MTN Celebrates 25!
Sex, Lies & Secrets Fashion Show Saturday, August 27, 2008 at Spin Nightclub
Minneapolis, MN, August 2008…This Saturday, August 30, 2008 - IAmMoody.com presents “Sex, Lies & Secrets Fashion Show” a fashion show featuring the top Minnesota designers. Showtime is 9:00pm at Spin Nightclub in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The show is produced in cooperation with spark24 and Minnage.com.
Spark 24 is committed to showcasing the award winning Minneapolis Saint Paul arts scene to a global audience.
* A portion of the proceeds from the door will go to benefit flood victims.
Date: Saturday, August 30th
Time: Doors Open @ 7pm
Reduced Cover until 9:00pm
Location: Spin Nightclub
10 S 5th St
Minneapolis, MN 55402
612-333-5055
Cliché boutique is a young hip clothing boutique for women located in Uptown Minneapolis. They carry new and locally designed clothes that encourages a slight edge to your wardrobe. Cliché loves to offer unique or one of kind items and are therefore always looking for new artist and designers.
Spin nightclub is a multi-level, state of the art nightclub located in the historic Lumber Exchange Building. The Featuring 40-foot ceilings, giant water wall, and state of the art sound and lights equipment. Spin has been the Minneapolis home to such celebrity guests as Diddy Tommy Lee, Kendra Wilkinson, and others. Expect surprise performances, guest DJs and the local who’s-who are the norm at SPIN, and our theme parties are, in a word, legendary.
IAmMoody.com is your one-stop-shop for custom event planning, branding and coordination. Richard Moody, visionary and founder of I AM MOODY, brings with him 30 years of worldly experience and a team of innovative and motivated liaisons who will ensure your event goes as planned and meets your needs with utmost satisfaction.
Minnage.com is a lifestyle website for people that wants more our of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The focus in on events, class, professionalism, and luxury. Minnage.com features over 10,000 photos of events across the Twin Cities.
More Information check out these websites!
spark24 - www.spark24.org
Richard Moody - www.iammoody.com
Minnage.com - www.minnage.com
Cliche Boutique - www.clichempls.com
Spin Nightclub - www.spinmn.com
Centerfield Bar and Restaurant host the National Vets for Freedom Fundraiser
Minneapolis, Minnesota…On Saturday, August 30 from 6pm until 2:00am Centerfield Bar and Restaurant, located at 119 North Fourth Street in downtown Minneapolis’ historic warehouse district will hold the NATIONAL - VETS FOR FREEDOM FUNDRAISER EVENT.
Special guests include Minneapolis Radio Personality and event MC Dan Conry, with musical guest singer, song writer and OIF Veteran Joshua Revak. Also on hand to support the Vets for Freedom will be 5th Congressional District Candidate (Minneapolis) Barb Davis White and 4th Congressional District Candidate (St. Paul) Ed Matthews. This is a public event and everyone is encouraged to attend.
Meet & Greet starts at 6:00 PM followed by guest speakers and live entertainment at 7:00 PM: Public parking across the street on 2nd Avenue North. Come out and show your support for Vets for Freedom – Any donation is welcomed, however we cannot accept credit cards
GREAT FOOD, DRINK AND DANCING
Songs for Sterling - A fundraiser to stop and investigate the Death of our Hip-Hop Generation
Our Black Children are killing each other at an alarming rate…it has to stop!
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A night of music to raise reward funds for information about the homicide of Sterling Horton.
On Thursday June 19th 2008 7:00pm
Augsburg College Chapel, 2211 Riverside Avenue. S
A fund raiser to assist in building capacity for information leading to the arrest, prosecution and sentencing of the people or persons involved in the murder of Mr. Sterling Horton.
This fundraiser features music by James Grear and Company, God’s Anointed, Rodney “October” Dixon, Ray Covington and Ten65. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door, for more information and advanced tickets call 612-978-8603.
The article below was originally posted on TC Daily Planet by Lydia Howell, Pulse of the Twin Cities August 24, 2006 (http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/node/2124#)
“I never thought I’d be going to funerals every other week. I feel like I’m in a combat zone.” Shelly Martin speaks softly with edgy bewilderment about her cousin Sterling Horton, murdered July 25, one of 26 people killed in North Minneapolis this year. “Sterling loved football and baseball. A real people-person. Sterling was going to be a senior at Wayzata High. He just turned 17 in May.” Martin, a petite, African-American 20-something, writes for Liberator Magazine, which is based in North Minneapolis.
Brian Kosoro started Liberator Magazine three years ago, as a freshman studying political science and journalism at the nation’s premier African-American college, Howard University. Writers range from high school students to their early 20s.
“We conceived this as an urban journal. Like the ‘Journal of Science,’ it’s a place for serious ideas and hypotheses to be argued,” Kosoro explains. “Young people have things to say. Let’s create a place to talk without pressure to be perfect. Not just angry opposition, but creative, pro-active thought, as well as new CD reviews. We don’t proclaim ourselves a black publication. We’re open. A lot of white folks read the Liberator. People say ‘It’s real. It’s not compromising.’ Nothing will be sugar-coated on either side.”
Martin and other Liberator writers knew some of the recent murder victims. “Sterling was killed just around the corner from his house, trying to make curfew. The police precinct [was] just a few blocks away! They left his body lying in the street for three hours! They wouldn’t let my aunt near him. She had to identify his body at the morgue.”
At a strip mall on West Broadway last week, Minneapolis Interim Police Chief Tim Dolan and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak announced police presence would be intensified. Rybak quickly evaded the heckling Northside residents, who charged that an increased police presence targeting only Northside Black gangs amounts to racial profiling.
Emerging leadership from the hip- hop generation, like Chaka, the TC artist called I Self Devine, say law enforcement alone won’t end violence. “At base, violence is very profitable. Putting police on the streets, there’s money in that. Putting people in prison—there’s money in that,” Chaka says. “We don’t manufacture these guns! It goes back to violence being profitable,” Chaka observes. “Another thing: when you’re treated like an animal. Police officers get de-sensitized, looking at people like statistics. Not looking at people for what they can be. If you live inside that environment, you don’t even have a free vibe! If this is what you already feel about me, then nine [times] out of 10, I’ll perpetuate that, since I can’t be judged other than that stereotype.”
The Liberator asserts that younger leadership in communities of color is critical and challenges the corporate values that destroy communities.
“Everyone should know by now, it’s probable the CIA flooded urban neighborhoods with crack cocaine in the 1980s, destroying black communities,” says Kosoro. “People’s disengagement from problems in our city don’t see it’s in their self-interest having kids in after-school programs or getting quality education. They only see it when it when they get robbed. Then, their solution is ‘Lock this kid up!’ They’re fighting symptoms with Tylenol, instead of getting to the roots of the problem—which would be to see themselves in these kids.”
Law enforcement calls 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. “prime time for juvenile crime.” The Minnesota Foundation 2004 “Supporting Youth” report says budget cuts deny thousands of youth access to successful prevention programs.
The national organization Fight Crime, Invest in Kids advocates for and studies youth programs across the country. Consistently, they find that boys without such programs are six times more likely to engage in crime, pointing out most will continue crime as adults. A Chicago program Quantum Opportunities found that every high-risk youth reached saved $1.2 million to $2.3 million in court, victims’ and prison costs, saving $3 to $5 for every $1 invested in youth.
“In this country, we’re about being independent, being individuals. We’ve strayed from thinking about one another. It’s every man for himself almost,” Dinah Bullock reflects. “I’m increasingly concerned with housing [and how] people of color are moved out of the city … Buildings torn down to build condos. People offered a nice, Richfield town home and don’t think about the big picture. Their child will be in class with only one or two other children like them.”
Chaka, working with HOPE Community, emphasizes that gentrification dismantles communities. He says, “Banks’ redlining [refusing mortgages for targeted neighborhoods], that’s how you start a ghetto … We have to be aware of where the knife’s coming from in our back—and who’s holding it.”
“It appears to me that communities in North Minneapolis are by design. To increase the social service industry, they RECRUITED people from Chicago and Gary, isolating them in a certain area code,” adds “Bob the Janitor,” a TC educator. “It got Hennepin County and Minneapolis large amounts of federal money for ‘violence prevention.’ Keeping violence levels high, they get funds to disperse throughout the state.”
A University of Wisconsin study concluded youth join gangs for protection, status, power and a sense of belonging.
“It goes to what dreams are being sold. As an African-American man coming up, all you see is gang members, athletes and rappers. Personally, I know people who went all through high school getting a GPA that only allowed them to play basketball. Then, they realize, ‘I’m not going to be recruited for college basketball.’ But their GPA isn’t high enough for academic scholarships,” observes the 20-something man from U of M, who calls himself “Winston Smith,” hero of George Orwell’s novel “1984,” echoing concerns about persistent inequalities in public education. “Why isn’t the GPA to play sports high enough to get them to college without playing sports?”
The Liberator writers say college-educated people of color are encouraged to focus on individual careers, recognizing that the collective spirit of the Civil Rights Movement was lost.
“It starts with those of us who’ve been blessed to NOT be in the war zone every day. With that sanctuary comes the ability to strategize,” says Kosoro. “If you’re a pawn out there on the street, you don’t have that opportunity.”
“If we’re not going to invest in each other, if we’re not going to invest in our community, no one else is going to do it!” declares Shelly Martin.
