Abdul El-Sayed — Unfiltered: Black Experiences

Hello, hello. How's today? Is it possible to tell the history of Detroit without talking about the history of black folk in Detroit? And we're here on Black History Month. Have a conversation about both resistance and resilience, and what we can learn about who we yet can be. Looking forward to the conversation. When you think about Black history in the city of Detroit, What's something that you feel particularly proud of or protective of? The thing I think about is culture. Blackness is celebrated here and with that black culture is not only elevated, but it's also exploited from Detroit to other places around the country in the world. I'm a business owner myself. So when I think about it, it has, um, really paved the way of helping black entrepreneurship and um, us to elevate and empower as a people. Uh, within our communities. This city had a history of 15 block run, black doctor built hospitals. And in an era where you couldn't get healthcare outside of those hospitals, those hospitals not only brought black brilliance to bear on healthcare, but also innovated more broadly, right? Because they weren't funded the same way. They didn't have the same resources. And a lot of those innovations ended up becoming the latest and greatest in medical innovation. I think we forget that history of healthcare buy and for black folk in a time when, um, black patients couldn't get healthcare outside of that black healthcare system. Robin Barclay was the 1st African-American female. Who wasn't a doctor? To own a hospital, southwestern hospital. People don't know that history and that's in Detroit. In Detroit? So you all have been in and around the civic space in our politics for a long time, and I want to ask, are black voices, do you feel generally heard and valued in the political space? Absolutely not. It's an ongoing struggle. We still have laws that we've been living up under for decades has never been changed, you know? So it's like, it's more than just, uh, a political thing. It's a society thing. We are not hurt, which means we are not valued to where we're not going along to get along anymore. Uh, we are voting for people who genuinely values our vote. We are being conscious and cautious of who we endorse, who we step with and all those things. We were never meant to be a part of the system, so to speak. let alone have influence or God forbid, change or dismantle things as they are. Reason for that is because some of these people, the only time you see them is when it's time. And they come pander to black people about how to vote. Imagine our politics took the black experience seriously. Imagine our politics wanted to center, actually correcting the essential crime of enslavement. And we wanted to build a place where we actually sought real equity. What would that look like and feel like? Fix what was broken? Make sure it can never be broken again, and penalize to a full extent of the law, anybody who tries to violate that. There's some things that we got to do internally. Um, but racism isn't the problem with black people to fix. I just speak from personal. As a black woman, I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm tired of not being hurt. I'm tired of being used. That's the thing. I am tired of being used. So we start there. Have some morals, have some compassion, and stop using us, right? Really, when we come to the table. Let it be an equal table. Is a pretend equal table. You need to demand our respect. You got to. That's all I get. You know, because otherwise people walk all over you. We want to have people that we governed with. We don't want people that are over us telling us what to do and how to do it. We have to really, really treat our vote. As currency, right? Our vote is currency and the currency that's in exchange for that is policy. Make sure that you want my vote, you deliver only these policies. That's the currency I accept for my vote. Thank you all for sharing brilliant perspectives and reminding us, just the rich history of this community, the history of resistance and resilience. That is the black experience in Detroit. I just really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your perspective, and I look forward to building alongside with you. Just grateful for your advice and bringing such a perspective. You know, these campaigns at the end of the day. They are about trying to tell a history about who we are and who we want to be. And too often, when you try to erase part of that, who we are, you miss who we can