6 | JUNE 11 • 2020 

editor’
s note

Learning from History

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Why Metro Detroit’
s Jews should stand up for justice and equality.
I

n March, the Jewish News
ran a story about Oakland 
County Sheriff Michael 
Bouchard and his senior staff 
paying their regular visit to 
the Holocaust 
Memorial 
Center. Sheriff 
Bouchard went 
there, he told us, 
so that he and 
his staff “can bet-
ter prepare our-
selves to not let 
history repeat itself.” Many of 
our readers praised local law 
enforcement for their efforts.
Now, it’
s time for us in the 
Metro Detroit Jewish commu-
nity to reflect on the events 
of the past few weeks, and, 
with that same spirit, to take 
a stand with those advocating 
for racial justice and local 
police reform and accountabil-
ity. Because history is indeed 
repeating itself.
We have witnessed the 
police killing of George Floyd 
in Minneapolis, the umpteenth 
such police killing of a black 
civilian captured on video for 
the world to see (alongside 
many more with no video); 
the arrests and charges of the 
officers responsible (including 
one for second-degree mur-
der); and the weeks of ongoing 
civil unrest this tragedy kicked 
off around the country. That 
includes in Detroit, where, to 
disperse crowds and enforce 
an imposed curfew, police 
have shot protesters with 
rubber bullets and tear gas 
and targeted members of the 
media, while opportunists 
(most from outside the city) 
have seized on the protests 

as an excuse for violence and 
looting. One 21-year-old 
man was shot and killed, not 
attributed to police. Other 
Michigan cities, including 
Royal Oak and Ferndale, have 
held mostly peaceful protests; 
elsewhere, demonstrators 
smashed windows at the gov-
ernor’
s office in Lansing and 
engaged in looting and van-
dalism in Grand Rapids.
Detroit is a city that, on top 
of being one of the hardest-hit 
nationwide in the COVID-19 
pandemic, knows all too well 
the devastating consequences 
of police brutality toward its 
black residents — and the 
ways in which the destruction 
of local businesses, especially 
black-owned ones, over a few 
days of unrest can set a pop-
ulation back for generations. 
We saw this scene play out a 
half-century ago in the events 
of 1967, precipitated by, yes, 

police violence against black 
residents. These events accel-
erated the departure of many 
of our Jewish families from 
our homes and businesses in 
Detroit and into the suburbs.
This is what I want to 
say. Because of our largely 
white skin, most of us in the 
Ashkenazic Jewish community 
have never been on the receiv-
ing end of police violence and 
America’
s systemic racism. 
And yet these systems have 
helped shape our community 
today. Prior to and follow-
ing the ’
67 unrest, we largely 
fled from Detroit to Oakland 
County, where we could afford 
to establish our own com-
munities, assuring local law 
enforcement would protect 
our interests. 
From 1992 until his death 
last year, Oakland County 
Executive L. Brooks Patterson 
helped facilitate that reality, 

Andrew Lapin

GET ENGAGED
Local groups in our com-
munity are engaged in 
peacebuilding work from 
within the Jewish commu-
nity, including the Coalition 
for Black and Jewish Unity, 
the JCRC/AJC, Repair the 
World Detroit and Detroit 
Jews for Justice. 
National groups working 
toward reform include the 
Marshall Project, a non-
profit investigative news-
room focused on criminal 
justice, and the National 
Police Accountability 
Project, a nonprofit that 
offers legal assistance and 
educational programming 
to advocate for individual 
rights in police encounters. 
Black-owned busi-
nesses in the Detroit area 
could use our support 
and patronage: Log on to 
visitdetroit.com/detroits-
black-owned-businesses 
and check your local 
neighborhood Facebook 
groups for more.

Protesters and police 
clash in Detroit during 
demonstrations following 
the May 25 police killing 
of Minneapolis man 
George Floyd. 

ALEXANDER CLEGG/JEWISH NEWS

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