Ever notice how those in St. Paul who repeatedly harp about “white privilege” on social media and during various political campaigns have no problem enjoying the benefits of that privilege every day?
They voice “grave concern” for the historic inequities that continue to impact people of color, plant “Black Lives Matter” signs in their yards, show up to protest police violence — yet accept longstanding de facto segregation as the norm.
You know the neighborhoods: Highland Park, Crocus Hill, Merriam Park, Mac-Groveland, Saint Anthony Park, Como Park, Union Park, Lex-Ham — and, as gentrification takes greater root, Cathedral Hill and Hamline-Midway. The highest property values. The lowest crime rates. The most desirable schools. And the least overall diversity.
Hypocrisy is nothing new in St. Paul, where we’ve talked about racial equity for decades while poverty rates remain near 20%, tolerated thousands of homeless children in our community, accepted huge disparities in wealth, and routinely blamed unacceptable achievement/opportunity gaps in our public schools on lack of funding.
Yes, money spent strategically can do a lot to address societal inequities, but not when the city’s priorities are focused on pandering to the affluent white folks who make up probably 95 percent of the fan base for Wild hockey contests, Saints ball games, and Minnesota United soccer matches; who are among the majority of attendees for concerts at the X and Palace Theatre; and occupy downtown luxury apartment buildings like the Penfield. Those projects alone have received in excess of $200 million in public subsidies during the past 20 years.
Time and again our elected officials have chosen to green-light construction that enriches developers and professional sports team owners rather than use city resources and state aid to alleviate poverty, dramatically increase the stock of affordable housing, and invest in broadband technology and other job creation resources that might boost opportunities for communities of color.
Yet the same people railing against murder by police and racial disparities looked the other way while low income neighborhoods were ignored in favor of this massive corporate welfare. How come black lives suddenly matter now but were largely irrelevant when all those giveaways took place? Where was the outrage? Not only were playgrounds on the East Side abandoned and rec centers torn down, during that same time period residents of Highland Park, Mac-Groveland, and other tonier neighborhoods used their white privilege to get their community projects to the front of the line.
Even now, the city’s focus remains on placating the demands of a vocal minority of well-connected white progressives who have pushed for spending tens of millions on expanded bike lanes, requiring compostable “to go” restaurant containers, mandating “organized” trash collection, providing $22 million in “infrastructure” for Allianz Field, and granting a $100 million subsidy to the Ford site project, considered one of the most valuable parcels of undeveloped land in the Upper Midwest.
Obviously, some of these efforts are worthwhile. Who can disagree with the importance of reducing carbon emissions, composting, banning plastic bags and bottles that choke our oceans, or dealing with the millions of tons of garbage that our excessive consumption habits produce? The problem is that the proposed solutions are often fast-tracked without robust public debate — and are of dubious value to our most impoverished neighborhoods and their struggling immigrant entrepreneurs and business owners of color.
Take the city’s recent adoption of coordinated trash collection. What started as an effort to reduce garbage truck traffic in some neighborhoods within Mac-Groveland — the city’s least diverse community at 91% white — suddenly became a citywide initiative under former Mayor Chris Coleman as he sought to burnish his environmental credentials in a run-up to the 2018 governor’s race.
There was no scientific polling data gathered to gauge community preference; no effort to pilot the idea in one neighborhood before going to scale throughout the city; and no attempt to address the concerns raised by low income renters, households that shared a trash container, or those who compost the great majority of their waste. City staff also saw fit to buy 70,000 brand new trash carts at a cost of $4 million rather than repurpose those owned by the existing haulers — one of many questionable decisions that left the city able to scrape together a mere $2 million in relief funds for individuals and local businesses devastated by the coronavirus.
When residents gathered enough signatures to put the trash program on the ballot last year, unions and social justice organizations supportive of the current mayor tried to spin the increased cost of coordinated trash as some kind of benefit to all St. Paul residents — rather than simply one more example of entitled white neighborhoods getting what they want at the expense of everyone else.
People new to St. Paul probably wonder why the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood 60 years ago still remains a raw topic for many in the African-American community. One reason might be that white preference has fueled nearly every development initiative since then — even during the past two decades when Democrats have controlled both the mayor’s office and City Council. Redlining maps from the 1930s are exactly the same now: poor neighborhoods are still poor.
Beyond the recent construction of the Rondo Commemorative Plaza, when has St. Paul’s Black community ever had its collective voice heard?
The election of Melvin Carter as St. Paul’s first African American mayor doesn’t change that reality, particularly since his overwhelming victory in 2017 was fueled predominantly by white voters. As diverse as Carter’s cabinet and administration might be, beyond resisting calls to hire more police officers, how does he plan to improve the lives of those in the Black community? If the mayor has such a vision, it does not appear on the city’s website, which itself offers no specifics about how he is going to address crime, attract new businesses, create jobs, or rebuild the city’s infrastructure.
Black lives might matter at this moment in history, but given St. Paul’s past, white privilege will continue to be the city’s primary organizing principle.
Tom Goldstein, a lawyer and former school board member, lives in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood of St. Paul. He was a candidate for mayor in 2017.
