How many things can your favorite blanket be? Count ’em up: Put it over a chair, and it becomes a tent. Wrap it around your shoulders, and it’s a cape. Pull it over your head, and you’re a ghost. Run with it behind you, and your blanket becomes wings. Fold it, and it’s a mattress; […]
Post
Posted inOpinion
The departure of Captain Donald Banham, MPD
”We…reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women…” — United Nations Charter Captain Donald Banham, a native son born and raised in Minneapolis, whose father was a sergeant in the University of Minnesota Police Department for over 30 years, retired […]
Posted inOpinion
Only White men get to kill civilians in their ‘wars’
Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen says that the “human race is de-evolving…we are moving backward on the evolutionary scale. The sort of thing that used to happen only in fiction can hardly compare to what’s in the news today.” Now, when I read Hiaasen’s remarks, it helps me calm down and feel that I’m not […]
Posted inOpinion
The renaming of LakeCalhoun dispute
The idea of changing the name of beautiful Lake Calhoun to Hubert Humphrey Lake has caused quite a stir in Minneapolis. Lake Calhoun is the largest and most beautiful lake in Minneapolis, a city known nationally for its beautiful lakes. The dispute arose when it was revealed that the lake was named in honor of […]
Posted inHealth + Wellness
Young, smart and Black
By Charles Hallman Staff Writer Stephen Stafford is a junior at Morehouse College, a Historically Black College in Atlanta, Georgia. Brandon Hill, a senior at Eden Prairie High School, has been accepted to nine universities, including Minnesota, Harvard and Howard. Both young men told a group of Minneapolis high school students that it’s perfectly fine […]
Posted inSports
Lynx hoopster goes to bat against HIV/AIDS, gang violence
Minnesota Lynx guard Candice Wiggins is expected to speak after Saturday’s game as part of the team’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Night event. Wiggins has been very prominent in speaking on the effects of the disease. She founded the Candice Wiggins Foundation in 2008 as an effort to reach out to youth about the deadly disease and […]
Posted inSports
Larry Fitzgerald Invitational: Come play with us!
Tiger Woods has not won in quite some time; however, his impact on the game of golf is far reaching. Anybody who plays the game and is serious about it tries to play like Tiger, or look like him when they play. Every week you can see the eye of the Tiger on Wednesday about […]
Posted inSports
Gophers hold Youth Day Out
The University of Minnesota football team held its annual Youth Day Out for more than 200 energized participants at TCF Bank Stadium last Thursday afternoon. Despite the warm weather the youth, ages 9-14, got the opportunity to interact with Gophers players and participate in football drills. The drills were followed by a meet-and-greet session in […]
Posted inNews
State’s Black middle class faces Extinction
By Charles Hallman Staff Writer Minnesota’s middle class has measurably diminished since the current Great Recession began. And the state’s Black middle class, according to authors of a new report just released, has all but disappeared. “The State of Minnesota’s Middle Class” was released June 15 by the local policy research organization Growth & Justice […]
Posted inNews
Sabathani Community Center faces big decisions in the year ahead
By Charles Hallman Staff Writer For 45 years, Sabathani Community Center has been a hub of resources and services. Once a junior high school on the corner of 38th Street and 3rd Avenue South, the center could become a new Hennepin County human services hub beginning early next year. “Clients on the South Side of […]
Posted inNews
Is another local Black institution at risk?
By Vickie Evans-Nash Contributing Writer Since 1975, African American Family Services (AAFS), which began with a focus on providing chemical health services, has expanded into providing culturally specific mental and behavioral health services, family services, and violence prevention in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas to people of African descent. Over the last few years […]
Posted inNews
Cuban Revolution failed to address race discrimination
By Dwight Hobbes Contributing Writer “Challenges of Race for the Cuban Revolution: The Perspectives of Two Afro-Cubans,” convened June 25 in South Minneapolis at Pillsbury House, offered a revealing look at the social fabric of America’s long-controversial neighbor to the south. Ninety miles off Florida’s coast, Cuba has been a subject national interest since Fidel […]
Posted inArts + Culture, News
This week’s spotlights June 30-July 6
• Illusion Theater 528 Hennepin Ave., Mpls., 612-339-4944 or www.illusiontheater.org July 14-17: No Place Called Home Kim Schultz portrays over a dozen resilient people who survived Saddam Hussein’s reign and the U.S. military intervention in Iraqu, and now have no place to call home. Amikaeyla Gaston performs the music for the show. Tickets are $15. […]
Posted inArts + Culture, News
Student film project shows light-rail’s effects on community
By Charles Hallman Staff Writer Gordon Parks High School, a year-round school in the St. Paul School District, serves students who prefer individual and small-group instruction. Principal Michael Thompson says 65 percent of its students are Black, 20 percent are Asian, “and [there are] a few White kids, Hispanic kids and Native American kids. Kids […]
Posted inOpinion
To resist, we must first know ourselves!
“A people without knowledge of their history and culture is like a tree without roots.” — Marcus Garvey In my eyes, the great Garvey was right on! Professor Mahmoud El-Kati teaches this, the Erasure Principle. Our Black history, traditions and language, our culture….our peoplehood, has been…erased. Even the history books in the finest educational institutions […]
Posted inOpinion
Tiger Woods gets a wake-up call
Well, well, well. Would ya looky here. Golf fans done went and got theyself a genuine, for real cutie-pie White boy to fawn over and don’t need wannbe Tiger Woods no more. Tiger Woods — Mr. Don’t Call Me Black because I’m 1/32nd this, 8/16th that, and two kajillionths the other thing — is no […]
Posted inOpinion
The Bible, slavery, freedom and same-sex relationships: part two
On my radio show or in my opinion column, a few people always want to bring up the old argument of the Bible promoting slavery to refute my argument using Bible verses against homosexual relationships. The Bible pushed freedom from slavery and providing methods towards survival. Nothing similar for same-sex relationships. Remember Moses? God did […]
Posted inHealth + Wellness
When adult problems overwhelm you, keep your mind on the children
As I was working on this month’s column, a tornado ripped through North Minneapolis. I saw drama unfold as our community came together helping those in need. I saw children who were displaced, probably confused and frightened. My mind immediately went to children in grandfamilies and foster homes, whose lives had already changed and changed […]
Posted inSports
Is Adam Dunn done?
Patience is a virtue, and Major League Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. Having said that: The Twins, after losing five straight and being swept by the Milwaukee Brewers, are back in last place in the American League Central. Unless edged out by Twins All-Star Joe Mauer (who skipped the first two months of […]
Posted inSports
Boys’ basketball camp also trained game officials
If basketball players are often asked to work on their game during the off-season, why not basketball officials? Thirty officials worked Tubby Smith’s three-day boys’ basketball team camp at the University of Minnesota last week, including veterans and those newer to the profession. Nearly half the group was African American, many of them there to […]