By: Kim Schneider

Last week a verdict from the Hennepin County Attorney, Mike Freeman, broke hearts, ignited protests and justified two police officers’ actions. Freeman announced Wednesday, March 30 that the police officers, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, involved in the shooting of Jamar Clark will not face criminal charges.

It is not my intent of this editorial to discuss the intricacies of Clark’s case or the discrepancies between police, the county attorney and witnesses. I would, however, like to talk about what Freeman’s decision and the BLM movement in Minneapolis has to do with small-town Winona.

We are all complicit in the continuation of systematic racism if we’re not actively working against systems of oppression. So even Winona, which is separated from directly experiencing the movement, is complicit in the continuation of systematic racism.

As a white woman, I cannot pretend to know what it’s like to face discrimination for the color of my skin; however, I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that racial discrimination does occur in Winona and Minnesota at large, despite the fact that we are “Minnesota Nice.”

As someone who peppers my laptop with political stickers, I’ve gotten several questions and a handful of quizzical stares at the giant “Black Lives Matter” sticker on my laptop. From personal observation I have found my peers are largely unsure about the BLM movement, not for lack of hearing about it but perhaps for lack of understanding. I think this stems from the fact that our community can safely sidestep issues the BLM movement raises because the movement’s presence here is experienced online rather than through protests in the street.

This allows people to feel they can safely delegate issues of racial oppression to cities of recent violence, such as Minneapolis, or others including Ferguson and Baltimore. However, systematic racial discrimination exists in every nook and cranny of the U.S.—and yes, that includes Winona.

While the University has done a good job bringing speakers to campus to discuss issues of race, the Winona community has not been forced to confront the issues of police brutality or our discriminatory justice system (among other sources of discrimination and oppression). Without the external force of the BLM movement bringing this to the forefront of community issues, we can easily sidestep confronting racial discrimination and oppression in our small community.

My wager to you, Winona community, is that if you are not angry about police brutality systematically targeting and killing people of color, if you do not even have an opinion on the movement because it does not affect you, then you need to sit up and start paying attention. The civil rights movement and the feminist movement did not spark critical changes in society by groups of friends, sitting in a dimly lit living room discussing the problems of the world.

These movements were effective when protesters walked the streets and lobbied at State Capitols. So in present day context, if you are not doing anything to counteract systematic racism then you in turn, become part of the system of oppression.