As the Minnesota legislature rolls on toward its May 22 end-of-session deadline, bad bills keep on coming. Here’s a quick list of some of the worst. Call your legislators, conference committee members, and Governor Dayton to just say no to bad environmental legislation, private prisons, and protest penalties. Continue reading
Filed under agriculture, environment, organizing, police and crime, prisons
Berta Caceres paid the ultimate price – she was assassinated one year ago in Honduras, killed for her work for indigenous rights and environmental protection. On February 17, indigenous leader José Santos Sevilla was assassinated in his home — another martyr paying the ultimate price for defending indigenous rights and working for environmental justice. Santos Sevilla, reports Democracy Now, “was the leader of the indigenous Tolupan people, who are fighting to protect their ancestral lands from industrial mining and logging projects.” Continue reading
Filed under human rights, organizing, race
UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL EVENTS 1/19, 8 P.M. – At the checkout counter at Target, the clerk noted the Black Lives Matter button on my coat and asked me, “Going to the march?” I told her yes, and she went on to say that the website was down this morning, so she had been unable to sign in. She was talking about Saturday’s Minnesota Women’s March. That’s not the only march this week (and not the only one I plan to go to.)
I’ve noticed that the various demonstrations, while all protesting the incoming administration, sometimes seem to draw from entirely different communities that don’t talk to each other. For example, I’ve talked to friends who are going to the Minnesota Women’s March on Saturday, but haven’t heard of the Resist From Day One mega-march on Friday. I’ve seen calendars that list one or the other, but no calendars that list both. Besides the two big marches, many smaller events also offer ways to join in solidarity. So – here’s my big list of inauguration protests in the Twin Cities, quite likely incomplete, but with plenty of ways to opt in. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Four thousand people gathered in Minneapolis on November 9 to protest against Trump’s election. Photo by Fibonacci Blue, used under Creative Commons license.
Yeah, I get it. Wearing a safety pin is a quick-and-easy way to show that you support all the people getting slammed by the rising tide of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. When I grew up, safety pins were a very temporary and unsatisfactory fix when something badly needed mending. Right now, the whole fabric of our community and nation badly needs repair. So here are some things you can do, right now this week in Minnesota, that go beyond the safety pin: Continue reading
Filed under human rights, race
Photo of Sacred Stone Camp by Tony Webster, published under Creative Commons license.
As thousands of Native Americans gather in North Dakota to resist the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), local law enforcement has pushed back by arresting journalists covering the protests and the Sacred Stone Camp and by outright lies about the protests and protesters. In addition, misinformation and propaganda is flooding social media, posted through sock puppets and other sources. Continue reading
Filed under environment, human rights, media, race
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
Filed under environment, human rights, race
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
Filed under environment, human rights, race
Photo by Joe Brusky, used under Creative Commons license.
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
Filed under environment, human rights, race
In 2014, the police shooting of Michael Brown brought young people pouring into the streets. Their anger, their courage, their commitment quickly flowed beyond Ferguson and police to challenge multiple forms of institutionalized and structural racism of this country. A new generation marched into the streets. Rage and grief sparked their activism, conviction and solidarity sustain them.
On June 2, Judge Aaron Persky gave Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of six months in jail, which means he’ll probably serve three. An eloquent 12-page statement from the Stanford rape victim sparked outpourings of anger and support. Rather than marches in the street, protest took the form of women telling their own stories of sexual assault, of a million-signature judicial impeachment petition, of at least 10 prospective jurors refusing to serve under Judge Persky in other cases, and of statements of solidarity including an open letter from Vice President Joe Biden. Continue reading
Filed under gender, human rights, race
Photo by Nicholas Upton, December 2014, used under Creative Commons license.
Black Lives Matter announced another December gathering in the Mall of America this year. Many reasons: Justice for Jamar Clark, killed this year by a Minneapolis police officer; one more year of unbearable racial differences in income, education, health, housing; unequal enforcement practices of transit police; racially disparate stops, frisks, arrests by city police …
Last year, MOA called in the Bloomington police, who broke up a peaceful gathering and arrested protesters and leaders. The Mall stood its ground, righteously claiming that its private property rights are superior to any protest. The Mall welcomes all kinds of people to sing and dance on its private property.
MOA allowed 7,000+ people to gather and sing to raise awareness about cancer. They did not allow 3,000 protesters to gather and sing to raise awareness about racism. Instead, MOA called in police in riot gear to close down a large part of the mall, trapping demonstrators and shoppers alike.
Some of those charges are still pending — many have been dismissed by the court as without merit. Hard feelings remain.
This year could be different.
Imagine what could happen if the Mall of America welcomed Black Lives Matter.
Imagine MOA and the city attorney announcing that all of last year’s charges will be dropped, instead of wasting more time and public money on prosecutions of peaceful protesters.
Imagine a mall spokesperson sending out a press release that says, “We agree: Black Lives Matter. You are part of our community. You are welcome here.”
Imagine the rotunda filled with people singing and chanting and listening to speeches. Imagine them spreading out afterwards, shopping and drinking coffee and eating dinner at MOA.
Imagine MOA sending a symbolic donation of coats and scarves and hats to Shiloh Temple or Neighborhoods Organizing for Change for distribution to those in need in North Minneapolis.
Imagine MOA inviting the NAACP and Black Lives Matter and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change to organize an MOA event marking Martin Luther King Day in January.
Imagine a Mall of America that takes positive steps to welcome Black Americans.
Imagine a Mall of America that says “Come in,” instead of “Keep out” to protesters.
December 23 will roll around, and the MOA may once again choose force over imagination, but it doesn’t need to be that way. In the words of John Lennon:
Imagine all the people sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Filed under human rights, race
Mary Turck
News Day 