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Opinion editor’s notice: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers on-line and in print every day. To contribute, click on here.
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I admire the Hennepin County Board’s adoption of a land acknowledgment assertion recognizing the hurt Minnesota’s white settler forefathers delivered to the Native peoples who lived on this land (“County issues land acknowledgment,” Dec. 28).
I ask every county commissioner to think about how they’ll use their affect to restore a few of the harm accomplished to the native individuals who stay in Hennepin County. Particularly, take into account how one can affect the choices made by the town of Minneapolis referring to the Roof Depot demolition deliberate within the Phillips neighborhood. It is a good alternative to indicate the Native group that your land acknowledgment is not only a bunch of phrases, however an actual imaginative and prescient and mission that carries some weight.
Previous commentaries printed within the Star Tribune have described the well being disparities between the folks of Phillips and the remainder of Minneapolis. The dangerous results of car exhaust on kids with bronchial asthma is effectively documented. This will probably be aggravated if the town’s plan to ascertain a public works yard at this location is allowed to proceed.
Are you able to not see the environmental racism embedded in Minneapolis’ present plans? The racist attitudes proven to Native folks up to now are nonetheless current at the moment within the choices our legislators make every single day. Of any metropolis neighborhood, East Phillips has the highest inhabitants of Native folks. When will somebody have the braveness to say “no extra”?
Mary Vanderford, Minneapolis
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The Dec. 27 paper had an vital article on the mass execution of 38 Dakota males in Mankato, Minn., on Dec. 26, 1862 (“Riders share history’s burden”). I want to add this footnote.
I grew up in Mankato, and for your complete interval of my youth (1939-1961) a commemorative monument was positioned on the primary intersection on the town. It learn one thing like “Right here have been hanged 38 Indians” and appeared to rejoice the victory within the Indian Wars. Thankfully, later generations acknowledged that this was a monument to disgrace, not delight, and it was eliminated.
In 1990, Prof. Carol Chomsky of the College of Minnesota Legislation College printed an in depth examine of the trials that led to those executions, “The US-Dakota Wars Trials: a Research of Navy Injustice,” printed in Quantity 43 of the Stanford Legislation Evaluate. Her analysis demonstrated that:
- The trials weren’t in any courtroom of regulation however by a navy tribunal, made up of members who had fought in opposition to the Dakota within the battle.
- No different Indian Struggle throughout the nation ended up with the Indians being tried by a navy tribunal. In reality, there was no authorized authority for using such a tribunal. As an alternative, the regulation contemplated that the Dakota can be handled as a sovereign nation and people would solely be prosecuted for battle crimes.
- The trials have been extraordinarily unfair. There was no proper to counsel, the proceedings have been carried out in English with out enough translation, and the trials have been carried out very similar to conciliation courtroom — as many as 42 circumstances have been heard in a single day. The tribunal typically spent as little as 5 minutes assessing guilt on the finish of the testimony.
- The evidentiary necessities have been weak. The costs weren’t clearly outlined, and if any defendant was proven to have participated in any side of the battle, he was convicted of homicide and sentenced to demise.
- In some circumstances, particular person defendants who had not even participated within the battle have been nonetheless convicted by easy mistaken id, given the haste with which dozens have been tried collectively.
It was reported that the 38 males clasped fingers and marched to the gallows calmly and with dignity, singing conventional songs.
Sam Hanson, Minneapolis
The author is a retired justice of the Minnesota Supreme Courtroom.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
The tragedies emanating from cryptocurrency are quite a few and well-known. I hope the purpose will probably be to easily cease it. Cryptocurrency is just wild hypothesis with the one potential end result being collective web losses. No wealth is ever created. And it’s pricey each economically and to the setting as a result of it consumes extra electrical energy than the entire Netherlands. So, let’s not attempt to repair it, simply kill it. Bear in mind: “You can’t enhance the style of cow manure by including sauerkraut.”
Frederick M. Zimmerman, Minnetonka
DOWNTOWN
This is a solution to fill out a few of the empty workplace area downtown: schooling. In response to a September Star Tribune article, Minneapolis is constructing a $88 million profession and technical middle at North Excessive College. Why is not this going downtown in one among many empty services? It will be extra accessible to all college students as a result of downtown is a public transportation hub. It will be more economical as a result of the area is already out there.
Dennis West, Minneapolis
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There have been a number of articles just lately lamenting the lack of vibrancy in downtown Minneapolis: a lot hand-wringing about what we have misplaced with the demise of the obligatory five-day in-person workweek. However now that downtown’s streets now not must accommodate the identical crushing a great deal of morning and afternoon rush-hour site visitors, now we have a possibility to begin treating them as the colourful public areas they could possibly be, not simply as sterile, high-speed site visitors arteries. City design guru Jeff Speck argues that almost all American downtowns “are simple to get to however not price arriving at.” Now that 216,000 workplace staff are now not mandated to come back downtown every single day, we have to give attention to remodeling it into a spot that’s price arriving at. Downtown boosters, seemingly centered nearly completely on public security and a return to obligatory workplace attendance, ought to spend extra vitality desirous about how one can remodel downtown into a cushty, welcoming and pleasant place that folks need to inhabit.
Bob Loken, Minneapolis
ANTI-BULLYING
It was gratifying to learn the article in regards to the younger boy who was victimized by bullies after which embraced by the Vikings after they heard of his plight and what they’ve accomplished to uplift his spirits (“Bullying no match for big sports’ big hearts,” Dec. 23). Because it appeared within the sports activities part of the paper, it’s potential sure readers didn’t see it, if sports activities will not be of nice curiosity to them (i.e., like my spouse) however I like to recommend it to all. It was in the end heartwarming in the way in which a narrative tinged with disappointment could be made constructive by human kindness and compassion.
As I concluded my studying of it, I used to be left with one lingering thought, nevertheless. What if the Vikings group and a few of the gamers have been to achieve out to the bullies concerned within the incident and spend time and vitality making an attempt to affect them in a significant manner? I’m not suggesting they be rewarded and lavished with tickets and autographed swag, however slightly an encounter with involved adults which have the cache of fame who would possibly be capable of impart a knowledge that would probably flip their younger lives round by way of caring dialogue and a need for a greater world.
On this season of unlikely, wonderful, “pulled from the hearth” endings it does not appear completely far-fetched to me.
Skol Vikings!
Steve Bennett, Golden Valley
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