Naming & Framing: How Language Changes Are Impacting Community Development
How we talk about North Minneapolis matters. We are operating in a political climate where words are carrying new meaning and the currency of those words is changing at a pace we have never seen before. In order to ensure our communities are not left behind, we must reconsider our own language and the intent of the words we choose – especially when we are talking about ourselves, our children, and our values. If we don’t, the nonprofits that our communities depend on could fall out of social & political relevance, lose funding, and ultimately fail to meet our needs.
The Trump Administration has made it abundantly clear that their attacks on language, whether legal or not, will force institutions to change the way they interact with communities, consumers, and in the case of nonprofits – funders. Make no mistake, this is deliberate, strategic, and so far – effective. Reconstruction is the development of the intellectual instruments that will dictate our moral stance on current social or political issues. By forcing leaders and organizations alike to speak differently about certain issues, an authoritarian can effectively suppress the thoughts, creativity, and possibilities of entire communities. To say that these are unprecedented times would be an understatement. Furthermore, reconstruction is “an intellectual procedure that refurbishes terms that have lost their clarity because of the changing conditions informing their use” (Eddie S. Glaude, We Are The Leaders We Have Been Looking For. 2024). Five years removed from the tragic murder of George Floyd, it is a shame that we are hesitant to utter words like “Racial Justice”, fearing potential retaliation claiming “reverse racism”.
“Words matter — even the ones that are commonly misunderstood. Unclear words still influence how we see, describe, and understand our lived experiences” (Glaude, 2024). For example, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has been turned into a derogatory term by those who fear the outcomes of a democracy that truly gives equal weight to every voice. More importantly, they’ve been successful in weaponizing this well-intended practice due to the fact that most people don’t understand what DEI is fundamentally, or further more – how it informs our broader social, political, philanthropic, and economic systems by way of Affirmative Action. Or perhaps, they do understand the meaning – but fear the outcomes. Consequently, we are living in an era where people, communities, corporations, and governments alike are grappling with how they express their values without becoming the target of attacks from those who are trying their hardest to suppress those very values.
“There is a prophetic aspect to all observation; we can perceive the meaning of what exists only as we forecast the consequences it entails” (Glaude, 2024). Using deficit-based language when talking about certain communities has often evolved into policies that deliberately extract resources from those communities, creating a macro-scale self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, when my hometown of Chicago deconstructed the public housing “projects” in the 1990’s, rival gangs were forced to clash, crime spiked, and the Black population declined as many including my family were displaced. To avoid such negative results, North Minneapolis-based nonprofit, V3 Sports aims to become the largest economic development project in the community’s history by intentionally portraying itself and the broader North Minneapolis community through an asset-framed lens, and becoming a world-class regional destination. As Mayor Jacob Frey said in a 2025 Press Conference, “V3 Sports is re-imagining what community investment looks like – the North side is rising and we’re rising with it”.
Malik Rucker, Executive Director - V3 Sports
Nearly a year after their grand opening, like most grassroots organizations across the country, V3 Sports is fighting to navigate this environment of constantly-shifting priorities to deliver results for North Minneapolis and our entire region. Malik Rucker (Executive Director) is doubling down on their mission – literally. He stated “The V3 Center is where the strength and vision of North Minneapolis can thrive. We’re expanding to support a community already rich in talent, resilience, and potential. Community development is at the heart of V3 Sports existence —creating spaces that grow opportunity and connection. In a time when so much threatens to divide us, the urgency for places that amplify this vision and invest in what’s possible has never been greater.”
During his recent “Conversation on Black Wealth & Power Building”, Dr. Andre Perry, Author of Black Power Scorecard stated that good jobs and good education produce safer communities. Safer communities not only experience longer life expectancy, but a greater quality of life. With its intentional, place-based investment, V3 Sports is simultaneously addressing those needs for our community and their continued growth by way of its Phase II expansion project affords us an opportunity to re-imagine.
“Imagination affords us the possibility and distance necessary to say what is wrong with our current social arrangements and to forecast the emergence of a more just arrangement” (Glaude, 2024). The truth is, the socioeconomic circumstances of communities across America in 2028 will largely be determined by the extent of which those communities are able to imagine. Only from a place of imagination can you begin to build a team, attract resources, and strategize toward a better future. Like Will Smith says, it takes a certain level of insanity for a person to dream – bringing scalable solutions that improve the quality of life in inner-city neighborhoods like North Minneapolis is a dream that some might call insane. But, we cannot allow that disbelief to impede our progress. Let’s keep building, together.
