As a business leader and community member where PlastiCert is located, I am committed to the principles of greater equity, diversity and inclusion. I was appalled to watch the video recording the recent death of Mr. George Floyd while being restrained by Minneapolis Police. I wanted to say I was shocked. Considering this event, and all the other recent race related abuses around the country, it is sad to say that shocked would be inaccurate. While living now in Greater MN, the location where Mr. Floyd’s life was taken, and locations of many of the subsequent protests and rioting are very familiar to me. I have driven and shopped in the area where his death occurred, I was born in a hospital blocks from where the St. Paul rioting occurred, a family member worked in one of the businesses that was burned, friends still live in the vicinity. Watching these events transpire from afar was so disheartening. As Minnesotans, we like to think this does not happen here. We think it is a part of life at “those other” major metros. It appears Minnesotan Nice means we are in fact aware of these disparities in our own society and choose to look the other way and not deal with it. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ 1913 maxim that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants” would be applicable to what has transpired in Minneapolis. The video has helped bring to light the fact that racism IS a pervasive part of everyday life, everywhere, even here in Minnesota and needs to be called out. There is no silver bullet when it comes to addressing and solving racial inequities and social justice, but that effort must start now, today, with all of us.