As a Fifth Generation Minneapolitan, There Are a Lot of Things I’m Tired Of...
A debut from a new contributor with a unique perspective on the killing of Renee Good.
In September 2005, legendary horror author Anne Rice published a searing op-ed in the New York Times just days after Hurricane Katrina:
“But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble... you called us ‘Sin City’ and turned your backs.”
More than 20 years later, the aftermath of ICE’s killing of Renee Good reminds me of Rice’s indictment. Minneapolis doesn’t put up New Orleans’ tourism numbers, but the sentiment applies. You love our lakes. You love our bike lanes. Most importantly, you love to move here when you get priced out of other cities. But when we become the center of a national spectacle, you turn your backs.
You make jokes. You offer half-formed opinions. You chide our leaders, even though you know nothing about their constituents. You send your restless teens to do damage — most of the people who perpetrated arson and vandalism during the 2020 unrest came from places other than here. You use images of a building on fire, a four-alarm fire that the MFD responded to, as your banner image on Twitter. You mine our lives for your thinkpieces, and decide you know everything there is to know about us after a four day visit.
As a fifth generation Minneapolitan, there are a lot of things I’m tired of. Too many to list here, in fact. But they share a common thread, which is a refusal on the part of outsiders to understand what’s actually going on here.
Jacob Frey is No Progressive Darling
For all of right wing media’s attempts to paint Frey as a progressive wingnut, progressives hate him. On Threads, someone chided other progressives qualifying their praise for Frey’s “get the fuck out” statement with “he’s such a piece of shit though.”
I know people outside the city wish he’d have given the standard line: “Let’s wait for the facts.” But the “he’s such a piece of shit though” from progressives proved he made the right choice. By validating locals’ anger and acting as a release valve, he actually tamped tensions down.
People in Minneapolis have heard “wait for the facts before.” Jamar Clark. Philando Castile. Justine Damond. (Bet you don’t remember her — or Thurman Blevins, whose case didn’t catch on like the others.) Those officer involved shootings all happened before George Floyd. Most of Minneapolis already hates Trump and ICE. Waiting for the facts? No one wants to hear that, especially not since the FBI forced the Minnesota BCA off the case.
How can you, with a straight face, tell Minnesotans to wait for the facts when our own investigative organization has been forced out by an FBI stacked with Trump loyalists? Have you just woken up from a coma, and still think the Obama administration is in the White House? How about instead of chiding Frey and Walz, you tell the FBI to share evidence with the Minnesota BCA? Or did you not know that the MNBCA was forced off the case?
Frey can’t have known the FBI would hog the investigation, but saying “wait for evidence” wouldn’t become a huge liability for him once they did.
I was no fan of Frey initially. I worked on a rival campaign when he was first elected in 2017. Over time, he’s grown on me. You may not like how he handled things but that doesn’t mean he did the wrong thing for Minneapolis.
Not Everyone’s a Radical Progressive
My opinion on Jacob Frey evolved when he proved himself to be the adult in the room, fighting a city council that is majority progressive and often pushes for policies that many Minneapolitans don’t actually want. In 2021, he resisted the movement to defund the police, which was also a ballot measure rejected by a majority of voters.
A more recent push to give Lyft and Uber drivers a raise nearly cost the city access to ride share services. Frey found out early on that a smaller raise would still give the drivers what they wanted while keeping the services in the city. But the city council overrode his veto. If you ask me, it was nothing more than grandstanding on their part. Eventually the state stepped in and gave the drivers the exact raise Frey proposed to begin with.
Meanwhile, Al Flowers is a prominent voice in the Black community with a radio show on KMOJ and a separate show which he broadcasts via Facebook live from his living room in North Minneapolis. He’s said repeatedly that the “socialist movement,” meaning the DSA, leaves the Black community out. According to Al Flowers, the DSA does not ask the Black community on the North side what they want or need. They just say, “get on board or get bent.”
Most North side precincts voted for Jacob Frey in the 2025 election.
Sure, you’ll find radicals at protests. But I’ve attended No Kings protests with people who are far from radical, regular folks who don’t like the way things are going. I wasn’t at the protest at Powderhorn Park, but I know that people with normie left of center views were there, because they’re my friends and neighbors, and I know they went.
You Don’t Walk Our Streets, So Don’t Speak for Us
George Floyd may have been national news, but we’re the ones who had to live with barbed wire around our courthouse. We’re the ones who cleaned up after the 164 structure fires set (many by people who don’t live here) during the unrest. We’re the ones who gritted our teeth, waiting for the verdict against Chauvin to be read.
We were just getting past that tragedy, and now we’ve got a new one to deal with. We’re the ones fighting the FBI so we can have our own investigation. We’re the ones dealing with schools closing after ICE harassed students at a local high school. We’re the ones who may be secretly glad it’s snowing, because it means fewer agitators will make a trip from out of town to cause trouble.
So please, spare us your commentary and your jokes. When I see comments like “We should burn Minneapolis down every few years, a controlled burn to prevent riots,” I know how Anne Rice felt.
My 70-pound Airedale and I walk the streets every day, past the house where my great-grandparents lived, past the duplex my great-great grandfather built when he came over from Sweden. I have memories of the Metrodome, Nankin and Christmases at Dayton’s. South High School, which I graduated from in 2002, is not far from where Renee Good died.
So you’ll forgive me if I’m not interested in some outsiders’ opinion on what we all need to do differently. This won’t be any easier when it happens in your city. We may be in the crosshairs now, but it could be you. And I hope your leaders understand what you need, and don’t govern according to thinkpieces.
And if you get priced out of NYC or Boston and start looking west? Check your attitude. We’re often criticized here (unfairly, in my view) for being insular and unwelcoming. But if you’re going to show up here with smugness and judgment, we really don’t need you here.
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