Why in the world are people seriously asking L. Brooks Patterson to apologize?
First off, it’s sort of like asking a snake to ride a bicycle. It probably can’t. And even if it could, what’s the point? It’s still a lowdown snake.
Secondly, why would we think Patterson doesn’t mean exactly what he said to the New Yorker magazine when he trashed Detroit and reprised his famously racist remark that compared Detroiters to “Indians” and called for them to be herded into pens and tossed (presumably infected) blankets and corn?
Patterson said:
Anytime I talk about Detroit, it’s not positive. Therefore, I’m a Detroit basher. The truth hurts, you know? Tough s---.
I made a prediction a long time ago, and it’s come to pass. I said,
"What we’re going to do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn."
Patterson doesn’t look like he’ll be giving up any sincere mea culpa soon.
So why bother?
After decades of bile from a man who stood with segregationists, fought busing, openly detested Detroit’s first black mayor and built a political career issuing racist dog whistles from a county over, why can’t Detroiters finally accept the reality that L. Brooks Patterson hates your black and brown asses?
This isn’t to say that I don’t understand the anger and pain behind the protests on Monday by Native Americans who stood in freezing temperatures outside the Oakland County Courthouse and demanded an apology from Patterson. It’s not that I don’t get the indignation that stings the local ministers who joined the rally after making their own calls for Patterson to say he was sorry.
What Patterson said was mean, racist, another stain on regional relations and yet another example of why even some who look more kindly on his “accomplishments” than I do believe he’s overstayed his welcome in politics.
He at once mocked the horrors of Native Americans’ ordeals and called for the day that residents of a predominantly black city could be treated much the same way.
At their best, Patterson’s remarks can be viewed as callous, silly and unhelpful. (Naturally, his ideological kinfolk insist “Brooks” was just being “unfiltered” and “blunt,” his tart self drunk on ego and who knows what else.)
Supporting Genocide?
At their worst, though, Patterson’s statements can be viewed as the sanctioning of genocide. Drop dead, indeed.
I tend to see them more as the latter, given the history of the man former Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta once dubbed “the Grand Dragon of Oakland County.”
But if we concede that Patterson is a racist and a relic, a canker sore on the region, shouldn’t we begin to deal with him accordingly?
Calling for Patterson to come to the “hood” for a meeting, leaders of one local group invoked the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when explaining the purpose of the request. And I’m sure King, the great man that he was, would’ve sat with Patterson. He sat with people who were just as bad if not worse.
But let’s be real: King would’ve talked, yes; but King bargained around issues of power. King made moral demands on this country, but they came embedded in calls for economic justice, educational freedom and social mobility for black people.
I don’t ever recall Dr. King asking Bull Connor or George Wallace or the city of Montgomery merely to apologize.
Upside of Kevyn Orr
This may sound crazy coming from me, but you know who flashed the sort of attitude toward Patterson that more political and social leaders around here could stand to learn from?
Kevyn Orr.
No, my stance on the EM hasn’t changed. The emergency manager’s presence still reflects a callous disregard for democracy in Detroit, and his agenda doesn’t best serve the city or its citizens. That includes this effort to essentially sell off the water department.
However, there's something impressive about a negotiating tactic Orr turned to recently: When Patterson and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel balked at the pricetag that Orr wanted to put on the water department deal, Orr talked to them for a bit and then did something that Hackel and Patterson don’t get much from Detroit leadership.
He threatened to move on without them.
No begging. No cursing their obstructionism. No wishing for better from “ol’ Brooksie.”
Just the click of compass charting a new path, then the sound of the train chugging out of the station and, perhaps, the sight of two so-called regional “leaders” on the roadside getting left in the dust.
All Hackel and Patterson could do was sputter.
Forget Macomb and Oakland?
I don’t know how serious Orr is about making a water department deal with only Wayne County and the state. And as I said, I don’t trust it all that much anyway.
But I admire Orr’s stated willingness to press ahead with what at least he thinks is best, without allowing Patterson’s posturing or Hackel’s amateur-hour impersonation of Patterson to stop him.
L. Brooks Patterson’s power doesn’t derive from his bigoted words, but rather flows from his ability to form and influence policy. Orr’s tactic would deny him that power. And isn't denying power to racists and other reactionaries the point of progressive struggle in the first place?
Patterson once said, “I don’t give a damn about Detroit.” Rather than getting mad and demanding apologies for these kinds of statements, perhaps it’s finally past time to take him at his word and, like the EM, look for other partnerships whenever possible.
What if Detroit’s authentic leadership took Kevyn Orr’s attitude about, say, transportation? What if, instead of always feeling the need to kiss Patterson’s ass just to discuss basic governmental infrastructure such as trains, trolleys and/or bus lines to and from Oakland County, Detroit took its federal funding and looked elsewhere?
What if the city placed even greater emphasis on lines into western Wayne County? Toward the airport, say? Could improved transportation in that direction allow Detroit and Wayne County opportunities to cultivate better ties with someplace like Washtenaw County?
This isn’t to say the region doesn’t need Oakland. And it’s tough to blame residents in Pontiac, Southfield, Oak Park and West Bloomfield for the Java Man mentality of a county executive many of them want ousted, too.
And I understand also that political leadership can’t full-on ignore the man who oversees the richest county in Michigan, certainly no more than decent people can ignore the ceaseless nastiness that is Patterson’s stock in trade.
But whether it’s the man or his remarks, the question concerning both is how you deal with them.
L. Brooks Patterson has made a career out of slurring Detroit, mocking blacks and generally being too cute with his wink-and-nod hatefulness. He’s lived his words, too, as his pro-segregationist legal work attests. He’s as blunt as his friends say he is. And he’s every bit as racist as his pronouncements lead you to think.
You don’t ask for apologies from men such as this.
You defeat them.
