Normally a reader-submitted letter to another newspaper would never get ink in Insight News, but when that letter flows with coded racist undertones and is penned by a high-ranking elected official; well, we\u2019ll make an exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And quite frankly State Rep. Tony Cornish, we take<\/em> exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This past Wednesday (June 8), for reasons we find inexplicable, Cornish, a Republican representative from Vernon Center \u2013 a bustling town of 326 (give or take a person or two) \u2013 decided to put fingers to keyboard and opine on \u201cwhat we (people of color) can do to reduce the use of force by police,\u201d a most legitimate question being posed with the almost routine abuses of power and excessive force at the hands of law enforcement. In his letter to the Star Tribune Good ol\u2019 Mr. Cornish, who is a former deputy sheriff, offered up some \u201csage\u201d advice. While he bulleted (cops love their bullets) a list of dos and don\u2019ts, I\u2019ll sum it up without the bullets. Heaven knows we don\u2019t need any more bullets flying around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a nutshell Cornish\u2019s \u201cadvice\u201d \u2026 Negroes, stay in your place<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To hell with your rights, those don\u2019t apply. Now to be fair, Cornish didn\u2019t say Negroes. Instead he used the neocon\u2019s favorite code word, thug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n See, in Cornish\u2019s ill-informed mind anyone ruffed up by police is a criminal by default. Damn the millions<\/em> of dollars state police departments are forking out in either settled or lost law suits demonstrating a pattern of police violence. According to our friend from Vernon Center, the victims deserved their brutal beatings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jamar Clark got what was coming to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And while most of us who don\u2019t for one second buy the police narrative in the Clark killing, in the letter, Cornish offered no explanation for the killings of citizens such as 12-year-old \u2026 let\u2019s say that again \u2026 12-year-old<\/em> Tamir Rice or John Crawford, III who undisputedly had broken absolutely no laws when they were gunned down by police. Cornish had no good reason to justify the arrest and later, death of Sandra Bland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh wait, that\u2019s right; Bland caused her own death because as Cornish put it, she should have known her place and known \u201cdon\u2019t flap your jaws when the police arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When will you Negroes learn to not question The Man? America was such a wonderful country when folks knew their place. Now people have the nerve to believe they are afforded rights and stuff. Quit thinking freedom of speech applies. Hell, quit thinking about freedom altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funny thing is the representative admits in the letter that his own \u201cgrandpa\u201d \u2026 um, \u201cserved time in Stillwater State Prison.\u201d That\u2019s his polite way of saying grandpa was a criminal \u2013 dare I say thug. Wonder if \u201cGrandpa\u201d deserved to have been beaten or even killed by law enforcement \u2013 possibly wiping out the possibility for Cornish to have been spawned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n See, there will be no grandchildren for Tamir Rice. None for Sandra Bland either. They were not afforded the opportunity to bring forth life. Then again, maybe that\u2019s exactly how Rep. Tony Cornish wants it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Normally a reader-submitted letter to another newspaper would never get ink in Insight News, but when that letter flows with coded racist undertones and is penned by a high-ranking elected official; well, we\u2019ll make an exception. And quite frankly State Rep. Tony Cornish, we take exception. This past Wednesday (June 8), for reasons we find inexplicable, Cornish, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4358,"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":[26],"tags":[2348,2730,2731],"class_list":["post-4357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-jamar-clark","tag-rep-tony-cornish","tag-tamir-rice","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-12.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4359,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4357\/revisions\/4359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}