Why is Milwaukee Burning?

Hola mi gente,
I ran across the following research done by a 17-year-old young man named Lew Blank. People see riots and, having little knowledge of history or human behavior, attempt to ascribe it to one incident. In actuality, as history shows, it’s never one incident. Resistance comes about as a response to a culmination of events… The following article was originally posted at The Atlantic CityLab.

Half of Wisconsin's Black Neighborhoods Are Jails

Wisconsin has the highest incarceration rate of African Americans in United States

17-year-old Lew Blank was fiddling around with the Weldon Cooper Center’s Racial Dot Map when he discovered something disturbing about where he lives in Wisconsin: More than half of the African-American neighborhoods in the state are actually jails. Not only that, but the rest of the black neighborhoods across the state are either apartment complexes (projects), Section 8 housing, or homeless shelters -- the sole exception being a working-middle class section of Milwaukee.

Posting his findings on the Young, Gifted, and Black Coalition’s blog, Blank explained that he used the Racial Dot Map to identify where predominantly black neighborhoods -- defined as an “… area where the majority of residents are African Americans” -- are located throughout the state. There are 56 of them, 31 of which are either jails or prisons. There are 15 cities where the only black neighborhood is a jail. The city of Winnebago claims it has an African-American population of more than 19 percent, but most, if not all, of that black population is located among one of four correctional facilities there. It’s perhaps no wonder that Wisconsin perennially comes up as the worst place for African Americans to live in the country. Continue reading here.

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All I can say is fuck you and your respectability politics if that’s how you roll. That some Black and brown people will look for any excuse to blame our own people for the brutal consequences of racism and neo-slavery makes me sick. 

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…