The Feeling of Community

Monday March 8th, 2021 was to be the first day of Derek Chauvin's trial for murdering George Floyd. It ended up being delayed by a day as the courts wrestled on a matter of how many charges he can face at one time. Regardless, the community showed up.

People in my house began rousing around 6:30 a.m., wiping sleep from their teenage eyes and dressing for the day. Breakfast was delivered by the boyfriend, bagels were munched down and we all piled into the car with signs in hands.

Downtown Minneapolis during the pandemic has a strange feel to it. No longer are there crowds of business men and women dressed in suits, ties or heels, waiting impatiently on corners for the light to change, checking their phones or talking into their Bluetooth devices. Parking spaces are available in every ramp at steep hourly prices since no one is parking in ramps all day right now. Breakfast spots that used to have lines of customers waiting for food are temporarily closed until employees return to downtown. The few people you see walking the streets are usually essential workers; postal carriers, delivery service people, cleaners. The working poor gather in doorways and corners, wondering what the day will bring them. 

We walked through blocks of this surreal downtown to reach the Minneapolis Government Center since the street in front of the center has been closed and the plaza surrounding it barricaded with fencing, concrete barriers and barbed wire. The flowers we had placed in the fencing the day before were still there. We looked to the left and there we found our people — hundreds of them. 

Our people were of every color, ethnicity and gender. They held signs, wearing shirts from various previous events seeking justice; "George Floyd Changed the World," "Native Lives Matter," "Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied," and many more. 

We walked around a bit to get a sense of the space. We checked out the t-shirt vendor selling "Black Lives Matter" t-shirts, bumper stickers, hats and other items. We found the People's Revolution van, a business sprung up from the protests of the past year that provides mobile AV support for marches such as this one. We read the massive banner that marked where the front of the crowd was, then took our place several feet behind it. 

The first speaker began with "Good morning! I am so happy to see all of you here, my community, my friends." And we, four middle-class white people, felt like we belonged. We could sense the people around us smiling, crinkles at people's eyes giving away the smiles behind their masks. 

The words from the microphone bounced off the empty buildings around us. Native dancers performed a traditional dance in front of the banner, the accompanying drums booming from the towers around us. The chants of the people reverberated back to us from the buildings' heights. 

The buildings around us created an echo chamber of sound.

Cries for justice resounded through downtown Minneapolis. The court must listen. The world is watching.

History Has Its Eyes On Minneapolis

The sit-in on Hennepin Ave and reading of the names of Minnesotans murdered by police in MN.

Today the girls and I participated in a silent march to honor George Floyd's memory and demand justice on the eve of the trial of his murderer, Derek Chauvin. There were several hundred people in attendance. We also noticed a huge contingency of press were there; cameras and microphones everywhere, two broadcasting station helicopters hovering overhead. 

They had a white coffin draped with a massive spray of red roses representing George Floyd and all Minnesotans killed by police brutality. They handed out flowers for participants to carry along the route. Afterwards, many of the participants chose to place the flowers in the massive fence that's been placed around the government building where the trial will take place. 

The coffin being carried to the head of the march, the courthouse where the jury will take place in the background.

 The white coffin and a massive banner that said "I Can't Breathe!" were at the front of the march. While chants and music are often a part of these demonstrations, the organizers today asked people to be silent. It was quiet with the exception of quiet chatter. Partway through we stopped, sat in the street for 8 minutes and 43 minutes, the length of time that Derek Chauvin had his neck on George Floyd's neck, and heard the organizer read out some of the names of the more than 400 people murdered by police in the state of Minnesota. It sounded like a someone reading names at a graduation, only all of these people died at the hands of police. We only got through people with last names starting with A through J before we were out of time. 

For the number of photographers and videographers I saw through the crowd, the one thing that drew many of them to point their cameras their way was the crew who were there boarding up the glass on the Marshall's store. 

Media interviewing a march participant.

A photographer stands on the van at the front of the march, another taking photos through the crowd.

I don't know what this coming week, weeks or months will bring. I do know that Derek Chauvin is the first White police officer being charged for murdering a Black man in Minnesota, even though hundreds have lost their lives to police brutality. As in the weeks after George's death, I believe the national media will focus on the few incidents of violence, anger or destruction. The massive peaceful gatherings will be largely ignored. 

We will be watching this carefully, helping to amplify the voices of those who deserve to be heard and seen, and hoping for justice for George.

The President We Needed

On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, I tearfully awoke my daughters to the news that the lead that Donald J. Trump had held the previous night never flipped, and he was elected president of the United States.

My sister-in-law in NYC made this observation: "He may not be the president we want, but he's the president we need." I didn't get it.

But over the course of what I can only describe as the most troubling four years of a president's administration, I have to admit she was right.

With one of their own in the highest office in the country, white supremacists came out of the woodwork, chanting "Jews will not replace us!" and re-igniting the flames of hatred that had been felt in their hearts but rarely spoken in the decades since the Civil Rights movement. Sadly, BIPOC people felt the wrath of this movement with even more dark-skinned bodies murdered at the hands of police, more violence inflicted upon them. Trump's rhetoric in calling Covid-19 the "Kung Fu flu" has resulted in a rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. He spoke the words — they are out there, and his followers responded enthusiastically with their actions. 

White Supremacists march in Charlotte, NC, 2017.

A protest on May 26, 2020, after the murder of George Floyd.

Now we can begin the work. 

We cannot change what we cannot see. Now we see the racism that lives in the hearts of many Americans. We see it plainly. It had simply gone underground, it never went away. Over the course of decades it was quietly written into our health care policies, our social welfare policies, our criminal justice system. 

Source: Sentencing Project (sentencingproject.org)

Source: MN Dept of Health Infant Mortality Study (pdf)

We would have never known the work we need to do with Hilary Clinton as president. But with Trump, now we see what needs to be done. We need to re-write health care policies, social welfare policies. We need to unravel our criminal justice system from the bottom up and re-build it. 

At a national level, at a state level even, the work seems daunting. What impact can I make to change the world we've built? I'm just one person.

My answer has been to start local. I became involved in social justice movements here in Minneapolis, showing up to support groups like Justice for Jamar Clark, Black Lives Matter, Native Lives Matter, Poor People's Campaign, and others. These are opportunities unique to me as a resident of Minneapolis, a city at the heart of the movement after the murder of George Floyd.

I recently joined the Racial Equity committee of the Fulton Neighborhood Association. I can learn how to address racist speech and ideas by educating myself on how to have a civil discussion with someone with whom I disagree. And I can support local and state candidates who put the needs of BIPOC communities first. Yes, first. Because they have been on the back-burner for so long, we need to prioritize writing policies and legislature that work as well for these communities as for White communities. Too much is currently in existence that not only does not support them but actively works against them. This fact sheet (pdf) from the Poor People's Campaign succinctly outlines the disparities in the state of Minnesota. 

If you are interested in doing this work yourself, here are some places to start:

1. Join the Braver Angels email list, read and learn. Braver Angels is working to de-polarize politics by teaching people how to disagree civilly. They host debates between people of opposing sides of an issue and moderate discussions using techniques to find common ground while still disagreeing. If you're a podcast listener, take a listen to their "Braver Angels" podcast. Start here, with their debate between Bob Woodson, veteran of the Civil Rights movement, and Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter New York. 

2. Learn about the Black, queer, feminist lens. You can start by reading "Unapologetic" by Charlene A. Carruthers. Or, if you aren't going to read a whole book about it, read this interview. By evaluating a movement's work through the lens of a Black, queer, feminist person we can ensure that the work being done improves the life of anyone within that intersectionality.

3. Change happens at the local level, so look there for opportunities. What can you do to make your own neighborhood or city more welcoming to more people? Are there organizations or groups that are doing this work? What talents do you have that you can bring to the table? Or, if there aren't any groups doing this work, how about starting one?

4. Pay attention to local politics and institutions. Does your child's school have a policy supporting their BIPOC students? What steps are they taking to ensure equal treatment of a diverse student population, or...if the population is not diverse, what are they doing to expose students to the issues that face children of marginalized groups? How does your city government work? Is there adequate representation of populations? If not, can you support a candidate who supports BIPOC communities? Would you campaign for that candidate? 

Please join me in awakening our nation to the disparities that exist in our country. It takes more of us working at every level to make change. 

A Pilgrimage

I've now been down to 38th & Chicago many times now since May 25th, the last day of George Floyd's life.

It feels important to do. I don't know how to feel every time I go, which is why I go often.

The community has blocked off the intersection by a block in every direction — no police in sight, citizens can manage this themselves, thank you very much. Depending on which direction you enter it from, your car could be stopped by pieces of art, by concrete blocks, or by cars parked sideways across the intersection, music blasting from the stereo.

At each entrance you'll find volunteers at a tent, handing out masks and spraying hand sanitizer on each visitor. We are in the midst of a pandemic, after all.

Today, I visited with my husband and both girls and we first visited the "#SayTheirNames Cemetery," an art installation a block away, in a green space that was previously empty. This art was created by two Penn State students and is made of tombstones of every Black person who lost their lives at the hands of the police. It is devastatingly large and not complete. While there I emailed one of the artists (per their sign) and gave a couple of names to add to it, the most recent killing happening just this past Friday.

"#SayTheirNames" Cemetery, 37th & Park Ave, Mpls

From there, we walked the half-block to 38th & Chicago. You don't need the signs at each entrance reminding you that you're entering a sacred place, and to be respectful of brown and black people who may be in mourning. You don't need that reminder, you can feel it.

The street is covered with the names of Blacks who lost their lives at the hands of the police and have not received justice. The names stretch across faded yellow dotted lines that used to direct cars along the streets which are now only traveled by foot. An oblivious person was walking over the names and someone else asked him to move off of them and walk alongside. It was the respectful thing to do.

We came to the corner where George lost his life. The place on the street where he died has been painted, his body filled in with blue paint, wings unfolding from his shoulders as he ascends to heaven. The area where he died is marked off by red velvet rope and entirely lined with flowers upon flowers upon flowers, signs and letters to George strewn among the decaying flora.

Around the corner is the beautiful blue mural that was painted just a couple of days after his death. Marissa and I were visiting while the artists were painting it. I have visited here when the flowers were so thick on the sidewalk that visitors had to take to the street. Now, the decaying and dead flowers from three weeks ago have been removed and a new layer of fresh flowers lain down by visitors, though everyone respectfully keeps their distance and gazes upon it from afar.

This particular piece of art hurt my heart the most. These are George's final words. All of them.

Tents are set up throughout by various groups. I purchased t-shirts from black business owners who are raising money to re-build their barber shop and the salon next door which were both damaged in the ensuing riots. There was a tent set up in the parking lot of the Speedway to register people to vote, one of few ways that people in these neighborhoods can take back their power.

The previous day I was in this same area, working the "Recall Freeman" tent to collect signatures to recall Hennepin County DA Mike Freeman, who was waiting for "more evidence" before charging the officers with George Floyd's death. The only evidence he could have been waiting for was that exonerating the police officers, as the public had already seen the overwhelming evidence of their guilt.

The center of the intersection has a large sculpture of a black fist raised up to the sky, surrounded by flowers and art. Art upon art upon art upon art. The street was filled with the original graffiti after his death, of people writing "murder," and "f12," and "say his name" directly on the pavement. And then this was supplanted by statues, murals, other art that overtook the graffiti.

Stunning art of George Floyd made up the protest signs his death inspired.

Black grief is not quiet. It is loud. It is sometimes profane. It is undeniable. It is contagious.

Each time I visit, I see something new. I talk to people and nod and pay respect to people who, outside of this sacred space, I may not have felt comfortable approaching. I've had conversations with people all of creeds and colors in this space and we are all there together, with a singular mission: to honor George Floyd's life, and to ensure that his death was not in vain, that his will be the one that will change our society forever.

Living in Two Different Cities

I'm sitting in my backyard with the fire pit burning, a dog snuggled up next to me and the quiet sounds of urban wildlife settling down for the night. The sun is slowly setting, we can see it through the little window where our trees open up to the west.

5/30/2020, 9 p.m., Fulton neighborhood, Minneapolis 

A family having a birthday celebration earlier today at Bde Maka Ska.

Three blocks from us, our local shops are boarded up. The grocery store closed at 5 p.m., the liquor store closed last night at 6:30 p.m. and will not re-open until Tuesday. 

The jewelry store down the street is also boarded up and the message "all jewelry has been removed from the premises" spray-painted across the plywood.

Jewelry store at 50th & France.

On one of the businesses at 50th & France.

Our Walgreens, the one where Beauty is so beloved by all the staff members, was broken into two nights ago. One of their doors is covered with plywood. They are open for business because people need their prescriptions, but they, too, closed early.

It feels like the calm before the storm. 

Our family is feeling helpless — we wish we could do more, so we started looking around to see how we could help. Local food shelves are now serving families whose local grocery stores were damaged or are closed anticipating violence. A Minneapolis public school in the 3rd precinct, where all this began, needs help getting food to their low-income families who would normally still be getting free lunch food. So Lindsey and I wrote down the list of what they needed and decided to buy the items, put together the food bags and drop them off tomorrow.

The line at our local Lund's of people waiting to go in to shop was out the door. The grocery store was closing early and still limiting the number of people in the store due to social distancing. So we decided to drive further out, to Bloomington, to shop for these families in need.

The store in Bloomington was also closing at 5; we got there around 3:30 p.m. The lines to check out snaked all the way to the back of the store. It took us two hours to get the groceries needed that we'll donate, as well as the few we needed for ourselves. 

One woman was there to get grocery for her sister, since her sister lives in the area of the protests and can't get to a store. Another was stocking up just in case the store there was a target too and she wouldn't be able to get groceries later on. And then there were people like us, who thought that driving to Bloomington was far enough away for us to avoid a crowd. Silly us.

The line to check out at Cub Foods in Bloomington.

It is so frustrating that just as our businesses were opening back up,after months of being closed due to the pandemic, they are closing again due to civil unrest. Salons that were going to be opening on Monday aren't any more, nor are the restaurants and bars that were set to open June 1. This could send some small business owners over the edge financially. 

All Minneapolis residents are under curfew start at 8 p.m. It is estimated that 10,000 agitators from out-of-state are in our city now, causing chaos and using this unrest as a cover for looting and destroying our city. In today's press conference, Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul said that of the 120 arrests that took place in St. Paul last night, 100% of them were from out-of-town. Gov. Walz says that their surveillance is estimating that 80% of the protestors are not from here, many from known white supremist groups. 

I am saddened by what is happening, moreso because we seem to go through this cycle every few years. Brutal murder, followed by outrage, followed by a promise for change, followed by a slipping back to old ways, followed by a brutal murder. And the fact that white supremacists are using this opportunity to besmirch the work of the black community legitimately protesting yet another unjustified death in this country angers me to no end.

I hope for peace. I hope for change. I hope for equality for all and protection under the law.

More later. Thank you for reading.

From "Stay Well" to "Stay Safe"

A crowd gathers at 38th and Chicago where George Floyd was murdered, watching artists create a mural to honor his memory.

On Monday of this week a black man named George Floyd was pinned to the ground and a white police officer knelt on his neck with his full weight, asphyxiating him until he died. A crowd of people gathered and cried mercy on his behalf to deaf ears.

George had been accused of forging a $20 bill at a local grocery store. He was unarmed, was already in handcuffs and had been placed in the back of the squad car. He was then removed from the vehicle, placed on the ground and the officer placed his knee on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. George stopped moving at 3 minutes in. The officer didn't remove his weight from George's neck until after the ambulance showed up and the gurney rolled out.

The gross abuse of power was captured in a 10-minute video shot by a 17-year-old girl on the scene. I cannot imagine the horror she experienced as she watched a man lose his life through the lens of her phone.

We are on night three of what we expect to be protests and riots. The first night was bricks through car windshields, some minor damage. The next night an apartment complex under construction was burnt to the ground, as was the local Target and AutoZone. Other businesses were broken into and looted. Last night the 3rd Precinct building of the MPD was set on fire, along with a host of other businesses. Violence is spreading to St. Paul and the suburbs, and solidarity in other cities is resulting in protests in Los Angeles, Denver, New York and more. 

At first I was angry and frustrated why communities respond to injustice by looting and hurting business owners who live in their neighborhoods. But then I read a few things that made so much sense to me, this one makes it the easiest to understand:

"A riot is the language of the unheard." — Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. 

This was first said in a speech on April 4, 1967 called "The Other America" given at Stanford University. He paraphrased this and used it in many interviews until his death exactly one year from when he first spoke them.

His full speech can be found here. It is disheartening that it is just as relevant today as it was when it was first delivered 53 years ago.

I read about the work of MPD150, which did a comprehensive study of the history of the Minneapolis Police Department over the past 150 years. Its roots in racism are deep, and its culture has not strayed far from those roots. Their comprehensive report, released in 2017, makes a powerful case for defunding the police department and diverting those dollars to community organizations that can help reduce poverty, address mental health and drug dependency and other issues that will make communities safer, thus reducing the need for police patrolling.

I also perused this sobering dataview produced by the Star Tribune of every death after a physical confrontation with police across Minnesota. They documented the race of the victim, of the officers, whether or not weapons were involved, and the final result of justice, be it charges or a conviction. It doesn't take long to see why George Floyd's unnecessary death is the final straw. 

Finally, I began learning from the Hampton Institute, a think tank in D.C. providing analyses on a variety of subjects affecting the working class. And they had this to say about the events in Minneapolis:

This event and the fallout has been the only talk of our home for a couple of days. The girls and I have talked about our society, white privilege, the history of oppression and what it would take to fix it all.  Today Marissa and I visited the corner where George was murdered to pay our respects and be with others who feel this loss upon more loss. We don't have answers. But blacks in this country have waited too long to no longer be oppressed, to not be killed for driving while black, jogging while black, shopping while black. 

I am using my voice to call our officials, speak out on social media, and support the fight for justice and the end of inequality. I'll be supporting local organizations as well which are working to fight for change by donating to Communities Against Police Brutality, Minneapolis FreedomFund, MPD150 and others.

Please, educate yourself by following the links in this article. Here's a listing of other resources:

"The Warmth of Other Suns," Isabel Wilkerson
"The New Jim Crow," Michelle Alexander
"I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness," Austin Channing Brown
"The Hate You Give," Angie Thomas
"Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City," Matthew Desmond
"13th," and "When They See Us," documentaries by Ave DuVernay

Not. One. More.

What Hasn't Changed

This week's cover of Time Magazine struck me.

I don't believe that the civil rights leaders of the 1960's would have imagined seeing scenes like this 50 years after their own struggle lead to what they believed to be true change.

I do not pretend to understand what it means to be oppressed in our society. I can tell you what it means to be misunderstood.

I went to college at St. Cloud State in St. Cloud, Minnesota. At the time the nickname for this city of 50,000 was "White Cloud." I can't speak to the racial make up of the city itself, but I can tell you that the campus was around 85% Caucasian, 10% international students and 5% African American. Racial tensions were high -- I am not sure why it was more of a powderhorn than anywhere else, but it was. Maybe it was the lack of diversity, but at the time the racial make up didn't look much different than most other cities of comparable size in Minnesota, and other cities didn't seem to have the problems St. Cloud had.

There was the case of the white student beaten by two black students to within an inch of his life. Another incident outside a bar resulted in the opposite result. And then there was the case of the black male student charged with raping a white female student.

That one shook up campus for some time, because sadly there was the typical argument as to whether it was rape or consensual sex. I honestly do not remember the outcome of the trial, but I remember the media coverage and the unsettled feeling on campus while it was going on.

During this time, I lived in an apartment house several blocks off campus. While campus itself was well-lit, city streets the lights were few and far between and the alleys seemed ominous. At least that's how it felt to walk those streets by myself, a white woman, coming home from the campus library at midnight. (And yes, I really did -- I worked the late shift, closed it down at midnight and walked home after.)

One evening, I was walking home from the library and following the advice of all those tips and tricks that had been published in the school paper about safety.

• Be aware of your surroundings. 
• Walk confidently, looking in front of and around you, not at the ground. 
• Walk closer to the street side of the sidewalk, so someone can't grab you from the alley.
• If someone grabs you, yell something specific for others to do, like "Call 911!" instead of just "Help!" 

My spine stiffened when I saw a figure approaching me. The person was backlit by the street light behind him so I couldn't see his face, but I could clearly tell it was a man -- tall, broad-shouldered. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up and my shoulders tensed. Would he grab me? Would he try to drag me down an alley? The honest, terrible truth of it is that I thought, "What if he's black?" because I thought that would increase my chances of being attacked.

We walked closer to each other, and I could see the tension in his shoulders as well. Was he about to make his move? Was I about to have my life go in a direction I never intended?

We finally got close enough to see each other. He was a black man, a student I assume, with a backpack stuffed with his studies, papers spilling out of hastily closed zippers, a book under his arm.

We looked each other in the eye, quickly nodded, looked down and kept walking our separate ways.

I realized as I passed him...he was just as scared of I as I was of him.

After all, it was only he and I on this street. I could scream, trip myself to provide bruises for the police and claim that he did it. The state of race relations on campus at that time meant that I would be believed and he would not.

Perhaps he had the same thought that I had when we passed, "Is she about to make her move? Is my life about to go in a direction I never intended?"

For a moment, I understood. We are all human beings. We all have fears. We are all individuals -- our race is not responsible for an individual's actions.