I have seldom been as pessimistic about the future of our state as I am now, thanks to the Detroit Zoo crisis.
That’s not because of the threat that the zoo might close. I am pretty sure that in the end, a way will be found to save it.
The zoo in fact is one of the few bright spots about the Detroit area; it is a far better place than it was in the city’s glory days.
But whatever happens to it, what may be more significant is how close to the surface are our deep distrusts and racial hatreds.
I’m not all that distressed that the mayor dropped the supposed zoo transfer plan on the council at the last minute, and then, in a spectacularly insensitive move, took off for a junket in Africa.
Even the city council’s silly and immature decision to reject the zoo’s transfer to the Detroit Zoological Society wasn’t the worst legislative decision in the history of the human race.
The problem lies in why they did it, and what was said afterwards. Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins bizarrely explained her vote by saying “This is not a plantation. Black people are no longer owned by white people.” L. Brooks Patterson, the Oakland County executive, quickly climbed into the mud with her to proclaim that he would rather own a 1948 Buick than own Barbara-Rose Collins.
That’s what passes for political debate these days. What that exchange makes clear is that too many blacks in Detroit hate, distrust and fear whites in general and the suburbs in particular. And too many whites regard the city and its leaders with utter contempt.
I talked to a suburban mother of two yesterday who was appalled at Council member JoAnn Watson’s call for Detroiters to boycott suburban stores. “Does she know how happy we would be if they stayed out of our neighborhoods?” Then she stopped, appalled. “This is what happens to every generation, isn’t it? They just get exasperated and give up.”
Yes. And we all suffer a little more for it. Thirty years ago, we had a governor who tried to do something about it. He was a Republican from Traverse City named William Milliken, who worked hard to help Detroit for the benefit of the entire state. Nobody else has done that since. Detroit is in appalling shape these days, and most of those who could afford to leave have left.
Yet somehow we still don’t understand that we are all in this together. Detroiters need to recognize that what remains of their city cannot make it economically on its own.
Everyone in Michigan needs to recognize that we can never compete successfully as Detroit is a bleak ghetto containing hundreds of thousands of ever more desperate and impoverished people.
If we don’t do something about that, it won’t really matter what we do about the zoo. Because to the rest of the nation, we will be the zoo.
Tragic so many people outside of the city have contempt for anything in Detroit. No one in the media certainly not has dared to question the management track record of the Zoological Society it is given for many it is a well run outfit... of course those doubts are only for those balck folks who managed the city's business interests..
Posted by: Greg Thrasher | March 01, 2006 at 10:18 PM