- Rev. Charles E. Williams Sr. denounced PA4 assault on Detroit and other majority-Black cities in Michigan at rally against banks’ role in destruction of Detroit May 9, 2012
By Rev. Charles E. Williams Sr. revwilliams72@hotmail.com
May 10, 2012
I attended the Fight for Freedom Fund dinner Sunday night, and it was abysmal and repulsive.
At a time when African Americans in Detroit are up under a major assault and faced with state occupation, the assault on Blacks in Michigan was barely mentioned at the event. I was at the dinner for two hours, leaving just as the keynote speaker, Eric Holder, was being introduced. I exited because I could not take any longer the ignoring of the African American plight by the event’s earlier speakers.
At a time when Detroiters and residents of other cities with a high concentration of African Americans are being disenfranchised (or faced with voter suppression legislation), how could this very issue not be the major topic or theme of the conversation at the dinner?
Atty.General Eric Holder, shown with Detroit NAACP President Wendell Anthony, refused U.S. Rep. John Conyers' request, made in Dec. 2011, to investigate PA4's violations of National Voting Rights Act.
The only speaker who spoke or made any significant reference to what we are faced with here in Michigan was Rachael Maddow, who rightly stated that this issue is so important, it should be the topic of conversation of newspapers and news programs all over the country. Maddow, however, spoke for only about five minutes. She was an awards recipient, so she accepted her award, made the important observation and apologized for needing to leave early. I think she was as nauseous as I was by the time she spoke and any excuse was good enough to make a gracious exit.
As Malcolm X said over 50 years ago regarding The March on Washington, “it was a circus,” a spectacle.
Gerard Anderson
The dinner sent mixed messages beginning with who was invited and who was introduced as friends of the NAACP. The corporate chair, Gerard Anderson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DTE Energy, was bouncing around and spoke for about fifteen minutes. Although he expressed love and concern for the main people being affected by the radical changes coming our way, I wonder how he can be in love with the same people whom his company helps oppress. It is common knowledge that DTE Energy is a major contributor to American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.)
ALEC is anti-American and anti-democratic; it is a critical arm of the right-wing network of policy shops that, with infusions of corporate cash from corporations like DTE, have evolved to shape legislation like Stand Your Ground, and voter suppression laws all over the country.
Inspired by Milton Friedman’s call for conservatives to “develop alternatives to existing policies [and] keep them alive and available,” ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: Controlling government, removing regulations on corporations like DTE and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful like Governor Snyder to account.
March against DTE at shareholders' meeting May 3, three days before NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner
