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By Every Measure episode 2 transcript

Below is a transcript of episode two of By Every Measure, Radio Milwaukee's new podcast exploring systemic racism in various sectors of Milwaukee, looking closely at how those systems were formed and how they can – and need – to be changed.

Transcript

Tarik Moody:
This is Tarik, the host of By Every Measure. Before we begin this episode two, which deals with systemic racism and policing, I want to get something off my chest. As you've probably seen on the news, not just here, not just around the nation, but across the world covered this story about Jacob Blake being shot in the back multiple times by a police officer. And before that, a few hours before that, I was actually working on this episode which you're about to hear. As a black man. When you see that, I don't think you can really understand. Or even a black woman, a black man, a black person. If you see this as a black person, I don't think you truly understand the trauma of seeing someone that looks like you being killed in a video. That same experience happened with me, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, that's traumatic.

Tarik Moody:
We're about to discuss policing, systemic racism, policing Reggie Jackson. And it makes me wonder, would this conversation really make a difference, would it make impact, would people listen. As you know, there's a lot of people in this country that don't really even believe systemic racism exists. And if you can't get people to acknowledge that, dismantling that makes it even harder. So it got me thinking, and part of me is like, "Can systemic racism be dismantled, and policing?" And to be honest with you, what I just saw this past weekend, I'm not holding my breath. But, a big but, I'm not giving up either.

Tarik Moody:
And this is why I am more focused on this podcast, more than ever. I believe if Reggie and I, and the guests we have on here to talk about the history, talk about it honestly, maybe people in influence and power will listen. And then actually knowledge that this is a serious, serious issue in our country. And our country can never be better for it until we dismantle systemic racism.

Tarik Moody:
And that goes back to seeing what, what happened to Jacob Blake, and Kenosha, and it is part of a systemic issue. And you see people on Facebook, like look up his criminal record. He deserved it. No one deserves to be shot in the back, period. No one deserve to be shot in the back. Nonetheless, multiple times, close range in the back, and apparently in front of his kids. Which who are probably now going to be effected by this for the rest of their lives, dealing with trauma from that. Seeing there father getting shot in front of them, in the back. There was no need for that. You know,

Tarik Moody:
I could keep going on and on, but I want to let Jacob Blake sister speak. She said it best during a press conference. And she speaks to how so many in the community are feeling, including me.

Letetra Widman:
You say the name, Jacob Blake. Make sure you say father, make sure you say cousin, make sure you say son, make sure you say uncle. But most importantly, make sure you say human. Human life. Let it marinate in your mouth, and your minds, a human life. Just like every single one of y'all, and everywhere possible. We're human. And His life matters.

Letetra Widman:
So many people have reached out to me, telling me they're sorry that this happened to my family. Well, don't be sorry. Because this has been happening to my family for a long time, longer than I can account for. It happened to Emmett Till. Emmett Till is my family. Philando, Mike Brown, Sandra. This has been happening to my family, and I've shared tears for every single one of these people that has happened to them. This is nothing new. I'm not sad. I'm not sorry. I'm angry. And I'm tired. I haven't cried one time. I am numb.

Tarik Moody:
That feeling of numbness. I feel that too. It's exhausting, it's draining, and only speaks to the systemic issues we're talking about throughout this podcast. We're going to start this episode now, which we recorded days before Jacob Blake was shot. As you're listening, please remember the words of his sister.

Letetra Widman:
I'm not sad, I don't want your pity. I want change.

Tarik Moody:
Let's begin.

Crowd:
All of us are numb.

Tarik Moody:
By every measure, 2020 has been a defining year in our history. Following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmad Aubrey, unprecedented protest against police violence happened in every state. Reportedly, the biggest civil rights demonstration in history. . We watched these protests become local. . 88Nine was there at the first protest in Milwaukee.

Speaker 3:
At what point do we say enough. No more. At what point do we say that this is got to stop. We can't afford to allow racist, systemic regimes to come into our communities, gun us down, kill us, and there's no consequence to that action.

Tarik Moody:
And then shortly after, we were on site as a mural was painted honoring George Floyd.

Speaker 4:
So people have seen us out here. They've seen us out here, they came over, and they wanted to be a part of it. Wanted to have a solid representation of Derek Floyd over here. Or just representation of what's happening in the nation or across the world. So this is a great way to show the power of numbers.

Tarik Moody:
For protests like this aren't new. In fact, it's after Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the issue of police brutality, in his famous I Have a Dream speech.

Martin Luther King Jr.:
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.

Tarik Moody:
I'm Tarik Moody, and this is By Every Measure, radio Milwaukee's six part podcast exploring the data behind systemic racism.

Tarik Moody:
Dr. King's dream still remains out of reach, yet to be realized. An analysis by the Advocacy Group mapping police violence, found that 99% of police killings from 2014 to 2019 did not result in officers being charged with, let alone, convicted of a crime. That's what the protesters are protesting. It's not about individual police officers. It's about the system.

Speaker 4:
We know that they're here to protect white people and serve us warrants. They don't provide the same level of treatment to people of color.

Tarik Moody:
Our conversation begins with the term that I've seen a lot on social media, and in the press, defending actions of police. The term is called bad apples. Here's Reggie Jackson.

Reggie Jackson:
Well Tarik, the main reason that people think is bad apples, is because we all watch cop shows and movies, our entire lives. And in those cop shows and movies, the cops are always good guys. You know, there's always occasionally some bad apple, right? But eventually at the end of the show, the end of the movie, then that bad apple is removed from the police department.

Reggie Jackson:
So when white people think about police, they think about their lived experiences with police, which are generally very pleasant. When black people think about the police, we know that our lived experiences have not been the same.

Tarik Moody:
And to understand why those lived experiences haven't been the same for black people, we must examine the history of policing. And you probably think, "Oh, policing. That probably started in Europe." Where like in England, Sherlock Holmes characters, in Jack the Ripper, police were doing that. But American policing has a very dark and brutal history.

Reggie Jackson:
The first organized police departments in this country came out of former slave patrols. And these were patrols that were set up by white people, who were afraid that black people would either try to escape their enslavement, or they would try to attack whites, and have some type of insurrection and rebellion against slavery. So they developed this way of basically putting white people in a place to watch out over black people. They controlled their movements. So as those became organized police departments, they still have the same principle in place.

Tarik Moody:
As long as policing has had a strong presence in black communities, so have protests. I guess the injustices and unfair treatment of those communities. Protests aren't anything new.

Reggie Jackson:
Many people forget that this didn't start with George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. It didn't start with vigilantes, so-called vigilantes, killing Ahmaud Arbery. These things have been occurring year after year, decade after decade, century after century. And black people have been protesting these things from many, many years ago.

Reggie Jackson:
One of the least known cases of police brutality is a man by the name of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was murdered by police in Alabama. Part of a peaceful protest, he and his family were chased into a small diner. The police came in and beat his mother. He tried to protect his mother and they shot and killed him. And then basically said that, you know, he was attacking the police officers, when he'd never was. So we protested back, back in the 1950s.

Reggie Jackson:
We protested here in Milwaukee when Ernest Lacy was killed in police custody in 1981. We protested across the country after Rodney King was beaten senseless by police in Los Angeles. We protested after Mike Brown, after Freddie Gray, after Tamir Rice. All of these instances that we've been protesting that have been ignored by people, have led up to now George Floyd's death creating protests that we've never seen to this extent.

Tarik Moody:
And those early protests, Reggie mentioned, majority of those protestors were black. And today with cases like Brianna Taylor and George Floyd, the protesters are becoming more and more diverse.

Reggie Jackson:
Someone told me that "Man they're protesting in Fargo, North Dakota." I was like, "Are you kidding me?" And they're protesting in Salt Lake City, I'm like, "That's got to be some white people man, because there ain't no black people out there." Right?

Reggie Jackson:
So that told me that things had changed. But for me personally, I understand a lot more about policing, because I've talked to police officers, former and current police officers. And what they will tell you, is that these cop shows are copaganda. That's what I call them. They're copaganda. They're not real, they're not based on reality. They're based on a set of principles that make the police seem like they are constantly doing good. And for the most part they are, but they ignore all of the bad things about policing. They ignore, you know, this blue wall of silence that exists. And most Americans are surprised when I share with them how many people are killed by police every year Tarik.

Tarik Moody:
And that number, I wasn't even ready for it. It even surprised me.

Reggie Jackson:
Since 2013, which is when the first database has started to be created by different organizations, we found that every year, the police in the United States killed over a 1000 people per year.

Tarik Moody:
A 1000 people?

Reggie Jackson:
That is literally three people per day. One person every eight hours dies in some encounter with police. Many of those people are unarmed. You know, we've been protesting unarmed black people being killed by police. And when you think about this, the police kill a little bit of everybody, Tarik, they kill white people. In fact, the largest number of people killed each year about police are white people.

Tarik Moody:
The argument could be said, based off the population, white people get killed by police more often than blacks. Isn't that true?

Reggie Jackson:
But guess what? White people are 61% of the residents of this country. So obviously they're going to be the highest number. But when you look at native Americans, when you look at African Americans, and Latinos, what you find are disproportionate rates of police killing those groups of people.

Reggie Jackson:
Blacks are anywhere, depending on what year you choose, anywhere from 2.5% To 3% more likely to be killed by police than white people are. Unarmed black people are five times more likely than unarmed white people, to be killed by police. When you look into that data, you can understand very clearly that from the perspective of people of color, this is our lived experience with the police.

Tarik Moody:
And that goes back to what Reggie said about lived experiences. Just like Reggie, I experience the same anxiety and stress every time I see a police officer. Especially, when I'm in a neighborhood where I'm not from, or especially in a neighborhood that is… I'm the only one that looks like me.

Reggie Jackson:
But white people, this isn't part of your lived experience. That police officer, that we look at that we're afraid of, you look at him as your next door neighbor, Bob. That's your bowling buddy. That's the guy that coach your son's softball team. That's the relationship you have with that police officer. We know that that police officer doesn't live in our neighborhood.

Tarik Moody:
That's true. In fact, according to the city's own data back in 2019, nearly half of Milwaukee police officers resided outside of the city. That's about 45%. And they've been moving out steadily since the residency requirement was lifted back in 2015. This also means that over $90 million in salaries isn't being spent in Milwaukee, on things like mortgages. Which means Milwaukee is losing property tax revenue, which could help support Milwaukee schools. We'll talk about that more later in the podcast, when we get to the episode on education.

Tarik Moody:
Let's get back to policing. So what has happened over the last few years, as you have police moving out of communities they're serving, deepening divide and mistrust. Which is why we've seen protests over policing across the country this year. The community has had enough of the police brutality and lack of accountability.

Tarik Moody:
However, critics argue, "Why don't these protesters complained about the climb in their own neighborhoods?" What about black on black crime, right? I hear that argument a lot. Like, why you pronounced ? The statement is, black people kill other… Why aren't you protesting that? So what do you say to that?

Reggie Jackson:
Listen, I wrote a Facebook post two years ago, two years ago because I started to hear no same conversations you talking about. And anytime there's talk of police reform, somebody will always chime in with the black on black crime nonsense. And this is what I say about it. It's very simple to me. Listen, there's no such thing as black on black crime, unless there's such a thing as white on white crime. I Googled it. This is what I found. I Googled white on white crime. And then I Googled black on black crime to see how many responses there were on Google, right? And there were 50 times more responses from Google when I Googled black on black crime, and when I Googled white on white crime.

Reggie Jackson:
And I looked at the first 15 articles that came up when I Googled white on white crime. And they were all about black on black crime, right? So there's this phenomena in America where we assume that the only real crime that exists is so-called black on black crime. Black people committing crime against each other. And particularly when they say black on black crime, what they really mean is black people killing other black people. They don't care about black people robbing each other, black people raping each other. Things of that nature, that never comes into conversation. It's always about, "Well you all killing each other, and why you all worried about the police killing each other."

Reggie Jackson:
Listen, the police are not hired to kill people. That's not their job. Their job is not to kill people, but they kill a 1000 people per year. And for those who would like to talk about, you know, so-called black on black crime. I said, "Listen, white people kill each other, black people kill each other. People kill people that they know, people kill people that they're around." You know why black people are more likely to kill black people? Because that's who they're around all the time, Tarik. You know why white people are more likely to kill white people? Because that's the people they're around. And we never talk about white people committing acts of violence as being white on white crime. And every time I hear somebody say this nonsense about black on black crime, I'm like, "Let's have a discussion, white on white crime." Life.

Reggie Jackson:
Murders happen in every country on the planet, because human beings murder each other.

Tarik Moody:
And most of the times that people commit murder, they'll catch them and put them in jail. So they get their justice. But, the problem is when a police does it, which their job is to protect and serve. And when they do something bad, nine times out of 10, they get their job or they might be shuffled around. So I think, trying to… People don't understand that part either. It's like when you say systemic, they're protesting the systemic issues of the police, of not doing their job. And when they do something bad, like somebody in this street that does commit murder, they go to jail, they do their time. The police doesn't get the same justice for their crime. Or no justice for their time.

Reggie Jackson:
You know that's a brilliant point Tarik. It plays out different than when you or I kill somebody Tarik. If you were to leave your home, or your studio, on any given day, and you committed a murder right in front of your home, or your studio, right? Somebody's going to pick up the phone, they're going to call 911. The police are going to come. They're going to arrest you with the gun in your hand, they're going to put you in a police car. The district attorney will then charge you that same day, probably, right. And then you're going to be going through the criminal justice system, and probably found guilty. And you're going to go to prison for killing somebody, right.

Reggie Jackson:
But if you are a police officer and you kill somebody, for instance, you choked Eric Garner to death, in a move that was illegal. NYPD had banded the choke hold 30 years before Eric Garner, you can literally not just choke a man to death, but you have six officers on top of Eric Garner, killing him. When he's saying I can't breathe. And guess what happened to the officer? No charges. Not only was it no charges, but the man got to keep his job for many years after that, right? So this would happen when a police officer kills somebody.

Tarik Moody:
Here's where things change, basically a fork in the road. There's a whole different procedure for police violence, a different set of rules. We even have a name for it, qualified immunity. According to the legal blog, Lawfare, qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from being held personally liable for constitutional violations. Like the right to be free from excessive police force. Here's what happens when police kill someone.

Reggie Jackson:
First of all, you're not going to even know who the police officer is right away in most cases. They're not going to divulge the officer's name, right? So you're going to wonder, "Oh I wonder which officer that was."

Reggie Jackson:
Secondarily, it's going to take a number of days, weeks, months, before that police officer is charged and you find out who they are. If they even decide to charge them. Tarik your name would be all over the newspaper in Milwaukee, all over the airways in Milwaukee, if you kill somebody today. Everybody would know, "Man, Tarik killed somebody today." But if you were officer Tarik, it may be months before we find out that you killed somebody. We'll know that you killed somebody, but we won't know that it was you.

Reggie Jackson:
So when we look at how the system works, and I've said this to police officers, I've said this to former chief . Until you begin to treat police officers who commit crimes the same way you treat civilians who commit crime, then I will never have any respect for policing. Because there is no reason that the rules should be different for a police officer.

Reggie Jackson:
In fact, you should be living by a higher standard. Because this is the excuse they use, Tarik, all the time. You hear it all the time, "Well, we have to do a thorough investigation before we release that information." And then, "Well, what about the charges, district attorney?" "Oh, we have to make sure we do a very thorough investigation before we bring charges. We want to make sure we bring the right charges, and we're not bringing the wrong charges and have a chance of losing in court." Guess what, if they were to arrest Tarik Moody for killing somebody, they will not have to do a thorough investigation. You're behind will be in a police car. You will be in a Milwaukee County jail immediately. And that so-called investigation to make sure they get the right charges, they can amend the charges anytime they choose.

Reggie Jackson:
This what district attorneys do all the time. They charge you with something, and then they change it the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Why is it that they think that were dumb enough to believe they can't do that with police officers? And because they don't, because we're smart enough to notice that they don't do those to police officers, we say that there are systemic problems with police.

Tarik Moody:
Coming up next, we're talking to a 25 year veteran of the force, a former Milwaukee police captain, now retired from the police. She shares her thoughts on what we need to do to begin to dismantle systemic racism in policing.

Speaker 5:
Radio Milwaukee is on a mission. And if you're here to discover new perspectives on music in Milwaukee, then you're on a mission too. Join today, to support the programming you love. Visit radiomilwaukee.wpengine.com and click the orange heart.

Tarik Moody:
We're back on episode two of By Every Measure, this is Tarik Moody. On the second half of each episode of the podcast, we'll be joined by local and national leaders who are actually doing the work. People are working on solutions, in each of the systems we're talking about.

Tarik Moody:
In this episode we talk to Cassandra Libal, a retired Milwaukee police department captain. She spent 25 years on the force and now, in the next chapter of her career, she remains in public service as the interim director of the office of emergency management at Milwaukee County.

Tarik Moody:
I want to talk to you… Like I showed you with what we're doing as podcasts, and some of the conversation we had about policing in regards to systemic racism. We want to talk to you about your perspective, your experience, some of what the issues are, and what things can we do to eliminate systemic racism when it comes to police and the criminal justice system.

Cassandra Libal:
So law enforcement, unfortunately, is in the forefront of a lot of issues that plague our communities. That quite frankly, are not law enforcement issues. And so I think that's where we as a community really need to start to look at where we utilize our law enforcement professionals. Far too often, they end up filling in a void of services that need to be provided elsewhere. So when you speak of the movement now, of defunding and abolishing law enforcement, there's something to that if we do it correctly. It's making sure those safety nets are in place before we pull away those resources from law enforcement.

Tarik Moody:
Let's talk about accountability. I know there's the people… There's always been this relationship between the black communities and police, baselly a mistrust. How do you see that… Change that relationship?

Cassandra Libal:
One, I think you have to kind of look at it in terms of what the legislature says. There are laws in place that do protect law enforcement when it comes into these kinds of situations. And so Wisconsin doesn't specifically have qualified immunity, but you essentially have protections if you're acting under the color of law. And unless they can show a criminal intent, it's very difficult to get charges and convictions in these cases.

Cassandra Libal:
So you really have to look at what the letter of the law says, and if there needs to be changes there. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that there could not be a better accounting of that area.

Tarik Moody:
I asked Cassandra about the residency requirement, what Reggie was talking about earlier. Where public workers are required to live within the city of Milwaukee.

Cassandra Libal:
You know, I'm not quite… I don't know if that's really the issue, so to speak. Residency helps when you're invested in a community. But the reality is, you didn't have a lot of officers who were actually living in the communities that they policed. I think the bigger issue is getting people who look like you and I, to join law enforcement to begin with. So that they have a point of reference. Because that I think is a bigger conversation is, there are certain things in life that you just experience differently from our perspective. And so having those individuals engaged in law enforcement, helps break down some of those barriers as well. So the residency does have some impact, but ultimately the reality was is that most people were not living in the areas they policed.

Tarik Moody:
So basically what you're saying that representation matters. That that would go a long way into fighting systemic racism and policing.

Cassandra Libal:
Yes. I think that when you look at Milwaukee police department, we only have a 17% African American staff. And obviously we have a huge African American community, but only 17% of our department. And so when you're having those conversations, just how I perceive, I think myself, 20 years ago, joining the department. And how I would interact with people, versus how my partners would interact with people, and not necessarily in a negative way, but there were certain things that they could not grasp because it wasn't their lived experience.

Tarik Moody:
Again, that probably comes back to the mistrust. But I want to know what inspired you to join the force over 20 years ago?

Cassandra Libal:
It's this conversation that we're having, having that representation. I grew up seeing law enforcement and not seeing law enforcement that looked like me. But having contact with law enforcement, and how could I engage in a way that could help my community. So that was really my catalyst to say, "I don't like what I'm seeing."

Tarik Moody:
The one thing I want to talk to you about is… You've probably heard the term, the talk, and what I mean by the talk. If you're not a black parent, you don't know what the talk is. It's basically when a parent sits down with their child, and explains what to do when police pull you over, knowing you won't be treated the same as a white person. And that's passed on generation to generation, right? I mean, one of the biggest example of the talk going arise, Philando Castiel in Minneapolis, where he did everything right.

Cassandra Libal:
Absolutely.

Tarik Moody:
How do we… If I have kids, one thing I don't want to pass along what my dad past to me is the talk. How do I get rid of that talk? What can government, police, do to make sure that I don't have to give that talk, or my future kids, or future generations, don't have to give that talk?

Cassandra Libal:
Yeah, that's a challenging one. So frequently you hear people say, "Well, if you get pulled over, just do what they say and everything going to be fine." And like you said, that did not happen in Minneapolis. And so we have to be realistic in that. And so that's where the call falls back on law enforcement to say that, "This is not a battleground, where people should need to have that conversation." And we really need to start looking at public safety as the motivator, and not law enforcement, if that makes sense. That we're not so much enforcing the rules and the regulations, but more, what are we doing to keep the community safe? And are some of these situations counterintuitive to that?

Cassandra Libal:
You know, I tell people all the time when someone says, "Well, if you get pulled over and you didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't care if they stopped you." And I go, "Well, I'm not in the habit of leaving my house for no reason." So if I get pulled over, I'm going to be bothered. I'm going somewhere. And I may be picking my son up, or I may be doing something. So yeah, it does bother me. So we shouldn't have this flip it attitude about people's time. People's time is important. If I can count on one hand, the number of times I've been stopped, then you're lucky. But for a lot of us that's not the case. So if you get stopped pretty regularly, at a certain, you're going to say "Enough already, I'm not okay with that." And we should not be okay with it.

Tarik Moody:
And what you mean by police should step up, is this means training? Is this… What is that what you mean by police should step up, when it comes to this?

Cassandra Libal:
I think moving away from the enforcement. One of the things that I was always challenged with, was what we call quality of life stops. When we talk about things like littering, loitering, things like that. Lik to me, I grew up, we hung out, you know? So, am I loitering when I'm hanging out in my neighborhood? So when we look at those kinds of things as an organization, kind of moving away from those quality of life things. Because what ends up happening is, we're coming into a community, and we're telling them how they should behave in ways that don't necessarily impact public safety. And those kinds of engagements create opportunities for us to continue to stop people, and not having respect on people's time.

Tarik Moody:
I guess my final question. So, I'm a citizen. I've heard your talk, Cassandra. So what can I do to change this? I'm an average person. I live in a 5326 neighborhood. I live in Riverwest. I've been stopped five times. What are my options? What can I do to change the situation for me, and people that look like me? And keep getting stopped for doing absolutely, like you said, littering, loitering, or just seen looking suspicious. What can I do?

Cassandra Libal:
You know, we have a lot of power as a community. And so when we talk about the black dollar, we talk about education, there are ways that we can engage. And I think that we don't do enough of that. Filling out the census, making sure we vote. But participating in even local government, where our budget dollars spent. Right now you have city and County going through their budgets, engage in those conversations. But we have to come with a mindset of, "I don't like this thing and I want to figure out how to change it, so this is what I want to do." And offer up that conversation. So we have to go beyond just, "I don't like it, but this is what I want to see happen."

Tarik Moody:
The data is there. We need to be more engaged in the civic process, and just more engaged period. According to recent NPR Listener poll, 55% of Americans say they have not personally taken any action to better understand racial issues in America. Among white people that jumps up to 61%. And for black people, it's 48%. That's a lot of inaction.

Tarik Moody:
So I decided to start Googling and searching for solutions, ideas, how to be more engaged. Doing that, I came across a podcast called The Untold Story: Policing, which goes even deeper and looks at police union contracts. And give steps on how to end violent police misconduct. The podcast is part of an initiative called Campaign Zero, that uses data and research to provide policy solutions and recommendations. Like decriminalizing or deprioritize enforcement of low level offenses, to begin to dismantle systemic racism in policing. We will share the links on our site at radio milwaukee.org/measure.

Tarik Moody:
So here's just a recap of some of the solutions we discussed in this episode of By Every Measure. First, hold police and district attorneys to the same standards as the rest of us. Like Cassandra said, less time involving police and things like loitering, jaywalking, also known as the broken window policing. She also mentioned better representation on the police force. More people that look like Cassandra, me, representing the communities they serve. And for the average person just getting involved politically pressing leaders for change. Going beyond the ballot.

Tarik Moody:
But even with those solutions, we're a long way from Dr. King's vision. 57 years to the date, Jacob Blake's families stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in the very same spot as Dr. King did in 1963. With the same message to America. We'll close out where we began, and let his sister have the final word.

Letetra Widman:
America, your reality is not real. Catering to your delusions is no longer an option. We will not pretend. We will not be your docile slave. We will not be a fist door to oppression. Most of all, we will not dress up this genocide and and call it police brutality. We will only pledge allegiance to the truth.

Tarik Moody:
On our next episode, we look at another legacy Milwaukee issue. An issue that was protested violently, and peacefully, in the 1960s, and still rife with any quality today. Housing.

Reggie Jackson:
What makes Milwaukee stand out. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, they're segregated. But what's different, our suburbs don't look anything like their suburbs. And if you look at Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland, a significantly larger number of black people living in their suburbs.

Tarik Moody:
Reggie will take us through the history of red lining in Milwaukee, and how black people were kept from building generational wealth. Plus, we talked to an array of Milwaukee actively working to fix the problem. That's coming up next time on By Every Measure.