[Mpls] Franklin Avenue

[Kejuan Miller]

I haven't posted here before and just learned about this recently, but I saw a lot of comments in the archives about my neighborhood and how people think we're in a "war." I'm tired of white people complaining about being in a war all the time and pointing to drug dealers on the street when those "dealers" may be me, just waiting for the bus or trying to get along.

I know a lot of people and respect a lot of people and a person I respect told me a game he likes to play when he hears everyone always talk about the problem of drug dealers along Franklin or somewhere else. When he drives down along Franklin (and he's white), he points to every gathering of people of color and says "there goes a gang" or "there goes a drug dealer," making fun of people who believe anyone who is a person of color along Franklin is a drug dealer or there buying drugs or who knows what some people think. I got news for you: we're not. We're just trying to get by, and your hyping up the drug problem and making it sound like I live in a war zone just makes the police and everyone else look at me as a Black man as a problem.

For you people like Mr. Graham and Ms. Lickness, cut the cr*p about how "bad" it is to live where you live when you don't have any understanding about what it's like to live in a neighborhood where people like you call down the cops for a problem you and other white folks don't have to deal with when the crack down you want happens. Everyone knows you just want people of color moved out of here because that's who you suspect to be bringing the problems. I should know--I showed up for a meeting of "Ventura Village" and was told I couldn't vote because me and a roomful of people of color hadn't "signed up" to vote 30 days earlier.

So, get it straight, and for those of you listening to things about war on Franklin and Chicago, take it from me--there's no war--just white folks wanting to get rid of black folks: now, that's a "war" that's been going on for centuries.

K Miller
Phillips

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