Fake Outrage

By now, everyone knows that Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is in scalding water and throwing seven different kinds of smoke in an effort to shield himself from the inevitable legal and political fallout headed his way. And while our region buzzes on about the toll of his bullshit behavior -- a $9-million tab in settlement and legal fees that taxpayers must foot; yet another embarrassing stain on the city's reputation; the trauma to the families involved as well as Detroiters' civic spirit — what may anger me as much as anything else is how the smokescreens he's erected have undermined, even momentarily, Detroiters' rightful complaints about the enduring legacy of racism in metropolitan Detroit.

At the end of his recent State of the City speech, Kilpatrick responded angrily to critics, calling out the City Council president, chiding the media and blubbering about how, in the month leading up to his speech, he's been called "nigger more than any time in my entire life."

Almost instantly, there was an overwhelming backlash. White media pundits and politicians expressed their own brand of outrage, angered by Kilpatrick's rather blatant (and, admittedly, tired) attempt to suggest that coverage of his scandalized ass was purely racially motivated. Admitted philanderer and state attorney general Mike Cox, already accused of frustrating earlier efforts to investigate rumors that Kilpatrick often turned the official mayoral residence into his personal version of the Rolexx Club, tagged his former crony a race-baiter and, like almost everyone else around here, asked that Kilpatrick resign.

Look, I think Kilpatrick needs to vacate the mayor's office, too -- and with the quickness. He's repeatedly proven that he can't keep his appetite from wasting taxpayers' dollars. He's shown absolutely no ability to learn from his mistakes. He clearly believes that, because he has been successful in recruiting some businesses to invest in the city's once-forlorn downtown, that this should place him above press scrutiny, above the will of the people and above the law. (Wrong on all counts, homeboy.)

But I'll be damned if I'll abide this phony outrage from white power brokers around here about Kilpatrick's "divisiveness" in using the "n-word." Let me be clear: Kwame Kilpatrick did not create racial division in metro Detroit; Kwame Kilpatrick does not further racial division in metro Detroit; Kwame Kilpatrick is not responsible for the continuation of racism in this city. White racism is white people's fault. Period. Black folks don't "provoke" or "encourage" or "inflame" or "justify" it anymore than a rape victim "asks" to be the target of brutal sexualized violence.

Kilpatrick didn't trigger the white flight into the area's northern suburbs that deprived Detroit of so much of its tax base. Kilpatrick doesn't engage in the continued redlining designed to prevent black people from moving into many of these places. Kilpatrick doesn't actively promote black economic disenfranchisement, doesn't vandalize black-inspired landmarks, doesn't harass and intimidate black schoolchildren walking through white communities.

In short, Kwame Kilpatrick's speech doesn't in any way explain the economic, social and racial divisions that plague Detroit. White people left this city because they didn't want to have to share power with black people. White people continue to encourage the racist attitudes that make the suburbs so hostile to people of color. (You really want to see racist attitudes, hateful speech and divisive thinking on display? Give white folks an Internet message board, a topic about an issue involving black people and a guarantee of anonymity.)

Even now, they are working to strip Detroit of control of its most vital asset, the city-owned water and sewage system that serves much of the metro area. Mind you, the city built and maintains the system. The white-dominated suburbs are just customers. And yet somehow they think they deserve to have more of a say in how the system is run. It's the equivalent of a customer walking into a market and demanding to be allowed to price groceries any way he sees fit. And when the merchant objects, the customer rushes out to court in an effort to sue his way into ownership of the market.

Black Detroiters came to this city en masse in the '30s, '40s and '50s to earn a decent wage and escape the Jim Crow-ism of the Deep South. They didn't come to run white people away. Hell, they didn't even come seeking political power. They just wanted to live a little better.

When they got here, they were attacked. They were smeared. They were segregated. They didn't do this to themselves. White people did this. And then, when black folks stood up, fought back and, in many ways, won, white folks couldn't stomach this. So they ran away, creating the racially hostile bedroom communities we now see in backwaters such as Northville and telling themselves (and anyone else who'd listen) lies about imaginary black sins that compelled them to flee. As Coleman A. Young once famously observed, "White people find it extremely hard to live in an environment they don't control."

Kwame Kilpatrick bears responsibility for many problems, including the paralysis that has now gripped Detroit as the city and its stakeholders wait anxiously to find out if he'll be charged for his transgressions and, if so, with what crimes. He has shown to be a man of little integrity and outsize ego. He has caused us consternation and humiliation.

But the sickness of racism and its symptoms — the rabid hatred metastasized as public policy, the arrogant refusal to share power, the insane and pathological fear of anyone "different" — these should be placed squarely where they belong: On the shoulders of the white folks who've created them.