The national narrative painted with an explosion of racial tension and bandwagon attitudes that would equate safety with halting a long-standing policy of reasonable immigration have created serious community fracturing throughout the country but markedly so in small-town Minnesota.

A recent Blandin Foundation “Rural Pulse” survey showed that 30 percent of people who live in rural Minnesota said their communities are not a welcoming place for people of all backgrounds.

That figure is up sharply from the same survey taken in 2013 where only 18 percent of people said their community was not welcoming. That was an improvement from the same survey in 2010 that showed about 22 percent said their community was not welcoming.

The one third who said their community was not welcoming was consistent for respondents who were white, people of color or indigenous people.

Over the last two years, we’ve had to consider the shocking racial violence that explodes before our eyes on national TV and on social media. At the same time, we’ve had to consider threats from abroad both real and imagined by demagogueing politicians looking to turn false narratives into votes.

Kathy Annette, president and CEO of the Blandin Foundation, recently urged her colleagues and community leaders across the state to answer this narrative that is fracturing communities.

“As dramatic and tragic racial tension in major cities across the country has become uncomfortably present in our national discourse, what is an organization focused on strengthening rural communities in Minnesota to do or say?” Annette asked in an email.

Blandin has, over the last 30 years, trained more than 7,000 rural Minnesota leaders in the ways of building and uniting communities in the context of its nine dimensions of a health community. Three groups of Mankato leaders have gone through the program in the last five years. The Free Press has participated in the editor and publisher part of the program.

“Inclusion” is a key dimension in the Blandin analysis of what makes communities healthy. Inclusion is described as “People constantly make the effort required to capitalize on the range of differences in the community and intentionally seek ways to utilize the diverse backgrounds, experiences and skills of everyone for the benefit of the whole community.”

The perception that a community is not welcoming to diverse backgrounds suggest it would not be achieving this worthwhile goal.

So what can be done if one third of the people in rural Minnesota don’t believe their communities are welcoming?

We have little control of the national narrative being developed through news reports and the demagogues who demonize immigrants. But we can be more inclusive where we live.

Fortunately, the Mankato region has made progress in this area. Nearly a decade ago, community leaders established the Mankato Diversity Council. Its trademark “prejudice reduction workshops” for kids starting in elementary school has made a significant difference in the attitude of young people.

But that has just been one piece of the effort. Dozens of community organizations, from the “Walking in Two Worlds” program to the YWCA programs to counseling programs at the YMCA and job training programs, have contributed to a reasonable inclusion environment in Mankato. Several years ago, The Free Press convened a diversity advisory group and published a series of stories on how immigrants were playing increasingly important and significant roles in building a better community.

We can favorably compare Mankato’s culture with that of St. Cloud, where racial strife has been a significant problem. While community leaders there are making good efforts to address those problems, it’s difficult to educate about diversity after the problems have already arrived.

Mankato was fortunate to be proactive early.

But as the recent Blandin survey points out, there’s much work to be done. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels or feel like we’ve got a handle on inclusiveness. As we have seen, there will be forces that can turn back healthy attitudes toward inclusion with fear and hate.

 

—  Mankato Free Press, Aug. 13