Minneapolis’ relationship with its police department
“It is the nature of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, or any of these other systems of oppression to want to do what is necessary to save themselves,” they added. “To adapt. To mutate. To move. To slow progress.”
“What I see happening is these council members and these other elected officials all trying to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle,” she said. “And it’s up to us, in my opinion, to let them know that the genie ain’t going back in the bottle.”
Miski Noor, the activist, who uses they/them pronouns, offered another hypothesis: It is a system working exactly as designed. Everyone, they said, had played their role as intended, stomping out attempts at systemic reform.
Some who had supported the pledge said that the white liberalism that has long defined Minneapolis politics — and the larger Democratic Party — was often more about aesthetic embraces of racial justice than facing and fighting for its reality.
“I’m embarrassed that we were not able to affect the kind of change I think people deserve,” Ellison said.
To arrive at this point — after all the protests, intense media interest, and fierce ideological debates — is an indictment of the politicians, including the City Council, one activist argued at a recent public meeting near Powderhorn Park convened by Communities United Against Police Brutality. The activist, Michelle Gross, who opposes full-scale police abolition, blamed officials and the mayor for not working in concert.
