With all the cultural talk of the old Southern states as the centre of racism in the USA it came as quite a shock that the latest spark in American race relations should have dropped in Minneapolis, the hub of a state whose citizens have long preened in the mirror of “Minnesota Nice” (as compared to the thugs from Milwaukee and Chicago for example). 🤬

People across the USA, if they know of the place at all, assume it’s a nice, quiet, cornbread place. Typical of other small, Mid-Western cities. And once upon a time they would have been right.

But in a Powerline article a month ago, John Hinderaker, writing about Minneapolis, seemed resigned to a different reality :

When I moved to Minneapolis in 1974, it was considered a model city. Prosperous, clean, progressive, low-crime. It has been declining ever since. After four decades of monopoly Democratic Party rule, Minneapolis has deteriorated beyond recognition.
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Rioters took over the city after the Floyd incident, and they haven’t given the streets back. With almost all of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to abolish the city’s police force, you can imagine that law enforcement is not being pursued aggressively.

Included is video of a car doing a burnout while surrounded by groups of youths capturing it all on their phones in the middle of the streets of Uptown, formerly an upscale entertainment district. Ordinary people trying to drive through or cross the intersection are simply blocked with no consequences.

The next night eleven people were shot at this intersection with one death. Also, check out the comments on that last Twitter link as well as this one featuring interviews with MPD officers:

But never have I felt more “get the fuck out of my city” than when Sgt. Anna Hedberg talks about the dangers of grocery shopping in Minneapolis with her “two beautiful little girls.”

If those commentators are the ones that will be in control then the likes of Sgt. Anna Hedberg will indeed get the fuck out of Minneapolis, as fast as they possibly can. As goes Seattle, San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, Baltimore and many other cities that have had almost total Democrat control for decades, now combined with extremist elements rising inside and outside the Party.

There may be some rays of hope, with a reaction from Black activists themselves against much of the #BLM nonsense. The following video from a local TV (you can forget national, D.C.-based MSM doing this), shows one such leader, Lisa Clemons, speaking out:

We cannot continue to watch these bullets flying through our community.

A panel of African-American violence prevention advocates held what they called an urgent news conference to speak against the city council’s push to dismantle the police department.

It is time for us to stand up in this city. It is time to tell the city council that utopia is a bunch of B.S. We are not in Mayberry RFD, we are in the wild wild west. And it is time for some answers.

Incidentally the Councilwoman she confronts (in a friendly manner) is one Andrea Jenkins, one of those who have been calling for defunding the MPD – and who also got armed, private security that’s costing the City $4,500 per day. Such “leaders” are fine with people like Lisa Clemons being helpless victims of criminals, as long as they’re kept safe. They have no plans to defund their own private police force.

That’s typical of one of the many problems with BLM: what gives them the right to speak for ordinary Blacks? This was pointed out by Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and former president of the Minneapolis NAACP:

They have shown a complete disregard for the voices and perspectives of many members of the African American community. We have not been consulted as the city makes its decisions, even though our community is the one most heavily impacted by both police violence and community violence.

There’s also the obvious contrast between the usual suspects, mainly Far Left Whites, calling for the system to be smashed so that a utopia can be built – and those who look for the less exciting incremental changes that might work:

“Why now, when you have an African American chief who is highly regarded and trusted in the Black community?” said Steven Belton, president and CEO of the Urban League Twin Cities. “This strikes me as being passive-aggressive Minnesota Nice on steroids. This is a hit on Chief Arradondo.”

Pastor Brian Herron said the council is “pandering.”

We have a department that is troubled, but it is also a department that with the leadership of our chief could be really transformed, and the culture of policing could change dramatically if he was given the proper support.

Still, as a more recent post the other day documented, violent crime continues to increase in the city as the Police have gone into a defensive crouch, and who can blame them? They have precisely zero support among the political class.

The 3rd Police Precinct – the one whose station was burned by rioters – issued a warning to residents the other day about how to protect themselves on the streets, noting that there had been 100 robberies and 20 carjackings in July, in that precinct alone.

In addition the area where Floyd was murdered is now a four-block Police-free zone: it should come as no surprise that criminals are running rampant in that area and the residents are hiding in their homes.

As you can see from those recently taken pictures, none of these areas across the city are coming back to life any time soon.

Hinderaker wraps up his post with this comment:

It is sad to see a civilization descend into chaos, but that is what happens when leadership is utterly absent, or, worse, on the side of disorder. That is the world we are living in, here in Minnesota.

This civic collapse is proceeding under effectively one-party rule. It’s basically all Democrats, with one Green Party or Legalise Marijuana Now member occasionally. Interestingly the story about the Floyd area came from the New York Times. The local rag, the Star Tribune, is apparently determined not to embarrass the local Democrat politicians it supports, cover every politician would love to have.

Aside from a one-day handover on New Years Eve 1973, the last time a Republican was mayor of Minneapolis was in 1961.