In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Introducing:

bfp

Hello, I’m bfp.
I’ll be posting here at Feministe for the next two weeks. A bit about me: I identify mostly as a Malinchista. A traitor to nation, to borders, to men. A worker. A mami. Queer. I have a long sordid past with Feminism that I’ll let you discover through the googles. I struggle with spelling and capitalization. I haven’t blogged much in a very long time.

Sweet Honey in the Rock is my favorite musical group.

VIDEO: Sweet Honey in the Rock singing Beatitudes. See composer Bernice Johnson Reagon’s website for lyrics.

While I’m here, I’ll be working to contextualize all the big words: “post-industrialization,” “nationalism,” “white supremacist heteropatriarchy,” “decay porn,” “borders,” “distribution systems,” etc within a framework that centers Detroit, Michigan, and the US Midwest.

Or I may just wind up posting pretty pictures. Who knows. 😀

So let me start off the spectacle by asking: What do you think of when you think of Detroit? I am asking for two reasons. First, to get an idea of where I need to start with my posts. Second, because I like to start talking with all the cards on the table. There are no wrong answers here, I already know that Murder Capital and urban decay are very common beliefs about what Detroit is. I also know that people outside of the US more than likely…heard of Detroit once. Or, maybe they interact with Detroit like so many people within Michigan do, through industry.

Whatever the case, talk about it in comments. And we’ll go from there.
P.S. My comments are on moderation.

74 thoughts on Introducing:

  1. I’m from Ohio, so I understand the irritation about people not knowing anything but “bad” about the place you’re from. I’ve been to Detroit a few times for shows and always had a good time. Yeah, there’s urban decay, but urban decay exists in some way in every city in the world.

    Excited for your series.

  2. Never been to Detroit, so mostly the Urban Decay story, although outside of the whole “economy sucks due to the motor industry crashing” I can’t say I can think of anything specific.

    Also, it’s that city that Windsor is a suburb of, even though it is across the border. (Which I specifically remember due to a paper I read years ago on the effects of their differing health systems on the populations of Detroit and Windsor.)

  4. Wow. Bfp, I am so glad to see you back! Really, I can’t even say. All the very very best to you and I hope your time blogging here is wonderful and rewarding.

    As for Detroit, yeah, I’m a non-Usian who doesn’t have a clue. Is that… near Chicago…?

  5. Wow, hi!

    Most of what I know about Detroit–I’ve never been there–comes from Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel Middlesex and a few articles about the decay. I think of: segregation, resistance, white flight, closed factories, urban gardens.

  6. YAY!

    Yeah, living in the Rust Belt, there’s a lot of urban decay, the romanticization of which is ultra-disturbing. I like Detroit — I have family in Detroit that is dependent on the auto industry, and I visit them on a relatively regular basis. Detroit on the one hand seems like any other big city, things to do, places to see, loads of local history, and on the other hand seems to capture the American imagination about the industry of the past. Emphasis on PAST. And that’s why I find the romanticization of urban decay so disturbing. The abstract study of that super-cool abandoned factory that looks so great in your freshman art portfolio happened to be the lifeblood that ran an entire community, and now it’s gone, out of business altogether or collateral of last year’s globalization policies. In Indiana, entire towns and cities were erected around these smaller manufacturing centers, and when they’re gone, the towns fall into various states of decay, the local schools and libraries dwindle, the supporting businesses falter and fail, entire business districts go empty, neighborhoods get boarded up, drugs move in along with chronic unemployment, depression. Lots of meth here.

    Can’t wait to see where you go with it. Or with the pretty pictures. <3

  7. Whenever people around here talk about Detroit, it’s because they are already talking about black people, poverty, and crime. I’ve always figured that such a depiction of Detroit is a caricature even though I’ve never been there myself.

    I understand the frustration that comes from having one’s hometown caricatured like that. I’m from Baltimore City, and all anyone ever has to say about Baltimore is “ew, STDs” and “I’m gonna dieeeeee if I leave the suburbs!!” I’ve been living in Baltimore City for almost 30 years, I’ve had plenty of sex and sex partners, and I have neither caught an STD nor been shot in front of my house (or anywhere else). It’s not a utopia, but neither is it a cesspool.

  8. Delurking to say that I’m very glad to see you here. You always make me feel uncomfortable about my assumptions, which is actually a very good feeling.

    I’m in my early sixties and my most dominant image of Detroit is an audio one, a soundscape of Motown music and it’s magic for me — I hear a song like the Drifters’ Up on the Roof and time travel becomes easy as all those decades disappear in a few gorgeous beats.

    Secondarily, because I grew up in Indianapolis, there’s also a strong image of Detroit as an industrial heart pumping lifeblood to the GM, Ford, and Chrysler plants and thus to all of us in Indy. In my neighborhood, if somebody wasn’t actually working for one of the auto companies, it was more than likely that their jobs were tied to the auto companies or the wages of the autoworkers.

    I have actually been to Detroit a lot in the last twenty years and certainly know quite a bit about the state of the city but none of that knowledge is able to overcome those strong images of my youth.

  9. I’m from Boston, but I’ve always heard jokes about Detroit such as the T shirt: “Welcome Back to Detroit: Sorry We Missed You Last Time” (with a pic of someone holding a gun and bullet holes.) I read a piece on Detroit more recently stating that the Black Middle Class and Upper Class were trying to move back in to the inner city of Detroit. Don’t know much about the city because I’ve never been there.
    Boston has a reputation as a racist city (which is true to some degree) but it’s changed somewhat over the years. The criminal element depicted in films does not help “Beantown’s” reputation!

  10. SQUEEEE!!!! I’M SO EXCITED YOU WILL BE POSTING HERE!!!!

    What do I think of when I think of Detroit? Depending on the day, either cars or Motown, poverty, and abandoned homes.

    I’m looking forward to your posts!

  11. (((*dies*))) BFP!!!!!!! B-FUCKIN’A-P!!!!

    God DAMN is this gonna be a great week, or what?!

    Detroit. Well, I’m 44 years old, so when I think of Detroit, I still think of cars. Still think of Motown. Think of the MC5. I think of guitars and bass and pounding rhythm. Still think of decent UNION jobs that put food on the table and kids to college. And since I grew up in an old-school union family, I think of labor history and the sit-down strikes and black unionism and Diego Rivera.

    Like Lauren, I also grew up in the urban rust belt midwest, a midwest that is….forgotten, or never known about in the first place by folks from elsewhere. My folks grew up in a small industrial city in the Illinois Valley that used to be known as the glass container capital of the world—more glass (shipping containers, drinking glasses, you name it) were made there than anywhere else. Working in the largest glass factory there is how my mother put herself through nursing school (she was the oldest of six kids). That place is barely running now. (the others shut down long ago). Her parents never finished high school, but were still able to feed six kids on those UNION factory jobs.

    I grew up in places that look like Detroit on a smaller scale. Former industrial powerhouses where people worked and played and raised families. Now….shit, I drive through main street where I went to high school, and there’s nothin’ but boarded up buildings and a few fast food joints. Some of the places I used to go have been condemned, others burnt down long ago. Weeds grow up through the middle of the street where my dad still lives. My daughter wants me to drive her through town someday; she wants to know what things looked like when I was a kid—but I can’t. Nothing is the same. Too much wrecking ball, too many boards across the windows—nothing to show what used to be a vibrant community and now is a bunch of folks who have to drive long distances to get the few jobs left in the region.

    All that poverty porn pisses me right the fuck off. There’s no compassion there for the people who were used up and spit out of the capitalist machine. And at the same time….every time I went back (haven’t been back since my mom died this summer)…I’d always snatch a look at the abandoned bridge coming in to town. The bridge that was condemned and left to rot where it stood long before we moved there. Used to carry two lanes of traffic plus a streetcar. The turn of the century design sorta reminded me of the McKinley bridge across the Missisissippi at St. Louis (before it was repaired). Even as a kid, I’d ride my bike down to the park to just…look at the bridge. It was a glimpse into the future….a big “fuck you” to the city, the fact the bridge just had its ends hacked off, so it was a bridge to nowhere. I’d look at it and think, “fuck you too! I’m getting out!”

    But I haven’t really. I just replaced my locale. I’m just in a place that’s doing slightly better…but out here in the rust belt its a war of attrition. Out of all the Locals I’ve worked out of in Illinois, that’s one I haven’t—they seldom have enough work to put travelers out, and when they do, it’s always on the Indiana side of the border. (ever been in a city where the traffic lights and street lights are dug up because it’s too expensive to run them? Yeah. They do that there…and in East St. Louis too.)

    I….feel like I’m living in the Twilight Zone some days. I see what’s before me, but I also see what was. I can still see it in my mind. The contrast is disorienting. I lose my train of thought when I try to speak about it, my mind spinning off into multiple directions…don’t know where to start.

    ‘ssbenerica, bfp! (‘sbenerica is a blessing) Bedda! (beautiful, beloved)

  12. Sheelzebub:
    SQUEEEE!!!! I’M SO EXCITED YOU WILL BE POSTING HERE!!!!

    What do I think of when I think of Detroit?Depending on the day, either cars or Motown, poverty, and abandoned homes.

    I’m looking forward to your posts!

    Ditto. Also, I think of grassroots economic justice organizing.

  14. Great post, La Lubu! I live just outside Boston in a very white, upper class suburb that has some history they would rather not got out.

    My Dad lived in a very poor, immigrant area of the town that was razed in the 1960’s for “Urban Renewal” purposes but was really just an excuse to get rid of a “slum”. My dad lost his whole neighborhood and an entire way of life was gone for many people. But, nowadays, no one will talk about that! All the academics and “progressives” in the town don’t realize or admit to what happened to the poor just 40 years ago. The Capitalist Machine rolls on! This only contributed to the racial animosity that was already prevalent in Boston and surrounding communities. I think this sucks!!

  15. Welcome!

    Thoughts on Detroit: Kwame Kilpatrick, Motown, auto industry.

    One thing I have never quite understood about Detroit–my husband went to school in Bloomfield Hills (uber-affluent suburb of Detroit) and I don’t understand how that kind of wealth a) remains so close to Detroit and b) how it is sustained with the bottom falling out of the state’s economy.

  16. So excited! I grew up “Downriver” just a few miles from Detroit so I know about Slows BBQ, Tech-Fest, and some of the artwork that’s been happening in the area in addition to the crime and abandoned homes. Also, it has been interesting to see the increase in diversity that has happened in the historically white suburbs just outside of Detroit. Now that people aren’t able to guard the neighborhood by consciously/unconsciously only selling to white buyers, these neighborhoods are diversifying more rapidly.

    Also, @Casey I used to live in Ypsi! EMU grad, here.

  17. Mostly machines: political and motors. Some jazz (which I don’t listen to, much, I like all varieties of rock.) Eugene Debs? Oh, yeah, and the Great Depression. That’s kinda what Detriot is to me.
    TMC: Oh, I think I’ve heard that one before. I live in an urban center that got really notorious some years ago, and I’m beginning to hate the stupid burbs. Nothing but bland vanilla sanctimony out there.

  19. Surprised no one’s mentioned it yet–I immediately think of the Arab/Arab-American community in Detroit. IIRC it’s one of the largest such communities in the nation, with competing Arabic-language TV channels and everything. I only learned about it when I was living in Jordan a few years ago, and eeeeveryone I knew had family living in Detroit, or had lived there for a short time themselves.

    Before that, pretty much all I’d known about Detroit was Motown, which I was raised on thanks to my mom, who went to high school in Michigan (not Detroit–Lansing, maybe?) during the ’67 race riots. So I guess I got a few stories about that, too, growing up. But to me, anyway, that’s historical Detroit; my current understanding of Detroit consists more of it being a city deep in the rust belt, with that thriving Arab/Arab-American community.

  21. Jadey:
    Fucking amazing. This is awesome. This has been the best guest-blogging summer at Feministe ever.

    Right? It’s like the A-team up in here.

  22. I think of there being a continuum of Detroit->Ypsi->Ann Arbor, where people who jump straight from Detroit to Ann Arbor (or vice versa) without Ypsi as the halfway point have to deal with some serious culture shock.

    I have to say that I somewhat disagree with commenters who say that Detroit is “just like other cities” or that urban decay exists everywhere. I do think that Detroit’s level of decay is different from other major cities in the U.S. and we can acknowledge that without getting into ridiculous stereotypes.

    So, some speicific examples here, and I’m comparing Detroit to Baltimore and Chicago because i know those cities somewhat well and I think they are good cities to compare to Detroit:
    1)Detroit really lacks parts of the city that cater to the rich. Sure, there are institutions in Detroit for the rich, but there aren’t the kind of ultra high-end neighborhoods or shopping districts that there are in Chicago and Baltimore. That’s a huge problem for Detroit’s tax base and ability to fund things. 2) Detroit lacks the sort of typical urban American shopping infrastructure in a big way. Sure, the myth that there are no grocery stores in Detroit is just that, however, there are no Target/Walmart/Meijer/Kmarts/Costcos in the city and so if you want to save money, or you’re moving into a new place, or you want to buy towels, most people who can go outside of the city. There are very few large grocery stores and no national chain grocery stores, so again, people who can do a lot of grocery shopping in the suburbs. 3)The public transportation infrastructure is crappy compared to any other similar city, which perpetuates the geographic divide between Detroit and the suburbs. 4) There is just so much abandonment, so much empty space, I don’t think people who have never been here can fathom it and people who live here for a long time start to become immune to it. Yeah, there’s semi-abandoned neighborhoods in Baltimore and rundown neighborhoods everywhere, but the miles of empty space you can see in some parts of Detroit is unique.

    This stuff isn’t just poverty stuff, it’s how poverty and the collapse of industrialization affected a city that was built in a particular way: to be geographically spread out and dependent on cars. Which meant that segregation by race and class could be especially intense in the metro area.

  23. Welcome, I think I’ve seen your comments around here, bfp. Look forward to your posts.

    I pretty much associate Detroit with Eminem and for that you have my sincerest apologies.

    Well, and cars too.

  24. Hmmm. As far as the bland suburbs thing goes, I’m going to agree with annalouise. I don’t live in Boston proper, and I kind of cringe when people who live there make comments about the burbs. I live in a burb, it’s not White, it’s pretty blue collar, and I live next door to a city (not Boston) that has been struggling since the shoe mills shut down years ago. Mention the name of that city (or other cities in the state that went through similar things when the shoe industry left), and you’ll hear the whole high crime/urban decay stuff (as well as racist crap about ghettos).

  25. oh, and I think when I think about “ruin porn” and my complicated feelings about it, I think that one of the things that we forget to talk about sometimes is how just aesthetically beautiful Detroit is and the role that plays in the appeal of ruin porn.

    All around Detroit are these gorgeous (and often empty) relics of the belief that public buildings for the working class should be beautiful, that ordinary people deserve to be in the presence of extraordinary beauty. I think that’s what explains why people from the outside like Detroit Ruin porn and also makes the whole thing especially unpleasant for Detroiters because what should be appreciation turns into voyeurism.

  26. I get sad when I think about Detroit. As a kid, the traffic on the highways scared me; now when I have a reason to drive there, the highways scare me because they’re completely empty. Like a rapture that took all the cars.

    I’m also sad because I hear that the grassroots revitalization projects are mostly focused on bringing white yuppies to the city. It echoes New Orleans.

  27. Sheelzebub:
    Hmmm.As far as the bland suburbs thing goes, I’m going to agree with annalouise.I don’t live in Boston proper, and I kind of cringe when people who live there make comments about the burbs.I live in a burb, it’s not White, it’s pretty blue collar, and I live next door to a city (not Boston) that has been struggling since the shoe mills shut down years ago.Mention the name of that city (or other cities in the state that went through similar things when the shoe industry left), and you’ll hear the whole high crime/urban decay stuff (as well as racist crap about ghettos).

    So True! Upper middle-class people always act as if the suburbs are free of the “Criminal element” when in reality the burbs are buying all the drugs from the “inner city” but paying no price for it. Maybe the occasional arrest that will be cleared up with a high priced lawyer! I have sort of a mirthless laugh when I hear people in this suburb comment on how horrible the roads are, or how we need to pick up after our dogs. Meanwhile, REAL problems are taking place less than a mile away in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester.

  28. Meanwhile, REAL problems are taking place less than a mile away in Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester.

    Or Brockton, New Bedford, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Pittsfield, Springfield, Worcester, Holyoke. . .

  30. annalouise:
    I think of there being a continuum of Detroit->Ypsi->Ann Arbor, where people who jump straight from Detroit to Ann Arbor (or vice versa) without Ypsi as the halfway point have to deal with some serious culture shock.

    I have to say that I somewhat disagree with commenters who say that Detroit is “just like other cities” or that urban decay exists everywhere.I do think that Detroit’s level of decay is different from other major cities in the U.S. and we can acknowledge that without getting into ridiculous stereotypes.

    So, some speicific examples here, and I’m comparing Detroit to Baltimore and Chicago because i know those cities somewhat well and I think they are good cities to compare to Detroit:
    1)Detroit really lacks parts of the city that cater to the rich.Sure, there are institutions in Detroit for the rich, but there aren’t the kind of ultra high-end neighborhoods or shopping districts that there are in Chicago and Baltimore. That’s a huge problem for Detroit’s tax base and ability to fund things. 2) Detroit lacks the sort of typical urban American shopping infrastructure in a big way. Sure, the myth that there are no grocery stores in Detroit is just that, however,there are no Target/Walmart/Meijer/Kmarts/Costcos in the city and so if you want to save money, or you’re moving into a new place, or you want to buy towels, most people who can go outside of the city. There are very few large grocery stores and no national chain grocery stores, so again, people who can do a lot of grocery shopping in the suburbs. 3)The public transportation infrastructure is crappy compared to any other similar city, which perpetuates the geographic divide between Detroit and the suburbs. 4) There is just so much abandonment, so much empty space, I don’t think people who have never been here can fathom it and people who live here for a long time start to become immune to it. Yeah, there’s semi-abandoned neighborhoods in Baltimore and rundown neighborhoods everywhere, but the miles of empty space you can see in some parts of Detroit is unique.

    This stuff isn’t just poverty stuff,it’s how poverty and the collapse of industrialization affected a city that was built in a particular way:to be geographically spread out and dependent on cars.Which meant that segregation by race and class could be especially intense in the metro area.

    That was a very cogent comment. I didn’t mean to imply that Detroit is somehow just like Boston because every city is unique. White ethnics are fearful of crime by the dreaded “other” in the cities they live in or live close to. This fear is only exacerbated by pols who want to exploit this fear and use it to gain votes. My dad is a staunch Republican conservative even though the GOP has done absolutely nothing for him or his family! This makes me very sad that Progressive causes lose votes because of racial gerrymandering of districts and just plain, old-fashioned, fear.

    Boston has a great (but aging) public Transit system yet the neighborhoods around here are set along ethnic lines: Irish, Jewish, Italian, African-American,Vietnamese, Hispanic, Chinese, Haitian, Somalian, Nigerian etc. If you wander into the “wrong” town you can expect some harassment but still not as bad as the bad old days.

  31. When I think Detroit, Im afraid I think massive exodus from a wasteland. I don’t know anyone from the area and I’ve never been near it, and all I hear is about the horrible conditions people are fleeing from. A friend once informed me that because of the falling population, the huge number of abandoned houses, the dwindling police force and the rising crime, the city is offering a free, furnished house to ayone who will move there and become a cop (I don’t know if that’s actually true). Of course, everyone present agreed that they wouldn’t move into a free house in Detroit for any reason ever.

  32. I think pretty much the same as most people above, but recently? This house. The street map on Google maps doesn’t look like it’s an old or run down neighorhood at all. It looks like it could be any old suburban neighorhood.

  33. This is random and rambly and I hope it makes sense. . .(BFP, if you find this derailing, pull it. I won’t be offended I swear.)

    First, I’m looking forward to a post about Detroit and collapsing cities because I live next door to a city that has gone through that. Not on Detroit’s scale by any stretch, but it’s happened to a lot of cities in Massachusetts.

    And that’s where the complications come in, I think. I worked in Boston and Cambridge for years, and while there is a lot to like about those cities, some things that people said made me want to tear my hair out. Like, you’d think that the only things that existed outside of Boston were suburbs or exurbs. Not true (and there are poor and urbanized and “decaying” areas in Western Mass and the Berkshires. With wealthier towns right next door).

    When the shoe industry left the state and the factories shut down, the factory in my town closed, throwing people out of work. The factories and mills in the city next door to my town (yes, city that is not Boston) shut down, throwing everyone out of work, and they’ve never quite recovered. The factories and mills in Lawrence shut down (oh, come on, you know the drill by now). There are a lot of cities that never quite recovered when the factories and textile mills shut down.

    I don’t mean to harp on Boston, it’s just that the attitude I see in Boston is what I see in the more known cities that have wealthy areas and poor areas. There’s a mistaken belief that the “suburbs” are wealthy and White. That’s not always the case. My suburb is actually pretty mixed and not very wealthy. The city next door to me (which is considered to be a suburb of Boston) has all of the stereotypical inner city problems, and no wealthy areas (just a slightly more middle-class one that is currently foundering). If Bostonians take any notice of it at all, they deride that city as being “ghetto” and “the ‘hood” and “dangerous” and “trashy” for being mainly Black, Latino, and poor, even though they’ve been very proactive in doing what they can for their youth and their schools. (And I’m willing to bet you’ve got a LOT of that grassroots activity in Detroit as well.)

    Just to get really parochial for a minute–Massachusetts has cities and towns that were thriving in the past and aren’t any more–mainly due to industry leaving the state well over what? 40 years ago? More, actually. Brockton, Lawrence, Lynn, Lowell, New Bedford, Worcester. . .just to name a few.

    I just tend to roll my eyes when I hear the stuff about sheltered suburbs or wealthy suburbanites or whatever. Those cities and not a few struggling towns are considered to be suburbs of Boston. They are in the Metropolitan Boston area. And many of them have no tourism base, no industry, and no wealthy population to pay taxes and help keep up the infrastructure. They have the issues that any “bad” neighborhood has, but they aren’t really given any notice because they aren’t Boston. I’m willing to bet we’ve got cities like this around more known cities around the country.

    So yeah–Detroit is, I suppose, the city that is the example of this. But I think people forget that dotting their own areas are cities and towns that are also dealing (on various levels) with many of the same things that Detroit is dealing with, and that’s why I think this conversation would be instructive.

  34. So glad to see you here, bfp!!!

    Detroit; I think of a vibrant music history, a working class left behind by craptastic US labor policy & shortsighted decisions by The Big Three, and an object lession in poor urban infrastructure planning. An article I read about how abandoned spaces along railways and in lots around Detroit have become oases for indigenous prarie species, some of which are endangered and at least one that was thought possibly extinct. Also the Red Wings, Lions, Pistons and Tigers.

  35. I’m a West-Coaster who’s never been east of Montana, but I worked briefly for GM Customer Service. So, the auto industry, Renaissance Center, and “Roger and Me” are about all that Detroit brings to mind.

    I wish I knew more. :/

  36. Posting under a ‘nym here, cos this is a little too personal.

    I was born in Hutzel and so was my spouse, whose roots go down to his grandmother who lived on the street that gave us courville containers. That house Tony posted? Just like the one he owned for a quarter of a century, that my second child was born in. I thought it was next door, practically, because I didn’t realize Beaconsfield went all the way to the east side.

    I was into the sad, ruined thing before it came into fashion. Cracked sidewalks, weeds blooming, dirt front yards, cars parked on your yard. I hated that the city was struggling, but thought the empty fields were cool. There’s a freedom to live your life in a way you can’t in the uptight suburbs, like Troy, where we moved when I was teen, that I hated with a passion. No downtown, impossible to walk anywhere.

    I think of beautiful old schools and dedicated teachers struggling to teach kids whom they handed out toilet paper. No art or science or pool or anything. I think of prostitutes, nightly gunshots, bars and quarter inch polycarbonate on our windows, because we were broken into more times than I can count on my fingers. I think of black politicians who exploited racism for their own gain, and white politicians who were happy to shove their boots in the city’s face.

    I remember being confined to the back yard when the tanks rumbled down Woodward, three blocks away during the 67 riots. I remember kids, swarms of ’em, playing outside. We moved to ypsi, and ours were stunned to find everyone indoors. (Ypsilanti is 1/3 black and more of a blue collar flavor, Ann Arbor is next door and Michigan’s claim to a cultural center. Rich and as progressive as this state gets. Both are college towns. For those of you trying to play along at home. Grand Rapids is the second biggest city in MI, it’s on the opposite side of the state, which I think is one of the reasons they get all the money and support for the arts Detroit desperately needs, but I spose I’m being cynical, here.)

    I remember the DIA, the indie films they played; the Eastern Market; the many burnt out houses on our blocks, and the endless party stores and wig and hair shops. And food desert? Oh my yes, what grocery stores within city limits smelled so bad you’d never wanted to buy anything not in a box from them.

    I couldn’t deal with crime, the crappy schools, the one bad apple who made the neighborhood miserable. Cops who didn’t care. But when a neighbor here cooks ribs, that wonderful smell takes me right back.

  37. As always, what La Lubu said. Indiana, which is super rural outside of the small cities and county seats, is made up of a zillion tiny towns that sprang up to deal with smallish textile mills and manufacturing plants and steel factories (and farm-related stuff, bit big-ag is another fucking subject and way, way off topic) that moved out of the U.S. some 20-50 years ago and never recovered. And never will recover. The loss of those union jobs was devastating. Right out of college I worked in one of the more rural areas of the state that was killed off by the loss of those jobs, and the people that remained there were stalwart hold-ons, retirees, or poor and/or disabled. I feel like rural America has been coopted by conservative just-so politics, but the reality is that the union is what made this area of the country thrive, and it’s union jobs that will bring it back to health.

    Sheelzebub: But I think people forget that dotting their own areas are cities and towns that are also dealing (on various levels) with many of the same things that Detroit is dealing with, and that’s why I think this conversation would be instructive.

    Totally. And I feel like the news centers of the country, east coast and west coast, really exacerbate the decay porn problems when they cast an eye on this area of the country at all. I’m a visitor to Detroit, so when it comes to more urban areas, I’m more familiar with areas like East Chicago and Gary, Indiana, their current and historical dependence on status as manufacturing centers, the last industry there being big steel, the gross segregation and toxic relationships between black and white populations, all that. It’s heartbreaking.

    And the loss of infrastucture? Jesus Christ, I don’t think people know what that means to a city. When you drive through Gary’s old downtown, with the great (falling down) architecture and wide (pitted and potholed) sidewalks, the condition of the streets and houses looks like another area of the world. Like, not the United States. Like, a little bit apocalyptic. You can go blocks and blocks and not see a house that looks lived-in. And then there will be a brand-new business, like a bar next to a sports arena that looks like it was plunked down in the middle of “The Road“. Anyway, derail and exaggeration, but by my understanding this is how Detroit is too, but worse, where the city is talking about the removal of basic infrastructural services like trash removal and fire houses because it makes no sense to cover blocks and blocks of area when only three taxpaying residents live in a nine-block neighborhood. Some of the grassroots efforts look interesting, especially the re-greening and agricultural efforts, and the arts movements, but a lot of it looks like white do-gooder gentrifcation to me.

    tl;dr, but this is one of my pet topics. Thanks for providing a forum.

  38. Home. Sports. A football team that doesn’t give up and fans who haven’t, either. People living, who are *not* here as a University of Michigan poverty lab, though some days it seems like it. A city with hope, more than the rustbelt town an hour away where I live has. Bigger Ypsi, in a way. (EMU ’08!) An urban frontier. Eastern Market. The DIA, Dearborn, luxury and poverty side by side. Snow and smells. And as a suburbanite, in my mind there is Detroit, city of, and Metro Detroit.

  39. First- echoing others’ excitement to see BFP back in these parts. I have always respected your work.

    Regarding Detroit- I’ve never been, so my info is all second-hand. Most of my ‘sources’ have already been mentioned… Middlesex, Roger and Me, I’ve seen some of the “decay porn-” (I think Time magazine had a spread taken by some French photographers or something- can’t wait to read your analysis about it!), and the automobile industry. I’ve heard from some friends in Seattle that Detroit has one of the most amazing music scenes in the country right now. I’m looking forward to your series.

  40. Detroit was my home until I turned 21. It seems like such a lost far-away place, though I only moved as far as Cleveland.

    My memories are jumbled and confusing, ranging from the old familiar feeling of lining up in front of the State Theater (now The Fillmore) when my favorite bands came to town and I knew front row was the place to be; to hiding in alleyways from my abusive former boyfriend.

    I hear it’s gone down the pipes in the last decade. I kind of miss it.

  41. Sorry for the double comment, but I wanted to add a pet peeve: Whenever I mention that I’m from Detroit, I hear “Were you ever shot?!” mixed in with racist comments about my white skin in a city full of ‘The Arabs’ or ‘The Blacks’.

    So, ok. While wearing my Fuck You face, I usually respond with something along the lines of “No, I’ve never been shot, but you probably would be.” ASSHATS.

  42. Hey all!
    First, i must say that this has been without a doubt one of my most favorite threads I’ve read in a really long time. I was expecting a TON of decay porn/violence comments–and I was ok with that! I really was! I know all about Detroit representation in the media! Especially in light of movies like 8Mile–even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert get in on the fun of making fun of people dying in Detroit.

    So I’ve been pleasantly surprised to read this thread–and really so touched! I’ve loved reading everybody’s personal remembrances and life stories about Detroit or their own personal cities–So many great threads to each of the conversations…

    I’m going to be starting this series with a short look at detroit–just to contextualize it geographically and historically for everybody–and then I’ll be jumping in to all these really huge topics…I look forward to it–I really do. (and yeah, it took me about seven hours to write this post because it’s really stressful and scary being who I am and being here. but thank you everybody for the really kind welcome, and I really do look forward to exploring all this really important stuff with you.)

  43. Bfp!

    In the last decade, my father’s once-sleepy hometown of Santa Rosa, Laguna (south of Manila, Philippines) experienced an industrial boom, spurred by the relocation of plants like Ford, Toyota, and Honda. Santa Rosa dubbed itself the “Detroit of the Philippines” as a marketing ploy to attract other car manufacturers and industries (Coke, IT industries). Real estate developers used “Detroit of the Philippines” to attract the growing professional class to the fancy gated communities sprouting around Santa Rosa. The association with Detroit was positive — new infrastructure, urbanization, and affluence. Officials and developers pulled back from referencing Detroit, however, when they tried to market investent/retirement property to US-based Pinoys. That was when a lot of Santa Rosa residents heard of the stereotypical and racist associations with Detroit. While there’s still some reference to Santa Rosa as “Little Detroit” today, it’s mostly been dropped in favor of monikers like “Lion City of the South.”

  44. What I think of Detroit is music, music and more music.
    The Supremes
    Marvin Gaye
    The Velvelettes
    Smokey Robinson
    MC5
    The Stooges
    Sonic’s Rendezvous Band
    Funkadelic
    Negative Approach
    Destroy All Monsters
    Necros
    Electric Six
    White Stripes

  45. When I think of Detroit I think of industrial music – can you tell I’m a music journalist?

    I also think of an urban center surrounded by rich white suburbs, and of a dying car industry. And of Grosse Point Blank (the movie). I’ve never been to that part of the country, so my overall impressions are rather fuzzy.

  46. bfp! Hey now, this may even get me to read Feministe on a regular basis for a while.

    I was born in Detroit, grew up in the suburbs. When I think of Detroit I think of the RenCen, and the Boblo boats where I worked for 2 summers. Also, my aunt’s huge old house where we went to visit my cousins. Greek Town (before that people mover thing), Coney Island hot dogs, the DIA and those amazing Diego Rivera murals, the Detroit Zoo ads from years ago (“my lines! my lines!”)

    I also think of Hamtramck, and eminent domain and how shortsighted all of that was.

    And I think about the time I killed my 1975 Dodge Duster by driving it after the oil had all evaporated from the engine and the pistons fused and the car just … died on I-75 at the 8 Mile exit. And my Dad’s reaction.

    I think about those 2 summers of working on the Boblo boat were, and all of the race-based crap that went on. Me, bursting into tears as an 18 year old white chick from the suburbs because black security guards were commenting on my butt… and then complaining to management and then the security guard (had to?) apologize. My supervisor, a white 20-something guy, saying to me and another white woman that familiarity breeds contempt and don’t you think worse of black people now than before you worked here? A black woman coworker who laughed so hard she nearly choked when I missed her hand on a high five, and how my face burned. The way the white crew always referred to cruises chartered by black folks as “chicken bone charters” supposedly because of the chicken bones all over the decks at the end of the night. Walking around downtown after work during the Greek Festival and being told to “get out of the city white bitch.” How my friends from the suburbs imitated the black folks when they came down to visit me, and I didn’t say anything. Reading years later about how Detroit is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country and saying: no shit.

    But mostly I think about the auto industry, and my sister and brother and father and uncles and cousins who have (or have not) managed to hold on to their jobs.

  48. OMFG IT’S BFP! I’m so excited!

    My associations with Detroit are basically: Cars. Steel. Old churches. Ethnic communities with thriving old-world traditions and roots going way back. Eastern European food. Squatting. Urban gardens. Block after block of abandoned houses. Devils Night. Decay. Rust. Underground warehouse parties.

    Also, I think of this story: One of my closest friends is from eastside Detroit. She told me the story of a friend who moved to NYC in the 70s. One night, he was riding the subway when three punks at the other end of the car whispered to each other, pointed at him, and started moving towards him. He said, “Back off, motherf$%ers, I’m from Detroit.” They turned and ran.

  49. Reinvention.

    Detroit’s peak was the War (WWII). People speak of the 67 Riots and white flight as the beginning of the end, but the end of the war did it…without oodles of death machinery needed, detroit and all of its appalachian and southern/African American immigrants and women factory workers were no longer needed—they were cannon fodder, and when the cannons were silenced, the decay began.

    Race of course had a big part in the decline, but war and the end of war began it.

    Now we have a city with an infrastructure designed for 2.5 million people churning out WMDs but only about 3/4 million (probably more, but uncounted) living there, with few jobs, little access to education or even groceries.

    But there are so many bright spots, neighborhoods that have survived, people that have survived.

    I drove down a street on the east side last summer to look for my grandfather’s old market, and the streets had about 20-30% occupied homes, with the other houses being empty our burned. But people sat on their stoops watching their kids play and waved as we went by.

    Detroit is really its entire metro area, which is one of the most segregated places on earth, but the city and its citizens try. They produce some of the most creative art and music, create programs to help improve life in other ways.

    The revivals within the city are still segregated to a degree, but much less so than they would have been in the past.

    There is still tons of decay porn of course, but that’s only a part of the picture.

    The single biggest thing that keeps me in the suburbs is schools. These are an ongoing disaster.

  50. The Boblo boat! My mom used to take us all on that, but she’d only pay for three rides. I never appreciated the boat ride properly, but I thought the glassworkers and candlemakers and other crafters were cool.

    And yes, beautiful churches. We went to St Benedict’s but one year we went to a different church every sunday on our way to Belle Isle. And there was sailing on the river, the aquarium on Belle Isle, and watching the fireworks off the docks in July, and then it would take *hours* to get off the island…

    The original buddy’s pizza and the kow-kow. Any time out of state family comes in, we go to Louis, because my family followed that pizza for 40 years. My other favorite food growing up was Kow-Kow Cantonese. Our dentist was right next door. Both long gone now, though Traffic Jam & Snug, my parents’ old hangout, was serving their almond boneless chicken. My parents always got the same thing, almond boneless, and ham fried rice.

    Skating in Palmer Park, and wretched thin ten cent hot chocolate that tasted wonderful. That was actually in Highland Park, as is the historical marker for the Ford factory, but hey, close enough.

    The huge globe at the downtown library, its murals, even that thing with the brass buttons that lit up on the map where that section was. All these memories are coming back. I went back to the house I grew up in, and it was in remarkably good shape. Better than it was a decade ago. The cathedral of elms arching over the street is gone, but there are some trees in the neighborhood now. Does anyone else remember the big trucks that would come and spray? Lord only knows what toxins we breathed in their futile attempt to save the elms.

  51. What a treat to see you will be writing for public discussion again.

    Of curse, I don’t have much first hand knowledge of Detroit.

    Trivially, I think of Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich, and Mitch Ryder.

    Seriously, I think of Mexico. On my one brief visit to Detroit, fifteen years ago, the next door neighbors were Mexican with a Mexican backyard like I knew in Texas. And we went to eat in a Mexican restaurant, which maybe wasn’t as exciting for me as for the Detroiters. And the streets. The potholes and decay reminded me of Mexico.

    Theoretically, it makes me think of neoliberalism. How it stripped the cities and pummeled the people who lived there. Nowhere more than Detroit, where the long-term goal of making life for the mass of Americans just like life for the big majority of people in the world appeared so clear. And that the outcome of neoliberal policy was racist by historical necessity.

  53. I’m from central Canada. When I think of detroit I think of the auto industry, poverty, housing projects, gang violence and foreclosures.

  54. Oh, also – cold. The majority of the video footage of Detroit I’ve ever seen was from that animal detectives show on Animal Planet, and they must have filmed it in the winter because damn it looked freezing. As a person who lives on the West Coast it’s always surprising to me how incredibly cold the Midwest is – I’m from Scotland, and seriously, a trip to Pittsburg in the middle of winter is the coldest I can ever remember being. Edinburgh is on the same latitude as Helsinki, roughly – how can the Midwest be so much colder?

  55. CassandraSays:
    Edinburgh is on the same latitude as Helsinki, roughly – how can the Midwest be so much colder?

    We’re just lucky, I think. No hills to block the wind. 😛

    I love Detroit. I grew up in central Michigan (Jackson) with family in the suburbs of Detroit; it was always the big city to me. Going back as an adult, I can see all the decay and I can begin to understand so many of the problems – but I still have sort of a sense of awe about the city. The RenCen was the first skyscraper I ever saw! Riding on the People Mover was exciting! There was the DIA and the Fox Theater and Greektown and the old Tigers Stadium and and and…

    I guess it was touristy. But I loved it.

  56. Pingback: What do Michigan, Feminism, and White Supremacist Heteropatriarchy have in common? « hahayourefunny

  57. <>
    North America, being very big, doesn’t have its climate moderated by the water all around it the way Britain and Ireland do, and it doesn’t have the Gulf Stream warming it up with water from the south.

  58. I grew up in a North West suburb of Detroit (Bloomfield Hills), where my parents still live. When I think of Detroit, I think of the Tigers, the Red Wings, the Pistons, Eastern market with its great local vendors and their small businesses. I think of the local government struggling with the corruption and crimes of some (Kilpatrick) and the ineptitude of others (Monica Conyers). I think of the past when it was too dangerous to go downtown and the present where downtown is being revitalized. I have hope for the future of Detroit.

  59. I also think of neighboring Oakland county, one of the richest counties in the entire country.

    Other aspects of Detroit that come to mind: White flight. Racism– one common one is working class white men holding the myth that the if it weren’t for [pick a minority group] they would have jobs. Corrupt government officials and lack of accountability to the people. A school system that is perpetuating inequality rather than leveling the playing field– students aren’t expected to succeed.

    I also think that Detroit has a lot of assets. There’s some new businesses and efforts to revitalize downtown. Lots of people have pride in Detroit and being from Detroit and there’s lots of strength in the people. It’s far from all bad, but the bad is definitely the dominant narrative outside of Detroit.

    I’m really interested to hear more from you on this topic.

  60. I am so intrigued and excited by your guest blogging here, Lovey. And this thread is like a reunion of some of my favorite people – Tanglad, La Lubu – so I’m pumped.

    Detroit? I think of raw activists, raw energy, doing it better than most places because of the abandoned factories and businesses. I think of Grace Lee Boggs making it happen in her 90s. I think of Andy Smith getting the heisman from UMich and heading out west. I think of the life giving department of Asian American studies. I think of community acupuncture. I think of empty roads but awesome hole-in-the-wall restaurants. I think of kick ass mediterranean food. I think of organizing. I think of the deliberate relationship between the Allied Media Conference, Wayne State, and Detroit. I think it’s a radical place to be, work, do, live right now at this moment in history.

    I say this all from Cleveland where I’d describe it in similar terms.

    If you’re not from the Midwest, or doing work in the midwest, it’s hard to describe how effing hard it is to live out here. So you gotta finds pockets of energy and love, and Detroit is home to many of those pockets.

  61. Sheelzebub: I just tend to roll my eyes when I hear the stuff about sheltered suburbs or wealthy suburbanites or whatever. Those cities and not a few struggling towns are considered to be suburbs of Boston. They are in the Metropolitan Boston area. And many of them have no tourism base, no industry, and no wealthy population to pay taxes and help keep up the infrastructure. They have the issues that any “bad” neighborhood has, but they aren’t really given any notice because they aren’t Boston. I’m willing to bet we’ve got cities like this around more known cities around the country.

    So True! North Brookline is just very lucky that JFK was born and raised here. Without that, there would be no tourists coming here and talking about how “lovely” our town is and how free of “crime” it is. All code for: “Wow, there are no minorities here making us feel uncomfortable!”

  62. L.T.: Whenever I mention that I’m from Detroit, I hear “Were you ever shot?!”

    Ugh, I’ve gotten the same response occasionally when I’ve said I’m from Chicago (to an East or West Coaster). Or asked if I was in a gang. I never really know what to say.

    CassandraSays: Oh, also – cold. The majority of the video footage of Detroit I’ve ever seen was from that animal detectives show on Animal Planet, and they must have filmed it in the winter because damn it looked freezing. As a person who lives on the West Coast it’s always surprising to me how incredibly cold the Midwest is – I’m from Scotland, and seriously, a trip to Pittsburg in the middle of winter is the coldest I can ever remember being. Edinburgh is on the same latitude as Helsinki, roughly – how can the Midwest be so much colder?

    Geography. Seattle is way the hell north, but we rarely get below freezing. But we’re totally protected by the Puget Sound and the mountains. The midwest has no ocean to keep things tempered, and things are flat flat flat all the way to the arctic circle. So the wind just whips right through.

    Also, BFP, I’m so excited to read your posts!

    And, when I think of Detroit, I think of run down buildings, Cars, people trying to get by, and urban farming. I think of white, sprawling suburbs, where my friend is from, and that the Jewish United Fund is giving subsidies to young Jews who are willing to move there to jump start the Jewish community in the city, that’s on its last leg. I think of other rust belt cities that have experienced decline and lack of jobs, like my husband’s Pittsburgh, and his dad who’s been unemployed for 5 years.

  63. My very first thought, when I think of Detroit, is how I’ve only ‘been there’ in the airport for transfers, so I haven’t really been there at all.

    My second thought is Eminem (sorry).

    My third thought, as a Wisconsin-born person, is that Detroit seems to be a lot like Milwaukee. Wisconsin has north woods and Michigan has north woods and the UP and franklly, northern WI/MI/MN/the UP seems to have much more in common with each other than their southern neighbors. Something like Antigo (or any northern town) WI : Milwaukee WI :: UP : Detroit.

  64. I wish I’d gotten to this thread earlier; I grew up in metro Detroit and my closest relatives (mom, dad, brother) are still in the area. I’m very much of the stock that is (or at least was) very common in Detroit: white working class folks who worked in the factories, had good UAW jobs that provided some security and prosperity.

    I’ll never, ever forget that.

    I think of great music, classic sports teams (how ’bout them Tigers?), the auto industry and the car culture that surrounded it, Polish food, crossing the river to Canada, etc. I also think of the segregation, the racial tensions, the absolutely shattering economic blows the city has taken and the social ills that come with all that. And because the area is more than just the city, those ills have extended beyond the city limits to some degree.

    Mostly, I guess, I think of home.

  65. Wisconsin has north woods and Michigan has north woods and the UP and franklly, northern WI/MI/MN/the UP seems to have much more in common with each other than their southern neighbors.

    I’d say that’s pretty accurate. In fact, as early as the 1850s, there were calls to create a new state out of northern lower Michigan, the UP, and parts of northern Wisconsin. This “movement” cropped up a few times after that, most recently in the 1960s and 1970s.

    One piece of anecdotal pop culture evidence: in northern Michigan, you’ll sometimes see things like stickers, flags, etc. that display fandom for teams like the Green Bay Packers instead of the Detroit Lions.

  66. I’m from Chicago, my parents now live east of Gary. I’ve been through Detroit once, on my way to Toronto. I think of that wide empty stretch of highway from which I saw nothing of the city. I think of motown, the beautiful architecture which I’ve seen in, yes, ruin porn. They make me think of the south side of Chicago with beautiful buildings of the same vintage that are now falling down, and of empty lots and boarded up turn of the century two- and three-flats. I’ve lived on both coasts as an adult, and the attitude of the (primarily white & upper-middle-class or wealthy) folks I’ve known toward the “flyover” states is maddening.

    But the fate of these industrial cities with crumbling or crumbled infrastructure will be the fate of a lot of our cities and towns soon. The CTA in Chicago was deemed unsafe for use over half a decade ago. A conversation is starting about roads and bridges, but public transit infrastructure’s in deep trouble as well.

  67. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland — I’ve never been to Detroit, except for flying through it’s airport on my way home after the summer I spent at MTU in the UP, but I always envisioned it as a blend of Cleveland and Akron (because of the car industry). Different sports-team sweatshirts, but a similar town.

  68. For me, Detroit will always be “the old neighborhood” as my Dad calls it. My parents were born and raised there and I was born there as well. Detroit is muscle cars, Motown, race riots, stories about drag racing on Woodward Avenue, and Cody High School. But those are all pieces of highly embellished stories and to be perfectly honest I have no idea what Detroit is really like now.

  69. Seriously, SO GLAD you are guesting. EEEEE!

    When I think of Detroit, only having lived on/near coasts, I think of Maureen Taylor, who is THE SHIT, Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, and the fight over the privatization of water. Ten years ago, I probably would have said Eminem, segregation, cars, and music.

  70. Linnaeus:

    One piece of anecdotal pop culture evidence: in northern Michigan, you’ll sometimes see things like stickers, flags, etc. that display fandom for teams like the Green Bay Packers instead of the Detroit Lions.

    Amen.

    Speaking of which…I was raised Catholic, and our beloved and elderly priest (since passed away) would have a short homily to end Mass early on days the Packers played afternoon games.

  71. I grew up in Saginaw, which has always seemed like a mini-Detroit. Very racially segregated, I could (probably still can) pinpoint the exact spot where the city goes from being primarily inhabited by minorities to primarily white. Detroit is much the same. I remember driving by a high school in Dearborn and seeing Ferraris parked in the student parking lot. It always amazes me that so much wealth surrounds Detroit in its suburbs but never seems to touch the city itself. My dad has always worked in Detroit (construction) and has worked on many of the buildings there, like Comerica Park. He always has hope that it will get better. Detroit is the birthplace of MC5, who kick-started the punk movement (in my opinion, of course) and they were part of the White Panthers. I love Detroit, there’s something about that city that makes me feel at home, maybe it’s the hardcore, industrial, working-class sensibility. I think of brilliant music, decaying buildings with brand-new neon signs, insatiable appetite for sports, and hope that maybe one day it won’t be known as the Most Dangerous City in America.

  72. Woohoo! Don’t come here much anymore, but thrilled for this series. I’m jumping in late on this thread, but here goes.

    I grew up upper-middle-class in Sacramento, CA, and honestly didn’t learn a thing about Detroit until the past couple of years.

    Now, I think of the incredible history of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) and other Black-led pro-communist labor organizing in the mid-to-late-60s, and how the cops collaborated with the corporations (obvi) to crush those movements. I think of Wayne State University and how for a little while in the 60s the students commandeered its newspaper to act as a community organ of literature, smuggling the bulk of the issues off-campus to distribute in neighborhoods and workplaces. I think of how the students also collaborated with the Black auto plant organizers to distribute worker-produced lit at the plant gates, because if the workers got caught doing it they’d be fired. I think this relationship btw Wayne State and the organizing workers is one of the most inspiring I’ve heard in the US.

    I also think of the most recent US Social Forum, which I didn’t attend, but know a lot of folks who did. I have mixed feelings about the USSF, and am always interested to hear perspectives from folks in Detroit about how it went down.

    Last, I think of the long and ongoing fight to save the Catherine Ferguson Academy for pregnant and parenting teenage women. Hella inspiring.

    Loving this thread, especially ericoides’s moving descriptions, Sheezlebub’s insights, the intro to ruin or decay porn (had to google that, too) . . . it’s all so good. I’m grateful. And happy that you’re happy, bfp! Thanks for a great and spacious intro.

  73. Sheelzebub: I grew up in MN, in one of the Twin Cities. My beef with suburbanites is that they vote in douchebags who then cut funding to the cities- and then the voters go into the cities to gleefully party. I’m beginning to think of starting a petition for a ‘twilight tax’- any resident from the ‘burbs who visits or stays in the city after 5 has to pay for the privilege of visiting the city. So, yeah, not all suburbs are rich, but enough of them are to be pains in the ass of all the city-dwellers.

  74. Way late discovering that bfp is doing a guest gig here, but hell why not…what Detroit invokes in my mind:

    Joe Louis, Tommy Hearns, Emmanuel Steward, Cronk boxing gym, the Mayweathers, legendary boxing culture, legendary sports culture, Red Wings, Pistons.

    Motown, funk, soul, original house.

    Cars, factories, rust belt.

    Vincent Chin.

    Grace Lee Boggs.

    Great Lakes, outdoors, hunting, fishing, almost Canada.

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