Posted by
Michael Goodell on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 11:01:18 AM
Of all the shabby revelations in the latest batch of Mayoral text messages, the most disturbing is this: “How do you educate voters in a city full of idiots?”
For too long Detroit residents have allowed themselves to be manipulated by racist demagoguery, Afrocentrist rhetoric, and ludicrous references to the city’s “jewels.” They need to understand that white suburbanites are not casting greedy glances at the city and its charms. In the eyes of the suburbs, Detroit no longer has any jewels. While there are many suburbanites who want the city to survive, to improve, to return to the ranks of vibrant urban centers, they know they are helpless.
It is time for Detroiters to realize this. Furthermore, it is time for Detroiters to realize that their problems start with them, and with their elected leaders who cynically manipulate their fears and frustrations, who employ misdirection to fan resentment at distant suburbs while continuing to feast on the festering corpse of the city.
That their leaders think Detroiters are idiots should come as no surprise, because they keep electing them. They reelected a Mayor who treated his first term as a party limousine. They elected a Council President who threatens to shoot people with whom she disagrees. They elected a School Board Member who is unfit to retain custody of his own children. They continue to pay fealty to leaders whose decisions have made their city into a national joke. No wonder they think Detroiters are idiots.
Detroiters need to wake up. They need to realize their salvation must begin with themselves. They need to understand that no amount of outside money will help them if it all flows into the pockets of their elected leaders. No amount of stimulus funding will help Detroit students until Detroiters make education their highest priority. It doesn’t matter how many more cops take to the streets if Detroiters continue to reject the ideal of a civil society. Real change, true reform, must begin with Detroiters. If they don’t demand it, of their leaders, their institutions, and themselves, then they truly are idiots.
Now, many Detroiters will respond to this with outrage. “How dare you, a suburbanite, lecture us about our city?” they will cry. The answer is, of course, that except for those shortsighted few who view Detroit as some kind of sick sitcom, who retail tales of Mayoral malfeasance and Council cupidity for the amusement of out of towners, most Metro Detroiters realize that their towns, their homes, their communities all suffer from Detroit’s failures.
Suburbanites don’t want “steal Detroit’s jewels,” they want Detroit’s jewels to shine again. They want them to be burnished, to glitter with the light of prosperity. They want to be proud of them, and to proudly declare wherever they go, “I’m from Detroit.”
But they can’t do it alone. They can’t begin to take pride in their city until Detroiters take pride in themselves. They need Detroiters to tell their leaders they aren’t idiots, and to stop electing them if they refuse to hear their voices.