Bruce Dixon at The Black Commentator recently
listed the worst places to be black. He uses percentage of the population in prison as his primary measure. I can see a small quibble with using that single measure, but on the other hand, incarceration rates are indicative of a wide range of other social and economic indicators.
Anyway, it turns out that with four percent of its (small) black population behind bars, compared to .35 percent of its white population similarly situated, Wisconsin wins the title of Worst Place to be Black.
More - including the surprising reaction - on the flip.
Rounding out the top ten (bottom ten?) are Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Delaware, Nevada, Orgeon, California and Colorado.
Naturally, we Wisconsin white people had our senses of noblesse oblige shaken. "Oh my goodness," we said. "How can this be? We have to be nicer to the brown people!"
Only one of our local TV news broadcasts has an editorial, read at the end of each newscast by News 3 Editorial Director Neil Heinen. (In the interest of full disclosure, Neil is also Editorial Director of Madison Magazine, where I am associate editor. Neil's office is about ten feet from mine.) Anyway, Monday night's was dedicated to this topic. The link is set up like a bulletin board; the top paragraph is the editorial, and the comments are below, most recent first.
Two things to mention. From the editorial:
A state with Jim Doyle as Governor, with one of the most diverse administrations in the country, cannot lead the nation in number of Black prisoners. The national numbers alone clearly indicate this is an issue of race before crime. Wisconsin has to be the state to do something about it.
Jim Doyle is not black, but his two adult sons are (a fact that he has never, ever touted in any way, to his credit). But it's just silly for Neil to think that the Doyle administration, which by all accounts is
the most diverse in state history, has anything at all to do with anything related to the poor and the disenfranchised. It's "White Man's Burden" style fallacious thinking that says a white governor can "lift up" people of color by hiring the rich ones for his cabinet. Nobody deserves a pat on the back for that.
(Incidently ... the TV station has no people of color on staff besides one Asian-American anchor, one Indian-American reporter, and one African-America reporter. Oh, and the new sports guy is black, naturally.)
But I give Neil credit for bringing it up, and calling it unacceptable. Which brings me to the second thing: the reaction. We've always known that a particularly viscious and subtle racism exists in this country (see my earlier diary on raising a black kid) and in Wisconsin in particular. It's always there, just under the surface. And something like being named the worst place to be black - followed by a well-known (locally) white dude talking about it - lances the boil and it all bubbles out. Yesterday the local morning talk radio dipshits were all over it, and the comments on the above link pretty much echo what they had to say - if they're in jail, they deserve to be. There have been four shootings in Madison lately - that's a lot for this town - and they've all been black shooters, so, naturally ... well, you get the idea. Neil told me yesterday that he's tickled to have stirred the pot a bit.
The question is, what now? What can I as a lowly magazine editor do? I've been working to get more minority faces and voices in the magazine. I've hired a black columnist, and I'm working on adding a Hispanic woman to my rotation. (A specific person whom I respect ... I'm not just casting the net for any ol' Hispanic.) I've written about minority business issues. (For some reason the most recent story isn't archived yet. I'll link it when I find it.) I feature minority business owners and other leaders not in a token way, not with a "he's doing good for a Latino guy" kind of way. But I don't feel like that's going to do any good.
But, on the other hand, we each have to take the fight where we can. If I take it on through my magazine, the local banker will take it on through lending, the local IT company will donate computers to a neighborhood center, and on and on. I don't know. Is that too optimistic?
I'm going to talk to Neil in a bit to call him out on the Doyle comment. I'll let you know what he has to say.