As if things couldn’t get any more bizarre in 2020, Minneapolis’ City Council has just passed a resolution declaring something you can’t see, touch, or in any other other way physically quantify, a “Public Health Emergency.”
If you guessed “racism,” you guessed correctly.
From CBS:
The city council of Minneapolis, Minnesota, approved a resolution Friday officially declaring racism a public health emergency. The resolution comes nearly two months after George Floyd, a Black man, died after a White Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.
“Systemic racism is among the greatest long-term threats our city and nation are facing, and the last two months have made that reality painfully clear,” said Mayor Jacob Frey in a press release issued by the city. “For Minneapolis to be a place where everyone can live and thrive, we must recognize this crisis for what it is and approach policymaking with the urgency it deserves.”
According to studies highlighted in the city’s resolution, “Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police as white people in this country.” The imbalance has effected mental health in the Black community, but only one in three Black Americans who need mental health care receive it.
The resolution notes that “the killings of unarmed Black men are associated with an increase in depression and emotional issues for Black people.” Dr. Jess Clemons of “Ask Dr. Jess” told “CBS This Morning” in June that a lack of mental healthcare access has hit America’s Black population the hardest.
“We’re expected to not only present with symptoms, but also have nowhere to go, because lack of access, the stigma, and barriers associated with it,” Clemons said.”
Breitbart News reports on some of the specifics related to the resolution:
The resolution pledges for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) and the city’s council members to address the “the severe impact of racism on the well-being of residents and city overall and allocate funding, staff, and additional resources to actively engage in racial equity in order to name, reverse, and repair the harm done to BIPOC.”
Below is a list of action items the resolution promises to address:
Center the voices, work, and leadership of the communities most directly affected by said racism.
Provide support to the Racial Equity Community Advisory Committee to conduct and implement an internal evaluation of the City Charter as well as all City policies and procedures to prioritize racial equity with specification on how policies translate into anti-racist action towards City employees, constituents, and community members.
Address our criminal justice system to stop the profiling and harm done to BIPOC. This includes but is not limited to decarceration and reserving arrest only for violent and other major crimes and easing and dismissing cash bail.
Build and implement a comprehensive public safety system that decentralizes BIPOC over-policing and criminalization and is rooted in the public health approach to keep BIPOC communities disproportionately impacted by community violence safe.
Develop a comprehensive rapid response protocol to immediate needs and long-term work to address systemic inequities. This includes activating the Office of Emergency Management and Incident Command System, the Health Department, the Division of Race & Equity, and other public facing departments to respond to community stress and trauma.
Measure the effectiveness of City programming and the return on investment of public dollar allocations in the budget toward advancing racial equity and reporting these results annually.
Allocate dollars in the City budget to be directed toward small business development, housing, community-based infrastructure, and other amenities to reverse and repair the harm experienced by BIPOC. This includes making land and housing affordable for BIPOC, prioritizing BIPOC in redevelopment efforts, and ensuring that these communities are not displaced in neighborhood revitalization efforts.
Establish a long-term sustainable source of City of Minneapolis funding that will restore and increase the availability of high-quality youth development programming for BIPOC youth and young adults with inclusion of a strategic plan to improve program quality and evaluate the impact and reach.
Develop and implement an annual report with racially disaggregated data on the health of Minneapolis BIPOC, including recommendations for actions to eliminate any disparities and improve overall health.
Build a workplace culture that promotes racialized repair, cross-cultural relationships, upholds the sacredness of caucus spaces for building community, and shifts the burden of addressing racism off BIPOC.
“Systemic racism is among the greatest long-term threats our city and nation are facing, and the last two months have made that reality painfully clear,” Mayor Frey said in a statement. “For Minneapolis to be a place where everyone can live and thrive, we must recognize this crisis for what it is and approach policymaking with the urgency it deserves.”
The development comes after lawyers for George Floyd’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Minneapolis and the fired police officers charged in Floyd’s death."
Shockingly (Or Not) Minneapolis appears to have some company in this new resolution:
The real emergencies in these communities is lack of whole family units, poor economic development, poor education, and leaders who love to provide lip service to serving, but never quite do anything of meaning.
In this context, "racism" is just another word for "socialism" where people collecting their taxpayer salaries will simply take from others to fulfill a political agenda.
These resolutions are simply code for "white people are racists," as the overarching themes will inevitably be about dismantling what is labeled "Whiteness."
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