With a dedicated career helping children and families adversely impacted by immigration, homelessness, abuse, and oppressive systems in South America, Europe, and his native Milwaukee, Luke serves as Director of Program Design and Community Engagement at the Institute for Child and Family Well-being at Children’s Wisconsin.
As an award-winning Senior Columnist for the Milwaukee Independent, Reggie Jackson covers a range of African American issues. He is also a Consultant with Nurturing Diversity Partners, and volunteers as Head Griot for America’s Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM) in Bronzeville.
REGGIE JACKSON: 7x Award Winner in Best Column categories from the Milwaukee Press Club
As a teacher for over twenty years, Dominic Inouye helped students to develop their reading, writing, critical thinking, and, most of all, their voices. He worked as The Pfister Hotel Narrator, a one-year appointment, and currently manages the ZIP MKE project that photo documents the city to promote cultural understanding.
Dominic Inouye: 2x Award Winner in Best Column category from the Milwaukee Press Club
Dr. Kenneth Cole is a Licensed Psychologist who has spent the past two decades helping members of the community in developing the ability to bring about positive change for their lives, and empowering those individuals to advocate for themselves.
Kenneth Cole: 2x Award Winner in Reporting categories from the Milwaukee Press Club
Pardeep Kaleka is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, published author of The Gifts of Our Wounds, award-winning columnist with Milwaukee Independent, and a clinician specializing in utilizing a trauma-informed approach to treat survivors and perpetrators of assault, abuse, and acts of violence.
PARDEEP KALEKA: Winner in Best Blog category of the 88th Annual Milwaukee Press Club Awards
John Pavlovitz: Winner of Best Blog at the 89th Annual Milwaukee Press Club Awards
Recent Columns
How the presence of armed vigilantes outside voting places ensures a corrupt one-party government
Over the October 24th weekend, the Maricopa County Elections Department announced that two people, both armed and dressed in tactical gear, stationed themselves near a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona. They left when law enforcement officers arrived. At least two...
The right to vote: When suffragist Susan B. Anthony led a group of women to the polls 150 years ago
One hundred and fifty years ago on November 5, American women turned out to vote in the presidential election, exercising their right to have a say in their government by choosing either Democratic candidate Horace Greeley or Republican incumbent Ulysses S. Grant....
As the Biden White House works to rebuild the middle class the MAGA-fueled culture wars aim to demolish it
The Biden White House has tried since President Joe Biden’s inauguration to move past the Trump years and to focus instead on strengthening democracy by rebuilding the American middle class and by renewing our alliances and friendships with democratic allies. As his...
A Broken America: Trump did not fracture the nation, he revealed our split and damaged soul
America is broken. I am not sure that is up for debate at this point. But we should be clear about something: Donald Trump did not break it. He did not create anything. Not the unmasked racism so proudly parading itself down crowded main streets, in school board...
A Party Flip: When defenders of Civil Rights abandoned their moral values for the ideology of White Power
News broke recently that as a guest on the right-wing Real America’s Voice media network in 2020, Republican candidate for Michigan governor Tudor Dixon said that the Democrats have planned for decades to topple the United States because they have not gotten over...
Pardeep Kaleka: The dangers of Kanye West’s antisemitic rants four years after Pittsburgh synagogue tragedy
Four years ago, on October 27, 2018, the country and the world saw the traumatic consequences that the spread of antisemitic hate speech can have on a community. Eleven worshipper were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue, in the deadliest hate crime in history that...
Why lawmakers who voted against President Biden’s popular policies take credit for them before midterms
In their year and a half in power, Democrats have put in place policies that are widely popular. The infrastructure projects provided for under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act are so popular, in fact, that Republicans who voted against the law are nonetheless taking...
Tip of the iceberg: MAGA Republicans embrace the same toxic economic plans that forced Liz Truss to resign
British prime minister Liz Truss resigned on October 20, after just 44 days in office. Modeling herself on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who pushed the same sorts of supply-side economic policies U.S. president Ronald Reagan did, Truss had taken office on...
Derek M. Williams: Can the Scales of Justice ever be fair for a Black man in Milwaukee?
Sometimes in life you hear a story that seems hard to believe. A number of years ago a woman named Rikki walked up to me after a presentation I had done and asked if she could share her husband Derek’s story. I said of course you can. She told me that her husband had...
