Re: [Mpls] The Need...Federal Mediation/dogooder wrasslin'/fun&informative

[Jhpalmerjp]

Well, no Michelle, no one's dragging you back into anything.  You keep jumping into the discussion, presenting your opinion as fact and then complaining that you're being persecuted.  It's not the same thing. 

You delineate a process whereby you allege that the "community" elected your team, and the "community" is represented, which isn't the case when you only invite select members of the "community", more to the point you cannot call yourself THE community team if members of the community don't feel they are represented and especially if longstanding representative organization are not involved.  To be honest if this was going on and your group was being excluded, I would be saying the same thing on your behalf.  The bottom line is that everyone's got to have the right to be at the table.

And I'm not even defending the City.  I don't agree with everything on the City's end either, but what I hold fast on is the lack of principle you show in utilizing the brutal attack by the Police on a young African American boy as a means to shout from your soapbox and attack the City through someone who has been working for the advancement of your goals and the goals of the community as a whole. 

You have provided no evidence that Kinshasha has done anything to in any way hinder the process.  You continually co-opt the word "community" and wrap it around whatever group or comment you want as a definitive statement from the community, and you continue to argue your opinion and second and third hand hearsay as fact.  You describe these open invitation and recruitment efforts that at least two people (Dennis Plante and myself) saw no flyers or received any invitations and both of us have been very active in our neighborhoods and community organizations.

This is not about what the "community" wants, it's about what your group of colleagues wants and politics.  The "community" did not want organizations such as the Urban League and NAACP and others excluded, your group did.  And your group follows and supports certain people and the others do the same.  And it's wrong on both sides.  Whether you like them or not, the Urban League, The City, Inc., the NAACP are legitimate representative organizations in the community and may not represent everyone, but has sufficient credibility and credentials and they are going to be here.  Spike Moss and Randy Staten you may not like or even agree with be they legitimately and active work for the community.  Just as does Ron Edwards, Pauline Thomas and others.  And while I may not agree with everything any of these people say and do, they all work on this issue, and all of them have a right to be at the table.  And if you haven't brought all of them to it, it's a cop-out to say "well they should have shown up."  As a purported agent of change and community representative it's your job to make sure they're there.  I would have.  And that's all that Kinshasha did, make sure the people that your group excluded were involved.

More importantly, you haven't bothered to make the simple 7 digit telephone call to address the issues directly that you've been acccusing Kinshasha of.  For someone who I would think would fight for people's rights to be innocent until proven guilty, that's not quite practicing what you preach.  Again, I'd suggest calling her and seeing how you could work together, and if you're going to continue to make accusations and unfounded statements offering some evidence to substantiate them.

Jonathan Palmer
in Victory

"You invite us to a crooked card game, hand us a fixed deck and then wonder why we can't win.  Am I the only one who sees the problem in that?"
-Andre Braugher as Benjamin O. Davis in the Tuskegee Airmen