Opinion

MELLANEOUS By Mel Reeves ”This is the story of young people at great personal risk who set out to make a change, and they did not let anything stop them,” said Stanley Nelson, who wrote and directed the PBS documentary Freedom Riders that aired nationally last week. “I hope after people see this film they […]

THROUGH MY EYES By Ron Edwards Since 2002, I have attempted to create a self-defeating prophecy: predicting in such harsh terms that the Vikings would leave so that Minnesotans would understand the seriousness of the Los Angeles Lakers getting their sister team, the Los Angeles Vikings (all posted on my MinneapolisStory.com website). “The Story of […]

Filmmakers, independent or studio financed, know that once they decide to shoot on location in Minnesota there’s a teeming pool of talented, proven actors working in Twin Cities theater. Fargo, Grumpy Old Men, and Untamed Hearts, for instance, put the likes of Sally Wingert (Guthrie Theater), Claudia Wilkens, Buffy Sedlachek (Jungle Theater) and other luminaries […]

LITTLE BY LITTLE By Matthew Little It was a hazy morning in early May, with the sun engaged in what seemed a losing battle to create the expectation of a North Carolina spring. But neither threatening weather nor anything else could possibly erase the smiles from the faces of the more than a thousand young, […]

EVERYTHING’S POSSIBLE By Sondra Samuels “I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try.” — Nikki Giovanni Yesterday I received a call from Tari, a friend and a member of the North […]

Through My Eyes By Ron Edwards When William McManus came to town from Washington, D.C. to head up the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), he determined quickly that there were good officers in this department who could make a positive difference. For instance, consider the names heading this column: Stanek, Keefe, Delmonico, Arneson — three males, […]

H.I.T. Hodges Investigation Team It has been 150 years since the Civil War began, and I think that it is time to do some reflecting to examine how far we have come as a people and as a nation. In 1860 there were 4.5 million Blacks in America and four million of them were slaves. […]

Issues And New Perspectives By Lucky Rosenbloom All over the country, including Minnesota, Black people are being asked to decide between their loyalty to their Christian teaching or the teaching of the Democrats. Will the issue of same-sex marriage be left to the voter to decide during the 2014 election? The Black Christian can no […]

MELLANEOUS By Mel Reeves “There is pride in what this nation stands for,” President Obama recently said before a cheering Congress. It made me wonder just what this country does “stand for.” Judging from Osama bin Laden’s death alone, it would be safe to say that it stands for vengeance. Though the suave, dark-skinned, silver-tongued […]

THROUGH MY EYES By Ron Edwards How many times will papers be waved to proclaim “Peace in our time”? What of the Emancipation Proclamation’s “Slavery is over,” or the Gettysburg Address echoing the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal”? How about “Reconstruction in our time” leading to Jim Crow, or “Civil Rights in […]

LITTLE BY LITTLE By Matthew Little The research for our last column (“A sesquicentennial celebration,” April 28) revealed quite a few things during that period of American infancy of which I had been totally unaware. Maybe I had been napping when they were discussed in history class. One of them was the fact that Abraham […]

By Rev. Irene Monroe Before any of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities laud Malcolm X as our new gay icon or castigate him for being a Black heterosexist nationalist on the ”down low,” we might need to closely examine the recent revelation that for a period in his life Malcolm X […]

THROUGH MY EYES By Ron Edwards One of the important aspects of discipline within a paramilitary unit is to respect the decisions and orders given. One of the most important aspects of police-community relations is mutual respect between police and the citizens police are sworn to protect. When police departments don’t follow their own rules […]

SOMETHING I SAID By Dwight Hobbes I’m watching an episode of the old British sitcom Chef, starring Lenny Henry and Caroline Lee-Johnson, laughing my asterisk off. Quintessential situation done to a rare turn: Husband steps in stuff with his wife and has to dig his way out of the dog house. Homeboy is beggin’ for […]

VOICES OF THE VILLAGE By Lissa Jones “Oh, I say, and I say it again, you been had! You been took. You been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray, run amok…this is what he does.” — Malcolm X Last week, I opened my copy of the MSR, and to my great surprise my column was sitting right […]

THROUGH MY EYES By Ron Edwards One of the rules of investigating corruption is to determine the level of the offense. Overtime is that kind of issue. People steal overtime either by falsifying hours worked or working hours not needed or not assigned. Either way, overtime pay is stolen from the taxpayers. The level of […]

MELLANEOUS By Mel Reeves Anyone who has been paying attention to the news of late couldn’t help but notice that Black folks have been having some very open disagreements. There has been the Grant Hill vs. Jalen Rose conflict, Sharpton vs. Cornell West, Bill Cosby vs. Russell Simmons, and lately Spike Lee vs. Tyler Perry. […]

SOMETHING I SAID By Dwight Hobbes Minnesota Viking Adrian Peterson sustains America’s history of extraordinarily privileged Black men with no regard for their forebears’ suffering. He joins egomaniacal entertainer Prince and former St. Louis Cardinals centerfielder Curt Flood to insult the memory of Africans who suffered slavery’s cruelty. Peterson’s reckless, self-serving tripe claiming that the […]

LITTLE BY LITTLE By Matthew Little Yes! It was April 12, 1861 (exactly 150 years ago) when America suffered its one and only combat defeat — although it was only temporary and did not come from a superior outside power. You probably have suspected by now that my reference is to the Civil War of […]

THROUGH MY EYES By Ron Edwards The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported April 5 that two ranking Minneapolis police officers, Lt. Andrew Smith and Sgt. Pat King, filed a lawsuit “accusing superior officers of retaliating against them for uncovering corruption within the department.” I wondered why the majority media didn’t ask the following question: Why was Chief […]