Othering and Its Effects

Today a Facebook friend shared a post by a Black Twin Cities woman named Emily. I won't include the whole thing, but these key parts give a personal look at how anti-Blackness and racism play out here in the land of "Minnesota nice":

I am a black woman living in Minneapolis and working in a hospital in St. Paul. Yesterday I had to go to work and listen, as one of the only black people in my department, as my coworkers discussed how the protest and rioting were wrong because of how it affects their lives/those communities and how “this doesn’t accomplish anything.” Later on, I spent a good part of my day avoiding conversations in which people wouldn’t ask me a direct question, but were clearly looking to provoke some reaction. What reaction they were looking for I am not sure but now I feel the need to address a few things.

I do not condone violence or destruction. The microscopic view and superficial analysis of what is happening that I have overheard in conversations, seen plastered all over social media, and had to find ways to avoid at work is heartbreaking and a large part of the problem. Condemning the effect without understanding the cause is the single most toxic thing you can do in this situation.

As a black woman I *know* that my brother's life, that my life, is worthless in the eyes of the criminal “justice” system. As someone who has lived in 5 states and traveled to 30 others, I have said, and will continue to say, that Minnesota is the most racist state I have ever lived in. I am constantly treated like a criminal in my own community. I am constantly living in fear because of my race. I have lived with these feelings for as long as I can remember, long before Black Lives Matter started trending. There are no words to describe the weight of the burden you bear when your skin is ‘the wrong color’....

Minnesota is one of 2 states (the other being Mississippi) in which the unemployment rate is 3x higher for blacks than whites....

I see my coworkers beg management for PPE because our lives depend on it. Each time they come back frustrated and feeling like a sacrificial lamb because we aren’t asking for much, we are just asking for the right to be safe.

The right to be safe is something black communities have been pursuing for centuries. The toll it takes on one's mental health to never feel safe is something we can all relate to during this pandemic. It is exhausting. That exhaustion is something black communities have felt for generations.

Centuries of mental anguish, years of having our cries fall on deaf ears, and months of being further marginalized and isolated during this pandemic led to the riots we see now. The violence and destruction you see is the physical manifestation of centuries of inequality. Removing that context from your discussions makes you a part of the problem....

I wanted to include Emily's words as a preamble to this letter that was left at the home of a family in Saint Paul in the last day or so. It's wasn't in my neighborhood, but is not far away either. It was sent to what I gather is a single (white) mom who has two young Black children:


You may have heard that my mayor and governor have misstated arrest data, to say that all or the vast majority of people arrested for serious crimes during the last week's events were from out of state. While some are (and some of the most serious ones), many more are from Minnesota. They're people like the person who wrote this note, a person who lives in Saint Paul, not even a suburb or rural area.

I fervently hope this person is too chicken to try to make good on their threat, and I know already that the family's neighbors have stepped up to protect them overnight. I also hope the police, to whom the note was given, find fingerprints on it because the person who wrote it is probably stupid enough to have left some behind.

It's not worse than the racist threat itself, but one additional thing about this note that bothers me is the way its writer assumes they speak for "your neighbors" and that they are the "we" of "we have had enough." They are the one, and this woman and her children are the other. The one belongs and the other does not.