The late Ron Clark, my old editor on the St. Paul Pioneer Press editorial page, always resisted the temptation of responding in print to a letter writer or someone else who took exception to a piece he or someone else on the editorial board had written.  He saw it as bad form for the paper, in essence, to pull rank in order to get in last words.  I left the Pioneer Press more than 20 years ago and I’ve tried very hard in all that time to emulate Ron, who in addition to being a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was also an exquisite gentleman.  Still, some occasions lend themselves exquisitely to a bit of self-indulgence – as provoked by some truly over-the-top as well as beneath-the-gutter bloggings in reaction to a column of mine about Hennepin Avenue in the Star Tribune last Friday (March 27).

I hasten to note that I’m not responding here because I’m offended in some outraged way.  Paradoxically, perhaps, it’s impossible for me to get seriously worked up given that so many of the comments, rudely personal as they are, are just so silly.  As in these gems: “Mitch Pearlstein [is] a shriveled old albino prune.”  Or:  “I would hate to see [Pearlstein] face to face and involuntarily barf on his shoes.” 

No one less than Spiro Agnew once said something about, “elevating the rhetoric.”  But it looks like “Felonious Monk” and “Jimbob21a” (respective authors of the two salutes) never got the email, much less the original memo.

The larger and much more important point in all of this, of course, has to do with the way in which a portion of people are making such stupid use of such remarkable technology, as it’s a civic waste and shame. 

Overall, upwards of 65 people (of whom “Jimbob21a” was one) electronically contributed to the Star Tribune’s site, in actuality, more favorably than poisonously.

In an initial round, at least, nine people (one of whom was “Felonious Monk”) responded to an exceptionally nasty post on the CityPages blog.  Encouragingly, they were more likely to agree with me than the original poster, a chap by the name of Bradley Campbell.  

There was a post in something called “Robert’s Haven” which had me saying something about “immorality” which I never did, as I never used the word or anything like it.  Other contributors in various other places had me and my family living in Edina (if only).  Or they had me running the Taxpayers League (sorry Phil).  Or they had me referring to a white female candidate for an American Experiment job who had been treated hideously in City Center (nope, she was black). 

And a dozen or more people emailed me directly at the Center, with just about everyone, unsurprisingly, having positive things to say.  (It’s our mailing list, after all.)

Before highlighting the lowlights, it’s a treat to cite several posts that looked at Hennepin Avenue in especially intriguing and insightful ways.  Rest assured they’re not included here simply because they match up with what I wrote or believe, because sometimes they don’t. 

Unless stated otherwise, all quotes below are from posted comments on the Star Tribune readers blog.  To see a copy of my original column, click here.  For added perspective, click here for one the most important essays ever written about urban crime and disorder, “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety,” by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, which appeared originally in the Atlantic Monthly (March 1982).

The first post on the Star Tribune site was by Oliver57 and was one of the most humane and acute.

Thanks for drawing attention to a problem that serious compromises the appeal and usability of our city – and that keeps a significant number of our population confined to the suburbs, not only after dark . . . .  As an aficionado of the stage, I enjoy our theatre district, as a foodie, I appreciate our developing varieties of eateries, both old and new, and as someone who is eagerly sociable, I often bring friends and family to enjoy these pastimes with me.  I usually park in the Plymouth Building garage.  Its location is on the skyway, it’s a short walk to the theaters and many of our dining spots, and as a vulnerable human being, I appreciate not having to wander a large empty ramp when parking and retrieving my vehicle.  The garage is on Hennepin Ave., so it’s necessary to endure the grime, crime and unattractiveness that even the humorously inappropriate Block E renovation cannot mitigate.  

Then there was this interesting argument by “Annsyp”:

I have long believed that one reason Minneapolis’ downtown area is less than inviting is the lack of a strong constituency that truly loves the city. . . .  St. Paul seems to have more civic pride, though it’s downtown, too, is pretty desolate after dark.  Go to any major American city – Chicago, New York, San Francisco, even smaller cities like Pittsburgh – and you will find people who are passionately in love with their towns and whose voices throb with pride when they talk about the advantages to be found there.  Here, not so much.  I think one reason is that the Twin Cities are full of people who grew up in small towns or on farms and are here only because their jobs are here.  They basically regard cities as sinkholes of sin and bad moral values.  Downtown Minneapolis represents one thing and one thing only – a paycheck.  They’re happy to collect it, jump in their cars at the end of the work day, and drive to Lake Elmo or Albertville . . . .  It is this same lack of caring, I believe, that has allowed Hennepin Avenue to become the grungy, uninviting, vaguely scary place that it is today. 

There is much to question in this last piece, but as analyses go, it’s clearly a substantial and legitimate one.  Several other writers also had decidedly vivid albeit plausible things to say about the deleterious effects of skyways and other acts of urban planning.  “Mpls sold its soul,” Morg wrote, “when it committed to skyways.  It took the activity from the street level inside, and as a result many buildings are now cold edifices of stone at street level. . . .  The reason Rush St. and downtown Chicago and Manhattan are so pedestrian friendly is because of the street scene. . . .  Too late to get rids of the skyways now.  Too bad.”

Now compare grown-up critiques like these to the following two examples of what only can be described as willful insensitivity and disdain for the very real un-comfortableness and fear of many good and decent people.

“Oh, no!  BLACK people!” someone named “Uptowndan” sarcastically screeched.  “And some are making eye contact!  With ME [meaning me]!  Oh no, some black people are speaking in a loud voice down the block!  I feel threatened!  Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.”

Bradley Campbell of CityPages attributed what I wrote “to an old guy being an old guy.”  (Wrinkled like a prune?  He doesn’t say.)  “And who knows, maybe he [meaning me again] remembers a time when black people were scared to walk around white folk.  Change is hard to take.”

Messrs. Campbell and Uptowndan might want to talk to Oliver57, the clearly good and decent and “vulnerable human being” who has to navigate around the “grime, crime and unattractiveness” of Hennepin Avenue. 

Or they may want to have coffee with Maggie, who responded to Bradley’s appraisal this way:  “Have you actually looked at Hennepin Avenue?  It’s dreary, dirty and ugly.  Add in thugs, urine and lousy lighting and it’s not a good place to be.  I’m a city girl who’s always lived in urban neighborhoods and I don’t like Hennepin either.” 

Or if Messrs. Campbell and Uptowndan still have a little time, there’s “Futurics,” who wrote:  “I have many times been asked by female friends to escort them through that particular gauntlet.  Kindly note that these women have not been fraidy-cat suburbanites, but fairly hardened urbanites and also a few female friends ‘of color.’  Even when clinging to my arm, their walk through that stretch is most often fraught with crass vulgarities, belligerent panhandling and thinly veiled sexual aggression.”

To be sure, drivel and worse don’t spew from only one side of any aisle.  While I’m certainly grateful for the many people who had good things to say about the column, or who defended what I wrote when someone took a cheap or baseless shot at it, that’s not to say I was enthused by every word of support.  For instance, here’s a nugget that I choose not to be associated with:

“Mitch left out,” good old “Bill8927” wrote, “jaywalkers who stroll across Hennepin at 1.1 miles per hour, daring drivers to hit them.  Of course it would be wrong to hit them.  But if anyone has an old beater with boat fenders attached to the front, could they give some of these jerks a nudge.”  A few other writers managed to offer even less-subtle, helpful, or appreciated suggestions.         

Reading many of the reactions to the column might leave the impression matters of race saturated it.  They didn’t, as the only paragraph in which race was mentioned was this one:

Would any of this be a little less frightening to white folks if so many of the young and not-so-young people causing trouble weren’t minorities?  I frankly acknowledge that the answer, in some instances and to some degree, is doubtless yes.  But would most everyone offended and scared still be that way even if everyone doing the offending and scaring looked just like them?  You betcha.  (To be clear, this takes into account that people of color can be as petrified and as outraged as anyone on any avenue, regardless of a boor’s complexion.)     

If anything, I would argue this is a keenly progressive passage – even liberal, if you will – as it recognizes that yes, whites sometimes do react in disproportionately severe ways to minorities.  But, of course, that acknowledgment didn’t stop some people of accusing me of being a wholly rotten person.  “As Pearlstein demonstrates,” correspondent “Albatross” wrote, “one can be a socially acceptable thug as long as one is white and wears a tie.”    

I would submit it’s exactly this kind of ridiculous rant that persuades most people, both in and out of public life, that addressing racially connotative issues – no matter how carefully and respectfully – is just not worth the potential aggravation.  Most men and women have enough going on in their lives without inviting often high-profile charges that they’re racists. 

American Experiment, for almost twenty years now, has been taking on (as we’re fond of saying) the hardest problems facing Minnesota and the nation and doing so with as much courage and grace as we can muster.  Braying bloggers notwithstanding, rest assured we’ll continue doing so.