‘Commentary’ Archives
Reflections of Phillips
Thoughts on the enduring value of being involved and supporting your community. By DIANA PATINO-CRUZ My name is Diana Patino-Cruz and I come from a Hispanic household. I currently live in Coon Rapids, but lived in Minneapolis for many years. I work for Tri-Valley Opportunity Council Inc., which offers Head Start, child, and family programs for agricultural workers in rural Minnesota and North Dakota. I really appreciate my job because it gives me the opportunity to work with families I can relate to. I work with migrant workers who have many different stories. Some travel every year and work in different fields. Others come from their home places to a new country in hope of finding a better opportunity. I love giving back to my community which needs help and support. I lived a block away from Waite House in the Phillips Neighborhood. We visited Waite House often and it was always important to me and my family. We would go to the food shelf, and this helped us financially. [...]
Mosaic or Melting Pot?
Dominant Theologies Denied Marginalized People from the series Peace House Community Journal... By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby I recently read The Cross and Lynching Tree by James Cone. Cone was one of the first and most respected Black Liberation Theologians who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that the dominant Christian theology denied the experiences of minorities and had nothing to offer marginalized peoples. The Cross and the Lynching Tree was Cone’s final book before his death. He pointed out the similarities between Jesus’ crucifixion and the experiences of Black Americans who were lynched in this country. He also expressed shock that so few theologians, Black or White, could see the similarities. When he laid out the parallels, I was shocked, too, that I had never seen them, nor heard about them in my fifty plus years of attending church. Individual, cultures, and groups can have blind spotsThe experience was a little surreal, and it reminded me [...]
