Michigan's Hiroshima--Distrust in Detroit

Last time I wrote about the desolation we still call Detroit. I referred everyone to the blog posted by Jeremy Korzeniewski on “autoblog”. It showed appalling pictures of what has become of vast tracts of the city of Detroit: falling down ruins, streets with no buildings left standing, something that looks a lot like Hiroshima after the big blast.
I conceded his point that the factories and auto industry that made Detroit a powerhouse have declined and even gone away. But I also pointed out that Detroit is a city known for its racial hatreds. Riots, military blockades and open hostility have marked its 20th Century history.
This history—and its ongoing aftermath—has made salvaging what’s left of Detroit much more difficult. It would be hard, indeed, to talk a middle class (both white and black) into coming back into a city so manifestly without services and unsafe.
They have fled—and taken their ability to pay the taxes necessary to maintain services and create new ones with them. What’s left cannot support itself. Detroit’s big problem right now is money—there isn’t any. Nada. Let’s look at some of the reasons for this.
The big companies (big tax payers) are limping badly. The age of the automobile and truck has made it possible to move businesses out into suburbs, abandoning the inner city. The sheer distrust and hatred that exists between black and white segments of the population.
That last one made me look at myself in the mirror of reality. I must confess that, way down deep inside, I find it hard to trust Barack Obama and his wife. (NOT because I think he was born in Africa, is a socialist or a Muslim, for crying out loud!!!)
My distrust is based solely on the fact that he is an American born black man. (I’ve known and been at ease with several AFRICAN and CARIBBEAN blacks—they somehow don’t carry with them the innate paranoia I’ve seen in too many American blacks. And also, American blacks do not trust me—it is often wise not to trust a man who will not trust you.)
Let me tell you a story. In the 1960s, I was blue eyed soul. I worked for blacks, I fought for blacks, I marched for blacks. They accepted me and I was permitted to call them “nigger” (as they called me) in the intimacy of friendship. I was too naïve to sense the distrust.
Washington, D.C. was just being integrated. One year they suddenly “integrated” a section of my all-white apartment complex. That meant they moved a group of black people in (did not screen them as they did whites—so some prostitutes set up business in that section) and stopped maintaining those areas.
I wanted the same standards maintained for black tenants that had always been there for white tenants--and the same maintenance. I met some of the black tenants, professionals like myself, and found we all agreed.
Working for the White House, I had access they lacked. I brought to bear upon the management of that complex the Americans for Democratic Action (a power in those years), the law firm of Nolan and Porter (the most influential in Washington then) and the “Washington Post”.
Then I located a white liberal pastor who had long worked to integrate the neighborhood and knew it well. I helped him call a community meeting. Hundreds came. Foolishly I turned the meeting over to him. He drew round after round of applause and, just when the iron was hot, he failed to strike. To use salesmen’s parlance, he didn’t ask for the sale.
He had no one sign anything, join anything or do anything. He just sent them all home with a promise of another meeting in a few days. I was horrified. I left with a very bad feeling. This would not be good.
But the next week I created a steering committee and we met several times. One man there proved to be a tower of strength, knowledge and wisdom. He was an elderly black preacher—who could fill me in on more neighborhood details than I had ever dreamt of.
I leaned on him. When the next meeting came, I had him sit right up next to me. Only fifty or sixty people showed up. Even the white preacher wasn’t there. But my friend was. I called us to order—when suddenly the door flew open.
In marched a drunken, retired white deputy sheriff with a club in his hands. Behind him were four or five more white bully boys. They advanced toward me, breathing threatening and slaughter. I have probably never felt more like an endangered species.
Let’s continue next time.