Minneapolis
Unrest has always been the name of the game here
Today I need to veer from my usual theme of historically sexist women’s magazine ads, in light of what’s happening in my community right now.
These are my personal observations, nothing more.
I live in a suburb of Minneapolis. I realize events here are no different from what’s happening in cities all over the country. But I live here, and this is my experience.
In another Midwestern city, a person close to me spent the last several months doing the same kind of work Renee Good was doing when she was murdered yesterday by an ICE agent: observing and recording ICE assaults. The same thing could easily have happened to my person.
I’ve lived in the Twin Cities off and on since 1981. When I moved here from Iowa in 1981, I lived in the then-thriving uptown area, and worked in wonderfully vibrant downtown Minneapolis. For the next 20 years, I lived in and taught elementary school in various suburbs. We returned in 2013 from New York and lived downtown for two years, which had wildly changed since my earlier experience, and not for the better. We’ve been back in this area for the past year, but will be moving to Iowa City this spring.
I can say with certainty, I’ve seen this city from all angles, via my students, their parents, my coworkers and friends, my various communities, local businesses frequented, arts and sports events attended, and more.
Uncomfortable disparity has always existed between races and incomes here. Both “sides” blame each other, with vehement anger, for the problems in the local society. We live on land stolen from the Native Dakota and Ojibwe, the Ho-Chunk, Cheyenne, Oto, Iowa, and the Sac & Fox tribes. This is the origin of and current contributor to daily discord.
This city, like many others in America, has a history of redlining through racial covenants and destroying diverse neighborhoods by building freeways through them. The Twin Cities have never been fully comfortable with integration sanctioned through government policy. Nothing proved this more clearly than the murder of George Floyd by police, and its repercussions.
This excellent doc from PBS is eye-opening no matter where you live.
Did you know Minneapolis-St. Paul is home to the largest urban Hmong population in the U.S? More than 90,000 refugees arrived here after the Vietnam War. I watched as they successfully created their beautiful cultural community, bringing new businesses and installing needed new leadership and positive change in neighborhoods. Meanwhile they faced constant racial attacks and were treated like outsiders by at least half the citizens in the Twin Cities. The same kind of discrimination has been a reality for the Somali community since they arrived in 1992.
There’s no pretense on my part about this city welcoming all people.
On the other hand, this is a city of activists. I could write mountains of paragraphs about the community activism and vital forces for change. The arts flourish here. Schools and teachers strive to teach acceptance through example and policy. Scores of citizens have dedicated their lives to championing heterogeneity.
A quintessential Minneapolis 80s band, The Suburbs, epitomized it, in 1984. Here’s a look back.
And now, our divided city is under attack by this administration’s goons.
Will this be what finally unites the community? If the current comments on social media and news sites are any indication, that’s a hard no. Never read the comments, you say? The comments are the narrative now.
One would think seeing video of a woman murdered in broad daylight for exercising her constitutional right and patriotic duty to peacefully protest and disrupt unfair cruelty and imprisonment would move the needle for the MAGA cult. Instead, it’s fueled their fire. We’re in real trouble, folks.
JD Vance said soon ICE will be going door-to-door, in an interview yesterday on Fox. Quote: “I think we’re going to see those deportation numbers ramp up as we get more and more people online, working for ICE, going door to door, and making sure that if you’re an illegal alien, you’ve gotta get out and apply [for citizenship] through the proper channels.”
The Chicago Pope’s response:
Go Bears.
The online jokes and memes about “time to hide in the attic” etc are unfunny to those of us in the thick of it. Reactions like, “wild” or “what do you expect, half the country believes this?” are unhelpful. The lack of empathy and pure denial are physically sickening to me.
Understand, it’s not a matter of IF fascism is coming to your town, it’s WHEN.
“It can’t happen here” is a meaningless, dead phrase.
Follow local people and listen to their stories, so you can get the facts. Here are two suggestions.
Please find out what you can do from wherever you are. Soon your own community will be the one asking for support.
Any of these links will lead to ways you can help.
Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland. At your own peril.
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Thank you Kitty. Appreciate your always astute perspective as someone there on the ground with experience to back it all up. It’s truly unconscionable what we’re going through right now. Sending love and support.
Watching horrified from across the border, 8 hours north. Winnipeg loves you Minneapolis