Letters - July 2025

Flags and stripes and safety
In the mid 1990s, I took a sabbatical from teaching at a liberal arts college to spend a school year in Italy with my family, so our kids could learn my native language. I used to jog before the kids woke up, along deserted and still dark city streets. Sometimes I was concerned about being alone, far from the familiar paths I ran on in Minnesota. To reassure myself, I made sure my route passed the apartment building where my older brother lived. If something bad happened to me, I knew I could ring his bell and find someone who cared about me and could help me.
A few years later, a lesbian colleague of mine recalled how during graduate school, when she biked back and forth between the department and her home, she intentionally followed a route that passed the homes of people she knew were allies or that had signs on their yards in support of LGBQIA+ individuals. Hearing her story answered a question a friend had raised at an event to connect allies and LGBQIA+ people. Was it silly to wear T-shirts declaring our support for certain groups of people? Based on what my colleague shared with me, clearly not. When you are afraid, it’s good to know whom you can count on.
This summer, if you travel along 40th Avenue South between 38th and 39th Streets, you will see many blue, pink, and white flags in yards. My neighbors and I planted those flags to support trans kids. We want trans youth to know that each of those homes is a safe place for them to walk, bike, ride by.
Sometimes, especially in polarized social environments like the one we live in now, political signs are seen as exacerbating the conflict, “getting in each other’s faces,” telling people their beliefs are wrong. I want to assure you that our pink, blue, and white flags are not there to tell anyone they are wrong but to lay out a route along which trans kids can feel we see them and care about them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if neighbors on other streets extended the route, letting trans kids know that each flagged house is safe for them? Please, join us!
Pieranna Garavaso
Friends on 40th

THEY CAME FOR OUR NEIGHBORS
In our city, there are clearly wounds that have not yet healed from the murder of George Floyd. One of which being a rebuilding of trust between the public and our police department. What we saw on Lake Street is an example of this continued tension.
Particularly when Chief O’Hara and Mayor Frey try to ask us to not believe our eyes. As well as contradicting the coverage of local journalists, like Taylor Dahlin, who posted photos of ICE on site. They came for our neighbors.
Both seem to be very focused on insisting that this was an operation related to an alleged criminal matter and not immigration. But I, and many other residents, find it hard to trust the intentions of the federal government in this current moment. Especially when masked federal agents show up armed to the teeth, names covered. As if entering a warzone, not a city where people live and exist in peace.
Mayor Frey also addresses this in one of his statements: “It’s not surprising that these reports were met with panic and confusion. Donald Trump’s cruel immigration policies have created an environment of understandable fear.” Though the mayor seems more than willing to take the Trump Administration at their word as long as they say “criminal” and not “immigration."
Maybe if he was on the ground and witnessing the events with his own eyes; he would feel a little differently. This type of violent federal activity should have no place in our city.
Eli Sherman
North Loop