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6-24-2005/#66: U.S. Supreme Court adopts the Minneapolis Model, rules cities may seize homes: “Public Use” can now be used for the old “urban renewal = Negro Removal”, but now blight need not be present, just the city’s definition at the time.
Has the liberal Supreme Court learned from the DFL in Minneapolis? Is it the Minneapolis Model they are using, as they rule not for “the people” but for the special interests of their friends and city plantation masters, making “Urban Reneal = Negro Removal” much easier? They have now given Minneapolis the ultimate in “tools” to bull doze North Minneapolis and scatter people of color through “takings” of our neighborhoods for the “public good.”
Tyrone Terrill put his fellow blacks on notice with his shape up or get out “open letter.” The liberals on the Supreme Court have now put Blacks and non-tax payers on notice: get rich or get out. Hollman anyone?
Yahoo news reported yesterday that the Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes.
In other words, the liberals on the Supreme Court overruled the conservatives, 5-4, ruling that “Cities may bulldoze people’s homes to make way for shopping malls or other private development,…giving local governments broad power to seize private property to generate tax revenue.”
Yahoo reports that “The four-member liberal bloc (Stephens, Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter], typically has favored greater deference to cities.” They were joined by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stephens wrote the opinion and Justice Kennedy wrote the concurrence for the liberal majority, justified the ruling under their interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, “which allows governments to take private property if the land is for public use,” the excuse being that “since the project the city has in mind promises to bring more jobs and revenue” it is, therefore, “for public use.” In other words, private property and liberty be damned. All on a “promise,” on a guess. In other words, this helps solidify those who see a liberal agenda to install nation wide top down ruling by the elites of the Democratic party and their fellow travellers in the universities. That has been the story in Minneapolis. Now “the Minneapolis Model” gets rolled out across the country.
Justice O’Connor wrote the minority dissent for [herself and Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas). Brother Justice Thomas wrote a separate dissent .
Yahoo reports that, in dissent, “O’Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the…principle of individual property rights” and for “handing ‘disproportionate influence and power’ to the well-heeled” and city governments.
O’Connor wrote that “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” as now “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”
This is not small potatoes. Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties have been threatened or condemned in recent years. Here is the biggie: the property involved in this case was not run down, was not blighted, etc. Just working class homes. Here is the other biggie: all it requires for such out of your house life shattering decisions to be made is if local government can show the “benefit” of jobs and taxes.
This very much relates to Minneapolis. Our city has overreached and over spent and needs more taxes. Blacks in North Minneapolis and South Minneapolis are on prime, cheaper land. How easy, now, to run the poor and Black out of their homes to create tax creators (of course if they get Target-like deals we’ll lose our homes and the city still won’t get much in taxes, but oh how all who touch these Midas projects will benefit individually, bureacrats, council persons, legislators and developers). Just as the USSR countries did, the government can now come in and bulldoze any working class or poor neighborhood and start pouring the cement. Got gangs? Not in the public interest: bulldoze them. Have Black kids standing idly on corners? Not in the public interest: bulldoze them. We have seen them scatter the former Hollman residents to the four winds. No blight required. No project success guarantee required.
Now they can do it more easily and faster, and all “for the public good.” And in Minneapolis that means whatever the DFL says it means. As the King in “The King and I” says: “let it be said, liet it be so. It is Nike time: “just do it.” Bye bye “we the people,” bye bye liberty, bye bye property rights, bye bye individual freedom. Bob Dylon sang “the times they are a changin.” And so they are. This is another example of liberals abandoning the cities where they have redlined Blacks out and now can move them out. Who stood up for us? The conservatives, who in their disset are trying to free us from the liberal plantation masters that run the cities. Who would have guessed? For more Minneapolis examples of this “Minneapolis Model,” see every chapter of my book.
Why provide good education for Blacks when you can just run them out on “takings.”
Now the Minneapolis Planning Model tries to go nation wide. Recall our Chapter 8 on housing, and the McKinsey report that by the time the planning agencies and developers were done, nearly $1 billion had been spent (mostly on planning) resulting in a net gain of 52 housing units. Now Minneapolis won’t have to bother with fake housing projects to rake in the money for its monied bureaucrats: they’ll reverse: kick people out of their homes so they can pocket even more money by “serving” fellow planners and developers, all for their self deefined “public good”. The Supreme Court just completed the final piece of the liberal project: total control of the land, “we the people” be damned.
And who among the nine justices most forcibly stands up for Blacks? Brother Justice Thomas. He writes in his dissent (emphasis added):
Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them.” Id. , at 28. Public works projects in the 1950’s and 1960’s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland. Id. , at 28-29. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely “lower-income and elderly” Poletown neighborhood for the benefit of the General Motors Corporation. J. Wylie, Poletown: Community Betrayed 58 (1989). Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; “[i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as ‘Negro removal.’” Pritchett, The “Public Menace” of Blight: Urban Renewal and the Private Uses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47 (2003). Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the “slum-clearance” project upheld by this Court in Berman were black . 348 U.S., at 30 . Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects.
Not in Minneapolis? Don’t kid yourselves. We cover this extensively in or chapter on housing, Chapter 8. 80% of those poor Blacks who used to live there could not be found. It is doubtful that even 10% of those who lived there before were able to move back.
The case was from Connecticut. You have to admire the chutzpah of the Connecticut state representative who said he was one of the city council members who approved the development over which this ruling was made. He says he was “charged with doing what’s best for the 26,000 people who live in New London.” He used the notion of “enacting the eminent domain process designed to revitalize a city…with nowhere to go.” He defines “best” as his one man vote is best for all posture. Can you imagine the sweetheart development deals between the Minneapolis city council, city planners and developers that will now transpire?
Read my analysis in my book’s Chapter 9 on Minneapolis’ corrupt construction contract system. And read again Chapter 8 and its discussion of how this has been applied to Minneapolis in The Hollman/Heritage Park Project, which is where Black homes were razed in order to raise white homes in their place. The Supreme Court’s liberal wing has now made it easier to have dozens of Hollmans to displace even more Blacks for the benefit of whites. This is an old game in America. See our book’s Interlude 8, “Torn From the Land,” about southern land taking on the basis of color. Now it will be easier. This is all made possible by corrupt, boss-like big city government attempts (the color of the Mayor doesn’t matter) that is enabled by single party control. We live this in Minneapolis under under the DFL (See my book’s chapters 5 on “Justice and Fairness” and the chapters on gerrymandering, Chapters 12-13).
See my column of April 20 , where I outline the nine desired big projects. Just think how easy things will be using this new Supreme Court ruling on takings to make these happen for the city planner/city council/DFL/developer/construction complex . The nine projects that I wrote about that represent at least a $5 billion pie to be split between this unholy complex of groups that hang out “Blacks need not apply” signs, are: (1) a football stadium for the University of Minnesota; (2) a baseball stadium for our beloved Twins (possibly in Hennepin County behind the Target Center); (3) a new casino for Mall of America Phase II; (4) major “destination” development in Blaine, to include (5) a football stadium for the soon-to-be-newly-purchased Minnesota Vikings, and be (6) a hub to extend light rail from Minneapolis to St. Cloud, and (7) a new casino in that corridor; (8) ancillary projects that will be part of or next to these major projects; and (9) necessary infrastructure development for them.
And what about the famly tradition of famly cabins by the lake? How long will it take the city guys who own lake land to get a “public use” declaration to enable them cobble together proprerties, promising local governments tax money, and then toss families and their lake cabins out so they can build plots of either lake side mansions or lake resorts?
Here is Jusice O’Connor’s opening statement. Think Minneapolis as you read this and of all the mischief our planners/officials/developers can create for Black Minneapolis (and poor and working class White Minneapolis):
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote:
An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority…A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean…[A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull , 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded—i.e. , given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public—in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property—and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Here is Justice Thomas’s opening to his dissent:
Long ago, William Blackstone wrote that “the law of the land…postpone[s] even public necessity to the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.” 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 134-135 (1765) (hereinafter Blackstone). The Framers embodied that principle in the Constitution, allowing the government to take property not for “public necessity,” but instead for “public use.” Amdt. 5. Defying this understanding, the Court replaces the Public Use Clause with a “’[P]ublic [P]urpose’” Clause, ante , at 9-10 (or perhaps the “Diverse and Always Evolving Needs of Society” Clause, ante , at 8 (capitalization added)), a restriction that is satisfied, the Court instructs, so long as the purpose is “legitimate” and the means “not irrational,” ante , at 17 (internal quotation marks omitted). This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a “public use.”
I cannot agree. If such “economic development” takings are for a “public use,” any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as Justice O’Connor powerfully argues in dissent. Ante , at 1-2, 8-13. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, however, the Court’s error runs deeper than this. Today’s decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a meaningful limit on the government’s eminent domain power. Our cases have strayed from the Clause’s original meaning, and I would reconsider them.
So let us repeat Justice Thomas’ words again, as quoted at the beginning of this blog entry:
Of all the families displaced by urban renewal from 1949 through 1963, 63 percent of those whose race was known were nonwhite, and of these families, 56 percent of nonwhites and 38 percent of whites had incomes low enough to qualify for public housing, which, however, was seldom available to them.” Id. , at 28. Public works projects in the 1950’s and 1960’s destroyed predominantly minority communities in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Baltimore, Maryland. Id. , at 28-29. In 1981, urban planners in Detroit, Michigan, uprooted the largely “lower-income and elderly” Poletown neighborhood for the benefit of the General Motors Corporation. J. Wylie, Poletown: Community Betrayed 58 (1989). Urban renewal projects have long been associated with the displacement of blacks; “[i]n cities across the country, urban renewal came to be known as ‘Negro removal.’” Pritchett, The “Public Menace” of Blight: Urban Renewal and the Private Uses of Eminent Domain, 21 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 1, 47 (2003). Over 97 percent of the individuals forcibly removed from their homes by the “slum-clearance” project upheld by this Court in Berman were black . 348 U.S., at 30. Regrettably, the predictable consequence of the Court’s decision will be to exacerbate these effects.
Here is he final kicker: the “fair market value” to be paid in a takings is set at the appraised value five years prior to any takings.
Rather than potential roundups and kick outs, why not consider the “solutions”
in the solutions section of this web site, especially our proposed The
Minneapolis Building Blocks and The
Seven Key Solutions to create fairness,
justice, and reconciliation
so that all can acquire assets and build wealth,offering Higher
Hopes For Youth Than Hip Hop by, together, working
to reduce violence in our schools and communities?
6-24-05, 5:00 a.m., Posted, 4:12 p.m.
6-24-2005/#65: Democrat US Senators, Congressional Black Caucus, and Minneaplis DFL Council members have at least one thing in common: “mono-diverisity,” “mono-political culturalism”.
In other words, what do DFL CM Don Samuels, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, NY Democratic Senators Chuck Shumer and Hillary Clinton, Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama, and the Congressional Black Caucus all have in common?
They have been engaging in racial demagoguery with a “mono-diversity”, “monoculturalism” that is dismissive of true civil rights, as they openly attack and attempt to politically excommunicate or eliminate Blacks that “stray” from their Democratic Party Plantation. They all want power to the powerful, not power to the people, hence their attacks on the Black sharecropper’s daughter, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, even after they had already agreed to confirm her appointment to the Federal bench. It is clear why the White politicians do it. But why does Black Senator Obama and the congressional Black Caucus, especially after the book on Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1992, Just Permanent Interests , by William L. Clay, is filled with the double crosses of the Democratic Party against Blacks, from Presidential politics to local politics and every level inbetween.
Judge Brown is a Black conservative woman. Natalie Johnson-Lee is a
liberal, green party council members. When will we stop letting them
define good Blacks as Democrats, even as they oppress Blacks in every urban
center of America, often with the help of the very organizations supposedly
fighting for our rights and freedom, access and opportunity. We need
Black leaders willing to lead us off the plantation those who would continue
to attempt to herd us back onto the DFL plantation.
Posted 6-24-05, 4:28 p.m.
6-24-2005, Blog/#64: United We Stand, Divided We Fall, so why is Doug Mann so divisive when we need success in educating our kids, success in closing the gaps that can only come from unity?
It has come to our attention that in the 6-22-05 Minneapolis Forum Internet discussion group [ www.mnforum.com ] that Doug Mann, for reasons that are far from clear, lumps me and others into a group that is “not keeping [our educational] eyes on the prize.” Doug wrote:
When the report on the basic skills test scores came out in the Star-Tribune, you didn’t hear any board member say, “Something’s wrong here! Our plan to close the gap didn’t work! The black-white test score gap got wider. The gap between high and low scoring schools got wider.”
Did Randy Statten, Rev. Bethel, Natalie Johnson Lee, Ron Edwards and others say to the board: “We have a problem. The Board-approved plans to close the gap aren’t working for our kids. What went wrong?” No. Nothing of the sort. I can only conclude that they were not paying attention or they didn’t care.
Why lump four individuals who have worked long and hard to bring about change in education with a school board that doesn’t, a school board which first serves the union, bureaucracy and DFL masters before students, parents, and community? The report is not new to us. It has been part of our four individual calls for educational change and reform mantras for years. We have and we will continue to work for closing the scandalous and near criminal gaps in educational achievement between whites and students of color. We say “DFL masters” for they are in charge of education at the legislature, in the bureaucracy, in the union, and in most of the teachers. The DFL has abandoned Nellie Stone Johnson’s DFL founding credo: “No education, no jobs, no housing.”
The purpose of this web log is stated at the top, to help bring about “Closing the Gaps…in…education, jobs, housing.” Chapter 7 of our book covers this ground in terms of Education. My columns and web log have continued a steady drum beat on the theme that housing requires good paying jobs and good paying jobs require a good education, and that education in Minneapolis has always been woefully and purposefully inadequate.
There is no other explanation to year in and year out huge gaps between white students and students of color. But we are but individuals, as is Doug. Everyone knows our positions. We don’t have any power other than to continue to shine our Beacon of light from our hilltop perspective. The power is vested in the school board, the unions, the educational bureaucracy, the legislature, and the DFL. All five institutions continuously betray the future of our kids with their insistence that Black kids get the worst service because they don’t want Blacks to wander off their Minneapolis reservation. And we Blacks continue to elect them. And they call the people of Kansas stupid.
To bring in spurious and blatantly false charges through innuendoes and slurs suggesting we are not paying attention and not caring when the evidence is clearly the opposite, instead of pointing out the obvious, that the School Board, unions, DFL, legislature and educational bureaucracy don’t care to change their status quo steady march to pensions, only tars us with them and makes it all look hopeless, thus making the job of clubbing our cubs easier for the School Board, unions, DFL, educational bureaucracy, and classroom teachers, as the sense is created that no one cares and no one will do anything to stop them on their singular purposeful march to benefits now and retirement later.
Doug’s anger should be directed at those who would sabotage and thwart the efforts of Superintendent Dr. Thandiwe Peebles to bring about the change needed to upset their status quo apple carts so that there can be a closing of these gaps we continually write about. It is closing these gaps that will help positively address changing the gang dynamics. Criticizing those in the forefront of attempting the change you claim to want to see will only cloud the issue and continue the delaying of the closing of the gaps. The longer these gaps remain open the longer we’ll have problems on our streets with gangs. With half of our kids dropping out (if not shoved out), not adequately educated, what else is there than gangs? This is calculatedly so. Better this than have “them” mix with us. Thus, at the top of each page of Chapter 16, we write, “Unrest, Disturbance: The Status Quo Price Minneapolis is Willing to Pay” to keep Blacks in their place.
Posted 6-24-05, 4:44 p.m.
6-23-2005, Blog/#63: The Re-opening of the discussion about the 1992 Haaf case continues the DFL “PR Campaign” to paint Blacks as “terrorists.” This time as killers of the peace. White Minneapolis fires its shot across the bow of the Black community
Doug Grow’s 6-18-05 column title says it all, When gang members killed officer at Pizza Shack, peace effort died, too. George Widseth and Robert Streitz, Minneapolis, assistant Hennepin County attorneys, respond in the Strib to Doug’s column because Doug wrote, “Though four men are serving life sentences for the killing, Moss says he doesn’t believe the shooter was caught. Their column title sums up their position, as the go ballistic over the comment: We got Haaf’s killer.
What Widseth and Streitz don’t mention is that originally four others were arrested, and then eventually let go, and then, only after six weeks of round ups were the four arrested who are now serving life sentences. Indeed, it was never proved who ordered the shooting of Haaf. They tried to make it Sharif but could not prove it. Then they tried to make it the other leaders of United for Peace leadership (Spike an the Rev. Jerry Mcaffee). In the end, it was pinned only on low level gang members. The System has seethed for 13 years in its desire for a showcase trial with higher level Black leaders, as if community activists, as per their statement, are community leaders by day and gang leader by night.
This is the shot they have fired across the bow of th Black community. This is how you tear apart a community. Accuse them with innuendo. Scare them. And then round them up.
What do these two Strip pieces tell us? They tell us that the wounds of this incident are still festering among White Minneapolis.
More serious are the other messages of Widseth and Streitz, (1) that there is a serious question of danger for those attempting to work to save young men and women from the abyss of gang activity, as they are defined as being gang members too; and (2) there is a clear implication that Spike and others should have been indicted for aiding and abetting the murder of Haaf. Why would they write such a thing? If they spent, as they write, "thousands of hours establishing the guilt of those charged," then surely they know whether Spike and other should have been indicted or not. Such innuendo achieves what they don’t want: the same questioning about the guilt of the second set of men arrested as well as the first.
Coming as this does on the heels of the stories of Reed and Clark, it creates great reasons and anxiety for those trying to bring young people back from the abyss of life in a gang. They have purposefully attempted to raise doubt in people’s minds about whether one can ever do the right thing to save and preserve one’s community with the statement that City Inc was a criminal hub. It raises the key question: what are the ground rules? Why do the consider those working with youth to be considered gang members too? Could it be that they want the gang problem contained but not ended, so the internal strife continues and Black on Black crime continues, saving them the effort?
Is that what the letter of Tyrone Terrill is about, establishing ground rules, that those so labeled, and their friends and families, are to be rounded up, and that the labeling is not longer to be by whites but by the Blacks they have appointed to paid positions? We in Black America have worked in all circumstances with our young, dealing with the emergency among our young people. Are we now to ask permission in our endeavers to serve young people and help them save their lives if we are not to be labeled gang members too?
We are confused, as all Spike said was what many have expressed and believed, and that is this: it was not proven conclusively and beyond a reasonable doubt who the real trigger man was, regardless of how many others were involved.
A lot want to forget. But how when it has been brought up again? Recall that the group of four convicted was not the original four arrested for the murder. The first four were released. The word on street at the time was that they had been cooperating with police and in return were allowed to move a significant amount of drugs through the city.
And how were the final four determined? Only after over 600 African Americans were rounded up and detained over a period of six weeks after Jerry Haaf was killed.
We do not favor gangs. And we do not write in support of Spike, but rather in support of truth and justice. We are now faced with the fact that this has opened some very deep and dangerous wounds in this town.
So again we ask, what are the rules of engagement? What is expected as appropriate efforts of a community to save lives? If we sit down in a room with the young involved will we later be indicted?
It is almost as if George Widseth and Robert Streitz have been waiting thirteen years for this “opening” in order to seize the moment to make their charge. They issue the warning that “ Moss should be more concerned that he worked alongside Sharif Willis, who was a “community leader” by day and a Vice Lords gang leader by night.” Let us look at their words again: they spent “thousands of hours establishing the guilt of those charged.” Then why don’t they know for sure about Spike? And what do they know for sure about Jerry Haaf, who, on a patrolman’s salary, lived in a $400 thousand house (that today would be worth over $600,000), and had a big boat. Inquiring minds want to know if that had anything to do with his death.
We are also curious as to why Widseth and Streitz ignore the reality of the history of the time, that Sharif Willis, who had murdered a man seven years earlier, was the darling of the white corporate community and released at the urging of the White communty. We suspect that they had a “noble savage” view: in the right environment, theirs, and under the right overseeing, theirs, Blacks would be peaceful.
Indeed, Widseth and Streitz fail to mention that Sharif Willis was such a darling of White Minnesota that he was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal in April 1991 (their on-line archive only goes back to 1996), and was part of a Peace Summit that discussed the economic plan of Dick Gregory and Louis Farakahn that was to be financed by Bill Cosby. But with Officer Haaf’s shooting, Sharif was no longer the darling of the White community. They tried to pin the shooting on him.
So let us look again at the pre-Haaf shooting landscape. The April Wall Street Jouornal article celebrated the successful Peace Summit in Kansas City, a four day conference heralded and supported by Russ Ewald, Nasby and Gen Mills. What Widseth and Streitz don’t mention is that 100s of gang members, asian, bk, Hispanic, native amer were celebrated their too. Next up were Cleveland, Chicago and the West Coast.
Then it was on to Cleveland and hopes for Chicago, maybe West coast (Hispanics wanted), etc. We were cut out of the Cleveland meeting, with Nabe an McKnight labeling me too dangerous. Apike and McAffee agreed to my being cut out.
Nonetheless, Cleveland showed great promise. People came from New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., etc. Louis Farakahn would provide the marketing, Dick Gregory was going to supply the property and a factory in San Fernando Valley to manufacture the clothes, and Bill Cosby was going to finance the plan for $2 million. Not realizing the significance of tossing overboard the author of the plan, they found themselves unable to articulate the plan and were told to bring us back in to explain it.
But Russ Ewald remained adament that we were dangerous. Didn’t matter. Haaf was killed. Everything fell apart. Spike’s program was ended.
Haaf was just one man. How could the white community become so unhinged over the death of one when they yawned at the multiple deaths of young Black men? The Whites were angry. They blamed Spike Moss and wanted him on trial as well. It would have been a show trial to rival those of the USSR. The whites didn’t mind as long as the Blacks were just moving drugs among each other and killing each other. Then, “bang,” literally, a white cop is killed and everything comes to a screeching halt. The same occurred when a white girl was later killed in Martin Luther King park. Clearly, for the Strib, for Widseth and Streitz, and the white nice Minneapolis, there is greater value by for white life than Black life.
Sharif, the prince of success, heralded by White Minneapolis, was arrested on a weapons charge and imprisoned for life as a 3 time loser…
We remain mystified why Doug Grow and his editors would re-open this door to damnation, to let the four horseman of the racist apocalypse ride through. This episode, along with Spike now asking for more money for yet another program, underscores why our book’s chapter 14 on Black organizations (NAACP, Urban League, city departments of human rights) is subtitled, “Black Organzations: Now Part of the Problem Rather Than The Solution.” It is why, in chapter 16, we head the pages, “Unrest, Disturbance: The Status Quo Price Minneapolis is Willing to Pay.”
We, as Blacks, again get the blame. And yet the real answer is jobs for which first is required education, and yet the basic skils test scores reported in the Star-Tribune shows that the gaps we reported in Chapter 7 of our book, have increased, both in terms of Black-white student test scores and in terms of between high scoring schools (predominantly White) and low scoring schools (predominantly Black). In our book we refer to it as “clubbing the cubs into inferioiorty and helplessness.” We call, instead, for “Stop the clubbing and teach skills, optimism, and hope.” This is not done.
The status qo for the city is maintained. Blacks are blamed. The gaps hold or increase. All is well with the Minneapolis separatist status quo. Job hiring compliance rules are ignored. The rules for th education of Blacks is ignored. The status quo wins. Our kids lose.
Peace initiatives remain abandoned. Blacks remain sequestered in the
inner city. All is well and right with the White communities.
Posted 6-23-05, 5:50 p.m.
6-14-2005, Blog/#62: Altitude and Attitude: Raising Up Black Student Achievement Scores and Ignoring White Attempts to Put Down “Uppity” Blacks Who Need To Be Shown Their “Place.”
In our Column of October 20, 2004, on several topics regarding the “Clouds of justice” theme, one of the areas in which we had a question was of education:
Is the superintendent the next target? Why is the Minneapolis Public Schools Board talking about going back on its contract with Superintendent? Dr. Thandiwe Peebles (who is another person standing up for the community)? When will the board join her in standing up for our kids?
On page 282 of our book, The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, we quote Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Doug Grow (emphasis added):
My simple answer for all of this is that Minneapolis leaders have failed—and continue to fail—to create any sense of trust between civic institutions, especially the Police Department, and large numbers of blacks in inner city neighborhoods.
If we were to change that a bit, and apply it to education and to race relations, we would make it read as follows:
My simple answer for all of this is that Minneapolis leaders have failed—and continue to fail—to create any sense of trust between civic institutions, especially the Public Schools and large numbers of blacks in inner city neighborhoods.
My simple answer for all of this is that Minneapolis leaders have failed—and continue to fail—to create any sense of trust between civic institutions, especially the politicians (gerrymanderers) and business (taxes for education avoiders) and large numbers of blacks in inner city neighborhoods.
In his most recent column, of June 14, Doug notes how [Dr.] Peebles’ defenders raise tough questions. Doug writes (emphasis added):
We learn again that all by itself Minneapolis is a twin city. North and south. Black and white. Members of the Board of Education who publicly suggested on Sunday that Thandiwe Peebles perhaps should be replaced as superintendent of Minneapolis schools clumsily have gouged open an old wound between those two cities. Understand, [Dr.] Peebles, in just one year on the job, has offended many who are not used to being offended. She’s dissed principals, teachers, reporters, politicians and business leaders.
While upsetting some, Peebles clearly was building trust among a wide spectrum of black leaders who for years have been saying the school district has been failing black children. They say she has shown the ability to improve the performances of some of the district’s most challenged schools. Person after person spoke of how the board is bending to the pressure of a few.
Person after person spoke of how the board’s complaints are about Peebles’ style of leadership, not the substance of her leadership. Why bend to a few whites? Is it because they want this “uppity” Black woman to get back into her place, even if it means clubbing yet more of our Black cubs, driving them out of the schools and into gangs?
In the June 13th Strib, we read[Dr.] Peebles’ job may be on the line.
Then on the 14th, the Strib prints three stories, [Dr.] Peebles decision hangs fire while supporters fire up, about the community concern regarding how Dr. Peebles is being treated. The Strib then lists the Key issues in [Dr.] Peebles case, as it notes how Board, [Dr.] Peebles square off again. Finally, Doug Grow weighs in on the controversy, as noted above, with a piece titled Doug Grow: [Dr.] Peebles’ defenders raise tough questions.
We are puzzled by those community leaders who claim to have been blindsided, when, as noted above, we raised the issue in our column eight months ago. We know these same “leaders” check (or have someone check for them) our weekly column in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, if for no other reason in the hopes of catching us in a mistake (we continue to disappoint). The story leaked then (and still circulating) was that Dr. Peebles had a conflict of interest with a consultant. In reality, neither knew each other. This was to discredit her as efforts were made, as some have suggested, to pave the way for the return of David Jennings. These innuendoes leading to race polarization were carried into the community through the reporting of Steve Brandt. This not to put a knock on Steve. He just carries the water of the Strib editors.
Don Samuels, carrying the DFL water, remains understandably quiet, as the DFL seeks to placate the White parents and the DFL teachers union. We have covered this in Chapter 7 of our book, “The Corrupt and Racist Education system,” in which we discussed how “Minneapolis continues to maintain poor schools for poor kids in order to keep them poor,” and thus “club the Black cubs into inferiority and helplessness rather than teach skills, optimism, and hope.”
Is it any wonder some of them feel there is no hope, and turn to gang membership and criminal activities as they don’t feel they are allowed to be a part of our community? If Tyrone Terrill and others would write an open letter to all the so-called educators about the sorry state of education and the need to really and truly educate our young, there would be a much better response in curbing gangs.
As Natalie Johnson Lee points out, the whites have a problem with Dr. Peebles’ “attitude.” When you have principals and teachers and the DFL all dragging their feet fighting reform (testing, accountability for kids not learning, and sabotaging minorities’ alternatives to get out of the mediocre sorry state of the Minneapolis Public Schools with charter schools and vouchers), we can only conclude that Dr. Peebles was getting too close to bar-b-q-ing the educational establishment’s sacred cows. They are feeling the heat. If I was among that recalcitrant, hold down the Black students principals and teachers, I’d feel the fear of Dr. Peebles too. We are told by reporter Brandt that they “fear retribution.” This smear against Dr. Peebles is understandable. It is the Strib line. But ask yourself, why do they fear being held accountable? Do the good white parents of the white schools on the South side fear there will be an integration involving the Black students from the North side?
Again the smear from Brandt: “Some principles lived in fear of [Dr.] Peebles’ visit to their school.” Why? If you were a principal doing your job, wouldn’t you be proud of your efforts and want to show them off? What have they to hide? When subordinates fear superiors it is often because they are not doing their jobs (again, see Chapter 7 of my book).
Where are the leaders standing up for our kids? Thankfully, Rev. Ian Bethel (who also chairs the Police Community Relations Committee) and 5th Ward Council Member Natalie Johnson Lee, are standing up for our kids. We need more. How about the Mayor and the Governor?
As Rev. Bethel said: “[Dr. Peebles’] leadership style is what attracted the school board to bring her here,” as he assured one and all that Black leaders would rally around Dr. Peebles.
As CM Natalie Johnson Lee said:
Even Brandt admits that in her first year on the job, Peebles has alienated some parents, teachers and principals with what they describe as an intimidating top-down style. But she has also taken control of the worst scoring schools, and the first set of test results to be released for her watch showed marked improvement in basic-skills tests for eighth-graders.
Brandt goes on to admit that Dr. Peebles’ “reputation for turning around troubled schools, both in Cleveland and in New York city” is why “Board members said they chose her.” We must then conclude that they really didn’t expect her to be successful.
When Brandt lists Key issues in [Dr.] Peebles’ case, he admits “she was brought in to shake things up and she’s doing that” and he then goes on to write “she was brought in to address the achievement of poor and minority students and she’s doing that,” and “the first test results released on her watch showed marked improvement.” That is three accomplishments. To us that means three strikes against the board. We thus are at a loss to explain the opposition to her other than the ugly head of racism making itself known: that she is being “uppity” and has “attitude,” all code words for not knowing her place among her white betters. What else could it be?
That she has an “intimidating top down style” is another code phrase for being uppity, having attitude, not knowing her place among her betters.
Here is the sad, tragic joke. The principles and teachers want collaboration with the Superintendent, another code word for letting others know that no one is going to tell them what to do, that they want a veto, EVEN THOUGH they have done a LOUSY job with minorities for DECADES (again, see the stats in my Chapter 7 on Education).
The real howler, though, is Brandt carrying the old saw about how the Board questions whether Dr. Peebles can “turn around [her] shortcomings” when they refuse to address their own shortcomings. The Board complains about the spec in Dr. Peeble’s eyes yet cannot see the logs in their own.
Why does the Board think we are stupid? Superintendents direct, the way CEOs do. They are not the chief operating officers. Others do that. Principals are supposed to be managing and communicating in their schools. If there is a management problem it is due to internal sabotage. The teachers unions are opposed to change. Principals are all former teachers. It is a closed loop. Our kids suffer because of it. If they can keep the revolving door of Superindendents going they can stall any real change until their retirement.
Dr. Peebles stated very clearly what is at stake: “we have the next generation to save.”
We see clearly in Chapter 7 of my book how the school system has clubbed our cubs. The Black community has too long stood idly by while the white community stews about Blacks actually getting educated, and grouses because it is an uppity Black woman with attitude that is starting to achieve what so many have sabotaged and prevented for all too long.
The Black community must stand up and not budge in the single minded goal of getting the schools to stop failing to educate our kids. As Nellie Stone Johnson always said, “No education, no jobs, no housing.”
pp. 2, 33, 293, and, p. 269: James Baldwin: “The big secret that all Black people know is that the machinery of our country’s operations are to keep the Ni**er in his place.”
Minneapolis is like the last outpost of a great experiment in how to be a model to the rest of the country on how to keep Black people in their place (remember that was what James Baldwin said was the “big secret” that all Black people knew: that “the machinery of the country’s operations were to keep the Ni**er in his place”). Minneapolis has mastered the art of doing so. Baldwin also said that if you really want to know what the White power structure really wanted for Blacks, just look at what they did to Indians. Too many White folks in Minneapolis, as well as nationwide, accept this. That makes it easier for them to go along with the exclusion of non-Whites from education, housing, and economic development.
The Minneapolis Story, Through My eyes, p. 109. See also pp. 2, 33, 269, and 293
Want to stop gangs? Stop blocking the education of our young Black men. End
the emergency of our young Black men (see my The Minneapolis Story, pp.
154-156).
Posted 6-14-05, 6:40 a.m.
6-4-2005/#61: Dred Scott haunts The Twin Cities: The Ghost of Judge Tawny watches to see if his ruling will be brought back to life, reminding us again of the power of the courts. Is the DFL trying to bring back Chief Justice Tawny?
Why won’t Chuck Wexler and the General Mills Foundation, Tyrone and Randy, RT and Jayne, Tim and Norm address the solutions at the top of the page? We all want to solve the problem of gangs. Those solutions provide a great beginning for doing so.
In our book, The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes Interlude 6, “Dred Scott at Fort Snelling: The Kind of ‘Being First’ We don’t Want,” p. 117-118, refers to a dark side of our history. Now it would seem that some Blacks have signed on with Whites “to be first” in our Twin City community to “take down” our young men and their families and friends, as is proposed in St. Paul. We are among those concerned about what Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) is up to. In this age of Star Wars III, “The Revenge of the Sith,” we wonder why so many are approaching our young men from what would appear to be the dark side. That is the wrong force. The force of light from a beacon of hope is needed, and is listed at the top of this page.
We have addressed St. Paul’s Human Rights Department Director Tyrone Terrill’s Open Letter to the community in earlier columns (May 4 and 18, June 1) and web log entries (47-48, 51, 53-55, 59-60). Our Open Letter to Tyrone is Web log entry #51.
We believe there are clear links between (1) the April “open letter” of Tyrone Terrill, (2) his June 1st deadline to gang members to stop gang banging and their their families and friends must stop supporting them or they will all suffer the consequences, (3) Chuck Wexler’s work with the Genreal Mills Foundation, (4) the ignoring of the Federal mediation established group, the PCRC (Police Community Relations Committee), and (5) St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly launching “Operation CARE” June 1st (Comprehensive Area Reclamaiton Enterprise). “Links” as in close coordination between Chuck, Tyrone, and Randy (and, we suspect, Governor Tiim Palenty and Senator Norm Coleman). Thus we applaud Nathaniel Khaliq, head of St. Paul’s NAACP, for stepping up to challenge them and ask the right questions about what they are about.
We are discussing what all the Twin Cities are talking about: Tyrone Terrill’s “open letter” to the Blacks of St. Paul, informing them that he considered Black gang members “terrorists” and that friends and family that support them are complicit with them, and thus all of them would face the “consequences” if they didn’t’ cease gang acitivites by June 1st. And Mayor Randy launched Operation CARE June 1st.
Let us be clear on four things.
First, none of us are in favor of “gang bangers.” None of us favor or support illegal gang activities or actions that intimidate members of the community or in any other way create a reduction in the quality of life or the sense of safety in the neighborhood due to overt actions or due to fear caused by covert acts.
Secondly, the debate is not over whether or not to allow gang members to run rampant. No one wants that. The debate is over (1) who should be considered gang members, (2) how should they be dealt with, and (3) how should we solve the overall problems of our inner city neighborhoods. As for #3, it is simple, from our humble perspective: follow the suggestions in our book (summarized in Chapter 17) and the papers in our Solutions section of our web site, especially The Blocks to Construct a Minneapolis Table for All to Sit at Together and The Seven Solution Areas
Thirdly, we stand shoulder to shoulder with St. Paul’s human rights director Tyrone Terrill in wanting to see a cessation of gang activities and turn them into solid, productive citizens. However, we break ranks on his definitions and on his plans for how to do so. We disagree with his negative police model social engineering. We disagree with the notion that you have to become a devil to beat a devil. We believe the links above will do a better job than either Tyrone’s “tough love” for terrorists model or Chuck’s Patriot Act terrorist model.
Fourthly, from our perspective, none of us are saying gang activity is the result of some kind of victimhood. Conscious decisions have been made. Everyone knows better. But we have to stop making it easier for them to make that decision by ending the “redlining” that still goes on in the areas of education, jobs, and housing (see my book, The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes,< Chapters 7, 8 and 9). Some make the judgment that, given such “redlining,” the decision is rational. We want to end the “redlining” in education, jobs, and housing so that such a decision will no longer seem rational to our young Black men.
Back to the ghost of Dred Scott, who was a Black slave who sued for his freedom in 1847, on the basis that the 1820 Missouri Compromise defined him a free man as he had been in a free state (Illinois). The Supreme Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it deprived a person (slave owner) of his or her property (slave) without due process of law. Don’t you just love great moral issues being decided on such technicalities? Just like in St. Paul today.
And the Supreme Court then, knowing the nation was divided, knowing that both the Constitution and the Missouri Compromises were attempts to maintain a slave state/free state balance until the decision would be made one way or the other by the people, decided to make it for them. Claiming to follow the Constitution the Supreme Court essentially amended the constitution by itself by (a) claiming that as Negroes were not “citizens” (as stated in the Constitution), they did not have the right to sue in any federal court, and (b) to support that claim, had to rule the Missouri Compromise (keeping a balance in the number of free states/slave states) as unconstitutional, thus essentially ending the debate and paving the way for the nation to become all slave state nation. This unleashed the abolitionists, especially John Brown, who then forced the issue in order to cause the Civil War that they felt was the only way to end slavery once and for all.
Tyrone Terill is replaying the history of that time, playing the role of Chief Justice Tawny by denying the absoluteness of our civil and constitutional rights. He raised his notion up the flag pole to see who would salute: that those who continued in gangs and gang activity (including their family and friends) would be considered to be “throwing away your civil rights.” Gang members/friends/families all become Dred Scotts, Tyrone has become Judge Tawny, and Chuck, Randy, Norm and Tim are his assistant judges as they have not disagreed one wit to this public official’s stance. They are all saluting the flag that these “types” of Blacks have no civil rights. If the hair on your back isn’t standing on end and if a shiver isn’t going up your spine, you too must be saluting this flag denying civil and constitutional rights on the personal whim of officials.
Having been a slave, Dred Scott had not been allowed to learn to read and write. This is the same today in our inner city schools where the powers (coalition of DFL teachers, DFL unions, DFL school systems, and DFL city bureaus) have given us a system that blocks too many of our Black sons and daughters from being able to read and write (or how else to you explain the statistics in my book’s Chapter 7 on Education?), greatly reducing their options. Too many, as a result, incorrectly conclude they are perceived as having no value to society and choose gangs. These baby seals have been clubbed in our schools. Some choose to club back.
Today we read many things about Supreme Court appointees. The court has been re-politicized (or maybe its always has been, although life time tenure was to prevent it).
Look at the Supreme Court that made the Dred Scott decision: Seven had been appointed by pro-slavery presidents from the South and of these, five were from slave-holding families. The court’s decision was written by Chief Justice Roger Brook Tawney The Western territories were not yet states. If they could now become slave, the balance would be tipped and the culture, mores, and morals of the South would prevail. Given the wages differential between slave states/free states, the fear was that all states would then eventually become slave states to be competitive.
The deal made with he devil in 1776 and again in 1820, that allowed Whites only to be free was now placing whites in danger too. Once slavery was universal, why not poor Whites too? The rush to the cauldron of civil war commenced.
In our book we talk about the war on young Black men (see Chapter 9) that is creating a State of Emergency for Black Youth. Part of that, needless to say, deals with decisions to join gangs and engage in gang banging acivities. And now this war against our young Black men is being led by the two Black Civil Rights Directors in the Twin Cities, St. Paul’s Director, Tyrone Terrill, by openly calling for it in his “open letter” and Minneapolis’ Director, Jayne Khalifa, who gives her assent by remaining silent and not speaking up as her counter part in St. Paul goes against what both of them are to help protect: the civil rights of all, especially of minorities. We read nothing from her. Her silence condemns her. And who else is in this assent of silence? The Mayor RT Ryback of Minneapolis and Mayor Randy Kelly of St. Paul, Governor Tim Pawlenty, Senators Norm Coleman and Mark Dayton, the General Mills Foundation, and Chuck Wexler and the Police Executive Research Forum.
On page 118 of our book, we wrote, “The ‘shocks and throes and convulsions’ felt then [1850s] about the Dred Scott case regarding slavery are felt now in the Minneapolis Black Community in the redistricting case. We will not accept being treated as Dred Scots.” This is why we stand up to St. Paul and urge the city to seek other ways: turn out Blacks that can read and write (The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, Chapter 7), allow hiring on jobs and in contracting (The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, Chapter 9), and allow affordable housing rather than gentrification of former Black homes for Whites (The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, Chapter 8).
People ask how can such injustice exist. As Supreme Court Tawney wrote, “It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice,” as they defer to the Constitution and law makers, and yet the Court went ahead and declared the work of lawmakers, the Missouri Compromise, unconstitutional such that they, the Court, could then continue a situation of injustice for slaves and Blacks everywhere, and then essentially took it upon themselves to make the new law allowing slavery elsewhere, ignoring legislation and law makers. This is the same kind of court as law makers debate that exists today.
We see all of this “definitional” work going on as we review the stories under the recent headlines in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Pioneer Press of St. Paul (discussing the debate that continues over Tyrone’s open letter in April. We understand why W.E.B. DuBois said, “The “Negro” is the clown of anthropology and football of politics.” What we don’t understand is why our two Directors of Human Rights are not standing up against this in the Twin Cities, and why their mayors and the Governor don’t either. Nor do we understand why Black leaders are putting up with it. This is not a trend that bodes well for America, Black or White. The headlines tell the story:
The Strib, June 2nd, noted in Curt Brown’s story St. Paul beefs up patrols in ‘hot spots’ that
The Pioneer Press, June 3rd, noted June in Robert Ingrassia’s story that City official calls gang activity ‘terrorist acts’ and that this official, Tyrone Terrill, “stood by his letter.”
Then on June 4th, the Pioneer Press finally reported on the “hot spot” plan in the Tim Nelson story Some in ‘hot spots’ cool to city plan The “cool to city plan” of treating us as football clowns, is also reported in the June 4th Strib in Jackie Crosby’s story, NAACP criticizes city official’s letter. The criticism came from Nathaniel Khaliq, head of the St. Paul NAACP, who spoke truth to power when he said that St. Paul was engaging in a discriminatory policy that targets Black gang members.
Is the city being discriminatory? Of course. If not, why do Terrill and Randy focus on Black gang members and not gangs comprised of Asians, Mexicans, Somalis, Native Americans, etc. Or is mentioning them against the politically correct multicultural canon? From our perspective, we see one Trojan Horse after another being rolled into our neighborhoods in the name of public safety. We don’t need Trojan horses. We just need education that educates, job sites that hire, and housing that is affordable.
This development in St. Paul is not new to us. Our book’s discussion of the Federal Mediation Process (Chapter 16) noted that in terms of unrest and disturbances, unrest and disturbances were the status quo price Minneapolis was willing to pay. As Doug Grow wrote (quoted on page 284 of The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes), “My simple answer for all of this is that Minneapolis leaders have failed—and continue to fail—to create any sense of trust between civic institutions, especially the Police Department, and large numbers of blacks in inner city neighborhoods.” We can now say that this applies equally to St. Paul as well.
And what is the “answer” we are given? As a result of the 9 months of Federal mediation, a PCRC was formed: Police Community Review Committee. But it is ignored. Instead, we are given Chuck Wexler, paid for by the General Mills Foundation, working with the police without discussion with us. It is almost as if the plans we have been exposing in our columns have momentarily been shifted to St. Paul. Why? Because until Khaliq spoke up no one else in St. Paul had bothered to.
We see that both the Dred Scott decision and the Tyrone Terrill letter and the St. Paul Operation CARE are all color blind: blind to the realities of people of color in the community.
In the same way the Jewish capos in the German concentration camps were able to justify how they treated their fellow Jews, we see the same now in the Twin Cities with so-called Black leaders rationalizing their treatment of their fellow Blacks, as if all of our kids are thugs and those related to them are thugs.
As noted above, we have dealt with this in our columns and Web Logs entries (columns of May 4 and 18, June 1, and web log entries 47-48, 51, 53-55, and 59-60. Our Open Letter to Tyrone is Web log entry #51. We discussed the possibility of certain areas being quarantined (and now that has happened to a degree with the tarketing of a specific 225 block area in St. Paul). And now Project CARE is sending in inspectors that can evict through condemnation, another way to begin a round up. They can condemn property to force people out of neighborhoods. This could be applied to any they think are gang bangers or their supporters, family and friends. Hard core police could even claim White friends and supporters are to be included. As one professional basketball team official said, in their attempts to plug leaks to the press, said that he they had to fire ten innocents to get to the guilty party they would. So what happens to those Tyrone and Randy label as thugs? Do they get sent to camps? That was what was in earlier plans. We keep asking what is in the plan. No one will say.
So why PERF (Police Executive Research Forum)? According to the PERF web site, PERF is an organization dedicated to improving policing and advancing professionalism through research, public policy debate, provision of management services and executive development training, and publishing.
That’s fine. But they are to improve policing, not education, jobs or housing. Who is going to improve education, job hiring, and housing availability and affordability?
PERF has a site dealing with terrorism. Is this where Tyrone gets the term? They have a series called “Protecting Your Community from Terrorism: Strategies for Local Law Enforcement.” Guess what Volume Two is? It is Working with Diverse Communities PERF then says this volume discusses how “to protect against future terrorist attacks, prevent backlash violence against vulnerable groups, and sensitize officers to cultural issues that can affect interviewing and information sharing. It also addresses such issues as perceptions of racial profiling and the local law enforcement role in immigration enforcement.”
Is it Chuck, then, that is giving Tyrone the notion to call young Black gang members terrorists?
In this PERF volume two, on page 35, we read that “every officer can’t understand every nuance of every culture of every community,” so we are again left with the question: why isn’t the PCRC being involved to help them understand the nuances? So why, after admitting that “Law enforcement leaders don’t know how valuable community leaders are to the policing effort,” does the PERF man in town, Chuck Wexler, ignore the PCRC? Who better to give an outsider the nuances and how to understand them?
On page 37 we read, “Diverse community leaders and law enforcement executives must commit to the same goals: to rid communities of terrorists…” Again, is this why Tyrone uses this term?
Page 38 says “the road to cooperation” is through “forums or councils.” So, given that we have the federally mediated PCRC, why are we not included? Again on p. 38: “Multiculural forums and councils are used in several communities to open a dialogue between law enforcement officials and community members.” So why not us at PCRC?
On page 41 we read a statement by the Chicago chief about how much they have learned “to show special sensitivity… on the religion and associative customs of Islam, Judaism…Hinduism and Buddhism…providing officers with the tools to build and strengthen police and community relationships through a better understanding of the people they serve.” Why not the same approach with Blacks in general and gang members in particular?
On page 48 we may have the key statement, so key that we wonder if this is what has PERF riding Tyrone and why he has said what he has said: “We have too much to lose to have terrorists come from within our community.”
And as p. 48 declares “the community is a source of information,” why do the powers at be continue to attempt to bypass the community information group par excellence, the PCRC?
Surely Chuck Wexler should know all of this, as he is the Executive Director. Just as the Jack Nicholson character in “A Few Good Men” knew, Chuck knows.
Anyone who wants to download this PERF report can do so at either www.policeforum.org or by going here.
Those wishing to learn more about the Patriot Act can go to PERF page on the Patriot Act to down load not only the Patriot Act itself, but ten articles about it as well as a link page to more articles about the act.
Our concern is what is in the Plan that Chuck and Tyrone, Randy, Tim, Norm and Mark have cooked up for St. Paul (not to mention RT and Jayne for Minneapolis).
Gangs committing crimes, harassing and intimidating neighbors, flauting the law, spreading drugs to our kids, abusing our daughters, leading our sons into crime, all need to be dealt with. We recommended the “how” method be based on the guilty individuals, not the innocenet tribe or community of which they are a part.
What model will be used, the tribal all are guilty Arthur Anderson model or the individuals who are guilty are rounded up model used with HealthSouth, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, Marsh & McLennan, AIG, RiteAid, Dynergy, etc.?
Arthur Anderson was the auditing firm for Enron. When Enron, the Houston white collar gangbanger was found guilty of billions of dollars worth of white collar crime (fraud, cooking the books, submittting false reports, embezzling billions of dollars), the government went after its biggest friend, Arthur Anderson. Probably 98% of Arthur Anderson’s nearly 20,000 employees had nothing to do with Enron or any other scandal. But the government rounded them all up under a single indictment. They all lost their jobs. Guilt by association. The tribe was destroyed for the sins of a few leaders. Should the few pirates running some corporations be put in jail? You bet. Should all of their innocent employees be made to suffer too? No. But that is what Tyrone and Chuck and Randy and the rest are saying about those innocents who are relatives or friends of guilty gang bangers.
The model example we recommend is the individual model, not the tribal model (”How to Exorcise a Corporate Scandal,” WSJ, 6-4-05, p. B1). During the Inquisition and other examples of our past when we worked from the dark side: guilt by association: any heretic deemed guilty resulted in the whole village being punished too. That is what was done with Arthur Anderson. We recommend going after only the guilty and then proscecuting them to the fullest extent of the law: jail time, fines, community service, etc. This is the model being used for HealthSouth, Worldcom, Tyco, Adelphia, Marsh & McLennon, AIG, RiteAid, Dynergy, etc: indicting and taking to court the actual evil doers (the few, e.g., who engineered HealthSouth’s $2.7 billion fraud, WorldCom’s $11 billion fraud, the family that headed Adelphia and the billions they looted, the lavish personal spending at the expense of their “corporate community”: employees, shareholders, and taxing entities where they were located or where they did business, etc.).
All the key top managers of these companies pay with their jobs when the companies are then bought out by others, as has occurred with WorldCom, Adelphia, and others. You can get a look at the cases/charges here Those who want to look at the legal documents, go to Tyco, HealthSouth, Enron, and WorldCom.
Just as corporate and government workers often don’t speak up out of fear of retaliation and intimidation or from fear of losing their jobs (hence whistleblower laws, immunity, new identities, etc.), so too do community members and even relatives hesitate to come forward out of fear of retaliation.
During the roaring 20s of Chicago (not to mention St. Paul), the police knew who the crooks were (al Capone in Chicago, John Dillenger in St. Paul), but too many were on the take looking the other way. Hence, in Chicago, the need for “The Untouchables,” law enforcement officials that were not corruptible. If there are plans for roundups, that means our officials know who the guilty parties are. We recognize the problem of the revolving door, arresting gang bangers and then turning them loose. But that is not the fault of the neighborhood: it is the fault of a corrupt criminal “justice” system that now want to make the community pay for its own idiotic system. You can’t have ACLU sensitivities toward the feelings of minorities on one day, and let them off, and then turn around and get angry at their behavior and blame their community, friends and relatives.
We have already listed our solutions. What we don’t understand, besides the ignoring of the PCRC, is the ignoring of these solution suggestions. So, let’s list them again, from the top of this page. Very simply put, to solve the gang problem, start with closing the gaps:
… the Black gaps in education, jobs, housing; the State of Emergency for Black inner city Youth; the obstructing of equal access and equal opportunity for minorities; and searching solutions through the use of the Golden Rule (Book’s Chapter 5), the use of The Minneapolis Building Blocks and The Seven Key Solutions to create fairness, justice, and reconciliation so that all can acquire assets and build wealth. We can do so implementing the four freedoms,” articulated in the 1-11-44 State of the Union speech, in which the freedoms of speech and of religion and the freedoms from want and from fear would be freedoms for everyone in this country and for everyone “everywhere in the world,” offering Higher Hopes For Youth Than Hip Hop by, together, working to reduce violence in our schools and communities.
Why won’t Chuck, and the General Mills Foundation, Randy and Tyrone, RT and Jayne, Norm, Mark, and Tim consider and address these?
Posted 6-4-05, 11:59 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.