What I Learned From Kwame

It’s no secret that I love my city just as much as I love space, we’ve got a lot of it, and after spending summers in NYC and Paris, I appreciate it more than ever. To love my city is to represent it and all of its beautiful characters. A big black man in construction site orange wouldn’t normally make headlines, but since his last name is Kilpatrick, his image has circulated print, broadcast, and online newswires around the world. Besides our proud Motown Royalty like Aretha Franklin (who people seem to forget is from D-Town) he seems to be the most popular character in our 313-story for the moment.

So tax violations, fraud, obstruction of justice, all very un-cool things for anyone who knows and enforces the law to be accused of, but for a politician, eh, it’s all pretty much part of a term’s work. Kilpatrick is not the big bad wolf who helped bring the worst city in the world further down into the dumps. As a matter of fact, Detroit isn’t the most dangerous, or the fattest, or even the poorest city in America. Detroit is the site of a beautiful boardwalk that’s a couple’s romantic playground or a family’s biking path. It’s home to the kind of athletic teams that don’t do much showboating, but wins championships as an actual team. And sure, we’ve got plenty of issues, from crooked cops to failing school systems (what urban locale doesn’t have those issues) but we aren’t ready to roll over and croak just yet. There’s plenty of life left here, and hopefully, in Kilpatrick’s career.

If you’re a cynic you’ve probably stopped reading already, but if you’re a realist, stay with me. As a Detroiter who remembers meeting the humble 30-year-old who was handsome enough to catch my eye and smart enough to allow my father to speak to his congregation, I’m compelled to look beyond the story people like Mildred Gaddis (don't bother calling into her radio show if you don't agree with her) would have you buy into and re-present him as a fallen young man whose mistakes teach us two very big lessons.

Lesson number one: No, the sex is never that good. All the greatest public servants we’ve loved have had mistresses, Kilpatrick’s someone he’d grown up with, but as we all know, Beatty was more than your typical I-sleep-with-powerful-men-to-eat mistress. She’s smart, successful, can stand on her on two feet, and has a family. They’re affair cost two public images and one broken family.

Lesson number two: When you give your haters ammunition, they will use it. Kilpatrick is mostly guilty of being young, powerful, and a target for hater-ation. He started feeling himself, he got flashy, and he got careless with his spending and his loving. Think about it, King David made the same mistakes and God still trusted him to write portions of the Bible. Kilpatrick’s reputation is under siege because people who never wanted to see him succeed, are now taking pleasure in perpetuating his failures—and by making stupid mistakes he’s given them the fuel they need to keep the fire going.