Welcome to Detroit
This statement was drafted for the 2007 AMC as we prepared to move the conference to Detroit from its location of eight years, Bowling Green, Ohio. Drafted by Will Copeland, Jenny Lee, Mike Medow, rachel parsons, and Joshua Breitbart.
When Detroiters talk about our problems, we often blame the corporate media for projecting a negative picture and causing people to lose faith in the city. Detroit's worst problems of poverty and violence are often emphasized in corporate news reporting. Films like Robocop and The Crow have used Detroit as an icon of post-apocalyptic collapse. We have been victimized by images.
But we have the capability to take charge of our images. We can use media to project a new image of what is possible, to tell the stories beneath the surface, and to forge new connections with one another. The 2007 Allied Media Conference is a unique opportunity for us to reflect on what independent media means to a city like Detroit.
Eclipsed only recently by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Detroit has been a national and international symbol of the urban crisis of deindustrialization and abandonment. As U.S. politicians and multinational corporations try to sell economic globalization as progress, the experience of Detroit demonstrates how tenuous is their promise of unlimited prosperity. Today a new wave of downtown development is covering up some of the city's problems. But the continuing presence of boarded-up stores and abandoned houses, closed and closing factories, a deteriorating school system, and ongoing street violence tell us that new ideas are needed.
Today many Detroiters are engaged in a process of developing a new way for revitalization that is not overly dependent on corporations or government. Visitors are often surprised by how open and friendly Detroiters are. People in the city recognize that in order for us to make it, we must do it together.
But there remain major barriers, physical and mental, that we have to overcome if we are to get to new ways of thinking and new strategies of organizing for change. Political divisions, policies of racism and reactions of mistrust, class divisions, struggles between U.S. citizens and immigrants—today'’s social activists are working to bridge these divides while creating a new vision of the city’s possibilities.
The Summer of 2007 marks the 40th anniversary of Detroit's "Great Rebellion" of 1967. A reaction to years of segregation, racist policies and violence against Black Detroiters, the uprising resulted in a Black political and cultural takeover coupled with accelerated white flight, the removal of capital and investment from the city. Today, the Black/white framing of the city is similar: 8 Mile Road, the border between the city and the Oakland County suburbs is a border between the potential candidate for “murder capital” and runner-up for richest county in the US.
Once a city of 2 million, Detroit's population is now under 900,000. With fewer and fewer available job options, many college graduates are fleeing Michigan, Detroit in particular.
Who is in Detroit? Is it only those who can't afford to get out? Or those with visions that another world is possible, that another society must be created?
The city is definitely home to both. And it is hungry for new ways forward.
If we are to make it, we need to break down the barriers that separate and isolate us. We need truth and reconciliation, to understand how things came to be as they are, to understand each other and our journeys. Our media, as our means of communication, of self-representation, of telling our history, and of organizing, will continue to be a vital tool in this struggle. We welcome Allied Media Conference participants to share in an exchange of new strategies and visions.
As we build towards the 2007 Allied Media Conference, we stand on the shoulders of rich social justice traditions that have emerged from the city: from Labor in the 30's and 40's, to Civil Rights and Black Power in the 60's and 70's, to the 80's, when Detroit political leaders supported South Africa divestment, nuclear disarmament, and built ties to anti-imperialist struggles in Central and South America. Detroit is a movement city and continues to forge new, powerful models of community organizing under challenging conditions.
MORE DETROIT INFO
Detroit's history of independent media Getting to Detroit Getting around Detroit Places to stay Places to eat
