In 2010, we have a system of organized, racial and socioeconomic apartheid in the city of Minneapolis

In 2010, we have a system of organized, racial and socioeconomic apartheid in the city of Minneapolis

Dear Gary,

Sometimes I go back and listen carefully to what "community spokespersons" have been saying about Black Minnesota.

I recently reviewed your interview with Brandt Williams titled, "In Minneapolis, why the jump in homicides?" which aired on Minnesota Public Radio on January 27, 2010. (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/27/mpls-homicide/) In my view, there is a major flaw in your interpretation and explanation of the violence in Minneapolis.

Let us consider, most importantly, your comment that "Men that have gotten out of prison and come back into the community ... have a higher rate of violence." While this is a convenient and politically expedient explanation, it has little to do with the current homicides in North Minneapolis. Men have been leaving prison and reintegrating into the community for decades, and most of them go into halfway houses and programs designed to help them find their footing. While it would be nice from some people's point of view to keep lower-income black men locked up forever, that doesn't solve any problems. But more to the point, it is not a cause of the recent homicides in Minneapolis.

There were other people quoted in that story as well, so you may ask why am I focusing on you. It has to do with the influence you have, as a recognized "Black spokesperson," in Minnesota. Government officials, the mainstream media, and non-profit agencies (who control access to dollars, information and policy) regularly come to you for your comments on the state of the Black community. As the Vice President of the Northwest Area Foundation, you could propose solutions that would give the residents of North Minneapolis long-term employment, educational opportunities, safer neighborhoods, and seed grants for small businesses. However, to this day, you have chosen not to do so. Instead you offer to those who come seeking your advice a series of familiar, though misleading statements about black criminality, poverty, and cultural pathology. You chose to say in lock-step with the "machine," whose own spokespersons and pundits have consistently mislabeled, disenfranchised, and looked down upon poor people of color, with the aide of other "spokespersons" (such as yourself) who look just like us.

In 2009, the Northwest Area Foundation partnered with the Headwaters Foundation. The two organized a meeting of 170 handpicked African-American "leaders" which took place at the General Mills headquarters. In the year since its inception, the council of so-called black leaders has proven to be astoundingly ineffective. We have had more homicides, and no more jobs. What successful measurable outcomes did this coalition of "leaders" produce? The Headwaters Foundation and the Northwest Area Foundation are getting ready to have another gathering in July, in a belated attempt to respond to a crisis that should have been addressed a year ago.

As the Star Tribune recently reported- "Blacks are more than three times as likely to be unemployed as whites in the Twin Cities, giving the area the worst racial disparity in unemployment among the country's largest cities." This is information that your organization and partners should have known, discussed and disseminated to the general public. The catastrophic extent of the joblessness among the black population of the Twin Cities was ignored. Rather than focusing on the symptoms of the crisis- the hopelessness that leads young people to pick up guns and shoot each other you must focus on the root causes: decades of political and economic neglect which have decimated the core of what were once vibrant, if humble neighborhoods.

I would further submit that the neglect of North Minneapolis is a crime of apartheid, defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. In 2010, we have a system of organized, racial and socioeconomic apartheid in the city of Minneapolis.

The Northwest Area Foundation is one of the agencies designed to address this problem, and instead, its leaders perpetuate this criminal neglect, while regarding community members with contempt and condescension. Rather than entering into a true partnership with the community, the Foundation has collaborated with the "usual suspects," who come to the table with their hands out, and yet produce not one deliverable.

Rather than address issues of poverty, hopelessness and violence in "real time,"i.e. when they are most urgent for the community, the Northwest Area Foundation and its partners are animated to come together to raise money to consider the problems at their convenience. The community is in a state of emergency, and we need all hands on deck. But the Northwest Area Foundation and its partners shut out the voices of those who do not agree with their model of "community engagement."

Here is an example of such "engagement." Several years ago, the Northwest Area Foundation awarded a $10 million dollar endowment to the Northway Community Trust. No official report has been produced to explain what happened to the money. But what we know is this: In 2008, the Northway Community Trust gave one Chicago firm $50,000 to provide a business summary of Broadway Avenue. Yet, no report was ever produced. The Northway Community Trust is out of business and not to be trusted.

Yet another "model" of community engagement may be found in your own African-American Men's Project. This initiative should have been a driving force to address local violence, create opportunities, and collaborate with other agencies. Yet the Men's Group has turned into a glorified referral agency, which is far from its original mission.

I am astounded by the amount of credibility (and money) granted to the Northwest Community Foundation, despite its consistent failure to produce results. Let us be clear: the problems plaguing North Minneapolis are not intractable. Given the small size of the local Black population, we could make real headway on these issues. But it would require a change in direction, a change in political will, and a change in leadership.

In closing, the recent homicides in Minneapolis have little to do with men getting out of prison. Handpicking 170 "Black spokespersons" that agree with everything you are already doing will not yield the kinds of results that are desperately needed. Doing so only helps to maintain the criminal neglect and institutional racism that constitute Minnesota's cold 21st century Jim Crow.

Open Letter to Northwest Area Foundation's Gary Cunningham In 2010, we have a system of organized, racial and socioeconomic apartheid in the city of Minneapolis

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