When George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, the city became the center of a national reckoning. Now, a new book is taking a deeper look at what that moment revealed about the city — and about America as a whole.
Author Justin Ellis has written ‘The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis is the Story of America,’ a work that examines what he describes as a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Minneapolis: a city known for its progressive, liberal values that at the same time harbors some of the most significant racial disparities in the country.
Ellis argues that this tension — between the friendly, welcoming reputation often associated with Midwestern culture and the harsh realities faced by communities of color — makes Minneapolis not an outlier, but rather a mirror for the rest of the nation.
