Based on the context provided in the transcript and the names mentioned during introductions, here is the townhall transcript with speaker names assigned. **Note on Speaker Identification:** * **Michael Kreider:** Identifies himself at [5:32] as a Rosemount resident working at Dakota County Technical College (DCTC). * **Grantham Greene:** Identifies himself at [1:43] as a 10th grader at Rosemount High School. * **Erin Maye Quade:** Identifies herself at [2:33] as a former State Representative and gender justice advocate. * **Jacob DelPino II:** Identifies himself at [4:00] as a Rosemount High School coach and non-profit board member. * **Bill Drosty:** Although the current list provided includes Jeff Weisensel as Mayor, the speaker at [1:27:24] explicitly identifies himself as Bill Drosty (the former long-time Mayor of Rosemount). *** **[0:08] Michael Kreider:** [Music] thank you for joining us at our mlk event black voices in rosemont um at a time when racism race discrimination segregation and oppression uh surges through the veins of americans and americans veins of america the speech i have a dream was delivered to the nation from by a person whose aim was to change the way black people were viewed in society and upturn the social hierarchy some that everyone may be may may live equally the speech enlightened those who were under the false sense of security and violence condoned by the white people **[0:55] Michael Kreider:** upon black upon blacks during this time of turmoil the speech served as a beacon of hope that allows some blacks to endure injustice force upon them martin luther king jr the man with a dream delivered the past passion speech to those of the two thousands of eyes yearning for solas and uh each word he he spoke played some part in in this speech abundant with metaphors uh illusions tone the speech was essential and lightening the the sparks in hearts of every american so that we may have may have courage to rise up against wrongdoers in doing so unite us together as one nation **[1:43] Michael Kreider:** one quote from uh dr king was our lives begin our let our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things uh that matter and so with that i'd like to start with uh introducing our panel if you could please give a quick introduction give your name where you grew up where you live in in the area now and what you do for work and anything else you like you seem to think is important go ahead thank you **[2:28] Grantham Greene:** hi everyone i'm grantham greene i'm a 10th grader at rosemont high school um still live with my family you know only 15 still a minor still a baby and some eyes but um i don't really do much other than this i work with my superintendent of the district in an equity advisory council to discuss equity issues in our district and help work on different plans to put in place to make our district and our schools a lot more inclusive and diverse and really that's just my main goal our main goal and really our prime go-getter right now **[3:14] Erin Maye Quade:** that's great um good evening everybody my name is erin may quade i use she her pronouns i was born and raised in apple valley so not rosemount don't kick me out and i still live there today with my wife and our two rescue dogs jeffers and soda i went to greenleaf and falcon and eastview i went to st thomas for college and i have done my work in community organizing i was the state representative that represented the other half of the district that we are in right now 57a in the state legislature from 2017 to 2019. i was a candidate for lieutenant governor i worked for our now attorney general then congressman keith ellison none of this is in order i worked for barack obama right out of uh college getting him elected to president and today i work for gender justice which is a nonprofit organization and legal nonprofit that seeks to advance gender equity through the law so i do a lot of work with race and gender and law and making sure that we all have the society that our founders really put down into the constitution that we haven't quite achieved yet **[4:00] Jacob DelPino II:** good evening everyone my name is jacob delpino the second i lived in i grew up in rosemont since i was eight years old with the shannon park elementary school to rosemont middle to rosemont high school my parents still currently live in the same house i grew up in myself i live in lakeville with my two wonderful children my daughter and my son currently i'm in the works of working with rosemont high school and a type of equity program which we're extremely excited about and i know it's going to do great things for the community and the children within it i'm also a football coach for rosemont high school go irish we are number one in state no matter what the polls say with that i'm also on a non-profit board that is uh very dear to our heart that have been part for three years **[4:45] Jacob DelPino II:** it's called reaching up basing based out of easter church off a cliff and pilot knob and where we just simply give homework help every day to students that need a little bit more assistance so it's been very tough in that area due to uh the current social settings with covid so if you're looking for a great foundation reaching up is a great one if you're looking to volunteer also a great one to help some kids out with some homework help and we also provide meals for them so yes thank you for having us and watching i'll answer that question myself i do apologize and introduce myself **[5:32] Michael Kreider:** my name is michael kreider i also do live in rosemont i am not originally from rosemont i am from a small little town in the middle of minnesota called sauk center which is where i grew up but my family does live here in rosemont i work for the college here in town so i work for toyota clinic technical college where i am also involved in our equity inclusion um on campus and uh as you know i work with a lot of the students that as this young general eventually come to be a college student at some point and actually i do have a lot involved with high school students as they get ready on that path for college so moving on um so as a child do you recall when you when you first became aware of your race uh was it negative neutral or a positive moment **[6:17] Grantham Greene:** i would say when i first became aware of my race it wasn't necessarily the color of my skin rather than more of the context of my body in the say of my hair i remember back in third second grade i was like mom dad why isn't my hair straight why isn't it like mom's why doesn't my curls and hair not lay like everyone else's and i was so frustrated i wanted i was like mom straighten my hair i want my hair to lay like this i'm like why is it not laying like that like you know like everyone else is like my predominantly white school that i go to and at the time it it wasn't negative or positive it was more of just you know something i noticed something i didn't like about myself but as a kid you know you don't like a lot of things about yourself you don't really pay attention to that **[7:05] Grantham Greene:** but growing up i now see it as a very positive experience because the thing that i do hold or something i hold dear to myself is you know my hair it's who i am it's my curls my afra i wake up every day i protect them i oil them and it's something that is true to me and who i am as a black man in today's society and to see that i wanted to constantly change my hair just goes to show how oppressive and how much we always want to fit in when really we want to focus on how much we want to stand out **[7:50] Erin Maye Quade:** well we could have a whole separate conversation about biracial children and their black hair and i really actually would love to have that conversation um you know i my mom always tells the story so i'm black biracial my my dad is black my mom is white and she always tells the story that was really young i would say dad is black mom is white and i'm tan um but i remember the first time that i understood that blackness was um dangerous we were i was like seven um eight maybe air jordans had just come out so this is gonna date my father more than it is going to date me um and he had bought you know they were like you could pump up the sneaker with like the basketball nothing and my dad would play basketball at the community center in apple valley and he bought them at the burnsville mall and uh one of the sneakers didn't pump and so one of the guys that he played basketball with is like oh you can go back and just like exchange them for either one shoe or both shoes and so my dad brought me and my brother back to the burnsville mall to exchange **[8:36] Erin Maye Quade:** them at like this foot locker and he was like yeah man like one of these shoes doesn't work can i just like exchange the whole pair just like get one that fits and this guy was like no did you steal those like what did you do with the shoes and he said aaron take your brother outside and i was like okay so we're standing and i can hear the guy yelling the n-word at my dad and he sounded so angry and i was waiting for my dad to like pull the thing that he does when we're acting up like yell back and he was like all right i'm gonna leave and i was like what is happening like i've seen angry dad how come he's not angry and it was the first time i realized like oh my gosh i'd asked my dad what does the n-word mean and he had to like tell me what it meant and then also like what it would mean for me and so **[9:22] Erin Maye Quade:** you know it's i was deeply young and i think the thing that i always want to say is that so often um black children definitely know what it means to be black but white children aren't told that they aren't told what racism is and how to stop doing it and i think so often we want to protect children who don't experience racism from how harmful racism is it's not protecting them all it is is reinforcing white supremacy and making sure it perpetuates on but so for me it was not super positive it was really scary thank you **[10:07] Jacob DelPino II:** uh for myself i was roughly about four or five almost remembered like it was yesterday the color car was green my brother and i were walking somewhere in eagan where we lived on the sidewalk and a vehicle of two men two white gentlemen drove by and threw a bottle at us while screaming the n word out uh being four and five i thought that anywhere was like a football team so i was like yeah let's go until i went home and realized after i told my parents what the n word was personally i don't think i really underst understood the depth of that word and like the hatred behind it and unfortunately until i moved um to rosemont our home here and so third grade in shannon park i was called it consistently **[10:54] Jacob DelPino II:** on the playground but there's a happy ending to the story and i'm sure he'll he might be watching it but uh the young man at the toe he was a boy at the time but he's an amazing man right now he became one of my very best friends he was the one that continuously said the word to me obviously it wasn't a learned action from himself he learned it from somewhere but throughout the years he became close with my father i became close with his father and it just shows that even young children as education when you get more in touch with the unknown and become more known and more appreciation how that can bond and i'm very appreciative of the moment for the learning lesson **[11:40] Jacob DelPino II:** but as a young child as you mentioned it it cuts deep because you feel alone you feel alone uh especially in some of the demographics that you're dealing with in the suburbs for young black children you know **[12:26] Michael Kreider:** and my story is a little bit different as i said before i grew up in the middle of minnesota and during a different time um you know and i always tell the story i mean don't disrespect my parents took me in from where my life got went a different way i'm i'm adopted so my parents are what i grew up in a white society um you know and during that you know during that time you know this takes you back into the 70s 80s um you know there wasn't as much diversity there wasn't as much diversity in um in smaller towns as there you may see today and so um i honestly think a lot of my discovery my family my parents taught me how to be a man i don't think they taught me how to be a black man i think that was something i had to figure out on my own and so i would probably say you know somewhere around my 17 18 19 years of age is where i learned a lot that i remember this trip i was in german class and we went to festival donations you know and again remember like i said i come from a small town so **[13:11] Michael Kreider:** yeah we're making a trip to the cities you know that was uh you know that we those were big those were big events for us and so you know i'm walking around with my friends um you know i i had a girlfriend at the time um and uh you know a lot of people would go by and like why why are you with her what why wouldn't i be i don't i don't know these are my friends i've grown with them all my life i was adopted at the age of four so it was really one the main stable home i had and what i knew and so i don't know i just i thought it was weird that that people thought that was weird that i'm walking with these people i've known all my life i mean but you know a lot of what i learned about as far as being a black man i learned shortly after you know graduating high school when i graduated high school i **[13:57] Michael Kreider:** left for the marine corps and so you know i saw many different people many different walks of life and learned a lot more about um the world you know and not that i didn't learn those things as a kid but you know and when you get outside your shell kind of when you get outside that bubble and kind of see life you know and i saw i saw a lot of different things that was very unfamiliar to me and so you know i think i think that was a lot of my learning as were i really was trying to figure out who am i really you know um you know i i think that was probably probably the beginning of the change i always believed that i mean i still believe that this day that i'm still taking to school sometimes sometimes so you know i **[14:43] Michael Kreider:** believe that you're always learning we're always evolving and you know we it's important that we all stay and remain open to that so but um i think that's when a lot of things started to kind of become more prevalent to me um so please share a story or two if you wish that represents and experience your your experience living in rosemont area as a person of color **[15:30] Erin Maye Quade:** you know i i struggled with this question because it's really hard to describe an experience that describes what it's like to just be who you are right it's like use a you know story to describe what it's like to have curly hair like i don't really know what that story is and being black is just part of who i am so instead of maybe answering the question i just want to say juneteenth of 2020 was the first time that i experienced like the full blackness of myself in the city of apple valley and it was the most amazing incredible experience and jake was there grantham i don't know if you were there it was incredible and i just remember thinking like it could always be like this like we could have black joy black excellence and black love this publicly everywhere and so i want that to be my example of what it's like to be a person of **[16:15] Erin Maye Quade:** color in this area it hasn't been but i want it to be kind of in contradiction to you **Grantham Greene:** um i think what it was like being black in rosemount is an experience but being black and rosemount was for me i'm gonna say a privilege because as much as i feel like us as black people don't talk about it there is a privilege that some of us have and it mine was going to this predominantly white school but then still hope being able to hold on to my blackness and hold on to my power and intelligence and i'll call myself the token **[17:01] Grantham Greene:** black man as i sit here as a 15 year old with you amazing adults it's what my experience was is i was still you know seen as blacks and as african-american but i was seen as intelligent which you which people didn't you know use those weren't synonyms you know people wouldn't often describe black and intelligent as together i remember i was having a discussion with an older black man in one of my equity advisory councils and he goes grantham wow you're really well spoken but he's like what that's saying is wow grantham you're really white and that is a very good **[17:47] Grantham Greene:** example of we so often or society so often tries to say black people can't be this can't be that but the second they're intelligent and like that and you know so much more than what they paint them out to be then they're not black anymore and growing up in rosemount a predominantly white school my blackness was tested every day i walked through the hall grantham are you even black enough isn't your mom white yeah she's white that makes me any luck it's just a names and lists just go on and what i've learned and what i don't feel like a lot of people grasp and i'm lucky enough to you know sit there and self-dissect a lot is **[18:33] Grantham Greene:** i will never ask for anyone's respect i will demand it i am not entitled to anything less because of my race and that is something that took me a little bit to understand and to grasp but i'm so happy i am i just **Erin Maye Quade:** and i don't interrupt one of the things that's i'm so glad for like we had no community analysis of race when i was in high school which like wasn't that long ago like it was a long time ago but it wasn't that long ago ecu's not that old meaning i'm not that old but i mean it's just i mean really truly like it's incredible and amazing to me that that is an experience that youth in this community get to have because i didn't get to be black when i was in school it was like **[19:19] Erin Maye Quade:** i got to be i mean i got to be like the black friend right but it was i never got to be my full self not in school not in choir not in the musicals not in you know class um and that's really only something i've gotten to do in our community as an adult in my 30s and i'm so glad that that's something that you get to experience in school **Jacob DelPino II:** i agree and i absolutely want to mirror both of you first and foremost with the juneteenth event that was held in apple valley not only was it just amazing to see so many different colors of black being out there but so many different shades of white as **[20:06] Jacob DelPino II:** well uh and it did feel like a melting pot in a community and it felt good to just relax and have the smell of barbecue in the background music playing all right the electric slide going on and everyone participating and just enjoying it especially this year right with everything that's going on uh secondly grant nell you hit the nail on the head you spot on i so much appreciate growing up in rosemont especially at a young age and being one of the first black families uh to grow up in rosemont because what i learned really quickly **[20:52] Jacob DelPino II:** not only was it was the white people that made it hard for me to be an educated black man it was the black people that made it hard for me to be an educated black man because at that time there were a few families that came from out of town from chicago where life was a little bit tougher from the city they came from and so they had some childhood drama that they were still battling with and the mere fact that i couldn't dress well speak well and play all the sports i've played and enjoy all the different types of genres of music i enjoy without being pigeon-holed in one area i don't know if sell-out is the word **[21:37] Jacob DelPino II:** anymore that they use but they're called sell-out oreo um and so it was really hard because knowing from where my family grew up which is my mom north carolina greensboro and uh my grandfather marched with martin luther king right i can't wear a t-shirt that says all my black history right i can't i can't wear that so how do i portray that as a young man but what i'm so thankful for of rosemont was the community that my parents taught me well enough that association brings on assimilation right so i made sure that the friends i did choose were about the right thing and i also knew that any hiccup i had in my behavior or in my **[22:24] Jacob DelPino II:** decisions would probably shine a little bit brighter on myself than my friends so i made sure at a young age to learn the lesson that i'm held to a higher standard and my parents drilled it and maybe it's changing today maybe it's not but i still hold to those rules that i can't beat just as good right i can't go to the same parties and act the same way as my friends do because if something happens sometimes as a black man you get one strike versus three or four and it wasn't worth it for me to test that theory uh but i did learn that by doing the right thing and by holding myself accountable that this community embraced me they embraced my family **[23:11] Jacob DelPino II:** they loved me they loved my family and still to this day i have clients and friends and neighbors that take care of my family and they take care of me they take care of my children and it's because that even though we go through these trials and tribulations we stay true to ourself and it's staying the course and is being consistent of doing the right things and having the right morals and when you live that way and you don't let the outside pressures of what you should be or what they betray you as because they're watching too too much mtv raps you don't know that that was back to my day i know everyone that was that was the jam um **[23:57] Jacob DelPino II:** but because we're not acting like 50 cent or tupac back then and biggie uh that if you stay the course of doing the right thing and and have the spirit your community is going to take care of you and so that's the largest lesson that i learned with rosemont is that i had to learn racism really fast and then i had to learn how to deal with racism even faster because you know thunder and lightning only get so so many times before thunder lightnings and cuffs uh i learned that extremely fast and i'm blessed for it so with the trials and tribulations the **[24:42] Jacob DelPino II:** the good overflows and outweighs the bad that i've learned in this community and i like to portray it to my children as well so **Michael Kreider:** and to echo what you're saying um you know i you know my involvement in rosemont has been you know later in my life um and so um you know a lot of it i do live through my children and so you know and and you know my my biggest my biggest worry was you know reception welcome you know uh how how would they person be perceived you know uh my my children are biracial and um you know i mean i've lived places where there was times i didn't know my own my own neighbors people didn't speak to you i mean they looked at you funny uh you know um you walk the grocery **[25:30] Michael Kreider:** store people look get you know you know what are you really doing here i mean i remember an event uh going to one of my kids soccer games dropped him off at the field and um you know nobody's in the store but there's a guide stocking in the back room that makes a point that comes out of the stock room to ask if he can help me with anything what's wrong with the three people at the calendar they didn't ask me anything you know so i mean you know so you know i mean i i our move in the rosemont was you know i wasn't sure how to and you know that the best thing about it was that we were welcomed with open arms you know um when we moved here my new my neighbor came out just you know rattling off you know giving i kind of got the run down the neighborhood in about five minutes um but you know um you know i mean all **[26:15] Michael Kreider:** the way through i mean for like the first year people just stopped by hey are you doing shaking hands you know i mean um and and that was comforting to me you know because you know uh you know in in in my neighborhood i'm not going to sugarcoat it i think there is two black families in my camp community maybe maybe three um you know so you know i mean um you know that that made me feel good that made me feel like you know like okay you know i you know i i guess the best way to say like all right this is this is gonna work out fine i mean i'm gonna like it here you know and um you know so um you know i like i said i grew up in a small town and one thing that i do love about it is i do love the small town feel and you know i mean you know i i grew up **[27:03] Michael Kreider:** knowing you know this this person that for i mean just you knew the people around everybody who can to everybody i mean it's always kind of funny the story i commonly tell was you know um i'd be you know driving through town you know i don't go home very often but you know you know take my dad's truck and go run whatever erin my mom needed and people be waving like you know it's just like you know they recognize his truck you know they really can't tell it's that you know uh you know who's who but it's just it was just you know everybody which comes with everybody and that's what i wanted that's why i wanted that's what i wanted for myself i just wanted to be i wanted to feel welcomed you know and and and i i i got that when i when i moved and i moved into rosemont i didn't have that everywhere else you know it was you know people kept their distance **[27:48] Michael Kreider:** people looked at or you walk into a store it's almost like you almost look like why are you here you know so um but in your own words uh what is a microaggression and how would how do you how does it differ uh if it if it does indeed differ uh from a blanket racism go ahead and take it here **[28:35] Erin Maye Quade:** so so microaggressions well i don't believe in micro versus macro aggressions that's that's the first thing um we had a vocab list that i think we shared out so i'm just going to read what it says about microaggressions the verbal non-verbal and environmental slights snubs insults or belittlement whether intentional or unintentional which communicate hostile derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon discriminatory belief systems so we all live in white supremacy black folks do brown folks do indigenous folks do white people we all live in white supremacy that is the norm that is what we do every day interrupting that is what takes the work so doing nothing is just upholding that and microaggressions right the slights the snubs all of those just seek to remind you that we in fact live in a racial caste system a racial hierarchy in which you as a black person a person of color live below white people and so it's not micro **[29:21] Erin Maye Quade:** that's very macro it reminds you of the system of oppression that you live in constantly and then oftentimes microaggressions are used in order to um justify reinforcing that system of oppression so i'll give you a really good example when i was in fourth grade i i have always been a curious person i ask a lot of questions i just love to learn things and know things and i have been that way my whole life and when i was in fourth grade my fourth grade teacher pulled me out of sac school-aged childcare so i went to daycare at school she pulled me out of sac to show me what my report card was ahead of parent-teacher conferences and she told me that i didn't deserve the ease on my report card because i was disrespectful **[30:07] Erin Maye Quade:** and i was like but why you're always asking me questions you always want to know you're always talking in class and i was like oh my goodness i mean i was what in fourth grade whatever age you are in fourth grade i felt like crap i knew she didn't like me and i knew why but i didn't have the word for it i didn't have the analysis for it but i knew why she didn't like me and this past year before the covid times i was in new york city i was at a conference and my boss introduced me to someone that she went to college with who is from apple valley and he had that same teacher he's a person of color and we were talking about our elementary school and i was like oh my gosh i'm a fourth grade teacher and he said is it so-and-so and i was like yeah **[30:52] Erin Maye Quade:** and he had the same experience and i actually cried because fourth grade me knew why but like being an adult and having another adult affirm that the crappy way i was treated just it wasn't me was validating and it was a microaggression to tell a black child that she is disrespectful because she's mouthy because she asks questions so microaggressions are not different from macroaggressions white supremacy is harmful to all of us white people black people brown people it's harmful to all of us it is holding all of us back and i don't want us to categorize the way in which we are reminded of the system of oppression through small ways as like not big right **[31:41] Erin Maye Quade:** that's how i think about microaggressions um **Jacob DelPino II:** as always i think we're always going to second each other and third each other on this on this panel uh with the light of the word the question and the theory of it i the largest i would say the irritation of a microaggression that i have experienced um in a general sense is in a conversation of of someone being white and the phrase saying as they comment on what irritates them about certain colors of people and certain actions okay so even though they're not reflecting it to me and saying that i'm like that and then they back it **[32:28] Jacob DelPino II:** up with saying but you're one of the good ones that is not a compliment let me phrase again you're one of the good ones is not a compliment so by doing that in to any particular person for any state uh it is micro macro to the full bluntness of saying that they have true issues and only because myself as an individual and me and they have a personal relationship with me but now i know that what they look at in the store and how they view me if they didn't know it was me and i know i mentioned this when we spoke earlier um not in front of cameras but on our side **[33:15] Jacob DelPino II:** and i think it compiles very well within this having a mask on in society really really really makes it tough to disarm people so one of the micro aggressions that you you no longer can show your smile to show that you're not a threat and it is an uncomfortable feeling to know that something you've done for your whole life to show someone in the store someone on the sidewalk that you are not a threat with a smile uh is taking away from you due to the current mass situation i think i've experienced most micro macro uh racist uh feelings in society and i'm not one i'm a very **[34:03] Jacob DelPino II:** people person of hundreds of clients in the fitness world and i know body energy and feelings is so something that i have to deal with that i have to come to terms with which i am and i will but on that topic i think it's a big one that rears its ugly head that the one thing that black men and black women have had to do for generations i guess decades and centuries um to disarm to show that they're not a non-threat in society is now um sidelined by uh covet 19. so it's my end **Grantham Greene:** i think for me and the part that i really that stuck out from your speech right there was the part where **[34:49] Grantham Greene:** you know conversations with white people and the phrase or you know along the lines of you're not like other black when peop know those lines get thrown out but also um growing up queer is you're not like other gay people oh thank you like please elaborate um and it's just and for example my father and i were listening to a comedy radio frankly i hate comedy radio i'm gonna just put that out there because i think it is just a lot of offensive stuff that people just try to laugh about and this guy's opening statement was i have a lot of gay friends but it bothers me when you know gay people are like this and it's like really and i feel like there's always this constant statement of i have a lot of black friends i have you know i stand with the my black people but i don't like when **[35:48] Grantham Greene:** they do x y and z that word but right but just disregard everything in front of them doing a lot of work yeah and i just think if i felt any micro aggressions it's when people are trying to sit there and compliment me but it's the most backhanded feeling ever yes and i think that is where a lot of my microaggressions have come from in my life **Michael Kreider:** i split this up a little bit so the second part of this was on the flip side please give an example of how you how you've experienced allyship how people can be an ally in this situation **[36:35] Jacob DelPino II:** oh i'll have this one i know we had a rally and rosemont an event this summer and i said one of my good friends pastor chris she lives in rosemont and her kids have gone through the rosemont um schooling system and one of her child's still in it but for that rally to take place they spearheaded that whole movement they did all the legwork they set it up and she asked me if my family would be interested in starting it up and i said absolutely not because i think it shows more importantly if someone else does it and they set it off and they did a phenomenal job at it and that goes on through ed pleasure speaking in canon falls **[37:22] Jacob DelPino II:** it's there's so many people that have started rallies and started conversations uncomfortable conversations that have not been black uh south of the river in these cities and it's just astonishing the the effort um the pain the uncomfortableness they're willing to go through yes it's something that we go through on a daily basis but i will not shy or blink an eye to their sacrifice because they don't have to they don't have to go through that uncomfortable feeling of being an ally and history has shown without allies we want to be too far in the well we want to be as far as we are in this journey right **[38:08] Erin Maye Quade:** i think this really ties into mlk day one of the parts of the letter from birmingham jail that dr martin luther king wrote um which by the way like he wrote it in jail like in the margins of a bible it's very long and i just every time you any time you read it and i encourage everybody to go read it just remember he wrote it in jail in the margins of a bible but anyway um he talks about the greatest stumbling block for black folks is not the kkk or the people in the white hoods but it's the white moderate who prefers negative peace to the presence of justice and he wasn't talking about political moderates right like on a political spectrum he was talking about white folks who were like listen i ain't burning crosses in people's yards **[38:53] Erin Maye Quade:** shop wherever you want to shop don't date my daughter it's fine but like i'm not going to yell the unward at you people who are like i'm not doing the overtly racist things that i see but i'm supporting the stuff that keeps us separate i'd rather drain the pool in my community than let black folks swim here i'd rather defund the park service for a decade in our city then let black folks play on the playground i'd rather say you know what let's stop funding our public schools so much because black kids go there that's the folks he was talking about and so when i think of the people who are allies and the best moments of allyships are people who have divested themselves completely from the pyramid scheme of white supremacy to say this is not helping any **[39:40] Erin Maye Quade:** of us at all and so i'm going to fully invest myself into black liberation because that means we all get free it's not a zero-sum game or it's like one or the other we know that when black folks are free white folks are free too it's why it's a why when bacon's rebellion happened in the 1600s it was a coalition of black folks and poor white folks what did they do they told the poor white folks to listen you'll never be as bad off as the black folks come over with us it's why dr king was shot while he was talking and speaking to union activists because unions often bring black and white and brown folks together to get the same wages and get the same health care these are the things that people try to divide it's the pyramid scheme of white **[40:26] Erin Maye Quade:** supremacy that keep people vested so the best allies divest themselves fully from that and realize that all of our liberation is adamantly tied up in black liberation [Laughter] **Michael Kreider:** many parts of the midwest are increasingly diverse but rosemont area remains largely homogeneous a homogeneous community i apologize uh most people who live in uh live here walk into stores and restaurants where most people will look like them many are most always living in a racial comfort zone what is it like for you **[41:13] Grantham Greene:** uncomfortable uncomfortable to say the least um there's been you know multiple times where you're walking in as the only person of color and you get a couple looks and whatnot and just like for example um i was down in florida just recently visiting you know sick grandparents and whatnot but at the time i had braids in and going into largely you know white areas braids in my hair very afro-eccentric features i just felt even more out of place and even more of like a target and it was like such a bad feeling because i was like dang i look good with these braids you know i look sick i'm fly sorry to boast **[42:04] Grantham Greene:** but it was so crazy because while i was feeling as fly as ever i also felt more targeted than ever because and i'll admit it's you know an internalized racism of you know braids make you ghetto grantham wearing your do-rag out in public makes you look a certain way and there's so there's there's so much to it um where it's not just you know white people enforcing it it does go back to our own families and our own people of color enforcing um discomfort but it's just so crazy to see how comfort zones are so random i'd like to say i find comfort in **[42:49] Grantham Greene:** so many different random people but the second you go into a large general setting is when you know you notice the switch up you notice the tensions because everybody's trying to play into everybody else's comfortability so all your white friends are gonna play into their racist white friends comfortability instead of standing behind you and be like oh are you uncomfortable like let's leave you know and i feel like that's why comfort zones are very rare as black people especially in the midwest for sure **Erin Maye Quade:** i mean like white supremacy's the comfort that's the real i mean that's what we live in interrupting it's deeply uncomfortable right like um you know i i'm a code switcher that is absolutely something i excel at a lot of biracial folks excel at that **[43:36] Erin Maye Quade:** you know we'll be over here doing the cupid shuffle and then over here like doing the step touch right like it depends on who you're with and where you're at um it's a survival technique we learn you know when our parents teach us don't do this in public it's not like i don't want you to wear braids it's like i want you to survive right um and so it feels like and it's natural it's easy i do it um without noticing it's like a flip of the switch you know i get i i'm very um i get very like professorial um and i speak with very clear articulation there's no slang i'm very upright oftentimes my hair is straight um i'm wearing heels right like it's it depends on where i am but i know the **[44:23] Erin Maye Quade:** ornaments that make me appear non-threatening and i know how to code switch in a way that is like least likely to bring me danger or reinforce that system of oppression so it feels fine but it's not good that it happens for me **Jacob DelPino II:** i think the fastest thing that shoots to my head is the serenity prayer right so knowing you can change knowing what you can't change and knowing the difference between the two uh i've just turned 39 if i save i look 22 but uh when going out in public and going into stores and going into communities for me i have developed the mindset it **[45:09] Jacob DelPino II:** is what it is i'm i'm here to shine my light i'm here to be a rock star no matter what and it's i don't even think about it anymore because i can't change it i absolutely can't change it but what i can do is be an amazing advocate for black men so that's what i can do for a grantham when i was growing up through high school i made sure that i was the best i could be so the next black kid that goes into the store or goes into the high school that goes into a neighborhood and having neighbors call the police on them because it's dark at night and a black kid's walking to his house that he's lived in for 10 years through their backyard i'm gonna make sure i act the right way so that's what my brain goes to is i **[45:55] Jacob DelPino II:** mean i'm sure we've all been through it you go into a store you're looking for something you don't find it and you feel really guilty walking out that store without buying something because you're thinking oh i'm sure all eyes all cameras are on me now it may be the case it may not be the case but we've been a pro i've been approached enough to feel that way in stores where i just know something's not on about that customer service so i've just taken the light of being the best advocate i can for black men and even the black women in that general state because if i can't fix the amount of people and amount of diversity that that community has or that the community or the stores **[46:42] Jacob DelPino II:** get through traffic i'm darn sure gonna let them know that hey not all of us or any of us at that factor are a threat to you to your business or to your community um and that's where i go with that **Erin Maye Quade:** i mean i just want to like put a fine point on that too because what you're talking about is the burden and labor of being perfect so that other black people can survive i mean that's bananas right like you had to go through school being perfect so that the next black kid that went there wasn't judged by some you know crap you did yeah **Jacob DelPino II:** but i think the staff is passed right so martin luther king they marched in suits right three-piece suits **[47:29] Jacob DelPino II:** they were getting attacked by dogs and they still wrote that they were you know looters and burners and that they were tearing down they got beat like dogs they got attacked they are burned they were murdered but yet they still marched so if i can't take that mentality right if i can't take that mindset i mean why did he like i hear that it's at the very least right after all right i'll rather take the latter versus you know the former on that one right so i think i think we'll pass the staff i hate to say it but my children are going to march this march at some regard right and my children's children i'm not naive to think that that will outlive 2025 is you know let **[48:15] Jacob DelPino II:** freedom ring check right right right on the aliens no it's it is what it is so **Michael Kreider:** absolutely absolutely how did you experience the black lives move black lives matter movement living outside the cities how how was the impact uh different living in rosemount do you feel like it was ignored not recognized in this community and how did it affect you take it grandpa **[49:01] Grantham Greene:** i felt like i was watching one of those silent movies you know you've um back in the old days when you had motion picture you didn't have any audio right so it was just everybody waving their hands around but you didn't hear anything and that's what it felt like watching all of our allies and white friends in rosemount i saw them waving their hands like mad men acting all upset but they were so quiet doing it and social media plays a large part into this and there's this performative activism that i see in high schoolers that is just obnoxious and it's the most infuriating thing ever because when i go to post about something i'm loud i'm opinionated and granted that's seen as ghetto out of line but i don't care **[49:46] Grantham Greene:** but what white people don't understand is that when i'm out here spewing lines when i'm out here dicing facts and all you can give me is after the meeting behind the scenes oh that was really that was really good that was nice job no where were you out on the battlefield with me giving me that validation on the field in front of everyone because what it takes when we sit at the table full of white people is for that one other white person to sit there and start nodding their head for the rest of the nimrods to start nodding their heads you know it takes like you said allyship white people to help our movement and that's not what i felt or saw during any of this and what i would see was very minimal **[50:34] Grantham Greene:** and that sometimes uh what felt like true allyship but a lot of it just felt like a silent moving picture it was very disappointing and sad **Jacob DelPino II:** i hear that um for myself when it comes to the rosemary the community of rosemont and uh in regards to black lives matter and that whole movement personally i was floored and impressed and i know i'm coming from a different perspective grantham because we did have a rally and i'm telling you i was probably six of 900 and something students in my freshman class and i never thought in a thousand years that this community would have **[51:22] Jacob DelPino II:** um that type of vent that's so it's fire right like it's very very heated and to see as many people that came for that when it was about to storm was mind-blowing for me and over the years i've been trying to really really hone in on perspective because i understand they would never know what it is to walk in our shoes as a black man i would never know what it is to walk in a white man's shoes it's just not my their reality or mine but i saw people that are willing to learn and as i've gone oh man i used to battle grantham i used to i mean my trigger fingers turned into **[52:07] Jacob DelPino II:** twitter fingers right i was typing on facebook um years ago and just battling people and i realized nothing i say will ever ever change their opinion either they have to research it or experience it themselves firsthand and they literally have to live that situation or they have to do some research like open up go to a rally you know start watching different speakers and educators and open up a history book and see like oh this is what redlining is it's actually a real thing oh this is what happened to the factories that were in cities and they moved to suburbs and you know black people couldn't move out there that's the only real movement i've seen and the fact that people in apple valley **[52:53] Jacob DelPino II:** eagan burnsville cannon falls rosemont our hometown were willing to look hey i'm a believer in ripple effects all it takes is for one butterfly wing to start a hurricane right as they say or one one pebble to start a tighter wave that's all it needs so if 300 415 people come out and they have a child and they teach that child what they learn and that child's the new president of the united states 50 years down the line taken from what their parents learned at something that we've contributed gay that's that's all i need so i've always spoke even my career training and health and nutrition all you need to his one person and i i think that rosemont itself as a **[53:38] Jacob DelPino II:** community and my tribe that i've surrounded myself i'm blessed enough to just be surrounded by people that like to hear me talk not saying you all do but um i was i was ha i was i was joyed i had joy i was filled with seeing hope and all it takes is one person to start something major as we know so **Erin Maye Quade:** so i um deeply invested in the movement for black lives and the black lives matter movement they are the same and black liberation as a whole um it was a little bit of a like a bifurcation of what was happening in the cities and what was happening here um you know to see literally i mean people in the streets right like george floyd was murdered and we all watched it happen on a video and to see the response and you know i when i worked for our attorney general um jamar clark was murdered a hundred yards from his office philando was murdered on facebook and we all saw it and so it wasn't like this is the first time i'd ever seen it i went to philando and jamar's funerals so for me it was it was traumatic to be honest but it was also you know what jake was saying we saw some things happen here in in the suburbs is that people turn out want to do stuff we are in a pandemic **[55:09] Erin Maye Quade:** and so i think that movement is good but we should look to this this definition of anti-racism that ibrahim kennedy has put out there is a person who supports anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing anti-racist ideas and i think that's our next step and i always feel like that's the last you know this this calendar or this uh school year lakeville public schools said you can't put black lives matter stuff up on your schools because it's a political statement right but the confederate flag can still be in parking lots and some of these schools right so like black liberation is now political like this is our survival this is our freedom and and so that's kind of what it felt like this bifurcation where we're having two different conversations but one has been going on for a really **[55:55] Erin Maye Quade:** long time in the cities and we're just starting that conversation and so i want to give space and grace to that and also call out to the fact that like white supremacy and the harm that caused causes is an emergency for every black person alive right now grantham doesn't get another sophomore year jake doesn't get another 39th year i don't get another thing if you times it by two whatever whatever whatever you're here right every day that we don't solve this every day that white supremacy is the predominant and prevailing structure in this society in this world it's harming those people that you love and so some folks can come out and they can say i want to learn more or they can come out and listen they go home but we go home and we still live on **[56:41] Erin Maye Quade:** under that oppressive system and so that's a little bit what it felt like it felt like a little bit in the cities that like everybody was feeling the full rage that we should all feel all the time about how bad white supremacy is **Jacob DelPino II:** absolutely absolutely and it's the mindset too is the echo the conversation it needs to start because the baby is never going to walk without taking that very first step i agree so i just don't want to downplay that you know what i'm sure you're saying yeah it's really important because so but abs but like we live in the state with the worst racial disparities between white and black people and have for a really long time right yes we you know i i want us to be i you know this is one of those things that's like the serenity prayer what can't you change change the fact that we haven't been having this conversation **[58:13] Erin Maye Quade:** but when i ran for office in 2016 you know iran is exactly who i am and people are like you should not say black lives matter and i was like i'm probably going to say it because i'm black and my life matters and people elected me anyway because they were like hey she tells the truth about what she thinks but i mean that was the advice i was given right so it's like we should we can be further along we can have this conversation and take action we can walk and chew gum at the same time we should be further we should be and we can be we can we can take action while people still learn to join us in action great **Grantham Greene:** continuing with your your earlier statement about um the lakeville schools and we also had a issue over here at rosemount of the black what people were misinterpreting was the black lives matter movement as a political statement rather than a moral and ethical movement and it was so frustrating and annoying to to watch white people debate our lives because we've we've experienced say that again **[58:58] Grantham Greene:** it was frustrating to watch white people debate our lives because for so long white people already did you know so for people to sit back and be like i can't support the black lives matter movement it just doesn't align with my political compass it just no are you kidding me black people are being killed we are being oppressed we are being murdered on the streets that we walk in and you have the audacity to sit here and tell me that people's humanity and rights to exist don't matter **Jacob DelPino II:** history repeats itself right the black panther party and same thing they they made it to a militia or malicious um kind of of that party itself of black people trying to empower other black people in power and businesses and home life but what did they do government society is wise they made sure that they took that narrative out that were supporting each other right and they made us a threat they made that group a threat so that's the fastest way to stop a movement right i was once told well why does why doesn't the black community get a major leader right to walk them down the path to lead the show think about all the major black leaders that we've had what have either they get killed right or they're acutely you know they get strange to cuba right they're banned from the country **[1:00:31] Jacob DelPino II:** like every major black leader every major black group they have it it continuously is demeaned and and broken down as a threat right and that's the only narrative they're going to push so now it's going to be a political threat right to this to the nub this out this movement out and then as history repeats itself mostly like 80 years in the united states the economic and the the pattern of it is that 40 years from now another movement is going to pop up we got to just make sure that everyone knows that this movement what it truly stands for is those words that black lives matter and we just want to do and that's the very basis of it we said it before matter is not a big word like matter is it's like the bare minimum right it's subpar at the best **[1:01:19] Erin Maye Quade:** and i and i think it's important to understand that the movement for black lives is a continuation of the civil rights movement which was a continuation of the abolitionist movement so these are not like things that just you know happen like these are continuations of movements for of the movement for liberation and and i think so often we can get really bogged down in this understanding of um you know as if like so it's mlk day we all saw the posts like from the fbi which i'm sorry surveilled dr king and threatened him and did terrible things to him um you know we see that as if it lives outside of context and and we shouldn't place the movement for black lives outside of the context for the broader movement for black liberation which literally started about as soon as black people arrived on these shores as enslaved people it just been called different things they've been different leaders we're not a monolith we are all autonomous people with thoughts and feelings and ideas so we don't need one leader we need liberation and there have been a number of people and movements that have stepped forward to do that **[1:02:51] Grantham Greene:** and in just quick continuation of that what's so flawed and ridiculous about the trying to appoint one black leader who can represent all of us you know when do we vote right at what council and it's just so frustrating because personally i had a dilemma coming and doing this because i was like what do i know about you know because i live in lakeville i go to a rosemount school and i've been in part of this rosemont community but i live in a different city so i experienced living in lakeville as well as you know being here so i'm like who am i to talk about the experiment experiences of like living in rosemount granted i'm largely a part of the community and whatnot but there's so many and like i was saying earlier how like privileged i am to be going to like such an educated school and to be getting this education there are so many other people of color out there who are not being able to have their voices heard like mine where i'm like what makes me i start to question myself i'm like what makes me entitled to speak for everyone and that **[1:03:37] Grantham Greene:** is what is so like mind-boggling i still don't understand it but it's like i also have to remind myself my voice does matter it's just i need to make sure i'm also passing the microphone along when i'm done **Michael Kreider:** i think it's important to remember you i mean your voice makes a difference and it's kind of like what i talked about in that in that and the quote from uh dr king was you know being silent helps nobody you know right and i think that's i think that's important to be remembered is that you know um the fact that you have a voice you know doing nothing with it helps nobody you know so um a popular thing we hear from from white people today is i've been discriminated against two uh all races deal with racism racist behavior at some point uh how does that affect you and what would what would you say about in response to that aaron you could take it but i just want to say the sheer definition of racism shows how that cannot be true so i mean just the sure definition of racism shows how it cannot be true but i wasn't there you taps **[1:05:09] Grantham Greene:** the part where it's all races deal with racist behavior at some point um oh it's you're gaslighting they're gaslighting us what what white people or whomever um are doing when they say you know the all races deal with racist behaviors they're silencing our voices with other people's pain while other people's pain you know it's a whole different conversation it's a whole different movement it's a liberation granted it should all be brought to light but if your statement is only to silence our voices it's disgusting it's out of line that's not okay and that's what i just find the most frustrating and annoying i hear that um **[1:05:56] Erin Maye Quade:** so i'll say two things one um the part of this question was i've been discriminating against you so white folks it's not to say that you have not experienced hardship it just has not been because of the color of your skin and when i talk about the pyramid scheme of white supremacy part of that is telling white folks that you know you're not going to have it that bad and then finding out the opposite is deeply troubling and that is the whole point of why i say it's a pyramid scheme is because white supremacy sucks for everyone including white people and buying into the notion that it's not going to suck is why the anger exists but the other part is that racism is rooted in anti-blackness anti-blackness is the belief that black people are not fully human it's why we saw um the gynecological field was created because one man did experiments on enslaved black women without their permission without anesthesia because of the belief that black people do not feel pain the same way white people do it's why they justified still goes on today **[1:07:27] Erin Maye Quade:** and it still lives on today a study of medical students currently in medical school 50 still believed that black skin does not feel the same pain that white skin does that is the systemic racism that we're talking about right and those beliefs you know live on in other ways in health care and blah blah blah so all that to say is yes white people do experience discrimination they experience hardship they experience poverty they experience lack of access to equity and capital and money and none of it is because of the color of their skin racism and especially anti-black racism means that all black people are harmed by a system that is meant to dehumanize and devalue us when you saw officer chauvin kneel on the neck of george floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and stare blankly into a teenage girl's cell phone camera while he killed a man a black man that is the dehumanization that we are talking about when breanna taylor is shot in her own home for sleeping in her own home that is the dehumanization we are talking about when black children who are four years old are arrested for throwing tantrums in preschool that is the dehumanization we are talking about that is the root of racism is anti-blackness all racism stems out from there that is what we have to root out and white supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to people of color and therefore should be dominant over them that is the system we have to dismantle so **[1:08:50] Jacob DelPino II:** i want to shine light on the on the question um and i do understand i i can appreciate why someone says uh i've been discriminated against two in a racial format for what they think so growing up i've had multiple friends that uncles parents did not want them hanging out with a black man or black boy at that time and the majority of the stories came because oh when my uncle was in high school there was a black kid that always beat him up so therefore he doesn't like black people and that just always that always just triggered me okay i'm trying i get triggered something i get triggered for the mere fact that i've been jumped by four white boys growing up i took care of my own but i still remember that but yet i can't go out through life never talking to a white person because i've been called the n word more times than i can imagine playing sports in school um online so it just it boggles my mind how one bad incident with a person from a different color can make you not only turn yourself off to a race but make sure your nieces or your nephews or your kids feel that same about that race and so when they come from the phrase white privilege and i know there's debate about it but what i see as a privilege is that hey you did experience that i'm sorry that you experienced that situation how did it make you feel yeah it was pretty bad can you think of any other situations oh yeah there was another time when you **[1:10:30] Jacob DelPino II:** were 22 and you went to georgia and someone said something a black man said something to you any more times no that's it two what dog got it that's a privilege to me that you can only think about two racist moments in your life well where do i start my biography from like do you have five hours where i can go down the list of my racial experiences and i think that's where that stems from when people say hey i've experienced it too yes you've experienced it once or twice i bet you stubbed your toe once or twice too it bumped it it hurts but comparing that to someone that's been in a car accident when they're paralyzed you know which one's worse well i think it gets to the point too where it's like **[1:11:16] Erin Maye Quade:** you know you could have a bad experience with a white person but you have not been reinforced in your belief that now all white people are bad by all the systems and all of the um you know the predominant narrative in our country right so in minnesota we still have in our constitution slavery shall be illegal except for for punishment for a crime and that is because of the ascribed criminality to black people after slavery was ended yes right that is a system and so people are justified then in saying those things and then it's reinforced and not just you can't hang out with my kid but i don't hire you at this place or we don't have people who look like that here right you can't come here you know that's the difference it's the difference between an instance and a system right yeah **Michael Kreider:** are we taking questions from the audience now i'm gonna get to that in just a second we're gonna go to the last one and then i do have one what are you most proud of as being part of the black community and what one thing uh would you want people to know about you in regards to your blackness **[1:12:19] Jacob DelPino II:** the black community i'm unapologetically black i'm a black man i love it i would never change it for anything in this world and i love that my children have uh black skin because to me blackness holds so much more i think this country was the united states of america would not be the united states of america without black men and black women between their blood their sweat their tears their fashion the foods we eat i mean dog got it chicken wings they made a restaurant called b-dubs and if you revert back in slavery the wing was the worst part that was the garbage part of the chicken i mean we have a there's tvs and like 50 different flavors of beer at this restaurant but with that said i love the challenge and i love that i was blessed with the opportunity to help um humanity deal with what's going on it's a blessing and **[1:13:36] Jacob DelPino II:** i think being a black man and i imagine my mother would say and miss i would say being a black woman has been a badge of honor because it shows sheer strength i don't know if there's another race in them in the united states of america that has and continues to endure a type of racism that would most likely make others crumble if it switched and i think that a big fear right now that people feel like okay if we don't hold this supremacy what are they going to do on the back end if they start getting power right um that's not the hat it's not going to happen right you know how liberation works right right that's not gonna happen but with that said um i want people to know that that like i under perspective is everything for me i understand it i want to learn from them as much as i want them to hear from me and i think that real quick whatever i lived in north carolina for four four and a half years and i helped a per my one of my friends down there opened up a tavern the private party and the patrons most of them are from the south right some were missing teeth not meaning anything but they were what i feared as being a black man from **[1:15:08] Jacob DelPino II:** minnesota like i may not make it out alive type style and when i started working and serving and talking to um these patrons they were amazing and they reminded me of my black friends in the inner city right so these are white people from the country almost exactly the same type mind and mentality than the black people in the city and that just made me realize how close we truly are and that reverts back to what aaron said in the 1600s like hey there's a lot more poor white people and black people than there are the one percent so we need to make sure we divide them before they realize the power they will have right and so division makes money and that's where we're at today they're going to do everything they can to demean to separate to make sure that the powers to be don't combine because that makes money and that keeps the ball rolling in the direction that they wanted to so long-winded question answer **[1:16:16] Erin Maye Quade:** oh my gosh amen though absolutely i you know i am a proud black woman i also have proximity to whiteness i am light-skinned and it is important that i name that because it is part of the privilege that i hold i am proud to be black i will say that it is um you know to remind myself to find black joy and to celebrate my black excellence i have to do that because generally society and the world won't do that for me and that's kind of exhausting right to know that i have to find that we have to give it to each other because society doesn't do that for us in fact it does the opposite right and it's why we have to like pull it out and name it that's why we have to say black lives matter i would say black joy black excellence right because otherwise people don't associate those things together so i'm i'm proud to be an excellent black woman um and i'm proud of just us right that 2020 was a rough year we lost leaders we lost like one in five black americans to covid kobe it you know i'm just proud that i am here and i'm proud to be in this community because i believe that people want it to be different and i want to be with folks as we find the way for it to be different yes **[1:17:28] Grantham Greene:** well said um for me personally i you know i wasn't always in love with being black and i'll admit it you know at times it felt like my race was my enemy and that is so dehumanizing and just like imagine like this just a pit of self-hatred yes um but in response to what you said no one's gonna love us unless we don't love ourselves and that's something that i think especially as a kid growing up queer growing up black it's learning self-love and self-worth is going to make that enemy your best friend yes because now my blackness is not seen as what sets me apart it is now seen as what makes all of us standing up here the same and we share that experience and then it now gives me the power to establish that my blackness is whatever i want it to be it's flamboyant it's fashionable it's gay it's loud it's sitting up here on the panel it's timeless it's non-negotiable and it will not be disregarded and that's what i think is what makes me so proud to be black is to be able to paint my blackness out to be whatever i want it to be good very very well said um **[1:18:57] Michael Kreider:** so we've gone through our pre-selected questions but we do have a question from the um from the site and we are running close on time here so the question is this uh what things can be done in rosemont to make you feel supported in daily life **[1:19:15] Grantham Greene:** i'm not going to say constant but there is a fine line like i said before between disregarding situations avoiding situations white silence and whatnot i think you know kind of just like the borderline minimum is just a hey i know this happened how are you is there any way i can support you because i get how intense and kind of the white guilt that you know a lot of white people go through and if the the least that you can do is just be a support block just a talking wall to your black friends i think that is so important because there's been multiple times where i've been experienced something that i just you know can't really talk about and it's not something that i just want to you know start a conversation about but if someone you know sat there and asked me just like hey is this something you want to talk about i'm willing if you ever need me that is so beneficial and so highly appreciated as a black person yeah **[1:20:25] Erin Maye Quade:** i'll say um this one's easy google characteristics of white supremacy culture and in this article i think it's from the late 90s early 2000s it lists off characteristics of white supremacy culture perfectionism sense of urgency either or thinking um you know on and on and on quantity over quality there are antidotes to that to white supremacy culture in that article find the one that you do the most find the one that shows up in your life the most identify it live out those antidotes talk about it talk about white supremacy it's okay to name we all live in it every day i hate to name it like you know if sharks are the problem it's actually a water problem because it implies that it's unchangeable and it totally is but it is the system we live in talk about it get comfortable naming it and be okay with messing up be okay with messing up you're not gonna get it perfect we're all dismantling this together but you have to say okay this is wrong i want to do something about it here's my first step after you take that first step take another like you gotta do it one day at a time there's no passivity in this liberation movement and white people have to be invested in divesting from white supremacy in order for it to actually be dismantled so those would be my first steps **[1:21:49] Jacob DelPino II:** so for me i've thought about this over and over and over again for a very long time and undoubtedly like beg plead like i can fill my own battery i've been in the game almost 40 years i no longer need uh for outside forces to tell me i'm worthy of greatness respect all that but i demand ask beg plead for your child's education to change enroll in middle school my education system of slavery was roots roots so being the only black kid and every time the n word dropped all eyes went on me i hated black history month i hated it because it was super uncomfortable and i learned nothing except for sometimes i'm gonna be called toby or kunta kente when it comes one of the biggest things and i would make this quick as i show like disney to my children uh which not a huge fan but of course they love it when you look at movies like the original lion king or aladdin the bad guys have dark skin okay when you look at the new movies black heroes or black princesses always turn into an animal or a soul like they can never be a black prince a black superhero a black king and just stay that way the whole movie i don't want to fly off into the sky and turn into a phoenix or anything i just want to be an amazing black man that shows how amazing i am throughout the whole movie that my kids are being brainwashed with and not saying brainwash because right now if **[1:23:34] Jacob DelPino II:** you look at studies and they line kids up four five six years old and they put dolls on the table there's it's all on youtube you can see this who's the bad guy who's the nice person who's the pretty one it is never the the good characteristics and the amazing characters charistics are never the black or darker skinned dolls they only get the bad ones and it starts i've checked check-marked my generation like i think we could change but i think i don't see it happening but for my kids kids if we change our education system when it st starts from elementary school middle school and high school because i'm almost sure i'm speaking for the panel but we can't go to europe because we don't know oh sorry we don't we can't go to africa because we don't know what tribe our family originates from but in school they teach you hey if you're scottish you go here this happened you know the coliseum over here or spain or england or so forth and so on the majority of the students in the class they want to travel when they get older to places that their families from well in our education system the majority of black people have no idea where they're from and we don't know why that's not even explained to us **[1:25:04] Jacob DelPino II:** so yes as adults we can be kinder to each other we can be more empathetic we can be more caring right more compassionate yes that's a human trait that everyone should have but when it comes to the generations to come teach them teach them and demand that things change and if they don't take it upon yourself to get different colored dolls right get books that carries people with darker skin or other skin than your own right and that's the biggest thing to me like teach the teach the youth and just push it just as much as you push any other narrative that you put on them right teach them about different music and why that music's important and where that music comes from right where that 808 draw like beat drum comes from it's not european right it's an african drum they hear in **[1:25:51] Jacob DelPino II:** country you know rock and roll like a lot of that stuff with the beatles where they get a lot of elvis where did he get his music from black people right so it's education and once they start appreciating appreciating dark skin and other cultures they start to love they start to love us so i'll end with this like to tell me or to tell any of us that color doesn't matter or you don't see color or you don't tell your kids to see color you don't raise them that way stat let them see every single color because it's just like the colors of the rainbow and then you teach them about each color and where that color comes from because as the colors of the rainbow they love them all right they always draw rainbows because that's intriguing to a child imagine if you did that with different peoples and different cultures and different religions right if we did that i'm sure we'll be okay **[1:26:39] Michael Kreider:** very well said um and uh we're running close on time so i want to wrap this up with you know this is just the beginning of the conversations there are much more conversations to be had you know at the uh in your own homes at the table um you know um with with other people you know the community that the conversations need to continue and so i want to thank everybody very much for their time tonight um panelists thank you for your time for your time for being here i'm going to pass the mic on for one more thank you **[1:27:24] Bill Drosty:** thank you thank you michael i'm bill drosty mayor of rose mountain on behalf of the one rose mount group which is leaders from our schools churches businesses community and city i want to say thank you michael and to our panelists for uh adding your voices to our communities in rosemont i moved here 33 years ago we were about 9 000 people today were 26 000 we'll be adding 10 000 in the next 10 years in dakota county we'll be adding 120 000 in the next 20 years and the only way we can have strong communities is as people move to our communities they all have to have a voice so you being the first group that we've had like michael said we intend to do two or three more sessions and we may continue the sun throughout the years thank you thank you very much again thank you very much best wishes to all of you thank you [Applause] [Music] [1:28:52] [Music] [1:29:01] [Music] you