zlacker

>>pera+(OP)
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 Minnesotans with the violent 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 the innocent. Those images are being overlooked.

What happened is awful. These violent riots, and the violent images aren't reflective of Minnesotans at large. The violence doesn't reflect how genuinely upset people in Minnesota feel about what happened and greater 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 most great.

I have friends and colleagues asking me "what's going on with everyone in Minnesota?" and I have to explain to them that these images aren't representative of the place I call home and my neighbors I call my friends.

There are businesses that didn't do anything wrong which have have been effectively `rm -rf` because of a small group of bad actors. The Target on Lake Street didn't do anything. Banadir Pharmacy didn't do anything. Seward Pharmacy didn't do anything. The pawn shop didn't do anything. The WIC office didn't do anything. The liquor stores didn't do anything. MoneyGram didn't do anything. The tobacco store didn't do anything. Disrupting those businesses and the livelihoods of their employees and owners doesn't prove a point.

But burning down the precinct? Yeah, I can get behind that.

>>joshmn+Db
> 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.

>>daeken+xe
What I don't understand is why many of these small businesses — which have items of value to many people — were targeted. To me, that's burning to burn, damaging to damage, and looting to loot.

https://www.startribune.com/these-minneapolis-st-paul-buildi...

This is my home. I visit many of these businesses. I do business with two owners on that list. There are groups of people out here who, yes, are looting to loot and burning to burn.

I understand burning down the precinct though. I'm not upset about that.

>>joshmn+zk
It’s almost as if rage is an overpowering emotion that is unlikely to stay narrowly targeted.

Edit: this was unnecessarily flippant. Real lives are being horrifically affected and I truly feel for your community.