Will Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis?

Last updated on: November 25, 2015 at 11:02 am by Kyle Roberts

Will Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis? 2015-11-25T11:02:52-05:00 Kyle Roberts

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In the months following Ferguson, several commentators predicted that Minneapolis would become the next city to experience a Ferguson-like racial crisis.

Image by Fibonacci Blue, Black Lives Matter protest (Minneapolis, July)

And then Jamar Clark was killed by police last week. Questions abound as to the nature of Jamar’s death. Was he handcuffed? Killed execution style? The city has thus far refused to release the surveillance video.

Hundreds of protesters have been camped out in the 4th precinct in Minneapolis, demanding justice for Jamar. The other night, white supremacists fired at the protesters, wounding five of them. Three suspected shooters have recently been apprehended.

The number of protesters is steadily growing and has reached nearly 1000, marching to City Hall. They are undeterred by the violence of the white supremacists. They believe black lives matter in Minneapolis. Or at least, they believe black lives matter must matterin Minneapolis.

Minneapolis is known as a progressive, Midwestern city. It’s consistently ranked as one of the “best places to live in America.” As many of us like to say, it’s a great place to “raise a family.”

But it’s not so great for everyone. It’s recently been ranked as one of the worst places to live in America for black people.

A recent survey puts Minneapolis as the third worst city in America for black Americans. The survey explains:

One of the largest metropolitan areas in the country, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is home to nearly 3.5 million people. It is also one of the worst cities for black Americans. The disparity between the median householdincomes of white and black residents is especially stark. The typical white household earns about $73,700 annually, one of the highest incomes in the country. The typical area black household, meanwhile, earns just under $28,000 annually. Low wages often come with high unemployment rates. While only 3.9% of all Twin City residents are unemployed, one of the lowest figures in the country, the unemployment rate among the city’s black residents is 12.8%.

About 20% of the area’s black residents have at least a bachelor’s degree, roughly in line with the corresponding national rate. Still, more than 35% of the area’s black population lives in poverty, a significantly higher rate than the 27% of black Americans living below the poverty line.

Nekima Levy-Pounds, head of the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP, further explains in her blog that Minneapolis represents the “Jim Crow North”:

The reality is that African Americans in the Twin Cities, particularly those who live below the poverty line, feel as though they are living in the Jim Crow North, because of the oppressive laws and socio-economic conditions with which they are forced to contend. African Americans in Minneapolis and throughout the Twin Cities experience grossly disproportionate rates of arrest, disparate rates of contact with the criminal justice system, excessive force by police officers, and unequal treatment throughout the court system in comparison to their white counterparts. African Americans are also stopped by police more often for petty offenses such as lurking and spitting and they experience over-policing in their neighborhoods. A recent USA Today study showed that in 2011-12 the black arrest rate in Minneapolis was 480.3 per 1,000 residents; while the non-black rate of arrest was 73.8. The disparity in the city of Bloomington was even worse, with the black arrest rate at 831.5 per 1,000 residents; while the non-black arrest rate was 86.2. The study noted that such “staggering disparity” in arrests was larger than in Ferguson, Missouri.

As the racial tensions grow, in light of increasing numbers of excessive police violence and in the larger context of multiple layers of disparity and injustice, the question must be asked: Will black lives matter in Minneapolis?

Black lives matter. Black lives must matter in Minneapolis. But big changes are required.

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