The author, a noted MSU sociologist from Detroit, posted a 2,200-word essay Tuesday morning on Facebook. He submitted it to Deadline, which condensed it.
By Carl S. Taylor
A 19-year-old man died during a shooting spree at a block party last weekend in my old Detroit neighborhood of Webb and Dexter.
Those blocks and surrounding ones had been a working-class and middle-class area. Lord David's Tuxedo Shop, Dick "Night Train" Lane's El Taco restaurant and Yogi's restaurant lined Dexter Avenue. At the Dexter Theater, the infamous black revolutionary H. Rap Brown gave a fierce warning to the power structure weeks before the insurrection of July 1967. (“We are going to burn you down,” he was quoted as saying.)
The neighborhood is a shell of yesteryears. It and other areas that once prospered are ghost-like relics now with grave markings of horrible, violent deaths. Ten people were shot at the basketball court where Saturday night’s west-side block party took place.
I have written several times this past year about the growing violence in urban America, and have struggled with this social phenomena over the last half-century.
The unwritten street rule is to say nothing. Move forward, don't look at the chalk outline of where the body once laid. I learned over 50 years ago that the streets never give up their dead, just as Gordon Lightfoot wrote of Lake Superior in his classic 1976 song.
‘The Streets Won’t Say’
In “Do the Right Thing,” filmmaker Spike Lee put the custom this way 26 years ago: "Those who know, don't say. Those who say, don't know."
Carl Taylor: "I am not Indiana Jones and Detroit is not the Temple of Doom. I am a social scientist who sees forces of destruction at the same time as the new Detroit is growing and prospering."
Now, in 2015 I search for the words to describe the ordeal of one human being killed and nine wounded on my old turf – where the streets won't say.
As an ethnographer and urbanologist, I select words carefully. Each narrative is examined, rebuked and questioned by different factions in my beloved native city.
In the first version of this essay, I said the whole urban landscape was victim to urban terrorism.
Damn it, what did he say?
I felt the brunt of many folks I respected, honored and loved. I had blowback from some relatives, my old neighbors and even some of my colleagues.
Many also scorned Police Chief James Craig for blaming the gunfire on “urban terrorists” in Sunday remarks to the community. “You will allow this to continue if you do nothing,” he added. “It must stop now.” A community activist, Rev. Charles Williams II of the Detroit National Action Network, criticizes the use of such a daunting description for misguided young men in their killing blocks.
Feeling Like ‘An Alien’ Visitor
I am a native son, as well as an alien from an age of Detroit that had well-manicured lawns, peaceful behavior and harmonious people. Much of that old version of a more prosperous Detroit has dissolved during tough times. The truth of what was is no more.
Today, I see something of a new urban frontier with a struggling segment of Detroit survivors. Complexity is the norm. Some days, wild packs of dogs roam the blocks of weeds, tall grass and pheasants. At times, the classic architectural design of Detroit’s past screams at me as observe the blocks of the old neighborhoods.
I tell my brother Virgil about fallen blocks, strips of yesterday’s hardware stores, grocers and demolished supermarkets on the old 12th Street.
The area of Clairmount and Hamilton -- corner of my first school, Crossman Elementary -- seems like a ghost village or something from the 2007 post-apocalyptic Will Smith movie “I Am Legend.” My windowless school is stripped and hollowed-out, a symbol of the half-defunct Detroit Public Schools system.
I question why some people walk in streets instead of on sidewalks in many parts of the city. Some have told me they do so to avoid lurking assailants near the sidewalks.
‘Not the Temple of Doom’
I am not Indiana Jones and Detroit is not the Temple of Doom. I am a social scientist who sees forces of destruction at the same time as the new Detroit is growing and prospering.
"The area of Clairmount and Hamilton . . . seems like a ghost village or something from the 2007 post-apocalyptic Will Smith movie 'I Am Legend,' ” Taylor says of the corner where he attended elementary school. (Warner Bros. photo)
I drive in the blocks of what were lived-in homes with working-class families. Boarded-up homes near Linwood and Davison have dimmed lights and signs of some kind of life. People are squatting, homeless and surviving in some very scary dwellings. No running water, no social workers, no teachers and no rhythm of working life.
So what is this called? Urban terrorism? Urban renewal? Plight? Blight?
What’s going on, as Marvin Gaye asked in 1971.
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
One has to be very careful in labeling Detroit. Lots of great, hard-working folks live in those complicated blocks with abandoned areas. Neighborhoods still have institutions like the Joseph Williams Community Center near Virginia Park, where the blocks are neat and the residents strongly connected.
Terrorism Is an Apt Word
I grew up the first eight years of my life on Hazelwood and 12th. I was a Cub Scout at Grace Episcopal Church, still standing and serving the community.
The social ecology of Detroit has been my life study. I look at the reckless danger of last weekend as terrorism affecting good citizens. It is a form of terrorism for good citizens when their daily lives are impacted by violence that will not allow normal activities within communities.
I have no desire to stop citizens from owning guns, though I feel strongly that arming citizens will not solve situations such as Saturday night’s shootings and this week’s gun violence in Greektown.
There are no superheroes like the League of Justice. If we are not careful, we may find ourselves more like Deadwood during the Wild West days. There are no quick remedies without becoming a society that is an urban frontier, which could mean vigilantes, hired guns and more lawlessness.
‘Armed Camps’ Are No Answer
This is not aimed at taking away guns. It is aimed at not becoming armed camps.
Detroit needs strong law enforcement that is well-trained, sensitive and respectful. The responsible response to crime remains the role of public policing in Detroit and other cities.
Detroit also needs youth activities and partnerships among business leaders, educators, families, faith-based institutions to establish good communities. Downtown and Midtown have a new circle of safety, thanks to partnerships between law enforcement and the private sector. The same focus must extend to communities across the city.
This is an American problem, not one facing only Detroit. Can there be a cease-fire – a reconstructing work in progress, rather than a new urban frontier?
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