There’s a time to speak out and a time to shut up. That was the message being spread at Hamline University’s Take Back the Campus last week.The university’s Women’s Resource Center hosted the event on Oct. 21 with the goal of including a diverse group of speakers and performers. Informational tables and a line up of a wide range of speakers were aimed to rally against all forms of gender violence and opening a dialogue about how to better prevent sexual assault.“Creating a culture of respect that celebrates and requires affirmative consent and positive sexuality is hard work,” said Cards Against Harassment founder Lindsey. “It means shutting up that voice once in a while and letting other people talk about their experiences.”Lindsey, who keeps her last name private to protect her professional career, designed and printed business cards that she would give to cat-calling men in downtown Minneapolis. Continue Reading
Last month, I attended a forum at the Minneapolis Urban League about police-community relations. One of the panelists, longtime community leader and media presence Ron Edwards, pointedly mentioned that all of the debates about problems of police conduct were not so different from debates in the 1960s — we’ve had 50 years of a community looking for positive reform but getting very little.
The following are some thoughts after attending “Let’s Talk: Ferguson” at Penumbra Theatre, Wednesday, September 10. Sarah Bellamy hosted panelists Dr. Matthew Johnson, Ricardo Levins Morales, and Dr. Soolin Pate. Artistic readings were given by Malik Curtis, Erin Washington, H. Adam Harris, and Gebreil Khadar.
“Indict, convict, send them killer cops to jail; the whole damn system is guilty as hell.”The refrain rang out as roughly 100 protesters against police brutality marched Wednesday night from North Commons Park in Minneapolis to the Fourth Precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department and at times blocked residential traffic, in an effort to raise awareness around their demands for justice.When they arrived, however, no officers were there to greet them – save for one that had accompanied the march.This is a Community Voices submission and is moderated but not edited. The opinions expressed by Community Voices contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the TC Daily Planet.The demonstration was sponsored by twelve local activist organizations, among them Communities United Against Police Brutality and Twin Cities Save the Kids. It was part of “Ferguson October,” a nationwide solidarity struggle emanating from out of Ferguson, Missouri, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot, unarmed, by officer Darren Wilson.Activists from Ferguson have been calling for sustained nationwide protests this month to demand that Wilson be charged with a crime and arrested. Protests in Ferguson are expected to intensify immensely if this demand is not met.To those ends, activists in Minneapolis planned this demonstration as part of a week-long program of protests and other educational events.The protestors arrived at the Fourth Precinct and surrounded the main entrance, putting police tape up around the pillars in front of the door. In addition to chants that seemed to taunt Police Chief Harteau, Mayor Hodges was the target of some rhetoric, calling into question the seriousness of her efforts at improving police-community relations.“I think a lot of [Mayer Hodges’] efforts are really just sort of window dressing; we have given the city a list of 31 concrete actions they could take right now with no law changes…let’s see some action on those,” said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality.“Police brutality is a local and national epidemic. Continue Reading
Today’s news reports claim the Nigerian government and Boko Haram have reached a truce, and that the girls kidnapped six months ago will be returned. I want to believe. I want this to be true. And as much as I want to believe, I know that parents and families of 200+ girls want so immeasurably more for this to be true, for their girls to return. Continue Reading
It’s October, so this is a good month to talk about the things and people that have scared us or tried to scare us over the years. Some of those fears were justified, and many were not. For those of us with roots in Laos and other parts of Southeast Asia who escaped the wars, this is an interesting question. Continue Reading
Both Minneapolis Mayor Hodges and Chief Harteau are committed to changing the culture of the Minneapolis police into more of community police force. The police abuse has violated community trust. Chief Harteau even called in the federal Justice Department to put on more pressure to change. The Star Tribune describes the conclusions: Continue Reading
A new goal to construct and renovate bus shelters in low-income neighborhoods has been met with skepticism rather than excitement from some community members.Metro Transit announced through Metro Council last week that they are the recipients of a $3.2 million Ladders of Opportunity grant — part of which will be used to construct and renovate bus shelters in Minneapolis and St. Paul by the end of 2015. Officials said with more and better shelters, they hope to increase ridership, and improve safety and comfort.“The goal is to install up to 150 new shelters, add amenities such as heat and light at up to 75 existing locations and to replace 75 to 100 shelters in Minneapolis that were privately owned and maintained until earlier this year,” said Metro Transit Public Relations Specialist Drew Kerr.Kerr said that the grant will be combined with a local match of $815,000 from Metro Transit, contributions from state legislature, and money left over from the Green Line Project. Altogether, he said, they should have $5.8 million to fund shelter improvements.According to the Metro Council website, that money will be focused on Racially Concentrated Areas of Poverty (RCAPs), a term that refers to areas where more than half the residents are people of color, and more than 40 percent of the residents have family incomes less than 185 percent of the federal poverty threshold.Kerr said Metro Transit has identified north Minneapolis and east St. Paul as areas to focus on. Continue Reading
ByJanis Lane-Ewart and Paul Brohaugh (KFAI Radio) |
In an open letter to the community, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges acknowledged that some of the city’s police officers have abused their power, and she promised to repair the department’s reputation as a cornerstone of her administration.
