Probing the real reason Kohls nixed downtown site

(The views expressed below are those of the writer and his alone.)

The decision of Kohls Department Stores to reject a downtown Milwaukee location for their new corporate headquarters can be read in many ways.

Some say it would be more costly to build a multi-storied structure with parking in the empty Park East Corridor as opposed to finding a more acreage in a location nearer to the company’s current Menomonee Falls offices.  Others say employees – many of whom now live in the northwest suburbs and exurbs – would find the commute difficult.

All of which may be true, and I have no way of probing the corporate mind of Kohls, which is now owned by a foreign company that has no particular allegiance to Milwaukee or Wisconsin.  Indeed, it’s sometimes feared they someday might flee to the fashion streets of New York City, where Kohls already has an office.  So maybe we should be happy the company is at least in Wisconsin, even if it’s not in our state’s largest city.

I have a lurking suspicion that something else may be behind the decision . . . and that’s image.  As I’ve heard so often from those who live and work outside of the city, they’re downright scared to enter the city limits, for fear of being mugged, raped and robbed.   Also, they find so many different people in the city; in fact in walking down Wisconsin Ave., particularly west of the river, they see few persons like themselves.  (Translation: They see too few white people among the African-Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Hmong, etc.)

Let’s not blame these suburbanites for their fear!  They hear of a steady stream of crime stories in the news, often reinforcing their view of the Central Cities from the crime shows flooding our TV channels.

What they don’t know is that much of Milwaukee is a friendly, welcoming place, perfectly safe.  What they don’t know is that these strange-looking citizens can be warm and great neighbors.  What they don’t know is that the ingredients of a vibrant city make for a sweet mix of new experiences and great memories.

Yes, Milwaukee has its problems, with a poverty rate and its consequences such as high infant mortality and boarded up houses and homelessness.  While these issues are largely seen in neighborhoods outside of downtown, they are nonetheless community issues.  We’re sorry to hear that Kohls rejected downtown as their office site – if they ever really seriously considered it – since their inclusion into the urban culture here, not far from the site of Manpower’s headquarters, might have spurred on a whole new growth of new corporate citizens for the city.

We know that a corporation like Kohls would bring great benefits to the community as a whole, and thus regret its decision not to consider the downtown site.

What disturbs us however is the thought that part of the company’s decision might have been based on plain old racism.  If that entered the thinking, even subconsciously, it shows that those of us who believe in the role of SEWIICC have a lot of work left to be done.  Ken Germanson, Feb. 17, 2012.

Lingering racism seen in nasty remarks

Criticizing the President is a great American past-time, and certainly there has been no lack of criticism toward Barack Obama. And, such criticism of a President is proper and within bounds, when it concerns policies. But the personal attacks have been something else, such as the innuendo and rumor thrown at Mr. Obama by the idiotic question of whether he was born in Kenya instead of Hawaii.

Was that not just a sly maneuver to constantly remind voters that he is black – and therefore not one of “us,” meaning a lily white person?

Now, comes Wisconsin’s 9th District Congressman James Sensenbrenner to make fun of the First Lady by saying she has a “big butt” in criticizing her commendable crusade to reduce childhood obesity. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Columnist Eugene Kane called the remark “racist,” noting that he couldn’t recall another First Lady who had ever been similarly attacked by a clearly offensive, nasty remark.  Read column.

Then there’s the story about the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a year ago ruled that there were no racial overtones when a white manager at a Tyson chicken plant in Gadsden AL called the adult black men employed there as “boy.” Now, just before Christmas, the Court has made the unusual move of reversing itself and agreeing that the term “boy” is offensively racist.  See story.

How the learned judges of the 11th Circuit in Atlanta could have dismissed the use of the word “boy” in the South as anything but hurtful to black men in the first place speaks volumes about how far this nation still has to go to understand how racist terms can hurt. How could they not know that the term “boy” connotes inferiority and enslavement itself?

The judges in the 11th Circuit are from the South, and may have grown up using the term “boy” to refer to their black neighbors. That’s still no excuse, especially for supposed educated men wearing dark robes.

Now, Rep. Sensenbrenner is a born and bred northerner, representing folks in the counties bordering Milwaukee County. He made the “big butt” remark in a small group to be sure, but it matters little that he likely would not have said it in front of a microphone. The Congressman has apologized to the First Lady but such apologies are meaningless. The fact that he said indicates what his attitude is.

Sadly, too, Rep. Sensenbrenner’s racism rests in many of us, if we’re honest about it, just as it rested in the souls of the justices of the 11th Circuit.

Some may question whether we’re merely being “politically correct” in looking to avoid the use of hurtful references of a person’s anatomy or the use of terms like “boy.” It’s more than that: it’s a basic attitude that needs to be corrected. And racist attitudes can be just as prevalent in Wisconsin as they can be in Georgia. – Ken Germanson, Dec. 29, 2011

Talk, talk, talk about poverty? Why not some action?

(Review a one-page fact sheet prepared by Martha Barry of YWCA that was presented to the SEWIICC Steering Committee for their discussion on Dec. 5.  Click here to view it.)

It’s no mystery that Milwaukee – the city, that is – is suffering terribly from the ravages of high poverty and lack of jobs.  The city ranks near the worst in both.

All we seem to do about it is talk, talk, talk.  There have been plenty of studies and they basically show the same thing: joblessness among young men of color is at horrendous levels (perhaps as high as 60% in the Central City) while unemployment among white males and females is about 10% or less – still too high.  But you get the picture.

If you’re young and black, and to only a slightly lesser extent young and Hispanic or Asian, you face the double whammy in which your age and race seem to make it more difficult for you.

What are we to do about it besides talk, talk, talk?

The truth is there are no easy solutions – as all politicians like to promise but find impossible to deliver once they’re in office.

In the second in a series of forums on Dec. 5, the Southeast Wisconsin Intergenerational-Interracial Community Connection’s Steering Committee chewed over the topic of poverty as it impacts the races and the generations.  Of course there was more talk, but it was revealing and worth considering.

What emerged from the discussions (at least to our mind) is this:  the solutions to ending poverty will indeed require direct public policy action, but before such action can occur we in the Milwaukee area will have to figure out a way to bridge the gap between two opposing deeply entrenched principles that are dividing us.

One viewpoint that persists is that people should be able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”  Yet, as Martha Barry expressed during her presentation before the group, they have NO bootstraps!  The “people should be able to help themselves” view is held by a large segment of the population, often expressed through Tea Partians or Republicans like Newt Gingrich who insist kids need  to work (even in grade school as school janitors) to learn such a lesson.

The opposing view is that government has to be there to provide a helping hand to people so that they can overcome the barriers presented by living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, long term discriminatory hiring practices, questionable schools and poor nutrition (among other factors).  And this, of course, takes money through taxes.  In addition this view is that there needs to be government rules and regulations – such as child labor laws, safety and health rules and minimum wage rates – to protect ordinary folks from what are discerned to be predatory practices of business.

The differences are striking and dramatic.  Is there any way to develop a policy that can move our community forward to be a job-producing center (as it was in earlier generations) and thus reduce the unconscionable levels of poverty?  How is progress possible when the two sides are so far apart?

The answer belongs in building an understanding between these two poles, and that will be difficult.  The first group (those who contend “bootstrap pulling” is all that is needed) tend to live in the suburbs and rarely see how the working poor live and struggle; they have their own struggles, assuring that they can continue to pay their house mortgage and tax bills and car payments and they fill victimized by the poor person whom they often perceive as “milking the system” and causing their taxes to increase.

In addition, people from both sides of his question rarely interact.  Rarely does that suburbanite interact with a family of color or a working single mom who sometimes needs the food pantry and food stamps to get food on the table.  Nor, of course, does the single mom see the more affluent family struggle as both parents work to meet their obligations.

What is the role of SEWIICC in all this?  It’s to continue to seek to build a dialogue between the old and the young, between the suburbanite and the urban working poor, between the white and the black and the Hispanic and the Asian.

To be honest, right now such a dialogue seems as remote a possibility as landing people on Mars; yet the stakes are too high with failure leaving us a bleak, barren future, unless we begin to work together to build a stronger community.  – Kenneth Germanson, Dec. 8, 2011

Milwaukee’s ‘quiet crisis’ — Jobs and diversity

How the world has changed!  On the day I graduated from high school in 1947, I already had two possibilities for union-paying jobs.  And it wasn’t because I was particularly brilliant; in fact my grades were just about average.

In 1947, however, good paying factory jobs were there for the taking.  That was true in this city for another 30 years or so.  We were called “the machine shop of the world,” and it was more than just a promotion slogan.  It was a fact!

Consequently, thousands of families flocked from southern states to join in the bonanza of jobs, joining the workforce of companies like A. O. Smith (once with 9,000 workers and now gone) and Allis Chalmers (once with nearly 20,000 workers here and also gone).  There were hundreds of other factories here, as well, also gone, or severely reduced in workers numbers.

As these factories closed, due mainly to a desire for their owners and managers to move to cheaper labor in other states or overseas, there would be no jobs for high school graduates anymore.  Everyone was hurt, but it was not an equal opportunity hurt:  it affected minorities, particularly African-Americans the worst.

Take a look at the statistics that Jim Bartos cited at the recent Steering Committee meeting of the Southeast Wisconsin Intergenerational-Interracial Community Connection.  Quoting from a 2008 study by Dr. Marc Levine at University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Bartos showed that unemployment among African-American males (aged 16 – 24) in 2008 was 69.6%, compared to 35.6% for whites and 43.2% for Hispanics.  And the disparity was even higher among males aged 25-54 at 36.2% for African-Americans and 10.9% for whites.

[Bartos prepared an excellent one-page fact sheet with charts that outlines the situation.  View it here.]

Joblessness may indeed be the worst cancer in our African-American neighborhoods, causing despair and hopelessness that leads young men to an aimless, pointless life style that often brings about disruptive activities that cause further harm to themselves and the community.   The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Nov. 13 outlined clearly how this terrible degree of plant closings and downsizings has led to a whole host of social problems, noting in particular the high degree of infant deaths in the African-American community.

Bartos in making his presentation called this a “quiet crisis (that) can’t stay quiet any longer.”  He called for a community-wide call of action to address the high rates of unemployment among American males, particularly minority males.  It boils down to a question of will, he said.

The question is, however, what can we do specifically, individually and collectively, to correct this situation?

It may be only a beginning but SEWIICC feels the first step is to gain an understanding of the problem, to realize that the growing racial gap in the economic future for our citizens must be reversed.  Many persons fail to see the privation and suffering that is going on with those facing unemployment, how much that sours the lives of so many persons, rendering them unproductive for the future.  Is there any understanding, for instance, by many of those who live in our suburbs and exurbs for the desperation facing those without work?

Let’s begin to talk up this subject with an urgency so that we can again restore hope in the lives of our young men so that they can see the value of a high school and further education because there will be jobs awaiting them on the day after they get their diploma.

It’s my desire that all youth will soon be as fortunate as I was nearly 65 years ago.  – Ken Germanson, November 13, 2011.

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: Selma of the North

(Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee.  By Patrick Jones.  Paperback, 300 pages. Harvard University Press, Sept. 2010. $22.95)

This 2009 book by Patrick Jones gives an inside view of the fight for equality in the City of Milwaukee by a number of brave, courageous citizens, both black and white (though mostly black), young and old (though mostly young.)  On at least three fronts, activists for justice took to the streets to make their message known: Integrate the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), Open up membership to the Eagles Club (or at least shame white members who supported its principle of “whites only,”) and open up housing in all parts of Milwaukee to all citizens, no matter their racial background.

For people still alive who remember these challenging days and years, Patrick Jones gives the reader a very thorough history of the times.  Each chapter has extensive footnotes and references.  Father James Groppi, the Youth Council and Commandos figure very prominently throughout the book.  Patrick Jones provides a good background on the “civil rights awakening” of Father Groppi. The challenges they faced from both “the powers that be” and the general white population seems hard to believe from the vantage point of 2011.  The tension between the black community and the police department under Harold Breier was intense.

It is particularly poignant to observe the conflicted relationship between Father Groppi and the Catholic population, especially on the south side of Milwaukee.  It is impossible to reconcile this behavior with being truly Christian.  William Cousins, Catholic Archbishop at the time, was truly a person “caught in the middle.”  Some Catholics chastised him for allowing Father Groppi to continue what they considered nothing more than “rabble rousing” and stirring up hatred.

Some of us older folks will remember a number of social activists from this era.  Besides Father James Groppi, the Youth Council and the Commandos, others left their mark on the Milwaukee Civil rights landscape: Mayor Henry Maier, Chief Harold Breier, Judge Robert Cannon, Vel Phillips, Patrick Flood, Eugene Bleidorn, Father Matthew Gottschalk, Margaret Rosga and many others.

From an intergenerational perspective, I would find it enlightening to understand the transformative effect this time of struggle had on both black and white youth of that day who were in their formative years.  These youth would have been born between 1953 and 1960.  Today they would be between the ages of fifty-one (5l) and fifty-eight (58).  What deep scars do they carry from this time.  I am especially reminded of this from the recent neo-Nazi rally in West Allis.  How many of these neo-Nazis had their racism embedded in their character as six to fourteen year-olds during the civil rights struggle of 1967-1968?  How many blacks who are now between 51 and 58 still bear the pain?

Review by: Ted John – Co-Chair, Southeast Wisconsin Intergenerational-Interracial Community Connection

No time for racism to enter the debate

As frightening as the August 4^th violence atStateFairPark must have been for those caught in the middle of the punching and shoving and beatings, the reactions of some – including politicians – who turned to racism may in the long run prove to be more troubling.

A prime example of racist responses came from Milwaukee Aldermen Bob Donovan and Joe Dudzik, who said in a two-page, printed statement: “Are large groups of Hispanics or Hmong going out in large mobs and viciously attacking whites? No.”

To be fair, the Donovan-Dudzik complete statement cited the failure to provide the education and resources to assist African American families.  Yet, their conclusion seemed to put the full responsibility on resolving such violence upon the backs of African American families alone.  (See full statement by clicking here. )

Why would two public officials see it necessary to compare one race of youth with others?  Their gratuitous comments would seem to pit race against race and further exacerbate racial thinking, thus making it difficult for the community to rally into more positive responses.

Sadly, it’s not as if all cultures do not have some youth that cause problems.  The gang problem on the South Side is particularly vexing for both the Hispanic and Hmong cultures, as is the drunken behavior of so many white young adults onWater Streeton Saturday nights.

It’s critical that we not label all African American teens as thugs and bullies; nor can we label all Hispanic and Hmong youth as gang-bangers or all Caucasian young people as drunken bores.

More than ever, we must resist the temptation to blame “those people” and to shut ourselves off from the large, diverse community within which we live, and that includes the seven-county area of Southeast Wisconsin.  Many of the folks caught in the State Fair violence were from out of the County, and they should be welcomed to events in the City with fear.  Incidents like this one too often prompt those from outside the County to begin to avoid events here and shopping here.  If they fail to come to town, residents of the City lose the money they spend and more and more jobs will be lost.

For their part, the residents from outside of the County cannot wash their hands of Urban problems and expect this area ofWisconsinto thrive and succeed.  This area will never prosper if certain segments of the population wish to wall them selves into safe enclaves and close their eyes to those whose skin or thinking may be a bit different from their own.

We need everyone from all area counties, from all races and generations and from all genders and faiths to continue our dialogue for a strong community.

We in Southeast Wisconsincannot allow racism to steer our future.  – Kenneth A. Germanson, Aug. 6, 2011

Clear Thinking Needed on Police Incidents

The incident involving the early morning spread-eageling of a popular Shorewood coach by Whitefish Bay police and others raised lots of eyebrows that racial profiling is alive and well in this area.

The incident certainly was a case of overkill with a half dozen police vehicles arriving on the scene and surrounding the unfortunate man who was merely dropping off a student athlete at his home afterthe team had arrived home in the early morning hours.   Whether the fact that the man was multiracial had anything to do with this dramatic “take down” is hard to prove. 

There was ample suspicion that the car the man was driving was stolen; the car’s alarm system was malfunctioning and a concerned resident called police to alert them to that possibility.  That certainly warranted a traffic stop, but did it warrant treating the man like he was on the “1o-Most Wanted” list?

Recently, too, there have been a spate of shootings by Milwaukee police officers of suspects, raising concern about trigger-happy cops.  Some of these have involved white officers firing upon minority suspects, but some, too, have  involved minority officers firing upon suspects of their same race.  In most cases, the folks reviewing these cases call them “good shoots.”  That doesn’t satisfy many persons, who feel the review boards are merely whitewashing the incidents.

In our poisoned thinking of the present day, however, it’s hard for any of us to see the truth.  So many of us are distrustful of those who do not view things in the same way we do.  And that’s a result of our continuing racism that infects so many of our minds.

When minorities tend not to trust the police and others who are charged with protecting everyone, it’s particularly difficult for the police and others to do a decent job of law enforcement.  Somehow, we must find it in ourselves to walk in another’s shoes.

Think of walking in the police officer’s shoes as he — or she — stops a vehicle in the dark of night and has to fear being shot unexpectedly by the suspect.  There’s a justified fear that may affect an officer’s judgment. 

Think, too, of walking in the shoes of a minority motorist driving peaceful through a residential neighborhood and being stopped merely because he’s black, or Hispanic of Asian. 

Sadly, whenever racism exists it clouds our judgment and makes it difficult for any of us to make rationable and correct decisions.  By trying to picture how it is to walk in each other’s shoes may help to lessen our poisonous racism.  Ken Germanson