Afortunadamente, acá no los matan By Alberto S. Barrow N. Una cosa en que probablemente todos podamos convenir al iniciar la lectura de este artículo de opinión es que su título no deja buen sabor de boca. ¿Una dosis de perversidad? ¿Acaso
cinismo? ¿Ironía? Pero el título, tan malogrado como bien pudiera resultar al final del día, es probable que sirva el propósito de poner en controversial perspectiva una situación de ocurrencia
PANAMA TURN TO 6 English translation on page 7
Suluki Fardan
INSIGHT NEWS April 15 - April 22, 2012 • MN Metro Vol. 38 No. 16 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com
Florida arrests Zimmerman
L-R: Laysha Ward, Soledad O’Brien and Al McFarlane
Target Corporation
Creating community, one luncheon at a time By Al McFarlane Editor-in-Chief Insight publisher, Batala McFarlane and I, were among 30 or so business and community leaders who enjoyed each other’s company while hearing compelling stories about being and staying connected. The event was an exquisite Target Corporation luncheon at Minneapolis Ivy Hotel last Saturday that featured famed television journalist Soledad O’Brien, and Minnesota Orchestra’s Irvin Mayfield, both of whom were in town for concert collaboration at Orchestra Hall. Target executive Greg
Cunningham, Sr. Group Manager, Strategic Partnerships and Lifestyle Marketing, orchestrated this eclectic networking assembly around a charge and challenge that those gathered connect and stay in touch in the spirit of creating, building community. O’Brien illustrated the need for actions, large and small, institutional and personal, that could change outcomes in individuals’ lives. A gifted storyteller, O’Brien is fiercely proud of her roots. Her story illuminates the indignity of ignorance and institutional racism, faced-down, shattered, on a personal level, by strength of character and a legacy of achievement, and, by the unshakeable belief in the promise
of America. “My mother is Black,” O’Brien said. “She is from Cuba. My father is white. He is from Australia.” The award winning CNN broadcaster said her parents, met, dated and fell in love in the 1950s when they were college students in Maryland. But, she said, they had to travel to Washington, D.C. to marry. Maryland law forbade interracial marriage. And when they returned to their Maryland home, they became illegals…not for immigration status, but for their marriage status. O’Brien said her parents and her family defy naysayers who declare life would be untenable for mixed-race children. With Harvard degrees in their scabbards, O’Brien
and her equally accomplished brothers relentlessly pursue and achieve professional and personal accomplishment while reaching out to touch the lives of people they encounter in ways that link the young people they mentor to the promise of America as well. “As a journalist, I’m passionate about justice and fairness and telling stories that challenge the conventional view of people and issues. Through my journey, I’ve learned that our lives should not only be measured by success but significance. My greatest rewards have been beyond the stories when I’ve been able to help change the outcome.”
COMMUNITY TURN TO 14
Florida law enforcement officials Wednesday afternoon arrested George Zimmerman for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Special prosecutor Angela Corey is charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder. Zimmerman has admitted to shooting the unarmed 17-yearold Martin in February, but claims he acted in self-defense. Local police detained then re...leased Zimmerman, partly because of Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” self-defense law, which gives people wide latitude to claim self-defense in altercations. Corey says that authorities did not come to their decision to charge Zimmerman with second-degree murder lightly, nor was it based on public pressure, according to an Associated Press and CBS News report. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Second-degree murder is typically charged when there is a fight or other confrontation that results in death and where there is no premeditated plan to kill someone. Martin’s mother Sybrina
George Zimmerman Fulton said earlier she knows “justice will be served” in her son’s death. The Martin’s attorney, Benjamin Crump, said the family urges communities nationwide to remain calm in response to the prosecutor’s decision. “We don’t need anybody taking these matters into their own hands,” Crump said. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department launched an investigation of the Martin killing three weeks ago, said he would take appropriate action if evidence of a civil rights crime is found in the shooting.
PhotoXpress
US-Cuba policy:
Legislators decry wasteful spending 50 years of failure US Rep. Betty McCollum last week received a letter from more than half of the women state legislators of Minnesota that calls for a reduction in military spending. The letter was presented by Minnesota State Senators Sandy Pappas and Mary Jo McGuire and State Representative Phyllis Kahn. “It is not acceptable for House Republicans to pass a “millionaires manifesto” that showers millionaires and billionaires with tax breaks and other benefits, and protect billions in oil company subsidies and wasteful Pentagon spending, while abandoning the middle class and local communities,” said McCollum. “Washington should be a partner for opportunity and economic growth for our entire country by investing in education, basic research, modern infrastructure and clean energy.” The letter points out that military spending will comprise about 56 percent of
By Alexander Frye
www.mccollum.house.gov
Peruvian Attorney and current legislative fellow in the Office of Senator Katie Sieben Patricia Lozada, Minnesota State Senator and WiLL VP Sandy Pappas, Congresswoman McCollum, Minnesota State Senator Mary Jo McGuire
SPENDING TURN TO 7
Sports
Marcus hill plays in NBA Philippines Typhoon Relief game
PAGE 3
Education
Northside Hmong students meet legislators
PAGE 4
This past February marked the 50thanniversary of Washington’s embargo against Cuba. The birthday, which went uncelebrated here and in the Caribbean, was a grim reminder of the persistence of one of Washington’s most egregious foreign policy blunders. Enacted less than a year after President Kennedy’s illfated attempt to unseat Fidel Castro’s fledgling communist government at the Bay of Pigs, the embargo was designed with the express purpose of ousting Castro and his fellow revolutionaries from power. Renewed on a yearly basis under the aegis of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, the policy was last extended in September 2011 by President Obama, who stated, “I hereby determine that the continuation for 1 year of [the embargo] with respect to Cuba is in the national interest of the United States.”
Lifestyle
Dawoud Bey, Picturing People
PAGE 8
But is it? In the 1960s, when the embargo was young and the United States was in the throes of the Cold War, that Washington would seek to ostracize the newly installed communist government in Havana is understandable. Fidel Castro had, after all, just toppled the U.S.backed Batista regime, and subsequently nationalized all American holdings on the island. And in October 1962, a scant eight months after President Kennedy’s embargo went into full effect, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. U.S.-Cuban relations remained rocky throughout the Cold War, and in 1996, ties were further marred by an incident in which the Cubans shot down two privately flown Cessna planes which had crossed into their airspace, killing the four Cuban Americans on board.
CUBA TURN TO 7
Full Circle
What is a mid-life crisis?
PAGE 10