the "leaders" of the city have been unwilling and unable to deal with organized racist thugs coming right out of their one-acre large backyards. It's certainly a more livable city if your white! Over the past two years the All American Boyz
(AAB ; aka Master Players) have progressed from harrasing Somali immigrants in school to taunting them in the streets to finally attacking them with golf clubs and baseball bats. White supreamcy American style. Victims of the AAB chumps range in age from 12 to 64, cleary showing what cowards they are by

picking out the youngest and oldest. Organized Neo Nazis from Saint Paul took notice and brought their scumbag asses to town to distribute hate literature and to futher orgainize the AAB. This ended with a full on  white power rally at the Peace Plaza (ha-ha) in downtown Rochester. Over 60 nazis showed up and were allowed to spew their filth. A small but gutsy group of Anti-Racist kids showed up to let the Nazis know they are not unoppesed. It was some of these kids we met when Mpls. ARA first went down to Rochester. Upon hearing of the Nazi rally and lame liberal comments from the mayor, Mpls. ARA decided to travel  to the high schools in Rochester. There we handed out Flyers calling for an end to the racist attascks against Somalis. Many kids were supportive and many adults tried to have us thrown out  which only encouraged us more. ARA was invited to have a table and speak at a local punk rockshow put on by some of the kids we'd met. This went really well and some good connections were made with people who were unhappy about the lack of action and the sweep-it-under-the-rug-there-most-ceartinly-is'nt-any-racism-here mentality. Encouraged by this, some more ARA activists attended a large peace march that was orginal idea of students but was quickly co-opted by adults. An example of this was a teacher asking us to leave the rally and when we said no, then suggesting we report to the police! Any way, the march was an excuse for many kids to get out of school for the day, but a lot of Somali, Latino/a ,Southeast Asain, and African-American kids were represented. The speeches by adults were weak as they were obviously afraid toconfront the racism in their city and would rather slough it off to "discriminating against someone because their hair looks different". Right. The rally ended with an open mic session  of highschool students talking plainly about the racist shit going down and the need for it to stop. This got more applause than any of the "official" speakers. Mpls.ARA has been encouraging the kids of Rochester to take a more direct action approach in addressing the problems in their community. The members of the Somali communtity need to know  someone down there has got their backs because they are very isolated. Youth need to speak out against racist attacks, comments,and attitudes. An air of solidarity must be created in order to show scum like the AAB that their shit ain't gonna fly. Some kids have expressed intrest in organizing an ARA and were more than willing to help offer direction. Also, Mpls ARA in conjunction with the Headshots Hip-hop crew are trying to organize a gig in Rochester with a couple of Punk rock outfits. Hopes are that this could be a start towards unifying the youth scene in Rochester and crushing racist sentiments wherever they exist. This gig could take place in June so e-mail us if you'd like more information.

back to main page