 be taking it for granted because it can slowly slip away and next thing you know you don't know you won't know that it's happened and you start filling the void of it because it is very very important to our spiritual souls okay but I'm just gonna let Stephen take over introduce the panel and enjoy what one thing we on Saturday we are having curatorial talks at two so you all welcome to come back for that our first one with to leave to Lisa Fleming from the Smithsonian Saturdays with Becky Hart from the BIA so please come and enjoy that talk also I'm gonna pass it over before we give it to Stephen. Really really quickly we'll be passing out little note cards you can write your questions down then I'll collect it like around 745 to pass it on to Stephen and he's gonna ask the panelists so if you have any questions for the panelists write them down on these note cards and we'll get to Stephen to ask the panel. Thank you. Okay let's get started as George said my name is Stephen Henderson actually I want to thank him first for asking me to to moderate these panels this is the third of the panels and and I have been really impressed with the panelists on the first two panels and I thought we had really great conversations both times I think we have a panel tonight that will facilitate a conversation that's at least as good as the first two so with that well introduced the panelists sitting to my immediate left is Malik Kikini who's the founder and executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network which operates a seven acre urban farm in Detroit's Rouge Park next to him is Halima Casals Detroit based artists and activists who holds leadership roles at many community-based organizations including the Oakland Avenue artists coalition North End Soup the free market and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network next her is Ernest Zachary founder and vice president for development at Zachary and Associates Detroit based firm specializing in all phases of economic development with specific expertise in market research historic preservation commercial revitalization community planning green design next to Ernest's Kathleen Collin director of investments at Oppenheimer and company Colin serves as the chapter president for the National Association of Securities Professionals Detroit and is the point of contact for ICAP New York for their emerging minority and female owned investment management consultant community and next to Kathleen is Catherine Kelly publisher for the Michigan citizen publication aimed at progressive minded African American readers publication which began in 1978 was started by Catherine's father and now it operates exclusively as an online publication so first question we'll start at this end then the next question will start the other way Malik how do you define the type of gentrification that you see happening in Detroit right now the type of gentrification that I see happening in Detroit is the type where white people young white people who have more income than the average Detroit are is moving into places that are renamed midtown and places like downtown and Indian Village and North Quark town and it seems to be a tremendous amount of capital that's being invested in those areas and we see tremendous amounts of development in those areas and of course when that happens rents are going up residents and some businesses are being pushed out and then we have the rest of Detroit which apparently is being left to languish and it seems that the strategy of the elected and appointed leadership of the city seems to be that if we develop these other areas that somehow wealth and prosperity will trickle down to the rest of the city I see no evidence that that has ever happened or that it will happen in the future so I'm going to describe it as the consumption model of gentrification where newcomers are coming to consume a lifestyle so it's the great it's the cool it's the generations of cultural legacy that Detroit is pumped up to the world that newcomers are attracted by and can kind of put on this Detroit versus everybody machismo exterior and because now they're part of it and so what I see happening also is a situation where the corporate government is doing what James Baldwin James Baldwin called Negro removal so we have two sides of the coin welcome everybody who's not from here and for people that have been here for generations y'all got to go because the new Detroit is happening so we have policies where certain folks are getting tax abatements and rent you know paid for because your corporation wants you here and on the flip side Detroiters are being attacked with water shutoffs and now most recently it's become a felony to turn your water back on so anybody anywhere would do that but you know now it's it's kind of like criminalizing the population for being unemployed and being sticking it out so that's what I see currently I agree with Malik and what he was saying about this trickle down that we've always expected you go back to Coleman Young's days and the investment that was happening downtown the hope was yeah it's gonna trickle down neighborhoods your turn's gonna come it's nothing new that hasn't happened what is different today is that we have this massive interest from corporate interest you know so is it's unheard of that one person can own 70 buildings in the downtown of a major city in America that's a huge impact one person is doing that and one person is controlling it the tax credits and all that stuff yeah it's gonna flow there that is that is you know that's an important investment you know we're gonna have the elitism we're gonna build a stadium massive massive investment you know so and you have you know you have the little ones which are also meaningful is Shinola and you know the stuff that Phil Cooley is doing over in Corktown these are all important investments and they're also dislocating in in our city it doesn't get it doesn't get shared it doesn't get trickled down we don't it hasn't happened so what we have is a focus of a lot of you know some people participating in the benefit of that development but it isn't you know it isn't in the neighborhoods nobody's figured out how you know take these models and you know instead of buying 70 buildings getting somebody to buy the old school that's in the middle of the neighborhood in rehabbing matter putting in commercial in neighborhoods we don't have that so the fact that there is a gentrification there's great power behind that that you know that that that what's happened to Detroit how do you counter that I don't know how to counter that other than to undertake development in parts of the city and have some of the same forces come in that's it okay yeah okay definitely to echo what everyone is saying here I mean the term I guess you want to look at it from a scientific side definitely you do your do your homework and there's different types of gentrification and definitely Detroit falls into what what's known as kind of concentrated that it's all happening in one spot and the ideal is that it is to flow from out you know this very much sort of like Chicago sort of like Philadelphia I mean it's different from a little different from New York gentrification I mean the feeling can be there but what kind of distinguishes Philly and Chicago along with Detroit is that there's a large concentration of African Americans and along with an old infrastructure so it can you know very much be very much concentrated in the Midtown downtown area now I don't think gentrification is a bad thing completely and totally because on the positive it's supposed to be about urban revitalization and that's crucial in this town I mean no one I don't think it's is is gonna be you know tripping off and not knowing that wasn't crucial for this town I think what is disconcerting is when it's opportunistic you know that's a term in the investment community where you talk about opportunities just like me you're able to I mean it's large risk but you're able to come in and kind of exploit you know the opportunities and the chances that a bit that are veiled without really a big concern about what's the big plan what's the general plan or the moral compass for the big plan for the city and that's what concerns me about the gentrification that's going on right now what is the you know basically what is the stop and the halt and the concern for what is the bigger plan and how it fits in with the moral compass that is Detroit I think I think that you know what we're seeing you know I'm left for a few years but I'm essentially a traitor and it's kind of amazing to see when you grew up in Detroit you had these really nice black middle class neighborhoods there is solid you had a variety of neighborhoods within the city but what we see in terms of this version of gentrification is how wealth is being created with the combination of capital and white skin privilege there was a study that came out a Harvard study about how gentrification reinforces segregation and I think what's amazing as a long-time Detroit or when you look at what's going on it's like for some places the only thing that has changed is you know there used to be black people that occupy these buildings and now there are white people and white skin and that now itself has allowed a value to change so we have also this wealthy group investing downtown as you point out owning 70 buildings and what has started as it's almost like this decision to create value and when a certain group of people decide that there's value there it moves from a perceived value to a very real value and the and the real dollars that come from that real value are accrued within a group of people that have historically been able to benefit so I think that's my concern and that's kind of what I see with what's happening with gentrification in Detroit. Okay everyone on this panel is an enterprising member of a community here in Detroit spearheading initiatives that benefit existing Detroit communities so talk about the ways that you're working in your respective fields or in your respective areas to maintain inclusive development in Detroit. What are you doing to make sure that Detroiters get to participate? Let me say let me preface my answer by not skirting around what I see as being the very major issue and that is that there is absolutely in Detroit in the United States and globally a system of white supremacy a system that gives favor to people who are defined as white and that manifests in all of the major institutions and manifests in how we see economic development taking place. So one of the first steps in correcting that is an open acknowledgement that exists and not kind of the skirting around that we constantly see but really you know dealing with that in a very direct way. So having said that I don't I don't want to you know appear as George said to be a victim you know although I think it's important that we point out systemic oppression but at the same time we have a responsibility this is kind of a twofold thing so we have a responsibility to dismantle the systemic oppression that exists but at the same time we have a responsibility to take we have to take responsibility for ourselves and for our communities and so the organization that I represent the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network is one that very much believes in community self-determination that it goes beyond the question of inclusion for us but it's really a question of how do we mobilize our community in order to one determine what our aspirations are two to put in place the vehicles to realize those aspirations and two and three how do we make alliances with those who have the capital and the resources to really make all this stuff fly. So again I think one of the critical factors is that we have a very open honest discussion about this system of white supremacy how it is function historically how hit it the role that it's played in putting us where we are today because we really can't fix the problem until we look at it in a very forthright way. Describe my life's journey and all the work that I do as uplifting my community and let's say I started off as a painter and then you know decided oh this is a great empowerment tool for young people and got involved with DBSIP FSN and I was like I can't paint any words hurting all of the natural life of the planet so what else can I do. So most recently I'll share this with you I'll pass it around but I do need it back. I'm a part of a project called the One Mile Project and this is a magazine that we've produced and the idea is how do we uplift local makers local artists local businesses people who have been here for you know 50 years and so these people are highlighted in here and I also she kind of passes to you and just passes around but I do need it back. The idea of just a conversation convener and a space creator how do we have conversations where circles get to interconnect and collide so that folks with access because I think when we talk about gentrification we also look at this idea of capital but it's not all about capital it's often about access and not just access to capital but just access to different people different circles you know how do we put ourselves our products our work in position to be seen by many people to be valued and when we talk about you know this white supremacist thought construct we are constantly devaluing our work ourselves and projecting that way sometimes subconsciously so everything that I do is about lifting I'm working with a group that insight focus right now 15 young people were building a car that goes 100 miles per gallon and a lot of people like that's crazy yeah it is we're gonna do it and you know I work with another organization Center for Community-based Enterprise you know we are going to incubate co-ops in the city of Detroit where workers have equity ownership of the company that they own and again working with DPCF as in we are bringing to the north end community something that is owned by the community of food co-op where consumers are the owners of the space so that's just a little bit of what I do you know when you're when you're in development or into living in the city not to value what each and every person in the city can can give to the process it's kind of ignorant right I mean so when you don't pay attention to the history of all the people you really sell yourself your your efforts short and the same thing goes into the future this area that we're in was called Sugar Hill it was nicknamed that by some of the musicians that were in this area right across John our was a place called the the flame show bar you had Billy holiday Billy Eckstein you know Delores you had a hall of fame of all these musicians that were here very Gordon sister was taking pictures of the people very Gordon recruited all his musicians from this area they live in this area after our spots that were here you know where they had the music and it was all here was a lively area it was a wonderful area when we came here there were murders there were two murders across the alley there were people yeah it was really bad it was really really bad and so George and I hit here George Namdi and I hit her about the same time and we started thinking about how we move this area forward and one of the things we thought why don't we honor the past why don't we really take advantage of what has happened here and we named it Sugar Hill and so the whole intention of moving forward was based off of the art that was really part of the African-American community and using that to move forward so here we have George and if I'm not mistaken he's African American and I'm not you know so we work together we work we're partners on projects we do this stuff but it's you know we saw I'm saying looking forward not to be able not to move forward with people of the talent of George is stupid not to pay attention to the past and the contributions of people that live in the city is stupid so that's a direction that I come from okay I well as a director of investments at Attenheimer or just and just not limiting myself to that title as a passion I advocate on behalf of people of you know across of course minorities and females for equal access involved in the whole process of basically any investment industry and a lot of that has to do with like for instance the 7.2 mile radius that is of divine interest and we are all the focus right now is for you know capital the big capital is coming in you know there's got to be individuals who participate in that process who look like the people basically who do pay the taxes a lot of taxes and that supported so I'll advocate on behalf of having investment bankers minority owned firms female owned firms hopefully down the road be able to put together the savings the urban funds that raise the dollars that make sure the millions of dollars that make sure that maybe some of the as exactly just described that's right exactly right exactly describe some of the projects that will maybe hopefully get rolled up into say a bigger appeal for for bigger dollars that will be found acceptable for institutional level investment that's really what moves a lot of these things forward you know these pension plans these these these projects that you know really really reshape reshape a community a lot of this finance by these institutions here in Detroit and in and around Detroit that they must that the projects must meet a certain level of acceptability that they're basically you know kind of deemed like class a level you know but then after that once you know like a fund can can can make sure that these bigger projects get done but you then you can roll into those under that guys you can roll in affinity type projects you know like a sugar hill like a Motown over on West Grand Boulevard that make sure that a culture is a culture is preserved I think that's you know when you when I did some researching and you know try to make myself more aware for me what was the biggest ill in this process I might be going a little bit off steam so I do apologize what was the biggest illness is that you know my biggest concern is that there's a whole culture I guess this whole notion of cultural genocide that might be a little bit far but okay cultural displacement you know I mean it happened that you know black bottom was not that long ago I mean my grandmother told me all about it but you know I mean yeah there's economics but then there's there has to it's it is bigger capital that moves this whole thing yes there is a whole film of white supremacy on that night I really don't get into that because I don't like it but but and I don't understand it so but I do know one thing is that you know money you know is is in the pursuit of profit you know is a huge motivator and and at the end of the day you know it doesn't really care you know and that's what troubles me and it kind of drives me especially you know trying to see my city come back after that sub crime madness that really really if you want to talk about what killed our communities let's talk about that you know but long short that's what drives me to advocate for access for individuals who would be naturally sensitized you know females you know affinity groups who are involved in the investment industry and from that you know as also in my role as the president of the NAS Detroit chapter we made education and student scholarships for Metro Detroiters number one priority I mean we make sure our people are at the table with deals but you know if you're going to come in here and you're going to do deals in our city well this is something that's important isn't that's how I get educated so that they too can one day be deal makers so access at you know kind of advocating for access to the bigger years would be at the table for individuals who are natural maybe have an affinity towards looking out for you know minorities and females are just more in involvement is really where I get my biggest push I think one of the roles of media is to raise questions and to highlight issues I think policymakers have a critical role in gentrification I think right now Detroit mayor and city council could be very purposeful and deliberate as value continues to grow in the city how does it grow for everyone you know how what is council and what is the mayor what are others doing to think about housing policy in the city investment policy I mean it as gentrification happens and you know how group everyone's life create value for everyone may continue you know make that Detroit needs to attract more people and believable many people believe that Detroit development tends to exclude people who have been here for a long time I'm wondering what everyone some of the new investment some of the new people working alongside people who have been here for a long time tease Malik a little bit here can we get a Malik you can't need to work alongside John Hant sorry for picking on you there you know I mean there are a lot of people working supposedly in the same space who don't necessarily see eye to eye how do we how do we sort of bridge that gap I'll start with you well I find you know we wound down the Michigan citizen at the end of last year but you know one of the things that I have you know that I always found as a business owner in the city and someone who represented a business represented a business with a very progressive community minded grassroots voice it's quite honestly you know a lot of the people who have access to capital who control the conversation you know really don't want to hear a lot of things that might make them uncomfortable so you know you have this group of people that are very community rooted neighborhood rooted there that are working that are trying to raise the issues and and to make improvements in their community and in the ways that they see that they that they see are real and important and a lot of those ways are not validated by the power structure so I found that extremely frustrating as a business owner as someone who's reported and run a business in the city you know quite honestly if the powers that be don't like what you're saying you know your microphone gets turned off so I think until Detroit truly becomes a sophisticated and inclusive and open-minded place where everyone becomes invested in making sure that everyone has a place it's I mean that has to happen to get dollars to move to communities that haven't seen dollars and still aren't receiving dollars you know the the powers that be can't be so afraid of things of maybe losing control I don't know what it is but but until we get more or bane sophisticated conversations going in the city with a diverse set of players and I mean a truly diverse set of players it's not gonna move well there's there's just the harsh reality is to me at least in the world that I operate is that you swung some of the most effective way is legislated either you know on the state level they do it in New York over the pensions they they they're doing it in Illinois and then you have oversight and that's in the form and the annual form of commission some of these oversight commissions will involve vested partners vested people in the community so that you make sure it says that if you're gonna get some of the monies you know some of the some of the monies from our pension to support your big deal then you are gonna have participation from a Malik or Steven Henderson who might be the head of a coalition but you are definitely gonna have your your your boards that that make decision and vote over how these millions of dollars are going to get allocated are gonna have a representation so be that from the community like a community advocate but you but they have it in Illinois here in Michigan that will say you definitely will include diverse interests and then you have of what's called again oversight and what's great about oversight is that people get grades and if they're not meeting up to the standard then guess what you don't get you don't get the money you're not so they really I mean they it's great you know from an altruistic standpoint to hope that these people will feel good about being inclusive but that really is not I don't think that's really the case if you tell them that you're not gonna get this money and unless you have I'm just being if you tell them that it's mandated you know here is legislation and points to or here are policies that are in place here is our investment pilot states you know you must have this kind of a diversity at hand or how about this here's a partnership that you're going to formulate now however all you know I'm not a big fan of these front partnerships I'm not but let's if it gets the money to trickle within that organization and it and from that that individual can possibly subcontract out and involve some of these smaller developers and then they can in turn turn around and hire people within that community immediately that's the way that you get you know you get some trickle down so you I think you tie they often they need a vote they need they need an authoritative power that says here's the way that you're gonna get you know these big dollars to do these big projects which change communities but the only way it's gonna happen is if it has this diverse element to it and it is it can be legislated and it can be oversighted oh I know I just why I said there's there's a best practice expectation and believe me it's it's heartbreaking for me what how Michigan you know is has has done I mean years ago I mean I flew in and along with some other members of NASA to advocate you know for what was you know happening there as you know let's take over started especially wouldn't have been a long time ago but there is best practices and you can have groups like NASA or you can have even you know oversight commissions involved in saying well hey you know we're gonna we're gonna be watching how you do what you do but Michigan is a tough place it really is so yeah I mean there are community benefits agreements that right now for instance with the hockey arena to get the benefits out to for housing and for jobs and all this for that effort that effort is happening in you know they get with marathon oil they try there I don't think it worked very well or it worked at all but for major projects like that I think you can do legislation I think it's very very difficult to to bring that kind of attention to some of these neighborhoods I mean this is a hundred and forty something square mile city and we tend to concentrate on midtown and downtown as if that's the beginning and the end of the story to me you know being able to get development into neighborhoods being able to make neighborhoods balanced okay so you may have a nice house in there you have a crappy commercial area or you may have to motion you don't have good housing you may have a park it's not open you may not have transportation I mean to talk about having a balanced community and going towards that that's tough work and that is not going to come off of any community benefits we have nonprofits we have some wonderful nonprofits I mean there's some nonprofits that are at the top of the game because maybe it's easier maybe midtown is a great nonprofit because you got the medical center you got Wayne State you got the cultural center not bad but if you have a nonprofit on the lower east side and you're trying to do something what are you glomming on to what are you doing I mean you got it you have empty schools and no commercial and you've got some housing that's okay I mean how do you take that and you take it into a better echelon how do you make the living in there better it's not an easy answer it really I mean it's something I think it's the I think it's the next challenge for the city to do that because out of a hundred and forty something square miles we're dealing with I don't know how many square miles seven point so what what about the rest of it how do we deal with it we're focusing I think as if this is it this is the enemy or this is the solution I think it's a much more complicated answer for the city and it's really it's it's yeah I mean if we're if the city is gonna move forward you know it's got to be I think we've got to take and put our eyes elsewhere okay so I love and respect you I take great issue with the framing of this question I am ideologically opposed to the framing of this question because I think it espouses the internalized racism that we're speaking against at this point in time so the fact of we need people to come in and save us the biggest welfare recipients in the motherfucking world the big three do we need people to come in and save them and restructure them they got 700 billion and they couldn't turn it around so why is it always on the backs of the people of Detroit who have to bear this inferiority inadequacy complex like we're not good enough to create solutions you know I just I think that's that's holy false we have the most engineers per capita of any city in this country we can't engineer our way out this shit yes we can but you know again it goes to what I'm sorry Catherine Catherine said Catherine narrative and media the the narrative that's projected about Detroiters is that we are inferior we are lazy we are not good enough to create solutions for ourselves and I think that we never get the shine like who knew we were national robotics champions right down here in youth field those young people went all the way to Anaheim California this summer and competed against everybody else in the country and one we are national chess champions our youth and our are and even their parents are genius but we never get the narrative to be allowed to be at the table to uplift solutions for ourselves and that is a systemic corporate overarching type of a narrative problem and so without that we get this blank canvas nobody there they don't know what they're doing we have to go in and save them democracy doesn't work for them we get all of these other narratives that are able to be enacted upon us and then we get to be playing a role of victim which I just think is is wholly unfair and so how do we really flip that script you never hear about GM being inept or inadequate but they got 700 billion all right so that's that now caffeine brought up black bottle black wall Street and I'm so glad you did because if we look at that history black bottle super tight neighborhood with all the services that everyone would need in neighborhood lawyer dentist stores clothing everyone in a neighborhood able to provide all the means for themselves what happened was I 75 there was imminent domain pulled they said we need this land they didn't need them and it could have been anywhere but they did that and gave everyone there nothing so whereas the polls in Poletown at least got fair market value for their property all of the black people got nothing and so we had a next generation if you're a parent which will tell your kids go get a job you notice doing it on your own they're gonna take everything from you so we got a generation of people to go into the factories instead of starting their own businesses and proliferating in that type of a way but everybody else and this is the face of white supremacist thought construct gets at least fair market value for their property black black wall Street are they just got bombed we know that right we know the history of all these things that pop up and just get bombed all right so we don't want to speak about that that's kind of depressing so what's the question I'm so glad because I'm sorry because one of the to me one of the biggest when I was sitting and getting ready and thinking about that's it is that whole you get nothing that's kind like genocide yes it is I know and that was just too deep for me to really embrace I so baby's cultural displacement it feel better but no and I think that's the worry and part of this whole thing is like cultural genocide I mean we are in rich Detroit I'm not gonna I'm not just saying African men but Detroiters this is this is a rich you know cultural kind of like and like George says I mean you know you you know our funk our our whole ism and to know that you know that it can I mean I said that home wife in 1960 that wasn't that long ago you know and you know I just that's what's more fretful to me is that it's the cultural genocide part it doesn't I don't hear it being tossed about much and I don't yeah it's cultural genocide and it's actual genocide I think a lot of the policies that are being enacted now are aimed at getting people out because Detroiters are so strong Detroiters are so resilient so it's policy after policy that's saying okay get out we have we have the what we want from you we have the music we have the legacy we can build on this we have the t-shirts that we can put on and proclaim Detroit versus everybody and everybody's so tough and so cool but actually we want all y'all to go somewhere else and the the fact of turning off a person's water for $150 which can easily be one month's bill is unconscionable absolutely if we break it all down every person in here is 80% water so the fact that our government had to be pranked into saying water for all Detroiters just shows that we are living the corporateocracy we are living something other than a government by the people for the people and I'm gonna stop talking now I'm gonna pass it on I'm used to I'm used to being the like most hardcore person on the panel but Alima's coming kind of hard tonight so Mr. Henderson jokingly alluded to myself and John Hans being able to work together but what he probably doesn't know is about two years ago John Hans and I had breakfast oh you do know that man yes and after being one of the chief critics of the Hans project for a number of years he reached out to me to see if we could sit down and have a discussion you know I'm willing to sit down and discuss with people I disagree with and it was a very enlightening discussion because he was very direct and I just want to share a couple of the things that he shared in that breakfast conversation one of the things that he shared is that what he was really trying to do was to increase to create scarcity by taking some of the land off the market in order to drive the value of the land up that's called speculation he was very clear about that and he also said to me that this project which is now more than what they call hands woodlands and for those of you who might not be familiar with the Hans project maybe five or six years ago he had a very sophisticated press campaign that touted this project that he was developing that was supposed to be the large the world's largest urban farm he got a great deal of community pushed back because he wasn't committed to urban agriculture excuse me to organic agriculture residents were concerned about pesticides being sprayed in the in the neighborhood and so the project morphed into now what he's calling hands woodlands where he's planting hardwood trees and eventually we'll plant Christmas trees both of those things are the cover story whether it's urban garden or trees the real deal is controlling the land and he in as much told me that but he also said that for him this is a legacy project for his daughter because in 40 years when these trees can be harvested then she'll be able to reap the rewards of that so what became clear to me is that not the John Hans is an evil man or not that Dan Gilbert is an evil man so to speak we have different views of the world we have totally different views of the world and so you know when you ask how do we come to the table and reconcile as it becomes very difficult so I just want to invite the audience for a minute to think beyond the logic of capitalism because a lot of what we see happening is defined by the logic of capitalism for example in Detroit which has been said a couple times 140 square miles or so approximately one-third of the land in the city is vacant about 60% of that land is owned by the city governor now city governments weren't created to be land lords and to figure out how to dispense large parcels of land also the city of Detroit has a real challenge on its hands and so what they've done is followed the logic of capitalism which suggests that you sell it off to whoever has the money to buy it and if you continue to follow that logic we'll see a replication of the same inequities that we've seen since this country has been created when we and so we'll see Dan Gilbert buying 70 billion buildings in downtown Detroit now moving his empire down Woodward Avenue and driving the prices up in the north end where we're doing the Detroit people's food co-op grocery store development if we continue to follow the logic of capitalism then we'll hear phrases like certain projects are not capital ready or class a projects of whatever terminology is used and so the projects that are capital ready are the projects that are financed by people who have huge amounts of money which invariably are wealthy white men and so this speaks to the three fundamental contradictions that we see in the world today the paradigm the social construct called race the concentration of capital in the hands of a few and the concentration of power in men and so we see all of these things playing out in the city of Detroit as wealthy white men continue to accumulate large parcels of land and huge huge numbers of buildings in the city of Detroit and I would suggest that if we don't begin to think outside of the logic of capitalism there will see an ongoing replication of these of these inequities then we have an even more complex problem because you know normally people think well if we elect people who represent our our aspirations that they'll function on behalf of the people but the reality is in America again a capitalist system elections are bought and sold and we can look at recent elections in the city of Detroit and we can see that the concentration of capital by people who want to see Detroit move in a particular direction that benefits them is really the deciding factor often in elections and so so we have a problem with that as well but then also as I said earlier we have this responsibility the residents have the responsibility to organize ourselves I don't just want to spend all the time pointing to kind of the structural inequities that exist although it's important we point those out but we also have to look at our own responsibility to ourselves and so when we talk about how do we sit down at the table with people who are extremely powerful in the kind of traditional sense of the word I mean we do have power in various ways but when we sit down with people who are extremely powerful we can't really play ball unless we are organized and mobilized and so we have the responsibility to organize our own community so that we function in a much more powerful way the other thing that as we see large numbers of mostly whites moving into Detroit again it's imperative that we have a recognition of this system of white supremacy because if not you have people who come in who might have good intentions but because they haven't taken the time to study the history and the culture of the community that they're moving into they can unintentionally function in a way that is anti the majority of people for example how many of the young people moving into midtown or North Corktown know about the more than 60 years long struggle for black political empowerment the city of Detroit how many people moving into North Corktown know about the Freedom Now Party that functioned in the early 1960s and the ongoing struggle of black people to have political empowerment and so if you don't even know about that chances are very high that you're going to function in a way which is counter to the aspirations of the majority population so you know one of the questions that I don't think we've gotten to yet has to do with re-socialization but the question is re-socialization of who so I think that people moving into Detroit which is really the blackest city in America still have the responsibility not only of studying the history and the culture of this community and functioning in a way which is complementary to the aspirations of the majority population but also have the responsibility of doing a deep dig into how this system of white supremacy functions and so there are groups that do anti-racist training for example one of the groups I'm involved with is called uprooting racism planting justice and it meets every first Saturday at the Detroit Center of Michigan State University and we have these very robust conversations about how white supremacy functions and both how whites unintentionally internalize the concepts associated with thinking that you're superior that your culture is superior that your standards are the the rule about which every other human culture should be gauged but it also deals with how black people and other people who are oppressed internalize this system of oppression how we have internalized this concept that we are not as capable and that we don't have agency of our own communities so I would suggest that you know if we're to sit down at the table together that there's some work that has to be done on both sides and part of the work that has to be done on the part of whites who are moving into Detroit who claim to want justice and equity is that they have to really do a deep study of the system of white supremacy and look at how they're participating in it. Quickly I want to give you a chance to follow up. Where did you leave it with John Haines? How did that meeting end? I think we probably shook hands and said you know it was you know nice meeting you. But I can tell you this also that he had almost no interest in hearing about the grassroots urban agriculture movement. The only interest he had is trying to sell me on this capital intensive project that he was pushing and so there was even no equity in the conversation frankly and you know I think if we you know to sit out with these other power brokers that will see the same thing that they really have no interest in very little incentive and sitting down and dealing with grassroots community efforts on any kind of equitable basis. Okay we're gonna go to the next question. I'm just for the panel's information I didn't write these questions so I'm sort of freelancing a little bit and changing them where I can so I know you guys saw them before yeah so they may be they may be a little different as I as I ask them so so we know that between 2000 2010 Detroit lost about 200,000 people about 185 of them 185,000 of them African-Americans which left the city without much of its middle class certainly without much of its historically black middle class those are the people who were leaving for the suburbs and at the same time we are not attracting we are not attracting black middle class transplants here the way we are white middle class transplants so tell me about how you address that that gap between who's coming and who's not how do we make ourselves attractive to the black middle class the black capital that has left the city for the suburbs or for other places. You know I've never done a survey on the black middle class who left Detroit and why they left but my guess would be that most of them left because they want to be safe they want their garbage picked up on time they want schools where children are learning to read and write and do mathematics they want police who are going to respond they want that a lot of the so-called black middle class would be much more attracted to be in the city of Detroit. I think I'm sorry if I do you mind if I jump out of turn a little bit but and to pick up on the woman in the audience at this point I think if you look at overall you know the economic status of African Americans in the last 10 years you know there's a real vulnerability that and I think the reality of living in Detroit for many middle-class African Americans Detroit has become an unaffordable place and to Maliki Kenny's point earlier you know not they're not being equity in the conversations in the region and in the state you know quite honestly African Americans in the city of Detroit have had a list of policy solutions that could have kept Detroit a way more hospitable place but again because the narrative in Detroit is such that those voices aren't heard those concerns are quite honestly most often ridiculed we've gotten to we've gotten to the point where Detroit for many middle-class people is an inhospitable place African Americans for the last 15 20 years in Detroit have talked about local control of schools that's been ignored residency requirements the insurance rates in the city there are a number of there are a number of issues that progressive and grassroots community people in Detroit have championed over the years that have just been dismissed by by the people that control the conversations in the city so we've gotten to the point that's why I think most of the black middle class have left and a lot of the younger and the white people who are moving in quite honestly they can afford to either they're young enough where you know they don't mind you know they can they can afford to but just a little bit there are a lot of young African American college graduates who are going to places like Chicago or New York or Baltimore or Washington or Atlanta who we don't see coming to Detroit so I guess my question is as much about how do we get those folks to show up alongside their white counterparts who are really enthusiastic about downtown as it is about why people I think it's a I think it's a question about you I was extremely privileged to go to Nataki to leave the schoolhouse of Detroit and then to cast tech and I left during this period to go to Howard University and in all of the best intentions of everybody in my community the measure of success was how far could you get how far away could you get through and so there needs to be an explicit call home to all Detroiters everywhere because everybody knows we're awesome and not a joke there has to be value placed where we place it and not just where somebody else starts buying up property and somebody else says it's cool but how do we place value and say you know what this is where you were raised you are expected to come here and do something all of the foreign students that I was in school with whether they were from Tanzania or Trinidad and Tobago or wherever they were very clear about why they were at university they were there to gain the information gain the connections and then go home and build up where they were from I think the middle class missed the boat the middle class thinks chasing after white folks and getting a bigger car getting a bigger house and moving out from where you're from is a measure of its success as opposed to being able to be the link to build up where you're from and I think that message must be explicitly stated to all of our young people and to all the people who are out here doing wonderful things all right Detroit needs you come home people know about the garden block project raise your hands garden block woodward garden block woodward gardens garden theater okay see the absence of hands there okay that was a magical project an impossible project that was done by a black developer I mean it's it's a 300 car garage it's a historic building renovation where a great likes coffee is there's a new office building there's a 60-unit housing an impossible project okay then there's shine all how many people have heard of shine all everybody right so how come we don't know about that project how come we don't see the PR across for a project like that that was accomplished by a black man in the black city and did great things impossible project but it was done by a person so we don't see those examples so when you talk about young people they're gonna see shine oh they're gonna see whatever you know all these these valley through projects there in it you can look at this last month's New Yorker there's a two-page spread on shine all okay there's no two-page spread on the garden woodward garden project so we don't even we don't know about those projects or yeah well yeah the nanomedy center obviously the nanomedy center so we don't know about those projects impossible projects undertaken by good man that we're able to make it work and in spite of the prejudices that that relate to getting capital you think it was easy for these guys to get the capital to do these projects was impossible I definitely you know a hundred percent agree you know that we know there's not enough attention brought that but there's something that was just take a little step back something that very very crucial that happened between 2000 and 2010 and that was the the housing crisis the sub the subprime Linda bottle Linda bottle and I'm gonna tell you right now Detroit was hit the hardest you know across the nation and I'm you know Detroit really suffered between 2005 and 2009 Detroit was what what was the pride of Detroit second and third generation home ownership by African-American that was the pride of Detroit okay so if you have your pride taken away because of the fact there was predatory lending I mean be some of the some of the largest financial institutions right now are paying restitution you know I love what Chase is doing a hundred million that's beautiful they owe right you know because if you if you go down the list and don't get me wrong I'm you know it just is the fact I mean you go down the list what toward this city these communities up was all this predatory lending and you can't get away from that because it makes it hard for mama and daddy got to walk away from their houses see people started walking away from homes we didn't do that you know we stayed in our communities we're proud of great 221 but if you got a mortgage you wrapped up in a mortgage and all of a sudden you swim in under because of I'm sorry predatory lending was racially based but it was motivated by the fact that listen I'm getting commissioned I'm getting profit I'm getting dollars motivated by pursuing unconsciously you know how they can basically make more profit and it has been you know it's been proven out so I agree yes the call comes out they should come back home but home ain't there no more because he they walked away from the communities you know in some places they had articles written and saying actually saying that was the right thing to do and I'm so I'm not condemning anybody it's hard to see yourself you got a mortgage that if when you don't pay it it's gonna like all the sudden triple out and you know you got a property you're paying on because you financed the hill because at one time you could do that and you could send kids to Howard and you could send them off to Boston College and yet you were proud for when it is that now you caught up in this predatory lending nightmare I mean between 2000 I mean at one point we were like I said home ownership you know that was us the most 20 20 largest cities across the country and then all of a sudden we by 2009 we're the lowest see when you own your home you own your community that's pride so it's hard for you to call back and tell Johnny come on back home I ain't even got a home so I mean I'm with you on that they should come back but let's be real that it is still we are still really from that you know we are very much still really from that yes that is to me one of the biggest nightmares about this whole thing is our neighborhoods have been destabilized because if you don't have the private on your home because you couldn't afford to keep it any longer you know it really does take away from what is community I mean between again over 67,000 foreclosures you know and you know the banks do you know so for Chase I'm proud of Chase's put out the study that they did today came out that you know the partner and make sure that they they're doing a responsible thing you have to you know the apartment and make sure that they get the right training for the Detroiters so that we can as you say get re-socialized I didn't like that I didn't like that term in the list but I had a hard time with it because you know you socialize me what about socializing the people that's coming in you know so I got you there but you know that's how you got to put these people on the hook you gotta give them to commit to put dollars back in to basically help us re-enrich our communities. I got a joke in here thank you absolutely what happened in Detroit before then because I was in high school I graduated in 1998 my parents went to vote four times four times no on the casinos we saw foreclosure crisis before all of those predatory loans because the corporate government saw fit to override everything that Detroiters said no to so we had community casinos here taking people's houses well before that 2008 mark and so that just exacerbated the whole process when all of the predatory loans came in and so yeah it's heartbreaking because to take someone's rental property or investment property one thing but to take somebody's home is a wholly different thing it's a it's a psychological total deconstruction so I just I wanted to put that out there and it was a test can we override what the voters say oh we can let's bring an emergency management for the schools oh that work let's bring an emergency management for the city so there have been several attacks on the sovereignty of the people and the adequacy of the people to govern themselves and choose what's best for them in this city over the last 15 years wherever you go to in South Africa now they're attacking other Africans who were aiding them where they were in their struggle okay so that's just that nonsense that's in a handful whites have not come back hey you could care less not that many of them coming back when I was through I used to live right down the street my family here right down the street around the corner to Garfield and Garfield and Forest on brush street first through the homeless right across the street although everybody all lived together in Europe that was called a ghetto because that's where all the Jews were of course we weren't here by choice we were here by governor in real estate deal okay I guess we were the people took pride in owning our homes my grandmother and grandfather came to see my daddy's new house out in the north end after the war because we all had that blood money from the defense plan okay that those people own their homes they paid for the next generation didn't want to live there they wanted to go live somewhere else the generation of that after that they were interested in coming back to daddy and mama's home they just weren't they weren't even interested in taking over the businesses that were all black businesses then owned by mama and dad that they have worked all their lives to pay them to go to college okay now the price you're leaving out our busing you're leaving out the Detroit police department death squash we had to deal with that murdered us just like it was a death squad in one of the Central American countries we didn't do a damn thing about it some of the little brothers and sisters decide if men and blue are coming to chill you they took Richard Wright's grandfather's advice and killed them first after they started having funerals for white policemen they began to rethink it and Bannon who was the head of stress said hey this is a losing proposition there are more of them than there are us then you're leaving out the heroine epidemic okay but we kill boys something like we were telling five six hundred people a year not crackers killing us we were killing ourselves not there wasn't enough money for all those dope dealings and we have the vacancy of the epidemic that's what y'all call crackers primarily just vacancy of it and all they had to do was take that out of it and that would have made it so they couldn't use it to make that fake cocaine that would have ended that they wouldn't do that then we had the war on drugs everybody wants to ignore which is just a racist process to put as many of us in the 10th century as they could we didn't do a damn thing about it out of sight out of mind that was black people saying that not just crackers that was us we didn't want those people in our community so don't you know we gotta stop running away from what is our reality not someone else's are we have to own up and be responsible for ourselves gotta be about making choices we made my niece went like the Howard her husband left the Cornell they've lived all over the world they've lived here twice okay now they live down there in one of the Carolina God forsaken state all those like we don't want to deal with that not dealing with that we gotta talk to you about terrorism in the Middle East the terrorism is right here read Brian Stevenson's book about what's going on in the prison system about the execution of black men women and children okay and we don't do a bad thing about it nothing about it so if you don't stop running down then deal with us it's about us okay thank you thank you very much thank you very much we're gonna have to try to get some other voices in here thank you though I'm gonna ask one last question the panel then we're gonna go to the audience questions we talked about the garden development on Woodward Chris Jackson who was on the panel the last time we were here is developing a site at Woodward and I think MLK that will be black owned probably not black occupied in other words I think retail outlet that that will go in there and the housing that will go in there will probably be mostly occupied by white people we see Dennis Archer Jr. now saying he's going to open a restaurant right at campus marshes and that will be black owned but I'm sure most people in there will be white is there something to the idea that African-Americans can can participate more in the same way that we see new white investment in Detroit that will help that will help change the dynamic that will help change the dynamic for other African-Americans in the city who may not have access to the same kinds of capital or opportunity let me let me just answer or give you a perspective well you're gonna take it I'll just say in my lifetime I haven't really seen evidence that black people who have the type of wealth to do these kinds of developments generally have the welfare of the larger community at heart so this is the myth of black capitalism that if we have one two three four people who are able to foster the development of some project that somehow that benefits the rest of the community I haven't really seen that to be true and I don't want to I don't want to condemn you know all black people have money because surely there are some who have a community consciousness but for the most part what we see is that those individuals benefit their families benefit there may be a few jobs created but our community is pretty much left to language so I want to go back to a point I made earlier and that is that we have to think beyond the logic of capitalism the reality is is as long as we continue to function within a system that has structural inequalities built into it that the majority of our people are never going to prosper and so you know clearly I mean this is what we're faced with now we have to figure out how we make do how we do the best we can while we're in it but as we're looking at the long-term we need to look at how we think outside of the boundaries of the of the logic of capitalism I was going to say that there is some altruism to investment I don't want to embarrass anyone by telling getting the names out but there are people who have wanted to give back because the city has been very good to them and they wanted to give back it wasn't all about money they did it with great heroic effort but I also want to say that you know this access to capital we talk about it isn't equal I mean I and I would never pretend to say that everybody can get alone everybody can sit across from a local banker and say I'd like to have some money because I'm gonna buy a house or I'm gonna start a business or I'm gonna expand my printing shop that just isn't true I mean you it's it's hard to get money it's really hard to get money if you're in the city of Detroit it's really hard to get money for a project that you know the the market may not be here you're trying to start your starting the market you know and so there's a lot of a lot of skepticism on being able to finance projects we have a lot of atypical lenders that exist in the city to help projects move along small projects but they also have criteria it's really hard to get the money to you know the capital to move forward individually or expand your business or build buildings or anything like that and it isn't equal it isn't equal because of race it isn't equal because it's Detroit as well well I just gotta take a moment I'm sorry and this is no disrespect to my elder in the room I'm sorry I apologize I'm trying to put you on spot but I want to apologize for the term cracker it was used twice that I know that the spirit from which he came but I do want to apologize because that's not getting to the dialogue that we're having here and I just don't think that it should be just out in the air like that so I apologize to the room and for an altitude of the panel here and the level dollar would have and no disrespect so you are my my elder or or just just you're my brother but I just have to I'm sorry again I'm just apologizing because cracker don't fit in with the conversation for an exchange well when it's within that's when it comes up I just give me respect the fact that I have right to apologize because it does denigrate the dialogue we all have audience questions all right audience questions when I read the question if it's your question feel free to stand up and say it was your question alright if you don't want to do that you don't have to do that first question it feels to me that our city government and mayoral administration efforts have been striving to toward inclusion and aiming to serve and retain existing residents most of the exclusionary developments have been privately funded and operated but some of them have been have provided lots of economic and recreational opportunities for all what policies or activities need to be in place or occurring so that continued and for each future private investments in improvement with in Detroit's borders are not quote opportunistic or feel are threatening to historically disadvantaged groups in other words how do you change the effect of the investment that we're seeing anybody whose questions I think a very good place to start would be with the community benefits agreement proposal that several people have been pushing it's not an end all beyond but certainly people are coming into Detroit doing large-scale development need to I don't know if I'm gonna say be forced but yes be forced to to agree to terms that benefits the community that they're operating within and that they're making the profit from and so that that could be a starting point water so the mayor has in his purview the opportunity to shift policy so that corporations and abandoned building owners are first to be shut off as opposed to living families in the city of Detroit if you're in the city of Detroit you know you're paying high electrical bills while the rest of the country is doing things like solar energy and they're reducing the cost of living in cities taking advantage of the sun things like that we haven't gone in that direction I mean so these are areas in terms of the rebuilding the city as we talk about people coming in wouldn't it be wonderful to have us a city that's rebuilt on the back of sustainability a city that that really can take advantage of all the modern technologies we're you know we're an old city and we have old houses we have old factories and old sewers so it would really be good if the city from a policy point of view and not just the city the state the government everybody tried to you know bring us into the 21st century in terms of you know all the infrastructure and technology again the whole notion of policy and oversight if you if you tie things to you know where profit where the capital and if you have expectations and mandate that and then you have oversight and encourages transparency and I think it would as you said it's more investment that that ties to having a heart and supporting community I think large-scale business and development often talks about having a hard time navigating the city bureaucracy and I think for small business people and residents you know smaller entrepreneur really super entrepreneurial type people it is near impossible so I wish I would I would love to see a really a very real small business program for the neighborhood or residents for entrepreneurs I'm gonna ask the second question on the back of this is really good question if there was one book you would recommend to somebody to read about Detroit what would it be I always I tell some of the young people I I got hooked up with some of the VFA fellows so the kind of Ivy League people who come and in turn different businesses in the city and I always ask them to read all the hard stuff the Bible I guess the first thing came to my mind know the Bible I'm serious because it's it's it is you know life affirming and it everything new I mean I'm sure we can we can reach back and there was some gentrification going on and whatever culture and then embrace and then a plan for going forward so I mean truly I mean that's Detroit is rich with some of the the best churches in and around some of the most believing you know pastors and also into community development they incorporate that as a part of their ministry so they they preach from the Bible and the word is what guides them I just say the Bible yeah I can't say one book you know I agree the Coleman young biographies a wonderful perspective on you know where we are today and how we got here I think it's a really good book the Jane Jacobs is the like the Bible of urban America or what it should be that book is studied in almost every university in this country there's a book that's pretty obscure now it was it's called American Odyssey it's a story of Detroit up from the beginning to about 1970 something and it's a history and if we don't know the history of the city I mean we don't know how to go forward I mean the best way to move forward is really understand where we came where we've come from and where we are and move forward that that's another book I think is important understand the city Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs yeah I can't remember the name it may be something like American cities or something but that you should be able to find that I'm gonna go with one that's applicable but not necessarily only about Detroit Naomi Klein's shot doctrine and the rise of disaster capitalism there's several books one is Detroit I do mind dying which looks at the radical black labor movement that developed in Detroit in the 1960s there's another book that I read last year many people probably read which is not about Detroit specifically the warmth of other sons but gives a an overview of kind of the African-American journey and helps us put within historical context where we are today and I also would suggest that people read you self Shakur's biography because there's a whole kind of underside happening in Detroit that many people don't even know about and many of you might know of you said he was a gang leader one of the founders of the zone 8 gang and become a community on community activists who's nationally known now but kind of really hearing that story from a real grassroots community perspective I think is a story that's not often told moderators privilege and suggest origins of their been crisis which is Thompson who's the role that race and economically together in the development of Detroit as we see it now shameless but the Detroit anthology that's another good collection of collection of lots of different local writers writing about the sick Ken Coleman's today in African-American history we could go on all right next question proposal to I think I think I know what this person is referring to but when I read the question if you can stand up and make sure I'm being faithful to it that would help proposal to was a plan to eliminate inclusion how we reverse the legislature and change that policy I think the person is talking about the proposal to from 2002 I think which was the anti-informative action measure which eliminated all race-conscious policy from Michigan law I'm gonna start with Kathleen I suspect this is more up your alley than everyone I'm sorry the question you're getting was it was how do we you know there are a few that have been chosen but the majority have been strategically put out business that have access to capital that's right so until these policies change in the collective effort to say hey you know since after American women we still need those programs you know it's really is I'm not an attorney or you know but I do advocate you know for again inclusion you know and you got it it's almost like you gotta get strategic because trust me you know a lot of what led to proposal to and that's happened it was strategic I mean and it's and it's continues in the slow moving you know after prop to you know you couldn't even say that I'm really can't even say minorities Harley I mean my my cousin she's over diversity and she can't you know up at MSU and it's it changed multicultural you know so what I think and this is just my opinion what you do is you become strategic in that you try to put people say friends on the board that make the choices that you know that control the votes that say you know this project here we can we can fund this or we will you know we're behind us we'll deploy our capital you try to make sure that some of those people who are sitting at the table reflect the community that you want to see involved you know I black folk women or of any other affinity group and that's you know that's just a black and white answer I mean you know you got to have if it takes six votes you know as I said as you said Mr. Jackson who is developing is building on that he can tell you about the six-volts he taught me about that if you need six votes to get you where you need to be to get the 30 million or the 10 million or whatever it is to get a piece of this contract then some of those votes have got to be inclined you know and it's not about you know being tricky or being illegal it's about being strategic so you got to get you know you find qualified individuals who can be a part of your corral of the six-volts and then you also do as you said get out and you educate you make sure that you you know as you said you sat down with the Mr. Hans or you sit down and as much as you can you have like-minded individuals like yourself and you campaign and you you know educate those who do control the votes but there is it is that there are people who are determined that it doesn't matter that they're not gonna they're not gonna support so you got it all you do then is you start counting where do my six come from because trust me that's how it is done when you know they they are they already have their six they got encountered when they go in you know so you try your best to have them counted I mean it's a matter of I mean voting you know because some of the people who sit on these these boards also sit you know it can be part of city council you know some of the people who are you know sit on the boards of some of these major corporations and who you know also are on the investment committee you know on the boards you know they get they get voted in do you know so really that's that's I mean from where my world and my perspective perspective I that's what it comes down sometimes comes down to but you're absolutely a hundred percent right I don't I don't know how we reverse it out it's it's it is a it's the blemish on this the state you know there are like like like I could say at the state of Michigan they have there has been I know in the investment right there has been some in some movement to say well we want to make sure it's good business to be diverse it has to be just a matter of what is good you know it can't be a this all caught up in we must engage we must have set aside you know all that and so I'm really that's we have to be more strategic because you know right next door is Illinois I mean they're straight out they they legislate and they and they hold the feet to the fire I mean literally I've been to their state here hearings it's not a game I mean they they they they bring people to this is involved with investment management if they feel that they have not engaged enough with individuals that you know minorities females and doing business they will fire you know we don't have that kind of stroke you're a hundred percent right we don't have it but we do have to try to put people in those positions that might have a like mine or be willing to again cast that vote that helps you get it we did a story there was a report that came out about a year ago and it talked about you know despite the fact that we the demographic trends of the country are changing we're going we're in the browning of America so despite this this demographic change in Michigan and you look at the growing population groups Michigan is becoming a more diverse state but the number of contracts that were left especially in in construction and other Michigan state contracts the people who receive them don't reflect the the people the citizens in the state of Michigan so you know again as we think about these issues and we talk about them you know you know this is kind of a numbers game a facts game and you know it's the responsibility for media and you know people who have a microphone to again just say you know this is this is almost a common sense argument how is this even possible as we look at the demographic changes and as America becomes more brown the concentration of wealth continues in the same hands yeah I was gonna take a little bit of a moderate privilege again and give a little bit of a nerd lecture some of what what we're talking about is about the choices that were allowed to make at the ballot box and that is framed by the districts that are drawn every ten years under the census the way we do that in this state is a free-for-all whatever party is in charge in Lansing gets to draw the map and analytics and computer software are so sophisticated now that you can come up with a map that would pass constitutional muster that completely marginalizes a majority population and that's exactly what we have here in Michigan in the last congressional elections there were 200,000 more votes cast for Democrats than for Republicans and yet the split among our legislators is majority Republican that's because the districts are drawn in such a way that that Democratic voters have less say than they should anytime I bring this up people's eyes glaze over it's a very complicated issue and it's really hard to get people excited about but but changing the way that we decide how the districts will be drawn both for the state legislature and for Congress would make a huge difference in reflecting what Catherine is talking about which is that this is becoming a browner state is certainly becoming a more Democratic state it when you look at national elections the state hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1988 no one's been close why then does the congressional delegation not reflect that it's because of the way we draw those maps there's a couple people you want to you want to expand on your question I'm not sure I understand exactly I'm always troubled by questions that pit one thing is yelling say which is the most it which is I mean there's so many multiple fronts we need to we need to fight on so both of the things that you've named need to be combated I'm not really sure how to weigh that that's what some people call oppression Olympics you know which form of oppression is worse than the other I mean they're both bad and we need to be fighting against both of those right next question is there a difference between rich upper-class black starting businesses and gentrification how can pedestrians pedestrians tell the difference without a trained eye whose question is that thank you Glenn is there a difference between rich upper-class black starting businesses and gentrification I think what he's getting at is is there a distinction between maybe sort of what the question I was asking was if you see a dentist doctor junior starting a business and Chris Jackson developing a building is that different from the kind of gentrification that you're talking about that displaces me yeah go ahead explain it explain it yourself that's okay you are basically explain my question he said it doesn't have to be a political figure it'd be me like I was born and raised in Detroit I could be family of a millionaire and I might want to do something that's not too inclusive to be other demographic or wherever I want to empower or wherever and you will see that you could see that is it really a bad thing or is it straight up gentrification or is it just someone with an idea like with the training eyes it's hard to see the difference because everyone just throws a gentrification around so can you throw it on the people who are well the study I mentioned earlier look at Chicago and it looked at racial patterns of different neighborhoods and what happened with value and the reality is it really does take there's a tip and tip and point in terms of the number of white people that move to an area where it becomes the quote-unquote hot neighborhood and value really rises and it has to do really with white skin that's really all that it is there are other neighborhoods in Chicago where they looked at how upper middle class or black people moved or started businesses that the value didn't rise in the same way that that these about that gentrification reinforces segregation and that these the the rise in value that we see is related to race the Washington Post also had a really interesting series of articles earlier this year maybe late last year looking at Prince George's County which is in Maryland just outside the district which historically has been one of the wealthiest concentrations of African-Americans in in the country of course was hard hit by foreclosure and recession and has not recovered at the same rate as say Montgomery County which is next door to it which is a wider county or counties in suburban Virginia which have stronger white population so gentrification is only a non-black thing or you can you say that a black person is trying to do it for it's impossible if you're black just a bus where it's been going on forever they just want to play it that's not going to those words yeah anyone want to answer can black people be gentrifiers of course black people can be gentrifiers well I mean it turns you know when you define gentrification I mean it's you know on the positive you know it's about urban violation it's not so that that doesn't have a color to it so okay and so you know Chris Jackson or I mean I don't want to toss his name around but or just you know Dennis Archer Jr. getting his grind on and making it happen in the 7.2 7.2 mile proximity that is the hot spot in Detroit I mean that's just a part of the if they're just talking about the concentrated gentrification yeah I mean but it is no it isn't it isn't you know just about white people having or Caucasians that's why I guess I speak in terms of Detroiters you know because you know while six you know the really the concentrated area trust me it's still a lot of people brown and black that that our residents of those areas still to I mean it just you know it just came you know the study just they just came out recently that that 69% of the people that residents in that you know midtown downtown it's still primarily people of color you know so I mean it's it's you know it's the residents and then the people who come in to work that's a whole different you know they can bring in a whole different kind of hue to it but again back to what you were saying is it necessary that it's just a black person can't get it no that I mean it's it's a part of the gentrification I think what it is is more the process of not being participatory that is the concern younger people including other like them to my small community and it's actually been quote quote good for me that the white people moved in because my property comes in on that you know if you have to be someone that have been renting in that area near why you're in trouble because the rents are going through for now so you know it's an interesting thing we have to talk amongst even amongst ourselves in the black people about our class issues even when we love our own people and I was reminded of something you know I'm going to say is Danny Goldman years ago I read some very nice little couple that was profiled in black enterprise and they bought a brown stone in Parliament and it was in terrible condition and they had some I'm sure black or brown people that were living there and they were so euphemistically quote quote nice about how they were able to get these people out about the point was that they needed to get them out of this building so they could put their middle class under middle class dollars into a real estate in this place and I'm sure it's a few of the properties probably worth a fortune or well over a million dollars now but those poor black folks that had lived there for all these years who had been renting there they you know so there are like by the same skin you know the same but we got to talk about the class issues also yeah I think race is often a cover for class and you know we have so many multi-layered ways of distinguishing one from the other and who's good enough to be valued in a conversation who's good enough to live in a certain place that it gets really muddy so to the point of the young man who just asked the previous question I just want to say no you can't be it's like being a black white supremacist sure you can have those ideas but the system isn't in place to enforce it in the same way you will not get the same benefit as someone who looks differently from you because we're several generations into seeing race and class as tied in this larger scheme of things but absolutely class now when we get to class though class doesn't necessarily tie to money ties to a mentality how do you speak to your children what do you value what are you leaving as a legacy are you able to perceive your existence as further than just what is in front of you for this week so you know we have like so many layers going on and so many struggles because a lot of classes and some people don't like to be called working class or lower middle or whatever the current labels are but so many people are in crisis remediation period from crisis to crisis to crisis that there is no time to save or time to repair or to to input energy into things that would correlate with education if they were in a different situation or a different city you know so I think you know it's it's super multi-layered but no black people are not displacing other black people bottom line they can talk alright last question where's some artist programs initiatives that are actively battling gentrification and how can I as an artist be involved who whose question is that that was me last month how can artists help battle gentrification that's what my mic's for last question well first of all as Elima said by many me part of gentrification you know we can say you know people are joining it but if you if you're joining midtown now or downtown now you're not really gentrifying you're just joining a movement it's already been done you know you have to be the part of the people who really come in to do that historically African people never will look go towards what looks like poverty I mean it's not part of it is historically from being enslaved because if you were enslaved first thing you wanted to do is not look like you were enslaved because you could be taken back into enslavement so that's the first thing so those conditions still exist so are we just going to go into different communities and take them over because we already in the community so why can't we do that because it's very difficult and you got to think about that what I'm always saying purpose of these conferences and the panels is to have us have this dialogue because I think it's about empowering it's not like you don't necessarily want to fight gentrification as such it's like if you're concerned about it get 10 of you there's a neighborhood with 10 vacant houses in it each one of you get a house $500 you know and we can tell you where these houses are get a house start working on them that's how you fight it if you think it's wrong what you do is you become a contributor and you can really do that we had Kate you know Kate Dowdy I think it's Kate Dowdy she's an artist and she got a house and is in Detroit on the Hamtremic border Doctor Kate oh yes but Kate got $500 house as I said in that first panel I said Kate I can visit but I couldn't live here alright but the thing about it Kate is buying up another house getting a cousin to buy another house so what happens is now in a few months you go over there and everyone is going to be saying damn I wish I had done this see they came and took over the house but you don't know that Kate living in a house that didn't have nothing in it it's like got a little wood burning stove that she put in herself that's the things that we have to do and you can't do that but you have to be able to make that type of sacrifice in America it is time to make those sacrifices because is it not your parents Buick anymore you're not going to be living like your parents or grandparents anymore but George let me ask you though if this is the same Kate that I know she has the farm she's the artist yes there are people who have also done fundraisers for Kate that will really help Kate stay in that space and be comfortable and grow and I'm not saying that we can't do the same let her finish let her finish I am not I all do respect that's wonderful really