The truth about Ellison

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You know there are more women Ellison has abused! If you can see the pdf, I posted the story underneath the file




COMING OUT OF THE DARK

Breaking the Silence About the Anointed Candidate

By: Amy L. Alexander

October 11, 20

I regret that like many, I too was duped by Keith Ellison’sconsiderable charm. I was seduced by the idea of what Ithought he represented. As a perennial DFL activist from the north side of Minneapolis I worked for and with Ellison on a number of issues and community boards.

I grew up in the Willard-Homewoodneighborhood. My mother is whiteand my father is black. I was raisedCatholic and I’m proud of myembattled Church. I’m raising mydaughter in the faith. My faith is the fuel behind my courage to standup and reclaim my voice, a voice that by court order has been silenced by Keith Ellison

Make no mistake; my desire to setthe record straight is not specificallyintended to denigrate Ellison in hisrun for Congress. He’s the onewho decided to marginalize me byfiling a harassment restraining orderagainst me. He made this whole nightmare a matter of public record. He silenced me. Now it’s my turn to be heard.

I first remember Keith Ellison speaking in 1989 at the Uof M. He organized the African-American History Monthprogramming. Ellison has been an icon for black militancyin Minneapolis for two decades. I was inspired, yetconflicted with my bi-racial upbringing. At a similar eventheld at South High School I was mortified by the exampleof “violence as a vehicle to liberation” that the speakerillustrated citing slave Nat Turner’s massacre of fifty whitesin 1831. The raucous standing ovation by black South High School students at the suggestion of killing whites was as chilling to me then as it is today.

I officially met Keith Ellison at a tenant organizingconference in fall of 1993. I was twenty years old. Keithwas married. He began calling me almost daily. He took me to lunch. He took me to Uhuru Books Saturday afternoon meetings for black militant empowerment lead by Ellison and Mahmoud El-Kati from Macalester College. I felt like I had really tapped into the inner circle of a movement I was passionate to serve.

Ellison’s charm turned into flirtation.He represented my access to thesystem. He held the keys to mysuccess in black communityactivism. I succumbed to hisromantic advances. In retrospect,this was one of the greatestmistakes of my life. Our hot andcold romance devolved into a love/ hate showdown by spring of 1994.Keith belittled me about my weightand constantly criticized my everyword and action. He ostracized mefrom the community on whosebehalf I had worked so hard toadvocate. Feeling exiled I escaped to New York for the next five years.

Ten years later in advance of the2004 election I volunteered to callRalph Nader supporters at the DFLVote Center. Keith Ellison walkedin with his family and when he saw me he was visiblyshaken. I told him to relax and that our fling was “waterunder the bridge.” Little did I know what was about to transpire. Within a few weeks we were emailing daily and shortly thereafter whatever boundaries we had began to blur again.

The doors to political activism on the northside were openedto me again. I volunteered for Environmental JusticeAdvocates of Minnesota (EJAM). Keith’s chairmanshipof EJAM was controversial among some circles since hewas a sitting state legislator at the time. Working oncommittees with and for Keith was always troublesomefor me because I always knew he could explode in a tiradeat any moment. He was a little dictator.

Keith encouraged me to apply to the Central Long-rangeImprovement Committee (CLIC) largely to extend his personal influence on that board. Keith offered to be myreference. Mayor R.T. Rybak appointed me to CLIC.

Things really started falling apart at the 2005 MinneapolisDFL Convention at Augsburg College. Many active partyworkers left the cause that day. It was the mostdisorganized convention one could imagine. Keith wasclearly agitated as I tried to introduce him to fellowdelegates that I knew. In retrospect, this would be thebeginning of Keith marginalizing me once again. At theconvention I asked Keith about the EJAM position. Keithcornered me and in a low angry voice exclaimed “Bitch,you don’t have the EJAM job, I can’t control you anymore.”I was furious with him. Apparently my usefulness to Ellisonended that day. I came undone emotionally andpsychologically. I had dropped fifty pounds for him. The diet ended that day.

I continued to organize an event for EJAM at the UrbanLeague scheduled for June of 2005. In May, Keith wantedto try and quiet me so he came to my home uninvited. Wehad words. His anger kicked in. He berated me. Hegrabbed me and pushed me out of the way. I was terrified.I called the police. As he fled he broke my screen door. Ihave never been so scared. I immediately began to secondguess myself as many victims of abuse do when at thebrink of exposing their abuser. How could I or anyone stand up to the man who had been the local icon of black militancy for almost two decades?

Keith began a smear campaign against me that very day.The community was poisoned with details about my post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and panic attacks. Themedication I was prescribed reacted very badly in mysystem and I sunk into an ever darkening spiral of depression. When I got the summons to appear in HennepinCounty Court for a harassment restraining order hearing Ididn’t know what to do.I took the bus to the Government Center only to find outthat Keith had filed a continuance. Keith’s attorney metme there and offered me a ride home. He tried to convinceme to be more cooperative. I refused to let anyone tryand ban me from public places. That’s what Keith wastrying to do: prohibit me from the Urban League and theState Office Building. The restraining order was granted in June. I guess a single Mom on a bicycle is scary stuff for a lawyer who defends cop-killer gangsters. The hearingwas in August. Mediators tried to help us reach acompromise but Keith insisted that I be banned from anyspace within any place that he worked.

I obeyed the restraining order without exception. It wasKeith’s friend and attorney who called me the day afterthe 2006 DFL endorsement convention to arrange ameeting. We met at The Modern Café. He offered merelease from Keith’s restraining order if I either promisedto shut up about our affairs or came out publicly in supportof Keith’s candidacy for Congress. I refused. I askedthem repeatedly to leave me alone. He called me again inJuly with the same offer. I reported that incident to police and the cops agreed to let the attorney know to leave me alone.

It was the harassment from Ellison’s attorney that causedmy fear to reignite. Ellison is a man on a quest for powerand national prominence; A man with deep ties to somepretty scary people. I feared for my life and for the safetyof my daughter. I heard through the grapevine that Ellison’speople had preemptively distributed information to the presssuggesting that I was insane. He even remarked to somethat he didn’t even know me. That awful feeling was back.

The only way for me to stop this madness is to take full responsibility for getting romantically involved with an influential married legislator. For that I am sorry. I muststand up for myself now or be forever marginalized. I willnot teach my daughter to cower in the face of abusiveoppression even if it is from the first black Muslim inCongress. That’s why I filed my own petition for aharassment restraining order against Ellison. The judge didn’t grant my request but she did give me a hearing.

My day in court is October 23rd. Somehow I doubt thatmy voice will be heard there. I’ve been muted before.I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to step forwardon the record and own my story. I just hope we all canheal from this situation. Our unfortunate affair shows but a fragment of the toxicity of male dominant chauvinist sexism within the black community. No one gains anything in the battle for dignity and respect by passively endorsing abuses. Not now. Not ever.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said it well in his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail:

“Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”