Advertisement

The Gay Moralist: Loving Detroit

By John Corvino

It happened again last night. While away from home I met someone who asked me where I lived. When I replied "Detroit," he sneered, "Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be," I retorted. I thought about following that with "At least people there aren't rude like you." But my own sense of politeness got the better of me, and I simply gave him a disapproving glare and excused myself.
I'm in Austin right now, a city where I lived for seven years and which I still deeply love. Though surrounded by Texas, Austin is progressive (and seemed even more so when I lived here in the early 1990s). It has beautiful, hilly terrain and lots of green-space a fact that tends to surprise visitors, who expect Texas to be nothing but desert and tumbleweeds.
But what seems most distinctive about Austin is the unbridled optimism of its inhabitants. Some outsiders find this annoying (much in the way that, say, Rachael Ray's enthusiasm about food can be annoying), but I admire it. Austinites have a Texas-size pride in their city, and it shows.
When I lived here, I feared that anywhere I moved would be a huge letdown. After finishing my Ph.D. at the University of Texas, I was offered a teaching position at Wayne State in Detroit, a city I knew virtually nothing about. I gratefully accepted the job.
Some friends seemed concerned. "Detroit?" they asked nervously. "You mean rust-belt, race-rioting, crime-capital-of-the-country, Detroit?" Fortunately, one of my Austin friends was from southeastern Michigan, and she assured me that it wasn't as bad as the hype would suggest.
Of course, moving from "Austin! We LOVE Austin!" to "Detroit not as bad as the hype would suggest" doesn't sound very promising. Without a doubt, Detroit has its challenges. But it also has its perks, including some that Austin can't touch. For example: a world-class art museum, orchestra, and opera house. Significant twentieth-century architecture. A decent collection of real ethnic restaurants (note to Austinites: the Olive Garden is not a real ethnic restaurant). Major sports arenas. And so on.
But there's one area in which Detroit can't match Austin or for that matter, Chicago or Toronto, two nearby cities with which it's often compared: attitude. Detroit's bad public image is largely a function of its bad self-image and like Austin's optimism, Detroit's negativity is palpable.
When I say "Detroit" here, I mean metro-Detroit. Outside of Southeastern Michigan, most people have never heard of Royal Oak or Bloomfield Hills. If you're from metro-Detroit, you're from Detroit. Get over it.
Metro-Detroiters' embarrassment about their eponymous city whose problems are indeed breathtaking infects the mindset of the whole region. I live and work in the city proper. You know what annoys me even more than an outsider's saying "Oh, I'm sorry" when learning that I'm from Detroit? A metro-Detroiter's saying the same thing. Or worse yet, their saying, "But where do you really live? Ferndale? Grosse Pointe?"
"No," I respond patiently. "THE CITY OF DETROIT. South of 8 Mile. You should visit sometime."
While we're at it, am I the only person who finds the "It's Just Lunch" ads offensive? You know, the ones for the dating service that advertises services in "Ann Arbor," "Grand Rapids," and "Detroit Suburbs"? As if living south of 8 Mile disqualifies you from blind-dates with lonely single professionals? Ugh. According to their website, "The population of the suburbs is three times the population of the metro area. What does that mean? More great dating options."
(Actually, what it means is that their ad-copy writer doesn't understand the meaning of "metro area." How could the suburbs contain three times the population of themselves plus the city? If you want explicitly to include both, just say "metro-Detroit.")
I wish I could chalk up Detroit's self-loathing to mere linguistic ignorance, but it's much deeper than that. If only we realized that our pessimism is self-fulfilling: widespread negativity is just one more thing to be negative about. Griping about the environment hardly makes it better.
I once commented to a fellow Detroiter that the region has many assets, if only one is willing to look. He responded, "Yeah, but it's like shopping at Value City: occasionally you find something cool, but you have to slog through a bunch of crap first."
He meant this analogy as a criticism, but I thought it actually captured some of Detroit's charm: Detroit is gritty, unpretentious, and unedited, but it can offer great value if you're willing to put in the effort. I'm proud to call it home.

Advertisement
Topics: Opinions
Advertisement

From the Pride Source Marketplace

Go to the Marketplace
Directory default
Serving the MSU and OU communities with financial services including checking, VISA, mortgages,…
Learn More
Directory default
A Christian denomination celebrating 40 years of service to the LGBT community. Services each…
Learn More
Directory default
Located adjacent to the University of Michigan in the charming city of Ann Arbor, the Graduate…
Learn More
Advertisement