[CROSS-POSTED FROM MICHIGAN YOUTH POLITICAL ALLIANCE]

And it’s finally time for Detroit to start making some progress (or at least reverse the tumble downhill under Mayor Kilpatrick).

Yesterday, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice and pleaded no contest to a felony count of assault on a police officer. As punishment, he must “pay restitution to the city of $1 million; [...] surrender his law license, forfeit his state pension to the city and be barred from elective office for five years; and [...] serve 120 days in the Wayne County jail, followed by five years’ probation. The other charges were dismissed”(NYTimes). He also resigned.

Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. will be stepping up to the Mayor’s office, taking the job that no one in their right mind would want right now. MLive sums up his challenges:

Detroit’s next mayor faces the grueling task of rebuilding a city torn apart by economic destruction and the criminal behavior of his predecessor, Kwame Kilpatrick.

But an even thornier challenge for Cockrel, the 42-year-old Detroit City Council president, will be convincing a Michigan citizenry jaded by decades of Detroit corruption that the city matters to its economic future.

While I agree that the struggles of Detroit are enormous and that it is just as difficult to not be in despair of the plight of the city, it is disappointing how much cynicism and negativity has permeated the media, the public and the government. For example, the Detroit News discusses how “Kilpatrick’s ascension served as a symbol of hope for a new, emerging generation of political leaders,” and how that hope for change in Detroit collapsed under the weight of corruption:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s vow to resign Thursday marked one of the lowest moments in city history and is damaging to an image that’s already tainted nationally.

Kilpatrick’s decision to step down as part of his criminal case has cast what many considered to be the fatal blow to a political scene that is considered among the most-corrupt in the country, political experts and others said.

“Detroit has labored under the unfortunate reputation of being a bastion of political corruption,” said Thomas Sugrue, a native Detroiter, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books, including “Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit.”

Fortunately, the same article provides another perspective on the issue–one more reasonable and less tragic. Then again, it’s from just another one of Kwame’s cronies…

Still, many said it’s not as big a blow to the city’s image as people believe.

Political consultant Adolph Mongo said the city will rebound from the text message scandal, much like Richard Daley in Chicago and Rudi Giuliani in New York.

“I don’t buy the mayor’s troubles is a black eye on the city. Detroit already has had a black eye,” Mongo said. “I don’t buy all of these people and political opportunists who want to blame all the ills on the mayor’s trial. They want to blame Detroit, and (Kilpatrick) is their favorite whipping boy.”

It’s as easy and harmful to use Kwame’s plea to whine and whimper over Detroit’s dismal state as it is to say that so many ills have plagued the dear city that Kilpatrick’s scandal makes little difference. How can the only positive things be said by Kwame’s gang?

The only way we can make any progress is if we value our city, and so far, all roads point to disrespect and embarrassment towards our own city. We are unwilling to defend Detroit on the national level, silently allowing the news coverage to trample all over its image, letting it spin the Kilpatrick dilemma in whatever way it finds satisfying.

I don’t know why nobody feels the same way I do, but honestly, if this scandal marked the low point of Detroit, then we can only make the city better. We should not be conceding the idea that Kilpatrick represents all of the city. Instead, we should be fighting against the possibility that his name resonates in the minds of Americans across the United States whenever they think of Detroit. We should show the country that plenty of us are honest, hard-working, concerned citizens in Detroit and the metro-Detroit area, and we are pushing with titanic effort against the current.

As for Kwame, how can his self-proclaimed “comeback” be realized? He needs to quit while he is ahead. Drawing into recluse might be the best thing he can do because he seems to burn everything he loves.

I have been searching through the news for any opportunities to repair our broken city. It angers me to find almost nil articles about anything besides sadness and grieving for the event and its implications on our city. In some way, it reminds me of the town in Empire Falls by Richard Russo (though probably not the best comparison because of the great contrast in size). Like the people in that small town, we feel trapped and burdened, constantly thinking backwards–hoping one day that the auto industry will be revived and that we will reach Detroit’s stardom again. Unfortunately, that will take nothing short of a miracle if we continue to cling onto the past.

Instead of investing ourselves in a pessimistic hope (since it essentially wishes the future to be the past), we should utilize the shock of the end of Kilpatrick’s long saga of trouble to trigger real change. How will this be different from everything that has happened to us over the past several decades? Well, because this time, the change will be internal. There is something about this event that will enter our hearts and tell us something about the area that we live in, and how we relate to what it goes through.

As previously mentioned in this blog, our problem does not lie in corrupt government officials or severe economic trouble (Resignation or not, Kwame isn’t the Problem). It lies in each and every one of us–how we deal with racial antagonisms in this area. That is the answer we provide here at MYPA to doing something proactive.

We can complain all we want, but where is that seriously going to get us? I think the past few decades have told us where that leads to.

[CROSS-POSTED FROM MICHIGAN YOUTH POLITICAL ALLIANCE]