"Why is it always Minneapolis?"
A love letter to my city (with receipts)
Yesterday, during my four-hour daily doomscroll, the algorithm showed me this thread:
As a Minneapolis resident for 16 years, I immediately got defensive. Something about the question (the phrasing? the tone? the punctuation?) pissed me off. It sounded more like a displeased dad asking his teenage daughter why she’s being so dramatic than someone who is genuinely curious and interested in learning.
My initial reaction was, “You think we LIKE civil unrest, fighting with the federal government, and grieving our citizens who are continuously gunned down by people in uniforms who insist that they are keeping us safe?” Guess what: WE DON’T. We’d much rather be known for our disappointing AF sports franchises and wild accents than for being a place of continuous civil unrest1.
But then the preachy part of me wanted to jump in and say, OK FIVE-YEAR-OLD, SIT DOWN AND LISTEN UP.
Here’s a List of Reasons Why It’s “Always Minneapolis:"
We’re educated, politically engaged and we know what we’re looking at. Minnesota has the highest voter turnout of any other U.S. state. We’re continuously one of the most literate states (we have the highest recycling rates without bottle deposits, very high library usage stats, unmatched journalism support, and community org involvement). We know what is actually going on, we’ll name it, and we know how to organize, document, and challenge it.
We’re liberal. Like really liberal. Our whole state is pro-immigrant, pro-worker, pro–mutual aid, pro–“leave families alone.” This makes us a convenient target. We were also the only state NOT to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1984.2
We show up when injustice occurs. Minnesota is not a place that takes injustice lying down. It’s part of our state’s DNA to stand up and defend what is right over what is popular. We fight back. And we’ll help push your car out of a snowbank3.
The media LOVES a “pRoGreSsive ciTy iN cRiSis” story. “Bad things are happening across the U.S.!” isn’t clickable. “Progressive utopia exposed as chaos” absolutely is. Minneapolis has become a stand-in for “wokeness,” “violent mobs,” and “cities failing,” even though none of that is true.
Just the right size. Minneapolis is a stress-test city. We actually TRY to change shit that is broken, like police reform and how we offer social services (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t). So when systems fail here, they fail loudly. We also look large enough to seem like a “real” city but are small enough to be more controlled versus a more spread-out city like Chicago or L.A.
I think this IG reel explains it better than I ever could:
“Minnesota is District 13. We are not flashy. We are not obedient. We are organized, principled, and we refuse to fall in line with injustice.”
- The Feminist Lawyer
We are not being targeted at random. Minneapolis is not random. It’s strategic. It’s planned. We’re being targeted for very specific reasons and we are responding in a fairly predictable way (organizing, protesting, marching, supporting one another, raising mutual aid funds, showing the fuck up). All ways that we have shown up before when our rights have been trampled.
So yeah, I guess there are real reasons why it does feel like “it’s alwaysssss Minneapolis.”
We’ve become the snarky kid in the back of the classroom who tells the teacher when they made a mistake on the board in front of the whole class—which is not always the popular thing to do, even if that kid is totally right. She’s not being defiant. She’s smart and she’s paying attention.
Minneapolis isn’t always the headline because it’s broken. It’s the headline because people here are educated enough, organized enough, and principled enough to refuse to look away. For better or worse, Minneapolis is now a symbol.
Civil disobedience is kind of our thing now—but trust me—we wish it didn’t have to be. We wish you knew about our beautiful parks. The St. Paul Winter Carnival. We wish you could taste the corn at the Minnesota State Fair for yourselves.
One of my favorite things about living in Minneapolis is how under the radar and seemingly “random” it is to everyone else. When Brad and I moved to Minneapolis from Washington D.C., everyone thought we lost our damn minds. “WHY!?”
Because we fucking love it here. It’s slower. Less competitive. Less expensive. There’s no traffic. I never worry about finding parking. The people are lovely. There are jobs. And local coffee shops and record stores. Parks. We can walk our canoe down to the lake in the summer and ice skate on it in the winter.
“BUT IT’S SO COLD!”
Honestly, that’s kind of the best part. The weather alone weeds out a lot of shitty, weak people, which is a really fabulous Darwinian trick.
When I lived in Miami, it was the opposite. Every snatched blonde idiot with a dream and a suitcase flocked there to soak up paradise and try to make it as a model or a housewife, and it made for a very chaotic, shallow, depressing experience for me.
Believe me, Minneapolis wants nothing more than peace, quiet, and the spotlight OFF of us. Just let us do our weird ice shantys and art festivals in peace.
That said…I suppose it’s been reassuring to see so many other cities and countries join in solidarity online and IRL. This tweet, and seeing the videos, have been beyond moving:
I’ve been getting a LOT of messages from friends and family across the political spectrum who don’t live here asking how we’re doing and how they can show up. Friends have offered us places to stay if we need a break, have sent us cash via Venmo to fund our coffee—it’s been really beautiful to watch so many civic-minded friends and family express concern, outrage, and support. I see you. I appreciate you. I love you.
It’s been a hugely hopeful, powerful upside. The only other upside I can find? This thought, that has me in stitches:
In Minneapolis, we don’t want the spotlight.
We want safety, dignity, and peace.
But if those things are threatened, we WILL stand up and make a stink. And we won’t go down without a fight.
I mean, IDEALLY we’d be known for being a sustainable, beautiful, peaceful place to live, but we’ll take what we can get.
This is such a flex.
We are the Hobbits. We are the peaceful farmers who just want to be left alone. But if you read the books (not the just watch the movies) you'll know that when Sharkey and Wormtongue come to visit we send them packing... so we can get back to being left alone. You can learn everything about us in a month - the second-highest per-capita seating for live theater after New York - but we will always surprise you in a pinch.
Celebrate the battle victory, but settle in for a long war. This ain't over til the trials and hearings are over. In fact it may only be the beginning.
👏 👏 perfectly said. and i'll take that mountain house if you don't.