My family's restaurant caught fire in the Minneapolis protests. Let it burn.

[Zorro]

Hafsa Islam is the daughter of the owner of the Minneapolis restaurant Gandhi Mahal.

On Monday night, as I am driving to work at Gandhi Mahal, my family’s Indian restaurant, I see the police arresting a man near Cup Foods in South Minneapolis.

I slow down and watch the man. He’s being walked away in handcuffs, and he’s complying, but I still watch worried from my car, worried at what I see happening and what might happen next to a black man in police custody. I remember this man’s face well. It sticks with me. He was crying, and he was in pain.

Minutes later, George Floyd is dead in the hands of the police. Dead like Breonna Taylor and Philando Castile and Michael Brown and Freddie Gray.

Over the next few days, I watch the protests and witness the anger of the people over Floyd’s unjustifiable death. People flood the streets, crying “Black lives matter!” and “I can’t breathe!” It feels so close to home; Gandhi Mahal is just blocks away from the 3rd Precinct. My father opened his Indian restaurant as the Great Recession hit. It weathered that crisis, becoming a hub for community activism, particularly on climate justice, along the way. It weathered the start of this pandemic, even as the community it built contracted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/31/my-familys-restaurant-caught-fire-protests-let-it-burn-oppressive-systems-with-it/

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. white supremacists are doing a lot of the burning and destruction

[wryter2000]

4. Yes

The people in the neighborhood should not be black

[wryter2000]

2. OMG

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Excellent article. She knows what she's talking about. A great read. n/t

[scarletwoman]

5. Laudable sentiments, but sadly misplaced considering the arson was likely committed by rw agitators.

It was NOT the people of that community who torched their own community businesses.