{"id":3561,"date":"2021-06-08T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=3561"},"modified":"2025-05-10T13:00:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T13:00:29","slug":"dont-complain-activate-call-it-what-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2021\/06\/08\/dont-complain-activate-call-it-what-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t complain, activate: Call it what it is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I am ignorant of absolute truth.&nbsp; But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;Kahlil Gibran<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf there was ever a clearly focused example of white supremacy and white privilege at its purest, it was the police response to the U.S. Capitol riots in comparison to their response to protests led by \u2018Black Lives Matter\u2019 declared Leslie E. Redmond, 28-year-old former president of the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP and founder of \u2018Don\u2019t Complain, Activate\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When asked recently by the host of \u201cConversations with Al McFarlane\u201d to reflect upon the last year (2020), Redmond describes the opening of the country and the Chauvin verdict victory as a New Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLast year at this time, the world shifted.&nbsp; People were inside their homes locked down, but George Floyd\u2019s televised execution opened the world back up.&nbsp; It definitely wasn\u2019t in a way people expected when the Minnesota and the world seemed forced to watch.&nbsp; People also had to put on glasses and look in a mirror seeing, without a doubt, what Black folks have been experiencing in Minnesota and around the world for far too long.&nbsp; The knee and the late George Floyd\u2019s neck are symbolic of the knee that has been and is still on most Black folks\u2019 necks, especially in Minnesota which has some of the worst racial disparities in all aspects of our livelihood.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u201cWe want a police force that respects the residents in our communities,\u201d she said.&nbsp; \u201cWe will no longer accept overseeing, over policing, and brutalizing neighborhood residents.&nbsp; No traffic stop should end as a death sentence. I believe Chief Arredondo is one of the best.&nbsp; He\u2019s done everything he said he was going to do and he needs our support.&nbsp; Communities of color and families have to do their part, as well; be responsible for our own choices; our own households; our own bodies; while keeping institutions of government accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a fear that the summer might be a tough one nationwide considering the dangerous surge of youth and gang violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don\u2019t Complain. Activate is creating the first woman-owned, mobile educational, healing and resource center.&nbsp; It has raised about half of the needed funds for operation.&nbsp; The center will engage community residents, especially youth, by providing wrap around services and resources; educate by providing knowledge and academic resources in cultural history and literacy; and elevate with knowledge and resources for families and the entire community.&nbsp; For further information, go to:&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.leslieredmond.com\/\">www.leslieredmond.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yusef Mgeni and Al McFarlane have been close friends and media comrades since both were in their mid-20s.&nbsp; \u201cIn 1970, we formed the Twin Cities Black Communications Group, recalled Mgeni.&nbsp; We agreed if we couldn\u2019t see positive images of Black people, then we needed to be those positive images.&nbsp; Then Al got a contract from the Minneapolis Housing and Redevelopment Authority that enabled him to launch Insight Magazine as \u201cInsight News\u201d.&nbsp; I was involved in the start of \u2018Radio for Black People\u2019 at KUXL AM 1590, \u2018Harambe\u2019 on Channel 11, the Pan African Network. I was writing editorials for all six Black newspapers in the Twin Cities.&nbsp; We were all over the map!\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mgeni recalled a conference entitled, \u2018Where there is no vision, the people will perish\u2019 that was held at Macalester College where Gary Hines was a student and football player while launching the phenomenal \u201cSounds of Blackness\u201d.&nbsp; Hines and the Grammy winning musical group will celebrate their 50<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;Anniversary this year with the release of a new album including classics and new pieces appropriate for the current movement into transformation. At the time of the conference, Mgeni said, there was \u2018a crisis in Black leadership and the heads of all the Black service organizations in the Twin Cities came together along with youth leaders.&nbsp; He suggested perhaps a gathering today of similar participants could be another step in curbing the violence keeping residents in their homes once more due to a different kind of fear.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our children must believe they are not alone, and that we will overcome and move forward being better human beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were quite a few profound truths offered by the two:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>We have been planting seeds in our communities for almost 50 years.\u00a0 Some have bloomed sooner than others. We need to have a flower market now.\u00a0 Our babies are dying.\u00a0 We continue to do God\u2019s work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The internet and the availability of quality educational programming that is challenging, relevant, engaging, and enjoyable affords parents and tutors the opportunity to enhance a child\u2019s academics and aids in the building of character and confidence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hip Hop music elevates the message of a \u201ctruth that white America refuses to acknowledge: that we are capable accomplishing whatever we choose to do.\u201d\u00a0 (I thought immediately of the late Tupac and \u201cThe Rose That Grew from Concrete\u201d. There is a willfulness in hip-hop and reggae embedded in revolutionary and change messaging of artists such as EarthKry; Rion; Sounds of Blackness; Ipso Facto; and Little Baby, who declares that this is bigger than Black and white!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The ideology of white supremacy has been an attack on humanity for four hundred years.\u00a0 There were no slaves in Africa.\u00a0 The first group of captives were brought to the shores of America on a Dutch ship called the \u2018Good Ship Jesus\u2019 and then they were enslaved.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No place on earth has a people survived this kind of continued oppression and come out whole as American Blacks.\u00a0 We need to recognize that fact!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recommended reading:\u00a0 Essay\/PBS movie:\u00a0 James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket\u2019; Isabel Wilkerson, Caste; and Democracy in Chains: The Radical Right\u2019s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean. This last book describes what is happening politically in America today and what created Donald Trump.\u00a0 Warns Mgeni, \u201c40 states have already passed voter suppression legislation directly impacting people of color and their right to vote.\u00a0 It\u2019s all happening right before our very eyes without us having the opportunity to say a word.\u00a0 Texas got tripped up at the midnight hour.\u201d\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cLet\u2019s re-visit former mayor\u2019s Don Fraser\u2019s idea of getting corporations to hire a youth employee from the North side for every 100 employees.\u00a0 WEhen Fraser was mayor, leadership companies were on board if the mayor would lead by doing the same thing at the city level.\u00a0 The city council rejected the idea.\u00a0 We have the leadership in North Minneapolis and the city. The momentum and capacity to do something like this exists now, Mgeni said.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Regarding the Derek Chauvin verdict, Mgeni said \u201cOne conviction does not define justice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am ignorant of absolute truth.&nbsp; But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.&nbsp;&nbsp;Kahlil Gibran \u201cIf there was ever a clearly focused example of white supremacy and white privilege at its purest, it was the police response to the U.S. Capitol riots in comparison to their response to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1127,1085,824],"class_list":["post-3561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-black-americans","tag-black-leaders","tag-black-lives-matter","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3562,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions\/3562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}