diverse conversations This section is dedicated to educate and celebrate the efforts of those focused on building equity within our community. It is a place to share ideas, encourage conversations and learn how to be an active participant in creating sustainable change.
Community Members Seek to Serve W
ith election season upon us, it is important to understand who we are voting into office. With so many key issues coming to the fore, including the COVID-19 health crisis, to be or not to be back in the classroom this fall, and the need for the upgrading of our civil liberties and ameliorating systemic racism in America, we need to be educated on those we choose to serve as our representatives. In this issue, meet three local candidates running in the August 11 primary. Each candidate was interviewed on Green Tea Conversations radio show on AM950. The profiles in this article are extrapolated from the radio interviews and have been edited for print. The full unedited podcast interviews can be found at NATwinCities.com and AM950Radio.com. Cedrick Frazier, Candidate, Minnesota State House of Representatives Frazier is the DFL-endorsed candidate for state representative in District 45A, which includes the cities of Plymouth, New Hope and Crystal. He is a labor attorney for Education Minnesota and a City Council Member for New Hope.
The Decision to Run for Office I believe when we elect representatives, we have a representative. You should have someone that has proximity to the issues that they are addressing and can govern with the lens of empathy, which makes you a better representative and a better advocate. I have proximity to many of the disparities facing our state. When I was growing up, I suffered through two evictions, so I understand the housing affordability issue and home insecurity. My parents were on public assistance, and I stood in those food lines, so the food insecurity piece is close to me. I also did not attend the best school system and learned firsthand that educational opportunity gaps exist, especially today in Minnesota. We can close those gaps, so nobody gets left behind. Affordable Health Care One of the biggest things we must do is expand MNSURE—open it up. I think the problem that we have in this country is our health care is often tied to employment. As we have seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are layoffs and businesses shutting down, causing large scale unemployment and a lack of healthcare insurance for these employees. In some European countries, they have what I call a people-first perspective where they legislate and look at what’s going to be the best thing for the people of their country. If you look at Medicare for All or a universal system where ev12
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erybody has access to quality health care that is not tied to employment, I think we’re going to have better outcomes. Systemic Racism One of the most pressing things to figure out is how to hold police officers accountable when something happens like we witnessed with George Floyd. I have a good relationship with our police chief in the city of New Hope and I meet with a few Northwest suburban police chiefs and community members to talk about police and community relations about once a quarter. I don’t think that all police are bad, but I will say we do have a system that has created a mindset in which officers may believe that they can do these things and there is not going to be any harm or accountability brought to them. In Minnesota, we have the Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Board and we were one of the first in the country to require credentials for our police officers, which is a great thing. But we have not kept up with 21st-century policing in order to hold our officers accountable. One of the conversations right now is how we can prevent officers who do something egregious from moving to another jurisdiction and doing the same thing again. The POST board is a way that we could deal with that. They can investigate immediately, take the license away or suspend it. Since you need a license in this state to be a peace officer, the officer could not be hired in another Minnesota jurisdiction. This is like what the professional education licensing board does with teachers. When a license is suspended or revoked, you cannot teach. To listen to the full unedited interview, visit NATwinCities.com. For more information, visit CedrickFrazier.com or follow on social media @CedFrazierMN.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. ~Dalai Lama
