By Robert Raben
Among the many lessons of Detroit’s long experience with boom, bust, uprising, and renewal is that facts matter. For years there was a misconception that prior to July 23, 1967, the city was on solid economic and social justice footing. The 50th-anniversary look back began to dispel those misconceptions, but there’s always more to learn. Now that we are here again, nationwide and in Detroit, at an inflection point toward real change, or not, I’d like to be a key part in supporting this magnificent city.
Before 1967, Detroit was central to the creation of America’s black wealth, but it was far from ideal. Nevertheless, in response to civil unrest, Detroit like most cities returned to mostly the status quo. There was no real examination of the policies and inequalities that create and exacerbate our inequities and injustices. Today, I implore you to decide that returning to the status quo is not an option.
I commend Detroit’s executive leaders for recognizing and embracing that ‘enough is enough,’ last week. We should all be optimistic about their promising commitments. And in order to see them through, my hope is that Mary Barra, Bill Ford, Mark Stewart, Jay Farner, Chris Illitch, Dan Loepp, Jerry Norcia and Gary Torgow are willing to go deeper, to operationalize their statements of values, with the same vigor and accountabilities that would buttress a new product line. Surely they won’t simply turf the responsibility to Wright Lassiter, or Reverend Anthony, to have all the answers and do all the work. Yes, give generously to the NAACP and other social justice organizations. Then, return to your respective places of business and dig deep.
Last year, I met a Detroit woman, Jessica McCall, with deep passion for her city and vision. This was no shock to me. I’ve met plenty of women leaders, specifically Black women, from Detroit with exceptional vision: my colleague Erika West, Alaina Beverly, Tonya Allen, La June Montgomery Tabron, Shauna Ryder Diggs and my dear friend who left us too soon last year, Tanya Heidelberg, among others.
Jessica’s vision was clear: she wanted to continue doing the work of improving the quality of life for people in her community. It didn’t take me long to conclude that I wanted The Raben Group to join her in this effort. It made perfect sense for us to have a presence in Detroit, a city that has been on frontpages for its rebirth, but one where the new light shines unevenly, only on parts of the city, only on some of Detroit’s people.
America aggressively objectifies and commodifies and brutalizes and differently values Black and Brown humans, and the bodies inhabited. That is not just a factual statement, it is existential. It is a keystone of our founding, our convention, and our practice. While it has morphed over the years, it is literally Constitutional. The conflation of racism, sexism, and capitalism has been mastered and is thorough.
And it is not just some on the Right and their brazenness; with the gall to castigate Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest as the problem, rather than the murderous ways of some police which he is protesting.
The Left is mindlessly complicit and responsible, too. Our condescension, our disingenuous empathy, our rhetoric over action; all of that complements and calcifies the original sin.
So what do we do? What we know is that it is not all horrible.
There’s been real change. For 350 of our years, there was literally no recourse. Now we have a Minneapolis mayor who goes right to calling it what it is and here in Detroit, you have a police chief in James Craig who had the courage to admit and speak out against bad policing.
And we have a corporate community in Detroit that concedes they must make a substantive contribution to ensuring we don’t return to the normal that was neither just nor equitable.
Let me be clear about where I and The Raben Group are on this:
First, the whole culture profits off the degradation and merchandising of the person of color and of women. Sports. Prisons. Schools. Retail Establishments. Entertainment. It is everywhere. Call it out, work to reverse it.
Second, much of organized policing in the United States has been an explicitly racist institution. It is the front line of controlling and dehumanizing the Black and Brown American. That’s not an after-thought or unintended consequence, it’s by design. While there are huge pockets of improvement throughout the country — and so many law enforcement officers do the most amazing work with integrity and under gruesome circumstances — the original template is still dominant. And the consequences everywhere.
Third, understand it’s not only about policing. There’s a spectrum between “otherizing” black people and putting a literal knee on a black man’s neck. Ask yourself where you and the organizations you are responsible for are on that spectrum. A way to change this is to hugely strengthen the African American, Arab American, Latinx, Asian American, Native American, women, and LGBTQ presence in all areas: policing, local and state governance, the executive levels of business and nonprofits.
To be clear, there are cops, executives, elected officials and other people of color in positions of influence who are awful. We are all human, and frail, and works in progress. But if you’ve always been at the table and/or historically been the one to convene the meeting and set the agenda, I ask you to be comfortable admitting you may not know how to do this work. And that’s okay, as long as you’re willing to invite those who do to the table and put real resources behind your efforts to make change.
We are a violent nation, and too many of our countrymen are angry and misguided. At Raben, we don’t do the work we do in spite of this fact, we do it because of this fact. But I don’t pretend this work isn’t hard, it is.
As we respectfully ask to be a part of your Detroit community, we hope that you’ll allow us at your table, in your board rooms, at your community centers and places of worship. From our leadership to our interns, The Raben Group isn’t just diverse, it is inclusive, equitable, and just. We invite you to experience that same power, in your professional spaces, and your personal ones too.