Black People : AFRIKATOWN

KWABENA

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Jun 10, 2004
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Jambo Family:

Did any of you hear anything about a proposal for an Afrikatown being built in the city of Detroit, with investments provided by Dr. Claud Anderson and many others? I also heard that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick opposed the idea. Do any of you know, or did any of you hear about this?

CD
 
Begin from the Beginning....

If WE'RE gonna "study" a subject,

WE might as well begin from the beginning. hmm(?)

This subject is EXTREMELY touchy for ME, therefore I

don't mind getting YOU started, but I won't be 'round

here for long, due to the Blatant Racism surrounding "Africantown".

Note:

To date, the Michigan Citizen is by Far, one of the most

reliable sources for "accurate" information regarding the

Black Community in Michigan....or anywhere for that matter.

Yet subject to white supremacy scrutiny in "media protocol,"

the Michigan Citizen is Still 'bout the best WE can hope for in

accuracy IMO. So, start there.

Check this out:

This article was written 30sept04....

vote Michigan Citizen • 2669 Bagley • Detroit • MI • 48216 • Phone: 313-963-8282



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Major media, businesses attack plan as ‘racist’


Dorian Harvey
By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — A plan to remedy the economic plight of Detroit’s majority African-American community, originated by young local entrepreneurs as “African Town” and elaborated on by “Powernomics” author Dr. Claud Anderson, has evidently created panic in white-dominated corporate boardrooms and angered some of the city’s ethnic minorities.

Crying “racial separation” and “reverse racism,” the local daily newspapers are assailing the plan and the Detroit City Council’s support for it.

Meanwhile, Arab-, Asian and Mexican-Americans held a rally Sept. 29 protesting the council’s support for the measure, which would create a loan fund only for Blacks.

In July, the city council passed resolutions supporting two linchpins of Anderson’s proposal: the creation of a capital development corporation to benefit Blacks, and the formal designation of Black people as the city’s majority population.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick later met with Anderson to discuss the plan, titled “A Powernomics Economic Development Plan for Detroit’s Under-Served Majority Population.”

Kilpatrick appeared ready to endorse the endeavor, but abruptly backed off in the face of a firestorm of complaints, including Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson’s comparison of the plan to his advocating a “Honky Town.”

“This controversy did not arise when the city gave Mike Ilitch $40 million to build a baseball park, where the only Black person in the mix is a peanut vendor,” said Dorian Harvey, who plans to build an African-centered retail and entertainment complex. “What we’re trying to do is build enterprises where Blacks can be the owners and executive directors. We never thought about it being discriminatory, but I expect that any time Blacks talk about building wealth and becoming self-sufficient, as Marcus Garvey did with the Black Star ocean line, we can expect to be attacked.”

Harvey and his partners in African Town World-Wide, LLC, Terence Willis and Anthony Simmons, have worked since 1997 to make their dream a reality. Stories on their plans for the complex, which would include kiosks for small vendors, have been featured in The Michigan Citizen, Crain’s Detroit Business and The Detroit News.

“We also want to take advantage of Detroit’s status as a global port,” Harvey went on, “and create a supply chain for businesses around the world, to give them access to an inner-city urban market and [to] create economic opportunities for Detroit’s citizens. And we don’t plan to stop in Detroit; this is an issue everywhere in the country.”

Harvey said he and his partners, who have copyrighted the “African Town” name, invited Anderson to speak at one of their meetings in 1997.

Later, they talked with government agencies, community alliances, investors and developers. They located several prospective parcels of land for the complex. Thirty businesses, with a total of 300 business owners, signed letters of intent to participate.

Councilwoman Joann Watson said she took up the call for an African town last year, as part of her campaign platform.

“All of us should be very supportive of a plan designed to provide ownership and employment for the largest segment of Detroit’s citizens, who have been mired in poverty and exploitation for a long time, against a historical backdrop which included thriving Black Bottom and Paradise Valley businesses, hospitals, pharmacies, restaurants and even hotels,” she said.

Watson said a Detroit daily recently featured an article on the devastation President George W. Bush’s policies have brought on the working poor, but on its editorial page, the daily denounced economic self-determination for poor Black Detroiters in the form of an African town.

“This attack should not be accepted by any conscious members of the community,” she said. “It in is our collective best interest to have the majority community offered more than foreclosures and games of chance. As far as calling it ‘African town,’ what could be more appropriate, since all of human life emerged in Africa?”

The city council commissioned Anderson’s report last November, at a cost of $112,000. The report includes the idea of having a Black business district as a central component, and it uses no-holds-barred language.

The report reasons that Blacks, who constitute 86 percent of Detroit’s population, should have proportionate economic dominance in the city, instead of “Euro-white” and ethnic minorities controlling the $11 billion Blacks spend each year.

Anderson says Blacks have been systematically deprived of this dominance by white flight and corporate disinvestment, by Arab-, Asian- and Mexican-American business owners’ ensuing control of retail and other parts of the economy, and by the profits large corporations make in the city.

“Part of the major problem the city is experiencing is revenue flow,” Anderson said in an interview. “Capital is hemorrhaging across Eight Mile Road. Money should circulate within Detroit eight to twelve times. If it did, you would have $100 billion in resources to improve the quality of life in the city, coming from of the $11 billion Detroiters spend.”

Anderson decried corporate policies of privatization and regionalization, and says such concepts as “Cool Cities” are aimed at aimed at returning Detroit’s African-Americans to a “minority” status, encouraging an incursion of suburbanites back into Detroit, rather than benefiting the “native Black” population.

He said the impoverishment of Detroit’s majority population has created an emergency situation, and he recommended that the city declare a formal emergency and spend funds generated by revenue from the casinos to implement the Powernomics Plan as a remedy.

Councilwoman Sharon McPhail’s office is compiling statistics on the funds the city has already spent to aid business ventures that have benefited ethnic minorities, according to McPhail’s staff assistant, Calvin Hughes. That includes $4 million in federal empowerment zone funds now being used to help build a welcome center in Mexican Town.

After establishing the Detroit Capital Development Corporation, Anderson recommends creating 35 Black-owned, vertically-integrated industries, as well as retail and service businesses in fields where Blacks dominate spending, such as seafood and soul food enterprises and hair care, beauty supply and clothing outlets.

In his report, he said that 18 of the 35 enterprises are “already spoken for,” but Watson said the plan would be open for participation by all African-American Detroiters.

African Town Worldwide LLC can be reached at 313.522.0722 or through its Web site: www.africantown.net africantown.net>. Copies of Dr. Claud Anderson’s report are available at City Planning Commission offices, located on the second floor of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.

E-mail: dbukowski@michigancitizen.com




AMANI

ROARIN......
 
Where is all this Going?

Read and Learn....

This article was written 25sept05





The Michigan Citizen • 2669 Bagley • Detroit • MI • 48216 • Phone: 313-963-8282



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Katrina, Sambos, race and Detroit politics
When Katrina swept the South, the storm exposed more about America than it did the Big Easy. We saw how vulnerable the poor are; how ill prepared this country is to meet any disaster of any proportion, and the depth of the gulf between the political leadership and residents in urban centers.

Given the extent of poverty among the citizens of New Orleans one must ask what elected officials there had been doing over the last decade to provide jobs, improve housing and generally lift the least among them.

The answer: Casinos, aquariums, riverfront enhancement and other tourist attractions. Sounds familiar. In Detroit we have stadiums, casinos, riverfront enhancements and other tourist attractions. We also have major portions of this city in real, New Orleans-style need.

Nearly half the population – there and here — is without an automobile, working little better than minimum wage jobs making beds, dealing cards or serving tables. Neighborhoods go neglected as officials spit-polish downtown.

All of this is relevant to the current mayoral and council race here in Detroit and how the news media covers the election. Rather than examine what the candidates offer citizens to meet their transportation, employment, safety and housing needs, the media wants to play the race card.

“Race still divisive in mayoral campaign” read a headline earlier this week. This election isn’t about race. To employ race reflects a total inability, failure or deliberate attempt to not understand the politics of the city.

For example, when local media delves into the “race” issue, they always cite the Sambo Awards as an example of folks playing the race card. This past week when the television news took a quick glance at the key issue of potential voter fraud and the city clerk’s role in flooding the community with absentee ballots, they reported without challenge the clerk’s claim the complaint against her was “racial.”

In both cases the issue was accountability. Voters in Detroit want service from the people they put in office. As necessary as voting, residents realize democracy also means calling out politicians who ignore their needs, employing any symbolism they choose.

Voters want better than minimum wage jobs, living wage jobs. Citizens are not willing to sacrifice tax dollars for corporate tax breaks when the neighborhoods need so much. Voters want city jobs to go to city residents, not outsourced to California or Oakland County. Safety, clean streets and alleys, response to their calls – simple things of city service are legitimate demands. Citizens want economic development opportunities for residents rather than everyone else in the world. Calling economic opportunities for city residents Africantown is not racial in a city with a population nearly 90 percent of African descent.

We urge citizens not to get confused by the major media’s continual insistence on reporting the race factor. Reports on “playing the race card” is playing the race card. It serves as a smoke screen, a divide-and-conquer strategy to keep citizens chasing imaginary issues while the economic powers downtown set the agenda. Hiding behind the fiction of racism allows the media to escape responsibility for their failure to get into the city’s neighborhoods and understand the great need and the tremendous desire for a better life.

The issue in the election is who best can do for you and your community. Don’t let anyone sidetrack you. Stick to the issues; force the candidates to answer your questions. Look at the records of each mayoral candidate. Which, if either, did more for your street? Which, if either, promoted opportunities for the neighbors next door or across town? Which, if either, has ever listened to residents? Finally, which one benefits from stories about playing the race card?


Hotep

ROARIN..........
 

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