Photo Credit: Tom Jenz
If you are a Black resident of Milwaukee, you most likely live in zip codes 53205 or 53206 or along the borders. These neighborhoods are where the majority of crimes are committed by a very small minority of perpetrators. It’s this perilous condition you face everyday.
Since the police can’t be everywhere, a few local “street” leaders and activists are trying to improve conditions in the neighborhoods. They help to prevent crime, build positive programs, mentor juveniles, and offer help to individuals. But given these past few months of increased crime activity, they are getting discouraged. So far in 2021, there has been a 44% increase in total crimes including homicide, rape, robbery, assault, and car theft.
One of the most prominent activist leaders is 34-year-old Vaun Mayes. A controversial public figure who sometimes clashes with police and politicians, he works behind the scenes helping residents resolve issues, raise funds for families, and especially mentor juveniles through his own non-profit programs. Lately, Mayes is getting discouraged and especially with his own Black people. In a 10-minute rant on Facebook, he recently blasted out his feelings in the language of the ‘hood.
Here are a few transcribed excerpts followed by his explanations to me.
You started off your Facebook rant with a bang, and I quote…..“You all know the city’s sick, right? And I’m specifically talking to Black folks today. We should get tired of Black mufuckers who don’t do shit except complain about the shit that’s going on, about the people who’s doing the bad shit.”
Can you break this down for me?
In 2016, I saw a Facebook video of cops removing some noisy Black juveniles from Sherman Park in daylight. That’s illegal. When I asked Black people in my neighborhood for reactions, they supported the police, actually were glad to see the teens removed. Their answer was to lock the kids up. My own people were complaining but didn’t offer to help.
That’s when I started Program The Parks MKE to make a positive impact on Black youth, boys and girls. A lot of people supported my efforts, and we were doing great work, made some phenomenal changes in Sherman Park. But here we are in 2021, and the Black folks are still doing nothing, just complaining. The worst thing that happens in our community is comfortable ignorance. Not taking the time to one, know who your electeds are, let alone confronting your aldermen or legislators, not knowing what the actual laws or processes for change are. You don’t even know what the activists are doing for you.
Basically, right now you are continuing to support the war between our young people and the police, when we all know policing won't bring an end to violence but will simply feed the cycle and the need for police and prisons.
I hear from Police Chief Norman and some beat cops that when a crime happens, shooting, killing, assault, it’s hard to find witnesses who will cooperate because the witnesses don’t trust the police.
That is true, but many times our people do trust activists like me with the witness information, which we typically relay to family for them to decide what to do with. Take this Credible Messenger program started in May. You know what most folks said when they saw that press conference? Vaun why aren’t you, Program The Parks, or ComForce up there with them? Why they paying them to come in doing “programming” instead of you when you been there all this time?
I don’t think things like that can truly work when they are leaving out a lot of the folks who are the most credible messengers and have experience and roots in the cause they are just starting to tackle for some of the partners. Context matters when you say you are on the frontlines of our neighborhoods, and for the problem we have at hand, I don’t believe that particular strategy will address or impact the issue we have with the rise in violence, stolen cars, etc. Those are very specific issues that call for very specific strategies. I respect a lot of the folks involved, but it frustrates me for people to say all “hands on deck” but continue to participate in black balling myself or intentionally leaving key folks and stakeholders out.
Note: He is referring to Milwaukee County recently launching a violence prevention effort that focuses on using credible messengers to work with and mentor youth who are at risk or already involved in the justice system. The credible messengers are supposed to be traditional leaders who have life experiences similar to the ones that a young person may be experiencing.
Then, you say on Facebook … “You praise the wrong people, the officials who’s supposed to be doing the work, stopping this shit, stopping the violence.”
I assume you are talking about the bureaucrats and elected officials?
The organizations, bureaucrats and non-profits who take credit for lowering the violence, they get the funding, but they are not the ones on the front lines dealing with everyday issues, interventions, lowering criminal incidents. That’s us, the activist street leaders who are doing the work.
One example is a guy robbed someone in one of our parks, causing the person who was robbed to threaten to come back with others and weapons and shoot the park up if he didn't find the robbers and get his belongings back. We got him to calm down and asked him to give us time to do what we could do. We investigated and found out who the robbers were, found them, and had a very real conversation. I took the last 50 bucks we had left from that day’s donors, said I’d give them the money if they return the goods.
They agreed, returned the person’s stuff, and everyone went on their way. Nobody hurt, nobody arrested, and no vengeance and violence. You can only do this if you have trust and respect and have built relationships with people in the community.
On Facebook you say to your people …. “You don’t have solutions. And quit saying,‘what WE need to do’ You people better say ‘What YOU need to do’ cause your asses ain’t doing it.”
I go to town hall meetings. Somebody stands up, says “what we need to do is …”, usually followed by them making a suggestion, or offering a solution that nine times out of 10, we activists/organizers on the ground are already doing that. The people who are always saying what we need to do should come out and work with us and be part of the solution, not just complain.
Yes, I see a lot of complaints on Facebook from Black people who live in the central city. Are they actually doing something about their complaints? I don’t know. You say on Facebook …. “Guess who gotta go and complain where the money is going to help our neighborhoods, where the money is being wasted? Me, I gotta go. I gotta haul my ass up there to city hall and say this shit cause you don’t fucking know.”
I just read an article that showed Black people think that police are doing a poor or only a fair job. So why is it the same 10 of us street leaders gotta go down to the Fire and Police Commission meetings or town hall meetings about the budget and speak on their behalf? Where is the line of concerned folks with so many complaints then? They don’t care enough to go to the meetings and say the system ain’t working. Damn, can y’all at least send some emails, a letter, a texts, hell or even smoke signals?!
You said on Facebook…. “And you mufuckers expect more street leaders to get out here, risk our lives, don’t get paid, You all expect people to rise up and help this community when you don’t do it. We are doomed, our earth is on a path of doomage because of people like you all. You all no better than the white people who make comments on the 5 or 6 o’clock news that criticize our youth and Black people in general in the city of Milwaukee.”
Me and some others have positive programs to help young people. If my own people is sayin’ these won’t work, should we all just give up and let people die, let crimes happen? You just wanna sit in the house and watch TV? I get the feeling of self-hate, almost a group of self-haters among my people. When we talk about our future, we talk about our teenagers, both girls and boys.
If you give up on them, who’s gonna be our future, if white folks in this state have shown us the hate and disrespect they have for us historically and currently, am I to accept that their children will be our next and future leaders? If we don’t try to save none of these kids, they got no future, and neither do we.
On Facebook, you said…. “Mirror, mirror, what we gonna do about this violence? As long as you ni**rs do this ridiculous shit, ain’t nothin gonna change. We keep talkin’ about solutions to save our people and save our community. There’s so much positive shit going on in this city, and you all can’t name none of it. I need a tambourine, a tambor-goddamned-rine. So every time a ni**er say something stupid, I just get to jiggling that mufucker tambourine.”
The Mirror thing is like the Evil Queen in Snow White. Mufucker say something stupid to the mirror, the mirror talks back, and tells their ass the truth they don't want to and aren't prepared to hear about themselves.
“MIRROR MIRROR, WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO OUT HERE TO SAVE MILWAUKEE? NOTHING. IT'S ALREADY PEOPLE DOING THE WORK, SO THERE IS NO WE. BUT YO ASS NEEDS TO GO FIND THEM AND EITHER JOIN OR SUPPORT THEM.”
Maybe jiggling the tambourine would work. At least, they’d know when they say stupid shit. This city is sick. We need to make a cloud machine that will rain down healing on Milwaukee.
