Curtis Buckanaga, left, and Greg Paquin staff a protest sign at Sunday’s DFL Central Committee meeting at Bemidji High School. Paquin is forming the political party “Warriors for Justice,” provided he gets 500 petition signatures by June 1. If so, he would face Sen. Mary Olson, DFL-Bemidji, on the November ballot. Similarly, Nicole Beaulieu would also run under the “Warriors for Justice” banner as a Nov. 2 candidate against House 4A Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji. Buckanaga is Beaulieu’s campaign manager. Both candidates had earlier sought DFL endorsement. Pioneer Photo/Brad Swenson
Note:
This was a protest held outside the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party's State Central Committee meeting at Bemidji Public High School in Bemidji, Minnesota where the Bemidji Regional Event Center (B.R.E.C.) has been planned, is under construction, and will be staffed and maintained without an affirmative action plan being developed and enforced in accordance with Executive Order #11246 which is required that all public works projects be subjected to analysis to determine if an affirmative action plan is required in areas were unemployment among people of communities of color are suffering exceedingly higher unemployment and lack of quality public education in relation to the rest of the population. Since three Indian tribes in the Bemidji Region and a large Native American Indian population in the City of Bemidji itself as well as in Beltrami County where Bemidji is located are suffering in excess of 70% unemployment rates it would be considered plain old common sense that Executive Order #11246 would come into play.
A racist white Beltrami County District Court judge, Judge Melbye, has ruled that it is sufficient that "non-discrimination in hiring" is adequate and that affirmative action is not required thus adding "legitimacy" to the long and continuing pattern of institutionalized racism permeating every facet of life in Bemidji which is widely known as the most racist city in North America.
In the five county region which includes three very large Indian Reservations, public employment for Native American workers is less than 1%.
Many of the contractors awarded contracts for the construction of the BREC are non-union.
The Minnesota AFL-CIO has refused to throw its weight behind the demand for affirmative action on this 80 million dollar community center which is the first phase of a 300 million dollar development project which will be mostly city, county, state and federally funded with tax-payers even subsidizing privately owned development.
The Republicans have openly stated they are opposed to affirmative action while former United States Senator Mark Dayton has publicly stated that he is appalled that neither the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) have refused to insist upon the enforcement of affirmative action and pledged, that if elected governor, he will see to it that affirmative action is enforced.
Senator Leroy Stumpf publicly stated at his nominating convention, that the activities of Greg Paquin and Nicole Beaulieu triggered his own inquiry as to affirmative action not being enforced on the Bemidji Regional Event Center and was led to believe by deceitful Bemidji City officials that affirmative action was being enforced when the facts are such that Bemidji City officials are trying to pass off their very weak "non-discrimination" clause for hiring as affirmative action when non-discrimination in hiring is completely different from a governmental agency creating an affirmative action policy and then enforcing that affirmative action policy which would include non-discrimination as part of the hiring process.
At the same Senate District nominating convention, Minnesota State Representative Dave Olin, the former Pennington County Prosecuting Attorney who now acknowledges that he let drug dealers ply their dirty trade un-hindered through the Seven Clans Casino-Thief River Falls, says it is not his job to make sure affirmative action policies are in place and enforced on public works projects financed with public funds. Olin, who is widely known as doing political favors for his friends, says that this is not his job but the job of other state agencies. This is probably all that one can expect from a former prosecuting attorney who didn't believe it was his job to go after drug dealers. It is interesting that Representative Dave Olin takes huge campaign contributions from casino managements and the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association but refused to prosecute drug dealers breaking the law just as he now refuses to acknowledge he has a role to play in seeing to it that Native American Indians have equal opportunities provided by affirmative action enforcement. Failing to provide the enforcement of affirmative action is the largest single contributor to Native American Indian poverty.
Not one single Native American Indian sits among Minnesota's state legislators while the Minnesota State Legislature is full of racist creeps like Democrat Dave Olin who has more in common with Republicans.
The entire working class is paying a terrible price for this racism because it is the divisiveness of racism mainly responsible for the lack of unity among working people which suppresses the standard of living of the working class--- a racially united working class would be able to wrest many concessions, including real living wages for all workers, from big-business interests.
Every worker a "warrior for justice."
Alan L. Maki