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Racial wounds resurface in Detroit election year
Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers arrives at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building for a news conference in Detroit, Wednesday, March 4, 2009. Carlos OsorioBy COREY WILLIAMS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
March 06, 2009 5:46 AM EST
DETROIT - Cobo convention center, one of the many aging buildings downtown, is threatening to become the latest tinderbox in resurgent racial hostilities between the mostly black city and its predominantly white suburbs.
With calls for self-determination in how the venue operates, members of Detroit's embattled City Council have reopened wounds more than four decades old. That's led to stinging newspaper editorials, daily radio commentary and Web site blogs accusing City Council President Monica Conyers of perpetuating the area's negative racial attitudes and stereotypes.
And according to two other council members, all for the sake of votes.
"The minute you get to an election year, all bets are off on what the outcome of any high-profile controversial issue or action will be," said Sheila Cockrel, the lone white on the eight-member board.
At issue is a state plan to turn over the city-owned Cobo to a regional authority, which would include one representative each from Detroit, the governor's office and Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties. The deal would mean a $288 million expansion of Cobo and also would relieve the financially struggling city of about $15 million in annual subsidies.
Last week,<span style="font-weight: bold"> Conyers, who is black, told a white Teamsters' union official during a contentious meeting on whether to accept the deal that most of the people who work at Cobo during the annual North American International Auto Show "don't look like me. They look like you."
The council's action elicited an angry response from one of the deal's backers.</span>
"Every spring the swallows come back to Capistrano. The buzzards come back to Hinckley, Ohio, and every election in Detroit, whoever is running for office, is going to play the race card and beat up whitey in the suburbs," Republican Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who is white, told The Associated Press.
"They are trying to incite the racial tensions for political gains."
Conyers said she wasn't race-baiting. "Everybody's played the race card but me. I've not said anything about race," she said Wednesday.
The undersized Cobo could lose the auto show, which brings in an estimated $500 million to the region each year, if the building isn't renovated and expanded. The auto show is committed to the venue through 2010, but organizers have said the deteriorating facilities could force some vendors to bypass the annual event.
But pushed by Conyers, the council voted 5-3 to nix the transfer plan. Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. vetoed the council vote Wednesday. His frequent nemesis, Conyers, said Thursday evening that the council's research and analysis director will file a court injunction as early as Monday to stop the veto.
"The small-minded divisive politics, the us-versus-them mentality, the city-versus-suburb mentality, the black-versus-white mentality has held us back as a city, and frankly, held this region back for years," Cockrel said Wednesday. "It's time for us to move beyond that."
A day earlier, Conyers, a Democrat, said she stands by her comment about Cobo workers.
"I don't think that was racist," Conyers insisted during a break in Tuesday's council meeting. "When I go to Cobo Hall and they're working, that's what I see, and I don't think that's racist by telling the truth."
Behind the rhetoric are political futures that begin with an Aug. 4 nonpartisan primary.
More than 300 people have picked up petitions to run for nine council seats.
Conyers and her colleagues are under fire from residents tired of their squabbling and antics, and concerned about a federal corruption probe into a council-approved waste hauling contract.
Cockrel, who as city council president became mayor when Kwame Kilpatrick resigned in September, faces a tough challenger in businessman and Detroit basketball legend Dave Bing. The two Democrats are vying to complete Kilpatrick's term through the end of the year and face a May 5 runoff election.
Neither Cockrel nor the council can afford to be seen as soft on Cobo.
"The council has been out of favor with the community for a number of years," said councilman Kwame Kenyatta, who along with Sheila Cockrel cast two of the three votes opposing Conyers' push to end the Cobo deal.
A proponent of black self-determination, Kenyatta believes Conyers' statement was intended to find favor with disenchanted voters.
The legendary Coleman A. Young, elected in 1973 as Detroit's first black mayor, frequently used the "us versus them - city versus suburbs" tactic during his 20 years in office. Kilpatrick struck the same racial nerve by using the N-word during the 2008 State of the City address to describe threats received in the early days of a text-messaging sex scandal that eventually cost him his job and freedom.
It's not uncommon for politicians to pull the race card during an election year.
"They are unpopular. They need to do something to mobilize their base," Central Michigan political science professor Chris Owens said. "For a politician, there is no other color than the check mark by your name on election day."
That's true of white and black politicians, University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer said.
"The biggest example: 'I'm just like you. I have the same values as you,'" Sternheimer said. "No one said anything about race, but it does draw on this history of race we have in this country."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
Detroit City Council President Monica Conyers arrives at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building for a news conference in Detroit, Wednesday, March 4, 2009. Carlos OsorioBy COREY WILLIAMS (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
March 06, 2009 5:46 AM EST
DETROIT - Cobo convention center, one of the many aging buildings downtown, is threatening to become the latest tinderbox in resurgent racial hostilities between the mostly black city and its predominantly white suburbs.
With calls for self-determination in how the venue operates, members of Detroit's embattled City Council have reopened wounds more than four decades old. That's led to stinging newspaper editorials, daily radio commentary and Web site blogs accusing City Council President Monica Conyers of perpetuating the area's negative racial attitudes and stereotypes.
And according to two other council members, all for the sake of votes.
"The minute you get to an election year, all bets are off on what the outcome of any high-profile controversial issue or action will be," said Sheila Cockrel, the lone white on the eight-member board.
At issue is a state plan to turn over the city-owned Cobo to a regional authority, which would include one representative each from Detroit, the governor's office and Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties. The deal would mean a $288 million expansion of Cobo and also would relieve the financially struggling city of about $15 million in annual subsidies.
Last week,<span style="font-weight: bold"> Conyers, who is black, told a white Teamsters' union official during a contentious meeting on whether to accept the deal that most of the people who work at Cobo during the annual North American International Auto Show "don't look like me. They look like you."
The council's action elicited an angry response from one of the deal's backers.</span>
"Every spring the swallows come back to Capistrano. The buzzards come back to Hinckley, Ohio, and every election in Detroit, whoever is running for office, is going to play the race card and beat up whitey in the suburbs," Republican Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who is white, told The Associated Press.
"They are trying to incite the racial tensions for political gains."
Conyers said she wasn't race-baiting. "Everybody's played the race card but me. I've not said anything about race," she said Wednesday.
The undersized Cobo could lose the auto show, which brings in an estimated $500 million to the region each year, if the building isn't renovated and expanded. The auto show is committed to the venue through 2010, but organizers have said the deteriorating facilities could force some vendors to bypass the annual event.
But pushed by Conyers, the council voted 5-3 to nix the transfer plan. Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. vetoed the council vote Wednesday. His frequent nemesis, Conyers, said Thursday evening that the council's research and analysis director will file a court injunction as early as Monday to stop the veto.
"The small-minded divisive politics, the us-versus-them mentality, the city-versus-suburb mentality, the black-versus-white mentality has held us back as a city, and frankly, held this region back for years," Cockrel said Wednesday. "It's time for us to move beyond that."
A day earlier, Conyers, a Democrat, said she stands by her comment about Cobo workers.
"I don't think that was racist," Conyers insisted during a break in Tuesday's council meeting. "When I go to Cobo Hall and they're working, that's what I see, and I don't think that's racist by telling the truth."
Behind the rhetoric are political futures that begin with an Aug. 4 nonpartisan primary.
More than 300 people have picked up petitions to run for nine council seats.
Conyers and her colleagues are under fire from residents tired of their squabbling and antics, and concerned about a federal corruption probe into a council-approved waste hauling contract.
Cockrel, who as city council president became mayor when Kwame Kilpatrick resigned in September, faces a tough challenger in businessman and Detroit basketball legend Dave Bing. The two Democrats are vying to complete Kilpatrick's term through the end of the year and face a May 5 runoff election.
Neither Cockrel nor the council can afford to be seen as soft on Cobo.
"The council has been out of favor with the community for a number of years," said councilman Kwame Kenyatta, who along with Sheila Cockrel cast two of the three votes opposing Conyers' push to end the Cobo deal.
A proponent of black self-determination, Kenyatta believes Conyers' statement was intended to find favor with disenchanted voters.
The legendary Coleman A. Young, elected in 1973 as Detroit's first black mayor, frequently used the "us versus them - city versus suburbs" tactic during his 20 years in office. Kilpatrick struck the same racial nerve by using the N-word during the 2008 State of the City address to describe threats received in the early days of a text-messaging sex scandal that eventually cost him his job and freedom.
It's not uncommon for politicians to pull the race card during an election year.
"They are unpopular. They need to do something to mobilize their base," Central Michigan political science professor Chris Owens said. "For a politician, there is no other color than the check mark by your name on election day."
That's true of white and black politicians, University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer said.
"The biggest example: 'I'm just like you. I have the same values as you,'" Sternheimer said. "No one said anything about race, but it does draw on this history of race we have in this country."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
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