November 2019 of Solidarity Is This

Deepa Iyer:

Hello, everyone. This is Deepa Iyer. Welcome to The Solidarity Is This Podcast. We took a little sabbatical to reset and recalibrate, but now we're back, and I have some exciting news to share with you. As you might know, this podcast is part of a larger project that focuses on deepening solidarity practices called Solidarity Is. Think of Solidarity Is, as a builder, a storyteller, and a connector. We build the capacity of activists and organizations working on social change, like you, through trainings, workshops, and solidarity schools. We change the narrative around multiracial America through this podcast, through social media conversations, and through blogs and articles. And we connect people together to deepen solidarity strategies.

Deepa Iyer:

Even more exciting, Solidarity Is has a new home. We're so grateful to the Building Movement Project for hosting us. I encourage all of you to checkout Building Movement Project's research, trainings, and analyses, that are all focused on strengthening movement based organizations. You can learn more at www.buildingmovement.org. Now on to this month's podcast. This month, I'm in conversation with Linda Campbell, who is an organizer with Building Movement Detroit and The Detroit People's Platform. I had a really special opportunity to spend some time with Linda in Detroit. I learned a lot, and one of the things I learned is that Linda is a visionary and a mentor to so many people who are fighting for social change and liberation in Detroit and around the country.

Deepa Iyer:

In the conversation you're about to hear, Linda shares with us some of the struggles and campaigns that she's part of in Detroit around transit justice, environmental justice, and public health. We also talk about what sustained her decades long activism and the advice that she has for many of us, who are also thinking about sustainability. I think you'll really enjoy this conversation with Linda, and I'm so grateful to her for joining us on Solidarity Is This. So Linda, can you describe yourself in a minute or less?

Linda Campbell:

My name is Linda Campbell. I'm with The Detroit People's Platform, which is a Detroit project that's affiliated with The Building Movement Project. I'm African American. I am a baby boomer, born in 1950. I am not native Detroiter. I was born and raised in St. Louis, and I still claim that identity, although I left there at the age of 18 and went away to school, but I like to tell people. I grew up as a professional in Detroit because I came here right out of undergrad in 1972 and was pretty much taught by some of the smartest, most dedicated black professionals I've ever had the honor to work with. I am a mother of a daughter, who's a gen X-er. I have three grandchildren, two little grand boys and a granddaughter, who graduated from college, so we're three generation of black women, educated. And I always say that happened because of the tremendous opportunities that were provided me as the grandmother back in the '60s and '70s, which was based on hard fought wins from the Civil Rights Movement and profound agitation and courage of black people to make things better for my generation.

Deepa Iyer:

You are a force to be reckoned with yourself, Linda. And I wanted to see if you could tell us a little bit more about The Detroit People's Platform and how it came about.

Linda Campbell:

The Detroit People's Platform is a citywide organization birthed out of struggle and movement here in the city of Detroit in 2013, just prior to the advent of the emergency manager of actually the state takeover. Conservative white legislation voted to take over America's largest black city under the guise of financial stress. But rather than simply send in a team of financial experts who could help us sort of sort through some of the difficulties that a lot of major cities are encountering, they opted to take over our local government, which meant the emergency manager displaced our elected mayor, our elected city council, changed our charter, which is like our city constitution. And so recognizing that impending threat, the emergency manager came in 2014. We organized the people's platform with groups of neighborhood residents, activists, advocates, just to identify. What were the ways that we wanted to continue to build and resist this kind of outside takeover of our city?

Linda Campbell:

So we identified five major platforms that we would fight and organize around. And we still work on those issues today. That includes good governance, so fighting for participatory democracy in our city. We were very much concerned about food justice, making sure there was access to affordable food across the city because Detroit, as you know, is the hub of the major urban ag movement here that's very much tied to land, who controls the land. Out of our land justice work, we embedded not only looking at land use policies here in the city because Detroit has undergone tremendous land grab by land speculators, both within the community and outside of the community, largely white. We also embedded an affordable housing strategy. Good jobs, which was our fight to win living wages and benefit, quality jobs for Detroiters, as well as equitable development, which our CBA, community benefit agreement campaign was born from there. And then finally, transit justice, to ensure that Detroiters have access to a decent public transit system.

Deepa Iyer:

Right. And what I saw when I visited your offices were just a stream of people coming in and out, folks who are residents, folks who are homeless, folks who are actually living in the midst of some of this development and gentrification you talked about. So how did the platform emerge? Was it really coming from centering the experiences of people who are living in the these conditions?

Linda Campbell:

The way we organize is we called together, as I said, back in 2013, resident leaders, activists and advocates from across the city. Detroit is now divided into seven city council districts, each with an elected council member. We wanted to make sure that we were not organizing over the existing infrastructure in these communities because Detroit does have an incredible history of grass root progressive movements. So our idea was to identify those leaders in the community who aligned around our principles, around the need for movement building and organizing, invite them into the space, and to represent their own interests around the table. So that's sort of the way that People's Platform is structured.

Linda Campbell:

And yes, because of that structure, we have a variety of community and residents who are part of the platform. We have those folks who are marginally housed. We have those families that are connected to us through, let's say the emergency food pantries. We have those families, many of them who have experienced some degree of homelessness, or water shutoffs, the denial of basic services. And we also have those activists who have been active in Detroit for multiple decades, fighting for dignity of black people and for social justice. So it's a real interesting space because we bring together this sort of really diverse community of folks with a common vision to make Detroit a strong city for long time black Detroiters.

Deepa Iyer:

Yeah. So speaking of that, I know we've talked about how Detroit is a predominantly black city with history in the city of black people having power and agency over land, over public institutions and the like. And in 2014, as you said, that shifted quite transformed. Given that we're also talking about solidarity between black and brown communities, I'm curious to know how you've seen some of those opportunities come up, where black Detroiters are working with Latinx, or Asian, or Arab communities. Where have you seen those pockets of opportunity emerge?

Linda Campbell:

Well, I will say that over the past decade, I would say there's been an increase in both opportunities for solidarity and the intentionality around building these kinds of connections. Some of that is rooted in the response to the pressure that I feel a lot of our brown communities are facing with Detroit being an international border city, which a lot of people forget. We have a heavy presence of ICE here in Detroit, particularly in southwest Detroit, where many of our Latinx brothers and sisters are subjected to deportation, the risk of disruption of their families in very simple ways. People leave to take their children to school and they never come home.

Linda Campbell:

So we are witnessing that firsthand here in Detroit as a majority black city, and recognizing that level of harassment, deportation, and disruption to community and family parallels what we historically have experienced as black people at the hands of the white police and white power structure. And there's a great deal of both empathy and support for on the ground work to build resistance to that. And that has particularly happened among young people, which I'm happy to say, that expresses itself through culture. We have some really incredible black, brown artists, collectives here in the city, through the growing, there's a lot of growing of food in that community, where black and brown neighbors come together and grow and share. So out of resistance has come this opportunity to build in community. And as I said, I particularly see that among black and brown youth.

Deepa Iyer:

What about the Arab American Muslim communities? Given that Dearborn has obviously such a large Arab population, Hamtramck, large Bangladeshi population. I know that there are obviously black Muslims who have long lived in Detroit. What are some possibilities you see there?

Linda Campbell:

Well, again, I would say over the past decade, I've definitely seen a sort of coming together, black and Arab communities. Historically, it's been complicated because of the way capitalism sort of pits the sort of middle level owner against the on the ground consumer or resident. And so it takes some real careful dialogue and constant building, and not being afraid to confront those tensions in the community.

Deepa Iyer:

Are you talking here about, for example, Arab or Asian shop owners in black neighborhoods?

Linda Campbell:

Yes, exactly, exactly. The merchant class, right?

Deepa Iyer:

Yeah.

Linda Campbell:

It's particularly given the absence of black merchants in the city in numbers that historically were pretty significant. And again, I say that is rooted in the way capitalism exploits us all. And so we all sort of have a role in that, and we also have an obligation to know that, own it, and correct it. And we do that through dialogue, through supporting one another in terms of pushing the system to be better about equal opportunity and equity across class and across race. There's been intentional efforts to build these spaces where those of us who do this work can be in dialogue with one another, looking at strategies and ways to push sort of this message of equity and inclusion and cooperation out into our communities, and that's DEAL, Detroit Equity Action Lab.

Linda Campbell:

We're in our ... I think DEAL is in its fourth year. And there's been I think some really good work going on there, where we've had young Muslim, we've had mid level agency managers, we've had senior Arab cultural officials. We've all been in that space with young black poets. And it's just been a way to start to have the conversations. We've worked on campaigns with folks from those communities. Everyone knows Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was elected from one of the nation's largest black congressional districts.

Deepa Iyer:

She's a Palestinian Muslim.

Linda Campbell:

She's a Palestinian woman. Yeah, a Palestinian Muslim woman, who owns her heritage as a Palestinian Muslim woman, but also never fails to lift up her growing up and her relationships, genuine relationships with African Americans in her Southwest Detroit community. So her being our elected face, and the way she approaches her work, showing up in community, listening to the issues of her constituents, most recently taking a very public stance against facial recognition, even when many of our elected black officials were not as robust in their argument and pushback about the potential harm of that surveillance to our city, has I think shifted a lot of the attitudes that folks had about: Well, can she adequately represent that issues of a majority black district?

Deepa Iyer:

Yeah. And I really appreciate what you said about, we can have the intentionality for solidarity, which is important. But we also have to recognize, and you said own and correct some of the underlying root causes that divide us.

Linda Campbell:

Right.

Deepa Iyer:

And I think that's really important when we think about solidarity as a practice because it isn't just, oh, yeah, we all have these goals of equity. We also have to deal with some of the complexities as well. I wanted to close by asking you about a couple of the campaigns that you are working on right now that I think folks in other parts of the country would want to know about because these are things that I think are affecting other urban areas as well. So could you talk a little bit about one of two that's front of center for you?

Linda Campbell:

Well, front and center for us in terms of our campaign work in Detroit, two or three, I would say the one that Detroit People's Platform has worked on in coalition with others over the past seven years has been our community benefit agreement ordinance. It's our fight for equitable development in this city.

Deepa Iyer:

Just so for folks who don't know what a community benefits agreement is, can you just give us a definition?

Linda Campbell:

Sure. A community benefit agreement occurs between community and private developers. It's an opportunity for community to negotiate directly with these developers who receive public tax incentives to support their private economic development. We negotiate benefits directly for our community and benefits that reflect community needs. Some of those benefits might include expansion of services for seniors, the addition of a recreational program for young people who live in the impacted area, set asides in terms of affordable housing, addressing some of the environmental impacts and harms that occur as a result of the development. Again, all based on the principle that as a private developer, you are receiving oftentimes hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes that are being diverted from the public use to enhance your private economic development.

Linda Campbell:

And the campaign continues because now we're in the amendment phase. And there are a series of amendments out there that Detroit People's Platform and Equitable Detroit Coalition, which is the citywide CBA coalition, we continue to fight and press council to win those amendments.

Deepa Iyer:

This is particularly important because of the Chrysler Fiat plant that is threatening to displace.

Linda Campbell:

We're in the midst of a huge struggle around Fiat Chrysler America, which is expanding its current assembly plant on the east side of Detroit, which is one of the neighborhoods with some of the lowest income rates, high rates of asthma, devastated by foreclosures and water shutoffs, so it's a very distressed community. And yet, Chrysler Corporation is about to receive $400 million in tax incentives.

Deepa Iyer:

Wow.

Linda Campbell:

To date, they've only offered about $8 million in community benefits. And those community benefits do not align with the demands that are being made by community, particularly as it relates to the environmental impact that plant expansion will have. And here's the position that across this country, black and brown communities find themselves, particularly low income or no income. They are forced to make the decision between: Do I support this plant expansion that has the promise of jobs? Or do I fight for a fair and equitable agreement that says, "You have to limit your environmental impact, and you have to be penalized if you don't"?

Linda Campbell:

That's the position that we're up against when we're organizing on the ground because it's real for a lot of those families that they want good jobs. These are still considered good paying jobs, good paying factory jobs. So that further complicates the organizing work that we have to do in the city of Detroit.

Deepa Iyer:

Right, because you have to keep all those factors in consideration.

Linda Campbell:

You have to balance all of those factors, yes.

Deepa Iyer:

So my final question is, you have been doing this work for a number of decades, Linda. And I know how beloved you are. And I'm wondering. What advice would you have for young women of color who are organizing, who are getting more involved in their communities, who are thinking about alliance building? What are some pieces of advice that you might have for them to sustain themselves in the work over the course of many decades, like you have?

Linda Campbell:

I would say my first bit of advice is to know the history. Continue to learn, open yourself up for new opportunities to work across communities, across cultural lines, and across boundaries, organizational boundaries. And believe in the power of coalition. A lot of the work that we've been able to achieve here in Detroit, whether it's to bring the CBA ballot fight to fruition, or to win a housing trust fund with dedicated monies has been through coalition. This notion of sort of the lone executive, or CEO, or president, or whatever lofty title we like to give ourselves or someone puts on us, that you win these battles by yourself is absolutely not correct. And to the extent that we're not taught to work in collaboration and in cooperation, it requires some undoing in the way we think about ourselves as leaders.

Deepa Iyer:

Right, right, the ego shedding.

Linda Campbell:

Exactly, the ego shedding. Right.

Deepa Iyer:

And what about the sustainability? What can keep us going? Because I talk to a lot of people and I thin we've talked about this, about burnout and trauma that folks are facing, especially given everything that we hear about even today. Right?

Linda Campbell:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deepa Iyer:

Any advice that you can think of, looking back on your life, that you could share about that sustainability of spirit?

Linda Campbell:

I like to tell people some of the best work I've done, it's been with other women of color. Surrounding myself with good women, women who have a sense of humor, women who are willing to push the envelope, which means courageous women, and women who can be vulnerable with one another. That's always been a space where I've found comfort and care and courage.

Deepa Iyer:

Yeah, I love it, women who will check you and hold you at the same time.

Linda Campbell:

Exactly, exactly, like your girlfriends, like your girlfriends you grew up with in high school.

Deepa Iyer:

Right. All right, thank you so much, Linda. That was Linda Campbell with the Detroit People's Platform. I really appreciate you being on Solidarity Is This.

Linda Campbell:

Thank you.

Deepa Iyer:

I want to thank Linda Campbell for joining us on Solidarity Is This and for uplifting so many of the principles of solidarity practice. Linda makes it clear that solidarity's a verb. It's a practice that we have to do again and again. And it's a strategy to center people who are most affected by policy and systemic conditions of inequity. It's a way for us to deal with internal racism and biases, so that we aren't pitted against each other. And it's a way to build collective power. You can learn more about Linda and the work she does in the solidarity syllabus that accompanies this podcast. You can find it at www.solidarityis.org.

Deepa Iyer:

As we close, I want to ask you to share your solidarity story with me. Are you working on a campaign or a project that utilizes solidarity practices? Tell me about it by completing the link on solidarityis.org under My Solidarity Story so I can feature it on this podcast. Thank you so much to all of you for listening and subscribing, and for utilizing many of the lessons learned from these podcasts. I'm looking forward to continuing our journey together for justice and power. Talk to you later on the next episode of Solidarity Is This.