What inclusiveness is all about
By Chuck Ripley | Winona

In his Dec. 17 column, Jim Galewski brought up the sign in Lake Park that reads “Welcome. We are building an inclusive community.” He wondered what the sign meant, and he doubted that there was “someone in town that is busy with an ‘inclusive initiative.’”

I want to thank Mr. Galewski for raising these questions because they are likely shared by many people who see the sign. An inclusive community is one that welcomes all people, but despite our best intentions, Winona is not always that kind of place.
Mr. Galewski is correct that the sign itself came from the National League of Cities, but the momentum behind erecting the sign originated with a very local reaction to a hate crime committed in Winona in June 2006.

A woman with two young children awoke to find hateful fliers strewn on her lawn and taped to her garage. The fliers included messages such as “Niggers get out” and threats to kill her and her children if they didn’t leave Winona. Eleven years earlier, the same neighborhood had been the site of a cross-burning.

Many Winona citizens came together to denounce these actions in a series of meetings in the fall of 2006 under the leadership of Winona State University professor Cindy Killion and the students of her “Power, Privilege and Gender” class.

These citizens and students came together to form a grassroots group called Winona Unified. Winona Unified believes that our city should be a place where each of us can find the happiness and prosperity that flows from an inclusive community. They seek to create such a community by helping people to examine biases and pre-judices, discover ways to dismantle stereotypes, build lasting cross-cultural relationships, learn peaceful ways to resolve conflicts and become allies for one another.

The mayor and the city council strongly supported these efforts with their leadership. They passed a pro-clamation declaring Oct. 16-20, 2006, to be Winona Unified Week. The proclamation declared Winona “affirms its commitment to inclusion as a fundamental aspect of our community, pledges active efforts to seek to achieve that goal and urges all citizens of Winona to support that effort.”

Many local businesses and residents joined this struggle to reject racism and intolerance by putting Winona Unified posters that read “Building an Inclusive Community” in their windows. These are still available for anyone who wants to support inclusion and community.Winona Unified is still working to fight racism and discrimination in Winona, and it needs the help of everyone who believes that all of our residents should be able to live peacefully in Winona, free from fear. Its next meeting will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 7 in the We-no-nah Room at City Hall.

On Jan. 31, it will host a new forum on racism and discrimination, while in the spring, it will be hosting a series of study circles, which are designed to facilitate community discussion and action. If people would like more information about Winona Unified, they can call Joe Morse at (507) 452-8232 or e-mail josephmorse@hotmail.com.

There are several other groups also working to build an inclusive community in Winona.

If someone experiences discrimination, they can contact the City of Winona Human Rights Commission by calling the city clerk at (507) 457-8200.

The WHRC will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2008, and it will conduct the first of a series of outreach programs at 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 7 at the Maplewood Community Center to educate the public on its services. The WHRC holds open meetings on the second Thursday of every month at 4:30 p.m. in the We-No-Nah Room at City Hall.

Project FINE (Focusing on Integrating Newcomers through Education) works with refugees and immigrants in the wider Winona area as well as employers and service providers.

They provide a wide range of services, including advocacy, language services, diversity training, and building cultural competency. More information can be found by calling (507) 452-4100, e-mailing info@projectfine.org or visiting their Web site www.projectfine.org.

African American Mutual Assistance Network is a nonprofit group located in Winona that works to coordinate the efforts of minority businesses and to educate the public on African American cultural issues.

It has helped the city on its annual Martin Luther King celebrations, and it will host a film festival this January. Call Cecil Adams at (507) 474-6398 or visit its Web site http://srifunding. com/aaman.html.

The Dakota-Winona Homecoming works to bring peace and understanding between Winonans and the native population who originally inhabited this land. For more information, call Bill McNeil at (507) 454-4627 or whmcneil@charter.net.

The Restorative Justice Program aims to mentor and assist at-risk youth. Its contact person is Theresea Small. She can be reached at (507) 457-6457 or tsmall@co.winona.mn.us.

Finally, WSU, St. Mary’s University and Southeast Technical College host several events about diversity, which are always open to the public. On Martin Luther King Day, famed civil rights leader the Rev. C.T. Vivian will speak at WSU in the East Hall of Krysko Commons.

Students from WSU and St. Mary’s will host a series of events called “Real Talk.” Their January event will focus on the problems and joys of living in two cultural worlds. For information about these and other events held at WSU, contact the Office of Inclusion and Diversity at (507) 457-5595.

These are but a few of the people working on “inclusive initiatives” in Winona and striving to include those who have been excluded because of hatred and intolerance in our community. The sign in Lake Park testifies to the efforts made by those who realize Winona is not yet an inclusive community for everyone.

Chuck Ripley is the chairman of the Winona Human Rights Commission and teaches at Winona State University.

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