The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association at its annual gala honored WGTD FM for its coverage of the shooting of Jacob Blake and the station’s programs on race relations and racial inequities. WGTD received a first place award in the medium market category for “Best Coverage of Civil Discourse and Social Change.” In addition, the 91.1 Players […]
Tag: #BLM
Posted inPolitics
In wake of Wisconsin’s racial justice protests, curfew tickets raise equity and speech questions
By Clara Neupert and Jim Malewitz Wisconsin Watch The envelope looked like any other — slightly wrinkled, a handwritten address scrawled across the front. But Jared Cain said he felt violated after looking inside. He saw a ticket for breaking the curfew Milwaukee adopted to regulate protests after a May 25 murder in Minneapolis seen […]
Posted inCommunity
Aggressive policing escalates violence at protests, research shows. A former Madison police chief touts a better way.
By Clara Neupert Wisconsin Watch At least 1,500 young people gathered on Madison, Wisconsin’s Mifflin Street in April 1973 for a block party featuring street dancing, potato salad and sunshine. People drank beer, smoked weed and tossed Frisbees in the neighborhood near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus known informally as Miffland. Police officers observed the […]
Posted inGovernment, Local news, Politics
Defund the police? Milwaukee eyes future amid Black Lives Matter protests, coronavirus budget crunch
Milwaukee activist Annia Leonard wants a safe community without police, and she draws from her own experience when thinking about what that could be: like the time a conflict at her grandmother’s house ended peacefully in a garden — without anyone in handcuffs. Annia Leonard is seen outside of her grandmother’s house in the Sherman […]
Posted inGovernment, Local news
Trump’s chief of staff says federal troops may be coming to Milwaukee
The Trump administration wants to roll out a plan this week to send more federal troops into “Democrat-run cities,” like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Portland, according to an interview White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows gave Sunday night on Fox News. Federal officials in the Department of Homeland Security developed the Protecting American Communities Task […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
Letter to the Editor: Deeper Understanding of Police Reform
One would think police reform means taking most of the authority from those who are trained to protect and serve. However, it is only when one is looking from the bottom up that the true reasonings for the need of policing are exposed. Quite simply, the police is needed to protect the interest of the […]
Posted inGovernment, Local news
As the nation reckons with race, a mother awaits unemployment aid — and Wisconsin officials lack research
Alfreida Casterlow could hardly bear her first weeks working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Disrupted routines upset her 20-year-old autistic daughter. Casterlow, 43, would try to keep her daughter engaged. She would lie alongside her, rubbing her forehead to soothe her — all while continuing to operate switchboards for Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee. Then […]
Posted inCommunity, Letter to the Editor
A Mouthpiece for the Silent: How Ida B. Wells’ Crusade for Justice was the Blueprint for Black Lives Matter
I recently saw an advertisement for a PBS special celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of women’s suffrage. In the commercial, was a photo of Ida B. Wells, a journalist who during her lifetime chronicled the extreme racial violence and lynching that was perpetrated by whites against African American communities. After seeing the commercial, I was prompted […]
Posted inCity Hall, Government, Local news
Following National Trend, City of Racine Spends Heavily on Policing
After George Floyd, a black man, died at the hands of a white Minneapolis Police Officer on Memorial Day, protests and calls to defund, demilitarize, reform, and even abolish the police have swelled across the country. Floyd’s death “shocked the conscience of the nation,” Racine Police Chief Art Howell said in a letter to the […]
Posted inLocal news, Schools
Horlick High School Confederate soldier mascot removal petition circulates
RACINE, WI — Racine Horlick High School has had a Confederate soldier mascot for more than 70 years, and a petition is circulating to get the mascot changed. Former Horlick High School student Shannon Campion has started a petition on Change.org to throw the Horlick Rebel — a scarlet-and-gray-clad confederate soldier — into the dustbin […]
Posted inLocal news, Police and fire
Race in Racine: Singled out with guns drawn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l91oSQ2LS8 Racine was named the second-worst place for black people to live, but some in Racine don’t believe racism exists here. That’s why we started the Race in Racine podcast. Racism — whether overt or covert — is such a complex problem that people have become blind to it. So in this very first episode […]