http://www.campusprogress.org/fieldreport/5055/saving-detroit-from-itself
As the Motor City falls into greater collapse, a group of frustrated
black nationalists are taking its protection into their own hands.
By Chris Lewis
February 5, 2010
Once a booming metropolis, Detroit, Mich. is a particularly grim
symbol of the struggling United States economy. Beleaguered by
decades of deindustrialization and population decline, the city has
been devastated by the recession. Unemployment in the city is now at
an almost unbelievable 50 percent. And since 2005, 67,000 homes have
been foreclosed on, two-thirds of which remain empty.
Not surprisingly, the steady economic collapse has been coupled with
a marked rise in crime. In 2008, Detroit had 362 murders, more than
any other American city of 500,000 or more people. Of those, only 30
percent were ever solved, which is less than half the national
average. In part this is due to the fact that Detroit's police force
is about half of what it was in 1994, when it had 4,000 officers. Of
the police officers still working, many citizens claim they're
callous and respond poorly to emergency calls. Some say police don't
even patrol their communities.
In times of need, help can often come from the most unlikely of
places. Detroit is a city with exceptional challenges, many of which
the government has been ineffective at combating. But controversial
minister Malik Shabazz, the black nationalist who has nurtured and
energized the New Black Panther Nation/New Marcus Garvey Movement for
15 years now, says he has exceptional solutions.
A jack-of-all-trades community activist, Shabazz organizes everything
from youth empowerment workshops in schools to food and clothing
drives to voter registration. But the revolutionary also does more
dangerous jobs, jobs typically thought of as work for the city police
department. Alongside other Marcus Garvey Movement members, Shabazz
sniffs out and confronts drug dealers, inspects suspect business
operations, provides security at public parks, and searches for
suspected criminals.
According to Shabazz, one of his top orders of business is crusading
against Detroit drug houses. "When you have a dope house come in,
it's the beginning of the end of your block," he says. So when the
Marcus Garvey Movement receives word that a house is pushing crack,
heroin, or some other illicit substance, the group investigates. If
it's deemed to be a drug haven, Movement members confront the dealers
with a boisterous rally outside the house. They then attempt to
engage the owners in the simplest way possible: They knock on the
door and attempt to initiate dialogue.
Other Movement strategies include peppering neighborhoods with fliers
that expose the drug house and embarrassing call-outs on Shabazz's
public access TV show. "Sometimes we just patrol the street and ask
people what's going on, just to be out there," says Mike, a member of
the Marcus Garvey Movement who preferred to be identified by only his
first name.
Marcus Garvey Movement member Robert Bruce believes that the group's
tactics are successful. "A lot of times when we march on drug houses,
the drug dealers will just move," he says.
However, there have been occasions when the action turns testy. "If
you're messing with someone's money," Shabazz says, "there are times
when you're going to be challenged." According to Shabazz, angry drug
dealers have sicced dogs on him and his men and threatened them with
bats and guns.
"Usually we do call the police," Mike says, adding, "but we do the
job whether the police help us or not." Mike claims past incidents of
police corruption have led him to doubt the integrity of Detroit's police.
The Detroit Police Department has mixed feelings about Shabazz' work.
"Anytime a citizen is helping to do something positive, we support
that," says Sergeant Erin Stephens, a public information officer with
the police department.
Stephens added that while the department approves of private citizens
providing information to the police, it doesn't condone individuals
actually confronting the criminals themselves. "For individuals who
go and take the law into their own hands," she says. "That's a no-no.
That's why we're here. We have qualified officers who are trained to
go forth and raid the dope houses."
Shabazz is "a good guy," Stephens says, but she wouldn't comment on
the effectiveness of his specific efforts. Police officials with
direct knowledge of the New Marcus Garvey Movement's work couldn't be
reached for comment.
Segments of Detroit's general population seem to feel differently
from the police. In 2006, the municipality of Highland Parka small
city set in central Detroit, bordered by Detroit on all
sidesactively enlisted the help of the New Marcus Garvey Movement in
reclaiming the newly renovated Alvin Casey Park, which had been
overtaken by drug dealers and addicts.
"The children and the elderly were basically relegated to a corner of
the park," Shabazz says. So during the tenure of Highland Park's
state-appointed emergency financial manager, Arthur Blackwell,
Shabazz was tapped to help.
"We were brought in to clean out the riff-raff," says Shabazz.
Throughout the summer Shabazz and his group began confronting
troublemakers, telling them that the park was the wrong place for
their activities. The change was "night and day," according to
Blackwell, who was forced out of his job last year and currently
faces embezzlement charges. (He retains a group of dedicated
supporters, Shabazz among them.)
The New Marcus Garvey Movement may have outlasted Blackwell in
Highland Park, but they still patrol Alvin Casey during the summer.
"Now I can drive by and see kids enjoying the park," says Blackwell,
"whereas before, it was always people doing nefarious things."
In the summer of 2009, the Marcus Garvey Movement became part of an
effort to track down a serial rapist who was on the loose on the east
side of Detroit. Police efforts had floundered, so along with a
handful of other organizations, the Shabazz and his men set out on a
manhunt. "We started patrolling the area, talking with the people,"
movement member Bruce says. Soon, information began to trickle in
about who the rapist may be and where he lived. The group relayed the
information to city police, who made an arrest shortly after.
Bruce believes the participation of the New Marcus Garvey Movement
was instrumental in the capture. "A lot of people that won't talk to
the police will talk to people from the neighborhood, or people who
they respect, and Minister Malik and this group do have a lot of
respect in the city," he says.
Of course, not everyone respects Shabazz' work. The Anti-Defamation
League considers the minister to be "an anti-Semitic and racist
leader," due mostly to his links with the national New Black Panther
Party. And the Southern Poverty Law Center has expressed concerns
about the Marcus Garvey Movement's connection to the late Khalid
Muhammad, a former trusted assistant to infamous black firebrand
Louis Farrakhan.
Controversy aside, the Marcus Garvey Movement says it's had some
incredible successes. New Marcus Garvey Movement actions against
drug-peddlers and seedy businessesthose that sell expired food or
cheat their customershave become a fixture of Detroit. And Shabazz
gives mammoth claims about the group's achievements. According to
him, the Movement's efforts have stymied "well over 1000" drug houses
and led to the closure of 25 unsavory businesses, as well as
"straightened out" a couple hundred others.
But the New Marcus Garvey Movement may not always be able to buttress
an anemic police department in a crime-plagued city. Shabazz says as
long as America undergoes a systemic overhaul, though, he will help.
He says his work will be done when "we have a governmenta
nationthat's based on one-for-all and all-for-one, when you have a
nation where I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper."
"It's not my intention to do this work forever," Shabazz says. "I
plan on being free in my lifetime. I plan on my children living to be free."
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