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Why we need to preserve black spaces in Detroit | Opinion

A question on Twitter last week took me by surprise: “When did you have your first black teacher?”

I was shocked to find many respondents had not had one until college, if ever. Me? The majority of my teachers were black.

I did not realize this was so rare. In America, only 7% of teachers are black. In Michigan, it’s 6%.

But in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, it's 67% — a dramatic difference, but hardly a surprising one in a city that is about 80% black.

Why does this matter? A Johns Hopkins report shows that black children who encounter even a single black teacher in their academic careers are 29% less likely to drop out..Just one.

Research points to expectation: Our experiences inform what we expect. Teachers whose shared experiences make them more empathetic to their students are more empathetic to their students also expect more of them. Black students, in turn, feel more comfortable and confident when someone who looks like them stands at the front of the classroom.

That's the power of black space, and what's at stake when it gives way to something else.

Detroit has a lot of challenges, but the thing I don’t experience here is paranoia, that uneasiness I feel when I see police in the suburbs and wonder if some overzealous soccer mom is trying to make her neighborhood safer by having me removed from it.

In Detroit, I know I’m expected to be here. It's an expectation unique to this city, a result of living in what most black Detroiters consider a massive black space, a place that is culturally black without much interference. And given its scale, population and history, how else could you describe Detroit?

Race is a construct, invented to divide and separate people. Yet the outcomes and cultural variances created by that division are very real The policies of redlining, racist policing, and discriminatory employment in the early to mid-1900s, culminating in the 1967 uprising, fragmented our region along racial lines.

Continued disinvestment in schools and businesses, spiking insurance rates and other political disasters deepened the wedge. With the the exodus of whites following jobs and opportunity into the suburbs, and the combined history of music, arts, and culture, Detroit became something uniquely urban, gritty, soulful and, well, black.

You can feel it in the rhythm of the seemingly endless hustles folks can break into, regardless of their relationship, as if you’ve entered an urban musical. You can feel it in the rousing cry of "Before I let you goooooo…" belted along with Maze and Frankie Beverly at any cabaret, or the rebellious bellow of "Joy Road but the money long as Six Mile..." by a hundred voices at any mostly black party in the city.

Imported to Detroit

"Just because a place is public doesn't mean everyone feels welcomed there. Black and white friends are having completely different experiences in the city's urban core."

— Lauren Hood, equitable development strategist and native Detroiter

In some spaces downtown, it's easy to wonder where the black people are. But honestly, in a city where there are over 530,000 black people, with 64,000 households belonging to the middle class, we’re right down the street.

If you don’t see black Detroiters in your Detroit establishment, you should be asking, "What is making people feel as though this place is unwelcoming?”

Many of the places that still retain the rhythm and soul of Detroit are on a need-to-know basis.They’re jazz lounges nestled into historic neighborhoods and clubs that cater to a local crowd. They’re diners and bars that are Detroit institutions, and unassuming breakfast joints that vibrate with the energy of connections being made and deals being done.

The new places downtown are unappealing to some black Detroiters because they don’t carry the vibe and welcoming energy that Detroiters are accustomed to. Businesses bring aesthetics and culture from other places that lack the style, substance, and soul Detroit is known for, catering to an audience they’re more familiar with. That audience is rarely your average Detroiter. In many ways, these new spots have swapped swag for soullessness, and flavor for garnish.

Why would Detroiters go to a place for leisure where we feel as though we have to leave ourselves at the front door? Doing the emotional labor we find ourselves doing at work, in order to integrate with strangers that have commuted from several cities over to celebrate a rough facsimile of ours?

Imagine being the only voice singing "...born and raised in South Detroit" and wondering why a choir of your peers didn’t join you from the opening riffs of "Don’t Stop Believing." There’s nothing quite so unsettling as being alone in a crowd.

Another city

"It’s not THAT they’re coming, it’s HOW they’re coming."

— Yodit Mesfin Johnson, Detroit champion, and community leader

This is why there is so much pushback in Detroit as the demographics of downtown change, a transformation brazenly touted in a 2015 study prepared by the Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, Midtown Detroit, Inc., Invest Detroit and Data Driven Detroit.The 7.2 SQ MI report describes the 7.2-square miles of downtown, Midtown, Woodbridge, Eastern Market, Lafayette Park, Rivertown and Corktown, as though it were another city entirely, distinct from the 132 square miles of Detroit that border it on the north, east and west.

Detroiters are not opposed to economic development and revitalization; we're opposed to feeling uninvited in our own home. We're opposed to being told "no" for decades, for everything from mortgages to home improvement loans to development dollars, only to see that once you carve out a few portions where there are fewer of us, the property values suddenly rise.

To preserve black space, we must first acknowledge its existence and understand its value. This is not so hard.

We acknowledge other cultural districts such as Mexicantown and Banglatown. We understand Hamtramck's Polish roots and Dearborn’s rich Muslim and Arab-American culture. We respect those spaces and what it means to traverse them as a visitor, sampling and appreciating what they bring to the table.

We understand that heritage and history do not just create great experiences for visitors.They also offer warmth, safety, and a sense of home to residents who share a lineage and identity. It’s important that we extend the same reverence to Detroit as a deeply, spiritually black city.

The loss of black space signals a physical depreciation of safety for many Detroiters. Emotionally, it feels as though the tide is rolling in. We've seen in other cities how that tide often washes away the things that give a city personality and presence. And we fear that with it will go all the pieces that black Detroiters call home.

Eric Thomas is a storyteller at Saga MKTG and a native Detroiter.