The day after Mayor Betsy Hodges, Congressmember Keith Ellison, City Council members Barbara Johnson and Blong Yang, and an assorted group of “community leaders” called for an end to the protest on Plymouth Avenue, the protesters are staying strong. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
UPDATE 10 p.m.: A huge crowd marched from the 4th Precinct to downtown Minneapolis Tuesday afternoon, unintimidated by the white supremacist shooting of five protesters on Monday night. As of Tuesday evening, police have three young white men in custody. A Hispanic man was arrested but then released, as he was not at the shooting scene. For more, see Star Tribune article. [This article has been substantially revised and updated, following the march.]
Filed under human rights, race
Poster by Ricardo Levins Morales
Nekima Levy-Pounds, Erica Mauter, Bill Lindeke, and Karen Wills: these are just a few of the eloquent voices I’ve been reading over the past week. They’ve written through the police attacks on demonstrators on November 18 and through the political and police debates going on all over the Twin Cities media. I know it’s hard to keep up with the news — just compiling the information for this post took me all of Sunday afternoon. So, if you want good information and don’t want to spend all day searching for it, here’s a brief recap of the week’s events, followed by links to and quotes from some of the best of this week’s statements and analyses. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
Photo of banner outside the Minneapolis Police Department fourth precinct by Tony Webster. Published under Creative Commons license.
Someone called police early Sunday morning. Domestic assault, they said. Paramedics helping the victim, and a man interfering with them, they said. Did he want to talk? To fight? Maybe even to apologize? We don’t know. We do know that police acted, taking Jamar Clark away from the paramedics. Minutes later, the 24-year-old black man lay on the ground with a police bullet in his head. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
Photo of golden retriever by Franco Vannini, published under Creative Commons license
Last week, the United States admitted 15 Golden Retrievers, fleeing the hard life on the streets of Istanbul. The dogs were welcomed and given new homes in Minnesota, joining more than 60 others who have been admitted this year. More dogs will be coming, as efforts continue to raise money to rescue homeless dogs from Turkish streets. Meanwhile, one year after the United States launched a program for Central American children to apply for refugee status, not one child out of more than five thousand applicants has made it through the lengthy process to safety in the United States. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Photo by Democracy Chronicles, published under Creative Commons
 license
Syrian refugees drown, washing up on beaches in public view. Central American refugees, deported back to the countries they fled, die out of sight, out of mind. The Guardian highlighted three cases of young Honduran men who were murdered shortly after being deported. They are three among many, says The Guardian, referring to a study by a San Diego State University social scientist who has identified 83 such cases in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since January 2014. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Photo of 2012 Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in Berkeley by Quinn Dombrowski, published under Creative Commons license.
Yes — October 12 is Indigenous Peoples Day in the Twin Cities! Celebrating means recognizing the legacy and continuing contributions of Native Americans to this country and state. As Congressmember Keith Ellison said last year, during the Minneapolis debate:
“The very foundation of the United States, the theoretical concept of it, offered to our nation by the Iroquois Confederacy, as we were told growing up, ‘Oh, this is from the Greeks.’ We weren’t told about the Iroquois Confederacy, but we learned about it. And now that we have established Indigenous Peoples Day, every child – whether that child is Native, or whether that child is not – will learn the truth about where America really, really comes from.”
Filed under human rights
Syrian refugees’ camp in Cappadocia, Turkey. Photo by Fabio Sola Penna, published under Creative Commons license.
In an eloquent cri de coeur, Lina Sergie Attar wrote about the agony of Syria:
“Now, the everyday violence and death Syrians witness is no longer recorded in full force unless events surpass the daily ‘acceptable’ quota of death—like it did on August 16 in Douma, after more than 100 people were killed by a regime aerial attack on a crowded marketplace. These kinds of mass tragedies, like the chemical weapons attack in 2013 and the Daraya massacre in 2012, capture the world’s attention—headlines, outrage, condemnation—for a few moments before Syria’s suffering once again fades to white noise. When the country has been reduced to smoldering ashes and its people have been forced into a mass exodus to new countries and new homes, our capacity to document—to speak or write and chant—dwindles. History collapses into a simple etcetera.”
More than four million refugees have fled Syria. Millions more remain inside Syria, but no longer in their own homes, internal refugees forced to flee for their lives. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, immigration
Photo by Kate Ter Haar, published under Creative Commons license.
In May the state of Washington contracted with the GEO Group, one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the U.S., to move up to 1,000 inmates from the state’s overcrowded prisons to its correctional facility in Michigan, thousands of miles from their homes and families. This makes family visits and connection with the community harder, though studies show that inmates who receive more visits are less likely to re-offend after release. Continue reading
Filed under human rights, prisons
Photo by Catholic United Financial, published under Creative Commons License.
Is Pope Francis a breath of fresh air, throwing Vatican windows wide open to the world again, heralding a new day for the Catholic Church? Or is he a cafeteria progressive, choosing only certain social issues — environment, refugees, the poor — and maintaining a hard line on others —acceptance of LGBT people, role of women, anything to do with sexuality? Continue reading
Filed under human rights
ICE is only one of the federal agencies surveilling people. Federal surveillance reaches far beyond immigrants. Federal agents use massive databases, facial recognition, cell phone photos, and license plate records. Beyond surveillance, they target and threaten people involved in protests, bringing the full weight of federal power to bear on individuals. Their actions often remain […]
Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.
The New York Times today has plenty of coverage of who, how, when, and where the United States illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president and first lady. But that’s far from the whole story. A few easily overlooked but essential facts: For informed insights on the consequences of Trump’s attack on Venezuela, see:
50 USC Ch. 33: WAR POWERS RESOLUTION §1541. Purpose and policy (a) Congressional declaration It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United […]
Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a great column on the four key lessons we can and must take from 2025. The first: pushing back is essential — and it works. I won’t try to summarize his column, but encourage you to go and read it and, if you can, support the good work […]
Mary Turck