Best In Black is Back!
C
O
M
E
R
I
C
A
HOMEFRONT
Nominations OPEN!
Comerica Bank partners with Grow Detroit’s Young Talent to educate tomorrow’s leaders
www.bestinblackdetroit.com
Page C1
POWERED BY REAL TIMES MEDIA
Volume 80 – Number 49
michiganchronicle.com
August 16-22, 2017
'Detroit' is a movie, nothing more. So stop e xpecting more… By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
This is kind of a two-part commentary, but stick with me if you can. Trust me, the two parts are related. Because even though I’m starting off with “that movie,” we’re likely to end up in Flint, which lands us right back in Detroit. Here we go… So, for the past couple weeks a lot of people here in Detroit have been chatting about this new movie that dares to name itself after our city. I’ve heard comments from both sides of the spectrum, although most of them have been negative. More than a few folks urged me — either directly or via Facebook posts — not to go see it, for a variety of reasons.
COMMENTARY
Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy "Hit Man" Hearns — Monica Morgan photos
Pride of Detroit Tommy Hearns inducted into Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame
By Keith A. Owens
But then, once in the ring, Leonard recalled thinking, as he took another look at Hearns’ tightly coiled body over in his corner, that this was not the same guy who he had so easily dismissed before. This guy looked a bit more threatening. And the rest, as they say, is history. From writer David Avila, writing about the induction in the online boxing publication The Sweet Science:
Senior Editor
Detroit has always been known as a tough city, and a tough city produces tough people. But it also produces great people. Tommy Hearns may be one of the toughest, as well as one of the greatest, that Detroit has ever produced. And last week, in Las Vegas, Hearns was awarded an honor that nearly matches the love and pride that his hometown takes in his accomplishments. Hearns was inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame. A brief review of what Hearns managed to achieve during his time in the ring makes it quickly obvious why the Hall of Fame would be incomplete without him. From his website: “Thomas “Hitman” Hearns was born October 18, 1958 and is a retired American boxer. Nicknamed ‘the Motor City Cobra’ and more famously “Hitman,” Hearns became the first boxer in history to win world titles in four divisions. He would also become the first fighter in history to win five world titles in five different divisions. Hearns was named Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year in 1980 and 1984 and is best known for his fights with Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Durán. “Hearns began his professional boxing career in Detroit, under the tutelage of Emanuel Steward in 1977. He won six world titles in five weight classes during his pro career, defeating future boxing Hall of Famers such as Pipino Cuevas, Wilfred Benítez, Virgil Hill and Roberto Durán. Hearns
WHAT’S INSIDE
started his career by knocking out his first 17 opponents. In 1980, Hearns carried his 28-0 record into a world title match against Mexico’s Pipino Cuevas. Hearns ended Cuevas’s fouryear reign by beating him by TKO in the second round. Hearns was voted ‘Fighter of the Year’ by Ring magazine in 1980.” Questions? Sugar Ray Leonard, who together with Hearns in the ring created some of the best and most memorable bouts in boxing history, introduced Hearns at the induction ceremony. The two have become close friends, and Leonard said that Hearns was “one of the toughest guys ever …a guy who brought out the best in Sugar Ray Leonard.” Leonard got some laughs from the crowd when he recounted how skinny Hearns was, and how he mistakenly thought that defeating him wouldn’t be much of a problem. “Here’s a guy who could barely make the weight,” he said.
“Detroit’s ‘Hitman’ Hearns was a fearsome sight with his long, lean body and explosive speed and power. His welterweight battle between undefeated world champions in 1981 with Ray Leonard is considered a classic. He also battled against the best of his time including Roberto Durán, Wilfredo Benitez and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. He won world titles as a welterweight, super welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight. He possessed shocking power in that lean body frame.” When asked on Monday in an interview with the Michigan Chronicle his feelings about the honor, his expression made it clear what it meant to him as he relaxed in an easy chair at the home of longtime friend Odis Buffington, a local boxing aficionado and close friend of the late Emmanuel Steward who still cherishes a framed photograph of him standing in the ring next to Hearns when he won his first Golden Gloves championship in Hawaii. “It was awesome. I had the chance to reminisce about some of the events that happened in my life,” he said. But as pleased as he was by the
See TOMMY HEARNS page A-4
Senior Editor
What’s Inside:
Special Supplement inside
I won’t take the time here to recount everything that happened in Flint over the past few years with the water. I’m going to take a leap of faith and assume that you already know most of it. If you don’t already know, stop reading this because it’s time to do some of that research and study I was talking about earlier.
COMMENTARY
And please don’t wait for the Lifetime movie. It may be great, but still.
$1.00
So now I’ve seen it., and I admit that commenting on the back end probably isn’t playing fair since I got to hear what everybody else said first. That being said… Here’s the thing, and I’ll make this brief. If you want to learn your history, you need to read books, you need to study. You will never learn the truth about anything sitting in a large dark room full of strangers with a handful of popcorn watching a movie screen for two hours, or however long. It just doesn’t work that way. Research and study is a long, arduous, but ultimately rewarding task that only grants that reward to those few determined to find out the truth about a matter. Movies? Movies are sheer entertainment, enslaved to the profit motive. If a movie doesn’t make a profit, it is a failure. Pure and simple. It’s all about that box office. Which means that the job of those who make those big screen movies is to try their best to make a film that will be entertaining enough to draw lots of people to the box office and make lots of money. This rule applies to movies like “Detroit,” “JFK” and “Nixon,” just as much as it does to “Batman” and “Superman.” A movie advertising itself as “based on a true story”
See DETROIT page A-4
...Because the upcoming Flint movie will be a movie too By Keith A. Owens
Schooling outside of the classroom Healthy Lunches Get over homework hurdles
Honestly, cards on the table, I had been planning on seeing the movie anyway. I confess this up front (no doubt to the disappointment of at least several of my friends). But I’m a movie fanatic and this looked like a good movie to me. Subject matter was intriguing for obvious reasons, and the trailers were gripping, at least to me. But after all the chatter? Well, now I had to go see it.
In February, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission issued the Flint Water Crisis Report. But instead of discussing the technicalities of who made which wrong decision when, the report focuses on how much structural racism, racism built into the system, was responsible for what hap-
pened. Michigan Department of Civil Rights Director Dr. Agustin Arbulu, in a recent interview, said the purpose of the report was to get to the actual root of the problem — the same root that led to the rebellion of 1967 in Detroit, the Detroit race riot on Belle Isle of 1943, the race riot outside of Dr. Ossian Sweet’s house when he dared to move into a white neighborhood in 1925, and the Detroit race riot of 1863. As you can see, that root runs deep. From the report: “The Commission recognizes that there have been numerous articles, hearings, studies, reports and investigations into Flint’s water crisis. Many focused on the technical aspects of the water crisis: What anti-corrosive materials should have been added? What about testing for lead in the water? Is the current lead and copper rule sufficient?
“The Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC or Commission) believes that to properly and completely assess the causes of the Flint water crisis, we must look back much further. We believe the underlying issue is historical and systemic, dates back nearly a century, and has at its foundation race and segregation of the Flint community. These historical policies, practices, laws and norms fostered and perpetuated separation of race, wealth and opportunity. “We are not suggesting that those making decisions related to this crisis were racists, or meant to treat Flint any differently because it is a community primarily made up by people of color. Rather, the disparate response is the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and the suburban area surrounding it.
See FLINT page A-7