What's Wrong in Michigan?
A group of African-Americans beat to death an Arab and I submitted this letter to the Detroit News (I don't think they printed it):
Dear Editors:
I'm saddened to no end to read about any group of men beating to death one man. But change the ethnic groups and times and the same thing happened in Detroit many decades ago when whites were beating Blacks to death. This heart-breaking story is really the Tale of the Detroit Metro Region. Are we like the dog in a bear trap? Gnawing our own leg off to be free only to bleed to death leaving the limb tightly in the steel jaws? Our dry and lifeless body in the bushes nearby?
I am a rental home inspector in the area and most of the 300 houses I see a year are in the suburbs. With the value of houses crashing I've seen a wave of people leaving the city because they can now afford the rent in suburbs.
The Tale these people are telling me is one of helplessness and hopelessness. This in not a racial problem but a problem of a loss of control of the political process masked in the evil cloak of racism. The all powerful Mayor and weak Council elected at large is the same system that whites used to kept Blacks out of the process in the '40s and 50's leading to the riots of '67.
Sports stadiums, casinos, horse tracks, Aerocropolis, annexation of neighboring communities or bribing businesses from the suburbs to move downtown will not pry open the trap. The first wedge to be pounded into the teeth is electing councils (including mine here in Livonia) represented by population in a district or ward like Chicago and New York do. Second, a state-wide election court that would not only draw districts for city and state offices but hear cases like the Dillon recall or the Mayor Kilpatrick's manifold misdeeds.
The State Legislature and Senate must act because every local government body (including schools) receives taxpayer's money collected from across the State and every Michigan taxpayer is constitutionally guaranteed a say in how this money is spent.
God knows there is always Hope but we can only Help ourselves.
Dear Editors:
I'm saddened to no end to read about any group of men beating to death one man. But change the ethnic groups and times and the same thing happened in Detroit many decades ago when whites were beating Blacks to death. This heart-breaking story is really the Tale of the Detroit Metro Region. Are we like the dog in a bear trap? Gnawing our own leg off to be free only to bleed to death leaving the limb tightly in the steel jaws? Our dry and lifeless body in the bushes nearby?
I am a rental home inspector in the area and most of the 300 houses I see a year are in the suburbs. With the value of houses crashing I've seen a wave of people leaving the city because they can now afford the rent in suburbs.
The Tale these people are telling me is one of helplessness and hopelessness. This in not a racial problem but a problem of a loss of control of the political process masked in the evil cloak of racism. The all powerful Mayor and weak Council elected at large is the same system that whites used to kept Blacks out of the process in the '40s and 50's leading to the riots of '67.
Sports stadiums, casinos, horse tracks, Aerocropolis, annexation of neighboring communities or bribing businesses from the suburbs to move downtown will not pry open the trap. The first wedge to be pounded into the teeth is electing councils (including mine here in Livonia) represented by population in a district or ward like Chicago and New York do. Second, a state-wide election court that would not only draw districts for city and state offices but hear cases like the Dillon recall or the Mayor Kilpatrick's manifold misdeeds.
The State Legislature and Senate must act because every local government body (including schools) receives taxpayer's money collected from across the State and every Michigan taxpayer is constitutionally guaranteed a say in how this money is spent.
God knows there is always Hope but we can only Help ourselves.
posted by slantrider at 4:32 AM
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