Nobody, But Nobody Can Make It Out Here Alone

When I walked out to get something out of my car this Sunday morning, running out in bare feet despite snow and a temperature of 18 degrees F, I was surprised to see a copy of the Star Tribune sitting in my drive way, safely encased in a plastic bag, protecting it from the elements.  I figured it had been mistakenly delivered to our driveway and was a neighbor’s, but as I looked around wondering which door to knock on and the need to go back and put on boots to carry out that errand, I realized that every driveway in my St. Louis Park neighborhood had a copy of the Star Tribune sitting delivered, waiting for them, regardless if they had a subscription to the Sunday paper.   When I went inside, glad to have the Sunday paper to read with my morning coffee, I was incredibly moved by what was waiting for me inside.  

I do not know if this special edition was delivered only to St. Louis Park residents for free because it was where George Floyd lived at the time of his death or whether it was done more broadly across Minneapolis, but what I know, is that I am incredibly grateful to all the individuals involved in giving this special tribute, and to the Star Tribune for its generosity in making it happen.  It had a profound impact on me.  I sat down and read every word as emotions swept over me.   

I have written before about how much George Floyd’s death has shaken my sense of self and my sense of home.  It has made me question what role I am called on now to play to reassess my own prejudice, ingrained in ways beyond my creation, but still very real, even in ways that I might have perceived before as good intentions.  I feel tremendous shame in George Floyd’s murder by policemen whose salaries are paid by the money I contribute through property taxes on my home.  I still ask myself, “how did this happen?”  How do men sworn to protect and serve in my community act so callously towards a human being in obvious need of assistance over a matter so minor in importance?  Floyd’s death is a sea change in how I feel about myself and my hometown and the responsibility we all share in figuring out how to narrow the opportunity gap that exists in our community and change the trajectory of our combined futures.    

The article also gave me a little glimmer of hope, despite all that has happened.   I was moved how George was proud of Minneapolis while he was alive of how he felt about how it had afforded him the opportunity for a new start in life.  All Floyd wanted was the chance to put the past behind,  the opportunity for honest work, honest wages and a chance to contribute.  Floyd and I want(ed) the same things,  we have the same ambitions.   It’s not fair that so many barriers were put in his way on what should have been his human right, whereas for me, barriers were cleared out of my path without me even knowing it.   I cried as I read his pride in finally having a place of his own with a room mate in a St. Louis Park duplex that is less than a mile of the home that I own. Though I never met George Floyd we were neighbors in the sense we both lived in and love the same neighborhood.    

The Minneapolis Poem