On December 23, 2015 Black Lives Matter protested at the Mall of America and the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, causing traffic snarls and delaying flights. Much has been made of the inconveniences experienced by those attempting to finish up their Christmas shopping and/or get out of town to visit friends and family for the holidays.
Minneapolis City Councilwoman, Alondra Cano, received criticism when she tweeted her support of the Dec. 23 BLM protest at MOA and MSP. Constituents emailing their criticism to Ms. Cano were surprised when Ms. Cano retaliated by posting her constituents’ personal information on Twitter:
On December 24, Ms. Cano followed those actions with this Tweet:
“Not surprised that Im being targeted 4 supporting today’s #BlackLivesMatter event. Data practices requests are helpful in exposing racism.”
— Alondra Cano (@People4Alondra) December 24, 2015
Those outraged by Ms. Cano’s attempt to publicly shame her critics have started a recall petition on Change.org, stating that “This behavior of posting personal information, including names and addresses, of voters in her ward is completely unacceptable. Alondra Cona is unfit to lead and she is unfit to represent the people. Alondra Cona should be recalled from her position on the Minneapolis City Council for her abhorrent behavior & breach of the Minneapolis City Council Code Of Ethics, Article II 15.170.” The petition has 570 signatures so far.
This isn’t Ms. Cano’s first dip into scandal. Earlier this month, City Pages ran a story about Ms. Cano spending $3000 of the 9th Ward District’s funding a trip to Barcelona, Spain to “go to the Public Spaces International Public Markets Conference…” because “it’s time for the city of Minneapolis to view public markets as a serious economic development strategy…” City Pages goes on to say that no results have yet been seen from Ms. Cano’s “fact-finding” trip.
Others also took to social media to express their disgust with the protest, including Brandon Burgau, a young Minnesotan who posted the following along with a video of the MSP BLM protest:
The post has been “liked” over 6300 times and has generated both support and backlash. Here is one of the more civilized examples of the backlash he received:
