The Experience of Ron EdwardsA Renaissance Black Man in a White Man's WorldA Beacon for Freedom in the City
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September, 24, 2014 #39: Peterson, Rice and the NFL. The controversies continue.
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
September 17, 2014
Pull quote: How do we develop understandable common definitions for “discipline” and “abuse”?
The media focus on the NFL’s Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice hide ideologies for bashing the NFL and its wealthy Black males. As one commentaor put it, “What we’re facing is not an epidemic of man-against-woman violence in the NFL, but of ideologically driven NFL bashing.”
Let’s be clear about four things. I don’t condone:
1. Any kind of abuse, physical or oral, spousal or child.
2. Whites getting preferential treatment over Blacks in prison/no prison options.
3. Choosing retribution/prison first when restorative second chances are possible.
4. Rushing to dismiss “due process” and “innocent until proven guilty” and
unwarranted imprisoning of fathers as abusers of their children.
Ignored facts:
• NFL players are half as likely to commit domestic violence as men in their 20s in the general population, according to a study published in USA Today.
• “Gender symmetry” exists: Men strike the first blow in 27 percent of the cases, women strike first in 24 percent of the cases, with violence a mutual brawl the remainder of the time.
• Anti-abuse programs work. Thousands of men arrested for intimate-partner abuse have learned to become nonviolent. After four years (if they complete their programs), 90 percent are successful, with 85 percent of the women saying “they now felt very safe.” The success is because the men “desire to save their relationship.”
• Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent wrote two weeks ago that to punish once and then attempt to punish again smacks of double jeopardy(the guarantee against being “twice put in jeopardy” is a constitutional right).
• Skin color in Minnesota is often the criteria for who is or is not picked for prosecution (see my 2002 book The Minneapolis Story). In chapter 15 (“The Story of Punting the Minnesota Vikings…”), I suggest that the White power structure is uncomfortable with highly paid and visible Black men in town, living in their neighborhoods and playing on their golf courses, resulting in their desire that “the Vikings should move” (see my December 2, 2003 “roll call” of those saying so.
Important questions include:
• Is the hollow, false ring of Commissioner Goodell’s statements about Ray Rice because Goodell is lying about not having seen the elevator tape seen by practically everyone else in the free world?
• How do we develop understandable common definitions for “discipline” and “abuse”? Hence Adrian Peterson's statement that although "not a perfect parent, I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser."
• How do we factor in Charles Barkley’s statements: “We spank kids in the South,” and “I'm from the South. Whipping — we do that all the time”? So what do we do? Jail every parent?
• Is the media focus because of conservatives who own teams and/or because the NFL is a stepping-stone to wealth and success for Black males?
• As Rice and Peterson told the truth and worked it out with the NFL, their teams and their families months ago (four months ago for Peterson, six months ago for Rice), why is this now treated as “new,” with media mobs racing to destroy these two Black families?
• With assaults through public policy on Black families, don’t we owe more to Peterson and Rice to allow them to demonstrate they understand the new boundaries of discipline, wanting to be good fathers, or is it more important to abuse their children by imprisoning their fathers and stripping away their means to support their families?
• As Adrian Peterson is a good person well loved and respected in his hometown of Palestine, Texas and in Minnesota, how is it that a few minutes in his life are used to define many years of outstanding behavior, as Peterson credits his success in life to his strict discipline as a child (as does Charles Barkley)?
• Why is media using this to distract from real problems: racial tensions and injustices and serious threats to national security? Don’t let this draw attention away from how Blacks are unequally treated, especially in the criminal justice system.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To Order his books go to www.BeaconOntheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted September 7, 2014, 4:05 p.m
Editor's note: see also:
Ray Rice and Wife Step Out Together as Friends Defend Their Marriage
“a loving couple.”
"National Football League controversies,"Wikipedia, 42 pages"
Vikings Place Adrian Peterson n NFL exempt list
Vikings Place Adrian Peterson on NFL exempt list
Also:
in NY Daily News
Double Jeaporday
A rape epidemic — by women?
6:55 p.m. EDT September 22, 2014
New CDC report reveals troubling equality when it comes to sexual assault rates.
Posted September 7, 2014, 4:05 p.m.
September, 17, 2014 #38: New developments in Ferguson, MO. New witnesses come forward
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
September 17, 2014
There are efforts being made to draw America’s attention away from Ferguson, Missouri in St. Louis County and the recent police killing in Ferguson of 18-year-old Michael Brown. White media is attempting to distract us with stories of Ray Rice, domestic violence, international conflicts, immigration, and the president’s golf games.
This is how magicians distract their audience, calling attention to one hand while the other hand pulls rabbits from hats, saws women in half, turn scarves into flying doves, and, in our case, turn a teenager preparing to go to college into a strong-arming thug.
Media sleight of hand is also seen in their portrayal of Black young men as the violent drug users, whereas five times as many White Americans use drugs as Black Americans who are sent to prison at 10 times the rate of Whites. Black America must stay the course regarding Michael Brown.
Mainstream media and officials at all levels (federal, state, local), offer distractions and misdirection, hoping to make Ferguson and negative race relations in America disappear as they wait to pull their containment plans out of their hats. This is now all challenged by the emergence of two new witnesses to the execution of 18-year-old Michael Brown, witnesses who are White, witnesses who support what Black witnesses have said (we broke the story on our blog radio show two hours before CNN reported it).
The two White witnesses raise tough questions for those who have gone to great lengths to show that Black witnesses aren’t credible. One of those White witnesses had a 10-minute conversation with Michael Brown a half hour before his execution by Ferguson County police officer Darren Wilson.
The majority of media have distracted from Officer Wilson’s first law enforcement job with the Jennings, Missouri police department, an all-White force in a city 95.4 percent Black, 37.7 miles away in the same county (as a whole: St. Louis County is 70.3 percent White, 23.3 percent Black).
The Jennings Black city council decided its all-White police department was so out of control in its acts of brutality against the Black community that it disbanded and fired those police officers, one of which was Officer Darren Wilson, Michael Brown’s killer. Wilson found immediate employment in Ferguson, MO. These important facts add to our understanding of why race relations are kept poor in St. Louis County. It’s not by accident.
We are concerned. How can the St. Louis county attorney conduct an impartial and unbiased examination in light of his demonstrated extreme prejudice and bias against the Black citizens in the county, as we question his commitment to being fair and unbiased in the search for answers? Further troubling: As of this writing (September 9, 2014), we have yet to see any statement by Officer Darren Wilson, who has had quite a bit of turbulence in his life, even prior to becoming a law enforcement officer.
The county’s grand jury decision is to be rendered in October. We must take care not to be distracted from an investigation of the tragic taking of Michael Brown’s life on August 29, 2014.
The Department of Justice is now examining the long history of negative race relations between Ferguson’s police and the Black community. Expect no surprises from this decades-long history of violating the rights and safety of Ferguson’s African Americans [“decades-long” means white power works hard to maintain the status quo of no changes].
We like to think race relations progress is being made, another sleight of hand, as Ferguson is a clear example that race relations have improved little and that we as a nation have not worked out an answer for improving fairness and justice for all Black Americans.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books, go to www.BeaconOnTheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted September 18, 2014, 12:30 a.m.
September, 10, 2014 #37: Ferguson and Homeland Security: Some ask:
"Are they intertwined?" We answer by asking: "Why are they being intertwined?", becasue they are!
September 10, 2014
Pull quote: We are concerned about this intensified examination and discussion regarding Black Americans, both male and female, as threats to our national security.
As we watch closely the events in Ferguson and greater St. Louis County, Missouri, we are disturbed to hear Democrats and Republicans say it is somehow related to the threat to America’s national security, as if Ferguson represents the beginning of an invasion from otherwise uninvolved Black communities.
As threats are made by real terrorists to fly their flag over the White House, we appreciate the personal and nationalist threats, but, we don't like the false suggestion thatit represents Black Americans. The sense of foreboding from the realness of the threats is being used as an excuse to tighten security for greater control of neighborhoods of color unrelated to the national security issues, as Ferguson demonstrates regarding the new debate over the militarization of urban police .
The Black community is keenly aware that not since the roundup of Japanese Americans during the Second World War, and the creation of internment camps, and the expression of fear during the urban riots of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, has the Negro population been as unfairly painted as a threat to our national security.
Let’s cut to the chase: We in the Twin Cities are at the epicenter of the call for a reexamination of constitutional guarantees. We as Black Americans have a front-row seat watching how we are painted as scapegoats in dealing with this foreign threat to America, resulting in undesired and troubling added layers of control on our neighborhoods by Homeland Security.
Just because three young men of American birth were killed fighting in Syria and Somalia under the flag of the newly declared Islamic State does not mean that because they are Black the same position is held by Black America. This kind of thinking is repeating the injustice to the Japanese in the 1940’s and Black Americans in the 1960s. There is a difference between “Somali American” and “Black American.” It is very chilling as media and government officials discuss our Somali community as why America should fear its Black citizens.
Novels and movies have romanticized the thousands of Whites who joined foreign wars on both sides. It is not a Black thing.
Don’t be fooled. This is real. The attorney for the U.S. district of Minnesota was summoned prior to these events to forge plans to deal with ISIS recruiting Somali Americans who are first-generation Americans born and raised here. In England there are more natural-born English citizens of Middle Eastern immigrants fighting for the Islamic State (IS) than serving in the British military.
We are concerned about this intensified examination and discussion regarding Black Americans, both male and female, as threats to our national security. The early warning sign in Ferguson of the militarization of predominantly White law enforcement agencies in the St. Louis area could be an excuse to do the same in the Twin Cities.
The Japanese Americans in the 1940s and African Americans in the 1960s were surprised, shocked and caught off guard by the swiftness their civil liberties and civil rights were taken away en masse, entire communities, not just individuals, despite many times their number of Whites that actively supported the Japanese, German, and Russian causes.
We will not be surprised if Ferguson events regarding Officer Wilson are treated as business as usual, just as the same anger and frustration after the death of Trayvon Martin is just another forgotten American tragedy.
Even though we are at the epicenter of the debate discussing race relations in and immigration to America, steps need to be taken to keep what happened in Ferguson from being an excuse to be a precursor of militarized responses to our neighborhoods.
Stay tuned.
Ed. note: this column was submitted to MSR September 3rd. Since then white witnesses have stepped forth to corroborate much of what the dismissed Black witness said. As white grand jury members give more credibility to white witnesses over Black ones, there may be a chance for justice yet.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To Order his books go to www.BeaconOntheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted August Sep 10, 2014, 1:54 p.m.
September, 03, 2014 #36: Vikings win — again. Wilfs save stadium — again.
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
September 3, 2014
Pull quote: When asked at a recent public meeting to see workforce participation numbers, the MSFA could not produce the numbers.
Did you cheer the Vikings paying $50 million more toward stadium costs? Jeer instead the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA), state legislature and city council: they created this mess.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 22-25, 2014 ran stories suggesting this cheers-jeers difference:
Vikings kick in $46 million more for new stadium
Vikings pony up $49M for stadium accessories
Up close with Vikings' stadium contractor Dave Mansell
It is not the MSFSA saving the Vikings, but — drum roll, please — the Wilf Vikings ownership group. We can hear MSFA and others cheer under their breath, “Thank God for Ziggy.”
Stadium costs have risen from $975 million to $1.023 billion (and will continue to climb as we predicted last year. We estimated last year that the stadium cost oveun will eventually be at least $300 million).
There were more closed discussions, not transparency, again, this time in selecting the stadium’s long-term manager: SMG (which fortunately enjoys a good relationship with the Wilfs through SMG’s Jim Scherer, who they trust).
The Audubon Society and birds found out just how irrelevant they are. The MSFA greatly underestimated European steel costs to be charged by the Luxemburg-India conglomeration sourcing the steel, wiping out discussions and promises to Minnesota’s Iron Range, as we also predicted (see our December 4, 2012 column: “To the extent practical” escape language in legislation allows steel purchase outside Iron Range).
Why didn’t the MSFA exercise greater responsibility to pay greater attention to design and construction stages before signing (see stadium legislation language, p. 9, line 11.23 to line 11.28)? Stadium profits provide long-term operational stability.
The State, City and MSFA plans would not. SMG’s will (Dallas and Washington make $200-300 million more than the other teams and their stadiums, using their stadiums as profit anchors, as we have advocated and shown “how” to Minnesota, Minneapolis and the Vikings (we mistakenly thought our “no new taxes” approach would interest City and State).
Contrary to what some believe, we have not been hard on the Vikings. We have merely gneo where the facts led: the state and city not being in labor force compliance. We are hard only on those refusing to follow, support and/or stand up for state laws and city statutes regarding training and hiring of minority/diversity/people of color.
We condemn avoiding hiring people of color by including White women in the count. Mondale told me personally, in an open meeting with others, that although they didn’t comply on the other stadiums they would with the Vikings stadium. He lied. Again.
We now ask the Vikings to call a meeting of all stakeholders (State, City, contractors, venders) to design and exercise hiring compliance procedures, following legislatively directed diversity employment requirements and directives without the loopholes. It would be a great way to divert a Ferguson in Minneapolis.
I have written extensively about the Vikings, Minnesota, Minneapolis and the stadium issue since 2002: book, columns; blog entries; solution papers (latest will be August 30, 2014): ). book, columns, blog entries, solution papers.
The next “solution paper,” #48, will post , September 5, 2014. It will organize my extensive coverage of the Vikings since Solutions Paper, #47, December 11, 2013: Save the Vikings! Or do they move? List of ten columns since 2005 and one book Chapter, 2002, offering solutions for how to Save the Vikings!
#48 will include these columns:
We rejoice that the 2018 Super Bowl will give the Vikings and the NFL even more economic sustainability. This means we will have our beloved Vikings to cheer on for decades to come.
We do not cheer fewer jobs for people of color, nor do we cheer language under section 17 sub 473j.121 of the stadium legislation that offers loopholes to avoid hiring people of color. When recently asked at a recent public meeting to see work force participation numbers the MSFA could not (would not?)produce the numbers.
We encourage a forensic audit of the MSFA books now and ongoing, not after stadium completion.
Fans are cheering the new stadium. The Wilfs are cheering on their private airplane back to NJ to their favorite bank and stadium-management company.
Where are the cheering workers of color?
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To Order his books go to www.BeaconOntheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted Sep 4, 2014, 9:24 p.m.
August, 27, 2014 #35: 6% Blacks in MPD. When will we get the numbers right?
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
In the early 90s, Minneapolis became known as “Murderopolis. No wonder: by 1987, Minneapolis had the lowest number of sworn police officers since 1915 and few Black officers. The Star Tribune confirmed this ongoing diversity scandal August 18, 2014, Minneapolis police struggle to hire diverse force (as we reported in our July 31, 2014 column).
A New York city newspaper headline two weeks ago should concern us all: Of Ferguson and Fallujah, two disastrously reactive police forces.
Some people fear the police. Some police fear the people, especially Black people. Diversity is the key, for with diversity the pool of candidates is greatly increased, as well as police acceptance in the community. Minneapolis must stop attempting to decrease that pool and cease blocking diversity. Let’s look at the history:
Total Police Officers:
Total Black Police Officers:
Our police Chief has to head off this recruitment and hiring disaster. She is to reach the sworn personnel number of 860 by the end of this year.
Nightly news of Ferguson, Missouri and Falujah, Iraq have awakened people to the reality of what can happen when young people see no options, no hope, no jobs, no inclusion.
From 2004-2008, the PCRC (Police Community Relations Council) working together with the DOJ (federal Department of Justice), gathered statistical data, analyzed it, and concluded that unless the MPD’s Comprehensive Diversity Plan of June 2008 was followed and vigorously pursued, as signed off on by then Police Chief Nolan, Minneapolis would slip into dark days.
This summer we have watched with shock and dismay how the Human Resources Department, under Ms. Patience Ferguson, continually violates the City Charter, working hand in hand with the Department of Civil Rights, purposefully withholding information from the police Chief and the Mayor regarding how the Comprehensive Diversity Plan of 2008 has collapsed. Once again, the African American community will be shut out, passed over, and denied equal opportunity, all under color of law.
I also alerted the head of the public safety committee of the collapse of the Comprehensive Diversity Plan and that information was also being withheld from his committee,
John Delmonico, President of the Police Federation, warned that if the MPD’s Comprehensive Diversity Plan is not engaged fully and with commitment, it would be harmful to the department and the city.
Channel 5 and the Star Tribune have begun to cover the diversity scandal and how the Comprehensive Diversity Plan has been gutted. Will the Mayor and City Council act?
Minneapolis would not be in this predicament had the Comprehensive Diversity Plan been followed, had John Delmonico been listened to, and had the alert I sent, as a former DOJ monitor, been listened to. Instead we report in this column the shameful failure to seek diversity.
Our readers know we have written that diversity in the fire department is also in trouble. Fortunately, the Fire Chief has indicated to this former federal overseer that he is prepared to work on the problem. Will the Police Chief and the Mayor do the same?
Senior black fire fighters and police officers in St. Paul report the same impending disaster: disappearance of African Americans from the fire and police services. What a dark day for those who fought hard to make the police and fire departments reflective of the communities they are to protect and serve.
Will the failure of Minneapolis and St. Paul to diversify lead to “another Ferguson,” this time in the Twin Cities?
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To Order his books go to www.BeaconOntheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted August Sep 1, 2014, 9:14 a.m.
August, 20, 2014 #34: Ferguson, MO: An American Race Tragedy. Again.
Conflicting versions with parallels to Minneapolis
August 20, 2014
Editor’s Note: this column was written August 12, 2014, 3 days after the shooting in order to meet submission deadline of August 13, for release later by publishing and posting August 20, 2014.
Pull quote: Ferguson: 67percent African American, six of percent of 53 member police department are Black.
Unarmed Michael Brown, August 9, 2014. 18 years old, to start college in two days. Instead: stopped by police while walking on a street of Ferguson, MO, suburb of St. Louis; shot and killed. Rioting, burning, and looting followed. 20 police cars burned. “…like a war zone.”
The police version so far differs greatly from community eye witnesses, suggesting blinded justice promising but unable to see how to delivering a police investigation with truth and transparency. Will the FBI and Federal Department of Justice be the same way?
Community of Ferguson, MO eye witness accounts vs. Police version:
Parallels between Minneapolis, Ferguson and other cities
Thoughts regarding next steps:
Hope is seen in those of Ferguson attempting to follow a non-violent model:
What’s at stake: either more or less Ferguson style violence, here and abroad.
Why are so many citizens and office holders comfortable with violence? There is no “safety” in not respecting all life, regardless of color, a pre-requisite for a civilized society. Most disappointing: first Black president urging us to remember Michael Brown “through reflection and understanding” rather than through education, jobs, economic development, and rethinking police actions.
We pray again for a black family whose child has been gunned down by police. Our prayers continue for the opening of the eyes of Black and White leadership world wide to see and work toward peace and prosperity for all, to end violence and establish stability in what should be the safest nation on the face of the earth.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To Order his books go to www.BeaconOntheHillPress.com.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted August 23, 2014, 5:12 a.m.
August, 13, 2014 #33: Title HereStadium Update. Is 34% minority participation goal being met?
August 13, 2014
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
Pull Quote: Is 34 percent minority participation goal being met?
As Vikings fly up and down the field in training camp, our City Council is concerned about birds flying into the Viking Stadium glass walls. Why? They were unconcerned about letting stadium tax dollars fly into the stadium walls without taxpayer required approval. They seem unconcerned about birds flying into blades of giant renewable energy wind mills. And they seem unconcerned as construction jobs, hours, and pay of minorities fly into the stadium glass wall of broken promises and statutes, just as done with new stadiums for the Gophers, Twins, and Wild.
As the city and state chose the architect and the contractor, isn’t this their problem? Why are they not using the contingency – emergency funds of this $2 billion stadium? Why now the million dollar bird fix demand? What other non-agreement “fixes” await in the wings that the Vikings will be called on to pay if this precedent setting extortion works?
Is this about birds or about those who are anti-stadium, anti-growth, anti-rich corporations, anti any change to the environment, or anti something else? Anyone see a stadium environmental study?
And now that the Minneapolis Park Board refuses to bail out the People’s Park to be out front of the stadium, who will be asked to pay for that? What else is being hidden from the public by the Sports Authority, ready to surface, expecting the Vikings and/or tax payers to pay? What other “cooking of the books” is going on?
The Star Tribune recently reported Polar Explorer Will Steger hired two Summit OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center) graduates, a white female and a Black male. Steger’s 25 year project in the North woods around Ely, MN, to create a conference center far from everyone, where the “thinkers” of the world can gather to think about how those not there should live, exposes the level of training of Summit OIC graduates. The article clearly suggests they aren’t qualified for stadium construction work. How many Summit graduates are?
Do they have licenses as Journeymen or Apprentices? What do their certificates of completion mean? Summit OIC claims they can “take a person earning an average of $5,500 a year and after just 20 weeks of training start them at a job that will earn an average of $26,000 annually.” How many Summit OIC graduates have actually done so? With 12% of whites and 26% of Blacks living in poverty in America today, how come Summit OIC grads are not being lifted out of poverty?
The Vikings stadium construction appears to be bypassing African Americans as was done Gophers, Twins, and Wild. Where is the report on the numbers of hours worked by women and minorities on the Vikings stadium so far? The Sports Facility Authority indicated December 3rd, 2013, that, to meet its commitment, 32% of the hours worked on the stadium would indeed be by women and people of color (we asked that figures be broken down by women and people of color, and not be combined).
32% of hours for women and people of color translates into close to a million and a half hours. Where is the report attesting to that? We are asking for verification.
32% of hours, at an average salary of $27/hr, means an economic surge in the African American community. Where’s that surge? Where’s the signed report? How many Summit graduates are employed at the stadium?
This column asks for the release of the certification of hours employed by the African American community and others of color on this stadium project. In what way is prosperity here again for the African American community?
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted August 15, 2014, 5:38 a.m.
August, 07, 2014 #32: The real immigration story
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
August 7, 2014
Pullquote: How many seeking America’s charter of liberty can get into “lifeboat America” before America sinks?
For nearly 400 years, since 1620, the dark secret of American immigration has been its policies detrimental to Blacks (Black Africans, Black Cubans, Black Caribbeans). Most slaves to North America arrived through the Caribbean.
We see this dark secret replayed given the contrasting treatment of Black children to that of the thousands of Latin children coming from Central American and Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande into America, with help from their countries and ours, leaving most things unchanged for immigrants from Black Africa, Black Cuba, and Black Caribbean. Thus, America has been confronted with the problem of immigration and race since its inception.
Today’s reactions to the voluntary child immigrants ranges from embarrassed and angry, to happy celebration, from seal the border, to take down the walls and fences and let in any who wants to come (Jimmy Carter urged the latter when he was president). The continuity is that again, others are leap frogged over Blacks.
Central American countries and Mexico have offices established to provide papers for people to cross the Rio Grande to offices in the USA ready to receive them, as our federal government assigns them to different cities as they come in. Also taking advantage are Al-Queda members from the Middle East. How many seeking America’s charter of liberty can get into “lifeboat America” before America sinks?
The Black immigrant experience was involuntary: slavery, Jim Crow, and now continued discrimination under continued quota systems that discriminate by sawing off the rungs of the ladder of mobility and by installing a ceiling. Ask Black Haitians. Ask Black Cubans. Ask Black Africans.
William Kunstler, the brilliant and sometimes radical civil rights attorney (mid 60s – mid 90s), stated that “My purpose is to keep the state from becoming all-domineering, all powerful," especially over minorities. William Kuntsler, of a different mind, worked to end blocking those seeking an opportunity for a better life for American Blacks and for immigrants.
In the mid-1960s, Harlem’s Congressman Adam Clayton Powell exposed the secret quota system being run by the Immigration Service, blocking the entry of Blacks from around the world from entering the United States of America. Ebony magazine ran its landmark exposure article in 1971. There was no liberal outcry other than from a small group of Black Americans and an even smaller group of White liberals. Many Black Haitian and Black Cuban “boat people” drowned in the Caribbean as a result of America turning them away from America’s borders.
Read the speeches printed into the Congressional Record by Harlem’s Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., by Illinois Congressman William Dawson, by New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, by Michigan Congressman John Conyers, and as continued by the Congressional Black Caucus today, as these issues remain unresolved. Black America has stood mostly alone in exposing this ongoing racially charged immigration policy.
I remember the riots in the 1980s at the Atlanta federal penitentiary in Atlanta, GA, by Black Haitians and Black Cubans, some who had been held for over five years in federal detention with no charges made against them. It was that policy of holding people indefinitely without charge that evolved into the policies at our military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
White immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe, seen as kinsmen, are protected as Whites with White privilege. How different has been the experience of immigrants from Africa, from the very beginnings in America. They could not/can’t invoke White privilege. America’s purposeful race amnesia continues.
America’s dark history regarding Black immigration – pun intended – continues, as America continues to balk at discussing the issue of race with truthfulness and integrity.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted August 9, 2014, 6:36 p.m.
July, 30, 2014 #31: MPD and MFD in trouble (Minneapolis Police and Fire Departments). Racial balance is being lost.
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
July 31, 2014
Pullquote: Liberals for the African American are, quite simply stated, “regressive,” using the twisted guise of “fairness” to continually make it difficult for African Americans and people of color to be treated fairly and equitably.
The facts of the last 40 years reveal Minnesota is not, when it comes to African Americans, liberal and progressive. It is illiberal and regressive, openly and defiantly not complying with federal or local civil rights laws and rules, adopting purposeful amnesia to counter such inconvenient memories.
1972: the federal court in the State of Minnesota, imposed sanctions on the Minneapolis Fire Department and the City of Minneapolis for such violations.
1979: a request sent by this columnist, as chairman of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, to the federal court for a review of its 1972 decree. The court did so and imposed sanctions on the City of Minneapolis and its fire department, appointing a special federal oversight committee.
1989: based on the investigation by the court’s oversight committee of continued violations, serious sanctions of $1 million were imposed on the City and its fire department and, thus, its tax payers.
1989: the City of Minneapolis said it had learned its lesson and would comply and honor the requirements of the law -- another lie. The City, comfortable in its violations of federal requirements for integrating its fire and police departments, despite occasional sanctions, has not employed any significant number of African Americans in the last two employment hires.
2000: the city agreed that the Civil Rights Department would monitor and undertake due diligence regarding compliance, and report and update the racial composition of the fire and police services. The Civil Rights Department has not made a report on this in 10 years, enabling continued undermining of African Americans in the fire and police services.
2014: two weeks ago, the fire department quietly hired 19 new fire fighters; only one was a person of color.
2014: Three days ago, as of this July 22 column submission, the City of Minneapolis and its Human Resources Department, over the objections of the Police Federation under Lt. John Delmonico, finalized the next class of officers to be hired, bragging of hiring 30 percent people of color when, in reality, they again short changed people of color:
1 2 3
Category of Hires # Tested # Passed
Black males 34 4
Black females 9 3
Hispanic males 10 3
Hispanic females 0 0
Asian males 24 2
Asian females 1 0
Native American males 3 1
Native American females 0 0
White males 49 29 *
White females 20 28 **
Totals: 150 60
* after adjusting by adding 10 more, assumed, given lack of clarity in city numbers
** after adjusting by adding 8 more, assumed, given lack of clarity in city numbers.
While city government talks about equity, diversity, affirmative action and all of the other glossy liberal terms that are as meaningless as the vows by liberals that they will open the doors of opportunity, they used a new formula to enable Whites to pass over African Americans, moving African Americans toward becoming endangered species in the police and fire departments.
Liberals, for fellow Whites, are “progressive.” Liberals, for the African American are, quite simply stated, “regressive,” using the twisted guise of “fairness” to continually make it difficult for African Americans and people of color to be treated fairly and equitably.
Velma Korbel, director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, was notified that due diligence was needed. She declined to be diligent and declined to conduct the due diligence needed to offer protection and opportunity for the African American community and other people of color.
Therefore, my conclusion is this: it is time that the fire and police services again be placed under federal administration, and that the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, another purposefully failing bureaucracy, be unceremoniously disbanded.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted July 31, 2014, 11:58 p.m.
July, 24, 2014 #30: The violence just won’t go away. Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago at the Crossroads
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online.
July 24, 2014.
PULL QUOTE: The [civil rights] department has been a disaster through two directors and two mayors.
“Murderopolis continues to flourish” was our column headline, September 26, 2011. We in Minneapolis, as Chicago, Indianapolis, and other cities, are at a crossroads: Choose between the protection and prosperity for the “helping” bureaucracies or protection and prosperity for those they were established to help?
More trillions for bureaus or for those the bureaus were created to help? “Murderopolis?” Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis and other cities, or not Murderopolis?
As the nation’s attention turns to violence involving guns in Minneapolis, Chicago and Indianapolis, among other cities, proportionality is seen: Each city is on par with the level of gun violence per capita. Why won’t the violence go away?
Common threads:
(1) illegal drugs, especially heroin, an evil driving terrorism in cities like Minneapolis;
(2) a disturbing number of African American males confined to wheelchairs due to shootings and assaults;
(3) attacks on police officers (Indianapolis police officers have been shot at 18 times this year by gunmen firing from ambush;
(4) a reduction in the number of police officers and sheriffs needed;
(5) continue spending of trillions to support the bureaucracies established to help people rather than spending it on helping people excel in education, jobs, and housing; and
(6) all contributing to what seem like policies reflecting a calculated and intentional genocide.
Murders are taking place by any means necessary, especially with guns and knives. Who gets protected? How about baseball? Minneapolis created “clean zones” (clean of Blacks) to protect the city’s $145 million windfall from hosting Major League Baseball’s All Star Game July 15, demonstrating that communities considered valuable receive protection.
One hundred police officers were borrowed from other jurisdictions to keep these zones “clean.” Communities not considered “valuable” do not receive such protection. This emerging debate in Chicago and Indianapolis has made their mayors extremely unpopular with the affected Black and Brown communities.
We hear discussions about getting guns off the street but few about how guns got on the street. It was little discussed at the recent so-called law enforcement summit at the school district HQ in North Minneapolis.
For over 30 years we’ve asked: Are gun manufacturing plants located within affected communities? We know there are no Black people manufacturing weapons. There are no Black people with access to the materials needed to manufacture and market high-powered assault weapons and handguns.
The African American community doesn’t even have a business that manufactures knives. The economic surge in the area of weapons is for Whites. The violence surge in caused by weapons is for Blacks.
This cycle of violence has a “weapons highway” between big Chicago and the little Chicagos like Minneapolis and Indianapolis. These modern trails of broken tears are from communities seeing their future destroyed.
Minneapolis and Indianapolis have not yet reached the point of needing to deploy the National Guard. The African American community needs to be convinced that the system cares and that it has a solution for the preservation of African American lives, now and in the future. We do not enjoy being a doomsday predictor, but one homicide a week and numerous assaults is why we are.
Dreams are dying and fears are rising in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Indianapolis because of these patterns of violence, at the center of which are guns and drugs brought into our communities. We recall the 1985 speech by now-U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters. As a member of the California Assembly, she warned that this problem was rapidly approaching.
People didn’t listen. People didn’t believe. And now we see the consequences of a very calculated plan that threatens the very future of Blacks in America.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted Thursday, July 25, 2014, 11:41 p.m.
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
July 17, 2014
Pull quote: Our children are being mis-educated, under educated, or not educated at all, as they are dismissed, betrayed and violated.
Why do White and Black leaders assume the Black community has waved a white flag of submission? However, we do raise questions about what is being planned for us as if we had, as seen during the various “summit” decision meetings ((see my columns of May 1, 2014 (Safe streets promoted for White baseball. Selective reporting keeps the true level of violence concealed), and May, 15, 2014 #20 (Gang summit in Minneapolis. Preparing for summer 2014).
We are a community under siege: inadequate education, few jobs, no meaningful plans for the future beyond endless planning meetings of Black and White do-gooder talk leaders on how to continue obstructing our access to equality and opportunity, on how to set us aside to make room for others, of how to plan the kind of genocide/extinction “round ups” discussed at decision “summits.”
We celebrated our nation’s independence July 4th. Frederick Douglass, arguably the most famous fugitive slave of his day, asked in a historic speech, July 5, 1852: What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
Douglass gave a ringing affirmation of America’s ideals of freedom and liberty, left stalled and unfinished while slavery and racial discrimination existed. Being neither despairing (he was hopeful, due to the principles laid out by the founders in the Declaration and the Constitution that he saw as affirming the truth of liberty and equality) nor was he unduly negative (slavery was a fact and the slow pace of abolishing slavery was maddening).
The Minneapolis weekend of the July 4-6, certainty sent a chill through the very fiber of Minneapolis (nine shot, two killed, all within a period of 12 hours, Star Tribune, July 7, 2014 (Aggravated assaults rise in Minneapolis). Our columns referenced, of May 1 and 15, 2014, reported aboveon planning “summits,” which viewed only a small number of African Americans acceptable to the White and Black leadership. That was a shot across the bow of the Black community, exploding especially before our young and elderly, viewed as expendable.
Why did the mayor and police chief think their July 9, 2014 walk on our streets would give our community under siege a sense of protection and leave behind equal opportunity? They came. They walked and talked. They left. Status quo neglect of community remained.
Black Americans did not slip into this country in the dead of night, or behind dark clouds of benign neglect, or by climbing over or crawling under fences. We have served this nation in war and peace, in growth and prosperity. We have shed our blood in the defense of our nation. And yet, today, in this city, we have the impression that Whites assume we are waving the white flag of surrender, that they can, unopposed, adopt policies of nullification and reversal as the appropriate order of the day. But we will be damned if we are to turn our backs and leave the struggle only half completed.
Our obligation is to protect our freedom, our franchise, our future. Our children are being mis-educated, under educated, or not educated at all, as they are dismissed, betrayed and violated.
Submission is not within our community and civil rights DNA. We sill continue to dream of being treated with respect and afforded equal opportunity based on the content of our character, not denied due to the color of our skin.
We, the sons and daughters of the African, understand when there is a plan and mission afoot to marginalize us and remove us from the American scene, and, in this case, from the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. We who believe we are equal to all will not let attempts at genocide and extinction happen on our watch.
May God save and protect our future and help prevent the flag of surrender from being forced upon us.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted Thursday, July 17, 2014, 3:55 p.m.
July, 09, 2014 #28: A Civil Rights and faith leader passes from the American scene
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
July 10, 2014
As discussed last week, the Rev. Dr. Lillian Anthony was the first Director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, appointed in late 1967 by then Mayor Arthur Naftalin. Dr. Anthony quietly passed from this life at her home in Louisville, Kentucky, June 26, 2014. Her memorial will be in Louisville, July 11, 2014.
The Rev. Dr. Anthony’s history, legacy and accomplishments are legendary. She was clearly the right choice to be the first Direxor of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, setting a new tone for race relations in the city. She was not a woman to be intimidated nor forced to abandon her principles and her commitment.
When Lillian Anthony accepted the appointment as first to head the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, she was an experienced and successful civil rights activist and administrator. On the occasion of her departure in an article in the Minneapolis Star, dated May 29, 1969, she articulated her concerns about the future of the city because of those who opposed having a Civil Rights Department and Civil Rights Commission. That opposition still exists today. She and long-term activist Josie Johnson formed a very close philosophical relationship that served them well over their careers.
I remember the first time I met Ms. Anthony. I was about to become the vice chair of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, at age 28. I have been forever grateful for her friendship, fellowship and over all support, which allowed an active Civil Rights Department and Civil Rights Commission to make a difference carrying out the direction and dream expressed by Mayor Arthur Naftalin in his historic address to the Minneapolis City Council, June 30, 1963.
Dr. Anthony understood the principles of compassion and fairness. She knew the importance of not forgetting our history. As she stated at the 10th anniversary celebration of the Slave Memorial at Mount Vernon, VA, September 18, 1993, “The memory of our ancestors who are buried here is a tribute not only to the survival of a people but a tribute to our continued gifts to the world.”
Those memories and their significance are missing today from the Minneapolis Black leadership, as is their lack of commitment to the principles that created the Civil Rights Department and commission. Let’s not forget what the Minneapolis Star article, July 31, 1964, in which the legendary Mary Kyle, publisher of the Twin City Courier, and Ms. Josie Johnson, a member of the staff of then-Mayor Arthur Naftolin, reflected on the dangerous path that was being taken by women of truth and commitment in support of the missions of the Civil Rights Department and commission.
Lillian Anthony was ordained into the ministry of the Presbyterian Church USA, July 25, 1993. As noted, she served the national staff until retirement as Associate for Affirmative Action and Equal Employment. History will remember Dr. Anthony as a visionary, as a tenacious fighter for civil and human rights, and, for 40 years, a person of conscience on behalf of the Presbyterian Church, USA. She was known across the wider Presbyterian Church USA her work during and for her commitment to justice and advocacy.
She was honored February 20, 1990, for her role in the development of he Minneapolis Ordinance on Civil Rights and the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights.
The Rev. Dr. Anthony has embarked on her final journey. We all pass this way once in life. We look at her journey with pride, and remember her wisdom and compassion that inspired others to take that journey as well. May God’s hand be upon Dr. Anthony’s shoulders, and may we applaud her achievements in the name of all.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted Thursday, July 11, 2014, 8:30 p.m.
July, 3, 2014 #27: The Need for a New Lillian Anthony: 1st Director of Minneapolis Civil Rights Department
"Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues"
A weekly column by Ron Edwards
featured in the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
and Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder News Online
July 3, 2014
Editor’s note: Lilian Anthony passed away June 26. This column was submitted June 24. We will have a tribute column to Lilllian Anthony next week, July 10, 2014
This column provides a time line to further understand our discussion of the failure of the Civil Rights Department and Commission, including that of current director, Velma Korbel (hence our call in last week’s column, June 26, 2014, for her dismissal: Velma Korbel must go! Resignation must be submitted immediately). Recall also the Star Tribune piece of June 21, 2014: Once again, Minneapolis Civil Rights Department in turmoil
We forget these dates and events at our peril:
That vision has been undermined by Velma Korbel, certain predecessors, and those who support ongoing violations of the civil rights philosophy we have long fought to follow: to make a difference by working for social justice.
We still need a museum for remembrance, as the recently opened musem in Atlanta. If the history of our struggle is not remembered, it didn’t exist. If it is not understood, it won’t be ended. As a member of the board of directors of the Association of African American Museums recently stated, “We're going backward, not forward with the civil rights movement. … The whole future of this country is for different communities who care about social justice to get together, and work together.”
Let’s make a positive difference in education, jobs, and housing. Remember the question above: “Is non violence wearing thin?” Non-violence wears thin when the cause of social justice has worn even thinner.
Stay tuned.
Recent, relevant columns:
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solution papers, books and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
To order his books go to Beacon on the Hill Press.
To date: 47 Solution Papers.
Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2014, 9:20 p.m.
Ron hosts “Black Focus” on Channel 17, MTN-TV, Sundays, 5-6 pm. Formerly head of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission and the Urban League, he continues his “watchdog” role for Minneapolis. Order his book, hear his voice, read his solution papers, and read his between columns “web log” at www.TheMinneapolisStory.com.
Permission is granted to reproduce The Minneapolis Story columns, blog entires and solution papers. Please cite the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and www.TheMinneapolisStory.com for the columns. Please cite www.TheMinneapolisStory.com for blog entries and solution papers.
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