Minneapolis City Councilman Phillipe Cunningham, the city’s first transmasculine councilmember and one of the first openly transmasculine people to be elected to public office in the U.S., says more must be done to address police brutality across the country following the tragic killing of George Floyd.
In an interview with the Windy City Times, Minneapolis City Councilman Phillipe Cunningham said he was “enraged” after a viral video showed former Officer Derek Chauvin fatally asphyxiating Floyd on May 25. A grocery store owner dialed 911 after claiming that Floyd used counterfeit money, and Chauvin responded at the scene by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while he was under restraint. In the video, Floyd can be heard pleading “I can’t breathe” as he suffocates.
As a Black, trans masculine person who is also a public servant, Cunningham said the footage resonated with his own experience of moving through the world.
“I navigate the world being seen as a Black man and am treated as such,” he told the Chicago-based LGBTQ+ newspaper. “When I saw the video, a ton of trauma came up and I was so angry. I was angry as a Black man in America, and I was angry as a city councilmember.”
What made the video even more difficult for Cunningham to watch, he said, was the “hours and hours and hours of work” he has put in behind the scenes “trying to make the smallest change within the institution of policing in this city.” After the 32-year-old was elected to office in November 2017, he has repeatedly fought for alternative policing efforts, including intervention and violence prevention.
“There’s the public-health approach to public safety, in which violence is treated like a major disease that spreads, and that can be corrected and treated,” he said. “It can go interpersonally and generationally; for example, children can see their parents [committing violence] and become violent themselves.”
Cunningham acknowledged that many of his efforts “have been pretty futile.” He claimed that he had to “fight” to allot $50,000 for domestic violence prevention in the city’s $1.6 billion budget.
“Domestic violence is the number-one reason for 911-initiated calls in the entire city,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham wasn’t the only Black trans member of Minneapolis’ city council to speak out following Floyd’s death. Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins, who is a transgender woman, referred to racism as a “public health issue” in a Thursday address, while urging Mayor Jacob Frey to “declare a state of emergency.”
“As we stand here grieving yet another loss of black life, a senseless, tragic loss of black life, I really don’t have many words, but I know that something’s got to change,” she told reporters.
The councilmembers, who made history in 2017 as the first two Black trans representatives elected to any city council in the U.S., remain resolute in their mission to affect change. While she did not offer direct answers to our current national crisis, Jenkins pledged that she is “a part of this system to help to take that knee off of our necks, and that is the work that [she] will be doing.”
Cunningham said that Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota can start by making sure that the men involved in Floyd’s death are prosecuted. While Chauvin has been arrested and faces charges of third-degree murder, others have yet to be apprehended, leading to continued protests nationwide.
“So that is the bare minimum that can happen,” Cunningham said. “The other three officers [on the scene] should also be arrested and charged and convicted. As elected officials, we are calling for [Governor Tim Walz] to take authority over the case, and that attorney general have prosecutorial authority. These officers should be held accountable.”
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