“The New Jim Crow”
Now that the Archdiocese has disbursed the 1 – 1.5 million it received from the closing and sale of Blessed Trinity Church in North Central Milwaukee it time for the Catholic Church to give a full and transparent accounting of the money received and how it was disbursed. The Catholic Church, sadly, is not known for openness and transparency. The continual revelations of the sexual abuse scandal in the Church is a good example. Secrecy seems to be the norm. The sins of our Fathers linger on as those responsible for the cover up continue to hide. The Catholic Church, in my life time, is known for preaching but not practicing what it says. In closing yet another Catholic Church in North Central Milwaukee, the poorest, most segregated and criminalized area in Milwaukee the tradition of structural racism continues.
If the Archdiocese speaks the truth or avoids it or misrepresents it, the truth will come out. In this day and age of media and communication it is hard to hide reality.
The word ‘racism’ is one you do not hear much today but it is alive and well in the Catholic Church and in society. It is no accident that the area the Catholic Church abandoned consists of low income African Americas who have been stigmatized, isolated and ignored.
I have been reading the book “The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” The author, Michelle Alexander, details how modern day racism is not overt, like using the N word, but just as damaging by establishing a structure of racism which people can deny.
In 2007 I wrote an essay ”The Sweet Waters of Discrimination in Milwaukee”. Times change and I am thinking of updating the essay. However, now I would call it “The Sweet Waters of Racism in Milwaukee”]]. Some will not like the change of the word from segregation to racism but that is what it is and we must as well as call it by what it is.
Some young people think that racism ended when President Obama, the first African American, was elected President. In my opinion his election was used to divert attention away from the growing racism of society. The New Jim Crow is more secret than the original but just as harmful. Segregation today is better called what it is ‘racism’.
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