I was thinking about how I wanted to start this post, and so I did what I do whenever I need to think. I went for a drive and I turned on the radio. As luck would have it, “Small Town” by John Mellencamp was playing.
I tuned in just as this verse started “No I cannot forget where it is that I come from, I cannot forget the people who love me, Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town, And people let me be just what I want to be.” I thought that was pretty fitting because this post is about my town, Flint, Michigan.
Flint has been the subject of a lot of blog posts during the past few months. From the Newcap Radio Campaign (read my reaction here: Hey, Newcap Radio: I’m From FLINT. Screw You!) to the whole shrinking cities debate, it seems that everyone has an opinion they want to share.
Rush Limbaugh’s opinion is currently making my blood boil a bit. You can read a transcript of what he said by clicking here. I’m not going to reprint it here, but I will tell you that he said some pretty horrible things.
But he’s not the only one. Like I said earlier, people from all over are discussing Flint, as it has become the poster child for the shrinking city issue. Good or bad, I just don’t see why all of these people feel they have a right to an opinion about Flint. If they’re not from here and don’t plan on ever being here, why do they care?
I don’t know what’s going on in Bismark, North Dakota, and I am certainly not going to comment on it or any other city. I’m not even going to comment on Saginaw, Michigan – and that is only around 40 minutes away. The point is, I’m not from there. I don’t know what’s going on there. And one of the first rules of writing is to write what you know.
But I can tell you about Flint. And there are lots of good things here that just don’t get blogged about often enough. I can give you a bunch of statistics, but I will let you research that on your own (the city’s website is located here).
For this post, I’m going to write what I know. Here’s what I love about this city: this city has spirit. This city has seen some hard times, but it has also seen more self-made millionaires than perhaps any other area it’s size. We’ve also been a city that has been standing up for itself for a long time (hello, sit down strike!).
This is a town where you can walk into The Torch, sit down at the bar, and join a discussion of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska versus John Mellencamp’s Scarecrow, and which album was a better ode to the working class. This is a town where indie crafters meet at The Lunch Studio to work on crafts and hang out with friends. This is a town where I can take my older nephew to an art class at the Flint Institute of Arts or teach him about history by touring some of Flint’s oldest houses and schools at Crossroads Village. For a smaller town, we have a lot going on. It’s there – you just have to take part in it.
It’s true that a lot of people have left this city. I can tell you that those that are still here are die hards. There used to be 80,000 people in this town employed by General Motors. There are now 7,500. That, of course, meant even more job losses across the board. I mean, if people aren’t working, they aren’t buying products and services from other businesses. Everyone lost work as GM cut jobs.
This is a city that has seen it all; at one time being extremely prosperous, and at another time being pretty much devastated. We didn’t get handed a few lemons. The freaking lemon tree orchard collapsed on us, and we were buried in lemons.
But we didn’t give up. We’re digging out. We’re paving a new way. Flint is a town that is picking itself up by the boot straps and trying to make things different. People aren’t blogging about those things. That stuff doesn’t make headlines.
Instead, it seems that people (including ol’ Rush Limbaugh) just want to throw some random opinions out there. How can someone who has never lived here or visited here have an opinion? How do they know what our lives our like? How do they know anything about us?
How many times have these people gone to a movie and rooted for the underdog? How many times did they cheer for the character that takes on a huge battle, knowing that the odds are stacked against them, but still marches on bravely? Well, Flint is that character! Why aren’t people cheering for us?
Seriously. What would your town be like if it lost over 70,000 jobs? How would the people in your town react if it were faced with the highest unemployment rate in the nation? When I turn on the national news, all I see are stories about the economic crisis and people’s reactions to it.
Michigan, specifically Flint, has been dealing with an economic crisis for the past 30 years! The general population of America has had to deal with an economic crisis for one year now and people are falling apart. Be honest – most people could not handle living here. It takes a lot of pride, strength, and determination to stick out the tough times and build a brighter future. We should be applauded, not criticized.
If you want to talk about us on a radio show or blog about us, that’s fine. Just make sure you write what you know. You can start by saying “Flint, you are an inspirational city, full of people who are proud of where they come from, and who really give a damn about their community. That is pretty awesome.”