Duluth and it's failed anti racism campaign

[Nanook]

I meant to come here and post about this which began last January, but then got caught up in a zillion other things and never got around to it. In discussion in the George Zimmerman thread I mentioned to Tropicana about what happened in Duluth Mn when the Mayor started the 'Unfair Campaign" in Duluth and how it went so awry as some white folks (not all) do not see racism, or themselves as racist.

Here is the beginning of it all: Jan 24th 2012

PRESS ALERT

Contact: Ellen O’Neill at 218/722-7425, X106
Anti-Racism Campaign in Duluth, MN, Launches Tuesday, Jan. 24
Press conference scheduled for 11 a.m., Jan. 24, in City Hall
Editor’s Notes: See below for additional photo opportunities. Campaign visuals will be available Jan. 23 on the campaign website under the “Press
Room” tab. See FAQ’s below for more information about the campaign.
Jan. 20, 2012, Duluth, MN – Fifteen community partner organizations in Duluth and Superior, WI, will publically launch the Un-Fair Campaign Jan.
24. The campaign is an anti-racism effort focused on the role white people can play in addressing racial disparities. A press conference is
scheduled for 11 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 24, in the Mayor’s Reception Room, Fourth Floor, Duluth City Hall, 411 West First Street. > >
The press conference will include a short overview of the campaign and comments from community partners. Duluth Mayor Don Ness will provide
remarks and read a proclamation in support of the campaign. Representatives from partner organizations will be on hand to answer questions from the media.

The tagline for the campaign is: “It’s hard to see racism when you’re white.” The campaign will raise awareness and encourage dialogue through posters, billboards, the campaign’s website, public workshops, guest speakers, community reads, films, and facilitated discussions.
Campaign partners:
Central Labor Body, Churches United in Ministry (CHUM), City of Duluth
(Mayor’s Office, American Indian Commission, Human Rights Commission),
Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Inc., Community Action Duluth, Domestic
Abuse Intervention Programs, Lake Superior College, Life House, NAACP, St.
Louis County Public Health and Human Services, University of Minnesota
Duluth, YWCA.
Posters and other visuals were created in collaboration with SwimCreative, a Duluth-based marketing and design firm.
Photo opportunities Jan. 24:

1. 10 a.m. – Volunteers will a hang posters at Electric Fetus in downtown
   Duluth, 12 East Superior Street
2. 11 a.m. – Press conference, Mayor’s Reception Room, City Hall. Community partners will be represented and will stand behind the speakers.
   Multiple spokespeople are available for interviews after the conference.
3. 7:30 – 10:30 a.m. – Billboards will go up in four locations with the tagline:
   “It’s hard to see racism when you’re white.” Timing will be announced at the press conference.
   Billboard locations:
   –I-35 @ 2016 W. Michigan St., facing east
   –20 East 2nd St., facing west
   –4514 Grand Ave., facing west
   –410 N 6th Ave. E., facing north
4. 12:30-1:30 p.m. – University of Minnesota Duluth poster hanging. Also, learn about UMD activities underway as part of the campaign. Call Susan Banovetz at UMD for more information about time and location for photo op: 218/726-6141 (work) or 218/213-4552 (cell).

Frequently Asked Questions
January 2012
WHAT IS THE UN-FAIR CAMPAIGN?
The Un-Fair Campaign is an educational campaign to raise awareness about white privilege in our community, provide resources for understanding and action, and facilitate dialogue and partnership that results in fundamental, systemic change towards racial justice.
WHY IS THE CAMPAIGN CALLED “UN-FAIR”?
Institutional racism, practiced over centuries and still pervasive today, gives white people unearned advantages over others simply because of the color of their skin. That’s unfair.
WHAT IS WHITE PRIVILEGE?
According to author and scholar Peggy McIntosh: “White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do
so
without being conscious of it.” Examples of advantages a white person may have that a person of color may not:

• I can walk around a department store without being followed;
• I can come to meeting late and not have my lateness attributed to my
  race;
• I am able to drive a car in any neighborhood without being perceived as being in the wrong place or looking for trouble; I can turn on the television or look to the front page and see people of my ethnic and racial background represented;
• I can take a job without having co-workers suspect that I got it because of my racial background;
• I can send my 16-year old out with his new driver’s license and not have to give him a lesson how to respond if police stop him.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE DULUTH COMMUNITY?
The population of Duluth is 90% white, which may be a factor in our community appearing and functioning as a monoculture. This causes some groups to feel marginalized and excluded. This outcome was confirmed in a recent report on a three year study, Soul of the Community, commissioned by the Knight Foundation, which stated:

The [Duluth Area] community significantly underperforms against the
comparison group overall and in four of the seven individual openness
measures. . Fewer residents then in other comparable communities say it is
a good place for racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, young adults
without children, and talented college graduates looking for work.
WHO CREATED THE CAMPAIGN?
A committee of the YWCA, working with SwimCreative, a Duluth-based marketing and design firm, developed the graphics for the campaign over the course of a year. The content, look and feel were developed after extensive conversations with the Un-Fair Committee and campaign and other community partners.
WHO ARE THE CAMPAIGN PARTNERS AND WHAT IS THEIR ROLE?
There are 15 campaign partners to date. They include:

• Central Labor Body
• Churches United in Ministry (CHUM)
• City of Duluth Mayor’s Office
• City of Duluth American Indian Commission
• City of Duluth Human Rights Commission
• Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Inc.
• Community Action Duluth
• Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs
• Lake Superior College
• Life House
• NAACP
• St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services
• University of Minnesota Duluth
• YWCA

Source and more info plus links:

http://unfaircampaign.org/anti-racism-campaign-in-duluth-mn-launches-tuesday-jan-24/

[Nanook]

It went horribly awry. The white supremacists came to town, people were upset and angry about being called racist, it turned into a gawd awful mess.

More to come..

PS, Duluth's Mayor is awesome.

[Nanook]

n January, a group of residents in Duluth, Minn., launched an anti-racism effort called the . They created ads, posters and billboards aimed to raise awareness about racial injustice and asking white people to recognize institutional racism. The posters have prompted thoughtful discussion in some circles and backlash in others.
The organizers are also planning other events — a series of discussion, speeches and films, around the city.
Duluth mayor Don Ness, who endorsed the campaign, talks with NPR's Neal Conan about the mixed reactions.

Yes, it went national. Link to discussion:

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/14/146871163/un-fair-anti-racism-ads-draw-mixed-reactions

unfair_custom-5f78fa2e580cce6b0c89b1857eba1bb49a66749d-s3.jpg

[Tropicana]

Thank you for sharing this Nanook. I'll definitely go through this.

[Nanook]

The Minneapolis Star & Tribune wrote this article shortly afterward:



Duluth racism ads drive some into a rage



DULUTH - A close-up of a white woman's face confronts motorists from billboards plastered along major roads here with the message, in large, black letters: "It's hard to see racism when you're white.
The billboards are part of the Un-Fair Campaign, which also includes dozens of posters that have appeared in office windows, including one poster depicting a young woman with this message written in black marker across her forehead: "Is white skin really fair skin?" One of the stated goals of the campaign is to create a community dialogue. In that regard, it got more than it bargained for.
Hundreds of the city's white residents have complained that the campaign's kick-off images and messages are offensive. The campaign, they say, blames all racism on whites and implies that white people aren't smart enough to recognize racism.

Meanwhile, the campaign's defenders and sponsors, including Mayor Don Ness, say they've received dozens of hateful messages and e-mails from all over the world, as news of the campaign hit websites that cater to white supremacists and other racists. One message to Ness: "Die, scum, die."
"I became kind of a lightning rod for groups outside our community," said Ness, who was accused in messages from as far away as Scotland of inviting "white genocide" and being a "traitor" to his race.

"It was disappointing to see the level of hate and ugliness," he said. Ness said he's also heard "heartfelt objections" to the campaign from many "thoughtful, well-meaning" Duluthians.
One of those citizens, Phil Pierson, created a Facebook page called "Stop Racist Unfair Campaign" to air objections to it. More than 425 people became members. Pierson frequently posts messages admonishing members to keep the discussion civil, and he deplores the white supremacist rhetoric showing up in some messages to community leaders.

Still, said Pierson, the campaign erred by opening with such jarring messages and images.
"You can't open a discussion on race and hope to see it move in a positive direction when you raise the topic by stereotyping an entire race," Pierson said. "It spreads animosity and hate, teaches a new generation to point fingers and [focuses] on the color of our skin instead of the idea that we're all human."
The 'invisible problemThe Un-Fair Campaign, which launched with the billboards last month and so far has spent $4,600, didn't set out to shock or offend people, although organizers are glad they got the community's attention, said Ellen O'Neill, executive director of the YWCA of Duluth, one of the campaign's 15 sponsors. She said the sponsors, which also include several colleges, worked with a PR firm to come up with the messages, which they hope will help white people try to imagine what it's like to be non-white in a place like Duluth, which is 90 percent white. "It's possible to never interact with a person of color here," O'Neill said. "It makes the problem more invisible". O'Neill said the campaign is directed at people 18 to 30 years old because market research indicated that people of that age group were more likely to lead behavior-changing movements, such as anti-smoking or recycling campaigns.

She said the stakes are high because only 25 percent of Duluth's black students and 34 percent of American Indian students graduate from high school in four years, compared with 80 percent of white students. Similarly, she said, census data indicate that only 18 percent of the city's whites live in poverty, compared to 67 percent of blacks and 56 percent of American Indians.
"How is our community going to prosper and grow if such disparities exist?" she wrote in a recent op-ed article in the Duluth News-Tribune. "How can we accept such inequality?"

Now that the campaign has the community's attention, its focus will move to hosting community meetings with such provocative titles as "Cracking the Shell of Whiteness." The meetings are designed to promote discussions between people of different races and education about how institutions such as schools and companies might build in privileges that benefit people from the dominant culture and hurt people outside it.

A Wednesday panel discussion at the College of St. Scholastica drew more than 400 people, most of them college students. School spokesman Bob Ashenmacher said the audience listened to an all-white panel discuss ways in which they became aware of so-called white privileg. Ness said Duluth already showed it can have uncomfortable discussions about race relations. Several years ago, despite decades of silence and initial resistance from some city leaders, Duluthians placed a memorial on the downtown street corner where a white mob lynched three black circus workers in 1920, what many have called the darkest moment in the city's history.


Change of perspective. Chuck Horton, a boxing promoter who runs a gym in Duluth, said the Un-Fair campaign has changed his point of view, even though he wasn't exactly looking for it.
Horton said he was initially put off by the billboards and posters. Some saw an insult. "I didn't like the way they were worded," he said. "They implied white people can't see racism, so we must be stupid. That was insulting to me." But then Horton took a ride through rural Duluth with one of his fighters, Al Sands, who is black. The billboards came up, and the two argued about whether whites really see racism toward non-white. Just then, Horton said, their car passed a police officer in a squad car, off the road observing traffic, and both Horton and Sands saw the officer do a double-take."The cop even pulled up out of the ditch to get a better look at us," Horton said. "Al said that kind of thing happened to him all the time." "I don't believe in coincidence," Horton said. "It's so ironic that we had that experience exactly when we did. I believe it was a message to me to see things through other people's eyes."
Larry Oakes • 612-269-0504

Source http://www.startribune.com/local/139064969.html

[Nanook]

Thank you for sharing this Nanook. I'll definitely go through this.

Later I'll come with some more, it got very very ugly. White Supremest rallies and all. I think some of the newscasts are on YouTube.

[Tropicana]

Wow what a powerful campaign. Curious to know how the supremacists reacted and what was done after that.

[Nanook]

Wow what a powerful campaign. Curious to know how the supremacists reacted and what was done after that.

Ask and you shall receive:

Duluth: Racial justice, pro-white rallies scheduled concurrently this Saturday morning

This Saturday should be an interesting one up in Duluth.

Backers of the Un-Fair Campaign's controversial "It's hard to see racism when you're white" billboards have scheduled a pro-racial-justice counter-rally set to happen concurrently with a white nationalist group's pro-white rally.

The racial justice group is meeting at 10 a.m. at the Aerial Lift Bridge -- at the same time, the white nationalists will be gathering nearby at Duluth City Hall.

The controversial billboards tell passersby that "It's hard to see racism when you're white," but some white folks locally and nationally object to being singled out and argue the campaign contradicts itself by using racism to combat racism.

Saturday's pro-white rally is being organized by the Supreme White Alliance, whose members share "a common belief that our race and our heritage are in danger of disappearing from existence due to the lies that come from multiculturalism."


A statement on the SWA's homepage says the Un-Fair Campaign "has plastered advertisments [sic] all over these towns basically telling white people that they are automatically racist because they are white. The rally will be held on March 3rd to protest this outrageous claim."

Supporters of the Un-Fair Campaign and its billboards first planned to ignore the SWA rally, but have now decided to make their presence felt this Saturday morning.

Duluth activist Joel Kilgour told the Duluth News Tribune that he and other counter-rally organizers look at it "as an opportunity for people to recommit, as a community, to work on racial justice and grow together as a stronger community." He said that 50 Duluth-based organizations and nearly 200 community members have signed an open letter calling on Duluth residents to take action Saturday to counter racism and promote community.

Saturday's festivities probably won't be quite on par with the Selma to Montgomery marches, nonetheless it's surprising that Duluth and its 90 percent white population has emerged as Minnesota's hotbed of racial controversy. Hard to see racism when you're white? Not when hundreds of white supremacists are rallying in your city.





11 white supremacists turn out in Duluth, get pelted with snowballs


It probably wasn't the sort of showing members of the Supreme White Alliance had in mind, but really, what else did they expect?

Eleven members of the white supremacist group took part in an anti-Un-Fair Campaign march in downtown Duluth on Saturday morning, only to be vastly outnumbered by counter-protesters, some of whom eventually pelted the white supremacists with snowballs.

Four anti-racists were arrested on disorderly conduct charges.

Members of the Supreme White Alliance decided to march in response to the Un-Fair Campaign's controversial "It's hard to see racism when you're white" billboards, which have been visible around Duluth since January. A statement posted on the SWA's homepage last week says
the Un-Fair Campaign "has plastered advertisments [sic] all over [Duluth] basically telling white people that they are automatically racist
because they are white."

Robert Hester of Superior, a member of the Alliance and the rally's organizer, told the Duluth News Tribune he was unable to give his prepared speech during Saturday's march, as counter-protesters drowned him out with chants of "Nazis out!" "Get out of Duluth!" and "Go home!"

It was over quickly. A half-hour after the white supremacists were met downtown by about 200 sometimes snowball-throwing counter-protesters, police escorted the Alliance members into Duluth City Hall amid chants of "Run and hide, go inside." They walked through the building and out to their cars without further incident.

The Tribune reports that a total of about 500 counter-protesters turned out at the Duluth Civic Center and at Canal Park, meaning the white supremacists were outnumbered 50 to 1.

So while it may sometimes be hard for Duluthians to see racism in their 90-percent-white community, it seems they won't let a downtown white supremacist march escape their collective gaze.

http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2012/03/duluth_white_supremacists_outnumbered_by_counter_protestors.php

[Nanook]

And then in June... (meanwhile it was a part of the nightly news, pretty much every day something was happening that was newsworthy, but then again, this isn't NYC.

Un-Fair Campaign billboard defaced

A new Un-Fair Campaign billboard in Duluth's Hillside neighborhood has been defaced with a spray-painted racial slur and a Confederate flag.
The billboard, above the intersection of Sixth Avenue East and Fourth Street in Duluth, states: “Racism: Ignore it and it won’t go away.” To that, someone has added, in red, “No naggers” and the flag symbol underneath the message.
The word “naggers” is another version of the more commonly known racial epithet, said Claudie Washington, president of the local chapter of the NAACP.
“I’ve seen many versions of that word,” he said, and because it’s been painted on a sign denouncing racism along with a Confederate flag, he has no doubts about its meaning. “It clearly indicates to me how racism is alive and well.”
“We will not tolerate racist slurs,” said Ellen O’Neill, executive director of the Duluth YWCA, speaking on behalf of the 18 partners of the Un-Fair Campaign. “This proves how badly this campaign is needed and how badly this community needs to talk about racism.”
The Un-Fair Campaign began in January. Its goal is to bring people together to talk about the effects of racism. The main message has focused on white privilege with the line, “It’s hard to see racism when you’re white.”
But it also ignited backlash, with many saying the campaign itself is racist, and alienating in its efforts. In direct response a white supremacist rally was held in Duluth in March.
A new video sharing the campaign’s message was rolled out this month. It resulted in more backlash, this time from one of its partners. The University of Minnesota Duluth called the video’s message “divisive” based on complaints at both UMD and the main campus of the university. Complaints have come from outside and within university walls, UMD Chancellor Lynn Black said this week. The message in the video was described by O’Neill as the same as before, but in a new format.
Phil Pierson co-founded a Facebook page in January with a goal of stopping the campaign, because he felt it should not have singled out whites. On Wednesday Pierson said he still doesn’t support the campaign, but such vandalism is “disgusting.”
“That’s outright racism,” Pierson said. “The campaign is divisive, but I don’t think they deserve that. It’s contributing to the problem. But the way the campaign has been run, it doesn’t surprise me. It’s upsetting.”
Washington said he expected such graffiti to appear on campaign materials, and is surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
“I didn’t think this early in the campaign it (racism in Duluth) would go away, because most people deny it exists,” he said. “I think it’s a sad day.”
O’Neill said campaign organizers would be talking with Duluth police and the sign company, Lamar Co., today to see how to proceed.

The story and the picture are on the link, I am not going to post the defaced billboard picture.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/image/id/86515/headline/Un-Fair%20billboard%20defaced/

[Nanook]

Right now the Unfair Campaign page on FB is posting about Trayvon.

https://www.facebook.com/unfaircampaign

[Tropicana]

Wow what a lot of drama. I am surprised that none of this made the national media. Mind you at that time I was traveling overseas a lot so I may have missed it. Was the billboard taken down?

[Nanook]

Wow what a lot of drama. I am surprised that none of this made the national media. Mind you at that time I was traveling overseas a lot so I may have missed it. Was the billboard taken down?

Tropi, it was surreal. it was totally disgusting what went on, that was only the beginning. the drama played on for months, the university had to cut ties with the campaign and all sorts of things. I will have some time tonight or tomorrow to add more articles. I think the only national coverage it received was via NPR, which I was not even aware of until yesterday. I don't know if any other US city has tried something such as this Unfair campaign, but if they did, I wonder if it was met with such hostility?

Craziness. I was happy about the campaign, hopeful that it would help people realize some things. To be honest, a lot of the perspective the campaign brought forth, i started to learn while reading threads on jamaicans.com. I believe otherwise i would still be clueless, but i started to notice it is real and ugly, how people are treated over being not white.

Signed,

Nanook, one natural blonde from the far north.