This is a historic time for Minnesota and our country. We are very much still in the midst (the early part of "the midst", I would say) of seriously addressing the critical issue of racial equality, as well as how to best reconstruct our police departments to ensure they function as a support network for the public safety for all citizens, regardless of skin color or socio-economic status. What an opportunity we have to be THE leaders on this, showing the world what is possible.
I live in South Minneapolis, and have watched the atmosphere here morph over the past week from one of anger and negativity, to one of hope and a forward-looking optimism. The boarded-up storefronts have undergone a similar metamorphosis. Their initial function (that of a barricade to (hopefully) protect businesses from vandalism, looting and fire) has transformed into a platform for art and expression. The graffiti and street art that has sprung up to decorate SO many boarded-up businesses in Minneapolis-St. Paul is staggering, impressive, and very powerful. Each serves as an honor to George Floyd, a reminder of what his death represents, and a statement of what we as a community intend to accomplish together: to not only make sure that nothing like this every happens again, but to take steps to (finally) make racial equality our legacy.
As businesses reopen, and start to take down the wooden boards guarding their storefronts, we MUST have a plan in place to save and protect the art and expression that has come to decorate these wooden boards. Parts of the city have literally become a gallery of expressions of positive change. We will be SO thankful down the road to have kept a good amount of that art, both to show to our children and grandchildren, and to remind ourselves what Minneapolis-St. Paul stands for and what we are capable of accomplishing. We MUST act now to protect this cultural value that has been created, to keep it from ending up in dumpsters.
Secondly, though it’s so early in the process that it may be difficult to imagine, I envision a permanent physical space (park or museum or memorial) commemorating George Floyd and racial equality, here in Minneapolis- St. Paul. It would be a place that celebrates George Floyd’s life, as well as the positive change his unnecessary death has spawned in all of us. It could be at 38th and Chicago Ave. S, the site where George Floyd was killed; or perhaps in one of the buildings that were destroyed in the reaction to his death. A partially demolished shell of a building (similar to the one that houses the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis) could act as an extremely powerful physical reminder of what has occurred here, and what we have done and will continue to do about it.
With both of these ideas, let’s think BIG.