Connecting the Dots in South Minneapolis: Floyd, Good, Pretti, and More

 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/chescaleigh

If you're not familiar with Minneapolis, you may not realize how close these three events are geographically, namely, the murders of George Floyd in 2020, Renee Good on Jan. 7, and Alex Pretti just yesterday (Jan. 24).

My Grandma lived at 31st and Chicago when I was a kid (seven blocks from the corner where Floyd took his last breath). My Grandma's church is around the corner from where Good was murdered in her car, and I have family members who regularly buy donuts at the store Pretti was gunned down in front of. I visit Minneapolis at least once or twice a year.

MLK Day 2026: Hierarchical Chaos or Equitable Community?

 

MLK Day Parade and March, Chattanooga, TN (Jan. 19, 2026)

Since last year’s MLK Day post was called “Where Do We Go From Here?” I thought I’d continue alluding to King’s 1967 book by calling this one “Chaos or Community?” 

New Year's 2026: Stuff I Saw On My Walk That a Normal Person Probably Wouldn’t Take a Picture Of

I had to postpone my traditional New Year’s Day walk for the best possible reason: New Year’s D&D with friends! So I took my New Year's Day walk today, Jan. 2. 

On this walk I like to go down some streets I’ve never walked down before, thinking of this quote from Ursula Le Guin's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness:

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

While I was on the walk I hatched the idea for a photo essay called “Stuff I Saw On My Walk That a Normal Person Probably Wouldn’t Take a Picture Of.” Here it is without further elaboration!