Detroit through the Lens of Obama's Speech

Juan Cole, the U of M Professor now well-known for his blog on the Middle east, comments here on Obama's speech referencing the tragic collapse of Detroit as evidence of the result and as the necessity for the promise. This, in particular, hit home to me (Read the whole thing.):

Obama says we have to stop hiding the incompleteness of our struggle with race inequality from ourselves. We have to recognize how traumatized African Americans are by the memory of Jim Crow. We have to recognize how whiteness shapes the working class's perception of blacks. Most importantly, he argues that we should not be hobbled by the past, that we have to see how fluid and dynamic American society is, such that things can change. Attitudes can be transformed on a large scale, with macro effects.

Living where I live, I could not agree more. Race shapes the Detroit area very powerfully. It is the most segregated area in the country. The Detroit News did an excellent series on the Cost of Segregation to the area a few years ago. Our white suburbs are very white. In Livonia it is 96%. The African-American neighborhoods in Detroit are very black....

What Barack Obama is saying is that Detroit is not doomed to be America's most miserable city. The white suburbs and the African-American neighborhoods can come together in new synergies. But only if we face up squarely to what is driving our social pathology and economic doldrums. We have been stuck in a paradigm of insuperable difference.