Sometimes I think the news media does have their priorities all screwed up. Not for the same reason that Donald Trump says we do. But because we don’t do enough to honor and celebrate people like Dr. Richard Keidan, who has saved more lives that even he’ll ever know, not through his day job removing cancers at Beaumont but by teaching proper sanitation in Nepal.
M.L. Liebler has more talent than a stadium full of starlets, but he doesn’t exactly dominate our local media, even the arts coverage, and if he does a reading from the next book he writes, don’t expect it to get much coverage. Not nearly as much, certainly, as if one of the Kardashians had a book written for her and she came to Detroit to sign copies.
But I don’t suppose that bothers Liebler one bit either.
The point is that we’ve got a lot of people doing a lot of great things in and around Detroit, and have had for years, far more than in many other cities.
I’ll get to why I think that’s the case in a minute. But first, I want to say that our unsung heroes are, in many cases, far more important than most of those who do get the ink and the pixels. Think about it: In the great scheme of things, which has had more of an impact on society: the Detroit2Nepal project, or some local councilman who may have taken a bribe?
Detroit is a place that always has produced fine writing and good writers and characters. There are people living here whose stories would rival those of any novel; I’ve met a few.
Right now there seems to be a new explosion of talent and artistic creativity, and here’s why I think that is: First, we have an influx of new immigrants, primarily from the Middle East and Asia, who not only add a new cultural layer; what they bring mingles with, clashes with and combines with the other cultures and tensions that were already here.
Plus, we live in a city that has been defined its adversities for more than a century – labor vs management; whites vs blacks; city vs suburbs; our auto workers against foreign auto workers, on and on. It’s no coincidence that Tommey Walker started a clothing brand called Detroit vs Everybody, or that it has achieved national, not merely local, cachet.
Adversity isn’t always comfortable, but it breeds culture, inspires literature, and maybe, just maybe, can lead to something better. The philosopher Hegel thought the universe worked by having two opposites come together to make something new and stronger –thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The last stanza of the Internationale, the famous socialist anthem, begins, from the conflict, comes power.” That may or may not be true.
But we do know that conflict often produces some pretty great literature and art. We also know that prophets are often not honored much in their own country; you may not have known who M.L. Liebler is, but he’s given poetry readings in Afghanistan, Macao, Finland, and who knows how many other countries. My guess is Richard Keidan is a much bigger deal in the Khotang district of rural Nepal than in Royal Oak, and the legendary inventor Stan Ovshinsky was far more famous in Japan than back home in Detroit.
Regardless, we’ve got a city full of fascinating people here. If you keep your eyes open, you may find a new one when you least expect it.
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