Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @AuthenticallyDetroit!
Authentically Detroit
The Black Detroit Democracy Podcast: The Fight for Detroit’s Soul with Kamau Clark
The Authentically Detroit Podcast Network in collaboration with Detroit one million presents: The Black Detroit Democracy Podcast, hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Sam Robinson!
Together, Donna and Sam illuminate the complexities of Detroit’s unique political landscape and give residents a resource for navigating civic engagement and election season.
On this episode, they are joined by Kamau Clark, the Southeast Michigan Lead Organizer for We The People Michigan, to discuss how he got into organizing, his role in this year’s elections, and how to engage young people in local politics.
Topics of Discussion include:
- The opening of the Hudson’s building
- The validity of research methodology of Black and Hispanic wealth increases
- Community Violence Intervention (CVI) as an alternative to policing
- The male loneliness epidemic and right wing messaging
- Defining the working class
- Journalism's role in highlighting the working class
Detroit City Government is a service institution that recognizes its subordination to the people of Detroit. The city shall provide for the public peace, health and safety of persons and property within its jurisdictional limits officers, in seeking to advance, conserve, maintain and protect the integrity of the human, physical and natural resources of this city from encroachment and or dismantlement. The people have a right to expect city government to provide for its residents decent housing, job opportunities, reliable, convenient and comfortable transportation, recreational facilities and activities, cultural enrichment, including libraries, art and historical museums, clean air and waterways, safe drinking water and a sanitary, environmentally sound city. Keep it locked.
Speaker 2:The Black Detroit Democracy podcast starts right after these messages and businesses and organizations To learn more about rental options at Mass Detroit contact Nicole Perry at nperry at ecn-detroitorg or 313-331-3485.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone and welcome to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. I'm Donna Givens-Davidson, president and CEO of the Eastside Community Network and co-host of Authentically Detroit.
Speaker 4:I'm Sam Robinson, founder of Detroit. One Million.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening in and supporting our expanded effort to build another platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. The purpose of this podcast is to encourage Detroit citizens to stay vigilant in the fight for justice and equality. With a special call to action for Black Detroit, we seek to build awareness of our history as a gateway to freedom, a beacon for justice and a laboratory of liberation. Sam and I are joined today by Kamau Clark, the Southeast Michigan lead organizer for we, the People Michigan, to discuss how he got into organizing his role in this year's city elections and how to engage young people in local politics. Welcome back to the Black Detroit Democracy podcast. How is everyone today?
Speaker 4:Donna, I'm great. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm a little tired after last night we saw the Hudsons for the first time, and was it some, you know, amazing, grandiose, like oh my gosh, this new type of? No, it was like a room in another room, but we saw it for the first time and there was a balcony with some fake trees and plants and you got to see that angle, looking down on Woodward, thinking when was the last time people have had this angle?
Speaker 4:Since before that Probably decades ago, since before that building was torn down. But the building itself was kind of. The building was closed when I was a child. It's unfinished. It is unfinished.
Speaker 3:It's unfinished and it is also architecturally uninteresting to me from the outside. I expected to have that wow factor and I was like ugh. And I don't want to be always negative, and no, I'm not angry for people who are listening, I'm just saying that it did not really strike me as beautiful as I thought it would. And the other question I had is how beautiful will it be 40 years from now? You know, there's a time when rinsing was like really hot. Now everybody's like let's tear it down. Anyway, Kamau, how are you?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm well and I co-sign it. It doesn't feel like an epicenter or like when you think of this, the Think of this. The mayor said it's beautiful.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a lot of people there were like, oh my God, breathtaking. So I mean it's a taste.
Speaker 3:It is, and I saw it through your eyes. Some people are just so excited about everybody. Remember, when the queue line started, people were like this is going to solve public transportation and I had some disagreements with family members because I was like I don't see how I can probably ride my bike faster than the queue line. Why would I get on the queue line?
Speaker 6:but yeah, but otherwise I'm well. It's been a great year and also, too, it's a circus politically right now, which I love the circus hasn't ended.
Speaker 4:It stopped in like November to December 31st and then just continued since then.
Speaker 6:It keeps things interesting.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, what's interesting to me is the way people admire Mike Duggan. They admire him for things that make no sense in terms of political leader, and I want to spend some time really talking about that and just untangling what does it mean to be a great mayor of a city of Detroit? What does it mean to say Detroit has come back? What metrics are we looking at? Are we looking at poverty? Are we looking at homelessness? Are we looking at the condition of neighborhoods? Are we looking in terms of environmental health? Are we saying, geez, now we have the Union Station and we have this whole new building on Woodward and we can look out in places? Those are my questions, because I think sometimes we're having parallel arguments, and my argument is always going to be about equity, inclusion and justice, but other people want different things from their city and I suppose their views and values count as much as mine. We just don't see the world through the same lens.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of different measurements. I mean, they just did a city press conference last week talking about the black and Hispanic wealth that has increased through home value, and I think if you're looking at home value, that is one metric. Does that shine light on the circumstance of each and every resident living in those neighborhoods that is even affected by the question?
Speaker 3:Let's be real clear. This study is the same study that was conducted and publicized last year. We're going to get into that study and the flaws in the actual design of the study. Just because somebody releases a study does not mean it passes muster as a true academic project, the research project. Sometimes people just throw information together and reach conclusions that we can't use on our side, but I want to spend a little bit more time talking about correlation, causation, sample size and how you know who's benefiting, because the study lacks all of that integrity. Before we do that, though, word on the street. What are you hearing, Sam Kamau? What are you hearing from people in the street right now? What are some words?
Speaker 4:Well, the thing that I'm hearing the day after and even last night in the Hudson's is that this is a mayor running for governor. It was interesting to see all the council candidates back there. Two of them were running for mayor, of course, city Council President Mary Sheffield and District 7 Councilman Fred Durhall, as well as Solomon Kinloch was seated. Duggan shouted out a lot of the clergy he did. He did not make any reference to Solomon Kinloch or Triumph Church.
Speaker 3:I'm glad he didn't, because that would poison me Anyway.
Speaker 4:He shouted out. All the other council members, der Hall and Mary got their shouts out.
Speaker 6:Well, by nature, the state of the city is similar to the state of the state. It is to present to council what their priorities should be for the year, and so it's often why they pull them into saying, oh, this person helped with this. And so I think a lot of folks are feeling and this is the morning after that, the argument that we've been making for the past decade or so around tax abatements for billionaires that that argument has shifted. It's now this we need to do this. This is the way that we do development, different than other states where many folks are questioning why isn't the money going into our neighborhoods?
Speaker 3:Well, I think if you looked at the Trump administration and his priorities and the mayor of Detroit and the mayor's priorities, they're going to be kind of the same. You're not going to see a big focus on the environment. You're going to give lip service to the environment, but you see your job and the role of the city as helping to facilitate business interest. And isn't that what the EPA is saying right now? Listen, we're facilitating business interest. There are just so many ways that I see some parallels here. And again, I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just being honest with my assessment of things.
Speaker 4:We have a trickle-down city Could be positive by the way you spin it. Oh, thank you. The campaign's looking for some Trump support, some Republican support.
Speaker 3:Well you, know and he'll get it.
Speaker 6:But I think you're right when you talk about trickle-down economics.
Speaker 3:Right, I'll tell you what trickle down economics now you know. But long before either of you was alive, when George Bush was running against Ronald Reagan the first time before he became vice president we're talking about George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan was talking about trickle down economics. For the first time we heard that term in a political conversation and George Bush called it voodoo economics. He said listen, wealth does not trickle down like that. And that mindset has become so normalized in neoliberal thinking that we really do believe that if we make billionaires wealthier billionaires, we subsidize billionaires somehow. People who are risking losing their homes and people living in substandard homes are going to benefit. And I want to spend some time really, really dissecting. What does that mean? And word on the street, that's the word on that street, right, but you also go to bus stops and you also hang out in the hood. Is that the word in the hood?
Speaker 6:No, I mean, I think it was interesting to see an extended segment about the auto industry and like shifts into manufacturing over the past 10 years. If you look at the auto market, most people are not buying cars. Right now, we're seeing tariffs come, cars are more expensive than they've ever been, many folks depend on public transit to get around, and so I think the conversations that they were having were ones that are appealing to, yes, to the business community, to corporations, but at the community level, folks are concerned about, particularly right now they're concerned about, like medical transport, free clinics, they're concerned about mental health, housing costs, and so those are the things that are impacting people more at the community level. But when we shift that conversation away from that to you know how do we make sure that billionaires are in better position to shape this region? It doesn't give them an opportunity to be heard.
Speaker 3:So that's what I'd say. You know, consideration that people just bring a different lens, a different set of needs in this community where Stellantis got so much subsidy and so much support building this new plant to build three row Jeeps that nobody's buying and it's like, first of all, I again. You know, I think you know one thing about when you get, as you get older, you start seeing things that younger people don't see, because I grew up and I graduated from high school in 1981. And in 1981, you had this tremendous auto recession where everybody lost jobs because the United States was building cars that people weren't buying. We had, at that time, an oil crisis. Oil prices were going high and I remember my father purchasing a Volkswagen Rabbit.
Speaker 3:This is a Cadillac man's Coupe de Ville you know some rooftop, you know what I'm talking about and he's in a Rabbit because the oil prices have gone up and Cadillacs were not energy efficient, fuel efficient and the Japanese automakers were taking over the market. There was a lot of hostility towards Japanese people. There was actually the murder of Vincent Chin, who was a Chinese man who they mistakenly believed was Japanese, and they just killed him. There was that much anger and the auto industry, literally the US auto industry, collapsed. Chrysler Corporation collapsed Decades later, four so high that people are from other places, not just Japan, but Korea and some European car makers are just really creating a really strong competition for vehicles sales, and so we're going to see some layoffs in an industry that Detroit subsidized.
Speaker 3:Factory Zero is the Poletown plant. Right, and the Poletown plant was subsidized in the same way this Chrysler plant was. But the final thing I want to say about this is the Poletown plant right, and the Poletown plant was subsidized in the same way this Chrysler plant was. But the final thing I want to say about this is the environmental damage remains, even after the jobs go away, even after the plant shut down or downsized. The environmental damage remains and the shifting of resources to support these billionaires to then pull out is a permanent loss of opportunity for the people who could have used those same resources to fix up their blocks. And if we evaluate in that way, then we're doing something good. But unfortunately we look at these narrow metrics that are twisted to sort of fit a narrative.
Speaker 4:A lot of it is pride. I mean that narrative is so you know we're so prideful of our car auto history I heard the mayor over the weekend talk about. At this youth mobility summit at New Lab, which the mayor is very proud of, we'll tout and highlight New Lab and all the hundred and some companies that are inside of that. Tech innovation. What do you call it? Incubator?
Speaker 6:is the word. And even more broadly, you kind of pointed to the federal policy and how it impacts us here. America is a nation that is trying to compete more broadly with China and Brazil and other rising nations. So we're seeing a state like Michigan go back into manufacturing because we're trying to compete with these larger nations, and so I think that's a big part of it as well. It's baked into the pride of the auto industry, but also a lot of American pride.
Speaker 3:They associate it with pride and I think pride has something to do with it. I think it's bigger than pride. I think a lot of younger people I think it's generational People my age have that pride. Younger people are like you know what? I just want a car share. My son is he'll be 30 this year.
Speaker 6:He's a little bit older than both of you guys.
Speaker 3:But listen, my son does not own a car and he does not want to own a car. He is applying for a new job. He lives in LA and he's like listen, this is a train ride away. This looks like the job for me. That's his thinking. His world does not involve.
Speaker 4:Which we're starting to hear that from leaders now the acknowledgment of. You know, warren Evans is talking about it, dan Gilbert, a couple years ago, actually talked about it. Dan Gilbert was at the State of the City.
Speaker 4:Yesterday got a standing ovation for everyone Did, yeah, but Duggan has been really. He really paused and slowed down to reflect on the legacy of Gilbert and the Family Foundation and the investment. Talked about his son who passed away of cancer a few years back and talked about even despite the personal tragedies that Dan Gilbert has suffered, he has not wavered in his commitment to the welfare of the people of Detroit.
Speaker 3:Is the quote the welfare of the people of Detroit and I get that he's a smooth talker, yeah, and I think that that's great and I think that you know, of course we have empathy for both Dan Gilbert and his son and his wife for their loss and I'm not a person who does not appreciate, actually, what Dan Gilbert has done in terms of his philanthropy, because the Illich's have benefited from some of the same kind of tax breaks and corporate, you know, philanthropy, corporate welfare, and they have not done what he's done. I think that Dan Gilbert. They have two buildings down there.
Speaker 3:They got their arena and Little Caesars headquarters down there they have, you know, got much more than that and much more largesse and much more grace from the city. They have actually two sports, two, two arenas.
Speaker 3:Right, they have um the two arenas they have all of the corporate welfare the stadium and the arena built the city, built lca, and it's not charging, even charging them rent and they're collecting money off of that. What you don't see is an equivalent level of philanthropy. And so if I had to choose my billionaire, I'd choose Gilbert over Illich, simply because Gilbert at least has a sense of reinvestment. And that is not to also say that we expect more from our billionaires, but I do have empathy for him and I think these stories, these individual stories of greatness, make sense.
Speaker 4:Yeah, duggan, at this new lab event over the weekend, said Silicon Valley, which he said he's been to four times since last quarter. He said that, like last month. So he keeps going to Silicon Valley. He says we're not going to be the tech, we're going to be cars, we're going to be automobiles. So when keeps going to Silicon Valley, he says you know, we're not going to be the tech, we're going to be cars, we're going to be automobiles. So when you talk about pride, it really is like you know this is our stake in the ground. We're not going to give this up. You know this is our territory. You're not going to make your Apple car.
Speaker 4:Steve Jobs, you know, get out of here, not Steve Jobs anymore, but Tim Cook. Rest in peace to that other bad guy. The Walter Isaacson biography. You read that and you learn a thing or two about Steve Jobs. But it's really interesting to me that we're so attached and we just can't get rid of it. Governor Whitmer, when she talks you'll hear her really echo the sentiment of people like Mary Barra or Jim Farley of Ford and GM. And you know, when you read the Deadline Detroit story of Mayor Bing, I think 12 or 13, 15 years ago talking about who really runs the city. You know I don't think much has changed in terms of they trust, and Doug even talked about instead of pushing back on the corporate, back on the suburbs, working with them has yielded success, at least in terms of generating revenue, which is interesting.
Speaker 6:But I think that I love to zoom out. I think, if we look at, there's a whole party realignment happening right now. That's been happening for the past few electoral cycles. If you look at states that have made investment in transits, ironically enough it's been states where there have been Republican supermajorities or right-wing governors. It's not to say that they're champions of transit and of well-being, but I think we're seeing a bit of even you even baked into that conversation about let's work with McComb, let's work with Oakland County. You're starting to see these kind of right-wing politicians start to create more of a narrative around how do we work better at a regional level, where I think Democrats are kind of staying pat and trying to do the same thing over and over?
Speaker 3:Well, I think that the Democratic Party is a party without an identity, and I think there's a lack of identity because we don't even know what we believe in. We don't know what our values are and what our bottom line is. The thing about Republicans is they know exactly who they hate and they know exactly what they want to do and they're unified around that.
Speaker 3:They hate abortion, they hate the LGBTQ community, they hate DEI, they hate taxes and because of that it's very easy to get them. They want small government. What do Democrats want? Democrats want people to be able to. We're kind of on the fence and we're all over the place on a lot of these issues.
Speaker 4:I think they want a few different things Compete against each other, competing things.
Speaker 3:I don't think that there is a belief that is shared among Democrats that housing is a human right, that water is a human right, that economic development should not be subsidized. We should be subsidizing small businesses instead of billionaires. I don't think that neighborhoods matter. I don't think there's even agreement on the preamble of the Detroit City Charter. I think we are all over the place. And because we're all over the place and trying to figure out what sells, we support manufacturing because we believe that is going to make us popular with people, because people want manufacturing jobs. The biggest business in Detroit is not cars. What is it?
Speaker 6:business in Detroit is not cars. What is it?
Speaker 3:I have a few answers. I mean I tend to say it's real estate or mortgage companies, but it's financial services. Financial services are the biggest industry and if we acknowledge that Dan Gilbert owns the biggest industry in Detroit and then the other guy who lives in Bloomfield Hills I don't remember his name United Mortgage Company, he's also a big employer, matt.
Speaker 4:Ishbia.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm Matt Ishbia.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, thank you. United Wholesale Mortgage, wholesale Mortgage, yeah.
Speaker 3:So you have Rocket Mortgage and Wholesale Mortgage, and that's true. States is so much of our policies being driven by financial interest, by investors, the investor class, which is our bonds, and all of that, and they get to set the priorities for a city every single election cycle. If you look at what the mayor brags about increasing home values, the reduction in poverty, increased average wage those are all things that mooties and standard and poor's want to see. What they don't want to see is increased housing affordability. What they don't want to see is improved quality of life. There's no measure for that.
Speaker 3:What gets measured gets attended to with policy, and I think our mistake can be when we accept measures that really correlate to, you know, injustice as appropriate measures or as equivalent measures to measures around justice. So for a justice-oriented person such as myself, I'm not interested in understanding about the Detroit's relationship with Macomb County unless that relationship is somehow improving the quality of life for average Detroiters and average Macomb County residents, and I think that's the danger is, we fight the battle on their terms and not on our terms, and the Democrats have failed to figure out what those terms are. The Democrats have said hey, listen, I'm kind of like Republicans. Light. I'm like a Republican who doesn't dislike gay people. I'm the Republican who likes DEI, except for the people I hire in my offices.
Speaker 6:Which perfectly sets the conditions for Duggan to seize this very neoliberal narrative here in Detroit, and then for the governor's race, because there's a lack of an agenda coming from the Democratic Party. And so I agree, and I think that's a lot of what we're seeing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that it is up to us and that's why we talk about the Black Detroit Democracy podcast it is up to us to figure out what that agenda is. We're taking a break right now and when we come back we're going to dig more deeply into the specifics of the state of the city. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Detroit One Million is a journalism project started by Sam Robinson that centers a generation of Michiganders growing up in a state without a city with one million people. Support the only independent reporter covering the 2025 Detroit mayoral race through the lens of young people. Good journalism costs. Visit Detroit1millioncom to support Black independent reporting.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Authentically Detroit where we're going to once again discuss the state of Black democracy in Detroit through the lens of the state of the city. I promised I was going to have some conversations about this data, about these homeowners black and Hispanic homeowners making so much money off of these home sales. So you might even ask yourself what data set tracks who's benefiting by race. You know, and there literally is. If you go to the Wayne County, you know deeds recorder, deeds, whatever. They don't identify race or ethnicity in the deed recording. So if that's your source of information, how would you know if black and Hispanic people benefited? So I asked the question because I looked through the data and it looks like they're getting the information from the Wayne County Register of Deeds. They're looking at the values of the registered deeds and property sales and they're assuming that if these sales and these transactions are taking place in a majority black neighborhood, that black people are benefiting. If it's a majority Hispanic neighborhood, hispanic people are benefiting. So let's talk about a historically Hispanic neighborhood in the city of Detroit, corktown, which is almost all white right now. Hispanic people, mexican people have been pushed out of Corktown. If you use that logic then you can say that, wow, this million dollar property owner in Corktown is a Hispanic person who made money, and you don't have to acknowledge that that person is now living in Dearborn or Lincoln Township because they were pushed out and they can't afford to live there anymore.
Speaker 3:If you are looking at that data and you look at West Village or you look at East English Village or you look at Jeff Chalmers, if you look at certain key neighborhoods, it can look really good. Look at Island View, which was almost 100% black until too long, and now black people can't afford to live there, and so I just want us to think that through. I want us to think through. When somebody throws out that data, whose data is it?
Speaker 3:I'm working in the neighborhood of Chandler Park, doing housing in Chandler Park, and I promise you that those homeowners are not making you know the millions of dollars more. They're doing better perhaps, but not as much better as you would think. And even when you look at the average rising income or the average incomes in our communities, in the communities that ECN serves, income increases have been flat. You haven't seen median income increases. You're seeing still about $30,000, $31,000 a year as median income in most of the zip code areas that we're working in. So I think the data is distorted, I think the assumptions are ridiculous, as though somehow the researchers did not ever hear of gentrification. So I asked the question have you ever heard of gentrification? Why don't you look at mortgage records? Because mortgage records can do a much better job of identifying, because they have to, by federal law, at least for now, identify race and ethnicity to address past discrimination practices. Well, I would have done that, but I didn't have time to do that for this report.
Speaker 3:There it is what researcher releases a report without taking the time to actually ensure that the data is accurate. So that's my current state of mind. It's just I think that we're not doing a good enough job really ensuring that even what's being reported is accurate. The final thing I would say is I had a community meeting last year when this came out and I said how many of you have seen your housing values double in this room? Nobody.
Speaker 6:Not the people who come here.
Speaker 3:Talk to your parents, talk to their friends. Are they seeing that? Now, maybe because of the neighborhood they're in? You'll, they'll see that, but depending on what neighborhood they're in, you're not seeing much of anything. So that's my take on that. What else was talking about?
Speaker 4:hasn't stopped the mayor from you know touting the numbers and you know line up. You had city council members last week.
Speaker 3:The mayor commissioned that study. So it's not that the study is not. Coincidentally, the mayor commissioned that study and he had commissioned the exact same study the year before and without giving away a name, I talked to somebody from that school at U of M who told me that the researcher was being pressured to produce that data. If you're being pressured to produce data on behalf of the city and the city is your customer you have to question whether or not there's data integrity.
Speaker 6:Yeah, the efficacy of it, yeah.
Speaker 3:If DTE produces a study on air pollution from coal-burning plants, Are you going to trust it? If Philip Morris produces a study on the impact of cigarette smoking on lung health, are you going to trust it? The reality is that the entity that purchases these studies has some control over the outcomes. Yeah, 100%. So that's my take on that. But what else was talked about? I know he's now black, and Hispanic families are now rich, even though we're seeing a crisis in southwest Detroit where people's homes have been destroyed and people are being deported and are afraid to go to work, but somehow they are thriving in this new Detroit. That has come out and said we are not going to protect you from ICE. I'm sorry, go on.
Speaker 6:They're going to get a new park. Yeah, there's a new park.
Speaker 4:Yeah, wilson, ab Ford Park is going to open up on the east side and then, if the state legislature can lift the cap, I think it's like a something, something billion dollar cap on the Brownfield tax incentive fund, which Duggan talks about it as a discount. He says we're not giving any money away, we're letting them take discounts on the revenues the tax revenues that they generate from the project is the explanation, which is a pretty good one, hard to argue that when they argue it back to you.
Speaker 3:It shouldn't be hard to argue it, though, and I think you know think it's really interesting. We live in a polluted city and we clean it up. When somebody wants to develop that space, if it just stays poor, the pollution stays there. We call this brownfield redevelopment, and it's not always brownfields. Brownfield redevelopment was used to build that darn trucking station on Jefferson. They used brownfield money and they actually created more pollution in creating that.
Speaker 6:So I'm sorry, no, I agree. I mean there was extended conversation about that. There was another session talking about crime. Obviously that's always going to be a part of the mayor's State of the City address and it was really championing particularly the approach of increasing policing spending and budget, along with the crime prevention intervention orgs, as this trailblazing model for the rest of the country and it was interesting how he almost packaged the when Black Lives Matter happened or when George Floyd was murdered was the language that he used.
Speaker 4:After the murder of George Floyd, communities were dealing with the question of do we do community violence, intervention or do we give money to the police, and I'm not sure if that was the true call from the defund the police crowd.
Speaker 3:It was not let's do CVI Well you know, cvi was definitely initiated in our city by my friend Alea Harvey Quinn. Really, doing a lot of research and organizing returning citizens and others to say we can do a better job with this, and any time the mayor takes credit for putting a mere $10 million into this initiative without acknowledging the hard work of my sister and actually my mentee. Alea I love Alea.
Speaker 3:She's done such great work. Let's give it to this black woman who put her all into helping to bring people together around this. I believe CVI is a wonderful construct and it should have been done a long time ago, because crime and violence is an outcome of something and usually it's trauma and we leave untreated trauma by itself and that's really what they're trying to put their arms around. But the amount of money that we invest in that doesn't make sense. Now, the reason that what happened was they had was it ShotSpotter?
Speaker 6:Yep Shot. Oh, that was.
Speaker 3:And she went to.
Speaker 4:It was a tool a technology that identifies where people are, where gunfire happens.
Speaker 3:Yes, and unlike 911, this technology is believed to be reliable. So you have ShotSpotter, and there's been ample evidence that ShotSpotter does not reduce crime, does not reduce gun crime and actually leads to further harassment and brutality against black men. Yeah, leads to further harassment and brutality against black men, because I mean, if I'm shooting a gun, I'm not going to stand around and wait for the police, but if you walk outside after I shoot a gun, then you're a suspect. It makes every black man in that general area, or every black person in that general area, suspicious, but the crime-fighting value is not there, and you still have people calling the police or dialing 911 and getting no police response. Now, if I'm hearing a gunshot, I'm a shot spotter too. Oh my God, nobody's responding to me and you know my life is at risk. So I think that there's just flaws with that technology. So Alaya showed up and she says, instead of shot spotter, we need to invest in shot stopper.
Speaker 3:And so the mayor said OK, I'm going to take you at your word. If you can make this work, then we'll give you $10 million. And you proved to me that you can make a difference in six months.
Speaker 6:If we applied the same lens to ShotSpotter that we do to ShotStopper, perhaps we would not have ShotSpotter anymore because it has not delivered on its promise. Yeah, and I'll say, like as an organizer that was working on that campaign against shot spotter, something that's really significant to note and I'm really happy you brought up Force Detroit is I remember having that meeting with Force Detroit during our campaign where they presented a full comprehensive plan of where they were positioned, where they were doing crime intervention work and with who, and so I think that's really really important to note because when we think about kind of the mayor's presentations of we made this investment, we made this decision, these are organizations that had full comprehensive plans based on the work that they were already doing and so- Kamau talk about that work.
Speaker 4:I mean, like what does it look like? I mean some people have said it's like social work for the hood. Like what is it?
Speaker 6:The reality is like folks are multidimensional, so a lot of it is social work, A lot of it is counseling, it's creating mutual aid and social services for people and also, too, developing leadership.
Speaker 6:The big thing that I think is really important in response to what the mayor talks about of like all of these things that just come from his brain as his political mind is that people are building institutions.
Speaker 6:Like where we're sitting right now is an institution. There is a clear purpose and goal for it, the people who are members of it have an idea of why they're members and there's an agenda that they're actually taking action on externally in the world, and so I think, when people ask about what these organizations do, they're doing a lot of the hard things that police officers can't do because they don't have the relationships with communities to actually intervene and say, how do we engage with someone who's in mental health crisis? How do we intervene when there's an argument in the neighborhood that could escalate to violence? How do we, of course, develop leaders in the community before they're turning to crime? And so I think those things are really, really important. To talk about a bit of what you're bringing up, of CVI, and that's what folks should be reminding themselves of when they hear the mayor's narrative about CVI.
Speaker 3:You know, the people who have the best access to the young people are not organizations like ours. They're people who are grassroots in the communities, who have their ears to the ground. Get a returning citizen. It's really interesting to me because my first professional job was with the Community Health Awareness Group where we worked with returning citizens and gay black men on preventing HIV AIDS in the 1980s. And they would come right from Jackson Prison and come work for us and it's like, ok, you have your ears to the ground, you are an outreach worker who can actually communicate effectively with people. Communicate effectively with people. You can say a lot of things about Detroit, but in the 1980s we did not have the same epidemic that New York did, that many other big cities did, and it had a lot to do with our use in our community of people who are from those communities as agents of change, equipping them with the knowledge and the skills and the resources to begin making change in our own communities. So I'm very proud of that work and actually I also have to call out Linda Campbell from the People's Platform, because at that time Linda led the AIDS project and my own mother was the social worker for the AIDS project. So I ended up working for Community Health Awareness Group under these amazing women and many other leaders. George Gaines was there and Ron Turner was the leader of CHAG. I learned from them.
Speaker 3:These are not new principles of action. What's happening is Aaliyah was able to make it happen here. Boston had a 10-point coalition that eliminated youth violent crime in Boston, using the same principles of CVI. We're calling it CVA now, but the idea is that people in the community who are close to the people who are at risk of violence or AIDS or any kind of health condition or any other kind of risk factor, those people have the most credibility and access to them to change their minds, to know when there's a problem and to make sure we're doing things smartly.
Speaker 3:And so you know a lot of that was also work of you know way back in the day, even back before I was active in this work, that Black Panthers used those same principles. That you empower a community to change itself, and that's really what CVI is is empowering communities, including people who used to be in the life talking to people who are currently in the life, and that's never going to come from police, and so hats off to the mayor. I will give him credit for at least accepting that challenge, but I will not give him credit for the work. You have to give it to the people in the streets doing the work and they need more money and we need to make this city wide and we need to say if this is a solution, then we can take some of this money that we're spending on policemen and all of these new technologies and put it right back in the hands of the people who are the real agents of change. And the violence reduction task force.
Speaker 4:They're trying to do that $18 million in Lansing right now. They are trying to pass not right now as in today, but actively discussions are happening over that Police. What is it called? The Public Safety Trust Fund? Caught up with Albus Farhat last night. Did not see Karen Whitsett last night.
Speaker 1:I know I was kind of surprised.
Speaker 4:I thought I was going to, but I want to get into these elections, coming up and come out. When you talk about connecting people, touching grassroots, talking to just regular folks about, hey, are you registered to vote? Basic level stuff, that goes a long way you think about it a lot. The general public may, as you realize, don't think about these things, but talk about the work that's going on behind the scenes with you guys right now leading up to November.
Speaker 6:Yeah, for me. So I'll give you a little bit of context, because it's actually super necessary. Last fall we were having a conversation around black men and particularly how we vote. It's a conversation that gets em and particularly how we vote. It's a conversation that gets embellished greatly by both parties in regards to like us shifting farther to the right, but there is a really there is a presence of black men that are shifting to the right Around. That time I knew that that wasn't true for me. That also wasn't true for many black men that I know, and so I actually launched a cohort of eight black men Really it was called Ginger Root and the purpose of it was to start building a core team of politically motivated black men that would be activating other voters, particularly Gen Z to Gen Y black men, because we were seeing both this intersection of men shifting farther to the right, but also, too, folks have been talking about to get in super in the weeds, like the male loneliness epidemic and many of these dynamics that are shifting younger men farther away.
Speaker 6:I don't want to stop, I want you to explain the male loneliness epidemic conversation happening, not only in politics but just in sociology, around particularly younger men, Gen Z, I would say even to Gen Y, millennials and Gen Alpha as well who are essentially rejecting social interaction. Gen Alpha yeah, so those are the people younger than me. So, like post-2005. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what they're calling them. I have to keep up with the lingo. No, no worries, so they're lonely.
Speaker 6:But largely they're folks with strained economic conditions so lack of employment, lack of opportunity, lack of priority that are turning away from community and, more so, turning towards conservative beliefs. When we think about misogynoir, we think of abuse, harm we're seeing a lot of these things be very present in online spaces and just basically any hobby a male, a cis-hetero male, could have. Right now. They are getting right-wing beliefs.
Speaker 4:YouTube and streaming like Kik and Twitch and Rumble and even Twitter. Now post Elon is certainly a conservative friendly, not even conservative, you know, in fairness and credit to conservatives, this is like the Groper Nick Fuentes. Racism, anti-semitism, anti-black, anti-indian yeah, this is racist.
Speaker 6:And so, within that, I want to set that as like the political terrain that we're in and many people, what they were doing publicly you know, if we turned on the news is they were saying why are black men voting this way or why are men voting this way, but they weren't having the conversation of how do we build stronger accountability, social dynamics of men at the community level. And so that was really the purpose of launching Ginger Root. We are now six months in. They're cemented as a core team. To explain what a core team does, I'm getting super into the weeds of things.
Speaker 6:No, get on the weeds. Core teams are in organizing. They're the smallest unit of power, so a core team they not only have the responsibility to recruit other people and develop new leadership, they also have a clear agenda and purpose that they are willing to take public actions to advance. And so a lot of the past few months has been teaching them what that means. Not only, what are our norms for how we engage with each other, how do we make decisions, how do we create safety with each other, and it's really opened up a conversation of what they want their impact to be in Detroit, Many of them are Detroiters.
Speaker 6:For them, many of them are folks who suffer from mental health challenges or have family who suffer from mental health challenges. And you know, something that was really important that many of them have said is that, for men, they are not allowed to have a public role outside of labor and fatherhood. They want their public role to be something that is political, that makes their community better, and so, to answer your question about like thinking about these elections, the big thing that's really important for me is building leadership teams of people who are not already political, folks who are not already in the arena. When we think about a city like Detroit where voters turn out the last municipal election. It's about what? 21%, and I think the election before, oh, it was 18%.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was about to say that's an increase. Yeah, it was 18% and I think 2017, it was 21%.
Speaker 6:We have to think about, yes, that 21%, that percent of people that voted. They're great, they're super important, but what about everyone else?
Speaker 3:I actually think that I asked Alex Hill to produce a map for me. Oh, shout out, alex. That would correlate, you know, voting patterns with economic stability of communities. You know voting patterns with economic stability of communities Because I think that economically stable people, people who are benefiting from this existing economic system, are likely to vote, and that's partly due to age and partly due to home ownership, and also partly due to other factors. And so I think it's not great that you have 18% of people, because I believe that people who are higher income and more stable are overrepresented and you have the invisibility of entire classes of people in our city and we've got to get them back to the polls.
Speaker 6:Entirely agree.
Speaker 3:I have a couple of questions for you. This is going to be, you know, the. I don't know if I'm middle-aged or old now, but it's going to be the older woman coming in right. Because sometimes you have to acknowledge these things about yourself. I look at some of the nihilistic values communicated in hip-hop culture. You're not wrong.
Speaker 4:Did you listen to the Playboi Carti album?
Speaker 3:No, no, Actually I started to because I'm always curious, I'm a very curious human being. Then it was like rah, rah, rah. I was really into that Kendrick bat. I'm a very curious human being. So you know, I was really into that Kendrick bat. I'm serious. I know his whole yeah, I know his whole disguise. I'm one of these people, I'm just always curious.
Speaker 3:But I think I try to have an open mind because you know, when I was younger I used to listen to Prince and you know people would be outraged and it's like part of the fun being young is having old people get outraged over what you like.
Speaker 2:Yay, I'm listening to outrageous stuff.
Speaker 3:So I try to have an open mind that every generation has this music, but I also believe and I just want to ask you about this the extent to which these young men who are disconnected have also not been raised or protected by a value system that is more life-giving.
Speaker 6:So, funny enough, multiple things are true. Many of and I'll speak specifically of like my cohort of black men. Many of them are folks who were raised either single parent or two parent household, raised with like values of community, and they, as adults you know, approaching 30 and some of them over 30, they do not have a political vehicle that aligns with their values. So I'll start there.
Speaker 6:If we move out to black men who haven't been raised with any particular values or, honestly, haven't been asked about it, a lot of black men I like to call it the headphone theory of if you've ever worked with young people, there's always a room full of high schoolers, middle schoolers, and you might have the cool girls in the middle.
Speaker 6:They'll kind of act too cool, but they will participate. You have the nerds and the folks who are queer students who are sitting in front and they're super locked in, and you have the black boys in the back and they all got headphones in, and so whenever I start a session with young people, I always joke and I say everyone, put your hands up, all right, now take your headphones out, because I don't want to embarrass them. But it's also like here you are present and I think there's a lot of, whether we're thinking about education, we're thinking about parenthood, youth programs. Very often they're allowing black boys to skate by, because as long as they're not fighting or causing a problem, we're good. And so I think to your question around values and how they show up politically is a need to consistently move Black men in spaces where they are wrestling with their values.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that Now we're going to take another break. We'll come back on this, because this is great conversation, yeah.
Speaker 2:Have you ever dreamed of being on the airwaves? Well, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network is here to make those dreams come true. Formerly known as the Deep Network and located inside the Stoudemire, the Authentically Detroit Podcast Network offers studio space and production staff to help get your idea off of the ground. Just visit authenticallydetcomau and send a request through the contact page.
Speaker 3:All right. So we are back with the Black Detroit Democracy podcast, and I just want to point out that it's not the Black Detroit Democratic Party podcast, it is the Black Detroit Democracy podcast, and that's the little D, not the big D.
Speaker 4:I wonder who would host that. Who would be the host of that?
Speaker 3:I don't know, keith Williams.
Speaker 4:I was going to say Keith Jonathan Kinloch maybe, okay, you know, I wouldn't listen.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't know because I wouldn't listen, not Sri at his center, Sri Tanadar.
Speaker 4:Maybe we could get a Mallory McMurrow book and podcast out of Royal Oak, the northern border of Detroit, but no, it is not Shout out to all the Democrats listening though.
Speaker 3:Shout out to the Democrats listening, but I think that you know, I hear a lot of people, a lot of my peers, especially women, my age, I'm part of the 92%. It's like one of my pet peeves. I love you all. Stop saying that, right, because it's so self-righteous and it makes it sound as though we have been nothing but self-sacrificing, fighting for democracy for all people, and we were not necessarily as a people, as a group, on the front lines of the fight against the atrocities in Gaza or the fights against immigration or deportation. We are not at the front lines, and so I think it makes a lot of sense for us to acknowledge that we've played a role in justice, and so are other people, and let's come together with them, because I think what I'm hearing from you is a complete disconnect from what these young people are experiencing and everything that is being talked about at the Michigan Democratic Party caucus.
Speaker 3:And it's that disconnect and sometimes it even feels to me like almost anger that you are not taking care of me and therefore I'm going to fight you. You kind of fight the person who's closest to you sometimes and I don't care about you, because I thought you were going to protect me and you didn't. And I wonder if that's some of what you're getting from some of these young people who are taking on some of these more radical beliefs I feel like some of them is from the older, like even people that are our age, are like 35.
Speaker 4:And then the apathy is from people that are like 21, 22, 23. That's like they, they don't even remember Obama, like really.
Speaker 6:There isn't a. You know, I like to joke about this, for my mom, of course. You know, Like for me, my very first election as an 18-year-old was 2016, where Trump was elected, and so I have to think about the political conditions that younger men have been invited into.
Speaker 6:They haven't like wins such as DACA or wins such as the Affordable Care Act or the good parts of it.
Speaker 6:They don't know those wins and there haven't been very many political wins for people in their lifetime if they're younger. I think what's important to this too and I tend to say this actually comes from a professor I had when I was in college Like you know, politics isn't just electoral politics. Politics is who gets what and why, and I think for a lot of younger folks they actually need to be invited into a context where politics are just not what you vote for. That's part of it. It's also hey, when someone's unsafe on your street, who do you call, what's the protocol for it and why. And I think if we're moving younger men to that context, they'll be able to see more political wins that are smaller of like, hey, this person on our street isn't going to go hungry this week because we have a policy in place for it. But I think they haven't known much of that because all of our media is engaging with and when you talk about the Michigan Democratic Party, they're just engaging in the elections and what's happening.
Speaker 3:But we're also concerned about the working class.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I had a disagreement on Facebook. Well, that's me with this person who was saying the big part is that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class and is interested in identity politics. What is a working class?
Speaker 6:Oh, I love this question Is that the cafeteria worker?
Speaker 3:Is that the farm worker? Is that the LGBTQ person trying to keep their job? I just don't understand what a working class is, because when I hear that, all I see is a white man.
Speaker 6:So my answer to this agitates my father.
Speaker 3:It's your job to agitate my generation.
Speaker 6:So the working class are people who work for other people. Their very means of surviving is dependent on an employer.
Speaker 3:But is that what the Democratic Party means when they talk about the working class?
Speaker 6:No, and I think part of this is because one the two biggest terms we use in politics are working class and middle class. There is no set salary that they have set. For what that means. It's because, if you say it, everybody feels like they're a part of it. For what that means, it's because, if you say it, everybody feels like they're a part of it.
Speaker 6:When we think about the middle class, what we tend to say you know, we, the people is that the middle class are business owners and land owners, like folk who have are landlords. The reason for that is because if you, you know, if you pay a mortgage, you don't actually have wealth per se. You're a bank tenant, until you physically own that house. You're a bank tenant, you pay to the bank to live in a home. And so we use that framing because often people will create distinctions. They'll say, well, I'm not a renter, so I must be middle class. Or, oh, I'm not, my bills aren't as precarious for someone else, so I'm not working class. But I think that when we're in a nation where a medical emergency can send someone into a space where they no longer have that security, you do have to consider yourself as working class.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think that my belief is that working class conversations are restricted to a very narrow group of people, and when they complain about the working class not feeling protected, they're talking about, you know, people who work in factories or men who work in these jobs, because really what they're saying is that this party is not attractive to white men.
Speaker 6:It's become a dog whistle is that this party is not attracted to white men. It's become a dog whistle.
Speaker 3:It is because the reality is that you know, there's a book that's out. I think there's no place for us about these working people in Atlanta who can't find housing. And there are black folks in Atlanta who can't find housing. Well, they're working class and they don't matter in these political conversations. Instead, we look at union wages and union jobs and workers' rights and all of those things are really, really restricted to a narrow band of society. I believe if we looked at black women as being more likely to be employed than many other groups of people, then we would have to acknowledge black women are working class.
Speaker 6:So I agree, have to acknowledge black women are working class. So I agree and part of what's important here for me, 11% of workers in the United States are unionized, so that means our conversations of like. It is very easy for a union member to understand themselves as rank and file or working class, because they know very clearly there's a boss and we have a formation of people that, like tries to make our work conditions better. If we think about all of the different realms of employment whether it's non-profit, corporate these are spaces where folks have had a analysis of their relation to their employer like stripped from them. I'll say this is like a member of like. I am at a non-profit that I helped unionize. And what was that? 2022?
Speaker 6:We're now negotiating our next contract and the reason we did it is because we understand that at every organization, there's the you know what we call entry-level staff that do a lot of the work on the ground. And then there's the mid-level staff, which a lot of folks will tell you are the most important folks because they're the folks who help implement things at the organization. Tell you are the most important folks because they're the folks who help implement things at the organization. Those folks need to have an analysis that they are working class and, to your point around, black women. When we think about college student loan debt, when we think about housing debt evictions, all of these issues are issues that disproportionately impact black women far more than other groups. So I do think that, to your point around what that word has become, I think that we have allowed the right to seize that word for their own means we're also letting the left.
Speaker 3:That's what the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4:You heard Governor Whitmer talk about the male gender gap and how working class males are going to college less and purchasing homes at a decreased rate than women. When I asked the spokesperson who gave me this story, I was the first one to report on it. Are you saying men are being discriminated against? No answer there.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know, that's why they're so lonely, right.
Speaker 6:But it's like she was doing that because she understands. Oh, I want to run for president.
Speaker 3:I got to start talking about this thing. You know, if I thought that she had great presidential prospects, I think that recent moves have not contributed to those prospects. But that's on me. I want to go back to this piece about working class because I think it's so important. I think that what you're saying is true, except that I think a restaurant, the manager of the restaurant, is no more important than the waitress. If I don't go back to a restaurant, it's probably because of the person who came to my table, whether they waited on me, whether I felt like they were being polite. I think at ECN, when people come into this space, the most important people they see are the people who are sitting at that front desk.
Speaker 3:Those senior women who are not in the most part middle management, but they are the face of our organization. I think if we did a better job as organizations, really understanding the unique and important and intersectional values of all of the people who work for those organizations, then we would not rank people in the way that we do. I do agree, I'm the CEO of this organization but I am by no means responsible for its success. I can't be successful unless people are doing a whole lot of stuff that is beyond my pay grade. I don't really understand it, but thank God you do it because somebody has to.
Speaker 3:And that means that we have to get into. But I think when we start having class discussions, we automatically class and caste are the same thing. We're creating this caste of people that we've decided are politically viable. We care about them and anybody outside that caste. You're on your own and or if you're above that caste, then you have even more power than them. I feel as though a lot of our people are just not part of a caste that matters politically, and the more I think about it, the more.
Speaker 3:I think about the fact that, if you really look at what justice work should look like, it really shouldn't look like people who are in justice organizations fighting for a political party and trying to figure out which party they like best or which politician they like best. It should be people fighting for justice and leveraging their power to influence the behavior of elected officials, because politics is inherently corruptible. Politics is inherently corruptible. You have somebody who has the power to vote and it doesn't matter how you fund these political systems. You're always going to have this inherent corruption that we don't want to acknowledge that. Once you become part of this party apparatus, you're part of an elite group of people who get to hoard and control the decisions and the actions of this group of people. Hoard and control the decisions and the actions of this group of people. If you don't have powerful people in the streets and on the ground, people who are being organized like your group and we need to continue doing that then you end up with elites being in control of justice.
Speaker 6:There's a really good book on that Elite Capture that covers that very.
Speaker 3:It's called Elite Capture.
Speaker 6:Yes, I would totally recommend it. It's incredible.
Speaker 3:By the way, I have a book for you too, I'm going to get that to you before you leave. It's at the front desk. Let me forget. It is the 50-Year Rebellion how the US Political Problems Began Detroit, you're familiar with that.
Speaker 6:Yeah, one of my leaders at one of my campuses. He did a book club around that book and it's really great I teach out of that book.
Speaker 3:Oh cool, because I was trying to find a book, a textbook. They were like you have to find a textbook. And I'm like, well, I'm not teaching this because I'll spend all of my time arguing with the authors. And I found that book and I was like, yes, finally a textbook that communicates things I care about. So I'm going to get that for you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for the books, and I always want to encourage people to read, and we will put that book on our list on our social so people can know what we're talking about. But you were going to say something and I actually have a question for you about journalism, right?
Speaker 4:Let's hear your question.
Speaker 3:Okay, journalism let's hear it. Journalism is so important because journalism helps to set agendas and what gets talked about and the way it gets described can contribute to all the harms. We can look at the role of journalism in normalizing Trump and understand it can be problematic. What is your role as a journalist, sam, and how do you see your journalism contributing to more equity in our community?
Speaker 4:Journalism informs the public. I think journalism offers an honest look at every entity, institution, individual is spinning you their side of a story. We're trying to tell you every side, distill the agendas right, say well, this person has this agenda because X, y, z, there were, you know, relations with this person, associates with this person worked for this person, you know, really go under the hood in a way that sometimes the subjects of these stories perhaps wouldn't. You know, often you'll see candidates and council members, or even the mayor during his speech and Governor Whitmer during her State of the State addresses. Use media, use clips, headlines from our local news outlets to tout accomplishments or highlight stuff.
Speaker 4:A lot of journalists don't like that. We're looking at it. I didn't have any this year. I did, I think, a couple years back, but we were like, oh, we got to be propaganda pieces.
Speaker 4:I think a lot of the times people forget we are not your cheerleaders. I had some city council members ask me not city council members, excuse me. City council candidates ask me Sam, can I pay you, can you work for me? Council candidates ask me Sam, can I pay you, can you work for me? I said I would have to discontinue my coverage of the Detroit City Council race, because that would compromise my objectivity to it. You know, we forget in this digital age where we're just kind of reading bold font and bar Instagram headlines, stories, ethics, and you know, right thing, right, when we're watching on the radarradar podcasts, freestyles, those are a combination of A&Ring and just hey, can you come on my thing to give my thing credibility? I do not pay. People ask me hey, can I pay you to do a story on this? No, if I want to do a story, by golly I'm going to do that story.
Speaker 3:I think when I talk to younger people, a lot of them trust you to speak truth in places other people don't.
Speaker 4:I try. Is that true, Kamau? I try.
Speaker 6:I would say yes and I would say the reason is because we've talked about this before. Literally, yeah, in my living room it's like living, say, I'm living an external life in Detroit. So if they know the person and they know that they're a person that they're in community with, they're more likely to support their writing because they're like, oh yeah, like I know you and I know that you were there and I know that you're willing to like break it down in words?
Speaker 4:that I understand? Yeah, that you're willing to break it down in words? That I understand? Yeah, a lot of it comes from being able to go from the city to Fox, to back down to Pyramida or wherever Marble Bar or wherever the heck I'll be at. Immediately afterward People will be like, oh, you're just here. Being outside is something that the older journalists who, in fairness to them, probably don't need to be going out at midnight on Thursdays or Friday or Saturdays but being able to see the people that are outside, whether it be around North End or in neighborhoods for shows art shows I wasn't at NSFW but stuff like connecting with the local art community in where you're living. It's not something that journalists are doing right now and it's just like how? How are you guys not so? The good ones are we have good ones at Bridge, detroit and Outlier. We have good ones at the Detroit News and Free Press. Not enough.
Speaker 3:I just feel, as though you know, people feel unseen.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that giving visibility to people not just being outside but deciding you know this postman story is important.
Speaker 4:Let's make this a thing and those stories are more you know they're more valuable to me than any gubernatorial scoop or oh, I was the first one to report this in Lansing. You know that means way more to me than any gubernatorial scoop or oh, I was the first one to report this in Lansing. You know that means way more to me. His daughter reaching out and being like, oh, my God, my dad's famous, you know him seeing it. And getting reached out to by various brands like Alpha Industries, or there's an interior design firm that was like hey, do you have this guy's contact? We want to use him in our next editorial promotional campaign. Those kind of things mean way more to me than the news scoops. So, yes, shout out to Mike Copeland of USPS and shout out to everybody that allows me to take their picture in the street. A lot of people don't like that, though. They're like no, don't take my picture If you're in public. No expectation of privacy. So you better watch out. Sam Robinson might take your picture.
Speaker 3:Oh that's cool. So no expectation of privacy, so you better watch out. Sam Robinson might take your picture. Oh, that's cool. So I think it's important. I think it's important that we get good journalism. I think it's important that we get good activism and good organizing of our young people and that we provide platforms for them to talk about and for us to raise up their issues. What do you see as the future of this election? To close the show out, do you think we're going to be able to get better voter turnout based on the work that you're doing, or do you think we have a long ways to go before we're going to?
Speaker 3:see increased turnout this year.
Speaker 4:I think you and I will literally be responsible for turning out individuals Now how many? But because just constantly talking about it and constantly being about it you do. You're like, oh OK, I know to go sign up and I know to go do this citywide election. The stakes in people's minds are lower than the presidential, but are they really in your actual person?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I think there's two things that are really big for me. One I know that I am going to have an impact on voters this year. There's no excuse for that, for not having that as an organizer. I want to say that I want to influence politically confident voters, so not just folks who just vote because it's like, oh, it's the time to vote, but people who vote and they know exactly what every person on their ballot does and why they're voting for them. That's what I want to develop this year. I'm actively doing with my team.
Speaker 6:The second part of that is I think what will be possible with this city election is I know it's super dramatic to say, and everyone always says that every election is the most important of your life, but I think this is an election that shapes the future of Detroit.
Speaker 6:Given that we've been in a 12 year term, that is like really been super pleasant for corporations, not very pleasant for communities. We're going to have the first new mayor in more than a decade and we're seeing folks from our state legislature corporate candidates come run for local races, right. So I think there actually is a lot of stakes in this election of determining what type of way we're going to govern in Detroit? What issues are going to be the issues that get addressed? And, more broadly, under a Trump administration, is Detroit going to be a city that folds and disinvest from things that are going to put them in tension with the White House, or are they going to be a city that actually decides to give the people the things that they're asking for? And so I think this election is super important to me and I know that I will have an impact the question of what, specifically, folks are going to obtain through it we'll have to see.
Speaker 3:Well, you know how can people support we, the People in Michigan?
Speaker 6:Yeah, so right now. Oh, there's so many ways. People in Michigan yeah, so right now, oh, there's so many ways. So right now we're actually building our very first. So folks were statewide, but we're building several new core teams this year to address tricky political questions that people don't want to answer Right now. We're organizing Black men, younger Black men. We're also organizing our Black Arab Alliance, which is Black and Arab Americans who will be working in Dearborn in Detroit together to advance agenda together, because that's one place where people were in tensions after the election. And we also have a cohort of Black women that one of our organizers, Charity, is organizing. That's really addressing how do we approach some of the social services right now under Trump administration. So I think the big thing for us is like joining us. April 24th I'm going to throw out a date we're going to be at Strategic Community Partners over on Six Mile. We're actually just going to be doing a political education session and training.
Speaker 3:Well, we need to get you over on the east side too.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I live over here. This is my hood, I know you do right.
Speaker 3:So in fact I think you came. You were somehow connected as a youth through ECN.
Speaker 6:Yeah, this was my very first job was through ECN. That's what.
Speaker 3:Lando told me. So yeah, we definitely need to have you here doing some of that political education. Sam, you too. Thank you for coming today, kamau. I think Sam and I this is our second episode, and so we're trying to make sure that we're hearing from Detroiters of different groups and different backgrounds, but certainly young black men is one of the most important demographics. If we want to be powerful, then we have to show up in so many ways. I'm so glad you're organizing them.
Speaker 6:Yeah absolutely. Thank you so much Kamau.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for listening to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. Be sure to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms and, of course, support Black Independent Reporting on Detroit1millioncom no-transcript.
