Time Travel. Welcome to the year 2010 in North Minneapolis

June 2, 2008 - PRLog -- Some scientists think time travel is impossible.  Join me on an adventure already in the making today that will affect North Minneapolis’ future.

It’s the year 2010. I’m standing on the corner of Glenwood and Penn Avenue. North Minneapolis has gone through a transformation and continues to change.

The new Twins stadium is up and running with city officials proud of their accomplishments. You can ride the Light Rail Transit from downtown Minneapolis to Broadway & Fremont.  National franchises have opened entertainment based businesses along, Plymouth, Broadway and Glenwood Avenues.  Local small businesses have been pushed out due to the lack of dollars to compete with the national giants.  The community has changed too.  North Minneapolis is now a White, Hispanic-Latino and Asian American hub with the growing number of Somalian residents moving in.

The Black community has been plague by leaders that have promised jobs, economic development and improvement in the state of African Americans but have not delivered.  The only neighborhood non-profit agency that has been effective is the Harrison Neighborhood Association. HNA successfully negotiated a jobs training program with the City of Minneapolis and national franchises that have opened businesses on Glenwood Avenue to hire residents from the Harrison area that have completed the program through HNA.  The Northside Marketing Task Force has made no efforts in organizing business, individuals and media as it pertains to their original mission.

The original residents who lived in North Minneapolis, who are poor, black and unemployed have been relocated to Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Anoka and Apple Valley through a series of Section 8 programs and vouchers.  The people, who lived in North Minneapolis, can’t afford to live there anymore.

The University of Minnesota, Urban Research and Outreach Center (UROC) has opened offices across from the Minneapolis Urban League and transferred some Black employees from the U of M campus to the north side office. UROC and the University of Minnesota Northside Partnership has done very little to create economic stimuli for North Minneapolis choosing to focus on the flavor of the week, (i.e.; housing foreclosures, homelessness, lost kittens, etc.).  The U of M has found out that the organizations that they have partnered with in the beginning don’t have the backgrounds to complete a “nail clipping.”

White America and local charitable foundations decided to stand up against the North Minneapolis “Celebratory Negros” and shut down funding for programs where no dollars have be delivered to the streets that would create independence and wealth for poor people in North Minneapolis.  When these leaders (so called) went public with complaints that the “White Man has stopped funding their organizations,”  a “New Breed“ & “New Guard” of Black Men has stepped up to the plate (young  and old), cordially and diplomatically telling these “CN’s” that their time was over, they are the reason that North Minneapolis as never built capacity.  With this happening, General Mills decided to open a plant that makes the bags and boxes for General Mills products in North Minneapolis.  It’s only right, poor ethnic children are given WIC Program vouchers to buy GM products, GM should have acted 15 years ago, but business understands business, and if the climates not right – you don’t need the fight!

This “New Breed” of Black Men is profiled as corporate professionals that are “community based” who have friends and family and also do business in North Minneapolis. These Men were disgusted at the process and understood what it would take to build a better North Minneapolis.  They have started a process of “new dialog”, talking with local banks, corporations and other ethnic groups to create a change in perception of North Minneapolis.

The Minneapolis Urban League has opened more programs and has made community outreach and healing one of their number one missions.  The MUL Elementary School has surpassed all local school systems with the highest test scores in Minnesota. (There’s a waiting list of more than 2,000 children wanting admittance to the school).  While the City of Minneapolis has not cooperated with the mission and the goals of the Minneapolis Urban League, in a line item like manner – the MUL has used the power of the pen and the media to hold the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Public School Systems and any others that would deny the building of capacity for poor people in North Minneapolis accountable – even going to the point of having press conferences to deliver facts to the general public of what the nature of the problems are and more importantly, how to solve them.

Local mainstream television stations WCCO, KARE, KMSP, KSTP and TPT-2, have decided that coverage of North Minneapolis In a positive light is good, opting to show the great side of North Minneapolis rather that highlighting murder and violence.  This has happened only because of the growing number of White residents moving into North Minneapolis.  Still, KMSP-Channel 9 and other stations have not done a story or featured the Minneapolis Urban Leagues Elementary School or High School and still chooses to feature suburbia.

The housing foreclosure crisis was never a crisis but another oversight by us, the citizens of the state of Minnesota to hold the Governor and law makers accountable for their actions.  A political science student from the University of St. Thomas did research and found that the amount of dollars that the State of Minnesota and local counties and academic institutions received to address the Housing Foreclosure Crisis was used to hire people that worked for mortgage companies, banks, loan programs to be councilors because they were experts in the area.  “John Student” also went on to find out, the hardest hit zip code, 55411 could have been freed from the crisis in 4th quarter 2008 if 700 homes that were in foreclosure would have receives $20,000 per household to help home owners bounce back. The amount needed for homeowners in the form of a grant, would have only used up 14 million of the 100 million “invested/spent” to address the issue. Again, we have major waste.

This would never happen in Edina.

This commentary is meant to alert the community on what is going on – acting now will change the future.  My portal is calling me; I have to return to 2008.