Made it home. My block is okay, other than the previously looted Walgreens and the auto body shop on the corner. None of the bullshit made it down here last night other than some three-percenter types trying to regroup in the Walgreens parking lot who got the cops called on them and vacated shortly.
I have thoughts. Apologies if they’re a bit scattered.
Throughout all this, I'm reasonably pleased with Governor Walz, St Paul's Mayor Carter, and AG Keith Ellison. Thank absolute *fuck* we have some awesome black faces up there. Carter's political career isn't ending in St Paul, tell you that much.
Gov Walz has been doing what leaders actually need to do. Accepting responsibility, providing what seems to me to be reasonable transparency, and turning question after question at his briefings back to (paraphrased) “and I have lots of fantastic voices that I’m listening to every day that live in and are part of the communities that are hardest hit here and are rightfully gutted by this awful murder, and we’re going to make meaningful reforms.”
Walz did a great job of cutting off the (fascist, more on that in a sec) state trooper commander just now, at a briefing, on a question about brutality (specifically that video we all saw of the tracer round shot at the lady on her porch), and turning it back to (paraphrased) “this is my responsibility. I gave the orders. And I have to keep the peace. But we’re not done, and I don’t expect anyone who has been hurt by generations of systemic oppression to feel better or to stop protesting or marching because they’ve heard all that before. We have a lot of work in front of us, and we’re going to do that in partnership with the communities and their leaders.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is toast after this. Doesn't seem like a bad guy, but "ineffectual in a crisis" means you're done as an executive.
Holy fuck do we need to absolutely fucking gut and reform our police forces. There's nothing more to say about this. The brutality on display -- and yeah, it could be worse, it could always be worse -- all over social media is completely unconscionable. Fuck them. They get nothing.
At the same time, I still support the curfew and the crackdown. Just because (way too many) cops are bastards, they're what we have right now and limiting their bastardry to after a curfew imposed because the FUCKING CITY WAS SO ON FIRE YOU COULD SEE IT FROM WISCONSIN LAST NIGHT is probably the best card in a shitty hand.
Looting a Target or whatever, I mean, not great but I'm not that fussed about it. But the violence spreading to residential neighborhoods and widespread torching of tightly packed buildings and essential services in poor neighborhoods? Nope. That shit can't be tolerated. Basically the whole working-class part of south Minneapolis turned into a food desert overnight, and with transit shut down the children are literally starving in the streets (or would be, but for amazing community organizers and citizens and businesses donating).
You think Target or Trump or hedge fund managers or Walgreens shareholders are suffering in this? They’re not. They’re insured and/or so wealthy nothing fucking matters anyway. But the Somali immigrants whose best elements have built businesses out of nothing to serve their communities? How well do they recover from having their shops burned down, their corner stores looted, and their transport shut down?
None of that excuses any of the police brutality shit seen above. Again, comprehensive top-down bottom-up holistic reform of these agencies that no longer serve but often terrorize their communities HAS to be the matter of highest urgency moving forward. FUCK these jackboot fashy assholes. But fuck them slightly less than the race-war-fetishizing three-percenter bugaloo motherfuckers who want nothing more than to literally burn the brown people out of Minnesota.
Especially turbofuck the significant white-supremacist state terrorists embedded in those agencies. They're second against the wall, after the parasite class.
I have an as-yet-undetermined amount of shame for fleeing to the burbs last night to be with my family instead of sitting on my porch keeping an eye out with the rest of the block. I need to figure out how I can contribute to the community healing and reforming and becoming a better place for all our brothers and sisters. More thought on this is required.
I am
wrung the fuck out just from being physically near this shit. I have so much more empathy for the people who've lived their lives under the boot today than I did yesterday.
Trying not to make any hasty decisions right now. First order of business is just shutting up and listening to the voices in the community that need to be heard.
