On Riot and Resistance
A delegation of activists from Puerto Rico visited Detroit last week. They were part of a learning exchange designed to share lessons from “Detroit civil society in dealing with financial distress, debt restructuring, and financial oversight.” My section of the program focused on “how the dominant media narrative often dictates policies of stricter and stricter fiscal austerity.” Marina Guzman and Michelle Martinez joined me in a discussion exploring the implications of the dominant narratives, especially those that blamed residents or local officials rather than those exploring the root causes of the financial crisis. We also talked about how race and ethnicity played into these media narratives.
I arrived a little early for the session and heard the end of a dominant narrative being presented by two representatives of the Duggan Administration. One explained to the group that “Kevyn Orr was the smartest man he had ever worked with.” The other said that there was no resistance to downtown development. The lack of riots in the street over the eviction of people from the Albert was her example.
I was very glad for the opportunity to have heard these two folks talk. I rarely get such a distilled version of the assumptions woven into the corporate view of what a great thing the Detroit Bankruptcy process was. I came away thinking about how important it is that we not let the corporate narrative define what constitutes “resistance.”
As far as both speakers were concerned, resistance was equated with rioting. From their point of view, unless people were overturning police cars, there was no resistance. Kevyn Orr, and Mayor Duggan have echoed similar feelings, noting they were successful because there was no riot.
It is widely understood that America rarely notices its problems unless it is forced to confront them, frequently by riots or rebellions. In 1992, had Los Angeles not erupted after Rodney King, it is unlikely that politicians would have paid any attention to our cities. More recently, it was not until police attacked protesters on a bridge that Occupy received media attention. For Ferguson it was attacking police cars that attracted the cameras. The dominant power structure loves to see people in the streets move toward destruction of property, because it knows how to respond. America is very good at killing people who threaten property.
That is why it is important for us to understand that resistance to power is not the same thing as a riot. Resistance is the assertion of “our humanity in the face of immoral policies of viscous forces bent on the destruction of all that we cherish in the pursuit of profit and power,” as Grace Lee Boggs said in an article in 2013. She said, “We will not be silent as schools are closed, and people go hungry and lose their homes. We will not be silent as our land is taken for private gain and used as a dumping ground for the waste of the petroleum industry. We will not be silent when we are told we must kill other people to protect our way of life. We will not be silent when we are told there are no alternatives. Enough is enough! This is our city, our state and our country. We can and will create new world-beloved communities that heal ourselves and our earth.”
Resistance is standing in front of the Homrich trucks to prevent water shutoffs. It is painting “Free the Water” for all to see. It is artists, activists, children, parents, lovers, and friends acting to build ways of living that value life. The power of imagination, of creativity, and of courage cannot be so easily controlled or silenced. These are the sources of transforming our future and ourselves.
From Growing Our Economy to Growing Our Souls
Rich Feldman
For the past 5 years members of the Boggs Center have been giving tours of Detroit based upon the title and theme: “From Growing Our Economy to Growing Our Souls.”
This is an east side focused tour which we host for people eager to be introduced to and begin to learn and engage with Detroit's real narrative where people have made a way out of no way and see opportunity in the moment. It is based upon the philosophy and thinking and reflection of the work of James and Grace Lee Boggs and the Center to Nurture Community Leadership.
It has been one way to share a history of Detroit, a discussion of the birth and the death of the economic American Dream of the 20th Century and the death and birth of a new epoch in human history emerging at this moment in human history and Detroit’s History. The tour is based upon the evolution of the ideas, writings and organizing of the work of James and Grace Boggs as well as the network of many individuals and organizations currently engaged in community base visionary organizing. During the past years, we have shared this tour with the annual Bioneers Gatherings, the Allied Media Conferences, and documentary filmmakers from France, Brazil, Italy and Spain.
We often do tours for middle and high school students from Detroit and the suburbs, as well as colleges and universities with global studies initiatives. This past summer we had the privilege of sharing the tour with young people from the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights who were going on a Southern Civil Rights tour, young people from Germany who were part of a truth and reconciliation organizing program, to the James and Grace Lee Boggs School Staff as well as 35 teachers preparing for the September opening of school in Detroit.
Last week was a special week. We had three tours. A group representing Jewish Activist organizations in Detroit (Hazon & Repair the World), an education class from Grand Valley State College and a University of Michigan Michigan design program visiting Detroit who were engaging in a salon type conversation discussing automation, ethics and design with representatives from university, business, and media.
The tour stops include:
Packard Automotive Plant, built in 1905, where we discuss the history of mass production, the auto industry, unions, and the great migration. We discuss the rise and end of the economic American Dream and the acknowledgement that we have entered a new epoch in human history, the importance of ideas and time. James Boggs’ 1963 book, the rise of automation, technological change, the outsiders and the underclass.
We then go to the Poletown GM Hamtramck Assembly and discuss the destruction of the community through the use of eminent domain in 1980, the emerging contradiction between the JOB economy and Community, the significant rise of Coleman Young, the need to distinguish between Riot, Rebellion, and Revolution. A recognition that 2017 is both the anniversary of MLK speech Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence and his call for a radical revolution in values as well as the Detroit Rebellion. Where are we going in the next 50 years?
We then visit a community garden or urban farm on the east side. Sometimes it is Freedom Growers where Myrtle, Wayne & Kezia Curtis share their journey and commitment based upon the theme: Grow a Garden: Grow a Community, uniting art, healthy eating initiatives with young people and this summer a mentoring program. This week we went to Earth Works and shared the relationship of the great migration to the modern urban gardening movement.
A stop at Heidelberg provides the space and place to talk about Tyree Guyton’s commitment to bring art (as medicine) to the community in 1986 which is Detroit’s moment when 381 young people under the age of 16 are shot and 41 are killed, inspiring the creation of Save our Sons and Daughters (Vera Rucker & Clementine Barfield) , We the People to Reclaim our Street (Dorothy Garner) , the Coalition Against Police Brutality (Ron Scott & Sandra Hines) and eventually the vision and practice of Peace Zones for Life. Tyree brings art to the community supporting the theme: everyone can dream and be an artist.
This week we had the chance to have an extended conversation with one of the three women who started the James and Grace Lee Boggs School (Marisol Teachworth & Detroit Summer activist Dakari Carter and learn about place based education, perseverance and the belief that every young person has gifts to bring to the community. Sharing the history of the school, allows us to share the story of Detroit Summer, Julia Putnam, Amanda Rosman and Marisol Teachworth.
This week of tours ended at CanArts, Carlos Neilbok where we learned of his story of the importance of welding, recycling materials to create windmills and his commitment and love for his east side community to train young people in these skills and use their imagination.
We end the tour at the former site of Bloody Run Creek to emphasize the resilience of nature and the resistance of Chief Pontiac more than 300 years ago to the western invasion by the British.
Some of the themes & questions that emerge during the debrief discussions which we host to conclude the 2-3-or 4 hours tour were the following:
The importance of Time, decades, centuries and the relationship to changing ideas.
The value of studying history in a very specific commitment to place and space and thus the need to think dialectically and NOT get stuck.
How can this discussion of values and history help us talk with our “uncle or family member ” who may be supporting Donald Trump? How do we discuss the end of the “American Dream/; and whiteness becoming smaller. How do you engage with folks who see “their whiteness getting smaller, their fears larger, their anger intensifying” with the belief that all people can change? How do we learn to listen, share stories, engage with folks who disagree?
How does our narrative become more dominant than the current narrative from Mike Illitch, Dan Gilbert, Snyder and Dugan that “Detroit is coming back” which we know totally ignores the majority of Detroiters?
How does this changing mode of production, miniaturization of technology, and the growing crisis in capitalism provide an opportunity (not inevitable) to create beloved communities?
How do we show ourselves and others that growing numbers of people are creating an alternative way of life based upon the belief that a critical and fundamental response to growing inequality and the growing planetary crisis is local sustainable community production and self-governing democracy?
What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to grow our souls, contribute to this movement moment, grow as activists and as thinkers?
The tour and debrief that follows the tour, “From Growing Our Economy to Growing our Souls” provides one way to share our work, our narrative and allow folks to see, feel, hear and touch a changing world that takes place in a safe space with brave questioning conversations. We welcome learning journeys from universities, activists, family’s schools, local, national and international visitors. We learn from you while we share our journey. It is always an honor to meet and dialogue with the hundreds and thousands of annual visitors to the Boggs Center. Our tour is one space that brings forth the energy, the imagination and the reflection.