views
Champion of Justice
Award Ceremony
and Dinner
essay
Th is Year,
Let’s Detroit
I
like to name things. Especially
things I like that I think might like
me back. But it’s not about me.
To the contrary. Power? Privilege?
Posterity? No doubt.
Yet a good name
has a stickiness and
usefulness (glutility?)
whose coinage out-
lasts its coiner. Don’t
think Adam wander-
ing fancy figleaf free
in the Garden of
Ben Falik
Eden naming all that
he sees (ex. McRib).
Instead, introduc-
ing a neologism (I
didn’t make up that
word) is more like Don Draper or
Scuttle giving big Kodak executives
and little mermaids the tools to effi-
ciently and elegantly make sense of
this crazy, mixed-up world.
So it was with Let’s Detroit. Sarah
Craft, a dynamic Detroit
community organizer,
found herself at the
helm of a promising
Unnamed Project for
the Detroit Regional
Chamber, and I found
myself generating
every bad idea I could
conjure. Ultimately, it
was like naming Noah’s
Arcade in Wayne’s World
— “I just opened my
mouth and out it came.”
Ultimately, the name
Let’s Detroit may be the
least creative and com-
pelling thing about it.
So, what is Let’s Detroit? Let’s start
with what it isn’t: I’m a Believer, the
$100,000 bankruptcy-era, Monkees/
Shrek-inspired, billboard-intensive
ad campaign — featuring such mati-
nee idols as Elmore Leonard, Dick
Purtan and Huel Perkins, along with
a font called Crackhouse — whose
penultimate Facebook post extols the
2012 opening of the country’s largest
Buffalo Wild Wings Downtown and
whose website now features high heels
priced to sell in Swedish krona. So not
that, though you haven’t heard the last
from Sweden here.
The Let’s Detroit website launched
last week to do some strategic and
savvy stuff — with something for
everyone — as part of the Detroit
Drives Degrees initiative “to increase
the region’s postsecondary attainment
rate to 60 percent and to reduce the
equity gap by half by 2030.”
Here’s their take and mine:
LET’S DETROIT IS A
REGIONAL INITIATIVE.
“Southeast Michigan is full of silos,
and one goal is to improve regional
unity, collaboration and equity to help
people live their best lives here in
Detroit and the region.”
Regionalism is the promised land.
Even as Detroit’s Greater Downtown
has gotten ever greater, we will keep
wandering in the community and eco-
nomic development desert until citi-
zens and civic leaders alike embrace
the interdependence of the metro-
politan area. Just ask the 39 Macomb
County voters who gave August’s
SMART millage its .025 percent mar-
gin of victory how many potholes they
dodged on their way to the polls.
I consider myself a regionalist and
cannot claim to have ever availed
myself of the amenities at the cur-
rent corners Let’s Detroit’s “Find
Your Place” map: Owosso (Steam
Railroading Institute), Port Huron
(Blue Water Riverwalk) or Monroe
(River Raisin National Battlefield
Park).
Find Your Place begins “New to
Southeast Michigan and not sure
where to settle in?” But those of us
who have lived here practically our
whole lives — creatures of habit or
habitually creative — have just as
much to gain from letting ourselves
“Explore & Enjoy.”
To boot, anyone who still doesn’t
understand why this is all “Detroit”
can keep worshipping the false idols of
sprawl, stratification and segregation
— and join us in the 21st century if/
when they’re ready.
LET’S DETROIT IS A CONNECTOR.
“We want to make it easier for people
to connect to each other, careers,
things to do and ways to make an
impact across our community. There
are amazing people, organizations
and initiatives that already exist, so we
try to point people in the direction of
those resources to make living in the
region easier and even more fulfilling.
“But it’s not us telling people what
to do; it’s you. Our goal is to create a
platform that allows people who love
where they live and what they do to
connect to others — to help others
find their fit.”
In Detroit, experience is expertise.
The city’s and region’s experts are not
Chamber of Commerce employees,
journalists, bloggers or vloggers. They
are the sloggers — local surfers who
have learned, with time,
how to ride the rustbelt
waves through high tide
and rip tide, to avoid
flotsam and jetsam
and to hear the sweet
sounds of the city in a
castoff conch.
Inspired by the 2016
Call A Swede campaign
— “You will soon be
connected to a random
Swede somewhere in
Sweden” — you can
now text a Detroiter.
A real human (one of
whom is me) will text
you back.
Even as robots have gotten increas-
ingly proficient at parallel parking,
matchmaking and Jeopardy, there’s
no substitute for an actual person to
point you in the right direction for
finding a place to live, landing a dream
job, volunteering and giving back, and
learning about things to do.
“Let’s” (let us) has always struck
me as a funny contraction — almost
a contradiction in the way it is both
an imperative and invitation (also
iceberg), all for something you already
have permission to do. Seems fitting
for a place that has no shortage of
fresh ideas and faces (also water), if
we can just manage to get out of our
own way.
So grab your Dinglehopper, Don,
and let’s Detroit. •
The Jewish Bar Association of Michigan
(JBAM) will present its First Annual
Champion of Justice Award to Michigan
Supreme Court Justice Richard H.
Bernstein. This award recognizes the sig-
nificant impact of a legal
professional who has
dedicated him/herself to
the practice of law and
improving the justice
system, while exhibiting
the highest level of pro-
fessionalism and civility.
A portion of the eve-
Richard Bernstein
ning’s proceeds will sup-
port JBAM’s Charles J. Cohen Scholarship,
which recognizes and assists law students
who have demonstrated a commitment to
making a positive contribution to the legal
and larger community.
The award ceremony and dinner cost
$30 for JBAM members and $45 for non-
members and take place from 6-8 p.m.
Oct. 15 at the Skyline Club, 2000 Town
Center in Southfield.
Register online at jewishbar.org/event/
champion-of-justice-award-ceremony-
and-dinner. •
Father Desbois To
Speak On Book
Father Patrick Desbois, author of In Broad
Daylight: The Secret Procedures Behind
the Holocaust by Bullets, will be featured
at a discussion 2
p.m., Sunday, Oct.
21, at the Detroit
Film Theatre at the
Detroit Institute
of Arts. The talk
will be moderated
by WDIV anchor
Devin Scillian.
Desbois has
devoted his life to
Father Patrick Desbois
researching the
Holocaust, fighting
anti-Semitism, and furthering relations
between Catholics and Jews. He is the
founder and president of Yahad-In Unum,
a global humanitarian organization dedi-
cated to identifying and commemorating
the sites of Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) mass
executions in Eastern Europe. His book, In
Broad Daylight, documents mass killings
in seven countries, formerly part of the
Soviet Union, that were invaded by Nazi
Germany.
There is free admission to the event,
presented by the Jewish Community
Center of Metropolitan Detroit Annual
Jewish Book Fair, the Detroit Institute of
Arts and the Holocaust Memorial Center,
and co-sponsored by the Roman Catholic
Archdiocese of Detroit and KeyBank.
Refreshments and book signing fol-
low the talk. Advanced registration is
required; and there is a limit of two tick-
ets per person. Visit www.dia.org or (313)
833-4005 for more information and to
reserve tickets. •
jn
September 27 • 2018
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