Duluth City Councilors, Residents Express Raw Emotion Over Gaza Resolution Debate
DULUTH, Minn. — Duluth city councilors faced a full house at Monday night’s council meeting, with raw emotions pouring out from elected officials and residents for nearly three hours. At issue, was whether to pass a resolution supporting a quote “permanent ceasefire to prevent loss of human life in the Middle East.”
Some councilors felt strongly to pass the resolution, while others felt the resolution was divisive and taking away time and resources on serious issues facing Duluth.
Councilor Azrin Awal, who is an immigrant from Bangladesh and Duluth’s first Asian American and Muslim city councilor, said what’s happening in Gaza is deeply personal.
“I see this as a social-justice issue that impacts every single one of our residents. Regardless of what side they are on, we can all agree the loss of life and humanity is not acceptable, it’s not tolerable in our locality, in our city, in our neighborhoods, and ever tolerable and is not acceptable and fathomable anywhere in the world,” Awal said.
(To view the full city council meeting on the permanent ceasefire resolution, click here)
Councilor Mike Mayou agreed with Awal and said resolutions locally can collectively affect change in the world.
“Our actions across the United States and across the globe are having an impact. And that’s why I will be voting yes, is that I believe when we come together in a collective voice, that we can have an impact that is bigger than one of us and is all of us together speaking,” Mayou said
Meanwhile for councilor Janet Kennedy, she called out supporters of the resolution for being what she called divisive and at times threatening, with a lack of proactive engagement with all parts of Duluth, including herself.
“Please value me as a black woman, do not appropriate me, but value me, and let’s have a real conversation,” Kennedy said. “All of you are hurting right now, unheard people are hurting right now, and nobody is talking about that. My responsibility, and all the counselors’ responsibility, is to make sure our community is well by our policies, practices, procedures and whatever we bring forward and choose to bring forward, and if you are not willing to fix all of the community, I would just beg to differ maybe not do it or maybe it’s not the right time or the right place.”
Councilor Lynn Nephew said the cease-fire resolution was beyond the city’s expertise, a city she said is facing many unsolved problems.
“We are an underfunded, understaffed city. We are part-time councilors. Today I am reminded what I am actually here to do — snow removal, homelessness, housing shortage, opioid deaths, dealing with violence on the Lakewalk that’s making people very unsafe, just to name a few. And because of that, I am voting no,” Nephew said.
