1811 German Coast Uprising,
United State’s largest slave revolt.

I grew up hearing about the horrors of Hiroshima, the Holocaust and the Jewish Ghettos. These were terrible nightmares that I did not have any compatible experience to relate to. I grew up in a working class family and attended a Catholic grade school in near North Central Milwaukee. As a young adult I remember fighting to keep our neighborhoods healthy and thriving.

I was gone for a number of years from Milwaukee, community organizing out East and building a business in Madison. When I returned I found we had lost the battle to save the neighborhood. Our Catholic church was closed and the neighborhood around it was in complete disrepair. I noticed the racial makeup of the neighborhood had drastically changed for mostly white to mostly African American but did not associate that with racism at the time. Over the years since I have been back and especially after the closing of our Catholic Church in North Central Milwaukee, I began to see what had happened in North Central Milwaukee as an act of “institutional racism”.

We have and are creating a new ‘ghetto’, this time of African Americas in North Central Milwaukee, the most segregated neighborhood in the most segregated city in USA, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the four poorest city, and the home residence of most African American Male State Prisoners (Incarcerated and Released)in Wisconsin, a state having the highest black male incarceration rate in the nation. (See M.A.P.S. and Wisconsin’s Mass Incarceration of African American Male: Workforce Challenges for 2013).

I could add more statistics about high unemployment and the poor quality of education in these neighborhoods but my point is not to blame area residents but to make the claim that what we are seeing in North Central Milwaukee is “institutional racism”.

We cannot change individuals but we can create, as Peter Maurin said, “an environment in which it is easier to be good”. Milwaukee institutions, businesses, Catholic Church, government, recreational facilities, bus service, schools, jobs and even street signs have decreased as the area turned from white to black.

“Institutional racism”, as learned in the 60’s with Marquette University is a system of inequality based on race. It is not the same as direct racism, like calling blacks degrading names, but a structure that has been created, consciously or unconsciously, to discriminate against a race like blacks. The civil rights struggles in the 60′s for open housing were successful in passing an open housing ordinance but did not change the institutional discrimination which has led to North Central Milwaukee now being over 85% African-American and the lowest income area. Simply saying it as it is, we have created a new ‘ghetto’ in North Central Milwaukee. By not recognizing our “institutional racism” the area is becoming more marginalized and isolated.

This morning we had two prayer vigils for homicide visits. Both did not have local contacts who we could invite to join us in prayer and both did not get much media attention in a weekend full of shootings. The first one was for a young African American male, 27 years old, who has been shot in North Central Milwaukee. While we prayed for him the thought occurred to me that the environment created in this neighborhood was like a nose waiting for a victim.

This afternoon I helped an African American woman trapped in pain for years from an unknown source. Her husband has a troubled past, and although now seems to have his life together, cannot find employment. They are looking for a place to live; now she is a care facility. Today while I was there her case worker from one agency and a health aide from another agency were present. However, both for different reasons could not find her and her husband a place to live independently. My wife found a one bedroom apartment last night on the web and tomorrow they will check it out. Did environment play a role in their situation?

In my mind, the closing of 14 Catholic Churches in North Central Milwaukee and moving the million dollars plus from our recently closed Church to one at the edge of the North Central Milwaukee that is partnering with a wealthy church outside the area, is an example of “institutional racism”. Marquette University opens up the institution to African Americans only after mass protest and acts of civil disobedience in the 60’s. But maybe that is what it will take to break down this “institutional racism”. However, the big difference here is that very few, if any, in major institutions, would admit to institutional racism. How to expose it nonviolently? Racism, especially institutional racism, is a word the powers that be in institutions do not want to hear. Maybe Hiroshima, Holocaust and Ghettos are still with us today.

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