Thursday, September 4, 2008

Sad Day

Today the Mayor of the City of Detroit is suppose to accept a plea deal. While I am not a "supporter" of the Mayor, I do feel that the suburbs and the media have been out to get him for a while. I realize that he did perjure himself and that certain actions must be taken, the circus that has surrounds these issues is totally due to the media, both written and television. None of the big business or suburban officials wanted a Kwame running the City anyway and now they have exactly what they wanted. Yea he was cocky and arrogant, and broke laws but all I'm worried about is how the City will recover from this. His fate is sealed, he made his decisions and now he is dealing with the consequences.

All in all with Ken Cockrel Jr.. being made mayor , it leaves Monica Conyers as President of the City Council....and that leaves us right back at square one with a Mayor and City Council President who don't get along....(if you don't know she called him Shrek).

Everything that I hear about Detroit in the media is negative unless it is an event sponsored by a rich white dude. So unless it's the grand prix relatively little gets out in the local media, much less the national media that is positive about Detroit. While my City is not perfect, what major City is? There are plenty of positive things happening within Detroit that never receive any media attention and that never will because those aren't the headlines that grab peoples attention. Positive things have been going on in the City of Detroit for years. I have lived in the City all my life and I've never been attacked or robbed on the street, my car has never been stolen, I've never been shot or stabbed, but these are the images that prevail in the media. There are people in the burbs who have never been to the City and won't allow their children to visit the City because of the twisted perception that they have.

I have seen on comments on the free press and on the detroit news online that the citizens of Detroit deserve what they get when it comes to Mayor, But if that is the case then the United States deserved what it got when it elected Bush...and i don't think that anybody feels that sentiment is true, so why for the City of Detroit. A lot of it has to do with the racism that is prevalent in our area. Because the City is predominately Black and the suburbs predominately White there are major tensions because even our elected officials can't even pretend to get along (sidenote: which is the reason our area still doesn't have any form of mass transit yet every other major metropolitan area does), and if our elected officials can't get along, our citizenry can't get along.

What most of those in the suburbs fail to realize is the if the City of Detroit fails, the region fails.

I personally am tired of the whole situation, tired of the media and tired of people who are not supporters of the City of Detroit constantly talking about the City of Detroit. Kwame is not the first politician to break laws, and he will not be the last, we have plenty of them all over the nation, from local elected officials to national elected officials.

1 comment:

tracyb said...

As a former lifelong suburbanite (who recently moved up north) I feel for you. I enjoyed Detroit, the art, restaurants and the yarn store! But as someone who is now living in a different part of Michigan, let me just tell you - for sure, Detroit is better off without Kwame. Up here, he is a laughing stock. The only thing he brought to Detroit was shame. Arrogant doesn't start to describe him. Hopefully those left in charge of the city can get past the mess he's left behind and get some good publicity going. I'm doing my part to spread the good word up here!