The Michelle C. Clark School For People Who Don't Read So Good....

Since Mayor Bings’ press conference I have asked the same question over and over again. How did we come to this? How did my beloved city come to be in financial ruins? Why did no one see this coming? What is the role of our finance manager? Why weren’t the citizens of  Detroit informed sooner how dire the situation was? Where is the leadership? The more I thought about it, the more questions I had. The  more questions I had that could not be answered the more frustrated I became.

Then it got me to thinking about two things, Detroit voting patterns and the cities illiteracy rate. As student of economic studies I am always looking at the correlation between two things, i.e. the cause and effect. How do things relate to one another, the parallelism, interdependence, interconnection, the interrelationship between two subjects and what effect if any they may have on one another.

There seems to be an obvious relationship between how voters select candidates for city government and the illiteracy rate. There has to be. This is the only thing that would explain our inability to elect competent leadership in our city. If your level of comprehension is hovering around the 4^th grade level how can you be expected to understand the complex issues that our city faces?  How can you see pass the smoke and mirrors to get to the meat of the issues our city faces? How do you know what questions to ask when you receive literature if you do not understand nor comprehend what you are reading?

I truly believe this is the reason that candidates win on name recognition alone. If your last name has been floating around the media for years because of your parents you can win votes. If you are seen on television a lot you can win. If your name is out here and visible, whether you have a platform or not you can win in the city of Detroit. They are far too many illiterate people voting for illiterate people. The cycle of ignorance manifests itself at the highest levels of city government.

I am not saying we should invoke some sort of competency exam for your right to vote. What I am saying is that we really need to look harder at ways to educate the citizens of Detroit on the issues, government and civic duty. There needs to be a grass root effort to make sure all citizens can read with comprehension. That every citizen that wants to be educated can be no matter what their age or social standing is. We have got to find ways to implement learning back into our community. We have to get serious about bring our citizens up to speed with the rest of the region. We need to educate people not only on issues the people of Detroit face, but statewide issues that affect Detroit citizens as well.

It was great that many of us voted for President Barak Obama, but as I’ve said before Governor Snyder and Mayor Bing will have more of a direct effect on your life than President Obama ever could. I once joked about starting the Michelle C. Clark School for People Who Don’t Read So Good, but now I am beginning to think it may be the very thing the city needs to get better leadership.