When it comes to civic participation and protest, 11-year-old boys don’t usually stand out.
But Taye Clinton, a student from Linwood Monroe Arts Plus Elementary School in St. Paul, had plenty to say about what life is like for an 11-year-old biracial student in the city’s school system. He spoke at this week’s raucous school board meeting at people protested a Como Park teacher who they say has written racist posts on Facebook and on his blog.
Read more →
From a historical point of view, it has to be pointed out that it’s a poor representation of the lynching of African Americans because it wasn’t a lynching. It was an execution. That obviously doesn’t excuse the ugliness of the use of the photo, but a lynching is a murder without trial. Read more →
The latest controversy involving a public employee posting on Facebook doesn’t involve any specific racial mentions, but Black Lives Matter wants a Como Park Senior High School teacher fired anyway. Read more →
The robocalls to Minnesota households from the American National Super PAC explicitly state that they’re not sponsored by Donald Trump.
The calls are urging a vote for Trump, joining former KKK grand wizard David Duke embracing the policies that have earned Trump frontrunner status for the GOP nomination. Read more →
Turn on the news now and “To Kill a Mockingbird” is just as poignant and relevant as it was during the Civil Rights movement in which Lee wrote it, or the segregated 1930s in which she set it. Read more →
In Virginia, a school showed its students a four-minute video called ‘Structural Discrimination: The Unequal Opportunity Race’ last week during a schoolwide assembly. The parental backlash was intense. Read more →
Scott Masini, the principal of St. Paul’s Bruce Vento Elementary School, has been in the education business a long time, but he’s never seen anything like the reaction he’s received since someone leaked his letter last week informing parents the school will no longer celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day.
Read more →
Amherst College, the ultra-liberal school in Massachusetts, has decided to drop its unofficial mascot because it honors the commander of British forces in North America who advocated wiping out Native Americans by giving them blankets laced with smallpox. Read more →
If you ever wanted to see a great example of how a dedicated editorial writer can provide community leadership, look no further than the West Central Tribune, which has given an elderly bigot the ‘what for’ because of a Facebook post. Read more →
A judge in Louisville has reversed himself after Adam Satterly apologized for calling him a ‘punk a– ni—er’ on Monday. Read more →
It’s not too late to stop the nation’s descent. It only takes the courage for someone to stand up to say ‘this is wrong.’ Read more →
The fact that a pizza shop owner was pulled from a flight at Midway Airport in Chicago because he was speaking Arabic, and that made another passenger nervous, isn’t even the most surprising thing about the incident this week. We’ve heard it before and it’s hardly surprising that we haven’t evolved.
It’s the utter lack of logical thought that goes with the utter lack of logical thought.
Read more →
There is no place in America where people are safe from the racists among us. Read more →
When students set up a camp to protest racism on campus, they declared their public space a no-media zone, then assaulted reporters who tried to do their job and tell the story. Read more →
Memo: If you’re a leader in the fight against cultural appropriation, you might not want to go with blackface on Halloween. Read more →
Bob Collins
Tracy Mumford