Part Two – The Solution? Minnesota Department of Transportation – Executive Order 11246
By Donald W.R. Allen, II – Editor in Chief IBNN and USA Radical Black
“Taxes are collected in a non discriminatory manner. MNDOT discriminates when they only award contracts to White companies.”
From slavery to the civil rights movement “White Privilege” has sought to hide information in an effort to control, obstruct and delay deployment of “processes” put in place by overseers to avoid catastrophic failures, present and future.
One of the “processes” put in place to assist Transportation agencies across the United States in administering their respective DBE programs is Executive Order 11246. Again, MnDOT sidesteps the language of the order. Read more
Introducing USA Radical Black – the New “Brother” Blog of IBNN
By Kandis Style – Staff Journalist/IBNN
London, UK/Minneapolis, MN. – Nov. 12 / IBNN News/ – USA Radical Black is pleased to announce the launch of its controversial new web site www.usaradicalblack.com . The site is the result of the massive demand for information related to the American Black experience. Our goal is to provide our visitors with a virtual experience that is compelling and life altering and to inspire the marginalized, and voiceless.
“The virtual world can never match being present at a protest, or a rally; however, we strive to ignite a cyber movement “in real time” every day,” say Don Allen, Editor in Chief of IBNN and Minister of Information for USA Radical Black.
User can easily access archival and cross-referenced information and use our links and references for researching issues and forming their own opinions. The upgraded site also enables our online visitors and members an easy, instant, and secure way to register for programs, make donations, and purchase products from USA Radical Black online store.
The site allows our visitors to create individual profiles indicating specific topics of interest for communications and specialized website content. Users will also enjoy that their profiles will be securely saved for future transactions and can be updated at any time by logging in. Bookmarking and social media tags are also embedded throughout the site so that visitors can share USA Radical Black news and information with others on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Del.icio.us.
In the future, expect to see live webcasts, high profile interviews, watch dog activities, and strategic alliances with progressive organizations that truly make a difference in people’s lives.
About USA Radical Black
“USA Radical Black – Truth to the People/Power to the People…Now!”
USA Radical Black was created by the Independent Business News Networks editor in chief Donald W.R. Allen, II to address disparities in Black and minority-ethnic leadership roles in the United States.
USA Radical Black also covers News and Information about Politics, Education, Money, Community, Religion, Race, Status and Class as it relates to us.
USA Radical Black is themed to be a “wake-up call” to people of color in the United States who have done the same thing the same way, creating insanity by electing the same party officials that have created problems over-and-over again while in the background tasking people they feel comfortable with to “solve” problems for pay and political favors.
We will explore the changing of the Black Church as it pertains to us as a people of color getting back to our roots with God, Family and Prosperity. Does a well funded Foundation or Social Service Agency have more power than GOD?
Join USA Radical Black for Truth to the People and Power to the People – if not now, when?
U.S. jobless rate hits 26-year high
WASHINGTON (Reuters via Yahoo News) – The pace of U.S. job losses hit a one-year low last month but the unemployment rate jumped to a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, the government said on Friday in a report showing a slowly improving labor market.
The Labor Department said employers cut 216,000 jobs, the smallest since August 2008, and revised job losses for June and July to show 49,000 more jobs lost than previously reported.
Analysts had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 225,000 in August and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent.
“It certainly sustains perceptions that the economy gradually is swinging to recovery. The main pitfall would be continued weak income growth but that was not the case in August, so that’s encouraging,” said Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.
U.S. stock index futures rose after the jobs data, while the dollar weakened against the euro. U.S. government debt fell on the data.
A gauge of labor market slack that measures the unemployed, people working part-time for economic reasons, and those only marginally attached to the labor force, rose to a record 16.8 percent in August from 16.3 percent in July.
The labor force increased by 73,000 in August, which indicated the return of some jobless workers who had given up looking for work, accounting for part of the rise in the unemployment rate.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 6.9 million jobs, the department said. Stubbornly high unemployment is wearing on consumer confidence and crimping domestic demand, pointing to an anemic recovery from the worst slump in 70 years. Consumer spending accounts for over two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
However, the August report confirmed the pace of layoffs was easing from early this year, when nearly three quarters of a million jobs were lost in January.
Manufacturing employment fell by 63,000, with a total of 2 million factory jobs lost since the start of the recession. Payrolls in construction industries dropped 65,000 after falling 73,000 in July.
The service-providing sector purged 80,000 workers in August, while the goods-producing industries shed 136,000 positions.
Education and health services continued to add jobs, with payrolls increasing 52,000 in August after rising 21,000 in July. Government employment fell 18,000 after slipping 28,000 in July.
The average workweek, which closely correlates with overall output and gives clues on when firms will start hiring, was unchanged at 33.1 hours in August.
Average hourly earnings rose to $18.65 in August, rising for a fourth straight month, reflecting an increase in the legal minimum wage. Earnings were at $18.59 in July.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Minneapolis Urban League on shaky ground. Members have been disenfranchised, bylaws violated as reported by The Minneapolis Story.com
Ronald Edwards, president of the National Research Institute and community activist was the longest seated (17 years), board president and chairman of the Minneapolis Urban League. He has contacted the National Urban League’s director of affiliates Herman Lesard in an attempt to alert the National on the Minneapolis Urban League’s continued discrepancy in process. This article to appear in tomorrow’s Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and The Minneapolis Story - further validates the Independent Business News Network’s stories and position on the Minneapolis Urban League.
“Through My Eyes, the Minneapolis Story Continues,” a weekly column by Ron Edwards featured in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
Former Minneapolis Urban League Board Member Roxanne Givens spoke frankly of the organization in a front-page story in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder newspaper two weeks ago. Many social reformers took note. Joe Nathan of the Humphrey Institute congratulated this newspaper in a letter last week for the “well written, insightful and balanced article regarding the Minneapolis Urban League.” [See "Urban League callously removed board member"]
This column describes some of what is below the tip of the iceberg that threatens to sink the Twin Cities Urban League branches.
Last Monday, July 27, the Minneapolis Urban League had what they called their annual meeting of the board of directors, as allowed by Article 3 of the Minneapolis Urban League Bylaws (last amended July 11, 2007).
The disturbing ruling by the presiding outgoing chair (who was once the general counsel for the soon-to-be-defunct Northwest Airlines) that members of the organization would not be allowed to participate in the electoral process (thus violating Article 3) jeopardizes the affiliate’s status. This action suppressed participation by the members, disenfranchising them and putting the board in extreme violation of Article 6 of their bylaws.
The language is clear: “The Board of Directors shall place in nomination, at the annual membership meeting, candidates for the Board of Directors. Additional director candidates may be nominated directly by the membership of the Minneapolis Urban League if endorsed in writing by at least five members.”
As the chairman of the Minneapolis Urban League Board and many fellow board members are attorneys, they have to know they are in egregious violation of Articles 6, 2 and 3 of their own Bylaws (following the lead of the City that is in violation of its own compliance statutes).
Of greater historic interest is their reference to Article 1, Section 2 of their Articles of Incorporation, which reminds us of the case of the great forgeries in 1989 used to force Nellie Stone Johnson (cofounder of the DFL), myself (Minneapolis Urban League chair at the time), and the rest of our board out of office.
As I wrote in 2002, “The Urban League needs to…stop providing automatic votes for…the Democratic Party, which seeks out Black votes but not Black participation nor Black economic empowerment and wealth generation.”
We saw this 20 years ago when a second set of Articles of Incorporation surfaced that clearly contradicted the Minneapolis Urban League Articles of Incorporation and the national nonprofit’s 501(3)(c) status by defining the Minneapolis Urban League as a membership organization. The second set “appeared” in 1989 after being 50 years in a box in the corner of the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.
The setup was taken to court, where the White power structure’s White district court judge ruled that the State’s box, after gathering dust for 50 years, held the prevailing Articles, and that the Minneapolis Urban League is a membership organization.
This enabled the Minneapolis Urban League to dismiss all of us, leading the governor at that time, Rudy Perpich to say that he had no room for any organization without room for Nellie Stone Johnson or Ron Edwards. He ceased all interaction with the Minneapolis Urban League.
Rumors abound that both of the Minneapolis and St. Paul Urban League affiliates are being pressured to merge into a Greater Urban League of the Twin Cities (part of the NW Area Foundation plan) due to their dire financial straits (after years of dubious fiduciary practices).
All of us in that evening meeting on the 27th heard clearly and concisely about the financial straits of the Minneapolis Urban League, including the $10,000 shortfall for Minneapolis Urban League Family Day.
For an organization that claims as a key strength its board’s ability to raise funds not to have $10,000 on hand raises serious questions about the future of both Urban League affiliates and their ongoing relevance within the Black community.
We ask again, “Where is the plan” for serving the constituents, not the organizations? The only plan we have seen so far is this one to disenfranchise Minneapolis Urban League voters in violation of Minneapolis Urban League Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. Stay tuned.
When is a man’s home not his castle?
Answer: When you express your concern and outrage to White police about their mistake caused by racial profiling, as done to Professor Gates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to President Obama when he expressed his opinion in defense of his friend.
It is not stupid for Professor Gates to stand up for himself in his own home. Nor is it stupid for a Black president to stand up for democratic institutions and democracy in America.
NAACP Celebrates 100…Continue to R.I.P., there’s a lot of Crap going on out here…where you guys at?”
In Minnesota the NAACP is virtually invisible. While trying to build capacity, the local chapter has been plagued by mismanagement of people, places and things to include funds. The video below is a prime example of how the NAACP is viewed and the level of disrespect directed towards the organization and Black people as a whole. Sometimes you wonder who is responsible for the catastrophic failure of Black organizations (locally and nationally) – sometimes all you have to do is look at the brothers or sisters sitting at the table…
The following story about the NAACP was sent to IBNN. Sound familiar? We didn’t think so…
NAACP Celebrates 100 Years…
Founded on February 12, 1909 – the NAACP is the nation’s oldest, largest and most widely recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. It’s more than half-million members and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors. Read more
Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights Director Michael Jordan, Delayed, Stopped and Re-Buffed with a vote of No Confidence!
On Monday (7/6/09), at Minneapolis City Hall, the Health, Energy and Environment Committee, standing committee of the Minneapolis City Council, met to discuss 6 line items, which included the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights budget and the report back on the Task Force’s analysis.
While Council members Hofstede, Ostrow and Goodman sat uninterested and bland, Council members Lilligren, Benson, Gordon engaged in healthy dialog about the direction of MDCR Task Force and the proposed analysis that was to be presented today.
With the concerns of many community members and true stakeholders the MDCR director Michael Jordan’s “analysis” was put on hold until July 20, 2009, as if to site a vote of “no confidence” for Jordan. The Civil Rights Commission’s Ken Brown, Acting Chairman told IBNN that the report or analysis was one of Mr. Jordan’s own doing and did not represent the community or “true stakeholders,” “It was fussy, incomplete and lacked qualitative and quantitative information that should be a part of any financial or procedural analysis.”
As IBNN reported in an earlier story, director Jordan’s Civil Rights Task Force was comprised of City of Minneapolis employees, and others Jordan had personally invited to be on the task force, like Community Actions Bill Davis, who we allege is one of the players in the fall of the NAACP. Mr. Davis who had a confrontation with Mayoral candidate Al Flowers last year was on the ground in Sabathani Community Center’s parking lot when calling police to report he’d been struck, the dispatcher asked, “Did a car hit you?” (LOL!)
This Task Force was mandated to seek options, but was merely a “smoke screen” created by the suggestion of Minneapolis City Council person Elizabeth Glidden, who “waffled” when informed that Director Jordan had removed several community members from the first meeting by saying, “The is a private meeting.” Glidden did not come down to the meeting after she personally called IBNN and invited us to the meeting.
Council member Lilligren brought up a great point, “Have we investigated other funding options, like contract compliance in the MARQ2 project? Could we find funding by assigning the MDCR to monitor and develop compliance reports on projects like that?
Jordan remained mute…uninterested and stubborn.
Protesters lined the chambers of Minneapolis City Council meetings with signs protesting the Mayors cutting of the Investigative Unit.
Also on hand was Ward 5 City Council candidate Kenya McKnight, who by the way, tore the City Council a “new one” with her comments on the importance of having the MDCR investigators stay put.
Commentary
When will someone come forward and address the systemic failures in our city government? The Minneapolis City Council has failed to take any corrective action in contract compliance; Investigative discrepancies and inter-office “trusts.”
Michael Jordan has failed the minority-ethnic community of Minneapolis through a “tainted” process of checks and balance that have left the community with no accountability from the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights, investigative and contract compliance.
The Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights is contracted to do the compliance report for the new baseball stadium…where is it? (Not done!) What about all the contractors not in compliance as it pertains to the MDCR Ordinances? Where are the fines?
If Michael Jordan and his team of Contract Compliance folks had been on top of their game, we estimate a total of over $300,000+ in fines and a few disbarments of contractors that have repeatedly not been in compliance – but out of compliance contractors continue to receive City of Minneapolis Contracts.
Furthermore, where is the Council on Black Minnesotans? (Silent) Who is doing public policy and addressing these disparities in the MDCR; where is the voice of Ward 5 Council member Don Samuels?; the Mayor’s office?; and (surprise) Minneapolis Television Network (MTN), where over 90% of programming minority ethnic but the Board is a who’s whom of the White community.
I see a heinous “process” all over!
Back to the MDCR….”How can we trust the judgment of Michael Jordan?”
Michael Jordan has not come up with any alternative funding steams to assist in keeping the MDCR investigators in place. As I type this story, I can think of several alternative funding streams that will allow the MDCR keep its investigative unit in Minneapolis and not transfer to the State – but again, I do business.
These funding streams would not interfere with any project, budget or City of Minneapolis planned or current engagement – but would provide Minneapolis the opportunity to keep the MDCR Investigators right downtown where they belong.
One thing that has to be gone from the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights is director Michael Jordan.
The people of Minneapolis deserve a better Civil Right’s director, not R.T.’s “yes man.”
In closing, we should think about moving out Mayor Rybak too!
African American Leadership Meetings assume power and representation where there is none. More important: Who speaks or represents the Twin Cities Black community in 2009?
“They’d like to say, ‘Well, you know, that’s just a handful of niggers out there. Just a handful of them. And they don’t represent nobody. They ain’t doin’ nothing,’ says Staten. “Well, that’s just the most insane thing in the world.”
…Rev. Randy Staten – serves as the head of the Coalition of Black Churches and serves as an official spokesman for the African American Leadership Summit. Comments from a 2003 interview with MPR’s Brandt Williams. See it here.
With the recent “waffling” of the Council on Black Minnesotans as it pertains to addressing issues in the Black community (including Somali’s in Rochester; Stimulus dollars; Economic Development; Health Care issues; and Civil Rights) within the last 90 days and the attempt by the Minneapolis Urban League to present propaganda to accomplish relevancy in the form of articles which appear in weekly issues of Insight News, who continues to give “photo ops” to people that don’t represent the African American community in Minneapolis, but continues a grand public relations coup without being fair and balanced to sway and skew the community, one thing going unnoticed by the group is that people are catching on quickly to what is going on. What you think you have…you don’t; most African Americans in the Twin Cities now look elsewhere for news and information, including IBNN. Read more
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