Despite the gray skies that tend to hang over Minnesota this time of year, Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, is enjoying a moment in the sun. Thanks to a glowing feature article in the current issue of Vogue magazine, Frey has been—at least temporarily—gilded by the national press.
While Frey maybe couldn’t shake Ruiz’s determination to portray him as a fit, young, progressive mayor, he certainly could have refused to be photographed in luxurious clothing while seated in his airy, light-filled home.
Writer Michelle Ruiz profiled Frey at Vogue’s request, and her story has garnered quite a bit of local ridicule and pushback. This probably happens anytime a hometown politician gets lauded by an outside press corps that is oblivious to their actual reputation, but this time the Vogue spread feels especially obsequious.
Ruiz promises to take readers “inside the political debut” of Frey—glossing over the fact that he has been Minneapolis’s mayor since 2017—after winning a tough re-election battle in 2021. She implies that Frey is some sort of wunderkind, offering him an escape from accountability.
And, because this is Vogue, Frey and his young, photogenic family are featured wearing expensive designer clothing, including a Rag & Bone sweater for Frey and a Tory Burch dress for his wife, Sarah Clarke. Both labels churn out clothing that costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars—a prospect that might be tough to swallow for the many Minneapolis residents struggling to afford stable housing and other essentials.
While Frey maybe couldn’t shake Ruiz’s determination to portray him as a fit, young, progressive mayor, he certainly could have refused to be photographed in luxurious clothing while seated in his airy, light-filled home. Isn’t there a fable somewhere out there, that warns those in power to avoid becoming too enamored of themselves?
As if the optics were not bad enough, the content of Ruiz’s fluff piece is equally off-putting. Frey’s wife, who is an attorney and political advisor to her husband, is depicted as tearing up at the memory of her husband being rattled by a crowd of angry protesters in the tense days after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.
Creative Commons
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey being booed and told to go home after speaking at a protest following the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
The protesters wanted Frey to declare a willingness to defund the police. When he refused to do so, he was booed and told to go home. According to Ruiz’s profile, his wife recalled longing for the days when her biggest concern regarding Frey’s public profile was his reputation as a “national sex symbol.”
This cringe-worthy content did not need to be shared with the general public, especially not during the ongoing police and gun violence crises that continue to dominate headlines in Minneapolis.
In fact, it is hard to know where to start when listing the continued challenges Frey is facing as mayor. On February 2, Minneapolis police officers shot and killed Amir Locke, a Black man, in a downtown Minneapolis apartment building. Meanwhile, several blocks away, the three officers who were with Derek Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes are in court on federal charges related to the case. (Their trial has been temporarily paused due to a COVID-19 outbreak.)
Recently, Kim Potter, a police officer from suburban Brooklyn Center, was convicted of killing Daunte Wright, an unarmed Black man, during an April 2021 traffic stop. While Potter’s trial and conviction did not lead to widespread unrest, one man—Cortez Rice—was jailed and charged with harassing the judge in the case, Regina Chu, after attempting to lead a protest outside of her home.
Tragically, on February 1, Rice’s fifteen-year-old son, Jahmari, was shot to death during a confrontation at a school in Richfield, another suburb just outside of Minneapolis. Two teenagers were arrested in Minneapolis and charged with killing Jahmari and injuring two other students.
Against this backdrop are lingering doubts over just how well, if at all, Frey will be able to guide Minneapolis to a safer, more racially just future. In the 2021 election, Minneapolis voters elected to give the mayor more control over how city government functions, thanks to a “strong mayor” ballot proposal.
Prior to the 2021 election, Frey directly oversaw just the Minneapolis Police Department, whose chief answers directly to the mayor. While some argued that this change would streamline decision-making in the city, critics have alleged that this gives Frey too much power.
As a skilled politician with a progressive reputation to uphold, Frey quickly set up working groups that were supposed to help him navigate this new concentration of mayoral power. One of these groups is focused on community safety as the city continues to grapple with how to improve policing in a post-Floyd era.
However, a key member of that group, Sheila Nezhad, has quit in recent days, citing the group’s refusal to discuss community safety in a documented, public fashion. Nezhad is a well-known advocate for transforming public safety in Minneapolis, and she ran a notable race against Frey in 2021.
Nezhad’s criticism of Frey’s workgroup model should be taken seriously. It stands as an indictment of the gap between what Frey says he stands for—transparency and community solutions—and what he is actually willing to do to achieve such things.
We don’t need more glossy profiles of Frey living the good life here in Minneapolis. Instead, we need more accountability—and more people willing to point out that the emperor may indeed be naked rather than enviably adorned in luxury clothing.