Eva Young wrote:
>
>
> Especially the Motel proposal that Basim Sabri and Wizard Marks were
> promoting.
Actually, I was not promoting a hotel on that block. I was
countering what was going on.
Neighborhood people demonized Sabri because he's an
outsider--a developer. He can be a horse's patoot, which did
not distinguish him from the crowd in the situation in
Central.
My objection during the whole fracas was that the person
leading the fight against the motel is an absentee landowner
of a vacant/boarded property. If the neighborhood doesn't
want developers making the decisions, then it doesn't want
developers making the decisions. An absentee landowner,
whose express purpose for buying the vacant/boarded building
was to develop it for a real estate business, is a
developer--no different than Sabri, but with a lot less
money to develop with. Hello.... I had to ask was Zala a
more acceptable developer because she's white, from
Wisconsin, speaks only English? In other words "more like
me"? The tone of the whole chatter around this issue--from
people all over the neighborhood, was xenophobic to the max.
Bothg developers are manipulators, Sabri isn't at all subtle
about it.
> to call his opponents "racist".
It's become very "in" in Central to assume that any charge
of racism, particularly if it comes from a person of color,
is "playing the race card" as a convenience because he/she
does not have a credible argument. His/her behavior is
commented upon as further evidence that there is no case for
racism. As a 27-year resident of Central, I can
experiencially say that is denial in all caps--and I'm not
even a person of color. But one can stand back from the fray
and see it lit up like Las Vegas.
It becomes the duty of an even half-way honest person to
separate the particular behaviors of the individuals making
the accusation from the accusation itself.
Most of the behaviors surrounding the palace coup at CNIA a
year ago were the behaviors of very, very, very angry people
who are very street (Blue Crew) and very, very smug people
who are unwilling to make any attempt to understand how they
are being racist every day as far as issues in Central are
concerned (incumbents before 5/2000). The coup was and is
taking on the mentality of those people on the board who
were certainly not all white, but were totally intolerant of
street and as nasty as three kinds of cat dirt to their
accusers. (Lest you think I'm Simon pure, I'm not all that
tolerant of street myself. And I get royally honked off, and
I have a razor tongue--this is not news in Central.)
No, I did not advocate for Sabri's hotel, per se. I
advocated that if we are going to choose a developer to
control what happens on the block, we should at least opt
for the one with the money and know how to do the whole
block. Further, I don't particularly like the site as a
place for housing children in that high traffic area because
I don't like seeing kids suck up lead and other particulate
matter coming off highways and busy streets like Lake and
Second.
We Central people are not going to get anywhere, we will
stay stuck in this miasma of crapola until such time as we
honestly address issues of race and class, not in a
theoretical way, but in a way which honors the diversity of
our numbers. Among those who opted for the mini-developer's
position and supported that developer, I see very few who
are honest enough to examine their race and class issues.
Among those who supported the hotel I see a lot of blue
collar, pink collar, and no collar people making the
accusation of racism. The hotel fracas acted that out for
the public to witness. Way to go Central!
Wizard Marks, Central
_______________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy
Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more:
http://e-democracy.org/mpls
