Category Archives: Milwaukee Education

SDC: Scandal, Deception, Chaos plagues the Social Development Commission.

Posted by Wonder Woman on

SDC:  Scandal, Deception, Chaos plagues the Social Development Commission.

Taking a closer look at the largest poverty resource agency in Wisconsin and their accountability in Milwaukee.

SDC, The Social Development Commission has come under fire lately for some of its practices, spending, and accountability.

Suppose I were to tell you Governor Scott Walker used and flew in the most expensive consultants from Michigan, treated his staff to aromatherapy, lavish parties with expensive menus and party frills, provided dental and mental health evaluations for administration and his staffers, okayed first-class flights for incoming consultants, and despite having qualified staff, used outside contractors costing the state $633,999 you would be outraged! Recall would be eminent.

This is exactly what is going down at SDC right now.

The Journal Sentinel too has reported on some unsettling discrepancies within SDC. One example being that $20,000 was spent training the board on new policy governance which the board untimely did not use because the policy change gave the CEO way too much power with little oversight. $20,000 up in smoke! Imagine if a government official did this. There would be outrage and recalls and heads would roll. But SDC kept on moving with very little mention of this waste. Money that could have been used for the poor, money desperately needed in these tough economic times. Debacles like this are of the utmost importance to us especially in the Black community because we depend on these services heavily to help make ends meet or to survive at all. With the Black unemployment rate being so high in Milwaukee, the services that SDC provide are critical to inner city families, single parent homes, and the elderly.

Some of the assistance SDC provides are Head Start, service to the elderly, energy assistance, tax preparation services, Wisconsin Works, Ways to Work, and the W-2 emergency assistance to families to list a few. Some of their programs have been suspended or ended because of financial issues or in the case of Ways to Work, too many delinquent accounts caused the program to collapse. They service a good number of people who desperately need these resources to stay alive literally. They also have other programs designed to strengthen the family, assist those who need help for addiction education, and sponsorship of programming for the community by the community.

Money is scarce and to waste thousands to hundreds of thousands is unconscionable.

SDC has come under fire because of their accountability, releasing an internal audit showing many flaws in the agency’s bookkeeping and accounting specifically. Some issues are being corrected like filing for charitable non-profit status, others still await attention. These flaws directly impact the monies available to the poor, keep possible donors from giving to the organization, and question the group’s commitment and intergrity to the community the agency claims to serve religiously.

SDC’s CEO, Deborah Blanks defends the agency’s practices and activities. She oversees $54 million dollars of SDC’s budget. Her current salary is $144,000. That is quite a hefty salary for an anti-poverty agency CEO. Some board members including Fred Royal Jr. (and remember that name), defend Blanks and SDC’s actions and believe this is a media attack, but is he right? Not in the least bit!! It is called accountability and caring about the very community we see as needing protection from predators that see agencies like SDC as stomping grounds for their cavalier lifestyles. No Mr. Royal Jr. this is not an attack, this is called protecting our fellow neighbor in need.

Using the same analogy with Governor Walker in the opening, we in the Black community would have been outraged! To know that a poverty agency tasked to help a sadly growing number of poor in Milwaukee seeing fit to spend money without caution or best practices is even worse. It is almost criminal. Our lack of outrage is also very upsetting to me. Reading the Milwaukee Community Journal the other day, the “Question of the Day” responses had no problems with the revelations of the SDC. I personally was sickened by it. Sometimes I think we forget about others and as long as we have been helped, who cares? We need to care! We can no longer live by the code that “I got mine, better get yours” mentality. People made fun of those lined up last week in preparation for the WE Energy moratorium lift but why is that funny? Regardless of our judgment of those people, they still needed assistance. Families needed energy and electricity and so we should laugh at their plight not truly knowing what their plight may be? This is what I saw constantly in the last weeks posted in social media chat rooms and networks, judgment and laughter. When one thinks of it, we may never know when that person we laugh at may be one of us.

Promise and Hope

Courageously some of the SDC board members have spoken out against the waste and lack of good oversight in SDC programming. They think it could run more efficiently and provide better service to more of the poor if the SDC would get its act together. They are actively seeking resolution to the issues facing the organization. Just by their courage to voice their concerns, change is eminent I pray.

SDC is no stranger to controversial spending and unfair practices. For example some summers ago during a scorching hot heat wave, SDC board members gave away air conditioners to family and friends instead of the elderly it was supposed to give them to. Some of these elderly people died in that heat wave. SDC was slapped on the hand but no one saw jail time. In fact one of those who did this went on to be honored as a community hero. I won’t name the person since they have left this earth and cannot defend themselves.  Another board member who did this is still in public service and was never reprimanded for her role in this scheme. Those who remember this horrific episode know exactly who I am referring to. It has been over a decade now and this board is not that same board. However with the board at odds with SDC practices, one wonders how SDC can serve the poor until it cleans its fiscal house? Blanks, who has held this position an adequate amount of time, allowed for these issues to fester causing possible loss of funding. She oversaw the hiring of someone unqualified by SDC standards to manage a program minus a degree the position required, and bends the rules as she sees fit.  Exactly how long do we continue to let her and those who agree with her to manage $54 million dollars if they have proven they are not good stewards of the poor and defenseless? Maybe SDC needs to clean house altogether.

Where SDC is at Now

As it stands SDC stands to loose its funding for Head Start and will have to bid on the program. This program serves over 3000 children and was designed to help little ones reach their maximum potential. The end result is to have these children at the same learning potential as their counterparts that we find are already at or above national kindergarten standard abilities. These kids need Head Start and without it or some type of programming similar to it will face a terrible uphill climb alone.

As an aside even President Obama is working to fix Head Start as many educators and experts in early learning education have reported that Head Start has become an outdated and an ineffective program that needs major reworking. President Obama has assigned a task force and finances to help the Federal program retool its curriculum and revise its outcomes-based goals to once again better meet the needs of those in the program. Locally many area daycares and childcare centers are no longer using the Head Start Program because of the inadequacy of the curriculum and are now using alternative educational methods that have shown aggressive and proven results preparing young ones to compete and excel at a much higher level once they reach school age.

Back to SDC

SDC’s board is comprised of 18 members, 6 members from community agencies, 6 members from the community at large, and 6 members holding public office. Two member positions remain vacant at present. For board member information see the inserted link:

http://www.cr-sdc.org/About/BoardofCommissioners.htm

The Executive Team:

http://www.cr-sdc.org/About/ExecutiveTeam.htm

Some board members say SDC would be more efficient if it was accountable and transparent in its business practices. It needs to hold program directors accountable to acceptable standards, and spend wisely. As we all know given this economy, agencies like SDC are overwhelmed with the number of those in need. They are the first responders for poverty assistance and need to take this position with more seriousness now more than ever before.

Family we need to be the advocates for the poor always. What is going on at SDC needs to be addressed immediately and vigorously. The poor in our community depend on us to be their voice as they find ways to stay above water. This means contacting SDC and being vigilant about SDC’s progress in dealing with their accountability issues. No more first class flights or aromatherapy, this is money better spent helping more people find resources to make ends meet. As it is often said silence is compliance. Let us voice loudly our concern for the poor and helpless. Let us make SDC a more reliable source in the fight against poverty and show compassion in its work.

For more about SDC and contact information lease visit the link below.

http://www.cr-sdc.org/index.htm

Peace Family,

WW

Calling All Civil Rights Leaders Past & Present in Milwaukee

Posted by Wonder Woman on

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns….

Calling All Civil Rights Leaders in Milwaukee

“We Are The Drum – A Rhythm In Wisconsin” – 2012

Since 1990, CAPITA Productions (City At Peace In The Arts) founded by Brother Booker Ashe and others has been presenting a Black History Program yearly for thousands in the Greater Milwaukee Area. 

This year we are adding a very special and overdue segment which will celebrate those brave marchers and demonstrators, from all backgrounds, who risked their lives for the cause of civil rights, especially in Milwaukee. It will be a dramatic reenactment of the Underground Railroad, prominent in the Waukesha area; the escaped slave Joshua Grover, and Fr. Jim Groppi’s “March on Milwaukee”.

For 200 consecutive nights hundreds marched for open housing through rain, snow and fear of physical attacks. These heroes have not been properly honored until now. Their stories should be known by our youth as well as everyone in Milwaukee and across the nation.

We are calling on those who lived this experience to share their stories with us in special listening sessions on Tuesday, November 15th and Wednesday November 16th from 5 pm to 8 pm and again November 19th from 10 am to 1 pm. We will meet at North Division Room #102, 1011 West Center Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We are looking for all those who participated in the demonstrations, served on the NAACP Youth Council, Commandos, and all organizations that led or joined in some way, the historic Milwaukee’s Civil Rights Movement.

If you are interested in attending and would like more information please call 414-397-8661 or email arsmusic00@aol.com. (zero, zero). Otherwise we would love to see you at the meetings. Please share this announcement with everyone. We want to make sure we honor and thank you for your courage and brave acts that moved Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the nation so powerfully.

Thank you,

CAPITA Productions

An excerpt taken from

The Selma of the North:

Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Patrick D Jones

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

“We Are The Drum – A Rhythm In Wisconsin” – 2012 Show Dates:

 

Public Shows:

Fri, Feb. 24th, Sat., Feb. 25th, Fri. Mar. 3rd & Sat., Mar. 4th at 7:30 pm-

Tickets will go on sale on Dec. 1st

Student Shows:

The dates are: Tues. Feb.21st, Wed, Feb. 22nd, Mon., Feb.27th

 & Wed. Feb. 29th at 10am & 12 pm. tickets are $4 per child.

For more info on the student shows, call Liz Coleman- 414-807-7322

You can find more about CAPITA by visiting us on our Facebook Page

www.facebook.com/pages/Capita-Productions

or Twitter @CAPITAProd

Ribs, Recalls, and Reality. Milwaukee Blacks Wined & Dined for Votes!

Posted by Wonder Woman on

Ribs, Recalls, and Reality

August 2nd the group “Wisconsin Jobs Now” held a barbecue with free prizes and food aimed at potential Black voters in a part of the highly contested district of Alberta Darling who is facing Sandy Pasch. The effort fed people then took them to vote absentee afterwards. This activity is being questioned as to its legality since bribery is forbidden in our voting process. However these tactics have never stopped groups like ACORN or Citizen Action of Wisconsin and others from bribing people, namely Blacks in the past. Remember the “Smokes for Votes” in the Gore/Bush presidential race? In 2000, Connie Milstein of New York, provided homeless Milwaukeeans cigarettes in exchange for their “Democratic” support/vote. She was fined $5000 for her lethal campaign. Subsequently, the Milwaukee Police Department released a damning report about the state of voting and election fraud in Milwaukee city. The report exposed voting fraud in Milwaukee and the lack of action to thwart these attempts from either the Government Accountability Board or Milwaukee’s Election Commission.

But here we are again, Black folk whoring out the tiny bit of Darling’s district that is Black not for cigarettes but ribs. FOR RIBS? Seriously? And you wonder why people want to see ID’s? We didn’t sell out for jobs (because Pasch helped them get away), not for OUR community (because she had to use a GPS tracker to find us), not to say sorry about not honoring those college tuition reimbursements Doyle and her party trotted out last time and NEVER delivered on. I guess she figured the best she could do was offer a healthy “alternative” in ribs and hope to smooth over the whole “jobs /college thing” as if it was no big damn deal. Yes she does have direct ties to these organizations so she might as well have helped Speed Queen glaze the ribs herself!

Darling took the hardline and stood with Walker on the Collective Bargaining agreement. There is no need to rehash the events that followed. There is a need to point out all that has come from the historic votes and events that occurred thereafter.

  • Schools and local municipalities that did not make back door agreements with unions saw unexpected savings in their budgets. Those schools no longer were forced to work with WEA Trust, the union entity that charged extreme premiums for healthcare plans. With this savings they are now able to keep positions that were once on the chopping block, re-fund extinct or soon to be extinct programs.
  • Union members did not voluntarily sign up for memberships like we were told they would which showed that many union members were forced into the unions and when offered the chance to keep their memberships, they opted out. The unions are now going door to door begging and pleading for payments and union dues.
  • Walker also caught a break because Illinois chose to go the route our Democratic leadership wanted us to take, that being the route of tax hikes and increased fees. Businesses from all over Illinois are flocking to Wisconsin for relief and therefore bringing jobs, a healthy tax base, and prosperity to our state.
  • Our new found popularity across the nation also increased tourism and filed the hotels and attractions. Guess folks wanted to see what the hell is wrong with Wisconsin. They came for the fight but stayed for the after party!!
  • Homeowners and tax payers are not seeing increases in services and instead are able to depend on at least a few more years of financial freedom from a ridiculous tax burden.
  • We began to pay our debts to neighboring states and replenish the Dem/Pasch raped Patient Health Care Fund that the Dems had no intention of paying back.
  • For the months of May to June, Wisconsin created over 9000 jobs and voted to extend unemployment. We did good!

However Sandy Pasch and the Dems would have you to believe Wisconsin is a doomed forbidden rotting wasteland! That is simply not the case. We are moving FORWARD!!! If not than why would Lena Taylor and the 14 fleeing Dems support Milwaukee’s new cadillac streetcar if we were so desolate and forsaken? Because we can!! (Although to me that is still debatable.) You don’t see them out there screaming to the world that Wisconsin is closed for business right now. No more “Ed Show” or MSNBC fame and fortune. You want to know why that is? In part because it is tourism season and that is taboo. Secondly, they just do not have  the factual evidence to support such nonsense! They would be telling a lie even they could not get away with.

Pasch is part of the old Doyle regime of tax and spend until it hurts, and then tax some more. Her recall effort was to stick, jab and duck. She never discussed her insane voting record that inferred she never had a thought of her own and was void of any deep leadership qualities. Darling on the other hand takes it on the chin and keeps fighting. She has proposed legislation for our seniors and for our kids. Among her many battles she has proven herself a gladiator in the good old boys Wisconsin boxing ring.

Sandy is in this for Sandy alone. Let’s not get it twisted. She has not shown a care for us and nor will she ever. Darling, she is a politician. I am not a fool, but she has shown support across the aisle and across Lake Drive and her record speaks to that. Pasch went on all the radio shows and line for line recited her script of how Alberta Darling was the “devil incarnate” and how she would be the savior of us all.

Who wants to go back to the past Ms. Pasch? Please answer that question. And Mr. Ingram cannot help you answer; this one is all on you. Depleted funds, owing other states so we become like Obama and crew owing the Asians, taxing businesses to demise, raiding funds, small Black business owners not having any power or finances to fight for what’s left of the inner city, not making good on promises to OUR youth to get them into college. Sure we want to go back to that place. That and a plate of ribs to go please and thank you! NOT!

To the little part of Darling’s district that is Black; did you sell out your vote? Who thought getting a plate of ribs was worth their integrity? Did you bother to ask whitey if he would reimburse those college tuitions like he promised us? Or did you just do a little happy dance and smile for the white cameras, eating your barbeque like good little negro soldiers? Or did you take your plate and get on the bus, no questions asked? If it had been Walker or Darling would you have screamed racism? Since it was the Dems they got the Black access pass? I guess 2012 will bring us malt liquor or Icecube and Coors? What y’all want next time? Fried chicken from JJ’s? They will get it for you as long as you keep delivering your souls/votes and never cash in on the promises they make over and over again.

Black people, I am telling you we are worth more than cigarettes and the ribs we took in exchange for our pride and self-worth. We deserve better from both parties but going back to what was, is not sending a message to anyone other than our pocket books. A vote for Pasch to get back at Scott Walker won’t be felt until many years from now if at all. If you had been waiting to get payback, maybe taking a minute or two to see what was and what is, could benefit you and me. You don’t have to trust me; the facts are issued by the state and the feds. Even Obama is hanging his hat on us to save his own behind. You calling him a liar? Investigate for yourselves and be freed!! The numbers do not lie, the countless businesses moving here do not lie, and the school districts no longer beholden to their beloved unions do not lie. We are mending a broken Wisconsin.

Is there more work that needs to be done, hell yes!! We didn’t defeat Evilina and can now start singing “Can you feel a brand new day…” We are not there yet. We have only just begun, but we have to pledge our allegiance to us and not to the mighty “unions inc!” who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the state to get their cookies back. If you do not like the Koch brothers, than you should really hate the fact that unions spent all this money to get back their playground at your expense. Think about it…The 2012 elections are right around the corner and if the unions had this much for small potato recalls in one battle ground state, something’s burning and it ain’t the ribs evidently. They had too much damn money, more than any Koch, more than Scott Walker, more than Darling or the others facing recalls, more than the entire state put together! That is a lot of power and money. If we were facing reality we would be honest and say maybe Scott Walker, on this one issue, had a point. Say it in secret and watch how good it feels to actually be stating a truth. Maybe you will join me and start saying it out loud. Watch out now!!

Seems we just do not want to admit our wrongs. What are you afraid of? Lena Taylor won’t like you? We might catch a break? You might not have to pay more for wheel taxes and photo ID fees and whatever else they can think to tax or increase? In this case whether you like the man or not, Walker made the right choice and fought the right enemy, so did Alberta Darling and so did all those who stood their ground in the face of a most nasty political fight. We are still here. Don’t let the ribs take you back to ground zero. Hell Speed Queen ain’t even that good anymore. It certainly is not worth my vote. If you are going to wine me and dine me, it’s got to be steak or lobster and nothing short of that will suffice.

Now let’s continue this movement and walk in reality and leave the ribs and the other white man’s poisons alone and get together on this road to recovery. We can do this but it takes some healthy discourse and not the crap spewed all over the TV, the radio, the billboards, and everywhere else the unions, Pelosi, and the Dems think we be at. We are not owned and the unions have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that they have been sucking us dry for far too long. They are the evil rich!! Now it is time to give them a reality check and give this governor the okay to keep moving in the current direction. And to be perfectly clear (for those of you who seem to want to tie me on the man’s buttock constantly) I am not in agreement with Walker 100%. We got work to do on him, but moving backwards to prove a point is not the answer.

Reality vs. Ribs? Which one will win? I hope at least y’all had the beef ribs or did you partake of the swine?

Peace Family,

WW

PS….A BIG THANK YOU to all those who came out to support the Frederick Alexander Meade event. More to come but I could not rush that piece. It was too significant to be rushed. It was historic, magnificent, sealed and anointed by God and thank you to The Milwaukee Drum and Earl Ingram for giving me the tools to help get the event its proper due. Thank you Milwaukee!! WE did it, YOU did it, Meade indeed did it!!

 

For more information on the Ribs for Votes Debacle:

http://maciverinstitute.com/2011/08/free-bbq-and-prizes-for-voters-raise-questions-of-legality-collusion/

Chief Flynn Invokes Chief Brier To Curb Crime In The Inner City

Posted by Wonder Woman on

 

Chief Flynn Invokes Chief Brier To Curb Crime In The Inner City

First off, glad to be back! WW was a little ill. BUT I’M BACK and I got Issues!

40 years after Ernest Lacy was murdered and Milwaukee is right back to stopping young black men for no apparent reason!!

I guess those lessons we learned, those marches we marched where for naught!

Remembering Our Painful Past

July 9, 1981 Ernest Lacy was murdered by 5 policemen along Wisconsin Avenue one summer night. He was accused by the officers of raping someone in the neighborhood. Long story short, they beat and choked him to death. After months of a heated court trial and a city on the edge, the jury bravely found the officers negligent and having abused their power, to which then Chief Harold Brier blasted the jury of everything but treason. Some say he even put them on his hit list for his troops to pay special attention too!

Needless to say those of us who survived the Brier years know all too well the power of the MPD and the lives lost or forever altered by a split second decision of a sad human being on a power trip. That being said, I mention all of that to remind us firstly of Ernest Lacy. NEVER FORGET!!

Secondly, I wish sometimes these young people could have experienced those times and what it means to have civil rights which most of them seem to enjoy without any respect or acknowledgement of the sacrifices by our elders, some who are still among us (HINT: Young People… it’s not too late to show a little gratitude). I wish I could take each one of them back to that place on Wisconsin Avenue, back to that night and have them look into Ernest’s eyes as he lay in the paddy wagon taking his last breaths, not knowing what he had done wrong, or why he was treated like an animal and to see those images of what they did to an innocent man. I wish I could take them back to those marches where Commander McGee and Howard Fuller filled the city square with our community to call for justice and civil rights. We had had enough of the Milwaukee Police Department killing and harassing us. Reminiscent of the protest chants, “We fired up we ain’t takin’ no mo!!”

Now moving from Milwaukee’s bloody past we fast forward to today 2011, 40 years later. Thanks to our current Chief Edward Flynn with his carefully placed MPD traps speed and other, we are headed right back down that racist road.

So I guess sadly my wish is coming true about teaching young people about civil rights, but not quite in the way I had envisioned it and I pray no one gets hurt. So read this and pass it along. If you have young people out there driving, you might want to remind them that all it takes is one angry officer and an itchy trigger finger (or in Lacy’s case, a gang bang), a young person with no knowledge or reference of their civil liberties and what happens when they are taken away, and a hot summer night and we are back to Ernest Lacy days for sure. We are not very far removed from those times no matter what anyone wants to think. All it takes is one incident, one violent act, one death, one beating, one lost son or daughter, one outraged parent and community, one egomaniacal officer. Think about it!

What’s Going On?

In the last few weeks North Avenue from Sherman Blvd to RiverWest has looked like District 3 headquarters with squad cars, motorcycle cops, biking and walking beat cops all lined up to take you down (you being the young black man in most cases that I personally witnessed). That would be fine with me if the police were just doing their job innocently, but as I noticed and others have shared, it is beginning to look like a racial profiling pit stop with young brothers lined up all along on the curbs of North Avenue. I am sure other heavily traveled areas where young Black men are known to frequent are looking the same way. Yes I am saying it. It stinks of racism and racial profiling, just another side effect of living in a segregated society.

DWB (Driving While Black) is in Effect in Milwaukee!!

But how much of the blame do we share?

I have had this debate with other JustUs League Members and I can’t say that it is not a valid argument to say we bring some of this on ourselves. Our young people can act like real asses on any given night. North and Teutonia looks like the Fast and the Furious on the weekends and how do they get those fancy cars and fuel in this economy? What am I missing? I thought we were broke and jobless, but somehow these young people, attitudes, filthy mouths and all, manage to run their cars up and down the streets for hours every weekend. Not to mention the loud systems and fits! They are suited and booted, but how?

Could it be that we as a community have let our kids get so out of hand that they are now only controllable by the police? For example, I see these young girls out here wearing the shortest of shorts and cleavage that leaves little to hide so somebody is not parenting their kids. Young people are running our malls, our neighborhoods and we have become scared to talk to them at all. When is the last time we had a town hall meeting with our young people, made them come and have it out with them?

Could it be that we have been so blind-sided living in a hyper segregated culture that we don’t even think twice about police pulling over a high number of young Blacks? It looks normal to us. We have become sheep. Or could it be we need more evening activities for our young people that will be under attended and underfunded? Where is the church in all this mess? What happened to evangelization and reaching out to our young people? Yes there are many ways you could go with this debate but here we are 1981-2011, all around the world, the same song right?

It’s bad enough our Black legislators passed laws that help our law enforcement make it easier to stop us. Someone tell me why it is okay to give tickets for not wearing seat belts in cars but you can ride your motorcycle anywhere without a helmet? How fair is that? Thanks to Hupy Law Offices, no legislator in their right mind will touch a motorcyclist or they will loose their campaign funding! So much for our Black Reps standing with us! NOT!

In any case I hope you are seeing this too and we need to call it out before someone gets hurt or the young people push back. They don’t know any better and often take their civil liberties and their rights for granted. Why did we not teach them about our bloody past? Maybe they would be more likely to be active in the community of they knew that Black folk where hung right in Cathedral Square, maybe they would be more appreciative of their lives now if they knew of Ernest and the brothers and sisters that were beaten, raped, murdered at the hands of someone who chose to take away their civil rights. Maybe our teachers need a lesson or two because statistically they don’t know this history to teach it and white folks did a great job of removing our painful past from most archives and libraries.

Do you think police are pulling over young white men in the same volume? I DON”T THINK SO! But for various reasons we are easy targets. I just hope that we don’t become targets of violence. However we have seen what can happen when racial profiling gets out of control and you have police who may think their badge is a safe haven for abusing their power. They are no longer public servants; they are a military ops force that may get out of control if we don’t start to shine the light on the tactics Milwaukee Police used in the past and are using now.

Drive safe, legally, and stay cool headed. You can fight the battle another day. The streets are not the place to hold court. The way these police acted in the past few weekends that I observed these take downs are not to be messed with. They almost seemed to be looking for a fight. If you don’t believe me, take a drive down North Avenue on Saturday night and tell me I’m wrong. I would have taken my camera out to add video with this piece but I chose to keep moving. I’m a product of the 70’s and I saw my daddy get roughed up when I was a kid along with some real racist ish that makes me distrustful of anyone carrying a gun with a badge still to this day and I am biracial! I can only imagine what a Black person, specifically a Black man might be feeling, a post traumatic disorder of some kind easily. You’re damn right I’m cautious! I am traumatized by police brutality and its possible eruption. I will never forget the harassment my daddy received for being a Black man. Those officers were cruel, nasty, and very adversary and I have met very few good public servants in my 41 years of life that balanced out the negative ones. I know they exist but I have yet to meet many of them. And I do appreciate the work they do taking on this role and giving of their lives in some cases to protect and serve. I am not cop hater. I appreciate them very much, but all it takes is a few…

What I saw these past weekends was very concerning. Car after car, young Black men sitting on the curbs, handcuffed and legs crossed like on America’s Most Wanted or an episode of Cops, watching their cars being towed, looking dumb-founded. I couldn’t help but wonder if this is this Chief Flynn’s answer to inner city violence? Is this how he intends to get crime back down by locking us all up every weekend, much like his long ago predecessor Chief Brier?

And how will these young men pay for all these tickets, impounding fees, and the lessons and anger of dealing with unfair MPD practices? They will start to accumulate warrants and court dates that will surely keep them jobless and tied up in THE SYSTEM! Not to mention the mental trauma of going into this system that is designed to make you feel less than human. Do we really want our kids exposed to this justice system in Wisconsin? I don’t!!

That’s just my two-cents family, what’s yours?

Peace,

WW

So glad to be back among the living….Big shot out to Superman and the JustUs League for getting me back on my feet!! Jor-El you are simply the best!

Remembering Ernest Lacy

40 Years ago, we must not forget, we must teach our youth, we must honor our past and its keepers and all that we fought for…

A Friend of Ernest Recalls the Events of that Fateful Night

http://www.city-data.com/forum/milwaukee/315745-remembering-ernest-lacy.html

Time Magazine Coverage

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925014,00.html

From “Outrage to Action” (Book Excerpt)

http://books.google.com/books?id=mHDKCUBsfb4C&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=ernest+lacy+milwaukee&source=bl&ots=-bkwhz1lv3&sig=DrJn67FkeASLC7Bie45U51WA9h8&hl=en&ei=RAYCTqL4BKT50gH2-_C4Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=ernest%20lacy%20milwaukee&f=false

March on Milwaukee Project

Past controversies over the police department’s treatment of minorities are not well documented. Readers can, however, find some information in the files on Ernest Lacy and the Police Department.

http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/march/records/collections.cfm

Rev. Sharpton FBI Informant… Old News Or Relevant Today

Posted by hjacksonenterprisez on

Activist say that without doubt, Reverend Al Sharpton tried to set up for the re-capture the FBI wanted escapee/fugitive Joann Chesimard aka; Assata Shukur!

By Ron Howell, Newsday, Friday 21 October 1988

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has worked as a federal informant, tried to set up a meeting with black fugitive radical JoAnne Chesimard in 1983, according to activists who said they were approached by Sharpton.

JoAnne Chesimard

The black activists said they feared Sharpton was trying to deliver Chesimard into the arms of federal agents, but said they had no proof.

One law-enforcement source, who declined to be identified but has detailed knowledge of Sharpton’s activities as an FBI informant, said this week that Sharpton was working as an informant at the time he sought to meet Chesimard. The source said that one of Sharpton’s assignments was to try to lead agents to Chesimard, who escaped from prison in 1979 after being convicted in the killing a New Jersey state trooper.

It wasn’t a big massive operation. It was just a small shot, an everyday deal, the source said. I would equate it with setting up 10 traps a day trying to catch a fox . . . He said Sharpton was not a major participant in the search for the woman, who goes by the African name Assata Shakur.

A top FBI official said that Sharpton was not used in any manner to lure Shakur into a trap. This is the first I’m hearing of it, it’s bull———, FBI Assistant Deputy Director Kenneth Walton, who led the Shakur investigation, said earlier this week.

Sharpton flatly denied trying to make contact with Shakur.

Newsday reported in January that beginning in 1983 Sharpton secretly supplied federal law enforcement agencies with information on boxing promoter Don King, reputed organized crime figures and black leaders and elected officials. And in a two-hour interview, Sharpton admitted to Newsday that he had assisted the government in drug and organized crime cases. He said he also accompanied undercover federal agents wearing body recorders to meetings with various subjects of federal investigations. He said he had allowed the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York to install a tapped telephone in his Brooklyn home.

Sharpton has insisted he never turned over information on black radicals or on King.

This week, Sharpton denied assertions by Ahmed Obafemi, a long-time activist, and Kwame Brathwaite, an activist and photographer who says Sharpton asked him to set up an encounter with Obafemi. Both men say that Obafemi acted as the intermediary in the failed discussions with Sharpton to reach Shakur.

Sharpton called the men liars and said they were possibly police agents. He charged they are part of an element in the black community that has lost out . . . and that will fabricate any story out of jealousy because they have no following . . .

Obafemi, the national organizer for the New Afrikan People’s Organization, said Sharpton met with him in Manhattan at least four times in 1983, over a period of about two months. He said that Sharpton offered to donate money to help black revolutionaries running from the law and that Sharpton was particularly interested in setting up a meeting with Shakur, once referred to as the soul of the Black Liberation Army.

Sharpton told Obafemi he was representing two former Black Panthers, who wanted to see Shakur, according to Obafemi.

The ex-Panthers were supposedly trying to make useful contacts in case they had to flee the country someday, Obafemi said he was told.

The first discussion was that they were close to her, that they had been in the [Black Panther] party with her and that they wanted to talk to her, Obafemi said. I wanted to find out who they were, but he said they really didn’t want to be known.

Shakur was once a member of the Black Panther Party, but went underground around 1971 because she said she believed the group was being infiltrated by city and federal law enforcement officers.

The 1983 deal fell through at a final meeting when Sharpton insisted that money would be donated only if the two former Panthers could meet Shakur. Failing that, Obafemi said, Sharpton was interested in making any kind of contact with her or with any of her close associates also on the run from the law. Naturally, I never got back to him, said Obafemi, whose organization believes that blacks should have their own country within the United States and that they have the right to fight for it.

Obviously we had to feel that a definite possibility existed he was working for the government, and we would have felt that way about him or anybody else who approached us in that manner, said Chokwe Lumumba, an attorney and chairman of the New Afrikan People’s Organization.

Lumumba had been informed in 1983 by Obafemi about Sharpton’s proposal. The attorney said his organization was more interested in getting information about Sharpton’s motives than in receiving money from him. I can’t say that we were able to make any definite conclusions about whether Sharpton was acting as an agent for the government, Lumumba said.

Both Lumumba and Obafemi denied knowing where Shakur was at the time.

Sharpton’s first broached his interest in Shakur during a chance encounter with Brathwaite, a black nationalist, Brathwaite said. Brathwaite said he happened to run into Sharpton one day in midtown but he could not remember the month. Already acquainted with each other from entertainment circles, the two men started talking and Sharpton said he wanted to make a donation to Assata, Brathwaite said.

A day or two later, Brathwaite told Obafemi of the offer. I told him to watch out, said Brathwaite. I knew that authorities were trying to find out where she [Assata Shakur] was and that they were trying to get close to somebody who was close to her . . . And then I just knew that he’s always been a hustler.

Last year, Newsday disclosed that Shakur was given political asylum in Cuba and was living there with her daughter, now 14 years old. She is probably the most sought-after of the 1970s radicals linked to bank robberies and police killings over a 10-year span.

The specific amount of the contribution Sharpton said he was prepared to make in 1983 on behalf of the ex-Panthers was not discussed, Obafemi said; but Sharpton said the prospective contributors gained the money by ripping off the system, Obafemi recalled.

He said that at least two of the meetings occurred in a luxurious apartment at 30 Lincoln Plaza, near Lincoln Center. That was the building where, according to a law enforcement source and a report published in the Feb. 2, 1988 edition of The Village Voice, a federal agent using the name Victor Quintana set up an apartment in 1983 or earlier to lure boxing world denizens suspected of illegal activity. Quintana in that year ensnared Sharpton into working for the FBI, New York Newsday reported in January.

The Village Voice article reported that apartment was on the 29th floor, but Obafemi could not recall the floor on which he had his rendezvous with Sharpton. Sharpton lives in Brooklyn and Obafemi said he did not explain why Sharpton had access to the apartment. He made me think it was his, said Obafemi. I was saying (to myself), ’What kind of money must they have to have a spot in here.’ He had the keys and everything.

Sharpton denied this week ever being in the building.

Obafemi said that up until 1983 he knew Sharpton only as the head of a youth organization, the National Youth Movement, and as someone with vague connections in the entertainment world.

Obafemi is the ex-husband of Nehanda Obafemi, once known as Cheri Laverne Dalton, who is still wanted by the federal government in connection with the notorious Brink’s robbery which took place seven years ago yesterday. She is allegedly connected to the group of black and white revolutionaries convicted in the Brink’s heist. A guard and two police officers were killed in that incident, which took place upstate near Nyack.

In 1983, Obafemi was busy trying to gain support in the black community for the people arrested in the Brink’s case. In October of that year, several blacks and whites were convicted in that robbery and in the highly planned breakout of Shakur from prison in 1979.

The law enforcement source implicating Sharpton in the hunt for Assata Shakur said that Sharpton was also, secondarily, trying to help agents get other fugitives, especially Mutulu Shakur, who was still on the run at that time. Mutulu Shakur, no relation to Assata, was later apprehended and convicted in connection with the Brink’s robbery and the escape of Assata Shakur.

Robert E. Kessler contributed to this story.

[***The following appeared in the City version***Brathwaite is the brother of Elombe Brath, an official of a black nationalist organization called the Patrice Lumumba Coalition. Brath and several associates have been opposed to Sharpton because of his FBI ties. ]

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