(PM.) A Minneapolis activist, speaker, and business owner is working to purchase a 68,000-square-foot building to create a space for BIPOC business owners.
Jesse Ross a North Minneapolis leader in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leader is also the founder of the Wealth Redistribution Project, created in partnership initiative with the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. The project is designed to grow Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Women-owned businesses in North Minneapolis.
Ross has secured funding for all but 5 percent to purchase the multi-million dollar 68,000-square-foot building on North Second Street. He plans to close on the property by the end of 2022 and then renovate the property in 2023.
A new mall is opening in Minneapolis but only for non-white business owners pic.twitter.com/bVVwgT6qKe
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 11, 2022
He plans to transform the property into a commercial rental and event space for people who identify as BIPOC. Ross did not specify if people who did not identify as BIPOC would be excluded from the project.
According to the Minneapolis Department of Human Rights, “Property owners cannot discriminate against you because of your race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, disability, public assistance, sexual orientation, gender identity, or familial status.”
Ross said of the project, “So many people in a lot of the DEI work that I do … have said to me, ‘I don’t know what to do. I wish I could do more. Our company should be doing more.’ Here is a practical opportunity. There will be businesses here. There will be people here. There will be bills that need to be paid as well. Opportunities for companies, for institutions, for people to just say … ‘Hey I really want to do something and here’s somebody like Jesse who is creating a platform.”
Ross runs classes called “Anti-Racism” where he has a series of “conversations” some designed for “white women” and some for “white men.”
Following the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade earlier this year, Ross posted on Instagram, “Oh boy… I wish I had some white men that were willing to talk about the atrocities that are being done by their counterparts…”
The Supreme Court ruling…
The states that immediately banned abortion…
The treatment of black and brown people across the world…
The white trepidation that exists because they know their time is coming to an end…
