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More Conyers Corruption
Last week's testimony clearly points to Monica selling influence due to complicity with her husband. Of course Detroiters will refuse to believe what is staring them in the face, just like they rallied around Kwame and blamed the media in the beginning. Detroiters renowned capacity for overlooking corruption in their politicians is matched only by their ability to blame whites for all of their problems, even though there are none in sight in Detroit.
Detroit is not equipped to recognize and react to corruption. They get their political opinions from people like radio host and poverty pimp, Mildred Gaddis. To give you some idea about Mildred, her closest ally until six months ago was Sam Riddle.
Mildred led the Cobo Rally which was the most misguided public display in the history of Detroit. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.
There are few clear headed, beacons of justice in Detroit. The pulpits are full of pretenders who, like like Reverend Wright in Chicago, are more corrupt political opportunists than spiritual leaders.
When you have a populace that is the most poorly educated in America, and they are surrounded by corrupting influences, it is not surprising that the city that blacks usurped with bullets in 1967 has become a hollowed out shell of the thriving modern city it was forty years ago.
Now that the Titanic-like city of Detroit is going down, the rats are abandoning ship and flooding to the nearby suburbs, bringing their bullets, crime and their filth. Having ruined one large city, they will chase law abiding citizens from new suburban communities, and set about hollowing out the assets and resources in those communities.
Blackdemographics.com calls Detroit the biggest, blackest city in America. Once a region's blackness hits a critical mass, it becomes like Haiti. Despite over 200 years of independence, Haiti had over 80% poverty rates, and 50% of the population practised voo doo. Haiti is 95% black and the other 5% is mostly mulatto.
I don't know the answer to Detroit. It is a bubbling cauldron of ignorance and violence and it's populace is largely beyond hope. The manufacturing jobs that would employ semi-literates are gone for good. The population is crippled by entitlement and a belief that they can survive for a lifetime on government largess.
As the situation worsens around them, they become further entrenched. Many do not have the resourcefulness to relocate to states with brighter prospects. They are a burden the state of Michigan can no longer afford.
Going forward, it ain't gonna be pretty. And while we are subjected to their indignities, we will have to listen to how it is our fault. After all, like children, they cannot be expected to be responsible for themselves.
Cal's closing
"ghettofied nightclub"? Really? That's what you really have to say? I swear, 9 out of 10 blogs you write for Living in the D have me SMH (shaking my head)in dismay. They are cynical, negative, contemptuous and condescending. Owning a plot of land on the eastside with a cute little house on it does make you a Detroiter. Detroiters carry with them the spirit, commitment and fortitude that see us through the downtimes and rejoice with pride in the good. Have you ever called the college students of UM or MSU "ghetto" for inciting near riots, utter chaos and random acts of violence upon their community in the name of a basketball win?
Woodbridge
I love Woodbridge! My family used to own two homes there, but we sold one after my uncle died and unfortunately the new owners walked away from it and left it to the vandals and the elements. It hurts our heart to see the place where we used to have family gatherings in such disarray. It would be a dream come true to one day be able to bulldoze the old home and rebuild a new one for my family...
Contributing to Detroit Public Schools
Finally!!! It's about time that you wright about the help that is needed to expand the lives of another human being. Yea, way to go Diane
people living and not paying any taxes in the D
What an interesting thought, I wonder what kind of number is lost each year.
Enlightened Self Interest or Just Waiting For The Next Messiah
I wonder if the people who vote in Detroit just happened upon this council and Mayor, or if they really understand what they want. We won't know until future elections.
Detroiters rail about the white man's system, but armed with a fifth grade level understanding of the world in fifty per cent of the cases (state of Michigan study), they don't understand how to work within the system.
They wanted to insult the suburbs and scream loud for money, so they voted for politicians who would give them the insulting and screaming they wanted. That's how the uneducated think. The politicians knew it didn't work but they were corrupt, and their only goal was to get elected so they could steal from the people.
Electing savvy people like Detroit did in its last election is the way to progress. They attract money, not scare it away or steal it. But in either case, working with monied interests or screaming ineffectively into the abyss, it will take time.
Detroit didn't become a hollowed out shell overnight. It took forty years of corruption and doing nothing while demanding more. You can't rebuild 138 square miles in four years, or a decade but you can turn the wagon around and get started in the right direction.
To Detroiters I say, imagine you are a white person approaching a nice hotel on Jefferson. You are approached by a loud, obese black woman (picture any of the ladies in the last city council) who insults you and tells you she wants money and you owe it to her. You lower your head and keep moving.
Now, imagine a business like, pleasant black man who asks if he can have some of your time to discuss an investment in a good cause. Picture any of the current administration. You listen, and if the cause or the investment makes sense, you consider how you invest or help, whatever the case.
Detroit has been ineffective in dealing with the monied interests that surround them, because they want to scream and demand like they do in their households. Or the screamers and demanders they elect invariably turn out to be corrupt, so the monied interests are scared away.
I see the wagon slowly turning around right now. Detroit is getting off the road to oblivion, just in time. As with the election of Archer, as a reaction to corruption, they have hired the right type of politician who can get the wagon headed in the right direction.
Hopefully, the electorate won't listen to their basest instincts, and return to the corrupt screamers and demanders of the past. You can scream and demand and insult all you want, but if no one listens, you are like the proverbial falling tree in the forest.
Nothing We Can Do Short of Handing Them Everything
Listening to Terry Foster on the radio defend Tiger Woods as only doing what any of us would do if we had his money reaffirms that the blacks will never succeed. They don't understand the building blocks of successful cultures are work ethic and family.
Why would a wife hang around a serial philanderer like Tiger? How does it impact kids not to have fathers? What happens to your culture when kids don't have role models? The blacks are doomed to occupy the bottom of the ladder. That's their choice but whites have to quit blaming each other. They are who they want to be, or as a friend often says," It is what it is." On top of having to funnel large portions of our taxes into their communities, we have to listen to freeloaders like Jeremiah Wright insult us.
You only have to look at Haiti to see what blacks do when left to their own devices. Haiti is ninety five per cent black and five per cent white or mulatto. According to cia.gov, eighty per cent live in poverty and get this, fifty per cent practise voodoo. Wherever they live in the world they are backward.
We have to stop blaming ourselves. We know they will never stop blaming because they see it as the ticket to more handouts. But we have to realize what is happening to them is inevitable. Nowhere in the world have they built productive societies with stable families. Generally, they seek to avoid work and breed indiscriminantly.
Altercation
In reading your blog about the altercation you had with the guy in D-town over a can, I have to say that I understood your frustration and how you got to the point of saying something. Granted, it was not really a good reason to confront the guy - it wasn't life-threatening to you or anyone else (not directly anyway). However, while driving I occassionally have a simliar mind set of wanting to be the watch dog or police and make people see that they are doing something wrong (cutting into a lane that ends at the very last second, getting over 4 lanes to get off at the next exit, etc.). I still don't think that I would have said anything to anyone, let alone a large man in D-town, about anything. When out and about I am constantly on the defense and don't say anything to anyone unless absolutely needed.
One thing that deeply concerns me is that this man thought it was a) okay to throw trash on the ground and b) threaten someone's life just because he was called out on littering. Seriously? Is this what our society has come to now? Someone embarrasses you and you threaten to beat or kill them? That part of your experience disturbs me more than you throwing all caution to the wind in confronting this person.
One last question, did you really think the guy was going to say "sorry ma'am, I guess I wasn't thinking" when you handed him the empty can? Just an thought.
Be safe!
Lafayette Bldg: Good riddance
I worked in the Lafayette Building for the court system in the early 1980s. It deserved demolition then. It was not handicap-accessible, the restrooms were primitive, and its layout was a mess.
I watched the historic Civil War-era Monroe Block languish until trees grew from the roofs. I learned then that people who really care about buildings *act* - they don't argue, plead or whine. Resources should be devoted to buildings worth saving (Guardian; Penobscot) and not for buildings that deserved demolition two decades ago (Michigan Central). Not every old building is a gem.
Lafayette Building
Wonderful observations, A.B. We'll all miss the beautiful graffiti at the Lafayette building, whether the rest of the world appreciates it or not.
Living in the D
How dare you! I've been laid off for over a year. I've put in countless applications via online, networked in hopes of finding viable employment, lowered my standards of qaulification as many of us faced with unemployment benefits expiring have had to do. Yet the only thing you can comment on is those individuals who are trying to eke out of living and keep bread on the table but don't pay taxes. So the man was dead serious about charging you a $1,000 to use his car in your little video. You don't know that man's circumstances. That car may well be his home. So people braid hair in their homes to earn a few extra bucks. You can best believe they are not doing it at shop rates. Even if these people did file taxes they still would be below the federal income tax rates. I receive unemployment and support my unemployed son who was laid off and can't find a job. I recieve $16 a month in food stamps for 2 people. I have been bleeding like a sow since September but can't get medical coverage via the State to get medical treatment along with a host of other medical issues. So don't you dare with your well paid, benefitted behind pass judgement on people who are struggling to live. Just be glad that they are not knocking people in the head to get what they need.
Whoa there. I don't know how far you read, but in the earlier post I linked to I admitted I'm "guilty" too, as are many people I know. My intent was not to pass judgment on people doing honest work to put food on the table. Like most people in Detroit, I'm lamenting that there aren't enough on-the-books, tax-generating jobs available for people with skills, smarts and the will to work. When that happens, people figure out a way to get by.
As for the guy with the hooptie for rent, he was watching the filming from his home and came outside to try to make a deal. He wasn't homeless, and he had obviously sunk a lot of money into that car. But that's not the point; it was an example of the entrepreneurial spirit that bubbles up in a town with 50 percent unemployment.
Thanks for reading.
Diana
UNDERGROUND WORK
There is alway's "those people" who will engage in criminal activity. But in a city as devestated economically as Detroit options are few. Due to the social stigma, lack of education, as well as the "cycle continuing. As a white man who grew up in Detroit it was pointed out to be at a very early age how truely Blessed I was and am. You see I had both parents who worked and led by example, let's for one moment pretend that i was a black male being raised by a single mother and had a couple of siblings who's father also was'nt present and a mother who was repeating the same example that was laid out before her. Where would I stand? Probably in a much different set of circumstances. I myselfe need to put myselfe in anothers shoes before passing judgment. Let's all ban together as humans to help break the cycle of poverty,education as well as racism.
Economy
The illegal underground economy is not the only unreported activity in Detroit. It is true that it exists but other more positive activities exist as well. Too bad there are not enough jobs for people who apparently want to work.
Waiting for the Next Handout Doesn't Work
You learn something new everyday. I have spent a lot of time in Canada because I think it is a beautiful country and until now I have felt the same way about the people. This is the first time I have ever heard of a Canadian bigot. And you know these things because? You appear to know all Black people and therefore can both speak for them as well as about them. Do you speak for all White people too?
If I tell you that I have lived in several states in the US and Europe, that I have attended 6 universities and that I have 3 degrees, that I was raised in a 2 parent very loving family and that my children were also raised in the same kind of environment, that I speak (including American sign language) 4 languages and my children and my grand children also speak 4 languages. I guess all this would make me white. Because if I were black I would be waiting for a handout. By the way when I started college there was no such thing as Affirmative Action. My brother who was married to the same woman for 35 years also had 3 degrees and spent his whole adult life helping people (of all colors) go to college who might not have otherwise been able to go. As a student, I have delivered babies of unwed mothers who were black and white or don't you think white women ask for welfare?
Does every white person who lives in a trailer "trailer trash"? Of course not and if I really thought that it would make me as sad a person as you.I have saved lives of people who were in such bad condition that they didn't care what color I was nor did they ask what color the person who gave them the blood that saved their life. Do you think that ever homeless person that I have given money to was black? Think again! I don't represent every Black person any more than you represent every white person. Before you start generalizing about all black people and about black children and who our role models are; get to know us and who our role models really are. Trust me. They are not usually athletes.
When You Live Inside the City Limits This is Typical!
I am writing this on behalf of my daughter Kallela Martin. Kallela is a 32 year old working single mother and student. She sacrificed and saved (while pregnant) to purchase a house in 2006 so that she could have a home to bring her baby to. She also gave a home to her mother and step-father, her sister and her sister's child. For a time she was the sole support of the house and gradually with her help; we were all able to go out on our own. She invested all of her spare money into fixing her house and making it a real home for her and her son.
On Monday, December 14, 2009 she came to pick up her son after running some after-work errands where I had to break the news to her that one of her neighbors had contacted me to tell me that her house of on fire. She was devastated! When we got there we knew that it was in bad shape but we thought, at that time it would be repaired because she had thought to have insurance. The fireman said that the fire had been caused by a kerosene heater on the second floor. But, we were not allowed to enter the house until the firefighters had left the property. Our 15 year old dog was still in the house and was saved by the police officers on scene got him out.
When we entered the property we discovered the following:
1) The alarm keypad had been opened and the motion detector had been pulled off the wall.
2) The TV that was in the living room was missing along with the DVD player that sat on top of it.
3) Her laptop computer that she used for school. Her desktop computer, printer, and monitor as well as another TV all from the second floor of the house were all gone. Table drawers had been pulled out or turned over.
It was obvious that there had been a burglary. When we discovered this she immediately notified one of the police officers who had been on scene.
Red Cross provided them with shelter for the first night and the State Farm has provided her and her baby with shelter for the next thirty days. However, after that she is facing being homeless until she can find somewhere else to live.
To make matters worse, State Farm is treating her as if she is trying to perpetrate some sort of fraud. She has put as much money as she could afford into repairs for her house, she has had her Christmas destroyed, and lost all her and son's clothes. Would she be treated that way if she lived in the suburbs instead of Detroit? I don't think so! They would, at the very least, be more cognizant of her feelings even if they had a suspension of fowl play. And if State Farm's representatives would not be more thoughtful to a young woman who has to rebuild her life, then they need some serious sensitivity training.
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