “If you were a victim of crime, why didn’t you call me and warn me?”

The answer is simple. I really didn’t think of it as crime. I never even considered calling the police or even the neighborhood association. After years of living in Detroit, I had become desensitized to what constitutes a violation.

The difference between what Detroiters consider crime and what West Bloomfielders consider crime is dramatic. Here are some snippets from the Crime Watch section of the West Bloomfield Beacon and from the neighborhood crime watch emails sent to my old Detroit neighbors:

West Bloomfield: An officer discovered that a vulgar word was written in green marker on the side and front of a mailbox belonging to a homeowner in the 2000 block of Hidden Lake Drive. The homeowner believes that the vandalism happened overnight. Damage was estimated at $20.

Detroit: The University District has seen an increase in burglaries and attempts to burglarized recently--although attacks on cars have diminished. With this evening's break-in, the burglars first disabled the telephone lines which would have alerted the alarm company and then the police department. Neighbors with this sort of alarm system may wish to investigate the upgrades which can include battery back-up and radio call functions so that cutting phone/electric lines does not disable the alarm function.

West Bloomfield: A 19-year-old Commerce Township man was reportedly sprayed in the face with an unknown chemical by his girlfriend near a restaurant in the 6000 block of Maple Road. According to the police, the man had been waiting to meet a female friend in the parking lot when his 18-year-old girlfriend confronted him and asked if he was going to cheat on her. Then the woman allegedly sprayed the man with the chemical and struck him several times. The man did not want to press charges, police said.

Detroit: Attached is a flyer with a couple of ATM security video images of one of the suspects that was directly related to the recent armed robbery and carjacking on Renfrew and believed to be involved in the one at Pembroke and Lichfield. We also have tied this suspect and unidentified accomplices to three others, two in the 17500 block area of Wildemere and one in Dearborn. We think he may have some familial ties to Greenacres/Sherwoood Forest, so the more eyes in our neighborhood who see this, the better. Note the wrist tattoo image at the bottom right of the flyer.

West Bloomfield: A man from the 5000 block of Loveland told police that he had borrowed $40 from another person about a week earlier, but he hadn’t paid back the loan yet. The borrower told police that he was getting nonstop calls and several texts about the money, and the borrower reportedly said the messages were escalating to death threats. The officer reportedly talked to the lender, who denied making any threats. Police said the borrower did not want to prosecute.

West Bloomfield: Police, with an assist from the Fire Department, reportedly found a 16-year-old boy intoxicated, unconscious and unable to stand up May 29 at the St. Mary’s Polish Country Fair…Police said the boy was arrested for being a minor in possession.

To be fair, the Detroit emails also included a fair number of alerts for missing/found dogs. But the contrast is mind-blowing. As the saying goes, humans can get used to almost anything. But what I came to accept as “normal” while living in Detroit is truly a crime.

Rollin' on the River

2010-05-13T10:17:00.000-04:00

I first came to Detroit as a summer law clerk more than 25 years ago. That's when I fell in love with this town. At the time, I didn't realize that everyone had been couped up for eight months and were ready to get their party on. I just thought Detroit was an amazingly friendly place that celebrated nonstop festivals, offered every kind of food under the sun (speaking of the sun, it doesn't set until 10 p.m. in mid-summer!) and invested all of its energy into garage bands, Coney Islands, and hair care.

Detroit had me at "Hoedown."

Recently, I left my downtown office, put on my pink tennis shoes and went for a constitutional down the RiverWalk. Now there's a concept! When I moved to Detroit in 1984, the waterfront was hogged by contaminated sites and cement factories. Today it is a sparkling, dazzling tribute to Detroit's indomitable spirit. The project is not complete, but already it has transformed the face of the city when it's at its best....SUMMER!

C'mon, let's take a stroll....

I took this photo of Hart Plaza. It's supposedly on the site where Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac landed in 1701 when he founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit. Yes, Detroit's that old! The circular spaceship thing is actually the Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain, designed by Isamu Noguchi and Walter Budd in 1978.

This is one of my favorite spots on the waterfront overlooking Windsor, Ontario. The statue is part of an International Memorial to the Underground Railroad that was erected to celebrate Detroit's tricentennial. Detroit was called "Midnight" on the Underground Railroad. The same sculptor did a companion piece on the Windsor side, where so many slaves escaped to freedom.

Yep - this baby sits right on the waterfront - General Motors' World Headquarters. GM has not only done a lot to bound back as a company, it's also done a lot for the waterfront. The glass area you see is called the Winter Garden - a beautiful atrium that's always being used for hoity-toity events. Like perhaps this event...

Yes I did just stumble up on someone's wedding and start taking pictures! But the bride was so beautiful, and the bridesmaids' gowns were the color of the sky and the river. Gorgeous!

Definitely the best part of the RiverWalk is the way Detroiters from all walks of life come out to enjoy the sun. Here are a few I met on the way:

At Rivard Plaza, there's a wonderful carousel...

And check out this little gymnast who has yet to take a lesson...

He knows something about gravity that I never figured out.

Well, I had to go and catch a Tiger's game. These two were killing time before the Red Wing's game. Detroit is a sports town down to the bone.

Just when I was leaving, folks were getting ready to board the Detroit Princess - moonlight cruises on the Detroit River are fun, with live bands, food and frolicking.

Come and visit us sometime. There's nothing like summer in Detroit!

Walter Mosley brings the literary life to Detroit

2010-04-21T23:00:00.000-04:00

photo by Mark Brown

If there’s one thing that author Walter Mosley proved when he spoke at Marygrove College on Friday, it was that there’s nothing simple about writing mysteries—or writing anything for that matter.

“Your sentences have to sparkle, but not too bright,” he lectured a packed Alumnae Hall, full of fans, readers and aspiring writers. “Your technique has to be invisible. Your characters have to surprise, yet, when the reader thinks about it, it’s exactly what that character would do.”

Mosley, who wasn’t published until he was 38, is one of the most prolific and beloved American authors. He’s best known for his detective mysteries, including “Devil in a Blue Dress,” which was made into a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington.

He was in Detroit for the Bauder Contemporary American Authors Lecture, Detroit’s premier literary event. Endowed by Dr. Lillian and Donald Bauder, the series is now in its 22nd year. This year, as in previous years, Detroit Poet Laureate Naomi Long Madgett was also present.

(Pictured l to r: Marygrove English professor Frank Rashid, benefactors Donald and Dr. Lillian Bauder, and Marygrove President David Fike)
It always amazes me how hundreds cram into the regal Alumnae Hall at Marygrove to hear a famous author or poet, including Pearl Cleage, Edwidge Danticat and Obama Inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander. I’ve heard authors nearly gasp at the size and enthusiasm of the crowd, the kind usually reserved in other cities for pop stars.

“I love coming to Detroit,” said Mosley, a California native who lives in New York. “If this used to be a mostly-white college, I can tell it isn’t now, because when I say ‘hello,’ everyone says ‘hello’ back.”

Mosley surprised me by not reading from one of his many detective novels that feature iconic characters like Easy Rawlins, Fearless Jones or Socrates Fortlow. Instead, he read an essay about “The Literary Life,” and how one attains it.

Mosley’s father was a black, Louisiana-born, head custodian for a California school district (Mosley couldn’t help noticing the finely-polished, Pewabic-tiled floors at Marygrove). His father was also a frustrated writer who had once submitted a Western novel, only to find it published years later under someone else’s name. Mosley’s mother was descended from Jewish immigrants. Listening to his family stories taught him the power of a audience to shape a writer.

“The act of writing comes from an act of love--a listening, appreciative audience,” he said.

He always wanted to be a part of the literary life, because literature comes closer to the truth “than any journalistic endeavor,” he said. But his father always emphasized that he focus on a career, which may explain why Mosley didn’t start thinking about becoming a writer until he was in his 30s.

“My father gave me two pieces of advice: Pay the rent and do what you love,” he mused. “He never thought I’d pay the rent, so he never worried about me being a writer.”

His father may have been right to worry. It wasn’t easy for Mosley to get published; publishers felt his work wasn’t “commercial” enough.

“By that they meant that whites didn’t care about stories about blacks, black women didn’t like black men and black men didn’t read,” said Mosley. “Who would buy my books?”

Another publisher told him that there was already a black detective in a novel. “I said that there were lots of white detectives,” Mosley said wryly. “He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’”

(Pictured l to r: Jill Boyer, Detroit Poet Laureate Naomi Long Madgett's daughter; Desiree Cooper and the Poet Laureate herself!)
Mosley has managed to break through with powerful storytelling. His 32 books, which have been translated into 21 languages, include short story collections, speculative fiction, “Afrofuturism” and politics. He has won an O Henry Award, a Grammy, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Sundance Risktaker Award.

He writes several hours a day in order to drill down below the mantle of consciousness and allow his characters to inspire themselves. “A lot of people don’t write because they’re trapped in consciousness,” he said.

As to the literary life, Mosley implored writers to think of the process like a partnership. “The reader creates as much of the story as the writers do,” he said. “They are peers and partners, enabling the work to take on a new life. The literary life is on street corners, death beds, and death rows---wherever there are dreamers.

“Language—not DNA—is the root of all things human.”

(Click here for some video of the question and answer session shot by my friend, Mark Brown)

Girls in Trouble in Hamtramck

2010-04-07T01:08:00.000-04:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a Seder, but I was lucky enough to end the Passover season with an unexpected celebration at Hamtramck’s Café 1923. It was the first Detroit appearance of the band, “Girls in Trouble,” a folk, indie group from Brooklyn. The band’s lead singer-songwriter, Alicia Jo Rabins, has written a musical cycle about the women of the Torah, “most of whom were always in trouble.”

“We learn so many of the Judeo-Christian stories as children,” said Rabins after a 90-minute set in the cozy, parlor-like setting. “But the stories are complex, adult stories of love, betrayal and seduction. I think it’s wonderful to have a Holy book that expresses the range of the human experience. That’s why we’ve been able to have a conversation with it for so many generations.”

Rabins' “conversation” with the Torah will ultimately come in three albums of ten songs each, all of them inspired by female characters in the Jewish tradition. “It’s a feminist project, for sure,” she said. “So many of the stories are traditionally told from the male perspective. They often center around the female body.”

One of her favorite Jewish heroines is Judith, the beautiful widow who goes with her loyal maid to the camp of Holofernes, the enemy general who has conquered the city. Gaining his trust, she goes to him one night while he is drunk. Decapitating him, she takes the head back to her people. Rabins' favorite painting of the story is by Artemisia Gentileschi--it happens to hang in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Her song about Judith, “Who Sent the Heat?” swaps the story’s blood and gore for a saga about a woman who must take action to save her own children.

Other songs address the lives of Miriam, Tamar, Eve and Lilith. The stripped-down sound of “Girls in Trouble” – the songs are accompanied by violin, bass, guitars and an accordion - is perfect for storytelling. And no wonder: Rabins is a recent graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA program in poetry. She knows what to do with words. (I'm no music critic--I just know what I like. Check out Jack Zaientz's blog for a great critical review of the night.)

Click on the video below, enjoy a few of the songs and check out the album!

Detroit: Reinventing Reinvention

2010-04-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Detroit in 1984, newly married and a freshly-minted attorney. I think it’s fair to say that I had a rosy outlook on just about everything in those days, especially on Detroit.

As my friends and family from other parts of the country watched in horror, I put roots down in the Motor City It was in the middle of a deep recession. The city was in the grips of a crack epidemic. Car-jackers and young predators ruled the streets. Neighborhoods went up in flames every Halloween.

But I assured my loved ones that there was more to Detroit than the senseless headlines of kids killing each other over tennis shoes. For one, there was a deeply entrenched black middle class. I couldn’t believe that wherever I went, another black person had already broken the racial barrier. That was nothing like life in my native in Virginia. I joked with my parents that I had arrived in the Mother Country.

There were stately homes, stable neighborhoods and an ethnic cornucopia of adventure – Polish Hamtramck, Greektown, and Mexicantown. There were centuries of black history.

In those days, I believed the common rhetoric: “We have nowhere to go but up.” So I rolled up my sleeves and did my part, leaving private practice to work at New Detroit, a nonprofit with a vision for Detroit’s great future. I taught race relations and leadership at Wayne State University, trying to develop a new generation of cross-cultural leaders. I raised my kids within the city limits so that they would know how thin the line was between the haves and have nots. I carved out a journalism career dedicated to the courageous people in this town who fought for change.

Is our future behind us?

A quarter of a century later, it turns out that we had plenty of places to go but up. Down and out, were two of them. Despite all the optimism, things really haven’t changed much at all. So forgive me if I don’t turn cartwheels when I hear about another initiative that will save the city. It seems like I’ve heard it all before.

Remember the Detroit Strategic Plan? It was a mammoth undertaking in the mid-1980s by Mayor Coleman Young, business, grassroots and philanthropy. After months of meeting, researching and planning, they came up with countless no-brainers: get a grip on public education, get public transportation that connects Detroiters in the city with jobs in the suburbs, get a handle on crime. There was also the controversial “Town Within a City.” It went like this – if we have too much malaise and too little resources, let’s at least make an oasis of our downtowns, connecting the waterfront to New Center with a highly developed Woodward Corridor. Sound familiar?

And does anyone remember the crazy cry of City of Detroit Ombudsman Marie Farrell-Donaldson who urged us to consider roping off huge swaths of the city and let it go to seed? That was more than 17 years ago. People went at her with pitchforks, torches and buckets of tar. Now “right-sizing” the city is all everyone is talking about. Seriously.

This week, the Detroit Free Press set out a plan for Detroit’s future that was so visionary, you’d have to have lived in Detroit more than five minutes to know that it was more like 20/20 hindsight. Yet, as my co-worker reminded me today, maybe the time for good ideas (even old ones) has finally arrived.

Marathon Woman

While I’m acting like a crotchety naysayer, I am encircled by people who not only believe in magic wands, but in hard work to make things better. My friend Nichole Christian is leader of a Detroit manifesto called “Declare Detroit.” And her t-shirts that express positive messages are more popular than ever.

There’s the New Economy Initiative where 10 national and local foundations have committed $100 million to an eight-year initiative to move metro Detroit from an industrial economy to one that is innovation based.

There are countless public space initiatives, from the Dequnidre Cut to the RiverWalk. Parks and greenspaces are the new watchwords in Detroit. And urban farming—a longtime mainstay in the city—is finally sitting at the table of respectable ideas. (And while I love the notion of Detroiters behaving more like stewards of the Earth, I’m not sure how making our vast empty spaces parks, meadows, farms and pastures really solves our problems. Public green spaces are expensive to maintain and police. And returning to an agrarian society may solve the problem of our access to local, fresh food, but I would hardly say that it’s the pathway to a vibrant economy. But there I go again…)

The film industry has us all with Hollywood stars in our eyes. Youngsters are enthralled by the opportunities for urban exploring. Regionalism is slowly creeping into our vocabularies. Business incubators like TechTown and Bizdom are inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs. The domestic automakers seem to be getting it together while Toyota is on the ropes.

OK, OK, so the glass is half full. I just know that Detroit’s road to recovery isn’t a spirit rally but a relay race. I’ve been running for the past 25 years—I’m ready to pass the baton to those who have the energy to run the next 25.

The Colors of My Mind

2010-03-21T00:40:00.000-04:00

Here are the facts:

Recently, I parked in front of an urban coffeehouse. Ever the pack mule, I unloaded my laptop, briefcase, purse and stack of books, then stumbled inside. Once I got settled at a seat near the giant window that fronted the building. I looked wistfully at my car.

It was a sunny, late afternoon. It was freezing outside. I was cozy and settled inside. And my car was unlocked.

I NEVER leave my car unlocked. But my remote key refuses to work no matter how many times I change the batteries. I gazed at the car and decided not to go back outside to manually lock it. I was sitting right in front of the coffeehouse gazing at the car parked on a busy street in broad daylight. What was the point?

About an hour later, I looked up and saw that a man was sitting on the passenger side with his head bowed.

For a few seconds, I was confused. Was that my car? Had my car been stolen while I was reading and replaced by this one? But no. That was my car with a stranger in it.

Reflexively, I got up and went outside. I tapped on the window and the man looked up. I spread my arms and said, “Dude, why are you sitting in my car?”

He didn’t really respond, so I put my hand on the handle. It was then that the owner of the coffee shop gently pushed me aside and opened the door himself.

“Is this your car?” he asked the stranger. “C’mon, get out.”

The man stood, silent and dazed. It was then that we noticed a bloody gash on the left side of his head, across his ear and cheek. Terror shuddered over me.

The man started walking away. When he got to the corner, he took off running.

The reality

Tough lesson in reality. You can be sure that I locked the car this time before going back into the coffee shop to finish my work. But I could not concentrate. I was trembling and full of tears. Why did I rush out to the car? The man could have had a gun. He was obviously crazed. What had I been thinking?

When I told the story to my friends, they were appalled. I was fascinated by the assumptions they made:

- “That’s what happens in Detroit!” (It wasn’t in Detroit, it was in Hamtramck, an enclave within the City of Detroit.)

-“That’s what happens when the state eviscerates the mental health system. Now the mentally ill are on the streets or in jail.” (The guy didn’t seem to be homeless. In fact, he was well dressed, with a pale sweater on and a scarf around his neck.)

But it was the depth of my own prejudices that had me shaken. I am certain that I would have never run out to the car by myself if the man had been black. Instead, the stranger had been white. He was sitting on the passenger side. I was not in Detroit. All of those facts disarmed my defenses. I assumed that the man had made a mistake or that he needed help.

It was only after I saw his bloodied ear that I realized how I had put myself in danger. Worse, I realized that if the man had been black and was in fact in trouble as he sat in my car, I probably would have called the police instead of coming to his aid.

The owner of the coffee house said he had noticed the guy come in earlier and thought he was acting strange. The man had taken off his coat and gone into the bathroom. His coat was still there. It was a hip, black velour jacket. In the pocket was an empty pack of Marlboros, a broken pink carnation and a dirty, plastic children’s toy (like a Happy Meal toy).

“Probably got high and then got his ass kicked in a bar,” the coffee shop owner said.

Again a trigger for me: Yeah, another white suburbanite who came into the city for drugs and got caught up in something he couldn’t handle.

Epilogue

I heard that the guy was back to the area later that night. He was still dazed, but angry. He was calling out a woman’s name.

Wow, maybe he had brought his girlfriend a bunch of flowers, but caught her in bed with someone. She’d thrown the flowers in his face. The new boyfriend had punched him in the head when he refused to leave. He’d picked up one of the broken carnations, put it in his pocket and left.

He wandered with a concussion and a broken heart. He got cold, tried the handle of my car and sat there, trying to figure out what to do next.

Or maybe he was thinking about killing himself. We interrupted and saved his life.

Or maybe he was thinking about stealing my car and ramming it into the big, bright windows of the coffee shop.

Maybe he was a pimp. A drug dealer. A member of the Russian mafia. A design student. A church volunteer with amnesia.

Who knows what his story was? I certainly didn't. But that didn't stop me from ascribing stories to him based on what he looked like.

The kind of stories that we all know by heart.

Detroiter is a Finalist in Poetry Out Loud

2010-03-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Lauren Trieber, a senior at Forest Hills Central High School in Grand Rapids. She had a mouthful to say about one of my favorite topics—poetry.

“Poetry is something that I’m usually frustrated by and that I often dislike greatly,” she said. “Sometimes I’ll read a poem and think, ‘Are they trying to confuse people?’”

Poetry to the people

Ouch. Not exactly a rousing endorsement for the future of poetry. So it was a strange coincidence for me to meet Lauren in Lansing at the 2010 Michigan finals of the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest. Twenty-three students from as far north as Mackinac Island and as far south as Wyandotte gathered to compete for a shot at the national championship next month in Washington, D.C. The national winner will get $20,000.

I was there as a one of three judges for the competition. This wasn’t a poetry slam, but a recitation competition where students read poems from poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Langston Hughes. They were judged on things like their physical presence and how they interpreted the poems without resorting to acting. I was joined on the judge panel by “Randy-Dawg” William Olsen, an English professor at Western Michigan University, and “Paula” Sheila Landis, a jazz artist. I guess that means I was “Ellen.”

Breathing life into lines

I came to poetry though my elementary English classes. I had to memorize Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” a poem that still inspires me today. That was the beginning and end of my love affair with poems (not including the love poems I wrote in high school) until I was well into adulthood. I have resisted getting into poetry for exactly the reasons that Lauren cited. Poets seem to be too obscure, quirky, intellectual, and navel-gazing. As a journalist who is trained to communicate directly and succinctly, poetry often seems unnecessarily oblique.

Either that, or it's bombastic and loaded with politics. Case in point: Margaret Walker’s 10-stanza, dense poem, “For My People.” It’s a laundry list of offenses against African Americans, each one legitimate, but so, so, weary-worn. This is the first stanza:

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties

and their blues and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown god, bending

their knees humbly to an unseen power

I couldn’t get through this one, but Marilyn McCormick did. A performing arts teacher at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, she put the poem before 11th grader Harron Atkins and challenged him to recite it at the competition (Harron and his teacher are pictured below).

“I realized that the poem was really an affirmation, not just for black people, but for all people of color,” said McCormick. “It’s a statement that ‘We belong here.’ I told Harron to imagine each person named in the poem as an individual.”

When the thin, young man took the stage, he bowed quietly for a second, then broached the microphone confidently. When he started to recite, I couldn’t believe it. His voice lifted those words off of the page and brought the audience to tears.

Continuing an ancient legacy

One by one the competitors came, and I was floored by the level of sophistication. These were just 24 of the 4,500 students in Michigan who had been touched by the program, kids from both wealthy and struggling school districts, kids from all walks of life. If poetry was obtuse, obscure and irrelevant, you’d never know it by the performances of these amazing young people.

The National Endowment of the Arts and the Poetry Foundation piloted the program in D.C. and Chicago in 2006. Michigan now has one of the largest Poetry Out Loud programs in the country.

“From the Olympic games in ancient Greece to contemporary poetry slams, poetry recitation is an honored tradition,” said Laura Scanlan of the NEA. “We created the program to help address the dramatic decline in the literary arts in American education.”

(Here I am with John Bracey of the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and Laura Scanlan of the NEA.)

The decline is a shame. Since I’ve started to read and write poetry as an adult, I realize how poetry is a powerful gesture toward the human soul. Kids need that expressive outlet. Janice Fedewa of the Michigan Humanities Council, nailed it when she said, “Through the recitation of poetry, you find a way not only into the minds of the poet, but into yourself. That’s what the Humanities are all about.”

That was certainly true for Harron, whose recitations in two rounds were spell-binding. “I’m in school because of the arts,” he said. “I love theater. The wealth of other knowledge that I get in school comes along with it.”

“Herron is proof that it’s not about the talent or intelligence of Detroit kids,” said McCormick. “It’s about opportunity and being ready for it.”

And the winner is…

For us judges, the job was nearly impossible. But as we turned in our final tallies, the four finalists emerged: Herron made it, along with Kelly Stec, a junior from Roosevelt High School in Wyandotte and Kevin Heras, a senior for Hough High School. And the remaining finalist? Lauren Treiber.

Despite her trepidation about poetry, she saw the competition as a personal challenge. “When you take a poem that seems so personal to the poet and find that spark that makes it make sense to you, it’s incredible,” she said.

And that’s exactly what she was able to do. Her sublime recitations of “A Locked House,” by W.D. Snodgrass, “Life in a Love,” by Robert Browning and “Mortal Sorrows,” by Rodney Jones landed her in the winner’s circle.

“This competition allows young people to make poetry accessible,” she said, “and to show others what they’ve discovered.”

I was so honored to be a part of such a great event. My life was changed and so were the lives of the young people who participated. As John Bracey of the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs said to the students gathered, “One day when you are sitting on a Senate subcommittee and someone says that we need to support arts and culture, I hope that your experience today will help you remember why.”

Post-Racial America? Not yet

2010-02-27T01:02:00.000-05:00

Recently in Detroit, African American, political consultant Sam Riddle was tried in federal court on seven felony charges, including bribery and extortion. Prosecutors said that he and his former boss, ex-Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers, told business people that they had to pay to play withe the city.

When the jury was hung, Detroiters were shocked. And when the holdout turned out to be the only black person on the jury, the drama took on that usual Detroit flavor: Division in black and white.

Meanwhile,on the national scene, guitarist John Mayer made baffling comments during a Playboy interview about African Americans and black women in particular. He had the nerve to perform in the Detroit area in the midst of the flap.

C'mon, boys and girls - Is this what we can expect in a "post racial" America?

Check out this conversation when three jouralists - me, Alicia Nails of the Journalism Institute for Media Diversity and Stephen Henderson of the Detroit Free Press - talk about it all on American Black Journal.

American Black Journal, 2/21/10

Yes We Khan

2010-02-21T22:55:00.001-05:00

Today I saw the year’s most anticipated movie from one of the biggest stars in the universe. No, I’m not talking about George Clooney. I mean Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan and his new film, “My Name is Khan.” I caught it in Warren with my friend, Neena, who turned me on to her on-screen heart throb years ago.

The film about the racial profiling of Muslims after September 11, 2001 has broken records for a Bollywood film, grossing more than $19 million worldwide since its Valentine’s Day release, and more than $2 million in its limited release in the United States.

I’m used to seeing Khan as the chiseled hunk who rectifies injustices, gets the girl AND shakes his "groove thang." But this time, I knew to expect something different. The film is about how tensions between Hindus and Muslims, which flared into riots in Mumbai in the early 1990s, are overcome by love in post 9/11 San Francisco. The romance between the handsome Khan (whose character is not only Muslim, but autistic) and the beautiful Kajol, would be completely unbelievable if not for their convincing performances. After all, if we believed that a polio-stricken, mentally-challenged Forrest Gump could ignite a movement and get the girl, why not believe in the redemptive power of a Muslim with Aspergers Syndrome?

I was surprised how often the film referenced Michigan. In the movie, Khan’s brother leaves India to study at the University of Michigan. And when the terrorist attacks erupt, the ensuing violence against Middle Easterners in metro Detroit become sadly emblematic of the anti-Muslim paranoia that still grips Americans.

In the film, that paranoia leads to a tragic murder, and sets Khan on a mission to illuminate the President of the United States with one sentence: “My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist.”

It was amazing to view 9/11 from the vantage point of Muslim Americans. I was moved at the similarities between their experience and the black experience: the fear of travel, the fear of “sticking out,” the lack of access to public amenities—even the denial of jobs. The kinship even emerged when Khan sang a childhood song, “We Shall Overcome.” Yes, evidently, it’s sung in India, too.

Ultimately, the racism against Muslims drives a wedge between Khan and his Hindu wife. She calls an end to their marriage, assuming her fortunes will change as soon as everyone realizes she’s a Hindu. Sorry guys, Americans aren’t that deep. This is a country where turbaned Sikhs have been murdered because they were thought to be Muslim. Americans don’t split hairs when it comes to bigotry.

One disappointment: In the movie, Khan makes an almost comedic visit to a hurricane ravaged town in Georgia, where the set looks like something out of “Porgy and Bess.” The family he befriends is, of course, Big Mama and her son, Buckwheat. In his attempt to reach out all humanity, Khan inadvertently displays how deeply ingrained racial stereotypes can be—and how amazingly global they have become.

Shahrukh Khan, I forgive you—your good intentions far surpass the clumsy moments in the film.

Besides Khan is an example of art imitating life. Last summer, he was yanked off a plane at Newark Liberty International Airport for a “secondary inspection.” The detainment lasted an hour. Ironically, he was on his way to Chicago to promote “My Name is Khan.”

And even now, Khan is battling ethnic turmoil back in India. Hindu nationalist mobs have torn down posters of the movie and burned Khan in effigy because he spoke out in favor of Pakistani cricketers.

I loved the movie, even without the characteristic dancing and dazzling costumes. Then again, discrimination is nothing to dance about.

From Detroit, With Love

2010-02-12T11:53:00.003-05:00

If you don't get a Valentine this weekend, don't get upset. Coming in to work today, I saw a fairly serious fender-bender. A mini-van seems to have tangled with a florist delivery truck. Valentine helium balloons were hanging all out of the back doors. I'm sure yours was one on the ones that was lost in the melee.

Bummer.

So, here's your valentine from a stunning cupid who was giving out roses outside of Blumz downtown.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love Hurts and Detroiters Live to Tell About It

2010-02-05T19:56:00.009-05:00

I never outgrew bedtime stories. But since I'm an adult and an insomniac, "The Moth" has been my perfect companion in the deep of the night when my eyes won't close and my mind won't stop racing.

The Moth is a nonprofit storytelling organization in New York dedicated to getting people to sit around and tell stories in that beautiful, friends-on-the-summer-porch kind of way. It's called The Moth because the stories of life's adventures draw us like moths to light. The whole phenom has exploded in recent years, (yes, they even have a fundraising "Moth Ball"). I podcast their story slams and listen at night and smile.

ANYWAY, The Moth has partnered with Detroit's own public radio station, WDET, to host story slams the first Thursday of each month at Cliff Bell's downtown. Who knew that a tiny jazz club that didn't even have a burger on the menu (but they do have beet salad, or cider braised pork bellies) would be such a scene? I've tried to get in the story slam a few times and I couldn't stand the freezing weather and long lines just to grab a piece of the floor in the jammed bar.

But last night - I got in!!!!

The theme was "Love Hurts." The rules: random people signed up to tell their stories. They had five minutes, no notes. The story should have a beginning, middle and end. I've found that the more polished the storyteller, the less effective the stories seem to be. People know when you're too "practiced." And in Detroit, we can smell slickness a mile away.

The host for the evening, WDET production manager Alex Trajano, almost ruined the night. He's the Rat Pack impersonator pictured up top along with his trusted assistant for the evening. He was so funny and engaging, the story slam almost seemed to interrupt his shtick. He kept promoting his upcoming, nonexistent book with a title something like "Look into My Heart." In the spirit of the evening, he exposed his own painful relationship trajectory:

A- Attempt sophistication (don't put the red wine in the fridge; take your date to the Detroit Film Theatre.)

L - Leave some mystery (This is during the pre-farting in front of each other phase. "Keep the hair product going.")

E - End the charade (Here's where you admit you're broke. It's two-for-one at Logan's.)

X - Exit strategy (do this before co-dependence sets in and you're checking out each other's Facebook status and pretending you don't care.)

Three tables of drunken spectators were chosen to be the judges (yes, after you get up there and tell your gut-wrenching story of love gone wrong, you are JUDGED!). The teams of judged were appropriately named: Honeymoon is Over, Shot Through the Heart, and Ouch, Ouch, You're on my Hair. Here was the scoreboard at halftime.

Cambrey Thomas, a Detroit blogger and former intern at WDET, sat at our table along with Ron Jones, the station's program director. Here we are along with Craig Fahle, the host of the efficiently named, "Cr aig Fahle Show." That's Craig and me as bookends.

Cambrey told us a story about a high school love who turned out to be gay, then blamed her for telling him that she knew he was gay. He actually called her homophobic. Yeah, that hurts. Bravely, she put her name in the hat to tell the story.

The stories were amazing. The second grader whose first love wouldn't kiss her because she was Chinese. The college kid who flew from Germany to Amsterdam for a romantic tryst only to get stood up and have to call home to confess it to her parents. A birthing story that was almost as painful to hear as it must have been to the diminutive woman who almost drowned in the birthing tub. A meandering story by a teen about his love for his camp counselor - it was almost too poignant. A militant vegan who thought she was liberating animals on a farm in Nebraska only to find out she was raiding a mushroom farm.

Cambrey was nauseous and melting down as she waited for her name to come out of the hat. It never did (they limit the night to ten stories). She was relieved, but made us all promise to come next month - March 4 at 7:30 p.m. - when the theme is "Busted."

I admired her courage to be willing to get up there and tell an unrehearsed story. I was totally chicken. So to make up for it, I came home and taped my own "Love Hurts" story. Yeah, I'm that yell0w-bellied. But check it out below and let me know what you think. Or better yet, send me your stories!

Oh, you're wondering who won the contest? The birther, of course. Moms Rule!

Can You See Them Now?

2010-01-30T10:08:00.013-05:00

I first met Bruce Giffin about 20 years ago when he was a photographer for the Detroit Metro Times. His photos were always amazing—haunting portraits of abandoned buildings, graveyards, an abandoned amusement park, an empty penitentiary.
Our ways parted for years, but we recently chanced upon each other in a drugstore. Bruce is still at it, but he’s now training his lens on the faces that people Detroit.

“I try to engage subjects and hear their stories,” said Giffin, who wanders the nooks and crannies of the city to find the people who aren’t always represented in the media.

“Joe Jones from Eastern Market got me started on this journey,” said Giffin. “I saw his face and just had to capture him. He didn’t mind.”

Here’s one of Stella Paris, a character who wandered the streets of Detroit’s Greektown between the late 1960s and the 1990s. She died this year at age 97. No one ever knew much about her beyond her eerie screams, indecipherable rants, and penchant for military fashion.

“Once while I was out, I ran into Tyrone,” said Giffin, who always roams the streets with one of his dogs. “He lives in a tent by the freeway facing the old train station. Behind him was a sign that said, ‘Have a nice day Detroit.’ That’s where he lives.”

“I’ve taken a lot of pictures in the Delray area,” he said. “I call Delray the last stop before homelessness. There’s one bar open, a party store and that’s about it. It smells like crap because the sewage plant is nearby, and there was a chemical plant there. One mail carrier claims that there’s a cancer cluster there. But then there’s beauty in all that rubble. Like the little girl I saw standing in some wildflowers. She was dirty, but she was beautiful.”

“The other day I met a guy who calls himself a minister, but he’s living in an abandoned school,” he said. “If you notice in the picture, he has a little smile. The whole time I was talking to him, he was smiling.”

I asked Giffin if he ever felt like he was “piling on” to the negative images we see about Detroit. “This is what Detroit is right now,” he said. “Depicting other things would be a lie. Detroit is dead at the core, but there are pockets that are amazingly alive. I’m just trying to hear everyone’s story.”

I marvel at how close he gets to people that the rest of us refuse to see.

“I have worked for CEO’s for seven years and they see me at events and don’t know my name,” said Giffin, who has been a professional photographer for 25 years. “But there are homeless people who will stop and talk to me and get to know me. I’m a middle aged white guy who has learned that all of us Detroiters, no matter our race or walk of life, are more alike than you would believe. We’re all just trying to survive.”

For more of Bruce Giffin’s spectacular view of Detroit, go to www.brucegiffin.com or find him on Facebook.

Wow. Everyone Detroiter isn't on Skid Row

2010-01-27T12:48:00.005-05:00

I just wanted to share this blog with you. It's one person's story about Rosedale Park, a gorgeous, stable, integrated, middle class neighborhood that has flourished in Detroit for decades. Surprise.

I've marveled that no one ever tells the amazing story of the black middle class in Detroit - those who are my doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects, professors and political leaders. When I first came to Detroit 25 years ago, I joked that I had come to the "Mother Country." I had never seen such institutionalized black culture (I mean fine art, quality performing arts, world-class jazz, etc.) black power and black professionals. It was a mesmerizing experience.

The first "race riot" here was in the 1800s when slave catchers tried to return a black family to the South. The neighbors fought to free them. That's how far black power goes in this town.

As the "Midnight" stop on the Underground Railroad, blacks have found a level of comfort and opportunity in Detroit that pales to other cities. There is the Detroit Study Club founded in 1898 - a group of women and their daughters founded to read Robert Browning. It still exists - there are women who have participated in the now-wide ranging studies for three generations. Who knew?

Anyway, I could go on. I'll let this blogger get a word in edgewise. Check it out.

"The Other Detroit"

Go Ahead, Make My Day

2010-01-23T09:48:00.005-05:00

Another gray Detroit morning, but at least it’s Friday. After the economic meltdown of 2009, I’ve been watching my pennies. But every once in awhile, I feel I DESERVE a venti, decaf, no-whip mocha. So this morning, I pulled into Starbucks.

As I parked, a woman jumped out of the car beside me. She didn’t even try to make eye contact so that we could share a “hello.” She was muttering and dragging her Ugg boots like she was dreading taking even one more step. When she opened the door to the coffee shop, she didn’t even hold it for me.

Whatever. I’ve got my own problems.

When the rude woman ordered, the cashier told her, “You don’t have to pay. Someone else picked up your tab.” The woman was shocked. So was I. No fair. No one would ever do that for me, and at least I try to be nice to people!

I ordered my coffee and forked over my precious dollars. But the cashier said, “No, yours is taken care of, too.” She nodded over to “the man by the window wearing a suit.”

I had no idea who he was, nor why he would buy me a free coffee. It seemed, as a matter of fact, that he was paying for everyone who walked in that morning.

I was touched. I went up to him and thanked him. I told him that I had been laid off most of last year, and that I only came to Starbucks for a treat these days. What he did meant a lot to me. We exchanged business cards.

I found out that he was Robert Ray, a financial advisor at UBS in Farmington Hills. At 30, he recently married his sweetheart of 10 years—they went Oakland University together.

He lives in Rochester but has worked in Farmington Hills for six years where he was looking to meet some more people. So one day, he decided to run a tab on a Friday for anyone who came into the Farmington Hills Starbucks.

Even as I was standing there with my chocolaty coffee, many people thanked the cashier for their free java, but not Rob, the Starbucks Sugar Daddy.

“I get three levels of reactions,” he said. “Some outgoing and appreciative people stop me and say how it made their day. Some just say ‘thank you’ and keep on going. Some don’t say anything to me. I think they may feel timid about going up to a stranger. But I’m sure they appreciate it.”

The big question for me is WHY?

“This hasn’t really affected my business; it’s not exactly hard core guerilla business development,” he laughed. “To be honest, by the time I got back to the office this morning, I was flying. This rabbi stopped and took my card because he wants to mention it in his synagogue. Enough people seem to be appreciative that it’s hard for me to have a bad day.”

There was another by-product of his act of kindness: synergy. Rob started talking to me about how he and his three friends have started a little nonprofit called the Social Philanthropists Foundation. They’re trying to link the resources and energy of young professionals to the volunteer needs of small, grassroots organizations.

“There’s really a big untapped demographic that has more to offer than donations,” he said.” People aren’t capitalizing on those assets. Small organizations don’t have paid staff, web designers, graphic artists. There’s a huge talent pool of skills that they could be using.”

He characterized his group as a “rag tag group of four guys trying to make a difference.” Then I thought, about a group that might help them--The Alliance of Michigan Time Banks. It’s a way to barter skills with hundreds of people, rather than one-on-one.

He was thrilled with the tidbit of information that might help his Social Philanthropists Foundation help even more nonprofits. And I was thrilled that I could do a little bit for a stranger who had been so nice to me.

“Hey, this is not even about paying it forward,” said Rob. “The joy that others get from knowing a stranger cares about them has an immediate by-product. It get the joy back right away. Given the news that everyone hears in Michigan all the time—and now the news from Haiti—we need to have something good happen. It’s Friday, it’s the weekend and it’s gonna be awesome.”