Skin Tight

--reader e-mail regarding "Black Like Who?" City Pages 8/27/03

Two weeks ago this page was mostly devoted to the differing public images of two black City Council members from north Minneapolis, Natalie Johnson Lee, who is African American, and Don Samuels, an immigrant from Jamaica. Response was swift and sharp: For example, State Rep. Keith Ellison, a northsider, fired off a letter to the editor accusing City Pages of, among other things, playing favorites based on who is more "authentically" black.

That I was blaming racial undercurrents for the white establishment's apparent preference for Samuels--who represents something other than the stereotype of the African American male--was lost on Ellison and other correspondents. Some of the readers argued that complexities between black Americans and black immigrants are overblown. The angriest responses I received were exclusively from men of color.

All of this underscores a main point: How do African Americans view Don Samuels?

"Certainly there are issues between African Americans and immigrants of color, and everybody knows that," says Ron Edwards, a longtime civil rights activist. "I think that seven out of ten folks don't know that Samuels is an immigrant from Jamaica, but the ones that do have that in the back of their minds."

Fact is, Edwards surmises, Samuels will continually have to win the trust of the old-guard leadership in the black community. "Samuels is an unknown to a lot of us, and there's always going to be a question as to where his interests lie," Edwards says. "Samuels has done some things that, perhaps smartly, align him with the white leaders in the city, and we've all wondered about that a bit."

The doubts are there, and Samuels can feel them. "As a Jamaican in the African American community, the comparison is always being made, and I don't feel too good about that," he admits. But Samuels claims to understand where the criticism is coming from: He offers the observation that many immigrants of color, like himself, only represent "the highest functioning of our native societies," and that it's unfair to make comparisons to African Americans "when we are talking about the more educated, limited sampling of our countries" here in the States.

"Local African Americans have had to go through the horrors to get us where we are," Samuels says. "We have not had our ancestors shackled, or our uncles called 'nigger.' I'm constantly telling immigrants to be aware of this and embrace the path that was cut for us."

It's a sentiment echoed by blacks around the city. It's one thing for immigrants to come from a country where they are the dominant culture, and see themselves reflected in leadership positions. It's quite another for black Americans to have to defend the leaders they have, and protect the advances they've made.

That Samuels understands this makes it all the more worrisome for northside residents who support both him and Johnson Lee. If redrawn ward boundaries hold for the 2005 election cycle, voters may well see the two pitted against each other for one seat. --G.R. Anderson Jr.

When a House Is Not a Home

Azzam Sabri has spent two years meticulously restoring his century-old house on the southwest corner of Franklin and Fremont Avenues in the Lowry Hill neighborhood. The rotting roof has been replaced, the wood floors refinished, and marble tiles laid in the kitchen and bathrooms. Sabri (if the name is familiar, it's because he is the brother of Basim Sabri, the flamboyant developer who currently faces federal charges that he bribed former City Council member Brian Herron in 2001) even has prospective tenants--a 12-member Somali family--lined up for the three-story residence.

The only amenity lacking, unfortunately, is a certificate of occupancy. No matter how splendidly restored, it is illegal for anyone to live in the home. "I have a big, huge eight-bedroom house that I can't do anything with," Sabri laments.