The Times

Issue date: 5/9/08 Section: Special to the MATC Times

Media Credit: MCT Campus

It's a bright spring day. Children are out riding their bicycles in their picture-perfect subdivision while their parents tend to already-tidy lawns.

Young boys fish on the riverbed in a rolling green park. Others are walking their dogs and stopping to chat with neighbors. Down the street, a family sits on a park bench enjoying a treat from the town's favorite local ice cream shop.

Not 25 miles away a very different scene unfolds. Abandoned houses sit in weed-filled yards, decorated with the broken glass of liquor bottles. Young men sit in a car parked on the street passing a blunt.

A teen mother rushes across the street with her son. A billboard encouraging HIV testing stands overhead. Garbage clings to chain link fences. Metal bars adorn corner stores and boarded up businesses are decorated in graffiti. Ambulance and police sirens wail. People sit, somberly waiting for the bus.

Which place would you rather raise a child?

For many Milwaukee inner-city blacks there is no choice. They do not have the means to escape this environment of desolation. Disparity is prevalent here and the differences are immense.

Recently, Milwaukee was voted the third top worst city in the nation for blacks to live. The report, released by www.blackagenda.com was primarily based upon Milwaukee's high incarceration rates of blacks. According to the report Wisconsin African-Americans were incarcerated at a rate more than six times that of whites. A staggering percentage considering that blacks make up no more than 6% of Wisconsin's entire population.

As time progresses, only more daunting statistics are unveiled. Of the nearly 2,000 homeless persons living in Milwaukee, 68% are black.

As of press time, out of the 23 persons murdered so far this year, 14 were African-American. Most of the victims were murdered by other Milwaukee blacks. Last year the number of homicides reached 105. Again, most of the perpetrators and their victims were black.

In a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report by Alan J. Borsuk, the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that Milwaukee's African-American fourth and eighth graders ranked the lowest in the nation in average reading and writing scores. In his article, Borsuk states that "something is seriously off course in the education of African-American children in the state." This is only further proved when one learns of the dismal graduation rate of African-Americans (46%) enrolled in Milwaukee's Public School system. On the college level, Milwaukee is home to the fewest of black college graduates in the country.

Continued...

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