(Photo by Adam Carr)
Venice Williams is the director of Alice’s Garden and The Body & Soul Healing Arts Center. A lay minister, teacher, healer, and facilitator who works to improve the lives of young people, formerly incarcerated people and others in the central city, Williams says the recent violence in Sherman Park is not about the incident that sparked it.
Each night, I put my head on my pillow with city sirens as my background music. Last night, it was a symphony.
Let us be clear: the “unrest” in this city began decades ago. Throughout my 27 years of serving this city consistently, even when flawed, I have been holding spaces for healing, bridge building, supporting small businesses and dreams, training a new workforce, challenging systems, nurturing families, strengthening girls, fostering healthy passages for brown and black boys. They are spaces that encourage naming, not labeling; spaces that set tables of dignity in the midst of a broken humanity.
If we are to be honest on this Sun Day, where truth should illuminate, we must confess, we have not all been about the same business. As I have been about the work I am called to do, others have constructed more unaffordable housing in neighborhoods, where people who look like me could, once upon a time, afford to live. Others have deconstructed life-supporting employment and reconstructed a system of welfare that will continue to cripple generations of urban families. Funding for incarceration increased alongside decreased resources for holistic, artistic public education for our children. Even some of the leaders and organizations our urban village birthed and trusted, lost track of their mandate.
Earlier this year, I invited the community to gather at The Body and Soul Healing Arts Center to revisit the film “Crash.” The center sits in the Sherman Park neighborhood and is home to many incredible organizations that hold events, programs, classes and conversations that foster a more robust, vibrant Milwaukee. I am honored to midwife that space.
My appeal to come gather and view “Crash,” and then join a conversation co-facilitated by Adam Carr and me, was made with a clear understanding that unrest was stirring in our neighborhoods. The matches had already been struck and the fire was being flamed. That which is illuminated should not have to be torched for pertinent attention to be paid and rightful action to be taken.
Calm is the absence of confrontation. So much needs to be confronted in this city and in this nation. Yet, it is systems, not property, that need to be “burnt down.” We are capable of confronting without being violent and destructive but we can no longer be calm. We have been restless for a long time; too long. What happened in Milwaukee Saturday night has very little to do with yesterday’s shooting of a black man by a police officer. Although participants chose a distressing way to express their frustration and anger and I do not agree with the choices made, the folks who awakened the city of Milwaukee last night did not strike the first match. Those matches were struck decades ago and the flames have been fed by policy and power, racism and classism, apathy and intentionality. Let something purposeful rise from the ashes.
I LEFT MILWAUKEE IN 1972 I WAS 15 AND LIVED BETWEEN LLOYD AND BROWN ON N 33ST. THIS IS NOT A SKEPTIC TALKING HERE, I AM JUST IGNORANT OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THIS AREA, YOU MENTION HOUSING, AND OTHER THINGS ONE. WHY HAS NOT THE CITY SEEN THESE PROBLEMS WHY HAS NOT THE JOB SITUATION BEEN ADDRESS. AND 2 WHY DOES NOT THE COMMUNITY GET TOGETHER AND SPEAK AS ONE BY VOTING. BUT I REALLY KNOW YOU ARE PROBABLY VERY OCCUPIED AT THIS TIME BUT PLEASE REFER ME TO A WEB PAGE OR SITE OR BLOG THAT CAN GIVE ME A INSIDE LOOK AT HOW THIS HAS COME ABOUT. WHEN YOU HAVE A MOMENT . THANK YOU AND I WILL PRAY FOR THE COMMUNITY THAT I LEFT. GOD BLESS ALL WHO BRIDGE IT TOGETHER.
There should have been “ground forces” (police community relations and neighborhood groups) in this neighborhood long before Saturday night. This area has been a bubble of aggressive activity for quite some time and it has been ignored. Saturday night is just a result of lack of attention from the city, police, and community groups.
We try to revise the school systems, offer choice so that children get a better education. Yet the community stands with the unions and education continues to fail in that area. Why is the community to beholden to the teachers union and other unions and put that ahead of better education for our students. MPS is a disaster yet the community let’s it remain. Education brings opportunity. Opportunity brings jobs, food, shelter. Yet the politicians, mostly democrats, take their handouts and leave their community to crumble. Like our President, they speak of hope & change and then turn their backs on those who so desperately need their support to revise the systems, and bring justice and hope to all. The ugly monster of power controls our politicians and they turn their backs on the people. We need term limits in every facet of our government. We need to end the corruption and power grabbing and return to caring for the people of this country. Stop electing the same people who continue to fail the Milwaukee community.
Unfortunately, we all, Blacks and Whites, particularly middle-classers continue to ignore the on-going corruption by elected officials – most who have little real knowledge or concern about the state of Milwaukee, in addition inadequate intelligence regarding legislation, pro or con, re any scattered political application.
Losing a qualified MPS superintendent, ignoring Westlawn’s $83 million dollar theft, and allowing Commissioner Marcoux’s “engineering” to rip off 1/2 of the city’s $15 million dollar federal CDBG Community Development Block Grant, suggest that it’s a wonder that regular folks, Black and White, do not burn the city down.
And, sorry, but it not the police which is what those hunkering down at City Hall want folks to think. What city agency has more rules, regs and guidelines to operate by than the local gendarmes? Yet, too many of us blame them.
So don’t which is what City Hall wants people to do.
Best most of us need observe more closely who is instrumenting what and why. I am not that smart, yet a few folk do know.
A real close observation as to the who, what, why, and where the primary benefits go to may be not so surprising…especially ……oh well, best quit this rather boring rant….the opportunity is well appreciated.
One more thing….like the Quaker said to Harriet, “Keep a “Top-Eye Open,” particularly, as word gets around about more Lake Front land being for sale….
…while we all are busy, watching the cops chasing, and the fires burning….and the cutting up…
Straight Ahead,
George F. Sanders