Comment on last week’s Model D "debate" between Phil Cooley and Vince Keenan on the Power of “Influence” in the City's Revitalization [revised from comments originally posted last week as Twitter feed @ Detroitpolicy]
At last week's Model D event I learned that Detroit’s Phil Cooley, who is now being labeled a "media darling," has also apparently become a darling of the Knight Foundation. We heard at this event that the Knight Foundation hosted Phil's recent trip to Miami, & is apparently seeking his advice on how to invest millions of $ in the D.
This raises questions on several levels, but the question I'd like to raise here relates to the way the media and other sources of power can end up coopting community voice (intentionally or unintentionally). We need to ask what it means that Phil Cooley has become a darling of the media and now (apparently) at least one philanthropic foundation.
And even more we need to ask what Phil is going to do with his new appointment to the ranks of darling-hood, esp. by the Knight Foundation? Will he accept this position of influence, with the forms of cooptation of community voice it may entail, or will he use his influence with the Knight Foundation to direct its attention back to the ideas and voices of the diverse community members the Foundation should be seeking answers from?
Will Phil accept the seductive role of “darling” for the Knight Foundation--as a role that puts him in the position of speaking for the community--or will he refuse this beguiling offer, and use his new influence to direct attention to other community voices?
If Phil refuses to speak for the community, and thereby refuses to play the role of darling, he may do Detroit communities a singular service by communicating to Knight Foundation leaders, and any other foundations that approach him, that the proper locus from which to seek good advice is from community members themselves.
Too often the media and foundations seem to select as their darlings those who will give them the answers they want, in the guise of SPEAKING FOR the community. And this is precisely how cooptation works.
So how can Phil or any of us refuse to be the instrument of such cooptation, as media or foundation darlings? At minimum, by insisting that any legitimate answers to questions about how investments should be made to rebuild Detroit should come from no single person appointed (by some authority beyond the community) to represent the community.
Nor should such questions be directed to some existing group of local business, govt, media, or nonprofit leaders who already dominate discussion of these issues whenever they are covered by the mass media. If a foundation like Knight wants an authentic community response & good community-generated ideas to the questions it has to ask, there are ways to seek such answers by engaging community vision & voice. (And such forms of engagement do NOT look anything like the recent forms of so-called "engagement" staged by the Detroit Works project!)
So after last night's faux "debate," to which Vince Keenan contributed a useful skeptical note, let's hope Phil asks one essential question: What does his adoption as darling by the media and the Knight foundation mean?
And let's hope real friends of Phil help him to see that acceptance of that darling status, and the "influence" that comes with it, may also entail forms of cooptation (and ensuing corruption, as cooptation is the sweet liqueur that corruption drinks) that will harm, rather than help, the community he says he wishes to benefit.
Phil has already usefully admitted that he is probably not the best person to write policy for Detroiters. Let's hope he brings that same wisdom to any other seductive opportunities offered to him by media or philanthropy influence-brokers.
And regardless of whether Phil accepts or rejects the seductions of darlinghood, let the rest of us get about the work of creating the forums of real community debate and dialogue that are so desperately needed, if Detroiters are ever to gain the power to speak boldly, smartly, and soulfully for ourselves, instead of watching brokers in media, govt, or philanthropy select our spokesmen for us!
And on this essential point, the kinds of events Model D has so far hosted (including last week's event) have been severely impoverished. If Model D wants to model more creative forms of community dialogue, there are many different ways it could begin to organize future events to allow more diverse interchange of community ideas beyond the relatively small group of folks from which it seems to be choosing its featured speakers.
At last week’s Model D event, many wanted to respond to some of the things said (both witty and not-so-witty), but the format of allowing 5 minutes at the end for a good crowd of more than 100 to shout out some questions (without mike) doesn't quite cut it.
So I'd like to extend this CHALLENGE to MODEL D for the New Year: Take a step beyond your usual select group of speakers to think about new ways of organizing your speaker series to allow for more diverse voices/perspectives of community & for some real DEBATE!
If Model D takes up this challenge, it will not only contribute to building a real forum for the development of D community voice, but it will move beyond being part of the problem by playing the usual media role of selecting a few darlings who are put in the false position of speaking for us--the members of Detroit communities--rather than WITH us.
If Model D can help create a forum that allows Detroiters from diverse perspectives to speak with each other & thereby help to foster the development of a deeper and more representative community voice that is not "owned" by any single group or person… If Model D is willing to take on THAT KIND of Challenge in 2011, it may become part of the process that will move the D forward in ways that will ensure we are not still caught in this same kind of low-level discussion 10. 20, or 30 years from now...
The most important point Vince made is that if we want to move Detroit forward, we can't rely on the same folks and structures of power that have so often failed us in the past. And since our local govt should be serving community members, rather than vice versa, its up to us to show we can provide new direction, & model new forms/structures of decision-making & COMMUNITY-driven leadership.
There is much to do & the time is NOW to Do It!
So let's get to it, & work to do less speaking about or for others in our community, and instead work together to create forums that encourage us to speak WITH each other in our communities in ways that BUILD the D, rather than continue to self-divide and disempower it (which of course is what those who profit from the status quo of a weak and divided community like to see us continuing to do, since such community self-division allows those in power--by default--to remain “in charge”).
If we want something different from the structures we currently have (incl. those organizing the DetroitWorks Project), we need to get about the work of creating real alternative community-driven structures--in media, in local politics, in decision-making, in policymaking.
Absent that creative/constructive work, we will have no one to blame but ourselves for having no alternative to the same old structures ten or twenty years from now. Don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of patience for continuing and unnecessary powerlessness and frustration…
--DetroitPolicy
http://twitter.com/DetroitPolicy
Posts
-
No comments:
Post a Comment