[Mpls] 5th Ward: Color based Bias

[Gary Hoover]

In response to David Strands question about race in Minneapolis.....

There is a fine article in the London Observer entitled "The Paradox That 
Divides Black America."  It is well worth reading in relation to this 
discussion.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1588158,00.html

To sum up: The article traces the economic history of blacks in America. The 
rich-poor divide is most extreme in the USA amoung "developed" nations.  but 
this divide is even more extreme amoung black people in America.  Black 
people who succeed in America are almost always brought across the divide 
segregating poor blacks from the rest of the country.  The plight of poor 
black people is getting worse, while the token successes are shown as proof 
of progress.

My own experience in Minneapolis suggests that we live in a strange kind of 
apartheid.  I work for some fairly well-to-do folks who live in big houses 
by the lakes (Harriet, Calhoun, Isles, and Cedar Lakes).  I notice few black 
people in these areas.  As I work, I often notice that women of color work 
as servants in homes, while men of color often cut the grass.

The only men of color I've seen working in these homes are men from Africa 
working as aides to care for wealthy elderly people who can afford personal 
round-the-clock care.  Even so, I've rarely seen men of color working inside 
homes in wealthier neighborhoods. Women of color: yes. Men of color: no.

I think that there is a terrible divide in our culture which we do not 
acknowledge.  Men of color are supposedly no longer slaves, but why then are 
so many in prison?

The Observer quotes poet Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? 
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?  Or fester like a sore - And then 
run?"

And if dreams deferred fester like sores, these sores infect us all.  The 
consequences will not likely be contained apartheid-like in the poor parts 
of town.  It is important to note that our federal government wants to be 
able to use troops and mercenaries to patrol the streets of our cities in 
emergencies.

How many of Blackwater's mercenaries are black men?  Is there a racial 
divide there as well?  The day is not  far off when frightened white 
Minneapolitans and a few wealthy black people clamor for federal troops and 
mercenaries to maintain "law and order" in Minneapolis.  How many 
"terrorists" will be disappeared, do you suppose?  What will be done with 
them?  Will the corporate "looters" scare people with stories of poor black 
"looters" getting out of the bounds of the poor neighborhoods?

-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst (Lynhurst?) for now --  
Gary Hoover