Detroit is for doers.
Detroiters start businesses. We create jobs and build communities.
But from some leaders in Detroit, there’s a whole lot of talking. They love a good taskforce. They especially love panels.
As February approached, my inbox began to fill with invitations to either attend or speak at Black History Month events, mostly panel discussions around the Black experience.
While I don’t mind panel discussions, especially when they are fruitful and engaging, I found myself more and more apathetic toward Black History Month panels.
Our city is nearly 80% Black, I kept finding myself saying — we don’t want no panels.
We want position. We want a shift in intentionally created power dynamics that have left Black people behind. We want economic freedom.
I get the importance of Black History Month, and it’s so critical that we understand historical injustices so that we don’t repeat them. That said, our present state is alarming.
There is a racial wealth gap in our country, our state, and in the city of Detroit.
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Black families with the same level of education as white families have nine times less wealth than their white counterparts. In 2018, the Kellogg Foundation released a report stating that if we close the wealth gap in Michigan, we stand to add $92 billion to our economy.
We have a moral and economic imperative to be impatient with the racial wealth gap.
And yet we talk. I keep searching for the urgency to handle this grave matter by leaders of our institutions and corporations in our city, and I keep finding workshops. After George Floyd was murdered in 2020 — no, after the political protests that followed his murder and threatened economic security in our city — leaders came together to denounce racism. They talked about plans. It was a moving press conference.
And here we are. Panels. And task forces.
Last year, during Black History Month of course, City Council President Mary Sheffield announced a Reparations Taskforce. It’s been a year and members of the taskforce continue to resign as they are seeing it for what it is — another opportunity to talk. When in actuality, reparations can come in many forms. At the City Council table, there’s the opportunity to actually put restorative policies in place. No task force needed. We could just do.
After the death of George Floyd, a group of Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, adorned in kente cloth, knelt on Capitol Hill, in protest to racial injustice, and a nod to Colin Kapernick taking a knee at the beginning of his football games, during the national anthem.
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For Democratic elected officials to kneel did not have the same effect. Colin knelt because he was a football player. That was his way of asking change makers to do something about the plight of Black people in our country.
When the Democratic leadership knelt, it was offensive. They are the change makers Colin was appealing to. They were actually the ones seated at the table, literally elected to bring about change.
Every task force that Detroit City Council creates with no resulting legislation is a proverbial kneel.
We could continue to talk. Or, the city could:
- Stop charging minority businesses for minority certification.
- Invite the corporate participants of that moving June 2020 press conference to provide an update on what they have done to help close the racial wealth since that wonderful photo opportunity.
- Ask large corporations to present public report cards on their spending with Black businesses.
- Incentivize corporations to commit to increase Black participation on boards and in the c-suite.
- Create policies to make it easy for Black businesses to operate in the city, like reducing the over 100 steps required to operate a business or creating an office of small businesses to help small business owners in the city or provide free training opportunities so Black small business owners can access a trained workforce in industries like retail and hospitality.
- Utilize local Black developers on major development projects in city.
- Create a 0% loan product for Black businesses that receive city contracts to advance payment, in an effort to eliminate barriers such as lack of capital, and long waits for payment from the city.
- Engage the Black middle class on policy.
- And maybe the easiest thing — say the word Black. I’m tired of hearing euphemisms like “Detroit-based” or “disadvantaged” that conflate Blackness and poverty.
Black History month provides an amazing opportunity for us to put our policy where our mouths are. The question that remains is, who will be the bold leaders who commit to talking less, and doing more?
Charity Dean is the president and CEO of the Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.