On Christmas Eve, it was four degrees in Detroit. Our next door neighbor, Henry, was out grilling steaks in his backyard. He was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, work gloves and a Dodgers baseball hat. We opted to stay inside and enjoy the oven-roasted vegan sausages we bought earlier in the week at the Meijer on 8-Mile. You should have seen the line for the automated checkout. It was at least fifty deep at 11am. 98% of the customers were Black. This year, we’ve been to grocery stores in Mission Viejo (CA), San Clemente (CA), Laguna Beach (CA), Bend (OR), Lawrence (KS), Sacramento (CA), Lodi (CA), Vail (CO), Ypsilanti (MI), Gross Pointe (MI), Troy (MI) and Battle Creek (MI). We haven’t seen anything that remotely resembles the line at the Meijer on 8-Mile.
A couple weeks ago, the Detroit board of water commissioners held their monthly zoom call. The women of We the People of Detroit rang the bell, recruiting people of conscience to make a public comment. The city-wide moratorium on water shut-offs was (and still is) set to expire at the end of 2022. This year, the water department instituted a “lifeline plan” to help long-time, low-income residents pay their water bills. That’s good news, but too many folks are still falling through the cracks and we are still stuck in a pandemic. The prospect of turning off anyone’s tap is a crisis of ethical proportions - and a public health fiasco too.
Think about this. The water department holds their monthly meetings at 2pm on Wednesdays! Who can possibly make this? If they aren’t working or taking care of kids, Detroiters are most likely waiting in line at the Meijer on 8-Mile. Grassroots Organizations fill these oppressive gaps, making it their jobs to bear witness on behalf of the working poor. It’s the same story in Santa Ana, L.A., Philly, Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlanta, D.C., Appalachia and the Navajo Nation. These leaders make it their duty to pay attention to what’s happening. Because the ruling class has mastered the insidious strategy of making real life as confusing as possible – while making blue-collar and middle-class people work constantly, for less money, hustling harder to keep up with the sky-high prices of bare necessities.
In recent years, the Charlevoix Village Association on Detroit’s eastside has been trying to raise awareness around the housing eviction epidemic. The city made a law last year that gave tenants the right to legal representation, as thousands have been forced out of their homes because they cannot afford rising rents, mortgages, utilities and property taxes, which have been illegally over-assessed in the last decade. The problem is that the folks being forced out cannot afford lawyers, let alone the time and know-how to defend themselves. The city promised to make funds available, but leaders have not followed through. It’s simply not a priority.
Meanwhile, old Detroit homes are falling apart at the seams. The city appropriated $30 million for home repair and added an additional $15 million from state funds. Those numbers sound big. They aren’t. Detroiters actually need $2 to 4 billion for basic fixes, according to a study by University of Michigan Poverty Solution. After several meetings and a city-wide survey, the Charlevoix Village Association is advocating for the city to use millions of dollars of Covid funds to help long-time, low-income residents pay for repairs. Obviously, much more than that will be needed too.
We live literally right on the border of the Woodbridge and Core City neighborhoods. Walk due west and you’ll cruise through Core City, a low-income Black-majority context that’s been decimated by the outsourcing of the auto industry, subprime mortgages and disinvestment. Murray Wikol, a wealthy developer from the suburbs, bought a chunk of land in Core City for $1300 in 2013 and then tried to sell it for $850K. Now he has plans to put in a 3-story, open-air concrete crushing facility - right next to homes, churches, two farms and a school. Come to find out, Murray Wikol lied on city applications for the project. During a recent hearing, he failed to disclose that he’s been storing dirt, broken concrete and trucks at the site (illegally) for the past 18 months. When the wind picks up (30 MPH last weekend), it carries all sorts of toxins with it. We only know these details because Vanessa, a resident who lives two blocks from this site, put in a FOIA request with the city to access these documents.
Isn’t it interesting what’s considered a “crime” in our country? Murray Wikol is a criminal. But there’s no way that police will be rolling out to Murray’s mansion out in Bloomfield Hills. They will, however, pull over and arrest plenty of poor Black folk in Detroit for far less. Our friend Cait (pictured above with us at the Belle Isle 5K on NY Eve) is a public defender. She tells us stories about how police consistently lie in court and on affidavits. Detroit police will do whatever they can to search cars they pull over. One of the most common “crimes” is having a non-permitted gun in the trunk of a car. In Macomb, a white-majority county northeast of Detroit, residents can get a permit for their guns in about 48 hours. In Wayne County, however, residents consistently wait two to three months.
We are grateful for friends like Cait and grassroots orgs like the Charlevoix Village Association, We the People of Detroit and Core City Strong who are tirelessly standing up for vulnerable folks being exploited, displaced, shut-off and poisoned by “successful” people whose moral imagination is shaped by the profit motive. All year long, these shepherds keep watch over the flock by night, doing the divine work of lifting up the lowly and sending the rich away empty. Let’s deck the halls and celebrate these very wise (wo)men, tirelessly dedicated humans, and dissenting men, too! Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. We hope you had a kick-ass Kwanzaa - and are off to an exquisite New Year!
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