Professor Michael Lansing was recently quoted by the Toronto Star in a major exploration of the dynamics around policing and public safety in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd. Lansing and University of St. Thomas historian Yohuru Williams are the co-founders of Overpoliced & Underprotected in MSP, a public history project that explores the history of policing in the Twin Cities in order to contribute to community conversations about the future of public safety.
Lansing’s comments contextualize the failed public safety ballot measure in Minneapolis in 2022.
Neighbourhoods that voted most strongly against the measure were in the city’s southwest — a white, upper-middle-class area — followed, to a lesser extent, by those in the predominantly Black North Minneapolis,” wrote reporter Wendy Gillis. “It was a “very odd combination” that was rare in American political history, said Michael Lansing, history professor at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.
“Not just polarized, because that suggests two poles. Minneapolis in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the uprising became a place that was deeply fragmented,” he said.
Read the full Toronto Star article: “After George Floyd” (February 24, 2023).