Detroit Mayor Rekindles Tensions in City

[Judi Lynn]

Detroit Mayor Rekindles Tensions in City
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Rekindles Tensions Between City and Suburbs
By BREE FOWLER Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

DETROIT Sep 19, 2005 — At a time when Detroit needs its suburbs more than ever, the long-standing rivalry between the city and its surrounding towns is hitting another rough patch.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, facing a tough re-election fight, last week caused a controversy when he singled out two school districts in neighboring Oakland County as having higher rates of drug use than Detroit's.

"In Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills and all these places, they do more meth, they do more Ecstasy and they do more acid than all the schools in the city of Detroit put together," Kilpatrick said Thursday during the first of three planned debates with challenger Freman Hendrix.
(snip)

"Those comments insulted the residents of Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, insulted the students and impugned the reputation of two of our finest, exemplary school districts," said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1138411

[GayCanuck]

1. I drive

through Detroit sometimes from Canada. Very sad to see what happens when the US government fails to properly fund programs to help ailing cities like Detroit.

[ikojo]

2. They mayor is probably correct....wealthy white kids tend to do

acid and coke (just ask the president) in great numbers. They don't get in as much trouble as the black kid who smokes pot because the white kids have parents with money and access to good lawyers as well as family connections. Again, just ask Bush.

[Shadder]

3. Having gone through the Birmingham School System

The mayor has not the first clue.

[ret5hd]

4. meaning it's better or worse than he states? (nt)

[Delphinus]

5. Hi Shadder.

What do you mean? If I read correctly, you went through the Birmingham School System, the one where the mayor says drug use was more than in the city. How does he not have the first clue? There was no rampant drug use? Or, there was drug use, but just minor drugs like pot? Thanks.

[meganmonkey]

6. While he probably has a point there

He isn't a good mayor. That's all there is to it.

:shrug:

[noonwitch]

7. He has a point, but it really doesn't make him look good in the long run

I don't think that the average Detroit High School has the same problems with harder drugs that the suburban ones do for this reason-Detroit Public Schools have a staggering drop out rate. Many of the drug-addicted teens in Detroit don't get counted because they have dropped out of school.

Suburban and city kids equally smoke dope and drink alcohol. I don't think one is worse than the other in that regard.

Meth, hallucinogens, powder cocaine and Ecstasy are more of a suburban problem. Meth is definitely not a Detroit drug at this time-it is a problem in rural Michigan. I don't know how much of a suburban problem it is in metro-Detroit.

Crack and heroin are big problems in Detroit among the adult population. Kids sell them, but not that many use them (they are still busy with the drinking and the weed). It takes adulthood for the kind of hopelessness that produces crackheads to take it's full effect on them.

[NWHarkness]

8. Suburb bashing works in Detroit

Like it or not, it's a tactic that works. Of course, for every time a Detroit politician made a negative comment about the burbs, a suburban politician made 100 worse ones about the city. But you don't see headlines about those remarks.

Hell, just ask Brooks, he's made a whole career out of attacking Detroit.

[Tomee450]

10. Suburbanites make

derogatory remarks about cities, especially those with large black populations, all the time. In fact they institute policies to keep blacks out of suburbs. Kirkpatrick told the truth. There is a lot of drug use in suburbia. I guess politicians can make all the negative comments they want about the cities but somehow it's an outrage when a city politician gives them a dose of their own medicine.

[MidwestTransplant]

9. Even if he is right, so what. The guy is a thug and Detroit deserves

far better.

[Tomee450]

11. There we go again.

A black man you dislikes becomes a thug. Always the case with African Americans. There are plenty of mayors in this country who are no better than Kirkpatrick yet he is thought of as a criminal and a thug. Black mayors are always put under the microscope. They are criticized for behavior that would be overlooked in a white mayor. It was the same case with Coleman Young, he was constantly investigated. And then there were also all of the blacks holding high position in the Clinton administration who were also constantly investigated: MIke Espy, Hazel O"Leary, Jocelyn Elders and others. That's just life in the United States as far as blacks are concerned. I get a little sick of blacks being called thugs when they do something certain people dislike. Those people never used the same term when referring to politicians who are not black.

[MidwestTransplant]

12. Daley is a thug too...