The court has ruled, so the legalized looting of Detroit will go ahead as Governor Snyder
has planned. The Emergency Manager has ordered the DIA to provide him with a list of the
values of the many artworks in the institute. The city water works are also probably going
to be sold, as well as city parks and anything else they can get a nickel for. We?ve heard
they have even discussed selling all of the animals in the zoo. ---- But the people set-up
by this ruling for the most egregious screwing are the city workers and retirees. The
offer on the table is to pay retirees about.30 cents on the dollar. From the Detroit Free
Press: ---- ?But for a retiree counting on a modest annual pension of, say $30,000, the
proposed cut would leave him or her with $4,800. Of all the once-proud city?s creditors,
including banks, vendors and bondholders, retired workers are the least able to take the hit.?
And:
?Orr already created a tsunami of controversy when he acknowledged late last month that
billions of dollars worth of art that the city owns and has housed at the Detroit
Institute of Arts are vulnerable to creditors. But he potentially could sell or privatize
numerous other city assets, too, from public parks to operations of the city?s Water and
Sewerage Department to sundry treasures found in some of Detroit?s other cultural
institutions.?
Baltimore, Providence, Chicago, all are in financial situations similar to that of
Detroit, yet no one is even considering bankruptcy. What?s different about Detroit?
Detroit is in a state ruled by rightwing racist Teapublicans. The destruction of Detroit
is a political project of these men, and their end goal is to strip the city of anything
of value, to the point where they drive off the remaining population, and are then able to
replace them with people more to their liking. In fact, the city that Detroit most
resembles today is New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, when the same sort of
shifty thieves and con artists did everything possible to drive off the population. The
difference is between one catalyst being a storm, and the other being a storm of pure racism.
No one can appreciate the disaster unfolding in Detroit without addressing the fight
against white supremacy and the struggle for social equality that provides its background.
The assertion of white supremacy in Detroit is the underlying cause of the current
economic and social destruction of the city.
The history of racial conflict in Detroit is traced by many politicians to the
insurrection of 1967. In fact the events of 1967 were the crescendo of inter-racial
warfare that had been burning hot and cold in Detroit since before World War One. The riot
of 1863 was caused by racism and opposition to the military draft. But the 20th century
began the real blood-letting. It was at this time that Detroit became a key destination
for African-Americans leaving the Jim Crow south in the Great Migration.
In 1910 the black population of Detroit was 5741 people (1% of the total population).By
1920 that number had increased to 40,838. By 1930 that number had doubled, with
African-American residents making up almost 8% of the city population. At the same time
thousands of white southerners also migrated north to escape the endemic poverty of the
rural south, as well as thousands of European immigrants fleeing the class system and
oppression of the Old World.
In the 1920s the KKK made Detroit a stronghold (50% of the 40,000 members of the Michigan
Klan lived in Detroit). In the 1930s, the white supremacist Black Legion made Detroit its
headquarters. The increase in industrial production in the late 30s and early 1940s
brought an additional influx of black Americans to Detroit, and likewise produced
murderous race riots over housing and white workers objections to working with black
workers on the assembly line. The 1943 riot lasted three days and resulted in 34 deaths,
25 of them African Americans, 17 of them killed by the police. 43 people died in the 1967
Detroit Insurrection, 33 of them African Americans, at least 26 killed by the police or
the National Guard.
The struggle to maintain white supremacy in Detroit has been an ongoing project. White
flight after the 1967 insurrection had a different character than similar events in other
cities. Where whole neighborhoods in Chicago and other cities suffered from loss of
economic investment, the entire city of Detroit was subjected to disinvestment. The
primarily white suburbs were the obvious beneficiaries of white flight and the relocation
of capital. Meanwhile the city of Detroit was left on its own to absorb the
de-industrialization of the American economy. Disinvestment and capital fight inspired by
racial hatred have made Detroit what it is today.
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» (en) US, WSA Ideas & Action - White Supremacy and the Looting of Detroit By Mike Kolhoff