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Jeffrey Tatum, a caterer and food consultant, reacts to our July 17 roundup of Woodbridge residents' online comments about filming there for the "Detroiters" TV show. He lives on Avery Street and has been in the neighborhood since 1971.
When people are reporting news, especially in the case of Detroit, there’s always something very skewed and negative. . . . How would you like it if every time someone grabs at straws, to speak, there is something negative about where it is that you live? I'm certain that you wouldn't like it very much.
Jeffrey Tatum: "All you are doing is being inflammatory and being a part of an old Detroit problem."
The filming is not the biggest problem. The real problem is when you have a group of individuals that are from somewhere else not being sensitive to the fact that they are located in the neighborhood where families live! The minute that we escape that fact, we lose a part of our humanity [by] thinking that we can pounce and do whatever we want in someone's neighborhood.
I've been in this neighborhood for 46 years and I can honestly say the sort of sentiment that you convey, along with the location manager, are a lot of the reasons why parts of the city are the way that they are now.
It's because outsiders come in and they believe that they can do whatever they want to. . . . I can guarantee you that no one from the outside is going to come into [the writer’s community], set up in a block where families live and do whatever it is they want.
Since you report the news, why is it that you are not talking about the Summerfest that we do for the kids, or any of our organizational efforts to clean up our vacant properties and empty lots around here, or about the CDC [Woodbridge Neighborhood Development Corporation] purchasing vacant houses to rehab them.
You're basically using a different medium but . . . when I see what you have written, all you are doing is being inflammatory and being a part of an old Detroit problem that we would all like to go away.
You did say something like this is growth or this is progress, I certainly hope that you don't have children or grandchildren that would look at the things that you are writing and believe that that's supposed to be progress for someone.
Like I said, I've been in this neighborhood for 46 years and I see nothing progressive about the things that you are writing. And you are welcome to share this.
-- Jeffrey Tatum
Related article:
Lights, Cameras, Distraction: 'Detroiters' Crew Annoys a Few Woodbridge Set Neighbors
