The Cities Category Archive: Race

Vote for how to build bridges across faiths and cultures

Posted at 10:55 AM on May 15, 2012 by Laura Yuen (2 Comments)
Filed under: Immigration, Livability, Race, Religion

A contest asking the public to pitch their best ideas on how to work across ethnic and religious lines is now open for a vote.

An eight-judge panel for the Minnesota Idea Open picked five ideas that it believes rose to the top of a field of more than 600 submissions. They finalists include:

- "Multicultural barn raisings" in which armies of volunteers would bring together people of various backgrounds to build playgrounds or work on home projects for the less fortunate (see YouTube video clip above);

- An oral history project featuring immigrants who have come to Steele County over the past 75 years;

- A kid-friendly dialogue in which children can share face time with Minnesota leaders from all walks of life;

- A seven-step challenge led by young Muslim women encouraging conversations about Islam through activities ranging from church-hopping to handing out free pink hijabs;

- An exhibit of 8-by-12 tents, fashioned after those used in refugee camps, that tell the story of a different group persecuted because of its race, religion, ethnicity or national origin.

You can learn more about the submissions and cast your ballots here.

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Minnesota Idea Open announces semifinalists

Posted at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2012 by Laura Yuen (0 Comments)
Filed under: Arts , Education, Food, Immigration, Livability, Race

A statewide call for creativity on how to build relationships across faiths and cultures produced a staggering 600 ideas.

That set a new record for the Minnesota Idea Open, which is in its third year.

Which ideas rose to the top? An interactive food truck, a charity flash mob, multicultural barn-raisings, and a mobile app for "culturally curious Minnesotans" were among the 25 semi-finalists announced today. You can read about the individual pitches here.

An eight-judge panel of media professionals and community and faith leaders will whittle the finalists to five in May. Then the competition will open to the public for voting, "American Idol"-style. Three winners will each receive $15,000 to implement their ideas.

Created by the Minnesota Community Foundation, the challenge aims to engage the state's residents to learn about critical issues and develop new solutions. This year's challenge is working across ethnic, racial and religious lines in a state that's becoming increasingly diverse. Our three-part series "The Outsiders" grew out of this initiative.

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Minneapolis redistricting maps are out

Posted at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2012 by Curtis Gilbert (1 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

The Minneapolis Charter Commission votes this afternoon on a plan that has the potential to increase minority representation on the City Council. The vote was originally scheduled for Monday, but the city's Redistricting Group made some last-minute changes yesterday in an attempt to address concerns raised by members of the Latino community.

The new map has four wards where minority groups comprise the majority of the population -- 4, 5, 6 and 9. Under the current map, only Ward 5 meets that standard, and Don Samuels, who represents it, is the only African American on the council.

Robert Lilligren in Ward 6 is Native American. The rest of the current council members are white.

Lilligren's ward will be re-drawn to encompass a larger swath of the city's East African population, stretching into parts of Cedar-Riverside and Seward. A Somali-led group called the Citizen's Committee for Fair Redistricting lobbied heavily for the creation of such a ward.

The Somali group also wanted at least part of the Midtown Phillips neighborhood, but the redistricting plan gives that territory to Ward 9 in an effort to create a stronghold for the city's Latino community.

The new Ward 9 is about 37 percent Hispanic, according to the Census. Detailed maps of each ward are available here, labeled as the March 26 maps.

While the new redistricting plan means the City Council could become more diverse over the next decade, its immediate political implications for incumbents on the council are less obvious. The proposed map does not pit any incumbents against each other by putting their homes in the same ward.

The redistricting plan is almost certain to win approval from the Charter Commission, since all of its members also belong to the Redistricting Group.

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Stenglein took some lumps in his career on the county board

Posted at 5:00 PM on February 24, 2012 by Brandt Williams (1 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Politics, Race

For the record, Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein says he decided to accept the job of CEO and President at the Minneapolis Downtown Council because he thought the opportunity too good to pass up.

He leaves the county board at the end of May.

Stenglein was elected to the board in 1996 to lead the county's 2nd District, which includes parts of north Minneapolis and Golden Valley. I've covered Stenglein's career as an elected official and here are a few things that stand out.

At the time he was elected, I was working for the African American community newspaper, Insight News. The paper held a weekly public meeting at Lucille's Kitchen, a north Minneapolis soul food restaurant that closed several years ago. The meetings eventually became a live broadcast event, but in 1996, the format was much more informal. Conversations between newspaper staff and neighbors and newsmakers were held over plates of scrambled eggs, sausage and biscuits and gravy. Stenglein was an early attendee to the meetings. And from what I remember, the dialogue often got tense as some black community members challenged this newly-elected, white, conservative-leaning politician who lived on the other side of the river. Stenglein took some lumps then. But he kept coming back to Lucille's.

Stenglein says while some of the meeting participants took verbal shots at him, he never felt intimidated by being the lone white guy in a group of African Americans.

"What was most interesting to me was people would say to me - people from northeast or the suburbs -- would say, 'well gosh, you're going to represent all of north Minneapolis. A bunch of black people live over there.' And I'd say, 'oh, yeah. I used to live Nigeria, for a couple years. I'm used to being around a bunch of black people.'"

In 1999, Stenglein championed a new effort at the county called the African American Men Project. At the time Stenglein said the idea for the project came to him as he drove through north Minneapolis and saw so many black men standing around on the street. He was criticized by some African Americans who took offense at the idea that black men needed to be studied. But the project continues today and is housed at Northpoint Health and Wellness center. It offers help for black men who are struggling to find employment, housing and other basic needs.

Stenglein ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Minneapolis in 2001. The mayoral primary was held on Tues, September 11. I was assigned to watch the election returns from Stenglein's home and interview him. However, for most of the evening, media and Stenglein supporters alike, watched television news coverage of the attacks in New York and Washington DC.

Commissioner Stenglein was also present for two of the most controversial measures passed by the board in recent years. He opposed the countywide smoking ban, which eventually passed. And Stenglein voted in the majority to approve the countywide sales tax that helped build Target Field. The public hearings before both votes featured some of the most passionate and at times nasty rhetoric I've ever heard directed at elected officials. Often that invective was hurled directly at Stenglein.

Stenglein says some of the worst came from anti-smoking advocates. One accused him of wanting to kill babies. "Yeah, it was nasty," he said.

Stenglein says after the Target Field sales tax vote, a group of protesters gathered on the front step of his home. Some carried signs calling him a "traitor to the taxpayer." But despite threats from voters that they were going to kick him out of office for his stance on these issues, Stenglein kept getting reelected.

But he will not face reelection this fall. Stenglein will replace Sam Grabarski as the leader of the Downtown Council starting June 1. He will still be a public figure, but chances are Stenglein will not need a hard hat for this job.

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A Minneapolis 'first' steps down

Posted at 12:04 PM on January 27, 2012 by Brandt Williams (0 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

When Alex Jackson was sworn in as Minneapolis' first African American fire chief in 2008 (pictured above), he cracked up the audience in the City Hall Rotunda with his self-deprecating humor. "Twenty-seven years ago, the city hires me. And at that time, I am a lean, mean, 130-pound fire fighting machine," said Jackson, who is also a stand-up comedian. "And I'm going to be honest with you -- because my family is here -- 30 pounds of it was an Afro."

Today, in a more somber ceremony, the city honored Jackson as he leaves the department for retirement. Council member Don Samuels put his arm around Jackson and offered some empathetic words. Samuels, who came to the U.S. from Jamaica in 1970, said he remembered what it was like to be the first black person at every new company he worked for.

"Part of dealing with that, being that first person is dealing with a lot of silly, immature comments from people; expectations from people; and keeping a great attitude and moving forward," Samuels said. "And that's the part of the work that nobody pays you for. And they don't put a holiday in your name, like Martin Luther King. You just do it every day. You come into work and you just do it."

Earlier in the council meeting, the city also honored several young people who won a Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest. Samuels remarked on how important it was that they saw Jackson as a real life example of what King fought for.

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Lawmakers graded for efforts on racial equity

Posted at 3:15 PM on January 26, 2012 by Jessica Mador (0 Comments)
Filed under: Livability, Politics, Race

Almost three dozen Senate and House lawmakers got As. More than a dozen earned Fs and Gov. Dayton received a grade of B-minus for efforts to advance racial equity last year. The report card gave the Legislature a D overall for 2011. The Legislature got an F for budget equity.

The Organizing Apprenticeship Project Thursday released its 6th annual Legislative Report Card on Racial Equity for 2011, which grades lawmakers and the governor on their performance proposing and advancing bills that would improve racial equity in the state. Organizer Vina Kay says lawmakers need to do a better job to increase equality among all of Minnesota residents.

"There are these huge disparities at the very same time that we are seeing and increase in populations of color in Minnesota so something isn't working right in the structures that support our communities," Kay said. "They are not serving everybody well."

Kay's group held a rally at the capitol to highlight their findings.

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Minneapolis cops lauded for arresting anti-Somali attacker

Posted at 5:22 PM on December 13, 2011 by Laura Yuen (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime, Immigration, Minneapolis, Race

Remember these guys?

Minneapolis police officers Abdiwahab Ali, left, and Mohamed Abdullahi were profiled in my Sept. 8 piece on what it's like to be Muslim in Minnesota. Despite working on the front lines of fighting crime, the two beat cops spoke of additional security measures they faced while traveling through U.S. airports since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Today, the folks at the Department of Homeland Security singled them out -- to say thank you.

The two men, along with Somali community liaison Officer Jeanine Brudenell and crime-prevention specialist Ahmed Hassan, were honored today with awards of appreciation for their work on a case resulting in a successful federal hate-crime prosecution.

In May 2010, Ali and Abdullahi, who patrol the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, responded to the beating of an 82-year-old Somali man. The attacker punched the man several times, while yelling anti-Muslim and anti-Somali statements and telling him to go back to Africa, according to court documents.

Although the man ran away that time, Ali and Abdullahi talked to witnesses. More than two months later, the officers spotted Goerge Loren Thompson, now 64, who was allegedly chasing a 24-year-old Somali man and threatening to kill him. The officers arrested Thompson, who police say was drunk and in possession of two handguns.

When Thompson, who is white, learned that Ali and Abdullahi were Somali, police say he threatened to kill them, too.

And to top it off, Thompson worked for the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of homeland security.

Thompson pleaded guilty to the May 2010 incident and was recently sentenced to six months in prison.

After accepting the award today, Abdullahi said the award was humbling.

"It's an honor for the job we do in the community," he said.

The attack alarmed many Somali residents because it was so unprovoked, said Abdiwahab Ali. Immediately after the beating, the elderly victim changed his route and was afraid to go out, even to the mosque, Ali said.

The attacker's sentencing and today's award ceremony will be appreciated by his community as the police continue to earn its trust, he said.

"It sends a good message from Homeland Security to the people that a case like this is not going to be tolerated, and it will be prosecuted," Ali said.

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U of M documentary traces history of North Minneapolis

Posted at 4:30 PM on November 3, 2011 by Jessica Mador (0 Comments)
Filed under: Environment, Housing, Immigration, Minneapolis, Race

A new documentary uses north Minneapolis buildings and historic spaces as the backdrop for an exploration of the power of place and community.

Cornerstones: Stories of Place on the North Side premiers statewide at 8 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, on Twin Cities Public Television's Minnesota Channel.



The hour-long documentary was co-produced by the University of Minnesota's Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center and TPT, and written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Daniel Pierce Bergin, who won an Emmy award for his 2004 TPT documentary North Star: Minnesota's Black Pioneers. Cornerstones is narrated by veteran Twin Cities performer Jearlyn Steele.



Check out the website for additional interviews with Northside residents on the importance of place and memory. The site will also include interactive storytelling features and content from TPT, university researchers and community historians.

Rebroadcasts of Cornerstones are scheduled for 2 a.m., 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Nov. 14 and noon Nov. 20 on TPT's Life Channel. Viewers should check with their local PBS affiliates for airing dates and times.


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Remembering Kwame McDonald

Posted at 2:19 PM on October 27, 2011 by Brandt Williams (0 Comments)
Filed under: Race, St. Paul

I worked with Kwame McDonald back when I was the executive editor of Insight News, sometime between 1992 and 2000. Kwame and his son Mitch edited the paper's sports page for awhile, although I can't remember for how long. But I do remember that every week, Kwame brought in stories about African American girls and boys who excelled in sports and academics. He bragged about the kids like they were his own. Kwame was a firm believer that sometimes a little praise goes a long way in helping young people believe in themselves.

Kwame did the same for me. I was in my 20s when I took over the job of running the editorial side of Insight News. At times I felt overwhelmed. And sometimes I had to butt heads with contributors like Kwame who were many years my senior. But even when we disagreed about the placement of a photo or over the amount of room I could give him for his column, he continued to build me up. He told me to not sweat the small stuff and to keep up the good work.

Finally, I'll always remember Kwame's enormous smile and his sense of humor. Once I called him, partially in jest, "The Honorable Kwame McDonald." He let out a big laugh. But as amused as he was by it, the title didn't stick. Kwame seemed to take more honor in being known as a village elder. That he was.

Kwame died this week at the age of 80.

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The pain of race

Posted at 10:28 AM on October 4, 2011 by Laura McCallum (0 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

The city of Minneapolis is encouraging residents to read Michele Norris' book, The Grace of Silence, as part of One Minneapolis, One Read. In her book, Norris describes growing up as the first black family on the block in a south Minneapolis neighborhood.

Norris, host of NPR's All Things Considered, appeared at the Guthrie last night with MPR's Kerri Miller to talk about her book and her RACE card project. She asks people to condense their thoughts about race into six words and write them on a postcard.

The responses tend to be provocative:

If only I were white.

Bi-racial means neither race accepts me.

Race is another excuse to hate.

But I voted for Barack Obama.

The audience at the Guthrie was no exception, and shared stories of the pain they've experienced. A black woman told of being denied rental housing on St. Paul's Summit Avenue, because she and her husband would "use too much water." An Indian woman said her mixed-race nephew couldn't understand why he was called an Oreo. And a white man ended the event with his race card statement: Race is only skin deep.

If you missed it, we'll broadcast the event Wednesday at 10 on Midmorning.

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Our home is our (foreclosed, lower value) castle

Posted at 8:15 PM on September 23, 2011 by Dan Olson (1 Comments)
Filed under: Housing, Livability, Minneapolis, Race, St. Paul , Suburbs

New Census (officially dubbed American Community Survey) numbers show overall Minnesota home ownership rates remain among the highest in the country, nearly 75%.

But because of the recession - people losing their jobs, foreclosures - the rate is declining and is especially sharp for minorities.

The details paint a troubling picture.

Most of the revelatory details come from Minnesota Housing officials who track the home ownership picture.

The bad news: Home values are down. Lots of homeowners are underwater with mortgages that are bigger than the value of their homes. Add to that persistent unemployment which is causing more homeowners to fall into foreclosure.

The good news: Home values are down. Borrowing rates are low and likely to remain at record lows for some time.

Minnesota Housing commissioner Mary Tingerthall boils all the numbers down to one for people thinking of buying a home.

Given everything that's happened, the average monthly payment for an average value house purchased now including principle, interest, taxes will be $900 a month less than the average monthly payment five years ago.

The worst of times. The best of times. Depending on your situation.

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Pan-African Women's Action Summit underway in Minneapolis

Posted at 3:58 PM on August 11, 2011 by Jessica Mador (0 Comments)
Filed under: Education, Immigration, Livability, Minneapolis, Race, St. Paul

Organizers of the Pan African Women's Action Summit in downtown Minneapolis say the event is part of their mission to increase philanthropy in the Pan-African women's community here and globally.

Some of the event's proceeds will go to The Minneapolis Foundation's North Minneapolis Tornado Recovery Fund as well as East African famine relief efforts.

From the summit's press materials:

In keeping with the United Nations' Declaration of 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent, PAWPNet has taken the bold step of declaring every August as Black Philanthropy Month. Thanks for making this a historic gathering. We hope that together we will change the face of philanthropy and our community for years to come.

The summit also features a film and food festival and an oral history project.

Speakers include:

Dr. Jackie Copeland-Carson, PAWPNet and PAWAS Chair; Karen Kelley-Ariwoola, Vice President of Community Philanthropy, The Minneapolis Foundation; Grace Stanislaus, Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora; Judge (ret.) LaJune Lange, former Minnesota state trial judge, senior fellow with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and founding president of The International Leadership Institute.

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Next stop, Little Mekong?

Posted at 12:52 PM on August 10, 2011 by Laura Yuen (5 Comments)
Filed under: Immigration, Race, St. Paul , Transportation

Foodies in the know flock to University Avenue in St. Paul for its barbecue pork, roast duck and steaming bowls of Vietnamese pho.

But do most people view the neighborhood as a destination?

Small-business advocates are working on an Asian-themed brand for the intersection of University and Western avenues. "Little Mekong" is the concept bandied about by the Asian Economic Development Association, in deference to the Southeast Asian river that ties together so many of the communities who work and live along this strip.

"We want to attract visitors to the area," said AEDA's executive director, Va-Megn Thoj. "There's a perception that the area is not safe, that it's unwelcome and dirty. The businesses and residents both have a role to address that perception."

Past efforts to market the area's Asian influences by such groups as University United have not been successful. But with Central Corridor light-rail construction beginning next year in the area, Thoj says brand development will better position the community for tourists and customers during the disruption.

The branding plan is still in the works, and AEDA wants public input. A community open house to gather ideas will be held 6 p.m. Thursday at Kings Crossing community room, 500 N. Dale St.

More information about the event can be found here.

MPR photo by Bill Alkofer

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Remembering a trailblazing St. Paul cop

Posted at 5:10 PM on July 18, 2011 by Tim Nelson (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime, Race, St. Paul

Longtime St. Paul police officer James "Jimmy" Mann died Saturday.

He was 88, and he'd been retired for more than 30 years. But he's remembered for helping break the color barrier in the modern St. Paul Department, albeit sometimes with more force than some thought necessary.

"You either really liked Jimmy Mann, or you really hated Jimmy Mann," remembered former police chief Bill Finney, who joined the force in 1971. Mann had been there since 1957.

A native of Tennessee, he was a WWII vet who came to Minnesota in the late 40s to attend mortuary school. He joined the close-knit black community in the old Rondo neighborhood. With his fellow black officer James Griffin -- the cop for whom the current police headquarters is named for -- they were half of the department's black officers at one point.

In a history of black officers, Griffin called Mann "one of the most controversial officers in the department." He lobbied hard to get more black cops on the force and change the department's relations with the black community.

Former chief Bill Finney says it was an era of de facto, if not de jure, segregation in St. Paul, and that Mann struggled long and hard to change that.

"It was very, very difficult to be a black officer back then," remembers his widow, Anna Marie Ettel. "They weren't trusted by the white cops, and they weren't trusted by the black community."

"He was the kind of person who cared passionately about justice and injustice," she said. "He hadn't been a cop for 40 years, and there were still people who came up and talked to him, who said 'I was a kid and got caught shoplifting, you took me home instead of turning me in. And I had to face my mom, which was probably worse.'"

Mann was a patrolman his entire 20 year career, sparring with police administration regularly about the diversity and character of his own department. Finney said Mann helped found the National Black Police Association and was a founding officer of the department's community relations office.

He may have been most famous, though, for talking his way into a hostage standoff following a bank robbery in 1971. He managed to free a grandmother and her 18-month-old granddaughter, recover the money and the guns used in the incident. Mann got a Medal of Valor for the effort -- but not until 2009.

Mann was at various times a candidate for the school board, the city council and the state legislature. He was on the boards of neighborhood and community groups and was a respected cook, well known for the barbecue ribs he sold at the Farmer's Market and other places, friends said.

He was also a jazz aficionado, a fan of Langston Hughes and e.e. cummings. He even brought a master's degree in sociology to his work as a patrol cop.

Mann died at his home in St. Paul of congestive heart failure. He left behind six children, 20 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.

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Event remembers black family terrorized in south Minneapolis

Posted at 5:06 PM on July 15, 2011 by MPR News Staff (0 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

By Toni Randolph

A black family that was terrorized by whites in south Minneapolis when they bought a home in the neighborhood 80 years ago will be remembered during a community program Saturday, July 16. Organizers of "A Time to Remember: The Lee Family Commemorative Event" say the story of Arthur and Edith Lee's purchase of the home at 4600 Columbus Avenue will be retold during the program.

The Lees were among the few black families who bought homes in south Minneapolis in the 1930s. They moved into their home with their school-age daughter in July 1931. According to an article in the Minneapolis Journal, shortly after the Lees moved in, about 1,000 white people surrounded the home and threw stones at the building. Police were called in to protect the family from the mob. Event organizers say mobs gathered at the home several nights for more than a week and that the family was being pressured to sell the house and move away. The Lees owned the home for about a year-and-a-half.

Eighty years later, the current owner of the home is allowing a statue to be erected on the property to commemorate the Lee family. Event organizers say there's an effort to get the house placed on the National Register of Historic Places so that the statue will remain on the property even if the home is later sold.

The event begins at 6:45 p.m. with a procession from the Field Community School at 4645 Fourth Avenue South, down East 46th Street to the home at the corner of 46th Street and Columbus Avenue where the statue will be dedicated.

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From Webster Magnet to Obama Prep: a tale of race & achievement

Posted at 6:00 AM on June 13, 2011 by Sasha Aslanian (0 Comments)
Filed under: Education, Race, St. Paul

One of the things I learned while covering the new St. Paul schools plan was that Obama Elementary (more formally known as Michelle and Barack Obama Service Learning Elementary) is planning to revamp along the lines of a Minneapolis charter school with an Afrocentric focus. Obama Elementary is 75 percent black, and 4 percent white.

For anyone who knows St. Paul history, this is an amazing story.

St. Paulites will recognize Obama Elementary as the old Webster Magnet, an integrated, enrichment magnet that was wildly popular in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

What happened?

I spent a few months scouring the history of Webster Magnet, finding people like 1991 Teacher of the Year Rhoda Stroud, who knew it well and could describe what happened from the inside.

(There's also delicious tape from the MPR Archives when Garrision Keillor did a live 2-hour broadcast from the school in 1981)

I also spent time with Obama Principal Adrain Pendelton as she works to redesign her school and zero in on what her students -- largely African American -- need to succeed.

Before Webster became a magnet, it was 75 percent black, the same as Obama Elementary is today. But the solutions for best serving these students couldn't be more different.

Check out the story for an interesting tale of St. Paul's four-decade struggle over race and achievement through the lens of one school.

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A disaster on top of a crisis

Posted at 11:45 AM on May 26, 2011 by Brandt Williams (0 Comments)
Filed under: Housing, Minneapolis, Race, Transportation

Yesterday, I walked with a group of volunteers who were going door-to-door on Knox Ave. N, talking to residents who may need assistance. The women spoke with people who were either going to repair, rebuild or move. During an off-the-mic chat, one of the volunteers told me she was in a similar predicament -- except she was being forced out of her north Minneapolis home because of a foreclosure. Her foreclosure story is one of the thousands across the city, especially on the city's north side.

It is a reminder that the tornado is a disaster on top of a crisis.

One of the other things I was struck by this week as I walked around the storm-ravaged areas of the north side was the block by block distribution of destruction. Knox Ave. from Lowry down to 27th is a mess. Since I used to live on the 2600 block of Knox, I had to pay my old neighborhood a visit to see how it fared. The block and my old house were relatively untouched by the storm.

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A police academy for Somali kids

Posted at 3:15 PM on April 11, 2011 by Laura Yuen (0 Comments)
Filed under: Crime, Minneapolis, Race

The Minneapolis Police Department is graduating its first all-Somali class from a youth citizens academy this afternoon.

It's an interesting twist, given that a lot of young people in the Cedar-Riverside area have complained about police harassment. The concerns seemed to escalate once the police added more beat officers to the neighborhood and stepped up enforcement.

The idea for the academy came from youth workers at the Brian Coyle Community Center, who sensed a need for better outreach between the kids and the cops, says Officer Jeanine Brudenell, the Somali liaison for Minneapolis police.

"The kids that are in there are really good kids,"Brudenell says. "They're all kids from the neighborhood. And some of them were very vocal kids about being harassed."

Brudenell says the students learned about the challenges of being an officer through role-playing exercises: The teens played the part of the arresting officers during a traffic stop, and the cops were the ones getting pulled over. In another exercise, the kids pretended to protect a crime scene and had to deal with trespassers.

Brudenell emailed me the photo above of Chala Ahmed, right, checking out a T3 trike used by downtown beat officers with fellow academy participant Salah Ali last week. The 12 teens who completed the program will receive credit toward their high school government graduation requirement.

Will these efforts pay off in bridging the divide between police and the Somali-American community? Will any of the young graduates become future officers?

As it now stands, there are three sworn Somali-American officers with MPD and one civilian crime-prevention specialist.

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2010 census shows big changes in the Twin Cities metro

Posted at 6:00 AM on April 9, 2011 by Jessica Mador (0 Comments)
Filed under: Education, Housing, Immigration, Livability, Race, Suburbs

Census Bureau data confirm what many researchers already knew: some second and third ring suburbs made big gains between 2000 and 2010, while some older and first-ring suburbs saw declines. And the state as a whole got more racially diverse.

Here's my story about it.

One big winner in the suburbs was Shakopee, which added more than 16,500 new residents. The schools there are brimming with new children and the local hospital continues to expand to keep pace with demand.

Officials at St. Francis Regional Medical Center say since 1996, in-patient admissions are up 125 percent, and surgeries are up more than 90 percent. Births doubled from 600 to 1,200, emergency admissions went from 10,000 to 30,000 and urgent care visits went from 1,200 to 9,000 -- a 550 percent increase. The hospital has also doubled its staff and added additional language translators.

Check out these stats from the Met Council on the last decade's demographic shifts.

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HealthPartners and AT&T pull ads from KDWB after Hmong parody song

Posted at 1:05 PM on April 4, 2011 by Laura Yuen (101 Comments)
Filed under: Race, Suburbs

The other shoe is beginning to drop for KDWB.

HealthPartners and AT&T say they didn't see the humor in the parody song "Thirty Hmongs in a House," and are pulling their ads from the radio station in St. Louis Park .

"The song about the Hmong community was highly offensive and not consistent for what we stand for," HealthPartners spokesman Jeff Shelman told me this morning. "We expect our business partners to have many of the same values we have as a company, and until KDWB is in sync with us, we don't have plans to advertise with them."

The Minnesota HMO was one of several KDWB advertisers contacted over the weekend by a group calling itself the Coalition Against Racism for Everyone, or CARE. Here's an excerpt from a form letter the group has emailed to sponors:

Since [sponsor] is not a corporate sponsor of intolerance, I request that you make a statement publically reinforcing [sponsor's] commitment to diversity and peaceful coexistence, distance [sponsor] from the racist actions of KDWB, and immediately discontinue all advertising on KDWB. To do otherwise would communicate support for hate speech in the state of Minnesota.

It is my hope, the hope of the more than 70,000 Hmong Americans in this state, and the hope of a broad coalition of diverse allies that [sponsor] will take a position of leadership on this issue.

KDWB last week apologized to "anyone we may have inadvertently offended, as this was never our intent."

The tune, performed by KDWB employee Steve-O on Dave Ryan's morning show, pokes fun at overcrowded living situations and teen pregnancy in the Hmong-American commnity. It was part of a regular feature in which listeners submit song titles -- titles that Steve-O then turns into a little ditties that are meant to be funny.

But the CARE coalition's Dan Hess tells me the song is a symptom of the much larger problem of racial stereotyping.

"I'm not suggesting Steve-O is a race-hater," Hess says. "But the fact that these images came spewing out of him is indicative of something widely shared in our society, that there are cultural biases we can't escape."

Hess directs counseling services at Concordia University in St. Paul. He's joined by Yee Chang, a well-known community activist whose wife is former state Sen. Mee Moua.

AT&T plans to release a statement later today that characterizes the song as "very demeaning to the Hmong. ... We cannot financially support KDWB when it allows discrimination to be included in its broadcast."

A Hmong friend of mine who tunes into the show regularly tells me that the listener who submitted the song title "Thirty Hmongs in a House" is apparently Hmong. That's a detail that hasn't been widely reported as part of this conversation.

Should that change how we view this incident, and whether it's OK to laugh?

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Anti-vaccine doctor back in Mpls as health dept. fights measles outbreak

Posted at 9:06 AM on March 24, 2011 by Rupa Shenoy (1 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

The Minnesota Department of Health is waging a campaign to educate people in the Somali community about the need to inoculate their children against measles amid an outbreak of the disease. Some, but not all of the people found to have the measles are Somali. Health officials are concerned that talk of a link between vaccinations and autism is keeping parents from vaccinating their kids.

A man who makes that link, the British doctor Andrew Wakefield, below, was in Minneapolis last night at the Safari restaurant to speak with Somali families whose children have autism. Wakefield's findings connecting vaccinations and autism have been discredited, and he has been stripped of his medical license.

(AP File Photo)

Several members of the media, including reporters from MinnPost, the Star Tribune, and me, showed up. We were turned away at the door by organizer Patti Carroll, a Shoreview parent of a child with autism who was identified online as a member of the non-profit Autism One.

Carroll said Wakefield was "not planning on misleading them or brain-washing them or telling them 'don't vaccinate your children' or whatever the heck the media loves to say about him."

She said the event was private and said some parents prefer to allow their children to get measles, and become immune in the long-term, instead of receiving vaccines they view as potentially harmful.

I got a very different reception in December when Wakefield first came to Minneapolis. He was asking local Somalis to participate in a study that would examine the possible vaccination-autism link. Yet I easily approached him that evening. Among many things, he said he wouldn't benefit from the study and simply wanted to help families.

All the Somali parents I spoke to at the meeting knew about Wakefield's past. But they said they would listen to anyone who might know something that could help their children.

There's preliminary evidence the autism rate among Twin Cities Somali American children is far higher than that of other Americans. The evidence comes from school records that show Somalis seek help from schools about autism more often than others. State health officials say they're working on a study that could substantiate that evidence. But they say as yet, no solid studies have been done.

So that was all up the air when the measles outbreak struck. I wanted to ask Wakefield what he thought, but this time he refused our requests for comment.

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Gazing into the Central Corridor crystal ball

Posted at 5:07 PM on March 4, 2011 by Dan Olson (1 Comments)
Filed under: Housing, Livability, Minneapolis, Race, St. Paul , Transportation

ISAIAH, the interfaith advocacy group, and a coalition of nearly two dozen community organizations, have been analyzing what life is like along Central Corridor, aka University and Washington Avenues in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Their results help paint a picture of what life may be like when the light rail line is running.

Their findings raise interesting questions: 86 percent of the enterprises along the corridor are small businesses, collectively employing more than 4,000 people. Do those businesses have the resilience to survive light rail construction and the loss of 1,000 on- street parking spaces?

Their study finds that the educational attainment of people living on and near Central Corridor is slightly less than the rest of the Twin Cities, that the diversity rate is higher, that a fourth of the residents don't have a personal vehicle. How will the rail line affect their education, job and earnings prospects?

One of the most interesting findings is that gentrification of the area has already begun, it started a decade ago. Housing costs are on the rise, and in fact, the study finds that some of the poorer residents are paying as much as half their income or more for shelter.

Among the recommendations: Government should make plans now for preserving and creating affordable housing, rezoning of property should be done with utmost care to preserve housing and business opportunities for the people living there.

All of the findings will be on the table at a community meeting Saturday morning, March 5, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer on Dale street North in St. Paul.

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Planners exploring tourism potential of St. Paul's East Side

Posted at 10:28 AM on February 24, 2011 by Laura Yuen (1 Comments)
Filed under: Immigration, Race, St. Paul

Even if St. Paul doesn't have a Little Italy, a Chinatown, a Greektown, or even an Eat Street, it does have the East Side.

Today, a bus tour of this eclectic swath of the city will hit some spots with global influence, including a Thai grocery and the Plaza Latina mini-mall on Payne Avenue. Old standbys like Serlin's Cafe and Yarusso-Bros. are also on the agenda.

Who'll be sitting on the mini-bus? Community development corporations, city staff, tourism organizations, and other members of the Ethnic Cultural Tourism Destinations Collaborative, said organizer Lisa Tabor.

The group has been studying the "potential of the local ethnic destinations to contribute to our local economy as well as identify ways to develop that potential," said Tabor, a cultural consultant.

Tabor believes there are plenty of ethnic destinations throughout Minnesota, but many fall off the tourism industry's radar. This tour, however, has the support of Visit Saint Paul and other partners.

Future tours will feature the Central Corridor, which some are hoping to brand as a "world cultural heritage district," and African-American heritage along Selby Avenue, downtown, and the historic Rondo area.

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Will Central Corridor be jobs machine for women/minorities?

Posted at 10:00 AM on February 9, 2011 by Dan Olson (0 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race, St. Paul , Transportation

Gilbert Odonkor owns YAW Construction, one of the Central Corridor's minority-owned contractors. He says his business doesn't solely depend on set-asides, but he favors the program to help others get work.

Before you know the job is done and there were no minorities on it, so I think holding the generals to a higher standard helps everybody.

The whole Central Corridor project is expected to cost $957 million, creating 3,000 construction jobs over four years of work.

Those are the rough parameters of the Central Corridor light rail project, the 11-mile rail line from downtown St. Paul to downtown Minneapolis. The Metropolitan Council hopes to finish construction by 2014.

The Met Council's goal - they admit it's a stretch goal - is to have the five prime contractors subcontract up to fifteen percent of the value of the work to women and minority owned companies. Already, more than 60 of them have been hired for various jobs.

Minnesota does not have a commendable history of women and minority hiring on transportation projects. Officials have committed to changing that and the Central Corridor project will be the biggest and most ambitious test.

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More women and minorities on Minnesota road projects?

Posted at 6:03 AM on February 7, 2011 by Dan Olson (0 Comments)
Filed under: Race, Transportation

Maybe. At least there's a plan in place. That's the outcome of nearly two years of talks. Almost one hundred people representing women, minorities, unions, contractors and the Minnesota Department of Transportation met each month.

They delivered the outcome recently. The rub was MnDOT repeatedly failed to attain federal goals for hiring women and minorities for road and bridge projects. It's a goal not a quota. The rule is the agency and contractors must make a good faith effort to subcontract nearly nine percent of a project's cost to women and minority owned firms.

The hiring goal for individual construction workers in the Twin Cities goal is 11 percent minorities and six percent women.

Sounds doable, but it's been a tall order finding qualified companies and workers. Most of the prime contractors are white male-owned companies with mostly white male crews.

Protests two years over the inequities prompted lawmakers to direct MnDOT to shape up.

The plan includes a commitment by prime contractors to do more mentoring, an agreement by the state and contractors to make the hiring results more transparent and a vow by the community groups to rustle up more qualified applicants.

Many voices once at each others throats now agree there's a much more cooperative tone. The proof is in the results.

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Civil rights activist who marched with MLK confused by dog park controversy

Posted at 2:46 PM on February 3, 2011 by Brandt Williams (1 Comments)
Filed under: Minneapolis, Race

There will be no dog park in Martin Luther King Park in south Minneapolis. The opposition to the dog run expressed by some African Americans made me wonder if Dr. King ever expressed any feelings about dogs. Did the use of police dogs by southern law enforcement to attack civil rights protesters make him anti-dog? Would he be offended by an off-leash dog park in a park bearing his name? I've tried to get a response from the King Center in Atlanta, but so far I haven't gotten one.

I posed some of those questions to a man named Bob Zellner during an interview for a dog park story I produced recently for National Public Radio. Zellner, who is white, marched with King in the 60s. He remembers seeing police dogs held at bay by officers as he and others participated in one of the Freedom Marches in Alabama. But Zellner says the dogs didn't get him, the police officers did. He got zapped with a cattle prod and was badly beaten by the cops.

Zellner says he was surprised the dog park issue raised so much conflict.

"I don't think that he would at all be insulted," said Zellner. "He loved children. He spent a lot of time with children. And I could only assume, I don't know for sure, but he must have loved dogs too."

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