St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s dad was a cop. I wonder what he thinks, seeing what his son has let the city come to.
Businesses at the intersection of Como, Front, and Dale Street, a mile or so from Mitch’s house. Sign says: “RIP George Floyd, BLM, minority-owned.”
Hoping to be eaten last is not a winning business strategy. But it’s all that’s left in St Paul.
Joe Doakes
That’s what occurred to me last Thursday, watching “black-owned”, “minority-owned” or, in some absurd cases, “community owned” businesses frantically post themselves to throw their white neighbors under the bus (not always successfully – Mexican restaurants in Minneapolis looked particularly hard-hit).
One of my MN friends is a licensed, private investigator. His main source of income is providing security guards for businesses. He used to have a contract with the Cub on Broadway, and Merwyns liquor across the steeet and down the block. They were lucrative contracts in that both wanted armed security.
Cub switched to off duty MPD for security a few years ago, although they might be following the virtue trail and fire them. Merwyns was looted and burned last Saturday; they say they’re done.
I’m happy to know that after the large chain grocers bail out, minority neighborhoods will have “Black owned” Speedy Foods to serve them.
Lileks posted a video on The Bleat yesterday. A middle-aged Black woman was crying on camera because she lives in the Lake Street area and rioters had burned down all the stores where she shops, and the busses aren’t running to commute to stores that are open. She didn’t know how she would survive.
I confess, I feel bad for her. But not too bad, because I also suspect that if I shoot somebody breaking into my house, she’d be one of the first on camera saying “he didn’t need to die” and claiming the dead guy was just about to turn his life around to discover the cure for Covid.
There’s no evidence the rioting on Lake Street that burned her stores was caused by White Supremacists. Look at the videos. The problem in the Black community is good Black people unwilling to crack down on bad Black people who are causing trouble. Nothing the rest of us can do about that.
JD, what shocks me is not only are the good unwilling to crack down on the bad but they bizarrely want to raise them up on a pedestal of virtue.
Look for signs in the coming weeks, “Security by BLM”, or the posse of choice. And then, of course, turf wars over who provides protection.
As our chopper pilot said earlier, the only practical urban defense is neighbors rallying together. But inevitably, Block A decides that Block B looks pretty ripe and makes a good buffer against Block C, so our militia needs to beat B’s militia and annex that for defense. And if you live in Block A and don’t agree, well, Bill’s garage has room to lock you up until you see sense.
I saw a post today that said that the Black Panther Party was being advised by ex-special forces military and were establishing their own “police force” in response to regular police departments militarization. Yea….that should go well.
How is it possible to believe that poor neighborhoods will be improved by removing the police presence?