mcfarland welcome to conversation with al mcfarlane and you know it's all about the neighborhood this is a conversation about how we build our community our neighborhood house by house family by family we're focusing on business creation business development economic development and culture welcome to conversations with al mcfarlane today's program focuses on an issue that been in the news the question of conflict between newly arrived africans african americans and the legacy african american community you often laurie stories that suggest that there is distrust there is fear that there is antagonism between black kids meaning african american kids and somali kids for example we want to explore that question and say to ourselves to our community that we believe that there is more cooperation and agreement than there is disagreement and that we want to be intentional and active in promoting the value of high quality living and of improving all of our communities by our association of vest reverend jerry mcafee to co host today to join me in exploring this question he's leading some exciting initiatives this summer bringing our communities together reverend mcafee is the pastor of new salem missionary baptist church in north minneapolis and he is the president of the minnesota state baptist convention river mcafee good morning and thank you for being here good morning thank having me so let's talk about this when you get information in the community about conflict between say black people and somalis how's a calm and how do you react you know one of the earliest things was the issue that happened at the high community one of my concerns when i saw that a lot of the different african brothers and sisters was coming from across the continent here that there was never any dialogue between the two groups most african americans i would picture of africa and africans and my era was perhaps tarzan where we did not see and they did not promote any positive images of africans and then we also know that the history city of this country is to make sure that when africans come into this country that they get a bad word on african americans and so consequently you can see that what took place and heritage park that it was brewing that something was going to eventually break out because if you get two groups of people that don't have a lot of a level of understanding or conversations about each other and you do some of the things that i believe that the system intentionally did that down and rebuilt it it was supposed to be in many of those african american families coming back to heritage park however we know that today and years ago that did not happen and what they didn't do that was a large contingent of somali brothers and sisters there now if you take some of the groups of people that were displaced and they don't understand fully that it was in the somalis who created that they needed the service they got the service that was bureaucrats who did that and so you can create issues that no the thing that to me that you understand that as far as i'm concerned it solve high school kids will act a nut with each other just because i'm african american and you're somali if we into it it don't culture and class war and that's nonsense what we're trying to do is a on this particular day we pray that we can break it off by may twenty fifth is what i want to call family reunion african brothers and sisters are much older than us whether we know it or not and i history for some of us started in america they're back at the continent how do we get together meet and greet each of fishley welcome each other to come into these circles and then not be afraid to share our cultures even our religions i'm not going to try to convert anyone to christianity but i can be enough of a christian to respect my muslim brothers and sisters and issue a welcome mat out to them so long been the and get to know each other because one thing was certain and this is what i've shared with  you can say what you want to but in america if you got this color skin and i got oh ok where you come from you black understand that and so there are lessons that we can help teach them about what they're going to be facing and some of them might not really comprehend in totality what racism and white supremacy really look like well we've got ph d s and that never graduated from a college with it we've lived it so i think through creating these dialogues that al was played years ago in helping us do we continue to grow those things and expand that and now we look at how we can organize ourselves politically and otherwise for the goods others that i've worked with i want to thank the referendum we had the opportunity to be outreach to we had the opportunity to receive a hand from the african american leadership to help us not to reinvent the wheel but to help us navigate the many challenges in this country it's not easy to just show up here blessing to have that extension of hand not to go through the same thing i had the opportunity to work with this leader is quite some time and to learn from each other we were challenges that the african american community went through so my community would appreciate what they what they are enjoying and also to help our african american community to learn about our african  we have seen the role that the african american community place in those movies were not positive so those of us who had the opportunity to watch movies of those of those times in those cities did not get good protection of the african american community saw there's a lot of education and also on the other side of the atlantic our fathers watch the national geographic which i used to do and i don't see  i see safari lioness which is good because i've never seen a li obviously not but you know you have written tension yes obviously obvious and loud but you know if two neighbors don't know each other i live in the high rise of c the riverside so if you don't know your neighbor you could have all kind of conflicts because you could also form your own perception of who that neighbor is because you don't know that person so you can just make up your mind and create a person out of that person so that's what's what's what's happening with this kids of course i smell it leaders including mr moss spike most said not only somali communities tools somali young kids need to learn about the african american history but the african american young people also do not know that history so we have we've got a lot of work to go doctor about where you're an educator and you are working with the products of public schools but you also have generations of experience here as a citizen and resident of this country you've observed this dialogue over a generation or two and when you hear this conversation what comes to mind what can you tell us about the ebb and flow of what's perceived to be conflict or what ought to be perceived as an opportunity for engagement historically most of us africa's have been settled in african american communities or in communities of color if you will as a consequence of that that conflict is bound to happen or the challenges that face is bound to happen but the truth of the matter is that at the end of the day most of us found safe haven was in the african american community in my own experience and i think you know we've known each other for quite some time and i have i have found constant positive and very encouraging person i relationships was in the african american community some of my mentors professor mark wood on this i have known for over thirty years and i think when the african community recognizes that had it not for the blood sweat and tears of the african americans we wouldn't be here and i think the truth is we all would to the community to begin to really think and learn about our neighbors and i think is you know rightfully said which is very very important is that neighbors would have some challenges i mean the irish face the same thing the jews face the same thing the sou challenges are temporary the challenges are manufactured because most of us you know if there is such thing called a simulation a lot of africans actually get to assimilate into the african american community again if there is such a thing less simulation even though the dominant culture would like to believe that the assimilation can take different phase and a different pattern but the truth is we started to enjoy the music the culture the food and perhaps even share the psychological makeup of that community in many ways than one because we inherently bring that reality to this to the society so the kids felt yes but to couch it as a  think is a huge stretch because the fact of the matter is those challenges are bound to happen because of misconceptions misunderstanding and also you know when you settle in the same neighborhood  of resources suggests that you get you're bound to have some some fights some challenges and the new immigrants are opening up stores they opening up new businesses you know people see that and if they're not employing one of us you know that raises a question we need to learn as immigrants to broadly think about our own success in those communities depends on how well we embrace our brothers and sisters was in the communities in which we live and in this case i think for the most part african american so i do see i mean history tells us studies after studies have told us that it is not it is a matter of time for us new immigrants to begin to understand who really are our neighbors and what sort of challenges that we need to face together as opposed to separately and so so i have a feeling that these these i mean i think reverend mark if he and others who are who are bringing us together is just a natural and logical continuation of what we need to be to start doing because i think the relationships are bound to happen and should happen and beginning actually happening and in my own life you know i have lived here long enough to know that most of us we don't have in it have quest is a team i mean we know who would be out of key and family out of relationships jackie you have experience in organizing people for neighborhood and community development and you know what are your thoughts about the question of how we embrace newly arrived americans in this case i'll does the african american community both embrace and engage new blood new talent new energy in a way that it strengthens who we are what we are strengthens our capabilities and our possibilities and bill's the kind of america that we know is going to be in the future what do you think about that well i think the first step comes with what's happening here today i mean i congratulate you and i and i'm i thank you for inviting me today because fear mistrust all of those things happened when people don't know each other all of those things happen when people aren't in community and aren't aren't talking to each other so the first step is talking to each other the first step is engaging and that doesn't happen accidentally that happens with intentionality and i think oftentimes in life we don't do things intentionally and i fully respect and appreciate the fact that this in it is an intentional outreach so we can we can really communicate and i think that the work of that river mcafee is doing in bringing families together again and intentional outreach i mean all of us who are parents know full well that our kids take their cues from us and if we aren't talking or if we are speaking ill of each other at home or if we are perpetrating mythologies and bad information is it any suspect is there any reason to believe our kids are going to do anything differently it's up to us to lead as adults and our kids and our young people will follow our leadership and so for the for the church forever mcafee to be bringing people together in an intentional way and saying let's know each other let's be neighbors with each other let's be community with each other our young people will pick up on that those are the lessons they learn from us so it's about leadership it's about intentionality and it's about providing those opportunities for us to know each other our lives are all richer when we reach out and get truly in gauged with each other not just on the superficial way where i'm going to go shopping or store once in a while but where we really know each other that's how our lives become richer that's how our world becomes richer our city becomes richer that's how our communities are built you know i think that i have this great appreciation for this business drive that i see in a somali community and it reminds me of the community that i grew up in and grew out of black people entrepreneurial and so somalis are in my view the latest reflection of this character in us and they have that character front and center of the somali community is all about from my point of use is kind of an exaggeration but it's a positive one i hope is about business finding ways that we can create services for each other and for the community for the market in general and i think that  one of the things i predict i envision is that that entrepreneurial spirit will actually support and motivate challenge and invite and builders of that that that would be extremely awesome you know the for those of people who don't understand segregation and what we used to do  own before integration you see that and and i brothers and sisters from the continent if we are able to harness and we will the power of that dollar collectively somalians librarians and i jerry and african americans where we are doing business with each other we're helping each other it changes and shifts the whole ti the opportunities out of this world because our people need to see because you know they saw black folks they can't work together talking about african americans and as a contractor and this is interesting our company we contract you know what some of the work that we do is and is in white homes whereas i even got some members of my own congregation who will hire a white contractor now you will trust me with your spiritual soul but not with your house and your house is temporal but is just that psyche this that and so when we look out and we see the camps when i'm going to work out downtown i see these ethiopian ladies down their work in doing that because you know well the way i came up you do what you need to do to survive that's positive and right i pick strawberries grapes i pick plums i pick apples i pick peaches the whole nine to survive and we can see that in our hispanic brothers and sisters now as we began to learn those lessons again and now we're communicating with each other boy i grew up in go so they even go we would new to maine and so some of the people that was good as they saudis real dinner looked really good to him and they put some and put it on their plate and when they got they said what is this go they brought it to me well i was thankful to god today brought it to me because they didn't know but just through the dynamic of seeing this the opportunities the only thing that will limit this is if we limit this ourselves  to five different cities minneapolis fair bo rochester duluth st cloud and we met with community members we contracted the services of marty just table and so for those of you not familiar with that model they use a world cafe model where they get people together around food to discuss issues to kind of break down barriers and then the see how can we move a community forward and we found a lot of very interesting things and one of the things we did find out that there was some tension between the african and african american communities and it comes out of a lot of what the panelists have already said you know a lot of suspicion and mistrust and not communicating and learning about each other and so we decided as a council learning about the various groups like for instance in southern minnesota there's a lot of south sudanese that are down there and also somalians a lot of people working in the meat packing industry that's why a lot of african immigrants came here to the state of minnesota because of that and also the good social services that are here and  we're lucky to be in a state like minnesota where they were really on the cutting edge after i believe it was one nine hundred forty eight with the displaced persons act they were really on the forefront about welcoming immigrants to the state however integrating them into the state has been another story and so from the council black minnesotans perspective we're a state council that serves not only african american community but the african community as well and so we've increased the numbers of african members on our board we have three now that are on our board and our legislation we are only mandated to have to one west when east then that's one of the things that i talk to the governor's office about increasing that and have true diversity because we want to hear and have our  community so that we can know how do we advocate effectively for those for these communities and out of the listening tour that came our legislative agenda that we had earlier this year and also we're doing a cultural relations summit which is coming up the last week in june june twenty eighth twenty ninth and thirtieth we're looking at bringing the african and african american communities together to talk to dialogue we're doing d n a testing for the african american community members genealogists i've done the d n a tracing not go back to africa goes back to europe for a number of different reasons but indirectly it goes back to the man dinka tribe so in knowing that and knowing my history then i can go back and look at those places in africa and learn about the culture that we were denied coming over in the middle passage and one of the things that we're going to be discussing at the conference in the very beginning is looking at the roots see we like to talk about disparities and the different issues that are going on a community and i think now that that's a waste of time but that's not what needs to be done what needs to be done is to talk about the causes and the causes in the african american community is the middle passage when we lost our language we lost our heritage we lost our names we lost who we are and we had to adopt someone else's culture someone else's religion for instance you know a lot of times you hear especially from muslims like friends of the nation of islam christianity is a white man's religion well that's not true because early christianity was mainly founded in northern africa out of alexandria and carthage and you had cyprian and seen augustan and you have the coptic orthodox church and you have the ethiopian orthodox church and a lot of christians just in general don't know about that but even black americans african americans don't know that history that's there also jewish faith you know people just see the people you see in israel and i'm here to tell you a lot of people who you know are part of the original jews were black people that look like us  know they're in ethiopia for instance and so we're going to be bringing a lot of that out and then of course islam islam has a huge impact on africa as well and so we're going to be covering that because we need to get back to learning about who we are that's going to be the key to our success to key to getting rid of these disparities is learning who we are changing that mindset for instance as robin mcafee said people would trust them with trust him with their spiritual house but there are things that are temporal they're they're ok and you know  that shows the mindset that we have when we get into issues of care and color you know that all comes out of the middle passage and things that were taken from us and in terms of africa scramble for africa on the colonialism you know that had a huge impact on africans and so we need to get to those root issues talk about those and then work through those so that then we can truly come together as a community and that's what the council seeking to do that's great it's a river mecca if you wouldn't be great to have all of  churches participate in the strategies all the people that wanted to could do the d n a sampling so that we would maybe have you got to be doing about fifty to start with right but wouldn't be great to have three thousand or five thousand through the the the baptist convention or through some collaboration where we try to map the genealogy of ten thousand black folks in minnesota and find out what our connections are to the caribbean to south america to africa to europe or wherever we may be connected to what would that feel like i think it would be awesome i think one of the z things that we can do because we have all our churches on line as well that we can get the information out to and it's so the information is so critical for identity if you look at what happens in our community every gang every set every nation is about identity and if you don't if you allow others to define your reality then you live up under the definition and as he so eloquently pointed out most folks who don't have a clue about christianity they think it's in america and it actually did and just that type of information i didn't change my last night my last name is mcafee you look at my skin color and you know i'm not irish but the history of my family my grandfather and my great grandfather were not slaves and so they process differently they taught us differently i was taught from this how jesus was a black man identity being developed and connected with my family and if we start giving that to our kids because you're something without having stuff and that's where we're lost dead and so if you we if we start instilling in them that history where they come from that the blood that through your veins was not the weakest of the slaves that died in the middle passage is from the strongest and so if we would just look at what has been designed to mentally destroy us and if the council now is saying listen we want to come and try to give you   proper information about yourself then maybe you'll stop calling each other b s n n z and all this other kind of stuff and you'll really know who you are and we get that piece done i think this again just expands the capacity of everything which you want to do so with your questions your audience sort of if you have a question please come to the microphone and say your name and make your statement or raise a question and i encourage everyone here who's interested in making a comment please make it are working with b he can take in jackie cherry on who's working with louis king to make sure that we get some of this construction these big construction boom coming to minneapolis come in to the north a lot coming on the north  side with the hood and all the things but to be build that would be a part of it and i would like to know how do we make sure as leaders that we are really a part of it this time because we've seen it before and how do we you know jackie is sight for he who is the president of the confederation of somalis in minnesota met with saeed and some elders and they told me just dory about the movement of somali refugees from somalia into i think kenya and when they first started coming in large numbers the kenyan economy was organized in a way that kenyans were at the bottom of the totem pole and that there were other people that were not kenyans who controls the entire retail and commercial and banking sector and there was a system that consistently and effectively kept kenyans out of control and out of power in their own country read community here and so what the somalis did was say you know what this guy is selling you know the neighborhood a b c product we're going to go buy it from the same place he's buying it from and set up shop next door to him and sell it for less not only will we do that we're going to hire people from the kenya community to learn the business and to grow the business and in time they were able to displace the entire set of foreign businesses that were there down pressing keeping out excluding the kenyan from entrepreneurial activity so i said that's a model that's an idea but we always are concerned about some of the neighborhood stores that come in and take money out and treat our people like we are a problem and that's something we've always talked about so we need to figure out a model of cooperation where there's this energy for entrepreneurship energy for business but also a chance to create partnerships where we work together what do you think  we so we were sold to the idea and we have organize ourselves boarded into buses went into city council testified that two hundred fifty million dollar to lend skills because we don't have skills so i was one of the people who really sit on the city council chair that day it felt nice  say this should happen and i was and troubling for people it did happen two hundred fifty million dollars from the union a f l cio new york from google from the city of minneapolis all this free money came in jobs then we have to fight for that and then we said well the construction jobs then they said who does have our experience or skills then we started to fight for construction that's happening right in our neighborhood it's amazing when you have a dialogue working with your brothers and sisters and neighbors when you talk to people you gain you don't lose so now we are gaining something we have never game now we are able to work and get skills right here in our neighborhood now we are it we will be able to work on cedar avenue when there is a construction going back to the business question i told this king when they asked me what in north minneapolis that itself is it's a daily school when you meet when you're shopping and we talk a lot we have a very informal culture africanus was so we exchange we not only by you know me empowering each other financially in learning from each other culture so that's my dream and i'm very much hopeful that's going to happen the things that we were able to do and matter of fact jackie was instrumental in helping with the district headquarters with morons and construction and getting it and contrary to what was printed in certain papers martin done a great job now let me be clear we first got involved with mortenson with the target stadium the numbers were not right no were they good when louis tried to get some meetings with right we're sorry i'm blown away because in the history of trying to work fight a nobody ever come out and it made it we were right from the beginning he said give us the chance and we'll get this thing right martin soon put pressure on every so all of those numbers at the target stadium even went up and so we have to utilize the same type of of mechanism to make sure that african americans participate on this stadium also on that bridge and when i say after african people people of color period that we participate what the governor has done and kevin lindsay with those goals at thirty two percent was room off the chain and we have to watchdog it and whatever is not right i believe without enough people in places who are sensitive to those things that we make sure we get it right jackie that that you know as the professor said earlier lots of misunderstandings arise when there's perceived to be a scarcity of resources and people get to fighting over a little bit of nothing is what it amounts to and life is difficult enough and there are enough forces out there that are not moving in folks favor that we have a responsibility to be together as a group to ensure we all get part of that because there's enough stuff going on to keep people out that we all need to be working together and i think reverend mcafee brings up a very good point about the construction opportunities that are that are there now i mean it's not just the stadium it's the new southwest light rail that's going to happen that is that is really going to happen it's the target center renovation it's all the buildings that are going up downtown i mean there have to we have to find ways to make those opportunities real for people and it will come when as a community folks are unified and speaking with one voice and working together because enough folks just want to kind of pit people against each other and fight about a little bit of this little bit of that there's a if  for pretty much for all my life there's been a lot of talk about the construction trades and first of all i just want to thank the panel for spending taking time out of their day and coming together on this topic but there's been a lot of talk about construction trades i'm a member of the north central regional carpenters union in st paul and one of the things i wanted to disparities is that there is not a lot of information about how to become a member of the union and how to become involved so we can actually be a part of these programs we hear a lot about someone academy and what not and different but could you could you please talk about some of the avenues that and some of the things that are being done to create opportunities so the knowledge can get to the masses because we have a disparity in north or in north minneapolis and we don't need to talk about it but how can we get the information to people a little bit more effectively let me respond to that you know so i own a newspaper inside news and i view inside as the voice of our community in north side south side and say poll one of the things that incite needs to do what it needs you to make it happen is to make a demand of business and government and institutional  players who have these opportunities they need to make those opportunities unknown to our people and media that we choose that we say represent us that means inside news it means a spoken record or it means k m o j k f a i but our community has to go to the mayor's office to the governor's office to the county commission and say all of the contracts for bid are the bid notices we want to see him every week and inside news hear about them on k m o j and so we have to say and demand that if we don't do it don't demand and it won't happen we all then remain unaware not knowing and to the degree that we can make the demand and get more information it's paid information in our media that gives the media more opportunity to do more feature stories and more collaboration on quality well actually is going to be coming out later this week or invitations going to start going out for the event which is at the end of june we have a pretty quick turnaround time and we're going to do it we're testing through african ancestry which are the pioneers of d n a testing for  african americans and when the invite goes out is going to be for the first fifty that that register and how do you reconcile and so when you get the invite they'll be a link in there that you'll go you'll input your information and then we will send that to african ancestry so to do we give you the information yes if you're interested yes get yes exactly yes yes and yes as well and oh yes one of the things that i think that could even further along that if you did it congregation to lay because here's what i know about after american congregations if you catch them on sunday uniquely name on sunday but many times you tell them to come back another day they might may not do that might be a way of expanding it and if there's a cost to it some of those churches might be willing to help do some things because i think it's just that critical you know and there's no cost as well as you as well as the you're going to do with there is a cost for the service you got a promotional deal with them to do these fifty but never mcafee it might be a good idea for the churches to get around this and understand that there is a business piece under this and figure out how we do this business so that when we get the work done daniel last words what are you thoughts with you reflect on our community and where we need to go to build community what we need to do you know one of the things i start to imagine as we talk about the various challenges that we had but also the opportunities that present itself is that i just start imagining if the african american community and the african community come together and build a coalition to go beyond the asking to making a decision city council governors you know i mean the entire political system should be open for these communities so i really honestly think that the coalition is such a powerful way that we can be able to st some kind of strength been the voice that we can start making decision about our destiny so we're down to final comments jackie journals thank you for being here so how do you see reaching out and connecting immigrant and traditional communities as part of strengthening our community i think it is exciting and i think it's our responsibility not just as as elected leaders or potential elected leaders but as citizens we have a responsibility we can be an even more vibrant community and more vibrant city and that will happen when we reach out and know each other and engage with each other in real and authentic ways as i said earlier not just about you know i need you to do this for me i'm going to stop by your restaurant today and then tell tweet out everybody how how cool it was that i was here it's about having relationships it's about being neighbors and being in community with each other and that's our responsibility and it's  started about six years ago working with the same leaders with flowers on spike mosque and many others i would also want to congratulate that for a long time i've than thirty seconds well i think african and african american communities they can learn a lot from each other the african american community from the african community can learn about their history back in africa that it doesn't sour history doesn't start back in sixteen twenty one but it goes further back for thousands of years that we can also learn more entrepreneurial skills we love how the immigrants when they come here how they set up businesses we in the african american unique community need to start setting up our own banks and i love how we were discussing things like that our own businesses and then we maybe we need to develop partnerships like you know maybe our churches and mosques and synagogues can have relationships together you know our businesses and african business and african american business can form a partnership together and then we can do something for our schools in terms of education we can create like the jews have the you shiva's in the muslims have i believe it's madrassas we can create our own where we can do our own cultural institutional learning and education amongst our council whenever we're doing something we never just like to do it in isolation we like to work with people and i believe that what we're trying to do on the twenty fifth of is not too soon we'd love to have the council to be a part of that  so we can expand it's not about one person it's about pulling us all together for the collective cause of building up our people because i believe when we lift ourselves up but our brothers and sisters will be lifted up just as well too because you all know  if they came from us we didn't come from them and so with that we can make this community and this state much better you so much i thank my entire panel thank you in the audience and thank you who are listening and watching i m