The intense fallout from the New Yorker profile of Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson continued Tuesday with community leaders calling for an apology from Patterson and Patterson himself giving radio interviews and asking why everyone was upset over things he had said decades ago.
What Patterson, and WJR-AM talk show host Frank Beckmann seemed to miss is that Patterson recycled and updated his comments about Detroit and voiced other criticisms as recently as September, when he was interviewed by writer Paige Williams, whose article appears in this week's New Yorker. The article also was published on the magazine's website, for subscribers only, early Monday.
Instead of using a chance to talk up Detroit to one of the nation's most prestigious magazines and its affluent and powerful readership, Patterson is quoted making several negative comments about the city. He has not said he was misquoted.
On Tuesday, Patterson's office released its second statement on the matter in two days.
“I regret that something I said 30 years ago is causing such consternation today. I have worked hard to build good relationships with some of the past mayors of Detroit. I do not intend for The New Yorker article to damage my relationship with Mayor Duggan and I look forward to working with him over the next four years.”
In addition to Beckmann, Patterson has other supporters, including Nolan Finley of the Detroit News, who asks, "is anyone really surprised that Brooks finds himself in the hot seat again for untoward remarks about the city of Detroit?
Finley writes:
The comments were made to a reporter from New Yorker magazine who, Brooks says, also dug out eye-popping comments dating back 30 years to oh-so-neatly fit the narrative that Brooks is a Detroit-bashing racist running against the current in denying the city’s comeback.
It’s pure bullwhacky. I know Brooks well enough not to doubt he fed the reporter a notebook full of juicy quotes, each one begging to be a headline. He’s unfiltered, and it never seems to occur to him how his words might look in print.
The words make a better story than the reality of what Brooks Patterson has meant to this region, and to Detroit.
In the Free Press, editorial page editor Stephen Henderson questions why there seem to be double standards over what is permissible to say about mainly black Detroit and mainly white Oakland County.
Henderson criticizes Patterson for the way he characterizes Detroit, but adds: "I’m more interested in some of the subtext here. As always, there’s more going on than what’s going on."
For example:
If I were to write or say on TV that Oakland County is populated with assorted bigots and rednecks who’ve stolen capital and other resources from Detroit in a concentrated effort to marginalize black people, that’d probably be it for me. (For the record, it’s not just that I wouldn’t say that, I don’t believe it.) Even if I weren’t canned, no one would take me seriously anymore. I’d be a pariah in most circles.
Somehow, I don’t see relatively equivalent consequences visiting upon my friend Brooks because of what he said.
That has something to do with the racial dynamics in this region, among other things. And until we can talk about that honestly in this region, acknowledging the stark double standards that still exist among us, we have way bigger problems than Brooks’ big mouth.
