“So whats it’s like being a black man
in Milwaukee?”
I don’t even know the words that can really
explain it.
You are reminded of being oppressed everywhere
you go.
It’s a place where rejection occurs often
you know.
It’s a place where you’re a threat, you
know regardless of where you have ascended
to in society you’re a threat.
You know, you’re a threat, you know to many
people in this community as a black man.
"The fatal shooting of 23 year old Sylville
Smith thrust Milwaukee into a national spotlight,
igniting a weekend of riots in the cities
Sherman Park neighborhood.
Milwaukee is one of the most racially segregated
Metro areas in the US, minorities including
a 40 percent black population are concentrated
in the city and whites in the surrounding
suburbs.
The state of Wisconsin also has the highest
black incarceration rate in the country, one
in every eight black men is currently in prison
or in jail.
The latest shooting is forcing residents to
confront what many say makes Milwaukee the
worst place to be a black man in America."
This is the police leave the area.
Those folks aren’t just there because Sylville
was killed, they’re there because they feel
has been the equivalent of somebody having
their foot on your neck.
What the nation really saw was what happens
when you inflict poverty on a group of people
when you control their access for food and
you control their health and everything and
you say we are going to keep you there so
what you saw was the young people retaliating.
Wisconsin, if its health, African American
adult population is the most obese in America.
Incarceration, we lead the nation.
Unemployment.
The disparity between the white student the
black student.
You know, Housing.
It’s a litany of issues that say that all
of those things culminated to create that
moment that night.
So you see segregation, you see the little
pocket areas all throughout the city of Milwaukee.
You know what I mean?
The little pockets of segregation, the little
pockets of disparities.
There is almost an assault, if you will, on
the dignity and humanity of black people,
particularly of black men throughout the city.
A lot of times like there’s this perspective
that if you just straighten up, you pull your
pants up and you stay in school and you do
well, uh that, you know, the trouble won't
find you.
I can have a suit on and I can be dressed
and go to the courthouse, very nice, but if
I go change my clothes and drive down a certain
street, I’m going to get pulled over by
the police.
It almost doesn’t matter that you followed
the rules or internalized the playbook.
You are seen as belonging to a subclass here
in our city.
The cameras come and the reporters come and
all of the attention is shined on a community
when a gas station burns or the jet beauty
supply or the auto parts store.
But, that community has been figuratively
burning for a very long time.
And that’s really frustrating.
We have parts of our communities our neighborhoods
that have seen lack of investment.
If you were to go down Burleigh, had you not
been from this neighborhood, could you identify
the buildings that actually were burned or
looted?
Those buildings on that corridor have been
empty and boarded for decades.
It’s making us move out of town.
We’re leaving families, and we’re going
places thinking there’s some great white
hope that’s going to rescue us, when young
black boys now think that by the age of 25
they’re going to be in jail or dead.
What we see in Milwaukee and what we see in
St. Louis and what we see in Baltimore, you
know what I’m saying, is an American problem.
One city uprising, maybe.
Two cities, three cities, four cities, five,
all cities ain’t lying.
Trouble doesn’t stay still.
Trouble spreads.
And right now it’s in Sherman Park, but
who knows where it may be tomorrow.
It’s not something that people living in
Milwaukee created on our own.
It ain’t something people in St. Louis created
on their own.
Right now although we do have the distinction
of being one of the worse places in America
for black people to live, at one point in
time we were the best.
So we’re a resilient community here.
Although we face our challenges, we’re very
very very hopeful that we’ll be able to
turn the corner and make a difference.
It is a struggle, but it’s a beautiful struggle
because people are going to survive we are
survivors here in Milwaukee and make lemonade
out of lemons so we are going to keep doing
that.
