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daniwoitkowski · 3 years

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A Closer Look at Milwaukee Zip Code 53206

After reading A Closer Look at Milwaukee Zip Code 53206, an article published in the Milwaukee Magazine in 2014, I’m ashamed of the city I currently call home.

Contained between I-43 to the east, 27th Street to the West and North Avenue and Capitol Drive to its south and north sides is one of the largest zip code areas in the city of Milwaukee. Zip code area of 53206 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is often written off as the poorest area in the largest city in the state.

An eyesore in Milwaukee, zip code 53206, is where a third of the city’s vacant lots reside. The greatest percentage, nearly 95% of its residents in zip code 53206 are African Americans. Surrounding counties implemented restrictive covenants preventing African American tenants' equal rights, which confined most African Americans to the northwestern portion of the city, or around the 53206 area. The Supreme Court ruled such covenants to be unconstitutional in 1948, they remained on the books until Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968. Milwaukee known for being one of the most segregated cities in the United States.

Warren’s Lounge on Hopkins Avenue, owned by 81-year-old Warren Harper, a “Cheers” like bar hides itself in the middle of the deserted condemned buildings. Warren and his wife, Shirley, have been married for over 59 years, with four children and multiple grandchildren. Warren and Shirley bought the lounge back in 1970. Back in the lounge’s heyday factory workers from around the area would stop in for lunch or beer relaxing after their shift. During the time when the Green Bay Packers played at county stadium, players could be regularly seen enjoying the relaxing atmosphere.

Life has changed and the lounge is not the same, feeling the pain of the abandoned factories. Even though, their children attempt to sway them into having hip-hop bands play into the addition to the jazz and blues bands that periodically play at the lounge. Life has been hard on them, however they will not close, “It’s their life.”

Wandering around 53206 tends to make people, especially white people, uneasy. Too many businesses are either closed or enclosed in metal bars and padlocks. Even with a gem like, Warren’s Lounge, can be intimidating to its visitors as you enter through the small, dark doorway hidden behind a locked heavy metal grate with a bell that must be rung for entry.

Opportunities seem to climb and decline rapidly for African Americans in Milwaukee. So, what happened?

One generation hopes and dreams becomes heavy burdens on the forgotten generations that follow. Looking past educational statures, joblessness and the crime in the areas of poverty, we need to begin looking into the history of the African American population of Milwaukee, Wisconsin at once was and why it became what it is today.

The African American population increased with the Great Migration north, which affected the African American communities in Milwaukee. Like most African American families, Warren and Shirley moved to Milwaukee in 1957 during the Great Migration in search of a better life.

The Great Migration was when millions of southern African American people migrated north for better opportunities between 1916 to 1970. Many came to Milwaukee for the ever-growing jobs with the industrial factories at the time. Families settled down bought homes in the area, new businesses opened and grew, times were good. By the 1980s, times were not so good. Factories started to close in the area and businesses started to move out of the once flourishing neighborhoods. Some people moved out to the suburbs, while the majority of the African American population stayed behind and survived.

Barbara Miner, the Milwaukee-area freelance writer, purpose in this article was to educate by showing a face to the neighborhood around the Milwaukee 53206 zip code. The article brought tears to my eyes as I read about the longevity of people who make up the community even through the absence of jobs, transportation, and sort of conveniences that those of us who live merely blocks away take for granted. Then there is the stealthy growing abandoned housing market. However, many families have still stuck around to support their community or stay for the affordable housing.

Through the article, Miner, is attempting to educate the audience on the poverty in our own city. We have created this blind spot within our own community, and we tend to forget the area’s history. We are left with the assumption that the people living in these areas have chosen their fate instead of understanding the truth behind our ignorance. It’s well known what happened in Detroit after the auto industries started closing, but it is not known how the same affects had and still affects so many in our own city.

Beauty exists, such as with Dr. Carter, a retired Pharmacist who continues to go back and visit his community passing along trusted remedies to his neighborhood residents. Dr. Carter broke down barriers back in 1968 after he founded one of first Milwaukee black owned pharmacies. Now after selling his pharmacy, Dr. Carter can still be found at the store as a consultant in natural remedies.

Yet the media has forgotten about this area as though it doesn’t exist except for the inquiries pertaining to shootings in the area. The problem, or exigence, here is with the ignorance surrounding this forgotten and disregarded area of our city. I begin to ask myself, why do we have such a blind eye with our own neighboring areas? I wonder how the decline to industry in the city of Milwaukee and the poverty relates to the poverty that was created with the auto crisis in Detroit. I would have liked to see more of the information we read from the A Closer Look at Milwaukee Zip Code 53206 article on the non-existence of corporate businesses and declining public transportation and after school programs ties into the jobless market that intertwine in the poverty rates in these areas.

Current circumstances in 53206 go deeper than the loss of factories and that the jobs in the area.

“There’s investment out there, and there are jobs. But they’re in New Berlin or Waukesha. There’s no bus, so how are people going to get there?” (2015, Jan 28)

Perceptions have also been made that the housing bubble was the issue that affected people in this area, and they were of the many that shouldn’t have bought a home in the first place. However, a lot of families that lost their homes in 53206 were long-time owners.

Miner goes on to talk with a group of students from North Division High School who are studying zip-code-53206. Miner gathered their thoughts on how they feel about the area and what they would want people to know about the area, some of which that were mentioned as follows:

“Notice that we are here, that, like you, we are human, and we deserve the same things you want.”

“The police, I can’t explain it, but they don’t like black people.”

“It ain’t got no future.”

“Nothing’s going to change, ’cause nobody cares.”

Unfortunately, conditions such as the few mentioned have contributed to demolish government help enabling people to believe such areas are beyond any genuine rehabilitation, deeming the area in the past too black and ghetto.

Poverty is so much more then people just making bad choices or the wrong decisions in life. The purpose of the rhetors with this medium explain how trauma that stems from poverty begin way before one can make their own choices in life.

Regardless, parents in 53206 want the same things as any other parent anywhere in the world wants. We want our children to be safe, happy and a better childhood than we had. Is there anything wrong with the hope that our children grow up without the worry of crime surrounding them or to be able to go through school without bullying? We all want hope for the future.

Whether we live in Milwaukee or not we can relate to the exigences mentioned in the life cycle of the Great Migration and African Americans in Milwaukee mentioned, you cannot deny the purpose. The effects of poverty have an impact with your entire life, from childhood on through your adult life and passed on through the next generations. We become our parents, our community, our surroundings. We are what we are familiar with whether it be hiding money for emergencies like those who lived through the Great Depression to as unknowingly as our dialect or accent we commonly use day to day. If raised in poverty the traumatic affects you would carry through life, even if you leave those surroundings, the effects remain.

For Milwaukee, the future needs to bring education on the history of the African American population. Milwaukee doesn’t give the same possibilities to the people in the now poverty areas affected by the industrial decline. Such possibilities as, public transportation to give access to jobs and convenience stores, such as Wal-Mart or even McDonalds. Overlooking the truth and ignorance of the past never helped humanity in the future.

Source Cites:

Barbara Miner, Milwaukee. (2015, Jan 28). A Closer Look at Milwaukee Zip Code 53206. 1/28/2015 https://www.milwaukeemag.com/milwaukee-zip-code-53206/

Reggie Jackson, Milwaukee Independent. (2019, Apr 19). REGGIE JACKSON: REMEMBERING A TIME WHEN 53206 WAS KNOWN AS A LOVING COMMUNITY TO GROW UP IN. 4/19/2019 http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/featured/reggie-jackson-remembering-time-53206-known-loving-community-grow/

Dan Schneider, Dollars & Sense. (2015, Nov/Dec). The Worst Place in the US to Be Black Is... Wisconsin 11/2015 http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2015/1115schneider.html

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daniwoitkowski · 3 years

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What is Black Twitter?

Social media has become more ingrained in our daily lives, especially now during the Covis-19 pandemic where we had to embrace alternate ways.

Twitter is a platform that purpose is to spread information fast, short content for our tech-heavy, attention-deficit modern world. Unlike Facebook such as you're hanging out in your own living room, you can catch up with friends and can still guard your privacy. Twitter would be more like bar scene where people talk to strangers, drop one-liners, and engage with personalities from all walks of life.

Twitter is the only social network where everyone is on an unrestricted even playing ground for concise communication. Twitter, along with other social media platforms has made leaps and bounds toward correcting social injustice through movements and cultural trends through hash tags, such as ones used especially by black tweeters who circumvent traditional channels to get their voices heard.

Black Twitter is one such channel that can be defined as a network where culturally connected people attempting to draw attention to issues in black communities. It’s not a separate platform from Twitter, it’s a community within the Twitter platform to draw attention to and for black people. What’s important to understand is that black people found a way to use social media to change the world. From civil rights movements or presidential elections to simply people loving, creating, thinking and commenting, it’s all there right at your fingertips.

Countries have been overthrown, careers have begun and ended, based around events on social media platforms. Unfortunately, Twitter like every other social media platform is full of anti-black trolling, along with many other racist contents. As a result, some black people were seeking refuge in more controlled spaces.

What is the origin of Black Twitter? Honestly this one is different depending on who you ask. One source mentioned that It all started in a newsroom not too far from Walt Disney World. Sometime around 1992-1993, Barry Cooper a sports reporter for the Orlando Sentinel taken an interest in digital media realized something in her sports coverage online (2020, May 19). Another source explains they felt that in 2010, Farhad Manjoo wrote this article called, “How Black People Use Twitter,” and the response to it on Twitter was aggressive abbreviated to “Black Twitter” (2018, Nov 28).

However, in the beginning of viral Black Twitter there were responses on such movements like the 2012 YouTube documentary pertaining to the efforts to finding kidnapped children in Ugandan. The video received over 120 millions views in days, and receiving donations towards the cause (2019, Dec 23).

Black Twitter, has hence been responsible for bringing our country’s eyes to horrifying acts against black people, such as the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Where moments after the Brown’s death witnesses to spread news of the event through the Twitter hashtags #Ferguson and #MikeBrown (2019, Dec 23).

How about in 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted for killing Trayvon Marting. Thus began the birth of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (2019, Dec 23).

During this time that we find ourselves living through Covid and practicing social distancing, social media is more vital than ever before and there is power in numbers. Black Twitter, has proven this in many ways with how it promoted ‘Black Lives Matter’ and raised awareness around the such unjudged racist deaths.

Defining Black Twitter, however, is still to be difficult to explain perhaps rightful so coming from a non-black person as myself. Do you have to be black to part of Black Twitter? Most sources I found states, you do have to be black. But is that in itself a racism answer? I think not, I am not black and cannot pretend to be black. Even though I will stand with the black movement and attempt to emphasize... I will not have the same fear walking down the street as a black person. We must not pretend racism doesn’t exist. We must acknowledge, we must educate, we must help pass along the word.

Source Cites:

David Dennis Jr. (2020, May 19). https://theundefeated.com/features/a-blessing-and-a-curse-the-rich-history-behind-black-twitter/

Lucy Turner, Logic Design. (2020, July 29). Social Media Impact on Social Movements like Black Lives Matter. https://www.logicdesign.co.uk/blog/social-media-black-lives-matter/

Donovan X. Ramsey, The Atlantic. (2015, April 10). The Truth About Black Twitter. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/the-truth-about-black-twitter/390120/

Whitelaw Reid, UVA Today. (2018, Nov 28). BLACK TWITTER 101: WHAT IS IT? WHERE DID IT ORIGINATE? WHERE IS IT HEADED. https://news.virginia.edu/content/black-twitter-101-what-it-where-did-it-originate-where-it-headed

Andre Wheeler, The Guardian. (2019, Dec 23). Ten years of Black Twitter: a merciless watchdog for problematic behavior. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/dec/23/ten-years-black-twitter-watchdog

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daniwoitkowski · 3 years

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Hidden Figures

Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, the untold truth behind the importance of women of color in NASA during the time when we were looking to the stars, literally. The book was written by Margot Lee Shetterly, later protruded on film in 2016. Margot Lee Shetterly is an American non-fiction writer who aimed to shed a light on the remarkable work that these three friends had not received public praise for, in the race to launch a man into space in from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson are three friends who work as “human” computers as labeled for the women mathematicians at NASA during the time. All three women compute complex math problems as part of a group of black women. Conditions are not ideal, as they are segregated away from the white computers and only hired on temporary basis. All three women are continuously not recognized for their hard work and under paid from not only the men but the other white women computers they work with. These women are inspiring and confidence in their abilities which is reinforced through their friendship. After a shortage with male mathematicians who could complete complex calculations, shortly after WWII federal agencies started hiring women.

A “girl” could be paid significantly less than a man for doing the same job. And male engineers, once freed from laborious math work, could focus on more “serious” conceptual and analytical projects. (2016, April 14)

These brave women were not only highly intelligent top tier minds in their field. These amazing women had to struggle through a time where the world was openly led by men and deal with segregation and white people consistently looking down on them for the color of their skin. The story highly suggests the role of “computers” were to perform the routine tasks for the benefit of the top tier white men who receive the credit. However, indications on how women were introduced into programming in science were eluded.

Johnson is selected to compute calculations for space task group having to leave the building and basically run a half mile to ‘colored ladies room’ just to relieve herself. She powerfully disputes predominantly male colleagues, while we play witness through the film watching their ignorance attempting to overcome their habituated supremacy. In reality, though the film did explicit moving scenes Johnson’s bathroom issues, Jackson was the one who had the bathroom encounters having a complaint against her for using the unlabeled white-only bathrooms. Invisible racism through unrealized white privilege is seen during the film when Johnson’s supervisor Mr. Harrison, misses judgments Johnson’s bathroom disappearances or segregated tactics from his white male employees. The progression for black women was definitely far slower and more grueling than depicted in the film. Mistreatment of minorities and women in the workplace is still can still be seen today, particularly in the ongoing pay gap debate, which the film touches on briefly.

The significance of the lack of ethnic minorities in science during this time is again highlighted when Vaughan takes it upon herself to increase her credibility and knowledge by researching IBM, however there are no such related books in the ‘black library’ and she ends up getting kicked out of the library due to the ethnic segregation in this time. Karl Zielinski: “There is another opening in the Engineer Training Program. Jackson, who had the mind of an engineer and a supervisor who inquired if she would pursue to be an engineer if she were a white male.

Mary Jackson replied: “I wouldn’t have to; I’d already be one.”

Jackson had to take certain graduate classes in mathematics and physics, which were only offered at an all-white high school at night. She had to jump through many hoops to be allowed to study there, but, eventually, she did it.

Over and over, Hidden Figures demonstrates how these amazing women, were able to ascend through NASA and it wasn’t due to their white colleagues suddenly not being racist. Their internal challenges changed amongst them since NASA’s interest for them reflected to. It might not be heartwarming, but it’s certainly realistic.

While Hidden Figures illustrates that good can overcome dismantling barriers in the pursuit of common interests, it doesn’t offer white absolution.

This story portrays the discouragement of black women displaying how completely disregarded they are with the intellect they convey to science. These were amazing and should be celebrated for the positions they held in our history. The women were beyond intelligent with humbled dispositions and only sought out for solutions. At the time of the film Katherine Johnson, the last one of the three surviving had still wondered why anyone would want to make a film about her life. Katherine Johnson passed at the age of 101 on February 24, 2020. (2016, December 6)

Cites:

Uploaded by 20th Century Studios. (2016, April 14). MARGOT LEE SHETTERLY: RESEARCH. WRITE. REPEAT. http://margotleeshetterly.com/hidden-figures-nasas-african-american-computers

Margot Lee Shetterly. (2016, December 6) Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race. William Morrow Paperbacks

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