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
Black Detroit Democracy Podcast: Democracy Beyond Elections with Arlyssa Heard
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 Arlyssa Heard, Parent Leader and Education Organizer with 482Forward, joins Donna and Sam to discuss how real change requires both political and grassroots activism in order to create the strongest resistance against injustice.
For more episodes of the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast, click here.
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Speaker 3:Detroit Podcast Network offer studio space and production staff. To help get your idea off of the ground, Just visit authenticallydetcom and send a request through the contact page. Hello Detroit, Hello Detroit and welcome to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. I'm Donna Givens-Davidson, President and CEO of the Eastside Community Network.
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. Today, sam and I are joined by parent leader and education organizer with 42 Forward, arlisa Hurd. Welcome back to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. How is everyone today?
Speaker 5:I'm doing just great. How are you everybody? It's fine.
Speaker 4:It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 5:We're finally in the summertime, shine out here on the east side Hope it doesn't snow by Friday.
Speaker 4:You know it just might it just might get back down to 40 degrees at night. I haven't checked the weather, I don't know, but down in Cass Courier today I just had a Rocco's Deli sandwich. What is it? Chicken parm. So I'm full right now. That sounds good.
Speaker 3:You know, I've been outside today. Normally when I go to work, I've been outside today. Normally when I go to work I stay in the building and then I go home, but today I had an opportunity to go outside a couple of times and enjoy the sunshine, so I can actually agree with you that it's a beautiful day today.
Speaker 4:You usually be stuck in here, donna. You usually be just working straight until sunrise, and nowadays it gets darker a little bit later in the day.
Speaker 3:So you get to go out at 830 and shoot hoops or whatever, I'm going to try to ride bikes when I'm done today. I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 5:The sun does the body good, though there's something about your spirit that's just lifted in the sun. You just feel like you know. Just start thinking about all kinds of summer activities. Yeah, just want to be outside.
Speaker 3:Bell Isle, luckily.
Speaker 6:I have an e-bike, so I can get up the hills without as much effort.
Speaker 3:But yes, I plan on hitting the Riverwalk and hit Belle Isle and all that good stuff so that I can enjoy my favorite time of year, which is spring. Arlisa, yes, you and I met in another warm climate last year we did my first time there, actually in Houston.
Speaker 5:In Houston, we were eating tacos and drinking tequila.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was a conference. We were talking about trying to prevent what happened in November from happening in November. Well then, yes, we did.
Speaker 5:There was a lot of conversations, and then there was, I remember, a few tequilas. Actually I don't know. Well, that's the last I remember. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:But I do remember you right and so that's the good part is, I met a sister in Houston and we were talking about justice and democracy from Detroit and we connected.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we did. And when we were at the table and I was sitting I'm not going to name the person who said it, but somebody that I value their opinion very highly nudged me and said you know, she should run for mayor, she should be our next mayor. And I looked and I said oh wow. And I said well, aren't you going to run? Are you going to run? You're looking at that's kind of the look you gave me. Then I laughed.
Speaker 3:I laughed because you know, that is not my destiny, right, and a lot of people said that and I am so flattered by people saying that and I think I know why Because people felt like I was willing to speak out on things that they cared about.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that I had some opinions and values and things of that nature, and you know so I really am honored Anytime I hear that, anytime somebody says that they think that you should be in high office, that's always a compliment.
Speaker 3:I really believed then, and I believe now, that a better place for me and a better place for many of us is in the streets, acting on behalf of a people who have been ignored for too long. The way our political system is set up, it's a representative democracy only in ideal state. The reality is that the way that our city works, the way most government works, is to cater to the interests of business and wealthy people and at the expense of our people, and our government has never, ever been structured to address racial inequality, racism, white supremacy and all of those things that show up in many ways through homelessness and hunger and mass incarceration and undereducation and environmental pollution. And so that's my fight, and I like being the fighter and not the negotiator, because whoever gets elected to office is going to have to figure out how to negotiate and agree with things, and I don't blame them. You know, during this election season we're looking for people to represent us and sometimes we're looking for perfect people. The reality is, it doesn't matter which politician we vote for.
Speaker 3:They're going to be voting for things in ways that we don't like because that's in the job description, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we got a lot of people in this world in the city of Detroit country state, that don't agree with us. They're competing visions to solve the same issues. I remember back when we were talking about transportation why can't Michigan Democrats just send $2 billion in funding for transportation? Mallory McMurrow broke with Emily Dievendorf and Dylan Weigler. There's the two Democratic Socialist Democrats that didn't want to negotiate, mallory tells me. I wish they would have. We would have had to give more money to the SOAR that Matt Hall says he wants to get rid of now and Whitmer says she's open to getting rid of Could have still had that $2 billion of transportation funding in there. They didn't want to do it because they didn't want to give the corporate handout, corporate welfare millions of dollars, billions to these auto companies is what SOAR is doing. But a part of being some of the best politicians that I've seen have success they're great negotiators. That, you know, is something that I don't really do in my job either at all.
Speaker 5:Yeah Well, I totally agree and I definitely, you know, at 4824, we are definitely on the side of. We need the ultra wealthy to pay because we are sick and tired as well, as I think right now we're seeing right now in America, right in the streets, right where people are starting to get it, even some of those ultra wealthy are starting to get it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they are, and there are some ultra wealthy folks that really understand this and really want to make a difference in all of those things. But I think it's okay. We were talking about this. Actually earlier today I was in a meeting with some folks. It's okay to be on opposite sides of the issue. What's not okay is to sacrifice the people that are supposedly looking to you to represent them and just really squash in what their best interests are.
Speaker 5:What we often see is it's like this culture. There's this culture in politics. I have seen so many folks that have you know stood run for office, got up there or got out there and then everybody's like a few years later OK, what happened? Where are you? Well, there were some things that folks I don't think really take into consideration.
Speaker 5:There are some things that happens in that where folks are really looking at building up their political capital because you may want a particular thing, but if whatever the majority is doesn't want it, it's not going to happen. You have to have people, you have to negotiate, you have to have people to kind of join along with you and, depending on who's Speaker of the House or who's holding the gavel, you may or may not get your issue heard, let alone if it's in committee and and we see all of these things and, as you know as a person in the fight for justice and all these things, when you step into the political side of it and just kind of unravel the layers, it's a lot more nasty than what you had really anticipated. It's not just. It just doesn't stop with the vote. It's all about the implementation. It's all about putting the pressure on the people to make sure, or those officials to make sure, that they are holding up their end of the bargain.
Speaker 3:They're doing those things. Look at Landmark Brown v Board of Education 1955, it passes. Ten years later you're still trying to figure out. You're still in court trying to demand disenforcement. You know, a couple years later people are talking about all deliberate speed and nobody knows what deliberate speed is, because it sounds like slow speed to me.
Speaker 3:But, it's, and that's exactly what happened. I think you're exactly right when you look at the housing fair housing legislation we're still trying to figure that thing out and that passed in 1968. This idea that all you have to do is pass a bill and things are okay. I want to take us back a little bit, though, to my childhood right, and that is when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, I believe it was 1963 or 64. I hate to get the years wrong, but you know, at that time it was President Johnson who led to the passage of this, and maybe it was 65, maybe 65 or whatever One of those years in the 60s.
Speaker 3:The reason it passed was not just because of what was happening in Congress. The reason it passes what was happening in the streets, that's right. The March on Washington, the public exposure, the buildup of a national interest in this legislation, and then you pass it. This idea that politicians are going to sit there and do things while we watch you know, real Housewives or whatever it is that we do it's just not realistic. And so one of the things I like to say is that democracy is not a spectator sport, that's right.
Speaker 3:If you want change, you got to be willing to fight for it and don't expect the politicians to do it for it. We are sitting back now saying what are the Democrats going to do to fix everything that happened? And we should not be, and it's ridiculous because they won't.
Speaker 5:Well, personally I'm a little frustrated of the two-party system. I'm going to just put that out there. That's just my own personal thing, because I think there are all kinds of problems on both sides. But I want to go back to what you just said. Things don't happen until folks are in the streets. And what is amazing and beautiful about right now? It's tragic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, we just saw.
Speaker 5:It's tragic. You know how we got here, yeah, but COVID was tragic, how we got there, but then people were able to do some thinking and there were some things that shifted and changed as a result of COVID. So I almost look at this almost as like this is that second wave right?
Speaker 3:Well, a hundred years ago, think about the politics of this nation A hundred years ago no public housing, no FHA, no social security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no minimum wage, no child labor laws. Those things did not exist a 100 years ago. The reason they came into fruition is because we went through a Great Depression, and crisis produces the opportunities for change Absolutely. Unfortunately, when you don't have crisis, there's not enough momentum to get things changed to the different. So it's on us to leverage that. And my question is, because you work at 4824, which I think is just one of the most amazing organizations, thank you, and I have to get more involved. Life gets in the way and I'm not as involved as I wish I could be.
Speaker 5:Well, I'm going to say May 17th, may 17th, it's our spring conference.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 5:We are launching a ballot initiative.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 5:Talking about the ultra wealthy and why they need to pay their fair share.
Speaker 3:I love talking bad things about the ultra wealthy. So that's going to be fun. I'll be there.
Speaker 3:Please do. I will be there, so you know. But you guys are great and one of the things I love about it is that 42 Ford is truly a multicultural coalition. Everybody is welcome at the table and because of that little bubble that you work in, you may or may not be exposed to what I'm seeing, which is a lot of division and hostility between people, such that I keep thinking and I'm trying to get somebody to embrace this construct of a unity breakfast.
Speaker 3:We've got to come together because the greatest threat to white supremacy is multicultural activism. When we come together, we can't be stopped. In the 1930s, we came together and we said we need things to change. Prior to that, we had Hoovervilles, we had mass starvation, or even farmers couldn't eat because they couldn't access the food that they were growing. And when people came together around a common cause, we got some change and it's time for us to say that a century later, we need to have a whole nother look at housing, at hunger. We need to really start talking about dismantling mass incarceration and not just tinkering at the edges.
Speaker 4:Because you know who's talking about it. The shareholders are the people that are going to administer and determine the people that are dismantling it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, are going to figure out how to the people that are dismantling have been talking about it.
Speaker 4:I think we're there now, though.
Speaker 3:I want you to explain to me.
Speaker 4:I'm saying the developer class, the ultra-wealthy class, are preparing for the decimation of our condition.
Speaker 5:They're preparing for the conditions of poor people to worsen. They want to break it down Specifically the administration that we have.
Speaker 3:They want to break it down, Specifically the administration that we have.
Speaker 5:They want to break down our existing system. They want to break down the systems that would further help support the advancement of the working class, and so there's a whole lot of dynamics at play here.
Speaker 3:Let's back up for a minute, though, right? The working class is shrinking and the support systems have been unraveling for the past 40 years at least For so many years. I mean Ronald Reagan really. Even under Richard Nixon you began to see the dismantling of some things or the failure to execute some things. Since Reagan, we have been successful. I remember when Bill Clinton was president and he was first black president.
Speaker 5:I remember we loved him. He played the saxophone Because he played the sax. He was the first black president. I remember we loved him. He played the saxophone Because he played the sax. He was the first black president.
Speaker 3:He was cool he was smooth, the brother had swag right.
Speaker 5:He also had people under his desk, monica Lewinsky, but go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yes, he did, and he also ended welfare as we know it, and he led to the dismantlingTA agreement, which really helped to accelerate the deindustrialization of our nation, and deindustrialization means lack of jobs. Right, he did a lot of things. He also led to the Glass-Stagall Act, which actually liberalized banking and allowed banks to do things like predatory lending that resulted in the housing recession. There's a lot that happened under him and mass incarceration.
Speaker 1:The crime bill I was about to say, that's right, the crime bill.
Speaker 3:The reality is and this is a Democratic Party right, Absolutely. We call it the New Democratic Party, the Reasonable Democratic Party. He and Joe Biden were the architects of bringing the Democratic Party to the right as a way of keeping it popular, and so all of these systems have been failing to protect the least of us for so long. What they're dismantling if you're already homeless, it's not going to hurt you in the same way it will a person with Section 8. You know what I mean. It's like we have allowed some people to be poor and struggling and in such horrible conditions for so long.
Speaker 4:It's interesting because you know you think about Sam Altman, the open AI. People talking about Elon Musk will talk about this. Ai is going to eliminate jobs and work. They don't have like a solution for what people are going to do. They don't come with any and, as you see, mark Zuckerberg and others buying up land in Hawaii and creating underground bunkers and stuff. The people at the opposite side of this are certainly looking at the future and recognizing oh wow, conditions are going to worsen for people and it's going to mean a new society.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's going to worsen for people. And I also just really want to add that just because you got on the jersey doesn't necessarily mean you're the team player. So that's what I'm looking at right now. So there's a lot of people wearing the same jersey, but I can't tell what team you're on, and that's some of my frustration with our two-party system.
Speaker 3:But that's a whole nother subject. No, I think that it's an important subject to talk about.
Speaker 5:Well, I just I'm so frustrated because it doesn't matter which team you're on, they all seem to play the same game in some way. Now, of course, there are some outliers, there are some folks who, truly, we could just quote and look and like, yes, they are strictly for the people. What I think, though, is right now, we're at that point where, all where the earth this is how I say it the earth is now giving up Everything that has been planted. We're seeing this harvest come, but it may not be pleasant, but there is something happening.
Speaker 5:This group of folks, these elites, these oligarchs, the billionaire class, the ones who really don't care about the folk, but their money and their power, they want a permanent underclass. They need a permanent underclass. Somebody always benefits with those of us that are folks that are at the bottom, somebody not knowing, not having the information, but I think what we're seeing now is we're getting to the place where people are fed up. The justice and the answer is in the streets, and that's what we're hearing. I never seen folks in the streets with signs talking about their Social Security checks Not, margaret, you know not.
Speaker 3:Ruth, I will say that capitalism depends on a permanent underclass, not necessarily in this nation, although it's in this nation, but around the world. The way that we have exploited countries around the world and exploited financial systems. I was learning about food systems, for example, and learning that nine corporations control 90% of all the food production in the whole world. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Really yes, they control the land all over the world. Nine corporations in the world. Nine corporations control multi-level aspects of it. So you control the land, you control the money to borrow, you control the seeds, you control the borrowing which is necessary as part of farming to bridge financing anyway to get you through the non-growing seasons. You decide what's grown so you can decide to grow food in a desert and then use underground water that will destroy our water systems.
Speaker 3:There's so many things that we do. We create monocultural crops because it's more efficient to do that. People who live in Thailand are not necessarily growing food for people who live in Thailand, because the land in Thailand is not owned by Thai. The Thai people is owned by multinational corporations. We control the distribution of food and then they control the selling of food, and when you think about something like that, you have to understand that hunger is a byproduct of that. This worldwide hunger is not just draughts. Okay, we always say it's draughts, but there's draughts in California and people are still eating. The reality is that it's bigger than draughts. It's why are we? If there's draughts in California, why are we growing almonds there?
Speaker 5:I think we have to, not, we have to not stop we, we cannot afford to stop talking. I think that we are in a pivotal moment where people are ready to hear the right message, though See, I think a lot of times what has happened in this country? There's been much struggle, much progress. We've seen it all. White supremacy is at the root. I do not argue or disagree with that, but I also believe that there is a level of comfortability that we have grown accustomed to. For instance, if it ain't happening in my front yard or backyard or around my pond or my family, well then shame. I'll pray for you thoughts and prayers, but that's not really my problem, I think. What we have right now, and the vote, for instance, let's go back to elections. People voted basically because that's who we are and that's who we've become in this country. People voted for bigotry because that's who they are.
Speaker 5:And then that's what we got. But hold on, let me just make this point People voted for that and then we got that, but it was okay as long as it was happening to them Right, as long as it's the other person. Take care of those folk, because you know, they haven't, they haven't, they won't, they don't. But I think what we're seeing right now is my mom always said a hit dog will holler. I think we're seeing the hollering right now.
Speaker 5:Folks are starting to understand like, oh wait, this is actually going to affect me and mine and my whatever. So I think we're at a moment where maybe folks can listen to the message that folks like us have been screaming and shouting for years. Folks just were not in a position to really hear and listen. And so I think, like organizations like 402 Forward and all these other folks who are out here beating the drum, I think, like organizations like 402 Forward and all these other folks who are out here beating the drum, I think this is an opportunity to at least be able to go in that door and say listen, not only are you in trouble, but let me tell you, let me help you understand how all of this stuff is connected to where we are today.
Speaker 3:I love that. Thank you, and I agree with you completely. So I have another approach. When we were in Houston, I was sitting around a table of folks and I agree with you completely. So I have another approach. When we were in Houston, I was sitting around a table of folks and I made everybody mad because somebody said I do that sometimes.
Speaker 3:They said you know, people vote their self-interest and you know, and I'm like I think that that is the wrong approach. You know, we have to vote our values and we have to have our values have to be bigger than us. Historically, our ancestors would not have made it if we were only acting in self-interest. We had to come together just to make sure people had a place to sleep, to eat. There was this concept of community that was really cultural, historical, but it was also survival, and so this idea that I can vote as if what I vote for, I can only vote. And look in terms of my family, it's almost like we have bought into and been assimilated into this individualism, which only works for very few people.
Speaker 5:Very few people.
Speaker 3:And so when we understand that and we're reminded that we are in it together and that there is mutuality in our need, and I think that's important Now what I'm hearing a lot of my sisters, our sisters, say is well, you know what? Black women have been taking care of everybody and therefore I'm done.
Speaker 5:And I said this one.
Speaker 3:Now I hear people say that and I really fight back against that because it's not true. It kind of makes my blood crawl.
Speaker 5:Thank you, I mean I get it.
Speaker 3:That's why it's not true. It kind of makes my blood crawl. Thank you, I mean I get it. I do get it.
Speaker 5:See, this is why we connected. We were in.
Speaker 3:Houston. I get it, though Because I get it, we can't afford to lay down. And it's also not true, if we're being honest. It's not true. We have not been at the forefront of the movement against mass incarceration. We have not been at the forefront of the movement against mass incarceration. We have not been at the forefront of the movement even to stop the genocide in Palestine. We have not been at the forefront of the movement to stop mass deportations.
Speaker 3:There are other people in this nation who have led movements and we need to honor and respect the fact that we have not been everything to everybody, so that we can be humble enough to understand that we all need to change. We all need to change. A lot of us are living lives of relative comfort that other people don't have the privilege to live. There's a privilege in being born an American citizen but going to college and living in a home that you own or in a place that you can nicely afford, and we have sometimes accepted that privilege without thinking of the loss that other people have. If we humble ourselves to understand that we have to care about people in the Honduras and we have to care about people in lands that we don't know anything about and allow them to be at their own forefront so that we can work in coalition with them, then I think we have change.
Speaker 5:My only question to that is, and I'll say this is how do you get there? Now, let me, just let me, let me, let me say this Within our organization, you know, 402 Forward there's a bunch of us.
Speaker 3:I want to get there. Yeah, we need to take a break so we can come back to your question.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay to your question. 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 DetroitOneMillioncom to support Black independent reporting. All right.
Speaker 3:So we're coming back and you have a question, and so I want to hear what your question is.
Speaker 5:So the question is how do we get there? Now let me let me just tell you why I'm asking this question because we had when, when, originally when the things erupted in Palestine and Gaza and there was all this talk about what was happening over there In 402 Forward. That is part of who we are we are Latino, we are Black, we are Asian, we are Muslim.
Speaker 3:I told you y'all are special?
Speaker 5:Yes, we do, and so sometimes it's not easy, though, for us to sometimes come to an agreement, because we have our own internal fights and struggles, and so, when this broke out, there were a number of us. I was one of those people who felt that, yes, I understand, I get it. However, help me to understand, we've been. Everybody shows up for everybody else, but for us Black folks here, we don't see that same level of outcry and that same level of outrage. And so there was this journey that we went on right where we had some of our members we had a roundtable to talk about their own experiences as a Palestinian, and also the experiences that their parents and that their families, and then we had folks that I forget the name of the group, but there were a couple of gentlemen or a couple of parents who lost their children to violence as a result of the war, and they were talking about and they were from both sides. Okay, just wasn't one group and they were talking about, and they were from both sides. Okay, just wasn't one group, and they were talking about the loss. And so what that did for me and for those of us who were, it's not that we were advocating for violence or anything like that. But some of us within the movement myself I'm out here right just didn't quite understand how was all of this outrage happening in this country for this? But yet we're seeing our young boys and brothers and sisters being murdered and all kinds of injustices inflicted upon Black bodies in this country, but we don't see people really in the streets.
Speaker 5:But what it allowed, what I saw, was the human side of what it's like to lose a child to injustice in war. And then I don't know, there was just like a revelation because I was listening to somebody's actual experience and I bring that up because I think sometimes, because we get in our you know, we lick our own wounds. I know what it's like to be a single mother struggling with young Black boys all kinds of things happening. We've buried some of their friends, we've imprisoned a number of their friends.
Speaker 5:I know what it's like for some of the sisters struggling to do it by themselves, black men, all kinds of violence. I know what that's like. And then to just be able to hear someone else who's also gone through violence, gone through injustice, but that may not look like me, all of us. It just became a little different else's, or the opportunity to hear how we're more alike than different was one of the things that helped to pull me over and say you know what it is about the collective. How can I stand for justice in one area but yet not standing for justice in another? But see, that was a revelation for me.
Speaker 3:So you asked and then answered your same question.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I know but that's what I'm saying, because you listened.
Speaker 1:How do we get there? That was my question. It was rhetorical.
Speaker 3:I love it. No, it's beautiful because you outlined it. We have to listen and care. Nobody's responsible for prioritizing other injustice over their own right. We are going to always care about our kids. I was in a few years ago maybe 10 years ago I was in or not that long ago. Whatever, I was in Southwest Detroit, first Trump term and while there, I was there for poverty solutions, orientation and there was a poet who came up and he was talking about ICE breaking into homes, about ICE profiling people, and I was sitting there and I had this revelation slave catchers Slave catchers, you hear, illegally.
Speaker 5:Interesting, absolutely Right.
Speaker 3:Some of our ancestors were in Detroit illegally. They were illegals Harboring them. There was a Fugitive Slave Act. You have to send them back. That's right.
Speaker 3:And they sent slave catchers and bounty hunters, and it helped me really envision. Wait a minute, it's the same kind of system against other people. So we don't have to care about other people more than ourselves, we just have to care about them. We don't have to be at the forefront of the movement, but we have to acknowledge that we're not at the forefront of everything. Nobody is. The reality is that there's so much injustice that you have farmers movements, you've got Chicano movements, you've got Indian movements, you've got movements all over this nation, and we don't know anything about them. And so, in my opinion, it's not, it's a little bit licking our own wounds, or and every group does this right Every group says nobody's here for me. What about us?
Speaker 3:And I think, if all of us stop and put down our you know, I talked about this earlier, I think before we started masks. We have these masks of protectiveness and we have a lot of pain and the way that we deal with our pain sometimes is to close ourselves off to other people's pain. I don't need to feel your pain to understand it and to empathize. You don't need to feel my pain to understand it and to empathize. Now I'm going to say this I took my whole team to Southwest Detroit two years ago because I wanted them to listen to stories and people in Southwest Detroit. I'm going to say this on the air there is an open invitation for people from Southwest Detroit to come visit us on the east side. Now, you know, I hear from them oh no, we have everybody in southwest Detroit. No, you need to come over here and you need to understand what it's like to live in southeast Detroit.
Speaker 3:I have friends and colleagues who I love telling me things like the reason you have asthma on the east side is because our pollution blows east. And I'm like do you understand that? That's not how it works. Do you understand the weather patterns? Weather, wind blows in all directions. I'm serious, this idea that somehow if we are harmed it's because we're inheriting and getting a subset of their harm. I said do you understand that there was a whole incinerator on the east side of?
Speaker 5:Detroit.
Speaker 3:Do you understand that? Do you understand that we had a coal-burning plant just down the street? If you just take Connor South, how dare you? And you pull up in a parking lot and you see two plants automotive plants and you have the nerve to act as though somehow that pollution that we are experiencing is not blowing west. But it's because we get comfortable in our own injustice and we don't understand this same woman. I love her, so I'm not trying to call anybody out, right, she's a good person. This same woman was talking to me about infant mortality among Hispanic women sorry, back the f up because the infant mortality crisis among black children is out the way.
Speaker 3:The the, the maternal death rate of black women is off the chain. Why don't we listen to each other? So I believe that the way that we have to. So I try not to take offense because I chalk it up to ignorance. You have just built this whole wall of defenses so that you're not hearing me. You listened and hopefully other people listened and there was an opportunity to listen, but the listening has to go both ways, so that we can hear each other.
Speaker 3:And I'll say one more thing I want to hear what you're going to say. Black women need to listen to black men and black men need to listen to black women, because there's a lot of hurt.
Speaker 1:We're about to turn up now.
Speaker 5:Well, we are. We're about to turn up. Now I'm going to pass the mic to Sam. We might need to get those margaritas going I know,
Speaker 4:Well, you know what?
Speaker 3:It was better with tequila.
Speaker 4:I was going to say it's a lot easier to listen to people when you're not being paid by nonprofit organizations, national groups, not to listen to that group of people Also. I would imagine you guys probably didn't have that. And in Detroit, obviously we know that we have a large Jewish population. We know that, um, you know this is a horrible story with Sam Wall. Samantha Wall, the Jewish leader of the downtown synagogue. That happened and you remember when that story broke there was a sort of national curiosity whether it was over.
Speaker 5:October 7th.
Speaker 4:Thank God we know now today it was not. Not that it makes her murder any better for her family and friends. But we know that the Muslim and Arab and Jewish communities are, you know, sort of competing? And Les has talked about the black and Arab and Jewish communities. Are you know sort of competing? And and less has talked about the black and Arab communities, that we've seen these incidents at the gas station. Oh God, we've seen, you know the Bay Dunes try to come and, you know, have community meetings.
Speaker 4:When I talk to long time lawmakers, black lawmakers, they will say well, you know, arab Muslims weren't around in the civil rights movement. We were marching alongside Jewish people. I say, well, perhaps they were still where they immigrated from. They weren't here yet in the 1960s and 70s. Well, they were definitely here in the 1970s, in fact.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Northwest Detroit. Where were they, though? Were they marching? In fact, I grew up in northwest Detroit. Where were they, though? Were they marching? In 2020, they were.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you that's something that's generational. There's a little kid? All right, I will say in 2020, the.
Speaker 4:Arab Muslims were marching alongside black people in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Ann Arbor.
Speaker 3:I look at.
Speaker 4:Rashida.
Speaker 3:Tlaib has fought with us in every battle that we've had on the east side of Detroit. And then people said, well, she only cares about her people. I would never ask people not to care about themselves. I grew up in northwest Detroit and if you look at Woodburn and Seven Mile, it used to be called Keldean Town. The first Arab American museum was right there, seven Mile, near John R, and then you know, we used to have the signs, we used to go and we used to buy olives from restaurants there and there was a store that was right there, woodward. I grew up in a community where I walked to this store, woodfair Market, and those people treated us really well. There was a gas station on 7 Mile near Myers, where the Home Depot is right there, and so there used to be Grace Hospital behind there and my father was a doctor who worked at Grace Hospital, and so we got our car serviced there, I was a candy striper.
Speaker 5:I was, too, were you a candy striper at Grace, at Grace Hospital, the one right there I was in candy striper. I was, too, were you a candy striper at.
Speaker 3:Grace At Grace Hospital. The one right there, yeah, right there. I was in high school, oh my goodness, I was a teenager. I was a candy striper there. I was in a surgical lounge.
Speaker 5:That's what I remember.
Speaker 3:I was in the cancer ward, oh my God. And so my name is Donna Givens and my dad's name is Donovan Givens, but he was not well liked, and so people didn't realize I was his daughter. They were so shocked. They were like oh, that's your father, because they were talking stuff about him. I was like do you not understand this? This is my dad. But you know, my dad kind of looked Arab. I think that's why they didn't necessarily know he was black.
Speaker 3:They were like oh wait a minute, that's your daddy, yikes. He gave me many gifts and I'm very appreciative of him for all the gifts, but he did not have all good points. Anyway, I was there and all I'm saying is that we had good interactions and there are times when people have good interactions. I know some of the people had good interactions because you had a whole lot of kids who were mixed coming out of that community, so people were doing something with each other, right, and it's still today, I mean, I see it among my peers.
Speaker 4:It's more frequent almost Black and Arab people.
Speaker 3:I'm telling you, when I was growing up they'd be driving through the streets. We don't talk about it. All we talk about is the points of conflict. We talk about black and Asian conflict, but in the history of Detroit in the 1930s the Black Dragon Society was in the city of Detroit organizing black people around against racism. And if you look at the Nation of Islam history, the Black Dragon Society was influential in the early stages. They were organizing black businesses, and I know that only because of my family history, because my grandmother, a black woman, was affiliated with a Japanese man who was doing that, and we found out about it through some other means.
Speaker 3:But if you look at it, the reality is there's been times in our history where lots of groups have intersected. A lot of times Jewish people say, well, you know, we stood up with intersected. A lot of times. Jewish people say, well, you know, we stood up with black people. It's not just Jewish people, it is a lot of ethnicities that come together in our history, long history in this nation. But we're not telling the stories though.
Speaker 5:We're not telling the stories. And of course now we see that definitely there's always been a concerted effort, but definitely now to squash whatever forms of history is out there so we can stop telling the stories how we're all connected. And then you know, just so, because I just really believe the system of promoting all this anti-blackness and anti-fill in the blank with everything else, every other ethnicity, every other ethnicity we just have not been able to tell the story in a way that we can. And we have grown. Whether we've become desensitized to all of the things that have gone on, whether we've grown complacent and a little bit comfortable to our own area of progress, there's nothing wrong with it. I think we are still. I think we're in that time right now, where you're going to have to put up a shut up either you with the people or you're not. And I think there is an opportunity here for all ears and eyes to be open, and I think we're going to see this pushback on systems in a way that we haven't seen in quite some time. It's just unfortunate what has had to happen. Crisis always brings about opportunity. It's just unfortunate what has had to happen. Crisis always brings about opportunity. It's just unfortunate how we got here, but I think we're going to be moving forward and I think we're going to see some things that will help to promote healing.
Speaker 5:Our communities need so much healing. Let me tell you, as a Black woman, there's so much healing. There's so many different wounds, so many different things, but the one thing about it is scars is in place of where wounds once were, so there's healing there, and so what I'm talking about is we got some wounds, but I think it's time for us to move on and get those scars going, let it be healed, and I think we're in that moment Now. I don't mean I may not have much faith in all of the politicians and the folks we got elected, but I do believe that there is some faith. There's something about the people, because we are authentic. Our stories are real. The blood in the streets is there, is no. You cannot deny what has happened to us, to our people, to all of us, and I think folks are starting to realize that there's something that's clicking right now.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love what you're saying. I love people who can tell the truth and still have a vision for something good happening, because the reality is, two things can be true. Right, you've never had any real social progress without crisis. Crisis creates opportunities for change. People wanted the Bernie revolution and Bernie Sanders didn't go far enough as far as I'm concerned, and we don't have to enumerate all the things he missed. Right, there was no environmental activism, there was no even discussion of racism, you know. But the reality is, the revolution doesn't come from the president. The revolution comes from the, from the president. The revolution comes from the people. That's right. And the other thing is that revolutions are never bloodless, and when I say that, I don't mean that I think a lot of people are going to die, but I think that they never come without pain yes, that's right.
Speaker 3:The pain is part of the process it's the thing that makes us grow, if you think about it. When you touch your finger to a stove when you're little, that's pain and that's a teacher, that pain puts you to your purpose. Now I'm not trying to say that you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I think that we have to also understand that trauma can leave permanent scars.
Speaker 3:You know, I've listened to. When I was a kid I listened to these amazing Horatio Eldridge stories about a grandfather who was an orphan and how he became a doctor racial elder stories about a grandfather who was an orphan and how he became a doctor. He was orphaned and he lived with this man in Indianapolis who took him in and raised him and he was able to go to college long before most black people could go to college in 1914 because he'd been taken in by this you know this his aunt's husband. And then his aunt died, his mother died, aunt died, father left him and I also heard these stories about some of the crazy stuff he did and then they produced my father and I grew up in some of the crazy stuff he did and it occurred to me that not only did my family pass on opportunity and success, they passed on some scars and that scar tissue had not healed by the time I was born and I had to be intentional about saying you know what, I'm going to try to heal this, because we are all. It doesn't matter where we are now.
Speaker 3:You know, people looked at people in my neighborhood. Oh my God, they're so far and we were. But you know, we're all some scarred-ass people living there too. We buried them. One of my first friends who died grew up around she was the most privileged person in my neighborhood. She died when she was like 52 years old because of the scars. That's right, and we don't look at the emotional scars Absolutely, and that is some of our more privileged people. And that is some of our more privileged people. You have these black men, the first head of American Express, dropping dead at 50, 60 years old from a massive heart attack and all you think about is the privilege. So when we think about the fact there's scars everywhere, from the prison to the C-suite and everything in between, then we have to be willing to acknowledge that we have been harmed by centuries, centuries Of oppressive tactics. When my grandfather went to college, the amount of racism he endured to be at the University of Indiana when he was there.
Speaker 5:I can imagine that was probably just Was intense yeah.
Speaker 3:The amount of racism he endured when he was in medical practice, when he lived all of these stories also were there. He had to pay his way In part. He was a porter on a train, a Pullman's porter, and that's how he paid his way and the amount of indignities that he suffered. We aren't spared that, no matter where we are. President Obama is scarred from his presidency and he was the most elite Black man in America and we saw him being broken down.
Speaker 5:Absolutely including his wife, michelle Obama. I was just looking at something just the other day I think there was a clip of Michelle Obama learning the. You know the Whitham fans at dance or something was showing somebody. Obama learning the you know the fans at dance or something was showing somebody, and just the comments up under the post. I was just casually scrolling the comments under the post and this guy, one of these podcasters, right-wing extremists said something about oh yeah, I told you, look at, called her a man or something.
Speaker 5:I'm like are we still doing this? I mean that level of disrespect. And guess what? America said it was okay, there was nothing wrong with that, because, after all, there are only certain groups of folks. There's only certain folks that it's okay to disrespect, downplay, no matter what level of achievement, no matter how high you've gone up and proved yourself, and so the healing is going to have to start now. I think we're at a place where we can no longer not talk about all these things. I think all of these stories are coming together. I think there's an opportunity for folks to start sharing their scars, their wounds, what they've endured so other folks are here.
Speaker 3:I agree with you. I mean, I completely agree with you. I looked at the amount of vitriol that people have. I think the most important thing is for us to understand look, we're all scarred. How do we come together? So, first, how do we come together as black people and wrap our arms around each other so that we're not so vulnerable and we're not attacking each other? And it's not, you know, elitism, colorism, ageism, all of those isms that are really benefiting only one group, and those are the people who are trying to tear us apart. How do we come together? And then, how do we come together with other groups and build real unity in a multicultural, multi-ethnic effort to defeat injustice, because injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Speaker 3:and it's not okay that you suffer, because I think I suffered more. None of us should be suffering, and I felt very much so that, um, during this past election, even afterwards, some of the stuff that happened made me really feel attacked as a black woman by a lot of other people, almost as though it's black women's fault that this happened. I think that's why we said we're tired, that's why a lot of us really backed out, but it was really just people throwing stuff up at us. I'm going to take another break and when we come back, I really want us to talk about Detroit politics. We've got to talk about our city.
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Speaker 3:So, talking about Detroit, let's bring it home to Detroit.
Speaker 4:Well, you mentioned crisis creates opportunity. Michigan Democrats in the state house faced sort of a crisis this past year and now a number of members are seeking a different opportunity to serve, To serve the city of Detroit which I am not.
Speaker 5:This is my own personal opinion and not representing the organizational opinion, but my personal opinion is that the musical chairs is a little bit too much. I am hopeful, but I also want our voters to really take a look, not at the personalities, not at the glitz and glamour that some of these folks that are running bring, but actually start to break down and analyze and look at the trails, actually start to break down and analyze and look at the trails. I am not necessarily fond. Well, I don't know what to think of folks that are, you know, like I call it, musical chairs.
Speaker 5:Where you were in the state house, you're in the state, you're in state legislature. Now you're coming to the city, city's coming to try to do mayor and then we're looking at mayors going to govern. I don't know what to make about all of that, because I'm trying to figure out. Okay, are you trying to? What exactly are you trying to do? I need to know what the plan is, because how effective were you in the spot that you were in first? And then is it more of the same? And, specifically, we've got some state legislators that I absolutely do not even want nowhere near the city of Detroit downtown in the building at all, because of some of the politics and games that they seem to play in the state legislature that I am To level set.
Speaker 4:we're talking about Tyrone Carter. He is a candidate in District 6. We're talking about Helena Scott. She's a candidate in District 2. We are talking about Karen Whitsett. She's a candidate in District 7, among various other candidates.
Speaker 3:All of them, right, all of them. The reality is that a couple of things. Number one there's the whole issue of career politicians, and I'm not really against people who make politics a career, because I think you know anytime you do something for a long time, you can get good at it.
Speaker 3:But here's what I'm saying, with one caveat If you're running because you want to be somebody like if I could keep Stephanie Chang in office forever, I would, because Stephanie Chang is bringing home and she is accountable to the people and it's a very big disappointment to me that we're going to lose her in Lansing. Her voice is so important. What I think is that we need more accountability mechanisms and I think we also need to have more policy ideals that we express to our candidates and hold them accountable for. Each of these candidates thinks they can go up there and just decide how to represent us best, because we don't have a set of principles that we are willing to define locally and say, if you represent me, you're going to do these things. And say, if you represent me, you're going to do these things. What does it mean to support Detroit or to support Detroiters? I know 4824 has an opinion and I know that there's some issues you're focused on. What do you focus on?
Speaker 5:Yes, we are definitely focused so typically in 4824, because we fight for education, justice and all of that, and typically a lot of our interactions with our legislators have been state, because the state is what controls the funds and is pretty much making a lot of the decisions for our schools across the state of Michigan. That's how it works here in Michigan, but what we have discovered in these last 10 years that we have been operating is that we can no longer talk about schools and education separate from city politics, although the city doesn't have any direct authority over schools. It's great. It's wonderful. There have been some work we've done along the way. Where we had to, we pulled the city officials in and folks stood with us on issues.
Speaker 5:However, everything that happens in our communities in Detroit ultimately shows up in the classroom. So if Jaleel and Jelani are homeless and a number of our families are homeless and don't know it if you're waking up on your cousin's couch or you're going with a friend every other weekend, you're sleeping somewhere else, you're homeless. All of the issues that reside with that family show up in Mrs Jones's classroom or Mr Rahim's classroom that day. Okay, there could be all kinds of things we have. There are food issues, nutrition that shows up in the classroom, behavioral issues that can show up in the classroom when everything is not right in the community. If there's no lights or water, that shows up in the classroom. Maybe the school uniform or the school clothes are dirty and the child may be bullied. So there's a multitude of things that can happen in the classroom as a result of how the family is living. And we ain't even started teaching reading or math yet. This is at 801. All of these things are happening. These are areas that we feel that the city can be more supportive in.
Speaker 5:How can the city support? Is there something that the city, some decisions and some things that can be made? When it comes to transportation, we know that Detroit has one of the highest, if not the highest, chronic absenteeism rates here in the city of Detroit. How can we strengthen that? What can we do about that? What can we do about housing and the housing market? Why are in? I don't know the numbers for charter, but in DPS right now there are more than three, I think 3,500 children that are considered homeless, that are on the rolls to attending school every day.
Speaker 5:Just think about that for a minute. What does that look like for the lessons, for the daily. You want to talk about student achievement. We can't even get there because of all of these other things, and then lay on all of the other problems. You know, if there's violence or domestic abuse, or if there's somebody's lost a job, unemployment, all of these things we believe need to be centralized and at the forefront of somebody that's running for a city, something about. How do we talk about these things in terms of neighborhoods? And then I'll just say this one last thing I personally believe and we really have adopted this belief at 42, just really thinking through this one of not the only, but one of the keys to the comeback of the city you strengthen neighborhood schools, you support schools and let them be strong.
Speaker 5:I'm telling you, parents will move to wherever they think a good school system is. I've seen it done. Folks will pack up their entire family and move across the country to find out what jobs can I get over there? What does the neighborhood look like? We've seen it. I'm going to tell you where I saw this, what I was really impressed by there's a charter school, the Balk School. I know they've in the. My son used to go there a few years back, but there was a neighborhood when they were over on the east side in Willis. Well, this school, you know, had a reputation of being pretty good and decent for kids. Folks started really coming. What I noticed there were people who began to move in the neighborhood to be closer to the school. So after three years or four years we started noticing little things block clubs, community groups, different things. Folks were buying property and that's just one small example.
Speaker 3:I agree that that's an example. I have a couple thoughts to that, though. Sure, in the neighborhood around the Boggs School, the city had a neighborhood plan. The city put money into housing, the city put money into a lot of things to build that community and track people back, and so I think that you have to invest in housing yes, a lot of people are leaving the city because they can't afford to live here in decent housing.
Speaker 3:Because there is no decent housing for low-income people. It's cheaper to live in Warren, it's cheaper to live in East Point and Roseville and Oak Park than it is to live in many parts of the city of Detroit. So we've got to figure out how to build up neighborhoods with housing and schools. We need a youth department, for example. Why doesn't the city of Detroit have a functional youth department that says we're going to invest in youth well-being? The city controls recreation, the health department, desc, jobs department. We could put resources right in schools so that schools have health clinics inside the school, so that schools have recreational activities right inside the school.
Speaker 3:When I was starting in this work, there used to be concepts like communities and schools, which Detroit does not have, a communities and schools. They exist in other communities where you had a lot of services there to support family well-being. I think if the city said we're going to invest in neighborhood housing and neighborhood schools at the same time, that's how you build up neighborhoods and schools. We see so many shuttered school buildings in our communities and when you see a shuttered school building, people are leaving. It's really hard to maintain that population.
Speaker 3:I was running Vanguard Community Development Corporation in 2006. That's when the city proposed shutting down so many neighborhood schools. Yeah, and I went to the school board and we had T-shirts made and we said keep our schools open. And I said the greatest argument for a Detroit public school is a neighborhood school. When you take neighborhood schools out of neighborhoods, detroit public schools will suffer and so will the population of Detroit. I actually did a graphical depiction of what it might look like and unfortunately that ended up being true that you have to look at both and we have not looked at either either.
Speaker 5:So I support what you're saying and I think there's a couple mayoral candidates who are actually talking about that and there are some mayoral candidates who have even expressed to us that they definitely want to make education a part of their platform. I always I always kind of cringe when I hear people say part of your platform. I want to know is it going to be part of what you plan on doing, but not just the platform to stand on?
Speaker 3:But that's why 42 Forward is so important.
Speaker 5:So that's why we push in, because when they get elected, to office.
Speaker 3:Then we can hold them accountable right.
Speaker 5:Listen, we are pushing. We actually held an issue summit sometime last month where we asked we do this all the time. We ask our members what exactly is it? What is the pressing issues in your communities? What is it that you would like to see? Yes, we understand some of the issues in schools, but what do you want to see? Housing was definitely the one that came up. Transportation came up, All of these services, Recreation, and then you know 482, we really have a strong youth arm, right, Right and so we're listening to our youth.
Speaker 1:Now I want to go back to what you said.
Speaker 5:Yes, the city needs a youth department. They need a youth department that's not going to be tokenized and that's going to actually listen, and that's going to actually listen to their youth, because a lot of times we say youth, we prop them up there, they're a part of the quote board or part of the council, and then nobody asks them anything, they're just expected to parrot our talking points.
Speaker 3:That's right, I absolutely agree with you. I appreciate you. I could talk to you all day, so we're going to have to get together and have more tequilas and margaritas. But we also have to get you back on here, because you just bring such a fresh perspective and I always get excited when we have these conversations. That is so good.
Speaker 3:We're going to have to end, but and I always get excited when we have these conversations, that is so good, we're going to have to end, but thank you so much to people who listen to the Black Detroit Democracy podcast and be sure to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms and, of course, support Black Independent Reporting on Detroit1millioncom, because good journalism costs. You know what that means no-transcript.
