By Amani Chiari | Author of Walls of Silence
On April 22, 2025, a tenant at a rural Minnesota apartment complex experienced a medical emergency following an act of repeated mail vandalism tied to ongoing harassment by a property manager. According to supporting documentation, the individual lost consciousness for approximately 20 minutes. The incident is one of many linked to a pattern of systemic abuse—specifically sexual harassment, property neglect, and intimidation in rental housing—that has resulted in serious health consequences.
Such episodes are not isolated. Medical professionals acknowledge that stress-related disorders, especially those tied to chronic discrimination and trauma, significantly raise the risk of heart disease, stroke, and early death. If the Minnesota Office of African American Health is serious about lowering Black mortality rates, it must confront the impact of oppression and systemic abuse as a root cause of poor health.
Reports of harassment in these cases are specific, well-documented, and involve named individuals and entities. Yet when Black Minnesotans speak of systemic abuse, their experiences are often reduced to abstraction—lumped under generic terms like “inequity” or “disparity”—instead of being treated as real, criminal harm. Meanwhile, reports of Black crime are highly specific, highly visible, and often weaponized. This imbalance shapes public perception. It allows abuse against Black communities to be normalized, while the abusers remain nameless and unaccountable.
Environments where harassment and intimidation go unchecked are public safety threats. And yet, individuals involved in such abuse often continue to secure employment or contracts in housing, healthcare, or public services. Transparency—naming the parties involved, understanding how systems failed, and exposing misconduct—is not about vengeance. It’s a deterrent. It’s harm prevention. It’s justice.
Following the April 22 incident, the tenant delayed essential mail retrieval for several days, fearing renewed conflict. It is a striking example of how systemic abuse interrupts daily life and has financial, psychological, and physical consequences. Victims of systemic racism often suffer from trauma that is rarely acknowledged in clinical spaces. Despite the clear overlap between long-term exposure to racism and post-traumatic stress, there is a critical shortage of therapists equipped to treat it—let alone name it.
This reality leads to unconscious avoidance behaviors. It erodes economic participation. And it has nothing to do with personal failure. It is the direct result of living under threat.
Mental health experts have long called for the inclusion of Legal Abuse Syndrome in diagnostic frameworks. The condition arises from prolonged exposure to injustice, intimidation, and systemic harm—particularly in legal, housing, and healthcare systems. Yet, to date, it remains unrecognized in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), even as it describes the lived reality of many Black Americans.
The racial wealth gap in Minnesota is among the worst in the nation. White families hold 80% more wealth than Black families on average. This isn’t coincidental—it’s the result of theft. Theft of peace. Theft of time. Theft of health and opportunity. And until those who steal it are identified, confronted, and stopped, there can be no meaningful equity.
Minnesota must do better. The laws exist. The regulations exist. What’s missing is the will to enforce them when Black people are harmed.
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