This week Marshall gives us the news from NE MN including surprises in NE MN's Super Tuesday presidential primary votes, documenting the role of iron ore and MN's Iron Range on WWII, as well as the boycotting by area leaders of Fortune Bay Resort Casino. The Timberjay editorialized on this:
The recent calls for boycotts of Indian-owned businesses in our region are as foolish as they are disrespectful. The politicians, like Ely Mayor Chuck Novak, and groups like the Laurentian Chamber of Commerce, can’t have it both ways. When they tell members of the Bois Forte Band that their views shouldn’t count, or that the values they hold dear don’t matter, they are revealing much about their lack of respect toward native people. We have heard much in recent months about the Iron Range “way of life” which, to some, rests solely on resource extraction. Yet native peoples who lived here for centuries before the white man showed up to level the forests and gouge the Earth have a “way of life,” too. It just isn’t one that very many Americans of European descent have ever understood or respected. And with their recent calls for boycotts of native-owned businesses, they’re putting an exclamation point on that lack of respect.
