Cross burning investigated as bias crime - Bemidji, MN

[MineralMan]

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100040483/

NORTHERN TOWNSHIP – The investigation into the burning cross in a yard here early Friday morning is being investigated as a bias crime.

An 8-foot-tall burning cross was reported in a Northern Township yard at about 12:40 a.m. Friday. A woman reported she saw the light of the flames from her bedroom window and ran outside, dousing the 3-foot flames with water.

The Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office said officers are investigating the report, and requested the public help by reporting any information related to the incident by calling 333-9111.

The victim who found the cross is white; her two adult children are mixed-race with a black father.

Who knew? Even in Minnesota, racism is out in the open. I'm disgusted.

[cyberswede]

1. Shit! Bemidji is a nice place.

[MineralMan]

2. It seems like it would be. I've not been there, but

it's a nice-looking lake city. Stuff smoldering there, though, it seems.

[MinneapolisMatt]

3. This falls squarely into the lap of the republicans.

Period.

[MineralMan]

5. At least in the lap of the teabaggers.

I don't know anything about the political situation in Bemidji, really, but there are teabaggers everywhere.

[MineralMan]

4. At least the local police seem to be taking this seriously,

and the FBI is investigating, too. More at the link.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I think there's a good deal of racism in Minnesota. I attended a

managers' meeting there back in 1987 where all were white and I was the single female. I ended up filing a complaint because of the racist language (jokes, don't you know). Having spent about a third of my life in the South, I find racism is more 'underground' in the North.

P.S. This is just an opinion based on my personal experiences and not a show of anti-southernism or anti-Minnesota.

[MineralMan]

7. There's racism everywhere. No state is free of it.

Cross-burning, though, is a truly ugly, potentially violent expression of it. It's rare here.

[GeorgeGist]

8. 'bias' sounds so much better than 'hate'.

[MineralMan]

9. Not my choice of words. I copied the headline.

I always paste headlines in when I have them. It's not my story.