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
Injustice in Health: Mistrust comes from untrustworthy behavior
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. There has been a great deal of conversation and analysis of why people in the Black community have trust issues with the COVID-19...
Reggie Jackson: The crushing emotional strain of seeing images and videos of Anti-Black Violence
“Weathering is a physiological process that accelerates aging and increases health vulnerability. It is spurred by chronic toxic stress exposures over the life course and the tenacious high-effort coping [that] families and communities engage in to survive them, if...
From stolen votes to stolen bases: Why our political system does not reflect the will of the majority
The Republican outrage over Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia after the passage of the state’s new voter suppression law reveals a bigger crisis in American democracy: the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the...
You are not alone: An Open Letter to Transgender youth
Dear Friend, I don’t know your story. I cannot imagine how you feel. I can’t fathom how difficult this road has been for you: the swirling storm of the questions inside your head, the hidden fears you’ve had to constantly keep at bay, the incessant worries about the...
Keeping Blacks from the polls: How Republicans adopted the playbook former Confederates used to halt Reconstruction
Since the Civil War, voter suppression in America has had a unique cast. The Civil War brought two great innovations to the United States that would mix together to shape our politics from 1865 onward: First, the Republicans under Abraham Lincoln created our first...
Jim Crow is alive and well: Calculated attacks on Voting Rights seek to resurrect the Bad Old Days
“Do you know I’ve never voted in my life, never been able to exercise my right as a citizen because of the poll tax? … I can’t pay a poll tax, can’t have a voice in my own government.” – Mr. Trout, a Georgia native (1936) “More than 250...
Galápagos Syndrome: America evolved from its Slavery Era with ancestral racism remaining firmly rooted
“Galápagos syndrome” is a term of Japanese origin used in business studies to refer to the isolated development of a globally available product. As an analogy to a part of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” it has become a...
Categorizing Identity: The intersection of Race and Education in America
“The United States must vastly improve the educational outcomes for this new and diverse majority of American students, whose success is inextricably linked to the well-being of the nation.” – Education Week Magazine The 2014-15 school year marked the first time...
A political effort to honor racists provides confirmation that Wisconsin really is Wississippi
“You own this. You own his rhetoric. You own his sentiment.” – State Senator LaTonya Johnson to her Republican colleagues Once upon a time I used to joke that because I was born in Mississippi and raised in Wisconsin that I’m from Wississippi. Well, it’s...
