In his column yesterday, Nick Coleman took aim at the scourge of racism. But the problem isn't that a black man was treated poorly. No, instead, the problem is that a black man was treated too well. Or more precisely, the wrong black man was treated well. Because in Nick Coleman's world, if you're black, you better be keeping it real. And Tiger Jack Rosenbloom isn't black enough for Nick Coleman (the pride of lilly white Mac-Groveland, incidentally).
The gentleman drawing the ire of Nick Coleman is Tiger Jack Rosenbloom. He was an elderly street character in St. Paul (deceased now), he lived in a shack off the Dale St. exit on I-94 and eked out a living selling wood chips and baseball cards and other assorted items. He was occasionally celebrated in the press for being interesting and cheerful to everyone he came across, despite his harsh life circumstances. There was a newspaper article or TV news segment on him once a year or so. In terms of notoriety, that's as far as it ever went. Outside of those in the media, Rosenbloom's family and a few in that neighborhood, no one in town really knew who he was or cared about him. He was just another person in a city of hundreds of thousands others. A nice guy, no different than you or me.
But not according to Nick Coleman. Instead, this man was, and remains three years after his death, a significant part of this community. And his significance is an affront to Nick Coleman's burning sense of racial justice. The reason - Tiger Jack Rosenbloom wasn't pissed off all the time. And that's how a black man should act, according to Nick Coleman.
Tiger Jack, a boxer in his youth, died three years ago at 94, having outlived Rondo (which was bulldozed for construction of Interstate Hwy. 94) and most of his contemporaries. After he died, his shack went on exhibit at the Minnesota Historical Society, along with a cardboard cut-out of the man who came to personify St. Paul's black community. But that's the problem:
The image of [the Rondo neighborhood] he left was a cardboard cut-out, a superficial and stereotyped representation of a complex community.
"Superficial" meaning he was black and didn't publicly embrace a status of societal victim and he had a positive outlook toward life. And that's a crime in Nick Coleman's world. To support his views, Nick went out and found some angry black men that fit his stereotypical template and they endorsed Coleman's beliefs that blacks need to be angry victims of life and nothing more.
First, an angry black professor at Macalester College: "Tiger Jack makes the white community comfortable," says Mahmoud El-Kati, a longtime professor of African-American history on leave from Macalester College in St. Paul. Although Tiger Jack was a "wonderful guy," says El-Kati, the image he left "is not a complex image; he's not stirring up anything or agitating or anything like that. He's not raising hell, as you could say about just about anyone else in those days. The Twin Cities has a very rich civil rights history, but if you're talking about the struggle, his name doesn't come up."
Next, the suddenly angry former Police Chief of St. Paul, William Finney: "In person, Tiger would stop the Bojangles act and he'd talk to you and he'd have a great deal of wisdom," Finney says. "He was a shrewd businessman. But a lot of whites thought Tiger knew his place at a time when blacks were supposed to stay in their place. "Well, I don't know my place and I refuse to let anybody else define my place," says Finney. "We didn't accept that our place had to be in that small reserved area called Rondo, where blacks could only compete with blacks. We were defiant, and we wanted Tiger Jack to be defiant, too."
Forcefully said by the newly defiant Finney. Because when he used to be the Chief, he was always very reasonable and professional in his rhetoric. And the people of St. Paul loved him. Now he's setting up straw men and firing them up with his words like he's Al Sharpton. I guess Nick Coleman brings out the best in people. It will be interesting to see how far Finney takes this new attitude if he runs for mayor next year (as is widely rumored).
Nick Coleman (via Finney) expands on the problem of Tiger Jack Rosenbloom:
The problem with Tiger Jack's fame, [Finney] says, is that it has obscured the achievements of black professionals who were Rondo's real role models, but whose names are unknown outside the community. Rondo produced doctors, pharmacists, undertakers and cops, Finney says. Yet it was Tiger Jack who came to symbolize Rondo.
Coleman repeats the central flaw in logic of his entire column - the alleged fame of Rosenbloom. The truth is, Tiger Jack isn't famous. God love him, he's been dead three years and nobody thinks about him any more, except for the occasional desperate newspaper columnist looking for material. Tiger Jack isn't a symbol anything, except perhaps of a decent human being. If self-appointed racial consciences like Coleman would stop writing about him, he wouldn't have any fame at all. Then Coleman, Finney, and El-Kati could get back to being the Defiance Triplets without being tormented by the specter of a good natured, dignified, 94-year-old business man (or as Chief Finney describes him "Mr. Bojangles.")
Coleman's contention that the larger community should know about the doctors, pharmacists, undertakers, and cops of the Rondo neighborhood is ridiculous as well. Except for those I'm related to, I can't name a single person in any of those professions from any neighborhood in St. Paul. Yes, those are solid, responsible jobs, essential to society, and important to the development of the middle class. Those folks, no matter what their race, can do their jobs, be good citizens, and the beautiful part is, nobody has to hold a parade for them to justify their worth. To expect everyone to care, just because these particular individuals are black, is racial patronizing at its worst. (Something I'd expect from Coleman, but Finney knows better than to get mixed up with this guy's agenda).
To paraphrase racial healer Rodney King, can't we all get along, by completely ignoring each other?
And Nick Coleman, can't we let Tiger Jack Rosenbloom rest in peace, without digging him up for cheap race-baiting column fodder?
UPDATE: Steve Gigl has more on this topic.
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