But the most interesting to me is no longer Kilpatrick, but an older, wiser industrialist who also happens to belong to the NBA Hall of Fame. ...
Dave Bing, a former Detroit Pistons' guard who was elected one of the NBA's Greatest Players of All Time, who grew to be one of the city's most important businessmen after launching Bing Steel, is now giving thought to running for mayor himself next year.
And who could blame him? The city is going through so much turmoil right now, what with not only the mayoral crisis, but the auto industry eating itself alive, the housing crisis getting so bad there that the West Side neighborhood I grew up in has damn near every other home sitting empty, impossible to sell. Really, if he did run, what does he have to lose?While talking to Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, Bing said something that really struck me:
The unfortunate thing for those of us who are strong supporters of the city is that it becomes more and more difficult to circle the wagons and be protective," he said. "It's just a matter of time for those people, regardless of how much they love the city, to find options to move, and we could see an outpouring of whatever middle class we still have here, and that's a death knell because we've lost so much of our middle class. You can't just have all poor people and think the city's going to do well. And that's what happening right now. We've got to change that.
Very profound.
This kind of thinking shows that there are black people in a black city who think progressively. I happen to know that there are a LOT of Detroiters who think like this, and understand why any urban area needs a substantial middle class in order to survive.
Is Bing the man to create this kind of change? I don't know, I mean, this is a working man's town and social democracy has been an important component of Detroit's culture for many years. So it would take Bing not only understanding the American worker, but helping him or her to develop the skill set needed to compete in the 21st century global economy.
WIth that said, Bing does make a good point about Kilpatrick needing to split. On Wednesday the controversy gets deeper with a judge deciding which lawyer gets to represent the city. What this means is that this scandal has reached a point where the city government is spending boatloads of taxpayer dollars over freaky text messages.
Even I have to ask: why would he put the city through this?
1. Kwame is one reason why you should never vote for a candidate based on his or her ethnicity.
dbysan at 1:52PM on Jul 22nd 2008