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December, 31, 2015 #53: 2015: A Year Of Terror And Indecision
2016: A Year Of…?
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
December 30, 2015
2015: San Bernadino, Chattanooga, Charleston, SC, etc,, reveal how much the boogey man of terrorism is entrenched into the fiber of domestic America.
2015: terror examples: in super markets, movie theaters, Army recruitment centers, schools, and, most frightening, churches and places of worship. When the forces of evil descended on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, that should have been a wake up call that a dangerous atmosphere exists in America.
2015: an angry America, driven by a great divide between the ideologies of left and right bore witness to terror and terrorism from both sides of the aisle, right here in Minneapolis, MN.
2015, December: The "occupation" siege of the 4th Precinct, which became extremely dangerous. It reminds us of the days of sectarian uprisings, when both the left and the right came together only to deliver their hatreds and make their calls for the destruction of each other.
2015 does not bode well for 2016, as Trump and Cruz seemingly become the voice of the evil apostle and as the left talks as if the days of the 1960s were reawakened. We have a freight train thundering down the tracks of confusion and hatred. Will we work together to stop it?
2015 witnessed internal fighting in the Twin Cities, as some Black leaders encouraged African American demonstrators to attack African American police and fire fighters, and to attempt to publically humiliate them.
2015 plans. Plans? I didn’t see any.
2016 plans and formulas of peace. We have models (approaches)to follow as we’ve discussed before:
2016: do we work to find a workable formula of peace or not, or just stumble into 2016? For eight years we have seen Barack Obama as the poster child for fumbling hatred and violence in America. By the time he leaves office in January 2017, we may be a nation that is in shreds, tearing ourselves apart over such issues as environmental protection, educational opportunities, jobs and employment, shelter and housing, and diversity and justice, all because those opposed to each other refuse to cooperate with each other, refuse to respect one another and refuse to work together to get the best out of each other.
1944, April 15. Nellie Stone Johnson and Hubert H. Humphrey co-founded the DFL. She brought the language of tolerance and diversity, pluralism and anti-racism to the forefront of political dialogue in Minnesota and nationwide. We need to bring that back. Nellie was betrayed by Liberals who saw the vehicle of deliverance not Nellie’s “community oriented” approach but their centralized state control approach. They did not follow the golden Rule. Nellie always followed the Golden Rule. Will today's social movements do so in 2016?
2015 had great thinkers and prognosticators.
2016: Will they look back in December to find that, again, far too many were silent instead of speaking out about the dangerous signs? Let us hope for the sake of the preservation of the nation that we get it together and that we move toward reconciliation. If we do not, we an risk an apocalypse that we never dreamt of.
Thus, apocalypses aren’t just in movies. This will not be a horror movie made in Hollywood. It will reflect the failure of a nation to act on the signs:
---people refusing to follow the Golden Rule, and
---people reusing to work together to calm the vibrations that could tear America apart at the seams.
Have a nice year.
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.
Written Monday, Decemer 21, 2015
Published, MSR, Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Posted TMS, Wednesday, December 30, 2015, 5:47 a.m.
December, 24, 2015 #52: Breaking the heart of a community. BLM & NAACP Protestors Attack Black fire fighters and police officers.
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
December 24, 2015
In the November 27, 2015 edition of the Kansas City Call, the major African American newspaper in the State of Missouri, there is a picture on the front page with this headline “Protest continues in Minneapolis. Feds head to city to begin investigation.”
That picture on the front page broke my heart: a young African American Minneapolis police officer berated and threatened by African American protestors. Being that the photograph was taken by Reuters, means it was sent to papers and news outlets worldwide, showing African American policemen being savagely disrespected by the occupiers of the Fourth Precinct.
It caused me to reflect deeply about the disrespect and threats I saw directed against African American police officers and fire fighters at the occupation.
We saw African American police officers and African American fire fighters berated, spit upon, and threatened. Rocks and bottles were thrown at them. There were attempts to physically attack them. I wondered, during the 18 days of occupation, why we as a community did not speak up in defense of these courageous public servants.
The police officer on the front page of the Kansas City Call was born and raised in North Minneapolis. Indeed, the highest ranking African American police officer was the well-known Medaria Arradondo, deputy chief, chief of staff. The highest ranking African American fire fighter, Assistant Fire Chief Bryan Tyner, is a 21-year veteran and past president of Black Fire Fighters Association (from 2001-2013). Both were born and raised in North Minneapolis. With venom and hate, they were called every name one could imagine that could be spewed at them.
These were not White Ku Klux Klan or White Supremacists threatening Black police and fire fighters; these were African Americans, some from Minneapolis, some from out of town, who turned back the clock and paid no attention and had no respect for the long and courageous battle fought in this city to integrate our fire and police departments. There was a 50-year period without one Black fire fighter, and a 100-year period when the number of Black policemen never exceeded three.
I thought of great Minneapolis police inspectors like Raymond Pressly, and great African American fire fighters, such as John Griffin. These men are important symbols of the battle waged for over half a century to integrate the protective services, fire and police.
I still cannot understand the disrespect shown these African American men and women who lay their lives on the line each and every day. They make up the thin blue line of African Americans who, if not for them, circumstances and conditions would have been much more volatile and with greater violations of the Constitutional Rights of African Americans during the siege of the Fourth Precinct.
And so that picture by Reuters, on the front page of African American newspapers across America, broke my heart. I have long known what the battle has been like to bring representation of African Americans to the protective services. These young African American men and women — and those who came before them — have earned respect and thus deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
And yet, as this column is submitted, no one has reached out to those who are Black members of the protective services, fire and police, to express regret and to apologize for the disrespect and disdain that was heaped upon those who have sworn to protect and serve.
I know of no situation in the history of these men and women in which they ever turned their backs on the community of which they are a part.
Shame on us for our disrespect for these brave men and women.
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.
Written Monday, Decemer 14, 2015
Published, MSR, Thursday, December 24, 2015
Posted TMS, Saturday, December 26, 2015, 7:32 p.m.
December, 17, 2015 #51: Whose voice will be heard? And when? The struggle for control.
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
December 17, 2015
Pull quote: Nonviolence is essential to achieve our shared goals.
Last week we wrote about concerns regarding the 18 days of demonstration by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP, and others, including the laying of siege to the Fourth Precinct in North Minneapolis.
Residents recognized the historic injustices behind the demonstrations, but having their own lives to live, they complained of how some behaved and how it disrupted their daily lives.
Our concern is that demonstrators in Minneapolis (and other cities) not lose support of those who agree with them because of objectionable methods. This is why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not let people march unless they signed the pledge to do so nonviolently. He knew success would come by making friends, not enemies, if they were to be influential.
Blacks did the same in South Africa. Nellie Stone Johnson and I worked with Bishop Tutu, who in turn, of course, worked with Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk to end South Africa’s Apartheid, using nonviolence to peaceably achieve success through their Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
They dismantled apartheid with love and forgiveness (“Ubuntu”), just as the relatives and friends did of the shooting of 9 Blacks in the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), Wednesday, June 17, in Charleston, South Carolina.
Gandhi did the same thing in India. Thurgood Marshall led the team that argued successfully before the Supreme Court to make discrimination unlawful.
Love, not hate, sounds trite, but there is a “Golden Rule” in every major religion on the planet (listed on p. 62 of my book).
Education is key, from Martin Luther’s 16th century catechism for use in homes, to the Pilgrims at Jamestown, to hidden signs and secret meetings for slaves to learn to read, to American frontier McGuffey’s Reader, to Mao’s Little Red Book, to Martin Luther King’s Why We Can’t Waitand Letter from a Birmingham Jail, among others.
Of greatest concern is how the ill-treating of police will be effective in influencing changes in police behavior. Demonstrating is fine. One of our freedoms. Our concern is that it be done in such a way that friends can be made with those one is trying to influence. University administrators may be weak-kneed, but elected officials and police are not.
The Civil Rights Movement collapses when the Bill of Rights, due process, and the rights of others are not supported. We urge all interested in our communities to develop action plans and then act on those plans to improve education so that jobs and housing can be made possible.
We need to be united as a community to achieve shared goals. Damaging credibility of key organizations then damages opportunities for Minnesota’s African Americans.
Unwanted negative commentary about the NAACP and its military wing, Black Lives Matter, blocks dealing with the issues of the day, as does berating and insulting African American police officers. And yet, so far, no organization has stepped up to ask about reconciliation. Time to do so.
We hear rumors that National NAACP in Baltimore is not happy with leaders of the Minneapolis branch. If so, there may yet be hope for the national NAACP.
We know the National NAACP expects a meeting of the branch leadership and membership before Christmas to assess
(1) strengths,
(2) weaknesses,
(3) the damage to the Minneapolis NAACP in light of the occupation, and (4) to assess other relationships of the NAACP branch with the Department of Justice, the offices of Governor Mark Dayton, and with other organizations, Black and White.
We urge attention be paid to developing real plans (and we offer the 47 “solution papers” archived on our “The Minneapolis Story” website as available resources).
We fully recognize the Black police officers whose thin blue line is desperately attempting to improve police-community relations. For our own sakes, we as a community need to rise above all the noise and anger and work out our own formula of peace.
Stay tune
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.
Written Monday, Decemer 7, 2015
Revised
Friday, Decemer 11, 2015
Published, MSR, Thursday, December 17, 2015
Posted TMS, Friday, December 18, 2015, 6:36 a.m.
December, 10, 2015 #50: An open letter: To Black Lives Matter, NAACP, and out of town demonstrators
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 Onlin
An open letter: To Black Lives Matter, NAACP, and out of town demonstrators:
Subject: Devisive tension runs high within our Black Community.
Question: Whose community? Ours or out of towners?
Pull quote: Saying “to hell with due process” strips the protection it gives you, which is why your law school teachers’ unconcern with due process is scary.
We know protesters mean well. But continued protest outside the 4th Precinct in North Minneapolis raises serious questions about your true goals as you cause divisions within leaders of our community, not only in North Minneapolis, but across the metropolitan area.
We all, black and white, sympathize with your cause, but not your methods. When you push people away and won’t wait for all the evidence (preferring to “shoot first and ask questions later”), you hinder civil rights struggles, causing people who want to help and invest in our communities to shy away from doing so.
This is OUR community, OUR city, not yours. Disrespecting us, trashing and blocking our streets, blocking access to public transportation, creating problems for our elderly and those travelling to work by bus, won’t help the cause of civil rights as you disrespect and undermine it.
When the Mayor and key Black leaders and Jamar Clark’s family asked you to stop your demonstrations and violence, you said no. As Minnesota US Representative Keith Ellison said about the result of your efforts: “The unintended effect is domestic terrorists are coming to the protest to start trouble." Hopefully, when this column is published in ten days, you will have come to your senses and dispersed.
Honor the statements of the state of Minnesota and the Federal Government that they will release the video that shows the conflict that cost 24 year old Jamar Clark his life. That it may not prove your case is another reason why it is important to wait for the completion of the investigation.
We live in a nation of laws established to protect both majority and minority. We do it better than any other country. We, including many of our Black communities, are the envy of the world. Your ability to demonstrate and say what you will is because you are protected by the Constitution’s 5th, and 14th amendments regarding “due process” (the state must respect all legal rights of individuals, protecting them from excess use of the law).
There are Black attorneys on both sides of this conflict. What startles us are the law school professors leading you to betray our laws, especially the very parts they learned that were established to protect your due process.
Why doesn’t your concern for justice take you to demonstrate before the front doors of the Office of Criminal Apprehension and the FBI? Saying “to hell with due process” strips the protection it gives you, which is why your law school teachers unconcern with due process is scary.
You have inspired silent white clergy to openly criticize our Black clergy and Congressman Keith Ellison, accusing them of being out of step. You undermine civil rights struggles by casting aside due process and equal protection under the color of law, enabling chaos and anarchy.
Your saying that it is time for old leadership to move on and that we should then, as a community, accept this new guard is common, misplaced youthful exuberance. It has been a common complaint since ancient Greece 2,500 years ago.
Your premise that due process and constitutional guarantees may be dismissed and abandoned because you don’t like something is an invitation to anarchy at the expense of freedom and liberty.
It is not the tradition and history of the African American to embrace anarchy and dismiss the rights of others nor is it what allowed us to gain the attention of America over the past 100 years in our struggle for equality of opportunity, for not only the sons and daughters of the African but for the sons and daughters of all citizens, all protected by the doctrine of equal protection under the law.
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.
Written Monday, November 30, 2015
Published, MSR, Thursday, December 10, 2015
Posted TMS, Friday, December 11, 2015, 11:59 p.m.
Article Coming
December, 03, 2015 #49: White supremacists shoot and wound protestors in North Minneapolis
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
December 3, 2015
Pull quote: We are faced, in our city of Minneapolis, with a
severe and dangerous racial backlash, backed by
well-planned, military-style terrorist acts against the African American community.
This right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth, is fundamental to our free society. — Thurgood Marshall
Speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is truthful but also dangerous (you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater). — Oliver Wendell Holmes
In our various media platforms, we have warned that a White supremacist terrorist plot, detected November 18, could be activated against the African American community. This column is being written three hours after White supremacist terrorists, wearing body armor and carrying heavy weapons, opened fire on at least 100 demonstrating African Americans at 10:45 pm, Monday, November 23, 2015, on Morgan Avenue N., about a block north of the Fourth Precinct station. Five were wounded. Future columns will provide updates.
The supremacist shooting was in response to protestors tying up Highway 94 and demonstrating outside the Fourth Precinct, led by Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and the NAACP Minneapolis brach, which in turn was in response to another young Black man killed by police. Both sides are angry. Both sides are “shooting first, asking questions later.” Both sides are escalating.
Neither side wishes to wait to see what the investigations reveal. Let’s not show the world and ourselves that our freedom of speech is made in exchanges of bullets, but instead demonstrate we exchange using words and corrective action.
On my weekly TV program, Sunday, November 22, I warned that a dangerous and volatile conspiracy was at play. We were aware that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) and federal authorities were attempting to track down conspirators, after intercepting a video transmission of terrorists discussing and planning their action.
In a City Hall press conference on the 19th of November, at the MPD’s North Minneapolis training facility, I publicly stated for the record that Black anarchists on one side and White supremacist terrorists on the other were each planning action, each driven by vastly different philosophies and hatreds. The White supremacist terrorists’ plans included using bullets. The Black anarchists’ plans included protest marches, protest signs, and throwing stones. The media took no note of my warning nor the warning from the MPD.
We are faced, in our city of Minneapolis, with a severe and dangerous racial backlash, backed by well-planned, military-style terrorist acts against the African American community. These are not to be taken lightly. They have recruited bomb makers to escalate terrorist activities and actions, especially actions against African Americans.
We have threats to our democracy with both sides urging our young people to burn down their own communities. It is just a matter of time before weak but dangerous minds in different ideological camps willmove to implement plans of terror on the streets of Minneapolis, unless we can figure out a formula of peace that will enable all to coexist, the challenge of our modern era and its different “altars.”
Let’s support “let my people go” for all people, and not “back to the plantation” to unacceptable “others.” God help us as a community, as a city, and as a state to bring these White terrorists to justice. Let’s support all affected neighborhoods and downtown, and especially our African American neighborhoods.
In closing we would expect elected and appointed officials as well as White and Black clergy to act responsibly, and to denounce any act of terror, regardless of by whom, against communities that merely wanted their voices heard. Instead of letting this be a great day for neo Nazi activists in America, let us make it a great day for peaceful freedom of expression.
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.
Written Monday, November 23, 2015
Published, MSR, Thursday, December 3, 2015
Posted TMS, Thursday, December 3, 2015, 11:56 p.m.
November, 26, 2015 #48: Listen and Understand. City Tense After African American Youth, Jamar Clar, Shot and Killed in Police Involved Shooting. Anger builds after shooting.
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
November 26, 2015
[We] need "to unify our strength and achieve a result that has been too long in coming."
--- French President Francois Hollande, November 16, 2015
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
---Martin Luther King, Jr.
Police shot 24 year old African American Jamar Clark, early Sunday morning, November 16th in North Minneapolis. Mr. Clark was taken off of life support early Monday morning. Tensions remain extremely high, given the controversy surrounding the shooting. Two Minneapolis police officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, with pay.
In a first for the Minneapolis Police Department regarding an officer involved shooting, the federal Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) has taken over the investigation. Early Monday, November 16, 2015, the Mayor announced that the U.S. Department of Justice was asked to conduct an investigation into the Mr. Clark’s death. As the Star Tribune reported, the mayor and the chief have “utmost faith” in the state of Minnesota investigation, but believe a federal probe will assist “the interests of transparency and community confidence.” The Baptist State Convention and Council Member Blong Yang, who represents part of the North Side and oversees the council’s Public Safety Committee, and others, including the Minneapolis NAACP, support the request. When announced, the crowd demonstrating outside the Fourth Precinct applauded.
Monday, November 16, almost 100 law enforcement automobiles were employed along Highway 94, going through the Northern part of Minneapolis, over 100 protestors blocked Interstate 94 for two hours by linking arms together across the freeway.
In our next column, we will have more detailed information on the shutdown of Highway 94 and the siege of the 4th Precinct Station on Plymouth Avenue. Meetings were held November 14, 15, and 16 at New Salem Church. More are planned. Press conferences were held at City Hall, and statements were issued by various organizations, Black and White.
What is important now is to allow the investigation to go forward before unsubstantiated incriminations and allegations become the order of the day. Some maintain that Mr. Clark was handcuffed at the time he was shot in the head by one of the two police officers. Black Lives Matter and the NAACP claim to have witnesses to what they are calling an execution style murder of Mr. Clark.
As of the writing of this story, no video has been released for review. The leadership of the Minneapolis branch of the Urban League has offered to provide a stenographer and legal advisors to witnesses. In a very contentious Urban League meeting of over 100 citizens, organizational leadership of different groups pleaded with Black Lives Matter and others to allow the investigative process to go forward, to not rush to judgment and to not obstruct the investigation, to withhold judgment until the investigation is completed.
These tragedies are not new, nor are tactical and strategic mistakes that can result in no indictments and no consequences for the police actions. Thus, in light of such tensions causing the city to become polarized and divided, we call for calm and responsible action, in order to give the investigation process a chance.
Mean spirited reflections and comments directed against the African American community are appearing on social media as well as extremely dangerous threats being posted against law enforcement. This results in no winners, only losers. It is important that we all understand and allow the process to work, and not tear each other apart out of hatred, fear, or any other emotion, even though some like the American tradition of violence against the Black community.
We need to establish purpose and goals for going forward.
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.
Written Monday, November 16-17, 2015
Published, MSR, Thursday, November 26, 2015
Posted TMS, Thursday, November 26, 2015, 3:35 a.m.
November, 19, 2015 #47: Race, Money and the University of Missouri.Black students figure it out. Good for them.
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
November 19, 2015
I take "full responsibility for the frustration" students expressed; their complaints were "clear" and "real.” “Change is needed.”
Tim Wolf, when he resigned as President of the University of Missouri-Columbia
"Not in our modern history have we seen black [football] students collectively flex their muscle in this way."
Shaun Harper, NCAA Division I Sports.
“I’m proud of what the students have accomplished and happy the protests remained peaceful.”
Mary Ratliff, President of both Missouri NAACP and Columbia NAACP branch
"I understand that you all would not be here today if our student athletes didn't get involved."
Mack Rhoades, MU athletic director
As a long time Civil Rights activist and advocate of non-violence, I’m proud of the strategy and tactics of the African American football players at the University of Missouri to exercise their newly understood power in presenting their list of demands
The decision by the University of Missouri system President and University Chancellor to relinquish their positions had less to do with the hunger striking graduate student Jonathon Butler, and all to do with many other campus issues, especially the potential financial repercussions, all reflectimg the significant erosion and widespread non-support for the President and Chancellor.
If Missou didn’t play on Saturday, November 14, the school would have had to pay $1,000,000 to Brigham Young University for not playing. Also at risk was the forfeiture of the season’s last two games and the collapse of the football program and the loss of its $83 million/year revenue. It was all about race, money and the University of Missouri’s financial future. The football playing students became the teachers.
The African American student leadership called themselves the “1950 group” after the year the University of Missouri desegregated and admitted Negroes. A turning point was November 8th, when students and athletes together confronted President Wolf and a large group of university donors at the Kaufman Fine Arts Center in Kansas City, MO.
In a personal conversation with Mary Ratliff, President of both the Columbia, Missouri NAACP branch, and of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP the evening of November 8th, Ms. Radcliff shared with this columnist the discussion she and others were having in meetings with Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and law enforcement officers regarding concern about potentially dangerous escalation. The football players, both black and white, and supported by their coach, created a significant change of leadership at the University in a 48 hour period, without violence. By 7 am, November 9th, President Wolfe submitted his resignation to the governing body of the Missouri Higher Education, the Board of Curators. Hours later the Chancellor resigned.
The strategy and tenaciousness of the university’s African American football players reminded me of Black players in the 1960s, at the University of Wyoming and at the University of Iowa. A leader at Iowa was former Vikings Head Coach, Dennis Green. Those two groups of athletes understood the power of messing with “The Man’s” money.
People at the University of Missouri may like or dislike Black students but they all like football and making money. This time it was not racism that prevailed, but the threat of losing $84 million.
In remembering hard won Civil Rights freedoms, we remember when the struggle began with university Black athletes standing up against racism. It began with All American football player Paul Robeson, valedictorian of his Rutgers University class of 1919, who later played in the NFL and who became a world reknown singer. Robeson was followed in our time by such stand up athletes as Bill Russell, Jim Brown, and Karem Abdul Jabbar.
May God continue to give Black players strength, and continue to protect them and in this spirit of new awakening in the continued struggle by Black Americans of all persuasions to work together toward ending racism anywhere.
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, November 19, 2015
November, 12, 2015 #46: When will diversity numbers for Vikings stadium construction be available?
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
November 12, 2015
Our “Minneapolis Story” has pulled the covers back on Minneapolis for 14 years, in order to expose the systematic walls purposefully built to hold back Black Americans. In this first of two columns, we feature 10 of the 17 columns published since the US Bank Vikings Stadium was approved on December 20, 2012, in an effort to seek honesty in stadium construction minority hiring.
Three key points highlight why this matters:
1. Nellie Stone Johnson said it best: No education, no job, no housing, which leads to no family and poor public safety. We seek the nonviolence solutions of Martin Luther King, Jr to also fight our self-inflicted problems. For example, 93 percent of Blacks killed in America are killed by Blacks.
2. Government and social science empirical research illustrates the best path to take to rise out of poverty — whether Black or White — is to first graduate from school, whether high school, trade school, college or a university. Then get a job, then get married, then have children, raising boys and girls in families with two parents, however defined.
3. Black progress is blocked with “good intentions” of The Big Five partnerships, which deliver unintended “breaking bad” consequences:
(1) Governors and their partners: legislatures and state agencies
(2) Mayors and their partners: city councils and city agencies
(3) Courts and their partners: state and county attorney’s offices
(4) Nonprofits and for-profits and their partners: Black and White, churches, charities, corporations, foundations, large and small businesses, local, national and international, that too often serve themselves at the expense of those needing assistance.
(5) Knowledge industries (K-12, colleges and universities), and their partners, print, broadcast, digital, and social media.
The Star Tribune (Sept. 17, 2015) reported the U.S. Federal Government Census Bureau’s recent statistics: Black poverty rate rose 33 percent while African American earning power decreased 14 percent. Minnesota is ranked 45th — after Mississippi. This report’s empirical evidence lays out in painful detail the truth about big lies regarding education, jobs, housing, families and public safety. When will Black and White leadership stop talking and take positive action?
There is a wall separating the US Bank Vikings Stadium and work opportunities for Blacks. There is a door in the wall for Whites but no door for Blacks, revealing the shame regarding African American survival and employment in the Minnesota economy.
Our goal should be best practices. In Minnesota we have worst practices. Our follow-up column will be on the four dozen columns before legislative passage that urged preparation for stadium construction job training and hiring.
Ten of the 17 columns, by date and title, about minority hiring after the legislative passage of December 20, 2012, are archived by year at www.theminneapolisstory.com/tocarchives.htm. They are as follows:
---June 18, 2015: The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights’ benign neglect of Black communities ---May 7, 2015: Where is the legislatively required minority hiring equity audit?
---March 19, 2015: Pattern and Practice with false Stadium Numbers. ---August 13, 2014: Is the reported 34% minority participation goal actually being met?
---February 12, 2014: Hiring numbers of Blacks reported by the Sports Authority: real or false?
---January 15, 2014: Promises: What good is an Equity Plan with no follow-through?
---December 4, 2013: Steel purchases outside the Iron Range: “To the extent practical” escape language.
---March 13, 2013: When will Minnesita’s “no Black workers need apply” policy end?
---February 6, 2013: Why no 32 percent Black participation in stadium construction.
---January 2, 2013: Where is Ted Mondale’s promised Vikings stadium diversity plan reflecting 32% diversity hiring?
For a complete list of columns going back to 2005 regarding Minneapolis non-compliance, go to our Solution Paper #46, Minneapolis disparity is purposefully and actively avoided with purposeful non-compliance.
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, November 11, 2015
Posted TMS, Saturday, November 14, 2015, 11:59 p.m.
November, 05, 2015 #45: IN MEMORIUM:Philip “Flip” Saunders, 1955-2015
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
November 5, 2015
Saddened to hear of Flip Saunders passing, Sunday, October 25, 2015, our most heartfelt condolences go out to his family, his team and to Glen Taylor and the whole Timberwolves organization.
I first saw Flip Saunders as a University of Minnesota freshman. He remains the best point guard in Gopher history. I watched many of his games. From the very beginning, from when he first came to Minnesota from Ohio, he became a Minnesota man. Throughout his career he always maintained a home in Minnesota.
He earned his nickname from his mother who heard it used when they were at a barber shop.
Winner of over 1,000 games (654 in the NBA), his coaching career started at Golden Valley Lutheran College, where he never lost a home game, and ended as the winningest coach in Timberwolves history.
In each of his tours (3 Championships in the Continental Basketball League; the only coach to take the Timberwolves to the NBA playoffs), he leaves with legendary respect among his NBA peers, professionally and personally, the foundation of true legacies.
He was Head Coach of the Detroit Pistons, the Washington Wizards, and twice with the Minnesota Timberwolves. It is a testament to the character of the man and the Timberwolves owner and managers to recognize the error in firing him after his first tour and bring him back for a second. It is a measure of the character of Flip Saunders that he had the patience to wait for them to catch up with him.
Unlike with many, it is not cliché to talk about the positive manner he chose to his life. He is one of the greatest gentlemen that the game has ever known, which is why those he met were so deeply touched in a very positive manner, and why so many had such high respect for him. In a word, he always took the high road.
I met Coach Saunders a couple of times in different settings, and have written positively about him in this column before. He was one of those whose career I enjoyed following. I always found him to be a very decent and committed person. Those I knew who also knew Flip always spoke highly of him.
Wherever he went to coach and live, he was a winner, on and off the court. Part of his legacy is how he led and inspired, bringing flare and charisma to every game.
He was a terrific coach, known for having one of the best offensive minds ever. He always had his thick playbook. He always had plans. My continued hope and prayer is that state and local leaders in government and community work will also develop a playbooks with workable plans.
He must have had a “just in case” plan, given the caliber of personnel and assistants he brought in for the 2015-2016 season, using his three hats: President of Basketball Operations, Head Coach, and part owner.
Flip Saunders’ legacy will continue to lead and inspire. May he be remembered by naming the Target Center basketball court, "The Flip Saunders Court."
Known as a terrific person always willing to help others in need of support, he leaves many positive memories that will comfort his family as well as the Timberwolves, as all face a future without his physical presence. He was a great family man. I wish his family all the support and love needed, as it is harder on them than on his players, coaches, friends, and fans.
Thank you Flip for all that you have given us. Our prayers are for you and your family.
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, November 5, 2015
Posted TMS, Friday, November 6, 2015, 6:06.m.
Also see our Blog post of October 25, 2015.
October, 29, 2015 #44: Silence breeds violence. A dangerous pattern in public safety.
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
October 29, 2015
“Gun violence is taking over the streets ..... The community needs peace. We need people to put the guns down.”
— Janeé Harteau, Minneapolis Police Chief
The “Don’t Snitch!” theme that arose five years ago in the Eastern United States (Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other large eastern cities) showed up in Los Angeles, and is now in the Twin Cities, creating a devastating effect on our communities’ ability to deal with crime, murder and mayhem, and creating a devastating effect on solving homicides and other crimes and assaults in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
In a one-week period two weeks ago, seven people of color and one White were murdered, five in Minneapolis, three in St. Paul (nine during the same week in Chicago). Their ethnicity, in order by the level of violence: African American, Latino, Somali, and White. In seven of the murders, people told police, “We know nothing. We’re not talking. I don’t want to be a snitch.” This anti-snitch “philosophy” prevents justice for loved ones, past, present and future, as withholding information regarding acts of violence creates cold cases, increasing the heartbreak.
As police talked to witnesses, they were confronted with the “no snitch” theme. A 17-year-old African American was shot outside a Northside church and then followed into the church and shot again, left to die. A young man sitting in a car waiting for his father to come back is shot through the head. The shootings continued as Hispanics were shot to death and left to die in an alley in South Minneapolis and two young African Americans were shot to death in St. Paul.
This dangerous “no snitch” pattern has severe consequences to all who live in communities of color. Again, we ask, where’s the plan? How can we confront massive numbers of guns on the street, although some violent acts have been carried out with knives, hammers, and other instruments of violence, adding to the communities’ heartbreak?
The doctrine of silence really hits home when it is one’s own loved one or friend who becomes victim of the carnage that is in lock step with the silence. This is a frightening fact: far too many are either comfortable with acts of violence and death or are too scared to speak up, causing our communities to suffer.
It is not acceptable! It cannot be acceptable! It should not be tolerated!
The “I’m watching out for me and mine,” and “I’m not going to get involved” attitudes must change. A violent outcome came to a minister whose church had been violated with a murder, causing him to suffer the pain of shattering his confidence that humanity is still important, that concerns, values, and righteousness are still a part of the religious doctrine of courage and justice.
We have become a society blind to values so many were taught, and were raised to respect and to practice. But there is a problem tonight in the Twin Cities that must be addressed with a sense of urgency or we will continue to suffer the casualties of the silence of indifference and fear.
We must review “Formulas of Peace” of non-violence to deal with the elephant in the room that liberals want to ignore that make it harder for Blacks to succeed: many government policies hurt Black Americans. Before minimum wage began, Black unemployment rate was lower than Whites. Before the War on Poverty, Black advancement was far greater. U.S. murder rates before 1960 were significantly lower (today, 93% of Blacks killed are killed by other Blacks), causing us to ask: why are so many Black problems self-inflicted.
What joint community — police group will develop and act on a plan to address this elephant?
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, October 29, 2015
Posted TMS, Thursday, October 29, 2015, 11:58 p.m.
October, 22, 2015 #43: Violence in Minneapolis high schools. Are there any answers?"
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
October 22, 2015
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
--- Patrick Henry, a leader of the American Revolution.
Pull quote: The report of over 36 fights in one week at Patrick Henry High School, is frightening and disturbing, especially as we learn of individuals stopped, some who attempted to enter Patrick Henry High School armed.
In a peaceful corner in NW Minneapolis, is Patrick Henry High School, named after the man Patrick Henry, who stood for liberty and self-government. And yet we have abandoned these values in cities run by Democrats, as we accept the death of our communities rather than stand for liberty, as Democrats know they’ll have our vote.
Since the beginning of the school year, Patrick Henry and other Twin Cities’ high schools have seen a rise in dangerous and escalating conflicts. So we ask, “Where is the plan for how to deal with unsafe environments inside of our high schools?” This has caught the attention first and foremost of the residents in the community and of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD). We hope community leadership steps up as well.
Too many in city and community leadership positions have turned their backs on educating our youth on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s lifesaving and empowering nonviolence philosophy (see his book, Stride for Freedom). All the great religions have a version of the Golden Rule: “do unto others as we want them to do unto us.” The Civil Rights movement truly ended when violence became “the way” after King’s death, as too many wanted to change places with those oppressing them and then act like them on whites.
It is being alleged that because of the reduction in personnel, including key personnel, the district is not on top of its game of security as it should be. The MPD wants to heighten school security, but there are rumors and allegations that the district is not prepared to spend more dollars to reinforce needed school security.
The report of over 36 fights in one week at Patrick Henry is frightening and disturbing, especially as we learn of individuals who were stopped as they attempted to enter Patrick Henry armed. Isn’t that proof of the need for a plan and personnel to provide a safe environment for students, teachers, administrators and the surrounding community?
If the claim that the district doesn’t have funding to increase school security are true, then the school district must reach out to the State of Minnesota, the commissioner of education, corporations and charitable foundations, for immediate relief as needed. There are too many guns on the street, too many shootings, and too many injured by other methods of violent acts.
Every shooting and assault not reported does not mean they did not happen, nor does it mean the threat has gone away. The threat remains real. In some cases, knives have become the weapons of choice. Thus it is insane and contrary to the doctrine of public safety that the public is not being made aware of these dangers and incidents.
We are not picking on Patrick Henry, merely reporting on egregious acts causing more fear as more violence is glorified. Our schools deserve a guarantee that everything is being done to ensure safety.
We know and understand we are not a perfect society. But aren’t we required, as members of the human race, to do everything that we can to protect all of our citizens, no matter age or social standing or color of skin? And doesn’t that start with a commitment to promote nonviolence?
Sending swat teams into our high schools is a sign of how much we have failed our young people and neighborhoods, as we stand by as violence and never-ending revenge renders sections of communities uninhabitable, scaring away investors for development.
Where is the plan to not only end the violence but to promote nonviolence?
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, October 22, 2015
Posted TMS, Saturday, October24, 2015, 5:20 p.m.
October, 15, 2015 #42: U.S. miscalculates about Russia and Syria. Who is next?
"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
October 15, 2015
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” — Winston Churchill
From the birth of the Kievan state (9th Century forerunner of modern Russia) to the murder of Tsar Nicholas II, 1918, Russians have gloried in the history of their Tsars. Yet Western intelligence services have been unable to correctly analyze and understand the one some call Russia’s 21s t Century Tsar, President Vladimir Putin, former colonel, USSR secret police, the feared KGB, and who is now a man who is a self-declared Christian and capitalist. Whatever he is, he has the courage to stand up for his convictions and act upon them.
So why do we lack courage in reporting serious errors in policy judgment, creating serious fractures in our ability to stand up to Russia, not to mention a lack of courage to stand up to crime in urban America? This is important to the Black community. Policy makers (whether Congress or the White House) have been afraid to admit errors in analysis regarding foreign and local communities. We are frustrated by suggestions dismissed regarding issues important to Black Americans: education, jobs, housing, public safety, governing, and the war on young Black men (including Black gang wars against each other).
Russian military presence in Syria includes advisors, air power, and combat boots on the ground. Russia strongly supports what it considers assets of Russia: Syria and the Ukraine. Why doesn’t the U.S. consider USA inner cities as assets and support them?
By any objective measure, ignored major events have taken place in the Middle East that have impacted our communities as well. This includes Russian occupation of Ukraine, the rise of ISIS, the Russian deal with Syria, Iran, and Iraq, challenging America for dominance by expanding its military power and influence in the Middle East, all of which means we have wasted billions of dollars that could have been used to develop infrastructure and economic development in our inner cities.
We wrote a year ago that Putin is a man well trained to look into the mind and the soul of his opposition. So why does the United States continue to miss opportunity after opportunity to look into his?
The Russians are not blind to the West leading the charge to seek energy independence by driving down the price of oil. We applaud that. But we still need a clear understanding of the global implications of the significant political and military missteps and miscalculations that the world cannot afford in a nuclear age. When the U.S. economy is hurt, African American communities are hurt even more.
The Russian presence in Syria is changing the balance of political power, becoming more volatile than the Korean peninsula. When Putin sees the U.S. not taking action, continuing to ignore the Russian-led pincer movement, he sees the dismissal of the Middle East as a non-threat and as racist. Missed calculations created conflicts like the first and second world wars, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the Middle East, and, in our country, slave and Jim Crow conflicts, today’s inner cities and along our border with Mexico.
There is no excuse for the United States not to have a solution for what is happening, especially in light of the recently formed and very dangerous coalition of Russia, Iran, Iraq, and the militarily rejuvenated Syria, about which we passively stand by and do nothing. Why give Putin 16 months to carry out his plan to put the USSR back together? And why do we continue to wait to put our urban neighborhoods back together?
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, October 15, 2015
Posted TMS, Saturday, October24, 2015, 5:12 p.m.
October, 08, 2015 #41: Mayor Makes Right Decision in Reappointing MPD Chief Now work to Restore MPD to handling Viking Stadium security.
"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
October 8, 2015
Mayor Betsy Hodges announced September 23rd reappointing incumbent MPD (Minneapolis Police Department) Chief of Police Janeé Harteau, to another three year term. Supporters of both women agreed it was the right decision.
The reappointment comes at a challenging time for the city, especially in terms of public safety related to (1) the streets, (2) the new Viking stadium, and (3) the encroachment on the MPD by the Hennepen County Sheriff’s department and backed by the MSFA (Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority). The MSFA is pulling another “Lucy:” the comic strip bully who promised to hold the ball in place only to pull it away at the last minute in an act of bullying.
MSFA Chair Michele “Lucy” Kelm-Helgen and MSFA Executive Director, Ted “Lucy” Mondale, are again trying to pull the football on their public promises about supporting hiring African Americans. This time: take the Viking stadium MPD security detail and give it to the Hennepin County Sherriff’s office. The MPD has diversity. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s department is nearly all white.
This secretive back room attempt came to light after Sherriff’s department called the NFL seeking three free suites at the upcoming Super Bowls so it can learn for the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis, claiming to be the security detail, even though no contract has been signed. Shocked at this unprecedented out of protocol act, the NFL called the MPD to ask what’s going on, unknowingly letting the cat out of the bag.
Consider:
We write from a two part understanding of stadium security:
(1) the overall electronic and security technology (software, hardware, fire walls and anti-hacking/intrusion, security cameras, sensors of all kinds, alarms, etc.), awarded to the Chicago security company,
(2) non-electronic security: the men and women providing live security details, that should be done by the MPD.
We call on the Minneapolis Legislative Delegation and other Minnesota Legislators to work closely with the Chief and the Mayor to reestablish and carry out the promise made to the MPD, and to demand an explanation from both the MSFA and the Governor for this raid on the City’s MPD, and demand ending considering such a decision.
We don’t believe this decision will stand the scrutiny of the legislature or the courts.
We urge the Mayor, Chief, and MPD Federation to work together in common cause to re-secure the security contract for the MPD.
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.
Published, MSR, Thursday, October 8, 2015
Posted TMS, Friday, October 9, 2015, 2:20 a.m.
October, 01, 2015 #40: Strange sounds from city hall. Test of leadership.
"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
October 1, 2015
Pull quote: In hindsight will we see that the mayor introduced a new chief that destabilized the police department, or that she reappointed our current chief and kept stability?
As of the writing of this column, September 22, 2015, there are, as always, many rumors floating about. It is as if we are on a yellow brick road of Alice in Wonderland. But can that be in this day of our need for serious leadership? What and who will be on the road to our city’s future?
On the one hand we see a city economically flourishing — downtown east, the Nicollet Mall, three new stadiums, great shopping malls — all signs of prosperity pointing to a great future.
On the other hand, we see corners of our city that are not economically flourishing, especially North and South Minneapolis. When will the city’s leaderships deal with action on real plans for the corners left behind?
Not all who walk our Minneapolis wonderland roads like each other, and yet good relationships are key. So some act as children rather than as adults, cutting off workable relationships, sacrificing their duties such that the people of our Minneapolis wonderland pay the price, a price that includes:
Many today feel as if we are riding out the control roller coaster of Minneapolis City Hall politics, which includes treachery and betrayal, pettiness and meanness, and even pillow talk and other whisperings that drive the wrong agenda for the wrong reasons for the wrong people.
The city is for citizens, not selfie-taking office holders. We have leaders, Black as well as White, in turmoil, seeking quick fixes that wind up sabotaging the long term due to their failure of nerve.
At this writing, before September 24, the date when the decision had to be made to determine if there would be a new chief of police in Sherwood Forest, we hope to be able to look back and see no negatives of any kind in any way, shape, or fashion that sets up destroying and rupturing our city’s public safety.
May we look back and, in the tradition of Robin Hood, see merry men and merry women celebrate stability that comes from keeping our police chief and not creating needless disruption in public safety? In hindsight will we see that the mayor introduced a new chief that destabilized the police department, or that she reappointed our current chief and kept stability?
As in the old True Detective magazine, we are attempting to solve the mysteries of leadership failures.
It has been stunning to see and analyze the intrigue and treachery of city government. Will it play out like a “road not taken” novel, or like a true crime story, or be driven by the narrative of the old fashioned dirty politics riddle, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the prettiest of them all?”
You would think that politicians would not be driven by the children’s game of “Mirror, Mirror,” but sometimes politicians, whether mayors, city council members, other elected officials, or their various appointees, are driven by their own personal perceptions of their sadly false self-perceived greatness and behavior.
Leaders don’t always take action we can be proud of. No wonder they have difficulty explaining to citizens why they are acting like children and not adults. In these challenging times, Minneapolis cannot survive such leadership, nor can these leaders get re-elected.
Let’s pray for our leaders and us.
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.
Published MSR, Thursday, October 1, 2015,
Posted TMS, Wednesday, September 30, 2015, 1:50 a.m.
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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