It was the middle of the day on Tuesday, July 23th. There were sounds of music coming from Nicollet Avenue’s popular downtown entertainment venue. The Dakota Jazz Club, first opened in St. Paul almost 40 years ago, had moved from St. Paul to the other Twin City in 2003.
Known for bringing world class artists who had performed both national and globally, the Dakota also was among the first ‘farm-to-table’ cuisine establishments to work with Minnesota growers.
Minneapolis-based reggae/funk/jazz master Wain McFarlane, was setting up for a show that evening. Through the magic of modern-day technology, Al McFarlane, host of ‘The Conversation with Al McFarlane’ and editor of Insight News, interviewed two of Minnesota’s most influential political figures as part of a program that featured the genius musical compositions and performance of Wain McFarlane & Friends, getting double duty out of the midday sound check in preparation for the evening’s headlining show at the Dakota.
“There’s the extraordinaire Ryan Bynum at the keyboard; Charles Hayes on bass; Jorgen Linn on the upright contra bass; Kevin Washington on drums; and a lifetime member of the Ipso Facto band, Jose James on saxophone,” Wain McFarlane announced as the show went live on KFAI 90.5FM and across multiple social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
McFarlane’s son, Miles, named for the late legendary jazz trumpeter, joined in on vocals.
The programs transported both brothers back to the beginnings of ‘The Conversation’ which was produced as a live audience radio and public access television show at the legendary Lucille’s Kitchen in North Minneapolis. The show was broadcast on KMOJ-89.9FM and KFAI, sister stations committed to social change and elevation of people power in the challenge to hierarchies and strategies that worked to keep Black people and progressive ideas at the margign.
“There was always this vibe, an energy, and an ancestral presence guiding Wain,” Al McFarlane said. “The programs examined public policy our people’s right and duty to bring our voices to the table of decision where we could see and hear ourselves and where we could tell ourselves and the world how the futures we envisioned looked. My brother Wain, guided by the spirit, always brought forth the exact right song and message, lyrics and tempo shaping and amplifying rich conversations, fueling the sense of agency, determination in the community.”
True to its name, ‘Ipso Facto’, declared the inevitable result of an existing state of affairs. There remained in the end messages of truth and commitments to trustworthiness, rightness, wisdom, and challenges along with the admiration of the masterful knowledge of the band’s craft and the reality of troubled times. In one of the band’s popular songs, ‘You’ve Got to Get Ready’, McFarlane leans back, strums his guitar with magical precision, turns to greet his musical companions, and tells the story of a police officer who once detained him, informing this Black man that he was in the wrong predominantly white neighborhood. “That house is mine, the driver declares. I own that house!”
Can we agree that obviously and especially since the televised execution of George Floyd, and in the aftermath when disturbing disparities were unearthed, that Black America and other BIPOC populaces have perhaps taken two steps forward but have been gradually thrust three to four steps backward during the Trump regime? Fear and hate mongers still have the potential of destroying democracy with the insane addition to the doctrine of white supremacy of Christian nationalism. Two of Minneapolis’, the state, and the nation’s most astute, dedicated, and accomplished political figures joined what the host called ‘a powerhouse collection’ of genius and an appreciation for their service and decades long performances.
“Attorney General Keith Ellison and I celebrate a long friendship. We were always there supporting one another, our families, and our communities,” said Al McFarlane. The two reflected on the 80s decades that followed. “I applaud you for publishing a book, winning elections to the Minnesota House of Representatives and to the U.S. Congress, and now, to Attorney General for the state of Minnesota. What a phenomenal career, and just to think, you’re still a young man! A lot of your community organizing came from our beginnings at Lucille’s Kitchen’. It was where you became ‘a man of and for the people’.”
Images of George Floyd taking his last breath and of the mutilated body of young Emmett Till displayed in an open casket 67 years ago will never be erased in my mind. Had it not been for Attorney General Ellison and his team of legal scholars a different outcome in the Derek Chauvin murder trial might have resulted in another miscarriage of justice and a city and a country divided even more than it currently is.
Ellison and his team delivered a victory in one of the country’s most important trials in recent history. And Ellison continues to win for the people of Minnesota protecting consumers from astronomical gas bills increases over the frigid winter months and from price gauging by companies seeking to profiteer under the cloak of the Coronavirus Pandemic. “Don’t suffer in silence,” he says. “Call my office. We’ll do all we can to help.”
Ellison told The Conversations audiences that COVID had not gone away. “It’s morphing and we are still at risk. We must be mindful and pay attention. Bottom line, it’s a lethal disease and people are still dying from it. I urge people to get vaccinated and get a second booster. We’re still unpacking the psychosocial impact of the pandemic and the quarantine. We’ve seen so many measures of human wellness going in the wrong direction. Domestic violence is on the rise; opioid and drug overdose are at epidemic proportions, and alcohol use and addiction are spiraling upward. Crime is up. For many, anxiety is difficult to control because they see no light at the end of roads they must travel. We have to constantly ask ourselves, are we okay? What about our children, other family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors? Ask them if they’re okay or if they need help,” Ellison said.
No one has seen anything like this kind of pandemic since the improperly named 1917 ‘Spanish flu’, an international influenza pandemic that took millions of lives worldwide, Ellison said. “There were no medical preventions like vaccines or ventilators. World War I, disease, and the most vitriolic racism in our country were raging. In 1920 three Black circus workers in Duluth were lynched from a light pole for a crime they did not commit. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial now stands there in downtown Duluth.”
The current iteration of white supremacist hate groups, spurred on by the former President Donald Trump, remain a threat to democracy and human rights, he said. “Do you think anyone could go to a person like Trump and appease them? They will read that as a ‘we win; you lose’ scenario. When it comes to Trump and his followers, the only way to deal with him and them is to confront them and stand up to them. If we don’t, they will never stop. In my opinion, we must prosecute their illegal conduct. Interestingly, when it comes to the world of white supremacy, more and more old white supremacists are abandoning the movement. Yet at the same time, when the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said white supremacist violence is the number one type of violence the country needs to be worried about, the right wing in Congress said, ‘You’re picking on us.’
Ellison says the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, was not just about women. “It’s about all of us,” he said. “The 1972 case was based on the Supreme Court finding that there was a right to privacy. That meant a person could make decisions about things affecting them intimately, especially of a family nature, and it was their constitutional right to make those decisions and the government could not interfere.”
That decision stood a long time and was reinforced by a case called the Casey case. One of those rights was the 1968 Loving vs. Virginia case where a Black woman and a white man got married in that state. The Court found that no state had a right to inject itself in marital decisions. Then there was Connecticut vs. Griswold, a case where some folks bought contraception. They wanted to regulate whether they were going to have kids or not. There have been a lot of decisions based on that right to privacy, Ellison said.
In 1995, Minnesota decided under a case called Doe vs. Gomez, that individuals have a constitutional right to seek and get an abortion and get government assistance to pay for it. Recently, the U. S. Supreme Court, packed with right wing jurists made a six-three judgment to overturn Roe vs. Wade. In that decision, Judge Alito went back to the 1800s stating that unless it was written in the constitution or unless the right was recognized in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was established, then there is no right to an abortion, Ellison said.
Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, joined 17 other lawmakers in recent protests outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. They adamantly disagreed with the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
“It was like these right wing conservatives never considered how detrimental their decision is and what it actually means in the moment,” Omar said. “The original decision was basically about privacy and about bodily autonomy. It was about women and all people in this country having the right to make personal decisions for themselves.”
“As you know, we follow the long tradition of our beloved former colleague, John Lewis in creating ‘good trouble’. In this day and age, this 50-year statute should never have been overturned. But every good idea we have tried to legislate has died in the Senate. Now, it’s about keeping the urgency of the moment in the spotlight,” Omar said.
“One thing that connects my race to the Attorney General’s race is that most of the people who are funding and supporting Keith’s opponents for the attorney general are the same people who are funding and supporting my Democratic opponent. That tells you two things. One, it’s really not about whether I’m delivering for the district or not. Republicans obviously have a vested interest in making sure people are not delivering for the 5th. Two, it’s about dwindling our resources so we’re unable to mobilize the way we’re supposed to in the 5th in order for Keith to get reelected.”
“We’re faced with a recruiting shortage in Minneapolis because good police officers don’t want to be associated with a bad department. Bad policing erodes the relationship between the police and the community. That makes it harder for police officers who want to protect the community to do a good job. St. Paul’s police department isn’t perfect, but they haven’t had a ‘no knock warrant’ since 2016,” Ellison said.
“The George Floyd Justice and Policing Act is clearly common sense lawmaking, Omar said. “I introduced legislation to ban ‘no knock’ warrants. Amir Locke’s life could have been spared. That’s why the Act has the approval of the Locke family. We also introduced legislation to create a national board to review police misconduct. That could have prevented the Derek Chauvins of the world to be on our police force 10 years after they did the same thing to some other victim. As you know, Chauvin did that to a 14-year-old before he used the same knee on George Floyd’s neck. Luckily, the young man is still alive. George Floyd is not.”
“We absolutely believe everyone has the right to be safe, their property safe, and their loved ones safe. But we have stood up for reform of policing and some people have come against us because of this. It’s unfair. It’s unwise. It’s ill informed,” said Ellison. “I hope people in the 5th Congressional District and in Minnesota understand that we can have a higher quality of policing than we’ve been getting. This is not to criticize of the work of Rondo (former Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo) and other folks who have tried to improve the department. They have made good strides. We need to make some more strides, and we can.”
Omar says it is unconscionable that the city has paid out almost 70 million dollars for police misconduct that included incidents resulting in the deaths of some victims. “Don Samuels, when he was a member of Minneapolis City Council, had the opportunity to reform the police department when he was the chair of the committee that oversaw it,” Omar said. “What did he do? He made excuses using the police union as a scapegoat. The charter amendment the Attorney General and I advocated could have created a new slate and new opportunities for positive transformational changes in public safety for our communities. Now the mayor and the city council are pushing to create a public safety department.”
St. Paul has a 90% solve rate on homicides. Minneapolis has 40%. Omar said Minneapolis residents deserve better.
“A report came out that the Minneapolis Police Department was destroying rape kits. I think about the rape victims out there who have not gotten justice because they are being served by a police department that is negligent, that is not accountable to the people, and that includes city leaders like Don Samuels,” Omar said.
“When we hold people like Keith and me accountable for saying we deserve better, we must also hold the people accountable who brought us to this moment by allowing police like Chauvin to stay on the police force. Not only did he murder George Floyd, but he caused so much pain, havoc, and unrest, and the city was forced to pay out millions,” Omar said.
Omar said her accomplishments include passage of the Meals Act that has helped feed nearly 30 million children across the country. She said, “We’ve delivered 17 million dollars in community projects to invest in incubators for food entrepreneurs in North Minneapolis. We’re rebuilding the Lake Street Clinic and creating new ‘green’ jobs at North High School. We are out in the community and delivering these services and others directly to our constituents.”
“We also know people in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and in the state are some of the smartest voters in the country,” Omar said. “We have one of the highest voter turnouts in the country. People pay attention and they elect public servants who actually care. They are rooted in their communities, but more must act upon the urgency of the moment. Those legally prepared to vote must vote!”
There was one last song before the band’s rehearsal and ‘The Conversation’ had ended. The words brought forward an important message. “Why are we waiting? What are we anticipating? The world is now. Why are we standing up not doing nothing? One person, one vote, yeah. All you got to do is go and vote. We could change the world. We can change it. One man, one woman. One vote, one destiny.” And so it is. And so it can be.
