Terminal Stupidity in Powderhorn Park

Credit to Caitlin Dickinson of the New York Times for reporting this story, which feels like it came from The Onion or the Babylon Bee. What will satirical websites do when white Americans  sound like pathetic imbeciles, suffused in white guilt, mouthing idiocies? If you thought that there was any real hope for a renaissance of the American, you can erase that thought from your mind.

So, here we are in Powderhorn Park, a Minneapolis neighborhood inhabited by an assortment of woke leftists. These people were woke before anyone even dreamed up the notion.

We begin with Shari Albers:

When Shari Albers moved three decades ago into Powderhorn Park, a tree-lined Minneapolis neighborhood known as a haven to leftist activists and bohemian artists like herself, she went to work sprucing it up.

She became a block club leader, organizing her mostly white neighbors to bring in playgrounds and help tackle longstanding issues with crime.

So, to show how guilty they feel for the death of George Floyd, the inhabitants of this leftist dystopia have decided never to call the police:

After the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police, Ms. Albers, who is white, and many of her progressive neighbors have vowed to avoid calling law enforcement into their community. Doing so, they believed, would add to the pain that black residents of Minneapolis were feeling and could put them in danger.

Word got around, and, lo and behold, homeless encampments started sprouting in the local park. At least the group was diverse:

Two weeks ago, dozens of multicolored tents appeared in the neighborhood park. They were brought by homeless people who were displaced during the unrest that gripped the city. The multiracial group of roughly 300 new residents seems to grow larger and more entrenched every day. They do laundry, listen to music and strategize about how to find permanent housing. Some are hampered by mental illness, addiction or both.

Guess what, the drug dealers saw a market for their wares and moved into the encampment:

Their presence has drawn heavy car traffic into the neighborhood, some from drug dealers. At least two residents have overdosed in the encampment and had to be taken away in ambulances.

The fine upstanding citizens inhabiting the encampment are a threat to law and order, even to Albers:

The influx of outsiders has kept Ms. Albers awake at night. Though it is unlikely to happen, she has had visions of people from the tent camp forcing their way into her home. She imagines using a baseball bat to defend herself.

Not being able to call the police, as she has done for decades, has shaken her.

“I am afraid,” she said. “I know my neighbors are around, but I’m not feeling grounded in my city at all. Anything could happen.”

She invited a bunch of criminals into the neighborhood. She told them that she would never call the police. And guess what-- she is afraid.

She is not alone:

But many in the neighborhood, who were already beleaguered from the financial stresses of the coronavirus, now say they are eager for the campers to move on to stable housing away from the park.

“I’m not being judgmental,” said Carrie Nightshade, 44, who explained that she no longer felt comfortable letting her children, 12 and 9, play in the park by themselves. “It’s not personal. It’s just not safe.”

Would you believe that the encampment inhabitants have not yet caught on to the #MeToo movement. 

Angelina Roslik burst into tears, explaining that she had spent the past four years fleeing unstable housing conditions and was struggling more than she cared to admit with the chaos the camp had brought into the neighborhood. Linnea Borden said she had stopped walking her dog through the park because she was tired of being catcalled. “My emotions change every 30 seconds,” said Tria Houser, who is part Native American.

Since they could not call the police and since they did not believe that an army of whiny social workers was going to restore law and order, they found a group of American Indian vigilantes:

Rather than turn to law enforcement if they saw anyone in physical danger, they resolved to call the American Indian Movement — a national organization created in 1968 to address Native American grievances such as police brutality — which had been policing its own community locally for years.

So, welcome to life without the police:

The impulse many white Powderhorn Park residents have to seek help from community groups rather than from the police is being felt in neighborhoods across the country. But some are finding the commitment hard to stand by when faced with the complex realities of life. While friends, neighbors and even family members in Powderhorn Park agree to avoid calling the police at all costs, it has been harder to establish where to draw the line.

So, when one man got robbed at gunpoint, he called the police. The boys who robbed him of his house keys ended up stealing someone’s car. But, the man felt guilty about what he did and has come to realize that he should not do it again:

Mitchell Erickson’s fingers began dialing 911 last week before he had a chance to even consider alternatives, when two black teenagers who looked to be 15, at most, cornered him outside his home a block away from the park.

One of the boys pointed a gun at Mr. Erickson’s chest, demanding his car keys.

Flustered, Mr. Erickson handed over a set, but it turned out to be house keys. The teenagers got frustrated and ran off, then stole a different car down the street.

Two days after an initial conversation, his position had evolved. “Been thinking more about it,” he wrote in a text message. “I regret calling the police. It was my instinct but I wish it hadn’t been. I put those boys in danger of death by calling the cops.”

Frankly, these people are so pathetic they deserve what they get. It may not be true justice, but it is poetic justice. Anyone who is dumb enough to believe the propaganda should pay for it… with their property and their peace of mind.