Minnesota Nice
Author’s Note: I know my native Minnesota peeps are a sensitive bunch. This piece might be a little hard to read because I’m going to be honest about what I, as an outsider, have experienced living here. I’ve been to many different towns and lived in many different neighborhoods. Of course, my opinion could be colored by my own personality clashing with Midwesterners but in my conversations with other transplants, there seem to be some common themes.
I don’t really consider myself a Minnesotan, despite spending the better part of two decades living and working here. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed my time here. Far from it. The summers are incredible, with long nights and usually warm, mild weather. Plus, some of the most thunderous and wild storms you can imagine. I’ve almost always had a white Christmas. The parks here are unlike anything in the rest of the country. The cost of living is relatively low and there are many fantastic restaurants to visit. The music scene here is OK, though its rep tends to hang more on what it HAS been (Prince, Husker Du, Bob Dylan, etc.) than what it is. One artist I cannot stand is Atmosphere, one of these “thoughtful” rappers whose flow is one of those where they think every other line is so mind blowing that they overemphasize it. Never been a fan but he did do one thing I agree with…
There are times when living here feels like you’ve discovered a secret part of the world. Growing up in New England, a short train ride outside of Boston, you get used to some things. People driving too fast on too crowded highways. Everything looking old. You learn not to stare or talk to strangers, the implication being that either you want something from them or you’re looking for trouble. Not in Minnesota. You’re lucky to survive the checkout line without someone chatting you up about the weather. I’ve literally had people come up to me in parking lots and start 15-minute conversations about random things: my car, the weather (always the weather), the store we’re going into/coming out of, what state parks I’ve gone to (I have a sticker on my car). And good luck wrapping up a conversation with a Minnesotan. There’s a phenomenon known as the “Minnesota Goodbye”. It’s like an Irish goodbye except the total opposite. For whatever reason, a fear of the blistering cold awaiting them on the other side of the door perhaps, saying goodbye generally takes at least 25-30 minutes. Don’t take it from me. The meme economy backs me up:
This is not to say it’s a bad thing. It’s just different for someone from the east coast to experience. There has been an adjustment to living here, a kind of general passivity and false niceness I’ve had to adopt in order to get by without incident. That’s not to say there haven’t been a few. A couple of weeks ago my neighbor of four years and I had a dispute. His adult son (at least 60 years old) was leaning over the fence that separates our properties with a weedwhacker, scalping the shit out of my grass (obviously, because that’s not you’re supposed to use that tool). Now, instead of just coming over to my door and being like “hey, can you trim the grass along the fence?” or “hey, can I pop around back and trim that grass— I can’t reach it from my side” he decided to take the most passive-aggressive approach to the situation. Not surprising as that seems to be most native Minnesotans default position on everything. God forbid we have a confrontation because that might lead to a confrontation!
When I went outside to see what the hell he was doing, he approached me, aggressively asking “if there was a problem”. Having lived here for more than a decade, I can tell when a Minnesota boy is upset. For whatever reason, the white men here have some issues dealing with their emotions. I don’t think I’ve ever met one who is actually emotionally mature. There are exceptions, of course, but usually, that involves some traveling. You’ll note that I specified white men here. The few Black friends I have from Minnesota don’t seem to have that issue. (Oh, don’t worry, we’ll get to race in a minute).
I ignored the guy initially, not wanting to get into a fight with my neighbors who are easily pushing 80 years of age and especially not with their dopey son. But I am a Masshole and I am not going to let some dickwad talk to me like that in my own yard. He was looking for a confrontation so I answered him, telling him that I wasn’t too happy with him ruining my yard. I’ll spare you the back and forth but what was revealed in this conversation was:
1) My elderly neighbors have resented me for FOUR YEARS because we did not properly introduce ourselves when we moved in. Apparently, one time the old man was outside and we didn’t wave. That was enough to set off literally years of building resentment, something the son even knew about.
2) My other neighbors don’t like me either, the reason being I was rude to the other ones and they just assumed I felt the same towards them.
3) Even though I did not start or continue the confrontation, I was wrong because instead of simply allowing this angry white man to yell at me about how I don’t maintain my yard (I do) I deigned to confront him on it. His elderly mother even said “you didn’t have to yell back at him” which is galaxy brain levels of passive-aggressiveness.
Now, some of this might be related to politics. I find it highly coincidental that around the time I put a sign up in my yard and started finding bullets in my driveway, my neighbor suddenly has an issue with us after four years of radio silence. But to anyone who’s not native to Minnesota, a sudden outburst of aggression from a normally friendly person isn’t uncommon. They let it build until they can’t hold it in anymore. And then KABOOM!
I am far from the first person to write about how Minnesota Nice ain’t very nice at all. In fact, depending on your ethnicity and skin color, it can be downright hostile to live here. And this is really what I want to talk about. The Twin Cities are one of the most segregated places I’ve ever seen. And again, I come from Massachusetts. I’ve seen racism and segregation my whole life. But it’s different here. Back east, there are euphemisms that at least allow for coded racism to exist and be acknowledged. Black people are “brothers” and “sisters” and “urban” usually means minorities. I’m not saying it’s good or better. All racism is trash. It’s just different.
Here though, it’s like racism doesn’t exist (to white people). Bring it up with a white native Minnesotan and they bristle at the ugliness of it. “Not here” they might say, if they even agree to talk about it at all. And they’d be super duper wrong. In the 60s when the interstate highway needed to go through the Cities, whose neighborhood do you think got destroyed? If you guessed Black folks, you’re right! Funny how whenever Black people start to live good lives and build a community with wealth, Good Ol’ Whitey comes along and either puts a highway through it or literally drops bombs from airplanes on it. Wonder why that is?
I’ve worked with people who’ve used the N-word. I’ve personally been called a “fag” by co-workers. Keep in mind, it was all white men who did this, usually in jest. It’s shocking to hear. And when I’ve complained to HR or my boss, I’ve been given a multitude of excuses that basically boils down to: oh, he don’t mean it like that. That’s just how he is. That’s just how he talks. He’s not racist.
This is, of course, bullshit. I wonder if the HR people had been Black if it would have made a difference? In both examples, nothing was done to the employee and one place actually threatened to fire me for complaining. I gave my notice that day and left. But this is instructive of how the culture of quiet racism persists in Minnesota.
Minnesota is very insular. For outsiders, it can be very hard to get into social circles. In my experience, most native Minnesotans have their friends from high school or college (if they went) and maybe one or two work pals. That’s pretty much it. If you miss out on getting in during one of these phases, then you’re shit out of luck. Fortunately, there are a TON of transplants here, so we don’t really need the natives to help enhance our lives.
A quick side note: I keep using the phrase “native Minnesotan” and it is really bothering me. First, white people are not native to Minnesota. The only true Natives would be the various Native American tribes who were here for thousands of years beforehand. Second, it’s really just a shorthand way of saying “white person born in Minnesota” and I know that itself is a racist thing because it assumes that only white people are “native Minnesotans” which is not true. Contrary to popular portrayal, there actually are vibrant and beautiful communities here full of people of color. There is more to this land than Whitey and lakes.
The insular nature in how Minnesotans socialize is what allows racism and segregation to persist. White boys grow up in mostly white towns with mostly white friends, go to colleges where they pal around with mostly white kids, and then work at jobs with mostly white people. Even in industries where you’d expect a higher number of minorities, they are still highly segregated. I once worked for a company that arranged crews of workers to go to job sites and depending on the customer, they would select the crews “most suited” for the jobs. AKA they’d send the Spanish-speaking crews to lesser jobs (in $) and send the white crews to the fancy folk. This is a literal thing that was discussed in meetings.
Minnesota is home to one of the largest populations of Somali and Hmong refugees in the country. Many of those people are Americans now. Some are still working their way towards citizenship. There has never been a better example of Minnesota Nice than is the case with refugees. The genuine kindness within the hearts of Minnesotans welcomed them from war zones and gave them shelter. The anger and racism within those same hearts began to resent them when they accepted the offer to make this state home.
If you live here, you know where these two communities reside, for the most part. Segregation in the Twin Cities has made it so you know you’re near a Halal meat shop based on the addresses you’ve passed. There are huge marketplaces that serve both of these communities. And what was once a gesture of Christian goodwill, has now given way to a racist resentment. I’m not sure what Minnesotans thought would happen when a bunch of people showed up from another country to live here other than a bunch of people from another country coming to live here. They settled down, had kids, and now multiple generations of Somali and Hmong people live here. That’s what the whites did when they came. Only these minorities had the decency to not commit genocide.
Decades after the influx of refugees and immigrants to Minnesota began, “Conservative” politicians have found a lightning rod to excite their racist base and sow division amongst us. In St. Cloud, less than an hour from the Cities, a small resettlement of Somali refugees led to a referendum banning them from town. It was thankfully rejected. In northern Minnesota, Beltrami County actually succeeded in banning refugees. Mind you, this was purely a racist move as no refugees were trying to live there and had not moved there in decades. It was literally just white people being scared into believing something was happening when it wasn’t. There have been other counties and towns to take on similar bans, most with little success. But the fact that this is happening in Minnesota at all is proof of how racist these people are.
And that brings us to our Kommander-in-Chief. He was here the other day, taking credit for things he had nothing to do with and riling up the racist whites. And how did my fellow Minnesotans respond? With thunderous applause.
It’s hard to watch. I don’t know what I’m more disgusted by, Trump’s racism or the assholes in the crowd who cheer it and chant to “lock” people up. I’m not surprised by either. I’ve met and live among many of these kinds of white men and women (mostly men). The seem to believe that they have an exclusive license to what Minnesota is and what Minnesotans are. Notice how he talks about them as if they aren’t part of this country, as if they aren’t our fellow citizens with the same rights we all have. They are OTHERS to these white people and what does Whitey hate? OTHERS.
Mind you, I doubt very much that any refugee is even remotely interested living the the Iron Range. White Minnesotans don’t even want to live there. So this is a lot of hysteria about nothing. Immigrants would much rather live in an exciting, diverse metropolitan city than some shitkicker town in Bumfuck, MN. But hey, that doesn’t stop this barely disguised Klan rally from booing it. Keep in mind they are booing children fleeing warzones.
Trump lies so many times in this clip it’s easier to just say nothing out of his mouth is true than to parse it all out. He focuses on Ilhan Omar and the latest bullshit conspiracy about her which I look forward to being disproven in a week. I’m not even going to link to it because I don’t want to give them the attention. I’m not sure why he’s even talking about her, since she doesn’t represent any of these people? And she got elected because the people she does represent support her. Duh. He also says “our country” as if she isn’t a citizen. She is. She’s as much a citizen and he or I. But something about her is different. What could it be…
This crowd of white people also boos Somalia, the country, for some reason. AOC gets thrown in because Trump’s racist brain is broken and he can’t talk about one thing without talking about the other. Also note how much he swears in this speech. In one clip, he curses quite a few times. Now, I’m not one to censor profanity but I am also not the President. Quite the high standards you have there Evangelicals.
There is so much in this one clip that solidifies and proves the notion that Trump and his supporters are racist. They aren’t reacting to truth or reality. They are reacting to racist fears and the division that Trump stokes because he knows it’s the only way he has even a remote chance of winning. But for me, I look past what President Nazi says and listen to how my fellow Minnesotans react. It isn’t with kindness or empathy. Only hate, fear, and ugliness.
That’s not very Minnesota Nice.