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.
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.
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.
A police station was burned today.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-looting-erupt-...
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/george-floyd-protest-update...
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/05/29/protesters-take-mi...
> 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.
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.
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.
Target is complicit in this systemic disease; I have zero sympathy for them.
Looting and burning unrelated businesses have no justification whatsoever.
This is almost the exact same phrase that MLK used, and it makes complete sense. If we use violence (implicit or explicit) to exclude people from "polite" discourse, they will find other ways to communicate.
Edit: this was unnecessarily flippant. Real lives are being horrifically affected and I truly feel for your community.
There are people who want to destroy things. See: https://twitter.com/keithellison/status/1266127105621983238?... for a the current manchild of the hour. It often cascades from individuals like these.
He may be the poster boy of the chaos but I assure you, as someone who has been in these streets, he is not alone. Please, come join us and you can see for yourself.
There are countless innocent business owners who were ransacked, who were had their livelihoods changed that would beg to differ with you.
I understand the concept of being loud to be heard. I understand making a statement. I understand burning down the precinct.
What I don't understand is looting independent pharmacies, liquor stores, and restaurants to steal inventory and merchandize and break into safes.
https://www.startribune.com/these-minneapolis-st-paul-buildi...
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/gsum4h/minority_...
People are rioting because they see this as the only way forward, not because they want a new TV. They may get that TV in the process, but it's not the motivation.
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.
Are you talking about property damage, or actual violence like police killing unarmed black folks?
>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.
These protests are at least partly drummed up by out of state agitators, and are implicitly condoned by a feckless and weak state and local government that would rather give ground (literally) than enforce the rule of law. Saying "enough is enough" means going to the polls, not burning down all of the businesses in your neighborhood that were already on the verge of collapse thanks to the pandemic. That people are making up excuses for this behavior is disturbing to me, and signals that America is farther along the path of Imperial collapse than I previously thought. What end do you think we end up with here by condoning this? Agitators taking over City Hall? Disbanding the police department?
Please don't excuse burning down entire neighborhoods. Thanks.
The cops brought this on themselves. There's nobody to blame here but them.
It seriously blows my mind anyone does think this is justified or supports it. That is way beyond reason, even from an understandably aggrieved point of view.
"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.
It's also easy to forget that the people most harmed by looting are usually members of the (original) victims' own communities.
The police largely function as protectors of personal property and relationships of ownership. I mean, look at the very reason that the cops arrested George Floyd; an alleged fake $20 dollar bill. In a time of pandemic 4 police offers showed up to enforce the ownership of capital.
Those guys who the state dispatched to enforce the value of money then ended up killing a guy. Its quite possible that the people who are rioting and protesting feel pretty damn angry at their treatment under capitalism and don't give a damn ownership of resources right now. They might even feel angry about ownership of resources in general. This is their community, and I suspect it's not yours. They get to decide their relationship to owners of resources, not you.
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.
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.
People are rioting because they are angry. It happens that people are constantly, very gently, angry at the entire capitalist complex. When people riot, therefore they are going to burn down the capitalist complex, because it irritates them and they are in a provocative mood.
I live a few blocks away from the location of the Floyd incident.
Attacking police officers (or really anyone, at all) shouldn't be encouraged, in my opinion. Ever.
Is an eye-for-an-eye the type of justice that's needed? I don't like it.
These are actual quotes:
"Fuck police, shoot the pigs!" "Innocents are gonna die" "This is just the start, you ready? You ready?" "We're going to burn this fucker down" "Kill the white folks! Kill whitey!"
Whatever. I've been labeled racist for not wanting to watch my city burn. Can't we have justice without violence?
This is a scary response. We saw, today, a black CNN reporter arrested by state police on live television. If that’s how an educated, gently-speaking, Constitutionally-protected member of the press is treated, there is a root issue festering. Blaming it on agitators deflects from introspection.
A big part of the problem is Minneapolis’s moderates have turned a blind eye to the problems in their police force for years. That civic neglect has consequences. Those consequences are coming home to roost.
"Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. ... But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again."
Its primary failure in enforcing the rule of law has been its inability to enforce it on police officers.
What we're seeing is the consequence of decades of lawless behavior by police. People have had enough of being terrorized by it.
>A big part of the problem is Minneapolis’s moderates have turned a blind eye to the problems in their police force for years.
I don't understand how people can honestly think this is true. The Police Commissioner is literally the guy from Internal Affairs who filed a lawsuit against the city for not promoting black officers fast enough. The state attorney general is the guy who has proudly photographed himself with an anarchist handbook. All across state and local government in Minnesota you find people who are, allegedly, the kind that are supposed to address the "civic neglect" you assume to exist. What more do you want?
Would would you only try to stop somebody who is stealing from you if they were white? If so that would be quite racist! Trying to stop anybody regardless of their race from stealing from you is not racist.
Regardless, according to the tweet you posted the policy is targeting poor people not people of color. 40% of poor in the US are non-hispanic whites. That means this policy would presumably also be targeting a huge number of white people as well.
At least you'll be paying for the nice, new police building.
Cry more about target losing televisions, if the death of yet another unarmed black man makes you feel nothing at least the looting does.
Tip: don't use absolutes. Always leave some margin. As long as there is one single person alive or that has ever lived that conflicts with your statement, that will be used as a counter-example and will be nitpicked to death and people will focus on that, instead of the main point.
If you say "most people", that immediately deflects those arguments. I've learned that the hard way.
that is a massive leap in agency that doesn't seem appropriate at all. any cities' "moderates" (??) have extremely limited agency over "the problems in the police force": if the head police officer is elected, that's one, and perhaps city council members who control budgets or other things related to police work.
since you're strongly implying that civic neglect is what caused this issue, what are the civic actions that this city's moderates should have taken in order to have prevented these problems?
I think what you're failing to understand is that your kind of rhetoric is directly adjacent to the standard communist revolutionary rhetoric employed across e.g. South America.
>People are fed up with trying to work inside of a system that barely considers them human.
Amazing that people actually believe this, when there's literally laws on the books making it a crime to commit an offense against protected classes of people because of their race alone.
Looking after their own. Should I give them a cookie too and a belly rub?
The protests are not about officer promotions.
Yeah, I'm a Marxist. I align with many (not all) ideas about proletarian revolution.
> Amazing that people actually believe this, when there's literally laws on the books making it a crime to commit an offense against protected classes of people because of their race alone.
We've seen how powerful people, the wealthy, politicians, and law enforcement have time and again broken laws and attempted to circumvent them for their own gain or to preserve the established order.
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.
Accusing people who are trying to explain the logic of why reasonable citizens will take extreme actions as "communist revolutionary rhetoric" is neither here nor there. What if it is? Does that by itself make it false? Please engage with the facts, and if you can't, refrain from such nonsense. It won't take the discussion anywhere.
> Amazing that people actually believe this, when there's literally laws on the books making it a crime to commit an offense against protected classes of people because of their race alone.
The presence or absence of laws by itself means absolutely nothing. Can you not see how tone deaf you seem when there are all these people trying to express their frustration and you dismiss that with "why the f are you so angry, there are laws that protect you".
Once burning and looting starts, well it's like fire, or panic buying.
Could you elaborate more? It is possible, I am not getting this.
Your racism is the soft bigotry of low expectations.
The larger point is the dystopian dynamic of developing a store that is poised against its customers, especially as a testing ground. Technologically defended islands of wealth in the middle of seas of poverty. And the blame isn't even on Target specifically, but the system as a whole that is creating so much suffering in the first place.
If you want some facts, here's a list of all of the buildings damaged or destroyed by people "expressing their frustration". Notice that some are government buildings that provide services to the poor, who are obviously more affected by the ongoing pandemic. You can continue defending them, if you like.
>Dissent is the most American value. The country was founded on it.
This statement is thrown around all the time, but it's really an attempt at gaslighting people into thinking that chaos and calamity was what the people who started the American Revolution were fine with. Of course, the opposite is true, and the chaos and calamity of a weak and ineffective English Imperial Regime was what they were rebelling against and the final form of the revolution was an institution of essentially the same style of English Common Law but with distinctly American characteristics.
https://www.startribune.com/these-minneapolis-st-paul-buildi...
Yes we can. In fact, this is the entire point of the police and criminal justice system - to reduce violence by providing a predictable and civil source of justice. Unfortunately yours has gone rogue, leading to the failed societal conditions you're experiencing.
-Target's first dtop for deployment of new loss prevention techniques nationwide
-Refused to sell milk (teargas aid) to protesters
Please link some proof or stop spreading this rumor on HN.
>White guy breaks windows and.. walks away? Holds an umbrella?
Is this evidence that he's a cop or just your imagination?
do you think the laws are literally broken or figuratively broken then? also there are many laws at many levels of priority. some of them in effect enable you to kill protected classes of people under convenient circumstances
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/29/poli...
There are a lot of provocateurs and I don't think we can align any of their motives with those of the protesters. Many are trying to create a justification for violence against the protesters. Some are just "break shit and get free stuff".
"Going to the polls" hasn't worked. Allowing the courts to dispense justice has done anything but that. What then? People get frustrated and angry, correctly feel like they have no voice and no options, so they unfortunately resort to violence.
Local businesses being destroyed is a horrible outcome of this, but I can't even make myself feel bad about the police precinct burning. (I do feel very bad for and worry about the safety of firefighters.)
If you want to blame anyone, blame the police for getting us to where we are today.
Laws are meaningless when those responsible for enforcing them flaunt and ignore them, and the judiciary lets them off again and again with barely a wrist-slap.
People don't look at what's written in a law book and feel like the system is protecting them. They look at how the system actually acts toward them. And in this case, they're justifiably terrified.
What other interpretation am I to draw? The person I was responded to said Target was intentionally creating new policies to put people of color in jail.
If anything the person I was responding to is the one that needs to take a more plausible explanation of what Target was doing.
>The larger point is the dystopian dynamic of developing a store meant to be deliberately poised against its customers, especially as a testing ground.
Stopping thieves is pro-customer. Stores have to mark up the price of the goods they sell to cover the losses from thieves. If less people stole then the price of goods would be less.
I also don't consider a thief to be a customer. Anti-thief is not necessarily anti-customer.
>Technologically defended islands of wealth in the middle of seas of poverty.
Completely unrelated to the topic of Target and possible racism.
Do you have a look on your door? That is a technology that is defending your wealth. Why not leave your front door wide open and let anybody come in and take anything they want?
I am guessing you dislike other people's wealth but are fine with your own.
>And the blame isn't even on Target specifically, but the system as a whole that is creating so much suffering in the first place.
The person I was responding to said "Target is complicit in this systemic disease; I have zero sympathy for them." This seems pretty direct in the accusation that Target is guilty. If he doesn't think the blame is on Target then he would presumably have some level of sympathy for them.
My racism. Hahah. I love this tactic - no YOU'RE the racist cause uhh, oh, I know, low expectations!
What low expectations? I AGREE that it's great that people are burning down police stations and looting massive capitalist businesses. You're the one coming here with a twisted ethical system that somehow places property over people. And you call me racist, lol.
When the justice system itself has this dysfunction, however, that doesn't quite work.
It is not clear to me that insisting racism is creating a coalition that will change the system.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_use_of_deadly_force_in_...
Either the video is fake or real. Let's pretend it's real.
Either the video is staged or not.
* if staged, then this is a person trying to spread the idea that there are agent provocateurs
* if not staged, then this is a real person that did this
* they either did it of their own free will, or
* there is a group of people encouraging them to do it.
* they want to steal things
* they want to break things
* they want to get back at Autozone
* they want to cause a suggestion that there is violence in the protest at that location
* they want to _start_ violence in the protest at that location
* the group wanted someone to steal things / break things / get back at autozone
* the group wanted to cause a suggestion that there is violence in the protest at that location
* the group wanted to _start_ violence in the protest at that location.
I think it's reasonable to conclude either:
* this guy just wanted to do harm to the location for themselves
* somebody, acting alone or with others, is trying to either make the protests violent or make the protests look violent
* it's staged and the people staging the video are trying to make it look like there are agent provocateurs
out there trying to either make the protests violent or make them look like they're violent.
2 of that final set are especially bad, in my opinion; and, they're sufficiently likely as to not rule them, out.
( edit: formatting )
edit: sorry, I did miss one:
* he's trying to cause an insurance claim for the autozoneI have no clue what you are talking about. What sci-fi theme are you talking about?
>All I can say is that if you want conservative thought to remain relevant, try applying it where it can be useful.
Again I have no clue what you are talking about. I am not making a conservative point. I am just refuting the claim that Target is racist for arresting thieves.
Also seeing how I am being upvoted and you are being downvoted I am guessing my "conservative thoughts" are relevant to many people.
>Hint: the breakdown in law and order here started with the police department itself.
And? That has nothing to do with Target which is all we are talking about.
It also doesn't justify destroying other people's property.
> * this guy just wanted to do harm to the location for themselves > * somebody, acting alone or with others, is trying to either make the protests violent or make the protests look violent > * it's staged and the people staging the video are trying to make it look like there are agent provocateurs out there trying to either make the protests violent or make them look like they're violent.
This is not reasonable at all.
2/3 options assume that this is an agent provocateur, which, again, no evidence has been produced to support, which was the entire point in the first place.
Again, someone please produce evidence that this person was a cop or agent provocateur, or stop posting this rumor.
And, it has nothing to do with the number of the options, 1 2 or 3. It has to do with the percentages of probabilities of each option.
It could be there's a 90% chance of the first option and a 5% chance of the second and a 5% chance of the third.
What possible situation did I miss in the collection?
What if voter suppression or gerrymandering exists? What if no candidate wants to address police brutality? What if issues are easily forgotten over a multi-year cycle with a complicit media?
Rioting shouldn't be a first choice, but polls don't fix everything.
Is my list non-exhaustive?