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


  • Black “Maternals” Yoked to the Wheel of Group Survival
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black “Maternals” Yoked to the Wheel of Group Survival
    07 Sep 2020
    Joy James, a professor of political, feminist and critical race theory at Williams College, believes the burden of day to day survival politics in Black American communities is bor
  • Freedom Rider: The U.S. Is a Racist Militia
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The U.S. Is a Racist Militia
    02 Sep 2020
    U.S. cops are already racist and brutal, and any militia “infiltrators” would feel right at home.
  • The Difference between the CPC and the DNC? A Study of Politics Versus Personalities
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    The Difference between the CPC and the DNC? A Study of Politics Versus Personalities
    02 Sep 2020
    Unlike Joe Biden, Xi Jinping’s report is centered, not on personality but on the actually-existing socialist system in China.
  • The US Has Long Led the Assault on Human Rights
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    The US Has Long Led the Assault on Human Rights
    02 Sep 2020
    The historical record on U.S. human rights policies, both domestic and international, is one of hypocrisy, deceit, and denigration.
  • The NBA’s Black Power
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The NBA’s Black Power
    02 Sep 2020
    Black NBA players, writes Ann Garrison, are just beginning to understand the power of the attention and admiration they command.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us