Here’s a powerful essay on race from Penumbra Theatre artistic director Sarah Bellamy in The Paris Review:
When the weather warms up I feel two things: excitement and trepidation. My body longs for the warmth of sun on my skin and my heart remembers that summer is the season of death. It has been this way for a long time, but I think I started counting when I was a teenager. That’s when I learned of the “Red Summer”; in 1919, white supremacist terrorist attacks and riots resulted in mass murder of Black civilians in more than three dozen cities across the United States. Often in the summer I am in the presence of young people who, as teenagers, are just coming into their awareness of the brutality that is cyclically enacted against Black people. Often I need to hold space for their rage, their grief, their fear. I am tired of summers beginning this way.
“Why this started in Minneapolis.” CityLab’s Sarah Holder spoke with five local experts about the city’s troubled racial past: “Minneapolis is at once considered one of the most livable cities in the country, and the one with some of the greatest racial disparities in housing and income and education. There’s a dissonance, locals say, between its progressive rhetoric and the reality of how people of different races experience completely different cities. This local paradox is a microcosm of the statewide ‘Minnesota Paradox,’ a term coined by University of Minnesota economist Samuel L. Myers Jr., to highlight the often-ignored inequality that defines the region.”
What Minneapolis could learn from Camden. City Pages’ Hannah Jones reports: “Last week, after weeks of unrest and riots in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis City Council started discussing a revolutionary idea: disbanding the city’s police department. … Nobody’s sure yet what that’s going to look like—not even them—or what would be implemented in its place. But dismantling a police force and starting fresh is not unprecedented. The example most people are turning to in this time of transition is Camden, New Jersey.”
In other news…
Cover-up operation: “As economy continues to reopen, Duluth moves to ‘normalize’ masks” [MPR]
235 employees out of work: “Verso indefinitely idling Duluth paper mill” [Star Tribune]
Then why the long faces? “Canterbury Park opens for live racing Wednesday” [KARE]
Family first: “Pat Evans leaves KARE 11 to care for his 95-year-old mom: ‘It’s my responsibility’” [Star Tribune]
Interesting story: “For Timberwolves’ Gersson Rosas, immigrant experience fueled rise to a top NBA job” [Sahan Journal]
