December’s equity resource comes to you from co-chair Dirk Nicholson:
With uncertainty on the horizon and the holidays upon us, I’ve brought you a story highlighting hope and perseverance for this month’s Equity Resource. In this essay, Tangletown resident and writer Will McGrath embeds himself with a local Somali youth basketball team located in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. Through McGrath’s story, we learn about the everyday joys and struggles of the players and their families and the care and support of their beloved coach, Coach Weber.
The article explores the racist and xenophobic realities of our current political environment—from local to national, and violences both casual and fatal—as they relate to members of our community raising families, building community, and simply existing. The narrative delves into both the particulars of being young, black, male, and Somali, as well as the rather more universal experiences of being teenage boys—navigating the quotidian challenges, celebrating the victories, processing the type of tragedy for which you’re never old enough, and yet remembering to rely on one another, to lift each other up, and to keep going.
