I wanted to offer a few more semi-coherent thoughts about what my take is on the Minneapolis Uprising because from my vantage point, I’m seeing some important pieces missing from a lot of the coverage.

These aren’t necessarily a well organized thesis with supporting arguments. They’re nuggets I hope people will consider when they’re crafting their own understanding of what’s happening here.

The first thing that feels really important to me is that Walz and Frey are already sanitizing a dynamic narrative about who started destroying things earlier this week, who is continuing to destroy things this weekend, and why it’s happening.

The original destruction including re-distributing goods and property damage as well as some fires actually were part of the protests. They weren’t just outside agitators or white dudes from the suburbs. They were Black, brown, and white people who have righteous anger.

It’s become clear that an increasing number of the fires are instigated by white outsiders or chaos agents but that doesn’t negate the actual people power that started this whole thing. People are escalating tactics because more palatable tactics haven’t worked for years.

So while it’s TRUE that white instigators are acting outside of what the community wants, the community does actually want real fucking change and understands that some buildings may need to burn in order to get there.

So please dont overly adopt Walz and Frey’s narratives that erase this power when they say that Minneapolis doesn’t want what’s happening. That’s not a nuanced enough conceptualization.

(I have way more thoughts but i have to pause this to take care of some other things that have come up.)