We are beginning the third year of the crisis in Flint. In spite of thousands of news articles, visits by politicians, apologies, and claims of relentless positive action, little has changed in the daily lives of the people. Water is still unsafe. Filters, touted as a cure all, have been operating for so long many are approaching fatigue. They require constant flushing. Many need to be replaced. Every day most people still organize their lives around water safety. They cannot simply turn on their tap to brush teeth, bathe, cook or wash. This week volunteers from Detroit will again go to Flint to deliver bottles of water, talk with residences, and explore how to advance political pressure to mobilize a will to act.

Meanwhile Governor Snyder continues his public relations stunts. Making a show of drinking filtered Flint water, he quickly departed for Europe. He didn’t take his water with him. And while crisis experts are making his name synonymous with ineptness and disaster, he and the powers that support him are scrambling to protect emergency managers.

The new corporate storyline is clear. Emergency Managers work. Flint was an anomaly. The EMs should have listened more. Emergency Manager Orr saved Detroit.

The effort put into this gross distortion is a measure of how important Emergency Manager laws are to corporate interests. They regard Emergency Managers as the single most important tool to further privatize public responsibilities and put a price tag on what should be a common birthright for all. Emergency managers are the key to undercutting basic democratic values that challenge the idea that private profit is more important than the public good.

Recently the Brookings Institute offered a platform for this distorted story. They hosted a discussion on the “new Detroit.” Entitled “How philanthropy, business, and government sparked Detroit’s resurgence,” Brookings pushed a new business climate survey from the Kresge Foundation. Panelists included Sandy Baruah of the Detroit Regional Chamber and Stephen Henderson of almost all Detroit media. Rip Rapson of Kresge moderated.

It was a disquietingly blind and distorted discussion. It is astonishing how the basic questions of who benefits from this “resurgence” and who is suffering in its wake were completely avoided. The reality that bankruptcy meant the destruction of pensions for thousands of elderly Detroiters, greatly diminishing their daily quality of life, was not mentioned. The horrific policy of aggressive water shut offs to nearly half the city did not spark a comment, even as we are facing another round of these shut offs next week. The abuse of our children in a school system that has been willfully dismantled was reduced to concerns for personal corruption, not a colossal system failure.

In the compartmentalized world of corporate America, cities surge while the majority of the people suffer. We should expect to hear this version of reality again and again as the corporate elite prepare for the annual visit to Mackinac Island. They are into damage control. We should expect an onslaught of stories about how much the bankruptcy has helped Detroit.

In the face of such lies, it is up to the rest of us to do the serious work of advancing visionary ideas to rebuild Detroit. We cannot expect the corporate powers to shape a future based on compassion or care for one another and our earth.

Social Solidarity Economy Forum

Tawana "Honeycomb" Petty

From April 7th - 10th, I had the honor of co-coordinating, along with Emily Kawano from RIPESS, NA, a convergence of hundreds in Detroit for the North American Social Solidarity Economy Forum. It was the first time the Social Solidarity Economy Forum had been held in North America. Presenters and participants came from Cuba, Quebec, Spain, Jackson, MS, St. Louis, MO, New York and all across the globe. We also had many participants and presenters from Detroit who shared the work that Detroiters are doing locally, as well as their Detroit collaborations across the globe.

We danced together, performed together, and engaged in political struggle. We struggled around politics, new work and new culture, racism, patriarchy, capitalism and more. We participated in a Theater of the Oppressed workshop hosted by Reg Flowers, a yoga workshop with Gwi-seok Hong, performed in a No Talent Necessary Talent Show hosted by Bryce and danced in respect of indigenous land and our Ancestors thanks to Consuela Lopez.

We successfully held a forum with over 400 participants and had only 1 regular sized garbage bag of waste per day. We hope to take that down to zero waste soon. Thanks to Homespun Hustle, many participants either rented, bought or brought their own utensils and dishes, then washed them at a washing station. We composted our food scraps in order to produce new food, thanks to Ty Petrie.

The young people held it down with their own incredible youth track thanks to the organizing of B. Anthony and we held serious discussions on race and decolonizing the solidarity economy with an entire track thanks to William Copeland, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Elandria Williams and others.

On April 7th, we had 3 amazing tours: From Growing our Economies to Growing Our Souls (Rich Feldman-Boggs Center), Five Miles to Freedom (Jamon Jordan-Historian) and Incite Focus Fab Lab tours (Blair Evans) and hosted a screening of American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. From April 8th-10th, we held over 65 workshops and activities and four plenaries. Be sure to check out all the workshops and plenaries and all the incredible facilitators who made them possible.

Plenaries included:

1. Building the Movement for a Social Solidarity Economy

2. De-colonizing the Solidarity Economy

3. Achieving Recognition and Support for the Social Solidarity Economy

4. SSE from Latin America/Caribbean to North America

Participants brought and exchanged items and held discussions around their newly found treasures with our swap, thanks to Halima Cassells.

Many folks made the NASSE Forum successful, and we still have much work to do. Thank you to everyone who made the forum possible and who will continue to do the work. Thank you to the coordinating committee, local coordinating team, all presenters, volunteers, to Samaritan Center and the Wellness Center, to our sound engineer, maintenance folks, the Digital Stewards for our wireless mesh set-up and to all of our sponsors. Thank you to Kehben Grier of the Beehive Collective for the wonderful cover art attached, which was used on our program.

May we all continue to build towards the world we want to live in.

In love and in struggle.

Black Voters Need Justice, Not Training Wheels

Kim Hunter for Engage Michigan

At this writing, we are a few days from yet another dog and pony show involving an unelected “official” that has supplanted the elected leaders of Detroit. It’s all connected to what I call the “bankrupture.”

Retired Judge Steven Rhodes, who oversaw Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings, has been tapped by Governor Rick Snyder to continue the failures of previous unelected Detroit Public Schools overlords. In what would be an unbelievable movie plot point, the previous Emergency Manager, Darnell Earley had to step downand lawyer upbecause of his role in the poisoning of Flint families.

Though, instead of being named Emergency Manager, Rhodes has demurred to the title of “Transitional Manager.” Perhaps this is because Rhodes has accepted the position of running the state’s largest school system even though he’s admitted knowing nothing about education.

Whatever the case, Rhodes is scheduled to speak at a public forum May 10 at Martin Luther King High School at 5:00 p.m. This is a public meeting actually required by law. What is not required is that he actually adheres to any demands from Detroit families and voters during the meeting.

It is more likely he will adhere to the suggestions of his “Transition Team” which, instead of including Detroit families with DPS students, was originally stacked with 11 white corporate leaders and one lone progressive, an African American union leader. The initial makeup of Rhodes team, indeed his very acceptance of the “Transitional Manager” role, shows a complete lack of faith in Detroit’s primarily African American voting populace. Only after it was made public did Rhodes “realize” the almost all-white, non-Detroiter, corporate make up of his team was a “mistake,” that you need more than one African American progressive voice to represent all of Detroit’s families.

Governor Snyder, and Rhodes, are acting as training wheels for voters unjustly castigated as being unfit to vote and therefore having their constitutional rights violated in the utmost. The Governor and Rhodes are practicing an almost surreptitious racism-with-a-smile that effectively says to black voters: we’re going to “help” you by denying your rights until we think you’re ready to have them back. It is whitesplaining writ large on the body politic.

The double tragedy of all of this is that, not only have our basic rights been violated, but also the records of previous unelected Emergency Managers consist of total failure. That includes highly questionable contracts, misrepresented test scores and a complete and utter failure to do what they were appointed to do: fix the DPS finances. In fact, the Detroit system had a surplus before being taken over by the state and being driven into deficit. Add to all this, the lack of accountability and transparency which may have aided the alleged kickback schemes currently rocking DPS, the decrepit unfit buildings and the robbing of students of their right to an education.

These are crimes, some of which may not be as pointed or as obvious as the Flint poisoning, but, nonetheless, are directly connected to the racism and lawlessness of denying African Americans the right to vote.

Though the state caused DPS’ financial troubles, Judge Rhodes was probably brought in to lobby GOP elected officials in Lansing to not let the system fall prey to the bankruptcy they instigated. He will put as fine a face on that lobbying effort and his public meeting of no consequence to the public as any highly educated, legally trained person can.

But, just as he ruled against Detroit families deprived of water because the banks demanded it, we can expect him to kowtow to the powers that be at the expense of people struggling for justice. We will continue to fight the water shutoffs. We will continue to fight for the right of young people to have a decent education in buildings that are safe in a system that is overseen not by illegally appointed “officials” but by those duly elected by voters.