Matsie For the Win!

Palladium Boots sent Johnny Knoxville to check out my hometown of Detroit, MI.  Knoxville explores the city to prove that the selective journalism covering the plight of Detroit isn’t a wholly accurate depiction.  He meets up with several young entrepeneurs, musicians and artists to find out that Detroit has a lot more to offer than people think.

I’m glad there’s some positive journalism heading Detroit’s way.  Frankly, I’m tired of reading about our abandoned houses and overgrown tall grass.  I’d rather hear about projects in urban farming, new restaurants, Handmade Detroit and all the other ways young entrepeneurs and creative individuals are harnessing the power to change my hometown.

Right now, Detroit is a shell of a city, but we can fill that shell in with whatever we want.  It’s time to focus on the positive and see how we can change our city into what we really want it to be.  We are positive about our city and we will stay that way.

So come and check out Detroit yourself.  See our restaurants, our artist cooperatives, our flood of music venues and our comradery.  See our sense of humor and our love for our city.  Come to Detroit and see a city in flux.

Yes, native Detroiters will be snarky and bitter with you.  Yes, we will make fun of you for thinking our city is too dangerous to explore or too far gone to bother checking it out.  Yes, we will call you a wimp or a lazy journalist or just plain milquetoast white.  We have earned that right.  We have earned it by sticking around long enough to make changes.  And frankly, you are a wimp, a lazy journalist, a milktoast or a bourgeois asshole.  

So bring it on, rest of the country!  Take your pot shots and write Detroit off as a lost cause.  You’re just fueling the fire and we will create a new city from the ashes of the old.