| Bl*ck and Wh*t* | ||
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If I was going to make a simplistic judgment about it, I might say
that part of Detroit's bad reputation amongst fearful whiteys is
based on the fact that the city has a population majority of African-Americans.
There are also many other immigrant communities: Polish people,
Albanians, Iraqis, Italians, and more. This being the United States
of Segregation, there are neighbourhoods associated with each group.
People don't seem to mix as much as they do at home. I get the feeling
that this is a place where petty prejudices about "those other people"
have been magnified and hardened over time. What I'm trying to say
is that to me race and racism is kind of what the city is about,
and I saw some things that hammered this home.
Here are three tiny race-charged snapshots observed by me, a white girl tourist in a hired car. 1. Black guys in wheelchairs sit out on the street. I watched one man meet up with a friend, a poor-looking black woman. He had no legs. She pushed him across the street in his wheelchair and as they were crossing they were cut up by a Martha Stewart lookey-likey driving too fast, all alone, on her mobile in a gross SUV. 2. We drive up to Grosse Pointe, past Detroit's east border. There are several Pointes. The coastal road takes us past mansion after mansion, rolling lawns, huge, pretentious houses. There's nowhere for us to stop, no public spaces where we can rest, just mile after mile of massive houses, obscene wealth. The only people on the streets are young white women joggers and landscaping employees. I feel disgusted. I don't know how people can live like this in the face of so much poverty. It's a smug little rich white ghetto. Later, I find this on a website: "It's the kind of place that produces professional yachtsmen, rowers, equestrian riders, and tennis athletes galore." Read the rest of it if you dare. 3. I drove up East Grand and I saw a black guy, maybe he was in his 30s, tall, slim, neatly-dressed. Well, I saw him walk to the grass strip outside his house and pull a face, it looked as though he was doing a silent scream. Anguish. Hands made into fists by his side. Alone. That's what I saw as I drove past. |
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