The Dream of Building a Better Minneapolis
By R.T. Rybak
On Wednesday afternoon, I stood in a residential neighborhood where I have been thousands of times in my life. Only this time masked agents with military weapons walked coolly around a crime scene where a woman had been shot dead.
That afternoon and into the evening I stood with thousands of my fellow residents of Minneapolis in vigil for a lost life and with the rightful anger that this never should have happened.
A woman is dead. Three children lost a mother. A community is traumatized by seeing their neighbor killed in front of their homes. We mourn while our federal officials say nothing about the loss and, instead, respond with incendiary rhetoric.
Minneapolis has seen tragedy before but the killing of Renee Good is especially hard to stomach because this was the result of a crisis created by people at the highest level of our government.
The Minneapolis Foundation is built to support the needs of the community, usually looking forward strategically to how we can work together to make lives better. Yet this year we have had to spend so much time and money on other crises that were created by that same government—time and money we could have spent on core community needs like housing, education, economic mobility, and so much more:
- After massive federal cuts were made at the beginning of the year, almost every nonprofit we serve had to make abrupt changes. We responded with more money from the Foundation and our fundholders.
- After our groundbreaking $60 million environmental justice grant was abruptly cancelled by the federal government earlier this year, we fought hard, won, and are now getting those dollars into the community.
- In recent months, as rumors of an ICE surge in Minneapolis spread, many of our neighbors became worried that they would be targeted, regardless of their immigration status. The fear became so acute that we helped fund community groups delivering meals to those afraid to even leave their homes to shop.
- Now another government-created crisis forces us to divert time and resources that could, and should, be used to build community.
We have to ask: Why Minneapolis? Yes, there are surges in other cities but the why the near unprecedented ICE presence here? Rationales have shifted in the wind from immigration to fraud to crime. But regardless of their intent, the irrefutable fact is that the enforcement has focused on non-white residents of a diverse city.
We are, in fact, a diverse city. That is in large part because Minneapolis has opened its arms when so many others have built walls. For decades when members of the LGBTQ communities felt unsafe in their hometowns, they found a place to belong in Minneapolis. When people were fleeing war and poverty across the globe—Southeast Asia, East and West Africa, South and Central America—they found a place to belong in Minneapolis.
This latest ICE surge threatens to turn back the clock on that progress, and prevent us from moving to close the massive equity gaps that remain. The rhetoric around it is clearly intended to drive a wedge between us.
But I know Minneapolis very well. I know the strength forged by bringing so many people with assets together in one place is more powerful than a military weapon or incendiary language.
Together we have built a place that, in spite of imperfections and ongoing inequities, continues to strive to make the American dream real. And that’s a vision so much bigger than anyone who wants to divide us.
Rest in peace, Renee Good. The dream of building a better Minneapolis lives on.
—
R.T. Rybak
President & CEO
