Campus Activism

Two stories in two different state university campus newspapers this week create quite a contrast regarding the future of conversations about race on Michigan university campuses.

First, there is The South End, the Wayne State University paper telling on Wednesday about the plight of the on-campus NAACP chapter...

...at the chapter's NAACP 99th Birthday Celebration, . . . empty seats outnumbered occupied ones.

[of] The chapter's 30 paying members, fewer than 10 showed up for the Feb. 12 event. This pattern has been common. ... on average, four or five members attend the organization's regular bi-weekly meetings.

And on it went, details of how a nearly century-old, brand-name civil rights movement, on a large public university campus, in the middle of a large and overwhelmingly black city, struggles to muster even a handful of regulars who care enough to attend a regular meeting.

But five days later in Ann Arbor, a slightly different story is told by the Michigan Daily...

Ward Connerly, the outspoken affirmative action critic who helped set legislation in motion that banned affirmative action in the state of Michigan, spoke at the Law School this weekend. A crowd of about 250 students, activists and professors gathered in Hutchins Hall Saturday morning to hear Connerly speak on a panel that also included University Law Prof. Sherman Clark and Yeshiva University Law Prof. Marci Hamilton.

So, there's still a lot of people willing to get up on a Saturday morning and listen to differing views on how to advance race relations. It's just that the NAACP doesn't seem to have a seat at the table -- the article makes zero mention of the NAACP involvement in this event.

But the paper mentions another group that did demand a seat at the table...

About 20 members of By Any Means Necessary, a pro-affirmative action group, protested outside before the event. As Connerly began his opening remarks, some of those members interrupted... by shouting over him.

And also...

During the question and answer session that followed the panel discussion, BAMN members repeatedly asked questions and occupied the microphone lines to speak. BAMN coordinator Neil Lyons called Connerly a fraud and a liar.

Which resulted in this...

As the noise escalated during Connerly's remarks, the auditorium lights flickered briefly and BAMN members' microphones were turned on and off in an attempt to settle BAMN and the rest of the crowd.

So, where does one find 20 or so hijackers to take control of an otherwise civil and well attended debate on race relations at the University of Michigan?

Answer...

"You can't argue racism and racist policy in public and get away with it!" yelled Joyce Schon, a second-year law student at Wayne State University and a BAMN organizer, from her seat.

Joyce obviously has enough time to take a break from her law studies and organize her rabble full of ruffians and roadtrip to Ann Arbor. But I somehow bet she doesn't make the time to attend those NAACP meetings right in her own back yard.

More Honorable Democrats?

This morning's Detroit News brings word that some Detroit City Councilmembers are going to take a tough stand against the mayor following the text message scandal...

Last week, the city council decided to postpone a decision asking the mayor to resign. The mayor will give his state of the city address on Tuesday, and several council members said they will shun the mayor by refusing to sit behind him on stage in Orchestra Hall when he gives his speech.

Compare to another Democratic politician who got caught in a sex scandal, which led to perjury, and then to calls for his removal from office, and then him using the powers of his office to trash the reputations of innocent people caught up in the scandals of his making.

I don't recall the Democrats of the day standing up to the situation and shunning the bad boy. Maybe Detroit politicians are just that much more honorable.

Cushy Council Jobs

The Detroit News editorial page is all knotted up over Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers using $12,000 from her taxpayer-financed office allotment so as to send her former chief of staff to Lisbon and Hong Kong for what was supposed to have been legitimate city business regarding pension funds [insert Teamsters joke here].

Okay, yes, that's stinky and suspicious. But the News' fixation on this particular little tree sends them whizzing past a towering forest of taxpayer waste with barely a raised eyebrow. The article does do a drive-by on facts regarding the big picture, but fails to tie it together...

...council members' own office accounts have few restrictions on spending. Council members are allocated $650,000 to spend pretty much as they wish on running their offices.

What's missing?

That $650,000 office allotment is about SIX TIMES larger than what the average member of the Michigan House of Representatives gets for the same purpose -- paying the bills of running their legislative office. And it's also noteworthy to point out that Michigan lawmakers are the second highest paid in America, while Detroit is one of the poorest big cities in the nation.

So, yeah, $12,000 to send the help on a world tour is one bad cough from a patient that's been hacking for years. Ten council members getting at least a half million each more than than they need every year is the pneumonia in plain sight that the Detroit News is ignoring.

The Postman Never Rings Twice

Another postman was busted for keeping mail at his house and not delivering it. This one had 300 tubs of mail with more than 16,000 letters in his Southfield, MI, home. The Detroit News says it dates back to 2002...

"According to the caller, the mail dated back to 2002 and consisted of mail from the Michigan Department of Treasury, child support, tax returns, utility bills and magazines," the affidavit said.

The mailman in question has had the same route for 16 years. How does one get away with not delivering so much mail to the people on that route for five of those years? The nature of the neighborhood may provide a clue:

Affected households are in Detroit's 48208 ZIP code, in an area just west of Wayne State University, near the intersection of I-94 and the Lodge Freeway.

...

Much of the undelivered mail was third-class mail and mail addressed to vacant homes, said Ed Moore, a postal spokesman in Detroit. Letter carriers are supposed to return any undelivered mail to the post office, not take it home, he said.

If a letter falls in an empty city, apparently it doesn't make a sound.

Pot-head Gunfighters Need Not Apply

The embattled mayor of Detroit wants to hire hundreds more cops to ward off crime troubles which he confesses are all over the city.

There's a problem...

He added that the city is struggling to find new officers -- especially those who are black or are Detroiters -- because they can't pass the drug test for marijuana.

"If you can't stop for 10 days, we don't want you driving a truck or carrying a gun," Kilpatrick said.