You are here: Home

Minneapolis is My Hellhole

By on August 22, 2020 in Everything Else, Ruminations
PersephoneK shadow and Javier (her bike) at Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis looking to the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River. Photo credit @PersephoneK

I live in Minneapolis. Yes, that Minneapolis. Infamous Minneapolis. The city where four police officers killed George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, and set the world on fire, not at all in a good way. I was away from home when the horrific event happened, and during the subsequent nights of rioting, which touched the edges of my neighborhood, and has left scars in many corners of the city, especially along Lake Street, one of the main streets through South Minneapolis. Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue were the epicenter of the unrest. On that corner, the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building was encircled, and eventually burned down, securing a victory by those hoping to cause mayhem and destroy the system. I’m sure you know the story, but do you know the town?

Iconic Uptown Theater. Photo credit @PersephoneK

My neighborhood is called Uptown. It is west of the epicenter in the 5th Precinct. Lake Street and Hennepin Avenue form the main crossroad of Uptown. Naturally, Prince, that Minnesotan Minnesotans will never stop reminding you was a Minnesotan, wrote a song called “Uptown” about my neighborhood. He was a true Minneapolis kid. And while I didn’t grow up in the neighborhood, or even in Minneapolis, I dreamed of living here since I was a student at the University of Minnesota in the ‘90’s and took a drive through Uptown and the nearby “Grand Rounds” around the lakes with some friends. I fell in love. It’s an eclectic area. Bohemians, poor college students, artists, vagabonds, lower, middle, upper class. We got ‘em all. Old brownstone apartment buildings share streets with multi-million-dollar mansions and everything in between. Its filled with restaurants that draw residents in from the suburbs, including yuppy foodies and just out of college dude-bros. Its one of the few Minneapolis neighborhoods that feels like I’m living in a more walkable city like New York or London. I moved here on the day of another infamous Minneapolis moment when the I35W bridge collapsed in 2007, and since then the neighborhood has changed. Its been a bit gentrified. The old, divey diners have given way to Apple stores and expensive condos and apartments that exceed the previously strict building height limits, blocking out the view of downtown from some of the more popular rooftop patios. Many residents hate these facts. I see them as normal signs of change, and progress. You get some good. You get some bad. I love the vibrancy all the new people and attractions bring to the area. I love that I can walk out my door and within a block have many great places to eat and explore without having to get in my car. At least that’s how it was pre-COVID and pre-riots. Both of these things have conspired to destroy my city.

Sunset on Lake of the Isles. Photo credit @PersephoneK

Minnehaha Falls. Photo credit @PersephoneK

Minneapolis means the “City of Lakes”. According to our Parks and Rec website, the city has “180 park properties… [including] 55 miles [of] parkways, 102 miles of Grand Rounds biking and walking paths, 22 lakes, 12 formal gardens … and receive[s] about 26 million visits annually.”  Twenty-two lakes within a city of just over 400,000 inhabitants and more than 57 million square miles is nothing to sneeze at. The city earned its nickname honestly. Within five blocks of my condo, I am on the shores of Bde Maka Ska (formerly Lake Calhoun) and on the numerous bike paths, where I ride hundreds of miles each summer. My bike’s name is Javier. I may have named my bike, but I’m not a hardcore cyclist. I don’t ride in the winter, but many Minneapolitans (our preferred label) do. Winters are cold and snowy here, and the city’s residents know how to have fun in all seasons. We don’t merely hibernate in front of a fire and wait for Spring. Every February, I look forward to the Lakes Loppet (pronounced Low-Pet) a weekend long festival with many events, mostly involving Nordic Skiing (some with dogs!), ice sculpting contests, and a party on the frozen water of Lake of the Isles. I don’t Nordic ski, but the Loppet is a lot of fun. Minneapolis, especially my neighborhood, is filled with events all year long. South and Southwest Minneapolis have an air of historical, romantic fantasy scattered all over the landscape, embedded in the names of places. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “The Song of Hiawatha” in 1855, and although he never visited Minnesota, his epic poem is set “among the Ojibwe and Dakota” who lived here before the white settlers expanded westward. We have Hiawatha Avenue, Minnehaha Falls, and their namesakes are immortalized in bronze at one of the city’s most visited parks. The falls in summer is one of my favorite bike destinations. I love the roar of the water, and watching all the people explore a quintessential Minnesota attraction. Nature in the City is what makes Minneapolis special. We have a lot of nature here, but it’s also a modern city with famous theaters and museums, large multinational corporations, skyscrapers, great restaurants, micro-breweries, and major sports teams.

Minneapolis City Deer. Photo credit @PersephoneK
Wind skiing across Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun) in Winter. Photo credit @PersephoneK

Since I can remember, I’ve wanted to live in a city. A BIG city. I don’t understand why exactly. I remember coming to the Twin Cities, “the Cities” for short, with my family when I was really little. We lived about 40 miles north. I’m not sure if it was Minneapolis or Saint Paul. I only remember looking up at the towering skyscrapers all around us and being enamored. They called to me. I wanted to be amongst them. Perhaps its because I am an introvert who loves to talk to and watch people. Perhaps its because I never dreamed of having kids and a yard. Perhaps it’s just embedded in my DNA. All I know is I love living in the busy, noisy, diverse, sometimes frustrating, maddening organism that is a city. A few years after college I seriously considered moving to New York City. I had no plan. I just wanted to live in the biggest city America had and absorb. Life took me on another path, and eventually, I moved out of Minnesota, but then came back home again. There was never a question that if I returned home, I would live in Minnesota’s biggest city, the city where I attended the University of Minnesota (“The U”). I never seriously considered living anywhere but in Uptown. This is where I belong.  

George Floyd memorial, 38th and Chicago,
Minneapolis. Photo by PersephoneK

What happened to George Floyd was a travesty and a tragedy. What has been happening in Minneapolis since fills me with despair. I am not going to sugar coat this. The pandemic created kindling. The killing of George Floyd lit the city on fire. Since then the city has become instable. Disquieting rhetoric, increases in homelessness, and disturbing “upticks in crime”[*] are too common, especially compared to before.  Not everyone likes big cities. It was sometimes hard to convince people to visit me, even before May 2020, but now its even harder. Some of that is completely understandable. Some of it is inflated fear. Some of it is a million other factors, all of which make me sad. I hear what everyone is saying. “Minneapolis is a hellhole.” “They are getting what they deserve.” “I’m not spending another dime in that city again.” “All the cops should abandon the place.” I understand these sentiments, but they also break my heart, and make me angry. Minneapolis is not the hellhole you’ve been told it is. The truth is in the murky middle. The city is not what it once was, but its not yet descended into a warzone.  

Minnehaha Liquor on Lake Street. Photo credit @PersephoneK

People often ask me, “are you going to move out of Minneapolis?” or the less tactful simply say “You’re an idiot if you stay in that shithole.” I’ve thought about this a lot. I don’t have a great response. I’ve certainly considered my options. What the future brings, I cannot say. What I do know is the day I move out of Uptown, and especially the day I move out of Minneapolis will be a sad day for me, if it comes to that. I also know that the more people tell me I’m crazy to stay, the more they tell me they actually hope the MPD abandons us to the predators taking advantage of the chaos and poor leadership, the more people tell me its my fault for voting in the current leadership (even though I voted for none of them), the more I want to dig in my heels and fight for my home. Minneapolis is not a monolith. Its not one organism. It is made up of over 400,000 individual souls with their own lives and dreams and circumstances.

Minneapolis from Hiawatha Avenue. Photo credit @PersephoneK

This isn’t about politics to me. This is about my home. I consider myself politically homeless. Not a single council person or the mayor represents my views in any serious way. I’m a minority in this town. My vote will be meaningless because even if the entire council is voted out (and that is possible), I can almost guarantee they’ll be replaced by people I disagree with strongly on important topics, but I still love my home. I love Minneapolis. Do I not matter to you who would say the city should just crumble and die? You who say the city is a cesspool and you hope we fail, who am I to you? Nothing? Just collateral damage to prove that progressive politics is a failure? Just an idiot who deserves what she gets?  Those of us who live here in spite of the politics matter too. We love the parks, and the lakes, and the place this once was, only six months ago. You may choose not to patronize the small business owner just trying to survive, or rebuild her burned-out dream. You may think Minneapolis doesn’t matter to you from some other Minnesota town, or even beyond. Are you so sure? Are you so sure you don’t need the biggest city in Minnesota to thrive? You don’t need one of America’s 30 largest GDP per capita cities at all? Its failure would not impact you at all?  Maybe not, but are you so sure your town is nothing like us? Your town is likely run by a few powerful people leaving you at their mercy. The main difference is we’re bigger and the loss of Minneapolis will be that much more catastrophic.

Minneapolis behind Lake of the Isles.
Photo credit @PersephoneK

If I leave, and others like me leave, the only people left in the city either agree with the council, agree with the rioters, are fine with chaos, are criminals, or are the powerless. What happens to them? I have the means and power to flee if I choose to do so. Not all are so privileged. Are you ok abandoning them? Everyone must make their own choices. But you, non-Minneapolitan, do not speak for me. Leaving sounds easy, but maybe you have never loved your home as much as I love Minneapolis. Fixing what’s wrong will be hard. Without me, and without you its impossible. Real, regular people who are pawns in the games played by political and criminal factions live here. This is our home. I intend to fight for the city I dreamed about living in when I was a little girl, awed by buildings extending all the way to the clouds. This metropolis of the lakes is my home. I’m not quitting. Please, don’t give up on us yet.

Peace,

Persephone K

PersephoneK and Javier (her bike) on one of her many favorite park benches around the lakes on a beautiful summer evening. Photo credit @PersephoneK

*I once was a professional crime analyst. I am in the early phases of a new project focused on Minneapolis crime, hopefully coming soon.

Comments { 0 }

The Ideological Black Hole of Labeling

By on May 8, 2019 in Ruminations

I often will say “I’m against labels.” One of my friends likes to point this out with some friendly (I hope) jabs regularly on social media much to my amusement (you know who you are), and admittedly, sometimes to my frustration. So, I want to clarify what I really mean by “I’m anti-labeling” because the truth (as it always is) is more nuanced than that pithy phrase can explain.

I like pithy phrases. I sometimes use them as a way to jolt a conversation or shock someone I’m conversing with to look at me a little like Scooby Doo looks at The Gang when they decide to chase a ghost. But to me, that’s often all they are… a conversation starter that I hope will become a deeper discussion. It doesn’t always work that way (in fact, it probably works in quite the opposite way much of the time), but that’s my style, such as it is.

So, “I’m anti-labeling” is one of those phrases I will use to provoke (not necessarily in a bad way) whoever I’m talking with into responding, and thereby hopefully move a conversation in a particular direction. But I will reveal a dirty secret: I don’t hate labels, and will use them frequently. Frankly, its impossible not to use labels unless one is intentionally trying to be verbose (or is naturally verbose like this writer can be when writing blog articles). Labels are just shorthand for longer definitions. They simplify conversation. They are an easy way to explain more complicated views, positions, history, backgrounds, whatever it may be. They’re just summarizing words, and everyone uses them, even me. What I actually mean, when I say I hate labels is I hate when labels become part of a person’s identity to the point that they matter more than the individual sum of one’s parts. When they suggest one trait or idea excludes others, and lock us into that identity, either by others, or by ourselves indefinitely.

See, I believe life is a journey, and while our traits and ideas make us who we are, they are 1) often malleable, or 2) a fraction of who we are, and 3) vary even among others who have the same or similar “traits” and ideas.

For example, I am an atheist. A few years ago, this label represented a large part of my identity because I was exploring being open about having this viewpoint after having been a devout Christian.  It was part of my transformation process to be outspoken about these ideas that were important to me. I needed people who knew me to know this was who I was now, partly as a way to test if they would still accept me, and also for me to be able to know I could be myself around them. While very little of my views on the subject have changed since then (though I’m open to changing them if new evidence comes along), I just don’t feel that label is as important as it once was to who I am now. I don’t seek out other prominent atheists to hear their ideas as much, and I’m not as drawn to atheist communities as I used to be. It doesn’t fire me up to battle with believers like it once did (though I still do enjoy it if the occasion arises), and while I still wish there was less religion in the world, I don’t care as much to tell you that.

Yet a person could see that very true label and assume much about me. Some of it is probably true, some of it is not, and a lot of it just falls into that nether world area of true, but not that important. A lot of it is the other person bringing with them one definition of the term that varies greatly from mine. If I allow that label to be everything that I am, I fear it will capture me like a black hole captures light and matter. I’ll never escape it even when confronted with new ideas that challenge my assumptions and views. Black holes have some purpose. They are like a galaxy vacuum cleaner, and eventually, they destroy everything in their path so the universe can start over. A label can be like this too. It becomes so abused by its users that it eventually destroys itself, and everything that touches it.

First image of a black hole. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

But I don’t want to be destroyed, nor do I want society to destroy itself (yet), so I reject labels as a matter of routine partly to say to others you cannot define me, and partly so that I do not throw myself into that black hole of identity.

What I do want is to always be willing to throw away, or not concern myself with, parts of my identity if it makes sense to do so. To throw the label in the black hole, but save myself. That doesn’t mean I will. There may never be a need. Some aspects of my identity I can never throw away, but I can reduce how much they matter to me.

Another example, growing up, I always knew I was half Finnish-American (3rd generation). That is a big part of my family’s identity. My other half is a little more “mutt”, but includes Norwegian (Vikings!), German, English, and includes ancestors who came to America on the Mayflower, and who fought in the Revolutionary War. I’m proud of that heritage and see no reason not to claim it. It bonds me with that side of my family, and other Finns I meet in the world. (It also forces me to pronounce “sauna” correctly and correct anyone who does not). But being half Finnish is only part of who I am, and because it is something I cannot control, it means a little less to me than the ideas I’m trying to live my life by, how I treat others, what I do in this world, and the people I love. If being Finnish-American meant I had to treat others terribly, I would leave dissociate myself as much as I could from the label, even though I can never really change that part of my ancestry. Fortunately, for now, I don’t have to make that choice.

Another label I both use and shun paradoxically, is libertarian (small “l”). It’s a word that means many things to many people, especially in this moment in time, as our online lives have become more divided by politics, and teams. I find its easier to use libertarian to broadly explain my worldview to use the term (along with “classical liberal” or voluntaryist, or min-archist, and others), but it’s a double-edged sword. Once you use the word to describe yourself, it will be thrown in your face, and used to define everything you are, often times by people who don’t fully understand what the words mean to me. If others who call themselves libertarian behave badly, you will be tarnished by association with them, even though you also decry their behavior, or certain views. In short, people will use their own biases against you and not bother to learn what you actually mean or think, because they believe they know. On the other side, it can become a shield, or a tribal coat of arms one uses to gather with like-minds against the “other.” This is true of all political labels. But “libertarian” is only a useful term so long as it means what I am. I do not mold my views to be more libertarian.

One reason I keep using the word is the libertarian tent is large and actually describes many different micro positions that fall under an “individual liberty first” umbrella, and includes people who love vibrant debate, and thoughtful position tweaking (something I wish more people on the outside looking in understood). If that changes, I’ll abandon the term and the tent without regret. In fact, right now the term “classical liberal” is currently being usurped by those who previously called themselves “on the left” but who no longer identify as a progressive. It doesn’t quite fit libertarian anymore, but I’m holding onto it for now because it does fit parts of me.

image of many political party logos

All I’m asking is that you get to know me (and anyone else) for the sum of my many different parts, not the parts themselves, and allow that people constantly change those parts as they learn new things, meet new people, and have new experiences. I truly want to do the same with you, but we cannot until we accept that no one label defines us (even if we think it does or want it to). Be willing to abandon the label when it fails to mean what you think it should mean, and be willing to ignore the label even if it is true and cannot be changed because of an immutable trait. Never let the tribe’s collective view suck you entirely into its gravitational field. No intersectional identity or political label can ever do justice to the individual. When we fall into a black hole, or push others into one, we limit human progress.

Peace,

Persephone K

Hey, a long time ago I wrote a related piece on this topic. You can check it out here: https://www.persephonespath.com/the-trouble-with-blogging/

Comments { 0 }
Kaepernick Loves Castro

To Pledge or Not to Pledge: A National Anthem Protest Story

By on September 20, 2016 in Entertainment & Pop Culture, Government Reform, Liberty & Freedom

I have a complicated relationship with the Pledge of Allegiance and other nationalist rituals like singing the National Anthem, so I was hoping the whole issue stirred up by San Francisco 49er’s Quarterback Colin Kaepernick would go away quickly. Its too difficult of a conversation to have on social media, where nuance goes to die. […]

Comments { 0 }
Adam Smith

Economic Ignorance Impacts Us All

By on August 15, 2016 in Economics

Yesterday, I finished one of my many summer reads: Thomas Sowell’s “Basic Economics.” I’ll simply say that this is one of the most important books every non-economist should read. A few years ago, I began to realize I had very little comprehension of economic principals, and schools of thought.  I’d taken macro economics (without taking […]

Comments { 0 }
Picture of a Peace Dove with olive branch

Give Humility a Chance

By on June 16, 2016 in Ruminations, US & International Affairs

This week has killed my spirit a little bit. It began when I turned forty on Saturday.  The day itself was fun, but it marked a moment in my life I’d been dreading somewhat this entire year.  Mid-life is officially upon me, and I have little to show for it.  Yes, I have great friends and […]

Comments { 0 }
logo image for liberty.me

Liberty Goddess Blog at Liberty.me

By on May 25, 2016 in Announcements

Hey y’all!  Just a quick note to let you know I’ve decided to re-blog some of my more liberty minded works at the liberty.me platform.  Everything will be posted here first, but since this blog covers territory beyond the liberty movement, I wanted to have a place where I could congregate my writing focused on […]

Comments { 0 }
image of dumpster fire

I Am We the People, And So Are You

By on May 12, 2016 in Liberty & Freedom, Recommended Reading

Many years ago, I read Ayn Rand’s [easyazon_link identifier=”B0082RHM4A” locale=”US” nw=”y” nf=”y” tag=”persephonek20-20″]“Anthem”[/easyazon_link] and in hindsight, it completely changed the path of my thinking. Let me pause for a moment to take inventory on who is still reading. I mentioned Ayn Rand in my first sentence, so I assume a handful of readers decided to […]

Comments { 0 }

My Thought Evolution on Freedom: Remembering 9/11

By on September 11, 2015 in 9-11-2001, Atheism & Skepticism, Government Reform, Liberty & Freedom, US & International Affairs

Two obvious points: 1) Its been a really long time since I’ve blogged!  2) Obviously, its the 14th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11/2001. I’ll skip the boring and lame reasons for #1 and focus on #2 today.  Every year on 9/11 I feel like I should have something profound to say. I never really […]

Comments { 0 }

Fighting Depression, Building Friends Up, Tearing Stigma Down

By on August 12, 2014 in Entertainment & Pop Culture, Ruminations

“It’s the same voice thought that … you’re standing at a precipice and you look down, there’s a voice and it’s a little quiet voice that goes, ‘Jump.’ The same voice that goes, ‘Just one.’ … And the idea of just one for someone who has no tolerance for it, that’s not the possibility.” Robin […]

Comments { 0 }

Of Bonfires and Water Vapor – Why Banning eCigarettes Sucks

By on April 30, 2014 in Liberty & Freedom

I do not smoke. I have never smoked. No one close to me has ever died as a result of smoking. My mother smoked for most of my childhood, but she quit around the time I started college, and has been smoke free for nearly 20 years (congrats mom!). She quit with a friend. He […]

Comments { 0 }