Urgent Transitions
This week Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC) hosted a conference of activists concerned about creating a future based on regenerative principles of a just economy. People from around the country and several First Nations gathered to share ideas and practices. This was the gathering that Siwatu-Salama Ra worked tirelessly to bring to Detroit. It was the gathering she could not see from her prison cell. She is serving two years in prison for pointing an empty gun at a person who threatened to run over her mother and child. Those of us who came together to think about a different future were reminded how urgently we need to change our ways of living, and how much pain and destruction we have come to accept as normal in our daily lives.
I was part of a panel giving participants an overview of the struggles unfolding in Detroit around Air, Water, Land, and Education. Lila Cabill of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute opened the conversation by talking about the importance of making a transition from “me-oriented people” to “we-oriented people.” She emphasized that all of us are affected by the assaults on people and the planet. She invoked the story of Rosa Parks and Charity Hicks to help people understand that in the face of injustice and racism, “silence is violence.”
Monica Lewis Patrick of We the People of Detroit challenged the idea that Detroit was bankrupt. She emphasized that no elected officials in the city had agreed to this. Rather, the city had been taken over by the State and its appointed Emergency Manager. She invited people to think about the key roles Emergency Managers had played, not only in the poisoning of Flint but in the destruction of the Detroit Water Department, removing it from city control. A key part of the process was unprecedented water shut-offs, creating a widespread community response to protect people and advance policies that establish water as a human right and public trust.
Both Monica and Lila made clear that this takeover was a reflection of the twin forces of racism and capitalist advancement. The Great Lakes contain 22% of the world’s surface water and the drive to turn this life-giving element into private a profit center depends upon demonizing the people of our city as incapable of governing, as less than human.
Emma Lockridge built on the theme of racialized capitalism and its devastation to our communities. As an activist in 48217, the most polluted zip code in the US, Emma shared her struggles against Marathon Oil. She emphasized how much the current power structure reflects the idea that some people are disposable, that their lives do not matter.
For my part, I talked of Detroit as a movement city, where people have always resisted the assaults on our shared humanity. From our earliest encounters with Europeans, we have seen resistance and resilience. Chief Pontiac leads one of the largest anti-colonial struggles on the banks of the Detroit River. Over the centuries this spirit has continued.
In the 1960s the call of Black Liberation attracted many of us to Detroit. And it was the success of these efforts to challenge the power structure of this country based on values that moved us from “a thing-oriented society” to a “people-oriented society” that ultimately lead to the take-over by white, right-wing state legislatures of centers of African American political power in Michigan. Using legal tricks, 55% of African Americans were denied the right to effective local representation and nearly 75% of all African American elected officials were essentially removed from office.
The struggle over the education of our children exemplifies this assault on our cities. The Detroit Independent Freedom Schools Movement reflects our continued effort to not only resist dehumanization but to consciously and collectively build new, more loving, and caring ways of life.