Image courtesy of BAR

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

November 8, 2018

(VOD COMMENTARY ON GOV.-ELECT GRETCHEN WHITMER AND MICHIGAN ELECTIONS BELOW THIS STORY) 

“The midterms were a test of whether Donald Trump could continue to hold majorities of white Americans in thrall to his non-stop, red-meat racist political theater.”

Tuesday’s midterm elections put Democrats back in control of the U.S. House while strengthening the Republican hold on the Senate. The big picture is that, two years after Donald Trump replaced the GOP’s old arsenal of racial code words and dog whistles with blaring white supremacist bullhorns, majorities of U.S. whites are firmly committed to an openly white nationalist political program under the leadership of a billionaire huckster who speaks their vile language.

Although the GOP remains a minority party — Democrats outpolled them in House races by 7 to 9 percent – white supremacists remain the largest bloc in the U.S. political spectrum. The 2018 midterms were a test, not of insurgent left-leaning Democrats — a disorganized and confused faction that was kept largely in check by the party’s corporate leadership — but of whether Donald Trump could continue to hold majorities of white Americans in thrall to his non-stop, red-meat racist political theater.

“The overt white supremacist strategy has succeeded in proving both the intransigence and coherence of racist white majorities.”

He could, and did, confirming the potency of the overt white supremacist strategy, which has succeeded in proving both the intransigence and coherence of racist white majorities, even as most of the ruling class and its media mounted an unprecedented offensive to restore the previous corporate political consensus: austerity and war cloaked in a façade of “diversity.” Trump made “me feel like an American again,” said a white West Virginia hardware store worker quoted by the New York Times. The man felt restored in the belief that he still lives in a white man’s country.

The G7 and what they stand for

Republican gains in the Senate reflect both the solidity of the white supremacist bloc and the structural racism of the U.S. electoral system. The Democratic gain of up to 28 seats in the House is not unusual for presidential incumbent parties at midterm ; Democrats lost 54 seats in 1994, under Clinton, the GOP dropped 39 seats in 2006, under Bush, and Obama’s party lost a whopping 63 seats and both houses of Congress in 2010. The latest election has given the corporate Democrats leadership of one house of the national legislature, but did not break white supremacy’s hold on majorities of white voters. The White Man’s Party, as redefined and reinvigorated by Donald Trump, is still the nation’s most formidable bloc, by far.

“The corporate media bestowed a total of $5 billion in free media on Donald Trump.”

This was a rematch of the contest that corporate Democrats wished for and thought would allow them to win decisively back in 2016. Democratic leaders sought to set the terms of electoral battle as a conflict between “deplorables,” as Hillary Clinton described white supremacist voters, and the rest of the electorate, the great bulk of whom the corporate Democrats believed could be corralled into Hillary’s Big Tent, where big city and Deep South Black politicians, Rio Grand valley and East L.A. Hispanics, suburban white “moderates,” Silicon Valley and Wall Street oligarchs, scheming CIA operatives and warmongering generals would find common cause against the Orange Menace.

Clinton campaign chief John Podesta urged his troops and their friends in media to do everything possible to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the Republican nomination, in the certainty that Clinton would beat him in a landslide — as incontrovertibly documented in the emails that were pilfered and delivered (not hacked) to Wikileaks (not the Russians) and sent to the media.

By March of 2016, corporate media – most glaringly CNN, but including the whole herd — had already given Trump’s GOP takeover gambit $2 billion in free media, amounting to more exposure than all the other candidates from both corporate parties, combined, including Clinton. By end the of the general election campaign, corporate media had bestowed a total of $5 billion in free media on Donald Trump — their criminally cynical contribution to the solidification and consolidation of the white supremacist bloc in the United States.

Trump is not their Frankenstein, but the Democrats and their media supplied most of the electricity that energized the monster. White supremacy is endemic to the U.S., part of its founding settler DNA, but the corporate media and Democratic Party’s strategy to help install Trump as a “straw man” presidential candidate who could be swept aside in the general election wound up giving white supremacists a champion around which to unite.

“The white supremacist bloc flexes its muscles and fingers its triggers.”

When the strategy failed, they blamed it on the Russians and launched a neo-McCarthyite campaign of slander against domestic dissidents — like Black Agenda Report — blaming the “far left and far right” for “sowing discord” on behalf of a foreign power. It was their own failed electoral strategy that had destabilized the corporate duopoly, simultaneously threatening the “corporate consensus” on foreign and domestic policy and giving new life to the Old Confederacy.

Nancy Pelosi

This is the big picture — much of the rest of the midterm results is clutter. The white supremacist bloc flexes its muscles and fingers its triggers. The racist horde — a majority of whites – feels a renewed entitlement to primacy in the national life.

Corporate Democrats, whose bungled schemes led us to this juncture, forge ahead with the same strategy as in 2016. Nancy Pelosi, who ordered the Congressional Black Caucus to downplay the crimes of Katrina the last time she was Speaker of the House, served up pablum and called it a victory speech:

“We will strive for bipartisanship, with fairness on all sides. We have a responsibility to find our common ground where we can, stand our ground where we can’t, but we must try. We’ll have a bipartisan marketplace of ideas that makes our democracy strong. A Democratic congress will work for solutions that bring us together, because we have all had enough of division. The American people want peace. They want results. They want us to work for positive results for their lives.”

“Only Big, Alternative Projects — transformational programs, like single payer health care, that actually shift power and resources from the ruling oligarchy to the masses” 

What crap. By “peace,” she means less rancor between the two corporate parties. The actual corporate agenda is austerity and war, the only future the oligarchy envisions for the planet. Trump shares this imperial vision — when he is thinking about subjects other than himself — but is glad to ride and stoke the white revanchism that is now part of his brand.

Only Big, Alternative Projects — transformational programs, like single payer health care, that actually shift power and resources from the ruling oligarchy to the masses — can erode the coherence of the White Supremacist Bloc, forcing significant numbers of them to abandon the prioritization of race, and at the same time galvanize the numeric majority of the nation: minorities of whites and majorities of everybody else.

Nancy Pelosi’s job is to make sure that does not happen in her wing of the duopoly, despite the fact that 85 percent of Democrats — and 52 percent of Republicans — favor Medicare for All, with only 20 percent of Americans opposed. In other words, there is an overwhelming popular consensus in favor of single payer health care that is diametrically opposed to the corporate consensus. Corporate parties, in a duopoly system, cannot resolve that contradiction in favor of the people.

That’s why the struggle must be mainly in the streets, and to build non-corporate parties, including independent Black formations — which requires a split in the Democrats, the section of the duopoly that is not explicitly the White Man’s Party, but instead slavishly serves the oligarchy.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

Gretchen Whitmer and allies celebrate her win as Michigan governor.

What is the future for Detroit and Michigan under Democratic Gov. Elect Gretchen Whitmer and team?

 Transition team includes former Mayor Dennis Archer, former U.S. Attorney Barbara Mcquade, BC/BS CEO D. Loepp, banker Gary Torgow

 Moody’s ratings agency says Detroit’s borrowing future is bleak without attention to its devastated neighborhoods: “However, this momentum only encompasses seven of Detroit’s 143 square miles and 6% of the city’s population.”

 The majority of Detroit Public Schools were closed under Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who also signed PA 10, the first EM law for school districts

Unlike several of her Democratic opponents, Whitmer did NOT support Medicare for all, wants “re-insurance” plan to give tax $$ to insurance cos.

 By Diane Bukowski

 November 14, 2018

DETROIT – The article by Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report above is highly applicable to the future of both Detroit and the State of Michigan under its newly-elected Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer and her appointees.

Detroiters and others are understandably enthusiastic about the end of Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s regime.

Under it, Snyder and his emergency managers poisoned the water and people of the entire city of Flint without going to prison, engineered the largest (and unnecessary) municipal bankruptcy in the history of the U.S. in Detroit, stealing the city’s public assets and leaving it 300 percent more in debt, and likewise decimated every other majority-Black city in Michigan.

Emergency managers also laid waste to public school systems across the state. Among them is the previously venerable Detroit Public Schools district, which was split into two entities, one left to pay off the massive debt thrust on DPS by the banks, and the other which operates what is left of the district, less than half of the schools that existed before 1999, without any access to financing. Most Detroit children now attend unregulated for-profit charter schools paid for out of state school funds.

Throughout this period, the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), Moratorium NOW! and other groups demanded that the banks cancel the debt owed by the city and schools, as well as that of homeowners threatened with foreclosure, and campaigned vigorously against the Detroit bankruptcy filing. They  also led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to put the sale of Detroit’s Water and Sewerage Department on Detroit’s ballot, pursuant to a state law allowing municipalities to do so.

City retirees, residents demand cancellation of Detroit’s debt outside bankruptcy court.

During the weeks leading up to the election, I worked in a Get Out the Vote door-to-door campaign to earn funds to move from the landmark Jeffersonian Apartments, which has been sold to greedy developers Joe Barbat and Arie Liebowicz.  Residents, many of them seniors who have lived here for more than 30 years, have been forced to move due to huge rent increases, the institution of  costly individual tenant bills for water, sewerage and heat,  under American Utilities Management, and large increases in parking and other fees.

This house shows what is happening under “Mayor” Mike Duggan.

What I saw as we canvassed neighborhoods on the east side of Detroit, however, stunned me and made me realize that I am fortunate in comparison to tens of thousands of other Detroiters.

Fifty-nine percent of this city’s children live in poverty. Homeless people, mostly Black, haunt the streets of Mike Duggan and Dan Gilbert’s “come-back” downtown, “Mid-Town” (formerly the Cass Corridor), the North End, and now my neighborhood.

The youth of the city are demonized and set upon constantly by the police. Current prisoners in the Michigan Department of Corrections report that a whole new generation is flooding into those concentration camps, where at least 70 percent of the occupants are Black.

I knew already that Detroit neighborhoods have been under assault for years by foreclosures carried out by the thieving banks, which caused the 2008 global economic meltdown through predatory lending, and tax foreclosures carried out by merciless city and county officials.

Houses with caved in roofs like this were lined up all the way down various blocks.

But I was not prepared for the sight of blocks upon blocks of homes with their rooves caved down to street level, the sight of a long stretch of Brush Street reduced to just that—brush, with only a few homes left standing, and the massive devastation of the portion of Hamtramck west of Davison, to cite only some examples. Even residents who have managed to maintain livable homes in relatively decent areas are forced to co-exist with boarded-up and burnt-up foreclosed homes.

Most residents did not open their doors when we knocked to find out if they planned to vote, understandably afraid of who might be outside.  So we just left literature and called out their poll locations to them.

But one young woman did answer. She said homeowners in a wide swath of land near her have already been forced out by developers. They include New Far East Development, which owns 530 vacant properties, and the massive I-94 Industrial Park development, where former structure have been razed to the ground. Despite getting millions in government funds for these projects, the developers have done nothing to enact their alleged plans to restore and revitalize the neighborhoods.

Part of the I-94 Industrial Corridor, razed to the ground.

“But I’m not going,” the young woman said. “I’ve lived in this home since I was five years old (she is now 41) and I intend to stay.”

Other people we ran into included homeless youths “squatting” in abandoned properties. One jobless youth told me he had just come from donating blood to get money.

A neighborhood resident told us, referring to my used black Ford Crown Victoria, “You’re driving the wrong car to get people out to vote.” Both me and my partner (who lives in Southgate) laughed and then had an animated discussion with him about offenses committed by the “po-po.”

When I reported my observations to organizers of the GOTV campaign back at the office, I also noted that people need to be wary of now-Gov. Elect Gretchen Whitmer. I recalled that the majority of schools shut down in Detroit were shut down during Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm’s two terms.

The two main organizers agreed wholeheartedly. One noted the lack of any real discussion during state campaigns of children, poverty, Medicare for all, rebuilding schools, and other issues vital to the people.  The other recalled that Granholm was responsible for approving  the first Emergency Manager act covering school districts.

Map of Detroit shows all foreclosures since 2002, which have devastated neighborhoods. Note lack of foreclosures in tiny downtown-‘midtown’  area. By Loveland Technologies.

In fact, in the wake of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s request to borrow $255 million in tax-exempt capital improvement bonds for the recreation and public safety departments, Moody’s Investor Service, normally a cheerleader for more debt, sounded an alarm Nov. 8.

“Detroit’s (Ba3 stable) downtown is transforming amid a hub of large-scale developments, population growth, and surging employment,” Moody’s Investors Service says in a new report, according to their research division. “However, this momentum only encompasses seven of Detroit’s 143 square miles and 6% of the city’s population. Strengthening the city’s property tax base beyond the city center would better position it to afford its already high debt and pension burdens.”

Moody’s added, “Since 2010, Detroit’s population has increased 28% or about 10,000 in the city center, but the overall city populace has lost 35,000 citizens. The divergence in population and demographic trends impact revenue mix and Detroit’s ability to afford its fixed costs including pension expenditures. Per-capita income is just above 52% of the nation.

Long-closed Frederick Douglass High School on east side typifies Detroit’s dozens of closed schools.

Moody’s also cited problems with Detroit schools.

“The Detroit Public School Community District (DPSCD) could also become a major drag on revitalization beyond downtown. Two years following a state rescue package, the district does not have the ability to address its significant capital needs.”

To add more cause for alarm, Bridge Magazine reported Oct. 24,   “Seven years after a disastrous series of public meetings about then-Mayor Dave Bing’s plan to downsize Detroit, city officials are amid a $57 million, five-year analysis of the water and sewer system.

“The study is intended to help prioritize repairs, but water officials acknowledge the findings may help determine whether the city should offer to pay to move residents out of abandoned neighborhoods and shut water lines.

“Areas that are so sparsely populated, perhaps the neighborhood should be shut down and just move people out? We think so,” said Gary Brown, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD).”

“Mayor” Duggan’s hand covers Detroit, where small pipelines are the only remaining property of the DWSD, which formerly covered six counties and 40 percent of the state’s population. 2014 Photo from bankruptcy proceedings press conference.

DTE and other utilities have also discussed plans to shut down the provision of services to sparsely-populated areas where the most of the city’s Black homeowners and renters have been forced out by the banks and politicians.

DWSD is a shadow of its former self. Once the city’s “crown jewel,” it owns only the smaller pipelines inside the City of Detroit, where once it provided water for 40 percent of the state’s population and owned wastewater and freshwater treatment plants throughout six counties. It was the third largest water and sewerage department in the U.S. Its downriver Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant was the largest in the world.

During the bankruptcy debacle, Mayor Mike Duggan and area county executives agreed to the establishment of the regional “Great Lakes Water Authority” in 2014, after 41 percent of DWSD’s staff had been eliminated.  Since then, constant “boil-water” alerts, massive ruptures of pipelines and failures of sewage treatment plants have resulted in flooded freeways and basements across the six counties, and thousands of water shut-offs have become the norm.

What is on Gov. Elect Gretchen Whitmer’s agenda to deal with these problems? A look at her recently-announced transition team raises red flags immediately.

DETROIT’S FORMER MAYOR DENNIS ARCHER

These were the players who engineered Detroit’s devastating bankruptcy.

“Dennis Archer was worse than having a white Mayor,” noted Bill Davis, President of DAREA and an elected City of Detroit Police Commissioner. “He was making his family richer, but making sure no other Black people got anything, for example, Don Barden and Michael Jackson’s casino request. I think it’s a bad sign that Dennis Archer’s associated with it.”

VOD reported earlier that Dennis Archer, a fervent advocate of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing under emergency manager Kevyn Orr, teamed up with megamogul Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans and Matt Cullen of Gilbert-affiliated Rock Ventures in a meeting with former Pres. Barack Obama’s staff in 2013 to discuss the post-bankruptcy future of Detroit, before U.S. District Judge Stephen Rhodes had even approved the filing.

“Archer is [a] close ally of Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers (and is famous for his racist rant about star LeBron James leaving to go to the Miami Heat), Quicken Loans, and the Greektown Casino,” VOD said then. “Archer has been working with Gilbert and Cullen to get casino gambling in Ohio [despite Gilbert’s documented history of a gambling-related fraud conviction].”

Archer worked as a consultant for UBS AG, one of the two banks which foisted a $1.6 billion “Pension Obligation Certificate” loan on the city in 2oo4. EM Kevyn Orr cited that loan as a key factor in the city’s bankruptcy. He even filed suit to cancel the loan, covering his a–. but never followed through.

Archer was also a gung-ho advocate of privatization of Detroit city services during his sole term in office.

DETROIT’S FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY BARBARA MCQUADE 

“Barbara McQuade, the way she went after Kilpatrick, she should have been saying and doing more about what Duggan has done including corrupt demolition bids,” said Davis. “Most of that favored white contractors outside the City of Detroit and still does.”

McQuade was responsible for the conviction of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, which resulted in a term of 28 years in prison, a term many call disproportionate and racist. She also prosecuted former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway on bank fraud charges, brought against Hathaway through two other justices who disagreed with the Court’s 2012 landmark opinion in People v. Moreno. That little-publicized opinion, written by Hathaway, upheld the common-law right to resist illegal police conduct and affects tens of thousands of cases across the state. Previously, an appeals court ruling held that there was no right to resist such illegal conduct.

Barbara McQuade stands at Detroit Police Chief James Craig’s side as he announces formation of multi-agency task force to raid poor neighborhoods.

McQuade was U.S. Attorney during the 2015 execution of 19-year old dad Terrance Kellom by a multi-agency task force including a federal I.C.E. agent. She was in office as the Department of Justice investigated and exonerated local FBI agents and Detroit and Dearborn police in the 2009 assassination of Imam Luqman Abdullah. Many other Detroiters have been killed by police without reaction from the U.S. attorney during her term.

McQuade worked closely with Detroit Police Chief James Craig, appointed by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, during other multi-agency raids on poor neighborhoods.

McQuade barred beloved long-time community activist and paralegal Cornell Squires from her office, after he approached her numerous times regarding killings by Detroit police and illegal foreclosures, among other issues.

DANIEL J. LOEPP –BC/BS MICHIGAN PRES., CEO, MAKING $13 M/YR. 

At a time when polls show that the vast majority of people in the U.S. support single-payer health insurance unassociated with private insurance companies, also known as “Medicare for All,” Whitmer stood out significantly from her Democratic opponents in the primary who endorsed that option, medical doctor Abdul El-Sayed and businessman Shri Thanedar.

Her appointment of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s CEO Daniel Loepp to her transition team stands out like a sore thumb. Obamacare has been subject to attack from the right, but it has been unable to mount a counter-attack due to its association with private insurance companies.

“Medicare for All” means just that. The national government already has a database of all U.S. citizens in that program, now primarily limited only to those who are over the age of 65. This simplest approach to providing national public health care, common in other countries as well as several states in the U.S., is something Whitmer has already eschewed.

But Crain’s Detroit Business reported, “Whitmer is proposing Michigan start a reinsurance program to stabilize the individual private insurance market by adding a layer of coverage for individuals with higher medical claims. Wisconsin and at least four other states have created reinsurance programs where the state provides tax dollars to private insurers to cover the claims of individuals with a higher propensity to use medical services.”

Whitmer’s father, Richard Whitmer, was president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan between 1988 and 2006. And in March, lobbyists for the company held a fundraiser for the Whitmer campaign. “The vibrancy of Michigan’s economic climate is driven by public policy put forward by our state’s Governor; and we believe Gretchen Whitmer will be a great leader for Michigan,” the lobbyists said in the invitation announcing the fundraiser, which was on Whitmer letterhead.

GARY TORGOW, THE STERLING GROUP 

Gary Torgow, bank chairman and Sterling Group CEO.

Chairman of Chemical Financial Corporation, the holding company of the largest bank headquartered in Michigan, Mr. Torgow is also the founder of the Sterling Group. He is a member of the Executive Board of Business Leaders for Michigan and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and is a member of the Board of the Detroit Downtown Partnership. 

The Sterling Group is currently buying up properties in the Cass Corridor (now called “Mid-town”), including the former Burton School. It already owns the Ford Building in downtown Detroit as well as the Guardian Building, which it purchased in a controversial, costly deal with former Wayne County Executive Warren Evans. The Sterling Group has been a major contributor to many political campaigns including that of Dennis Archer.

Others on the team are listed in a press release at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Governor-elect-Gretchen-Whitmer-Announces-Transition-team.pdf.

SOME RELATED STORIES:

WALL STREET GREED = DEATH OF DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS; FIGHT BACK IN COURT, ON STREETS

Detroit Public Schools: A Case Study in American Apartheid

STATE WAR ON DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS CONTINUES, “SELLING BLACK CHILDREN TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER”

DETROIT BANKRUPTCY PLAN: GENOCIDE IN USA’S LARGEST BLACK-MAJORITY CITY; RICH GET 95.9%, POOR GET 13.5%

DETROIT BANKRUPTCY: “GREAT LAKES WATER AUTHORITY” TO STEAL LARGEST ASSET OF LARGEST U.S. BLACK CITY

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/08/21/near-catastrophic-failure-of-detroit-sewage-pumps-caused-detroit-floods-toledo-water-crisis-city-retirees-say/

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are in desperate straits because the editor has been forced to move due to the sale of her apt. building to greedy developers, so any donation amount is much appreciated. Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up. 

MARCH FOR BLACK WOMEN DETROIT 

 March for Black Women Detroit

SATURDAY, NOV. 17, 2018   12 PM to 4 PM

SPIRIT OF DETROIT PLAZA 

2 Woodward Ave. at Jefferson

Sister march for March for Black Women in D.C. and NYC, organized by Black Women’s Blueprint. Black women are often left out of feminist and pro-Black spaces. This march is our space to speak. Our purpose is to educate the community on the many issues that Black women face (Trans violence, sexual assault, domestic violence, etc.) and also celebrate them.

SPEAKERS:

Fatou- Seydi Sarr – ABISA, Michigan United

Jey’nce Poindexter- Equality Michigan

Heather Bruegl – Indigenous Activist

 Nicole Denson- WC Safe, Women’s March Michigan

Camille Sanks- Young activist, poet

Nadia Lawson- Poet

Cheryl Blanton Herrmann- Activist

Shelton Martin- Performer

Yana Lynn- BYP1

Camille Sanks- Young activist, poet

Nadia Lawson- Poet

MC- Tamera Middlebrooks (Girls Making Change Alum, Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan)

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are in desperate straits because the editor has been forced to move due to the sale of her apt. building to greedy developers, so any donation amount is much appreciated. Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up. 

IS JUSTICE A FAMILY AFFAIR IN MACOMB COUNTY? MCCC Judge Jennifer Faunce and sister 37th DC Judge Suzanne Faunce sworn in by father Judge Sherman Faunce in 2014. Macomb Daily photo

Chief Judge orders recusal of Judge Jennifer Faunce from George Rider murder case; her sister, Judge Suzanna Faunce signed search warrants 

Faunce obstructed Rider’s due process rights with lengthy delays; he sought to quash illegal search and seizure by Warren, Roseville police 

Lower level judges also crossed the line

Ricardo Ferrell, VOD staff 

BY RICARDO FERRELL

Nov. 7, 2018

While held in the Macomb County Jail for the past twenty-one months on charges of first-degree murder in the death of a Warren woman, George Rider, 60, has had his constitutional rights trampled over by Roseville and Warren police 0fficers, and by Macomb County Circuit and District Court judges.

On February 4, 2017, while exiting a car wash located on Gratiot and 12 Mile Rd., Rider had his SUV blocked by police from both the Roseville and Warren Police Departments. Police with guns drawn ordered him out of his vehicle then handcuffed him and placed him in the backseat of their scout car, confiscated two cellphones along with the Ford Explorer and left Rider standing on the street.

Rider had asked the police if he was under arrest.  They responded in the negative, but an employee at the car wash said, “It sure looks like you’re under arrest to me.” Rider then asked, “If I’m not under arrest then why am I handcuffed?” He was then uncuffed and left stranded on Gratiot Avenue.

George Rider with Tyree Guyton at fundraiser for the Heidelberg Project in 2012. Rider lives in Huntington Woods. Photo: Elayne Gross, Hour Detroit

Within a few weeks of the unlawful stop, Rider was charged and remained in the Macomb County Jail without bail. There have been countless postponements since the preliminary examination was held in front of District Court Judge Michael Chupa. A sequence of conflicts of interest began early on with Judge Chupa first signing upwards of 40 search warrants pertaining to the case, then presiding over the preliminary examination.

How can a jurist be a fair and impartial referee after signing search warrants in the very case in which he would go on to hold a preliminary examination? This sort of practice at the very least potentially poses the above-mentioned conflict and borders closely on being a violation of Rider’s right to due process of law.

During a motion hearing, Rider and his attorneys challenged the veracity and substance of the searches authorized by Judge Suzanna Faunce. Her sister, who is Judge Jennifer Faunce, another Macomb County Circuit Court Judge involved in Rider’s case, heard the motion challenging the validity of the warrants and likely deliberately denied the motions due to a preconceived notion and position on the case, circumventing the judicial process by allowing for an injustice of this magnitude to take place in her courtroom.

Irrespective of a judge’s position on a particular case which lands in their courtroom, she must under the laws of this land and under the U.S. Constitution administer a fair application of the very law she has sworn and taken an oath to adhere to regardless of her personal position. Otherwise the judicial system is made to be a farce and rigged process counterproductive to defendants and their rights. The presumption of innocence is prematurely faded due to a lopsided application of fairness which tends to lean more so toward one side than the other.

On September 24, 2018, Rider learned in court that the conflict of interest is of such irreparable harm that Judge Jennifer Faunce had to recuse herself from the case by order of Chief Judge James Biernat, Jr., due to the blatantly obvious biased position she allowed herself to partake in.

Judge Jennifer Faunce has tainted the legal process by purposely engaging in a practice that undermines all fundamental sense of fairness to the accused. Allowing any judge to disregard the rights of a defendant shames not only a court of law but the very principles on which the judicial system is supposed to stand. And, for any judge of the Macomb County Circuit Court to knowingly and deliberately turn a blind eye to the injustice in the case against George Rider, amounts to a complicity that must be rooted out of the legal process in the case at bar.

If not, then those involved are bordering quite closely on an act of corruption on a level that must be investigated by the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission to assure that a defendant’s rights in a criminal case (namely George G. Rider) are protected accordingly.

The surrounding factors relating to how judges in the Macomb County Circuit Court have unfairly treated defendant George Rider should be investigated by this entity mentioned above. The Macomb Daily, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News should all fairly report from both sides of the spectrum, on such news worthy matters like a judge who has been found to be in conflict of interest and was recused. These newspapers were quick to write stories about the arrest of George Rider and include other unrelated matters from decades ago, then why not write about the corruption which leads to the chamber of judges at the Macomb County Circuit Court?

VOD: The Detroit Free Press and other newspapers zeroed in on George Rider’s 1992 federal drug conviction, but did not tie it to anything in this case. They also did not tie him to the murder in the case except through his alleged relationship with one of the co-defendants. They claimed he was in Wayne County Jail on “unrelated” charges when he was arrested. No such record exists on either the Third Judicial Circuit Court or Wayne County jail search engines.

The Fine Arts Theater in a recent photo.

In fact, George Rider has been a respected businessman in Detroit, as evidenced by his photo (above) in Hour Detroit.  His George G. Rider Community Center bought the Fine Arts Theater on Woodward in Detroit in the late 1990’s, according to a Free Press article, which tied the theater to various shady dealings. The Fine Arts Theater was originally owned by Joe Foster Jr., a respected Black businessman with extensive property holdings in what was then called the Cass Corridor, and in Brush Park.

Inside the Fine Arts Theater during event for Heidelberg Project in 2013. Facebook photo. 

Both areas were targeted by wealthy developers in league with corrupt city officials, who have since razed the original Black-owned homes in Brush Park and replaced the Cass Corridor with fancy and expensive “Midtown” retail and housing developments. Foster and the subsequent owner of the Fine Arts Theater, Bernice Johnson, were murdered in separate cases which have (conveniently) never been solved by Detroit Police. Later, when Gwendolyn Washington was operating the theater as a concert venue, Detroit police conducted a SWAT-style raid including helicopters on a jazz concert attended by well-dressed middle-class Black citizens, claiming Washington had not registered the deed to the site.

Developer Harry Boutros/Facebook

The now-defunct Michigan Citizen reported extensively on the movement to save the Fine Arts, led by Washington who was helped by Malik Shabazz and Ron Scott. Numerous rallies were held at the theater, which activists termed “liberated” territory. But eventually the activists were evicted and the theater has since lain dormant. In 2016, despite disputes over the actual ownership of the Fine Arts,  Birmingham developer Harry Boutros’ company IIILLC bought it for $1.3 million, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Related stories:

https://www.macombdaily.com/news/copscourts/trio-s-trial-for-warren-murder-delayed-due-to-judge/article_6274c202-ccad-11e8-8ba8-ef1fd3cb8afe.html

https://www.freep.com/story/news/2017/02/23/warren-homicide/98328254/

https://www.freep.com/story/money/real-estate/2016/05/04/detroits-real-life-murder-mystery-theater-gets-13m/83932336

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are in danger of being forced to shut down, as the editor is moving due to the sale of her apartment building and is incurring moving costs, at the same time our web hosting fee is due. ANY donation amount is much appreciated. Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up. 

October 22, 2018

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) – A U.S.-bound caravan of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants whom President Donald Trump has declared unwelcome, crowded into the Mexican border city of Tapachula on Sunday, setting up impromptu camps in public spaces under a heavy rain.

Child cries out as caravan rushes Mexican border.

Members of the caravan, exhausted from the hours-long trek on foot from the Guatemalan border, mostly ignored police offers to board buses heading to a migrant shelter because of suspicions they might be deported instead.

The migrants have defied threats by Trump that he will close the U.S.-Mexico border if the caravan advances, as well as warnings from the Mexican government that they risk deportation if they cannot justify seeking asylum in Mexico.

On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter that “full efforts are being made to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens,” arguing that the migrants must apply for asylum in Mexico before attempting to petition U.S. authorities.

In southern Mexico, police in riot gear shadowed the caravan’s arrival along a southern highway, but did not impede their journey.

Among the throngs hiking into the center of the city was Roger Pineda, a 16-year-old Honduran.

“I just want to find some food and a place to sleep,” he said, explaining he joined the caravan last week with five family members and a group of friends from the violent city of San Pedro Sula.

Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, rest along the sidewalks of Tapachula city center, Mexico October 21, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

“I hope Trump allows us to make it to the other side,” he said.

‘We are not criminals, we are workers! If you send us back, we will return!”

In Guatemala, local media reported that around 1,000 migrants were traveling north en route to the Mexican border.

A large column of people marched under a burning sun Sunday as a military helicopter circled low overhead. Many migrants said they were fleeing a toxic mix of violence, poverty and corruption in Central America.

Most said they felt safer advancing in a large group.

“We’re going to make it, we’re going to keep moving so long as they don’t stop us,” said Honduran Jaffe Borjas, 17, marching alongside a childhood friend at the head of the column that stretched far down the highway to the horizon.

Along the route north to Tapachula, about 25 miles (40 km) northwest of the border, some broke into song.

“If you send us back, we will return!” a large crowd shouted in unison.

“We are not criminals, we are workers!”

‘EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CONDITIONS’

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, considered a leftist/populist.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador supported the caravan and promised to provide people with work permits in a speech to supporters in Tuxtla-Gutierrez, about 180 miles (290 km) north of Tapachula.

“I want to tell them they can count on us,” said Lopez Obrador, who will take office in December, to a smattering of applause.

He reiterated that is seeking Trump’s support to help fund a development plan that could alleviate poverty in Central America and southern Mexico.

Trump will exit Cold War-era nuclear treaty

Migrant caravan storms border between Guatemala and Mexico. Mexico is now welcoming migrants, a reversal of its initial policy.

Since the convoy formed last weekend, Trump has threatened to halt aid to Honduras and Guatemala, and potentially close the U.S. border with Mexico with the help of the military if the migrants’ march is not stopped.

Mexico’s government has said throughout the past week that it would register the migrants and process requests for asylum. Those attempting to skip the process would face deportation, but the size of the caravan will test Mexico, which has sought help from the United Nations to manage the issue.

Central American migrants challenge Donald Trump’s racist anti-immigration stance.

More than 3,400 Hondurans migrants had been returned to their home country over the past 48 hours by Sunday afternoon, according to a migrant assistance body led by the wife of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, Ana Garcia de Hernandez.

“We’re urging people against migrating in an unlawful way and putting your children in extremely dangerous conditions,” Garcia de Hernandez said in a statement.

The Honduran government has also blamed the political opposition back home for encouraging the exodus of migrants.

Mexican immigration authorities said they had allowed some 1,028 migrants through the official border crossing in Ciudad Hidalgo near the bridge spanning the Suchiate River over the past three days.

The slow pace prompted thousands to cross the river illegally by raft or swimming to the shore.

Reporting by Delphine Schrank in Tapachula, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa; Editing by Diane Craft and Grant McCool

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are in desperate straits because the editor has been forced to move due to the sale of her apt. building to greedy developers, so any donation amount is much appreciated.  

Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up. 

Video above, posted on YouTube by Ahmad 770, focuses on Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan’s remarks in Detroit Sun. Oct. 14 regarding Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and her testimony against newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh, condemning both the sexual abuse of women and little boys, including that by Catholic priests. Minister Farrakhan also spoke of his meeting with R. Kelly, calling for forgiveness when it is warranted. He touched on the role African religion played in the establishment of the first Black republic by Toussaint L’Overture. 
_____________________________________________________________

Addresses Detroit’s history as the birthplace of the Nation of Islam, home of the great Migration from the South after the Mississippi River Flood of 1927

Predicts that God will come to “raise the nation of Black people and Brown people and Red people whose sojourn in America left us like the dry bones in the valley, divided, hopeless and in despair.”

Recalls luminous and militant history of Detroit’s Goddess of Soul, Aretha Franklin 

Student Minister Troy Muhummad, of Mosque #1 in Detroit, chaired the rally Oct. 14. Members of that Mosque prepared the way for the rally. In solidarity with victims of mass incarceration, he recalled that he himself was in prison at the time of the Million Man March.

By Diane Bukowski

October 18, 2018 

As editor of the Voice of Detroit, I was honored to be escorted to the press gallery by a young Muslim sister, herself an aspiring journalist, to cover Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan’s appearance at the Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre on Detroit’s riverfront Oct. 14, 2018. The event was the commemoration of the 23^rd anniversary of the Million Man March on Washington, D.C. Oct. 16, 1995.  

That March brought out over tw0 million Black men to assert their presence and power, while corporate America’s assault on Detroit, Flint and other Black-majority cities, and that of mass incarceration and police murders, particularly of people of color, was exploding across the nation.

As Detroit undergoes the ravages of a renewed white supremacist takeover, it was truly uplifting to hear the       Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s words, and watch as they brought renewed hope to Detroit’s majority population listening in the audience and on livestream nationwide.

DETROIT – Members of the Nation of Islam and hundreds of others, primarily of African descent, filled the seats of the newly-named Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre in Detroit Oct. 14, drinking in the words of Minister Louis Farrakhan as he commemorated the twenty-third anniversary of the Million Man March. 

Minister Farrakhan’s talk held out hope for the future of the people of this majority-Black city, suffering from the ravages of white supremacy on the ascent.

“We are honored the speak to the people of Detroit, particularly the Black and the Brown, who have lived under  tyranny and oppression ever since we set the soles of our feet in the wilderness of North America, and our people have suffered greatly every day, about 463 years of sojourn in America,” Min. Farrakhan declared.

Detroit children wait in line Sept. 1, 2012 for winter coats provided by the Moorish Science Temple of America #25. During his talk Oct. 14, Min. Farrakhan welcomed the presence of Moors in the audience.

Currently, sixty percent of Detroit’s children live in poverty and the majority of the city’s public schools, which once produced great Black leaders, have been closed. Tens of thousands of the city’s youth are being shunted through the school-to-prison pipeline.

Detroit’s once proud neighborhoods of working-class homes, mostly occupied in recent decades by Black families drawn north to jobs in the auto industry, have been devastated by mortgage and tax foreclosures. They have either been left to rot or auctioned off to a majority of  white bidders at government-sponsored auctions, reminiscent of the auctions of kidnapped Africans during another era.

After the largest major city bankruptcy in history, a fraudulent result of the city’s takeover by a state-appointed emergency manager,  Detroiters no longer own or control city assets such as the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, which once provided clean water for 40 percent of Michigan residents, or the beautiful Belle Isle Park, which formed a backdrop for the Minister’s talk in the riverfront theater.

Minister Farrakhan’s talk held out hope for the future of the people of this majority-Black city, suffering from the ravages of white supremacy on the ascent.

“We are honored the speak to the people of Detroit, particularly the Black and the Brown, who have lived under  tyranny and oppression ever since we set the soles of our feet in the wilderness of North America, and our people have suffered greatly every day, about 463 years of sojourn in America,” Min. Farrakhan declared.

Former Detroit Water and Sewerage Dept. worker Derek Grigsby and family participate in protest against bankruptcy, which left the city 300 percent more in debt.

But, standing in front of huge banners portraying the co-founders of the Nation, Minister Elijah Muhummad and Wallace D. Fard, Min. Farrakhan continued, “We are honored to be in this place—we call it hallowed ground, because Detroit was chosen by the son of man, god in person, to start what is now known as the Nation of Islam.”

He continued, “It is written that every day of our presence in America, we would be afflicted by a strange people, but after that time, I (god talking) will come with a specific function, first to judge the nation that had afflicted his people, second to raise the nation of Black people and Brown people and Red people whose sojourn in America left us like the dry bones in the valley, divided, hopeless and in despair. Your suffering was not in vain and the enemy knows our future better than we do. He is frightened not of guns, because he’s got big ones, he is frightened of truth because he has deceived the whole world. So whenever a person has lived by deceit and built their world on falsehood, the one thing they fear is the truth and a man in whose heart is the courage and the strength and the love of his people to speak the truth, even if it costs his life. Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

Min. Farrakhan offered a lengthy and stirring tribute to Detroit’s Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who passed August 16, 2018, and was honored world-wide. Her funeral at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, pastored by the Rev. Charles Ellis, brought out the greatest stars of African-American music and many more. 

Aretha Franklin was honored on the front page of The Final Call after her death.

Min. Farrakhan recalled that Ms. Franklin was not only a singer, but a political activist who loved her people and never forgot her roots in Detroit, as the daughter of Pastor C.L. Franklin of New Bethel Baptist Church, and part of a musical legacy born here. He also had pithy remarks for certain leaders (including former U.S. President Bill Clinton), who unashamedly ogled young singer Ariana Grande, sitting behind her on the stage. Grande was one of dozens of world-renowned Black singers and musicians who performed  at Ms. Franklin’s funeral.

He said Ms. Franklin came to New York City in 1972 to stand with the Nation when its Mosque in New York City was attacked by the police.

The Final Call reported, 

“Abdul Akbar Muhammad, international representative of Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam had fond memories of Aretha Franklin, though he only met her up close once. That was after she visited the historic Muhammad Mosque No. 7 on 116th Street and Lennox Avenue, now Malcolm X Boulevard, in April 1972.  While under the leadership of Min. Farrakhan, Mosque No. 7 was attacked by police officers responding to a false emergency call. One officer was killed by another officer’s weapon.

“She came to express her solidarity with Minister Farrakhan and anything she could do while we were going through that particular crisis,” said Minister Akbar Muhammad.

“I felt, personally, she appreciated the voice of Minister Farrakhan, his voice into our struggle, and she came by to show her support and her concern over the unfortunate incident of the New York police raiding our mosque.”

Photo published by The FInal Call honors Aretha Franklin’s stand with the NOI when the NYPD attacked Mosque #7 in New York City in 1972.

“I love being here in Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre,” Min. Farrakhan said. “We loved her singing and her soul. . .I met her in 1972 when police attacked our Mosque in New York. I was on television ordering all white people out of Harlem.

“But Aretha with her blessed soul, she saw us on television, and as famous as Aretha was, she left wherever she was and came to Harlem to stand with me and with us. Aretha was not a sister that gave two cents for fame or fortune that would deprive her of standing up for a righteous principle. She was more than the Queen of Soul on that level, she was the Queen of Soul on  the highest level of the manifestation of soul.”

Min. Farrakhan continued, “Is there a balm in Gilead? Nobody touched our soul like Aretha. When she sang, you could feel the electric energy in every word. Each word was an atom and the power of her soul cracked the atom and the energy of that word went out and touched wherever that word went. I see Aretha as divine. I looked in her face, I looked at her eyes, and I do not remember studying her face, what she had on—you know how some men are—a great artist and a fine woman comes announced—you want to behold her in every dimension. Like some were looking at my little sister at the funeral—Ariana Grande—some of the great preachers. I’m so glad I wasn’t in that conversation. I called the family, and asked could I come, not to speak, just to be in the place where her family and friends and the mourners were, people who really felt a sense of loss. I was never expecting to be on the stage. . . But Bishop Ellis took me by the hand and brought me to my seat, picked up a paper that had my name on it, and sat me front and center on the stage.”

“Some of you, wondered, especially white folks, ‘How did that man get up there?’ You ought to shut your mouth. Your day of directing our affairs is all over. . .You know when you have  all those stars in one place—you talking about soul, that day, soul was everywhere you could look in that church—the people of soul, the people that God has sent to this earth to be a balm for us because God knew we had 400 years of hard tyranny. So these artists and I’m talking now to the whole artistic community, you have helped us to make it one more day under the tyranny of white supremacy.”

Min. Farrakhan continued, “Like most of our Black artists, particularly females, you don’t have good men. I’m sorry, brothers, we don’t know how to handle women that are intelligent, that are go-getters, that are young, gifted and black. So most of our female artists have never had men in their lives that they could look up to with honor, deep and abiding respect, and profound love.  . . My dear sisters, when you fall in love and you think that the handsome man who’s muscular and strong-looking, but weak-minded.  I had never seen Fantasia up close, so this was my opportunity at Aretha’s homegoing. I happened to go in the back and there she was with her husband. She said, minister, I’m so nervous, cause I’ve got to sing one of  Aretha’s songs. I told her, don’t be nervous, just get inside the word and everything will be all right.

“I said to brother, Fantasia needs an angel in her life. He said, yes, she’s been an angel for me. I said, what we need is for you to be an angel in her life. And Detroit, the meaning of atonement has everything to do with us repairing the damage we have done to each other in our ignorance, our women, our children, ourselves.”

Min. Farrakhan segued from those observations to a truly stunning statement of solidarity with Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford, citing her courage in standing up to expose the wrongdoing of now U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In doing so, he expressed support for all women of every color who have been abused by men in the white supremacist patriarchy that is the United States.

Women all over the world who were appalled and galvanized by Dr. Blasey-Ford’s testimony should now know that they have common ground with the men and women of the Nation of Islam. Hopefully they will take the hand that Min. Farrakhan extended to them in order to create a strong movement against the continued rise of white supremacy in the U.S. At its core it is based on the white man’s belief that he owns everyone and everything, from 2.2 million people, mostly Black, incarcerated in the largest penal system in the world, to women and children of all races and nationalities.

Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault on her. She said her family has had to go into hiding because of repeated death threats.

“I want to go right to Ms. Blasey Ford, and Judge Kavanaugh, now Justice Kavanaugh. In this world, and in human life, people outgrow bad habits, bad deeds, and change their lives. . . .So if Judge Kavanaugh bothered Ms. Ford when she was 15 and he was 17.

Now that lady was a victim of something. I’ve been listening to liars for a long time. My business is trying to get a crooked tongue to speak straight words, When I saw that woman give her testimony, tears came in my eyes, because no man should take from a woman what a woman does not want to give, and when that woman stood up and went through the horror of what Mr. Kavanaugh is alleged to have done to her, she had to relive it, because that kind of thing when you experience it, you don’t forget that. It’s seared into your memory—when you least expect it, that thing will come out and make a problem for you. One of the worst things a man could do is take advantage of a woman. . .”

Min. Farrakhan did express his long-held belief against the practice of abortion, but for the Black community, this is a complex issue. Tens of thousands of women of color across the world have been victims of forced sterilization at the hands of the white oppressor, who seeks to stem the influx of more people of color into the world. In addition to forced sterilization, the history of European conquests of other nations is replete with horrific accounts of mass genocide against the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, as well as the African Holocaust.

According to the African Holocaust website at http://www.africanholocaust.net/, 

“It is estimated that 40 -100 million people were directly affected by slavery via the Atlantic, Arabian and Trans-Saharan routes. Some historians conclude that the total loss in persons removed, those who died on the arduous march to coastal slave marts and those killed in slave raids, exceeded the 65–75 million inhabitants remaining in Africa at the trade’s end. But no one knows the exact number. Many died in transport, others died from diseases or indirectly from the social trauma left behind in Africa. Not only was Transatlantic Slavery of demographic significance, in the aggregate population losses but also in the profound changes to settlement patterns, epidemiological exposure and reproductive and social development potential.”

In current times, however, a startling reversal is taking place, says a report on uk.sci.med.nursing, a Google discussion forum.

“As a percentage of world inhabitants, the white population will plummet to a single digit (9.76%) by 2060 from a high-water mark of 27.98% in 1950. Using 2010 as the base reference, the big gainer in the population derby will be Blacks or sub-Sahara Africans. This group will expand almost 133% to 2.7 billion by 2060. By the middle of this century
blacks will represent 25.38% of world population, which is up dramatically from the 8.97% they recorded in 1950. . . . A side bar will be the single digit minority role that whites will assume. Of the seven population groups studied, only whites are projected to sustain an absolute decline in numbers.”

______________________________________________________________

By Charlene Muhammad -National Correspondent- | Last updated: Oct 17, 2018 – 9:24:21 AM

(excerpted by Voice of Detroit)

Gathering at the renowned Bert’s Warehouse in Eastern Market Oct. 13, 2018:
L-R Back row: Jay Dearing, Migel X Rayford, Moorish Science Temple #25 Minister Fuqua Bey, Askia Muhammad, Amin Ali Muhammad, Cornelius Muhammad, Arthello Muhammad, Sr., Bert Dearing. L-R Front row: Medina Mohammed, Katrina Muhammad, Alverda Muhammad, Claudette Marie Muhammad/Photo by Charlene Muhammad

MEMORIES, CONTINUED MOTIVATION TO  KEEP SPIRIT, WORK OF MILLION MAN MARCH ALIVE

Lifelong union and community activist Eula Powell at 80th birthday party, 2017.

VOD editor Diane Bukowski: I met my long-time friend Eula Powell (l) a community activist and union leader from the historic UAW Local 3 (Dodge Main) when we were  working with a coalition of my union Local AFSCME 457 and hers to save Detroit General Hospital and Dodge Main from 1977 to 1980. We were elated to find ourselves at this gathering Sat. Oct. 13, 2018, on the eve of Min. Louis Farrakhan’s appearance in Detroit described above.

We went to Bert’s to get dinner, but ended up meeting the illustrious Askia Muhammad, Sr. Editor of the Final Call, and his wife Alverda Muhammad, as well as the Final Call’s National Correspondent Charlene Muhammad. Bert Dearing himself welcomed us to the private gathering. Voice of Detroit earlier covered his battle to maintain ownership of that property in the face of Caucasian gentrification of Eastern Market, downtown Detroit, and the Cass Corridor (now called “Mid-City”). It has now extended to homes of Black families in the North End, stolen from them and handed over to white occupants at government-sponsored tax and mortgage auctions, and to the eastern Riverfront to landmark apartment buildings like the Jeffersonian, where African-American seniors and others who have lived there for decades are being displaced by its new owners, Joe Barbat of Barbat Holdings, and Arie Liebowicz.

By Charlene Muhammad, Final Call National Correspondent

DETROIT—Alverda Muhammad, a Nation of Islam pioneer from Muhammad Mosque No. 4 in Washington, D.C., facilitated a riveting dialogue with men and women who journeyed to the historic 1995 Million Man March called by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

They detailed how the march and subsequent commemorations, including the Million Family March and the Millions More Movement, have touched their lives.

Bert Dearing speaks at downtown Detroit rally to save Black businesses July 21, 2015.

Bert Dearing, owner of Bert’s Entertainment Complex, hosted the Muslims and their guests in his bistro on October 13. His grandfather and Minister Farrakhan were very good friends, he told the rapt audience. “The Million Man March to me was very, very important because I was able to take my father, my two sons,” Mr. Dearing stated. In fact, they took a whole busload of men to the march, he said.

“Just the bonding with my father and my two sons was more important than anything else, and then getting to Washington, D.C., on the bus, just talking or whatever, the energy, the power that you get being with Black folks, is something that you can never describe, but it’s once in a lifetime,” he said.

Malik Rahim took time off as an educator to attend the Million Man March. He drove with five others. People needed to hear Minister Farrakhan at that time, because the world and Blacks in particular were in a whirlwind, he said.

“We lost the structure of our families, but the speech that he gave … helping your community, just seeing all our people there, the brothers, some of the sisters, it was like a big family, like being at home,” said Mr. Rahim.

They returned home from the Million Man March with plans to develop a mentorship program for youth. “At that time our young people were into drugs, killing each other, getting expelled from school for 180 days, not going anywhere. They were just sitting at home,” said Mr. Rahim.

Mother Khadijah Farrakhan

Cora Masters Barry, widow of Mayor Marion Barry

The march participants worked and were effective in getting students facing drug charges authorization to still attend their special school, according to Mr. Rahim. “We taught them there, and they were able to pick up their grades. Those were the D and the E students, and they wound up being the B and the C students. Some were As,” he stated.

That expanded to developing family services, coaching and academic programs, such as hosting Black engineers to speak to youth.

Claudette Marie Muhammad, former national protocol director for Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, drew three rounds of rousing applause when she expressed many wonderful things resulting from the march that lifted women.

First of all, there was the Nation of Islam’s First Lady Mother Khadijah Farrakhan and her daughters, Maria, Betsy Jean, Donna, Fatima and Khallada, and the First Lady of Washington, D.C., Cora Masters Barry, who coordinated the registration committee for the march.

Dr. Maya Angelou

Dr. Betty Shabazz

“We had Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, who was the mother of the Million Man March, and she did so much in bringing women all over the country,” Claudette Marie Muhammad stated. “Now, we didn’t come to the march per se, but the women did so much. Dr. Betty Shabazz, Dr. Maya Angelou and I’m so very proud to announce that Dr. Angelou did a poem with words added by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan,” she continued. Applause rang out again when she shared how her then 10-year-old granddaughter Tiffany recited the poem at the march.

“The most thing I remember is I was like 45 and there were two buses, and they kind of separated the young guys on one bus and the elders on another bus, because they were playing music and games and all kinds of stuff the whole way up there,” he recalled, smiling broadly the whole time.

Dick Gregory

Clarence Driver

He wanted to ride on Mr. Gregory’s bus and made his way during a bathroom break in the ride, he said. He was cleared to switch and that had a lasting impact on his life, he said.

“I learned a lot about 40 Acres and A Mule, because I didn’t really know too much about it and everything, and how they were going there, and spoke to Congress; the meeting they were having with the president, the meeting they were having with Louis Farrakhan. I was able, since I switched buses, to slide in there and get to go to some of those little meetings and things, so it was a great experience for me,” Mr. Driver told The Final Call.

“It shows that there is a lot of unity if you want it to be, if you want to stick together. Being a child born in the ’60s and coming up, it meant a lot. Because today’s age, you don’t have a lot of being raised by the village as we were,” he said. “Everyone is more singled out than it was as a village, so being in an environment where everyone was one was great!”

He said Minister Farrakhan’s returning to Detroit was great, as it always has been. “It’s just a course. It’s what he does,” Mr. Driver said. “Just being a part of it. I was at the original, the 10 year anniversary. I’ve been at this one, so it’s just been a path since the first day.”

Related stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/09/30/federal-lawsuit-alleging-fraud-unclean-hands-forestalls-seizure-of-berts-marketplace/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/07/25/downtown-rally-protests-great-black-out-of-detroit-by-white-profiteers-politicians/

Askia Muhammad in James Brady White House briefing room. 

Diane Bukowski: I was most honored to receive a signed copy of world-renowned photojournalist, writer and Final Call Sr. Editor Askia Muhammad’s most recent publication, “The Autobiography of Charles 67X,” which is the story of his own life in his original poetry, essays and photographs.

He and his wife Alverda Muhammad graciously presented it to me at the conclusion of the event above. (I was not present for the actual speeches during this event, so I have excerpted Sister Charlene Muhammad’s article.)  I went home that night and read the book from cover to cover.

An excellent review of this extraordinary publication is at  http://stylemagazine.com/news/2018/jan/11/autobiography-charles-67x-poetry-and-photographs-a/.

It and other books by Askia Muhammad can be purchased through the following link:

https://www.amazon.com/Books-Askia-Muhammad/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AAskia%20Muhammad

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are in desperate straits because the editor has been forced to move due to the sale of her apt. building to greedy developers, so any donation amount is much appreciated.  

Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up. 

Joanna Underwood rallies up the crowd against long-term poisoning of Detroit’s children.

A coalition of organizations held an impassioned protest outside the headquarters of the Detroit Public Schools “Community District” Tues. Sept. 4, the first day of the school year.  School officials had just announced that water would be shut off to all DPS schools due to high levels of lead and copper, although they knew of the contamination weeks before the schools opened.

Schoolchildren also sweltered during a heat wave that lasted into the next day, Sept. 5, experiencing temperatures that approached 100 degrees. Protesters wanted to know why  the schools of Detroit are not air-conditioned like the offices of Mayor Mike Duggan, Dan Gilbert, and the corporatocracy that rules Detroit.

THEY CALLED FOR AN IMMEDIATE SHUTDOWN OF DPSCD SCHOOLS DUE TO A HEALTH EMERGENCY.

Helen Moore, leader of Keep the Vote No Takeover, addresses rally.

By Diane Bukowski

September 6, 2018

DETROIT — Furious Detroiters demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Detroit Public Schools “Community District” Sept. 4, the first day of the new school year, reacting to Superintendent Nikolai Vitti’s announcement that water to 106 schools and nearly 50,000 students left in the devastated district will be shut off indefinitely. 

Results from initial tests in 34 schools showed elevated lead and copper levels, Vitti said. The tests were performed in the spring, but Vitti waited until Aug. 30 to make his announcement about shutting DPSCD water off.  He claimed he wanted to err on the side of caution by shutting down water to all schools. 

“Although we have no evidence that there are elevated levels of copper or lead in our other schools where we are awaiting test results, out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of our students and employees, I am turning off all drinking water in our schools until a deeper and broader analysis can be conducted to determine the long-term solutions for all schools,” Vitti said in a statement. 

Vitti claimed The Environmental Protection Agency ceiling for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion, and for copper, 1.3 parts per million. He told reporters the district used those levels to identify problem spots. 

However, the EPA’s list of National Primary Drinking Water Regulations indicates the acceptable level for lead is ZERO. (See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/National-Primary-Drinking-Water-Regulations-Lead-0_complete_table.pdf .)

The EPA says the presence of lead comes from both household plumbing systems as well as “erosion of natural deposits” and from water lines coming into households and other buildings from the supplier.

DWSD chart showing lead in Detroit household water in 2016. Red dots indicate highest levels, 10.0-11.0.

In a combined statement, the Great Lakes Water Authority and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department denied any responsibility for the DPS crisis. They said they “want to assure Detroit residents and customers of GLWA’s regional system that they are not affected by the lead and copper issues that the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) is experiencing. Aging school infrastructure (i.e. plumbing) is the reason for the precautionary measure of providing bottled water. The treated drinking water provided by GLWA and distributed by DWSD not only meets, but surpasses all federal and state Safe Drinking Water Act regulations for quality and safety.”

However, the last Water Quality Report for DWSD,  published in 2017, said “The sampling results show that all the homes tested had lead levels below the EPA action level, which is 15 parts per billion (ppb). The MDEQ certified that DWSD’s 90th percentile for lead was 4 ppb, well below the EPA action level.” (See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/GreatLakesWater-2017WaterReport.pdf).

Former Wastewater Plant workers including Bill Davis, a supervisor, told VOD earlier that previous “boil water alerts” and flooding in the City of Detroit, along with increased contamination of Lake Erie and other bodies of water, was caused by continuing layoffs of qualified staff, and the release of toxic elements including sewage into lakes and homes in the six-county area governed by DWSD.  More than 41 percent of DWSD workers were laid off before the creation of the Great Lakes Water Authority, and the management of the Wastewater Treatment Plant was turned over to a notorious privatizer, the EMA, which earlier caused record flooding in Toronto.

Dr. Saulius Simolaunius

Most recently, VOD was informed by Dr. Saulius Simoliunas, a longtime senior chemist at DWSD, that he and other chemists who sat on the board of the Senior Chemists and Technicians Association (SCATA) were singled out for lay-offs in 2015, because of their militant demands that the department adhere to strict guidelines regarding wastewater discharge. SCATA filed a complaint with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, which was dismissed outright in 2017.

Dr. Simoliunas is well-known around the U.S., meeting with different associations charged with safeguarding the quality of water nationally.

In Simoliunas’ post-complaint brief, filed by Attorney Jack Schulz, the chemists contended, “Testimony established that SCATA contacted MIOSHA regarding untrained chemists pouring chlorine into the river. MIOSHA came in and met with Simoliunas and the waste treatment plant manager (Jurban).  SCATA contacted MIOSHA regarding an explosion in the lab. Concurrently, SCATA submitted a request to Respondent seeking the removal of Kuriakose for his connection to the incident. Ultimately, MIOSHA fined DWSD as a result of the explosion partially because an employee was not properly trained.” (See http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/SCATA-Post-Hearing-Brief-9.29.17-C15K-1444925.pdf)

Gary Brown

Freman Hendrix

“They have operators doing our jobs, who they sent out to Pelican Laboratories for training,” Simolanius told VOD. “Pelican does not follow standard methods. Our water is so polluted. They are falsely claiming they are meeting all standards. They are not. This is a crisis. The water should be shut off. It’s dangerous for our children. It’s more effective and cheaper to use carbon filtration to clean the water, not chlorine. Nobody on either the GLWA or DWSD board is qualified to be on those boards. Freman Hendrix  was appointed to the GLWs Board as the second , Detroit representative, and Gary Brown, a policeman, runs the DWSD. Detroit has serious  environmental problems including the trash incinerator, a defunct Water Department, and no real Drain Commissioner to build ditches for rain to escape flooding.” 

Freman Hendrix was the first chairman of the Detroit Board of Education after the state takeover in 1999, which began the long destruction of the original DPS. Gary Brown sat with convicted child molester Charles Pugh on the DWSD “Roots Cause Committee” which caused havoc with its recommendations for drastic staff cutbacks and other atrocities.

The lay-offs occurred during the turbulent period prior to the GLWA takeover of DWSD, when skilled classifications were being combined and often eliminated, then filled with unqualified workers. Although the Simoliunas complaint related to the Wastewater Treatment Plant, a boil water advisory was issued for a wide swath of Detroit’s east side after employees failed to identify a malfunction in the Water Treatment Plant on E. Jefferson and Cadillac, and numerous other occasions of putrid water and sewage released into homes have happened, as VOD outlined in its 2017 story, http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/03/08/do-not-drink-the-water-no-qualified-testers-in-detroit-glwa-crises-cause-ongoing-contamination/.

Both the GLWA, the DWSD and the DPSCD have therefore been caught up in monstrous lies that endanger the health of Detroit’s children, similar to the lead contamination of the entire city of Flint.

DPS children turned out to protest water shut-off.

There, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s Emergency Manager decided to separate Flint from the DWSD water system in anticipation of the construction of a duplicate pipeline (the Karegnondi Water Authority) which was way behind schedule. Meanwhile, Flint’s EM decided to use Flint River water instead of Great Lakes water (which had been used by the DWSD), but treat it with Flint’s temporary treatment plant, only to be used in emergencies for period of no more than two weeks.

As time dragged on, the entire city became contaminated, but the chief instigators, Snyder, the EM, and Jeff Wright  of the Karegnondi Water Authority, have not yet gone to jail. See: http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/02/15/bi-partisan-deal-led-to-flint-water-poisoning-for-profit-the-karegnondi-water-authority-kwa/.

The following is an official message from DPSCD on upcoming Water Meetings:

Dear Community, 

Please read and share the following message I received as a DPSCD staff member, from Superintendent Dr. Vitti, regarding upcoming meetings related to water quality and shutoffs in our schools.  Please share widely in your networks so we can be more well informed and diligent as a community.

Mail – erin.martinez@detroitk12.org

District Staff,

To provide everyone in the district and the greater community to receive more information about the water situation in our schools and ask questions, we will conduct four engagement sessions in September from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the locations below. In the meantime, please visit our website on the water topic at http://detroitk12.org/content/drinking-water/ where we have included a thorough FAQ document that should address the majority of questions and concerns that you may have. This is also the site where final water results from each school will be posted.

Please note that the only topic that will be discussed at the meetings is DPSCD water in schools. Questions or comments related to other topics will not be addressed at the meetings.

Dates and Location 4:30 to 5:30 PM

Monday 9/10 – Mumford High School

Wednesday 9/12 – East English High School

Monday 9/17 – Western High School

Tuesday 9/18 – Ben Carson High School 

Helen Moore, long-time leader of Keep the Vote No Takeover and her organization sponsored a meeting just after the Sept. 4 rally. VOD was not able to attend.

“Why are the news stories only saying the contaminated water is in DPS’s?,” she asked.  “What about the charter schools who bought the schools from DPS.  What about the other buildings in Detroit that have been there for years?  How long has our water been contaminated?  Who is covering up this crisis? We the people of Detroit and Welfare Rights have been warning us for years to no avail.  We need answers and we are going to find out what has been covered up!!!!!!!  IF YOU HAVE ANSWERS, ATTEND THE KEEP THE VOTE/NO TAKEOVER MEETING, TUE. AT 6PM, 11825 DEXTER CENTER.  LET’S ORGANIZE BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!”

Please contact Elder Moore for updates on planned actions at 313-934-7721 or helen-moore@att.net.

Other contacts: Call 319-0870 for updates from the Moratorium NOW! Coalition.

DONATE TO VOICE OF DETROIT TO KEEP OUR STORIES COMING:

Voice of Detroit is published pro bono. You don’t have to pay to access our stories. But there are substantial out of pocket costs associated with its publication. Currently we are running in the red, so any donation amount is much appreciated. Donate by clicking https://www.gofundme.com/VOD-readers-up.