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.
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Authentically Detroit
Black Detroit Democracy Podcast: The Battle for Detroit’s Future
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 discussed Detroit’s first televised mayoral debate which revealed deep division amongst the candidates. The debate which featured four out of nine candidates exposed some of the strengths and weaknesses of those seeking Detroit’s top office.
For more episodes of the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast, click here.
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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.
Speaker 3:Good journalism costs. Visit DetroitOneMillioncom to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. Every week, we open this podcast with a reading of the preamble to the Detroit City Charter, read by the one and only Bryce Detroit. The City Charter is our constitution, which defines our rights and the way government should work. I'm Dinah 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. Welcome back to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. How are you today, sam?
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm so good it's raining outside today. I've got to go to Shed 5 Eastern Market tonight for a District 5 candidate forum. You just met Renata Miller, you told me I did Before we went on. She got a UAW endorsement.
Speaker 3:And she's a retired UAW. She listed a number of endorsements.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they watch out for their own and these candidates are getting endorsements. But in District 5 to replace Mary Sheffield has been there for what a decade almost.
Speaker 3:I think longer than a decade. Longer than a decade, I think 12 years. She got in here. She was elected in the same cycle that Mike Duggan came to office.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we're going to get some new representation in District 5. I'm excited to see that tonight. Obviously, we just witnessed our first live televised mayoral debate with four of the nine candidates. Some of those candidates weren't on stage. Channel 4 determined who was selected based on the poll that they conducted with the Detroit News. I think it was 10% margin of error, plus or minus four. So Santeel Jenkins, solomon Kinloch, mary Sheffield and James Craig were on stage and, oh man, the gloves came off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean they did. I was supposed to be there, but, as I mentioned to you, I'm having some mobility issues, so I decided, with a sore knee and some limping around, to go home. I caught most of it on TV, but I missed maybe a few minutes. I thought it was good. I thought that there's something to be said, though, for allowing the marketplace of ideas to be there. Even if you don't, a candidate doesn't have a greater chance of winning. The value of having these candidates there is that you get to hear all of their ideas, and there's certainly some voices that were missing from the debate, but I thought that there was some really strong arguments being made and people walked away with some real strong feelings, I think, even without some of those voices, you heard some similar lines, some of the exact same lines being deployed.
Speaker 4:James Craig said we don't need a mayor who is going to need on-the-job training. We heard that from Suntiel excuse me from. Fred Durhall. I messaged Durhall right after Craig said that and you know what he told me is imitation is the best form of flattery. Fred Durhall and Todd Perkins were the candidates that most folks I talked to were upset and disappointed that they didn't see on the debate stage. It would have been really hard to get more than four candidates in there in an hour.
Speaker 4:And shout out to Jason, who moderated the debate. He did an excellent job, but it's very hard to articulate your entire thoughts is what James Craig told me when I asked him why he wasn't able to get a lot of his answers fully off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought he did a good job. I thought it was not excellent and I also think that we needed more time for it. I think that we're having a debate here on Saturday, so shameless plug. Eastside Community Network, outlier Media and, authentically, detroit are having a debate here on Saturday so shameless plug.
Speaker 3:Eastside Community Network, outlier Media and, authentically, detroit are having a debate here on Saturday, but one of our goals at this debate is to allow people's ideas to breathe and to allow for a little bit more back and forth. When there's disagreement, I don't just want to hear the pot shots. I want actually for people to spend some time explaining why they think what they think. There's a lot of information that was out there, and I'll give an example of something I thought didn't get enough attention. Santil talked about a penny Detroit tax, a Detroit penny tax, and she said it would raise $100 million. I'd like to see the evidence that it would raise $100 million, because that certainly sounds good. What Mary said then was she countered with number one, a desire to capitalize off of economic development downtown.
Speaker 3:In a previous forum or debate, fred Durhall suggested that it would not raise enough money to make a difference. Then Mary said I haven't seen his evidence either. And then Santil. Then Mary also said you know, maybe a half penny tax for Detroiters, but she wanted to see a study to evaluate what the impact was on Detroiters. Well, let's talk about that. Those are three really interesting ideas, right? I forget what she called it. It's not an amusement text.
Speaker 3:She had a different name a sales option text or something like that. A half penny text and a penny text. What is a penny text? What would that mean economically for people? Let's talk about it, don't just throw it out there, those numbers out there, and move on. Let's talk about it. Don't just throw it out there, those numbers out there, and move on. So that was. I thought there was a little bit of missing information. I do think that his question about Mary's attendance was a question that she handled. I thought very well, but I would have liked to hear from Santil whether Santil had really good attendance at every single committee meeting when she was council president. Because you had another city council president there and Mary said no council president attends every meeting. Well, we've got one right here. Let's ask Santil did you? Because sometimes people have cheap shots or sometimes people cover up information and it's hard to differentiate the truth. So either you walk away thinking Mary covered it well or you just say she did a CYA kind of maneuver. There's no accountability.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know that story where that question came from Deadline Detroit. I forget the author of the story Adolph Mongo. Oh, that was Mongo that did that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought it was Adolph Mongo.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I'm not sure. I don't believe Mongo is currently working on anyone's campaign.
Speaker 3:You didn't see his hit piece on Mary.
Speaker 4:That's what I'm referencing now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is he working for someone Is?
Speaker 4:he collecting money to do this.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's Adolph Mongo Mary Sheffield is not ready for primetime.
Speaker 4:Adolph, there's a lot of people that don't show up to session I mean there are council members. That don't go to Tuesday council meetings but understand this.
Speaker 3:If you are council president and you are an ex-official member of every single committee, then not showing up at a committee meeting an ex-official member means number one that you are invited to the committee. I'm not even sure that the vice president is.
Speaker 3:She would have a role. What is her role? And when you have actual committee chairs, the committee chairs have a bigger role. I think Adolph Mungo, you have to know his history. Adolph Mungo is for sale, so even if he's not telling you who's paying him, he doesn't do it for free.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you a story you know if you've been around Detroit politics long enough. When Grimeame Kilpatrick was running the second time I believe he was running against Freeman Hendricks, and in his fight against Freeman Hendricks, adolph Michael came out against Kwame Kilpatrick and there was a lot of talk at this time about some of his actions in his first term. And then, all of a sudden, he and Horace Sheffield, who also was coming out against Kwame Kilpatrick, were hired by the Kilpatrick campaign and Adolf Mungo put together a whole narrative around a high-tech lynching. He purchased an ad on the front page of the Michigan Chronicle showing a graveyard with black men being lynched to try to suppress criticism of Kwame Kilpatrick and suggest that somehow this was, you know, you know, consistent with a brutality. And the first person who came up with this high-tech lynching was actually Clarence Thomas. And so I really, really, really reject the narrative of criticizing black men who are political in the political space amounts to a high-tech lynching. They're not being killed, they're being criticized.
Speaker 4:And we've heard similar things about Eric Adams from his camp and those defending him. Yeah, I mean, it's always New York city, man we defend.
Speaker 3:You know, when you're defending people like Eric Adams against a high-tech lynching, then you have to ask yourself what does lynching? Then you have to ask yourself what does lynching mean? Okay, but it's always to me a cheap shot and there's other ways to do it. He was not running against a white man, he was running against another black man. Freeman Hendricks is not white, and so the idea that somehow he was being lynched for criticizing him and the majority of voters in Detroit, who were also criticizing him, were lynching him, is a distortion of history and a minimization of what lynching really was. But at any rate, it was his hit piece. It was cheap to me and it's just filled with cheap shots, but that's what he does, and you know. I just think that we should be very careful at not assuming because somebody has not said I'm working with this candidate, somebody's paying him.
Speaker 4:You know it's interesting how this time of clickbait and soundbite and vertical video 12 second video, it's interesting that folks like Adolf Mungo in that sort of agenda driven journalism it's not more prevalent in Detroit. Perhaps I'm completely wrong, but you know I haven't seen as many of those type of like gets everyone talking about this thing. I went live to 500 people after the debate and several people were talking about the Adolph Mongo story and I don't know Jason Corthrope's level of understanding how that story came together. To ask Mary, I think she was a little surprised after I talked to her after the debate that he actually brought that up even.
Speaker 3:Because they should have known better and I think that you know really good journalists would understand the nuance. That doesn't excuse her from missing meetings, right, but it does add some nuance and it's one of those questions that, to me, was a little bit just based on. You can't let Adolph Mungo be your source.
Speaker 4:I know and there are real criticisms about showing up and being places that Mary has and I'll bring it on the air right now.
Speaker 4:There's one criticism that I hear of Mary Sheffield that she doesn't stay very long at the events that she's invited to. I mean, I've witnessed it. You know she's a busy person being the council president and she has a driver that and oftentimes she's driving herself around. But that's something that people at organizations that are very excited to have the city council president and then are sort of disappointed, surprisingly that she had to leave a little bit early.
Speaker 3:You know that's a criticism that I think is rooted more in reality than Adolph's Exactly, and we've had that concern with Mary, to be honest with you, and called her out about it right when we had our East Side Summit in 2020. Three, mary was one of the speakers on a panel and she promised she would show up. She didn't and Orlando called her up. We went live and she called up and she was trying to, you know, explain and you know whatever. I think that that is a bad pattern of behavior and I think holding her accountable for that pattern of behavior is separate from what we see here.
Speaker 4:And I've heard that from some other people Completely separate, and I mean the remedies for solving that are also kind of you know time management and you know getting a schedule planner or what have you? You know, you guys got to understand. I mean, if you're a city council person, let alone the city council president, you're being invited to an event every single night and it is so easy, even as a journalist, to overextend yourself and say yes, yes, yes, and then realize, oh shoot, I just said yes to three things that are happening all on the same day.
Speaker 3:And not to make an excuse, but some of us just have a really hard time saying no. I say yes to things. I don't go sometimes, like I didn't go to the debate, I was like I just can't do it. I said to my husband we had tickets and I said, if you really want to go but I don't think I have I don't feel good enough to go and I certainly don't want to be walking around with this bad knee which I have to have physical therapy. I have to wear a special brace for my knee and you know. So I didn't go.
Speaker 3:When I was in Mackinac, I missed some things because of my knee and I had difficulty walking around, and so on the other side, people who thought I was going to be there will say, well, donna's not showing up and I'm not making an excuse, I'm not city council president. I think also the final thing I'm going to say is Mary shows up some places all the time and some places she doesn't. So I think that you know if you talk to people at Mac Development, she's always there. They say she's always there for us. I think also there's an equity thing where you want to make sure that you're showing up for everybody all of the time, and not just your people. But you know, I just didn't.
Speaker 3:I didn't really like that comment I think like you said sometimes when you make the wrong criticism, the right criticism gets lost in the sauce.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there was a. You know talking about pot shots and cheap shots. One shot or should I say three shots let out by Santil Jenkins. At the end, during her closing remarks, she told the audience if you want a future that includes more guns in schools, locking up our kids, craig, james, craig is your guy. If you want a part-time mayor who will be working two full-time jobs, kinloch is ready. If you want a mayor who shows up on Instagram but doesn't show up for meetings, referencing the Adolf Mungo story, then follow Mary. And it was quite. I think I got more than 10,000 views in a tweet version of that and everyone was oh, people loved it.
Speaker 3:But I'm going to say this I've been at ECN.
Speaker 4:Not everybody.
Speaker 3:Not everybody I've been at ECN since 2016. And we have lots and lots of community meetings. I'm sure you've been here. I've been to community meetings in many places. I have not seen Sontil until she decided to run for office. And my criticism of Candace I had this conversation with another Candace, not just her. I have this conversation with Candace all the time. If you're running for office, don't just show up when you're running. Don't just show up when you want money. Show up because you care about this community Over. She left city council and she says well, at that time you know everything was pretty much decided, so it was a good time to leave In 2013,.
Speaker 3:Look what happened the next year. We had a record number of water shutoffs, such that the United Nations came here and declared it a human rights violation. Between 2013 and now, we had so many homes that were taken for tax foreclosure. We have so many people living without heat. We have so many people living without resources. We've had blackouts and we've had all kinds of emergencies in the city. We had all of COVID-19, and Sontill has not been in these streets all this time.
Speaker 3:And so if I want somebody to show up when they want something now, that's what I would have said if I was married but of course I'm not married I would have said if you want somebody to show up when you want something, choose Santil, because she's back in town right now. And yes, she's helped people by administering THAW funds and I think that that's great, that THAW has administered funds. But despite the funds that Thaw has administered, we still have people living in homes without heat and warmth. We still have people living in homes without water. We still have people living in homes that are in dangerously poor repair.
Speaker 4:And DTE keeps raising our bills. Our utility bills are getting out of control. Which one of the regulators are going to say something, and it appears, if you follow Craig Monger's reporting, that they're trying to oust actively one of the regulators at the Public Service Commission that is trying to raise concerns.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, the Public Service Commission was asleep on the job for a while and they're starting to slowly rouse back to awakening, but I think we have to understand that we have some of the least reliable energy in the nation it takes longer for it to turn back on and some of the highest rates in the nation and they keep raising them. And our utilities are also publicly traded. And so in October of 2023, I believe, and don't kill me if I got the dates wrong, but in October of 2023 or thereabouts DTE distributed about $700 million to its shareholders and then turned around a few months later and asked for a hike in energy bills to cover a $400 million shortfall. Energy bills to cover a $400 million shortfall. Now, you don't have to be a mathematician to understand that if they had given away $300 million, we wouldn't need to have this increase. And the explanation when I did ask some DTE folks about it, they said well, you know, retirees, all of these people depend on DTE, these shares, to make them profit. And so there's a move by many organizations including, you know, volunteers, not politicians which I sit on the board of to talk about changing regulations to publicly traded monopolies, which you know DTE is. It's not as though you can decide I'm not going to purchase DTE energy, you have it. I was taking the survey and they were like would you recommend DTE To who? You don't have a choice right? So I think her affiliation with DTE and even the fact that Santil called out DTE was problematic. Now, she did have some good answers and I don't want to minimize that. But the other thing I thought was a little bit weird was this is where experience counts. This is where experience counts. This is where experience counts. Not one person on that stage has the experience of being mayor. Not one person on that stage has the experience of fixing injustice.
Speaker 3:And, pastor Kinloch, everything you talk about how people haven't done anything. You know I used to run a church-based nonprofit community development corporation. You know what we did. We built housing. We did economic development in our neighborhoods. We did all of that and we also did charity. You know what we did. We built housing. We did economic development in our neighborhoods. We did all of that and we also did charity. You've passed out computers. You've passed out food. What have you built? What have you created? You're going to create 10 grocery stores. Have you created one? If you have 35,000 members, you're telling me you can't do one thing.
Speaker 3:I think it's not that I'm criticizing him or Craig or Santel. I think it's important, though, that we don't hold our opponents to standards. We ourselves have not met. This idea that a woman, a child, died in a parking garage because of Mary Sheffield not doing what she was supposed to do is offensive. Our entire system around housing is broken, and not a single mayor can guarantee that children will not be homeless next year. Now, maybe they won't die because most of the time, or maybe they will die and it just won't make the paper right. But I think that you know, maybe they'll be in foster care, maybe they'll be shunned around that way, or you know there's other kinds of outcomes that happen. But let's really hold people accountable for um, for realistic and um reasonable things, and not just use this as pot shots.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know um, there was some ooze when Solomon Kinloch responded um after James Craig said gloves are off, let's go. He said I don't mind that, kinloch, you know, sort of brought a level of decorum back into the room. He said yeah, I think some folks on the stage tonight have forgotten that construction is not destruction and building oneself up does not include tearing others down.
Speaker 3:But what has he done? He said you haven't done your job. Listen, when I was at, I'll talk about Vanguard right Community Development Corporation, which, by the way, vanguard Community Development Corporation was started by Second Ebenezer Church in a building that Kinloch now occupies. That's when Second Ebenezer was there. Is there a Triumph Community Development Corporation? I haven't heard about.
Speaker 3:Okay, so one of the things we did you did even before we did we had after school program, the after school program at Second Ebenezer. When some children were left behind and I think a parent was arrested for leaving their children behind from Flicks Elementary School, the Foreign Language and Immersion School, which is right down the street from Second Ebenezer at the time, right on East Grand Boulevard, pastor Van at that time started an after-school program so that parents at Flix could have their children picked up from his place, because he understood children would come there late. We then started an after-school program at Sherrard Elementary School. We then started working at Northern High School. We have offered summer jobs. We built, you know, over 100 units of housing. We created the Milwaukee Junction Small Business Center, which helps small businesses develop.
Speaker 3:This is, of course, under my tenure, which I'm very proud of, from 1999 until 2007. And then more stuff has been done since then. You don't have to be mayor for your church to help facilitate some of the solutions that you're talking about. If you've been in a school and you've brought your church into a school, not for a one-day motivational or mentoring program, but actually programs inside of schools helping children learn, then you have a stake in that conversation. If it's all about what you're going to learn, then you have a stake in that conversation. If it's all about what you're going to do, then you are no different than the rest.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, I think that the response and reactions to Kinloch's response to Suntil almost might take you know from his supporters and even some that that didn't, that don't support Solomon Kinloch. Um, you know, afterward people were asking, you know, is this going to help or hurt her? And you know, I don't know if I have an answer yet. I think Gen Z and millennials who loved what she said, you know, vote a lot less than the folks that do not love what she said and that were sort of like you know, thank you, solomon Kinloch. After he said what he did.
Speaker 3:You know, after I was talking to Renata yesterday, Miller yesterday, while leaving my daughter's house and had a brief conversation with her about the debate, and the thing she said is that some of her family members feel that Mary is too young, which you know ageism, right. And then the other thing is some of them will never forgive Santil for the way that she left to the older folks in her family. And so I think again that you know, when you throw stones and you're living in a glass house, don't be surprised when some stones get thrown back, and some people have very, very strong memories about that. And that's not to say that, santill, I think Santill could be a decent mayor. I think Mary could be a decent mayor. I think they are two of the more. Both of them seem to be more policy focused and more specific in how they'll do things. I really liked the fact that Santill did her bus riding thing, and I've been looking at her ideas around transportation and I like it. So I think that she has good ideas. I just don't know that that's the way to move forward and I really hate to see women attacking each other and not really dealing with the issues. But that's me.
Speaker 3:Two things I noticed, though we've been preparing our own debate questions, none of the debates, none of the forums and none of the candidates has really expressed a viewpoint on water affordability. What is your view on water affordability? Again, in 2014, we had over 80,000 homes have their water shut off. Now, recently we had the Lifeline program, which Mary helped to create and Sontill supported, according to documentation, but that Lifeline program has expired and now people's homes are subject to water shut off again, and people like my friend, monica Lewis-Patrick at we the People of Detroit did I get her name right? Anyway, monica at we the People of Detroit certainly has a very strong viewpoint on water affordability and the need to enshrine that in law.
Speaker 3:Under, I want to say, joanne Watson's leadership on city council, they actually passed a water affordability plan that was never made into law, and so I want to know where do you stand on that? Is water a human right? And if it's a human right, how do we fix the laws and policies to make sure that people's rights are being exercised? The second thing I don't see anybody talking about is environmental racism, environmental justice. We have in our community the highest asthma rate in the nation, and that's directly impacted by all of the concentration of industry and the failure to buffer and protect our communities from environmental harm. We have ozone that is out of control, we've got flooding, and flooding is leaving homes in really bad repair. So I want to ask the kinds of questions that also deal with issues that don't make it to WDIV or to the debate stage, but I'm also concerned that none of the candidates has really brought them up on their own. Those are not planks in their campaigns and I think they should be.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree, you know I don't know what else I haven't heard Haven't heard anything about reparations or the city's reparations task force that Mary Sheffield played a pivotal part in creating and appointing Keith Williams to Keith Williams. He got mad at me for quoting him saying that Triumph Church is a circus. So I'll say it again here. Maybe he'll get mad again and maybe not. I don't know if he's listening, but yeah, I haven't heard anybody talk about how that is going. I understand Sidney Calloway left.
Speaker 3:She was a co-chair and so I don't know, they keep losing co-chairs. You know.
Speaker 4:It's because they know what's coming. What's coming, donna? A lawsuit. They're not going to get this. I mean, they're going to get tied up in courts.
Speaker 3:The reality is that I don't think reparations will be decided by governmental bodies. I think studying reparations and building awareness of them fine, but you're not going to get real reparations in a state that doesn't believe in affirmative action and does not allow for certain things to move forward, and certainly not in this nation at this time. I think that what I want to know is what kinds of information have you uncovered? How can we educate the community on some of the issues that people should be aware of related to the history and functioning and systems of this city? I think it was never going to be a successful thing, but certainly if you appoint Keith Williams over as co-chair, it's not going to succeed because he doesn't play well with other people.
Speaker 4:Why haven't we heard that as a criticism from any of the other candidates?
Speaker 3:Oh, because I think that you know first of all, why are you going to take that on. I think Keith Williams is the chair of the Michigan Black Democrats and nobody really wants to go up against that. I don't know that any of the candidates wants to touch reparations with a 10-foot pole.
Speaker 4:I know, you know, that Mike Duggan doesn't either. Has he even referenced it at all once? I'm not sure. Listen, I guess my thing is— the governor has told me that she supports the will of the Detroit residents and their plans.
Speaker 3:You know, in 2020, we had Black Lives Matter protests all over the nation actually all over the world right and in Detroit, james Craig, acting under Mike Duggan's authority authority, shut down the protest in the city of Detroit, and the city of Detroit came up with a nice slogan and they had this street mural Power to the People and everybody's like that's great, because this mayor will not say black, this mayor will not acknowledge racism, this mayor will not acknowledge any kind of systemic injustice and, in fact, when you talk about, he says that's divisive, which is what Republicans say as well, and that's why I was not surprised he was running independent.
Speaker 3:The idea that speaking about injustice is divisive is something that people who have a lot of resources want to say, because it shuts down any kind of conversation about spreading the wealth or sharing opportunity. So all right, but you know we have so many things to talk about. We do. I do want to talk about something that happened last week and, speaking of protest, when we come back, let's talk about no Kings and the role of black people in Detroit and across the world in participating in these marches.
Speaker 2:Interested in renting space for corporate events, meetings, conferences, social events or resource fairs. The MassDetroit Small Business Hub is a 6,000 square feet space available for members, residents 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. 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 authenticallydetcom and send a request through the contact page.
Speaker 3:So, you know, the day of or the day before the no Kings March, several young people that I know were really upset with young African-American people with a post by Cheri Gay Daniego saying dear black people, don't participate in the no Kings March, sit home, don't let ice, whatever. And she, you know, went on this rant and some of them felt like wait a minute. This is a school board member and about 14 percent of Detroit school board school children are Latinx. Is this okay?
Speaker 4:She said no disrespect, but what we're not about to do is turn the focus of Juneteenth to immigration.
Speaker 3:Well that she also said that that's a separate one, which is really offensive. Do we get all of June for Juneteenth? I mean Juneteenth is June 19th, but it's also men's mental health awareness month.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, so you're not going to turn that to Juneteenth, I mean, you know? I think the reality is that freedom is freedom, and when I think about what's happening right now, with people being arrested for assisting people who are being actively, you know, hounded and deported people, giving them shelter and you can go to prison, I can't help but think of slave catchers.
Speaker 4:I can't help but think of black people living illegally in places like Detroit, a lot of people are using the word Gestapo to describe ICE.
Speaker 3:Right? Well, Gestapo. Before you had Gestapo, you had slave catchers in the city of Detroit. Remember, Hitler modeled his behavior in Germany after how black people were treated in the United States. He took it a step further, you know, with the concentration camps as he set them up. But we have to be honest that people existed illegally in this nation for reasons that had nothing to do with justice and had nothing to do with immigration. It had to do with. You're not legal unless you are working on this farm under control of somebody and actually look what's happening now. I don't know if you saw a little known news it was in the news last week or this week, I don't know when it was when Trump said he's thinking about stopping enforcement of immigration violations on farms and in places that employ people who are brought hair illegally.
Speaker 3:He's not going to enforce this there anymore. So all of the people who own these large farms, they're going to be able to have them work there and they're not going to have to worry about ice coming to their farms.
Speaker 4:I thought he said that in Republican states.
Speaker 3:I don't think he said that in Republican states, but maybe he did. Maybe he said that. In addition, he said in another thing that he was going to really bring ICE to Democratic states and Democratic cities, but I didn't hear him say that about the farmers. So I would imagine that if there's farmers that are brought here illegally in Michigan to farm and enrich white folks, they're not going to deport them either. But I want you to think about the optics of this.
Speaker 3:You're working on this. We'll call it a plantation or farm or whatever you want to call it. You're working here and you're safe. You can be here legally as long as you work here. The minute you leave, you're illegal and you are subject to deportation. Leave, you're illegal and you are subject to deportation.
Speaker 3:Think about the historical idea of you can be here legally as long as you're working here, but when you step out of here, you're not illegal and you're subject to some type of or you're actually subject to return, in that instance, beating, maiming, whatever you want to do killing. You don't have any rights. So if you have these people, whose presence here is only justified by the fact that they're working for people, they're here without legal status, which means that they don't have any legal rights for minimum wage, occupation, safety and health, weekends, child labor. None of those things are in place as long as you're working on this place, because if you organize or you complain, then you can be fired.
Speaker 3:Not working here and you're. You know. You understand what I'm saying. It's an exploitable labor force and I'm not saying it's the same thing as slavery. I'm just saying it's not that much different than slavery. And so for black people to align themselves or to believe that this is okay because it's not us or you know, here are the arguments. Well, those people, they're racist, they don't like us anyway. You know, because this one person said this or this happened to me this one time. So we've decided an entire population of people.
Speaker 4:It's very much what white people do to black people when they're being racist. Yeah, it's what did what white people do to black people when they're being racist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what did they call that? Collective guilt, collective responsibility. One black person does something and black people are wrong. And then here's the other thing If they didn't want this, they could have voted for Kamala Harris. Well, number one if you're held illegally, you don't get to vote Right. Number two there's a whole lot of black folks who didn't vote for Kamala Harris too. Are we also thinking they don't have rights? I mean, are they disinvited to the picnics? I mean, I think you know you're not coming to my picnic, but I think that the amount of hypocrisy, the amount of siding with people who are unjust is disgusting. You don't have to march. Nobody mandated that black folks come out to the march. There's some people in various places who have complained that black people aren't showing up. Okay, but they don't speak for everybody. But to say, stay home, don't worry about these people, it's not your problem, they don't like us anyway Feels like you're playing into Trump's hands.
Speaker 4:Marcus Kelly. I met outside of the federal courthouse earlier this week. He's the founder of Charge Up Midnight Coalition. He told me he came. He was invited by Michigan United. They are an immigrants rights organization. I asked him you know what he thought about this conversation. He told me he felt like you know, when they come for your brothers and sisters at night, they come for us in the morning. He said if we allow them to do this to our neighbors, it's going to continue happening to us. Tyrone Carter he's a state rep.
Speaker 3:Running for Gabby's seat Represents.
Speaker 4:Southwest Detroit. Yeah, running for District 6, challenging Gabriela Santiago Romero, who we also talked to this week at City Council Last week. This week at City Council she is sort of listening to racist abuse against her, telling her that she should be deported and telling her. You know, it's like the. There's like a group of public commenters who target Gabby and harass her online. Tyrone Carter is challenging Gabby for the District 6 City Council seat. He agreed with Kelly that it's in black people's fabric to support other groups facing persecution, he told me on the Michigan House floor last Thursday. He compared Trump's deportation efforts to the 1994 crime bill. You know who else did that recently. Recently he was wearing a ku klux klan outfit when he did. It was kanye west, he said he's like this.
Speaker 4:Let's like they're taking the fathers out of the homes. That's what ice do. He's like I got love for trump, but the ice thing. I don't agree with that he said, and tyrone carter is talking to me he's like they're going through what black folks went through 40 or 50 years ago. In my mind I, like you, mean 30 or 40 years ago, but nevertheless.
Speaker 3:First of all, they've always gone through this. This is not new. There's been. Operation Wetback is in the 1950s, where they deported Mexicans. We aren't aware. I mean, there's nobody in the United States that's aware. I actually did some research and I'm going to be working on something with this soon about the many freedom struggles that have taken place on these shores by Native Americans, by Mexicans, by Chinese Americans, by Arab Americans.
Speaker 3:To be in this United States, not be wealthy and white, is to be a person who needs to fight for freedom. Whether you are Appalachian, whether you are a worker, whatever you are, the fight for freedom is there, and black people have certainly shown up and shown solidarity with other people, and I admire ancestors for the work they've done. Martin Luther King was there. I know that. Malcolm X was there and Paul Robeson was there, there and many, many other people. You know when Herman Henderson started the Women's Conference of Concerns, it was a multiracial, multiethnic movement around justice and my grandmother was involved in that. But other people have been fighting struggles that the majority of black people have not even known about. No group of people were heavily in favor of Trump than white people. But we're angrier at Latino people. We're angrier at Muslims, we're angry at other people of color.
Speaker 4:And that coalition is starting to break down. I mean, it's intentionally being broken down.
Speaker 4:White folks. You know the power. They don't seem to easily give it up to other groups. You see the abandoned Harris group that backed Trump, now facing the threat of nuclear war or war in Iran and Israel, say if you do this Trump, you're going to what if he runs again in 2028? What can you guys do now? I mean, he's the second-term president, but they're warning the Trump administration you better not do this. You know we signed on and helped elect you. You hear from Ryan Garcia. He's a boxer. Say you know what's happening with ICE and is terrible. You see this woman, she was a singer. There's a song I, I, I, I will vote for Trump.
Speaker 3:There's a song.
Speaker 4:I will vote for Trump, yeah, you see her husband is getting deported and you talk about civil war. Steve Bannon he was a former something campaign manager of the 16. He's a podcaster now. He went to prison for defrauding people but he's out and he has a popular podcast. He was talking to Tucker Carlson, who is going to make waves this week with his interview with Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz doesn't know the population of Iran. Steve Bannon predicted that. What's going to happen, what's going to take place in the next weeks and months? He described it as a civil war within the big cities over ice, and you see Brad Lander and you see the senator out of California get arrested or detained. I think in places like Chicago and New York, los Angeles, we're going to see politicians begin to lock arms with these immigration rights attorneys and activists and you're going to see some political theater.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's always. There's nothing television and the corporate news but loves better than political theater. Before we move on, though, I heard some news from you that you are. Yes, you are with where. What are you doing? Yes?
Speaker 4:I joined the michigan chronicle. I'm going to help them out and doing, um, some mayoral coverage for them. You know, I really am excited I had, I saw my name, my story, that I was really proud of doing. I had a story, um, you can go look up this. Uh, black detroiters debate support for non-citizens facing deportation, where we talked to Marcus Kelly, talked to, didn't talk to, but referenced Sherry Gay's posts on Facebook. Seeing your name in print, it's a good feeling, really. You know sort of distressing news if you are, you know, employed of the Detroit News and Free Press this week with the news that the Joint Operating Agreement, or JOA, that combined the business operations of both newsrooms together, that will expire and will not be renewed and so both newspapers are going to be continuing on independently of one another. What that will mean for the future of the sustainability of the print product, what that will mean for the amount of employees that both papers are going to hire you can go read about that on DetroitOneMillioncom just published something today.
Speaker 4:One of a longtime employee told me he described it as a dark day in the history of both newspapers and journalism in Detroit, and so it's important to me that I'm, you know as many places that I can be and shout out to Hiram. Shout out to Jeremy Allen. Jeremy used to work at MLive before I got there. I started at MLive in 2020.
Speaker 3:I just want to say I'm really proud of you. Well thanks, I'm really happy for you.
Speaker 4:I'm in a little bit of a better. You know, the people have been really supporting me to the point of I've been able to buy food and gas and, you know, do my life still.
Speaker 3:So buy food and gas and you know, do my life still, so you know I'm good. You're not yet making $400,000 a year, Not?
Speaker 4:$400,000 a year. You can look up the 1099, whatever form that is. No, not making Center for Michigan. Numbers no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm really happy for you, though, and I think that it's important that we have independent journalists and journalists who really have been in the trenches representing us, and so great job. But, going back to Civil War, I don't think it's going to be. I think, actually, the no Kings rallies really demonstrated the resistance of people, and I think most people of all backgrounds supported this and felt pretty good about it. I think that you have some voices that are divisive, and those divisive voices are getting drowned out. I'm really excited about something we're doing here on Friday, which is a unity breakfast, and where we're bringing folks together. If you want to come and cover that you can.
Speaker 3:It's from 8 am to 10 am where we're just bringing various groups together and say let's be unified, let's care about each other, let's work together and really, from the grassroots up, do what our ancestors did and find ways to. You know we have a coalition. What people like Trump do is they play all of us against each other. Even you know whether it's anti-Semitism, every time a person, a Muslim person, speaks up on behalf of their own people. Whether it is Mexican people taking black jobs he likes doing that Whether it's Haitians eating people. I don't want to forget this point either, though. Because it's so important, I bring it up every time.
Speaker 3:Eating dogs and cats, eating dogs and cats, not people. We haven't gotten there yet. Sorry folks, a little slip of the tongue. Sorry folks, a little slip of the tongue.
Speaker 3:I think it's important that we understand the fragility of black and brown people in this nation who are not Latin American, that we really having some issues, personal issues as a result of that, because of the threat and it impacts. You know, those things are spreading all throughout there. The way news media reports it it's Mexican people and it's Latin American people and they are certainly overrepresented. But there are other people of color who are also being underrepresented, other people who we should have some type of you know care for, and so it concerns me that we are some of us are going into these little bubbles. But what really made me happy was the number of people, young people who just came straight out and said to Aya Walker-Bey is one, imani Perry is another who said this is not acceptable. We may even need to recall you from your school board position if you don't stop attacking people who represent some of the students who look like some of the students you're supposed to represent.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's the news I'm getting text messages that there's ICE arrests happening on the street that I live on, on Ferry Street right now.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, yeah, oh my goodness. I am really sorry to hear that. It's really scary, yeah it is.
Speaker 4:It's a scary time and we don't know what cities are going to be targeted. Obviously, the Trump administration is making this a whole show. Kristi Noem is coming to Detroit on Friday a part of her America's Future tour. She's going to be talking with law enforcement and Michiganders about the threat of the open Canadian border. She describes it as have I heard many people talk about any threat of anything coming over the Canadian border? No, how many gun manufacturers are?
Speaker 3:there in Canada. How many gun manufacturers are there? We, how many gun manufacturers are there? We act as though we are not producing fentanyl here. We're not doing these things here.
Speaker 3:The position of American innocence One of the things. I had a conversation with another family member on Father's Day and we're talking about where a lot of this is coming from, and we have to acknowledge the fact that people over the United States are in pain. In small towns and big cities and suburbs, you have a lot of people who are really struggling emotionally. We have high suicide rates, high drug addiction rates, high unemployment rates, high bankruptcy rates all over this nation. And the question is who do we get to blame? It's not as though everybody's doing well.
Speaker 3:What the Trump administration has done is laid blame for everything at the feet of people who are the most vulnerable in our society, and those are people who are here illegally and saying they're the ones who are causing this, as if even with the crime bill you know, I'm glad that Tyrone Carter brought that up, because even with the crime bill brought that up, because even with the crime bill, the black people who are getting arrested for selling crack weren't the people who are bringing into this nation really getting rich and manufacturing crack. They were the people at the tail end of a lot of these systems. The same thing with the people who were rounding up and blaming for everything. They are not the ones who are causing a lot of these social problems, but you need somebody to blame, and Donald Trump has been very good, and Mac has been very good at harnessing all that blame on very vulnerable people.
Speaker 3:The other thing I was reading and it's a concern of mine, I don't know if you saw this that the suicide hotline is no longer going to support LGBTQ organizations and young people or people who are suicidal, who are LGBT. The federal suicide hotline is no longer going to support them. And you know that's coming from hate and blame and anger and all of these things that we have the power to address. But I don't think we're going to address it through more hate and anger and blame. I think we've got to address, but I don't think we're going to address it through more hate and anger and blame. I think we've got to address it by really trying to find common ground, trying to find common solutions and, you know, to the extent humanly possible, having compassion for other people who are suffering right now. What are you learning?
Speaker 4:Oh my God, I'm just, I'm in disbelief right now, honestly, and it's interesting, you know, we talked to Gabby Santiago Romero after council, after she is, you know, sort of the target of racist abuse against her, knowing that you know when she goes back into her community. These are the messages that she's getting.
Speaker 3:Well, I think there's a raid happening.
Speaker 4:There's an arrest's getting, there's a raid happening, there's an arrest happening here, there's this happening here and it's just overwhelming thinking about. You know, this is real people. Who is she getting this?
Speaker 3:from? Is she getting this from other Detroiters or is she getting it from sort of this?
Speaker 4:Her community. I mean, the people in Southwest have a very tight knit. You know they're on group chats and they'll share Instagram stories. I saw an Instagram story last week and understand that it's hard for news reporters to all the time stay on top of these issues. Dhs, ice, the immigration enforcement right now is not responding to our messages, at least not my communications. I think I've sent a handful of questions since Trump's election. They used to be responsive under the Biden administration.
Speaker 3:All right, well, listen, I hate to cut this short. I always, always, love talking to you. I think you're doing great work and I look forward to reading more of your stories. We're going to have to start rolling something out.
Speaker 4:There's going to be a lot of really juicy, you know, sort of talker. You know we do the word on the street. I'm going to do a lot of those word on the street stories, trying to get the real pulse and the real conversations, and I think that's what we try to do here. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:So you've got two Jenkins drops gloves correct times out four takeaways from the Detroit mayoral debate. That's one, and the other one was the one that you just mentioned about the division.
Speaker 4:Oh, goodness yes. The discussion, the debate rather within black Detroiters households over whether or not we should be supporting non-citizen, undocumented immigrants. I have a few others too. Last week I started. So I went to Lansing and talked to Sarah Anthony about supporting CVI. So I went to Lansing and talked to Sarah Anthony about supporting CVI. We initially thought that those community violence intervention groups are going to get a significant amount out of the public safety trust fund legislation. That is not going to go through. Senate Democrats are holding that up because they want police accountability. Matt Hall does not. I ask Matt Hall, I say well, you just told me that you liked the idea of the database to keep problem officers from jumping from department to department. Jeremy Moss is actively reintroducing that legislation. You can go watch him. I think Ross Jones on Channel 7 just did a piece on that. Jones on Channel 7 just did a piece on that. So they've been open to sort of parts of police accountability measures but obviously as a whole they're trying to weed out the woke policies like early release.
Speaker 3:Please don't use those words that's amusing Matt Hall's words. Please don't repeat those words which I did not hear when he.
Speaker 4:I heard in Lansing, with Todd Bettison standing right behind him. Repeat those words which I did not hear when he. I heard it in Lansing, with Todd Bettison standing right behind him. I did not hear. You know what's the other one?
Speaker 3:Yeah, just you know.
Speaker 4:I didn't hear him in Detroit when he came and met with Duggan and had a room full of. You know Detroit and Wayne County and you know stakeholders at the police headquarters on 3rd Street. You know they steered clear of that sort of language.
Speaker 3:Well, they do, because the word language is anti-black. It's taking language that was created and used in a black community for a very positive purpose. Stay woke meaning stay aware, and using it to justify harming us, and so the weaponization of the word woke is really. It just hits me where I live and I understand why you're using it.
Speaker 4:It's what he's using. You want to know too on the internet. You know a lot of the people on the left have re-appropriated and are now deploying it back against what they call the woke right.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 4:Or dark woke, you know being like sleep. Embarrassingly cruel to the right, Like that's dark woke.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, I'm just saying wake up, right, still saying wake up Detroit, because we have a responsibility to be awake and to continue loving each other, continue showing care, hold people accountable. I'm optimistic, you know and I'm going to close with this I'm optimistic that whoever wins unless it's Craig we'll have a better Detroit than we do right now. Right, I mean anybody who says I'm going to pick up the phone and call you know, trump scares me, but I'm optimistic that we're going to have a better Detroit, that all of the candidates are talking about things that matter and it's up to us to hold them accountable once they're elected. I'm really looking forward to Saturday. Hopefully you can cover that.
Speaker 4:Yes, I will be there. We're going to have a story on that. If you're a council candidate right now and you want to talk to me, I'm going to just give you my number. It's 989-488-0008. A lot of folks have been emailing me, messaging me on Twitter and Instagram. If you're listening right now and you are a candidate and want to talk to me about your campaign, give me a call. I am here in Detroit.
Speaker 3:All right, Well, 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 and the Now the Michigan Chronicle on Detroit1millioncom no-transcript.
