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February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021

Vol. 48 No. 5• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

Uche Iroegbu

Top: At check in: NorthPoint supervisor Michelle Wells. Bottom left: Screeners Bee, Leticia, and Mina. Bottom right: Volunteer goes over the next steps during the waiting period after the vaccination.

NORTHPOINT: COVID-19 VACCINATIONS MEAN PREVENTION, RESTORATION, HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION FOR OUR COMMUNITY

By Al McFarlane, Editor When the elevator doors open, a commandingly warm voice greets you and hands you off to one of three medical assistants who do the initial screening. They ask the questions we have all become accustomed to: Cough? Fever or temperature? Shortness of breath? Been diagnosed with Coronavirus, or been around any one with the virus or who has quarantined because of it?

The screeners are bedecked in personal protection gear. Gloves, masks, face shields and full length Operating Room gowns. They aim a device

at your forehead and affirm that your temperature is normal. Another staff member is at the stand-by.

After confirming that you have been scheduled for the Coronovirus vaccination, the staffer escorts you down the hallway into a cul-de-sac where you get instructions and paper work.

What you also get is a moment to consider the moment. You have lived with a certain fear and stress since March 2020, when the Coronavirus Pandemic launched havoc and disruption into the world and into even the most minute aspects of our daily lives.

Now, you say with your

mind’s voice, I made it this far. And I am grateful.

And you savor the thought that in just 28 days, for me, February 18, you would return here to NorthPoint Health & Wellness for the completing 2nd dose of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine.

The mind remembers the joy of embracing love ones, of lifting, embracing grandkids, and shifts forward to the gratitude you will feel when you can hug the grands again. You smile.

You smile also because you stand in a space awash with smiling eyes and hearts. Eyes and hearts that see you, and recognize

you, and celebrate you, and telegraph with undeniable kindness and concern, their joy at being part of your journey to prevention and restoration. These women and men, let me call them angels, you can call them doctors, nurses, technicians and professional health care workers, treat you like they are on a rescue mission, and their paramount concern is saving your life.

And while the vaccine…. the vaccination… is the point of it all, there’s something else happening simultaneously.

I call it transformation. The transformation is bearing witness to and being part of the level of excellence in care and attention that

affirms your right to be here, your desire to live.

You are gently guided into the next room around the corner where the person who will administer your vaccination invites you to his or her workstation.

Panyia Vajthas asked which arm and when I offered the left, the painless injection was over before I could take a couple of deep breaths. So we celebrated the moment with a selfie which I posted on Facebook.

The last part of the process was a 30 minute wait session in a larger room where three school classroom rows of chairs were set for social distancing and where each of the vaccinated could

get a debriefing of sorts, and further instruction on what to watch for if you were having a reaction to the vaccine, and reminders of when your return visit would be.

At the head of the room, a NorthPoint Vaccination banner provided a backdrop for the red-carpet experience you were having. You were encouraged to take a seat or stand in front of the background and take a selfie or ask someone to take a picture of you so you could memorialize this day, a day of prevention, restoration, healing and transformation.

More next week.

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Vol. 48 No. 5• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

Reflections:

City Council will not proceed with Upper Harbor Terminal vote

We shall not be moved

By Brenda Lyle-Gray Columnist

By Susan Du, Freelance Writer Environmental Advocacy, an environmental law group that fights sulfide mining in northern Minnesota and air pollution in the Twin Cities, sent a demand letter to the city of Minneapolis on January 8, warning that the upcoming city council vote on Upper Harbor Terminal plans may be illegal.

On Tuesday, the City of Minneapolis replied with a letter saying it would not proceed with the scheduled February vote and will instead, hold a presentation in the form of a status report or a “receive and file” report.

According to latest plans, the $302 million Upper Harbor Terminal project will create a 19-acre riverfront park, a performing arts center, a health and wellness hub, and about 500 units of housing. Onethird of units will be affordable to people earning 30-50 percent of area median income (AMI), one-third will be affordable at 50-70 percent AMI, and onethird will be market rate. The project will also connect North Minneapolis to the Mississippi River after construction of I-94 tore through the community in the 1960s, displacing homes and businesses. While the city is working with United Properties to develop Upper Harbor Terminal, the land will remain publicly owned.

The project’s timeline calls for the city council to vote on the draft plan in February, with construction to begin in 2022 and end in 2025.

But according to the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the city skipped a crucial step. Under the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), the city council may not vote on a specific plan, eliminating other options, without first completing environmental review, says lawyer Evan Mulholland. An environmental review would analyze the project’s impact on traffic congestion and air pollution, noise pollution from the concert venue, the river ecosystem, excavation of hazardous materials embedded in what was once industrial land, and other potential concerns.

Mulholland is representing a local environmental group called Community Members for Environmental Justice, whose lead organizer is Northside activist Roxxanne OBrien. She describes Community Members for Environmental Justice as a coalition of environmental justice advocates led by Northsiders, “fighting to eliminate the inequitable and disparate impact of toxic pollution and unsustainable development on the lives and health of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.”

“After working for more than 10 years fighting for Environmental Justice and helping create healthier access to the river, I am disappointed that before we even finished cleaning it up, making amends to the people historically harmed by colonialism and white supremacy, our communities are once again faced with

CITY COUNCIL 4

photo/http://upperharbormpls.com

“The redevelopment of Upper Harbor will connect North Minneapolis to the Mississippi River, create a 19-acre Northside riverfront park, build a Community Performing Arts Center and a Community Health & Wellness Hub, provide rental and ownership housing affordable to current North Minneapolis residents, provide opportunities for community ownership and bring 300 living wage jobs to the Northside.” -www.upperharbormpls.com

The Upper Harbor

Terminal Development Project

By Al McFarlane Editor The Upper Harbor Terminal Development Project promises an exciting transformation of North Minneapolis, perhaps is most significant physical and economic structure in a generation. It’ll shape what we’ll become as a community.

City leaders call Upper Harbor an equity-driven project. We haven’t heard those words before in Twin Cities community development. My conversation with stakeholders examined what it means to create-equity focused, equity-centered development. Following are excerpts from presentations and commentary by project and community stakeholders in a recent Conversations with Al McFarlane Online Town Hall Meeting.

Presenters included:  Markella Smith, McKinley Community Executive Director, and cochair of the Upper Harbor Terminal Collaborative Planning Committee.  Makeda ZuluGillespie, executive director of University of Minnesota’s Robert J. Jones Urban Research, Outreachand Engagement Center (UROC).  DeVon Nolen, Community Engagement Coordinator at Pillsbury United Communities, leading Pillsbury’s Upper Harbor Learning Tables.  Brandon Champeau, Senior Vice President at United Properties, designated developer of the Upper Harbor Terminal Project.  Hilary Holmes, Senior Project Coordinator for the City of Minneapolis, who brought focus to the city’s vision and commitment to the idea of an equitycentered development.  James Trice, principal at the Public Policy Project, and advocate withthe Environmental Justice Coordinating Council, and producer of the unique Learning Tables Engagement initiative.

James Trice:

This whole team is working with us to make sure that the community has what it needs, has what it wants, and benefits in multiple ways, and has ownership of what is going to take place in this development.

Hilary Holmes: This site is about a mile of riverfront in North Minneapolis, between 44th Avenue and the Lowry Bridge.

It’s a city-owned property.

It’s about 48 acres in total. So this is no small site. It is a lot of land with a lot of potential.

The redevelopment planning process started in 2015 when the lock was closed to barge traffic. The site had operated as a barge shipping terminal up to that time. When those operations ceased, the lock closed. But there had been decades of visioning and planning for what the site could be someday. That planning restarted with a new urgency with the closure of the lock. Since 2015, the city and the Minneapolis Park Board have been working together on this redevelopment planning, bringing in many along the way.

Markella Smith: It’s important to keep in mind is that everyone that’s at the table is a community member. It’s people who have volunteered their time to have conversations with neighbors, and other community members to figure out what it is that we want in this development.

We’ve tried to make sure that we’re open about what happens next.

We’re making sure that community members have time to express themselves. We know there’s confusion. We know there’s anger. We know there’s just frustration in the process and with history. There’s a lot of frustration with history of the city and how they’ve handled things, especially within North Minneapolis and with African Americans.

And so, it’s how do we ... not move on from that, but build on that. How do we build something positive and something where we can really move forward and really invest in the Northside that people benefit from in a concrete way.

Not just in thoughts and on

News

Harriet Tubman: Biden revives plan to put a Black woman of faith on the $20 bill

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Melvin Carter

By Irma McClaurin, PhD By Irma McClaurin, PhD https://corporate. target.com/article/2020/09/lakestreet-letter

Andrea Jenkins

Commentary by Dr. By Aarohi Narain By Mecca Dana Dan Randall Alexa Harry Maya Holly Starks Colbert, Beecham Spencer, Bos Bradley Jr. Josie Johnson

By Global Latisha Information Townsend Contributing Architect Howard Mayo Urban Managing Clinic News University Editor Staff Service Writer Contributing Network (GIN)Writer News Service harry@insightnews.com

paper, but how do we really benefit from this development in a concrete way that feels good and doesn’t feel like we just got a pat on the head. We got acknowledged, but that’s it.

Brandon Champeau: United Properties, owned by the Pohlad family, is locally based here in the Twin Cities. I think we’ve been in business now 104 or 105 years.

I’ve been there for about 17 of those 100 plus years. My role is market leader here in the Twin Cities for our commercial development. I run our office in industrial and mixed use projects here in the Twin Cities.

We were selected as a part of the development team that consisted of First Avenue and Thor Companies back in 2016. That was through this RFQ process, that came out of the previous community engagement that happened in 2015 and 2016. So, it’s been going on five years now that we’ve been part of this.

It’s been an obviously challenging, but incredibly rewarding and a major learning experience. I’ve had countless numbers of learning moments at community meetings. I think we’ve attended over 130 community meetings in the last four plus years. I’ll be completely honest. When I got into this project, I was not nearly as educated as I should’ve been on the history and things that have happened in this area.

It really took probably about nine months to a year where I got slapped in the face enough times that I really had to sit down, stop talking, and educate myself on the system and the history and the things that have happened here. I was shocked.

But just redlining, and the historic trauma, the interstate cutting through the neighborhood…

The disparities are not just history, they exist still today. It was an eye opening experience for me.

I said we have to listen, stop talking and really figure out how we can get this right, and how we can create a model, a Minneapolis model, for how to deliver equitable development.

It’s been an incredible experience to try to figure out

UPPER HARBOR 4

We shall not, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved. We’re fighting for our freedom; we’re fighting for our children; we’re building a mighty union - black and white together; young and old together. We shall not, we shall not be moved. The Seekers It’s very early in the A.M. - January 21st - as I sit in my small apartment writing this piece along with finishing the edits on two others. I had cried off and on the entire day before - the thank-you-God Inauguration Day of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

It had been an emotionally draining, and somewhat disconcerting day because of the body armor some were wearing, 25,000 national guardsmen stationed everywhere, some sadly catching catnaps on cold cement in a Capitol parking garage, and quick glimpses of secret service men scanning the crowds. It was so awful that life had come to this.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Good, decent citizens won this battle, but we knew a victory in this war fought for humanity’s survival would take time, resources, and hard work. When I watched those phenomenal fireworks just hours ago, I was reminded of the stark contrast from four years ago when celebrity entertainers refused

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to perform, and when I wrote the following in the aftermath of my book - the closing pages entitled “Where Is the Rage”?

There was an eerie quietness on these once mean California streets November 8th2016. It was indeed a strange night - a numbing kind of fear and disbelief. Alarming and potentially ruinous political ramifications loomed in a haze of total shock, despair, and chaos. What could we do now about what had just happened in America, now deeply divided and splintered with trepidation, anger, ignorance, greed, corruption, and such deepseated hatred? A young man passes me on the sidewalk, tears rolling down his cheeks. He stops and turns. “I mean no disrespect, Ma’am, but what’s gonna’ happen to us now, and those people too, pointing across the street at a Latino couple pushing a baby stroller?

Four years later, this description fits our current days.

The despot was right. They are

REFLECTIONS 5

Damaged America:

Can We Recover as a Nation?

Culture and Education Editor

By Irma McClaurin, PhD “The ultimate measure of … [people] is not where …[they] stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where …[they] stand at times of challenge and controversy.” Martin Luther King, Jr. It has been almost two weeks since the moral fabric of America was soiled by enemies from within on January 6, 2021.

It has been almost two weeks since white supremacy unapologetically reared its ugly head in the form of white insurrectionists who stormed the United States Capitol and left a legacy of disrespect and chaos.

It has been almost two weeks for the United States of America to reveal to the world its dual system of injustice for Black & Brown people and its tolerance and benign acceptance

of white anger and unpatriotic behavior.

The lie has now been made visible.

The truth is this: Capitol Police never “feared” white domestic terrorists who were armed and dangerous; Capitol Police barely confronted a raging mob of white people who were armed, verbally aggressive and threatening violence against anyone who disagreed with them, and feeling entitled to “take back” the Capitol and the U.S. Senate; the police’s lack of engagement with white terrorists is in stark contrast to how #BlackLivesMatter protesters were greeted by the same police — suited up in military gear, and heavily armed with rubber bullets, tear gas, etc.

The truth is this: Despite the unfortunate loss of one white policeman’s life, the assault on a Black policeman, we must reckon with the images of Capitol Police (white) standing inside the Senate Building calmly speaking to whites acting with mob mentality and asking them to

AMERICA 5

I2H

MDH lab testing confirms nation’s first known COVID-19 case associated with Brazil P.1 variant

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Page 4 • February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021 • Insight News

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Committee hears how reform legislation has begun to affect police training

By Tim Walker, Minnesota Session Daily The Legislature responded to the Memorial Day death of George Floyd under the knee of a former Minneapolis police officer by passing police reform legislation in the July 2020 special session.

The bill, SSHF1, signed into law by the governor, mandates several changes in police officer training and conduct.

How the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board has begun to implement some of those reform measures was the focus of a presentation by the POST Board at the House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Finance and Policy Committee Thursday.

The POST Board regulates education, selection, licensing, and training standards

for the state’s more than 11,800 peace officers Erik Misselt, executive director of the POST Board, said that, as mandated by the legislation, the board has been working to: adopt a comprehensive use of force model policy to be implemented by every law enforcement agency; consult with the Human Services Department and other mental health stakeholders to create a list of approved training courses related to responding to mental health crisis and require officers to complete a minimum of six hours of training; and create (with a $4.5 million allocation) a centralized database of officer misconduct complaints.

Misselt noted that in December 2020, the POST Board signed a contract for

photo/Uche Iroegbu

Following the public murder by Minneapolis Police officers on May 25, community members gathered at the Third precinct to protest on May 26, 2020. development of the officer misconduct database with a software company with extensive experience building similar databases at the municipal level.

Misselt said he

expects the complaint reporting database to be up and running

by July 1, 2021, in time to meet the deadline when state agencies are required by the reform legislation to begin reporting data in real time.

Outing the ‘bad apples’ Just as George Floyd’s death prompted the Legislature to enact police reform legislation, other recent public events may also lead to action.

Rep. Cedrick Frazier (DFL-New Hope) said reports of law enforcement officers participating in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has made him consider developing legislation regarding white supremacists infiltrating police departments, and he asked whether the POST Board has ever investigated complaints about this.

“To my knowledge, we have not received complaints,” said Kelly McCarthy, Mendota Heights chief of police and chair of the POST Board. “Nor have we revoked the license of any peace officer in Minnesota for being a member of a group that

is deemed a white supremacist group.”

McCarthy noted that because being a member of a white supremacist group is not against the law, any such complaints wouldn’t necessarily reach the POST Board. But McCarthy added that individual law enforcement agencies in the state do have policies regarding what types of groups their officers can and cannot be members of.

However, McCarthy acknowledged that white supremacy is a problem within law enforcement.

“Any problem that exists in society exists in the police officer ranks, because we are members of society,” McCarthy said.

Frazier replied that he hopes the POST Board would develop a code of conduct to address this and similar issues.

Harriet Tubman: Biden revives plan to put a Black woman of faith on the $20 bill

By Robert Gudmestad Professor and Chair of History Department, Colorado State University The Biden administration has revived a plan to put Harriet Tubman on the US$20 bill after Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary delayed the move.

That’s encouraging news to the millions of people who have expressed support for putting her face on the bill.

But many still aren’t familiar with the story of Tubman’s life, which was chronicled in a 2019 film, “Harriet.”

Harriet Tubman worked as a slave, spy and eventually an abolitionist. What I find most fascinating, as a historian of American slavery, is how her belief in God helped Tubman remain fearless, even when she came face to face with many challenges.

Tubman’s early life Tubman was born Araminta Ross in 1822 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

When interviewed later in life, Tubman said she started working as a housemaid when she was 5. She recalled that she endured whippings, starvation and hard work even before she got to her teenage years.

She labored in Maryland’s tobacco fields, but things started to change when farmers switched their main crop to wheat.

Grain required less

City Council From 3

labor, so slave owners began to sell their enslaved people to plantation owners in the Deep South.

Two of Tubman’s sisters were sold to a slave trader. One had to leave her child behind.

Tubman, too, lived in fear of being sold.

When she was 22, Tubman married a free black man named John Tubman.

For reasons that are unclear, she changed her name, taking her mother’s first name and her husband’s last name. Her marriage did not change her status as an enslaved person.

Five years later, rumors circulated in the slave community that slave traders were once again prowling through the Eastern Shore.

Tubman decided to seize her freedom rather than face the terror of being chained with other slaves to be carried away, often referred to as the “chain gang.”

Tubman stole into the woods and, with the help of some members of the Underground Railroad, walked the 90 miles to Philadelphia, where slavery was illegal. The Underground Railroad was a loose network of African Americans and whites who helped fugitive slaves escape to a free state or to Canada. Tubman began working with William Still, an African American clerk from Philadelphia, who helped slaves find freedom.

Tubman led about a dozen rescue missions that freed about 60 to 80 people.

She normally rescued people

in the winter, when the long dark nights provided cover, and she often adopted some type of disguise. Even though she was the only “conductor” on rescue missions, she depended on a few houses connected with the Underground Railroad for shelter. She never lost a person escaping with her and won the nickname of Moses for leading so many people to “the promised land,” or freedom.

After the Civil War began, Tubman volunteered to serve as a spy and scout for the Union Army. She ended up in South Carolina, where she helped lead a military mission up the Combahee River. Located about halfway between Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, the river was lined with a number of valuable plantations that the Union Army wanted to destroy.

Tubman helped guide three Union steamboats around Confederate mines and then helped about 750 enslaved people escape with the federal troops.

She was the only woman to lead men into combat during the Civil War. After the war, she moved to New York and was active in campaigning for equal rights for women. She died in 1913 at the age of 90.

inequitable processes of engagement and ownership,” OBrien said in a statement.

“We are demanding that laws be followed and that our public officials work to understand how this development may or may not be in the best interests of the people in the area and keep in mind their own climate action plan, green zone ordinance, promise zone opportunity and their commitments to environmental justice.”

In recent years, Community Members for Environmental Justice was a party to the lawsuit that shut down the Northern Metals metal shredding facility in Near North, the community with the highest rate of asthma hospitalizations in Minnesota.

The city of Minneapolis does plan to conduct an environmental review of Upper Harbor

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Tubman’s faith Tubman’s Christian faith tied all of these remarkable achievements together.

She grew up during the Second Great Awakening, which was a Protestant religious revival in the United States. Preachers

Upper Harbor From 3 how we can create this public/ private/philanthropic model centered around community development that is welcoming for all, and that benefits and showcases everything that North offers. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.

I have to give a ton of credit to our leadership at United Properties; my boss, Bill Katter, and the Pohlad family, because there were times when we didn’t know if we should keep going. And some of that was just driven by some of the negative sentiment around the project, and some of it was driven by just the internal pressures of this is taking a lot of time and a lot of resources. The outcome wasn’t always clear.

Makeda Zulu-Gillespie: I want to add to that is, not just redlining, but also covenant agreements, and the foreclosure crisis, and the tornado that all hit North Minneapolis. And with that tornado, some people were

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took the gospel of evangelical Christianity from place to place, and church membership flourished. Christians at this time believed that they needed to reform America to usher in Christ’s second coming.

A number of Black female preachers preached the message of revival and sanctification on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Jarena Lee was the first authorized female preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

It is not clear whether Tubman attended any of Lee’s camp meetings, but she was inspired by the evangelist. She came to understand that women could hold religious authority.

Historian Kate Clifford Larson believes that Tubman drew from a variety of Christian denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and Catholic beliefs.

Like many enslaved people, her belief system fused Christian and African beliefs.

Her belief that there was no separation between the physical and spiritual worlds was a direct result of African religious practices. Tubman literally believed that she moved between a physical existence and a spiritual experience where she sometimes flew over the land.

An enslaved person who trusted Tubman to help him escape simply noted that Tubman had “de charm,” or God’s protection. Charms or amulets were strongly associated with African religious beliefs.

people.com

A portrait from 1868 of abolitionist Harriet Tubman on $20 bill.

An injury becomes a spiritual gift A horrific accident is believed to have brought Tubman closer to God and reinforced her Christian worldview. Sarah Bradford, a 19th-century writer who conducted interviews with Tubman and several of her associates, found the deep role faith played in her life.

When she was a teenager, Tubman happened to be at a dry goods store when an overseer was trying to capture an enslaved person who had left his slave labor camp without permission. The angry man threw a 2-pound weight at the runaway but hit Tubman instead, crushing part of her skull. For two days she lingered between life and death.

The injury almost certainly gave her temporal lobe epilepsy. As a result, she would have splitting headaches, fall asleep without notice, even during conversations, and have dreamlike trances.

As Bradford documents, Tubman believed that her trances and visions were God’s revelation and evidence of his direct involvement in her life.

One abolitionist told Bradford that Tubman “talked with God, and he talked with her every day of her life.”

According to Larson, this confidence in providential guidance and protection helped make Tubman fearless. Standing only 5 feet tall, she had an air of authority that demanded respect.

Once Tubman told Bradford that when she was leading two “stout” men to freedom, she believed that “God told her to stop” and leave the road. She led the scared and reluctant men through an icy stream – and to freedom.

Harriet Tubman once said that slavery was “the next thing to hell.” She helped many transcend that hell.

Robert Gudmestad is Professor and Chair of History Department at Colorado State University. His research focuses broadly on the nineteenth century American South.

This article appeared originally on The Conversation and is an updated version of an article originally published on Dec. 3, 2019. It has been republished under a a Creative Commons license.

Terminal using the Alternative Urban Area Review (AUAR), which qualifies under state law. However, it won’t be completed until late 2021.

Postponing the city council vote until then will delay the entire project another year, city staff told the members of the Upper Harbor Terminal Collaborative Planning Committee last week.

Some committee members were annoyed, demanding to know the names of the individuals comprising Community Members for Environmental Justice.

Markella Smith, committee co-chair and executive director of the McKinley Community neighborhood organization, opined that it would make more

sense for the city council to approve the plans it wants to pursue first, so that a subsequent environmental review could be tailored to a specific proposal.

“I’ve never heard of [Community Members for Environmental Justice] before,” Smith said. “I’m very curious to know who they actually represent, if it’s Northsiders or if it’s an outside group, because a lot of what happens is there are these outside groups that come in and they cause kind of like an uproar. And they’re not even from here. They don’t live here, they don’t work here, they don’t shop, they don’t visit, they have no interest in North Minneapolis, except it seems to shut this project down.”

A recent survey of Minneapolis residents

showed that 50 percent of respondents liked the plan compared with 37 percent who didn’t (13 percent were neutral). Survey respondents were 61 percent white and 10 percent Black, with comments from some individuals who expressed high dissatisfaction veering into blatant racism.

“Pay for your social justice stadium first! A bunch of rich entitled blacks playground!” wrote one. “Will be destroyed in first riot.”

“This is a waste of money. It’s not going to be safe to go there there. Unless you want to get carjacked, stabbed or shot. It would be better to build a wall around the city limits. I live in this city and its [sic] terrible,” wrote another.

underinsured or didn’t have enough savings to be able to even stay in their homes when they needed repair. So, we’ve lost people who were born and raised here and who loved this community. I’m sure if we created the right atmosphere, they would come home.

We are greater than the sum of our parts. We are city staff, United Properties, the Collaborative Planning Committee, Public Policy Project, Pillsbury United, all different parts of the community who love North Minneapolis. And when we say North Minneapolis, we know it’s not just about North Minneapolis, but that we are the focal point for African American folks, or as they say, American descendants of slaves.

People ask how is community going to own this? How is community going to impact this?

I bring UROC’s goal to transform how communities and universities work together.

So I’m a part of this, bringing my personal ideas about how this community should look, but also bringing in the weight of the University. We want to be a part of the solution, and we want

to raise the voices of community folks with our platform. We remind people that knowledge is not only within the academy.

It is within the community.

We’ve done a good job of making sure we’re looking at jobs for community and housing for many different types of income levels for community members. We want to make sure there is a youth center and business opportunities for large and small businesses, and even manufacturing. We are looking at green space and making sure people have access to the river.

The river belongs to all of us.

I see the Upper Harbor as a way to have ownership, a place that belongs to us, and access to the river.

DeVon Nolen: We have a deep and rich culture here. I am a native Northsider. My family has been here for many generations.

And we are more than capable of speaking for ourselves.

We came into this work anticipating doing four Learning Tables, and have since done I think 11. And so, we have been listening and listening and listening. We worked in tandem with the Collaborative Planning Committee.

We

worked in tandem as much as we could with the CAC, which is the Minneapolis Parks’ version of that committee.

I’ve had the wonderful privilege of facilitating the Learning Tables. I feel so privileged because I’ve been able to hear from people along the entire spectrum. We don’t all necessarily have to agree about what should happen here. We’ve heard folks who absolutely think this is the wrong thing to do. Folks on the other end of the spectrum are ready to start laying bricks and signing leases.

How do you reconcile that and do it in a way that addresses social ills that have been engineered by these very institutions? That’s no small feat.

Brandon Champeau: If the city approves the coordinated plan in late February, that will set in motion about an 18-month planning process to get phase one rolling, which will consist of the city’s infrastructure project. We’re proposing two affordable housing projects, as well as some job creation space, and a community performing arts center, and park. And if all goes well, we’d be breaking ground in late 2022.

insightnews.com

Insight News • February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021 • Page 5

House passes resolution to ‘denounce violence’ and ‘support our democracy’

By Mike Cook, Minnesota Session Daily The House voted Monday to express disdain with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and support the 2020 certified election results.

Sponsored by Rep. Jamie Long (DFL-Mpls), HR1, in part, states the House of Representatives of the State of Minnesota: “condemns attacks on our democracy”; “unequivocally condemns violence directed at the United States Capitol and at state capitols”; resolves “that those who participated in the criminal destruction of property and assaults on our law enforcement officials at the United States Capitol should be arrested and prosecuted”; “stands behind the

Reflections From 3 just beginning, but I will affirm, so are we. I am baffled by how to respond to my children or my former students as to why ‘they’ have such stone hearts.

It’s been that way for 400 years.

What I can promise them is for whatever days I have left on the Divine book, I will fight for their future.

Like the night of the election results declaring Joe Biden the predicted winner, we exhaled a second time as one of my favorite entertainers, Lady Gaga, filled our hearts with joy and gratitude. The 81 million Americans who lived for this day would have been ill-prepared to face another four years of illogical, incompetent, and dangerous behavior and decisions from the top. ‘People of color’ were tired of watching ‘how the other side of the tracks’ lived . . . most so happy, prosperous, and free.

I pondered the surreal event of two weeks prior as America and the world shuddered in horror, the same way they did on May 25th when we witnessed the execution of George Floyd on a Minnesota street, his body smashed up against a tire by the knee of a white police officer. It was reported the seditionists believed they would not face

America From 3 leave; we see images of Capitol Police (white) never drawing a weapon against the white people who had bogarted their way through police barricades unimpeded and broke windows; and we have proof of Capitol Police (white) taking selfies with a white raging mob.

These Capitol Police showed the same lack of urgency and implicit agreement that was reminiscent of the historic behavior displayed when white mobs attacked Civil Rights activists in the past; and we see white police (and a few Black ones) approach a white crowd — hell bent on destruction — without any fear.

The police protectors also failed to draw their weapons, even when the insurrectionists had violated the halls of government.

And we know that police can act when they have the will. Witness their violent response this past 2020 spring and summer and their brutal response to nonviolent Black and Brown protesters. Also memories of police response in 1968 after Martin Luther King’s assassination still haunt me. I recall walking to the laundry mat with armed National Guards in the streets of Chicago!

In effect, the Capitol police, with their passive approach to white protestors, turned insurrectionists and domestic terrorists, into comrades, and gave tacit permission for them to disrespect a symbol of democracy and terrorize government staff and elected officials.

These police should be fired and held accountable in a way they are NEVER held accountable for shooting unarmed Black and Brown people. While yet another white policeman is excused by the justice system for shooting an unarmed Black man in the back, the public is expected to have sympathy for law enforcement even when the evidence is clear

will of Minnesota voters and supports the full certification of its electoral college votes by the United States Congress”; and “reaffirms our commitment to democracy, free and fair elections, and the rule of law.”

Passed 111-8, the resolution will be entered in the House Journal.

“This resolution is an effort to come together in solidarity as one legislative body to denounce violence and to support our democracy,” Long said. “… We must be forthright in saying our democracy is sound, it is legitimate, it is strong, and threats against it cannot stand and will not succeed.”

“The votes and the voices based on the votes of our citizens and our residents should be heard and should be counted.

No one should have any fear that their vote won’t be counted and no one should have any fear moving forward that those votes

and their right to vote will be suppressed,” said Rep. Cedrick Frazier (DFL-New Hope).

No Republicans spoke in support of the resolution.

An amendment from Rep. Anne Neu Brindley (R-North Branch) to replace “condemns attacks on our democracy” with “condemns attacks on our constitutional republic” was narrowly rejected.

New House Republican amendments fail Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to “strengthen” the resolution.

In addition to condemning the “violent insurrection into the Congressional chambers to prevent the certification of the electoral college and the presidential election,” and “a resolve to heal the political divide within the state of

Minnesota and work towards a brighter and better future for all Minnesotans of all backgrounds, races, and countries of origin”; it states “that the House of Representatives of the State of Minnesota condemns any action that interferes with anyone’s ability to speak against their Government and condemns any attempt to use violence as a political weapon.”

The amendment’s impetus comes, in part, from a House investigation into an appearance by a few Republican members at a Jan. 6 State Capitol rally.

“The Republican members who attended this event must renounce the violent rhetoric used at the rally they attended and renounce the seditious rhetoric and insurrection that occurred in Washington DC. It is reprehensible that an event these members attended called for civil war and casualties,” House

any criminal charges; told by the outgoing autocrat just to ‘go wild’! Some reported they were tired of hearing about how the White House was built by slaves, and that in 1963, the mall was filled with 250,000 people of all races, creeds, and religions mesmerized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words at the March on Washington: I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality . . . I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what selfcentered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that we shall overcome.

Every day for the month of December, I had the privilege of listening to my friend, and editor, who hosts “Conversations with Al McFarlane” interview some of the finest government officials and community leaders and activists - members of an impressive Minnesota ‘brain trust’, all who attest that ‘truth’ and the alarming data of inequities between white and Black/Brown could no longer be ignored. Multiculturalism IS what America is about although some segments of white privilege have been persuaded to believe otherwise. Messages from our guests were powerful and action-packed, filled with

adamant determination that communities of color would have a voice, opportunities long been denied, adequate resources to rebuild, and their children would have a chance.

From the chief executive officer, the chief operating officer, and the director of the dental clinic and COVID19 response team at North Point Health and Wellness Center who challenge patients to make changes in their personal lifestyles - to try and reduce stress and anxiety; to stay motivated and engaged; and to look at the vaccine as the beginning of our healing and recovery; to the Commissioner of Human Services who agreed the death of George Floyd and the unearthing of racial inequalities has caused leadership to listen more and have difficult dialogues forcing a re-vamping of conscious and new roles in the scheme of progressing in a new world quite fractured but resilient. The intent, she says, is to both support and motivate the capacity of communities to step forward and be part of the solution side of the equation; to MN’s ‘top cop’ - the commissioner of public safety - who believes as does President Biden that ‘the unique challenges of the day have created an opportunity for necessary transformation’; to powerful and committed community activists, and civic and business leaders and owners who have announced that the day of reckoning is upon us.

that they failed enormously to take action when faced with a white mob.

These whites in blue also disrespected democracy through their inaction — though hundreds of people disrupted Senate proceedings to affirm the electoral democratic vote of the American people, trashed government property, illegally handled confidential Senate documents, and made threats to take revenge against people like Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, only a few will ever be brought to justice because of Capitol Police failure to take action, adopting a passive approach to security and demonstrating implicit complicity with the white mob! Such are the contradictions of America and its law enforcement.

The outgoing VP Mike Pence must also be held accountable; he should go down in history as a coward. By failing to invoke the 25th Amendment, he has failed to protect American democracy during his final days in office. In not taking action, similar to the Capitol Police, Pence, who has supported for four years an erratic, mentally unstable, and narcissistic man who has delusions of aristocracy, granted Trump sufficient time to do even more damage to the fabric of democracy. Just as the Capitol Police enabled the white mob, Pence gave implicit permission to a man, known for being revengeful, to wreak great havoc before leaving office.

Anyone with an ounce of wisdom knows that you do not leave matches in the hands of an known arsonist or give a hand grenade to a child! Donald Trump should never be able to hold another political office ever again — but Mike Pence failed to erect that barrier.

There is no question that Trump was willing to go through any length to disrupt and destabilize our democracy.

Pence should be viewed as guilty as Trump for every pardon he gave, for every injustice he provoked, for every challenge he made to disrupt American unity, equity, and inclusion and sowing

the

seeds of chaos.

America has lost its right to stand tall on the global stage and critique authoritarianism after a moment of insurrection that has not been seen since the Civil War. We have no right to ever accuse any country or foreign leader of not telling the truth, when we have allowed for four years a man to reign (for Trump saw himself as a king ) who does not believe in truth. By not invoking the 25th Amendment, Pence disgraced the democratic principles he swore to uphold. Pence allowed the “enemy within” to continue to wield power until his final hour. That shame will follow him and us throughout history.

America’s political contradictions are showing like a ragged lace slip. Ironic that many of those who follow Trump are working to hold political office in a system they seem not to care about or believe in, and for which they need to be removed from office. And make no mistake, the cries of the MAGA –“Make America Great Again” — supporters are no more than a desire to return to a time when white supremacist beliefs and actions were the rule of law.

And for those white apologists who claim “this is not who we are,” Black Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and authentic Latinx (not the white wannabe selfhating Hispanics like Ted [Raphael] Cruz) beg to differ.

The white, irrational, non-fact-based behavior we saw arrogantly on display in the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Senate on January 6, 2021 is exactly who white America is, and has been, since the founding of this country.

We must also acknowledge that sometimes they are accompanied by the occasional token Black buffoon — who will be kicked out when he ceases to serve his purpose of being a traitor to his race and to democracy.

Until America takes ownership of the reality of its white supremacy origins; until America tells the truth that it has an imperfect and

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By LaurenofPoteat Courtesy University of Alejandra By Dr. Commentary By North Brandpoint Dr. Nicole Rekha Kimya Memorial Winbush N. Mankad by (BPT) Sen. Staff Ian Roth NNPA Minnesota Washington News By Rhonda E.Oliveras Moore Staff Bobby Dennis, Joe Salem Champion College Afrodescendientes Mayo Clinic Staff Correspondent Incoming Board ChairBy IanPhysician Roth NorthPoint www.TheConversation.com Health & elect, WomenHeart Mayo Clinic Staff Wellness Center

photo/Imani McCray for Insight News

On January 6, participants at a pro-Trump rally stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

Speaker Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) stated in a Jan. 11 release.

A Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation concluded speech at the “Storm the Capitol” rally did not violate protected free speech.

A Drazkowski-offered amendment to the amendment was ruled out of order. “It stated that “any member who attempts to criminalize political speech by their action may be subject to referral to the Ethics Committee.”

“You don’t have to invite us to your table. We will bring our own chairs to our own table and follow our own agenda,” says the co-chair of “A Time of Listening, Action, Healing, and Reckoning”.

As the executive director of ‘Common Cause’ will tell anyone . . . understand that when you remove everything - safe housing, food security, internet capabilities, equitable, accessible, and affordable health care, and employment beyond survival - people of color have nothing to lose. A Viet Nam vet and the founder of “The Turning Point, Inc.” addresses the true essence of this abhorrence and terror tearing at the core of our freedom and democracy - “What is it about our loving ourselves that you fear?”, he asks. Our host adds, “Just because ‘people of color’ begin to win, it doesn’t mean ‘you’ lose.”

One of the most gifted educators I have met challenges us to love them (our children) first - some who carry so many layers of pain and responsibility in their young age. They are traumatized by the stripping of their normalcy and the uncertain and sad events of our time. The commissioner of employment and economic development acknowledges the source of systemic racism as the culprit of disregarded inequities - those currently being addressed at DEED and other state departments. He reminds his colleagues that in a decade or two, 70% of the population

growth in the Twin Cities will be people of color. And then there is ‘the people’s governor’ once an educator himself - who, like most of us, worries about our children. Along with his lieutenant governor, he asks his executive team, “How can we fix this?” He intends to begin the process of healing his state by acknowledging the truth.

For now, I want to savor Wednesday, January 20th .

It was a happy, yet emotionally draining day, and like me, many could not turn off the tears.

We celebrated a man who has given more than 5 decades of his life to this country - a man who became a great friend and partner to a President who faced tough challenges, too - a man who knew suffering - a man who became a role model for never giving up and never giving in to evil and defeat. We were at peace as we watched him take the oath of office realizing the people had placed the weight of the world on his shoulders, but like the bust of the man who would have understood ‘the hills he would have to climb’, Cesar Chavez, it would be about the ‘people’ - their rights and their livelihood.

We celebrated as Kamala Harris stood before the first Latino woman to become a Supreme Court Justice with her beaming, proud husband, and gorgeous blended family close by to become the first woman of African American and Indian lineage to become VicePresident of the United States.

The tower bells at Howard University rang, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority rejoiced.

Her Indian village had their own fireworks, and little girls everywhere stood in front of televisions, their hand raised just like the V.P. when she took her oath of office. I thought about Lady Gaga’s stunning gold dove accessory wondering how many would accept its olive branch of peace and unity.

By the way, God had a front row seat on that important day. The clouds rolled in and then snowflakes began to fall.

When it was time to begin the ceremony, the sun broke through to blue skies and began to shine.

The spirits of Congressman John Robert Lewis, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Rosa and Martin, Robert and John, and Mandela and Biko were also present.

They were at peace knowing the sacrifices and commitment they made for the cause of true freedom and the democratic way, and the defeat of an impending fascist regime were not in vain.

And every known nook of our nation, and every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.

The new dawn balloons as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see. If only we’re brave enough to be it. “The Hill We Climb” (an excerpt) by Amanda Gorman

unjust

funding aggressive STEM programs in inner city schools to create the workforce of the future. Since writing this article, it is now on the table (https://www.nerdwallet.com/ article/loans/student-loans/ joe-biden-student-loans ).

3. President Biden can establish a Commission (like the Kerner Commission) in the Justice Department to investigate all police shootings in which police were not charged or had charges dismissed. This Commission must analyze how Black, Brown and Native people are policed and compare their treatment to how the white insurrectionists were handled, and make concrete recommendations for change. They should also call for all charges against #BlackLivesMatter protestors be dropped in light of the leniency shown white insurrectionists.

Such a Commission may come in the future; but for now, President Joe Biden did sign an Executive Order that advances the notions of equity and seeks to support underserved communities. https://www. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/ presidential-actions/2021/01/20/ executive-order-advancingracial-equity-and-support-forunderserved-communitiesthrough-the-federal-government/

America must now prove to its citizens and to the world that the assault on the nation’s Capitol and the U.S. Senate by white supremacy insurrectionists was an aberration.

America is currently damaged; democracy has been assaulted, not to mention locked in an abusive relationship with Trump four years.

It is true that we as a country do have the potential to be better than the actions of the white insurrectionists. But we are not there yet — not even close.

A bright future of recovery for America will require a national will, intentionality, the power of deeds — not words — and a commitment to individual, political, and national accountability.

I hope to see such a change in my lifetime.

It’s been too long in coming. ©2021 Irma McClaurin A version of this article was previously published 1/18/2021 in Medium (https:// irmamcclaurin.medium. com/a-damaged-americacan-we-recover-as-a-nationc69374b6a034 ). Reprinted with author’s permission.

Irma McClaurin, PhD/ MFA (http://irmamcclaurin. com/) is the Culture and Education Editor for Insight News and was named “Best in the Nation Columnist” by the Black Press of America in 2015.

She is also an award-winning poet, activist anthropologist, and has held the previous leadership positions: president of Shaw University, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, and former University of Minnesota Associate VP and founding executive director of UROC. She is the founder of the “Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive” at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and will release in February a collection of her columns: JUSTSPEAK: Reflections on Race, Culture, and Politics in America.

Contact: info@irmamcclaurin. com / https://twitter.com/ mcclaurintweets.

legal system; until America publicly acknowledges that it has institutionalized a militarized majority white police force that targets Black, Brown & Native people; and until America begins to dismantle the industrial socioeconomic and political structural complex that continues to produce daily and generational disparities for non-whites in education, health, political representation, employment, and wealth, this country can NEVER move forward.

America will never grow or change until it speaks the truth about what it has tried to hide for far too long.

Right now America is in denial about the depth of its own social and political dysfunctionality, for which Donald Trump is the poster child, and Mike Pence is his major — though not his only — accomplice.

The day of reckoning is upon America. President Joe Biden must keep his promise to Black America, who gave him his win. He must make structural, financial, and social amends.

Towards that end, I have some recommendations.

What President Biden Can Do to Embark on a Path of Righteousness and Justice 1. President Biden can begin by forgiving the loans of all HBCUs and embarking on repairing and building their infrastructures, with jobs going to Black contractors and laborers.

As a condition, however, HBCUs need to toss out the old Boards of Trustees and install new ones that are intergenerational and with fixed term limits! They must open their books and show where the money drain is on these institutions and set themselves on a path of financial accountability and sustainability.

2. President Biden can also institute a college debt forgiveness program for historically underrepresented minorities, and charge the new Executive Cabinet Office of Science and Technology with

America’s Future The path forward for America cannot be simply a message of Hope; it must be a practice of concrete actions. The future and route to a united America must be rooted in equal justice for all, a rescinding of injustices, and no more broken promises.

The treaties with Native Americans must be honored, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs must be reconfigured to become a true advocate for indigenous rights, administered by Native people for Native people, instead of it continuing to be the paternalistic overseer system that has exploited its authority and robbed Native Americans of resources for decades.

Page 6 • February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021 • Insight News

insightnews.com

Insight 2 Health

MDH lab testing confirms nation’s first known COVID-19 case associated with Brazil P.1 variant The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) today announced that its Public Health Laboratory has found the variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as the Brazil P.1 variant in a specimen from a Minnesota resident with recent travel history to Brazil.

While this variant is thought to be more transmissible than the initial strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, it is not yet known whether the variant causes more severe illness.

This case marks the first documented instance of the Brazil P.1 variant in the United States. The variant was found through the MDH’s variant surveillance program. Each week this program collects 50 random samples from the University of Minnesota clinical laboratories, Infinity Biologix Laboratory in Oakdale, and other testing partners and then conducts special testing using a process called whole genome sequencing.

Through this program, the state develops a more accurate picture of what specific forms of COVID-19 are circulating in Minnesota.

According to Minnesota Commissioner of Health Jan Malcolm, this new finding underscores the importance of COVID-19 testing as well as continued

efforts by all Minnesotans to limit the spread of the disease.

“We’re thankful that our testing program helped us find this case, and we thank all Minnesotans who seek out testing when they feel sick or otherwise have reason to get a test,” Malcolm said. “We know that even as we work hard to defeat COVID-19, the virus continues to evolve as all viruses do. That’s yet another reason why we want to limit COVID-19 transmission – the fewer people who get COVID-19, the fewer opportunities the virus has to evolve. The good news is that we can slow the spread of this variant and all COVID-19 variants by using the tried-andtrue prevention methods of wearing masks, keeping social distance, staying home when sick, and getting tested when appropriate.”

The patient with the Brazil P.1 variant is a resident of the Twin Cities metro area.

The person became ill during the first week of January and the specimen was collected Jan. 9. The patient spoke with MDH case investigators after the initial test came back positive for COVID-19, and reported traveling to Brazil prior to becoming ill. The person was advised during that interview to isolate from others and have

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This case marks the first documented instance of the Brazil P.1 variant in the United States. The variant was found through the MDH’s variant surveillance program. any household contacts observe quarantine, as per standard protocol. With the new lab information showing the case to be the Brazil P.1 variant, MDH epidemiologists are reinterviewing the person to obtain more details about the illness, travel and contacts.

“One of the reasons we are able to detect those variants of concern in Minnesota so quickly is that we have one of the best public health laboratory surveillance systems in the U.S.,” Malcolm.

The MDH Public

Health Laboratory also found two more cases of the B.1.1.7 variant – commonly known as the UK variant – through last week’s COVID-19 variant surveillance testing. Of the two new cases with the UK variant detected by MDH, both are Twin Cities metro area residents and both reported recent travel to California. One had no symptoms but sought testing following their travel, as recommended by MDH and CDC guidelines. One had a symptom onset date of Jan. 3, 2021.

MDH also reported that the CDC identified one additional patient with the variant – also a metro area resident – with recent travel history to the Dominican Republic. This case had a symptom onset date of Jan. 10, 2021.

With these latest cases, a total of eight UK variant cases now have been identified in Minnesota, although more are suspected to exist.

“These cases illustrate why it is so important to limit travel during a pandemic as much as possible,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield. “If you must travel, it is important to watch for symptoms of COVID-19, follow public health guidance on getting tested prior to travel, use careful protective measures during travel, and quarantine and get tested after travel.”

For passengers traveling to the United States from abroad, a negative test from within three days of travel or certificate of prior infection will be required to board, beginning Jan. 26. Travelers are recommended to test for COVID-19 three to five days after arrival and quarantine for at least seven days. It is recommended that people consider getting tested one to

three days prior to domestic travel, that they restrict their activities for at least seven days upon return, and that they get tested for COVID-19 three to five days after arrival.

“Widespread testing is the best tool we have for tracking what COVID-19 is doing in Minnesota,” MDH Assistant Commissioner Dan Huff said. “Broad testing is also the best way to find asymptomatic cases, which we know can still spread the virus to others. Testing is a key tool in our toolbox to mitigate the impact of this pandemic: Test, isolate, quarantine, practice social distancing, wear a mask, avoid gatherings outside your household whenever possible, and stay home if you are ill.”

More information about variant strains of SARS CoV2 virus can be found on the MDH website. About COVID-19: COVID-19 variants: https://www.health.state.mn.us/ diseases/coronavirus/basics. html#variants Information on precautions and testing associated with traveling can be found at: CDC: Travel: https://www.cdc. gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/ travelers/index.html

Health issues carried weight on the campaign trail: What could Biden do in his first 100 days?

By Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News Joe Biden on Wednesday took the oath to become the 46th president of the United States, vowing to bring the nation together in the midst of an ongoing pandemic that has claimed more than 400,000 lives, enormous economic dislocation and civil unrest so

serious that the U.S. Capitol steps where he took his oath were surrounded not by cheering crowds, but by tens of thousands of armed police and National Guard troops.

In his inaugural address, given outside despite concerns for his physical security, Biden emphasized unity, the driving theme of his campaign. “My whole soul is in this, bringing America together,

uniting our nation,” he said.

“And I ask every American to join me in this cause.”

On health care, Biden made it clear that combating the covid-19 pandemic will be his top priority. “We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation,” he said. “We will get through this together.”

Among Biden’s first official actions Wednesday

photo/Imani McCray for Insight News

In his inaugural address, given outside despite concerns for his physical security, Biden emphasized unity, the driving theme of his campaign. “My whole soul is in this, bringing America together, uniting our nation,” he said. “And I ask every American to join me in this cause.” afternoon were several covidrelated executive orders. As promised, Biden is requiring masks and physical distancing in federal buildings and on other federal properties, and by federal workers and contractors. He also announced the U.S. will renew its membership with the World Health Organization, which former President Donald Trump was in the process of leaving.

And he will re-establish the pandemic preparedness office in the National Security Council, which the Trump administration had dissolved.

Last week, Biden unveiled a covid plan that also includes using the Defense Production Act to speed the manufacture of syringes and other supplies needed to administer vaccines; creating federal vaccination centers and mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard and others to administer the vaccines, and launching a communications campaign to convince reluctant members of

the public that the vaccine is safe. Details on his vaccination plan followed his unveiling the day before of a $1.9 trillion covid emergency relief package.

Biden got a separate boost earlier in the day with the swearing in of two new Democratic senators from Georgia, fresh off their victories in a Jan. 5 runoff election. The additions of Sen. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, plus a tie-breaking vote from new Vice President Kamala Harris, gives Democrats 51 votes in the Senate and effective control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since 2010.

With such narrow majorities in the House and Senate, it seems unlikely Biden will be able to make good on some of his more sweeping health-related campaign promises, including creating a “public option” to help expand insurance coverage and lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60.

But even the barest of control will make it substantially

easier for Biden to get his appointees confirmed in the Senate, and the possibility is open to use a fast-track process called budget reconciliation to make health-related budget changes, perhaps including modifications of the Affordable Care Act that might make coverage less expensive for some families.

Beyond covid, health is likely to take a back seat in the early going of the administration as officials deal with more pressing problems like the economy, immigration and climate change.

Biden health aides are expected to begin to unwind many of the changes made by Trump that do not require legislation, such as restoring anti-discrimination protections for transgender people and reversing the Trump administration’s decision to allow some states to implement work requirements for adults covered by Medicaid. But even that could take weeks or months.

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Insight News • February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021 • Page 7

Legend Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron dies at 86 “Hammer’’ or “Hammerin’ Hank” - call him what you wish - Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron was inarguably one of the most accomplished and gifted professional baseball players in American history. Forever known as the man who broke numerous records like Stan Musial’s for total bases and Babe Ruth’s home run record, the latter leaving him prone to racist hate mail and death threats, Aaron’s entrance into Major League Baseball was not as storied as Jackie Robinson’s though it was as compelling with a journey beginning with the Negro Leagues to the minor leagues and finally to his first major league team, the Milwaukee Braves.

Aaron was born on February 5, 1934, and raised in the Toulminville neighborhood of Mobile, AL. He was the third of eight children. His parents were Estella (nee Pritchett) and Herbert Aaron,Sr., a tavern owner and a dry dock boilermaker’s assistant. He demonstrated a strong love

On April 13, 1954, Aaron made his major league debut with the Milwaukee Braves after a brief stint in their farm club and spring training session.

for, and ability in, baseball and football, preferring sports over his studies. His younger brother Tommie Aaron was also a MLB player, and the two hold the distinction of being the first sibling teammates in a League Championship Series, and they held the record for most career home runs by a pair of siblings.

On April 13, 1954, Aaron made his major league debut with the Milwaukee Braves after a brief stint in their farm club and spring training session. A career was born that day when Aaron was hitless in five at-bats against the Cincinnati Reds’ left-hander Joe Nuxhall.

A force to be reckoned with, throughout his career, players on opposing teams like Sal Maglie developed pitching strategies to throw off Aaron at bat.

In his prime, Aaron received special honor from the U.S. Postal Service for receiving more mail (930,000 pieces) than any person, excluding politicians. Cartoonist Charles Schulz celebrated him in a series ofPeanuts comic strips.

On August 1, 1982, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Aaron was awarded the Spingarn Medal in 1976, from the NAACP. In 2011, President of Princeton University Shirley M. Tilghman awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree to Hank Aaron.

Aaron was also a successful businessman.

At varying times, he owned fast food franchises (Arby’s, Church’s, Popeye’s). In all, Aaron was the owner of five automobile dealerships and four restaurant brands. He leveraged his business success to help other African Americans in business and serve poor communities with his profits and partnerships, such as Habitat for Humanity.

The man who smashed records, championed civil rights and served his people leaves behind his wife, Billye Williams, four children from his first marriage; an adopted stepdaughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

You will love the logic here...

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates designed the U.S. railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the prerailroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used. Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular Odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried

to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So, who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England ) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of

or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit larger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s ass. And

4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. In other words, bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification, procedure, or process, and wonder, ‘What horse’s ass came up with this?’, you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.

Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, you will notice that there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.

These are solid rocket boosters,

The Soul of a Country 1/8 PAGE COLOR CAPRW ENERGY ASSISTANCE

Make your holiday twice as nice 612.377.2224 / guthrietheater.org

A tenderhearted favorite

Steel Magnolias Now – Dec 15

by ROBERT HARLING directed by LISA ROTHE

Sponsored by

A Christmas stmas Carol Nov 12 – Dec c 29 by CHARLES DICKENS adapted by CRISPIN WHITTELL directed by LAUREN KEATING

Culture and Education Editor

By Irma McClaurin, PhD A Poetic Tribute to #The Amanda Gorman With poetic fortitude, and unrehearsed confidence, you showed us what we had forgotten: that poetry is both grace & strength; that hurting words can be transformed & become healing words, if the right heart has created them, if the right pen or computer has written them, if the right cadence, has the right lips to speak them, words can be healing enough to forecast the weather of an American spring, a new future for this country— You gave us that with your authentic #BlackGirlMagic/#Blac kGirlPoetry— Who knew?

Your words, such precious droplets of tiny wisdom pearls vulnerably exhaled, written from the heart, fall gently upon fear, anger & pessimism to become engraved upon America’s soul.

You reminded us and cautioned us: Democracy is safe… once more.

Though she is badly bruised from chaotic encounters that included trashing of her national Capitol symbol, she is healing and in recovery.

We the American people can breathe again— we—the other American people—can also breathe.

We are the descendants of the many who endured Black enslavement, Indigenous genocide, and generations of state-sanctioned violence, police violence, supported by incarceration or death.

We, who have felt knees on our necks & known bullets in our backs, We, who live daily with the threat of unwarranted police scrutiny, and “justifiable” death hanging over us, while breathing, while walking, while driving, while watching TV in our own apartments, while shopping, while birdwatching, and while just living our lives,

your words remind us: We can B-R-E-A-T-H-E, inhale & exhale once more, the sweet air of humility & hope— conjoined twins that should never have been separated by surgical political precision and white supremacy ideologies that have dominated this country’s moral compass far too long.

Our dreams of an inclusive America have stagnated for far too long; we have remained stranded in democracy’s kitchen (waiting) for far too long.

You have shown us, through your own words rich with wonder: “There is always a light if we are brave enough to see it.

There is always a light if we are brave enough to be it.”1 So, if there is truly a season for everything, then let this be the season of hope & humility.

If there is truly a season for everything, then let this be the season of deliberate action & accountability.

For the season of apologies is past; this cannot be a season of political amnesia; this cannot be a season of hollow promises; or of political regression.

We, as a people, for better and for worse, must demand a different season.

We have witnessed thousands of pandemic deaths, have tolerated hundreds of unjust police acts, have endured a legal system, carved out of the fabric of white supremacy, stretching to forgive white violence against non-whites, and shrinking as it incarcerates us Black, Brown, and Native people unforgivingly.

This must be the season of “enough already.”

The year 2021 must be the jumpstart of a true age of reckoning.

This must be a season when the democratic soul of this country, bruised, trampled upon, and misused though it has been and is, must come out of hiding, acknowledge its historic & contemporary imperfections, and strive to be better, stronger, and lean hard into practicing what it preaches, not just for some, but for all of us.

This must be a new season—a season for ALL. Thank you, Amanda for reminding us with your words.

Your poetry was the magic elixir we needed to open our eyes and recognize that this is the season

when we redeem and reclaim the soul of this country— this is the moment, the minute, the very second when we heal the democratic soul of a country….this country, Our America. © 2021 Irma McClaurin; All Rights Reserved Irma McClaurin, PhD/MFA (http:// irmamcclaurin.com/) is the Culture and Education Editor for Insight News and was named “Best in the Nation Columnist” by the Black Press of America in 2015. She is also an award-winning poet, activist anthropologist, and has held the previous leadership positions: president of Shaw University, Program Officer at the Ford Foundation, and former University of Minnesota Associate VP and founding executive director of UROC. She is the founder of the “Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive” at the University of

1

2 you thought being a horse’s ass wasn’t important!

Now you know, Horses’ Asses control almost

everything.

Explains a whole lot of stuff, doesn’t it?

IMR

My Soul Sings Health and Healing

My Soul sings and soars to Hope!

Beyond the Hills, the Clouds, The Rainbow.

It Soars straight to the arms of God. The Creator of ALL Things.

By Dr. BraVada Garrett-Akinsanya, PhD

My Soul Sings with the welcomed breath that I have been waiting to exhale.

My Soul Sings for ALL the Peoples on this Earth, My Real brothers and sisters, and siblings and “Theys” My Soul Sings Like the Spirituals my Grandma Alice sang as she washed the floors of Rich White People, who never knew her life.

Her song punctuated by sighs of “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” always was a song of a Day Like This One... a day of Liberation, Acceptance and Hope.

My Souls Sings As I “re-Joy-ce” the Reclamation of Justice, Hope, Safety, Unity, Acceptance, Reverence, Respect, Courage, Inspiration, Resilience, Healing, Thankfulness, Relief, Overcoming, Knowing, Wisdom, Forgiveness ...... and Shared Power.

My Soul Sings!

OOOh Weeee! My Soul Sings!

BraVada GarrettAkinsanya, Ph.D., L.P., CAC/BP Board Certified Diplomate/ Fellow, in African Centered/Black Psychology, Association of Black Psychologists American Psychological Brenda Pinnick http://brendapinnick.com ©2021 Brenda Pinnick, all rights reserved Association, The image is entitled “A Portrait for Renewal” (Amanda Gorman).

Fellow Member, Governor’s Council on Mental Health, Subcommittee on Children’s Massachusetts Amherst and will release in February a collection of her columns: Mental Health JUSTSPEAK: Reflections on Race, Culture, Executive Director, African American Child Wellness Institute, Inc. and Politics in America. Contact: info@ Founder & President- Brakins Consulting & Psychological irmamcclaurin.com / https://twitter.com/ Services, LLC mcclaurintweets.

Page 8 • February 1, 2021 - February 7, 2021 • Insight News

insightnews.com

Taking care of teammates

WAYS TO EXPLORE AFRICAN AMERICAN

HISTORY WITH

SEE MORE PRINCE

In the photogr aphy exhibit Prince: Before the Rain , you can see iconic images of the artist tak en by Allen Beaulieu in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Prince’ s story continues in the First Avenue exhibit, where you can see his Purple Rain suit. Both exhibits now on view, Minnesota History Center, St. Paul.

Aesthetics

First Avenue presenting sponsor Baird.

Prince sponsor Xcel Energy.

2

COME TO FAMILY DAY

SATURDAYS at the MUSEUMɨ Explore the history of St. Anthony F alls with a day of family-friendly activities during My Mighty Journey: A W aterfall’s Story Family Day, Nov 9, Mill City Museum, Minneapolis.

Storytellers, Activities and Fun! Sponsored by Xcel Energy.

Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and Gallery 1256 Penn Ave No, Minneapolis, MN 55411, 4th Floor

Saturday mornings from 10 - 11:30am • 240 pages

Hear Stories Read or Great Storytelling!

EXPLORE THE HIDDEN Engage in coordinated HISTORY

activities and just have Fun!

Hear Dr. Christopher Lehman talk about his ne w book, Slavery’s Reach, which tr aces the mone y between Southern plantations and Minnesota’ s businesses. Slavery’s Reach Author Ev ent, Nov 17, North www.maahmg.org Contact us at: info@maahmg.org Regional Libr ary, Minneapolis.

Become a member!

MNHS Press

• $18.95

Local Children’s Book Authors and Storytellers! Treats!

All Are Welcome.

See us at

Free Admission.

____________________________________________________________________________ "The Children's Reading Circle is partially supported by The Givens Foundation for African American Literature through operating support funding from Target. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund."

PLAN YOUR VISIT 1-844-MNSTORY MNHS.ORG

______________________________________________________________________________________

The MAAHMG is a fully qualified 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Minnesota.

Review From 2

In a year unlike any other, our company and teammates were called upon to address unprecedented challenges and headwinds in the broader environment, working in support of each other, our clients and the communities where we work and live.

In appreciation of these outstanding efforts, we are recognizing eligible employees with Delivering Together compensation awards. A cash bonus of $750 or additional stock award is the latest step our company has taken to invest in our employees during the health crisis.

We’ve also significantly invested in industry-leading solutions and resources. To help many of our teammates balancing family and work, we provided an enhanced benefit of up to $100 per day for in-home childcare — funding nearly 3 million days of support. And in 2020, we accelerated the move of our U.S. minimum hourly rate of pay to $20, more than a year earlier than originally planned.

For the fourth time since 2017, Bank of America is recognizing teammates with a special award in cash or restricted stock.

This year, approximately 97% of teammates will receive a Delivering Together award.

These awards are in addition to any regular annual incentives that eligible employees may receive.

Here in The Twin Cities, my teammates and I are here to help. We’re proud of this community and remain committed to making it a better place for us all.

Katie Simpson The Twin Cities Market President

To learn more, please visit bankofamerica.com/community

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