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
A Campaign of Subversion: Evidence grows against GOP lawmakers who conspired to overturn Biden’s victory
The story broke on December 17 that members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol think they know who wrote one of the eye-popping texts to Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. The text was the one sent...
A Love of Guns: When pro-life Christians find joy in uplifting high-powered weapons designed to end life
Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massie tweeted out this photo of his family all holding weapons and wearing beaming smiles, with the caption: “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo” Putting aside what the Conservative reaction would be to...
What We Owe Our Children: Education is an empty ritual without honesty and intellectual stimulation
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” – Albert Einstein “I utterly deny, that we are originally, or naturally, or practically, or in any way, or in any important sense, inferior to anybody on this globe. [Loud...
When Conservative Christians come to the sobering reality that they are antithetical to Jesus
The steady stream of vitriol I receive from professed Christians who identify as MAGA or QAnon or Republican is completely understandable. As they fire-off threatening texts, furiously tap out expletive-laden emails, and break into violent, performative histrionics on...
How the U.S. Supreme Court has undermined the Federal protection of Civil Rights enshrined since 1954
Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson asked whether opponents of Texas’s S.B. 8, the so-called Heartbeat Bill, could bring a Federal case to block the law, which gets around normal challenges by putting private individuals, rather than the state itself, in charge of...
Just as poisonous snakes require specific antivenoms, there is no one-size-fits-all remedy for discrimination
One of the shifts taking place in equity work and conversations is a shift away from strictly talking about racism to include much more inclusive types of marginalization and discrimination. I find that there are two main reasons for this shift. The first of these...
A Fear of Legitimacy: When the only political agenda is to deny Democracy by igniting culture wars
Senate Republicans will not issue any sort of a platform before next year’s midterm elections. At a meeting of donors and lawmakers in mid-November, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee would be responsible for...
Taking a Deep Breath: Reggie Jackson on being totally off the grid for eight days
I took a strange, but satisfying journey off the grid over the past eight days. I confused my wife and friends by saying I wanted to be off the grid, meaning that I would stay disconnected from television, the internet, and my phone. I did not talk to anyone other...
How the unequal weight between emotion and policymaking has disconnected voter perceptions
The policies President Joe Biden and the Democrats are putting in place are hugely popular, and yet Biden’s own popularity numbers have dropped into the low 40s. It is a weird disconnect that suggests, above all, voters want “normalcy.” Heaven knows that Biden, who...
