Articles with politics

Messy Mondays: Make Caring Cool Again 💕

Messy Mondays, but make it civic. Because I love this city, and I want to feel like it loves me back.

🧱 The Fence Fiasco (aka: why I’m mad)

I reached out to my councilman. I sent emails. I made phone calls. A supervisor even came out to my property. And it still feels like nobody in the department gave a shit.

Here’s the mess: I called the Department of Blight about the abandoned property directly behind me because there were squatters doing illegal activity, and I couldn’t access the side lotI PAID FOR to clean it up. The city came to “clean” the lot… and tore down part of my fence in the process.

I called for help. I didn’t expect my property to get damaged. That’s some bullshit.

🧊 The Bureaucratic Brush-Off

When I asked for accountability, the Department of Demolition & Construction sent a supervisor and a small team. They barely looked at me, barely spoke to me. I’m upset (not yelling just upset), expecting a solution. Instead I’m told:

  • It’s not their problem.
  • There’s “no distinct property line” on some weird map on a computer, so somehow the city “technically” owns where my fence was.
  • “Aren’t you glad the property got cleaned up?” (It was still dirty 😒)
  • The vibe was basically: Oh well, bitch your fault for wanting good in the hood.

On top of that, the supervisor doesn’t even live here. And yes, she was black and still, the care just wasn’t there. I don’t want anyone to lose their job. I don’t want to sound like I’m « snitching » but these are people in charge of departments and peoples homes are their lives.

🧩 Why This Isn’t “Just a Fence”

So many of us are living paycheck to paycheck, me included. Most millennials don’t have a savings account big enough to fix something like this. And we shouldn’t have to come out of pocket to fix damage the city caused.

I get that the job is hard. I get that residents can be challenging. Everybody’s job is challenging at some point but the level of apathy I keep running into is unreal. It looks and feels like recklessness and negligence, rushing to get a job done quickly, and then refusing to admit a mistake. No apology. No care. It’s just “not our problem.”

🗂️ Departments, Dynamics & Doing the Damn Job

I’m not asking for “social-emotional training” that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying care. Care when you come out to assess. Care when you explain a map. Care enough not to bulldoze my fence because it’s faster than actually picking up trash. Care enough to apologize when you mess up. Care enough to treat residents like people, not problems.

And it makes me wonder:

  • Who is hiring these people?
  • Why are the requirements so low for jobs that impact our homes and safety?
  • Why does it feel like I’m bothering you for asking you to do your job?

🗑️ From Trash to Truth (the bigger picture)

This isn’t my first call, complaint, or court date. I keep bumping into the same attitude across departments: apathy. Shrugs. Eye rolls. Like the city’s default is to deflect instead of fix.

This, to me, highlights a larger issue in our political climate. People are disappointed in leadership for a reason. Micro issues like this point straight to the macro. If you put people in charge who don’t give a shit, that attitude trickles down into departments, policies, and neighborhoods.

📣 Influencers, Listen Up (yes, I said it 👀)

When you put people in charge who don’t give a shit, that attitude trickles down. It seeps into departments, into policies, into neighborhoods. And honestly? That’s on us too, our Detroit.

Because a part of the problem is right here at home: Detroit influencers. Too many are more focused on curating content for tourists than speaking directly to the people who live here. And I’m not pulling that from nowhere shoutout to Chrissy (Socially Chrissy), who said it plain. She actually cares about the city and the residents, not just the optics.

⚖️ Where’s the Balance?

The balance is off. Too many influencers are chasing aesthetics, luxury, and clicks, while our neighborhoods are left without advocates. We need to be talking to the residents, the folks planted here, not just the people passing through.

👉🏽 And that’s where critical thinking comes in. We need to ask: Who are we centering? Who are we serving? It can’t just be about vibes, parties, and photo ops. It has to also be about policies, paychecks, potholes, and thr people.

🗳️ Elections Are Coming

We should be using our platforms to bring awareness, to get folks mobilized, to remind people that local elections matter just as much as presidential ones. Because elections are coming up, governor, mayor, city leadership and if we don’t start using our influence to actually influence change, then what are we even doing?

We need to care about who’s running, who’s funding them, and who they’re beholden to. Not corporations, not developers, but us the residents. Because when we demand accountability, empathy, and honesty at the top, it doesn’t just stop there it trickles down. It shapes how departments treat us, how policies are written, and how neighborhoods either thrive or get left behind.

🌱 Make Caring Cool Again 🌱

At the end of the day, this is bigger than one fence, one property, or even one department messing up. This is about a culture of apathy that has seeped too deep into our city and the need to flip that culture on its head.

It should be cool to care again. Cool to pour into your neighborhood. Cool to demand better from your city. Cool to balance joy with justice.

Influencers, residents, city workers, politicians, everybody. We all have a role. Because when caring becomes contagious, communities change. And Detroit deserves that.

On Stillness, Disappointment, and Returning to Community

Dear friends,

I’ve been off Instagram for about two weeks now. Realizing it’s already been that long honestly surprised me time has passed so quickly, and yet, I didn’t even notice.

The truth is, it’s not that I needed a break from content creating. It’s more that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around it at all. I’ve been consumed, overwhelmed, and paralyzed by what’s happening around the world. Doomscrolling became my main activity trying to prepare myself mentally for the next collapse, taking in too much, and holding it all in my body. I lost track of time.

It feels like I’ve been hunkered down, waiting for the other shoe to drop not just for the past few weeks, but for years. Since the Trump presidency began, really. I’ve been mentally bunkered, even while living this beautiful life I’ve built and dreamed of.

But I haven’t been able to fully enjoy or appreciate that life, because I’ve been trapped inside my mind living as if the world has already ended.

In these two weeks away from posting, I also noticed I haven’t really been outside. I’ve gone to the grocery store. I’ve done my routines. I got my hair done. But I’ve seen my friends less and less. I’ve seen the people I care about less and less. I haven’t made the effort, and the time has just… gone.

And here’s the part I’m not proud of: I stopped building community because I felt disappointed in my community.

Seeing people I’ve worked with, admired, collaborated with watching their silence, or their indifference, or the way they treat politics like something optional has felt like betrayal. I’ve felt so disillusioned by people’s refusal to engage, to vote, to even care in any consistent, grounded way.

And in that betrayal, I completely withdrew.

I forgot that community isn’t just about being with people you agree with. It’s about staying with people through tension. Through misalignment. Through imperfection.

But instead, I locked myself away.

And the longer I stayed locked away, the harder it became to trust people again. Even those closest to me. That mistrust began to shape the way I move, the way I think, the way I show up (or don’t). It’s a kind of self-inflicted imprisonment. And I want out.

To free myself, I know there are some things I need to shed certain identities, expectations, even ego. I need to become a student again.

So while the community garden is still happening this year, my focus is shifting. I want to show up elsewhere to other farms, other spaces. To listen. To learn. To rebuild trust not just in others, but in myself.

Because I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone.

I’m not trying to reinvent myself or start over. I just needed to say this out loud. To be honest for a second.

Thanks for reading. That’s all for now.

-Kamaria