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.

This personal connection is part of why this is so deeply, horrifically upsetting to me right now. Not that this is about me, but it has been challenging to navigate the beginning of the spring semester in light of the fact that the city where I was born, the place that did more to make me who i am than any other place and that is still home to many of the people I love most in this world, is being subjected to a vast terror campaign by my own national government.

But there's another connection: the same authoritarian terror that took George Floyd's life (and the lives of so many others) is metastasizing. The historical patterns are familiar: the victim-blaming, the lies from the authorities, the gaslighting of the public, the assertion that law enforcement is tautologically justified, the assurance that this violence is only targeting the "wrong kind of people," and so on.

Right now some people I know in Minnesota are afraid to leave their houses or to let their kids leave the house. Teachers I know are making remote lesson plans because students fear being detained on their way to school based on nothing more than what they look like.

And if your response to this fear is "they should come here legally" or "they have nothing to worry about if they follow the law," then I urge you to tell my friends and family in Minnesota to their faces that they are overreacting. Tell that to people all around the US being harassed, beaten, and detained by ICE.

Tell that to the families of George Floyd, Renee Good, Keith Porter, Alex Pretti, and so many others (even just in the Twin Cities, I could add Philando Castile and Daunte Wright off the top of my head). Tell that to the families of the dozens of human beings who have died in ICE custody in the last year.

The current ICE surge is not about the subtleties of US immigration law any more than George Floyd was killed for passing a fake $20 bill. It's so much deeper and more horrific than that. The people of Minnesota are resisting courageously, and all Americans should follow their lead.