Year: 2023

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The District Detroit, PED Committee Meeting

My name is Eden Bloom, I live on the Eastside and work with Detroit People’s Platform. This morning I want to briefly check the developers claims of misinformation. It’s important to clearly state that Detroiters are not misinformed. Many know exactly how this works, they recognize it as a hustle and don’t want the developers to use public money, our money, to play the game.

Assumptions are positioned as gospel in the dominant economic development model in Detroit. The entire “but for” analysis is an assumption. As we’ve heard over and over it is an assumption that development cannot happen without without the use of public tax incentives, but a fact is that they would simply be less profitable for the developers. 

We understand that these are models and projections. We’re not concerned about the project not getting built, because we’re not going be be the ones that benefit from it, we’re more concerned about it being built and the projects impact. Detroiters feel exploited when public resources are used to reimburse billionaires private projects. 

What we have is a difference of vision in the way the city should be using public funds. What is happening here isn’t misinformation, what is happening here is that Detroiters are organizing to stop an economic development model that doesn’t benefit them and the developers and the city are willing to say anything to get it done anyway.

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Final District Detroit CBA Meeting

Final District Detroit CBA Meeting
Public Comment, Eden Bloom
The District Detroit Neighborhood Advisory Council (NAC)
February 21, 2023

Often times I choose not to make public comment because I find that the Black excellence of those I organize with and the lived experience of Black residents speaks a kind of truth and wisdom that I cannot match.

That said, I’m compelled to speak something into the public record after witnessing another one of these charades. My name is Eden Bloom and I’m an east side D5 resident and I live with my family in the impact area of the Stellantis FCA CBA. Working with Detroit People’s Platform I’ve monitored nearly all of the CBA projects and this is the worst yet.

Those who have assembled here have given the NAC every tool needed to do something meaningful and different this time around. Those who have come before you have given you data points, astute analysis and cutting-edge policy that would make a difference and, that I am aware of, you have not picked them up.

We have asked you to take up measures that would protect, support, and maintain those who have suffered the most and the longest and you have found benefit in building monuments to what was; to the Black people who were here, deciding to somehow preserve Black culture while kicking Black people some find undesirable down the street.

While I believe the Community Benefits Ordinance we have in place is inferior to the one that Detroiters fought for and deserve, there is still some power in it. Those who have gathered here, made suggestions from their seats and wrote profound emails gave you everything you needed to wield that power in a way that could have made a difference. And here we are.

Media:
Axios –  District Detroit community benefits move forward

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Public Comment DBRA on The District Detroit

February 8, 2023

Members of the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board of Directors,

I’m a resident of the East Side of the City of Detroit. I am also the father of 3 school aged children. We’re extremely proud that our oldest will be attending    … next year. We also have a special needs child and I’m extremely concerned about the district’s ability to meet their and other student’s needs. While I believe that the teachers and staff of DPS are extremely talented and committed, I see a great injustice in the lack of proper funding and support of public education in a majority Black city. This is the cause of my concern for all our children.

Our family consider it appalling that Ross and Ilitch would come asking or for the DBRA Board of Directors to even consider any public funding for private projects that would negatively impact the bottom line for Detroit students. In the public hearing BRIAN VOSBURG, Director Of Brownfield Redevelopment mentioned that there was some formula for the schools to be reimbursed. (Ed. We’ve since verified that the schools are NOT reimbursed.) Even if that were the case, the terms of these deals last so long that our kids won’t see that return. Our child who needs extra support and others like them are already challenged by the lack of funding in our schools. It truly is disgusting.

We have already given these companies and others like them far too much and many of our children will be worse off for it. I ask you to send the developers back to the bank to fund their own project or step it back considerably to meet their own budget without taking away from those who desperately need it. I do hope that you will see that the time for this development model in the city has past and that this is an opportunity to stand up for what is right in the face of all the damage already done. Send this project back to the bank to figure out how they can do it without hurting others.

Thank you.

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It’s 3am

I wake at 3 am everyday. That still sounds extreme and unbelievable to me. But, almost religiously, I have done so daily for nearly 14 years. It is one of the only ways that I survive in this place.

Though my oppositional stance towards sleep began very early on in my time here, the practice began in earnest as part of my study of yoga around the turn of the century. I was in my 30s, in another bad relationship and going through another major transformation. I would wake and make my way to what the only ashtanga shala in Michigan. At the time it was one of only a handful in the States.

I’d read Vedic text and the interpretations of my teacher’s teacher and would innocently and selfishly grab onto certain thoughts and ideas that served my needs. The tradition prescribed, and my experince confirmed that dedicated practice was connecting/aligning my bodies internal biological systems to external energetic systems that surround us all.  I had integrated the concept of ‘the noosphere’ into my perception earlier and this also resonated.

When I close my eyes all the lights in the world go out.
If I meditated on it and went through some journals I may be able to remember where I first came into an understanding of the noosphere. It was probably related to drug use and one’s sometimes detrimental self awareness of the distance in mental acuity between yourself and the person in line behind you at the 7-11 when you’re still tripping balls 7 am, Monday morning. Yeah, I probably picked this notion up from Tim Leary.

The concept of the noosphere is rooted in the scientific definitions of the geological/biological spheres; the atmosphere, biosphere, etc. For some source material I’d go with the questionable Russian scientist above the questionable yet influential omega point priest.  Vladimir Vernadsky described the noosphere as the planetary “sphere of reason” and rooted it in the conception of the biosphere by Edward Suess in 1875. When we talk about biospheres now we are often thinking about closed, self-regulating systems that support ecosystems.

The noosphere, in my understanding carries similar parameters into the realm of consciousness. I’m going to use the term ‘thought’ here to refer to the active aspect of consciousness. This will help move this forward the next time the noosphere ’round here calms down. I’ll wake and attempt to get a another clear thought around this in at 3am.

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Weaponized Cries

This is not for Tyre, George, or Breonna, this is for you and me. Children of much lesser gods than those of the people who once were held as slaves.  Let’s call us non-Black, for that get’s closer to to the fact; no one is white.

It is unnerving as it should be. Utterly debilitating and anything that could be uttered is an insult to the memory of all those lost and and the blood of all those in line.

The mind breaks and that is their intention. To break each an every one to the point where there is no up or down. When there is no up or down there is no ground to return to dust to.

Moments like these, now almost every day, I would prefer my entire existence to be a gesture of apology. When my eyes meet yours, I wish you could know how sorry I am that the world is like this.

I would like you to be able to see that I have tried, not to absolve me, but so you  know some of us did it differently. Not that that’s been enough to turn the tide, but there are some out here who want all of us to survive.