The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America

by Michelle Phelps

Challenges to racialized policing, from early reform efforts to BLM protests and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder

The eruption of Black Lives Matter protests against police violence in 2014 spurred a wave of police reform. One of the places to embrace this reform was Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city long known for its liberal politics. Yet in May 2020, four of its officers murdered George Floyd. Fiery protests followed, making the city a national emblem for the failures of police reform. In response, members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged to “end” the Minneapolis Police Department. In The Minneapolis Reckoning , Michelle Phelps describes how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition.

Phelps explains that the council’s pledge did not come out of a single moment of rage, but decades of organizing efforts. Yet the politics of transforming policing were more complex than they first appeared. Despite public outrage over police brutality, the council’s initiatives faced stiff opposition, including by Black community leaders who called for more police protection against crime as well as police reform. In 2021, voters ultimately rejected the ballot measure to end the department. Yet change continued on the ground, as state and federal investigations pushed police reform and city leaders and residents began to develop alternative models of safety.

The Minneapolis Reckoning shows how the dualized meaning of the police—as both the promise of state protection and the threat of state violence—creates the complex politics of policing that thwart change. Phelps’s account of the city's struggles over what constitutes real accountability, justice, and safety offers a vivid picture of the possibilities and limits of challenging police power today

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 7, 2024

Reviews

[Emily]

I read a bit on Libby, but this is the kind of book that I will pick up at Moon Palace or wherever books I vaguely want to read are sold, because Libby on my phone is too distracting.

My main issue with this book, having only read the foreword, is that Ms. Phelps says that the people of Minneapolis voted down Question 2 without explaining the stupid nature of Question 2. The wording of Question 2 is:

City Question 2 – Department of Public Safety

Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach to the delivery of functions by the Department of Public Safety, with those specific functions to be determined by the Mayor and City Council by ordinance; which will not be subject to exclusive mayoral power over its establishment, maintenance, and command; and which could include licensed peace officers (police officers), if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety, with the general nature of the amendments being briefly indicated in the explanatory note below, which is made a part of this ballot?

"To be determined..." This was never a plan. This is like Tr*mps's concepts of a plan on health care. I voted for Question 2, but I respect the many people who voted "No!" because there are real plans, and then there are plans to make a plan, after a year and a half when the city council could've been planning.

Having a conversation about Question 2 without discussing the joke that was Question 2 is disingenuous. A lot of reporting at the time didn't discuss how dumb Question 2 was. I'm disappointed that Michelle Phelps forgot the nonsense question she voted on in '21.

[Marc Motter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought-provoking and relevant case study, helpful in balancing the contradictory pulls of theoretical purity and attentive realism.

[David Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard the author of The Minneapolis Reckoning, Michelle Phelps, explain on a podcast how complex the issue of policing is in America, and I thought, “Well, duh! Who doesn’t know that?” Even so, I wasn’t aware of just how messy things could get. Phelps combs through the intersection of race, class, power, and politics in what, on the surface, is supposed to be a liberal city. And in doing so, she basically presents a microcosm of how politics works more broadly, with all the varying interests competing to get theirs in ways that can become quite ugly and cynical and make every constituency feel like the loser.

Phelps also elucidates the level of nuance involved for the activists and local politicians on the ground, a level of nuance that tends to get lost in media reports that assume everyone either loves or hates the cops. Instead, there was, and continues to be, a diversity of dissent among grassroots groups as to the best way to end police violence, which, in and of itself, is helpful in explaining things like the failure of the 2021 charter amendment to reconfigure public safety after there had been such a big push for police abolition. There was no contradiction here as right-wing media reported it, just too much disagreement and ambiguity over how the amendment would have been implemented.

The core of the issue for most activists is that communities are often “Over-Policed and Under-Protected.” Police still follow the broken windows style formula of meddling in low level offenses at the expense of work that could prevent and solve violent crimes when this is the real support so many community members are desperate for. They are also, of course, desperate for solutions to the root causes of crime–poverty, homelessness, lack of education. So the book contains plenty of ire towards police misconduct (always in a calm, neutral tone), but it also extends some sympathy for officers, too, as they “step into the breach left by our bad policies.” In some ways, society is setting them up for failure by asking them to tidy up its other problems.

Many of the reforms–more police accountability, behavioral crisis response teams, violence interrupters–sound great, but the problem is that they get watered down and have almost no impact in the end. This, in turn, leads to more radical positions that a majority of people, myself included, don’t necessarily agree with and what feels like a stalemate in terms of progress. Phelps offers some broad solutions but also makes it clear there is no panacea, just little nudges forward that can be made, one small increment at a time. In other words, it’s complex.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. If you want to start to learn the full story behind what happened to George Floyd, and the aftermath, this is the book, told in exhaustive detail, almost like a journalist, though Phelps is in fact a sociologist at the U. The book traces policing in Minneapolis back over a century, but spends most time in the 21st century and the number of high profile police killings, of which George Floyd was the simply the most prominent. Explores the tensions and complexities of the abolition movement alongside the perceived need for armed law enforcement; the various communities in Minneapolis and how they sometimes clash. Very, very, helpful book, and no wonder it won a Minnesota Book Award last year for best Minnesota Non Fiction:

https://thefriends.org/minnesota-book...

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was very informative and excellent background knowledge of what brought Minneapolis to where it is now. It was dense and excellent research! The 3-star was more of a me thing - I was expecting something more tangible like: what can we do to support city council and elect leaders that put the right people in the right leadership positions.

[M.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5