Even if…
I’m embarrassed.
I’m embarrassed for our political system and I’m embarrassed by our media portrayal of that system.
Last week on my beloved WDET, Detroit’s NPR station, I heard a story. It was not the kind of story one would likely pick to galvanize a political moment, but it struck me as one that should.
Stephen Henderson, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and the host of Detroit Today came on air and told us the Republican National Party was celebrating two years in a field office in Detroit that he’d “never even heard of…. I have never heard of this and it’s a surprise to me and I think a lot of other people are also somewhat surprised….”
I knew about it.
I learned about it two years ago when WDET announced it on the very show he’s since replaced, hosted by Craig Fahle, presumably crafted with at least some of the same team who now works with Henderson.
How did award winning political journalist Stephen Henderson not know this?
More importantly, why did Henderson choose to lead with his surprise? Why is it so surprising?
He’s a good journalist. He’s clearly intelligent. But in 24 minutes as his surprise turned to frustration and then anger, he allowed himself to miss the point and opportunity right in front of him.
He proceeded to question Ronna Romney McDaniel, the State Chair of the Michigan Republican Party (Mitt Romney’s niece) about why they chose Detroit to open a field office. As he introduced her he told us “since it’s inception the Detroit office has been criticized for a lack of presence in the community it aims to reach [black voters]. It is inaccessible to the media, some people say, and it’s got a general lackluster reputation.” By the way, the Democrats don’t have an office in Detroit yet, they’ve presumably got this black thing down…
She was polite and articulate. She started off with a cheery comment about the weather (it was unseasonably warm last week). “It was nicer yesterday,” he sort of chuckled, but only sort of.
He wanted to know what the GOP had in common with black voters. He told us the numbers of black voters for the GOP was “abysmal” locally and nationally. He told us that the GOP has spoken publically against people that want “free stuff” and “that’s really coded racial language in a lot of people’s minds and I would include myself among those people.” He then credited the GOP for promoting black candidates but said that their choices reflected unfavorable narratives like the black man that refuses to talk about race or the black man that refuses to acknowledge the role of race in their own success, such as Dr. Ben Carson who received many of the gap filling benefits he would remove if elected. There was an underlying and sometimes-explicit assumption that the GOP wasn’t really sincere in engaging black voters and that the office was somehow a front to make them look friendlier than they are.
I don’t disagree with any of this. It’s a clear and well-accepted point of view. But it’s not news and it’s not what pushed me to the edge of writing this.
I somehow can’t think it’s a bad idea for the GOP to plant itself in a black neighborhood in Detroit, even if they don’t really try hard, and even if they leverage the fact they are there for falsely deserved PR.
The real opportunity is that the GOP individuals in that GOP office might develop some empathy (even if accidentally) by hearing from just a few real and black people about the real and black issues they face.
That has to be good. We should be welcoming them.
I’ve serious doubts the GOP can do much to “trick” black voters into rethinking an alliance with the party. That’s a horrifically patronizing point of view. However, a few well-placed and sincere conversations might trick, or possibly even rationally move, the GOP into rethinking some policy. As those GOP individuals grow from the experience they might contribute to a genuine, if however small at first, shift in their party. Parties change from the inside, folks. And further, as skeptics of this possibility, we need to participate in the process. We need to engage the conversations, with open minds, not write it off in partisan rage. I refuse to accept someone else’s forgone conclusion that it will never change. And it’s not just the GOP that needs to change. We all need to change a little to get somewhere other than where we are which is definitely broken.
It has to start somewhere, why not Detroit? A lot of other really great things started in Detroit.
Whenever there is an opportunity for dialog between groups or individuals that would not normally be sitting at the same table, only good can come from it. I don’t care if it feels shady or sneaky or half-hearted. I don’t care if we never decide to agree. We have to reach out for even the shakiest of olive branches and check our egos at the door. If not us, then who?
I was saddened by Henderson’s surprise and antagonism and I am angry by our continued focus on difference and ’the other’ in the hyperbolic circus we call the media. It gets in the way of real collective progress. Welcome to Detroit, GOPpers. May we inch a teeny bit forward, together, towards equity and prosperity for all.
