Indelible

The Grief of Minneapolis

[originally posted in "The Grief of Minneapolis" ]

There's been a lot to process since May 25 in Minneapolis. Things feel a lot less desperate, but there's still plenty of emotion to go 'round. The city is grieving. We are all doing the best we can. I know for me personally the process is ongoing and rather slow. Thankfully, I've been given permission to grieve my city, so that's what I'm going to at least try to do.


This entry is a long time coming in so many ways. As the initial fear for my safety has worn off, I've begun to absorb this a little bit more. If nothing else, the conversations among those in the city tend to focus on the police, the destruction, the protests, the city government's moves, or any combination of those topics. It's pretty hard to avoid these things. Hell, for a while hearing about COVID-19 was a real rarity. As I started saying to mi amor, hearing about the pandemic was the lighter side of the news. (And given how we've seen the positive case rate decline, that's not a big surprise.) I even found myself taking a sort of inventory when it came to the destruction. This inventory started out with reading the local news outlets' list of damaged/destroyed businesses. While the majority were on Lake Street, I would find that no ward was completely immune. The wards of north Minneapolis endured numerous arson attacks even though exactly zero protests were held in that area. The initial investigations point to outsiders engaging in arson, and some people conducting neighborhood watches were able to provide information quickly enough that the fires could be put in some amount of check. Still, inventorying the business damage served a similar purpose to reading off the names of those that die in a tragic manner. It brings grief to a place where we can see it for what it is, something that has been hard to do with helicopters hovering overhead. It also (at least for me) has taken several of those readings/recitations before I could truly grasp just how deep the horror runs for me.


The horror. Oh, the horror. Horror like this is way beyond a genre. It's a brain-altering deluge of sensory data. If seeing Chauvin's face as he knelt on George Floyd's neck wasn't horrifying enough to make you physically recoil, well, let's talk about the agitators who invaded Minneapolis and set it alight. One of the reasons I think it took me so long to even face my grief was I found myself in a fight mode where I took people to task for conflating protesters and rioters. As a string   of   arrests   show  , Minneapolitans were not burning down their city. In spite of everything else being flung at me as a Minneapolis resident for over a decade, I felt compelled to step up and defend my city. Robert Waltz knows what I mean by that. He acknowledges, though, that things in Charolttesville never reached the arson and widespread vandalism stage. There's something positively unreal about driving in the inner ring suburbs and seeing the windows boarded up either to prevent looting or because there had been looting and vandalism. You know that part where I said no ward in Minneapolis was immune? I forgot to mention that several suburbs also got hit. My boss actually told me that several stores in Woodbury (near Oakdale, where Chauvin lived primarily) were vandalized and looted. Richfield, Roseville, St. Anthony and Brooklyn Center also endured the violence. If you plug those names into Google Maps, you'll discover that those are separate cities and not neighborhoods within Minneapolis. This chaos was not sparing anyone. Shit has come home to roost. Still, while the suburbs have been able to pick up the pieces and hold their own peaceful protests of systemic racism, Minneapolis is still in the early stages of rebuilding. There are still burnt out shells of building on Lake Street and St. Paul (which saw a good amount of violence but quite a bit less than Minneapolis). Going by those former buildings reminds me of the shock I felt when I looked out the window the morning of May 29 and saw the smoke billowing over the tree tops. That's a sight that will remain with me for the rest of my life. As the shock as worn off, the horror has lingered.


One reason it lingers is because there's so much damage that it's taking a while for the demolition crews to get to all the destroyed buildings to tear their remains down. In some cases they deconstructed them, but the rubble has yet to be moved for whatever reason. So heading west on Lake Street means that you still see a lot of destruction. Mi amor and I went this past Sunday. We rented some bikes to get ourselves most of the way to George Floyd Square by way of Lake Street. Mi amor said he felt bad about everything that had happened but that actually seeing the damage would make it more real for him. It certainly did that. As we were pedaling along, I looked to the south and saw an empty lot, well, empty aside from some twisted metal and concrete chunks. I couldn't figure out what it was until I saw an in tact Walgreen's sign at the end of the lot. I actually hit the brakes when I saw that sign, and mi amor almost ran into me due to that sudden stop. It would turn out to be the first of several obstacles in our trek west. As we pedaled along, we went by the burned out shell of a pawn shop that had debris jutting out into the sidewalk. We had to slow way down to avoid said debris, although we couldn't completely avoid the numerous glass shards spread over the sidewalk like spilled glitter. Luckily the bikes are heavy and have pretty thick tires. Still, I was a bit nervous as we approached Lake and Minnehaha, the intersection where the police station sits. I mean, the exterior walls are still standing, but that's because those things were ridiculously heavy. The interior is a whole other story. Likewise, so many buildings in the immediate vicinty were utterly destroyed. This includes one of my favorite Indian restaurants, Gandhi Majal. I knew where we were when we got to the street just east of Minnehaha where the restaurant once stood. The lack of buildings caught mi amor off guard, though. That's when I think it really hit him. We spent a few minutes in that area taking it all in. That part of Lake Street definitely looked the worst, and there was rubble pretty much everywhere you looked. It was eerie. It really was. Seeing it in person, you really understand that whatever you knew about this part of town is dead and gone. There will be rebuilding, but it will be different. It will not be the same, and that's a tough thing to deal with. As someone who spent more time on Lake Street than mi amor, I probably feel this more acutely, but damn I feel it.


Feeling it and feeling like I'm allowed to feel it are two different things. I feel like in the push to get police reform to actually stick and elevate black voices, there's not a lot of room to actually grieve. There is grief and trauma not only in George Floyd's killing but also in seeing your city sustain so much damage. There is most certainly physical damage, but mental and emotional damage is widespread. For the first several days after things started to get violent, not too many people got quality sleep. Between neighborhood watches, hypersensitivity to noises, and arson threats, people slept either poorly or became so exhausted they feel into blackout sleep, where there were no dreams. I experienced both. Even now, I'm still jumpy. Fireworks, loud conversations, motorcycles, and sirens all send me into a state of hypervigilance. I have to see what's going on before I can resume anything resembling normal activity. One Monday night, protesters were setting off fireworks in downtown around 11 PM, and I could hear the popping a mile away. I got out of bed, and I peeked out from the living room blinds only to see the fireworks. I didn't feel a whole lot better until they stopped for the evening. Thing is, fireworks were used as part of the arson spree. And don't get me started on the nightmares I've had. None of them involve the city in flames, but the common theme is my safety being compromised (whether I'm being stalked by an unknown gunman or being raped). We're still under tremendous stress due to our city's burning. It's been extra hard to work through that trauma when the whole world is watching your every move. It's almost impossible to grieve when you're (unwittingly) in the spotlight.


I ended up chatting online with my dad about this inability to grieve not too long ago. As time passed after the riots, my dad made a post talking about his loneliness in light of my mom no longer being alive. At the time, I was so preoccupied with fearing for my safety that I forgot about my mom's death. Admittedly, part of me was glad she wasn't alive to see this, because I know she'd be so upset about it. As it is, I told my dad that I've been grieving for Minneapolis. He said he is as well, and it lead to a conversation about how hard it's been for me to try to balance grieving Minneapolis and observing this time as the lead up to the one year anniversary of my mom's death. I feel bad for not being there for my family down in the wang, but for quite some time I haven't been able to do that. I've had much bigger problems. I mentioned my conflict to my dad, and he said, "You take care of your city first." That was quite a weight off my shoulders, like I was finally being given permission to step aside from reform work for a moment to feel awful. Because I've felt awful about everything. Seeing my city like this is so f***ing hard. Other cities have had protests turn violent, but at least as far as I can tell it hasn't been as extensive as it's been here in my home. Yeah, watching your home burn does things to a person. I will say that seeing protesters talk to the media and condemn the riots (or in some cases chase off arsonists and looters) made me more sympathetic to them. Still, I am needing a chance to recuperate emotionally. It's so damn difficult to find anything resembling healing right now.


On the other hand, I am starting on that journey. Visiting George Floyd Square helped in that regard. I was there primarily as a visitor, and I heard some speeches that I didn't fully agree with. I still found they had valid points, especially when it comes to black home ownership (which sadly still seems to be the fastest route to effective community participation). There were certainly lots of points made that have merit, things I'm still contemplating. In the meantime, here's what I wrote about my visit in a Facebook post the day after my visit.

I've debated how to share this. I feel mi amor covered this well. All the same, it'd feel weird to not share my perspective, which is similar but has some key differences.

I spent a bit more time on Lake Street than David. I admit many of those visits were to go to Gandhi Mahal, but I visited other spots on this stretch as well. As a result, I had a good sense of where were were at all times. I also knew where damaged buildings were. Some of the businesses closer to the river looked like they weren't damaged because their damage was less extensive and was already replaced. As we headed west, the damage became more apparent and real. Along with the rubble pile that used to be a Walgreen's, we had to use extra caution as we pedaled around the burnt debris of a pawn shop that jutted out into the sidewalk. When I saw the sign for Gandhi Majal, I knew where we were, and I decided it was time to stop pedaling for a moment.

A number of the structures that burned have been at least partially demolished. This happened to the restaurants next to Gandhi Majal. There used to be a three story building in that spot. Now you see twisted metal and a little too much sky. We lingered in this area, looking at the epicenter of destruction as I pointed out what used to be there. At the time, I was stating facts without diving too deep into context. I know now that this is one of the ways I grieve: to give names to the destruction and to remember a place that will take on a different form when it comes back. I did this at other areas, too, such as at a shopping center just west of the light rail station. One store that had been gutted was once a Saver's I visited to buy things for a Halloween costume a decade ago. I still have everything from that shopping trip. I'm hard pressed to let go of those things now.

We eventually left Lake Street and ventured out to 38th and Chicago. Our arrival at George Floyd Square was quiet and included hand sanitizer sprayed by a volunteer near the medic station. The area is well organized, with food available to those who wanted. Since we ate, I figured I'd save the food and drink for those who needed it more than I. Speeches and drums provided the soundtrack for our visit, a visit where I didn't say too much (other than to let mi amor know where we should go).

There was a moment when one of the gentlemen who volunteers with the youth drumline was going around seeking donations. As a fan of drumlines thanks to my band years, I figured why not? The gentleman moved around the space where the line was performing, and I was shaking my way through the crowd to catch up. By the time I was at the front of the audience, the gentleman had moved a little off to the left. I wasn't sure about approaching because if I moved I'd be blocking the view. I held up my hand, and another man standing behind me placed a hand on my shoulder while encouraging me to approach him. Normally I'm really touch phobic, but somehow that invitation to break through the crowd was different. I wish I could describe how it feel. I guess that there was reassurance that I could move in a sacred space where I'd be at least partly considered a guest. For a moment, I felt like I was truly welcome.

In between assessing the destruction firsthand and absorbing the myriad thoughts and emotions of the black community, a very unexpected thing happened. We were approaching a cemetery near a (miraculously open) Aldi's on Lake Street when we saw two deer on the other side of the cemetery fence. I've seen deer roaming around Minneapolis parks, but it's been a long time. So of course I said we needed to stop and take a look at them. It was both a pleasant surprise and also something that made me wonder. How did these deer deal with the violence and chaos? If they were getting close enough to the gates that a few of us could take photos, I guess that they were able to seek shelter before bouncing back. If the deer can do it, there just might be some hope for me.

I feel like the hope is still a long time coming, but there's a little more room for it now. I'm crawling to it. Forgive me for not being hopeful right away. I'm still grappling with compound grief after months of other high stress situations. It's going to take me a while to get through this.