The Michigan Daily - Monday, June 20, 2005 - 5 VIEWPOINT The new news A perfect storm brewing in city politics JEssE SINGALST THE I BY ROB GOODSPEED address the city's housing crisis by mak feel terrible forn BRnGootro ing more options available within the ctty Natalee Hollo- or too long, the student and renter and bringing an open-minded approach to w way's parents. I t community has played a peripheral density and development; and to expand really and truly do. I e role inAnn Arbor politics. Accord- the political process to include those who feel bad for the rest P ing to the 2000 census, 54 percent of Ann do not now participate, pointing out that ;> : of her family too, i Arbor's housing units are occupied by Ann Arbor's large Asian-American com- and for her friends d renters, yet they play virtually no role in munity is particularly disengaged. That's and classmates. I local politics. Instead of treating this mas- an agenda I think both students and local ยง'; :f54 can't imagine what d sive affront to democracy as a problem residents can get behind, and Eugene said it must be like to c to combat, city leaders have been all too he's been getting a positive response in his lose a daughter or a good friend under t content with a status quo that excludes extensive canvassing. Eugene will face a such murky circumstances. t most of the city from meaningful politi- former Republican candidate for mayor But every time I see her face on CNN g cal participation through ward-based ger- who has switched parties to run against I get angry. b rymandering. him in a Democratic primary on August This is not news. In a country of 300V Student and renter attempts at com- 2. Anyone registered to vote in Ward 2 million, the disappearance of a single munity organizing have been stymied in should vote for Eugene in the primary and young woman does not merit such atten-\ recent years. Whether by student apathy, in the general election. (Ward 2 includes tion from the national media, no mat-n the hostility of the city's political elites Mary Markley, Couzens, Alice Lloyd, ter how young, pretty and white she is. c or a lack of serious and motivated candi- Stockwell, the Linden Street area and all And let's be clear here - "white" is ag dates for Ann Arbor City Council, efforts the neighborhoods northeast of Washt- key term. From watching the 24-hour k to involve a major part of the city in the enaw Avenue. To register to vote or check cable news networks, one would think local public life have sputtered. However, your registration or polling location, call that kidnappers and murderers only tar- i I believe a number of recent developments the city clerk at 734-994-2725). get those with a lack of pigment in their a has shown that a group of students and Furthermore, the existingrcity politicians skin. It's a whole other column, but it renters has coalesced that will seriously have done much to (inadvertently) fan stu- shouldn't be swept under the rug: Racen contend for power in the city: Conditions dent organizing in the past few years. The is a factor here. t are ripe for a perfect storm that could eminently reasonable and limited proposal So how does something with such a I revolutionize Ann Arbor politics. introduced for accessory dwelling units decided lack of newsworthiness get so ti First, through the activism of a small in the city was smacked down by the City much time on the air? The answer, as is t group oflocal blogs, there has developed an Council in2002 (ironically, Eugene Kang's so often the case, is in the mirror, and it I online community interested in engaging in primary rival was a vocal opponent of the conjures up a rather disturbing image. local issues. These blogs have included my ADU proposal in 2002). A draconian tow- We have become self-obsessed to the e site GoodspeedUpdate.com, ArborUpdate. ing ordinancetook many studentsunawares point of solipsism. Since we are the only ( com (which I founded last summer), Ann with large fines that were reduced after an country that exists and the only people i Arbor is Overrated and others. ArborUp- uproar. Murmurs of a ban on couches on who exist, whatever most of us find a date in particular has become a venue for porches last summer sparked vocal partici- immediately engaging must, therefore, voices that otherwise lack a platform. pation in local politics by many who had be the, news. So when one of our icons v Second, there's been an unprecedented not spoken up before. goes on trial or a when a white womanp level of organizing in the student commu- No matter how perfectly aligned the gets kidnapped or killed, it becomes the n nity at the neighborhood level. Students conditions, the storm won't strike without Date Winling and Richard Murphy are unprecedented energy fueling it. If they1 1 working to found renter-oriented associa- set their minds to it, students have both tions in their neighborhoods, and Winling the political base and intellectual resourc- is making plans to start a citywide mem- esto be a potent political force that could M ARA GAY(C? v N S N; bership organization for students and rent- fundamentally reshape the city's political ers called the Ann Arbor Alliance. landscape. An atmosphere of complacen- f you think Third, there has also been growing cy and pessimism about what is possible you're in col- 1 most important story imaginable. The idea of marketability has escaped he confines of sports and the arts and ncroached on the domain of hard news. Natalee Holloway is the news because she s marketable. She meets certain criteria hat I've already mentioned - young, white and pretty - so, at some point, a despicable little man or woman in a suit aught wind of the story and declared hat Natalee had that special "it" needed o be an effective kidnap victim. "A white irl, you say? A hot one? Missing? Possi- ly because of one or more black people? We'll need six cameras!" CNN ran the story first. Or maybe it was MSNBC. Or possibly Fox. It doesn't matter anymore; it's like asking which luster bomb was the first to hit the round. All the others immediately fol- owed suit because the cables news net- works are run by cowardly, opportunistic ndividuals who have long ago cashed in ny sense of journalistic integrity. How can I, a 21-year-old with no media credentials, make such vitupera- ive claims? Easy: I have a cable box. see the sickening amount of atten- ion paid to the Holloway case. I see he psychiatrists and psychologists and awyers who go on the cable news net- works to make a living off human mis- ry such as the Michael Jackson case. I shudder to think what would happen f I found myself between one of them nd a camera.) Welcome to the new news: truly, irre- ocably and horrifically by and for the people. Those who run the cable news etworks have come to see us, their viewers, for what we are: a giant bun- dle of nerve endings seeking to stoke itself on the reptilian components of our brains. Lust, anger and tribalism are the new units of currency for cable news, because who can really expect a 21st-century American to sit through an entire segment simply because it's infor- mative or important? Paris Hilton, unfortunately, is the clearest microcosm of all this. Young, pretty and a member of a famous fam- ily, it was decided by one of her handlers that it was time for her to be famous. So now she's an actress, a singer and - this is where I choke back the bile - an author. Does she deserve to be any of these things? Absolutely not. Would the institutions of film, music and literature be better off without her? Surely. So it goes with the news: The idea of "worth" is obsolete, replaced by what can be sold in neatly'packaged units. In the meantime, while we're so fixated on things that have nothing to do with any- thing, there is, believe it or not, a world out there. There's a continent being torn apart by AIDS, genocide and a num- ber of civil wars (Africa). The world's fastest growing religion is engaged in an extremely complicated transitional phase involving conflict between mod- ernists,. Jihadists, nationalists and a number of other subsets (Islam). Who would have thought cable news would be the last place to seek information on such topics? Singal can be reachedat jsingal@umich.edu. already arrived It should come as no surprise that the 965 Secondary Education Act is sue- interest in engaging students in City Coun- cil politics by student groups like College Democrats and Students for PIRGIM. The debate over the Greenbelt engaged students in unprecedented levels in local politics, encouraged by a group of civic- minded faculty including professors Matt Lassiter and Greg Markus, who regularly encourage their students to take what they learn about progressive urban public poli- cy out of the classroom Recently, I have heard of perhaps the most encouraging sign yet: a serious stu- dent contender for City Council. Eugene Kang is a lifetime Ann Arbor resident who is running for City Council in Ward 2. Eugene told me recently his platform is to find solutions to the city's budget crisis; for the city hangs around city hall. Let's imagine a city where tenants' rights are a top priority; the planning commission and council aggressively pursue an agenda of dense, sustainable development; and new and radical ideas to provide affordable housing - such as subsidized housing and rent control - are earnestly explored. If they set their minds to it, students like Dale Winling and Eugene Kang - and their supporters - could begin to make this vision a reality. Rob Goodspeedgraduatedf-om the University last cear and now lives in Washington, D.C. He is afirmer mem- ber of the city's cool cities taskforce andformer Michigan Daily staffer. lege because you re smart, you worked hard in high school and you have some extraordinary ot unusual talent like playing the tuba upside-down with your eyes closed, you need to get off it. Because actually, as it turns out, it's far more likely that you're just one of the lucky ones. Lucky because you didn't grow up in a place where the military recruit- ers really do offer the best opportuni- ties; where the people you grew up with choose to serve in Iraq because a life on the streets or a career at Wal-Mart are the only other options; a place where joining the military is the only way to get a college education. It is no secret that the wars of the rich are fought by the children of the poor. So naturally the nation's very poorest schools are those that military recruiters are given the most access to. Under the "No Child Left Behind Act" - President Bush's grand plan to create accountabil- ity in the country's schools that he him- self underfunded - schools that receive funding under the 1965 Secondary Edu- cation Act are required to submit the names, telephone numbers and addresses of all its students to the military and must allow recruiters on campus. cifically targeted toward underprivileged and largely minority school districts. Enough with this talk of an impend- ing draft. You can party this weekend without fear that it may be your last game of beer pong. There is already a draft in this country, a back-door draft that is easy to ignore. Until college tuition costs are brought under control, and educating all Americans becomes a priority - regardless of how much money or melanin they may have - the underrepresented will always be over- represented in the military. The No Child Left Behind Act is just another example of the way the Bush administration is able to further disen- franchise America's most vulnerable by masking true intent with a progressive- sounding title. The military has also used marketing techniques to sell its experience to lower- income and minority areas. In Appala- chia, one of the most impoverished areas of the country, white youths are lured into recruitment offices with NASCAR campaigns. In inner cities across the country, black and Hispanic youth are enticed with Hummers bearing army insignia and military-sponsored basket- ball tournaments. Those serving in our armed forces deserve nothing but respect and support. But high school graduates who enter the military should do so because it is a choice, not because it is the only choice; not because it is the only alternative to a life statistically destined to end in a series of minimum-wage jobs or in prison. Ann Arbor is an enticing, romantic bubble of a town, a world away from the joblessness and economic desperation that plagues the state of Michigan. And while it is true that making it to the Uni- versity requires years of hard work, we live in a society where hard work is not enough, a nation where privilege remains unseen, but very, very real. On my way to Metro airport, I begin to wonder how I got so lucky. I am able to travel halfway across the country to attend one of the best public universities in America. But the stretch of road between the Univer- sity and the airport is inhabited by a siz- able population of kids who could never dream of going to college at all. Some liberal groups across the coun- try have contended that, if a military draft were to be instituted, the left wing would be galvanized and conjure up great marches and rallies, protesting the injustice of conscription. But the draft is already here, and it seems that the only thing more ludicrous than the dispropor- tionate recruitment of poor and minority youth into the military is the silence of those who know better, those Americans like you and me. Gay is a ssemcber of the Daily's edito- rial board.'She can be reached at mnaracl@sumich.edu. LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from University students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. 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