White Suburban Lawmakers Push to Put More Urban Youth in Jail, Keep Them in longer

And State Rep. David Bowen responds--

There are dynamics of race at play here where these are majority-white suburbs that are basically saying ‘Milwaukee needs to keep crime in in its own boundaries’ and the only way to fix this issue is to use methods that don’t actually solve the issue.”

“It’s important for residents in those areas and those districts that we be honest about solutions to crime in Milwaukee. I work in Shorewood, a suburb and separate city of Milwaukee, and there’s no way I would go to those residents and say, “Things will get better by being more punitive.’ I tell them that things will get by doing things that are evidence-based. That’s where we can gain the respect of and the attention of the residents that are at the grassroots level who actually want these things to get better.”

Thanks to Tracy (Messiah Lutheran)  for being awake to this article which you can read at

http://madison365.com/white-suburban-lawmakers-push-put-urban-youth-jail-keep-longer/

In Wis one-in-nine blacks can’t vote

It is no surprise who felony disenfranchisement hurts the most: those who are disproportionately incarcerated, i.e. black people.

Of the 6.1 million disenfranchised voters, 2.2 million are African American, which means one in 13 voting age black people is disenfranchised — more than four times the rate of non-black disenfranchised voters, according to the Sentencing Project.

One and a half percent of all Wisconsinites were disenfranchised in 2016, but 8.8 percent of African Americans were disenfranchised in Wisconsin.

According to the ACLU of Wisconsin one out of nine Black voters in Wisconsin are disenfranchised compgo ared to one out of 50 white voters, giving the state the 11th highest rate of disenfranchisement in the U.S.

Thanks to Tracy of Messiah Lutheran for finding this article to read the whole article go to

http://madison365.com/one-in-nine-blacks-cant-vote/

remembering and asking forgiveness

On Good Friday an ecumenical group walked together down town as a modern day Way of the Cross. There were 9 stops along the way including, US Federal Court, Bus Stop, State Capitol, Dane County Jail.  At each stop there was reading, prayer and song.  One stop was the Historical Museum and one of the prayers was:

History is replete with examples where the threat of violence or fear has resulted in the standardization of prejudice and hostility--the forced relocation of Native American populations, the internment of Japanese Americans, the segregation of African American communities, the incarceration of minorities, and the ongoing deportation of immigrants and exclusion of refugees.  All responded:

Lord, forgive us, for we know not what we do

The walk was sponsored by Madison Catholic Worker
www.madisoncatholicworker.org

The Dream of Tomorrow

“Today is the tomorrow you could only dream about yesterday.”  Words from the sermon of Pastor Marsh at the ordination of Christa Fisher. Sunday April 9, 2017

We might reflect on the ordination and installation service of Christa as the tomorrow we dream of for the beloved anti racist community. What did we see? What did we hear?  How did we live those moments in a “key of praise?”

One of the readings was from Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from the Birmingham jail written April 16, 1963.

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Why is this reading still important to us 53 years later?

New Jim Crow Panel

Thank you for calling our attention to the panel at Edgewood College last evening.

Seeing five panelists on stage who had spent many years in Wisconsin prisons was a living image of the book many of us read, The New Jim Crow. Four panelists were black men and one a white woman. All but one was a member of EXPO (Ex Prisoners Organizing.) The evening was a dialogue with students who had read the book and the five who had experienced the deliberativeness of a system that keeps people of color out of civic life.  When people are labeled as felons and/or registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives, they are prohibited from work as health professionals or federal employees. They cannot live in federally subsidized housing. They may be tracked with an ankle bracelet or on parole for many years. “The system is not broken,” a couple of the panelists emphasized. The system separates black people and other people of color from the rest of society in the same way that slavery and Jim Crow have in the past.

How can we join with ex prisoners, who know the system only too well, to systemically change this racially biased system?  That was the question that sends us to learn more and join with others to undo racism.

In memory of Martin Luther King Jr

April 4, 1968

Today we remember the death of Martin Luther King Jr who gave his life so that we can work for the life of all.  He once said:

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”

What helps you to work for racial justice in 2017?