Dispatches from Detroit, part 1

Hello friends! After an action-packed two days here in Detroit I’ve finally found a minute to sit down and ponder my first experiences here. Yesterday left me feeling a bit disoriented after the early-morning drive up here followed by an orientation meeting for the research team and then wandering in the Detroit sun (Midwestern summer, such a delight) for a few hours before catching the tail end of the opening march, which was quite a sight for sore eyes. The constant mainstream media coverage of Tea Partiers and their attempts to pass off their largely corporate and GOP-backed shenanigans (documented in a nice piece over at The Exiled here and another at AlterNet here) as real grassroots activism had left me fearful of what I might find when I returned from South America last month. Suffice to say that the sight of thousands of people (estimates range from 10,000-30,000) converging in Detroit to share experiences, knowledge, and passions; strategize; build coalitions; and generally take to the streets for some good-old fashioned agitating—all for any progressive cause imaginable—was a much-needed antidote.
Forget about conventional politics and the false choice between Republicans and Democrats; this completely reframes the debates. “Detroit, escucha, sigamos en la lucha!”

The diversity of the forum is another welcome observation. I'm curious to see what our research surveys reveal about the specific regional, racial, ethnic, and socio-economic breakdown as well as the various causes and viewpoints. I grew up in the self-identified liberal city of Seattle, where, despite our blue reputation, de facto racial segregation, socio-economic inequalities, and a large homeless population still prevail. The people in charge of progressive causes are often coming from the same positions of racial or economic privilege as the people in charge elsewhere. It’s the “earnest white liberal” phenomenon, as my family calls it, and if left unchecked it can lead to hand-wringing and good intentions without any concrete action or effort to engage with people from the community in question. Any sort of service provision, organizing, or advocacy needs to include the people that it’s actually going to affect at all steps of the process—what a concept!—and it seems that many of the people here this week, especially those leading sessions and workshops are from such diverse community organizations and truly understand the importance of bottom-up action. They’re not just people waving controversial signs or slapping a Che Guavara patch on their backpack to show off how "radical" they are. Or rather, certainly there's a few of those characters around this week (as there are on just about any college campus in the country), but they take a back seat to the people here that actually know what they're talking about with re struggles, organizing, reform, and revolutions.