Insight ::: 12.27.21

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Insight News

December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Vol. 48 No. 52• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

A Raisin in the Sun https://www.guthrietheater.org/

Previews begin January 8; Opening on Friday, January 14: Playing through February 12, 2022 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage

Gurthrie Theater presents Lorraine Hansberry’s essential American play A Raisin in the Sun, directed by acclaimed Twin Cities artist Austene Van The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, Artistic Director) today announced casting for Lorraine Hansberry’s theatrical masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun, directed by acclaimed Twin Cities artist Austene Van. A Raisin in the Sun will play January 8 – February 12, 2022, on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

Single tickets start at $15 for preview performances (January 8–13). All other performances range from $26 to $80. Tickets are on sale now through the Box Office at 612.377.2224, 1.877.447.8243 (toll-free) or online at guthrietheater. org. Accessibility services (ASL-interpreted, audiodescribed, open-captioned and relaxed performances) are available on select dates.

For up-to-date information about the Guthrie’s health and safety policies, visit www. guthrietheater.org/health.

Artistic Director Joseph Haj stated, “Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is simply one of the great American plays, and its themes of aspiration, family and dreams deferred are as relevant now as they were 60 years ago. I’m thrilled for the Guthrie to produce this powerful play for the first time during our return season, and I’m honored to have Austene Van, one of the Twin Cities’ remarkable talents, at the helm.”

Director Austene Van said, “Lorraine Hansberry’s body of work is not only brilliant, it is revolutionary and alive.

And it is our charge, through this production, to continue her activism.” Van continued, “Inside the Younger family’s South Side Chicago apartment, we will witness tenacity, joy, heartbreak, buoyancy, pride and dignity of a real family navigating real obstacles through real circumstances. I hope our audiences will see themselves in this family, no matter their ZIP code, and be moved into action.”

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” In 1951, poet Langston Hughes posed these questions, and Lorraine Hansberry answered with a theatrical masterpiece that broke down racial barriers both on and off the stage. The play follows the three-generation Younger family as they grapple with different definitions of the American dream and how to achieve it. When the matriarch, Lena, buys a home in an all-white neighborhood, the Youngers are greeted by thinly veiled racism and financial pitfalls that threaten to pull the family apart and push their dreams out of reach.

A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959 and, for the first time, hailed an all-Black principal cast, a Black playwright and a Black director.

The play was nominated for four Tony Awards, and Hansberry was the first Black woman to be produced on Broadway and the first Black playwright to win a New York Film Critics Circle Award. Hansberry’s other plays include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, which was produced shortly before her death in 1965, and Les Blancs, which was in draft form at her death and premiered on Broadway in 1970, edited by her ex-husband Robert Nemiroff.

Some of her unfinished writings were adapted into the play To Be Young, Gifted and Black in 1969 and also produced posthumously.

Though Hansberry’s career was cut short, her legacy has been bountiful.

Among the plays inspired by or in conversation with Raisin are Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Beneatha’s Place, Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park, Neighbors by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, The Etiquette of Vigilance by Robert O’Hara and Living Green by Gloria Bond Clunie. In 2009, the Guthrie presented a Penumbra Theatre/Arizona Theatre

Company/Cleveland Play House production of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Lou Bellamy on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

This is the first Hansberry play to be produced by the Guthrie Theater. Hansberry’s Les Blancs was originally scheduled for the Guthrie’s 2020‒2021 Season, but the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The cast of A Raisin in the Sun includes Jamecia Bennett (Guthrie: Caroline, or Change) as Mrs. Johnson, Ernest Bentley (Guthrie: Appomattox, The Burial at Thebes) as Joseph Asagai, Darius Dotch (Guthrie: debut) as Moving Man, JaBen A. Early (Guthrie: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, We Are Proud To Present…) as Walter Lee Younger, Tonia Jackson (Guthrie: Appomattox, The Darker Face of the Earth) as Lena Younger, JuCoby Johnson (Guthrie: Noises Off, BAD NEWS! i was there…) as George Murchison, Joshaviah (Guthrie: debut) as Travis Younger (alternating performances), Jim Lichtscheidl (Guthrie: Twelfth Night, Nice Fish, Clybourne Park, The Legend of Georgia McBride) as Karl Lindner, Adolphe Magloire Jr. (Guthrie: debut) as Travis Younger (alternating performances), Nubia Monks (Guthrie: debut) as Beneatha Younger, Darrick Mosley (Guthrie: Choir Boy) as Bobo and Anita Welch (Guthrie: debut) as Ruth Younger.

The creative team for A Raisin in the Sun includes Austene Van (Director), Regina García (Scenic Designer), Samantha Fromm Haddow (Costume Designer), Alan C. Edwards (Lighting Designer), Jeff Lowe Bailey (Sound Designer), Taylor Barfield (Production Dramaturg), Evamarii Johnson (Voice and Dialect Coach), Annette M. Enneking (Fight Director), Sasha Smith (Intimacy Coach), Jennifer Liestman

(Resident Casting Director), Laura Topham (Stage Manager) and Lori Lundquist (Assistant Stage Manager).

Lorraine Hansberry (Playwright) was a playwright, activist and essayist born in Chicago on May 19, 1930.

After studying theater at the University of Wisconsin for two years and traveling abroad to raise awareness for various causes, she moved to Harlem in New York City. Hansberry finished A Raisin in the Sun in 1957, and it premiered on Broadway two years later. For the first time, a play hailed an all-Black principal cast, a Black playwright and a Black director. A Raisin in the Sun was nominated for four Tony Awards, and Hansberry was the first Black woman to be produced on Broadway.

An important voice of her generation, Hansberry’s career was cut short when she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965 at age 34. Her other plays include The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window and Les Blancs, and her unfinished writings were adapted into the play To Be Young, Gifted and Black in 1969.

Austene Van (Director) is an actor, director and choreographer as well as a co-founder of New Dawn Theatre Company and Producing Artistic Director at Yellow Tree Theatre. She is a 2013– 2014 McKnight Fellowship recipient, Ivey Award winner for the Guthrie’s production of Trouble in Mind and Woodie Award nominee for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for playing multiple roles in Spunk and The Colored Museum at The Black Rep in St. Louis. She has directed at Yellow Tree Theatre (The Royale), the Ordway (Annie, named Best Play in the City Pages Best of 2018 list), Skylight Music Theatre (Hot Mikado), Ten Thousand Things (Intimate Apparel), the Ordway’s McKnight Theatre

Lorraine Hansberry (Blues in the Night), Park Square Theatre (Gee’s Bend, Hot Chocolate, Lady Day…), Penumbra Theatre (Black Nativity, 2006–2008), History Theatre (Lonely Soldiers: Women at War in Iraq, A Civil War Christmas), Capri Theater (Ain’t Misbehavin’) and Theatre in the Round (Six Degrees of Separation). Van’s stage credits at the Guthrie Theater include Familiar, Disgraced, Trouble in Mind, Crowns and The Darker Face of the Earth. She was last seen on the Guthrie stage playing Truvy in the 2019 production of Steel Magnolias.

This production of A Raisin in the Sun is sponsored by Ameriprise Financial.

Health and Safety Information All ticket holders must show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 or a lab-certified negative COVID-19 PCR test result received within 72 hours prior to entry, plus a valid photo ID, to attend a performance at the Guthrie. Self-administered tests will not be accepted.

Ticket holders under age 18 may provide a school photo ID or an official school document with the student’s name. Masks that securely cover the nose and mouth are required. A complete list of Guthrie requirements

for masking, vaccination and testing is available at www. guthrietheater.org/health.

LandAcknowledgment The Guthrie Theater acknowledges that it resides on the traditional land of the Dakota People and honors with gratitude the land itself and the people who have stewarded it throughout the generations, including the Ojibwe and other Indigenous nations.

The GUTHRIE THEATER (Joseph Haj, Artistic Director) is an American center for theater performance in Minneapolis, Minnesota, dedicated to producing a mix of classic and contemporary plays and cultivating the next generation of theater artists.

Under Haj’s leadership, the Guthrie is guided by four core values: Artistic Excellence; Community; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and Fiscal Responsibility.

Since its founding in 1963, the theater has continued to set a national standard for excellence in the field and serve the people of Minnesota as a vital cultural resource. The Guthrie houses three state-of-the-art stages, production facilities, classrooms, restaurants and dramatic public spaces. guthrietheater.org

Page 2 •December December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Insight News

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Insight News • December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Page 3 WINNER: 2020 T YPOGRAPHY & DESIGN, 1ST PLACE, PHOTOGRAPHY (PORTRAIT & PERSONALIT Y), 1ST PLACE, WEBSITE, 3RD PLACE

Insight News December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Vol. 48 No. 52• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

The Color of Law Columnist

By Brenda Lyle-Gray

“In perhaps one of her most provocative works, hooks provides a true and clear analysis of what it means to live and be a Black woman in a racist, misogynist world.” -Karsonya Wise Whitehead

REFLECTION:

Bell hooks will never leave us – she lives on through the truth of her words

By Karsonya Wise Whitehead, Executive Director, Karson Institute for Race, Peace, & Social Justice, Loyola University Maryland I was introduced to the work of bell hooks for the first time when I was 14-years-old, sitting on my Nana’s porch, complaining about the mosquitoes and the heat.

My Nana, who was probably frustrated by my endless complaints about being

bored, stuck a copy of “Ain’t I A Woman” in my hand and told me just to “shut up and read.” I remember that summer because after I read that book, all we talked about was bell hooks and who she was and who I wanted to be. I said then that I wanted to be a writer, like bell hooks, and change the world with my words.

I took her words with me when I went off to college, and by then, I had my own dog-eared copies of some of her books. I went to her work whenever I needed to be reminded of

Vaccinated, with booster shots

Tim and Gwen Walz test positive Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Tuesday said he has tested positive for COVID-19 In a statement to the press, he said, “Yesterday, my 9th grade son tested positive for COVID-19. Gwen and I were both tested that same day, and after initially testing negative yesterday morning, last night

we received positive COVID-19 tests.”

“Thankfully, my son has mild symptoms and Gwen and I have no symptoms. My son is vaccinated, and Gwen and I are vaccinated and have received our booster shots, and I am confident that these vaccines are protecting my family and me

my strength. The world felt much safer when bell hooks and Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou were on the front line, carving out a path to freedom and modeling what a Black woman’s resistance to a system hellbent on trying to make them small looked like. bell hooks’ words went with me everywhere, even while they kept taking me back to myself.

I, like countless others over the past 40 years, was inspired by bell hooks, who died on Dec. 15, 2021, at 69. As

a leading Black intellectual, hooks pushed the feminist movement beyond the preserve of the white and middle-class, encouraging Black and working class perspectives on gender inequality. She taught us about white supremacist capitalist patriarchal values – giving both the words to define it and the methods to dismantle it. And unlike previous generations, she prompted Black women like myself to see ourselves, claim

UWAAF

Kevin Reese communities based on need.

Minnesota spends more than $600 million annually to managing correctional facilities, support county supervision programs, and provide reentry services. About $150 million of that is dedicated to community supervision.

Minnesota has the nation’s fifth-highest rate of people on probation, with 2 in every 100 adults in the state on probation as of 2018. More than 60 percent of prison admissions are due to supervision revocations.

The Council will examine whether existing

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Myers. Both have produced significant research on impacts of race and racism in education, child-rearing, economics, wealth creation and more. Dr. Myers leads the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice at University of Minnesota.

Not only does the young activist draw from her own proud lineage, but she marvels at the narrative writings of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells’ fearless public condemnation of white mobs who , right after church services, could lynch an innocent Black man in broad daylight.

When the United Nations was formed, the NAACP declared Black America victims of an orchestrated genocide and likened the atrocity to the Lakota war genocide that pretty

COLOR OF LAW 7

“I have always said, ‘If I can’t go back home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’ Despite my best efforts, I cannot explain the sweeping Build Back Better Act in West Virginia, and I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation,” Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said in the statement.

from serious illness.”

“My family and I are isolating, and I will continue to work from home until I feel better and test negative for the virus. In the meantime, I encourage every Minnesotan to get tested before the holidays, and to roll up their sleeves and get their vaccine and their booster to ensure they, too, have strong protection against COVID-19.”

Facebook

Gov. Tim Walz and wife Gwen Walz

Inequitable justice system burdens Black, native communities in ways that are grounded in data and research, not politics.

Walz said the “initiative will bring together leaders from across the state – and from both sides of the aisle – to build data-driven policies that will make Minnesota’s criminal justice system more effective, fair, and equitable.”

Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan said “The initiative demonstrates Minnesota’s commitment to following the data and investing in what works to support individuals after incarceration, build strong communities, and keep families whole. This is not only good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, but also an investment in our ability to support Minnesotans in the criminal justice system and ensure they do not fall through the cracks.”

The Council will look at Minnesota’s spending related to community supervision—to see if a more equitable funding model can allocate resources to

Angela Rose Myers

BELL 4

The Governor convenes key justice system stakeholders to find better outcomes Minnesota’s probation system has become increasingly inequitable.

In 2019, the rate of Black adults on felony probation was nearly five times higher than the rate of white people on felony probation. For Native Americans, this rate was more than nine times higher than for white people, and the rate is 1.7 times higher for Latinx people.

The Council on Justice Reinvestment will look at how to increase success for people on probation and supervised release across Minnesota. The Council members represent the legislative, judicial and executive branches of state government, county level governments, a representative of tribes in Minnesota, and key criminal justice stakeholders from both Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Governor Tim Walz last week created the Council charging it come up with policies and strategies addressing crime and violence

I think the first duty of society is justice. Alexander Hamilton “No matter how you cut it, what we saw was a murder. George Floyd’s human rights were violated, and the cost was his life. What happened to him was morally wrong. It’s been that way for so many others for such a long time,” said Angela Rose Myers, outgoing president of the Minneapolis Branch NAACP. Along with being. immersed in a two-year master graduate studies program in human rights, she will assume the role of co-chair for the political action committee for the branch. She appeals for volunteers to step up and commends the Black Press as the voice of the people and the holder of the rich Black history of the Twin Cities.

It’s a history the Myers family continues to play a vital role in shaping. Her mother is researcher-educator Dr. Sheila D. Ards, and her father is renowned economist and educator, Dr. Samuel

Minnesota State Senate

Senator Julie Rosen funding levels are justified and call for additional transparency and accountability for state funds dedicated to supervision.

The state also said its current strategies leave Minnesota ill-equipped to adequately support the high number of people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders in the criminal justice system.

Consequently, state and county leaders are saying they will invest corrections dollars in supervision, treatment

GOVERNOR 4

White House, Dems furious over Sen. Manchin’s build back better betrayal

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia Black Press photojournalist and social media maven Anthony Tilman assessed the death of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better legislation this way: “[Fifty] Republicans in the Senate don’t care about children in their own communities and want them to remain in poverty, and yet they still get reelected. That’s the sad truth.”

While Tilghman accurately assessed the GOP blocking popular and needed legislation, the most consequential “no vote” came from a Democrat.

In an appearance, Sunday, December 19, on the Republican-friendly network Fox News, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin – who carries the “D” party tag but certainly has routinely demonstrated GOP views and values – said he would vote “no” on Build Back Better.

“I have always said, ‘If I can’t go back home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’ Despite my best efforts, I cannot explain the sweeping

Build Back Better Act in West Virginia, and I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation,” Sen. Manchin said in the statement.

The $1.75 trillion economic and climate package would transform America’s social safety net, particularly benefiting African Americans and other people of color.

The monthly child tax credit payments to families have already significantly reduced child poverty.

Still, Sen. Manchin has opposed that saying he didn’t want to continue government “handouts.”

Build Back Better would create a universal pre-K program, help families with childcare and send them the child tax payments for another year.

It would also provide even more subsidies on the Affordable Care Act exchanges for four more years and offer more assistance for individuals and families who fall below the poverty line.

With climate change a major issue, the bill earmarks $570 billion into measures to blunt the effects of environmental damage.

SEN. MANCHIN 7

I2H

Biden to expand access to at-home COVID kits

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Page 4 •December December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Insight News

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BUY BLACK: BEE Marketplace business profiles Columnist

By Brenda Lyle-Gray Black women must band together, put their hands and their brains together, and make work and business for themselves. Madam C. J. Walker Throughout American history, Black women have defied constant trials to become homeowners even during slavery and that included Harriet Tubman.

In 1670, twentyfive-year-old Zipporah Potter Atkins, a free Black woman, purchased a plot of land where Boston’s Greenway Park now sits. She was one of the first Black women to own property in the U.S. In 1866, Biddy Mason, a Los Angeles nurse and midwife, bought the first of many properties eventually making her a wealthy and wellknown real estate developer.

And then there was the Queen Bee. In 1903, Madame C. J. Walker became the first African American woman in the country to charter a bank and the first woman president of a bank. While Walker’s hair products made her a millionaire, she was also a philanthropist, an activist for social justice, and a real estate investor. She urged her 25,000 sales agents to

Bell From 3 ourselves and love ourselves with an unapologetic fierceness.

“No Black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much,’” bell hooks once wrote, “Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’… No woman has ever written enough.”

I used to read her words to my sons when I was holding them in my arms, determined to practice “liberative parenting” and raise my Black sons as Black feminists.

I met bell hooks in person several times in my capacity as an activist, an officer of the National Women’s Studies Association and as a scholar of African American studies.

I have heard her lecture and

buy homes with their earnings.

Walker had her mansion, known as Villa Lewaro, built on the banks of New York’s Hudson River. Interestingly, she made sure to situate her architectural wonder where it could be seen from the street to especially inspire little Black girls and boys.

Fast forward 125 years where Kenya McKnightAhad, founder and CEO of Black Women Wealth Alliance (BWWA), brings her business experience, savvy and passion to a social enterprise focusing on the development and economic stability of Black women entrepreneurs.

In 2020, 41% of Black owned businesses closed their doors and more than 130,000 Black women were fired or

furloughed from the workplace.

Many women struggled to reinvent themselves, but it’s been difficult.

They lacked the necessary technology and marketing skills, equipment, and funds to build a digital presence.

BWWA offers a wide range of services that provide access, discovery, and realization of what can be possible, customized for individuals, cohort and membership frameworks,.

BEE Marketplace was established as a pilot program to provide marketing, website and social media overhauls, sales tracking tools, and capacity grants.

From now through January 30th, 2022 (www.beemarketplace-us.com), the BEE Marketplace virtual shopping experience introduces

products and services from a select group of Twin Cities Black women-owned businesses.

Keiona Cook, who started sewing of six, is a couture fashion designer creating oneof-a-kind garments for girls and women at her company. Que Bella Couture. “I’ve always wanted to share that empowering feeling, uplifting Black girls and women from the inside out,” she says.

Cook is a mixedmedium artist, mixing acrylics with African wax, applying to print fabrics and found objects.

She is also the founder and executive director of Lovely’s Sewing & Arts Collective where she works with youth from all over the Twin Cities, ages 4-16, introducing them to the world of fashion, design, and business.

She is the author and illustrator of ‘Lovely Helps Mommy Fold the Laundry’ and a motivational speaker.

When Shamika Brown was a little girl, she loved to bake and cook right beside her grandmother. Those fond memories led her to explore the field of culinary arts and eventually earn a degree from Le Cordon Bleu, along with an MBA certificate from St. Thomas University. She is well-known for her bakery delights and for her high heel shoe addiction. Her dream is to open a storefront that will employ pastry chef interns and offer baking classes to young people in the community along with a retail shopping experience.

The pandemic has required businesses like

Cook’s and Brown’s to re-invent themselves. For Cook, it meant making masks and adding men’s clothing. Our history dictates tenacity and perseverance, even in the face of the unknown.

Passing our experiences, good and bad, and learned wisdom down to the next generation is also an obligation, Cook says.

Desiaa Buford, Shamika Brown’s daughter, owns ‘Seize the Moment Branding Agency. The young entrepreneur says she loves frogs, arts and crafts, and graphic design. Her specialties are unique web page design and strategic branding.

For more information on the featured entrepreneurs, contact Jazinae Patterson, BWWA Business Advisor. www.jazinaep@bwwa-us.com

have spoken with her, and every time, I was speechless. In her presence, I was once again the 14-year-old, sitting on the porch, diving into her words and finding myself on the other side.

Her words, like my Nana’s hugs, always bought me back to myself, telling me, coaxing me, pushing me to become who I was meant to be in this world.

I remember speaking her words to the wind, hoping that if I ever forgot who I was, the wind would remind me.

Whenever I am hungry for truth, I turn to her work. When I need support or encouragement, I turn to her work. When I need to be reminded of how to love and fight, I turn to her work.

So, when I heard, read, realized and finally accepted that bell hooks – genius, scholar, cultural critic, truth speaker, one who had the strength to call out and challenge white supremacy

and racism time and time again – had run on ahead to see how the end is going to be, all I could do was sit and breathe.

I am not OK. None of us – feminists, scholars, activists, truth seekers, survivors – who have ever been touched by her work and her words are OK. Not today. Not at this moment, and not for a minute.

It is not enough to say she saved me from cutting off my tongue, because unless you know her genius, you will think that this is just about violence and not about salvation.

It is not enough to say that she saved me from burning it all down, because unless you know her brilliance, you will never understand how her words taught me how to come through the fire and be better and stronger on the other side.

Because she wrote and published extensively, “bell hooks” the writer – a pen name that she borrowed from her maternal greatgrandmother, Bell Blair Hooks – will never leave us, but Gloria Jean Watkins, did. The sun is not shining as bright as when she was still with us.

My son called to mourn with me and wanted to know which books I would recommend to someone who did not know who bell hooks was and did not understand why we were in mourning. I told him that they should start with these three, and once they have recovered from the truth of her words, they should then read her other 30-plus books and scholarly articles.

to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.” – Ain’t I a Woman

school teacher and current professor, my goal was to learn how to teach students how to transgress and why they should transgress against racial, sexual and class boundaries.

“Teaching to Transgress” lights the way for anyone who wants to use the classroom as a starting place to help our students claim agency over their own learning.

“We must continually claim theory as necessary practice within a holistic framework of liberatory activism.”

– Teaching to Transgress Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead, Ph.D., is the founding executive director of the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, and Social Justice at Loyola University Maryland and an associate professor of communication and African and African American Studies.

She is a three-time New York Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and the awardwinning radio host of “Today with Dr. Kaye” on WEAA 88.9FM. This article originally appeared on The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981) In perhaps one of her most provocative works, hooks provides a true and clear analysis of what it means to live and be a Black woman in a racist, misogynist world. If you want to understand what it means to be Black and a woman, you start here and then keep going.

“It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term ‘feminism’, to focus on the fact that to be ‘feminist’ in any authentic sense of the term is Initiative (JRI), the project hopes to improve public safety, by reducing corrections spending, and diverting the savings into strategies that can decrease crime and reduce recidivism.

They say they need to act now to redirect corrections funding going forward.

The extensive review of the state’s criminal justice system will be supported by the

Feminist Theory: from margin to center (1984) When I was in college and struggling with understanding and defining what it meant to be a feminist, my professor Jane Bond Moore gave me her copy of “Feminist Theory” and told me to use it as a blueprint and a guide. This book is bell hooks at her best, wielding her pen as a weapon and using it to call out and critique white feminism and white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

“Our emphasis must be on cultural transformation: destroying dualism, eradicating systems of domination. Our feminist revolution here can be aided by the example of liberation struggles led by oppressed peoples globally who resist formidable powers. The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle.” – Feminist Theory Teaching to Transgress (1994) As a former middle

Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center with support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The CSG Justice Center—a national, nonpartisan organization known for developing research-driven public safety strategies—will ultimately share its findings and offer policy recommendations to the Governor’s Council on Justice Reinvestment.

Senator Julie Rosen, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Kevin Reese, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Until We Are All Free, will serve as the Council’s Co-Chairs. In addition to the Co-

Chairs, the Justice Reinvestment Council will be comprised of 13 members appointed by the Governor. These members include:  Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell  Senator John Marty  Representative Rena Moran  Representative Paul Novotny  Jason Anderson, Probation Director, Itasca County  Catherine Johnson, Community Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Director, Hennepin County  John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney  Judge Jennifer Frisch, Minnesota Court of Appeals  Tim Leslie, Dakota County Sheriff  Kelly Lyn Mitchell, Public Member, Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission and Executive Director of the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice  Jack Swanson, Roseau County Commissioner and Association of Minnesota Counties Public Safety Chair  Dr. Yohuru Williams, Distinguished University Chair, Professor of History, and Founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas  Chairman Kevin DuPuis, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa

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Insight News • December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Page 5

Together with small businesses, we’re helping bring hope to the streets.

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Page 6 •December December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Insight News

Insight 2 Health

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4 essential reads on the critical role of rapid tests

Biden to expand access to at-home COVID kits

By Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor , The Conversation President Joe Biden has outlined plans to massively ramp up COVID-19 testing in an effort to curb – or at least slow – the spread of the highly infectious omicron variant across the U.S. In a speech on Dec. 21, 2021, Biden said he aimed to get out “as many tests, as quickly as possible” and said free athome kits would be sent out to Americans beginning in January.

At the forefront of the push against the omicron variant will be new federal testing sites and the distribution of 500 million rapid tests, free of charge, to the public. To enable the speedy rollout of tests, the White House committed to using the Defense Production Act, which allows the federal government to “allocate materials, services and facilities” from the private sector to meet the demands of the nation.

The focus on testing comes at a time of high demand for kits that diagnose infection.

The arrival of the omicron variant has coincided with a desire by many to get tested before meeting up with loved ones over the holiday period, resulting in long lines outside test sites and a run on home kits being sold at pharmacies.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, The Conversations’s team of health experts has been on hand to explain why testing is such a crucial part of the response.

1) What exactly is a rapid COVID-19 test?

The type of test that Biden is hoping to get

into the hands of Americans is a rapid antigen test.

Rapid antigen tests look for proteins from the virus that may be present in samples collected via saliva or a swab up the nostrils.

The tests are relatively cheap and quick, with results known in around 15 minutes.

They are, however, not 100% reliable and can miss the early stages of COVID-19 infection.

PCR tests, which are better at detecting low levels of the virus, are usually performed by a doctor or health practitioner – although some are available for home use – after which the samples are sent to a lab.

Like the rapid test, the first step in a PCR test is the collection of genetic material – again, saliva or nostril swab.

After that initial procedure, the sample is amplified through a sophisticated process that causes the test DNA to replicate until there are a billion copies of the original piece.

This allows for a very high level of accuracy, with the test being able to detect the tiniest presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

But as Nathaniel Hafer, an expert in molecular medicine at UMass Chan Medical School, notes, the PCR test has weaknesses – a PCR test can cost up to US$100 or more, and results can take several days to come through.

It’s important to note that all tests are a snapshot at the time of sample collection and are much more likely to be accurate when a person is infectious. So people are encouraged to take multiple tests 24 hours apart.

2. Why rapid tests are important – especially now

Despite PCR tests being better at detecting low levels of the virus, the antigen tests can be particularly useful at a time when many people need to get tested.| As Hafer notes in a separate article for The Conversation, rapid tests are “a welcome tool in society’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.”

He advises readers to take a test, be it PCR or antigen, as soon as they show symptoms of COVID-19. And the same holds true whether someone is vaccinated or not.

“The faster you can determine if you have COVID-19, the sooner you can isolate yourself, which helps prevent transmission to others,” he writes.

And even if someone gets a negative antigen result, it shouldn’t be assumed that they are in the clear. Anyone showing symptoms would be advised to have a follow-up rapid or PCR test.

3) So how do you use a home testing kit?

One of the big benefits of the rapid test is that it can be performed at home – no need for a lab setting or skilled lab technicians.

Zoë McLaren, a public health policy expert at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, explained how readers should go about using their home test.

First off, plan ahead.

“It’s important to have a plan for what to do based on the test results. If you get a positive result, immediately take precautions to slow transmission, such as self-isolating, letting close contacts know about the test result and reporting the

photo/ljubaphoto

Rapid antigen tests look for proteins from the virus that may be present in samples collected via saliva or a swab up the nostrils. case to health authorities,” McLaren writes. Even when presented with a negative result, caution is advised, “and, if you have symptoms or a known exposure, it’s a good idea to do a follow-up rapid antigen or PCR test just in case the first test was a false negative.”

A second rapid test performed 24-36 hours after the initial test can help detect coronavirus cases that may have been missed the first time around due to an insufficient viral load, writes McLaren.

4) And if you still can’t get your hands on a rapid test?

Despite the massive planned rollout of rapid tests announced by Biden, there may well still be difficulties finding a kit.

Loss of smell or taste can be an indicator of COVID-19 infection. John Hayes and Cara Exten, both of Penn State, recount how a graduate student’s mother discovered recently that she could neither smell nor taste her habitual cup of coffee.

She quarantined and got a rapid test, which came back positive.

The fact that she confirmed her suspicions by use of an antigen test underscores a key point: If you have the slightest inkling that you may have COVID-19, or been in contact with someone who has, it is advisable to get tested to know for sure.

“Using loss of smell as a COVID-19 test is far from perfect. But because a daily smell check is very specific,

instantaneous and quite literally free, it is a highly useful screening tool,” write Hayes and Exten.

Matt Williams is an editor with more than two decades’ journalistic experience.

A former breaking news reporter for the U.K.’s Press Association, he moved to New York in 2009 as the agency’s North America Correspondent. After a stint as weekend editor for the Guardian, Matt joined Al Jazeera America as senior editor, later taking on a similar role at ABC News. He also worked as a reporter for the HBO show «Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas.»

This article originally appeared on The Conversation and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

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Insight News • December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Page 7

Ode to bell hooks

By Irma McClaurin, PhD Culture and Education Editor Originally published in Medium (bit. ly/bellhooksode) sista bell hooks, to you, we owe an enormous debt that can never really be repaid in full

Color of Law From 3 much made Minnesota a white state.

Myers said “We defeated slavery and Jim Crow because it was morally wrong.

A new millennium cohort has declared that what is happening in current times to BIPOC citizens is morally unjust and we will change that reality, as well.”

We must answer the call to eliminate racist systems and by embracing the reckoning at hand. We are outspoken about disparities that have been normalized. We intend to center our work on the people and not the destructive intentions of proponents of white supremacy, Myers said. “It’s a unique moment for Black America.

We’ve got to seize the day.

Carpe Diem. We want to pull on those local and international heartstrings. There’s so much

Sen. Manchin From 3 It would address shortfalls in affordable housing and provide cash for parents to purchase food for their children during the summer months when they’re not in school.

Like many in the Democratic Party, BidenHarris administration officials expressed their outrage with Sen. Manchin. “[Sen. Manchin’s]

could no longer be ignored—as you cut through the bullshit shields of white privilege, white hegemony, internalized racism, sexism, to challenge all.

You fed our minds, gave us concepts like Black Feminism to chew on, masticate, then swallow like a snake consuming the whole body of its prey.

You wrote/spoke for/to the folk long before “public intellectual” was a thing.

Small of stature, for sure, but like Sista Harriet T, you moved with the grace of a lioness, knowledged us, and loved us Black women, Black people, and the world, with the power of a mighty army.

We ingested your words, your radical Black feminist way of being & writing, your defiance in the small letters of your name & body.

We watched the world choosing to ignore you until the strength & sharpness in the sword of your ideas & words

work to be done. Let’s start with educating and training our youth. Chauvin’s guilty plea is not the end all, be all for justice.

It won’t bring George Floyd back. But it is solidification,” she said.

James Wright, a reporter for the Washington Informer, examines issues around the world in one of the oldest newspaper markets. “I really thought Chauvin was going to fight the charges.

Maybe he thought if he pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge, he would go to a federal facility where the arrangement might be better than spending the rest of his life in a state facility with some he might have had incarcerated,” Wright said.

Wright said despite the confession, whether Chauvin really was contrite is questionable. “I also believe Chauvin felt like he was doing his job; that he did nothing wrong. All along, the union and the Blue Wall of brotherhood and silence protected him and

Davina and The Vagabonds New Year’s Day Celebration

to liberation and freedom.

Join the pantheon of Black women ancestors who preceded you—Toni Morrison, Toni Cade-Bambara, Audre Lorde, Gloria Joseph, Ntozake Shange, Gloria Andaluza, your great grandmother bell hooks, and the enslaved women who wanted to write and couldn’t.

Ashé.

You have left us a gift, Black Buddhist Wise Woman, and it is up to us to find the courage to carry on your legacy.

You were our Truthsayer,

You are gone too soon,

No need to cry useless tears for you.

a Black Cassandra—speaking truth to power—yet destined never to be believed.

but it would selfish for us to begrudge you the rest you so desperately needed, and most clearly have earned.

Instead, let us pick up our pens

Muck Rack

Attorney Clinton Collins Jr.

so many others. That wall must come down,” Wright said.

He said people around the country see Minnesota as a liberal state and never would have expected an unarmedBlack man to be murdered in the manner in which he was. Myers said though the state might have a liberal reputation with the likes of Mondale, Humphrey, and former Congressman and now Attorney General Keith Ellison, systemic racism clearly exists.

“I think Chauvin just

wanted closure and a lot of people of all colors wanted to say the days of police brutality and white supremacy are over,” said Attorney Clinton Collins, a frequent guest on Conversations with Al McFarlane. “For so long, Ku Klux Klan members were also members of the police force. They made a practice of frightening Blacks and depriving them of their civil rights. The color of law has always been white. Now, we’re holding folks accountable.”

“While that framework was missing key priorities, we believed it could lead to a compromise acceptable to all.”

Psaki said Sen. Manchin “promised to continue conversations in the days ahead and to work with us to reach that common ground.”

“If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate,” Psaki asserted.

She added: “Just as Senator Manchin reversed his position on Build Back Better this morning, we will continue to press him to see if he will reverse his position yet again, to honor his prior commitments and be true to his word.”

After getting word of his colleague’s decision to sabotage Build Back Better, Vermont Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders blasted Sen. Manchin during an appearance on CNN. “Well, I think he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn’t have the guts to take

& write our way

Dr. Irma McClaurin Myers said the Minneapolis Department and the state of Minnesota should be held accountable, as well. “How was Chauvin allowed to get away with 15 or 16 infractions and nothing being done to discipline him or revoke his license?”

Education and Culture editor for Insight News, Dr. Irma McClaurin said changing the language and the messaging could afford clarity as to the most effective model for public safety. “Not only should we on the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs,” Sen. Sanders insisted.

“West Virginia is one of the poorest states in this country. You got elderly people and disabled people who would like to stay at home. So, he’s going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t want to expand Medicare to cover dental hearing and eyeglasses.”

Sen. Sanders continued: “I’ve been to West Virginia a number of times, and it’s a great state, beautiful people, but it is a state that is struggling.

And he’s going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he’s

© 2021 Irma McClaurin Images from bell hooks INSTITUTE, Berea College, https://www. bellhooksinstitute.com/.

Irma McClaurin (http:// irmamcclaurin.com/ https://twitter. com/mcclaurintweets) is an activist anthropologist, award-winning writer, Culture and Education Editor and columnist for Insight News, CEO of Irma McClaurin Solutions, and founder of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive (bit.ly/ blkfemarchive) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her book, JustSpeak: Reflections on Race, Culture and Politics in America, is forthcoming in 2022.

take a good look at the context of academy training, but those taking courses in criminal justice should be introduced to methodology that has been deconstructed, demilitarized, and made relevant with a vision applicable to current times in the age of COVID19 and division.

Perhaps we should look at retraining ourselves and helping other people get careers.”

1/3 of the police force has left. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo is stepping down.

Mayor Frey has appointed a public safety transition team of which Myers is a participant to look at police reform.

According to Myers, “There’s a real increase in gun violence and community crime.

The momentum must be hyper focused on messaging solutions on the problems BIPOC communities live every day and not totally concentrating on policing.

rejecting what the scientists of the world are telling us that we have to act boldly and transform our energy system to protect future generations from the devastation of climate change.”

“Joe Manchin voted for a huge increase in military spending. Manchin voted for an infrastructure bill that added $250 billion to the deficit. The truth of the matter is that if you look at the military budget $770 billion times that by ten years, it is four times is higher than what the Build Back Better plan is.”

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Rest in Power, Sistah bell hooks.

We will miss you for true, but you left us a feast of writing, for adults and for Black children.

James Wright

comments were at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances,” The White House said in a statement after the senator’s Fox News appearance.

“On Tuesday of this week, Senator Manchin came to the White House and submitted – to the President, in person, directly – a written outline for a Build Back Better bill that was the same size and scope as the President’s framework, and covered many of the same priorities,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote in the statement.

You were our African trickster, our Elegba—playing serious pranks of supreme knowledge on those who mistook you for a demure, Kentucky-born, lightskinned Black woman, not to be feared, until after they felt the sting of your scorpion pen & hardness of your diamond-sharp intellect.

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Page 8 •December December 27, 2021 - January 2, 2022 • Insight News

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