PRST STD U.S.POSTAGE PAID TWIN CITIES MN PERMIT NO. 6391
Inside this Edition...
THE VOICE OF BLACK MINNESOTA SINCE 1934
December 16–22, 2021
Vol. 88
Read more about Ginger Commodore on page 7.
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No. 20
Great expectations for Black men teaching
By Charles Hallman Contributing Writer
teachers are Black. Normandale Community College launched its Black Men in ccording to state Teaching (BMIT) program this data, less than 2% school year to recruit and supof Minnesota’s K-12 port Black, African American,
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and African men for elementary and secondary teaching jobs. Marvis Kilgore, the program’s first director, was born and raised in Holly Springs, Miss. He said he had Black
Marvis Kilgor, left, and Darius Meyers
U.S. Bank apologizes for egregious racial profiling
teachers all through his By Mel Reeves schooling, beginning with pre- Community Editor K. Joyce Ester, Normandale’s president since 2014, noted win Citians were that she had Black female stunned last week by a KSTP report entitled ■ See TEACHERS on page 5 “Banking While Black.” The news segment revealed how a bank manager at a Columbia Heights branch not only refused to cash a Black customer’s payroll check, but also called the police on the man. The customer, Joe Morrow, had an account with
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Photo courtesy of Normandale
U.S. Bank, and the check was drawn on a U.S. Bank account. The bank manager contended that he had previously seen imitation checks from Morrow’s workplace, UNFI. When police asked the bank manager if he had called the company to confirm Morrow’s employment there, he said he did. Later, video revealed that he lied to the police. “I was being humiliated ■ See PROFILING on page 5
Photo courtesy of Google Street View
Billion$ bound for MN How will the infrastructure money get spent? By R.B. King Contributing Writer
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ast month, President Joe Biden signed the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill into law. The MSR spoke with Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) to find out how the bill will impact the lives of Minnesotans. MSR: How is this bill different from the proposed Build Back Better plan? Smith: Well, I think that the Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better go together. They’re sort of two parts of the important work that we have to get done. The Infrastructure Bill is gonna be a big deal for our state… It includes historic investments in transportation and in broadband, including in transit. What that means for Minnesota is billions of dollars that will come to help us improve and repair our road system. And it’ll mean dollars for, I’m sure now, transit, which is so important for getting people out to their work, into their jobs, and getting around their community, and much-needed investment. And I might just highlight the stuff, the work that we’ll be doing in broadband, to expand
broadband, including helping to make broadband more affordable. There is a special program called the Digital Equity Act, which will end digital redlining, which is a real problem for poorer communities, marginalized communities when we find that the big cable companies just don’t serve them at the same level as they serve other communities. So that’s the infrastructure piece of it, but then the other part of it, which we are working on right now in the Senate, is Build Back Better, and that is really about lowering taxes for working people with the child tax credit. It’s about lowering costs for child care and prescription medicine and health care, and it is paid for by…having the richest people, and biggest corporations, pay their fair share. So it makes our tax system more fair. That is extremely important to making our economy work for everyone. I certainly think that’s not happening right now. MSR: How far will this bill go in solving Minnesota’s infrastructure problems? Smith: Well, this will allow us to repair and improve thousands of miles of roads. It will mean hundreds of millions of dollars to allow transit systems in the Twin Cities and also in
Photo: MGN U.S. Senator Tina Smith
Submitted photo
regional centers around the state to improve you care about addressing the climate crisis their systems, replace old and outmoded buses. and addressing problems of air pollution, this It includes resources for including elec- is gonna really be meaningful. I’m excited for tric buses, which I think is a really big deal. If ■ See SMITH on page 5
New Orange Line connects workers with 200,000 jobs Driver shortage slows the run schedule
By Henry Pan Contributing Writer You don’t want to drink the
Orange Line juice that runs its buses, but you might want to ride it, depending on where you’re going. The Orange Line, Metro Transit’s
latest addition to its complement of rapid transit routes, opened on December 4. The route connects downtown Minneapolis to Burns-
ville on Interstate 35W. It replaces Routes 535 and 597 and parallels Minnesota Valley Transit Authority’s Routes 460 and 465.
The Orange Line was conceived as early as the 1990s when the Minnesota Department of Transportation ■See ORANGE on page 5
Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle (center) cuts the Orange Line ribbon as Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Tina Smith and others look on. Photos by Henry Pan