Author: Reggie Jackson

“Actions by the suspect caused the officers to perceive he posed a deadly threat to them. In response to this threat, officers discharged their firearms, striking the suspect.” – Akron Police Department statement on the shooting of Jayland Walker They stood back, guns drawn, and gave the driver orders over a loudspeaker, the footage shows. “Surprisingly, he just, like, instantly complied. I think he was just, ‘This is it.’” – Ryan German, witness to the arrest of the Highland Park mass shooter (Washington Post) On June 27 a 25-year-old Black DoorDash driver, Jayland Walker, was shot and killed by...

“Historians tell us where we’ve been, and give us insights into where we’re going. Historians remind us of the things that we’ve forgotten, and speak up about the things we’ve deliberately omitted. Historians reveal things that we never knew. Historians show us that we’ve been asking the wrong questions, and perhaps even giving the wrong answers. Most crucially, historians tell us who we are, because how we know ourselves in the present is intimately linked to the ways we remember ourselves in the past.” – Jason Steinhauer “Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, redemption, or reconciliation, may...

There has been little said by most elected officials about the readily apparent racial imbalance in the latest assessments of home values in Milwaukee. Overall, the city wide increase was 17.77%. By far the largest increases were in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, which all saw increases exceeding 20%. Residents in those areas who are very concerned about how this will impact their property taxes later this year are patiently waiting on an explanation as to why the value are so much more in Black and Hispanic parts of town. Alderman Bob Bauman said, “There will be a flood of...

I am rarely at a loss for words. However, I found myself struggling to process the horrific violence over the past few weeks. It is generally fairly easy for me to take a pause, think deeply about events and then put my thoughts down in an article. I wish this was still easy to do in this instance, but it is incredibly difficult to even think about how to process the world around us. Several people reached out to me after the racist attack and murders in Buffalo, offering their condolences to me and my community for the losses...

“We don’t want to be protected after the fact. We want to be protected and treated like we matter without it taking a white supremacist shooting up our community.Time and time again they’ve shown nobody cares about us here. It’s a pattern.” – Marlene Brown, 58-year-old Buffalo resident “People are going to try to excuse it as this person not being from Buffalo,  they’ll say things like ‘This is not who we are.’ I just want to be clear that this is exactly who Buffalo is. It doesn’t matter that we have a Black mayor. This is still a...