subject: North Minneapolis Politics: Will the real "Slim Shady" please stand up? [print this page] North Minneapolis Politics: Will the real "Slim Shady" please stand up?
Please, don't be thrown off by the opening statement. This article is clearly about Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels and the lack of "home-grown" elected official making decisions for the fine citizens of Minneapolis.
Minnesota once had the best and the brightest, yet they are not fit to be elected to office in the very state they were born and raised. All of the leadership of the past, Frasier, McGovern, Hubert H. Humphrey all that good work, nothing. It was a waste apparently. Minneapolis has DFL leaders from Detroit, Florida and Jamaica. The city is hard pressed to find a native born Minnesotan that will run for office and represent a poor community. Representative Bobby Jo Champion (58B) has taken baby-steps, but has the ability to take giant steps we're still waiting.
Representative government is about grass roots leadership and it is not when you move in your adulthood and when native sons and daughters try to advise you; you threatening to burn down a historic high school that Sid Hartman went to. How is that being a progressive?
If we do not address this void in leadership we are doomed. We do not understand that even though one might say they honor the DFL platform, rhetoric and record are too different things.
Substance over, well, you can't call what they do is style only unless you want to live in a banana republic, and I am not talking about chinos.
In the latest issue of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Newspaper (Minnesota's oldest Black newspaper and Black business), Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels penned an open letter titled, "Open Letter to the Killers of Anthony Titus."
While the systemic reason crime and homicides in Minneapolis, especially north Minneapolis are not being addressed, Councilman Samuels issues his version, through his eyes of what has happened from the tragic loss of a young boy and his truly devastated family.
North Minneapolis, a community still in mourning for the death of this 16-year old child, jobs, economic development and a public school system that failed to live up to it's once great national reputation under the leadership of late Dr. Richard Green, continues to roll down-hill with conflicts of interest in political/non-profit circles with those community spokespersons, opting to play "Programs for Dollars."
In last week's MSR article, Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels rants about the apprehension of the possible suspect(s):
"Do you know how much money you will cost us? Your two incarcerations could cost over a million dollars. It could cost and additional $30,000 to catch, apprehend and convict you both. If you have children, it could cost hundreds of thousands more to support them into adulthood all of that could send well over 100 kids through school for 12 years."
After reading the complete open letter, on Friday - it is apparent Councilman Samuels has no clue that the Black community in north Minneapolis is on to him. First of all the likelihood of the killers of Anthony Titus reading the article in the newspaper is much like the Titanic pulling into the New York harbor today.
Secondly, the councilman seems very good at throwing around figures, and maybe he would like to explain, the series of events that led to the creation of the Peace Foundation and NAZ (Northside Achievement Zone) and how two agencies, involving his wife, Sondra Samuels cannot be a "Conflict of Interest."
When IBNN has emailed CM Samuels, he has always said, "My door is open." Now, residents and IBNN needs the councilman to open his mind, free of opinion and emotion and deal with the business at hand.
Samuels has not addressed the "hot topic" of racism, a fast growing monster in north Minneapolis, identified by the many threads and comments on websites that show a Black woman with her pants down, taking a pee behind a house or some random alley. Some of CM Samuels supporters would like nothing more than to see Black youth rounded up, locked up and the key throw far away.
This growing hatred and racism can be read at E-Democracy, where "tools" of the councilman leave frequent nasty and sarcastic comments about anyone who opposes their "right people," or those who don't support the councilman and current Minneapolis DFL infrastructure.
Minneapolis City Councilman Don Samuels has positioned the White media to see "Bad Blacks" versus people of color struggling to survive in an opportunity that has been pulled away, or turned into a program.
The latest fiasco in north Minneapolis with the kidnapping hoax further deteriorates creditability of Blacks in Minneapolis and we don't have anyone to stand up for us.
In corporate America, if a "train-wreck" is headed our direction, changes would be made to heal the wound or amputate the problem.
Tensions are rising, a train-wreck is apparent. Race baiting is at an all time high. The Black community of north Minneapolis has absentee Black voices that are elected officials? This doesn't just apply to the councilman either.
Will the real Don Samuels please stand up or get out!
