By Josette Brose-Eichar
My earliest memories are of north Minneapolis. My older sister, Eileen, walking me to Hawthorn Elementary School on frozen sidewalks. Midday I would walk back to our third-floor tenement apartment alone. Even as a small child I was unafraid to wander from street to street on my journey, looking for my favorite buildings, like a group of row houses we all called the Beehives.
In summer, Eileen would drop me off at a junkyard on Washington Avenue while she and her friends went down to the Mississippi to hunt for turtles. I was given instructions not to tell mom. Why would I? The old lady who owned the junkyard fed me cookies and lemonade in the crumbling Victorian that sat in the middle of wrecked cars and sometimes we would stroll the junkyard landscape with her dogs.
Years later, after my family bought a tiny tract home in Brooklyn Park, I moved back to Minneapolis, this time on the south side, living on minimum wage, in a cheap apartment. A bit later, I left the city for the country, Isanti and Willow River. But I was not a country girl. I came back to south Minneapolis, got into art school and secured a job as a union supermarket cashier. There I was until 1979, when I set out for LA to seek fame and fortune, which I never achieved.
Today I see the city of Minneapolis and its people under siege, attacked by a hostile force. My friends and family are there. I visit every year to be with them. I know this city, I know its people. To live in Minneapolis and St. Paul is to know that people there are kind, thoughtful and accepting. I take urban strolls when I am there.
In South Minneapolis, on each street are yard signs saying “everyone is welcome here.” I walk to Minnehaha Park, to the falls, and there are families of every ethnic group there, walking the trails, picnicking, working in the little pavilion restaurant.
The same is true everywhere we go. Contrary to popular belief, Minneapolis and St. Paul are not “white” cities. I state this because many label as “white activists” those who are protecting people who are being attacked by the Trump regime. The reality is that the people of color are afraid, they are in hiding, and they are being protected by the people of the city, people who care, people who are standing up and facing the horror that has been unleashed on them. One of my closest friends works for a nonprofit supporting the Somali community, he knows the truth, and he knows why people are living in fear.
Two people have been murdered in cold blood. Will there be any consequences for those that committed these murders? An old man is dragged from his home, in his underwear in the brittle, freezing cold. Will there be justice for all those who have been targeted by this squad of conscienceless goons, unleashed on this city?
One question people ask is, why was this city targeted? I can answer that question. Because the place where I grew up is a place where people and government try to help one another. A place where church groups sponsor immigrants coming from war-torn and impoverished countries. The powerful use the excuses of so-called corruption and the presence of criminals to attack the people of Minneapolis. Those in power looked for and found the perfect target.
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