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| Flowers reaching for the sun in Detroit. Photo by A. Burtka |
Points of view. Biases. Misperceptions. Truths. Everyone’s narrative is shaped by all of these. They blend. They diverge. They contradict. But in the end, every story is skewed by the lens through which it is seen.
Detroit has several million narratives, the narratives of
those who live in the city, those who live in the suburbs and those who used to
live there. Even commentators who “parachute in” from the coasts with
preconceived notions of a city in ruin craft their own narratives, even though they
are horribly shaped by their own personal biases.
After Anthony Bourdain’s Parts
Unknown episode aired, the internet exploded with knee-jerk reactions,
positive and negative, to the show. I sat on my couch stunned. I was not
surprised by anything the show revealed, except for maybe the ghost gardens growing
in yards where families had not lived for decades. I thought to myself that I
needed to digest the show for a few days before being able to summarize my
feelings about it, but nearly a week later, I am still dumbfounded.
Digesting this show, more than any other exposé on Detroit,
is as difficult as digesting the entire history of the city. My stomach cannot
handle the history of Detroit in one sitting. I can nibble off a piece here and
there, but I quickly become full and have to turn to something else.
Although I did not grow up in the city, I was born there and
grew up in its suburbs. My mom did grow up in the city, and her schools and
church are now long gone, but the street she grew up on is still there. My
grandparents moved to the city and this street in search of the abundant
opportunities that Detroit offered.
My grandma loved to garden, and I think of her planting
flowers, trees or bushes in the family’s yard on Bangor Street in the 1950s. My
grandma passed away a decade ago in her native Pennsylvania, and I now wonder
if her memory lives on in a ghost garden in Detroit…something I never
considered before the Detroit episode of Parts
Unknown. It is painful to think that something she once cared for and
nourished may still be living and yet I have never seen it because I have never
set my eyes upon my mom’s old street.
I believe knowing your history, especially knowing what went
wrong, is important and not to be ignored. Like any Detroiter, I am offended by
“ruin porn” that merely exists to sell a story that Detroit is dead. It is
unproductive and is insulting to the many people who live in Detroit and the
many more who still love it and consider it home. Showing an abandoned building
or burned out house does not offend me if the blight is offered in a
constructive manner that reflects on what went wrong, but also what can be done to make things right.
Like any narrative, Bourdain’s show contained nuggets of
truth but did not tell the whole story. The footage of the Packard Plant and
the abandoned buildings are truths that punch you in the gut harder than any
blow from Joe Louis. Bourdain did say Detroit was “screwed” over and over
again, but unlike some commentators’ jabs, it did not feel like an insult. It
felt as if Bourdain truly felt the pain of a city that has been continually
knocked to the ground but that keeps getting up saying, “Is that all you’ve
got?”
Bourdain did not focus on Midtown and Downtown as many hoped
he would, but those are the more well-known parts of Detroit that are flourishing. He took his viewers to
actual neighborhoods where actual Detroiters live, and he did give us Chef Craig
Lieckfelt who loved Detroit enough to do the unthinkable of leaving a world of opportunity in New York to
come back to his hometown. There are many more doing what Lieckfelt did,
and Bourdain unfortunately missed out on them.
It’s easy to understand the knee-jerk reactions about the
show from Detroiters because each reaction is valid in its own right. Each was
the composite of an individual’s points of view, biases, misperceptions and
truths. Detroiters know the truth more than the rest of us, but even Detroiters
do not agree on what the truth is. The important thing is that the past is not
accepted as the narrative for the future. What’s done is done. It’s time to move
on.
Detroit is moving on, maybe slower and more painfully then
we would like, but it is moving on. Blight busters, mower gangs, public art
projects, urban farms, startup businesses and new ideas are shaping a new
narrative for this city. Insults and jokes from every national pundit and comedian
would break a lesser city, but Detroit is still there. It still fights, much
like the flowers in ghost gardens pushing their way through the weeds to reach
the sun.
If you love Detroit, do not bemoan its past. Believe in its
future. The city’s narrative is not finished. Millions of souls have and will contribute
to this great city’s story.
What will your contribution be?
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