As you prepare to address the University of Michigan on May 1, Detroiters will not allow Tea Partiers to drown out their cries for jobs.
President Obama comes to Michigan this weekend to address University of Michigan undergraduates, who will step out into an uncertain and unstable job market.
There has been a lot of excitement around the president’s visit to an institution that has some bearing to one of Obama’s political founding fathers.
It was at the University of Michigan that President John F. Kennedy, from the steps of the Michigan Union, boldly proposed the creation of the Peace Corps, asking students to commit to serve their country and promote peace by working in developing countries.
Exactly 50 years after the Kennedy challenge, President Obama, an African American whose father hails from the continent of Africa, a place the Peace Corps has had a strong presence, returns to that same institution to challenge the next generation of leaders.
What will President Obama’s challenge be?
I am not a soothsayer to predict his challenge to the graduating students at U-M. But yes, rightfully there is excitement and the students are demonstrating that because of the historical significance of what we are witnessing.
But more importantly, President Obama’s visit to a major educational institution housed in an economically ailing state where its largest city, Detroit, is at the crossroads should be viewed as an opportunity to let the president know we are waiting on him to pick up the 3 a.m. phone call from Detroit for jobs.
Despite what the naysayers and critics — including “Dateline NBC” — have to say about Detroit, it is the living room of Southeast Michigan. The future of the rest of Michigan is inextricably tied to the future of Detroit. In a very real sense, as Detroit goes, so goes Michigan.
Any attempt to perpetuate the misconceived notions about Detroit only hurts the rest of the state and does no good to investors looking to grab Southeast Michigan’s business opportunities.
Thousands of people in Detroit, where the unemployment rate is said to be about 30 percent, are anxiously waiting on jobs so they can put food on the table for their families.
True, there is the economic stimulus package that President Obama dispatched to struggling states but in Detroit, very few are seeing the results of that much-publicized package.
President Obama ought to visit Detroit to see firsthand the economic situation that is a true reflection of Michigan’s place on the national survival map.
The president should use a visit to Detroit to launch a major jobs initiative, one including groups and organizations committed to neighborhood development that will, in turn, help turn Michigan around.
Unlike the Tea Party movement that is furthering a very divisive campaign along angry ideological lines under the pretext of democracy, Detroit does not believe that being anti-Obama is the solution to creating jobs.
And Detroiters should not allow their cries for jobs to arrest the painful unemployment lines we see in the city every day to be drowned by the Tea Party’s voice of discord, division and race baiting.
We in Detroit understand that instead of working to divide the country, as some are proudly doing claiming their God-given right to do so, the challenge is for the private sector and small businesses to collaborate with the Obama administration and community organizers to create jobs in a much needed environment like Detroit.
“Being anti-Obama” would not help the mother with five children who just received a pink slip from the automakers.
“Being anti-Obama” would not help the small business that got drowned into the belly of the beast by companies that don’t want small businesses to exist despite knowing that these businesses are the engine of the economy.
“Being anti-Obama” would not solve the decaying state of the Detroit Public Schools despite the inescapable role of the federal government in aiding with dollars. The greatest educational security for our children’s future will have to come from men and women of goodwill in this community, not those who have enriched themselves by exploiting innocent DPS children.
“Being anti-Obama” would not create an instant economic boost for Michigan as the Tea Party and their sympathizers would want you to believe, conveniently forgetting the dismal effects of the President Bush economic blueprint on the Wolverine state.
Yet President Obama should be challenged to look at Detroit as the centerpiece of Michigan’s overall futuristic outlook. The 11th largest city in the nation, and the only one in the state that consistently votes 90 percent Democratic, deserves a visit by a Democratic president.
When more than 35,000 people showed up in the last stretch of the presidential campaign in 2008 in front of the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library on Woodward to hear candidate Barack Obama talk about how Wall Street has exploited Main Street, most of them were there fueled by the belief that Obama would identify and effectively deal with their primary economic challenge: jobs.
These individuals, young and old, Black and White, all made a commitment that sending Obama to the White House would make much more sense than dispatching Sen. John McCain who could not remember how many houses he owned.
So in juxtaposing the quality and merits of both candidates at the time there was an understanding among the overwhelming majority of Obama supporters that he is closer to the very ideas of struggle and a deep sense of justice – because of his background and experience – than the other candidate whose lifestyle prevented him from remembering his many houses.
And so in Detroit there is a majority of everyday working people who embraced and appreciated Obama’s background, and in the words of Nelson Mandela, his “triumph of the human spirit,” knowing he would work to address the critical jobs issue.
The couple of times I sat down with candidate Obama during the campaign, he indicated his commitment to making Detroit a model of urban centers in the nation.
In Grand Rapids, the heartland of the west side of the state, he again told me he was committed to aiding the Detroit Public Schools.
That was candidate Obama then making the case to be entrusted with the most difficult job.
Now we are waiting for President Obama to bring to fruition that commitment of helping to revitalize a city whose manifested potential could be the flagship for Michigan’s economic recovery.
An opportunity to make a significant stop in Detroit would allow President Obama to look at Detroiters in their faces and explain what he is going to do to make life better for them.
Health care legislation passing in Congress is indeed a major demonstration and will secure insurance for thousands of people in Detroit. But health care and jobs go hand in hand.
There are families that are waiting to have food on the table before they can mak
e sense of the health care legislation. They can be guaranteed of health insurance, but their future is even more troubling if they can’t provide food for their children.
The tax cuts for the middle class and the auto bailout worked but it has not stopped the bleeding.
Mr. President, this is your opportunity to show that you want Detroit to become a success story, and that you want to be part of that story.
You can help write that success story for an economically challenged city whose allegiance has immeasurably benefited the Democratic Party.
This year there is a contentious gubernatorial race where Republican candidates would like to make the campaign partly a referendum on the Obama presidency and what he has done for Detroit. What happens in the November election will be a precursor of things to come in the 2012 presidential election.
For a lot of reasons, including the very predictable governor’s race, President Obama should be after Detroit and Michigan’s heart this year.
Out of relative obscurity, Mr. President, you made it into national prominence, catapulted into the pantheon of American and world history in part because Detroit identified with your story so much.
Some of those I interviewed during the campaign said they were voting for the first time because they believed in the promise your presidency upholds.
They understand that you are not a miracle worker, yet they know that this major urban center cannot succeed to the fullest if it has no strong ally in the White House.
Those who are working diligently every day to make Detroit a better place would like to see their efforts augmented by a jobs package for this region — and a visit from you, Mr. President.
Watch senior editor Bankole Thompson’s weekly show, “Center Stage,” on WADL TV 38, Saturdays at 1 p.m. This Saturday, May 1, will feature a roundtable with organizations telling the story that “Dateline NBC” did not tell in its special report about Detroit. Thompson is the author of the forthcoming book on President Obama and Black America to be released this summer. E-mail bthompson@michronicle.com.