Dude, where’s my CHANGE?!

by
Steven Renderos

We’re living in a time of dollars and cents. The Great Recession has given us Wall Street
bailouts and so many roll-backs to funding that it would make the Wal-Mart emoticon blush.
It doesn’t matter if your business is for profit or if your passion leads you to a non-profit,
money or the lack thereof, is the only change I’ve been hearing about. Having grown up with
a Salvadoran immigrant as a mother, learning to live with limited resources has been a way of
life not a fluke once in a lifetime occurrence. Its been in these moments of crisis where I've
experienced more damage through the pen that writes legislation than as a result of an empty
wallet. It seems like a lot of the anti-immigrant laws creeped up in moments of duress.
That's why as we enter this perceived optimism of change that I fear the likelihood of history
repeating itself as economic forces will dictate, as they have in the past, that communities of
color, immigrants and Native Americans carry an unfair burden of sacrifice.

There are signs in the state of Minnesota that things are already heading in this direction.
You need only drive to the Northside of Minneapolis or Frogtown in Saint Paul to see the
consequences of sub-prime lending practices to homeowners of color. Between 2005 and
2007 there were 38,077 homes foreclosed in Minnesota, but in neighborhoods where people
of color make up between 40-50% of the population, foreclosure rates were the highest. In
the last couple years this state has lost 132,000 jobs and a disproportionate amount of the
burden has fallen on African Americans, immigrants, and low income communities. And last
year, the Governor dismantled the General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) program,
through unallotment, which provided an affordable health care option for 34,000 residents of
Minnesota. Just to give you a sense of its impact, last year people of color represented 69%
of the visits covered by GAMC.

It's amazing to think that by the year 2035, Minnesota's population will be a 1/4 people of
color and Native American. When I first arrived in Minnesota to study at Hamline University
I was the only person of color in my dorm. Now it seems that demographically we are
growing and developing at a faster rate than our policies and our budget cuts. Smart
legislation always looks towards the future to create the environment necessary for
prosperity, but if the future of this state's prosperity is dependent on the success of
communities of color, one has to wonder why communities of color are not at the core of
considerations when it comes to shaping policy and making tough budget decisions.

At the expense of sounding like a cynic, not all is bad in Minnesota. The 2009 Organizing
Apprenticeship Project's Legislative Report Card on Race Equity show some signs of
improvement. The report measures the state legislature's progress in passing policy that
positively or negatively impacts communities of color. They grade individual legislators as
well as the legislature and governor as a whole. In 2008's report card, both the Governor and
Legislature failed. There were also 17 legislators that received the grade of an "A".

This past year the Governor and Legislature improved their grade to a "B" and over 31
lawmakers received an "A" for leading and supporting racial equity legislation. What does
this all mean? Racially equitable policy is in fact possible but budget cuts threaten any
potential progress and mitigate the success of communities of color. The future of this state
is increasingly dependent on the success of people of color and immigrants which are re-
populating the state. There are small towns all across Minnesota that have survived the flight
of their younger generations to urban centers because of this migration.

So as we're caught up in this optimism of change let's acknowledge the progress that we have
made, but let's also acknowledge that without the money to back it up communities of color,
immigrants, Native Americans, low-income Minnesotans will always be on the margins of
this change. Check out OAP's report card for a more detailed look at what bills are
promoting equity and which legislators are leading on race.

Steven Renderos is a board member of the Organizing Apprenticeship Project, the Media
Justice Organizer for the Main Street Project, and a blogger with www.RenIsTheDJ.com.