My local coffee shop, Caribou at City Centre, Woodbury, has recently partially re-opened tables, to what seems 25% capacity.  During Covid-19 Caribou suffered much like the rest of us.  I visited two or three times a week for to-go.  It was support for the local business, where I’d been an almost daily early-morning customer for 20 years before the pandemic changed its life.  Yesterday one of the indoor tables was open.  It was good to have an interlude at ‘my’ place.  I wrote my sister!   Someone had left a small piece of art in the chalkboard of the community blackboard next to me, which speaks for itself.

Every moment is an opportunity to choose.  I remember an excellent definition from a long ago workshop: the difference between “choose” and “decide” is immense.  The root of decide, we were told, is the same as for suicide, homicide, etc., etc.  To choose tends to be more affirmative; more positive.

The Pandemic leaves us all with lots of moments, which among all of the other emotions and apprehensions, have offered opportunities as well.  Earlier in the week, on Monday, another opportunity unexpectedly presented itself.  You can read “The Eagle” here.  Like the small sign, the Eagle just appeared at the right place and the right time for me.  Our paths intersected.

The Pandemic has opened other learning opportunities largely through the internet.  An organization I’ve been part of for many years offers two this next week.  All details are here (scroll down to Third Thursday Global Films Discussion Group, “The Mauritanian“, and the program following it, “Ending Childhood Malnutrition in India“.

The program on Wednesday, April 14, features Dr. Bharat Parekh, whose work began on this project probably 15 years ago, and has evolved into a now very successful project.  It was and continues to be based on the Development Goals of the United Nations, MDG #1 and SDG #2, specifically the goal of zero hunger.  Dr. Parekh is a long-time friend and colleague.

The Mauritanian, to be viewed ‘on your own’,  on-line discussion group Thursday, April 15, will include, live, Mohamadou (the Mauritanian) and Nancy Hollander, the lawyer who represented the imprisoned man.  You need to RSVP to participate in the Zoom program.  (For many years our group had an in-person Third Thursday with an in-person speaker.  A new leader suggested the Third Thursday film, which continues the tradition – and broadens its reach beyond a room.)

Sometimes, good actually flows from adversity.  Yes, we’re still getting accustomed to the new thing, but….

The premier event for me, personally, is one week from Sunday, April 18 at 3 p.m.   The local public television, St. Paul TPT Life, Channel 17, will feature the documentary, “The World Is My Country“, a film I very highly recommend, especially for young idealists who care about the future.  The film is about Garry Davis, and begins in the WWII years, and I was privileged to learn about the project in 2011, and I’ve been involved in its evolution ever since.

I’ve seen the film often, most memorably in November, 2012, when I showed a first draft of it to a group of high school students in St. Paul.  I found them very engaged, and I think this is where its long term potential lies – something kids can discuss.  Ask some kids you know to check it out.

TPT is one of at least 65 U.S. public tv channels which will air the film during the month of April.  All details, including preview and stations showing the film, are here.  If your station is not on the list, ask them to check this out – the film is highly recommended by the public television network in the U.S., NETA.

We only have a finite number of moments.  Let’s make the best of as many as we can.

Two events, available where you are!

Special event Tue. April 6, 2021: Special FairVote Minnesota zoom event, Women Leading Democracy Forward, on April 6th from 5 – 6pm CT.

The event will bring together Professor Danielle Allen – renowned political theorist and Director of Harvard’s Center for Ethics – State Senator Melisa Franzen and State Representative Kelly Morrison for an important discussion about the breakdown of our democratic institutions, how women are playing a key role in strengthening those institutions, and how we can strengthen our system to enable more women to run for public office, win, and lead our democracy forward.

REGISTER HERE

Professor Allen is an acclaimed author on justice, democracy and citizenship and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post and other prominent media outlets. She co-chaired the bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which recommended Ranked Choice Voting as one of the top reforms “to achieve empowerment for all, responsive and effective governance, and a resilient and healthy civic culture.”

In a discussion with leading Minnesota democracy advocates, Assistant Minority Leader Melisa Franzen and Assistant Majority Leader Kelly Morrison, Professor Allen will discuss reforms to strengthen our democracy and make it more inclusive, representative and responsive to all voters.

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Global Health Day Wed. April 7, 2021.  Symposium on-line, sponsored by Global Minnesota.

Details here.

Global Minnesota is an outstanding organization with a long history.

This morning the trial of Derek Chauvin begins in downtown Minneapolis.

Just now, 5 a.m. CDT, March 29, 2021, I browsed my photo files for the first and last pictures I took during the past 10 months which related to the killing of George Floyd at 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis, MN, May 25, 2020.  Here they are:

Monument to Minnesota Workers at Minnesota State Capitol Grounds May 26, 2020

Black Lives Matter flag atop the administrative office of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church 2730 E 31st St. Minneapolis Mn Mar 21, 2021

George Floyd died on Memorial Day, May 25th, 2020, in front of Cup Foods, at 38th and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis MN.

The morning I took the first photo above, May 26, 2020, I decided to drive over to 38th and Chicago to see the scene, where George Floyd had died.  I recall getting within a half block of Chicago on 38th.  I didn’t stop, get out of the car, or attempt to walk to the corner.  An orderly crowd had gathered, and a man was speaking.  Enroute to the site, I’d passed by the site of the Third Precinct – at the time, I didn’t know there was a police station there – and I remember seeing a young man with a protest sign walking down the street towards it.  The scene had not yet turned to the chaos that came later.

Fast forward.

Yesterday, we drove over to the site of the former Gandhi Mahal restaurant at 27th and E Lake Street and the surrounding area which was devastated in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.

Today, the neighborhood is showing very visible signs of deep renewal.  There is a long ways to go, but a casual visitor with no knowledge of the events of the week of May 25, 2020, would be forgiven if they didn’t notice much, though there remain a couple of buildings, badly damaged last year, for whom some unknown decisions remain to be made.

Let’s work towards a better world in the infinite ways available to each one of us.

In peace.

Third Precinct, March 27, 2021

Carver Park Trail May 29, 2020

9:30 p.m. March 29: I didn’t watch much of this first day today, and probably won’t watch much later either.

The actors are all wired in – jury et al are likely nearby in other rooms, social distancing as required.  But this is probably a trial being watched nationwide particularly by those whose trade is the Law.  This is an important case.

The beauty, and the frustration, of the American criminal justice system is that it is an adversary process where, in the ideal, the playing field for accuser and accused is essentially equal.  The accuser needs to prove his or her case; the accused does not have to prove his or her innocence.  This is sometimes a difficult concept to understand in our polarized society, where it is possible to live within an echo chamber where the only case is the one in which your personal position prevails, and the others position is at best minimized.

The practitioners know the rules and the process.  And in the end a jury of citizens will rule on guilt or innocence.  It is not a perfect system, but it beats the alternative.

Letter to the editor, Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 30, 2021

I’m watching very little of the actual testimony, on purpose.  Of course, the analyses is typically “coulda, woulda, shoulda” – what they must do…which is of course from the point of view of the commentator.  In the end, the jury decides.

POSTNOTE MARCH 31: Just Above Sunset, “Choosing the Reckoning”

Postnote April 2, 2021:  Yesterday was drug day at the trial.  More to be said, later.

Postnote April 3, 2021: an excellent commentary from Charles Pierce of Esquire, passed along by Joyce.  Top headline in this mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Totally Unnecessary”

Postnote April 7, 2021: The trial proceeds.  I watch off and on, but mostly rely on summaries.  Today, expert witnesses for the Prosecution.

The day the trial goes to the Jury for decision, I’ll give personal predictions.  I am waiting to see when or if either side will address one particular aspect of this case which was highly publicized within the first month after George Floyd was killed.  That’s all I’ll say.

Yesterday I spent about an hour with a man I’d never met, and in the course of conversation he raised the ‘racism’ issue.  He’s white probably in 50s from a rural environment in a neighboring state who at one point lived in the general neighborhood of 38th and Chicago.  I thought we had a very good conversation.  He had his own feelings and impressions.  There was no argument.  He trusted me to say what he felt.  I’ll leave it at that.

Our conversation, and surrounding and allied observations cause me to re-recommend a Racism series I was involved in at the beginning of the pandemic In February, 2020.  The six part in-person series had to be cancelled after session three, and the remaining classes were presented virtually.  They remain accessible on-line here scroll down to Featured Resources, “Becoming Human”.  This series is available at no-cost with a code available at the site.  The series is all by white professors at the University of St. Thomas, so it has a white “spin”, which is intentional.  It gives a great deal of food for thought.

Postnote April 10, 2021:  I continue to keep tabs on the trial.  This morning I gave an opportunity to others on my list to give pre-Jury feedback.  Any of these comments will be included here.  Personally, this week we watched the three-part Ken Burns series “Hemingway”.  I didn’t follow Hemingway’s personal life, which ended by suicide when I was in college – he died at 61.  Ironically, the series paralleled the phase of the trial that dealt with things like addiction and drugs and George Floyd, which will likely be used as mitigating factors in defense of Derek Chauvin’s action.  Addiction was more than a bit player in Hemingway’s life as well, and a major player in his life story, but somehow there is a difference in how it is portrayed in the differing worlds of Floyd and Hemingway….

from David: I think like any concerned person, I’m fearful for the verdict the jury will render. Despite the excellent case the attorneys from Keith Ellison’s office have presented, there are still two major roadblocks to conviction (1) 1989 Graham vs. O’Connor SCOTUS ruling (How the Supreme Court Gave Cops a License to Kill), and (2) qualified immunity.

from Bill: Hi Dick!  I wrote this last week on my FB [Facebook] page: As many have said “George Floyd is not on trial, Derek Chauvin is!”  Floyd may have been under ill effects of narcotic drugs at the time.  The police exasperated his condition and caused his death no matter what.  If Floyd was dying due to his own actions, he should have received proper medical attention in any case at the time it was required and not 4 minutes after he was already dead.

from Christina and Lillian: Lillian and I have been zooming in to prayer healingourcity.org at 8am every morning since the beginning of the trial.  It is a virtual tent with 1/2 hour of African American lead prayer for healing.  Starts with 10 min of input- reflection followed by 9 min and 29 seconds of silent prayer then music.  We have both found it healing and inspiring.  There are usually over 200 people on from all over.  When Krista Tippet gave the presentation I think there were over 350 people on.

from Larry:  Personally, the docs testifying for the prosecution this week sealed it. No call for the knee-happy cop to do what he did.

POSTNOTE April 15, 2021:  We returned last night after a four day trip to rural Minnesota, taking home our 94 year old friend  who’d been visiting family in Minneapolis.  It was the first trip out of town since Covid-19 pandemic.  Indeed, the last trip was to visit the same person in the same town in January, 2020.  Time flies.

Of course, most everyone is wired similarly these days – the same news we see here, they see there, and I followed the trial as I had done here – intermittently and casually: live courtroom, but no newspaper or internet.

When we left for home, the Defense was presenting its witnesses.  Today or tomorrow it may complete its case, then the process begins to the Jury phase, where a panel of citizens renders the final verdict.

This will be the final postnote until the verdict is announced.

Of course, in the time of our trip, another tragedy intervened, the Daunte Wright killing at a traffic stop in suburban Brooklyn Center, 10 miles or so from the Derek Chauvin trial.  Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune banner headline “Manslaughter charge” with a mugshot photo of the 26-year policewoman Kimberley A. Potter.

You know as much as I do.

In peace.

POSTNOTE April 19, 2021:  It’s 4:20 pm. CDT.  The day has been spent with closing arguments.  I have only listened to small parts of this.  The arguments are to the Jury who will make the decision.  I remember a friend first telling me the elements of a good talk.  “Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you said.”  It is good advice for all of us.  The Citizen Jury will judge.  It is imperfect but better than the alternative of someone arbitrarily deciding one’s fate.

My thoughts this day turn to a past case I’m well aware of, from 10 years ago. It was a family matter, in a very real sense.  An infant in the care of a baby sitter – my grandniece – died of what was alleged to be ‘shaken baby’.  The state prosecuted the babysitter.  There was a long, tense, Jury Trial, and in the end, the babysitter was acquitted.  One family won, the other lost.  Everybody lost.

I am sure that there remains residual PTSD.  Some family members may, in fact read this post.

The circumstances in both cases – Floyd, and my relative – were much the same.  Someone died at the hands of someone else, and didn’t deserve to die.  The Defense side prevailed.  The Prosecution side was more than disappointed.

The funeral was in January, 2011, long before the trial.  It was a very large funeral.  There was much to remember.  What was most striking at this funeral was the attendance of a large number of police officers from varied constituencies.

The Dad of the infant was a colleague policeman.  The babysitter was a relative of his.

In the case before us, a decision will soon be made, and the decision will be argued.  All I can hope for is that enough people make a decision to learn from this terribly difficult experience.  We cannot bring back George Floyd; and there is no more punishment that can be meted out against Derek Chauvin, and perhaps his colleagues.  We all need to grow.

7:45 p.m. April 19, and early April 20, 2021 – How would I rule, if in the Jury?  I did not hear or experience most of the evidence and testimony.  I respect the process of Law, and the code which has evolved imperfectly over the centuries.

Were I in the Jury, the easy question for me would be about murder: Officer Chauvin killed George Floyd.  I would vote to convict, based on what I know.  Floyd’s death was a homicide, totally uncalled for.

Impacting my personal judgement is an earlier conviction of another Minneapolis policeman, Mohammed Noor, who killed a white woman in a late night incident in an alley in south Minneapolis in 2017.  I personally saw that incident as an accident in an extremely stressful situation for both the police and the victim.  Those of us who live here know the story.  In June, 2019, Noor was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.

Beyond Floyd/Chauvin, the surrounding American society questions are far more complicated and compelling.  I haven’t and probably won’t see Chauvin as a reprehensible individual; and I’ve had some empathy with the other three cops on the scene: the two rookies and the other veteran are still largely a blank page for me.

The general environment at the time of the incident was pretty normal, it appears to me, and not hostile to the police, rather concern at what the bystanders were witnessing.  Floyd was killed on Memorial Day.  By no means was he the only American ‘high’ on something on May 25, or on any other day, for example.

In my memory, I think Chauvin and Floyd knew each other, possibly working  together, at least for the same employer, in some context, possibly bouncer/security at a club at some point.  I seem to recall that from a long newspaper article in the early weeks after his death last year.  There may have been some ‘bad blood’.  On the other hand, I don’t recall either prosecution nor defense making any issue of this, so my memory, or earlier reports might be faulty.

In my opinion, our system, writ large, all of us, is the culprit.

It is how we operate as a society, together.  It is who we elect, and for what reasons we elect them.  Whether we even bother to vote.  Who we blame.  What policies and laws our elected representatives enact and enforce, which police often are called upon to enforce, and which same police are as imperfect as the rest of us.  A downside of Democracy is that we are all responsible for the results.  In a sense we all killed George Floyd May 25, 2020.

I was impressed with the Judge, and the team for the prosecution and the defense.  Whatever the outcome, I think I’ll be able to stand in support of the rule of law, and to stand for compassion and even forgiveness.

I’ve said it before, often, and I will say it again.  The future is all of us, working together, one action at a time.  The verdict on George Floyd will begin our task, not end it.

6:45 a.m. April 22, 2021:  My last action yesterday afternoon was to send a 57 page booklet prepared for a meeting on May 1, 2018, to the Catholic bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis Diocese, and six Parish priests I know.  The focus of the booklet was World Citizenship and The Forgiveness Project.  My hope is that each of them find one or two useful morsels within.  The booklet itself was generated out of the Declaration of Minneapolis and Hennepin County as a World Citizenship Community on May 1, 1968.  It was an immensely impressive event, participated in by political leaders of the Republicans and Democrats and all of the major civic organization leaders.  It had meaning.  It was symbolically killed in March, 2012, and I hope that it is, someday, resurrected.

The statement by Fr. Harry Bury at the April 19 blog particularly resonate with me.  We have too much of a tendency of lurching from side to side – winner over loser – a game that ultimately makes us all losers.

I have a lot of confidence that the overwhelming majority of the persons who won on Tuesday, April 20, really  all simply want justice and for everyone to, as Rodney King so famously said, “just get along”.

The extent of the punishment Derek Chauvin and his colleagues on May 25 receive is not yet known.  I am not in the camp of those who want him to get the maximum and worst punishment.  I think a reasonable middle ground will be found.

We can put the event of May 25, 2020, and succeeding days, behind us.  We do not, and will not, forget it.  Neither can we controlled by its negativity.  We need to find a solution.  I recommend visiting the Forgiveness Project website.  And pondering how we can truly move on.

Minnesota Declarations of World Citizenship 1965-71:  Minnesota Declarations002

Some on-line learning ideas, March 30 and April 7: Human Rights and World Health Day.

Citizens for Global Solutions – Minnesota, is sponsoring an online Human Rights Forum at 10-11 a.m. CDT Tuesday, March 30.  The complete announcement is here: HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM – announcement – March 30 2021 (click to enlarge).

This conversation will feature Female Voices on Justice and Hope.  The session is free and open to all interested.

This post is about voting rights: the frontal assault on these rights in many of the 50 states – a commonly used number is 250 proposals to amend rights to vote in assorted ways, by the Republican Party.  In the other corner is HR 1, a Congressional initiative by the Democrats to at minimum secure existing voting rights to all eligible, and hopefully an expansion of those rights under the U.S. Constitution.  The battle is visible; the outcome is uncertain.  Citizens will make the difference in this issue.  Some background, and a recommendation follow.

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Repression isn’t new in the U.S.

Friday night I was watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC, and saw this segment, which I found very interesting.  It is about Nathan Bedford Forrest.  I hope you can watch it,  here is the link, about 7 minutes.

If you can’t access the link, Forrest was the First Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and a bust of him has been in the Tennessee State Capitol since the 1930s.  A State Commission ruled that the bust needed to go, and some state legislators want to abolish the commission (which they created).  I suppose this goes along with the current ‘cancel culture’ narrative now in vogue.  Leading the charge to move the statue is a Memphis state legislator – a young African-American woman.

The piece caused me to think about an old book I found on the family farm in North Dakota after my Uncle died.  It’s title “The Clansman” intrigued me at the time.  It was by Thomas Dixon and it included photos of the then-upcoming racist film, “The Birth of a Nation” (1915).  So it must have been a reprint of the 1905 book.

I’ve read the book, actually had it restored and have written about it at this blog earlier in 2020.  What I said then, remains my opinion.  Here is the 2-page forward in the book: “To the Reader”: Clansman, Forward 1904.

This brings me to the word “offense”, which titles this piece.  My old unabridged comes in handy at times like this:

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It is clear, on many fronts, in many states, that there is an orchestrated attack which are attempting  to bring back the old, whatever that was.  January 6 was a primary example; hundreds of attempts to restrict access to voting in many states are others.  And on and on.  You can find in the definitions above descriptive words for all of these efforts.

The Republicans have gone on the offense to make voting more difficult for certain voters.

I happen to be on the other side in this current war; and it is my opinion that I am on by far the strongest side.  Evidence is strong, starting with 81,000,000 votes in November; and an approval rating for the now-gone past-president which never reached 50%, regardless of what was counted in the survey.  Further, the base of the angry army probably never exceeded one-fourth of the electorate.

Years ago, in 1974, I found myself in an organization which was under attack by a competing organization which was considerably smaller, but very aggressive.  We were considered vulnerable, and we felt vulnerable.  I can remember the day the tables turned, and it was based on a decision we made: we had been put on the defensive, and we decided to go on offense.  The election came and we prevailed with about 60% of the vote.  Apparently, we had made our case.

There are many ways to go on offense.  Take your pick.  And act.

Things are different now than they were in 1865 and the years that followed.  The KKK and others killed emancipation of black men.  Later came the monuments to the confederacy.  1915 was the year the film, Birth of a Nation was released (and the Clansman novel reprinted).  There was a new President, a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who was also a racist.  A World War was raging, and America was going to be pulled into it, which exacerbated tensions.  The U.S. essentially occupied Haiti from 1915-34...it’s treatment of Haiti essentially continuation of the slave tradition of France and the United States.

There were other things that happened then.  Women got the right to vote in 1920.

Fast forward, and finally civil and human rights began to have their day in our own country.  It was a difficult struggle.  As Martin Luther King declared shortly before he died: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Change takes effort.  It is not free.  The bitter past will not come back unless we allow its return.  And the avatars of permanent change will be young people, women, persons of color, all assisted by tens of millions of us who are suspect by virtue of our age, gender and skin color.

It will take work, but like the African-American woman legislator in Memphis yesterday, we can make change happen by shining a light on the injustice that still exists.

Be part of the change you wish to see.

Go on the offense.

POSTNOTE March 22: The bulk of this post was written before March 21.  Sunday evening, March 22, we watched the last of a six-part mini-series on Abraham Lincoln on CNN.  The last segment began with the assassination of President Lincoln, and the ensuing disintegration of family and dream of emancipation in the United States.  It was essentially along the lines of the earlier text above.  What would Lincoln have thought?  Would there have been different outcomes had he lived?

Personally, I think Martin Luther King got it right – “the arc of the moral universe”.  MLK was rooted in reality. He had a dream, but he knew it would not be easy, indeed it would be dangerous, and he paid with his life.

My Dad loved sayings.  One of them that comes to mind, that he administered on me more than once, is this: “Quitters never win; winners never quit.”  Vince Lombardi apparently coined the phrase.  Good enough for me.

POSTNOTE March 26: The following two items languished in the ‘draft’ file, but are too worthwhile to delete.  

“Lobbying”: Some days ago a friend who is active in Politics sent me this podcast, which I think is accessible by anyone.  I would recommend listening to the program, which is one hour.

My friend says this: “Steven Pearlstein Discusses the Left’s ‘Progressive Paradise’ and the Partisanship of Covid Relief. The similarities to our state legislature (MN) are remarkable. If you get a chance to listen, let me know what you think. And I wonder if you recognize the change that Pearlstein describes.”

Women’s Suffrage: March 8, was International Women’s Day.  Sunday, March 7, was the 56th anniversary of the Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights, described powerfully here by Heather Cox Richardson..

My friend, Jane Peck, posted a comment at my International Women’s Day post, as follows ” I’d like to invite everyone to watch the 25 minute video made of our show, “Votes for Women! Rally 1920“. It focuses on 5 Minnesota suffragists. We four actors had paid engagements to tour this show around MN this year, but Covid interfered.  I wrote and directed it through History Alive Lanesboro. You can find a link to watch it on our website https://historyalivelanesboro.org  . We’d really like to share it with you all!”  

Jane’s profession has been historical reenactment, especially dance, for many years.  As for many others in the performance business, Covid-19, has severely interfered with Jane’s work.  Do take the time to accept her gift.

Women finally got the right to vote in 1920, which today seems astonishing.  Slaves had been emancipated over 50 years earlier, and theoretically freed male slaves did have the franchise, though we know what happened during reconstruction and in the first half of the 20th century.

It is a statement of the obvious that women are every bit as diverse in opinions, etc., as are men.  All the rest is argument.  The group I am watching most closely are younger women of color who are making a big difference and taking a back seat to no one.  Life isn’t perfect – it will never be.  But I’m pretty certain we’ll not be making a trip back to 1860, or 1915, or pre-1950s.  Each era has brought change, sometimes small, sometimes large.  But there’s no going back, and I’m glad of that.