In pivotal year for Milwaukee, here's what folks celebrating Kwanzaa want to see | Opinion
Safety is the top of what Milwaukeeans want to see as a New Year's resolution for the city. They also want reckless driving and racism to end.
James E. CauseyThis is a pivotal year for Milwaukee and Wisconsin.
We will vote for mayor and county executive and elect new alderpersons and supervisors in April. After Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced he won’t seek re-election, voters will elect a new district attorney for the first time in nearly three decades.
The city will also be in the nation's spotlight when we host the Republican National Convention from July 15 to 18. Since Wisconsin is a swing state, turnout in southeastern Wisconsin could determine the next president.
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With so much on the line, I asked Milwaukee residents celebrating Kwanzaa what they would like to see happen. Their responses offered some food for thought.
Be a more welcoming state that invests in children
Jarrett English, a former field organizer with the ACLU of Wisconsin, said one of his wishes for Milwaukee is to be seen as a place that’s inviting to young Black and brown people. English said Wisconsin is a playground for “a certain demographic” but is a dangerous place for Blacks and Hispanics.
“I don’t feel welcome here, and I was born and raised here, English said.
He wants to see a government that is less punitive and more proactive, especially when it comes to young people.
“I would like for us to spend real money on children that’s equivalent to what the state spends on the prison system and police. That’s $1.3 billion in Wisconsin,” he said. “Problems are not people. People are not problems; what we allow our civilization to do to them is the problem.”
Boost Milwaukee's morbid rates of Black home ownership
Roy Evans, 76, a longtime lawyer, said he would like to see more Milwaukeeans taking pride in their neighborhoods and cleaning up their blocks.
“I don’t want to see more trash on the ground. To me, that is a sign of our civility, and if we don’t have civility towards each other in shared spaces, then we can’t overcome the things we need to overcome,’ Evans said.
Evans said there needs to be growth with Milwaukee’s Black middle class and homeownership, which ranks one of the lowest among the nation’s largest cities.
According to a study on the status of Black Milwaukee by Marc Levine, an emeritus professor and founding director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development, Milwaukee has the second-lowest Black homeownership rate among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas (27.2 %). Only Minneapolis is lower.
Black homeownership is lower in Milwaukee than it was 50 years ago, and the disparity in Black-white homeownership (41 percentage points) is the widest it has been since 1970. Evans wants to see an end to the deep segregation and racism that has plagued Milwaukee for decades.
“I’ve been hoping to see that all my life,” he said.
Get healthier and come together to change flawed narratives
Caroline Carter said she wanted to see Milwaukee become a healthier city, and she also wanted to see an end to food deserts.
Carter, a breast cancer survivor who moved to Milwaukee from Yazoo City, Miss., in 1978 after her husband died, said she also would like people to be friendlier to one another.
“I speak to everybody, and when I moved here, I would speak to people, and they would either not speak or ask me ‘why am I speaking to them,’” she said. “We need more activities to bring us together.”
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Spoken word artist Muhibb Dyer said he wants to see more unity among Black people this year, along with a “narrative change for Black men.”
“We are not all thugs, hustlers, and criminals. We are fathers, husbands, great men, and that message needs to come out,” he said.
Dyer, who traveled to Africa as a teen, said he would also like to see more opportunities for Black children living in poverty in the city to travel to different parts of the nation to see that their world is more than the trauma they experience in their lives.
“I want more opportunities for young people to travel and get out of the Burleighs, Galenas, Vines, and Centers. Going to Africa at 18 changed my life forever,” he said.
Email James Causey at jcausey@jrn.com; follow him at X@jecausey.