Greetings from the war zone...

[catherineldf]

As I noted in my previous post, I live in Minneapolis, 4 blocks from where members of the Minneapolis Police Department murdered George Floyd, 1.5-3 miles from Lake Street, depending on which part of it you're looking at. I participated in the first march and went down to the vigil site again last night. I shopped at most of the local businesses and other buildings that have been destroyed and know people who worked in many of them.

So far, we have lost:

• 2 members of our local community, including Mr. Floyd.
• Countless small businesses, like restaurants and stores run by POC and immigrant folks.
• Buildings with offices that employed numerous community members
• Affordable housing and apartments
• A building housing a 40 year old nonprotit that worked with Native youth, teaching communications, and its entire archive.
• A post office and its equipment
• Things I haven't even begun the catalogue.
• An independent Spanish-language radio station
• And this doesn't begin to cover the intangibles and the buildings that were badly damaged that will be deemed unrepairable.

Honestly, I would cheerfully trade the 3rd Precinct, which I do not consider a loss, to have any or all of these other things back. "Burn it all down" is for people who don't plan to clean it up.

Is it understandable? The marches and the vigil that's been running 24 hours a day demanding justice for Mr. Floyd, definitely. Some of the attacks on various building, particularly the 3rd Precinct, definitely. But it also sounds as if some of it, the fires in particular, may have been set by agent provocateurs. There are also obviously people just looking to create trouble. At this point, the fires and looting and so forth have gone well beyond the groups who came together to protest the murder (murders, really, since this was hardly the first) and the likely mishandling of justice for that crime when administered by some of our current officials.

Has some version of this been coming for a long time? Yes. So, honestly, is the decision to have the MN National Guard step in when the police and the city government failed at even basic protections for firefighters fighting the blazes. This has to stop for any kind of dialogue or change to begin. My concern is that we will end up like St. Louis, where urban riots hollowed out the city core in the late 1960s and it still hadn't been rebuild by the mid1980s when I lived there. Where Ferguson is an ongoing crime (look up what happened there after the world's attention turned away - activist assassinations, etc.). And I really don't want to see that.

So here we are, going into the first weekend of curfew, enforced by the National Guard. Things are happening, support networks are getting built, cleanup and fundraising is already happening. Will it be enough to create a new future for this city I fell in love with? I have no idea. But I'm hoping. I'm also hoping that we don't lose any more.

Comments

[redbird]

reading and worrying, though I haven't been to Minneapolis in several years.

[queenoftheskies]

I guess this is a stupid question, but don't you wonder if all the people in such close proximity will raise the Covid-19 cases, too?

After the deaths and all that is lost, it would be so tragic to lose more lives, too.

[marthawells]

I'm so sorry for the people and businesses and jobs lost. It's sick, that they'll let all this happen just to defend the cops' ability to murder helpless people.

[catherineldf]

It’s not that simple. The cops are willing to “let” it happen because they’re pissed, but the county attorney and the city government are motivated by a bunch of things. Working theory is that we’re likely to have a bad case of new condo developments starting up once things settle down and that’s driven by greed and other factors as much as racism and gentrification. There is also sheer ineptitude to be had in abundance.

[catherineldf]

Right now, the concern is that a number of parties may hit the streets with live rounds of ammunition. Between that, the economic impact of the looting and destruction and the fires are bigger concerns at present. Bear in mind that here almost all the cases have been in nursing homes and assistant living facilities and the population outside of those facilities, prisons and packing plants is generally not that densely packed. People catch it, but they aren’t dying from it outside of those groups.

[catherineldf]

:-(((

[transcendancing]

I'm so so sorry this is all happening, I'm grateful for your sharing though.

[inametaphor]

"Burn it all down" is for people who don't plan to clean it up.

Gods, yes. I've been trying to figure out how to say that for the past four years. No other words to say, just solidarity from downtown Minneapolis.

[catherineldf]

Thank you!

[catherineldf]

Thank you! Please stay safe too!