Youth Violence in North Minneapolis: This Does Not Have to Happen

Let us not linger too long wringing our hands and shedding our tears. Be assured, I write this as one who has shed many a tear over the loss of far too many young people shot and killed in North Minneapolis over the last 20 years. But I get deeply angry with every one of these events that brings press coverage, political attention, and many tearful expressions of sorrow--- because this youth violence in North Minneapolis does not have to happen.

We could immediately set about addressing the problems that lead our precious young people to shoot each other by really following through in two ways: 1) connecting with all of the struggling families living in North Minneapolis, listening to them, hearing their concerns, and then communicating to them that we are going to take action;
2) letting these families then know that we will do everything in our power to address their concerns and to provide a vision for a future that holds hope for better lives. In doing the latter we must let our fellow human beings on the Northside know that we will help them access existing services for immediate relief from their day to day difficulties, but that over the long term we will be dedicating ourselves to the improvement of education for their children.

By comparison to the improvement of K-12 education, every other action on our part is just application of the bandaid, the treating of symptom rather than cause. On the Northside, we have to admit to ourselves that for over 30 years, at least since the late 1970s, the public K-12 schools of North Minneapolis have been on a steep decline into failure. From the late 1970s, as great numbers of Jewish and middle class African American people exited North Minneapolis for St. Louis Park and other near suburbs, many of those left behind have been the poorest community members. At the same time, very substantial numbers of in-migrants from gravely challenged communities in Chicago, Gary, and Detroit have moved to access relatively affordable rents and a bit tamer conditions of life in North Minneapolis. These more recent arrivals had little idea of the proud traditions that have abided on the Northside. They would, for example, know very little of the splendid activities of the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House under the direction of W. Gertrude Brown into the 1930s, the lively community life that once centered on old 6th Avenue (today’s Olson Highway), and the excellent education that one could once get at North High School (which through the 1950s was the best high school in Minnesota). As the older, magnificent institutions of the Northside disappeared or became shadows of their former selves, and as North Minneapolis became more residentially dominated by people of significant poverty, the nature of the community and its needs underwent very sharp alteration.

White, middle class educators were overwhelmed amidst these shifts and hopelessly inadequate to the new challenges. There were virtually no African American teachers in the Minneapolis Public Schools of the 1970s. Too few African American educators were added during the subsequent decades. Even today, which features a greater presence of African American and other people of color at the administrative level, teachers are overwhelmingly white. More important, there is inadequate understanding from people of middle class backgrounds of all races who are employed by the Minneapolis Pubic Schools to feel in the gut the struggles of people from impoverished conditions and to comprehend the stark challenges that so many students face at home and in the community.

Then there is the problem of teacher quality and approaches to education. Teacher preparation programs are inadequate. There are virtually no teachers who have master’s degrees in legitimate disciplines granted, by way of example, in departments of history, math, biology, and English literature--- rather than in departments of education. There abides too much of the notion that those who preside in classrooms are facilitators for the pursuit of teacher and student interests, rather than expert conveyors of solid knowledge and skills. There are too many DVDs watched out of context, too many unfocused field trips, too many distracting assemblies and pep rallies, too many inadequate substitute teachers, too much turning to the back of the book to answer questions without any understanding of what chapters are actually presenting in the way of subject area knowledge.

Imagine school officials and other concerned people walking the streets of North Minneapolis on a consistent basis and telling people right where they live that, “We care.” Then imagine that we back that rhetoric up with action, immediate and long-term. Imagine young people in love with Shakespeare, August Wilson, the science of the natural world, the beauty of mathematics, and the sheer delight of great paintings and sculpture. Imagine young people so productively occupied in their abundant knowledge and interests that they have no time to shoot each other. Imagine that young people then know that knowledge is not only wonderful for its own sake, but that it also paves the way for success in business, law, medicine, and all endeavors in the world of work to which young people would aspire.

Know then as you know that the sun will come up tomorrow, there would also be a new day dawning in North Minneapolis. And know that you would blessedly have little need for all of that hand-wringing and all of those touching but ineffective tears.