What’s Next for Milwaukee and America?

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Photo credit: Tom Jenz

Sequanna Taylor is a member of the Milwaukee School Board and Vice Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors.

Sequanna Taylor is the Vice Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and a member of the Milwaukee School Board. Since 2009, she has worked in MPS as parent coordinator for Special Ed students. As a single parent, she has four children, two boys and two girls, ages 14 to 22. Taylor grew up in the inner city, 23rd and Wright, in a house that had been in her family since 1958. The family home is still standing but now vacant. At 41 years old, she radiates a confident engaging personality, articulate and firm in her convictions.

At the People’s Cookout for Women at Washington Park, we had a conversation about the current burning topic, racism.  

What was it like growing up in an inner city Black neighborhood?

When I grew up, there were more ethnic families in my neighborhood. It wasn’t all Black families. I never thought about 53206 as a bad area. I loved my neighborhood. The neighbors all knew me. I’d go to the store and feel safe. We were a good community. Kids would play in the streets. Sometimes, we’d open the fire hydrant, and we’d run through the water. But my mama always made me be on the porch before dark. My papa was not my biological parent, but he and my mom were together since I was one. We were a two-parent family.

Speaking of families, why are there so many fatherless families in the central city?

A lot is systemic, the economic disadvantage. From the zip code 53206, Milwaukee incarcerates more black men than any zip code in the country. The Black families have been torn apart. Generations ago, the government welfare programs started. Since then, those programs help the mother if the father is not in the family. That doesn’t help keep the family together. It rewards only the single mother.

I know. The protest leader, Vaun Mayes, brought that up to me. Some of the Black male leaders tell me that providing welfare for only the mother, the women, can result in the Black man being degraded socially and economically, leading to a loss of pride, a lowering of self-image.  

The Black man is often looked at as not being a whole or equal man, and many Americans treat Black men in that way, and that includes government programs. Take a young Black man, maybe 13 or 14. The stereotype presumes him to be a danger. He’s walking the street, hanging out in the park or sitting on his porch, and people think he’s got a gun. Compare him to a white boy or even a boy of a different ethnicity who is doing the same thing. That boy’s behavior is judged as OK. Our Black boys are criminalized at a young age. As a society, we need to address this issue, and if we don’t, we are the problem as well.”

Young black men from fatherless families sometimes get influenced by older gang members who get them into trouble, robbing, stealing cars, dealing drugs.

It’s sad. Think about those families. Mothers workin’ two or three jobs at minimum wage just to keep the family together. Some of these young men get into trouble because they are trying to help the family earn money. I see it as a systemic problem. Black boys are not told when they are young, “Hey, you can go to college and be a business owner.” They’re told maybe you can be a basketball player or a rapper. But nothing about being an engineer or leading a Fortune 500 company or being a CEO.

Some people propose that maybe the solution is more vocational training for young Black males. They could be taught to be a plumber, an electrician, a video producer, a carpenter. Learning the trades, in other words.

I agree, but there’s more. These Black children just want to have the same educational opportunities as the whites. What Black child or family would say they want to live in a neighborhood infested with crime? Do I want drugs in my neighborhood? Or my brother killed? Or my mother at work all day? Nobody says that.

It's encouraging to see a lot of white folks and groups in the suburbs being supportive of Black Lives Matter and some participate in protests, however, some are afraid to venture into the inner city or even talk to leaders like yourself because they have the preconceived notion that the central city is dangerous. They won’t even drive through the Black neighborhoods.

I say to those white folks, try to come and forget what you’ve seen on the TV news or read in the papers. But please don’t tell me, “Oh, you speak so well for a black person” or”‘ I didn’t think a Black woman would be as smart as you.” That isn’t a compliment. That is talking down to me. We inner city people are very loving, we help each other, we even feed each other. Sometimes in national meetings, I find myself as the only person of color in the conference. I’m the elephant in the room. I want to say, “Let’s talk about racism, let’s get offended, but let’s get over it. We might argue, might agree to disagree. But if we don’t talk about racism and prejudice and our differences, we will never get over it.”

As a result of some of these tragic killings of African Americans, many of them captured on video, this appears to have created a pivotal moment in our history. Despite that, there is still some difficulty communicating across racial lines. As Rodney King said, "Can we all get along?" 

So many times whites don’t want to talk about differences and prejudices because they think we Blacks will accuse them of racism. As for Black people, for so many years we’ve been saying, “Can I be a woman?  Can I be a man? Or Can I be a little boy who can play in his own neighborhood without being scared?” People say, “But don’t all lives matter?” They absolutely do. We’ve never said they don’t. We are just sayin’ is that for all lives to matter, then Black lives have to also matter. Seems like whites don’t have to prove they matter, but we Blacks do, prove how smart we are, or how ethical, and we’d better not wear braids or dreadlocks on a job. Sometimes, we feel like Whites want us to bury our history and heritage. But people of both races and cultures need to get it out in the open, talk, even argue. I just want us to not hate each other, whites and Blacks. 

Here is a practical idea I heard from the peaceful protest Black leader Frank Nitty. A lot of Milwaukee city-owned buildings and houses are vacant and are deteriorating. They are for sale, but they don’t sell. Frank’s idea is this: Give his New Milwaukee movement a building, and his volunteers will rehab the building into offices and classrooms devoted to teaching inner city children the trades, learning a practical skill.

My own family home is now vacant, owned by the city. I believe in providing needy families with a home. If someone owns a home, the neighborhood improves because homeowners care about their neighborhoods and the value of their houses. I don’t say just give somebody a house, but I do say let them live in a house, improve the structure and the yard. In five years, maybe the city gives them the house. If we provide people an opportunity to own homes, they will take care of those homes. Who wants to say, “I live on a block infested with crime”? I don’t get why the building regulators can’t get some of the vacant city-owned buildings and houses into the hands of folks who will make improvements.

What about the police controversy? The defunding idea? Where do you stand?

People think Blacks don’t like police. That’s wrong. I have a soul brother who is a policeman and I have a cousin who is a sheriff deputy. I’m not sayin’ defund the police, I’m sayin’ refund the community, relocate resources to where they are needed. If we can get housing security and we can get jobs, then the crime problem will go down.

In this historic period of social media and its hyperbole and hate, might it be possible to overcome or at least moderate our prejudices?  Can we come to respect each other’s cultures?

Will someday all lives matter to all people?

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