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Wow, #10 is particularly potent with the ruined church that has "And You Shall Say God Did It" written on the wall.
Yeah, I find the pictures pretty striking, the library and church particularly. I don't have the balls to risk checking out the urban decay in person... poked my head into a condemned paper mill in the much safer suburbs, saw some discarded hypodermics on the ground, got flashed by a remote police camera used to keep vagrants out, and decided it was time to mosey on elsewhere. Even my adventurousness knows its limits.
So... soli. That. That kinda' sounds exactly like a description of a pseudo-dystopian cesspool 
Frumple, I was being cynical. I'm very bitter about what happened, and what continues to happen, in Detroit. It represents a city and a people who were wounded long ago, and never given a chance to heal. That wound continues to rot even to this day... yet its people are left to suffer and be ashamed of themselves, ignored by leaders with the power to change it, and betrayed by those who have stepped forward in the past. On further reflection, though... maybe that cynicism is missing the point.
I went to a High School where the third story had burned down, and had to be barred off because we couldn't afford to repair it. Several fights broke out at my school each day, some involving knives, blood, and very serious intentions. On the first day of my freshman year, my class was taken into the auditorium. We were told to look to our left and right, and that between those students and us, only one of us would graduate. We were told to be that person.
And that was the Freshman orientation speech delivered to us by our principal.
The school was struggling to meet minimum state requirements, couldn't afford a full AP program, and could barely hold on to new teachers... yet it was there that I met a man who would make an incredible impact on my life- my high school music teacher. He was born and raised in the worst parts of Detroit, lived through the riots, and grew to adulthood in the aftermath. He went on to become an amazing musician, conductor, and mentor of mine. Despite his talent, and offers to lead an orchestra abroad, or teach at several universities, he remained at our terrible, underfunded, unsafe high school. He knew what it was to grow up in Detroit, and knew what happens when the good things keep leaving, and only the broken and bad things are left behind. He not only taught us music, but also history, literature, philosophy, and how to live a life of compassion and dignity.
We played scores from Candide, and he'd encourage us to read the original Voltaire so we'd better understand it. He would negotiate a spot for us in a parade in Washington DC, just so he could justify a trip to the nation's capitol and the Smithsonian, where we could learn history and civics firsthand. Playing in Jazz Band was as much about learning traditional blues scales and the Dorian mode as it was understanding a slice of American cultural history. He helped educate us when the school system didn't provide, empowered us to take responsibility of our own lives, and helped us rise above a sea of shit to make something of ourselves.
After 3 years of summers spent drilling for marching band shows, hours of practice after school and at home every week, and too many private lessons, mandatory sectionals, and 3-hour after school practice sessions, me and my peers were members of one of the top bands in the Midwest.
My Junior year, our orchestra was invited to New York, to play at Carnegie Hall. We were one of the only American bands invited.
The school wouldn't fund the trip... couldn't would probably be more fair, but the band was never well-respected by the school administration. Too much expense for something that was seen as an extracurricular activity. Music wasn't part of standardized testing. Sure a lot of locals bought football tickets just to see our marching band's half-time show, but the value was still hard for them to see. So the band members and their families pulled together, organized fundraisers and drives, and spent most of the year raising the necessary money ourselves.
Here we were, students of a failing school district in a destitute city, wearing our hand-me-down suits and department store dresses, watching Mozart's The Magic Flute and 42nd Street performed live on stage, meeting incredible peer-aged musicians from Japan and Germany over dinner at restaurants I will probably never be able to afford, and preparing to perform on a stage most musicians only ever dream of performing on. Somehow, we made it happen.
So no, Detroit isn't a Cesspit. It's a place that wronged itself, was condemned and forgotten by the world, and to this day is still hurting. A place that is full of brilliant and beautiful people, who are capable of great things. A place that some day, when petty and short-sighted people are done tearing it apart from within and without, or bleeding it dry for their personal benefit, will be back on its feet again.
Anyway, in hopeful news, the new Detroit Mayor has a pretty solid (though unpopular) plan to make it functional again. They're relocating people from dead districts of the city, bulldozing them, and consolidating everyone in one place so they can all get proper healthcare and police protection and such. My brother-in-law did his doctoral dissertation on Detroit, the automotive industry bailouts, and the recession, so I got to hear a lot about the plan from him.
Fun story, actually... he was in LA at the Reagan Presidential Archives doing research for his dissertation, when he caught a super-Conservative fundie radio host talking about how divorce rates and liberals and whatever were destroying cities like Detroit. The host asked his listeners to call in and tell him how they'd fix the city... so my brother-in-law calls in, prepared to drop some science on the guy and rip him a new one.
Suddenly, they break into a very reasonable discourse about the complex nature of the problem, and about the proposed solutions. The host even kept him on through several commercial breaks.
It's enough to give a guy hope.
Linko, if you'd like to give it a listen. The "How To Save Detriot" sections starts about 14 minutes in, and his call starts at about 18:20.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9473748 times)