Sacred Place? Minneapolis Reimagines 'George Floyd Square'

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

In a better world, George Floyd would never have resisted arrest, Derek Chauvin would never have had to restrain him, and Floyd would still be enjoying his fentanyl and meth or, better yet, have gone clean and straight.

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We don’t live in that world. We live in one where Floyd overdosed on meth and fentanyl, Officer Chauvin restrained him for longer than necessary, and Floyd died of a heart attack. The death was ruled a homicide, and Chauvin is in jail, where he was recently stabbed 22 times by a former FBI informant.

Funny that.

In the wake of Floyd’s death, the city and then the world erupted in violence. The summer of 2020 was disastrous for many cities, but Minneapolis suffered particularly hard as the site of the tragedy. There are still burnt-out blocks, and the site of Floyd’s death has become a lawless zone called “George Floyd Square.”


The area is closed to traffic and has become a disaster zone. So much so that the local businesses are suing the city to clean things up.

As you might imagine, whenever the government creates a disaster by letting things go to hell or making them do so, the powers that be see an opportunity to waste a lot of money. And indeed, that is happening here. The city has a project to “reenvision” the area, and nonprofits are mobilizing to put their particular ideological imprint on the project–as if the Minneapolis city government won’t be ridiculous enough in embracing idiocy.

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As usual, it is supposedly all about racial healing, but in reality, it is all about picking at scabs to ensure the wound remains inflamed.

For God’s sake, no city government that can’t keep its streets paved and moderately safe can possibly heal racial divides, but moral onanism is what elites do. And they need to do so publicly, as exhibitionists always do.

I was sent a survey from “the Community CoCreation Team (CCT), a group that has been formed by Public Policy Project and NEOO Partners to provide community input on the future of George Floyd Square. The survey is funded by the McKnight Foundation.”

The McKnight Foundation, as with all such big nonprofit pots of money, is run by people whose job apparently is to destroy the society that created that big pot of money. Hence it is no surprise that the “Community CoCreation Team” produced a survey with questions about how sacred I feel the site of Floyd’s overdose was and just how many memorials to Floyd should be included in the “reenvisioning” of the intersection of 38th and Chicago.

Little did I know that new memorials and even a museum are being “envisioned” for the area. My suggestion for that would be similar to the memorial at Hiroshima, where they left the destroyed building at ground zero, standing as it did the day of the bomb drop.

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School children pose for a group photo with the Atomic Bomb Dome as a backdrop in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, Friday, May 27, 2016. Convinced that the tim

Unfortunately, the survey didn’t ask about that possibility. I would have been happy to suggest it.

That the city would actually contemplate a celebration not just of Floyd but of the riots themselves is bizarre. The cost of lives and treasure, the skyrocketing crime, and the exodus of police from the city will take decades to recover from.

The city intends to celebrate this.

That the McKnight Foundation could even ask if “George Floyd Square” is “sacred ground” is beyond bizarre; it feels like something from an alternative universe.

Remember–things are so bad there that the city is getting sued for allowing the place to degenerate, and this is something they consider “sacred.”

Sacred.

The financial costs associated with the George Floyd riots are enormous, but compared to the social damage and deaths caused by the riots and the subsequent rise in crime, they are nothing. Here in Minneapolis, the 3rd Precinct of the police was burned down and has yet to be replaced.

Not that they really could use the building. The city has bled peace officers because the city turned its back on its police.

George Floyd didn’t deserve to die, but he doesn’t deserve to be sanctified either. He was a criminal drug abuser who resisted arrest while overdosing on lethal drugs. Chauvin should have stopped restraining him earlier, but chances are good that Floyd would have died with or without restraint.

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Everybody knows that. It’s just that many people feel the need to pretend otherwise, either due to pushing a narrative or because they are scared to admit the truth lest they be canceled.

So instead of facing the truth, Minneapolis will wind up with ridiculous memorials, perhaps a museum, and a smug sense of satisfaction that we can all pretend to believe the ridiculous.

That’s what it is like to live with Leftists.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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