Tag Archives: Madison

Madison isn’t Ferguson

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Madison is deeply divided racially. I’ve written before about the chasm separating whites from African-Americans in our city and county. You can follow some of those posts and sermons here. The Race to Equity report from 2013 lays out the details and is a must read. It’s available here: WCCF-R2E-Report

The contrasts are especially striking when it comes to the criminal justice system. While arrest rates for African-Americans in general, and African-American juveniles are down over the last decades, they remain considerably higher than those of whites and of the national averages. For example, in 2010, the arrest rate for African-American juveniles was 469 per 1000; for white juveniles it was 77. Nationally among the same age group, the rates were 71 per 1000 for African-Americans, 33 for whites. Although African-Americans account for only 9% of Dane County’s youth, they make up 80% of those sentenced to Wisconsin’s juvenile correctional facility. In 2012,43% of the new adult prison population were African-American men, while they account for only 4.8% of the county’s total population. More information on these statistics is available here.

But it’s important to note the significant differences as well.  Perhaps those differences are best exemplified by the response of the city’s leadership to Tony Robinson’s death. Both Mayor Soglin and Chief Koval were on the scene of the shooting Friday night. Michael Johnson, head of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Madison, took Chief Koval to meet with Tony’s family that night where he prayed with them. In his press conference on Saturday, Koval refused to comment on Robinson’s background. There’s an informative piece on Chief Koval here.

There’s another difference. The shooting did not take place in some strip mall in the suburbs or in a primarily African-American neighborhood. It took place on Williamson (Willy) Street, close to downtown and in the heart of Madison’s eastside, most progressive neighborhood. It really is quite jarring to drive down Willy St. as we did yesterday on our way to visit friends. As you drive past the artisanal butcher shops, bakeries, and shops, you suddenly see four or five police cruisers, police tape blocking the sidewalk. Just as quickly, the site recedes from your rear-view mirror. The wound in our social fabric won’t disappear so easily.

The response from the community has been remarkable. The engagement of African-American leadership, clergy, politicians, and ordinary folks has already made a difference. There is anger, yes. There is grief and mourning. But there is also renewed commitment to work on our city’s problems, to work toward solutions, so that Madison can become one of American’s “most livable cities,” not just for whites, but for everyone.

From Ferguson to Madison

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I woke this morning to hear the horrible news that a Madison police officer shot and killed a 19-year old African-American man yesterday evening. The incident took place on Williamson St., which is the heart of Madison’s east-side progressive neighborhood. Here’s the story from the Madison State-Journal

This comes less than a week after gunfire in the parking lot of Westtowne Mall forced its early closure last Saturday. After that event and several other shootings, the official word was that these incidents were gang-related. Earlier this week, arrests were made in those shootings.

Over the last couple of years, the progressive veneer has been stripped from our city, revealing the ugly underside of racism, division, and deep disparities between black and white. These incidents have brought the horrors of that reality to the very heart of where white Madison lives, works, and plays.

It also couldn’t come at a worse time. We are in the midst of a mayoral election and our relatively new police chief hasn’t handled issues of racism very well in his tenure. With the political turmoil in our state, our community as a whole has been struggling to find a way forward.

My prayers go out, for the repose of the soul of Tony Robinson, to his family and friends, to the officer involved and to all members of Madison’s police force, and to our city.

 

 

 

Is this your car? “Paper-Cut” Racism in Madison

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Yesterday, we began a conversation about race and racism at Grace Church. Today, Paul Fanlund of the Capital Times wrote a piece about the little indignities African-Americans encounter in their daily lives in Madison. It confirms some of what we heard yesterday.

Grace is blessed to include among our active membership a number of people of color, several of whom participated in the conversation. We began by talking about white privilege and as is often the case, there was some pushback about the concept. But as we listened, we heard some heartbreaking and shocking stories about the treatment of children of color in the schools.

But one of the most emotional moments was when one man asked us, “What does the police officer ask you when he pulls you over in a traffic stop?”

We responded, “May I see your driver’s license and registration?”

“No,” he said. “I’m always asked, ‘Is this your car?'”

That anecdote hit home for us the vast gulf separating the experience of whites and people of color in Madison and Dane County. To be treated suspiciously in virtually every encounter with authority is not just an irritation, it is an attack on one’s self-esteem and reinforces the powerlessness and despair people of color face.

The little indignities experienced on a daily basis are more than a nuisance. They are a daily reminder that people of color, African-Americans, live in a culture in which they can never feel truly at home.

At Grace, as we seek to participate in our community’s conversation around racism and efforts to create a more just community, it is important to begin by listening to the experience of the people of color who are part of our congregation. By acknowledging their voices and hearing their stories, we help to create in our midst the beloved community called into being by Jesus Christ. My hope that even as we reach out to engage others, especially the broader African-American community, we will deepen our ties and common life and serve as a model for others.

 

Resources on Racism in Madison and the US

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In our adult forum today, we’re joining the conversation about racism and inequity that has been taking place in Madison and across the country over the last year. I’m posting here some resources that might help us think about these issues in our own lives and in our community.

First of all, white privilege. Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack” introduced the term: white-privilege

Second,the conversation was jumpstarted in Madison by an article by the Rev. Alex Gee, Jr. That is available here. In the year since its publications, Gee has formed a new orgnizationt, Justified Anger, that seeks to keep issues of race and inequity at the center of our political and cultural life in Madison.

About the same time that this conversation began, the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families released its Race to Equity Report that provided a shocking look at racial disparities in Dane County, WI (where Madison is located). The report is available for download here: WCCF-R2E-Report.

Some books to read:

James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree

Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

If you’ve never read it, or if you haven’t read it recently, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail is a powerful challenge to whites, especially white Christians, who criticized the nonviolent protests and boycotts in Birmingham in 1963. More than fifty years later, in the wake of Ferguson and Eric Garner, its words retain their power and are as relevant as ever. Read it here: king

 

Conversations about marriage

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Marriage is highly contested in our culture in the twenty-first century. We fight about marriage equality and worry about changing marriage patterns. With a divorce rate around 45%, increasing rates of couples living together, and close connections between poverty and children born to unwed mothers, the challenges presented by changing marriage patterns have important social consequences. Some of the dramatic changes in marriage practice in the last half century include:

  • In 1960, 2/3 of all adults in their twenties were married; in 2008, only 26% were
  • 65% of all couples live together before getting married
  • marriage is much more common among college-educated and economically stable people than among the less-educated and less-affluent
  • 90% of young adults think they need to be completely financially independent before marriage

All data from material provided by the Task Force on Marriage. More info here.

In the Episcopal Church, our General Convention 2012 called for a Task Force to study the theology of marriage. As part of its work, it has invited dioceses, parishes, and interested individuals to engage in conversations about marriage. We will be holding such a conversation on July 31 at St. Luke’s here in Madison.

The impetus for the task force came in part from the discussion about same-sex blessings and the trial rite that uses language of blessing, stops short of calling it marriage, yet is being used in many places where gay marriage is legal.

The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer is the product of its age and shows some signs of its historical context. With the use of two different rites in the church, and the oft-repeated statement made that the trial rite would be appropriate for use with heterosexual couples, there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding marriage in the church.

For myself, one of the most important issues around marriage is my role as officiant. I am increasingly uncomfortable serving as an agent of the state and as an enabler of the marriage-industrial complex. What might an Episcopal rite, theology, and practice of marriage look like if neither of those factors were involved? It seems to me that the marriage rite is increasingly “divorced” from the practice of marriage. As a church we’re not very successful at doing “all in our power to uphold these two persons in their marriage” as we promise during the rite, and we’re even less successful in help couples who are struggling with their relationships.

A recent study explores the relationship between religious involvement and marriage among young adults:

Nominally religious young adults are in a vulnerable position: they are religious enough to be pushed into early marriage, for instance, but, lacking the social support mediated by an in-the-flesh religious congregation, they don’t reap the benefits of involvement in a religious community. Instead, religion may become a source of conflict.

More here

National Attention on Racism in Wisconsin

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It’s just coincidence, I’m sure, but two national media outlets have run stories on racism in Wisconsin. The first, in The New Republic, focuses on Governor Scott Walker’s rise to power in Milwaukee. It details the deep racial divide between Milwaukee and its suburbs, pointing out that African-American migration came relatively late to Milwaukee (in the 60s). The political consequences of the divide are breathtaking:

During this period, the WOW counties continued to expand. But unlike suburbs elsewhere, they had not grown more diverse. Today, less than 2 percent of the WOW counties’ population is African American and less than 5 percent is Hispanic. According to studies by the Brookings Institution and Brown University, the Milwaukee metro area is one of the top two most racially segregated regions in the country. The WOW counties were voting Republican at levels unseen in other Northern suburbs; one needed to look as far as the white suburbs around Atlanta and Birmingham for similar numbers. The partisan gulf between Milwaukee and its suburbs in presidential elections has now grown wider than in any of the nation’s 50 largest cities, except for New Orleans, according to the Journal Sentinel series.

And this:

It is as if the Milwaukee area were in a kind of time warp. Like the suburbanites of the ’70s and ’80s elsewhere in the United States, the residents of the WOW counties are full of anxiety and contempt for the place they abandoned. “We’re still in the disco era here,” says Democratic political consultant Paul Maslin. This has affected the politics of the state in myriad ways. The nationwide trend of exploring alternatives to prison hasn’t reached Wisconsin—it has the highest rate of black male incarceration of any state in the country.

The other story focuses on Madison’s Alex Gee and the efforts here to overcome the deep divide between Black and White. It ran on PBS Newshour last night. I think it’s important to see the connections between the two pieces–not in order to praise Dane County and Madison over against Milwaukee, but to recognize that there are deep continuities between the two situations and the political context. Madison and Dane County may be Democratic and Progressive strongholds but the reality of the racial divide calls into question the progressive agenda and politics of many of our political leaders. Their comfortable electoral majorities have resulted in complacency and building coalitions or working with the African-American has not been in their self-interest. The racial divide may not have been exploited here in quite the same way that it has been exploited in Milwaukee, but the results are the same–deep inequities, an unresponsive political system, and white flight.

 

Prayers for the victims of the storms in Madison and across the country

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O God, who spoke in earthquake, wind, and fire, who answered Job out of the whirlwind, pour out your mercy and grace on all those who have been affected by the recent storms. We pray for all  those who have been injured or suffered loss to their property. We pray also for those who have responded to the disasters and those working in recovery efforts. May all of them, and us, know the calming presence of Jesus Christ, who said to the wind and waves, “Peace be still.” All this we ask in His name, Amen.

Almighty Father, who laid the foundation of the earth and set the limit of the sea, whose Son wept at the grave of Lazarus his friend and endured the cross for our salvation, strengthen with your grace all victims of natural disasters, especially the victims of the recent storms. Grant rest and peace to the dead, healing to the wounded, strength and endurance to those who rebuild. May all who grieve know the consolation of your love, and by your grace, help us to seek you even in the midst of things we cannot understand. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (from Calvary Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY)

 

Why I support the proposed site for the day resource center

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The Dane County Board of Supervisors will be debating a resolution to purchase a property on Martin Street to be used for a Homeless Day Resource Center. In recent weeks there’s been a good deal of debate about the merits of the location and various problems including adequate transportation and water supply. This is only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga about which I’ve written repeatedly over the last several years.

There are valid concerns about the location. It has been the site of Porchlight’s Hospitality House which has operated in part as a day shelter. Over the years, transportation has been inadequate. The location is just off of a major bus line, but it is not downtown and the vans that have shuttled guests from downtown homeless shelters and other agencies have not always operated at an optimal capacity.

But I think efforts to seek a thirty-day delay in the purchase of the property are misguided. I doubt that any amount of money would be able to shake loose a suitable downtown location from property owners, and even if it were miraculously able to do so, a downtown site would still have to overcome massive resistance from downtown residents, business owners, as well as city staff, alders, and the mayor. So at the end of the thirty day delay, we would be left with one option on the table, the same Martin Street property with thirty fewer days to prepare for a November 1 opening date.

A delay, or worse yet, a County Board vote against the purchase of the property, would make it more likely that we would face another winter with cobbled-together and inadequate provisions for resources for homeless people.

There comes a time when advocates have to re-shape their visions and hopes for the futures to reflect political and community realities. This seems to be one of those times. The tentative plans for the center include necessary services like laundry, showers, and storage as well as opportunities for guests to connect with social service agencies that can help them find housing and the other support they need. Supervisors and homeless advocates should work together in the coming months to ensure that the important questions are answered adequately, issues resolved, and that the Day Center will be ready to serve the homeless community at the earliest possible date.

Recent articles on the controversy are here and here.

 

 

 

The New Day Resource Center: Making the best of a difficult situation?

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The news finally broke yesterday. Dane County has purchased Porchlight’s Hospitality House facility which will be the site of the new Day Resource Center. Here’s the press release.

I’ve written about the need for such a facility before and I’ve also written about the difficulty the County and others have had in finding an appropriate site. In some ways, Hospitality House seems like the path of least resistance. It’s in the Town of Madison rather than in the city so there won’t be much pushback from city administration or alders. It will be located at a site where some of the same services have been offered for years, so there shouldn’t be a lot of pushback from neighbors.

Pat Schneider’s article includes interviews with homeless advocates who are opposed to this location and claim to have been shut out of the process. Here’s where it is: a half-hour bus ride from downtown. While I share their concerns about how this process has played out, I am also acutely aware of how difficult the search for an adequate facility has been. I think it’s safe to say that the downtown area has been carefully searched for possible sites to no avail. One of the problems is that in this real estate market, few property owners are going to want to sell underused land or buildings to the county when they might be able to sell it at a high profit for another upscale apartment complex. I also appreciate that few County politicians or bureaucrats want to start another dust-up with city officials who would likely have opposed any proposed location.

One of the persistent difficulties faced by Hospitality House in the past has been transportation from downtown. Porchlight has operated a van that has transported guests from the Salvation Army and the Drop-In Men’s shelter downtown to Hospitality House but that hasn’t always been an effective means of getting people back and forth. The County will need to assess the transportation needs of the new Day Resource Center and have an effective plan in place when the Center opens in order for this renovated facility to be a success.

What homeless advocates and community members need to do now is work with the county and those who will operate the Day Resource Center to ensure its success. Let’s make sure we get the best facility possible with the necessary resources, fitted out with showers, storage, and laundry, and access to the support services that can help homeless people find adequate housing and stabilize their situations.

 

 

 

 

The System is Still Broken

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I was given a stark reminder yesterday that Madison’s safety net for homeless people has gaping holes. It’s not just that the Men’s Shelter returned to “Summer Hours” with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time (I wonder if they ever considered changing that policy when the period of DST was extended into early March) and that the 60-day limit runs out for most men.

As I was leaving the church yesterday around 5:30, I encountered a couple of guys huddling for warmth in our entry way. Another staff person had seen them in the courtyard and invited them inside for a few minutes. One of the two men was carrying an oxygen tank. He had spent the day at Hospitality House and been brought back to the shelter by Porchlight’s van at 4:30. However, since the shelter didn’t open until 7:30, he would have to wait in 20 degree weather for three hours. He told me that doctors had instructed him to stay out of the cold weather and minimize physical exertion (like walking three blocks to the Public Library where he could be safe from the elements). So here he was.

I don’t know for certain he had been in the hospital last week. If so, I wonder if anyone considered how a homeless person could comply with instructions to minimize physical exertion and avoid being in cold weather. And I wonder about policies and procedures that leave a frail and nearly incapacitated man on his own on the streets for several hours or more. And I continue to despair about a nation and community that treats its weakest and most vulnerable members so callously.