Yesterday, the co-chair of the Coalition of Black Churches/African American Leadership Summit held a
news conference at the Urban League in order to run interference for Chris Stewart, the Minneapolis school board member who displayed extraordinarily bad judgment when he created a race-baiting blog under the handle of Rahelio Soleil.
You might remember Chris Stewart / Rahelio Soleil from another moronic move when he created a fake election campaign site in order to paint an Independence Party candidate as a racist... but when he was called out publicly for doing so, he said, "Whoops!" and that it was all in good fun.
Back to our story about
Bill English, co-chair of the Coalition of Black Churches/African American Leadership Summit.
"Neither the principal [nor] director Stewart at this time are guilty of any infraction [and] are innocent until proven guilty," English said. "The general public, elected officials and the press should allow this investigation to go forward without interference and without any attempt to influence public opinion."
Still need a refresher? Check out this blog. You'll discover how Chris Stewart, Minneapolis school board member, called a school principal, the school itself, and the school's parent/faculty council racist... and following that, the principal was put on leave.
English described the district's placement of Cadotte on indefinite paid administrative leave as routine...
Is he qualified to make such a statement regarding a school principal? He might be correct (and probably is correct), but from where does his information come?
Another co-chair of the coalition,
Rev. Randolph Staten, said:
...the rally, the politicians' letters, and news coverage all represent attempts to vilify Stewart.
Reverand Staten, how many people have reminded the public about Chris Stewart's other name (Rahelio Soleil), his penchant for calling folks racist (with little or no reasoning), his willingness to call black folks who disagree with him "coons", not to mention the libelous website he worked on regarding the Independence Party candidate from a 2006 election? Not many.
How many have avoided those stories? A fair few.
Do you consider those stories relevant to the recent events?
About that
letter from politicians.
Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, spoke at the rally for Cadotte. Dibble is one of seven politicians who sent a letter Monday to board chair Tom Madden, calling for Cadotte to be reinstated as soon as possible. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, and Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, also signed the letter.
English and Rev. Staten called unfair on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune for:
...not publishing a letter Superintendent Bill Green submitted to the editorial department.
Mr. English also provided two fliers...
...fliers that he claimed were created by Burroughs parents. One has a picture of a white child with the word "loser" across his forehead. The text included: "Soon your children may no longer have access to the same strong schools they do now."
The second flier said in part: "Our school district is ignoring the successful neighborhood school we have helped build. They want to give busing another try."
According to the co-chair of the Burroughs staff-parent site council, Kip Wennerlund, those fliers were not distributed by the council.
"Trying to portray non-Burroughs messages as coming from Burroughs is blatantly misleading and seems to be an effort to somehow justify the actions of Mr. Stewart."
Someone on the Twin Cities Daily Planet mentioned a poster... we presume the commentor is refering to one of those two fliers.
