Opinion: Noted troll Brooks Patterson makes Klan joke, proves obsolescence

Nancy Kaffer | Detroit Free Press

If he were not 900 years old, Brooks Patterson would do quite well on 4chan.

4chan, if you are not familiar, is an online discussion board that spawns endless outrageous memes. Its users take pleasure in offending, and find humor in shock, all for the lulz.

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This is what Oakland County Executive Brooks Patterson is doing when he says things like, "I'd rather join the Klan" than a CEOs group that hopes to bring new businesses to Detroit and the region. He is counting on outrage. He believes divisiveness is a stronger currency than compassion. He believes that Oakland County's interests stop at 8 Mile. And he believes in the complacency of Oakland County voters, who he thinks will disregard his behavior, again, and elect him, again, as long as he continues to deliver.

Patterson presides over a well-run county. His nearly all-white, nearly all-male team has kept the county's bond rating high, its roads tolerably smooth, its strip malls and office complexes, by and large, packed full of businesses.

But all of that is changing.

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Patterson's remarks — walked back in a statement hours later, which you should feel free to interpret as, "someone on his staff is not a crazy old man" — were made after a meeting with members of the Oakland County Chamber of Commerce's board, whom he had summoned to discuss a war Patterson hopes to start with Detroit, and the aforementioned group of 23 CEOs who meet quarterly to discuss what resources they can offer the region. That group recently announced plans to staff a regional business attraction group within the Detroit Regional Chamber, something Patterson says is a direct assault on suburban communities.

There is no point in noting that Oakland County's wealth was built on the exodus of people and businesses from Detroit, an out-migration hastened by racial fears stoked by Patterson and those like him. Blame is Patterson's game.

In a letter sent to the Oakland County chamber, Patterson warned that the CEOs' business attraction staff will "have no hesitation about coming into your community and snatching business leads in the righteous cause of 'rebuilding Detroit.'"

It drips with Patterson's trademark condescension and his continuing belief that taking a crack at Detroit is always a fun time.

The world has changed, and Patterson didn't notice. That young, educated workers want to live in a richly textured city is something he simply cannot fathom. That businesses have relocated to Detroit not out of altruism, but because it makes market sense, is something he is not capable of understanding.

Regional success, to Patterson, is a threat. Parity, to paraphrase a friend, feels like oppression.

Patterson hopes you will find his Klan comment outrageous.

I think it's pathetic.

Rallying the Oakland chamber to fight back against Detroit's growth isn't a power move. It's desperation. It is the last gasp of an outmoded way of thinking. And it's not going to work.

Contact Nancy Kaffer: nkaffer@freepress.com.