Milwaukee PBS "Speaking Of... The Missing Peace"
Milwaukee PBS podcast “Speaking Of …” has returned for its second season, titled “Speaking Of … The Missing Peace.” Over eight episodes, co-hosts Alexandria Mack and Scottie Lee Meyers focus on the concerning increase of deadly domestic and intimate partner violence across Wisconsin by way of profound stories shared by survivors of abuse, local authorities and policy experts alike.
Combining their passions for storytelling, community and critical reflection, Alexandria Mack and Scottie Lee Meyers, along with former producer Mariano Avila, launched “Speaking Of …” in 2022. The podcast’s tagline is “making public media personal.”
Their first season highlighted different local topics ranging from Black homeownership and entrepreneurship to immigrants’ sense of “home” in Milwaukee to Brookfield teenagers pushing for Black History Month legislation, with all three producers having three episodes to dive into what spoke to them. “Each of us brought a different perspective based on our own backgrounds in Milwaukee,” Mack said. “Going into our second season, we really wanted to be as intentional as possible with what we took a deep dive into.”
A few months later, the producers aired a mini-series titled “Las Cronicas” where each explored senses of “place” in different Milwaukee communities.
“Speaking Of … The Missing Peace” finds Mack and Meyers returning, albeit with the different approach of focusing on one topic the entire season. Production took place throughout 2023 and early 2024.
The producers had been having conversations about the issue of domestic violence for a while, but given sensitivity, struggled to decide a most appropriate approach to the topic. Mack elaborates, “It requires so much disclosing and painful retelling, and sometimes there’s an added pressure when there’s a camera in someone’s face. The podcast platform felt ideal because there is less pressure on presentation, where people can be their organic selves.”
“This is an issue that unfortunately intersects a lot of us, directly or indirectly,” Meyers adds. “You are never more than a couple degrees away from it.”
Increase in Domestic Violence
The “Speaking Of …” press release states that Wisconsin lost 96 people to domestic violence in 2022, which is the most ever recorded in state history, as well as a 20 percent increase from 2021.
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The producers interviewed many advocates involved with the coalition We Are Here (weareheremke.org). Their process involved public records requests, assessing criminal complaints, sitting in on restraining order hearings and looking into Alma Center’s transformative justice work with abusive men.
Mack notes that there were many factors of the conversation that they did not know about. “We learned about laws, what’s typical and not typical, and the experiences of both advocates and survivors. For me personally, domestic violence has shown up at several different moments of my life where all I knew what to do was to call the police, and their solutions ended up being minimal. I’ve lost people I care about to the issue, and it was important for me to learn more about it because I realized that there was so much I didn’t know. Some stories were more emotional than others; some were more nuanced.”
Meyers mentions that many shootings and murders in Milwaukee are intimate partner related. “It’s the root cause of a lot of crime, and the system is letting a lot of survivors down. But there’s also an impressive number of innovative solutions happening to help address the problem.”
New episodes air throughout April on Fridays. The producers will conclude “Speaking Of … The Missing Peace” with a bonus ninth episode. “We’re approaching the last one like a memorial episode,” Meyers expands. “It honors and celebrates some of the lives we’ve lost, and we’ll be looking at things like how funding affects this work, as well as speaking to people who are kind of going through the thick of it right now.”
“I think what we were able to produce has been really powerful,” Mack concludes. “This season is a lot more emotionally intense than our first, and I am mindful that it is triggering. I keep reminding myself that it’s so much harder for those who have lived or are currently living through this, and those of us who want to be a part of the solution and are able to sit through that discomfort, should. Hopefully it helps people learn more about the domestic violence crisis and pushes them to do something.”
Listen to “Speaking Of …The Missing Peace” at milwaukeepbs.org/speaking-of.
