  Crumbled_pavement Member Username: Crumbled_pavement Post Number: 549 Registered: 08-2007 |
I don't know what to make of this article... http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20080922/COL 27/80922072 What are your opinions? | ||
Mortalman Member Username: Mortalman Post Number: 307 Registered: 03-2007 |
Let's hope not! | ||
Pffft Member Username: Pffft Post Number: 1734 Registered: 12-2003 |
I don't think you can look to the past, to predict what will happen ...it's a whole new slate. Cockrel's nothing like CAY. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 6269 Registered: 10-2003 |
It had nothing to do with the comparison of personalities, rather how similar the times may be. I happen to disagree. I think Detroit is in a much better position today than when it fell from on high for the simple fact that it can't actually fall much further. It's going to continue to lose population, but in many ways Cockrel's presiding over a city with far greater opportunities than Cavanaugh's, Gribb's, and Coleman's Detroit. | ||
Pffft Member Username: Pffft Post Number: 1735 Registered: 12-2003 |
As I said, you can't in this case look to the past, this is an entirely different situation. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 6271 Registered: 10-2003 |
I wasn't responding to you, rather those with the knee-jerk reactions that didn't bother to read the op-ed. | ||
Fnemecek Member Username: Fnemecek Post Number: 2913 Registered: 12-2004 |
I don't think Ken Cockrel will be around long enough for him to become another Coleman Young - regardless of whether or not one is talking about CAY's first 8 years or not. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 7685 Registered: 02-2007 |
I think KC has what it takes to be a very good mayor - smarts, integrity, humility and a true sense of the region's potential | ||
Smogboy Member Username: Smogboy Post Number: 8839 Registered: 11-2004 |
On a very basic front, Ken Cockrel doesn't seem as bombastic nor loud as some of his predecessors. Maybe that sense of decorum is needed now in this transition stage. | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 1304 Registered: 11-2003 |
The knee-jerk reactions betray the complete lack of knowledge of history or empathy for the situation Coleman Young came into. If Coleman Young had left his position earlier, he would of been revered by all as one of Detroit's greatest mayors with Pingree... and in some circles, he still is, regardless. I think they are two very different men and very different styles, at least outwardly. Oddly, I think L Brooks Patterson and Coleman Young are cut from the same cloth.. two sides of the same coin, especially considering the reaction of many pro-city folk to LBP; it's not unlike the reaction of suburbanites to Coleman Young. | ||
Daddeeo Member Username: Daddeeo Post Number: 141 Registered: 09-2008 |
If they can get rid of Monica Conyers, there may be hope yet for a city revival. Ken has more competition than Young did from blacks and it is uncertain where his base is. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1903 Registered: 04-2006 |
I never really understood so many peoples negative reactions to Mayor Young. He kept the budget balanced, he got the grass cut in the parks, garbage was picked up, streets were sweeped, there was no worry about how to fund the zoo, the aquarium, or the DIA. He expanded COBO, got the federal funds to build a transit system that was rallied against by many outside Detroit. His rough style would sometimes make me laugh, he took the media square on and never ducked behind a protection unit. Mind you he did all of these things while Detroit was undergoing a similar situation that it is now undergoing. Back when he was Mayor people were leaving the City for jobs elsewhere much like they do today. They did not just abandon the city for the suburbs. Many just up and left for places like Texas. He was never convicted or proven of doing anything wrong. | ||
Macknwarren Member Username: Macknwarren Post Number: 61 Registered: 10-2007 |
A number of the posters to this article on the Free Press site attack Young as the person who started the tensions between black and white people in metro Detroit. That seems very narrow. The city underwent two riots in the three decades before he was elected, not to mention two decades of virtual hand-to-hand combat over African Americans moving into all-white areas of Detroit (as detailed in "Origins of the Urban Crisis" and other sources). I think it's pretty clear white people didn't like being lectured about racism by a black man. (Message edited by Macknwarren on September 23, 2008) | ||
Daddeeo Member Username: Daddeeo Post Number: 143 Registered: 09-2008 |
The problem was that he seldom failed to stir up shit. Some say you have to be tactful and diplomatic to be a good leader. Coleman used his street cred to the max in getting elected term after term but he turned off a lot of people with his crude language and divisive attitude toward the suburbs. Archer was a breathe of fresh air. | ||
Macknwarren Member Username: Macknwarren Post Number: 62 Registered: 10-2007 |
Daddeeo: You make some good points, but I would maintain Young's "divisive attitude toward the suburbs" was more in the minds of suburbanites than in Young's words and actions. L. Brooks Patterson is rarely criticized by suburbanites for the extremely divisive comments he made over the years about Detroit. For a guy who supposedly hated white people, Young had no problems making alliances with, and even friendships with, Max Fisher, Al Taubman, Gov. Milliken, Henry Ford II and many other leading Caucasians. | ||
Ltdave Member Username: Ltdave Post Number: 285 Registered: 09-2006 |
and bill bonds | ||
Digitalvision Member Username: Digitalvision Post Number: 1308 Registered: 11-2003 |
I don't think Young hated white people at all. When one of my relatives was an elected official for a very white suburb they'd get together and he told me not only was Coleman engaging, but very smart, even though they hardly ever agreed. Coleman Young, through some of his own doing for sure, became the black boogieman - the embodiment of all people feared about black folks in power. Over at the historical museum there's a display on Coleman Young for "Hero or Villain?" and it was interesting seeing a pennant for a political fundraiser put on by... Illitch, Gatzaros, and other white business leaders. | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 1903 Registered: 08-2007 |
The central point of the linked article is whether Ken Jr can be the transformative figure Coleman was from 1974 to 1981. Those years were Coleman's best. Strong, commanding and truly a visionary for a better Detroit. After 1981? A series of disapointments, missteps, idiotic comments and silly schemes. Can Ken Jr. match CAY '74 - '81? No. He doesn't have the love that Coleman had spent years cultivating. Right now, Ken is still coasting on his dad's good name. He's known, maybe respected, but not loved. People loved The Felon. He connected to them in magical ways. Ken Jr doesn't have that mojo. He can connect on a cerebral level, a rational level, but the passion - the love - is missing. The missing part, the love, is one half nostailga/one half fox hole mentality. The Felon dipped one time too many times into the memory pool of shared experience. One too many times into hawking back to the struggles of Dr. King and Emmitt Till. MommaK brought the crowd to their frenzied feet with "people have died" for "ya'lls boy." She dipped deep and it only came to haunt her when her video was splashed across the digital pathways of Youtube and Metacafe. The shared experience of struggle is what incites hardcore Detroit voters. Ken Jr needs to find some love, some shared experience, to build on the cerebral. I'm afraid he might think doing a good job will be enough to win the job he deserves. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 6275 Registered: 10-2003 |
Gnome, perhaps Detroit is finally getting tired of "dipping into the memory pool of shared experiences" as you put it. In fact, I think most of urban American, and particularly the younger generation, simply wants to move on, already. Perhaps, and I hope that it is so, instead of constantly finding solidarity in the struggle Detroiters want to make a future for themselves and their children, and perhaps they can make it with Cockrel the Brain. I don't know if you guys feel it, but I'm sensing something in our urban communities, and whatever you think of Obama, I think he's tapped into that hunger for a psychological change that's not simply rooted in the past, but reaching towards the future. Up until very recently, I was very skeptical of Cockrel, but after the few choices he's made in just a week or two perhaps it's time for Detroit to have another staid manager-type. Cockrel isn't his father, he isn't Coleman, he isn't Patterson, and at this time in the city and region's history, that's probably a very good thing. It's my opinion that Archer would have been a much better leader in these times than in his time as mayor, and Cockrel reminds me much of Archer, to be honest, but with better circumstances and more to work with. Hopefully, the era of the big personalities in urban leadership are over for Detroit, because what the city needs, now, is not just a cheerleader in the mayor's office (and Kwame was one of the best cheerleaders the city ever had in its modern history, in my opinion), but a competent, stoic manager. What remains to be seen is whether Cockrel will make the hard and unpopular decisions ahead of him, particularly with the size and structure of government. I'm still skeptical, but much less than before. BTW, I'm very impressed with the handling of Coleman in this thread. So often it's knee-jerk reactions. Coleman was a highly complicated man and leader, and to give him anything less than that doesn't due his leadership and legacy justice. (Message edited by lmichigan on September 23, 2008) | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1904 Registered: 04-2006 |
I think everyone is putting the cart before the horse. Ken has not been mayor for a week yet, while Young was in for some 20 years! You can't compare the two. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 6278 Registered: 10-2003 |
The question asked was a question of potential. Cockrel has more than enough of a record and recognition in the community to speculate about his potential future as mayor. No one is getting to far ahead of themselves with that question. At the very heart of that question is an appeal to extrapolate. | ||
Jtf1972 Member Username: Jtf1972 Post Number: 22 Registered: 08-2008 |
Can Ken Cockrel be Coleman Young? Of course not. No more than Dennis Archer could become Frank Murphy or Kwame Kilpatick could become Charles Bowles (although KK tried!) Coleman Young had a charisma that is extremely rare. He was mayor at a time when it was political suicide. Not many mayors survived the 70's... a time when NYC was told by Jerry Ford to drop dead. The best a mayor could do in the face of the adversity and declining conditions (too many to list in a simple post) was to keep his city treading water. Young did that, and that he was able to accomplish anything at all is a testament to him. Cockrel has a great potential. The fact that Detroit has any potential at all is due, in great part, to Young. I just hope that Cockrel does not become another John Lodge. (Not that I don't have a great respect for Lodge, but I refer to their similar way of attaining office. I'd like to see Cockrel stick around a while, rather than returning to the council!) | ||
Lostlegumes Member Username: Lostlegumes Post Number: 69 Registered: 09-2007 |
Well, when Mayor Cockrel showed up today to file, he forgot his ID and had to go back and get it! |
