Earth Day is an opportunity to challenge and expand our thinking, to draw connections between people and issues that are often seen as separate.

In the past five years more than 400 people have been killed by police during traffic stops. None of these people posed a risk to the police or the public. None had a gun or knife. None were involved in criminal activity. All of these people were stopped for minor issues such as expired registration, cracked windows, or air fresheners dangling from mirrors. All were on their way doing ordinary, everyday things. Then a cop pulled them over. All lost their lives because of police violence.

For more than twenty years I have spent April 4th with Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence. This year marked the 55th anniversary of the evening at Riverside Church where King called the US the “greatest purveyor of violence” on earth. He identified militarism, materialism, and racism as the cornerstones of a culture of violence moving us toward “spiritual death.”

It has been two years since Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville police when they burst into her apartment in the middle of the night. This week the Washington Post published a study about the controversial police strategy that was linked to her killing. This strategy is being encouraged around the country and here in Detroit. It is behind the efforts of Detroit police to increase their reliance on technologies such as Project Green Light and ShotSpotter.

This week there were two important actions related to police violence. The first was the announcement that the Detroit Police Department has identified 128 officers who reflect “high risk” behaviors. The identification of these officers is the result of the work of a new unit created by Chief James White in an effort to hold officers who receive multiple complaints to be disciplined. White announced the identification of problem officers, acknowledging that until recently officers with records of repeated abuse and multiple citizen complaints have “slipped through the cracks.”

As the war in Ukraine turns increasingly brutal, those of us who work for peace need to ask some questions. What have we learned about our capacities to stop the drive toward military solutions to human problems? What is the difference between being against a war and building a peace?

I have chronicled every State of the City address since 1993,  beginning with Coleman Young. Of the long list of mayors that followed, some speeches have been memorable.  Dennis Archer got a standing ovation when he promised to pick up the garbage. Most have been fairly predictable efforts emphasizing “redeveloping” the city, providing better services, and creating jobs. One mayor after another has framed a vision of the city providing jobs, housing, services, and safety.

The images of war coming from Ukraine are all too familiar. People, mostly women and children, fleeing their homes in search of safety. Young people holding guns, in the hope of defending against fire power deadlier than they could have imagined just a few weeks ago. Bodies left in streets filled with the rubble of bombed out buildings. The reality of war has been with us somewhere in the world my entire life of more than 75 years.

As Russia moves armies into Ukraine, these basic truths are on full display. There is no question that whatever Vladimir V. Putin’s motivation, military force is wrong. The devastation of the Ukrainian people is a tragedy and an action invoking the specter of nuclear war. The Russian people do not want war. Their protests are being put down brutally.

Police departments are strategizing on how to blunt efforts at serious conversations about the role of policing in our country. They also want to get their hands on some of the stimulus money flowing into cities and states as part of the efforts to help local and state governments recover from the ravages of COVID 19.

Recently the Washington Post released its annual count on the number of people killed by police in 2021. At least 1,055 people died at the hands of police last year. This is the highest death toll since the Post began carefully compiling the people killed in 2015. Despite years of sustained public scrutiny aimed at controlling police violence, the report notes, “Police have fatally shot roughly 1,000 people in each of the past seven years.”

Amir Locke was shot to death by police early Wednesday morning. He was sleeping on a couch in his cousin’s small apartment in St. Paul when the SWAT team came in shouting. They were looking for someone else. Amir Locke was 22. He is another young black man who will be buried by his parents.

Michigan is facing unprecedented attacks on basic democratic processes. Right wing forces are launching new attempts to undermine public education, public health, and voting rights. These latest attacks are coming in the guise of direct democracy, using well-financed petition drives to bypass a vote of the people and the veto of the governor.

This week Puerto Rico emerged from the largest governmental bankruptcy in history. The restructuring of $120 billion in debt and pension obligations overshadowed the excruciating Detroit experience of $18 billion. Beginning as the Detroit bankruptcy was drawing to a conclusion, much of what the people of Puerto Rico faced had been refined and developed in Detroit.

The Republican Party has not believed in democracy for a very long time. The Democratic Party, in spite of its rhetoric, has not provided much defense. Elite politicians have never been the driving force for expanding democratic ideals. They have been forced into it by mass mobilizations that challenged their power and profits.

Almost everyone agrees we are at a dangerous moment. One year after an armed mob stormed the capitol, the future of democracy is in question. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 66% of Americans believe “democracy is threatened.”

This is the season when the rhythms of the earth move from deep darkness to light. It is a season that humans have celebrated through the centuries as a time of turning, a time of reflection and of celebration for the capacity of the earth to renew. For many of us, this year is one where the weight of darkness sits heavy.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has come to Detroit. In keeping with its origins, it came to the city as an” invitation only” gathering. And, as it has in most places, either in its favored meeting spot of Davos, Switzerland, or cities around the globe, it was met with vigorous protests. In Switzerland, the protests of its annual gathering have become so costly the government withdrew much of its support in response to public pressure.

Limestone and contaminated soil crashed into the Detroit River for the second time in two years. Detroit Bulk Storage once again violated permits and stored limestone too close to the water’s edge. As a result, the weight of the material put pressure on the earth and collapsed the soil under, sending rock and into the river.

A week after a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of murdering two people and shooting a third at a protest against police violence, another jury found the organizers of the violent far right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017 liable for more than $25 million in damages to 9 people injured at the event. The group included four people who where hurt when Heather Heyer was killed by James Fields, one of the defendants. Fields is already serving a life sentence for Ms. Heyer’s death.