Minneapolis and St. Paul are being tested.
Buildings are burning, stores are being looted and more lives are in danger.
The aftermath of the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in south Minneapolis has laid bare the deeply rooted anger that has long-simmered in minority communities and beyond. Anger over policing. Anger over inequality. And anger over racism that still haunts these cities and nation in 2020.
None of this excuses the mayhem that unfolded across both cities. But it helps explain how we got here.
In this tipping point moment for Minneapolis and St. Paul, city leaders face a defining challenge. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and their respective chiefs of police, who have all called for calm as the protests have spread, are critical figures. The decisions they make in the days ahead will go a long way toward determining whether peace and public safety can be restored.
How Minneapolis and St. Paul will respond from here transcends government, though.
The grief is real, yet the violence endangers all of us regardless of the color of our skin. Martin Luther King continued to preach nonviolence until his death, while acknowledging that "riots do not develop out of thin air." He also offered a nonviolent prescription that rings true today: "Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."
In a Thursday statement, the Urban League Twin Cities president said the violence in Minneapolis would only serve to "hijack the agenda of police reform and accountability, which is where the focus should be."
"Violence is not an honorable or healthy recourse for our personal or collective anger and mourning," he wrote. "The memory of George Floyd deserves better."
Editorial on 05/30/2020