Minneapolis is special, a place we love and are proud to call home. There are countless reasons.  But consider this…

Brian O’Hara, our Chief of Police, is married to Wafiyyah (Wafia) O’Hara who is a Lieutenant in the Newark (NJ) Police Department. Lieutenant O’Hara is the highest ranking Black woman and Muslim in the NPD. They have two sons whom they are raising Muslim.

Our Jewish mayor, Jacob Frey, recruited Chief O’Hara to come to Minneapolis.

What perspective do you think Chief O’Hara brings to his policing duties?

Our twin, Saint Paul, just elected a Hmong woman to be mayor replacing and African-American man.

Why do you think our sense of community and civic culture would be such a threat to the current administration and Christian Nationalists?

As with people everywhere, Minneapolitans will fight to defend what we love. In messing with our city, ICE and the DOJ have made a big mistake — they don’t seem to have had a clue what they would be up against.

On this MLK weekend I am reminded of what Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, said at the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama:

There are good people who literally want to turn back the clock, and we’re just going to have to be resolute in not allowing that to happen. It’s not the first time in our history when we’ve had people express really violent racist things from that office. What we have to do is to commit ourselves to making it the last time.

Love of home and homeland is not unique to Minneapolis. That shared love compels us all to create that more perfect union envisioned by our Founders. The forces of exclusion and oppression have always made a big mistake — misunderstanding our heritage by not appreciating what and whom they are up against!