Aaron Foley — an often outspoken commentator on all things Detroit, but especially on issues of race and gentrification — has a new book coming out next week.
"The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook" isan anthology of poems, essays and a short storywritten by past and present Detroiters. Theycover everything from theimpact of court-ordered busing in the Warrendale neighborhood to a young woman's adventures driving around southwest Detroit in her first car.
Foley, 32, is the book's editor.
More:Mike Duggan, Coleman Young agree to debate ahead of November election
A former journalist who earlier this yearleft his job as editor of BLAC Detroit magazine to work for Mayor Mike Duggan as Detroit'sfirst chief storyteller,Foley has lived in Detroit most of his life.
He spent part of his childhood in an apartment in Lafayette Park, just east of downtown,before moving to a brick house with stained-glass windows in Russell Woods, on the west side. He spent a year living in Hamtramck, which he details in the book. Now, he lives in a condoin the city's Gold Coast neighborhood, which runs along Jefferson Avenue. He bought it last year for about $10,000. "I kept thinking in the back of my head, why has nobody bought it, there's nothing wrong with it, knock on wood."
The neighborhood guide is not Foley's first book. He earned attention —from Vanity Fair and PBS Newshour, among other media outlets — for writing"How to live in Detroit without Being a Jackass" (Belt Publishing, $20) in 2015.
More:Heidelberg Project launches petition, calls Duggan, city 'uncooperative'
Aimed at newcomers to the city and written with authority and snark, Foley offered these tips: "When people say 'good' neighborhoods in Detroit, 'good' is code for 'where the white people live' " and "you don't have to be a Tigers fan to rock the "D" hat ... if you do see someone wearing one don'texpect them to rattle off a bunch of stats from the last game."
The toneof the neighborhood book is less shrewdly tongue in cheek. Its purpose is to introduce readers to different parts of the city, parts they may not know and what those neighborhoods mean to the people who know them best.
I spoke with Foley recently about the book, about concernsthat new Detroit will eclipse old Detroit,and whether working for the mayor harms his credibility.
Here is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for brevity and clarity.
Free Press: Tell us about the (neighborhood)book.
Aaron Foley: "It was important for me, especially, to have diverse and inclusive voices. Ithink southwest is full of stories, but you don't always hear a Latina voice. ... You don'talways hear the black voice from the east side. Thenyou also have narratives coming form an Arab-American perspective, a Polish perspective, a Catholicperspective ... All these different experiences, be it by ethnicity, be it by religion, whatever, that's really what Detroit is and that'sreally what Detroit has always been."
F.P.: Tell us more about how you chose the neighborhoods that are represented in the book. I don't recall a real Midtown presence, for example, or a real downtown presence necessarily.
A.F.:"It wasn't intentionally made to leave downtown and Midtown out, don't get me wrong, but we do see a lot of stories and things like that coming out of downtown. ...You can turn on anything, you can look at the Free Press right now and read about downtown. But you can't always read about 6Mile and Dexter ... unless it's crime, you know? ... It is kind of frustrating when you only hear about certain neighborhoods is when somebody got shot. ... I know somebody's going to push back and say this is how Detroit really is. Yeah,you're absolutelyright. Crime happens. Violence happens. Drugs happen. Death happens.Vacancy happens ...But can we also hear another side. Can we also hear what it was like to sit around the kitchen table or sit around the dining room table and havea meal. What is so wrong with that?"
Read more:
Why I'm shopping at Mama Coo's Boutique in Corktown
F.P.: Do Detroit's neighborhoods have anything in common?
A.F.: People who inhabit those neighborhoods are die-hard Detroiters. Regardless of housing stock. Regardless of income level. Regardless of what's there, what's not there.People can leave a University District and say they're from Detroit.People can leave aPuritan orJoy Road and say they're from Detroit. ... We have this common thread of Detroitness. People are proud of where they come from and that's something that only comes with living here."
F.P.: People from Royal Oak and Bloomfield and Dearborn all say they're Detroiters, too.
A.F.: "No, they're from Royal Oak (laughs) ... If you live in the city limits, you're from Detroit. If you don't live in Detroit you're from metro Detroit. ... There are experiences here that youonly have in Detroit....There's a couple of historical things that happened in Detroit that just didn't happen elsewhere.To be a part of that can shape a person into what they are."
F.P.: What are two things that happened here that didn't happen elsewherethat could shape somebody?
A.F.: "A few(of the book's writers) talked about violence and crime. Crime and violence happens everywhere, but we can't deny that it happens much more frequently here. So it kind of put some people into a survival mode, I think.There's a scandal in West Bloomfield, that's a once-in-a-lifetimescandal. ... But if you have people who live in an environment where there is a lot of crime, there is a lot of drugs, there is a lot of vacancy withabandoned houses, that's not quite the same, is it? That's one thing. And not to say that violence defines Detroit.
"The other thing that's happening here ... there's sort of this feeling ... about Detroit being identified with a lot of blackness and a lot of the black experience in Detroit. ... As some people touch on in this book, there is a concern about gentrification,there is a concern about being erased from history, there is a concern that the things that we liked growing up and the things we experienced growing upare going away in favor of something new. .... We're talking about loss of an entire identity that so much of cultural identification so much of the population has known for so long.
F.P.: I kind of thought your reaction to the (Bedrock) window (ad) would be stronger.(The backstory:Last month an advertisem*nt touting Bedrock showed up in the window of a downtown building; the majority, if not all the people, in the advertisem*nt appeared to be white —despite the fact the city is more than 82% black. Dan Gilbert, founder of Bedrock, apologized for the ad and removed it, saying only a portion of it had been put up and the rest of it included a more diverse representation of the city. On social media, many people criticized Foley for accepting Bedrock's explanation. )
A.F.: "I would have thought that my book and previous commentary on these type of ads would have been enough to stand on ... Coming from a journalist's background, I need to check things out before I take a stand on things. ... The first image that started circulating on social media was uncredited, unattributed. ....It's a viral image that could be fake.I don't want to put myself out there and say look at this, (if) it turns out to be fake.I have some credibility to preserve."
F.P.: Especially now ... you're working for the mayor.
A.F.:"Exactly. ...When you have an issue as sensitive as this, it shouldn't be shoot first and ask questions later. ...My buddy ... who works at Quicken (Loans, also founded by Gilbert), he's giving me the rundown. I have a source in Gilbert's atmosphere who is telling me (that the ad was incomplete).
"The thing about working for the mayor's office is that (people say) I've been 'bought out' and 'sold' to the mayor."
F.P.: Have you?
A.F.:"See, this is my problem with that terminology because as a black person working for a white mayor,why is it that I have to be sold,right? I have issues with that. A lot of people keep using that terminology, not realizing how offensive that is."
F.P.: That's a really good point.
A.F.: "To me, a black person being called a sellout is worse than being called the N-word. And that bothers me. I want to write something about it, maybe Iwill in the future. But let the record show that people are so ignorant about using the term, it boggles my mind. It boggles my mind that people don't find that offensive, that they just throw that around.
"But regarding working for the mayor's office, one of the things the mayor said from Day One was ... 'We don't want Aaron to lose his voice.'...
"It's me taking my platform,this is building upon it. 'This is me saying this is my message that I've been cultivating the last couple of years.'Now I can take that to the mayor's office and project it from the rooftop of the mayor's office.
"Have I been quote unquote bought out? No."
Read more:
Detroit reveals plan to board up 11,000 vacant homes in two years
F.P.: I know what you do with the mayor's office, butwhat do you do?
A.F.:"As chief storyteller, I am tasked with creating cable channel content and in the near futurea print publication ... with stuff coming out of the neighborhoods all across the city.... The goal of it isn't to just put a positive spin on everything. It's not going to be like:'Oh look at this gorgeous garden over here and half the block is empty.' ... I'm going to talk about the minority-owned business that don't get the same attention as a Slows Bar BQ would.I want to talk about the old lady on the block that we all know growing up in Detroit who has sort of heldit down. ... It's really about making sure that people are seen in Detroit. ..."
F.P.: It seems to me that you're personally a little conflicted about what's happening in Detroit right now. How do you reconcile yourfeelings about new Detroit and old Detroit?
A.F.: "By doing books like this. ...What I want is a Detroit that is open to filling some of this vacant space. ...There's nothing wrong with new restaurants. There's nothing wrong with an empty skyscraper being filled back in. ... But respect the old Detroit.
"New Detroit to me is when... the headliners at (the) Mo Pop (Festival)were Alt-J and Foster the People. The secondary headliners were Solange and Run the Jewels.In a city that's 82% black, why the heck would you have Solange second? ... To me, that's new Detroit, like little oversights like that.
"We know the new Detroit was coming, but we know there's a ton of old Detroiters that aren't going anywhere. We need to figure out how to live together."
Contact Georgea Kovanis: gkovanis@freepress.com or 313-222-6842. Follow her on Twitter @georgeakovanis.
"The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook" (Belt Publishing, $20) is available for pre-sale at amazon.com and beltmag.com. It will be available in local bookstores Aug. 21.
