From the Bemidji Pioneer
Published June 10, 2012, 12:00 AM
What about all of the other injustices?
The recent cross burning has sent some of the local “race relation” organizations scrambling to take a condescending stance against a blatant hate crime.The recent cross burning has sent some of the local “race relation” organizations scrambling to take a condescending stance against a blatant hate crime.
They normally sit quietly amongst the more covert, more subtle systemic hate crimes afflicting the minorities of the community. Acting as if these issues are out of their hands when they never even tried to get a grasp on them in the first place. Throwing all their supposed token minorities on the frontlines to give their supposed show of disapproval some validity.
And now they’re threatening to throw their political clout around to call to action the usual suspects who could care less about the mistreatment of minorities. It should be a good show to continue to appear to be doing something, when nothing viable will be accomplished in the end, as usual.
Another disingenuous gesture only meant to further conceal, guise and smooth over their complete and total disregard to actually assisting those constantly enduring injustices under their watch.
A cross burning is calling attention to what everyone already knows around here, that Bemidji is a very racist town. Yes, some are unable to come to terms with their own inherent racism; that burden falls on the shoulders of those most affected by this racism most of which these organizations don’t even bat a lash at.
Yes, the burning of a cross to display intolerance is very terrible, but this is the type of behavior deep rooted systematic racism breeds, and encourages. Yeah, that’s great they’re taking a stance against the first cross burning in Bemidji, but what about all the injustices the Native Americans endure on a daily basis? They are clearly not the heroes we need, nor deserve. And those constantly taking it upon themselves to resolve these issues are utilizing this incident only to further promote their ineffective organization.
Nicole Beaulieu
Bemidji
I think this is a really good letter.
We need to get to the specifics.
Dave Culver turns out digested material in the name of Evergreene Digest which repeatedly touts the views of the foundation funded outfits under the guise of providing analysis.
I sent him this which I think is pertinent to discussing the above letter:
Stglitz' article on inequality is very typical of what comes from the intellectuals and the middle class crowd--- brilliant analysis of the problems but with no solutions to the problems.
Dave, not once in any of the articles you have circulated have any of them ever confronted the issue of racist inequality in employment with advocacy of the solution: enforcement of affirmative action.
Where is there any program advocating solutions to any of the problems repeatedly analyzed in what you are distributing under the guise of alternative ideas?
None of what you circulate attacks specific problems--- for instance, in Bemidji, Minnesota the Bemidji Regional Event Center/Sanford Center was a $60,000,000.00 public works project--- not one single Native American was hired for the construction. After completion this Center was turned over to a private firm--- VenuWorks--- to manage. Again, racist hiring practices with poverty wages.
Common sense tells us when working people aren't hired and when hired at poverty wages they are going to be poor--- the result: a spiraling web of inequality.
I'd like to see a discussion on how this specific problem in Bemidji can be solved.
Do any of your foundation funded middle class intellectuals have a solution in mind since the foundation-funded outfits like SharedVision and the ACLU's Racial Justice Task Force have refused to confront this issue.
Shouldn't you be getting more specific by focusing on how all of these articles you distribute relate to specific Minnesota problems?
All you are doing is mostly disseminating information coming from these foundation-funded think tanks without linking what they publish to specific problems and the solution to these problems. I'm curious as to why you do this?
What good is an analysis if it is not used as part of a movement building effort to solve the problems?
Alan L. Maki
