Dreams*(?) and Development

​A three part dream that happened this morning before I woke up to take out the trash and recycling with post-slumber commentary:
1. I'm in a new [or maybe rather more appropriately capitalized, New] Detroit neighborhood restaurant/cafe watching a s​kit​/presentation akin to Goldilocks and the three bears between the owners and employees during its preliminary grand opening.

Goldilocks, a young ​caucasian girl, pours and presents a big bowl of hot chocolate as she narrates the origins of the cafe and what it values ​in balancing its business aspirations ​as part of the community. She sweetly closes her story punctuating it with a casual "that'll be $40 bucks, hun." For the bowl of hot chocolate as the punchline to the community and up-and coming city entrepreneurship story.

The customer (not identifiable to the audience/nor heard) implicitly complies and requests for something additional to which the matron of the cafe quickly gathers the other local employees, gets on the phone and discusses in Zulu or some other language heard in South Africa with all the staff huddled around, before she confidently hangs up the phone to declare to the imaginary customer: "I have good news, you're eligible for an additional $0.30 per hour sitting fee too!"

We (the audience) laugh and ​as I turn away ​I ​​start figuring out how to make a sliding scale menu cost structure for non-locals and locals that can accommodate more people with less outrageous prices while still accounting for the higher I come demographic who wouldn't hesitate to buy a $40 bowl of hot cocoa (or in real life, pay more than $40 for a hair cut).

2. My dream transitions to sitting at the counter of another cafe/diner that bears a less monied air to it: imagine a classic 1950s hamburger joint  converted into a general diner/cafe that hadn't been updated since the 50's that's in a Downriver (low-income labor town) community like River Rouge or Wyandotte. It's now under the ownership and operation of an immigrant Indian woman and she's working to serve us friends as her guests before it officially opens.

I ask if there's any local favorite juice available as she opens and closes a basic household refrigerator that's nestled on the wall facing the counter and register. "All I have for drinks is in that fridge." And I note that A box of wine was the only fruit beverage available. A classmate from second grade, Vijay [Vijay!? What are you doung here in my subconscious bro? Still got that cool San Jose Sharks winter coat too], smiles and sarcastically proclaims "Ecorse' s finest!" And gestures with a culinary kiss to the air. I laugh [his sense of himor is still on point].

I'm now outside the restaurant with my friend Onyx, pouring two glasses from that boxed wine as we "celebrate" "Ecorse's finest" -- and the fact that we both witnessed French hosts serve us boxed wine [yes, in real waking life during our time as guests in southern France while performing on tour]. Onyx smiles agreeing with that tone of voice you get at the end of sharing a memory in the way a fire burns down to smoldering coals, and mentions that "having some music from the 90s playing would be great right now." I mention if WiFi is available we might be able to pull something up and quietly ponder what kind of music could constitute the best of the 90s.

3. My dream transitions again and I'm inside a neighborhood salon+barbershop where one of my former employers, Mrs. Michele Loveberry --who in real life owned a salon while briefly leading a non-profit-- is working with a customer already after promptly arriving at 6:00am on one side while a barber works with someone else toward the front on the other side of the room. My friend Jemeer and another guy tells me how important barbershops are for the community (true, and we've had a conversation like this in waking life before) as well.

Post-Slumber Commentary

So here's what I think we can learn (or at least be reminded of) from the dream above among other things: 

1) there's a point when a well-grounded and intentional price policy becomes outrageous to the average person and yet entirely acceptable for a new target audience--I.e. the $40 haircut yuppie or in the case of my dream, the gentrified who pays $40 for a ridiculously large bowl of hot chocolate.

Speaking with my friend Ulysses, this is exactly how countries like Finland operate--

2) The $0.30 per hour sitting fee sounds like something (a terrible something) that a crowded New York or San Francisco kind of city actually would do, except they'd charge you even more for just being there. For [dystopic neoliberal urbanization/gentrification​/colonialism​] comedic purposes, $0.30 is ​"​reasonable​"​--just small enough to be petty, but the real offense comes from its mere existence​ ​​and audacity to charge people for their mere existence​.

3) I still work even in my dreams to figure out things like equitable cost strategies and price points.

4) Zulu (though I don't know the language well) and South Africa are a very interesting parallel--in waking life I met a journalist who focused on apartheid and how similar patterns manifest in Detroit last year. For those unfamiliar with the city, Detroit is approximately 83% black, ~89% "minority", and highly segregated as a city still. The economic development patterns also tend to reflect this too with most investment underway in majority white downtown core financial and cultural districts. Meanwhile, most of the neighborhoods remain overlooked unless they're ripe for ["market"] exploitation [or straight-up exploitation in itself] according to the downtown administration and deep pocket developers.

5) There's an interesting contradiction to connecting boxed wine with the expression "Ecorse's finest" --the river that makes "downriver" communities was called the Rouge River by the French settlers (and still called that today by residents) because of all the grapes that would grow in the region. It's hard to say what the soil and air quality would be for growing grapes for wine there today as it's somewhat an industrial labor town now, but if we of the region were to begin making wine there again, I wouldn't be surprised if boxed wine would the way to start as the expertise, "market audience", and taste palate for most people in southeast Michigan would probably take time to develop before we skip ahead to fine wines. Alcoholism in Michigan is a major problem, and it happens to be, at least during some point within the past 5 years, among one of the most common Google searches in our state.

6) The Salon/Barber Shop dream builds directly from a conversation I had last night realizing how continuity for employing and owning a business in Detroit remains by the person, and often ends at the entrepreneur rather than continuing with the team/a community to support the training and workers beyond the founder. I also think the gender roles (one side salon, another side barber) is something to note though I haven't got much insight for it beyond observation. Mrs. Loveberry's mother opened and owned a historic salon business, one of the first in Detroit, and the legacy of her entrepreneurship remains under celebrated except for those who may have known her directly or through the family stories like my friend Jemeer and Mrs. Loveberry. Mrs. Loveberry recently retired and left the state. 

I now realize she was part of the 93% businesses in Detroit that are black, and of them, 90% are/were run with 1-4 employees. The continuity between owner to new generations differs from places in Japan or even Vietnam where businesses survived for centuries--even surviving colonialism and world wars--with artisans and other people who continue the line and legacy.

In my waking life, I know/know of an interesting cross section of the cosmetic industry. I also connected [albeit briefly] with someone from outside Detroit focused on using barber shops as places to address mental health in the black community. They all have important elements, and the opportunity to convene and discuss how workforce development + business ownership advances in the city's neighborhoods is important and feasible to implement with someone like Chase Cantrell of Building Community Value and the folks who put on Hair Wars.


References

Toward the end of this sketch, Trevor Noah speaks in Zulu--deep in the comment section of the original clip on youtube someone gave a translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwT-2KdK894