It would be great if, one day, a national news crew came to Michigan for something other than a “canary in the coal mine” story… I suppose we should be thankful that people around the country are finally taking notice of the plight of Michigan’s cities, which, one-by-one, are being sold for scrap by non-elected Emergency Financial Mangers, but it’s just so horribly depressing. Hopefully the revolution comes before the cancer spreads across our borders to other American cities.
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I wonder if the folks form NBC might be persuaded to stick around and cover tomorrow’s march on Rick Snyder’s home in Ann Arbor. That seems to me like a story worthy of national attention. How many other states can say, this Martin Luther King Day, that roughly 50% of their African American citizens will soon have their votes for local representation effectively rendered moot? How better to celebrate the legacy of King than by drawing attention to what would appear, at least to my untrained eye, to be a serious threat, at least in spirit, to the Voting Rights Act? But maybe that’s not the kind of “news” that the networks want to report. After all, there are a lot of YouTube videos of cute animals that they could be sharing between KFC ads. And I bet that Ricky Gervais made some “shocking” jokes during the Golden Globes that need to be discussed.
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“How many other states can say, this Martin Luther King Day, that roughly 50% of their African American populations have had their votes for local representation rendered moot?”
The District of Columbia?
I don’t think that Rick Snyder is himself a racist. I do, however, believe that, intended or not, the consequences of his actions have brought about the near total disenfranchisement of the black Michigander. There must have been another way.
I’m not even being my usual ironic self when I say that maybe it would be good if they got even HARSHER in the national media.
I always think about how the fact that Walter Cronkite (back in 1969) said on the CBS Evening News that Chattanooga, TN was “America’s dirtiest city”. To this day, even tourist and chamber of commerce officials cite that as the reason they turned things around. And if you’ve been to Chattanooga, you know what a hip, clean place it is, with free electric buses downtown, and a thriving artist community, among other things.
Bring it, national media. I will show you worse things. And maybe Michiganders will finally pull their chins off their chests and make things happen…
This is relevant, Ian.
Just a few days ago, the New York Times public editor asked, with a straight face, if it’s the paper’s role to pursue the truth.
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/
The media in America is not what it used to be.
And the national media does come to Michigan for something other than the “there but for the grace of god go us” story. They’ve been authorized to cover the Robocop statue, and the “former male model” who started Slow’s.
The nuts are really coming out on the A2.com message boards today. They’re irate that Geddes is being closed for three hours. They’re beside themselves, screaming that these black people from Pontiac and Detroit who are in town to protest are being selfish. Isn’t that the height of irony? They’re claiming that the people having their libraries closed because we don’t want to pay more in taxes are the ones being selfish. I nearly shit myself laughing.
http://annarbor.com/news/geddes-road-to-be-closed-down-monday-evening-for-march-to-snyders-home/?cmpid=NL_33_block_headline
You’re right, this is pure comedy.
“Post-racial”
It looks like annarbor.com has gotten rid of the obviously racist comments (no mention of “black” or “African” anywhere to be found), though it’s clear how people feel when they refer to Sharpton, MLK or the “people of Detroit.”
I was just reading those comments, but just assumed all those posters were really “EOS,” writing under different aliases.