Juneteenth Political Rundown with Sam and Donna

In this episode, Donna and Sam ran down some of the hottest political topics across the city including Mike Duggan’s exit from the governor’s race, Detroit’s census case, UAW endorsements, money out of politics, and more!

They also discuss Juneteenth and the importance of telling the story of Black people’s freedom. The word "Juneteenth" bleeds "June" and "nineteenth," and the day is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. It became a federal holiday in 2021.

Juneteenth marks the arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas. Many enslaved people already knew about the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. What they lacked was the power to make freedom real. Union troops enforced emancipation and helped transform freedom from a proclamation into a reality. 

Freedom on paper and freedom in practice were not always the same thing. Juneteenth reminds us that freedom delayed is freedom denied — and freedom enforced changes lives.

To stay up to date on all things Authentically Detroit, click here. 

THIS WEEK IN THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE:

SHEFFIELD BACKS BENSON IN MICHIGAN GOVERNOR'S RACE 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Up next, on Authentically Detroit, we're going to be talking about Juneteenth. What is it? Why is it important in the telling of the story of our freedom? But first, what we're reading from the Michigan Chronicle. Today, Mary Sheffield, Detroit's mayor, endorsed Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson for Michigan Governor. Keep it locked. Authentically Detroit starts after these messages.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

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SPEAKER_00 1:28

I'm Sam Robinson.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:29

And I'm Donna Givens Davidson.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

We want to thank you so much for listening in and supporting our efforts to build a 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. It's just Donna and I today. Donna, how are you?

Donna Givens Davidson 1:44

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I'm doing all right.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:46

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

We want to run down some of this week's top headlines in the city of Detroit, starting off with the news of the day. Detroit mayor, Mary Sheffield, has endorsed Jocelyn Benson. Now, there was a period of time when we were wondering how this was going to happen, when this was going to happen. I kind of figured that it would happen after Mike Duggan took himself out of the race. There was a WWJ reporter there that sort of pressed Mary on that dynamic itself. I don't think Duggan himself thought that she would come back and endorse him. And that was sort of new in Duggan's sort of, I don't know, kingmaking or just the way he operates. We I would just watch Mary Waters, the at-large city council member, sort of have to bring Duggan up in interviews and say, well, don't count out Mike Duggan when Jocelyn Benson would be brought up. Don't count out Mike Duggan when I reported on that. Their team did not like that. They did they refuted and rejected that they were stumping for it. Duggan, but it was true, um, Mary, that you know, you were endorsed by Duggan for your congressional run uh last year. And as we know, uh in the public, uh, when when Mike Duggan does something to help you out, typically uh it comes with a favor. And Mary got helped out by Duggan. I mean, did the endorsement really really matter? I mean, Duggan endorsing the final minute of that campaign.

Donna Givens Davidson 3:24

Mary Sheffield won with 77% of the vote. And the polls were pretty much um declaring that kind of victory. So that's like me endorsing the fact that it's Monday at some point when you know it's going to happen. Um, it doesn't have political weight. Um, it would have had more political weight had he endorsed her earlier in the process. Yeah. He did not. Um, and I think, you know, when it comes to Mary Sheffield endorsing Jaclyn Benson, at this point, it's pretty much a no-brainer. Um, Jaclyn Benson's a Democrat. Mary Sheffield's a Democrat, and there is no spoiler in the race anymore. Um, but I just have to be honest with you and say I'm glad there's not. I'm glad that um people don't have to feel like they're trying to choose between somebody who, for whatever reason, they remain loyal to and a person who is actually going to um be in Lansing, helping to fight against some of the gross injustices that a lot of us fear. Um, right now, the support has consolidated under one person, and so I think it's also safe to say that um Mary Sheffield endorsing Jaclin Benson is about as um significant as somebody saying it's Tuesday. At this point, it goes without saying that this is where her supporters are going to line up if they show up at the polls.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

It was interesting. Um it was a senior home event, and so a lot of those seniors have seen Mary. They were wearing their Mary Sheffield for mayor campaign t-shirts. Um, not a lot of people knew Jocelyn um, sort of by title. A lot of people have seen her, knew of her. Um, but when you talk to um some of these folks living in the senior home, you know, that they weren't aware of um exactly what she did. There was one gentleman that went up to her and said, Are you the news reporter? And she goes, No, I'm I'm the Secretary of State. And so I, you know, I do think the idea of 83 campaign offices in 83 in all 83 counties referring to her uh, you know, this is just the the Secretary of State branches having her name on it. I don't think that is, you know, you can say that as a campaign officer.

Donna Givens Davidson 5:24

It's important. I'm not suggesting, I mean, it is important that she has the endorsement. It's important for people to know things, but yeah, the reality is I think that um right now there was really no alternative to Jocelyn Benson, and people don't know who the Secretary of State is. I mean, um, you know, she has not been in the news um as Secretary of State as much as you've seen the governor or even the attorney general in the news. Right, right. Um, she's one of three women who was elected to the statewide office in that, you know, all-women kind of um tripartite leadership. And she was the third who kind of faded in the background in a lot of people's eyes. Now she's been in the news lately.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

She has. I mean, she has been uh racking up these endorsements. The UAW endorsed her as along with Abdul Al-Sayed last week, ruffled some feathers. Of course, you know, the Detroit News is gonna talk to the uh uh Auto Workers for Trump guy that will say that you know he's a communist socialist. And so uh Mary today um said that she has known Jocelyn since she became uh an elected official and has always had a good relationship with her. They talked about preemption stuff. They talked about, you know, Mary said in my first six months of governor or as mayor, I've realized, not realized, but I've been reminded how important it is to uh have strong leadership in Lansing. I don't know if that was a side swipe to Matt Hall, who I know that Mary has tried to be, you know, a player with. Doesn't really seem like Matt Hall wants to play ball at all.

Donna Givens Davidson 6:57

There's, you know, there's this, I'm going to work both sides of the aisle and make them listen to me. And then there's reality. Right. The reality is that there's absolutely no desire on part of many of these people who are in the Republican Party right now to um, and there hasn't been in a long time to sort of, you know, meet in the middle, um, this fictitious middle that does not exist. Matt Hall is not close to where um Governor Whitmer is or even where the um the state senate is. He is I mean, he wants to abolish property taxes. He's trying to negotiate a better deal and doesn't want to open the bridge. He's so far away from a center that um any politician who wants to believe they're gonna be able to negotiate with both sides is um not either being honest or they've got some skills I don't know about.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

And it was so interesting to me last year, Donna. I I don't think I've shared a lot of these um thoughts, I guess, sentiments, reflections, observations that I have. Duggan, as the independent governor candidate, brought Matt Hall to the Detroit police headquarters to do a press conference with Alibas Farhat and Karen Whitzett and others about you know the supposed public safety trust fund that was supposed to pay for CVI, which didn't didn't even have the money and the earmark initially. And so I remember a week before, maybe a couple weeks before, Matt Hall um standing in front of Todd Bettison, and I've talked to Todd Bettison about this. He feels like, you know, he doesn't want to get mixed up on one side of the political aisle or the other. I think a lot of that was just saving face for Mike Duggan. Not sure if I would ask him now how he felt about that, but you know, he had Duggan had Todd Bettison standing behind Matt Hall as he was decrying woke policies, DEI policies, while he was decrying, you know, the the woke second chance, you know, legislation for uh inmates who perhaps have served their time and deserve to be free back with their families. Um a lot of what Detroit's, especially those CVI guys that you talked to advocated for, Matt Hall, you know, not only just completely opposed it, but treated it as if it was some sort of like radical black. And and to see Todd Bettison standing behind Matt Hall, Todd, of course, was standing next to several other sheriffs.

Donna Givens Davidson 9:42

I mean, I think that police law enforcement. History will not be kind to Mike Duggan because I don't think he was honest about so many things. One of the things he was not honest about was he was not really running as an independent. He was running independent Democrat, he was running as an independent Republican in many ways. He had a Republican deputy mayor, he had the alliance with Matt Hall, he had the support of Karen Whitsett, um, and he had some alliances, which quite frankly, um, in a lot of the things he said, and I think that there was a really good article that came out of the Michigan Chronicle that detailed the distance between where Mike Duggan was and the Democratic Party. He was speaking the using a lot of the talking points of Republicans. And that's okay to say that you're a Republican and yes, you were mayor of Detroit, and everybody thought you were a Democrat. And you know, when Biden was your guy, you seemed like it. But he said things like, I haven't been comfortable with the Democratic Party for a long time. And so it seems as though his allegiances were there. And I'm very thankful that I don't have to care about his politics anymore, and that we can really focus on the people on the ticket because um it made me upset when people would sometimes give him a pass and not see him for who he was because he wasn't being um you know deceptive. It was almost as though he was taking for granted the fact that he had been mayor of Detroit and that that was going to translate into trust. And for those of us who actually looked at his record as mayor of Detroit, there were a lot of unanswered questions, but even his approach to running for governor um raised a lot of concerns with people who were looking for a more just state. We're not gonna even talk about Republican or Democrat, but even regardless of how you label yourself, either you believe that Democrat that Joe Biden won, or you believe that Detroit's election results were falsified. When the mayor of the biggest city in Michigan is standing alongside people who are still perpetuating, you know, election fiction, it makes you wonder. Well, wait a minute, Mr. Mayor, were you also elected via election fiction? If we can't trust result Detroit results, maybe we should not trust that you were mayor three terms. And there are people who don't. So um, I'm glad we don't have to talk about him. I mean, we are talking about him, but I'm glad that he is no longer a player in the process in that.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

It is interesting. The the Mary Sheffield sort of represented the um perhaps shifting ties. The way that Michigan media, members of our media would talk about Duggan is if he was, you know, the most important part of the Democratic Party and the central kingmaker operator player, you know, perhaps um as as he closed the chapter on his gubernatorial candidacy, we see that that's that's not the case.

Donna Givens Davidson 12:39

Well, you know, the significant thing is I really do think that there are many people who thought that Mike Duggan was going to be able to take Republican policies, um, he was gonna be one tough nerd, just like Snyder, and take Republican policies under the banner of independence. I believe he pulled out of the race, and I've said this before, not because of the fact that Democrats were um losing confidence. I think he pulled out of the race because there was a poll that showed he was drawing more heavily from the Republican ticket than from the Democratic ticket. And his support tried up because his job was to draw support from the Democratic ticket. And the reality is the worse things got, the more people were going willing to be partisan and say, you know what, even people who liked him, I can't support anybody who's going to not stand on our side and fight with us. I think that's what happened to him. He had Republican support. If you look at the people who supported him, you look at where his money came from, you look at who his initial endorsers were and the people who are most favorable to him, you're going to see people who like this, um, you know, who have a Republican mindset. Maybe not a MAGA Republican mindset. I'll give him that. But it doesn't matter because if even if you're not a MAGA Republican, the Republican brand is MAGA. The Republican brand did not stand out and say we should not have USC fighting on the um, you know, on the White House lawn, that all of this stuff is desecrating the image of America and the rest of the world. It's embarrassing. It looks like, you know, somebody's um redneck backyard and the White House lawn.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

And it was really interesting to me as a reporter working with Duggan's campaign, seeing um people that I had worked with on the Kamala Harris campaign, like Mario Moro Jr. Um people that I had worked with in sort of like a uh conservative Republican comm sense, like Andrea Bightley. She is a longtime staffer, used to work for Bill Shooty. Um yeah, and Andrea was the spokesperson who Duggan ended his campaign with. You know, and Andrea is a person that says, I'm a Republican that voted for Kamala Harris. Um I think a lot of Republicans would say once you do that, you give up your uh right to be a Republican. And so that's a lot of uh his supporters and his most ardent believers were these sort of defected conservatives that felt like you know the Democratic Party was going in an insane leftward direction with the rise of people like Abdul or Zora Memdani.

Donna Givens Davidson 15:23

Um I mean the the the party that's going in the insane direction has really been that has really changed direction has been the Republican Party. And so what they talk about is woke politics, but you're talking about a president who has violated every tenet of faith that we have in the American system. You're talking about a president who put his name on the Kennedy Center, for example, because he just wanted to. And even though that violates, you know, the law and you have judges saying this is in violation of the law, people aren't really doing anything about it. You're talking about a president who is spending all of these millions of dollars building a ballroom without any approval and you know, hosting a UFC tournament and then comparing it to the Empire State Building. You're talking about um a president who's doing things that are so against the grain, whether it is the environ the violation of the, I don't, I I get some things, I can't pronounce it, is it enulments or something like that, you know, where you cannot enrich yourself. And he has enriched himself and his family members brazenly, nakedly, unapologetically, and yet people want to talk about the radical left for things like we don't believe in genocide, or we believe in health care, or we believe that people should not be um going broke in college. The idea that these ideas are so far left as if they're brand new, is only it only makes sense in the context that the other party is going so far right that anything short of you know, we hate DEI is woke. And I, you know, it's woke is not even a word or a movement, it's a slang word. Stay woke. And they actually have turned this into public policy, they've taken black vernacular English and turned it into public policy. There's no policy behind woke or wokeism. You know. Um, so but let's not talk about him anymore. I breathed a sigh of relief and I celebrated the day that he was no longer politically viable. And like I said, I don't think history is going to be kind to him.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Um but and and I I want everybody to know that you know, might not be as close to all this. We knew that he was not viable. Like it was an open sort of like, okay, is he even gonna make it past July? Like, is he even gonna make it to the primary? Is it and I was on this side of, and I'll tell you guys, bring you behind the curtain. No, like I I would I would sort of assume with the other staffers of the other gubernatorial candidates that Mike Duggan was not going to because he had no shot. Like he there, you know, the polling wasn't there, and just you could tell the peep people weren't there. I'm on people, you know, I I talk to people and I say, hey, you know, what do you know this person? And so not enough people knew that he was running as an independent, not enough people just knew at all. Um you know, he had the money, he had the billboards and everything. Um, but no, there there was no shot that Duggan was gonna be governor. Um not to say that there was no shot at all. I think he he answered why that there was no shot, because there's not a national network of independents that uplift and boost and spend on each other like there are for Democratic and conservative candidates.

Donna Givens Davidson 18:47

He was there as a spoiler, in my opinion. Um sometimes people run as spoilers, they don't think they're gonna win, and the question is who benefited? He ran, maybe he thought he could win, maybe his ego. I think he did. And I will say, like But but but I think that there are people who supported him, not because they thought he could win.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Well, sure, because they opposed Jocelyn Becky.

Donna Givens Davidson 19:24

You have to be very careful when you are in a leadership role. I don't care what your leadership role is, don't believe the headlines, okay? You're not great. You're a human being, you are flawed, you are fallible, but the higher you rise, the more people around you create this bubble where they treat you as though somehow you are unlike other human beings. He's not going to be the first. I remember he'd say things like, Yeah, I bring it on. I can't wait till they do negative campaigning. They're doing my campaigning for me. The cockiness that came out of him speaks to the fact that he's surrounded by people who really believe this.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Yeah, they did. Oh, I think they did. And he said uh the day that he ended, you know, he did not, he's he says, I did not run to be a spoiler. I think um poking at Jocelyn. Obviously, he wasn't well, I guess he was on stage with several other Republicans. Never, never John James. And I guess just this whole Republican primary right now with John James and you just talked about him and Matt Hall on stage together before he ran. I mean, the reason why I'm saying like he he couldn't have um he couldn't have really played a spoiler for a Republican candidate. Which is obvious, I mean, we we were feeling like his support was coming from Republicans, right? Like they it wasn't coming from black Detroiters in the neighborhoods, and that's something that Lansing like perverted on us. Do you know that? Like I I had to hear so many of my old you know, Lansing journalists be like, well, you know, the people in the Detroit neighborhoods love Duggan. And I'm just like that's because of the way the news gets. No, they don't.

Donna Givens Davidson 20:53

That's the way the news gets reported. When you win 70% of 15% of the vote or 16% of the vote, that is not a mandate. But I don't know if you recall when he won the last time, he said, I have a mandate. And again, I encourage everybody when you move into leadership roles to pray for yourself and to remember and to bring humility to the task. Understand you're there by the grace of God and you can be removed by the grace of God. You are not infallible, you're not this person who can do all things. I think there's a person in charge at the federal level who's gonna see that soon. Um, because I think people want to run as though somehow they there's the rhetoric, oh look, this white man won, and therefore he's not unlike other white men, and he can do all things, you know, through Christ's Lord who strengthens him. But the reality is that he's a human being. And that human being was running up against housing shortages, running against voters just giving up, running against a lot of things that were happening in the community. And people were dissatisfied with he wasn't listening to them and neither was his inner circle, but you and I were. And if you're in the hood enough, you understand that people did not have those impressions. Um, they say pride goes before the fall. Um, we'll see how history treats somebody because you know, sometimes it's like the wizard of oz and they pull back the curtain and there's a man standing there, just like we thought. Um let's talk about the um Census Bureau. Speaking of Mike Duggan, here's something. He says, if I don't grow the population by 2020, you I should be fired, I should not be re-elected. 2020 comes and goes, he loses population, he sues and says, Oh no, I didn't really lose population. Strangely, the census undercounts people in Detroit, therefore, I should be given these extra people. And after he's out of office, he finally finds out that even that was lost. Um, but you know, where was the accountability? You said you were going to grow the population. Two things. One, you were growing downtown population and neighborhoods were emptying out in a lot of places because of policies like tax foreclosures and you know the failure to invest in a lot of neighborhoods because you have strategic neighborhoods where you're putting all your investments. What did you think was happening in the other neighborhoods? Number two, that's number one. Number two, you have a lot of people who felt like the government was not investing in their neighborhoods. And the argument the city was making was fill out the census because Detroit is gonna lose money. Well, if you don't think the money that Detroit is generating is going to help you and your family, why would you care? So it's very possible that a lot of people chose not to be counted because they didn't care, because they didn't feel connected to the outcomes or the fate of the city. Um, I was at a um Rise Higher Detroit press conference earlier today. I actually spoke at it. And, you know, we talked about the polling that was done and getting out in the neighborhoods and talking to people and having over 8,000 people fill out polls and 1,200 people show up at meetings. In those instances, the people who fill out the polls, the people who are heard, feel like government is listening to them. Now you go back and say fill out this census form. And my theory of change is, although I can't prove it, that more people are willing to fill it out when they believe government is connected to them. And so um the news media kind of blew past it. Well, you know what, there's maybe an undercount, and the courts said no. And by the way, he's not the first big city mayor to say that people are undercounted in the city. That's a that's all of the time. Even before when people were losing population, there are people who said there was an undercount. The undercount didn't start with Duggan. And so, yes, there is a uh an undercount that happens inside of cities, but you did not say if I lose population based on a correct account that I make, I should leave. You said if I lose population, he lost population. It's growing now, um, they say it's growing certainly in some you know corridors, but yeah, and it's three straight years of growth.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

The latest census estimate was 5,060 residents or added in 2025. Um, you know, that there is a lot of talk about Detroit's actual population.

Donna Givens Davidson 25:47

5,060. That's less than 1%, and I just want to point that out. Yes, so yes, yes, that is he lost more than 1%.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Certainly did. Um the city of Detroit, you know, it's contested. A lot of experts uh feel like there's more than are counted. Um I you know, I've spoken to a handful of well, three. Spoken to three US Census Bureau um counters independent of one another. Two of them knew each other, but one of them had no idea who the other people were when I asked. And I always like to find them out, and you know, they'll be in your neighborhood and knocking on your door. And I'll always I've seen them a couple times in a car, and I stopped my car because these individuals have really, really I mean, they they're like the experts on on the ground Detroit population, right? And so what do all these three people have in common? They believe that Detroit is wildly undercounted by a tune of hundreds of thousands. Like there I I met a woman that thought at any given time in Detroit, every single day, there are over 800,000 people. She said, I would guess there's about 835 people that exist in Detroit every day, maybe not from 11 to 6 a.m., you know, at night.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:07

Yeah, I mean the the thing is that people say all kinds of things. They do. We know that urban populations are historically undercounted. We know that when you have um people afraid of deportation, they're gonna be undercounted. Yes. We know that when you have people doubling up in houses that they don't own and they cannot be there legally, they're going to be undercounted. And we know that people living on the streets are going to be undercounted.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

That legal number is 649-95.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:33

Undercounting is a feature of the census in urban communities. And it was made worse by mass deportation. Can you imagine what it would be if they started counting now with all these people hiding, pretending like they're not here?

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Right, right.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:49

But what you can't say is that undercounting is a new phenomenon.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Sure.

Donna Givens Davidson 27:53

It's been going on. Now it may have been worse, and certainly when the census was done, we were in the midst of a you know pandemic. So lots of places were undercounted. In 2020, you had these electronic census taking methods, which were different. But do I believe Detroit's population shrank? Yes. Do I believe that there were whole blocks and apartment buildings that were vacated? Yes. You know why? Because I saw things that were happening inside of the community. Um, and we've built up a lot of residences in Detroit, but a lot of those residences are not 100% occupied. The final thing I want to say on this matter is we build up a lot of residences to attract individuals. You build up a studio and you gain one person who may or may not claim to live here because they don't want to pay car insurance and taxes in Detroit. You lose a family in a neighborhood and you lose four people. So for every one person you bring in, you're losing four. And that's the math the city wasn't looking at when the city decided not to invest in every neighborhood. I got here in 2016 and met with everybody in Duncan's administration, sharing my concern that strategic neighborhoods, by putting all of the resources in at that time seven neighborhoods, were going to deprive other neighborhoods of the ability to hold on. I said in 10 years' time, things are not going to be the same, they're going to be worse. And they threw up their hands and said, Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Like, who cares? Um, and so I'm glad that we're growing a little bit, but I hope that we grow in a way that means that families can stay, that means that neighborhoods will be repopulated or at least stop losing population, and people who feel invisible can feel counted in the city of Detroit because the census is not when you should be counted. You should be counted when your needs exist and you call the city council and you say, I need something done, and the city responds. When you say there's a dead tree on my house and the city fixes it, when you say there's a broken sidewalk in front of my house and it's done, or a wild dog, there's so many times when you should be counted. But when the only time you count is when there's a census, you're gonna have an even worse undercount.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Census Bureau is something that the city of Detroit has been fighting with in courts for some time. You can read about the county cap rule. Dana Afana of the Detroit Free Press has a um wonderful explainer on what happened uh last month in front of the district court uh judge uh in the fight to get the Census Bureau to stop using the county cap rule and its population counts. Now, the city had had um a few successful uh lawsuits against the the Census Bureau, um, but Trisha Stein, the city's senior director of strategic initiatives, uh told the free press that the city is disappointed by the ruling. Um remains that the Bureau has been systematically undercounting the population of the city of Detroit. Now, why is is the population of our city important? Well, because it determines how we are represented in Congress, determines our federal funding, uh, earmarks at the state level as well. Um and so, yeah, it's important, guys, to count yourself on the US Census Bureau. If you ever have some of those folks come into your house, you know.

Donna Givens Davidson 31:39

Yeah, so there'll be another census in the year 2030. Um, between now and 2030, they're updating the census. But what I will say is that um city leadership plays a large role in people showing up. People want to know that when there's HUD dollars coming in, they come into your neighborhood. The funny thing is, no matter where you live in Detroit, your property tax and your income tax rates are exactly the same, no matter where you live in Detroit. But in some neighborhoods, you get more services. And so there's this feeling that some people have that if I attract more money into the city and there's no plan to spend it in my neighborhood, we have a problem. I was at an evening meeting on the east side of Detroit, I believe it was in 2017, it was a long time ago, but I don't remember the year. And it was at a church on the east side of Detroit, and city council invites people up, and person after person walked up to the microphone and they said, When are you going to get to my neighborhood? And they said, Well, there's just not enough money. You have to understand there's not enough money. And I really wanted to stand up, but I had to get on a plane, so I had to leave early. I wanted to stand up and say, So if there's not enough money to fix up this neighborhood, do they have to pay taxes? If you're not investing on their block, should they pay the same taxes as people whose homes get investment? It just isn't fair. And so again, it shows up in how people show up at the polls and the census and every other kind of thing. And I am hopeful that we have a leader in our city right now who is committed to doing a better job. It's not gonna be perfect, but a better job at making sure that people all over the city feel like they are being heard and represented and believe there's, you know, remember she said she's gonna fix sidewalks in every neighborhood? Unheard of.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Well, she's on my neighborhood. I already got some new sidewalk, actually.

Donna Givens Davidson 33:37

Yeah, but that's unheard of. Do you know how long it's been since somebody said we're gonna do something in every neighborhood in the city of Detroit?

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Which is funny because literally, I'm like, you know, I'm checking on Gary Brown to fix my water, but there's Mary with the sidewalks right on Nottingham, right across from Somerset. So yeah, I saw, I mean, and it's like literal. I was like walking down one day, I was like, this, you know, the city workers, I was like, oh, this is the new sidewalks? They're like, yeah. I'm like, oh wow, this is good. Uh Gary Brown, we need your help on Somerset, man, Lake Somerset. Uh we need a vacuum, we needed water department, sewage department to come out with a vacuum. Um, and it affects all kinds. I mean, you could really just write a headline. And this is the thing that, like, not having news journalists in a community, there was a shooting uh on Somerset last week on Thursday. Did you see that? Yes, yeah, and it was my neighbors, like, yeah, and the little kid got shot in the head. I'm like, oh my god, there's little kids that play outside right across from my house. The policeman knocked on my door to see if I had seen anything because apparently after the shoot, it was a shootout. And then apparently they won't get one of the guys like drove right past really fast and then crashed out. But they hadn't arrested anybody, so I guess he just crashed out of his car and then ran off. Um the the lack of news journalism that exists in neighborhoods of Detroit, which you know, I'm like legitimately thinking like how many actual journalists, and I've I've stayed on this topic for a while, you know. Um when it comes to violent crime and seeing how the community violence interventionists work, that's like there's a there's great value to being right there, right? Like this this is my second time that I've witnessed that. Um, you know, community sort of in shock and in a grieving period, people yelling and screaming because they're in shock over what just happened. Um, people ki consoling one another. I mean, the the Detroit police has a whole process of corralling everybody and keeping media where they you know contained. I saw Lauren Edwards, she used to be a Fox 17 reporter, she's at Fox 2 now. Park her Fox 2 van right outside my house and their lights that were lit up, you know, the Fox 2 van, they just leave it. On the light, they just leave it on, and uh anybody could really just drive it off. I shouldn't say that uh on the air, probably, but um they leave it, and so I'm like sleeping um in my house on Thursday, sort of well into the afternoon. Didn't hear the gunshots, but I did hear somebody knock on my door. I go downstairs and somebody's knocking on my door. I see Lauren Edwards coming out of her Fox 2 van. And I go up to her, I say, Are they here for the water? No, Sam. No. Wait, the news is not here for the water. I did see a channel four, I forget the gentleman's name, the reporter's name, but he did a one-off on a senior's puddle that exists right outside of her driveway. And I thought to myself, does this channel four news reporter that's probably not from here? I don't know if he is or not, but does he know that he could just do a headline? The east side is underwater every time it rains. Gary Brown saying out loud, you know, I I lose sleep every time it hard rains. Me too, Gary Brown. Um the resources, and I we don't know, you know, I I don't know, interfacing with with Letitia Johnson's office. They're well aware of these issues, right? And so it really is up to the water department to come out. Um, and they're not gonna do it. And I do wonder if I should just take matters into my own hands and just show up to city council and make a big deal or just continue to write about it and and report and observe on it publicly in the way that I do. Um, but it is very frustrating, isn't it? You know, it's like, guys, this is not an issue in other places where yeah, there's there's seemingly an abundance. And I don't know if it really is the lack of resources if they're not able to come vacuum my thing out every time it rings.

Donna Givens Davidson 37:52

I think it is a um also uh allocation of resources. I think that the city does have some finite um funding issues. I think the city does have to prioritize because there's not enough money. I think the city spends money on some other things that maybe the city doesn't have to spend money on. Um, but yeah, there's some neighborhoods that would never get to that.

unknown 38:14

Yes.

Donna Givens Davidson 38:15

I want to I wanna change um direction just a little bit. I want to talk about the um mop-up Michigan law. Yeah. Um, because um for um Michigan Mop Michigan Money Out of Politics is an initiative which um the executive director of um voters not politicians co-chairs. And a lot of money and effort was spent getting over 560 ballots um to the election commission for them to evaluate whether or not it can go on the ballot. And um there's a lot of concerns about what's going to happen. So I just want to talk about something that I learned about that I think is important for people to understand. One of them is that there could be a constitutional fight, and we expect there to be a constitutional fight where people who are representing organizations or companies say that's not fair. Um, the MOP Michigan restricts what regulated monopolies can do, but also corporations that have large contracts with the state can do. Their leaders have less ability to influence the um state politics. And so what some people are saying on the right is that, or some of the opponents are saying is that that restricts free speech, because as you know, in America, money and speech are the same exact thing. But um, but so you have the constitutional fight that we anticipate. You have the questions about whether every signature is going to pass. But the thing a lot of us don't really think about is adopt an amend. I want to talk about 2018 when one fair wage put an increase in minimum wage and an increase in tipped wage on the ballot by getting enough signatures. What the legislature was able to do was to adopt that as legislation before there was a vote. When you adopt it as legislation before there's the vote, then you basically um supplant that vote. The vote no longer happens, right? And so what happened with One Fair Wage is they adopted the minimum wage law. Voters didn't have a chance to vote on it, and then they amended the law to lower the minimum wage. It's very possible that we are also fighting adopt and amend at this uh Michigan mop-up um initiative. So as we're looking at candidates for people who support that initiative, finding out where people stand on that. If you stand and you support it now while you're campaigning, the likelihood that you will support it while you're in office is much greater. Um, but it's Michigan would not be a trailblazer in this legislation. We're actually behind a lot of states in the nation in the way that we regulate corporate spending in our state. And I think it's important that we understand what's happening to benchmark it and also really hold our legislators accountable for doing the right thing. The good news is the Michigan House and Senate don't get along about anything. They can't pass a budget, they can't agree on um many, many things. And so I don't think they would come together on this. When you had adopted an amend with the minimum wage law, you had a Republican state senate and a Republican House. Right now, that division kind of protects us somewhat.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yes, it does. Um it uh you know disallows anybody from doing anything. We are back in our sort of do nothing legislature um as we were before the the trifecta.

Donna Givens Davidson 41:51

Um you know, first do no harm. And when you know the intent is harmful, then to a certain extent, do nothing until we can replace some of these idiots is a way that some people may think makes sense. Now, I don't know what's gonna happen. I know that you have your predictions about what's going to happen at the state level. I don't know if they've changed with the whole mood of the country, but you know, I don't know what's going to happen. But if for some reason either we got a Republican governor and more Republicans in the state legislature or a Democratic governor and more Democrats in the House, um things in Michigan could be dramatically different. They could, yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

It's an important election. Um I don't know if I want to say the most important of your lifetime. I'm sure some politicians will be deploying that um line. However, um Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Duggan at the end of his press conference had acknowledged that the headwinds are on the left side. You know, he he he acknowledges that uh the reality that people want to vote for Democrats.

Donna Givens Davidson 43:03

Well, he when he acknowledged uh in such a limited way, he said, well, look, the war with Iran drove up grass prices, therefore the headwinds are with the Democrats. He didn't acknowledge all of the other things pushing the wind in that way, because again, Duggan does not have a policy disagreement with all of the anti-DEI. Obviously, he's anti-woke too. He didn't have an issue with mass deportation, rollback of environmental protections, or any of the other things, or even the big beautiful bill that's going to cut off Medicaid and food, you know, um food access in 2027, where the legislature tried to coily push it until after this midterm election.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

You know, you wonder what would a dug in that would have just remained in the Democratic Party and been anti Trump looked like in this because you know it was a it was a political calculation that Republicans would have a sort of a moment. You remember um there was, they did have a moment. That ended very quickly after Donald Trump started to, you know, be the president.

Donna Givens Davidson 44:04

No, you you can you can wonder that.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

That was 2024 that he left the Democratic Party, December of.

Donna Givens Davidson 44:09

Yeah, but I mean, he had his deputy mayor was the police chief who arrested people who were nonviolently marching for Black Lives Matter, and then came out as a Republican and came out as a Trump-loving Republican. Maybe he never talked to his deputy mayor and he didn't know what his deputy mayor thought about anything. But I would hope that those conversations were held and bad things happened. I think we're going to take a break.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Yeah. And you're talking about James Craig.

Donna Givens Davidson 44:38

Yes, you know I'm talking about James Craig. We'll take a break. We have a couple other issues to go over. Um, just a couple. One of them is TV ads. Yes. And then I want to talk about Juneteenth. I do want to talk about some of those U.S. Senate TV ads because those are spicy.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Let's do it.

Donna Givens Davidson 44:55

We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

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Donna Givens Davidson 45:46

Okay, we're back talking about TV ads for U.S. Senate. Um looks like Haley Stevens.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yes, Haley has a couple ads. And if you guys have been following me on Twitter, you know that uh I have been tweeting about how effective those ads have been. I've been talking to community members, my neighbors, people at uh barbershops and whatnot. People today at the senior home, I asked them if they knew any of the Senate candidates. They only knew Haley Stevens. Um these TV ads that Haley is running, framing herself as a champion against in opposition to ICE, uh, says that she's gonna hold ICE accountable. Um, and also standing up to President Trump, uh, who is not very popular uh in Detroit among Democratic voters in Michigan. And so these TV ads, which are you know are paid for by um uh not APAC itself, but sort of APAC offshoots, that's the pro-Israel lobby, the biggest one in the world. Um they're very effective. And without TV ads on behalf of Mallory McMurrow, she's the state senator running in the middle of Haley and Abdul Al-Sayed, he's the former Wayne County in Detroit um health director, without ads of their own, Haley, you know, I she could you know on name ID alone, she's already there, not the incumbent, but she's in Congress already. And so people are gonna be familiar with her and the strategy um that she's using is is just so effective. We've seen it work.

Donna Givens Davidson 47:27

With with with with a target audience, yes, with a target audience, yes, she'll get people in senior homes and some older people in barber shops. A lot of younger, more progressive voters are not buying into her because of APEC. And I think even her cynical framing of those Barack Obama commercials really me off. It made me so angry because the commercials with her, yes.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

She helped out with the auto rescue in 2008.

Donna Givens Davidson 47:56

She worked for Obama.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

Yes, and Obama has said kind things about Haley Stevens in the past.

Donna Givens Davidson 48:02

Not in the capacity of this campaign. He has not endorsed her, and I think it's very cynical to use somebody who has not endorsed you to help justify your campaign. And it yet I know it will work with some people. I think that the the reality it will backfire with others, though, because there's a certain type of voter who is not that um in love with that. I think the other issue with Haley Stevens and also with um with Justin Owen is that there is this not so subtle um effort to push black voters away from Arab American voters. There's an anti-Arab. Um Lamar Lemons wrote um an op-ed that said, well, look, some of um, and I'm I'm paraphrasing, somebody can correct me, but I think it went something like this. Um Abdul El-Sayed has some good policies, but Arab American people have not been good to black people, and therefore we should not trust them or something like that. And they need to be accountable. And I think group accountability is very interesting when applied to other groups of people, but it's interesting to me because I wonder if in his eyes, white women have actually been better to black people than Arab American people. There is this um way of holding other ethnic minorities accountable for the behavior of some that we don't apply to white folks. What it and it's all of us do that, whether it's Mexican people applying it to some black people become all black people, or you know what I mean? There's this inter internal racism, yeah, internalized racism that directs us and targets us against each other. And so Keith Williams wrote something very similar, I know it's exactly similar, attacking Abraham Ayish in favor of Justin Owen. Um and my question is whether or not these ads seeking to cleave black, young black voters from Arab candidates will work in Michigan better than it worked in New York City.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

You know, it's interesting. Uh, when you talk about people like Lamar Lemons, he has long been railing against Arabs. I'm Amana Alan Langle from 2020. It started with Lamar Lemons, chief of staff for a state senator, railing on Facebook earlier this month, accusing Chaldean business owners of taking advantage and profiting from Detroit's black community. We do know that that happens. I mean, and that's you know, we do know that um people uh exploit and take advantage of but but that doesn't mean the individual.

Donna Givens Davidson 50:48

But the thing is that what we do know is that Chaldean store owners are stereotyped in that manner. Right. What we do know is the stereotype.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

And we we can't move it's so hard for some people to move past those stereotypes.

Donna Givens Davidson 51:03

But but just like it's hard to say, you know, some black men gangbang.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Yeah.

Donna Givens Davidson 51:07

Okay. And some people see a black man who looks a certain way and say, well, you know, just most of them do, or this is my image of them. When we have an image of a people that they are bad, then we have a way of justifying negativity towards those people. And it really bothers me that a people who have been so stereotyped and marginalized based on all of this stuff are willing to do it to other people. And I think we just need to stop. That sure there are people who do bad things, and there are people who don't do bad things, and we should not make one person accountable for the actions of another human being. We should evaluate them on their actions.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

And I'm I'm hearing a lot uh of misinformation as it relates to uh specifically Abdul Al-Sayed, who two days after Kamala Harris announced that she would be the candidate, Democratic candidate for president, he endorsed her and took some heat from his own community for doing so. Yeah, and so yes, Abdul did uh endorse uncommitted, and you know, there will be people that feel away about that. They'll say that uncommitted led to abandon uh Biden slash Harris. Those were completely two different groups, led one by progressive socialists, I was uncommitted, and one was led by conservative Republicans.

Donna Givens Davidson 52:27

Right, I was uncommitted, okay? I felt like we didn't have a choice. I felt like Biden should not have run again. I'm just being, you know, you have to be able to do that. A lot of people in uncommitted felt that way too. I mean, it was more than just the war in Gaza. It was the war in Gaza. It's you shouldn't run again. It's a whole lot of things. And so what if what's the point of voting for somebody who has no choice but to win because uncommitted vote was to influence public policy?

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Yes, and it was not, I don't think, to elect Donald Trump. And a lot of the people in our community are saying that was the point of uncommitted. They're mistaking abandoned Biden slash Harris with uncommitted that was led by progressive Democrats.

Donna Givens Davidson 53:10

I'm so loyal to this person that I won't hold them accountable for something I don't like. This groupthink loyalty, where we all have to support this one person because they've been good to us. Sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't. By the way, I came out with a new book. Did I tell you about this? The Black Detroit Democracy Handle. Oh, yes, I've seen it. It came out. Came out. I finally decided I'm just gonna do it, right? We can't build power by this kind of blind loyalty to somebody just because they've been good to us. I'm not you can be good to me, and I can still disagree with something that you've done. And and and want you to change and demand that you change. Um, you're not good to me because we're friends. Politically speaking, it is something that you're doing, and if you change, I can hold you accountable. Um, and I think as we look at really building power, we have to get off of this idea that if you ever didn't support Kamala Harris or said anything about her, that means you hate black women. If you ever did not support Biden, that means you hate Democrats. The reality is that the Gaza war, the war on Palestinians, the genocide that took has taken place is a divisive issue. And in my thinking, it shouldn't be divisive. Nobody should want to see people killed at that level. Um, but it's really hard. And then I think Abdul also had a podcaster who some people say is anti-Semitic on his um on his radio show or something like that. Or no, he appeared with him in public appearances and therefore he should not be allowed. How many people, and I'm serious, how many people running for office have allowed a racist person to stand up next to them? How come there are not litmus tests where racist people are disqualifying? But there are litmus tests that if somebody makes anti-Jewish statements that makes them disqualifying. I'm not approving it. It just feels as though Jesse Jackson made one comment about Jaime Town and his presidential candidacy was ruined forever. At some point, we have to stop saying that you can't say mean things about this one group or you'll be ruined forever. People can say all kinds of things about Arab American people and not be ruined forever. Um, because, you know, after all, it's common sense that they're bad, it's common sense that they're terrorists, it's common sense to hate black people. We allow certain stereotypes to be so common in our culture that we don't fight those, we fight others. And so I just think it's a problem. And I I wanted to say something about that. Um, before we leave, though, I do want to talk about Juneteenth.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Yes, we have a holiday coming up. Yes. Um, what is going on on June 18th, I understand, here at ECN.

Donna Givens Davidson 56:10

Yeah. Well, Juneteenth is a holiday for us. And um, it's where we go out and we go to other people's um Juneteenth events, but it is a holiday that we celebrate and honor our ancestors by saying, let's be off. But Juneteenth is a day of celebration. It is a day when the um Union Army arrived in Texas, I forget the name of the regiment, to enforce the freedom of people who were enslaved. The way it gets framed is this is when they found out they were free, like, you know, if you're working on a plantation somewhere and somebody says you're free, you're like, cool, I'm out. That's not the way it works, right? You have to be allowed to leave. And there were many, many people who tried to leave after Emancipation Proclamation, after the war had been won, and were killed or held hostage because people who hold other people as property don't necessarily give up their property without a fight. So I think it's important to understand the significance of that army regiment going through the state of Texas and freeing people. Um, the interesting thing is that that is not the date that the last of all people who were enslaved were freed. People were not freed all through the United States until the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6th in 1865. Two states continued to hold people enslaved, Delaware and Kentucky. Do you know why? Why is that? Because they were not part of the the Confederacy. And so what the Emancipation Proclamation did was it freed people in Confederate states. What the 13th Amendment did was it freed people everywhere. Now we can acknowledge that the 13th Amendment freed people incompletely because it said except for those who don't commit crimes. We can acknowledge there are some people who are still incarcerated and enslaved in prisons across the United States of America, um, working for slave wages and forced labor. Um, but the 13th Amendment, December 6th, is also a day I think we should also try to remember to celebrate that day because that is the final day of slavery, um, legal slavery in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

What is going on on June 18th, Donna?

Donna Givens Davidson 58:32

Well, I'm really excited about this. I'm excited because it was not even my idea. But um, you know, um, for those of you who don't know, I wrote a book, Divining Freedom, with this idea that we have been pursuing freedom as African Americans in the United States of America since we landed on these shores. And um, when black people moved up north during the Great Migration, there was this thinking finally we can be free. And so this book traces people leaving the Jim Crow South to be free in Detroit and then finding out their obstacles to freedom in Detroit. And those obstacles shape shift over time into the present. And I think it's safe to say that freedom is still incomplete. Now, am I saying that anybody in the city of Detroit is as unfree as their ancestors were in you know, slavery? Absolutely not. But am I saying that freedom is relative, citizenship is relative, and there are still people fighting for rights that are routinely denied, that American citizenship does not grant people things equally. So, at any rate, um, that was the theory behind the novel. And our team put together a day, which I'm really honored to say was also themed divining freedom, where the idea is let's talk to people and let people tell their own stories about freedom. Let's talk to elders and let them talk about that. Let's talk to young people about what freedom means to us. We're going to have movies, we're going to have storytelling, we're going to have a cooking class by Miss Gale, I believe. We're going to do a number of things that do more than just celebrate Juneteenth, but really get us thinking about what it means to be free. Because none of us is free until we're all free. The fight continues. And uh that's one of the themes that we want to continue. And then we want to also make sure people have an accurate understanding of what Juneteenth is. Um, and we want to claim it as a holiday, not because the federal government made it a holiday, but as a holiday that has been celebrated in the tradition of black communities across the United States and is now being recognized as a federal holiday.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Yes, um I want to remind everybody too. I think I'm gonna be at Heart Plaza on part of the day. On Friday, there's a concert going on with a bunch of local artists. Um the people putting that together are very proud. Um and so yeah, I plan to be at a number of events on Friday all across the city. I know there's events happening um at Rouge Park, Spirit Plaza, as well as down there, as I mentioned, at Hart Plaza. Um Juneteenth, I wrote about it on Michigan Chronicle. Sylvia Santana and Helena Scott were central to making Juneteenth a bank and um what is the other bank and sort of day-off holiday, I guess. What is the other institution that closes banks and government?

Donna Givens Davidson 1:01:48

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Um and so this you know, holiday, I think it is important to remember, Donna, that without the racial justice movement of 2020, it's not maybe not maybe in our you know communities, but as a broader holiday that we all are observing, um that momentum really only happened because of the the 2020 racial justice movement. Would you agree?

Donna Givens Davidson 1:02:18

Well, I think that it it they it certainly helped push things over the line. There are people who fought for many years before that. Um, I think that the only concern I have is the commercialization and the um taking the meaning out of it. Um Juneteenth is a day of remembrance, it's a day of celebration, but it is more than just, you know, yay, this is a day off, it's a holiday. And so um it's important to me that we honor institutions that um have are connected to the freedom struggle and that we never forget people, that people uh miss forget what the freedom struggle is. There's certain things I know that were taught to me by my grandparents. My grandparents were born in the 1890s. My grandmother was born in 1898, my grandfather in 1899. They were two generations out, okay? And they brought those stories to me, and we need to make sure that people don't lose that information because it is, you know, that cultural learning that sometimes gets lost when we assimilate. And so my concern about Juneteent is that um it it loses its meaning, but hats off to the young people in 2020. I was very proud of you be on the front lines fighting for me. Um, I thought it was a brave thing, and um, I think that people who are young don't always get credit for the fights that you have waged around our freedom. It's almost as though all the fighting stopped or the good fighting stopped in the 1960s, and now you guys are just doing it the wrong way. But you're right. Um there a lot happened in the um into the year 2020, a lot of narratives were reworked, and it was very threatening to the powers that be, such that we now have um the pushback that we have now.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

Yeah. Well, we want to thank you guys for listening in. We want to remind you that if you have topics that you want discussed on Authentically Detroit, please do hit us up on our socials at Authentically Detroit on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or visit our website, authentically-detroit.com. I want to do shout-outs. Donna, you have anybody to shout out?

Donna Givens Davidson 1:04:24

I do. I want to um shout out Dr. Carl Gregory, who passed away, I believe it was last week. Um, Dr. Gregory was a hero of mine. Um, I actually went to middle school and high school with his daughter, Sheila. And um, so I didn't know who he was when I was a kid. He was just the father, you know. Um, as an adult, I came upon his scholarship. Um, I learned about his work um with the Northern High School walkout. And um, when the students at Northern High School demanded a better education, he set up a freedom school for them when he was a professor at Wayne State and put everything on the line. I learned that he helped set up the Detroit's first black bank, first independence bank. And, you know, he was, I saw him just a couple years ago. He was young until he wasn't, um, just a man for the ages, a brilliant economist, a person who was as passionate about social justice all through his life, even as he was moving into economic development spaces. So I just want to say we lost a giant in Dr. Gregory. And um I will always appreciate his scholarship. True story. Um, I was working at Vanguard and he came to buy to visit at Vanguard Community Development Corporation. I read this book about the rise and fall of Detroit Public Schools, and that's when I learned about his work in the school. So he came to visit and I showed him this passage in the book, and I said, This is where I learned about what you did. And he had never seen the book. So I let him read it, and he held on to it and felt guilty for about 10 years because he hadn't seen me, because he hadn't given me back his my book. And so he gave it back to me 10 years later. Wanted to give it back to me, and I said, No, please keep it. This was for you. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

I want to shout out my mom who is here for me always. Yeah. That's all, mom. Appreciate you. Um please do hit us up at Authentically Detroit. We want to thank you guys for tuning in and supporting our efforts to build a platform of authentic voices with real people here in the city of Detroit. Thank you so much.

Donna Givens Davidson 1:06:30

Thank you.