Minnesota Values are a Humble Ramp

Just after Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary, my social media accounts were bombarded with many anti-Minnesota posts. Most were stating that Minnesota no longer has the same values that it used to have and played up the racist supposed differences between rural and urban people. One rural rabble-rouser that I follow posted a picture of a yard sign that was opposite of the “In this house we believe...” signs. The phrases didn’t actually espouse much, they just contradicted what was on the original sign. He wrote underneath that these were the real rural Minnesota values.

I left a comment that I live in a small Minnesota town and that I have lived in Minneapolis and Saint Paul and have seen that most Minnesotans have similar values, no matter where they live. The only difference is that in the Cities you have a denser population, so people have to learn to get along in different ways.

A couple days ago I visited the Alex Pretti Memorial. As many of you know, Alex was killed by ICE officers. I had not been there yet, but my job gave me an excuse to check it out, so I went. The memorial is located on a very busy street in South Minneapolis. It is tucked along the sidewalk with a traffic lane closed to allow for the objects and signs that people leave behind. After having visited the George Floyd Memorial over the intervening years and having designed and installed part of the Philando Castile Memorial, Alex’s memorial was starting to feel familiar to me. There were flowers (real and fake), signs with simple words and phrases, poems and long expositions, and images of Alex (painted, drawn, and digitized). There were stuffed animals and other trinkets having an unknown personal meaning one can only guess. All of this was neatly spilled along the gutter and the narrow boulevard between the curb and sidewalk. These memorials truly are a communal work of art.

There were other people there, walking the sidewalk or in the closed traffic lane reading, pausing, thinking, and feeling.

Then I noticed it. In fact, I stepped around it. There was a ramp that went from the street to the top of the curb. It was a rather poor example of a ramp made out of some small lumber and chipboard. It looked beat and worn and barely functioning. I walked to the other end of the memorial and saw another one, looking even more beat. But there they were – the quintessential Minnesota value. In the midst of the remains of a horrific event, in this place of grief, amongst the heartfelt debris cast on the ground, lay two thoughtful, humble attempts to make life easier for others.

My eyes watered as I thought this is the most Minnesotan thing I have ever seen. No matter the situation, no matter the danger, no matter what others may think, some Minnesotan, somewhere, is going to do something to make life easier for someone else. It is not always the heroic stand-your-ground action, but it will be filled with beauty and hope. Just as these ramps were put there so people who cannot easily navigate a curb can see the beauty of the memorial from all sides and have hope in a day when this chapter will end.

Alex’s memorial is not far from Renee Good’s memorial, so I went. There, too, were identical ramps, beat and worn, made of lumber and chipboard. It made me happy to see them. They told me this was a place where people look out for each other, take care of each other.

I have seen this throughout the state of Minnesota, people doing gestures large and small to help others. From fundraisers, to caregiving a sick friend, to pulling loved ones out of a drug den, to adopting unwanted children, to creating programs by and for the disabled, to organizing meals for people who cannot leave home for a variety of reasons. I have met fellow Minnesotans who have done all of this, and more. Yes, there are a few bad apples in every barrel, but I have seen Minnesotans rise to every occasion, as they have done again and again, rural and urban, no matter the color of their skin, and no matter their political affiliation. I don’t know if there is one word or one phrase that summarizes what this is but, as an artist and a visual person, I know an image that encapsulates Minnesota values fully, perfectly, unabashedly: a humble ramp.