Everything is waiting for you, downtown...downtown...downtown....
Downtown
Petula Clark
For those who do not regularly read the Sunday Star and Tribune, I urge you to do so today. In particular, the editorial section. The editorial board, as well as a contributing author, really took it to Minneapolis. I know, In know - I write about this city often. What it has become. But today's paper put it in words that I never have been able to.
The article which was the most poignant was written by a young man who moved to the infamous Warehouse District of the North Loop in Minneapolis. He moved there in the year 2000. Why? For the city life. The excitement. The ability to walk just about anywhere and find eateries, entertainment, culture, you name it. And right after he moved in, he did find what he was looking for. But that was then, and this is now.
This young man could not believe how much things had changed in the seventeen years since he moved downtown. He has gone from loving it to hating it. Why? (And this was not in the article - rather my own take) - he is watching Minneapolis morph from the City of Lakes into a smaller version of Chicago. Crime, shootings, brawls, aggressive panhandling, you name it, has made being outside at night in Minneapolis a virtual no-man's land.
Gunfire which at one time was rare, is now common to the extent it is heard on a weekly basis. From his window, he can see victims of gang violence rolled up into emergency vehicles to be taken to the local hospital (or morgue). The vibrant city life after a sporting event is over has never materialized. Once the event is over, many folks from outside the metro area, just want out - and fast.
Things really get sketchy after the 2 am bar closing time. Our parents were right when they said nothing good happens after 2 in the morning. What have the city planners, in particular the City Council and the Mayor done about this mess? Nothing. The Mayor is more concerned about harboring illegals from President Trump, and fighting global warming. The City Council? They are just as bad, if not worse.
Just like Minneapolis, Chicago has ignored their crime problem in the City. Hello? Coming up on 500 murders by shootings this year. Death by violence in Chicago has become so common, people are immune to the shock of it. Downtown? That is just a place to stay away from. Like a toxic zone.That territory has been ceded to the street thugs. And Minneapolis is on the same trajectory.
It is nice to hear our very liberal Twin Cities newspaper be a truth teller on this issue. Downtown? Not any more Petula Clark. It has gone from a wonderful, exciting place to a venue of crime, injury and death. Same on the Mayors of our large cities who have allowed this decay. Shame on all of them.
If you’re white and have a 13-year-old son, do you imagine he could end up facing five armed cops and a police dog because you told him it was OK to go down the block and knock on his friend’s door on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May?
ReplyDeleteDo you wonder, as I did that day, how to turn an incident like this into a teaching moment for your son, without telling him he’s not free to walk down the street in his own neighborhood to see a friend unless he takes some sort of, um, precautions?
And what kind of precautions should he take? Change the color of his skin?
If you have never had to ask yourself questions like this, I’d suggest it’s because you have white privilege.
It’s probably not something that you sought, and I’m glad you have it.
But my kids don’t, and I don’t, and we never will unless, for starters, you stop doubting it exists.
Some day I will tell you how much I hate that effing term.
DeleteYou prefer hard work and perserverence I suppose?
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