‘Commentary’ Archives
Something I Said: Should’ve Been
Dwight Hobbes. Photo: courtesy the author By DWIGHT HOBBES Art Knight should be the next Minneapolis Police Department Chief, but has too much integrity for his own good. That’s how he lost his deputy chief position and got demoted, calling the MPD out for entrenched, institutionalized racism. Knight said the department needs to improve how it recruits, trains and promotes minorities and women, stating the obvious. “If you keep employing the same tactics you’re just going to get the same old white boys.” Chief Arradondo dismayed black Minneapolis at large with that move, since he, himself won his job on the strength of overwhelming black support in a social climate that demanded a change from those same old boys. And, for that matter, racist female cops. In fact, in 2007 then-Lieutenant Medaria Arradondo was part of a successful lawsuit against the MPD on the grounds of an environment hostile toward black officers. One has to believe the publicly pull-no-punches Art [...]
Raise Your Voice: Healing Little Earth
By PETER MOLENAAR Press release from the U.S. Department of the Interior: As established by order 3404 under Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the Board on Geographic Names has voted on replacement names for some 650 geographic features previously designated by the word sq---. Yet, those familiar with Little Earth are acquainted with the prominent signage there: END PIPELINES, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, TRAFFICKING, HOMELESSNESS, RAPE, ALCOHOLISM, RACISM, GENOCIDE. Certainly, the struggle for reparations must press forward. With this in mind, Elizabeth Royal, attorney for our Urban Farm project, believes we have a very strong case against our city’s intent to concentrate more pollution in the neighborhood… dirty air which imparts asthma, and yes, diminishes the learning capacity of our children. Moreover, our readers know about the Pope’s recent visit to Canada with intent to heal the historic trauma meted out by the [...]
Three Days of Respite at Chicago and Lake
Something I Said Three Days of Respite at Chicago and Lake By DWIGHT HOBBES Minnesota’s third annual Black Entrepreneur State Fair thankfully accomplished what the Minneapolis Police Department increasingly fails to do, safeguard the public from rampant drug dealing along with related violence and prostitution. To be sure, there’s no telling whether this was the aim. It may have simply been that the South Minneapolis locale, Chicago Ave and Lake Street, is about the most heavily trafficked intersection in town. Easily accessible by both mass transit and a main drag that amounts to a super highway with connecting streets instead of off rampants. A perfect place for the upwards of 50 vendors to make a killing, especially in this dead economy nobody wants to come right out and call another depression. For the sake of argument let’s say it killed the proverbial two birds with one stone. For three days, the Chicago-Lake hub was fenced off to buses, pedestrians and a [...]
