Something I Said: Should’ve Been

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 Knight, not some platitude-spewing token like Arradondo turned out to be, would bend his back to making real change instead of posturing as an affirmative action token. Mayor Jacob Frey, phony as a $3 bill, has trotted out candidates to nominate: Elvin Barren, Brian O’Hara and, two-for-one token RaShall Brackney.… Read the rest “Something I Said: Should’ve Been”