Amid the current strife, born of racist torch marches and debate about the racist history in our midst, the Kid Rock extravaganza is absolutely nuts.

Kid Rock in 2015. (Photo: Terry Renna, AP)

When the Ilitch family's Olympia Entertainment division chose divisive performer Kid Rock to christen Little Caesars Arena with six shows and a new restaurant, it sent a message to the Detroiters who made the project possible and who have yet to see the benefits promised. It's a message that's not too far off those Jim Crow-era signs warning that blacks weren't welcome.

Negro, go home.

That's what it feels like, at least. And for weeks, I've been struggling to come up with an alternative, less wounding interpretation. But how can I?

This is a musician who got rich off crass cultural appropriation of black music, who used to wrap his brand in the Confederate flag — a symbol inextricably linked to racism, no matter what its defenders say — and who has repeatedly issued profane denouncements of the very idea of African Americans pushing back against American inequality. Just last week, he trashed Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who's jobless right now because he dared challenge the nation's racism with a silent, kneeling protest during the pre-football game singing of the national anthem.

More: Police need military equipment to combat rising crime rates and police deaths

More: Trump is winning the statue war

Having Kid Rock open this arena is erecting a sturdy middle finger to Detroiters — nothing less. And the Ilitches, who've done so much for this city and also taken so much from it, should be the last to embrace that kind of signaling.

This isn't about music and whether Kid Rock is any good. Lots of people can argue, legitimately, about that.

It's about culture — our culture, in our city. This is a place of incredible, rich diversity, of immigrants and native peoples and the descendants of slaves, all hardened by our history but resilient and powerful in our determination for a bright future.

"I love America, I love Detroit and I love black people!" Kid Rock said in 2011, when the local NAACP gave him an award — he gave $50,000 to Detroit-based organizations —purportedly in the hopes that he'd change some of his antics. He did, while the positive publicity lasted.

But Kid Rock’s actions, the symbols he chooses and the stances he favors — the dog whistle racism about Kaepernick, the twisted nods to the Confederate flag as a symbol of American pride — are incompatible with the pro-Detroit platitudes he sometimes mouths.

This is a man who is exploitative and resentful of the city’s population, not a man who is for Detroit and Detroiters.

It's hurtful. It's disrespectful. And in the context of the current national racial strife, born of racist torch marches, of presidential equivocations, and of a prolonged debate about the presence of racist history in our midst, I think the Kid Rock extravaganza at a new Detroit arena is absolutely nuts.

I can admit to having just come to this position on this issue lately. Back when Kid Rock was announced as the arena's opening act, it bugged me, but didn't register as much more than an annoyance.

Then Charlottesville happened. And then the president of the United States tried to muddy the national conversation on race by indulging false equivalencies between violent white supremacists and those who fight back against them.

And through all that, Kid Rock's top billing at the arena opening began to chafe even more. Then he opened his mouth.

At a concert a few weeks ago, while performing the song "Born Free," he broke into the lyrics to declare, "F--- Colin Kaepernick," something he has done pretty consistently, it turns out, since Kaepernick first started kneeling in the fall of 2016.

There are certainly reasonable people who object to Kaepernick's chosen vehicle for protest — the flag and the anthem.

But Kid Rock's reaction is not a reasoned objection. It's just an ignorant and racist sentiment couched in awww-shucks patriotism, precisely the kind of thing that has characterized so much of his career.

Back when he used to incorporate the Confederate flag into his performances, he said he "never flew that flag with hate in my heart."

That doesn't even make sense. But it speaks to the power of his commercial cynicism. Play to the bigots who'll cheer the explicit signaling. Pretend to the rest of the world that it's just about feeling good about America — as if you can invoke the most racist parts of American culture without being stained by them.

That hypocrisy also echoes in Kid Rock's musical evolution, from a wanna-be hip-hop artist, eager to capitalize on the genre's commercial success, to a bold celebrant of what might politely be called the culture of white resentment. He follows the money — and the message can be tailored to preserve the cash flow.

More: Trump's moral failures on Charlottesville are shredding America's global reputation

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

And this is the note on which Olympia and the Ilitches want to open our new arena?

I say "our" quite purposefully there, because Detroiters — of all hues and beliefs and economic class — have leveraged our financial future, pledging some $324 million in future tax dollars — including proceeds from a tax meant to support public schools — to help pay for this $863-million stadium.

We've also put our faith in the Ilitch family — again — to come through on the big promises they've made about what we would get in return.

That's not turning out the way we imagined, either.

The Ilitches pledged to ensure that 50% of the work done to construct this arena would go to Detroiters, a modestly fair proffer for all the tax dollars that went in.

But that target was missed by almost half, for many reasons, and $2.9 million in fines were levied against the companies who landed arena contracts.

The Ilitches also promised that this arena would be built simultaneously with the other developments that would make up the new District Detroit neighborhood.

This echoed their promise back in the early 1990s surrounding Comerica Park, pitched as a catalyst that would ignite development akin to Wrigleyville on the north side of Chicago.

That never happened, of course, and as the new arena prepares to open, nearly all of the promised development outside of the Ilitch investments — the new Little Caesars headquarters on Woodward, the new Wayne State Business School next to the arena and a slew of parking lots — are still to come.

And that makes Kid Rock's opening appearances even more insulting.

Detroit has given artistic birth to so many performers whose work appeals across racial, class and musical barriers. Stevie Wonder, Jack White, Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger — any one of them could have been the kind of choice that made all of Detroit proud.

Kid Rock could — and probably should — draw significant protests, launched from a community that has grown tired of being told its concerns don't matter, even when our money is used for something built in our own backyard.

It will be an inauspicious start, to say the least.

And the signal it sends won't be appreciated — or easily forgotten.

Stephen Henderson is Editorial Page Editor of the Detroit Free Press, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @SHendersonFreep.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2gznIS1