4th precinct

Minneapolis lacks political will to provide security for all

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Sunday marked the killing of yet another unarmed Black man, Jamar Clark, at the hands of the police. This time it happened right here in Minneapolis, a city becoming increasingly divided along racial lines due to some of the nation’s largest racial gaps in employment, income, housing, education, and arrests, which has created significantly polarized realities between privileged whites and persecuted people of color. Such racial dynamics are indicative of an old master/slave relationship, making current conditions perfect for an enormous racial clash. That is, unless our elected officials can find the political will to provide relief to its suffering communities of color and prevent our city from going to hell. Over the past few months leaders from Minneapolis’ Black and Brown communities, in partnership with labor, have been developing a platform of policies that would address the city’s economic apartheid. Continue Reading

Neighborhood groups protest at the Seward Friendship Store.

Neighborhood groups and Seward Friendship store agree to agree

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It was one of the last hot days of September, and an impromptu group of people gathered underneath a big “EVERYONE WELCOME” sign on the front of the brand new green and beige building for a press conference. The Seward Friendship store was set to open by the end of the week. It was the new branch of one of the largest co-ops in the country, right on the border of the Bryant and Central neighborhoods in South Minneapolis. The area is both home to a critical mass of the city’s low-income communities and long-time home to many of Minneapolis’ people of color.

The press conference was not without tension. Activists from CANDO, the neighborhood group representing South Minneapolis’ diverse Central neighborhood, had spent all summer knocking on doors trying to get neighbors interested in their petition. At the time, earlier in the summer, chances seemed slim that anything would happen.

“We don’t have any leverage,” I remember one of the CANDO faithful telling me at a meeting a few months before.

By July, negotiations had fallen apart between the neighborhood groups and The Seward Co-op. The new store on 38th Street was in the heart of the South Minneapolis food desert and along one of the city’s few historically African-American business corridors. For most of the summer, the parties seemed far apart on the key issues: hiring practices that reflected the diverse demographics of the neighborhood and discounts on food and membership for low-income neighbors. In fact, the two sides couldn’t even agree on what to call a potential agreement: CANDO was demanding a CBA (community benefits agreement) while the Seward staffers had, for a while, offered an MBA (mutual benefits agreement). Neither side was happy with the other’s position, and after a few heated and unproductive community meetings, the official word from Seward was that they were not going to sign anything before the October opening of the new store. Any agreement would wait until next year, months after the crucial hiring had been completed. That timeline did not sit well with concerned neighbors. Continue Reading

Black Fair - White Privilege

“Minnesota Nice” and Minnesota’s Racism

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Minnesota Nice is the transplants’ nice way of calling born-and-reared-here Minnesotans passive-aggressive. For those of us who’ve lived in other places, such indirectness is baffling at best, and emotionally abusive at worst. In other words, it’s not nice at all. Continue Reading

Amoke Kubat

Amoké Kubat stages healing in racial divide between black and white women

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“I’m at a point in my life where I have forged a place where I can write, and I’m writing things out that maybe I’m still trying to make sense of,” Amoké Kubat says as we spent an early autumn afternoon talking about her new piece, “Angry Black Woman and Well-Intentioned White Woman.” The work-in-progress debuts tonight at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave South in Minneapolis, at 7 p.m. followed by a Q & A and reception. Continue Reading

Duchess Harris

Whose work gets to be considered activism?

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Photos by Kayla Steinberg
It would be easy to say from interviewing Duchess Harris that her wisdom comes from her nearly 30 years as a scholar and professor, teaching about the mechanics and dynamics of how race and racism works, particularly on how they infuse the laws that govern the nation, this state and our lives. Easy, yes—but not quite correct. Harris knows what she knows because she occupies an uneasier position: activist-scholar. She’s that professor who believes what she and her colleagues posit, preach and produce in peer-reviewed journals, conferences and books needs to be available to the rest of us outside of academia. Her teaching and her civic involvement in local politics is how she helps bend the arc toward justice. Continue Reading

Searching for shared truths on teaching and race

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After 25 years of teaching in Minneapolis with predominately all-white teachers and administrations, one day, I realized it got down to this …

If I never saw a white person again, especially a white woman, it would be too soon! Continue Reading

Rage, Hope, Love Fueling Black Lives Matter Movement

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“The problem is poverty. The problem is racism,” said Rev. Victoria Safford of the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church. “The problem is deep, deep, old oppression.”

Safford was one of more than 200 people who showed up outside an Edina, Minnesota court to support eleven people who have been charged with a variety of crimes after a December Black Lives Matter rally at the Mall of America. The problems of poverty, racism and oppression are at the root of what the Black Lives Matter movement is fighting against. What will it to take to fix it? Continue Reading

Shut down the train: Newberger’s concerns about prison visitors and metro date back to 2008

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As we reported in Mention St. Cloud & visions of prison & North Minneapolis pop into Jim Newberger’s head, the Becker Republican gained unwelcome attention from linking North Minneapolis and the state prison in St. Cloud via the North Star Rail. A review of sources reveals that that Newberger’s concerns about trains carrying visitors to the prison from the metro go back to at least 2008.  It appears what popped into his head in his floor remarks was the specific urban neighborhood, rather than the more general “metro.” While Minnesota state representative describes himself as an evangelical Christian, he doesn’t seem very keen on some of Jesus’s schtick in Matthew about how visiting people in prison is like visiting Christ Himself. Continue Reading

Structural Racism At Root Of Offensive Remark About North Minneapolis

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Others booed, but Rep. Rena Moran (DFL-St.Paul) thought for several hours before responding to an offensive remark Rep. Jim Newberger (R-Becker) had made about North Minneapolis.During a debate on funding for the North Star rail line Newberger said “Boy, wouldn’t that be convenient, to have that rail line going from the prison to North Minneapolis.” After hearing some grumbling he quickly added, “or to any section of our state.” Boos were heard in the House chamber.As the clock was approaching midnight, Moran got up to address the body on a point of personal privilege.“So often we say let it go, let it pass. You know, don’t respond to it. But I feel that I have a need to respond to Rep. Newberger’s comments that he made earlier.”Moran said she found Newberger’s initial comment offensive. “I truly felt disrespected myself. And I know I don’t stand alone in feeling disrespect but North Minneapolis and St. Continue Reading