Author: Clinton Collins

When I moved to north Minneapolis in October 2001, my “posse,” with perhaps one or two exceptions, was, shall we say, perplexed. Oh, everyone liked the house, a recently renovated five-bedroom house with Birdseye maple hardwood floors and leaded glass windows. The neighborhood—that was a different matter. My former wife warned my two oldest sons to never stray more than a block from my house, and then, only in broad daylight. My future father-in-law asked me, “Will my daughter be safe in this neighborhood?” And my sons nervously joked about borrowing my old military flak jacket when they came to visit.

Someday, I vowed, y’all be kicking yourself in the backside for not joining me up here. Now, I must confess that sometimes I wonder if I should be kicking myself for moving up north; I still contend with trash in my yard, the “boom-boom” of mega-decibel car stereos, and the knowledge that some of Minneapolis’ worst mayhem occurs within a 20-minute walk from my front door. For some time, the prevailing mantra among those in the urban renewal business has been “affordable housing.” However—and I am sure I’ll be called an elitist or worse for saying so publicly—some of the people who most need affordable housing are not great neighbor material. Now, I am defining “great neighbor material” as those who are stable, law-abiding, and respectful of the rights and property of others, those who value education—in other words, those with values closely associated with the middle class. And, unfortunately, a disproportionate number of those who fall short in the “great neighbor department” live in north Minneapolis.

Now, I am not alone in that view. Don Samuels, Minneapolis’ newest City Council member, represents the racially diverse Third Ward, which includes a very good chunk of north Minneapolis. Samuels recently told me that the Jordan neighborhood, where he lives, has too many thugs. He told me about drug dealers threatening him in front of his own home. Samuels believes that the gangsters felt bold enough to do this for one reason. “They had become the dominant culture on my block. Sure, we had a few middle-class families—three or four—on our block, but that is not enough to change the culture. Give me just two or three more families, then we really make a difference.”

Samuels publicly exhorts the middle class, particularly the African-American middle class, to “come home” to north Minneapolis. Privately, he admits that living in north Minneapolis is harder than, say, Linden Hills or Uptown. He concedes that it is tough to encourage affluent, educated people into neighborhoods like Jordan, joking, “not everyone shares my sense of mission.” Samuels agrees that middle-class people, because they value hard work and planning for the future, can anchor a neighborhood in a way that those struggling to survive simply are unable to do.

The truth is that many middle-class people are scared away from north Minneapolis because they fear what nationally known educator Ruby Payne calls the “culture of generational poverty.” According to Dr. Payne, those in generational poverty live “in the moment,” and do not consider the future ramifications of their actions. She adds, “being proactive, setting goals, and planning ahead are not a part of generational poverty.” The middle class by contrast usually embraces those very values that those in generational poverty resist.

What if the Minneapolis City Council, in conjunction with various community groups, collaborated in creating a predominantly middle-class neighborhood in north Minneapolis? I would suggest redeveloping three or four city blocks with market-rate (i.e. no subsidized) housing, unlike Heritage Park, the new development rising where public housing projects once stood. I personally think Heritage Park developers will have a tough time selling market-rate housing alongside significant subsidized housing. Why? Because most people want to live around people that share their world view, even if they are not willing to admit so publicly.

North Minneapolis is at a critical juncture. Middle-class folks and their values are crucial to providing the stability that creates a truly healthy community. The Minneapolis City Council needs to do everything in its power to ensure that middle class values are the rule, and not the exception, in this challenged part of town.

The most important decision most people will ever make is picking the person who owns the last face they see at night and the first face they see in the morning. My mother used to warn my sisters and me to avoid being “unevenly yoked” as we shopped for spouses. For me in particular, that meant “no white women.” She drilled into me that I had a duty to stay “within the race” so that decent black women like my sisters would have someone to marry. (I broke the rule.) My mother did not even worry about my sisters being in a white man’s romantic sights. Oh yes, she told us that white boys loved having sex with black women, and pointed to the many hues of black folk today as proof.

Ironically, she also said that if that day ever came when white men were willing to marry black women, she would view “brothers playing in the snow” a little bit differently. Well, Mama, the day has come, forcing a confrontation between racial loyalty and personal fulfillment.

According to the 2000 census, 20 percent more black women attend college than black men. A quarter of all black working women are in professional-managerial jobs, versus less than a fifth of black working men. A staggering three out of every ten black men are caught up in some part of the criminal justice system. Black men drop out of high school and abuse drugs at much higher rates than black women. And finally, black men date and marry interracially at higher rates than black women.

Now, these statistics are hardly a news flash. There are many reasons for these numbers. However, they present black women with what many see as a difficult choice. According to a recent Newsweek cover story, many black women have decided they are going to “hang with the brothers,” even if it means dating or even marrying men who are far less accomplished.

Unfortunately, many of these unions are doomed from the start. Sociologist Donna Franklin reports that highly educated black women have a higher divorce rate than other women. Franklin believes the fact that these women make more money and have better educational pedigrees than their husbands is a crucial destabilizing factor.

Instead of settling for a less accomplished partner, or railing against white women for “taking all the good ones,” more black women have decided that playing in the snow ain’t half bad. Between 1980 and 1998, the number of white men marrying black women increased 260 percent. Granted, these marriages still represent a small portion of all marriages, yet the trend is unmistakable.

More importantly, white men are beginning to actively pursue black women. When Adrian Brody went to claim his Best Actor Oscar last week, he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and gave her the mother of all smooches. The next day, one film critic remarked that Brody got to act out every man’s fantasy by lip-locking with Berry. Berry has become a desirable actress whose blackness enhances her appeal. I for one am glad to see white boys (and yellow and brown ones) drool over her.

No one should limit his or her romantic options out of some misplaced sense of racial loyalty. In the Newsweek piece, one black woman was quoted as saying, “We need to think about getting a man when he gets out of prison…you’re not going to find one out here because most of them are either in jail, gay, or taken.” Now, I do not believe that being incarcerated should automatically eliminate a man from the marriage pool. However, skin color alone does not nullify that portion of one’s resume, nor should it. Character really does count. And if a sister happens to find a white boy with character, commitment, ambition, drive, and connections, she should go for it.

Talk show host Star Jones agrees. “We have to look at all our options, and that means people of all colors.” In other words, black women should do what most women (and men, for that matter) have always done when it comes to matters of the heart—get the best person you can. The race will survive just fine.

In Porgy and Bess, caddish Sportin’ Life lures Bess from virtuous Porgy by crooning “the things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, well, it ain’t necessarily so.” Sportin’ Life could just as easily have been talking about the assumption that most men make—that their children are really their children. Many times, well, it just ain’t necessarily so.

According to the American Association of Blood Banks, 30 percent of men taking paternity tests in 2000 were not the biological fathers of their children. And we are not just talking about Joe Six-pack single men, either. Minneapolis family attorney Nancy Berg reports that she has married clients from Edina who get the rude surprise of a tomcat from the cheating side of town. Berg says, “Married men can and do find themselves paying for kids that are not their biological offspring.”

Consider the story of Texas engineer Morgan Wise. His wife Wanda gave birth to four children during the marriage, one of which had cystic fibrosis. After the divorce, Wise took a blood test to find out which cystic fibrosis gene he carried and, to his surprise, found that he did not carry the gene at all. Since both parents must be carriers for a child to inherit the gene, Wise could not possibly be the father of that child. Later tests confirmed that only one of Wanda’s four children were his. (The Texas courts not only rejected his request to reduce his child support payments; Wise was later forbidden to have contact with any of the children because he violated a court order by telling them the truth about their parentage.)

Patrick McCarthy, a New Jersey man who discovered after his divorce that his 14-year-old daughter was fathered by another man, founded New Jersey Citizens Against Paternity Fraud. His organization convinced New Jersey Assemblyman Neil Cohen to sponsor legislation allowing men to use DNA tests to disprove paternity and end financial support.

In both cases, where was the biological father? Laughing all the way to the bank. Not surprisingly, many women’s groups and child advocates are fighting the New Jersey effort every step of the way. A National Center for Youth Law staff lawyer in Oakland, California says, “Families are much more than biology.”

Until now, Minnesota judges believed that the “child’s best interests” trumped biology nearly every time. St. Paul’s Lionel Suggs and lawyer John Westrick, however, recently convinced the Minnesota Court of Appeals that it ain’t necessarily so. Suggs’ girlfriend had duped him into believing that he had fathered her child. After the child was born, Suggs’ found out through a DNA test that, as Michael Jackson sang in “Billie Jean,” that the kid was not his son. Ramsey County judge Joanne Smith said the “best interests of the child” required keeping Suggs on the child support hook. The appellate court begged to differ, making it clear that biology, not the child’s best interest, would be (in the words of Suggs’ attorney) the “trump card.” At least as far as that goes, for Lionel Suggs.

According to family law guru Berg, Turner v. Suggs has taken a “man’s issue” and used it to unleash a Pandora’s box of clashing policy issues. “Ever since Genesis, men have wondered, Is the kid really mine? And ever since Genesis, all women have secretly hoped and prayed that the baby looks at least a little like the father because they know how men think. Families that would have rolled along reasonably happy and content are being torn up by information that, in an earlier time, would not have seen the light of day.”

Does that mean that biological fathers should evade child support just because another man is available? Berg is torn. “I do not think we should start down a road that could compromise family relationships from the very beginning.”

Why not make paternity testing a routine part of the birthing process, just like we routinely test for sickle cell and myriad other things? For most couples, there will not be any surprises. And for those who find out that it ain’t necessarily so, why not get that information out in the open and make sure the real papa helps to pay the bills?

Just like a three-year-old defiantly staring down a plate of overcooked Brussels sprouts, I told the world I was not going to write about race stuff this month. I even promised my 16-year-old son that no matter what, I was not going to be The Rake’s resident “spook by the door,” spewing endlessly about skin color. However, that was all before president Bush ordered his Justice Department minions to prepare a brief opposing the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action plan before the United States Supreme Court. (I am a graduate of that law school—go Blue!)

In 1978, a pre-med student named Allan Bakke convinced the Supreme Court that the University of California gave his spot to a “less qualified” minority student. According to the Court, affirmative action, if it meant setting aside spots for certain kinds of people, was bad. However, taking race into account was still okay. Now “W” says it’s not okay.

The Bushies don’t understand two crucial points. First, the term “affirmative action” is a misnomer that does not convey the duplicity of our legal system in perpetuating racial discrimination. Second, Bush does not seem to understand that making sure Americans of all hues get into our nation’s universities adds value because it enhances the education of all students. That’s a goal to be achieved in itself.

Lyndon Johnson was one of the first to use the word “affirmative” when, as he signed the 1965 Civil Right Act, he challenged America to actively reverse the legacy of government-sanctioned discrimination. I think LBJ would have done us all a favor if, at the time he signed the bill, he had said something like the following: “My fellow Americans. We are taking certain corrective measures because our society screwed over black people in a very big way. This ‘corrective action’ we are taking should be considered a ‘settlement in lieu of a lawsuit.’ We all know America stole hundreds of billions of dollars in free labor from our fellow African Americans. We raped their women and lynched their men. If they were to get together and sue us over slavery and its aftermath, it would beggar us.

“In fact, if there was ever a case for reparations, this brutal treatment would be exhibit A. However, there is not enough money in the world to compensate them, so we are going to make sure that our Negro citizens have places in our nation’s colleges, universities, and professional schools. We are going to do it to make up for the hell we put them through and because it enhances the education and training of all Americans to make sure that black people sit at the educational table, too. We are not giving them anything other than the opportunities that slavery and Jim Crow robbed them of. And, unlike Reconstruction—which was done half-heartedly and was undermined by unrepentant Southern whites—we as a nation are going to do this thing right. It will take some time—generations.”

Words like this from the beginning of what we now call affirmative action would have made it clear that America was finally taking responsibility for what American society had created. With the University of Michigan litigation, “W” has a golden opportunity to do the right thing by reminding Americans that we still have much to do. Bush could use the Michigan case as a teachable moment by emphasizing that higher education will best fulfill its mission by having racially diverse classrooms where students teach each other how to thrive in a multiracial society. Instead, the Bushies exploit “affirmative action” and “race-neutrality” (the current phrase of choice) to conjure up images of black people getting something they do not deserve, while at the same time eviscerating constitutional safeguards against discrimination.

Finally, as the University of Michigan fully understands, there is no better way to correct the ravages of past discrimination than to ensure that our nation’s universities contain black and brown Americans. Our presence at the country’s top schools adds value to the education of all students. As long as Michigan can demonstrate that race alone does not give one a spot in its law school and that, once there, all students must meet the same standards, then “W’s” cries of reverse discrimination are exposed as the shrill, race-baiting taunts they are.

Ella Fitzgerald used to sing a tune that said, “I’m putting all my eggs in one basket…I’m betting everything I’ve got on you.” This may be great advice for the love game, but it’s a lousy way to play politics. If you put everything in one political basket, as African Americans in this state have largely done since Ted Mondale was knee-high to a voting booth, then what happens when the guys holding the other basket wins? We get goose eggs. And, should one of us happen to put our eggs in “the wrong” basket, then we as a group still come up with goose eggs—because the true brothers will ostracize the one who is perceived as being wayward.

Which brings me to Peter Bell. University of Minnesota regent. Veteran, Jesse Ventura’s transition team. Current member, Governor-elect Tim Pawlenty’s transition team. Republican. And last, but not least, African American. Now, one would think that our so-called community leaders would be happy to have a conduit to Minnesota’s power elite. Wrong. Four years ago, when then Governor-elect Ventura tapped Bell for his brain trust, many African Americans panned Ventura for not appointing a “real” black person.

When Bell ran for Hennepin County Commission a short time later, most African-American leaders enthusiastically campaigned against him.
During that election, Bell was asked to present his views at an Urban Coalition-sponsored candidates’ meeting. According to its website, the Urban Coalition is a grassroots community organization that works for social justice. I saw everything but justice at that meeting. I witnessed the verbal equivalent of a lashing. Prominent African-American ministers, community activists, and just plain folks vied to see who could inflict the most abuse on Bell. It was a sickening spectacle. Bell told the group something I will never forget. “My racial identity is too important to me to cede control of it to anyone—white people or self-appointed black leaders.”
After the meeting, one well-known community leader said in my presence, “Peter Bell is bad news. The white man will always keep us down as long as he has Tommin’ Negroes like that to do his dirty work for him.” Heads nodded in agreement. No one rose to defend Bell’s right to be a conservative, including me. I did not want to risk being labeled as another “black conservative,” which in that group would have meant “sell-out.” I now regret that moment of cowardly silence.

I knew then that Peter Bell could be conservative, support Republican candidates, and be African American. Just as importantly, I have come to appreciate how crucial people like Peter Bell are to the viability of the African-American community.

Like it or not, the Republicans won the mid-term elections, both nationally and here in Minnesota, big time. And Minnesota is drowning in red ink, big time. The GOP won office, and it comes attached to a major financial crisis. Republicans, like most successful politicians, tend to believe in the political adage that you dance with the one that brung ya. In other words, since Tim Pawlenty got elected governor with scant African-American support, guess whose political agenda will not be at the top of the Governor-elect’s to-do list?

Now, back to Peter Bell. Given the current political landscape, Bell should be on the speed dial of every African-American community group. Instead, Bell gets ignored. According to Bell, sometimes groups will quietly call him and take advantage of his contacts. Once they get what they need, they disavow any ties to him.

Here is my proposal: The Urban League should sponsor a political summit, bringing together black Republicans like Peter Bell and St. Paul’s City Council member Jerry Blakey with people like Spike Moss and mainstream African-American DFLers. The summit’s agenda would be figuring out how to best exploit the collective talent, contacts, and resources across the African-American political spectrum. Racial loyalty tests would get checked at the door. The objective would be developing a game plan for surviving the next years of budget cuts, which will almost certainly inflict disproportionate pain on black folks.

We are living in some tough economic times. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Like it or not, African Americans in this town have got to face the cold truth that we cannot afford to dis anyone—black Republicans or blue-eyed Scandinavians, who, like Peter Bell, are able and willing to help our community.

If you mix blue paint with yellow paint, you get green paint. If a Finn and an Indonesian “get together,” as my teenage boys would say, a child produced by that union would be Finnish-Indonesian. However, in our race-warped culture, when a black person and a white person produce a baby, something different happens. The baby is black. The “white” side ceases to exist in a meaningful way for most Americans. Now, in any other context, such a result would be dismissed as illogical and absurd. But in America, most of us still passively accept the racist “one-drop” notion.

A quick recap: Ever since Africans were first dragged by Europeans to this continent, they and their descendants have been kicked to the bottom of the caste system. Maintaining separation required making consensual sex between the two groups the ultimate taboo. And, if sex occurred (as it often did, if one can call the rape of millions of African women sex), the resulting offspring had to be black. Any other result flew in the face of the Declaration of Independence, with its soaring eloquence about a certain kind of equality. Slavery could not exist in a land where “all men were created equal” with the “right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” unless the slaves were tainted, not quite human beings. If blacks were tainted, then their “blood” would be as well, forever corrupting anything it touched.

And so, in this world, black plus white equals black, no matter what. Most Americans, regardless of color, bought into this racist line of thinking. And, until very recently, I did too. I have two fine sons from my first marriage to a woman of European descent. Even before they were born, I told her my boys would be African American. For me, calling them “bi-racial” was a bourgeois cop-out used only by folks in serious racial denial. I knew that most of the world would view them as black, and I did too.

I am now in my second marriage, this time to a woman of Swedish-Irish descent. We are expecting our first child, a son. His impending arrival has made me rethink my ideas on racial identity. My wife wanted assurances from me that our son would not have to choose racial sides. I said he would not, thinking deep down that he would be African American, just like his brothers and his dad, whether she liked it or not. I said to myself, the world will see this child as black, I have to get him ready for reality. More important, he is black, legally speaking. Finally, I said to myself, black people are the only people that will accept him as he truly is.

Historically, there was some truth in the first two arguments. The world—at least our world—will view this young boy as solely a black person, for all the reasons discussed above. Beyond that, American law does presume black parent plus white parent equals black child. And, yes, black people were—and often still are—more likely to embrace a person of black and white parentage than white people. However, that acceptance often comes at the cost of denying the white side of that person. This so-called “acceptance” has done untold psychological damage to many bi-racial children. No one should be forced to deny part of his or her cultural heritage as the price of social acceptance.

The last population census forced people to rethink what constitutes a black person. It was threatening to many people, including many African Americans. There is no question that the “one drop means you’re black” thinking has increased African American political clout. Census numbers are used for everything from political redistricting to government aid to schools. Therefore, who’s who and who’s what has far-reaching implications. The fact that the concept is based on intellectual hokum means little when money and power are at stake.

What does this all mean for my wife, my sons, and me? Not much, really. Our little family will not be defined by antiquated, racist notions of “blackness” or “whiteness” because that’s the way it has always been done, or because it increases black political clout. Instead, we will raise this boy to be proud of who he is, which is part African, part Native American, part Irish, part Swedish, completely human, and all American.

Clinton Collins Jr. is a Minneapolis lawyer and ABC Radio commentator. His email address is ccollins@collins lawfirm.com.

According to African-American comedienne Moms Mabley, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Sounds like Moms could have been talking about conditions leading up to this past August melee in north Minneapolis. Once again, primarily white cops, who mostly live outside Minneapolis, confronted primarily black people who live mostly on Minneapolis’ economic and social fringe, in a stand-off that culminated in gunshots and mayhem.

In the early 1990s, Minnesota legislators gave Minneapolis the right to require its police officers to live in Minneapolis. North Minneapolis legislator Richard Jefferson led the charge, noting that at the time, three out of four of the city’s cops called somewhere other than Minneapolis home. The Minneapolis Police Federation went ballistic, vowing to get the residency rule repealed. Eventually, the cops got their way.

Since more Minneapolis police than ever live outside the city, one should not be surprised if many Minneapolitans view the police as an occupying force—modern-day mercenaries who live one place and take money to fight battles somewhere else. If Minneapolis again required its police to live in the city, many would probably end up in the city’s last bastion of affordable housing, the North Side (given Minneapolis’ pricey real estate and the average income of rank-and-file cops). I don’t care what the police federation may say. Having the police patrol neighborhoods where they live will make a difference. Even Minneapolis police chief Robert Olson agrees that having Minneapolis cops live in the community that pays them would be “good policy.” Imagine how differently the August fracas might have played out, had police lived on that block. If cops lived in the neighborhood, they would not need Spike Moss to predict the pending collision of the fan and the stinky stuff. They could feel the pulse of the neighborhood in a way that a carpetbagging cop can not.

Having more cops live in north Minneapolis is only a piece of preventing future blowups. We also need to make it easier for people to get low-level crimes expunged from their records. A criminal history is an automatic disqualifier for most decent jobs and housing.

Too many people of color, particularly young African-American males, are carrying around convictions for minor crimes that keep them mired in dead-end futures. This point was driven home to me recently by the plight of a former client who struggled to get a decent job and an apartment because of a disorderly conduct conviction. After having many doors slammed in her face, she finally got a job at a local convenience store owned by a well-known petroleum company. In her application, she admitted to the conviction. She worked hard and made it into the management training program. A few months later, someone in the company’s human resources department “discovered” they had hired a “criminal.” Despite her blemish-free job performance, they canned her. So much for a fresh start.

The Minnesota legislature should create a system that records low-level crimes (such as disorderly conduct and small property crimes) much as we do credit histories. Many of us have had credit missteps in the past. No matter how bad the pile of doo-doo we may have stepped in, even bankruptcy gets erased after so many years. Our capitalist culture understands that the system will work much better if more people do not worry that past credit mistakes will forever bar them from getting car loans and house mortgages. Minnesotans need to have the same pragmatic approach, allowing people to wipe their criminal slate clean. Now, I am not proposing that convicted murderers, rapists, and major drug dealers get this fresh-start deal—only “entry level” crimes. And I would require those seeking expungement to do things such as get a high school diploma, stay clean and sober, and avoid any further criminal adventures.

Keeping the peace on the North Side will require Minneapolis to do business differently. We need cops whose heads, hearts, and paychecks come home to the community they serve. And we need to give people living on the edge a fighting chance to turn their lives around by making it easier to clean up their petty criminal records. Without the stability and hope these actions provide, Minneapolis will continue to prove Moms right.

Clinton Collins Jr. is a Minneapolis lawyer and ABC Radio commentator. His email address is ccollins@collins lawfirm.com.

In life, where you stand very often depends on where you sit. And when it comes to the police, I have usually taken the stand that they have to be monitored very closely, especially when it come to relationships with black and brown people. I have a lot of personal and collective history that bred this well-founded distrust. During Mississippi’s hot summers of the early 60s, white cops brutalized my parents and many other civil rights workers. I saw Rodney King getting the stuffing beat out of him on videotape. I have been stopped in my car just for being black. In fact, I have sued police on behalf of people claiming racially motivated abuse. That was all before I changed where I sit. Nine months ago, I remarried and moved from Richfield to North Minneapolis. Now that I live less than six blocks from the Jordan neighborhood, Minneapolis’ gangbanger central, I can no longer afford the luxury of automatically distrusting the police.

I live in what is euphemistically called a neighborhood in “recovery.” Malcolm X once remarked that if you wanted to find the “so-called Negro” in any large American city, you just had to find the neighborhood with a school named after Abe Lincoln and with homes abandoned by Jews. This is certainly true of my stretch of the North Side, where prosperous Jewish families built handsome homes 80 to 100 years ago. Then in the 60s and 70s, just as Malcolm predicted, the soul brothers moved in (and to be fair, did a little rioting on Plymouth Avenue) and the kosher brothers moved out. In the 80s home values plummeted to fire-sale prices across most of the once glorious North Side. In the last 10 years, rising home prices in nicer parts of town and decreasing crime in the area has given these homes a well-deserved second wind. And the Minneapolis police deserve much of the credit for the turnaround.

The key to their success? The “Computer Optimized Deployment Focused on Results” program, also known as CODEFOR. According to Minneapolis police Lt. Troy Schmitz, the program uses computer data to figure out “where the action is,” thereby allowing the police to concentrate their efforts where “bad things are happening.” Now, as I suggested before, given my strong civil-libertarian/free-the-Jackson-Five bent and with images of Birmingham and Rodney King dancing in my head, I believed CODEFOR could easily give rogue cops cover for jacking up anyone, particularly African American males, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I must admit that these very legitimate worries take on a different view when one sits, eats, and sleeps within a 20-minute walk of the city’s greatest concentration of gangbangers. According to recent statistics, the Jordan neighborhood is seeing increasing turf wars between the Vice Lords, the Gangsta Disciples, and other gangs. Minneapolis police chief Robert Olson, who recently bested Mayor R.T. Rybak in a turf battle of his own, decided the best defense is a good offense and, using CODEFOR, is turning up the heat in Jordan and adjacent neighborhoods like mine.

According to Capt. Stacy Altonen, commander of special investigations, the police really do know who most of the bad guys are. Lt. Schmitz confirms that Minneapolis police keep lists and pictures of known “gangstas” and that the police watch them more closely. The civil rights lawyer side of me is a tad bit nervous about that. The “I-live-just-six-blocks-away” side is very comfortable with this, thank you very much.

This year, Minneapolis has had 19 homicides as of July 19. All but one were either gang-or drug-related. Seventeen of the 19 murder victims were African American males ages 18-39. Half of them lived in Jordan. The true underlying causes are the usual suspects—unemployment, dysfunctional families, lousy educations, and institutional racism. I do not want to let anyone off the hook who has contributed to or can help alleviate these systemic incubators for gang violence. However, cop bashing does not change the cold hard fact that nearly all Minneapolis’ murders this year stem from African American gang members killing each other, or worse yet, other African Americans unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. So, MPD please, please use CODEFOR with my blessing if it helps keep this mayhem far away from my family and me.

Clinton Collins, Jr. is a Minneapolis attorney and commentator.

Years ago, my father told me a little rhyme he learned growing up in Mississippi. “If you are white, you’re alright. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re black, get back.” This little ditty seems to capture what happens when Minnesota publishers of white mainstream publications put black people on the cover of their magazines. They simply do not sell as well.

In April 2002, The Rake put a Somali woman on the cover to highlight a top story about strained relations between blacks and Somalis. According to The Rake editor Hans Eisenbeis, the issue had nearly twice as many returns as the previous issue which had Bob Dylan on the cover. “That issue was one of our strongest issues editorially. The writing was great. But people just did not pick it up. Tom [Bartel, The Rake’s publisher] warned me that putting a black person on the cover could be a problem.”

Bartel admits that when he owned City Pages, he found that putting dark faces on the cover torpedoed the pickup rates. “We tried it enough times to know that we were taking a risk.” According to Rebecca Sterner, a Minnesota-based publishing consultant, “magazine covers with black faces just don’t sell as well. This is not just a Minneapolis problem. It is a national problem.”

Illustrating her point, Sterner spoke about a major national magazine that featured Cosby Show kid Raven-Symone on its cover. The photograph was “gorgeous.” Yet the issue bombed. “The magazine was very frustrated. They thought the issue would fly off the racks.”

Sterner believes there are two explanations—one harsh and the other a bit more politically palatable. “One could simply say these things happen because we are a racist society. The more charitable view is that people are more comfortable buying a magazine when they can identify with the cover subject.”

Brian Anderson, editor of Mpls-St.Paul magazine, insists that “it is the topic, not the person” that moves the magazine. However, he was not willing to categorically state that his staff did not talk about race when designing covers, conceding that the color of cover subjects is a “factor” in how well a particular magazine sells.

One thing is certain. Local publishers are very skittish discussing race and magazine covers. Publisher Bartel says “it’s a dirty little secret” in the publishing business. Yet, no one other than Bartel was willing to say so on the record. “Publishers do not want to appear to be racist. And they do not want to appear to accuse their readers of being racist either.”

I matched the covers of Mpls-St.Paul magazine and Minnesota Monthly with the actual newsstand sales numbers as verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulation for the past two and a half years to see if sales dropped when black people were on the cover. Most of the time they did, sometimes dramatically. For example, Mpls-St.Paul ran its annual “Top Docs” issue in January 2000, selling 19,165 newsstand issues. The next month’s cover featured African American Tonya Moten Brown, U president Mark Yudof’s right-hand person. Sales dropped 60 percent. According to Anderson, this drop was to be expected because the “Top Docs” issue is always such a big seller for them. Yet the next year, the issue following “Top Docs” actually did better than “Top Docs.” Hmmmm.

Minnesota Monthly’s statistics tell the same story. In January 2001, the magazine put Paul Magers and his dog on the cover and sold 5,879 newsstand copies. When black Viking Robert Smith graced the next cover, newsstand sales nosedived nearly 40 percent.

MSP editor Anderson still maintains that topics and notoriety are the deciding factors on who makes the cover cut. “If I have the opportunity to put Randy Moss or Kevin Garnett on the cover and it made sense, I would do it.” Unfortunately, Anderson misses the point. I certainly do not doubt that he will put a black person on the cover of his magazine again. But the numbers do not lie. The explanations and the rationalizations are endless as to why they do not sell as well. However, when it comes to selling magazines—as with nearly everything else in our society—race matters. Pretending otherwise does not make it so.

Clinton Collins, Jr. is a Minneapolis attorney and commentator.

Like Moses coming down from Sinai with the Ten Commandments hot from the hand of the Almighty, Minnesota Law & Politics publisher Bill White will soon give us another Minnesota “Super Lawyer” list. The chosen will be revered among lawyers (or at least that is what they will tell their clients to justify higher fees). And advertising dollars will rain upon Law & Politics like manna from heaven. The annual list, which White cooked up in 1991 as a cheesy send-up of the fashion magazines’ supermodel lists has become the cash cow that keeps the magazine afloat the rest of the year.

The problem with the list, as publisher White readily concedes, is that it’s skewed toward bigger firms and whiter faces, firms that practice big-ticket law. Lawyers of color, government lawyers, legal aid types, and those who practice in greater Minnesota are woefully underrepresented.

Now, in fairness to Bill and editor Steve Kaplan, both of whom I genuinely like, they take the list very seriously try to produce something with integrity. According to White, many are called but few are chosen. First, the magazine sends out 18,000 questionnaires to Minnesota lawyers. (Though a number of the minority lawyers I spoke with have never received one. I have not received one in years. White told me that mine went to a building I moved from in June 1999. Curiously, my bi-monthly issues of the magazine have faithfully followed my every office move since then.)

After White gets the questionnaires back, he and his staff begin to prune the list. White has assembled a “blue ribbon panel” of lawyers to help cull the wheat from the chaff. So who is on the “blue ribbon panel?” The top vote getters from the previous year’s list, who have little incentive to make the list more inclusive. Now, after the council of elders has given its holy stamp of approval, the list goes back to White and the gang, who tabulate the results.

White, who claims that compiling the list is an act of “public service,” does not then release the list. Instead, he contacts the people on the list and their firms to let them know they have received the blessing of their peers and by the way, do you want to buy an ad in our magazine, effectively tooting your own horn at the moment you receive your laurels?

Bill White chuckles. “Okay, I admit it. We got a great deal doing here. Our first objective with this issue is to make money.” However, he adds, “We have consistently produced a credible list. If we did not, lawyers would not scramble to get on it.” (For the record, I have never been named to the “Top Lawyer” list; neither have I scrambled to get on. Naturally, I am heartbroken at this egregious oversight —hence, this column!)

At least part of what he said is true. Some lawyers do scheme, campaign, and occasionally even beg to get on the list. White says he gets dozens of unsolicited resumes and glossy pictures every year.

Publisher White pooh-poohs such politics. “We call that logrolling. You know, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. We know who votes for who. If someone for your firm votes for you, his or her vote does not count as much. If we see ‘block voting,’ we get suspicious.”

In other words, White tacitly concedes that some lawyers are more equal than others. “Our system is not perfect,” he admits. “We certainly could do a better job of including lawyers of color, government lawyers, lawyers from greater Minnesota. To a great extent, how ‘public’ a lawyer is has a lot to do with making the list. We know that estate planning lawyers are less likely to be included than personal injury ones.”

So, is the list a bankable, reliable list of the best and brightest on Minnesota’s legal landscape? Or just a reliable bank for the magazine? The answer depends on whom you talk to. For lawyers trying to make the list, inclusion is a powerful marketing tool. What do they care if the selection methodology is less than reliable and skewed toward the lighter shades, certain practice areas, and larger firms, as long as they make the cut? For the magazine, it’s the profit engine that economically powers the bi-monthly’s other five issues.

Does any of this really matter for legal consumers? Not as long as they take the list for what it really is—an ego boosting (for the lawyers), practice building (for their firms) and tremendously lucrative (for the magazine) piece of entertainment. In other words, caveat emptor.

Clinton Collins, Jr. is a Minneapolis lawyer and ABC Radio talk show host. You can reach him at ccollins@collins lawfirm.com.