We live in a strange and wondrously balanced world, filled with as much beauty and love as there is forced anger and unadulterated hatred.
Last night, I received a Facebook friend request from a man who publishes Pushnevahda.com and the blog, pushnevahda.wordpress.com. Normally, I don't accept friend requests from complete strangers...but something about his Facebook page peeked my curiosity. Honestly, I think it had to do with all his well-placed literary quotes. We had the same taste in authors.
Pushs' compositions flourish with the prototypical urban-flare. Less than two paragraph's into any of his entries and one can immediately tell that Push wears the hipster vibe...and he wears it well. His tone is a little on the militant side, but not once does it affect his blog's content...which for the most part, is highlighted in shades of subjective personal truths. His reporting is accurate, his vision is beyond that of the average Detroiter. All in all, it was pretty good stuff...and as a friendly gesture, I commented on one of his blog entries last night. My comments, along with the entire post have now deleted...but like most intermediary bloggers out there, I don't think Push fully understands the intricacies of webpage cache's. Once you post, it's out there.
Below is Push's deleted post in its full entirety. I normally don't repost full blog entries on my own blog - especially one as lengthy as this one - but trust me, it serves as an amazing precursor to the obscurely stoned racism that easily permeates through the Internet these days. Read it. Part 2 will get better, I guarantee...
BLACK BOTTOM - A PARADISE LOST
During a recent visit to Detroit, en route to Wayne State University campus to conduct a series of research at Burton Historical Collection at Detroit Public Library, and the Walter RuetherGratiot, towards downtown, past the I-75 South entrance ramp, it was difficult for me to believe that I was in fact driving through an area that was once a thriving, energetic, and prosperous community of black folks, called Black Bottom.
After I had finally reached my new destination: Lafayette and St. Aubin, I sat in my car, transfixed at the grotesque and dreary scenario that grabbed my attention. I stared at the decay and ruble as the listless and transient human zombies floated by, some peering into my car as though I might possibly have the key to the gate that conceals them within the terror and madness of their wretched and feeble existence…their so-called community…their ‘hood. As I sat in my car, ashamed at what had become of this place, pondering my next move, afraid as I gazed about the wasted land, abandoned buildings, and misery-for-sale, I began to drift in and out of a Twilight Zone-like dimension, seemingly caught between those two cruel and deceptive moments called yesterday and yesteryear, as I tried to figure out what had happened to this area of Detroit that once boasted a dynamic and vibrant community of hope, promise, and potential. Labor and Urban Archives, I delayed my appointment for a detour toward the area once known as Black Bottom, the topic of my research. As I drove east on 
Aloud thud on my front passenger-side window jerked me front my daze: “What you lookin’ fo, man?” You lookin’ fo some bud, crack, pussy, what?” I hesitated to roll down the window and answer, “I’m fine, thank you.” Seemingly agitated with my response he left abruptly. Somewhat befuddled, I remembered why I had come to this place, and reached in to my back-pack and wrestled out a copy of Richard Bak’s book, Turkey Stearnes And The Detroit Stars and quickly turned to page 100 to see if I could discern the picture of Lafayette and St. Aubin in 1925 from the frightening and horrible panorama which stared at me from the other side of my windshield. I was disappointed at what I saw. There were no more black-owned businesses along the once festive St. Aubin Street; and the neatly kept, two and four-family homes that once were the pride of many black homeowners, had become weathered and beaten with time and neglect. Mostly neglect.
Gone is the sense of belonging and being, of family, community, and togetherness that many former Black Bottom and St. Aubin Street residents remember. Former resident, Helen NuttallLatzman Moon’s Untold Tales, Unsung Heroes: An Oral History of Detroit’s African American Community, 1918-1967, recalls the area as a community where “people trusted each other…It was home to me; it was safe.” But today, Brown’s recollection only falters in the view of the St. Aubin area, today. The sanctuary and security that Brown had known has long since vanished and poverty-bred crime, drugs, and violence has now become a way-of-life for the people in this neighborhood. Brown, in Elaine
Here I sat confronted with the larger context of Detroit’s current crisis: a post-industrial city burdened with dilapidated buildings, burned out and neglected neighborhoods, divested and invisible politicians; disenchanted and complacent teachers transplanted in an ineffective school system shot through with complicity, and duplicity, with corrupt and rapacious managers all situated amidst crumbled, frayed, and broken communities preoccupied with crime, underemployment, poverty, death, disease, and despair. As I digested the stench and filth of this steadily collapsing industrial city, over run with storefront churches, rib-shacks, chicken joints, liquors marts, and several Arab-owned convenience stores that cash welfare and income tax-return checks, I wondered what it would mean to the “bud, crack, [and] pussy” salesman, who earlier had rapped on my car window, to know that once-upon-a-time, at its apogee, Black folks in this particular enclave of Detroit had built a vibrant community of black-owned businesses, institutions of self-help, social organizations, and a strong ethnic economy. I wondered how the dope-dealer might have reacted if I were to tell him that – back in the day – if he had been on these very streets, selling “bud, crack, [and] pussy,” he would have gotten his ass kicked good and hard by Officer Ben Turpin Henderson – a big, black, bad, mean son-of-a-bitch – hired by the local precinct for the sole purpose of kicking the ass of Black Bottom’s undesirables, misfits, roustabouts, and knuckleheads. It troubled me that he may never care to know that the very corner where he had made a career of dope-pushing and sex-pandering, had once been a thriving and prosperous thoroughfare of black happenings and doings. For him, I realized, such a tale might be nothing more than a flight of fancy. Perhaps my own, even.
The death knell, it seems, was struck by urban renewal, which transformed Black Bottom into Lafayette Park. As early as 1941 Mayor Edward Jeffries’ blight committee had sealed the fate of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. The 1943 riots would only provide reason and logic for what was to come. The Chrysler Freeway took Hastings. Stroh’s took over St. Antoine. Hudson’s took Brush and Beaubien. It seemed like the Berlin Conference. Some say it was a White man’s conspiracy to break the power and solidity of the Black man’s community. Some residents jokingly called urban renewal “Negro removal.” And when one considers these claims, from an historical perspective, it is plausible. Many believe that possibly all of the above factored into the inevitable end of Black Bottom.
In reality, Mayor Edward Jeffries and the Detroit City Plan Commission in 1946 had destroyed a community. Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were devastated by highway construction. The Oakland-Hastings (later Chrysler) Freeway barreled through these former Black enclaves like Hitler did Poland. The Hastings Street commercial district in Paradise Valley felled many of Detroit’s most prominent Black institutions, from jazz clubs to the St. Antoine branch of the YMCA. The John C. Lodge Freeway ripped through the increasingly Black area around Twelfth Street, and Highland Park like Mussolini did Ethiopia. It seemed as though a crime had been committed.
The aftermath was not much more than a “‘no man’s land’ of deterioration and abandonment,” said Thomas Sugrue, author of The Origins of Urban Crisis. For 10 years after Jeffries Detroit Plan, Black Bottom lay dormant and the city did nothing to help business owners or Black residents to relocate. Shopkeepers had no real reason to invest in improvements, as condemned buildings were buried under asphalt and cement. According to Sugrue, by 1950, 423 residences, 109 businesses, 22 manufacturing plants, and 93 vacant lots had been condemned for the first three-mile stretch of the Lodge Freeway from Jefferson to Pallister. The Michigan Chronicle’s 1951 front-page story, “Progress Has Been Rapid for Negroes in Motor City,” seemed propagandist, at best. By 1958, the Lodge Freeway displaced 2,222 buildings. Destruction continued to make way for the Edsel Ford Expressway with the demolition of approximately more 2,800 buildings. White homeowners were successfully relocated, while most Blacks were left out in the cold.
Eventually, homes and businesses were replaced with apartments and townhouses such as those in Lafayette Park, which many of the former residents couldn’t afford. The rise of new office buildings, the development of a large network of expressways whimsically cut through what was once a testament of Black socio-economic success. Some thought this fleecing of the Black community to be an aura of prosperity while those folk whom were suffering the sting of displacement and obstruction saw it differently. Many people simply did not have money to rent a $75.00 house with no heat. Many felt pain and frustration at the senselessness of moving from their homes, for the purpose of highway construction. Perhaps it would have been so much nicer to build places for people to live in than a highway, which ultimately put people in the street. In the process, Paradise Valley was obliterated, and the Black ghetto simply moved to the Twelfth Street area. Middle-class Blacks moved to the more prominent neighborhoods of La Salle Boulevard, Chicago Boulevard, Boston-Edison, and Arden Park. Black Bottom was gone. Paradise Valley was gone.
Perhaps Black Bottom had served its purpose. Black Bottom evolved out of segregation and housing discrimination. Legal deed restrictions prevented Black folk from living amidst reluctant Whites, and automatically transferred Blacks to the area previously occupied by Greek, Italian, and Polish immigrants. As a matter of course, these groups eventually moved to establish communities away from Black Bottom, leaving Blacks to shape and mold their meager existence into a vibrant and self-sustaining community. With the help of the Detroit Urban League, Black southerners migrated to Black Bottom and made a life for themselves and their family. The Detroit Urban League forged alliances with other White and Black institutions to help transform Black Bottom into a decent community.
By the late 1950’s, desegregation offered Blacks the opportunity to spend their money at White businesses. Hastings Street, once a thriving and often crowded thoroughfare of Black-owned business, clubs, etc., was nothing more than rubble, dismay, and memories. The poor Black folk living in Black Bottom could not afford to protest against urban renewal. And the ones who didIdlewild. have the wealth, clout and might to wage war against the machines of such urban disruption, packed their bags and headed to even loftier retreats, neighborhoods, and getaways. Some headed to the popular northern resort,
As many of Black Bottom’s cultural landmarks fell into mounds of ruble and debris, city officials continued to turn former Black homes and businesses into vacant lots. Black folk were devastated. Some were left homeless. Some would say that stringent racism and segregation made Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, and integration destroyed it. In his memoirs, former Black Bottom resident and entrepreneur, Sunnie Wilson wrote that, “just like other cities around the country that sought to rid themselves of run-down Black neighborhoods, the take over of Paradise Valley could not be stopped. That’s been the White man’s philosophy – to move in, move the people out, and let the property sit vacant. Whether this is true or not, the tight-knit community – Black Bottom – that once boasted the grand example of human will, courage, endurance, and strength – under constant pressure – is gone. The most efficient Black prominent social and cultural Mecca that Black folk could ever claim with a real sense of pride and joy – Paradise Valley – is gone.
Yes, that is Tyra Banks, one of the most annoying and befuddling class-B celebrities to land her own daytime talk show, being assaulted by a couple of rabid Sesame Streeters. Of course, it goes without saying that I don't condone any serious type of sexual harassment, puppetry or otherwise...but if you look closely, Cookie Monster is totally grabbing a little piece toosh. And loving every minute of it.
