Dwight Hobbs is so correct about the Black Community needing to be up in arms at the idea of cutting the police force. Crime and inadequate police service most impacts upon the poor communities of color in Minneapolis. The very areas where Minneapolis has either through chance or design concentrated the crime problems. The victims of crime are going to be most likely the people of color living in those communities and most especially the victims tend to be Black.
Some might say, well what can you expect from those areas. Just like every other group, even in the ghetto, 99.9% of those living in poor communities are also good decent folks. They deserve adequate police protection just like every body else, and in fact are Constitutionally guaranteed "Equal Protection Under The Law" (not that they get it). To not give that protection is institutional racism of the most heinous sort. The hidden, nasty, kind that can allow some of our elected officials to plead ignorance. Adequate police protection does not mean infringing on the rights of good people. Successful police work depends upon the involvement of the residents with the police on a cooperative basis. Our communities need to think of the police as "OURS" because they belong to us. We pay for them! Illegal police harassment and brutality, are crimes that other (OUR) police should not only not tolerate, but such laws are to be enforced with arrests of the criminal perpetrator if necessary. The alienation that results when "bad" policing is allowed can not be tolerated by the community at large. Police and residents of the community need to realize that the enemy is not each other, but the predator criminals (what ever their color) that are destroying the black and poor communities. Several years ago during a presentation at a PNBC meeting then U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug commented that the Black Community would have to be understanding because with a crack down on drug dealers many young Black men would be affected. He was stopped in his tracks when a 35 year old Black community member interrupted with, " NO! You and other officials need to recognize that there is a difference between 'Black Men' and drug dealers! Those criminals are drug dealers NOT Black men. No matter what color they are!" Mr. Lillehaug agreed and promised to do his best for our community, no matter who the criminal was. He became a great friend to our poor impacted neighborhoods. David Lillehaug is still the only public official at any level who I have seen regularly in the neighborhood checking on how to better do his job. David Lillehaug gave a good name to the term "Public Servant". Mr. Lillehaug was a dear friend who we in the impacted neighborhoods have missed since he left that position. Black leaders and even Ministers should be raising this issue with strength and outrage. From the pulpit if necessary. It is a civil rights issue. The most fundamental "Civil Right" is public safety, the right to be safe in your home and in your own community. We can not allow poor children in communities of color to be less safe than those children in "Good" white communities. Who of you reading this can believe that drug dealers would be allowed to openly, and in numbers, do business at 50th and Xerxes, or along Lake of the Isles. Who of you reading this would believe that if half the drug dealers from 26th and James or Knox were transplanted to Kenwood behind the Guthrie they would be there even an hour? Yet they are allowed such concentrations and to openly engage in criminal behavior in poor communities for months, and now years! To admit such a thing is to admit that institutional racism is alive and well in Minneapolis. Our church leaders and community leaders need to stand up and demand that this disgrace be changed. Rather than ONLY demanding that criminals rights be looked after. What seems to get lost in the institutional shuffle is that the good righteous people, the 99.9%, also have rights. Civil rights that are being ignored in the "Concentration of crime" scheme of things. Remember allowing this institutional racism affects more than just the "quality of life" for adults in such communities. When criminal activity is allowed to rule the streets it also destroys the opportunities for the next generation. Young minds are not only robbed of a stable and nourishing community to grow up in, they are also inculcated with the belief that criminal lifestyles are viable options. As well as to believe that laws and rights do not matter in their lives. Children from such communities often do no believe they will have any other future. How do you get children to work to achieve in school with such beliefs. We treat such communities and children as failures. Children who we do not expect to succeed, and then we act surprised when they do not do well in school? Our "Leaders" and Ministers need to start demanding futures for our communities and our children. We all can start by giving them stable, safe, relatively crime free, places to live and grow up. All our community leaders and elected officials should not rest or accept any less. When we start demanding better, and accepting not less, from both our politicians and police we will be better able to demand and accept no less from our young people. Most of society is nothing more than expectations. People tend to live up or down to the expectations we have of them. I expect the best of Minneapolis, and am damn mad when we don't get it. The sermons over, you folks have a wonderful day and weekend in this great City. Enjoy the best our City has to offer. Remember there are hurricanes in Florida and floods in Virginia. God seems to be smiling on our city this time of year. Jim Graham, Ventura Village, Phillips Community, Third Precinct, and Sixth Ward of Minneapolis >"It is always an utter folly to underestimate the lure and attraction of a great evil. The whitened bones of their victims litter the highways and byways of mankind's history. Stopped only by the few willing to pay the ultimate price and make a stand." - Toe .org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. 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