Category Archives: race

September 18, 2016 · 7:55 pm

Dakota Pipeline Part 4: Protest on the prairie

protectors-joe-brusky

Photo by Joe Brusky, published under Creative Commons license

The Stone Spirit encampment began back in April with 50 people. By August, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chair David Archambault II wrote in the New York Times that it was “a spectacular sight: thousands of Indians camped on the banks of the Cannonball River, on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. … The Indian encampment on the Cannonball grows daily, with nearly 90 tribes now represented.” As summer slides into fall, the protesters — or protectors, as they call themselves — plan to stay through the winter. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under environment, human rights, race

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 18, 2016 · 7:43 pm

Dakota Pipeline Part 3: Water protectors and the Emperor’s New Pipeline

water-is-life-jeffrey-putney

Photo by Jeffrey Putney, published under Creative Commons license

I remember the old story of the emperor’s new clothes. The emperor bought new clothes from a charlatan who sold him on the idea of clothes so fine that they would be invisible to anyone who was stupid or unfit for their position. The emperor paraded before his courtiers and sycophants and everyone admired the new clothes. Only a child said, “But he isn’t wearing any clothes!”

Today pipeline companies and their buddies in government dismiss the threats posed by pipelines. Nobody should worry about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), tunneling underneath the Missouri River. Maybe some old pipelines leak, but this is a new pipeline. Can’t you see the difference? The emperor’s new pipeline poses no problems. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under environment, human rights, race

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 17, 2016 · 3:13 pm

Dakota Pipeline Part 2: Betrayal by bulldozer

nodapl-with-dog-a-golden

Image by A. Golden, published under Creative Commons license.

 

On Friday, September 2, lawyers for the Standing Rock Sioux went to court to ask for a halt to construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline over specific sacred sites and burial grounds. They provided a map of the specific cultural sites identified by the tribe’s expert.

The very next day — September 3, Saturday of Labor Day weekend — Energy Transfer Company sent its bulldozers to destroy the specific cultural sites identified in the map submitted to the court. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under environment, human rights, race

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 17, 2016 · 2:09 pm

Dakota Pipeline Part 1: Breaking the rules

 

By now, everyone who reads this blog has heard about #NoDAPL, the protests in North Dakota over the Dakota Access Pipeline. The issues are either very simple (NO to all pipelines, everywhere, end of story) or quite complex, involving Native rights, a protest encampment and permits and injunctions, arrests of protesters and journalists, calling out the National Guard, procedural challenges to the Army Corps of Engineers, destruction of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe cultural and burial sites, other substantive challenges based on water protection and climate change, defeats and partial victories in court, and federal government orders to stop the construction – or to stop parts of it. Confused yet?

Since I make sense out of confusion by reading and writing, and since you (presumably) read this blog for some kind of enlightenment, I’m posting a two or three or maybe even four-part explanation of what is going on. This is the first part: Continue reading →

6 Comments

Filed under environment, human rights, race

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 13, 2016 · 8:06 pm

Mogadishu, Minnesota?

riverside-towers

Riverside towers on West Bank, home to many of Somali Minnesotans, and the planned setting of K’Naan’s HBO television series. 

A planned television series set in Minnesota’s Somali community sparked protests at Saturday’s West Bank block party on September 10. Angry and tired of being characterized as jihadi recruits or recruiters, Minnesota Somali youth protested Somali Canadian rapper K’naan’s television plans when he came to perform. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say who threw what first – but police sprayed some of the crowd with chemical irritants, and arrested a couple of people, including a Muslim woman who is a leader of the Black Liberation Project.

The HBO television series started out as “The Recruiters,” focusing on the Somali community in Minnesota, with the promise that it “will draw open an iron curtain behind which viewers will see the highly impenetrable world of Jihadi recruitment.” That sure plays into stereotypes about Somali youth in Minnesota. Now, the series has been renamed “Mogadishu, Minnesota,” and K’Naan claims that it will “present the true and beautiful side” of Somali immigrants. The protesters weren’t buying the new description. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under immigration, race, religion

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

July 26, 2016 · 3:08 pm

1964 DNC: “I question America”

Screen Shot 2016-07-26 at 4.03.59 PM

from Smithsonian NMAAHC Twitter feed @NMAAHC

The Freedom Summer before the 1964 Democratic convention saw courageous efforts to register black voters in Mississippi, as well as continuing civil rights organizing across the south. In June, Freedom Summer workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in Mississippi. In July, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed with strong Republican support and despite opposition by Southern Democrats. With racism and tension running high, the national parties held their conventions in August. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under news, race

Tagged as , , , , , ,

July 25, 2016 · 4:35 pm

Convention-al wisdom: 1948

5278458251_5dd1e1e699_z

Collection: International Ladies Garment Workers Union Photographs (1885-1985) Repository: The Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives in the ILR School at Cornell University is the Catherwood Library unit that collects, preserves, and makes accessible special collections documenting the history of the workplace and labor relations. http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel

In 1948, after 16 years of Democratic presidency, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, and the prospects for a Democrat to win the presidential election did not look good. The Democratic convention divided over civil rights: a minority report urged the Democrats to adopt a pro-civil rights platform, but neither President Harry Truman nor the strong white southern wing of the party wanted anything more than the vague generalities of previous platforms. President Harry Truman had already sent a strong civil rights message to Congress in February 1948, but with Republicans controlling Congress, civil rights legislation had no chance of passage. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under race

Tagged as , , ,

July 24, 2016 · 4:45 pm

Catching up on news between elephant fights

Screen Shot 2016-07-24 at 5.10.34 PM.png

Enter a caption

 

When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled, says a Swahili proverb, which puts me in mind of the RNC and DNC domination of July news. Despite the elephants, other news is happening to people who, like grass under elephants’ feet, seem barely noticed. If you, like me, feel closer to the grass underfoot than to the elephants in Cleveland and Philadelphia, here’s a quick round-up of some important news items you may have missed. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under children, environment, immigration, news, police and crime, race

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 18, 2016 · 5:35 pm

Watch RNC or read a book? Not a hard choice

Screen Shot 2016-07-18 at 6.32.47 PM.png

With all the Trumped-up falsehoods and foolishness going down in Cleveland, and with 90-degree summer rolling into Minnesota, one good option for sanity is to tune out the madness and dive in to some non-traditional summer reading. According to MPR, some books are “flying off the shelves” as Minnesotans are “searching for ways to make sense of the violence and unrest.” In one of these flying books, A Good Time for the Truth, David Lawrence Grant writes:

“When we hear a white person say, ‘Oh, but I don’t even see color,’ the subtext we really hear tells us, loud and clear, that what they don’t see is us: that our identity, our perspective, our whole history is insignificant, not worthy of attention.” Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under race

Tagged as , , , , , ,

July 14, 2016 · 8:17 am

Listen. And then speak.

IMG_0720I’m white. You’re white, too, and you tell me, “They’re always playing the race card.” You don’t believe that race is as important as “they” say it is. You believe that discrimination might happen somewhere, some time, but not that often. Please – listen to these voices. Hear what they say. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under police and crime, race

Tagged as , ,