‘WE’RE NOT STOPPING’
Protest, march organizers focus on local policy changes in 2021
For months during what has become known as the year of America’s racial reckoning, millions of protesters took to the streets in communities large and small demanding changes in policing, housing, education, hiring and more.
But as the cold weather and holiday season rolled in, the marches shrank, both in size and frequency. On Tuesday, when Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley announced that Officer Rusten Sheskey would not be charged in the shooting of Jacob Blake, the public response was subdued, with just a few dozen protesters compared with the chaotic marches of August.
Leaders in the push for cultural change say they haven’t stopped their work. Rather, they’re doing more
“I’m convinced that when they start to understand the deeper things behind the policies and systems that we all live in, they’ll understand and they’ll see the necessity for change.”
Dori Thexton Tosa Together organizer
ground-level, practical work that may not immediately be visible.
“I want to people to be prepared for change because we’re not stopping,” Kenosha organizer Porche Bennett-Bey said. “We can’t afford to stop. This was just a wake-up call for everyone. And we have a job to do and there’s going to be major change coming in 2021.”
Bennett-Bey started the year as a mom and Army veteran and ended the year on the cover of Time magazine for her activism in Kenosha after the Jacob Blake shooting.
“I made the decision to go protest, but I didn’t choose this as my lifetime path,” Bennett-Bey said. “At first it was frightening, it was stressful, because I didn’t know, I just kept saying, ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’”
Bennett-Bey said community organizing “chose” her and she’s leaned into that, starting a group called United As One, the goal of which is to help children and those struggling with finding employment.
“Once I start getting grants rolling through, if someone wants to get certified for welding or HVAC and they can’t afford it or don’t know how to go about doing, they can reach out to United As One,” Bennett said.
When weather permits, she wants to have a community garden where children can learn self-sufficiency and work skills. She also plans to partner with the Kenosha Public Library for programming.
There’s also a need to improve the view of law enforcement in Kenosha among children, Bennett-Bey said. She hopes when a child is having issues at school, organizations like hers can be called to help instead of police.
“We don’t want them to keep looking at all officers as bad, because we know not all officers are bad,” Bennett said, adding she would like officers to still be visible and able to “speak out about what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Bennett-Bey plans to add her voice to a task force formed by Mayor John Antaramian on community and police relations.
Community Task Force MKE: Keeping the dialogue going
When mass protests and demonstrations happened in response to the death of George Floyd — who died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for at least eight minutes while Floyd said he couldn’t breathe — Vaun Mayes and organizers with Community Task Force MKE were ready with proposals for police reform in Milwaukee.
Mayes helped organize one of the first marches in Milwaukee after Floyd’s death and plans to continue to push city and county officials for change.
“There needs to be more open dialogue and conversation, just a willingness to have that,” Mayes said.
But members of the city’s Common Council are not as willing to reach out, he said. “There’s nowhere near enough collaboration and conversation coming from those levels to people on the ground and community leadership.”
Having a better working relationship with the Milwaukee Police Department will also be important in the upcoming year, Mayes said. Like Bennett-Bey in Kenosha, he hopes Community Task Force MKE can be involved in situations where police might traditionally be called.
“How can we do what we do and respect them doing what they do and it not being a clash or issue? We’re trying to map that out and see what it looks like,” Mayes said.
Mayes said a number of Republican candidates reached out to him to support their campaigns during the 2020 election cycle. He encouraged them to work with their Republican colleagues to pass policies on police reform and racial equity.
“The Republican Party doesn’t have a good rapport or history with the Black community,” Mayes said. “We know that at the state level, the Republicans have the votes and majority to block or resist a lot of the things that we’re asking for. And so those candidates need to bridge the gap and bring some of those Republicans to the table to figure out: Are they prepared to be collaborative and work on reform or not?”
The Peoples Revolution: Putting ‘the people’ in office
A group that’s been one of the most active in organizing marches is The Peoples Revolution — whose organizers plan on taking their agenda from the streets to public office.
Mariah Smith, an organizer, said there are several people with the group who are contemplating a run for local office.
“Their fight, their goals are the goals of the people,” Smith said. “You need to put yourself in a position where you’re able to make changes for us. Because these people that are in office right now are comfortable. It doesn’t matter what changes they make; they’re not being held accountable.”
Some potential candidates might feel intimidated by the responsibility of being an alderman, county supervisor or mayor, but Smith said those people need to believe “this is a job I can do.”
And in the meantime, organizer Percy Hayes said they plan to participate more in city and county meetings to get their message across to elected officials.
“We’re trying to reach those people who want to be on board with change,” Hayes said. “We do want to be a part of what’s going on in the city, we do want to know what’s going on in the city.”
Hayes is focused on making sure those with racist views stay out of public office.
“You’re entitled to feel how you want to feel,” Hayes said. “But when you hold racist views and you have some kind of authority position in my life, it’s a problem. When you hold racist views and you’re a common council member or a mayor or a governor or a police chief or a police officer, that’s a problem.”
Wauwatosa: ‘Tosa moms’ taking the lead
“Nobody should have to leave their home, their community or their school or their church because of racism.”
While the movement for racial equality and equity has been filled with the spirit of a younger, up-and-coming generation, in Wauwatosa, parents have also been major contributors pushing for change in their community.
The group Tosa Together has been pushing for more inclusion in the City of Wauwatosa, Wauwatosa School District and the police department.
In the upcoming year, organizer Katherine Riebe said the group is planning to focus on police transparency and accountability, particularly at the highest levels of the department.
Craig Brittingham, another organizer, said Tosa Together is going to be pushing the police department for equal policing in 2021.
“I think some of the administrators in the department think that we don’t want policing. We say this over and over again, that’s not true,” Brittingham said. “We want policing. We want fair policing ... we want that justice to be applied fairly.”
Education and training are steps organizers see as easy but effective.
Tosa Moms Tackling Racism is planning to host several “white space” events to educate white residents on racist practices of the past and how they affect current life in Wauwatosa.
“We want to give people a safe space to ask those questions and learn,” organizer Dori Thexton said. “I’m convinced that when they start to understand the deeper things behind the policies and systems that we all live in, they’ll understand and they’ll see the necessity for change.”
The group also pushes for anti-bias training for police officers and teachers.
Brown said many Wauwatosa residents who don’t agree with the protests have used the phrase “they don’t live in Wauwatosa” to try to discredit what protesters are calling for.
But Tosa Moms Tackling Racism is a hyperlocal group, she said, and has turned people away who either aren’t moms or don’t live in Wauwatosa.
“It’s not outside groups that are telling Tosa they need to change,” Brown said. “It’s Tosa residents saying we want to see change in our community. That’s where there’s power in moving forward.”
Burlington: ‘The fight is not just in the city’
While much of the focus on racial equity has been focused on cities, the Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism worked to add an anti-racism policy to the Burlington Area School District.
“There is a huge need in Wisconsin to bring attention to rural communities,” Coalition member Laura Bielefeldt said. “The fight is not just in the city, it’s throughout our state. So the fight within Burlington is just as important as the fight within the larger cities.”
This fight was not easy, and the outcome didn’t satisfy coalition members.
The school board did approve an anti-racism policy that denounces racism and defines “anti-racism,” “individual racism” and “structural (or systemic) racism,” but the coalition had pushed for the board to also address racist acts, improve curriculum and close disparities in disciplinary actions.
Darnisha Garbade, an organizer with the coalition, and her family decided to move out of Burlington because of the response from other community members to her years of lobbying the district to change its policies.
She characterizes the relationship between the coalition and the district and school board as “toxic,” and hopes it will improve.
“We’re hoping at some point we will be able to partner with them in a way that’s healthy and in a way that they invite people of color to the table” to help make the decisions that impact students of color, Garbade said.
Garbade plans to continue working with the coalition and said that no matter where her family ends up living, she plans to fight against racism “because it’s everywhere.
“Nobody should have to leave their home, their community or their school or their church because of racism,” Garbade said.
Bielefeldt said systemic racism is seen by some as something that happens in cities and doesn’t need to be addressed in small-town Burlington.
“Rural Wisconsin definitely stands more for the ideas of white supremacist culture,” Bielefeldt said. “I don’t know if it’s because they haven’t been exposed to a large number of people of color in their community.”
According to the U.S. Census, in 2019 the city of Burlington was 85% white, 12% Latino, 0.5% Asian and 0.3% Black.
Bielefeldt, who is part Latino and part Native American, said people of color in Burlington are scared to tell their stories and need support of “white allies.”
“Whenever a person of color tells their story in Burlington, we’re told that we’re lying, we’re told that that doesn’t happen here,” Bielefeldt said.
Bielefeldt said she and others plan to report every incident they feel is racist to show the department the seriousness and frequency.
“We know that there could be consequences to that decision, and that’s terrifying,” Bielefeldt said. “But the hope for making it better for other children in this community and for hopefully my grandchildren, if we’re able to stay in this community, is greater than that fear.”