SHUT UP, DETROIT, I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!
We hosted a big old-fashioned argument in the form of a bunch of defensive, clueless, insensitive posts on our website and our Facebook page in response to our blog posting about a rant by David Phillips. But there were some exceptions. A poster named Wendy Beth-yo wrote:
I feel like people posting comments here have missed the point of this post (the one by Metro Times) pointing out that this guy does not appear to have asked anyone what they want. That was what I got out of it. What I am seeing here, in these comments, are a whole bunch of white people also ranting about what the city needs without asking Detroiters what they want ... that and a whole lot of diet racism.
And Matt Warfield posted:
The lack of recognition of his privilege this guy has is unbelievable. People have been getting involved and creating solutions in Detroit for decades, it is just that those solutions have been bottom-up and community-based. However, those solutions aren't as sexy as opening a new business that caters to the new white in-movers in Midtown and downtown, or the millions that get pumped into the start-up culture, which overwhelmingly supports highly educated in-movers. The problem here is that the support and money being invested in Detroit is going to young, white, educated people who may have grown up here, or in the suburbs, but recently returned to what Dave refers to as a place that has never had a "cleaner slate."
Addressing these issues is not to cause divisiveness, but it is to call out a problem that has existed in Detroit for decades; a division between opportunities caused in large part by race and class, which is very clearly seen when looking at a racial map of Detroit and its suburbs. All that is occurring now is that that mentality is being transported into the city, with folks like Dave yelling about how great they are for all of a sudden paying attention to the city when the white majority of the state ignored it for decades. So before you start blaming people who live in Detroit, many of whom do not have the privilege to up and move where they choose, perhaps you should start looking at where the funding for this "revitalization" of Detroit is going, and for whom is the city being shaped? If you think an African American who graduated from Detroit schools has just as much opportunity to round up his friends, buy a building and develop it as you do Dave, well, then you haven't learned much at all from working in this city.
What's Detroit and what's not?
A slideshow about the best restaurants in the vicinity of Detroit (according to Open Table) elicited a lot of comment on what's in Detroit and what's not. Here are some of the juicier comments.
There is only one Detroit restaurant on this list!
This is nonsense.
Does anyone really consider Imlay City part of metro Detroit?
Seriously, I don't consider Ann Arbor or Imlay City as part of metro Detroit. Does anyone?
No, Imlay City isn't usually considered metro Detroit.
Ann Arbor Brighton and Imlay are not metro Detroit. Hell, throw in Toledo, why don't you?
Disagree. These restaurants are too far away to be considered metro Detroit.
You may be correct about that, but Imlay needs an area to be connected to. Otherwise, we're excluded to the boonies with no list to get on! I am thankful that they allowed us to join the metro area. P.S It is a beautiful drive!
Yet so many of us in Lapeer County work down in the Detroit area. Straight shot down M-53 or M-24. It's not even an hour drive, depending on where you're going and the route you take.
While Imaly City may not technically be in the metro Detroit area it is only about 10 minutes further away than Ann Arbor and a much more beautiful drive.
