Urban Network: Detroit’s Ground Zero
by Yusef Bunchy Shakur

Every day, I am bombarded with conversations from people who only want to talk about what’s wrong with Detroit, but rarely do I hear about what is right about Detroit. The Urban Network is what’s right about Detroit! It was cemented at the ground level in a neighborhood which has been rejected socially and economically. The Urban Network meets the needs of the people who live there by providing them with resources and programs which foster concrete hope! Our mission at the Urban Network is to provide quality service through business ventures which support our efforts to “restore the neighbor back to the ‘hood”, thereby investing back into the community and the people through youth and adult outreach programs and initiatives. We are INTENTIONALLY located in one of the most economically deprived neighborhoods in the City of Detroit on Grand River at Mcgraw.  At one time, this neighborhood was known as Northwest Goldberg and it flourished with businesses and hope. Now it is referred to as Zone 8 after its zip code and it is consumed with abandoned buildings and poverty stricken residents. The flourishing businesses have disappeared and the hope has been replaced with hopelessness and helplessness.

Economical and social depression runs rapid amongst the residents of Zone 8, because they have been neglected and forgotten.  This is where the Urban Network comes in. At the Urban Network, we not only service politicians, community leaders and high profile people, but we service the un-developed and under-developed, better known as; the at-risk youth, dope fiends, crack addicts, formerly incarcerated, alcoholics, gang bangers, dope sellers and every other socially rejected person who has been disenfranchised in this society. We don’t shut our doors off to anyone because of their social conditions. We recognize that a failure to contribute to the change that needs to take place is negligent to say the least. Our goal is not to service them for the purpose of making a profit, but to service them by helping them realize their humanity by treating them like human beings. We recognize that our contributions will inspire them to contribute something positive to their neighborhood. The Urban Network operates as a place of refuge for the disenfranchised while empowering them through the use of our social programs and resources. We provide free use of our computer lab, offer employment opportunities to those who would otherwise be considered unemployable, hold community discussions, movie night, game day, host a weekly poetry series, offer literacy programs and health awareness initiatives, etc.

Many of the young people come in to seek both social and emotional guidance because they can’t find it at home or in the streets. One day a young man came in and said, “Yusef I haven’t eaten all day and I am ready to knock a muthafucker upside the head to get me some bread so, I can get me something to eat!” I didn’t lecture him, but I did speak to him about why that mentality is not a solution for his circumstance. However, I also went into the cash register and gave him $10.00 for something to eat. That day we prevented a crime from happening in the community. Now, I’m not suggesting that the conversation I had with him or the $10.00 that I gave him solved his problems, but what I am suggesting is that if the Urban Network had not been there for this young man and so many others before and after him, this story would have been tragic!

This past summer after receiving a large donation, we were able to expand the bookstore into a cafe where people can come in and purchase a hot meal. Many of the people who come in to purchase a hot meal, lack hot meals at home. They feel grateful knowing that we turn no costumer away, even if they don’t have all the money. Some people walk in off the street and sit down for period of a time just to seek warmth or gather their thoughts in an environment which is conducive to peace.

To give you an even clearer picture of what the Urban Network stands for and means to an impoverished community such as Zone 8, we also have many different politicians or other high profile people that come through our doors. We don’t shut down our doors to the community because a politician or high profile person comes in to eat. Our foundation was built on the service we provide to the community and we treat everyone equally! This sends the message that we demand that politicians and high profile people respect our community members, because it is their community that they have entered into.

Over the last four years we have organized an annual back to school supply drive where we give free school supplies. Last year we gave away over 500 backpacks filled with school supplies, fed every family that came, entertained the children with bouncers and slides and provided live entertainment. We have accomplished all this through grass-roots fundraising and on a zero budget. Right now because of an article that was written about me, we have a chance to receive $50,000 dollars to help sustain the work that we do. Opportunities like receiving $50,000 dollars that we don’t have to take a high interest loan on and don’t have to pay back do not come every day so; I am in desperate need of your support! Please help me to strengthen my community outreach efforts in the Zone 8 neighborhood and to further expand on my efforts to “restore the neighbor back to the ‘hood”. We need everybody to vote daily and to ask others to vote daily. Your collective efforts can make the difference in hundreds of lives in a forgotten neighborhood which has been neglected and left to wallow in the depths of hopelessness and helplessness. Help me to restore hope to this community. Help me to liberate Zone 8 and transform what has become a warzone into a peace zone. Please vote today: http://www.examiner.com/america-inspired-featured-overcoming-adversity

Your faithful community servant,

Yusef Bunchy Shakur

By Gregg Newsom

This week, I shifted my focus to the first Environmental Justice principle and began to consider its relationship to the grassroots food justice movement in Detroit. The principle reads, “Environmental Justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to be free from ecological destruction.”

The status of our local environment and the quality of our local food are intricately linked. The health of the soil, water and air is important in growing good food. But what stands out for me in this principle are the concepts of unity and interdependence and how within Detroit’s burgeoning local food movement the connections between race, class and food, which I see as manifestation of this unity and interdependence, are overlooked and often intentionally veiled.

Just as the political landscape is changing rapidly, Detroit’s “foodscape” is as well. The number of gardens and farms are growing. During the summer, the number of produce markets jumped dramatically and Detroit-made and branded foods are on the shelves across the region and nation. In the past month, there have been an increasing number of articles adding to the discussion of race and food in Detroit. A few of these articles that came across my desk questioned the dominance of white-led organizations and businesses associated with growing, producing and distributing food in the city and have sparked debate and, I hope, a greater desire for discussion and meaningful change by these organizations.

Returning to our environmental principles, I found myself respectfully reading more about the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, where the principals were drafted. The summit itself emerged from the gap between predominantly white-led conservation clubs and societies and Black and people of color communities directly impacted by exposure to inhumane levels of injustice and toxicity.  Since, in the Detroit food system we are experiencing a similar situation with dangerously similar effects, I was looking for potential tools and strategies that could be applicable.

What stood out for me in the letters and articles documenting the emergence of the summit is the powerful stance taken in addressing the “Group of Ten,” the 10 biggest environmental organizations. A letter from the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) to groups like the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation, while expressing “the belief that through dialogue and mutual strategizing we can create a global environmental movement that protects us all,” makes strong and clearly defined demands. (read March 1990: Southwest Organizing Project letter to Big 10 environmental groups at ejnet.org/ej/swop.pdf)

The letter reads, “people of color in our region have been subjected to racist and genocidal practices,” and goes on to share horrific examples. Those who drafted the letter state frankly, my emphasis added, “Although … the ‘Group of Ten’ often claim to represent our interests, in observing your activities, it has become clear to us that your organizations play an equal role in the disruption of our communities.” I think that’s deep and it reveals the fact that the actions of these well-intentioned groups, due to their privileged reality tunnels and inability to connect with people of color communities, had become as equally destructive as the toxins these communities are exposed to. I cannot help but draw comparisons between the potentially equally destructive effects of white-led organizations and businesses that currently hold the reigns of our food system.

The “SWOP letter,” as it came to be known, was signed by 100 people of color community leaders and made many demands. It called upon the big ten to “cease operations in communities of color within 60 days, until you have hired leaders from those communities” amongst others. The letter struck a nerve in many of the big 10 environmental organizations, provided push-back and, with the Sierra Club for example, helped to establish people of color led environmental justice programs across the United States, including here in Detroit.

In closing, the signers of the SWOP letter invited the big ten organizations to a frank and open dialog and stated that: “It is our opinion that people of color in the United States and throughout the world are clearly endangered species. Issues of environmental destruction are issues of our immediate and long-term survival. We hope that we can soon work with your organization in helping to assure the safety and well-being of all peoples.”

What excited me as I read through this history are the similarities between the struggles in Detroit and the struggles documented in the SWOP letter and that we are all, by our presence here in Detroit, connected to this struggle for self-representation, for the right to a healthy environment and access to fresh and just food.

While recognizing my own place in this equation, being a white “foodie” in the city, I consider having frank and open discussions about the proliferation of white-led organizations and businesses in Detroit’s food system to be vital. Especially when we consider this in conjunction with motions by the state to establish an emergency manager, the efforts to privatize our water system under the guise of regionalization, the hijacking of our public education system and other motions to strip power and representation from poor, Black and people of color communities.

We need to talk.

 Gregg Newsom is the communications coordinator for the Detroit Food Justice Task Force. The Task Force is a consortium of Black and people of color led organizations and supporters that share a commitment to creating a food security plan for Detroit that is sustainable; provides healthy, affordable foods for all of the city’s people; is based on best-practices and programs that work; and is just and equitable in the distribution of food, jobs and economic benefits. Visit www.detroitfoodjustice.org for more information.