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Insight News
May 30 30,, 2022 - June 5, 2022
Vol. 49 No. 22• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
INTERVIEW: SENATOR BOBBY JOE CHAMPION
Photos by Uche Iroegbu
On George Floyd and the murder of the human spirit, on mobilizing Black leadership for Black interests, and on the Legislature’s failure to deliver for Minnesotans By Al McFarlane, Editor Part 1 of 2 Minnesota State Senator Bobby Joe Champion was my guest last Tuesday on the KFAI FM 90.3 broadcast of Conversations with Al McFarlane. Following are edited excerpts of Senator Champion’s remarks. The interview ended with his comment regarding the Legislature’s adjournment with “nothing” accomplished despite the $9 billion surplus that could be a transformative investment to improve quality of life for all Minnesotans. George Floyd’s life was important. He is gone far too soon. We can use his death as a catalyst to respect him by getting other people to see his humanity, and ours as well. We must make sure George Floyd’s children live in a society where they can say “my father’s life was a catalyst for the change that I now enjoy.” But I think we have to broaden the discussion and continue to demand changes in other parts of our society. Maternal healthcare for Black women is subpar. Young people are not getting the education they need to improve their quality of life. What does that mean about housing? What about chemical dependency? Our communities are ravaged with individuals who are chemically dependent. What are we doing about the violence in our own community? What are
we doing about those things? I think we should always use the memory of George Floyd’s murder as an opportunity to look at what we are doing to make sure that situation doesn’t happen again on the streets of Minneapolis, but also make sure lives are not being snuffed out in our schools, even in colleges and other places. We must elevate the conversation because if we don’t, then we’ll let them allow us to just be in a box and all these other things will be left undone. We have to discuss the George Floyd issue and include it in our thinking, but not be limited to it. This month, I think we celebrated Malcolm X’s birthday. There had been a lot of discussion about what led to the death of Malcolm X and who did it and who didn’t do it. Someone who was with the Nation of Islam asked, “why are we constantly fixated on who killed Malcolm, as opposed to trying to understand the environment that was created so that Malcolm could be killed?” Mm. Right. So we see who killed George Floyd. But what was the environment created in which a George Floyd and others could be killed? I often say that there’s physical death and then there’s spiritual death-when you kill someone’s human spirit. We miss that sometimes because we do look at the physical. And that’s important because when death happens, there’s finality to it. But I hope that we would
expand our examination to focus on the murder of the human spirit. That means in the state of Minnesota we must address poverty, chemical dependency, mental health, jobs and housing. I fight for housing every single day. But guess what… the majority of folks who are in the supply side of housing, and who benefit from this housing crisis, whether it is nonprofits and others are not people that look like me or you. People talk about affordable housing, but they usually want it concentrated in one particular community. They say they don’t want affordable or subsidized housing in their community because it decreases their property value. We have to demand affordable housing and demand our contractors get contracts to build it. We have to support minority led organizations. Too often more money goes to majority led organizations than minority owned organizations that do the same work. We can’t just be the objects of commerce. We have to be a part of planning and be strategic around what we need in our communities in order to move from point A to point B. Far too many individuals are making decisions for us without talking to us. For instance, in response to the George Floyd protests, some $30 million flowed into the Black Lives Matter campaign. We know that Black lives matter. But that money is not placed
Photos by Uche Iroegbu
with Black led organizations. Another majority led organization is holding the money. That means majority led organizations are getting the administrative fees, getting the interest on the deposits, and the benefit of all the other things that we know are important to bring our communities out of poverty. We have to think about every system, every industry, and make sure that we are involved. We have to make sure that we are not being led off by someone else’s agenda. For example, in the case of legalization of marijuana, how do we also make sure that our interests are present when it comes to licensing and growing and all the revenue streams associated with legalization. They talk to us about decriminalization, but
they won’t talk to us about the economic realities of it. And so I think we have to have a broader discussion about these things and not just let them point us in, in the direction of the social aspects of things. We must deal with the social and the economic realities of every situation. But this is what happens. We have allies who want to do things based on their definition and their strategy. And, and they don’t see that when they do it that way, they are dismissing us. Because then you are, you are telling us that we don’t have the ability to think for ourselves. And that you don’t have to ask us a question where you wouldn’t do that any place else. The Budget Impasse Nothing,
nothing
was passed other than unemployment insurance, $2.7, billion that was early on. And $1 billion for reinsurance and then frontline workers. But we ended the session on May 23rd, with nothing. Listen to me, nothing was passed, not a tax bill, not bonding, not education, not housing, not public safety, nor we did have a mental health bill. Nothing that will make true investment from over $9 billion surplus What can the community do about it? For our elected representatives, it’s always important to engage them, ask us questions. And regardless of what party that they’re affiliated with, ask, “Hey, what are you doing for us? Tell me what you’re doing in these areas.”