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
The path to tyranny: Evaluating when a functional autocrat qualifies as a full-fledged dictator
In today’s political reality, the term “dictator” often evokes images of leaders who have absolute power, quash all dissent, and rule with an iron fist. However, modern autocrats rarely fit this stereotypical mold. Instead, they operate in the gray areas of democracy,...
One Nation Under Trump: How Americans gave extrajudicial powers to a criminal in the White House
Donald Trump, inaugurated again on January 20, 2025, has bulldozed every institutional safeguard that once stood against unchecked authority. His second term has become an unapologetic campaign to concentrate absolute power in the executive branch, a move that...
United We Stood: What the Great Depression taught Americans that was forgotten during COVID-19
If Americans could time-travel back to the early 1930s, they might catch a glimpse of neighbors swapping homegrown vegetables, congregations organizing community meals, and families opening their doors to share whatever they had. That display of mutual support emerged...
Reggie Jackson: The anti-DEI bullies will not make my deeply personal work illegal or erase the truth
A number of years ago I lost an opportunity to conduct training on unconscious bias because of an executive order by Donald Trump. I was upset and disappointed but the client could not do anything about the executive order discouraging training that the president...
When a sad “Clown King” does not pull the trigger but supplies the ammunition for mass suffering and death
Donald Trump’s record on public health, environmental protection, and social policy has been the subject of heated debate since he seized the presidency in 2016. Yet one aspect stands out for its sheer magnitude: the number of American lives that may have been lost,...
From Juche to MAGA: How Trump’s personality cult reflects the North Korean playbook for oppression
North Korea’s long history of oppressive governance, stringent control over information, and idolization of its leaders have raised alarm bells for global observers for decades. Under the successive regimes of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, the reclusive...
The Screwtape Letters: Applying what C.S. Lewis said about absolute power to Milwaukee’s moral landscape
It is often said that great literature transcends its era. The classic work by C.S. Lewis that was published in 1942, “The Screwtape Letters,” is a striking example. Initially intended as a satirical commentary on Christian faith and the subtle ways evil...
From White Hoods to Red Hats: How MAGA revives the ideological legacy of the Klan in Trump’s America
In the years since Donald Trump ascended to the forefront of American politics, the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement has transformed into a potent cultural and political force. Beneath its veneer of patriotism and populist rhetoric lies a troubling truth: the...
Tyranny of the majority: Why Obama is advocating for the Constitution’s promise of pluralism
On December 5, in Chicago, former president Barack Obama gave the third in an annual series of lectures he has delivered since 2022 at his foundation’s Democracy Forum, which gathers experts, leaders, and young people to explore ways to safeguard democracy through...
