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Grievance Grifters Of Minneapolis

Identity politics run amok: City government schedules segregated 'sacred conversations'

Via the Twitter feed of Prof. Darel Paul. 

This is straight-up racism, of course. Notice that they have segregated meetings using that weird Ta-Nehisi Gnostic terminology (“for Black Bodied Staff” and “for White Bodied Staff”). Get this — it’s sponsored by the Minneapolis City Government! I would love to know how many taxpayer dollars the professional grievance grifters got to stage these rituals (“sacred conversations”) — which were canceled at the last minute after controversy erupted. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

Minneapolis Civil Rights Director Velma Korbel, who wasn’t involved in the planning, said the discussions were meant to be part of a long-running effort to address racial equity in city government and services such as development, transportation and housing.

“It was never our intent to exclude or marginalize anybody in the city,” she said. “What’s lost is the understanding that not everybody is in the same place in these issues.”

Steven Belton, Minneapolis Urban League President and CEO, said he believed that separate sessions for black and white people would be productive. Belton, the husband of Sharon Sayles Belton, Minneapolis’ first female and black mayor, said race was the issue of the 21st century, paraphrasing Malcolm X.

“If we’re honest about our personal experiences, we talk differently when we’re in the room with people that look like us,” he said.

But Mitch Pearlstein, founder and senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment, called the sessions another example of the absurdity of “identity politics” in Minneapolis.

“I rarely have confidence discussions about race will be productive,” he said, adding that he believes discussions usually result in people who agree getting a room and saying the same things to each other.

“Most likely people who might offer unorthodox views don’t show up,” he said.

As to the notion of separate rooms for black and white staffers, Pearlstein said that someone would “have to go well out of your way to find something that open to parody.”

Minnesota is famous for its slave plantations, naturally.

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