Commentary: Bettye King
April 2000
IN EARLY NOVEMBER
of last year, the headless and badly-decomposed bodies of a
black or Hispanic mother and son were found in a ditch near Rochester.
Media coverage of this atrocity has been scant. I believe this would not be
the case if these individuals were white. In other heinous crimes such as
these, for example, Katie Poirier's case, there is usually relentless media
coverage, law enforcement, and community efforts.
Minnesota reminds me of the '60s pre-civil-rights era. Invisible flames of
institutionalized racism, crimes of racial harassment and tokenism as racism
are acted out daily on Minnesotans-of-color, behind a smoke screen of
"Minnesota Nice."
As a consultant and advocate who receives complaints of racial incidents
across the state, it is clear to me that racism is alive and well in
Minnesota.
For example, in one rural southwestern community, a young eight-year-old
African-American girl was made to ride the school bus sitting on the floor
because no one wanted her sitting by them.
In another Minnesota community, a mother-of-color complained that after the
O.J. verdict, her children came home with their heads and faces full of
saliva. There were adults on those school busses.
These are crimes painted into the racial landscape of our daily lives.
And what about us Minnesotans of color? Where is our outcry? This makes
me angry. I think people of color should be addressing this, not saying "I
feel bad about this, but not bad enough to do something about it."
Maybe because I was raised in Watts during the black-power movement, that
taught me to have a sense of outrage that moves me to organize others into
taking action.
My work fighting injustice never ends, my daily life and my work life are
not separate; they are interwoven and the struggle will probably be here
long after I'm gone.
Nevertheless I still fight everyday because we're worth it. It's not easy
to convince people to join in, perhaps too many of us are overwhelmed in
this business of racial change.
However we can not become complacent in our "common place." Yes, these are
terrible things that happen daily, and everyday we become a little more use
to the indignities. So it seems, when faced with a murdered mother and
child of color whose beheaded bodies were tossed in a field like trash, we
do not see the horror of the extraordinary crime. We must open our eyes to
the racial crimes of habit in order to recognize the time for righteous
indignation.
The alarm is sounding Minnesota, our house is on fire.
© 2024 | Home : Terms of Use : Your Privacy Rights