‘Letter to the Editor’ Archives
Letter to the Editor Progress and Vigilance
EDITOR”'S NOTE: The Alley Newspaper asked Lindsey Fenner, East Phillips resident, HN County Library worker and AFSME Local 2822 for any updates within the library system since she wrote an article in the FEBRUARY 2018 issue of The Alley. Here is what Linsey offered.] LINDSEY FENNER There are plans developing for overdose training (not Narcan administration, but more general) for staff at three of the most impacted libraries (including Franklin). Franklin and two more libraries will be added to the pilot sharps container list. We have a labor/management meeting the end of February to discuss what training would look like, and hopefully get the answers to the questions we had asked at the last meeting about what the actual policy, procedures, and training are for sharps and bloodborne pathogens for all of the workers in the library. (Apparently there is often a lot of blood in the bathrooms from injection accidents. On their own initiative, frontline library workers have been [...]
Letter to the Editor: Tell History in full context; A Single Story is dishonest, disrespectful, and sometimes a monstrous mistake
BY LAURA WATERMAN WITTSTOCK It is the artist”'s responsibility to understand the society in which he/she lives and to create art that moves society forward. Apparently this artist thought building a scaffold to reveal the horror of mass hangings would shock and wake people up about the scaffolds of the future unless society comes to its senses. What the artist achieved was a grotesque placeholder of a time in history when white settlers brought along fried chicken and other snacks to watch 38 human beings being hanged en masse. We have had many such events in England, for example. The tower and square where beheadings took place are merely tourist attractions today. The blood has long dried. But 1862 is a year that is unsettled yet today. Dakota land was invaded, impinged upon, and even treaty land got no payment. The Dakota were at the point of starvation. Building a scaffold in a courtyard that holds other art rips open the wounds made to the Dakota people. A quiet burning [...]
Letter to the Editor: Profile Police Stops that fear non-whites of any age
By Laura Waterman Wittstock I don”'t know how many studies I have read that non-whites are stopped far more than whites. In MN American Indians are arrested far more than their population should suggest when compared to other populations. A great majority of these arrests do not result in convictions. We can”'t have an intelligent conversation without understanding what the relationship is between nonwhites driving cars and the stopping rates. In a non-scientific way, I have also noticed a lot of stops of older cars, whatever color the driver happens to be so. So poverty is likely another factor. The police represent the expectations of the presumed law-abiding public. Ten years ago I was stopped in a sweep around Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis for presumably not stopping long enough at a stop sign for the officer who was in a car perpendicular to me on another street. As I stopped and looked left, I saw him. After stopping I started out and he came after me. I told [...]
