Something Something Detroit

I’m wary of sweeping trend pieces like the one in the New York Times a few weeks ago that described Bushwick in Brooklyn as having a “bohemian vibe” and tout that it’s at the heart of some sort of artistic revolution. A co-op or two does not a revolution make, and sure there may by a group of young white people making art and sharing stuff in part of Bushwick, but the last thing I got from the Bushwick in the past two years that I visited the neighborhood frequently was a “bohemian vibe.”

And that’s the problem with any urban area – there’s no one story. Detroit is the easiest example, and has been used as such exhaustively over the past couple of years. As Vice pointed out in it’s 2009 story called "Something, something, something, Detroit: Lazy journalists love pictures of abandoned stuff," Detroit’s decay became shorthand for all that is going wrong in American during the recession and abandoned buildings are as beautiful to photographers as sunsets (hell I love photographing abandoned buildings too). Of course there’s a lot of crime, tons of poverty, and LOTS of abandoned houses. But it’s not the whole story of Detroit and also far from one that should be used to illustrate the economic collapse of 2008-present day. News by definition should be NEW and there have been abandoned buildings in Detroit for decades.

And then there’s the other story of Detroit, one of its “creative renaissance” and this video is so interesting and encouraging, and such great PR for the city that needs it so badly. I’m glad they spoke to people who live there rather than just about them, but still why does Detroit need effing Johnny Knoxville to come in and tell the world about it? Yes there’s stuff happening in Detroit, but just like Bushwick, I don’t know that it can really be labeled as sort of trend in the same way that it’s not accurate to label the whole area as abandoned and hopeless. Both, as a woman in the video calls it, are “pick and choose journalism.”

Of course perpetuating a narrative of an artist utopia isn’t nearly as harmful as perpetuating one of hopeless blight, but my point is that neither is accurate, and that an urban area is complex and can’t be boiled down to a trend piece as simple as “Hippies now in Bushwick” or “Stuff is abandoned in Detroit.” To do so is just lazy journalism.

Complex reporting isn’t short and easy to digest, nor is it cheap and fast to produce, and no one benefits from some New Yorker dropping by a few abandoned buildings or hipster bars and proclaiming what a city he spent 12 hours in is all about. The last thing Detroit or needs is another journalist who is looking to make it a metaphor or someone like me who left for greener pastures dropping back in for a quick byline and then ducking back to an overpriced neighborhood on the East Coast to education everyone on what’s happening in the flyover states.

Those most qualified to tell the world the real story are the journalists who stayed –some of the reporting at publications like Metro Times Detroit and The Detroit Free Press is among the best I’ve seen. Let’s give them national attention rather than treating the city like an easy trend piece.

New School

I’ve thought about teaching for many years, although I’ve always wanted to be a writer and journalist, teaching is something that comes back into consideration over and over. I applied for both Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellowship at the end of college, I’ve substitute taught at a preschool, I’ve been a Big Sister to a teenager for 2 ½ years, I’ve volunteered with kids a lot.

But more and more I have so much disillusionment with the educational system. No Child Left Behind, the competiveness of NYC schools, teaching to tests, cuts in funding—hearing my 15-year-old Little Sister talk about school makes me wonder how much smart motivated kids actually learn, let alone those who need more help.

Which is why when you see a teacher or volunteer going the extra mile, when you see lives effected, it (cheesy as it sounds) gives you hope. I volunteered this week at an after school cooking program for special ed high school kids. The woman who runs it (a volunteer herself) has been there every week for three years, and the you can see how much these otherwise marginalized kids benefit from it (sure it probably won’t change their lives, but it’s a lot to feel someone cares, to have fun, and to have consistency in your life).

The most inspiring story I’ve read recently is about Catherine Ferguson Academy in of all places Detroit. The BBC mentioned the alternative school recently in reference to its innovative farm and gardens (in the middle of a depressing urban setting). But when I looked into it further, I found that’s only the tip of the iceberg. This from a MetroTimes feature on the school from 2004:

“While Detroit public schools are among the most maligned anywhere, with dilapidated facilities and failing test scores and a reputation that repels many families, there are diamonds in the rough and students who will succeed despite the odds. Amid the turmoil, the Catherine Ferguson Academy — an “alternative” school in the district that offers middle- and high-school courses — has quietly made a national name for itself.

This year the school was named a Breakthrough High School by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. One of 12 schools nationally to win the distinction, Catherine Ferguson earned it based on the following criteria: At least 50 percent of the school is minority; 50 percent of the student body qualifies for free and reduced-price meals; and at least 90 percent of students graduate and are accepted to college.

The academy had no problem meeting the requirements — with 94 percent black students and 5 percent Hispanic, and more than 90 percent eligible for free or reduced lunches, every year Catherine Ferguson achieves a 90 percent graduation rate; 100 percent of those who graduate (85 last year) are accepted to two- or four-year colleges, most with financial aid, says the school’s principal, G. Asenath Andrews.
“Kids transform themselves here,” Andrews says. “We’re just a pot and kids jump in and turn themselves from lead into gold.”

Every year, enrollment is first come, first served for as many as 400 students and 200 babies. There is no academic requirement; most of the girls are in the process of dropping out when they enter. As many as 20 percent drop out every year, Andrews says. (The 90 percent graduation rate is based on students who make it to their senior year.)

Andrews says the difference at her school is personal attention to each student. While Detroit public schools average 35 students for every teacher, Catherine Ferguson has an 18 to 1 ratio. Each student is assigned to a homeroom teacher whom she stays with until she graduates. The homeroom teacher is responsible for looking after the student, the “first line” before issues head to the principal’s office. When the kids don’t show up or don’t do their homework, a teacher asks, “Why? Where are you? What’s going on?”

The farm and the child care sound like a tall order for most schools, but they shouldn’t, and the personal attention shouldn’t either. I feel like there’s so much more we could be doing, I feel like schools like this should be the rule and not the exception. I feel like maybe someday in some way, even if I don’t become a teacher, I’m going to do something to help make that happen. I just haven’t figured out what yet.

Remembering Newspapers

Yet another post about my obsession about the state of print journalism.

Jack Lessenberry, a columnist for Metro Times Detroit (where a slightly younger, more idealistic version of me once interned) wrote this week about a Detroit newspaper editor and ownership shift that I am too young/too lazy to have paid much attention too. In his column however, he does sum up pretty succinctly what I have been trying to say about the tends in both newspapers and magazines:

"Newspaper companies, not just those in Detroit, seem to have made a decision to publish newspapers for people who do not like to read. They are putting out papers for those who would rather watch television.

That might have made some sense in somebody's head at some cocktail party somewhere, but I can report I have talked to actual humans who prefer watching television to reading. Talked to them at length, in fact. The truth is that they don't want a newspaper that looks like television. They just don't want to read, period. People who do want to read find increasingly less and less in newspapers in general."

He goes on to talk about how since newspapers have been trying to be TV they have lost readers in larger numbers and it is because of this not solely advances in technology that newspapers are dying.

The more and more the evil corporate chains buy up papers, the fewer publications escape the infotainment trap. Even those who seem to can get sucked in, the summer that I interned at Metro Times (2003) I sat in on a meeting with the local fox station about how we could partner with their morning broadcasts to promote our stories. Luckily they editors were all left with such a bad taste and the broadcasters didn't seem too keen on the story about gay bath houses in Detroit. The partnership, to my knowledge never took place.

Update (4/19): Mother Jones decided to send me two issues at once, so I've been busy reading the March/April issue in the last few days and every article in it is really good this time around. This one: Breaking the News, kind of says it all on this topic though.