Recently I finished a fascinating book called: “Long Way To Go, Black & White in America” by Jonathan Coleman. I was given the book by a friend. It had been her father’s, a retired Pastor. My friend knew I was primarily interested in race relations in Milwaukee so I wonder what this book had to do with Milwaukee. To my wonder the author explores race relations through the window of Milwaukee. He spent seven years in 90’s reporting from Milwaukee, which at that time as now, was one of the most segregated cities in the country. (Since the census in 2000 it has been the most segregated area in the USA.) He drew on countless interviews, on diaries, journals, and letters, on events he witnessed, weaving it all into the context of history. Sadly what he observed racism, segregation, poverty of African Americans, degradation of the public school system, growing unemployment have increased. Impoverishment and segregation of African Americans in Milwaukee has increased since the nineties. We now have a longer way to go.

He ends his lengthy book with two questions: “If daily life is trying enough, why, frankly, should blacks have to constantly watch their step? Why should they constantly be subjected to a different set of bells and whistles merely because they are black?” In my words, why it so hard to be poor and black in Milwaukee? In the words of my 87 year friend, a civil rights activist, we are going backward, toward slavery, in the struggle for equality for all.

Accepting the racism within each of us is the beginning of bringing the gap between races. We must start calling situations like St. Vincent de Paul investing millions of dollars belonging to poor in African American neighbors to a store in a white suburb or taking down the rims in predominantly white neighbors when blacks start to play basketball, for what it is “Racism”. Yes we have a long way to go in race relations and the way is getting longer

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