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Native Minnesotan here — living in Minneapolis — that has lived on both coasts: With all that's happening the last few days, please don't generally associate M

• mynameishere 6y ago
  Your last sentence contradicts the rest, but okay. At least you'll be paying for the nice, new police building.
• daeken 6y ago
  > With all that's happening the last few days, please don't associate Minnesotans with the riots that have captured the attention of everyone. I understand what you're going for, but this is a bad approach. People aren't rioting because they want to destroy things, they're rioting because they don't feel like they're being heard. What you're saying here reads as "don't listen to them, they don't represent us" which is ... exactly the point. We need to collectively shut the hell up for 5 minutes and just listen. Maybe if we actually did that, these riots wouldn't be happening.
  • dx87 6y ago
    > People aren't rioting because they want to destroy things, they're rioting because they don't feel like they're being heard. That's not why people are looting liquor stores and target. Some people are just destroying things, there's always those groups of people in every riot. Sometimes people even travel to the riot just for the chance at destroying things.
    • komali2 6y ago
      Word on the ground is target only started getting looted after it tried to close its doors to protestors looking to buy water and medical supplies.
      • golf3 6y ago
        Unlikely, were they on their way to church also?
        • komali2 6y ago
          Who knows, but the protests were noore violent than when white militiamen stormed the statehouse two weeks ago.. and yet the cops shot tear gas plastic bullets into the crowd anyway.
          • coryrc 6y ago
            Did they loot the place while they were there?
            • komali2 6y ago
              Did they suffer from endless degrading at the hands of the police for generations? Cry more about target losing televisions, if the death of yet another unarmed black man makes you feel nothing at least the looting does.
              • 6y ago
• eiji 6y ago
  Fwiw, they are trying to identify a provocateur involved in the start of the riots. https://twitter.com/keithellison/status/1266127105621983238?s=20 https://twitter.com/keithellison/status/1266127105621983238?...
  • joshmn 6y ago
    This is what I find most troubling. I don't mind if there's a disruption. But I do mind needlessly inciting chaos for the purpose of creating mayhem. We don't know this person, yet, but as AG Ellison said in his tweet he looks like he's just there to provoke. That's where the message gets lost.
    • geggam 6y ago
      > That's where the message gets lost. I think that message is loud and clear.
  • moduspol 6y ago
    An inside source tells me it was the Russians.
    • aksss 6y ago
      unnamed intelligence sources have said..
• user982 6y ago
  You think that others' views of Minnesota are worsened more by the riots than by the initial and continuing actions of Minneapolis police and authorities?
• coldpie 6y ago
  Indeed. The riots and destruction are an unfortunate byproduct of the outpouring of pent up rage and grief. They are a distraction from the real issue, which is the summary execution by the state of people in the street. The police are 100% responsible for all destruction that has occurred this week. If they had not executed a man in the street, none of this would have happened.
• pm90 6y ago
  Fellow HN user, I welcome you with warmth so please don't take what I say offensively, but as a different perspective. > What happened is awful. It doesn't reflect how genuinely kind people in Minnesota are and how we, collectively feel about what happened and the movement at large. There will always be edge-cases as there is with any situation in any context. But for everyone that I've known, for everyone I've met and encountered with in Minnesota, when I look back at my time spent on either coast I always have found the people in Minnesota to be great. Characterizing what is happening as an edge case is a huge mistake. People do not spontaneously start protesting with so much anger if it hasn't built up over so long. The police do not act with such impunity against citizens "just in this off case". It needs to be systemic for the reactions to be this strong. If you haven't experienced this personally, that's great! I will not question your experiences. But please understand that others have not had the same experience. They've had such a bad experience that they're willing to go out in the streets during a pandemic to say "enough is enough". The police have had enough experience to be well prepared with crowd control tools and to use them immediately on peaceful protestors, when they could have de-escalated. People don't burn down a building they consider a symbol of tyranny just because of a single incident; their experience so far has ingrained into them a deep hatred for the police who are meant to protect and serve them. As others in this thread have said, please try to listen to other perspectives. People experience different realities, and all of them can coexist without having to disprove the other.
  • mythrwy 6y ago
    The anger is justified. Protests are justified. Maybe even violent protests, if not justified, are understandable. Looting and burning unrelated businesses have no justification whatsoever.
    • evanlivingston 6y ago
      This comments reads as "god save capitalism. Everything is justified unless dollars are burned in the process."
      • mythrwy 6y ago
• detcader 6y ago
  Well if we can speak with such absolute certainty, I'll go next: there are dozens of undercover and rogue police officers involving themselves in escalating all the bad stuff
  • mythrwy 6y ago
    For what purpose?
    • testbot123 6y ago
      To justify violence against protestors and to sway public opinion against legitimate grievances with law enforcement.
    • jtr1 6y ago
      in the past, riots have strengthened public support for more armor, more weapons, bigger budgets, less oversight. But there are less calculating possibilities as well.
      • mythrwy 6y ago
        That. Or it could be a bullshit claim. I'm going to go with the more likely scenario here.
• thatcat 6y ago
  >edge-cases This is what happens when you dismiss edge cases in systems that are critical. Law isn't some shitty web app that can afford to just go offline.
• diob 6y ago
  I just want to point out that you're wrong to say these places "didn't do anything". Or rather, I would contend that they did do something, aka nothing, which is what led to this situation. "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.'" - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963 I'm not advocating for violence or destruction, this result right now sucks to the nth degree. But I am advocating that folks start paying attention to kneeling football players and other peaceful protestors instead of telling them to shut the fuck up. Because you know what else sucks in addition to businesses burning? Folks dying for no other reason than the color of their skin. If you're asleep when it comes to human costs, but awake when it turns economical, take a look deep inside yourself. If you make peaceful revolution impossible, if you deny justice for too long, this is the result. Don't pretend that society at large "didn't do anything". By doing nothing, we all did a whole lot of something.
  • klmadfejno 6y ago
    That's a great quote, thanks for sharing that. Long, thoughtful, and almost certainly a real quotation for once. I think there's a strong naivety in liberal perspectives on non-violence. Liberal successes like the civil rights movement were finalized and won by non-violent leaders like MLK, and so he has been championed as a hero who represents the values that won the day. Students in school are taught that "the good guys" follow his approach. MLK is, without a doubt, a social hero to a very high degree. However, there's a HUGE other side to the civil rights movement. The state is incentivized to work with non-violent leaders because the alternative is credible threats of violence. When the bulk of the population thinks violence is never an option, your non violent offering loses its teeth. You don't need to advocate for violence. But if it happens, focus on the root cause and empathize with why people are driven to this.
• rsync 6y ago
  "With all that's happening the last few days, please don't associate Minnesotans with the riots that have captured the attention of everyone. The peacefulness of the protests and gatherings has been overshadowed by the violence. There are countless examples of Minnesotans standing up to those who choose to loot and destroy. Those images are being overlooked." MPLS homeowner here (although I no longer live there). I hear what you are saying and I am sympathetic to it - especially given my broad experience with all facets of Minnesotans all over the state. However this violence should reflect on Minnesotans, including my own many years of residence there. We failed to make investments in the built and the social infrastructure - including policing - that would have made it impossible for bad actors like this to carry a badge. It's very easy to look romantically at the Prairie Home Companion caricature of the Good Lutherans that quietly get the job done - and I wish that it were true. The fact is, we let I-35 drop into the river just like any other bunch of assholes.
• koheripbal 6y ago
  > But burning down the precinct? Yeah, I can get behind that How is this not glorifying violence? Replace "precinct" with "school" or "church" , makes it more obvious. .. especially since the precinct was still occupied when it was attacked.
  • aqme28 6y ago
    What does this analogy gain when you replace it with school or church? People didn't attack schools or churches, and schools and churches didn't employ the murderer in question.
  • remexre 6y ago
    I assume if a school or church had a decades-long history of unjustifiedly killing civilians in a discriminatory way, it would be shut down by the justice system. When the justice system itself has this dysfunction, however, that doesn't quite work.
  • knolax 6y ago
    If school teachers have been killing students without repercussion, I feel that it would be a lot more than just the school being burnt down.
• marcrosoft 6y ago
  > But burning down the precinct? Yeah, I can get behind that. Oof
• mnm1 6y ago
  The people rioting generally seem like decent people standing up for a just cause. So no, we won't judge all Minnesotans the same way. We will judge the people who set things up so that this is a common occurrence much more harshly. And that includes most Minnesotans. But don't worry. That includes most Americans. We'll judge them all for the shitty society they created where cops can beat and murder innocent people and get away with it. And we'll especially judge the cops, all of them, for murdering, stealing, assaulting, and supporting their fellow officers in the commission of such crimes. People are not innocent simply because they are nonviolent when they fully support the violence of police.
• Gabriel_Martin 6y ago
  Honestly, I only wish I could generally associate the people outraged rioting in the streets with the average Minnesotans, that would probably have prevented the culture that lead to where we are today. Maybe, for example if there were countless examples of Minnesotans standing up to racism and police brutality?
• fasteddie31003 6y ago
  Watching live streams from the protest informed me a lot about who these protesters are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZaOGehK6k . What surprised me is that they were mostly pretty young. They also looted a liquor store across from the police station and you can notice how everyone seemed to get drunker and drunker as the night went on. I think they are venting a lot of built-up frustration and honestly have a pretty good time doing it.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• selimthegrim 6y ago
  Actually that Target on Lake St did quite a bit -Target's first dtop for deployment of new loss prevention techniques nationwide -Refused to sell milk (teargas aid) to protesters