Two months after the police killing of George Floyd, the four-block area of South Minneapolis where he gasped his last breaths remains a sacred space, a no-go zone for officers. There is a neatly trimmed garden, anchored by a sculpture of a raised fist. There are colorful murals and the words “I can’t breathe” painted across the pavement, as well as the names of dozens of other Black people killed by the police.At night, though, the space is increasingly a battleground, with shootings and drug overdoses. The area has had an uptick in gun violence similar to what other cities have seen in the wake of protests.At all times, the neighborhood brims with emotion. In its totality, it feels like the raw center of America’s reckoning with racial injustice.The chaos at night has presented city officials with the challenge of how to reassert control of the space without setting off new waves of anger, all while maintaining it as a solemn place to honor Mr. Floyd. In Ferguson, Mo., where the police killing of Michael Brown set off protests in 2014, tensions were reignited when officers moved to clear out a memorial.
Police serve a necessary function, especially in poor black neighborhoods. Not for the white suburbs where crime is rare, but for the black people who live in these hellholes of social dysfunction. I just heard my first direct statement of anti-black racism, a couple days ago, and as much as some people want to blame racism and police, stories like this are reminders that the biggest enemies of poor blacks are the predators in their own communities, not neo-Nazis or Klansmen or those rich liberals bleating about their own "white privilege."
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