The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America

The 2020 death of George Floyd changed the story of Minneapolis and shook the beliefs of some Minnesota-born residents, including journalist Ellis. Minneapolis no longer felt like such a comfortable home. As Ellis observes, “life in Minneapolis had been upended.” Ellis investigates the seemingly tranquil community to uncover its legacy of Black families being pushed out of schools, housing, and politics. This book reads like a mix of memoir and social history. It is a nonfiction account of Ellis’s life in Minnesota and a subjective account of some of his personal experiences. Ellis returns to his Midwest hometown and tries to understand, emotionally, how Minneapolis became such a different and contradictory place. The first chapter identifies the dilemma of what nice Minneapolis might be, as Ellis describes a place of good intentions. But even those hoped-for good intentions have negatively affected many Black residents of the city and raised concerns for the author, a warmly interested observer.