[Mpls] Tuesday's AI community event

[Tony_LookingElk]

I am thankful for the coverage of the AI community event last Tuesday that brought together the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors, community and city officials.

This was not easy event to developed, this was originally developed to address safety and violence in our community and the perception of the Police Department's role within that. Since the planning began, another incident involving the Police occurred. This led to some internal questions on whether an event could be created that was meaningful, respectful and yet accepted a history of frustration, anger and harm.

We have had four different occasions where we asked community members to expose their stories to paint a picture of the depth and reach of this issue. The event on Tuesday was developed with the intent to honor those stories and the risk people took in sharing them by creating a forum for discussion that could translate into believable actions.

Based on the Mayor's response on this listserve, the intent may not have been clear to him about the event. As a MUID Co-Chair, attempts were made to connect with him for at least a half-hour in the week leading up to the event to be clear of the intent of the gathering and provide some educated advice on what words or actions expressed that leads to some level of reconciliation. Unfortunately that meeting never transpired and other city staff came to gather the information, but they may have played the role of a filter than a line of communication.

Today we will sit down with some city staff to reflect on the event, next week our sub-committee will gather and the following the full MUID group will come together to develop our collective reflection.

However, I need to be clear on some general lines of thinking emerging. One is we were honored for the Mayor, City Council members Robert Lilligren and Dean Zimmerman's participation. We were also honored by the many levels of Police representation and their investment into the planning and carrying out the event.

We would be foolish, if our expectations were that a Mayor or anyone would have moved from knowledge to understanding in this period of time. We would also have been foolish in thinking we could have made more progress than we achieved that night considering the issue. We did present a position that we are expecting an answer within a designated period of time. However, we do believe we are engaging those responsible and will continue to pursue a relationship that is respectful, sustained and accountable.

Tony LookingElk
MUID Co-Chair