Michigan Mayor Cancels Bangladeshi Festival For Being Too 'Ethnic'

This does not seem to apply to St. Patrick's Day events or Polish Day parades.

Since 2009, the city of Warren, Michigan, has held the Bangladeshi American Festival in its city square. The Bangladeshi Association of Michigan (BAM), which organizes the event, had already given the city a $1000 deposit, had paid all the artists and workers, and was all set to run from July 22-23. Well, they were, until they were informed by Warren Parks and Recreation Director Dino Turcato that they would not be allowed to hold the festival this year. 

Why? Because the Bangladeshi American Festival is an "ethnic" festival, and that is simply not allowed. Well, unless you count all of the city's St. Patrick's Day events, the yearly Oktoberfest celebration hosted by the Warren Police Honor Guard, or the Italian-American Festival , which takes place in August and which we have to imagine imagine Dino will be attending. Do not click on that last link, by the way, unless you wish to be aurally assaulted by the MIDI version of a tarantella. It's just for reference.

Just last year, the city also became the home of Michigan's Polish Day Parade. 

BAM President Jabed Chowdhury wrote a letter to the Warren City Council to complain about the ban.

“Without any reason, park recreation are canceling the event just because we are a people of color?!” Chowdhury wrote, adding, "We are being racially discriminated … We are really upset and feeling violated of our rights!”

In response to the letter, Council President Patrick Green said, “The city doesn’t have an ordinance banning discrimination based on ethnicity ...That’s deplorable. … We do have a very diverse city and do need to have everyone represented.” Despite that, though, the city does have a United States Constitution, which still applies!

This decree was handed down by the city's scandal-plagued mayor, Jim Fouts. This is not Fouts' first racism-related scand al — an audio recording of him (or someone who sounds exactly like him) saying a variety of horrible things about Black people was leaked back in 2020. In other recordings, he made fun of those competing in the Special Olympics and claimed that older women were "dried up, washed up, burned out." Fouts maintains it was not him on the recordings, but those familiar with his voice and personal character said it sounds just like him, both literally and figuratively.

Fouts also once tried to bar an atheist group from setting up a "Reason Booth" at the City Hall to counter a "Prayer Booth" set up there by a Pentecostal Church. He failed and the city had to pay them $100,000 for violating their First Amendment rights. The 77-year-old mayor has also been accused of boosting the pay of a young staffer he was having an affair with.

 The Metro Times reports that "[i]n April 2021, the council passed an ordinance creating the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commission. The nine-member group, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, would provide advice and recommendations to elected officials about diversity and inclusion initiatives and improve the relationships between the city and underrepresented populations. The ordinance would also create a position of a chief equity, diversity, and inclusion officer."

Fouts has refused to fill that position. Probably because he doesn't want anyone telling him that it would be a very bad idea to ban things like a celebration of Bangladeshi culture in the city square.

Fouts, it seems, is a political island. One would assume he would be a Republican, but he's actually a former Democrat turned Independent. Honestly not quite sure how that works.

On the bright side, he won't be able to run for a fifth term because a Michigan Court of Appeals found earlier this month that the mayoral term limits the city's residents voted for several years ago do, in fact, apply to him.

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