ITIZE P e 2 MICHl A oc c , cidal cuts in gov­ ernment aid to the cities. Detroit now gets less back in federal monies that it pays out in taxes. It was the suburbanites who elected those monsters Reagan and Engler. Black people voted 90% against Reagan. My point is that it is not on Detroit to build bridges to the suburbs, as Archer put out. The suburbs owe us an apology. We are the victims of their racist vot­ ing. They should be extend­ ing the olive branch, not us. Show me one thing that Cole­ man Young did to materially hurt the suburbs. What a ca­ nard! th race card .. cism. (Editor: Following is a copy of a letter written in re­ sponse to (In article by Free Press editorial writer Keith A Owens that appeared in Nov. 8. issue and was titled, "To keep promises, Archer needs Detroit's help. " The letter has been edited for the sake of breoity.) Readers Wr'ite BLACK MILITANCY, Maleolm-Xetyle, pro explicit Black self concern are not y strategies Just as aboli­ tionism was no easy. Black militancy is no really anti­ white, except for those who get confused bout who started all of this and can't that it is a defense neces­ sary for survival. The only ultimate solution is unity of B a K nu hite masses, but the first major step must be whites' divest­ ing of racism. Black mili­ tancy will not die as long as there is racist repression, from slavery, to Jim Crow to Reaganism (which w� are still in despi te the end of the Reagan-Bush regime). McPhail won the youth vote, too. That bodes well for the future being ours. There is another militant genera­ tion a coming. That reminds us of part of the demogogy of Archer's "let the future be­ gin." That slogan implicitly proposes that we be passive with respect to the future. We will be self-detennining. Let us, we the people not cor­ porate elites and'toms, make the future. . Dennis Archer will be part of the future if he does a 180 degree turn from the hat in hand approach to the powers that be that he presented in his campaign. Power con­ cedes nothing without a de­ mand. It never has and it never will. There is no pro­ gress without struggle, espe­ cially class struggle. An overwhelmingly Black city has worked. But you ain't seen nothing yet. . These are terms devel­ oped in Rea­ ganite thinking to repres the legitimate protest against racism of the corpo­ rations. The use of these tenns to censor debate dur- . ing the election 1 compara­ ble to the novel.l.aM, where Big Brother's "War is Peace." were so overwhelmingly for Archer. . CERTAINLY, WE need to break the blockade-sanc­ tions, but will an uncle tom strategy work? Black history' teaches us that it doesn't. This is what Frederick Douglass was dealing with in his famous quote that power concedes nothing without a demand and there is no progress with­ out struggle. The uncle tom strategy is not likely to work because corporations are exploiters not santa clauses. They don't go in somewhere to net give money, but to net take money, to exploit, to profit not give gifts. The uncle tom strategy has an underlying assump­ tion that without Coleman You ng's "meanness" and with Dennis Archer's "niceness", the corporations will become" generous. " This is naive, to say the least. Black Power gives the best basis to resist exploita­ tion and develop economic self-determination. Corpora­ tions need to break Black Power to make us more ex­ ploitable, to maximize their profits. Corporate fear of Black economic self-determination is behind no loans for local development. As far as they are concerned we can become like Haiti. (By the way, through all Young's 20 years I the white power structure still held predominate power over Detroit. This is indirect colonialism.) Given all of the above, it was especially egregious that the Free Press put out demo­ gogy concerning so-called "racebaiting" and "playing Detroit has done extraor­ dinarily well considering the 25 years of economic sanc­ tions, blockade, scorched earth policy toward it by Wall Street, the banks and the large industrial corporations since it became majority Black. In other words, Coleman . Young and the Black De­ troiters are not the main source of Detroit's problems, Archer's monied backers are. I t has not been the strong, Black rhetoric of Coleman Young or the inability of Black people to run a city or make a city that works, but the racist policy of big busi­ ness that generates the dis­ proportionate amount of joblessness, poverty, disease, crime, drug problems, poor education, etc. The Black family did not spontaneously fall apart; it was bludgeoned by institu­ tional racism. But, of course, the real cul­ prits need a scapegoat for the results of their racist divest­ ment, With the help of the media, including the Free PteS8, they have worke