Detroit’s bad rap

Thanks to Professor Matt Lassiter and his “History of American Suburbia” class, I learnt a lot about Detroit last week.

- That Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a version of his “I Have a Dream” speech there months before his the more-famous Washington speech
- That in the 1940s, a 6-foot high wall was built to separate black and white suburbs
- That it is the poorest city in U.S., with 33.6% of its residents classifed as such
- That it is the most residentially segregated metro region in the nation
- That 85% of residents of the city of Detroit are Afro-American. The city, with a population just under 1 million, is surrounded by mostly-white suburbs, bringing the population of greater Detroit close to 5 million. Ann Arbor isn’t considered a suburb of Detroit just yet.

The city of Detroit is littered with ruins of crumbling brick car assembly factories and beautiful buildings (it was once a very wealthy city). Hotels, mansions, apartment blocks, theatres, churches, even shopping malls stand abandoned or have already fallen under wrecking balls in this city whose residents have fled. If you have a spare hour, take some of the photographic tours at Detroit Mon Amour to see its decaying splendour for yourself.

Jonathan Kozol, a writer and public education activist, spoke on campus this week. In the words of campus newspaper the Michigan Daily, Kozol "brings the nation’s attention to the gap between its rhetoric of equal opportunity for all and the reality of an education system that too often fails to help those already disadvantaged.”

In his address, Kozol told of overcrowding, inexperienced teachers and underfunding in urban schools, where the mostly black and minority students are already suffering from effects of poverty and epidemic asthmas from polluted air. Decades after desegregation become a priority in the US and students were bussed into schools, he argues the situation has gotten worse.

“If you took a photo of a typical inner-city school, it is indistinguishable from a school in Mississippi and Alabama in 1940,” he told his audience.

Kozol’s visit comes a few months before the university’s affirmative action admission policies come to a vote. Supporters of affirmative action, such as Al Sharpton, are worried that blacks and other disadvantaged students would all but disappear from campus should the University's consideration of race in admission decisions be made illegal. If urban high schools aren't able to provide a decent education, as Kozol says, they may have a point.