DETROIT: Honest criticism is not racism...

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I have reported on what I call THE DETROIT BLACK CORRUPT POLITICAL CULTURE for many years. You can just type Black political culture in the “search” box to see just how many times I have mentioned the topic.

I did this knowing full well that using the word “black” would bring on criticism of racism BUT I felt I could explain my use of the word sufficiently enough to show that racism is not an issue here…but I was wrong and I blame it on not explaining my position sufficiently enough in the past so let me try again.

Obviously corruption knows no color or better yet, corruption may involve people of all colors.

Unfortunately, the word “black”, for many people, is understood only in a black vs. white context and that is the problem with using the word “black” to describe an ethnic group as is the use of the word “white”.

Ethnic groups have names and those should be used as in African-American, Poles, Italians, Germans, etc…I will blame my laziness and generational habit for not using the proper descriptive terms and I obviously assumed that when I was talking about black Detroiters, everybody knew who I was talking about.

But to expand the term black Detroiters to mean all African-Americans in this country is a false assumption and an assumption that should never be raised because it is specious to do so.

New Yorkers (all colors I guess) are singled out as belonging to a special culture that is found only in New York City. Boston has an Irish culture particular to Boston, etc. etc.

The African-Americans in Detroit (those that stayed) cultivated a culture particular to the city of Detroit. It is ultimately, a self-defeating and destructive culture that I have tried to define throughout the past few years. It does not mean all African-Americans subscribe to this culture. In fact, many African-Americans living in the city of Detroit deplore this culture but in most cases, do not have the power or the organization to change that culture…until now.

Mayor Bing and his supporters address the “culture” of corruption directly because they have to defeat it first if the city is to move on and this is black vs. black, one type of culture vs. a different sort of culture, both Detroit cultures; one corrupt and one progressive and honest.

I guess I could have not used the word black in describing the particular culture of corruption in the City of Detroit but it would not have the same meaning. New Jersey has been known as a den of iniquity and corruption involving people of all colors but that is not what happened in Detroit.

The black leaders in Detroit (including some Baptist pastors) took control over the city… originally to benefit the citizens of Detroit; blacks for blacks. But that control soon turned to benefiting the ones in control and those in control kept staying in control by manipulating the black electorate, convincing them that they should stay in control or the white man in Lansing will come and take the city away from them.

The corruption went so deep that even those taking care of Detroit’s students saw no problem with stealing student’s books and computers and using the money intended for the student’s education to throw lavish parties, fix up their homes or go on lavish vacations…and this was seen as OK because somehow they saw themselves as deserving everything that they can get from the man even if they were the man.

So yes, race was a crucial part of this specific culture in the City of Detroit and writing about it does not make one a racist just like criticizing Israel does not make one an anti-Semite.

Related articles

• Rep. Hansen Clarke and Detroit's New Renaissance (newsweek.com)