Alright – so, every year around the state of the union – some kind of survey or study comes out telling us what the quality of each state is in the United States. And, Minnesota – the land of kazillian lakes has always landed in top ten. This year it is number two best state to live and tied with Vermont in education. This caught my eye, best education – what?
If you are a minority especially Black and Brown and have children in school in Minnesota in particular in Minneapolis – then you know they are failing or about to fail. The graduation rate for minority kids in Minnesota is one of the worst in the country, yet MN ranks high in education. WTF? In other words, the achievement gap between white and minority students is so high here that it makes one wonder – why?
Furthermore, while Minnesota enjoys one of the best unemployment rate in the country – Black and Brown unemployment is the highest – WTF? Why such a disconnect and where is the love for minority Minnesotans? Minnesota also has one of the worst racial disparity for the justice system. Again, WTF?
This means Minnesota Department of Health has persistently failed Black and Brown health. This means Minnesota department of employment and economic development has failed Minnesota’s Black and Brown workforce and it means Minnesota Department of Education has failed to assure every child gets FAPE (free and appropriate public education). Above all MN DFLer’s that mostly control these agencies have failed their Black and Brown voters.
Nevertheless, this failure did not stop MN DFL chair or as I like to call him Don King of MN politics claim credit for the good things here while ignoring the failures of their Black and Brown voters in education, health, employment and so much more. I remember the first I met MN DFL chair – it was me and few other Somali autism parents years ago right after Gov Dayton had won first time. We wanted to see why his health administration was ignoring autism and not doing any autism research. I remember one of the parents told him a story about when her car was totaled and the insurance rep told her that – her first response was autism already totaled my life. Another parent who had two autistic kids told him how one sleeps from 9pm til 1am and the other one sleeps 1am til 6am, and how bone tired he was. And, I remember I was watching Mr. DFL chair’s body language and he did not even blink once or have one iota of emotion or empathy for those parents that were telling him their struggles with autism. He reminded me of Don King the boxing promoter who just promoted his fighters despite how dangerous their job was by lacking empathy and human emotion.
The state of autism in Minnesota – I think DHS and MDE are doing much better than MDH. We are definitely better off than we were last year, but there is always room for improvement. At least in autism I and few other minority parents will fight with tooth and nail for equality, but for other areas – I really hope Black and Brown Minnesotans wake the heck up and fight racial inequality through policy changes. That is the best way to beat racial disparity.
Outgoing funny man Letterman said it best.
Structural racism blamed for some of our state’s persistent racial health disparity. If you don’t know what structural racism is take a look at your office tomorrow or leadership in your next meeting if no one is Black or Brown – that is the problem and structural racism. Then read racism without racist book and make a change starting with your office.
Above words do not reflect any agency, candidate or committee.
Idil – Somali Autism Mom & Minority Advocate