These are some pics from a couple of these interactions–in this case they are at Alex’s auto customization shop Untouchables.  Thank you to Alex for the time and energy shared for the purpose of sharing knowledge and creating friendships and fond memories!

http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_1691.shtml

Here’s the heading and a sample from the text to get yall ready!  THANKS to everyone that consistently helps/supports what we’re doing.  It’s appreciated.  Enjoy:

Layin’ Low: Expressions
By Keith N. Dusenberry | photos by Erik Howard & Jeremy Deputat
Aug 9, 2006, 23:59

A few weeks ago on a Web site called InsideSouthwest.com, I found a bunch of recent pictures of lowrider cars cruising around Southwest Detroit. Two things struck me about these photos: First, they showed that there was still a strong, possibly thriving, lowrider community in this city. Second, there were lots of children, teenagers and even whole families in the photos. Some shots actually appeared to have been taken at a picnic. Lowriders? Families? Picnics? What was going on here?

First popular in Chicano culture, lowriders eventually grew to encompass a wider following, especially within urban black communities. WARs 1975 hit single Low Rider brought the craze to everyones car radio. But it took hip-hop and MTV to give lowriders mass appeal and recognition.

While lowriders first registered in the American mainstream consciousness decades ago, they went big time as the cars of gangsters. Not Al Capone-style bootleggers, but early-90s hip-hop gangstas. The first image in the music video for Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggs seminal 1993 rap single Nuthin But a G Thang is Dre pulling up to Snoops house in a 1964 Impala lowrider. They spend half of the video cruising around Long Beach accompanied by other gangsta lowriders.

The Nuthin But a G Thang video found near-constant play on MTV it was the channels third most requested video that year and in the process it took lowriders from being a relatively small, mostly West Coast inner city phenomenon to a nationally recognized symbol of the gangsta rap threat.

The hubbub died down eventually, and that was the last most people heard of lowriders: A gangsta rap fad that had pretty much evaporated by the late-90s. Hip-hop cultures car tastes moved on from lowriders squat stance, tiny wheels and wildly colored metal flake paint jobs to spinner wheels, huge rims, tall ride heights and black-out paint and trim. Lowriders fell off as being uncool and too old school.

Which is why those recent pictures of kids and families and picnics all gathered around lowriders in Southwest Detroit seemed so odd. Turns out, it all makes perfect sense.

Erik Howard, a 27-year-old Southwest Detroiter with a background in social work, co-leads a youth group called Expressions. Or rather, a youth group disguised as a car club.

My dads a mechanic, Howard said at a Southwest Detroit ice cream stand called Family Treats where Expressions has weekly Saturday evening get-togethers. We always used to go cruising. My dad always tried to teach me how to work on cars and I was never really interested in it until I was able to see it as a means to people.

When I was in college, I went to L.A. for six months and the lowriders around here were starting to get popular. A couple buddies of mine who were in (Southwest’s) Por Vida Car Club started building lowriders and there was a couple other car clubs in the neighborhood and I just kept noticing those cars. So when I was in L.A., I kept thinking, What a great idea: We could build a youth group around the cars, since they have such mass appeal, but the goal wouldnt be the cars themselves the goal would be to build people.

Thus, Howard and friends Augie Browe and Ron Cornelius got into lowriders: The cars werent the focus, they were a marketing tool. The product? A cooler type of youth group intent on helping kids stay out of gangs and other exploitative ventures   and into creative pursuits. We said, Were going to do this car club and were going to use it to attract the attention of young people, Howard explained. Well use those cars and the things that [kids] are interested in as a motivator towards personal development. So, basically were going to build a mentoring group, and were going to build it around a car club.

Since its inception seven years ago, what has come to be known as Expressions has changed and grown as its participants have contributed to the groups development. There are now approximately 30 club members seven adults and 23 kids aged 12 to 21. Each child has different interests that they hope to explore and skills that they contribute to the group. And the club is exceptionally diverse: Teenaged boys and girls of all ethnic backgrounds are members. We have blacks, whites, Mexicans, Filipinos everybody, basically, said Lauren Saleh, a 16-year-old who was introduced to Expressions about a year ago by a friend at work.

Expressions tries to use peoples talents and interests creatively to inspire positive change, Howard said. So, things like lowriding, graffiti, photography, graphic design all those things are a means to an end. Beyond being activities that kids want to be a part of, these pursuits teach the value of dedication, hard work and pride in craft.

And hopefully keep Southwest Detroits kids out of trouble and gangs. Gangs are a terrible thing that the club prevents [Expressions] is a definite alternative to that, 19-year-old Expressions member Josh Parinasan said. I dont know why, but the youth is attracted to gangs for some reason. Gangs definitely carry some of the same traits as the club, or they seem like they do like protection and family and stuff like that. But the club is way different because its a family, but it provides safety rather than protection. It keeps you away from (danger), staying safe from it, rather than getting you into it and then protecting you from it.

The group has also taken in ex-gang members looking for a safer environment. They realize that what they went into the gang for, theyre not really getting out if it, Parinasan continued, and they could probably find it better here. But Expressions members are mostly what academics might term at risk good kids. Id say Ive been maybe average my whole life. Id get into trouble, but it wasnt anything real big, said 20-year-old Charles Anderson, a one-year member interested in drawing and graffiti who is excited by the idea of being eligible for mentor status once he turns 21. Ive never really been in too much trouble, so thats another reason why I really like Expressions because most groups focus their attention towards the really bad kids, but Expressions is open to everybody bad, good, whatever theyre here to help everybody.

In addition to the lowriders and graffiti, Howard loves taking photos (cars, kids, paint anything, really) and a year or two ago, the kids got into it too. Recently, Howard had three professional automotive photographers speak with a group of the kids about photography as a career path. That definitely encouraged me, youth member Saleh said, because I know I can do that kind of (photography) stuff and I can probably have a future in it.

Now cameras are a constant at any Expressions gathering: The kids take photos of cars, photos of each other, artistic photos, documentary photos, photos of outsiders, candids and posed shots; Howard takes pictures of them taking pictures, along with his own artistic snaps of anything and everything. Its like a Canon commercial gone constant. Lots of cameras here you gotta get used to that, said Juan Rodriguez, a 14-year-old Southwest Detroiter and member of Expressions who just celebrated his one-year anniversary as a club member.

He got into the club through Howards other lowriders bicycles and has brought some of his friends into the club as well. Id see his bikes and stuff and I was like really into it, I liked it Rodriguez said. I started talking to him and I ordered a bike off of the Internet. I put probably $700 into it and I got into it. (Rodriguez said he earned the money cutting lawns, shoveling snow and helping people clean their yards.) I started coming around (Expressions meetings) and riding around. I brought some other kids into it. Now theyre getting into less trouble. Its real cool.

Now, the cars are less and less what our group is attached with and its more and more a little bit of everything, Howard said. When people think of Expressions, they think of The (graffiti) Alley, they think of the lowriders, they think of the photography those are like the three main headings. But a lot of people now, they just think of a youth group and thats how we like to be seen.

Graffiti is another area where Expressions has taken a phenomenon generally perceived as destructive and gang-related and turned it into a positive youth motivator and teaching tool. The Alley runs behind Howards home in Southwest and serves as a sanctioned, safe graffiti zone. The kids can paint anything they want to (so long as its not violent, racist or gang-related) and frequently receive instruction in the art from prominent local graffiti artists. Expressions frowns upon their members spreading graffiti onto homes or businesses, instead encouraging use of The Alley.

The idea is working. [Expressions adult leaders] use the cars and the graffiti to draw the youth in, Henry Karawan said as we cruised around Southwest in his 84 Cadillac Coupe deVille. Henry joined the group last October and looks forward to becoming an Expressions mentor when he turns 21. If they were just saying, Yeah, we wanna help you guys stay out of trouble, a lot of kids would be like, OK, we dont wanna do it. But if the kids know theres graffiti and cars and lowriding bikes and they can be involved in that, then theyre gonna want to further pursue it.

Currently, there are four primary adult mentors in Expressions: Howard and his wife Jill, along with Jamilia Harnois and Graig Donnelly. Erik and I both grew up in Southwest Detroit, the 25-year-old Donnelly said. A lot of our peers, the young adults from here, think success is moving away and leaving here. If they were able to go to college and sort of get out of a lot of the stuff that goes on in the neighborhood and make something more for themselves, they didnt look back, they just kept on going. Its almost as if a sign of success is being able to leave.

We believe that a better use of that ability to leave is to choose to stay and show the kids in the neighborhood that this place is worth something. Its basically bullshit to expect other people to believe in a place they live in if youre not willing to give it a shot.

While Expressions main focus is on Southwests youth development, they also give back to the neighborhood. They clean up parks and do community service. Yes, you read that correctly this privately run, unfunded group of young adults mentoring teenagers so that they wont join gangs not only uses lowrider cars, graffiti and photography to keep kids out of trouble, they also get teenagers to look forward to picking up trash in playgrounds and vacant lots. And membership is growing; one of the kids estimated that the groups size could double by the end of summer.

Lowriders? Kids? Community building? Yeah, that sounds about right.  | RDWExpressions meets Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. at Family Treats, 2010 Springwells St. in Southwest Detroit. For more on Expressions, visit insidesouthwest.com or call Erik Howard at 313.598.2050