Cynical Representation: The Politics of Race and Racism in Michigan's Municipal Receivership Regime

Mo Torres, University of Michigan

Municipal receivership is the process of appointing a “receiver” to take control of a municipality in fiscal distress. Between the 1980s and 2010s, the Rust Belt state of Michigan placed the greatest number of US localities in receivership, including Detroit (and its school district) and Flint. A little-known policy at the start, by the time of Detroit’s bankruptcy and Flint’s water crisis, receivership became one of the most contentious policy issues in the state. A significant critique of receivership was that it was racist: more than half of the state’s Black population temporarily lost the right to local self-governance under the policy compared to just 3% of whites. This paper considers the politics of race and racism in Michigan’s receivership regime. Specifically, I ask how state officials responded to allegations that the policy was racist. Through an analysis of archival sources, I argue that state officials adopted a informal policy that I call "cynical representation." Against the allegation that the state was appointing “white dictators” to manage black cities, state officials intentionally appointed black managers to its most politically visible cities, most notably Detroit. Dominant theories of descriptive representation suggest positive effects of black leadership on localities with large black populations. Cynical representation is different: the function of appointing black managers was not to be more responsive to the needs or demands of local black populations, I argue, but rather, to avoid or weaken the critique that the receivership regime was racist by appointing leaders narrated to be "racial insiders." Ultimately, white and black managers managed cities in much the same way, implementing an aggressive urban austerity agenda that cut social services, reduced public employment, and shuttered schools and libraries. Cynical representation is a mechanism through which systems of inequality like racism and capitalism ultimately adapt to changing social systems.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 168. Racialized Local Spaces