Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/author/cisaadeh/)
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[<a href=”//storify.com/tcdailyplanet/thousands-fill-mall-of-america-chanting-black-live” target=”_blank”>View the story “Thousands protest at Mall of America, spark mall shut-down” on Storify</a>] Continue Reading
The City of Minneapolis recently passed new funding to support its Business Technical Assistance Program (B-TAP) providers. B-TAP now has over a million dollars in funding, including $500,000 approved on Friday, Dec. 12 by the Minneapolis City Council. B-TAP provides services to support new and growing Minneapolis businesses.
I am a young Arab-American woman of many identities and I pass as white, but I am not white. Continue Reading
Karate and Community Organizing, they have a bit in common, at least for me. Continue Reading
I spend almost all my time attempting to figure out how I can braid storytelling and organizing. I’ve been attempting to not just organize communities around ideas, but also organize ideas, making sense of the din around us, the tunnel vision that too often exists in the justice world, the lack of recognition of the ties that bind injustice together, and the ways and whys we too often ignore who we are for what we do. Continue Reading
When it comes to food shelves in Minneapolis, halal food is hard to come by. But a group of Somali women want to change that. Isuroon, a local nonprofit that works to develop the health and empowerment of Somali women, is asking the city to help develop a new food shelf that provides healthy, ethnic food to the Muslim community living in South Minneapolis. The nonprofit, along with dozens of community members, are asking the city to allocate $150,000 to fund the new food shelf as a start-up. “As a Somali community, we cannot use some food shelves,” said Isuroon member Waris Mohamud. Continue Reading
Not everyone thinks about their food as art, but one St. Paul artist is using art to spread awareness about food access issues in his neighborhood. When artist Seitu Jones looked out the window of his apartment in Frogtown, he noticed many people in his neighborhood were buying their groceries from the local convenience store. It was a revelation to him, and he decided he wanted to do something about it. On Sept. Continue Reading
More than 800 comments poured in after video surfaced of St. Paul resident Chris Lollie being tasered by police for not revealing his name while he waited to pick up his children from daycare. Lollie is black and the three officers in the incident are white. Discussions on the article ranged in perspectives, but got heated as people discussed police brutality, experiences of racism, and the video-in-question. Most comments fell into two camps: questioning the legitimacy of the video or the legitimacy of the officer’s actions. Continue Reading
UPDATED:
The man in a recently released cellphone video who was tasered and arrested by St. Paul police officers after refusing to give up his name has stepped forward on Wednesday, Aug. 27 after posting the video online. St. Paul police dropped charges on July 31. Continue Reading
Four Minnesota schools were recently placed on the annual 2014 CampusPride top-50 list of LGBT-friendly colleges and universities. Augsburg College, Macalester College, and both University of Minnesota campuses in Duluth and the Twin Cities, were all ranked as 5-star schools. Schools listed are recognized for their efforts to improve the campus environment for students, particularly in terms of academics and social safety. Augsburg College provides advising and advocacy for students who identify as LGBTQ, such as opportunities for student leadership, and a handful of all-gender bathrooms, amongst other work. “We’re grateful for this type of recognition, but a lot of credit belongs to our students for leading boldly…individually and as groups,” said Stephanie Weiss, a spokesperson for Augsburg College. Continue Reading