Blacks in Metro Detroit constitute eighty-five percent of the population. The city is currently leading the United States as the most racially segregated based on schools. This page provides information about Detroit's issues, both past and present.
Kerner Riot Commission
After the Detroit Riots of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson formed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Riot Commission, named after its Chair, then Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. The Eisenhower Foundation is the private sector continuation of the Kerner Riot Commission. Forty years later in 2007, the Eisenhower Foundation reunited in Detroit to update the nation on the social and political conflicts that plagued Detroit then and the controversial issues that continually arise today. The following are the issues most significantly discussed at the Foundation's hearing.
Unemployment
Unemployment for blacks and other minorities in Metro Detroit is one of the major issues. As of 2000, about 3.3% of whites are unemployed while 12% of blacks do not have jobs. Deputy Mayor Adams of Detroit insists on the importance of providing young people with jobs because it provides them with a positive opportunity in life.
Police Brutality
Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality reported that there were 7 deaths resulting from police brutality in 2007. One of the factors adding to the issue of police brutality is the fact that 40% of the police force of the city reside outside of Metro Detroit. This is also called an absentee police force. State Representative of the 8th District George Cushingberry, Jr. asserts that racism is evident in the criminal justice system. He says that there are issues with abuse by law enforcement and by those who have control of the means of locking one up.
Residential and School Segregation
In 1956, then Mayor Orville Hubbard of Dearborn, Michigan told a reporter that “as far as he was concerned, it was against the law for Negroes to live in his suburb.”
Metro Detroit’s neighborhoods and schools are overwhelmingly racially segregated. This is the result of many whites moving out of Metro Detroit to the suburbs. Dr. Galster, a professor of Urban Affairs in the Department of Geography and Urban Planning at Wayne State University, claims that prejudicial whites respond to the increase of black occupied neighborhoods by either moving out of Metro Detroit and relocating in the suburbs, or by fighting the possibility of black neighbors through various forms of illegal discriminatory forces that reinforce segregation. He also states that 85% of Detroit neighborhoods are black occupied. This figure makes Detroit residential areas the 2nd highest racially segregated city in the United States.
Detroit schools reflect similar patterns as the residential neighborhoods. According to 2005 Detroit statistics, Detroit is leading the United States in racial segregation in schools with 93% of the school population being black. Of these students, 77% come from economically disadvantaged families. This, as Dr. Galster explains, limits the chance for success for these youth by creating educational challenges.
Poverty
Related to racial segregation of residential areas and schools is another one of Detroit’s great social issues: poverty. According to Heaster Wheeler, Executive Director of the NAACP of Detroit, nearly 30% (250,000) of Detroit’s residents live at or below the poverty line. At least 1/3 (about 83,300) of those poor residents are children. The percentage of people living in poverty in Metro Detroit more than doubles the total poverty in the state. Poverty is especially significant for the black residents which, and already mentioned, constitute 85% of Metro Detroit’s population. The white population in Detroit is equal to 9%. Senator and member of the Kerner Commission, Fred Harris, reported that the poverty rate among blacks and Hispanics is triple that for nonwhite Hispanics and continues to increase in disparity. In Detroit, the poverty rate for white citizens is 5.9% and 24% for blacks. The medium income for white families is over $65,000 but only $37,000 for black families. This large disparity helps to also explain the residential and school segregation issue. There are 53 black-occupied neighborhoods with a concentration of poverty that together hold over 1000,000 residents. However, there are no white-occupied neighborhoods with a concentration of poverty. Maureen Taylor for Michigan Welfare Rights claims that there are 45,000 residents in Detroit without running water.
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, in office since 2001, is involved in a rather unique scandal concerning both personal and public matters. In 2002 and 2003 he exchanged text messages with his former Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty. The context of the messages included expressions of love and lust for one another, dicussions on the dismissal of former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown and about a plot at an internal affairs coup. The text message records contain information that proves perjury on the part of Mayor Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff.
As of 29 April 2008, the text messages have been made public. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Colombo ordred the release of the 18-page message transcript. Objections were made by the legal councils of both Kilpatrick and Beatty, but the ruling remained. The text messages are self-incriminating as well as poor representation of character because they contain profanity and sexually intimate details.
The Affirmative Action Debate
There has been recent development in the debate of Affirmative Action. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) is a "coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents that support ending preferences based on race, sex, skin color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public contracting and college admissions." The Initiative is working to add a new Section 26 to Article 1 of the Constitution that would, in their words, prohibit state and local government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public contracting and public education.
In response to the MCRI's proposal, By Any Means Necessary has launched a counter movement to protect the current policies of affirmative action. By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) is a "mass, democratic, integrated, national organization dedicated to building a new mass civil rights movement to defend Affirmative Action, integration, and the other gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and to advance the struggle for equality in American society by any means necessary." BAMN aims to protect the words of the Declaration of Independence that state "all men are created equal." They claim that America can only become what it should be through a national policy of affirmative action.
The proposal will be voted on 7 November of 2009.
Sources:
The Eisenhower Foundation
http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/detroit_forum.php
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
http://www.michigancivilrights.org/
By Any Means Necessary
http://www.bamn.com/
The Detroit News
www.detroitnews.com
Instructor: Dr. Freitag
Course:
Group
and Minority Politics
Created by:
Therese Drew