"See Detroit Like We Do": White Savior Capitalism and the Myth of Black Obsolescence

Abstract: This essay investigates the phenomenon of wealthy white men who use financial means and power to "revive" Detroit after a perceived "death" through what we call white savior capitalism. This "death," popularized by media portrayals of decline, relies on projecting an image of Detroit, a Black-majority city on stolen Native land, as a vacant, postindustrial "frontier" despite the continued existence and resistance of Black and Indigenous residents. We trace the prehistory of white savior capitalism to the area's eighteenth-century conquest by French settlers, the exclusionary redevelopment policies of Mayor Coleman Young's administration (1974–94), and Detroit's use of federal antipoverty funds and eminent domain to establish a General Motors Plant in the Poletown neighborhood. Finally, we demonstrate how the recent and ongoing "rediscovery" of Detroit by businesspeople such as Dan Gilbert gave rise to white savior capitalism. Parallel to these developments, activist movements in the Black Left have presented alternative solutions and imagined futures that include Black and Native Detroit.