Detroit vs. Everybody, Detroit Based Black Owned Business Apparel

During my last visit back home as spring struggled to show itself through the snowfall and ice covered roads I saw a new store that I couldn’t help but find myself inside of. I wasn’t sure based off of the name whether it was a restaurant or some type of boutique but with a name like, ‘Detroit v Everybody’ I couldn’t help but check it out, my friend told me he’d been there so he took me to check it out.

The store name was reflective of the attitude that the city had been forced to embody over the past decade. As Detroit has been regularly seen as the national failure by putting all of its economic eggs in the one basket of the American Automobile industry, when that tanked so did ‘Motor city’. A lot of families were forced apart as breadwinners, including my own father, lost their jobs and had to move out of the state. As a result of the loss of income, foreclosed homes engulfed the streets and young people’s main desire for the future became desire to get out in order to maintain the hope of having one. “There are no jobs here!” was a constant battlecry and as the national average of minimum wage rose, Detroit’s stayed the same as students, college educated young people and established adults all competed in the narrowing job market. This along with the media portrayal of the city as a economically depleted battleground of crime and poverty placed the city against the rest of the country, on its own in in a unique bracket as Detroit vs. Everybody.

“Is this Black owned?” I asked as we walked into the shop, “Yes it is” the sales associate affirmed as my friend and I shuffled through the clothing. The shop had a sleek design with walls, shelving and furniture all painted white bringing out the colors of the clothing. The walls were decorated with framed photos of a diverse range of models sporting the clothes. The store predominantly sells pull over hoodies and T-shirts, they’ve also got baseball caps and pins at the register. They had so many clever styles that it was hard to choose but I was determined to support this business.

With shops like Detroit v. Everybody we can see how there is a market for Detroit based products and the spirit of the city continues to breath underneath the ashes. This week I came back to town for a conference, Golden, the theme ‘Went through the Fire and Came out Gold’ is more than applicable here. Detroit went through a heavy fire at the beginning of this century, in 2005 my father was forced to move out of state in order to find a job that would allow him to use his degree and support his daughters. This was a transition out of the city that hundreds were forced to make. However although fire burns, there are many substances that it cannot destroy. For those metals fire refines, purifies and brightens. We can see that Detroit is more than the burnt ashes the media is trying to make it out to be, we can see this in the revitalization of the city, the new shops, restaurants and Detroit based artists coming to the forefront.

Its important that as Detroit comes back to life, that we as a community aren’t pushed out as recipients of its forefruits. There are many non-black developers coming into the city buying up property waiting for the area to come back, blocking our ability to invest in the area that we were raised in and stayed committed to through the storm. Detroit homeowners are being forced out of their homes with high foreclosure rates that banks are refusing to re-assess and then reselling to developers for a small fraction of the cost that the previous owners were forced out on, a prime example of gentrification. Developers are attempting to flip the city from out of our grasp, knowing that it is a valuable area, knowing that it’s been through the fire and now it is golden. We must recognize the gold we’re living in and invest into it before we are completely pushed out. Find your local Black owned business to support as we rise from the ashes as gold in my hometown, Detroit.