The closing of the Roller Garden deprives us of a place where people from all backgrounds, identities, orientations and incomes, come together week after week and break down long built-up barriers.
The closing of the Roller Garden deprives us of a place where people from all backgrounds, identities, orientations and incomes, come together week after week and break down long built-up barriers. Credit: Roller and Inline Skating Center

On April 19, as I watched the closing arguments in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd from my home in Minneapolis, not far from the scene of the crime, another closing was beginning to take place as well; that of the Roller Garden, a beloved roller rink, after 52 years in business. On the face of it, these two events may seem unrelated, but, for me, the pain of each magnified the other. The Roller Garden stands in stark contrast to what happened at 38th & Chicago, where we saw the history of this country boiled down to a white man’s knee on the neck of yet another unarmed American man of African descent.

While we, as a nation, may be pausing long enough to possibly begin reckoning with our history of separation and oppression that created the environment in which a white police officer could slowly take the life of an unarmed African American man, the closing of the Roller Garden deprives us of a place where people from all backgrounds, identities, orientations and incomes come together week after week and break down those long built-up barriers. Roller Garden is that rare kind of place that we should be working to support, maintain, and expand. I challenge all readers to examine their own lives to see if they have places where a broad mix of people frequent in large enough numbers that everyone feels it is “their place,” and to question as well whether it is an environment conducive to developing deep and meaningful relationships. If your answer is “no,” I again challenge readers to commit to patronizing and creating such places.

If we are going to be successful at taking actual and metaphorical knees off the necks of people of color, we all need to take responsibility for learning our history of separation and oppression, all the way up to the present moment, and work to become more interculturally competent. A key part of the latter is to recognize, understand, and appreciate commonalities and differences between us. The culture at the rink is the only place I know where such a wide variety of adults come together and do just that. We all love skating; you can see it in the way everyone is having their own little party right there on the floor, so we have this commonality to bond over right away. That bond creates the opportunity for us to navigate, understand, and embrace our differences over time as well.

I’ll give you a picture of what this can look like. About 10 days ago I, a mid-50s woman of European descent, was grooving backwards to one of my favorite songs when an American woman of African descent in her 30s, rolled up beside me. We shared a look and began moving to the beat, stepping together. We felt the energy of getting in sync and skated out the rest of the song. At the end we exchanged names and now we’ve talked each time we’ve seen each other. Will this lead to a deep friendship? At this point, I don’t know, but I do know that’s exactly how I’ve met a bunch of my dear friends at the Roller Garden (RG) in the last 10 years. And I do know my heart is breaking because when RG closes on May 8, it won’t happen again.

Bridget Mathie
[image_caption]Bridget Mathie[/image_caption]
Right about now some people will be pointing out that there are two other rinks in the metro area, and, don’t get me wrong, I am glad there are. It’s not the same. They are both very small, and far outside the central corridor. To understand the difference between skating on a small and large rink, think of the difference between being in rush-hour traffic and going on a road trip on the open road; one we avoid if at all possible, and one we call a vacation. More important is the fact that in order for a wide variety of people to come together, a wide variety of people have to be able to reasonably get there. This means a relatively central location on a transit line is crucial. Roller Garden has been accessible; the others are not.

So, just like at the end of the Chauvin trial when we got what felt to many of us like a miracle of convictions, I find myself praying for a miracle of a related sort — the creation of another large, beautiful roller rink in a central location of the Twin Cities that everyone can access and everyone who missed their chance at the Roller Garden can come out, play, meet people, make friends, and inch us closer and closer to a future where we never have to endure the pain of another senseless death by bias.

Bridget Mathie is an on-camera talent, educator, yogi, M.Ed, IDI, QA, certified yoga instructor, and meditator who is passionate about all things that bring humanity together. 

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11 Comments

  1. We can fix racist policing by . . . (checks article again) . . . patronizing suburban roller skating rinks.

    Great. Fantastic.

    1. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are obtuse and not mean-spirited. What this piece actually says is that we have to have spaces where people of all races feel welcome and can connect in meaningful ways. It’s much easier to dehumanize people when you don’t interact authentically and joyfully. Bridget is a friend of mine, so I have had the privilege of being included in this Roller Garden community which is unlike any I’ve encountered during my lifetime in Minneapolis. It’s truly people from diverse socioeconomic and racial identities coming together, which is something we need so much more of if we want to have a society that functions well for all.

      1. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are just sticking up for your friend and not as completely unaware about the kind racism that is deeply ingrained in policing. If I was being mean-spirited I would have laid out how offensive this piece is and not limited my comments to some gentle mockery.

        I do not support the calls to defund the police, but I certainly understand them. As an attorney, I have represented dozens, if not hundreds of BIPOC clients over the years. And while none of them have been suffocated on the street or accidentally shot instead if being tasered, I have heard (and in some cases seen) many instances horrible instances of police racism. There are a different set of laws for black people. There really are.

        I have been to that roller rink for a kids birthday party. It was a fun time. Its sad that its closing. But the idea that this is part of the solution to racist policing is mind-boggling. Its feel good nonsense. This article is the very definition of white privilege.

        1. Pat, you disappoint me. Way to go nuclear on somebody who’s on your side.

          I understand the lens you see the issue from, but that lens has caused you to see something in this article that isn’t there.

          Comments like this don’t help the problem with policing either.

          May you be peaceful, well and happy.

          1. I’ll stick up for Pat in that if the author wanted to write a pleasant soliloquy to a favored entertainment venue, that’s great, more power to her. To suggest that what is, at the end of the day, an old fashioned novelty entertainment venue, has some special value in affecting lasting social change is laughy happy nonsense. It’s just a roller rink, it’s great that it holds special nostalgia to a whole bunch of people, but leave it at that.

          2. First, I didn’t go “nuclear” until someone responded to my snarky comment. And then I simply matched the tone of the responsive comment.

            Second, I wholeheartedly dispute the idea that we are on the same side.

            Sure, Ms. Mathie is probably not an overt racist. But what she has written is a softer form of racism, one formed by white privilege. In light of everything that has happened in the last couple of years, the experiences of BIPOC with police on a daily basis, the idea that we just need more suburban roller rinks is pretty offensive. The answers to these problems require wholesale change (thus the calls for defunding/abolishing the police altogether) not platitudes about roller skating together.

            I actually see this piece as part of the problem. A whitewashing of what really needs to occur.

            .

          3. Thank you Matt and Pat.

            I see how this is quickly spiraling. A symptom of our knee jerk society I suppose. It’s unfortunate we can’t just take a calming breath first.

            I didn’t consider Jessica’s comment snarky.

            Calling the article a “softer form of racism” isn’t called for.

            While preserving (not calling for more) a roller rink isn’t going to solve anything, it just might bring two people together and help in some small way. I think that’s all she’s saying.

            Maybe Bridget, Jessica and I are just full of laughy happy nonsense.

            May you be peaceful, well and happy.

            1. Maybe Bridget, Jessica and I are just full of laughy happy nonsense.

              For which there is a time and place. The discussion of decades, centuries, of institutionalized racism and its societal effects is not it.

  2. Ms. Mathie is correct that the Roller Garden was a great place to meet your friends and to make new ones.
    Generations of my family ,and friends have skated there; a veritable institution.
    My recollection of time spent there goes back further than 52 years however; I was skating there in the late fifties through the early sixties, when I started exploring wider turf. The place was hardly new when I was there. No matter, it’s a great sadness that greets it’s closing; for what? A sky-high apartment building, or maybe a “tree museum”?

  3. Thank you, Bridget for the article.

    I agree that the more you see “the other” as just like you is a good thing.

    Although I’ve never been to the Roller Garden, I’ve loved skating all my life.

    May you be peaceful, well and happy.

  4. When writing my opinion piece I made a mistake in assuming that, at this point in time, it is a common understanding that there is no panacea for our problems with bias and racism. I believe that our problem is a human one at its core. Humans created institutions and humans are the ones who can change them, and ourselves, and until we humans change ourselves, we are unlikely to successfully change institutions. As an educator I have not seen people change and grow by hammering them over the head, but I have seen it when people have an opportunity to observe, reflect, and be supported in intentionally trying something new. My story is a personal experience story with an invitation for people to reflect on their own worlds and make choices that expand with whom and in what environments (clearly beyond roller rinks) they choose to spend their free time and develop relationships. From what I have observed, personal change is slow moving, incremental and then sometimes, especially from an outside view, all at once. Indeed this is exactly how the fight for marriage equality was won. The invitation I made will, for sure, not be accepted by all. If readers are uninterested in reflecting on their own world, who is and isn’t truly, deeply, and personally in it and investigating and acting on the implications of what they find, that approach to creating a more peaceful place for all, may not be for them. Again, there is no panacea.

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