You may not make connections between your neighborhood and those things that led to this unrest with cursory surface review. Dig deeper. Find out how your family got there and why they stayed or why they left where they were before. Get into it and some of it may make more sense.

You just celebrated grandpa on Memorial Day? He came home from the war and used his GI bill to pay for an education that got him a career. With that career he bought a home in a great neighborhood with good schools. That helped educate your parents. They got into good colleges?

Your parents then became managers and bank execs and opened “small” businesses and gave you a great life in the quiet neighborhood far away from inner city Minneapolis. Right? No connection. Except... wait a minute.

My grandpa came home from that same war and couldn’t use his GI Bill in the same way. Then when he went to buy a home was redlined out of the neighborhood he chose. So he returned home to be shunned and discriminated against and spent his life picking fruit.

He did the best he could but his child, my mom has to endure segregated lesser than schools in those neighborhoods until forced integration pushed her face to face with violence and daily being told she wasn’t welcomed... in a school... her parents tax dollars paid for...

She fought thru it, graduated but was told the best job she could hope for was a cashier and that college wasn’t an option. At least she didn’t have to pick fruit. She then raised me... telling me about this mythical thing called “college” that I had to attend that she couldn’t.

So then... I fight thru it too... with a different attitude because different times... but I’m here. Sitting here in my house in your neighborhood where I plan to send my son to those good schools too. Listening to you tell me to be quiet and that my feelings are invalid.