A review by libkatem
A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, by Sun Yung Shin
5.0
"...It's easy to take the moral high road on a social issue when your personal commitment to the principals you espouse remains largely untested. It's easy to point a finger at the egregious violation of basic human rights going on elsewhere in the country and ignore the widespread, if less obvious, violations going on in your own backyard.
"Contemporary Minnesotans are often genuinely shocked to hear that there was active, ongoing slavery at Fort Snelling from the 1820s through the 1850s- and that as recently as the mid-1950s, black residents and visitors to Minnesota were refused service at restaurants and hotels, even in the downtown Twin Cities. Housing and job discrimination were as prevalent here as they were anywhere else in the country. White Minnesota is part and parcel of White America, after all, and is profoundly influenced by the same prejudice and bigotry that has been so omnipresent in the rest of the country. But up here in the cool blue North, there was no long, bitter history of blood on the soil between black and white, no multigenerational saga of mutual hatred and violence."
- David Lawrence Grant, "People Like Us"
As a white person in Minnesota, this is necessary and difficult reading. I am justly proud of my state. We are L'etoile du Nord, I tell people. Set your compass by us. We are urban and rural, but progressive. We are home to the largest Hmong population outside of Laos, and we have opened our boarders and our hearts to immigrants and refugees from all over the world.
But because I am white, I am blind, so blind, to the hardships faced by people of color.
This book is a glimpse into the racism that bleeds into even my beloved state. We are not perfect. We have a lot of work to do, reaching as far back as our relationship with our native populations, namely the Ojibwa/Anishinaabe and Dakota people that were here before us, who's trust in white settlers is continuously violated (I see you, Standing Rock, and I stand with you). We have a lot of work to do to include our black/African American neighbors, and of course, newcomers to the US from Somalia, from Syria, from any number of places. We have work to do with our Hispanic/latinx neighbors. More still work to do with our neighbors from Asian cultures, a blanket too big to properly describe the diversity that means (India, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, the list goes on and on).
This is a hard book to read. I went slowly, chapter by chapter, absorbing as much as I could. I sat with my own discomfort, reflected on my own experiences with people of color. I understand that no one voice can represent their entire community, so I feel called to listen more, to learn more, to act on what I have learned so far.
But mostly I feel called to elevate these very diverse voices.
This book hit me hard after a difficult election. I'm glad I read it when I did.
Though the weather here is very cold, my heart is warm, and it is open. I will do my best in the next four years and beyond to listen, learn, and act.
"Contemporary Minnesotans are often genuinely shocked to hear that there was active, ongoing slavery at Fort Snelling from the 1820s through the 1850s- and that as recently as the mid-1950s, black residents and visitors to Minnesota were refused service at restaurants and hotels, even in the downtown Twin Cities. Housing and job discrimination were as prevalent here as they were anywhere else in the country. White Minnesota is part and parcel of White America, after all, and is profoundly influenced by the same prejudice and bigotry that has been so omnipresent in the rest of the country. But up here in the cool blue North, there was no long, bitter history of blood on the soil between black and white, no multigenerational saga of mutual hatred and violence."
- David Lawrence Grant, "People Like Us"
As a white person in Minnesota, this is necessary and difficult reading. I am justly proud of my state. We are L'etoile du Nord, I tell people. Set your compass by us. We are urban and rural, but progressive. We are home to the largest Hmong population outside of Laos, and we have opened our boarders and our hearts to immigrants and refugees from all over the world.
But because I am white, I am blind, so blind, to the hardships faced by people of color.
This book is a glimpse into the racism that bleeds into even my beloved state. We are not perfect. We have a lot of work to do, reaching as far back as our relationship with our native populations, namely the Ojibwa/Anishinaabe and Dakota people that were here before us, who's trust in white settlers is continuously violated (I see you, Standing Rock, and I stand with you). We have a lot of work to do to include our black/African American neighbors, and of course, newcomers to the US from Somalia, from Syria, from any number of places. We have work to do with our Hispanic/latinx neighbors. More still work to do with our neighbors from Asian cultures, a blanket too big to properly describe the diversity that means (India, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, the list goes on and on).
This is a hard book to read. I went slowly, chapter by chapter, absorbing as much as I could. I sat with my own discomfort, reflected on my own experiences with people of color. I understand that no one voice can represent their entire community, so I feel called to listen more, to learn more, to act on what I have learned so far.
But mostly I feel called to elevate these very diverse voices.
This book hit me hard after a difficult election. I'm glad I read it when I did.
Though the weather here is very cold, my heart is warm, and it is open. I will do my best in the next four years and beyond to listen, learn, and act.