Our “Minneapolis Story” has pulled the covers back on Minneapolis for 14 years in order to expose the purposeful and systematic walls to hold back Black Americans.
In this first of two columns, we feature 10 of the 17 columns published since the US Bank Vikings Stadium was approved on December 20, 2012, in an effort to seek honesty in stadium construction minority hiring. Three key points highlight why this matters:
- Nellie Stone Johnson said it best: No education, no job, no housing, which leads to no family and poor public safety. We seek the nonviolence solutions of Martin Luther King, Jr to also fight our self-inflicted problems. For example, 93 percent of Blacks killed in America are killed by Blacks.
- Government and social science empirical research illustrates the best path to take to rise out of poverty — whether Black or White — is to first graduate from school, whether high school, trade school, college or a university. Then get a job, then get married, then have children, raising boys and girls in families with two parents, however defined.
- Black progress is blocked with “good intentions” of The Big Five partnerships, which deliver unintended “breaking bad” consequences:
(1) Governors and their partners: legislatures and state agencies
(2) Mayors and their partners: city councils and city agencies
(3) Courts and their partners: state and county attorney’s offices
(4) Nonprofits and for-profits and their partners: Black and White, churches, charities, corporations, foundations, large and small businesses, local, national and international, that too often serve themselves at the expense of those needing assistance.
(5) Knowledge industries (K-12, colleges and universities), and their partners, print, broadcast, digital, and social media
The Star Tribune (Sept. 17, 2015) reported the U.S. Federal Government Census Bureau’s recent statistics: Black poverty rate rose 33 percent while African American earning power decreased 14 percent. Minnesota is ranked 45th — after Mississippi. This report’s empirical evidence lays out in painful detail the truth about big lies regarding education, jobs, housing, families and public safety. When will Black and White leadership stop talking and take positive action?
There is a wall separating the US Bank Vikings Stadium and work opportunities. There is a door in the wall for Whites but no door for Blacks, revealing the shame regarding African American survival and employment in the Minnesota economy.
Our goal should be best practices. In Minnesota we have worst practices. Our follow-up column will be on the four dozen columns before legislative passage that urged preparation for stadium construction job training and hiring.
Ten of the 17 columns, by date and title, about minority hiring after the legislative passage of December 20, 2012, are archived by year at www.theminneapolisstory.com/tocarchives.htm. They are as follows:
June 18, 2015: The U. S. Commission on Civil Rights’ benign neglect of Black communities
May 7, 2015: Where is the legislatively required minority hiring equity audit?
March 19, 2015: Pattern and practice with false stadium numbers
August 13, 2014: Is the reported 34 percent minority participation goal actually being met?
February 12, 2014: Hiring numbers of Blacks reported by the Sports Authority: real or false?
January 15, 2014: Promises: What good is an equity plan with no follow through?
December 4, 2013: Steel purchases outside the Iron Range: “To the extent practical” escape language
March 13, 2013: When will Minnesota’s “no Black workers need apply” policy end?
February 6, 2013: Why no 32 percent Black participation in stadium construction?
January 2, 2013: Where is Ted Mondale’s promised Vikings stadium diversity plan reflecting 32 percent diversity hiring?
For a complete list of columns going back to 2005 regarding Minneapolis non-compliance, go to our Solution Paper #46, “Minneapolis disparity is purposefully and actively avoided with purposeful non-compliance, at www.theminneapolisstory.com/solutionpapers/46DisparityCompliance.html.
Stay tuned.
For Ron’s hosted radio and TV show’s broadcast times, solutions papers, books, and archives, go to www.TheMinneapolisStory.com. To order his books, go to www.BeaconOnTheHillPress.com.
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