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Does “Midwest Nice” Breed Racism?
George Floyd’s murder and Jacob Blake’s shooting happened in the heartland
I was born in Iowa. I grew up in Minnesota less than an hour and a half from where George Floyd was murdered. I live in Wisconsin just two hours from where Jacob Blake was shot. Yes, police brutality against Black people happens across the country, but as a lifelong Midwesterner and person of color, I wonder what about the conditions here make them ripe for racism. How can the land of “Midwest Nice” be home to such atrocities?
Growing up, “Minnesota Nice” was an oft-quoted term to describe the specific congeniality that defines the state— a polite and courteous temperament, emotional restraint, and an aversion to conflict. “Minnesota Nice” manifests as constrained niceness to your face and brutal judgment behind your back.
The abiding reserve of “Minnesota Nice”, and “Midwest Nice” culture more broadly, lends itself to a particular type of passive-aggressiveness that defines the region. As Paul Kix describes in his tribute to “Midwestern Nice,” “It constitute[s] the most sincere, malicious, enriching, and suffocating set of behaviors…. [We] experience two realities: the first, all sunshine and bland pleasantries…the other, a red-lit underworld where people relay vulgarities through…euphemism, eye rolls, and loaded silence.” In the Midwest, we avoid direct conversation in order to maintain a semblance of pleasantness while subtly expelling our disapproval.
Locals credit Scandinavian settlers with sowing the seeds of “Midwest Nice” throughout the region. In Andrea Plaid’s 2015 article, she explains the Law of Jante — the Nordic social ethos of conformity — which underpins “Midwest Nice.” Under the Law of Jante, everyone is on the same level and no one is distinct. With a focus on the needs of the collective rather than the accomplishments of the individual, the Law of Jante keeps people in check. It’s about keeping up appearances and maintaining the social order. It’s an unspoken rule that permeates the region.
As Phil Christman describes in his 2017 essay, Americans also attribute a lack of distinctiveness to the Midwest itself. He said of the region, “If it is to serve as the epitome of America for Americans…the place had better not be too…
