Detroit Declaration

There is a new group in Detroit trying to make the D a better place to live. Check it out:
http://declaredetroit.wordpress.com

Haiti

I know that after two weeks we're probably all Haiti'ed out. I get that. I just wanted to quickly reflect on a moment I just had where I said to an old friend that I could have been sent to Haiti for work, but that I was going to deal with Haiti-related files from the safety of Detroit. At first I put quotations around safety thinking that the use of irony was required and then I stopped, erased, and re-wrote it without the quotations. While I was instant messaging my friend I was reading a story about the Restavec ( reste avec- French for "to stay with"), which are children, mostly girls who are sent to stay with other families as their house slaves, unable to go to school and often abused (link below). While Detroit may suffer from a brutal image and a dismal economy, most Detroiters do not have the make the choice between keeping their children with them, sending them to live with others as house slaves, giving them to orphanages, or worse, abandoning them altogether. My life was touched by two little children whose parents had to make that choice to leave them at an orphanage and release them for adoption because they were unable to support them. What a choice for a family to have to make!! I will hold my son a little closer and kiss him a few more times, in the safety of Detroit, thankful that I do not have to make that choice.

Link: www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/29/restavek.sende.sencil/index.html