Monday, 10 May 2010

Well, That's Helping Detroit, I'm Sure...

Susana Adame in 'CiF' thinks that the headlines predicting doom and gloom for Detroit are not helping:
Nobody I know in Detroit is happy about such headlines. I mentioned Requiem for Detroit? to several different groups of people I work, organise and am friends with, and got universal disgust.
Is Detroit that bad? Well, the city's collection of once grand, now abandoned houses, documented at David Thompson's blog, tells the tale.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no shortage of organising for change in Detroit. Even Requiem recognised this by pointing to the urban gardening system that Detroit is growing famous for. These gardens came about as a community-driven response to the lack of grocery stores in Detroit (there is not one major grocery chain, although a regional grocery chain recently announced that it would begin construction soon) and an overwhelming number of burned-out, abandoned lots in the city.
Hmmm, burned out lots, grocery stores unwilling to come to the city, sounds awful. Who is to blame for this, then?
After the city refused to clean up or maintain them, local people took them over and built garden plots on them.
Oh. Of course. It's 'the city'.

Not the people, although Susana wants to claim credit for the other people doing something to alleviate it.

What people does she blame, anyway?
More and more, however, these garden systems are no longer being built by local community members out of necessity, but by middle-class white folks that are actively gentrifying the city, going on record claiming not to understand why their working-class black neighbours aren't helping. What started as a community-driven response to a very basic need is fast becoming an ideology that is in many places being imposed on a city population that just doesn't have the time or resources to help implement it.
It's not fair! Those awful white middle-classes, cleaning up the city! *stamps feet*

Pay no attention to the fact that Susana is a little melanin-challenged herself. And as for her work...

Well, let's let Susana tell us in her own words what she's doing to make Detroit a better place for its benighted, hapless citizens:
I work at a small community-driven acupuncture clinic that offers affordable treatments in an attempt to specifically reach working-class communities.
/facepalm

15 comments:

  1. Those white people are so selfish aren't they? This is only proof that "the local community" have a large chip on their shoulder.

    She looks like a greasy haired socialist. She's "attractive".. meow :)

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  2. That punch line is glorious. Thanks for the laugh our loud, Julia :)

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  3. It really is difficult to know where to start unravelling that farrago of twaddle.

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  4. And this heroic adventure in "community-driven acupuncture" is reaping dividends...

    "What started out as a paying job for me soon had to transition to a services barter - I help around the clinic and with media promotion, and the owner gives me free acupuncture."

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  5. For a huge portion of people in Detroit, this (acupuncture) clinic is their only source of healthcare services, since they have no insurance and cannot afford the fees of a doctor's office.

    Hurrah for socialism. Imagine if people who believed in nonsense like creationism ran the city.

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  6. community driven=left wing; "market driven"=right wing

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  7. What I find interesting is the growth of bartering. Clearly the normal economy has virtually collapsed. Bartering is a form of free trade. It is a form that grew in Eastern Europe as the communist system atrophied. Clearly bartering cannot be taxed or controlled by the government. It is part of the black economy.

    Yet she cannot see that it is the dead hand of government that is the problem. That removing the government might give people the space to lift themselves out of the mess.

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  8. "Community-driven" acupuncture is as about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

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  9. Foxy Brown,

    Any form of acupuncture is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

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  10. That would be the Chicago that is in receipt of more State aid than any other city in America?
    Love the community acupuncture bit, that woman clearly has no sense of the ridiculous.

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  11. Why is it always the areas of mass unemployment in which the locals simply "do not have the time or resources" do lift a finger to help themselves. And why is it always genuinely hard-working busy people who end up mucking in to get things established, only to get vilified as "middle class" interlopers afterwards.
    Funny that....

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  12. Of course you have to be racist to care about what colour people are doing, or not doing, anything.

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  13. Acupuncture eh? That's like sticking needles in your skin, right? Oh, yeah - that's vital to living a normal life. Why, I'd just fall apart if I didn't get my weekly accupuncture session.

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  14. "This is only proof that "the local community" have a large chip on their shoulder. "

    On the contratry, Sue, they are very well balanced. They seem to have chips on both shoulders!

    "Thanks for the laugh our loud, Julia :)"

    Laughing is just about the only response to have when you read this sort of thing. I can't help thinking someone's robbing 'The Daily Mash' of a good article, though!

    "And this heroic adventure in "community-driven acupuncture" is reaping dividends... "

    I'd be equally hapy to give this lady acupuncture free. The needles would be a trifle on the large side, though...

    "community driven=left wing; "market driven"=right wing"

    Quite!

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  15. "That would be the Chicago that is in receipt of more State aid than any other city in America?"

    Yes, making the 'it needs more resources!' but in the subheading a bit of a cheek...

    "Of course you have to be racist to care about what colour people are doing, or not doing, anything."

    These days, it's hard to figure out what counts as racism. Ignore colour, don't ignore colour...

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