Finley: Metro Detroit, let's move into future together
Excerpted from remarks to last week's Detroit Regional Chamber policy conference.
Just after I wrote the first column asking where are the black people in downtown Detroit, I did an interview with an urban radio station, and the host said to me, on air, that the column surprised a lot of people. A lot of folks think you're a racist, he said. Are you a racist?
That's an unsettling question to face on a live broadcast, and I felt a bit like Scott Walker. Even people who wear white sheets on the weekends wouldn't answer yes. But it's typical of the response I've received as I've been raising questions about the lack of African-American participation in Detroit's revival.
For two years I've been puzzling over the absence of blacks in the hot and hip new downtown nightspots.
I've come to expect that wherever I go these days, everyone will be younger than me. What I don't expect, in a city that is 83 percent black, is to be in a crowded Detroit establishment and have nearly everyone be as white as me.
With the country simmering in the racial resentment stemming from the incidents in Ferguson and New York City, my concern is that we are creating conditions in Detroit that could lead us to that same place.
Everyone is working too hard, investing too much money and energy into this long-awaited revival, to have it derailed by hostility over the emergence of Two Detroits — one white and hopeful in a soaring downtown, and the other black and desperate and trapped in devastated neighborhoods.
Although there are some institutional causes, I don't believe this has evolved intentionally. But we must be intentional in our response.
We have to be more conscious of inclusion when we put together groups and organizations to support Detroit's comeback. We have to examine whether we have enough African-American involvement in development decisions, or participating in venture capital efforts.
We have to be honest about the role the failed education system plays in limiting the ability of Detroiters to fill the types of jobs being created downtown. At the same time, we must realize that a diverse downtown starts with a diverse workforce, and work harder at recruitment and training.
We also must challenge black professionals and business owners who've left the city to be a part of this new beginning.
And we have to be mindful in rebuilding neighborhoods that we aren't pushing out longstanding businesses and residents.
So why does a white, conservative commentator care that you could sit in a restaurant in downtown Detroit and think you're in downtown Minneapolis? For the same reason you should.
This is about business, as much as anything else. Racial tension and resentment are bad for business.
The investments being made in Detroit will grow faster in a healthy, harmonious community.
We are building a new Detroit. Let's not build into it the same flaws that helped bring down the old Detroit.
As we move into a brighter Detroit future, let's commit to move there together.
"Uniting the two Detroits"
Join us online at detroitnews.com on Monday at noon for a chat with Nolan Finley about what can be done to make the region more inclusive.