When I heard about Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson’s disgusting and irresponsible remarks in the New Yorker magazine under the provocative and sick headline “Drop Dead, Detroit,” about Michigan’s largest city, I could not believe it.
At first I thought maybe Patterson had just returned from Colorado where pot was recently legalized for anyone 21 and older.
I was moderating the launch of an annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration at the North American International Auto Show when I began receiving text messages about Patterson’s comments regarding Detroit.
Until I read his exact diabolical quotes, published interestingly on MLK Day, a time when we are all supposed to come together and trump every racial divide, I didn’t want to believe that Patterson would step out in the glare of the national media at this time of Detroit’s crucial resurgence, and heap so much hateful diatribe on the city next door to him.
“What we’re going to do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn,” Patterson said in the New Yorker, noting that was his prediction of Detroit has, in fact, come to pass.
Really?
Some in the GOP have made all kinds of comments about women, gays, the unemployed and those on food stamps. But these are the worst remarks that have been made so far in the nation by any Republican.
Reservations evoke memories of neglect, social subjugation, inferiority, ostracism and displacement for communities whose ancestors have such a sordid history.
For a man like Patterson, one of the most powerful politicians in this region who claims to extol the virtues of freedom and liberty, as the darling of the Republican Party in Michigan, to say Detroit is already much like an Indian reservation shows how much disdain Patterson has long had for Detroit. It further indicates how much race and racism permeate at the highest levels of our governments and are still embedded in our society.
To liken Detroit to a reservation is full-fledged racial bigotry.
That in September of 2013 (that is when the New Yorker interview was conducted) we can have a major political figure like Patterson still speaking with the mind of a Barry Goldwater and get away with it is beyond comprehension.
By racially castigating Detroit and his reference to Indians, Patterson was telling us he has no regard for the welfare of Blacks or the future development of a city on the rebound.
But let’s remind Patterson that his bragging about Oakland County’s success in the New Yorker is largely due in part to the number of middle class African Americans who have migrated from Detroit to Oakland County.
I really do wonder how he feels about Blacks who have moved to Oakland County, and in places like Southfield where they are growing exponentially and other areas like Farmington Hills, Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills.
By painting the city with a brush filled with racial animosity, Patterson was also condemning those African Americans who have moved to his county and are taxpayers.
Patterson is the antithesis to regional cooperation in Southeast Michigan and this latest incident shows why the region has not moved much beyond old narratives because of fear of Detroit’s progress.
We should not make light of his remarks because if someone else less powerful than him had made similar remarks, that individual would immediately lose their position and status. That is the double standard in this region because some are more powerful than others, and in Patterson’s world because he is a powerful politician, he knows he can get away with what others cannot.
Truth be told, Patterson enjoys White privilege, a self-immunity he has and presumed greatness by virtue of him being a powerful White male. If in fact the roles were changed right now, and a powerful Black male politician of equal stature were to issue those same hateful words against Whites in Oakland County, that would mark their political demise and bring an instant halt to their future. We would be writing the political obituary of that Black political leader.
When the next conversation on regional cooperation comes up at the Mackinac Policy Conference, organizers should first ensure that Patterson has gone through a real self-transformation or a Damascus experience. If not, such a forum would essentially be a waste of time.
We can’t pretend as if we don’t know what has gone wrong here. I expect our regional leaders to go on record as condemning these kinds of crude remarks. Some already have. Any regional leader worth his or her salt would not sit on the fence right now. This is a moment to step up and speak out against the racist diatribe of L. Brooks Patterson.
Dr. King said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
L. Brooks Patterson in the New Yorker interview revealed something further that deconstructs the man who has come to personify Oakland County and serves as the racial symbol on the Eight Mile divide.
“I used to say to my kids, ‘First of all, there’s no reason for you to go to Detroit. We’ve got restaurants out here.’ They don’t even have movie theatres in Detroit — not one,” Patterson said, “I can’t imagine finding something in Detroit that we don’t have in spades here. Except for live sports. We don’t have baseball, football. For that, fine — get in and get out, but park right next to the venue — spend the extra 20 or 30 bucks. And before you go to Detroit, you get your gas out here. You do not, do not, under any circumstances, stop in Detroit at a gas station! That’s just a call for a carjacking.”
For so long, Patterson has looked at Detroit through the prism of a war zone, a place that has nothing to be proud of. Not even, the renowned Wayne State University, the quality Wayne County Community College District, the valued University of Detroit-Mercy, the world-class Detroit Institute of Arts, the nationally celebrated Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the revered Detroit Historical Museum, and the innovative Michigan Science Center appear to not make Patterson’s favorable list. All that is on his list about Detroit is negative.
When a parent tells his child where not to visit, it speaks deeper about their convictions about those places and what they believe that place could offer their children. When a parent imparts in an innocent child old prejudices about a place they hate to carry on to the next generation that shows how deeply embedded that prejudice is.
If you filled your child with hate about a place like Detroit you should be considered by any sane person as condemning that child to the narrow confines of anti-intellectual and anti
-cultural diversity. And that is the worst kind of existence for any child in an inescapable inter-connected world. You can’t divorce one city from another because a business in Oakland County may be banking in Detroit. You can’t erect a Berlin Wall in Southeast Michigan.
I remember keynoting the American Jewish Committee leadership dinner in 2012 at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, Oakland County, where I spoke about crossover partnership, the need for young people in Oakland County to connect with Detroit’s youth because we are all connected by highways and freeways.
To now hear Patterson, the leader of Oakland County, say in the New Yorker that he advised his own children to avoid Detroit is bad for the psyche of Oakland’s youth, and inimical to their development in a 21st century society.
I’m curious if Patterson’s children still feel that way about the city.
I thought after all these years Patterson, the man who once opposed the desegregation bushing plan related to the Detroit Public Schools all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, may have evolved by now into a better man, an exemplary leader and one who now understands after his near-death car accident last year that life has consequences.
That incidents and occurrences should humble us all the time, not make us arrogant and bigoted where we feel we can throw our weight around (because we are the richest county) and undermine those with lesser power or influence to keep them from growing. If anything, Patterson should be among the city’s biggest cheerleaders because if Detroit succeeds it only helps Oakland County.
I give it to him that my personal exchanges with him have been mutually respectful whether it is in interviews or roundtable conversations, but that doesn’t give him a pass on his most outrageous remarks ever.
Political leaders will not only be judged on how they balanced the budget and keep their cities and counties fiscally sound. Their legacies will also be defined on their moral compass, their sense of compassion, their understanding that what affects one affects another and the practice of tolerance.
Last year, Patterson apologized on Twitter when he compared House speaker Jase Bolger to Adolph Hitler.
“I alienated some in Jewish community when I called the Speaker ‘Adolf.’ I was commenting on his leadership style. To those offended, I apologize,” he said.
Detroit is waiting for a stronger apology from Patterson. He should come to the new Cobo Hall, a symbol of regional cooperation and the place where Dr. King issued the first draft of the “I Have a Dream” speech and issue a real apology to Detroit and everyone who is working tirelessly to make the city the greatest comeback story of the Midwest.
Patterson doesn’t need to remind anyone that he would never say anything positive about Detroit as he sought to explain in the New Yorker.
We have people in Detroit who are doing and saying positive things about Detroit. We have business leaders like Dan Gilbert, chairman of Quicken Loans, who has bought more than 40 buildings in downtown Detroit, and contrary to Patterson’s narrow views about the city, sees Detroit as the epicenter of a lot of good things that can happen in the state.
The Quicken Loans founder has moved thousands of employees to Detroit and such is also the case with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan under CEO Dan Loepp.
In fact, when I sat down with Gilbert last year in his office, he showed me a litany of letters from students from Ivy League colleges looking to move to Detroit to work and play.
Those students don’t believe in Patterson’s negative view of Detroit. They believe in the optimism and possibility of what the city’s rebirth can bring.
The Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP) chaired by Cindy Paskey, CEO of Strategy Staffing Solutions, at their annual end of year gathering at MGM Grand Casino Hotel in December of 2013 demonstrated a commitment to the city’s continued revitalization by creating an exciting downtown that anyone, global visitor or investor, would find attractive and be proud of.
Henry Ford Health System’s $500 million planned expansion of its main headquarters in Detroit — residential and retail development — under the leadership of CEO Nancy Schlichting is a testament that Detroit is not going to drop dead as Patterson’s views suggest.
The Detroit Riverfront and Conservancy under outgoing CEO Faye Nelson is a jewel that Patterson can’t dismiss, the product of good-faith efforts and donors — including influential Whites in the region — who do not share the view that Detroit should go down the drain.
The North American International Auto Show has not left Detroit for Chicago or California. It is here to stay and this year showed the annual event is gaining increasing attendance, housed in the beautiful and newly expanded Cobo Center, whose five-member authority includes the likes of Juliette Okotie-Eboh, senior vice president of the MGM Grand, another believer in Detroit.
All these individuals and others not named here live in a realistic world different from that of Patterson’s, and it suggests that the Oakland County Executive is not only against Detroit’s comeback but also against efforts that these entities and individuals are putting together for Detroit.
Does the fact that L. Brooks Patterson can never say anything positive about Detroit, as he bragged in the New Yorker, mean he admits to been a sworn enemy of Detroit?
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