Mr. Athena and I recently spent a weekend in your fair city. We had a hell of a good time, so thank y’all for building up such a nice place. Still, though, we had one incident which befuddled us.
Early Thursday evening - somewhere between 8 and 9 pm - we were walking back to our hotel from a yummy sushi dinner at Origami. We were walking south on Hennepin - past the Gay 90s, but not quite at the theaters. Before commencing our walk that night, I’d asked three or four different people if it was safe to walk around at night downtown, and everyone assured us that it was.
We were approached by a couple walking the other way. They were dressed normally (ie, not dressed up, but not in rags, either) and they were black (yes, their race is relevant). As they passed, the guy looked at us and said something like “You oughta walk on the other side of the street, it ain’t good for you to be over here.” Then he muttered something like “Us gangbangers know this shit” - I don’t remember the exact words but “us gangbangers” was definitely part of it.
We happened to be going the other way anyway, so we crossed and headed down Nicollet back to our hotel.
We just don’t know what to make of this. Downtown Minneapolis at 9pm on a Thursday night just doesn’t seem like the kind of place where you have to watch out where you walk, especially approaching the theater district on Hennepin. There were a lot of people around. It was well lit. Granted, this particular block seemed to be populated more by black teenagers than mid-30s business-type people, but I assumed that was more because of the Hard Rock Cafe and that big Game place that was close by than any type of “gangbanger” activity.
So what’s going on? Here’s the scenarios we came up with:
Even though this was generally an OK place to walk, there really was something going on that night, and this guy decided to be nice and warn us.
We looked like a couple of clueless Yoopers and the guy decided to have some fun with us. “Hey, babe, check it out, I can make these two whities cross the street!”
Despite everyone we asked, the two blocks between the Gay 90s and the theaters are a bad place and we shouldn’t have been walking there.
So does anyone out there with a better knowledge of the area have any clue what the heck this guy was talking about?
I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I’ve had similar experiences (long ago) on Hennepin Avenue in about that same area, on both sides of the street, even.
I’m guessing it was a “let’s make the Yoopers cross the street” type of a thing, but who knows?
How was your weekend otherwise? Did our recommendations suit you & the spouse?
I’m not from there, but Minneapolis is one of my favorite cities. I was in Minneapolis, specifically in line at the car rental place at the airport, when an African-American gentleman singled out the hubby and me for conversation.
He asked us where we were from and told us that he had friends in a federal prison near there. He also announced, “I can tell by lookin’ at you that you voted for Bush.” Then he turned to his daughter (?) who was about six, and said, “We hate Bush, don’t we!”
She said, “Nuh uh.”
“Oh yes we do,” he said.
She said, “Nuh uh. We don’t hate Bush because we don’t hate anybody. Hate is a bad word.”
Bless her heart.
Anyway, maybe “Scare the Cracker” is a popular game up there. From Prairie Home Companion this week: “Minneapolis is a place of great diversity, home hundreds of non-Scandiavians!”
Guy had buddy on other side of street, waiting to complete another scam when we walked by.
The weekend was GREAT otherwise. Heck, even this incident wasn’t that big of a deal - if anything it just gave us something to talk about. I’m working on a writeup for my blog, the first half is up. You can check it out at www.deadriverdiaries.com if’n you’re interested. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions - we didn’t get to do half the things we wanted to do, but thanks to all you Twin Cities Dopers we never had a dull moment!
Not Minneapolis, but Peoria, IL. I had just checked into my hotel, it was about 11PM, but I noticed that I was only about a block from World Famous Big Al’s strip club. So what the heck, I’ll stroll over.
As I got to the street, I noticed a lot of black people hanging out on the corner, where I was gonna have to cross. There was a club named Gilligan’s on that corner, so I didn’t cross, but went up the block and crossed at the next corner.
When I left, I crossed right in front of Gilligan’s, right through the crowd. And nobody made any jeering remarks or anything, just your basic, “Hey, how’s it going” type remark. Sure made the walk back to the hotel more enjoyable.
I’m glad you had a good time. I do plan on reading your blog. I’m not that familiar with downtown Minneapolis but will try to give some insight. (Others with more familiarity will hopefully be along soon.)
I think it was a case of someone yanking your chain for fun. Downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America have enough police presence that although those areas have become preferred hangout for many people including the region’s Africa-American youth, there usually aren’t problems that crop up. There are some areas of the Cities that are relatively dangerous, especially if you do not “belong” there, but the authorities have enough invested in the downtown area that they want it to be open to all. Granted, that end of Hennepin Avenue is the seedier area with the few remaining porn shops and massage parlors, but I’ve never heard of any ongoing problems with the area. I would believe that your assumption of
is probably accurate. I don’t believe it is a hostile racist thing (and I hope I’m not being hostilely racist for observing it) but sometimes younger blacks appear to enjoy getting a rise out of older whites. I’ve been on the receiving end a few times and thought it as just young kids being dips.
