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Insight News
August 15 15,, 2022 - August 21, 2022
Vol. 49 No. 33• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
THE HEALER (left to right): Joel Dvoskin, PhD, ABPP; Lolly Bowean; Karen Amendola, PhD; BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya, Ph.D., LP.: Arthur C. Evans, Jr. PhD; and Charles Grady
APA Focuses on the psychology of equal justice and honors Dr. Garrett-Akinsanya for her healing work in our community BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya, Ph.D., LP, fondly referred to as “Dr. B.” was given a Presidential Citation from Dr. Carrie Castaneda-Sound, President of the American Psychological Association’s Division 35, the Society for the Psychology of Women. The award was given during the American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention held last week (August 3-6) in Minneapolis. The introduction and Citation read as follows: “Dr. BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya is President and CEO at Brakins Consulting & Psychological
Services, and Executive Director of the African American Child Wellness Institute. She has been in clinical practice for over 40 years. She has a long history of service in APA, most importantly as past Division 35 president. She has a natural gift for making people feel welcomed and seen. As a psychologist and citizen of Minneapolis, she played and continues to play, a big part in the community’s healing after the murder of Mr. George Floyd. Because of this, she is awarded this Presidential Citation Award for communityengaged, healing-centered leadership; for justice that
supports and inspires hope in the face of systemic racism as manifested in police violence and biases and their traumatic effects.” The American Psychological Association has never been to Minneapolis to host its national conference. Therefore, coming to Minnesota appeared appropriate after a past president of the Association, Dr. Sandra Schulman, coined the phrase “racism pandemic.” The conference theme was “Psychology is Everywhere.” In addition to receiving the Presidential Citation for her service to our
community. Dr. B. was also a featured participant on one of the Main Stage Highlighted Events entitled: “The Psychology of Equal Justice” held on Saturday August 6.th In addition to Dr. GarrettAkinsanya, other panelists included well-renowned social psychology researcher Phillip Atiba Goff, PhD (Yale University Researcher), Joel Dvoskin, PhD, ABPP (University of Arizona; Heroes Active Bystander Training); Charles Grady (Federal Bureau of Investigation); Karen Amendola, PhD (National Policing Institute); Calvin Lai,
PhD (Washington University in St. Louis) and Arthur C. Evans, Jr., PhD (CEO, American Psychological Association). The Moderator for the event was Ms. Lolly Bowean (AwardWinning Journalist and Media and Storytelling Program Officer, Ford Foundation). The panel examined the key factors that have established and maintained America’s “culture of law enforcement.” Participants explored strategies for teaching police how and when to intervene as active bystanders when exposed to situations like the one that contributed to George
Fewer voters, narrow margin for Omar By Greta Kaul Staff Writer, MinnPost On Tuesday night, Rep. Ilhan Omar effectively won a third term representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, after she narrowly defeated former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels — by 2.2 percentage points — in the DFL primary for the seat. In a heavilyDemocratic district, Omar is a sure win in the November election against Republican Cicely Davis, who cleared a small GOP primary field Tuesday night. But the close DFL primary race had some pundits speculating there may be a crack in the sometimes-polarizing Omar’s armor: Until Tuesday, she had easy victories in primaries, winning handily in 2018 and 2020 due in large part to big turnout and huge margins of victory in Minneapolis, which makes up most of the district. Here’s a look at votes on Tuesday, and how the results compare to years past. Smaller Minneapolis margin Compared to previous DFL primaries, Samuels managed to cut into Omar’s significant advantage in the city of Minneapolis. In 2020, Omar beat Antone Melton-Meaux, who ran as a more moderate DFLer, by 19.7 percentage points. Her victory was almost entirely due to a major advantage in the city of Minneapolis, where the vast majority of
MinnPost photo by Bill Kelley
In a heavily-Democratic district, Rep. Ilhan Omar is a sure win in the November election against Republican Cicely Davis, who cleared a small GOP primary field Tuesday night. 5th District votes are located. In Minneapolis, Omar beat Melton-Meaux by nearly a 2:1 margin and won more votes than her challenger in many of the district’s suburbs. The Minneapolis advantage was similar in 2018, when Omar first ran to represent the district, except that the field had three major contenders going into Election Day, including former state Sen. Patricia Torres Ray and former Minnesota House Speaker
Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Omar got 48.2 percent of the votes to Kelliher’s 30.4 percent and Torres Ray’s 13 percent. This time around, Omar won only 1.3 votes per Samuels vote in Minneapolis. Samuels also got more votes than her in more suburbs — and by greater margins — than Melton-Meaux did in 2020. Lower turnout overall Another thing worth noting is that overall turnout in the 5th District DFL primary
was much lower on Tuesday night than in either 2018 or 2020 (caveat: the district is shaped a bit differently due to redistricting). That could be for a lot of reasons, some of them having to do with news events and what else was on the ballot. In 2018, around 135,300 ballots were cast in the 5th District DFL primary, but it was also a year with big governor, attorney general and U.S. Senate primary races on the ballot. In 2020, a lot was going on: amid the pandemic,
vote-by-mail numbers were high and the election happened in the wake of the Minneapolis Police murder of George Floyd. Nearly 178,000 people voted in the CD5 DFL primary that year. This year, numbers were significantly lower, at less than 115,000. Greta Kaul Greta Kaul is MinnPost’s data reporter. She can be reached at gkaul@ minnpost.com.
Floyd’s death. Panelists also described programs that could ensure that police departments have processes that will assure that they recruit and retain a workforce based on the selection of the best recruits. Panelists also challenged the contention that only selecting individuals who major in criminal justice may not always the best strategy because policing requires great interpersonal and communication skills. They also talked about the role of unions, strategies for reducing implicit bias and how to move ideas from theory to practice.
Withstanding $600,000 attack from conservate DFLer, Omar braces for $2million Republican attack Ilhan Omar’s campaign said Republicans and conservative Democrats worked in lockstep to unseat her, “spending millions of dollars to try to silence our movement. Corporations and special interest groups poured hundreds of thousands of dollars behind attacks ads, with one super PAC funded by corporate donors spending more than $600,000 on ads in the final days of the race.” In victory statement to supporters Wednesday, Omar said “Despite this barrage of attacks and attempts to undermine our work for progress, our people-first movement won yesterday.” But, she said, it’s clear that the status quo is not backing down for a second. “Our far-right GOP opponent has already raised more than $2 million to defeat us,” she said. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on commented on election results for the critical Minnesota Congressional primary contest. “Tonight is a big night for progressives,” he said. “Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has faced some of the ugliest attacks of any elected official and had hundreds of thousands of dollars spent against her. Despite this, she won her primary once again. Like Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, these progressive champions have shown that they persevere and deliver for their constituents despite the well-funded nasty attacks upon them.