I ask that you pause for a moment and reflect on how we got to this place in time, this financial dilemma.  Many pin it on Mayor Bing and the Council or even on the former mayor; however, we must look back to the 1950s when the city of Detroit began to change.  A population of approximately two million began to decrease for a number of reasons.  This same two million served as a substantial tax base (revenue) and contributed to the vibrancy of neighborhoods and businesses.  Highways allowed Whites to work in the city and then leave to a suburban home 20-25 minutes away.  My father was a perfect example of this practice.  He practiced law in the Guardian Building and then drove his car up the Lodge to our home in Southfield.  The advent of the shopping mall-Northland-began the retail exodus from the city.  It is in the 1950s that the process of segregation takes full flight.  The FHA’s discriminatory lending practices and restrictive covenants denied African-Americans the same housing opportunities as Whites.  While Mayor Bing and this Council as well as their predecessors bear some of the responsibility for today’s financial collapse of the city, it is institutional and structural policies and practices that serve as the foundation for today’s financial woes.  Folks outside the city, suburban White folks like me, need to understand this piece of the city’s history.  This is the foundation for the city’s decline.

That said, we are out of time when it comes to fixing the city.  The city needs cash and a stable plan going forward.  The management model needs to change.  Due to some of the history described above, the city’s revenue stream simply cannot support an infrastructure that was once established to support two million people.  Don’t point fingers.  Let’s work to bring about the needed solutions.

I’m the product of the Detroit suburbs. For most of my life I had heard horror stories about Detroit; how my father had been robbed and his car stolen several times. But those things seemed distant to me. Hell, what did I have to worry about on the mean streets of 23 Mile?! But to understand my snarky humor about the city-suburb dichotomy, you have to know a little about where and who I come from.

My parents came to Detroit in the 70s as refugees seeking political asylum. With the “American Dream” finally within reach, my parents were able to find work on the assembly lines at General Motors, even with their limited English skills. Since then, they have switched careers and moved a number of times: from Detroit, to Pontiac, to Waterford and finally to Rochester Hills where they currently reside.

With just a quick glimpse of these city names, it is immediately clear just how enmeshed my parents’ immigrant story is with the history of race and housing in Metro Detroit. The immigrant story is rarely, if ever told in this context. My parents left the city in search of safer neighborhoods, better education, and ultimately a better life for their children. Arguably there were some systemic factors that pushed them out, but they also left to find a community where they could be close to people who spoke their language and stores that carried familiar foods. Furthermore, the growing anti-Asian sentiment that did nothing to convince them to stay, especially after what happened to Vincent Chin. My dad recalled feeling unwanted and afraid of what could possibly happen if they remained in Detroit. Tragically, because of their lived experiences, I had learned to internalize a fear of Detroit and for many years never stepped foot in the city.

But my parents are wrong (can we talk about the Asian kid complex I’m having right now even typing that?!). For reasons that are too many to hash out here, I eventually landed a job in Detroit at the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity & Inclusion. I get to work with some of the most amazing youth in our region and in the past year, they’ve taught me a thing or two about Detroit, real talk. Instead of finding the despair that was synonymous with Detroit in my childhood, I found hope, innovation, and a sense of community that I have yet to see anywhere else. My fear is gone.

This is just a glimpse into my truth, a truth that needs to be told and heard. With the establishment of the Metro Detroit Truth & Reconciliation Commission, I’m excited about the hidden truths yet to be discovered. With these truths we can start the healing process so that people like my parents and people who grew up like me can live the possibilities if we start within ourselves and work together in our region.

For more information about this important project visit www.miroundtable.org/race2equityconference.

It’s odd that FFA claims that the show hides the “danger to American liberties and traditional values” when in fact the show demonstrates the opposite.  It seems to me that the fear of the FFA lies in the fact that the television program demonstrates that Muslim families are no different than you and me in how they go about their daily lives.  From what I read about the show, it is no different than the other reality shows that depict the everyday lives of women on the Jersey shore, the Kardashians or the Reverend Run and his family.  It scares this conservative group that the rest of the country will discover that Muslim families are law-abiding citizens that care for the same issues that you and I do-the education of their children, worship, paying a mortgage.  The show demonstrates all that we have in common, what brings us together, and not what divides us.

The troubling aspect of this story is Lowe’s cowardly behavior.  Instead of standing up, they take a seat.  Instead of speaking up and for the Muslim community, they revert to the dialogue that only reinforces what groups and individuals like the FFA spew.  Hopefully, the public discussion occurring today may draw more viewers to the show, and after viewing the program, create more allies and supporters for the Muslim community.  This is the time for all of us who believe in the goodness of humankind, whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Baha’i, to stand up for our Muslim brothers and sisters.  Many have called for a boycott of Lowe’s stores or pulling out any investment one’s 401(k) may have in Lowe’s.  The strategy of the FFA may in fact backfire upon them.   Both solid actions; however, we need to continue to educate one another on the issues regarding cultural competency.  We need to continue to reach out to one another with some intentionality and purpose.  If we don’t, then we only endorse the actions of Lowe’s and the FFA in a different fashion.

Do you think about the schools your children attend, your access to quality medical treatment, your reliance on reliable public transportation or simply your safety as you walk through you neighborhood.  For many of us, privileged folk, we never, never need to think of the answers to these questions.  It never enters our mind.  

 Where a person lives should not determine how he or she lives, or if he or she lives.  The reality is that place matters. 

 The history of housing in Detroit is grounded in institutional and structural racism.  Beginning in 1934, the Federal Housing Administration began a systematic practice of “redlining”, that is, the practice of not guaranteeing loans in areas where people of “Ethiopian descent” resided.  That phrase is taken directly from the FHA manual.  Redlining along with restrictive covenants and steering by realtors prevented African-Americans from living in white areas, in areas of prosperity and growth.  We even have a wall near Eight Mile and Wyoming that divided White and Black neighborhoods.  So while we in the North watched fire hoses and dogs being used on our Black brothers and sisters in the South, we were using our laws, policies and courts to prevent people of color from gaining access and opportunity to a home and a better life.  Let’s think about what that piece of the American dream-home ownership-gets one.  Over 75% of people’s wealth is in their home.  At one time, we could borrow against it for home improvements or to send a child to college or bequeath it to our children so that any one of them could have a home or the value of it.  That was not possible for African-Americans here.

 So let’s circle back to my opening questions.  Where you live determines the quality of education for your children.  It determines your child’s safety as he or she attends school.  Reflecting back on this court decision, one can only wonder how the quality of education has been affected in Detroit.  What would it look like today?  At a re-enactment of this momentous case at Thomas M. Cooley Law School last Fall, a group of Central High School students attending asked, “If one vote was cast differently, you mean I may have had a better educational opportunity?”

 Interestingly, we are having this debate again today. Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed to allow any Michigan student to attend any public school in Michigan. Given the major moves in Lansing to erase all sorts of so-called “local control” issues, this should not be controversial.

 But it has. And, quite frankly, those opposed to are doing verbal backflips to avoid speaking the real reason for their opposition. Just as in the 1970s, they don’t want black kids in their schools. End of story.

 Access to quality housing and education go hand in hand.  This region, so divided by housing segregation, and now by education segregation, will not return to prosperity unless we create access and opportunity for all.  We need to move away from thinking that if one group is uplifted, then I must be losing something, or I am in some way negatively impacted.  Instead, the thought must be that we are all uplifted. 

 I use history, not to blame or point fingers.  I use history to illuminate the present.  In the words of Professor john powell at The Ohio State University, “Our fates are linked, and our futures are common”.   That is the simple answer, but the task is daunting.

 When all the trees have been

cut down,

when all the animals have been hunted,

when all the waters are polluted,

when all the air is unsafe to breathe,

only then will you discover you

cannot eat money.

-Cree prophecy

Dave Cooper in his essay, The Mountaintop Removal Road Show, asks this question, “How do you elevate a regional issue like mountaintop removal mining into an issue of national concern?”  The purpose of this piece is to provide an accurate portrayal of how mountaintop removal mining has negatively impacted the people of Appalachia and the surrounding environment, while also aiming to educate and create advocates for the citizens of Appalachia.  

In a region historically known for its deep mining of coal, Appalachia, and primarily Central Appalachia (WV, VA, TN, KY), has turned to the practice of mountaintop removal mining (MTR). It is a form of strip mining that was prevalent in the 1970’s.

The US Environmental Protection Agency defines mountaintop removal as follows:

Mountaintop removal/valley fill is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal. Mountaintop removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of the summit to get at buried seams of coal. The earth from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys. 

The waste from the mining operation is called overburden or valley fill and is dumped into nearby valleys, burying and/or polluting streams. It is estimated that over 500 mountaintops have been destroyed transforming 1.4 million acres.  Over 2,000 miles of streams have been buried with debris.  There are over 2,500 miles of polluted streams in Kentucky alone. (Mining Coal, Mounting Costs:  The Life Cycle Consequences of Coal, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School, January 2011.)

After the coal is washed, the excess water left over from this process is called coal slurry or sludge and is stored in open coal impoundments. Alternatively, sometimes the slurry is injected into abandoned underground mines.  (Look What They’re Doing to Our Mountains, Foster, B.L. & Rich, C.  Washingtonian, 43(12), 76-83, 112-116 (2008).  Coal sludge is a mix of water, coal dust, clay and toxic chemicals such as arsenic mercury, lead, copper, and chromium. Impoundments are held in place by mining debris, making them very unstable. (www.ilovemountains.org)   Mining Coal reports that MTR produces 130 million tons of waste annually and that there have been 53 reported spills between the years 1972-2008.

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) requires that the areas that have been mined in this manner be reclaimed or restored.  The sites are required to be returned to the “approximate original contour” under Section 515(b)(3) of SMCRA.  Many times this doesn’t happen and when it does it is not in any way similar to what the mountain appeared as prior to the blasting.  Much of it looks like scrub grass with little or no forestation.  The rich topsoil and nutrients went with the blasting.  Reclamation efforts are not enough to prevent the flooding of communities due to soil erosion.

What does all this mean to those who live in the wake of mountaintop removal mining?  It changes their lives in all the worst ways forever.  The beauty of the place they have called home for generations is destroyed.  The gorgeous mountains do not re-generate themselves.  Flora and fauna indigenous to this part of the country are destroyed or impaired.  Streams to fish and swim are polluted.  Appalachia contains over 250 species of birds and over 75 species of mammals. Additionally, it is home to 58 species of reptiles and 76 amphibians.  There are 55 species of salamanders and 21 are endemic to the region and known for nowhere else (www.discoverlife.org, J. Pickering, The Appalachians, pages 458-467 of Conservational International. 

Drinking water contains so many harmful chemicals that it is unsafe to drink and bathe.  Residents live with noise and dust from the blasting, cracked foundations and loss of well water from damaged water tables and pollutants (Research in Appalachia:  What are the Impacts of Mining the Mountains?, The Clifford M. Lewis, S.J. Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University).  Soil erosion causes flooding and puts communities at risk.  The quality of air is forever changed.  Coal dust and its harmful particulates are released in the air where people live, work and play.  Respiratory illnesses have increased.  Children cannot play outside.  Homes are covered in black coal dust.  Roads become unsafe because of the continuous flow of coal truck traffic.  Many an accident has occurred as a result of a truck driver speeding to get that one last load in by the end of the day or a driver falling asleep at the wheel.  The excessive tonnage crumbles roads and renders them unsafe as well.  This all occurs in the name of coal.

The impact on the health and life expectancy of those who live there are best summarized as follows:

These illnesses (chronic forms of heart, respiratory, and kidney disease, as well as lung cancer) are consistent with a hypothesis of exposure to water and air pollution from mining activities.  There is evidence that the coal mining industry is a significant source of air and water pollution.  Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions:  The Value of Statistical Life Lost, Public Health Reports, July-August 2009, vol. 124, p.547.

At the core of the Clean Water Protection Act is the prevention of dumping mining waste into streams.  Most mountaintop removal cannot proceed without the practice of dumping waste.  To do otherwise, increase the company’s cost of removal and reduces its profits.  The Other Side of the Light Switch, Mary Anne Hitt, Coal Country:  Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining, p. 163. 2009.   What happens to the steams is a result of dumping the valley fill as mentioned earlier.  The valley fills lead to increased sedimentation in surface water runoff.  The elevated amounts of sedimentation reduce the levels of oxygen for all the living organisms found in those streams.  Bottom line, it alters the quality of the water.  Bringing Down the Mountains:  The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities, p.120-122, Shirley Stewart Burns (2007).  In 2000 a study showed that MTR had a “profound” negative effect on aquatic resources.  Burns, p. 128. 

A January 2010 study in Science magazine pointed out that groundwater samples from domestic supply wells have higher levels of mine-derived chemicals than well water from unmined areas.  Mountaintop Mining Consequences, vol. 327, p. 148.  The study further states that human health impacts may come from contact with steams or exposure to airborne toxins and dust. 

In his New York Times opinion, author and activist, Silas House writes:

Over the past six years I’ve visited dozens of people who live at the edge of mountaintop removal sites.  They bathe their children in water that has arsenic levels as high as 130 times what the E.P.A. deems safe to drink.

With these well-known and publicized facts, statistics and research, why don’t we end mountaintop removal mining and seek alternative fuel supplies?  That is easier said than done.  Coal accounts for approximately 50% of our electricity.  It is a cheap product to extract and coal mining rakes in exorbitant amounts of revenue for coal companies.  Coal has a stranglehold on the communities in which it is mined.  To speak out against coal and/or MTR, is dangerous to one’s livelihood and safety.  The coal industry equates coal to jobs, family, apple pie and the U.S.A.!  If you are against MTR, you are against these very ideals.  Sadly, some of the poorest counties in America reside in places where coal companies take out the most in profits.  The late Judy Bonds, anti-MTR activist once asked, “If coal is so good, then why are us hillbillies so poor?”

To return to the question first posed by Dave Cooper, “How does one elevate a regional issue to a national one?”  We must educate ourselves on the issue, acknowledge the harm and consequences if it is continued, and take action to bring about the end to mountaintop removal mining.

The reason we all need to fight for others, for those citizens of Appalachia and the land they call “home”, is best remembered in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

 All over the nation, businesses large and small are recognizing the value of diversity and inclusion. GM, Ford, General Electric – almost the entire Fortune 100 – have in place affirmative action policies that have been prohibited in Michigan. So do leading private universities around the state and nation.

 Those organizations have adopted those policies for two reasons:

1. They work. They make them better, more efficient, and more able to operate in today’s increasingly diverse global communities.
2. They are realists. Corporate and university leaders use affirmative action as a tool to ensure that all aspects of potential hires and enrollees are considered – so the outcomes of their businesses will be maximized.

 Let’s look at the first point.

 When I visit with businesses and schools, I often ask “Do you have all the talent you need? Do you have all of the best and the brightest?”

       Of course, the answer is, “No.”  Casting a wider net for the best and brightest only makes our businesses and schools recruit, hire and retain the most creative, talented folks. 

University of Michigan Professor Scott Page has written a rigorously researched book, “The Difference,” that shows how progress and innovation depends less on lone thinkers with big IQs or good test scores than on having a group of qualified but diverse people working together and using their experiences and backgrounds to come up with superior outcomes.

 That’s the reason corporations and most major private universities around the nation use affirmative action to help ensure that from the large pool of highly qualified candidates for key jobs they select people with a diversity of experiences and viewpoints to operate their companies and fill their student bodies.

 They know they have to do this because they understand the real nature of the world we live in. They know that racial and gender discrimination is still a daily fact of life in America and in Michigan. Indeed, the Michigan Roundtable’s annual poll about attitudes toward discrimination in 2010 showed that only 10 percent of voters say that racial discrimination is a “thing of the past,” while 57 percent of African American voters say racial discrimination continues all of the time or frequently.

 Affirmative action programs are the most powerful tool yet developed to overcome discrimination in America. Proposal 2 took that tool away from state and local governments in Michigan.

Supporters of Proposal 2, like Attorney General Bill Schuette, overlook discrimination. In quickly announcing plans to appeal the federal court decision, Schuette stated that Proposal 2 “embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about: equal opportunity under the law.”

“Under the law” is very different than “in the real world.” “Under the law” means words, like the words written by slave owners in 1776, “All men are created equal.” Just because someone said those words didn’t mean all women and men WERE equal. And just because those who wish to overlook discrimination want to use the words “equal opportunity under law” doesn’t mean we have equal opportunity in the real world.

It’s no surprise that white and black attitudes toward racial discrimination are so different, or that women view gender discrimination as more prevalent than do men. When many of our overwhelmingly white, male political leaders look at the issue of affirmative action, they look at through a lens of ignorance. They are not venial; they just choose to remain blind to the racism and gender discrimination that runs through our world today. If you look at discrimination through the eyes of a person of color, or a woman, you see a very different world.

A rational affirmative action program – not any kind of quota, but an insistence that we look past test scores to look at all of the value applicants for a university, a job or a contract can bring to the position at hand – is a smart way to help bring us closer to creating equal opportunity for all.

 It’s so smart that many of our most profitable businesses use affirmative action every day.

Beck’s additional comments are interesting.  He is quoted as saying, “These people were some of the most hateful people I’ve ever seen. All I wanted to do was watch a movie in the park. I have a right to watch and enjoy a movie in the park,” Beck says. “If I had suggested ‘Does anybody have a rope? Because there’s a tree here. You could just lynch me.’ I think there would’ve been a couple in the crowd that would’ve.”

I agree that Beck and his family are entitled to watch and enjoy a movie in the park.  However, his lynching comments are disrespectful to the many African-Americans who were terrorized since the days of slavery with whippings, beating and lynchings by whites.  His comments exhibit a serious lack of knowledge of, and insensitivity to history.  Beck has no concept regarding the truth about race in America.

Even after the physical ”lynchings” ended, people of color have been harmed through structures and institutions put in place by those who are privileged and in power.  Housing opportunities were non-existent for African-Americans because of the discriminatory lending practices of the FHA.  Even today, African-Americans and Hispanics bear the brunt of predatory lending practices and the foreclosure crisis.  Think about it.  Where you live determines your access to housing, safety, jobs, education and health care.  Our criminal justice system has been tilted so that black and brown young men fill our prisons in disproportionate numbers to their respective populations.  Read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow for a more in-depth analysis.  Access to health care is limited and disparities in the treatment of people of color remains an issue.   Beck states that the people in the park were some of the most hateful people.  Does he listen to his own show?  Tim Wise points out that in Beck’s comments around the time of the passage of health care reform Beck claimed that our President’s health care plan was a way to get African-Americans reparations.  Not only is his comment hateful, but ludicrous.  Imagine someone wanting to get seriously ill so that she or he can collect on it. 

This is a time when one needs to take off the lens in which he or she views the world, and instead looks through the lens of “the other”.

 The key to unlocking a more prosperous future for Michigan is retaining and attracting the most talented, educated young people from all walks of life to live and work in our state.  Last week’s decision by the Michigan Senate to overturn a ruling of the Michigan Civil Service Commission and deny benefits to live-in partners perpetuates discrimination against Michigan’s gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community and takes the state a step in the wrong direction.

 Diversity and inclusion are more important than ever to succeed in today’s economy. Our state is experiencing a critical transition, moving from a factory-based economy to a knowledge-based economy. Live-in partner benefits, which were scheduled to begin Oct. 1 for some state employees in Michigan, are offered in ten states, by many local governments and at more than 700 major corporations — including a majority of the Fortune 500. This decision of Michigan’s Legislature decreases the quality of benefits offered to public employees when other states are moving to improve them.

 Worse, it signals to talented gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender individuals around the nation and the world that Michigan is “closed for business” to them. Given a chance to play a role in building the economy in an open-minded state committed to equality for all, or in a state such as Michigan, which are they more likely to choose?

 The agreement to offer health benefits to unrelated adults living in the same household was approved by the Commission in January. This was an agreement negotiated under the previous administration. The Michigan Senate was urged by Governor Rick Snyder to vote against the benefits. A similar resolution to strike down the Commission’s decision is pending in the Michigan House of Representatives.

 Gov. Snyder’s white paper on retaining youth, posted on his website during his 2010 campaign said:

 Rick believes we need to create networks, programs, and environments across Michigan that will cause our young people to want to stay in this state. His experience has given him an understanding of how Michigan can retain and attract young talent.

 We are looking to the Governor and Michigan lawmakers to unite Michigan residents and create a more inclusive state. Decisions like this only divide and prevent the state from becoming an environment where youth want to remain.

Those words were written more than 50 years ago in the wake of riots in Detroit and other cities, part of the Kerner Commission report prepared at the request of President Lyndon Johnson.

A new survey commissioned by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion and conducted by Mitchell Research & Communications measured attitudes about discrimination – racial, gender and sexual orientation – and provides frightening data that shows Michigan is still deeply divided – and may be becoming more so.

Full results of the poll are available at our website. Gender and sexual orientation concerns are serious, and need to be addressed. But what grabbed me as I read through the poll were the racial divisions, and how they appear to be growing compared to the polls we commissioned in 2008 and 2009.

The 2010 survey found that African Americans are almost twice as likely as white respondents to say racial discrimination happens, with 58% of African Americans saying racial discrimination happens all the time (31%) or happens frequently (28%). That compares to only 33% of white respondents saying that racial discrimination happens all the time (11%) or happens frequently (11%).

The percentage of African Americans that said discrimination continues all the time or frequently decreased from 53 to 51 percent from 2008 to 2009 – after the election and inauguration of President Obama – but now has increased fairly significantly.

Our survey found that 77 percent of African American respondents said people of color have worse opportunities in education and employment than whites, up from 53 percent in 2008.

Interestingly, white respondents also perceive that opportunities for people of color have diminished over time. In 2008, 29 percent said people of color had worse opportunities; that has increased to 43 percent in the 2010 survey.

In another indication of growing concerns about discrimination in the African American community, the percentage of African Americans saying the quality of life for people of color has gotten better over the last 10 years has slipped from 58 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in 2010.

And the percentage of those saying we will “never” achieve racial equality has increased from 29 percent in 2008 to 49 percent in 2010. Today, only 2 percent of African Americans polled said we have equality now; 16 percent say we will have it “in my lifetime” and 23 percent said “in 100 years.”

I interpret this to mean a fairly significant number of African Americans are losing faith in access to opportunity, as they hear the sometimes overtly racist criticism of President Obama, evidenced by the “birther” movement and opposition to efforts to increase opportunities using government programs.

There seems to be a bubbling cauldron of discontent that Michigan’s leaders would do well to address. Our survey only measures attitudes and doesn’t test solutions. But policymakers at the state and regional levels must begin paying more attention to the underlying racial tensions in our society, if we are to avoid seeing further manifestation of racial unrest.

Let me provide you with some opportunities.  People in the Mississippi Delta live in abject poverty.  Some liken it to the days of slavery.  The invisible poor in Appalachia  have been the victims of big coal-producing companies like Massey.  Our Native brothers and sisters on the reservations.  In January of this year the Cheyenne people lost power for over three weeks due to a blizzard and ice storm.  But for a short piece by Keith Olbermann, their was zero media coverage.  Only because of Olbermann was there an influx of aid for those folks on the rez.  Then there is New Orleans.  No discussion is needed here, but think of how people were treated in the days after the levees broke.  The conditions were inhumane.

If you want to work with those in need, you don’t need to leave this country.  Go to any urban area.  Reach out to those on the Pine Ridge Reservation or head to Appalachia.  These folks live in third world conditions.  Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know.

Stay home and help.