Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Detroit: The Bell Tolls for All of Us
24 Jul 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Detroit’s “crisis” is a yet another form of “disaster capitalism,” orchestrated by corporate America. “Wall Street is creating new law and new models for the total subjugation of American society to the Lords of Capital.”

Detroit: The Bell Tolls for All of Us

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“Those who would strip away democratic freedoms and privatize the public sphere have always found it easier to mount their offensives against heavily Black regions and sectors of society.”

In Detroit, even the thin gruel of democracy that America advertises to the world, has ceased to exist. Not one of its 700,000 residents retains the political rights of citizens, those rights having been usurped by the agents of Wall Street: Governor Rick Snyder and bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr, the Lone Ranger and Tonto who were the sole authorities empowered to file bankruptcy for the city. Their mission is to render the judgment of capital that Detroit is too poor, in its present demographic composition, for participation in the democratic order, and must be forcibly reconstituted, beginning with a divvying up of its assets. At the end of this process, a “new” Detroit is supposed to emerge, which will have divested itself of enough Black and poor people to allow the reinstatement of some form of electoral franchise.

Or, maybe not. Direct rule by Wall Street, which is the real meaning of the Emergency Financial Manager regime, is not some idea especially concocted for Detroit. It is the political and economic superstructure that the plutocracy envisions for the whole country – for the entire planet, if they can get away with it. Due to the particular racial history of the United States, where Black citizenship rights have always been deemed illegitimate, those who would strip away democratic freedoms and privatize the public sphere have always found it easier to mount their offensives against heavily Black regions and sectors of society. White people with identical interests in democracy and fairness in schools, public services and in the workplace root for the plutocrats when Blacks are under attack, never imagining that the same weapons will soon be turned on them.

“Their mission is to render the judgment of capital that Detroit is too poor, in its present demographic composition, for participation in the democratic order.”

Thus, Detroit’s dissolution is perceived as a Black problem – more politely referred to by its euphemism: an “urban” crisis.

However, Wall Street and its mercenary law firms, like Kevyn Orr’s godfathers at Jones Day, are not motivated by petty racial prejudice; they are simply skilled at taking advantage of it, always aiming their daggers at the soft spots in democracy, where Black people live. With Detroit and the other largely Black cities of Michigan, where half of the state’s African American population has been disenfranchised, Wall Street is creating new law and new models for the total subjugation of American society to the Lords of Capital.

Primary elections are scheduled for Detroit, in August. Mayor Dave Bing, who swung wide the gates to the city for the conquistadors, won’t be running for reelection. City council president and former mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. says he doesn’t see any point in running. But, they are irrelevant. The Detroit model for imposing direct rule of the rich can only be challenged by a mass movement of the hundreds of thousands who remain in the city – either by choice, or by no-choice – and by the millions elsewhere in the country who are next on the corporate juggernaut’s quickening agenda. The resistance must choose its tactics from a menu of “By any means necessary,” make the enemy understand the meaning of “No Justice, No Peace,” and show him that we are deadly serious when we say, “We shall not be moved.”

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130724_gf_Detroit.mp3

More Stories


  • Book Review: The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto
    Jon Jeter
    Book Review: The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto
    27 Oct 2021
    The idea that a reverse migration to the south is a route to greater political power should be treated with skepticism.
  • U.S. Corporate Media Watch
    Roberto Sirvent, Richard Medhurst
    U.S. Corporate Media Watch
    27 Oct 2021
    Richard and Roberto would like to dedicate this feature to Glen Ford, one of the fiercest critics of U.S. corporate media the country has ever known.
  • Black Alliance for Peace & the U.S. Out of Africa Network Stand with the People of Sudan
    Black Alliance For Peace
    Black Alliance for Peace & the U.S. Out of Africa Network Stand with the People of Sudan
    27 Oct 2021
    There will not be true democracy for Africans as long the U.S., EU, NATO, and Israel train and finance the military in these nations.
  • The U.S. has twice kidnapped Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab. His next court appearance is scheduled for Monday, November 1, and supporters are demanding his freedom. Washington’s actions against Saab contradict both international and humanitarian laws. 
    Lauren Smith
    Miami Defenders of Twice US Kidnapped Venezuelan Ambassador, Alex Saab, Rally for his Release
    26 Oct 2021
    The U.S. has twice kidnapped Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.
  • photo courtesy Donnell Murray's family
    Josmar Trujillo
    How Prosecutors Use Conspiracy and Questionable Testimony in “Gang” Cases
    26 Oct 2021
    Conspiracy laws, RICO statutes and "gang" designations are tools of police and prosecutorial misconduct and the maintenance of the mass incarceration state.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us