Note: I am a white pastor protesting in Minneapolis and I am speaking from my own experience and not on behalf of Black Lives Matter or the Black community in Minneapolis. This article is for white people to better understand this situation. If you are a white person, do not ask your black friends to comment or share their thoughts on this article as you process. They probably have enough to deal with right now without the responsibility of discussing this with you. Please find a justice-minded white person to process with.

I am a white progressive Minneapolis Pastor and I live five blocks from the burned down 3rd Precinct Police Station at the center of Minneapolis’ protests this week.

This week I have been honored to be a pastor in the protests to get justice for the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis Police officer as three other officers protected him.

I have been in organizing meetings with inspiring black clergy like Pastor Carmen Means, Mad Dads of Minneapolis, Al Sharpton, and Gwen Carr (Eric Garner’s mother). We have delivered diapers to neighbors helping neighbors at local churches. We have been a peace keeper between the protesters and police barricades, and have tried to stop the burning of small businesses for five days.

I did this work alongside teachers, clergy, social workers, and neighbors…and the protesters were so kind to us for this work. I got so many thank-yous.

But you know who never once thanked me?
Who never once waved or smiled at me for keeping the peace?
Who never pulled me aside and told me that they should prosecute those 4 police officers?
Who never apologized for all this shit?

The Minneapolis Police officers.

Instead the white racist bully police officers have tear gassed me, shot me with sacks of pellets, and they pointed a gun at me and two black teenagers in front of my house.

I have had several conversations in the last week with some white people who seem to be really struggling to believe that racist humans can be police officers.

Let me begin by telling you I have lived in this neighborhood for 12 years, and I know this neighborhood and the police who work here.

I have been an educator at several public schools with large minority populations, I was a counselor at a foster care facility, and as a pastor I help run an After-School Program for at risk primarily Latino and Black youth and children.

And I would NEVER call the Minneapolis Police to fix a problem involving a Black or Latino  person. EVER. Not as a teacher, as a neighbor, not as a pastor, not EVER.

Why? Because Minneapolis Police Department is a police force overwhelmingly dominated by white racist bullies.

I say this, not because I am anti-police. I only call police departments that have a proven track record of hiring kind, diverse, community-centered police. Departments that require anti-racism training, de-escalation, and racial bias training. Our church hosted a police forum with Columbia Heights Police Force (an urban police force on the closest border to Minneapolis) after the Philando Castile murder by police. But Columbia Heights Police made changes the Minneapolis Police Department did not.

Columbia Heights was a segregated white city until 1970. They were a “Sundown Town” (meaning police forced black people to leave after dark) until the 1980’s. And according to many people I speak with, they had a white racist bully police force until the 1990s.

Then Columbia Heights Police made some big changes. They instituted reforms, fired bad cops, brought in a new chief, and hired quality diverse police. The message became clear: embrace community policing or leave. Are they perfect? Of course not. But they are better. And they are trying.

But this is not the case with Minneapolis Police.

Let me give you a personal example from the first night of the National Guard enforced curfew in Minneapolis.

In the afternoon we had a community meeting in the park near our house. City leaders told neighbors to take turns patrolling their blocks all night to watch out for white supremacists who were starting fires.

So hundreds of neighbors were posted at the end of their blocks to prevent trouble. It was happening all over the city. Especially on blocks near protests, which our block is.

I was standing at the end of my block checking in with the two Black teenagers who had bravely taken it upon themselves to park their car and guard our block from looters…again I have seen HUNDREDS of white people doing this.

Me and the two Black teenagers were talking when four white men in police uniforms pulled up in their large vehicle. They stepped out of the car with their guns pointed at us.

The police started shouting that we are “Out here smoking weed!” Then they told us to “Get down and go home” with their four guns pointed at our heads.

Do you catch what they did there?

They asked us if we were “smoking weed” so when a possible video emerged it would shape the narrative for the viewer. It would have been too dark and smoky from the fires burning to show were weren’t smoking weed. But with this one sentence they create the all-important “probable cause.” They create a narrative that we, two teens and a pastor, were smoking weed during the night.

We were not smoking weed.

We said we lived on this block and we were protecting it from looters. Like hundreds of other people around us were doing.

And then one man in uniform pointed his gun at my head and asked me to “Step away from the Black teens.” He wanted to deal with the Black teens without a white person watching.

But I refused to leave. I put my hands up and kept talking to the officers. I was trying to distract them so the black teens could get their car keys out without being shot. They could have been shot for reaching into their pockets and taking out their keys to follow his instructions.

The two young men got in their car and drove 3 houses home.

Then one officer trashed my bike and slashed my tires. While another asked me where my house was and I pointed at my house 40 feet away.

I walked a half a block with a gun pointed at my back.

These officers targeted these Black teens because they were Black. That’s it. And I just happened to be standing there when it happened.

They choose to traumatize these two Black young men for doing the same thing that all their white neighbors are doing.

So how does a police force get so many racist white bully police officers in it?

I wanted to take a moment to break down why and how racists become urban police.

It starts with the fact that some white people are racists.

They were raised that way or chose it…I don’t know …but they are now racists.

And racist people, like everyone else, have bills to pay. So racist people get jobs.

And they tend to work in jobs that allow them to be racist. They want to work in places that don’t get upset about racist jokes, white supremacists biker gang affiliations, alt-right political affiliations.

Racists are also often bullies. They like the power they feel when they say racist things and push around people of color, black and indigenous people.

So an urban police department is actually a pretty attractive work environment for racist white bullies. Because if you are doing racist bullying in a uniform you now have authority. Your racist white bullying is now a little more legitimized.

There are also laws that now protect you. You can say “I was feeling threatened!” And as we have seen, you can get away with a lot of racist white bullying.

And if you have a police union leader who is a white racist bully you now have a badge of authority… and a union leader who will act as your legal attorney if you get caught doing your racist bullying.

How does this apply to Minneapolis Police in Particular?

Being a white racist bully police officer is especially attractive in Minneapolis. For a couple reasons.

Minneapolis has very segregated neighborhoods.

Because of the legacy of our racist housing history (called Redlining) there are large areas of minority neighborhoods.

The police system in Minneapolis has a long history of racially profiling and harassing Black people. This is a problem that goes back decades. Black people were forced to live in designated segregated neighborhoods. It was illegal for Black people to live in many suburbs until the 1960s.

Until the 1980s police in Minneapolis and suburban police forces enforced “Sundown laws” where black people were unable to be in the suburbs after the sun went down.

When Black people are forced into specific geographical areas, white racist bully police officers are less likely to get caught doing their racist bullying by allied white people. These white racist bully police officers can be kind and charming in the white parts of town and bullies in the minority neighborhoods.

One in three black men in Minnesota are likely to be imprisoned due to racial profiling.

At one protest this week the young Black men were asked if they had known anyone who was in prison. Almost every hand went up. At this same protest Black men gathered to support each other outside the 3^rd Police Precinct before it burned down.

So black people in Minneapolis are tired and angry from decades of mistreatment.

Minneapolis’s police union is led by a white racist bully police officer named Bob Kroll.

Union Police Chief Bob Kroll is like a 1950’s style racist. And if you don’t believe me look him up. Bob Kroll is a clear racist with ties to white supremacists groups.

And Minneapolis police officers ELECT BOB KROLL as head of Police Union. Over and Over Again. They picked him to represent them in union contracts and legal cases.

Bob Kroll protects white racist bully police officers.
He recruits white racist bully police officers.
He likes white racist bully policing in Minneapolis.
And even after all this, Bob Kroll has no interest in changing.

With Bob Kroll as the union representative the Minneapolis Police Department continues to be a racist, toxic work environment.

So with all this … why would good police wanna work here?

Now there are 800 police in the Minneapolis and I am not saying every single one is a hardened racist bully. But if you have ever worked in a toxic work environment you know how hard it is to change that environment. And eventually people who want to do the right thing get pushed out or leave.

They go work somewhere they can use their passion and skills to actually work alongside people who want to make the community a better place.

I have worked around so many of these amazing diverse folks. I worked alongside them in our high school, in our foster care center, at our After School Program….people who want to help don’t want to work alongside white racist bully police officers.

How you can help

Start by sitting with your feelings. Reading about race and racism is painful and confusing. You may be reading this history for the first time, and even feeling defensive.

And whatever you do…don’t wallow in white guilt. If you have said or done racist things, defended racist systems…welcome to being white in America.

But now is a moment to lean in. Don’t get defensive…get curious.

Learn about the historic injustices and racism in the judicial system.

Watch Just Mercy or read the book by Bryan Stevenson.

Talk with your black friends and neighbors and ask them how they are feeling.

Note: This is not a time to not process YOUR feelings. Listen to THEIR feelings. And if you find yourself taking issue or questioning what they are saying…keep it to yourself. Circle back in a couple months. For now, process the conversation with a racially conscious, justice minded white person. Do not give black people another thing to carry right now.

Call your local police chief. Ask for the racial breakdown of arrests. Ask them how they plan to update their training and use of force policy to prevent this from happening in your city. Talk to your children about how all people are created equal by God but in American not everyone is always treated equally. Get involved.

Posting online is important. It can raise the issue and put pressure on our leaders. But posting is only one step in the marathon towards justice.

Learn about the historic injustices and racism in the judicial system.

Watch Just Mercy or read the book by Bryan Stevenson.

Talk with your black friends and neighbors and ask them how they are feeling.

Posting online is important. It can raise the issue and put pressure on our leaders. But posting is only one step in the marathon towards justice.

And if you have the capacity to give…

You can also donate to the courageous Black Protestors and Activists at Black Visions.

Donate money for food and baby supplies at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.