Listen to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's State of the City address delivered last month stands as a refreshing contrast to all the blather and hedging we are usually fed. Mayor Kilpatrick has issued a frank call to action to the citizens of Detroit.

After an accounting of his considerable achievements during the past year, he courageously said this:

"Now, Detroit, I want to have a very serious and frank discussion with you about our children and crime.

"Two weeks ago we were shocked when an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old were murdered in a house on the west side of Detroit. They were executed.

"We are losing too many of our children.

"Those kids were middle school students. And with a stronger more engaged community, they may have still been with us tonight. But they are gone.

"I hope parents tonight are watching this with their children. We as parents need to talk to our children about this situation. We need to know what our children are doing, who their friends are. We need to tell them when they get involved with drugs, if they are just around drugs, if they are involved in gangs, they not only can get hurt, they can get killed.

"We need to help them understand that the so-called glamorous life that they see in some of these videos is not reality. We need to tell them that when you get involved in drugs and sitting in a drug house, there’s no champagne, there’s no pretty girls, no nice clothes. There’s no bling bling. You can get killed....

"The Ashanti have a saying: “The ruin of a nation begins in the homes of its people.” The same can be said of a city.

We have to work to repair the homes of our city. We must, as a community, step up and take this head on, together, because disorganized love cannot fight, nor ever defeat, organized crime...

"The great singer Marian Anderson, in her 1956 autobiography, wrote “There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the other fellow to make the first move—and he, in turn, waits for you. The minute a person whose word means a great deal dares to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

"Men of Detroit, the time is now for us to take the openhearted and courageous way. It’s time for you to make the first move. It’s time for all of us to lead."

The full speech is worth a read.

  

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