Well, well, well: People should be terminated and/or demoted for an act they put on 10 years ago ("Call for firings over blackface photos," front page, March 4). "There's no time limit on racism," said Dr. Nneka Sederstrom, chief equity officer for Hennepin Healthcare. Hennepin County Commissioner Irene Fernando: "Regardless of when the photos were taken, the conduct of these employees is abhorrent." And, "The employees in the photos should be fired, and supervisors who were aware of this misconduct should be disciplined and removed from leadership positions." I would love to look into the background of the folks making these demands and see what they were doing or saying 10 years ago. Sainthood must be nice.
I was raised in the South way back when and by osmosis picked up some (not all) of the biases of the time. Serving in the Army and later managing in industry changed my perspectives; ask those that I lead. People do change. I do not know the people being charged with bias and racism, but it would be better to judge them by their current conduct rather than what they did 10 years ago.
Richard Cole, Crystal
•••
It was unnecessary and inflammatory to print one of the photos in question as part of the Star Tribune's coverage of the scandal at Hennepin Healthcare caused by the photos' existence. Would you also print a racial or sexist slur or a swastika if it were part of the story? Disseminating such an offensive image does not increase opportunities for dialogue but merely continues to spread hate.
Sergio Francis Mellejor Zenisek, Minneapolis
HEALTH CARE
The system, not the patient, is lacking
In 2016 I was pregnant with my first child. As the health policy and outcomes expert that I am, I started looking up C-section rates at all the local hospitals to find the right care for me. C-section and breastfeeding data has been easy to find for years. Access to data did not mean I would have a perfect birth plan (I had a C-section), but it allowed me to make an informed decision on where to seek care.
My identity is complex, but to most people I am culturally ambiguous or a white person. Therefore, I felt like I would be seen and heard by my providers regardless of the doctor's race. Many of my friends did not have the same experience. One close friend ended up in the hospital weeks before the birth of her second child and doctors never diagnosed the reason for her pain. She still wonders how race played into the care she received and ultimately found a Black doctor for the birth of her third kid. She found her doctor from a moms' Facebook group. Another friend traveled 30 miles to a Black-owned obstetrician group in a suburb because she was not sure she could find a Black doctor in the city. A white-looking Native friend left a local birth center because the midwife "sympathized" to my friend that it is hard to be a white woman in America. Then my friend's partner, who happens to be Native-Hispanic, entered the room. Clearly that birth center was not for them.
In Minnesota, birth outcomes by race are unconscionable. News headlines inundate readers with depressing statistics. Hospitals, providers, the state and insurers have race and ethnicity data. They owe it to their Black and Indigenous patients and patients of color to publish the data. As a patient I should have access to high-level outcomes data by hospital so I can understand where I will receive the least racist care. I also should have the ability to filter doctors by race so I can choose a doctor where I feel comfortable.
I've spent a decade working with states and providers to improve outcomes and decrease health disparities. Access to care and addressing social determinants of care is not enough — it is not the individual seeking care who is the problem; it is the system.
Kian Glenn, Minneapolis
CRIME
You are not the only victim
Last December, I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for the campus shuttle to ride over to my friend's apartment. Unfortunately, I never made it. While sitting in the bus stop, a man walked up to me with a gun and demanded I give him my phone. Luckily, I was able to get away physically unharmed but the experience was extremely traumatizing. The environment shouldn't have been dangerous: It was a busy street with cars driving by, lampposts illuminating the street and a camera sitting overhead, and it was in front of a university dorm building. Yet, all of those elements did not protect me against being threatened and robbed.
Unfortunately, this is an experience that may occur to many. According to Neighborhood Scout, there is a 1 in 84 chance of being a victim of violent crime in Minneapolis. After my attack, I felt voiceless and did not know who to tell because I didn't want to scare others. But when I opened up about my experience, I heard from other students about their encounters with fear, crime and living in the city. Research from the University of California-Los Angeles shows that putting feelings into words helps diminish emotional reactivity (constant fear). There needs to be more representation for victims of crime, especially in the media, because this experience is not unique to one person. By sharing my experience, I am comforted through knowing that I am not alone as a victim.
Laura Kulish, Minneapolis
•••
Poor Julia (Yuliya) Li. She was a young, talented urban professional who, according to St. Paul police, was killed at random by a 15-year-old suspect who has a history of violent criminal behavior ("Teen arrested in random fatal shooting," Feb. 24). St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell stated that her death was preventable had the criminal justice system worked properly to hold the teen accountable for his past behavior. Let me state that again: This death was preventable.
How long must the citizens of St. Paul and Minneapolis continue to be terrorized and now killed by these teenage miscreants? When is the Ramsey and Hennepin County justice system that is bent on counseling and rehabilitation going to start locking these people up? And when are the communities of these teen criminals going to take responsibility and hold themselves accountable and institute the change that is necessary?
Finally, how is it that a newspaper article that says so much in six succinct paragraphs about our current pathetic state of affairs was relegated to the end of the "Minnesota" section and tucked into the bottom right-hand corner? Apparently the topics of the James Beard nominees and the Town and Country Golf Club have more merit than the senseless, random killing of a young woman who, by all accounts of her co-workers, was a shining star.
Thomas Anderson, Bloomington
CARTOONS
Fond farewell to Dick Guindon
I'll never forget the day I met Dick Guindon ("Guindon laughed with us," March 5). He and two companions came striding into the Minnesota Daily offices where I was employed as the student-editor of the Daily's Monday edition called the Ivory Tower. I was fascinated by these guys who looked nothing like U students in their fancy overcoats and hats. Two of them towered over the third and I wondered, Who's the short guy with the bodyguards and what are they doing here? I soon found out when he announced to the room at large that he had some cartoons he wanted published — who should he see? "Well, that would be me," I found myself saying to the suddenly silent room. Minutes later in my office, Guindon pulled out a series of cartoons unlike any I'd ever seen. Even so, I didn't hesitate to say I'd publish them in the "Tower." The following week, the Minnesota Daily's Ivory Tower magazine published a Guindon cartoon on its cover, followed by several others in weeks to come. Sadly for us, Guindon stopped bringing his work to the Daily once the Star Tribune began publishing him. I lost touch after that but was never surprised when I'd hear about a new Guindon gig in a new city.
Saturday's Star Tribune with its full page of his work brought back many memories. Among them: He informed me that cartoonists don't "draw" cartoons, they "write" them. Reading the captions on Saturday's page of his work, I remembered.
Monette Johnson, Roseville
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