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
Thanksgiving was established to celebrate the survival of our democratic government
It doesn’t feel like much of a Thanksgiving this year. Lots of chairs are empty, either permanently, as we are now counting our coronavirus dead in the hundreds of thousands, or temporarily, as we are staying away from our loved ones to keep the virus at bay. Lots of...
Silence of the Self-Righteous: When will White people take “Personal Responsibility” in the Age of COVID?
For so many years in this country I have heard the “personal responsibility” rant used against the Black community, blaming us for conditions that we had little control over. We have been blamed for so long, that some of us even throw out the ridiculous remark that...
Trump caves in to reality as GSA declares Joe Biden the “apparent winner” to start presidential transition
The General Services Administration has declared president-elect Joe Biden the apparent winner of the US election, clearing the way for the formal transition from Donald Trump’s administration to begin after weeks of delay. Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee at the...
What we choose to say goodbye to this year will define our national identity for generations
America, we will soon say goodbye to something. One way or another, this year will end with a farewell. It will either close with a glorious, triumphant blast of freedom — or with the sickening death knell of a once – great nation, gone for good. Either America...
Truth Decay: Trump continues to subvert Biden’s win by leveraging the power of his office
The news today remains Trump’s unprecedented attempt to steal an election in which voters chose his opponents, Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, by close to 6 million votes, so far. A close second to that news is that the...
Shattering Glass: Kamala Harris is paving the way for all types of women to reach their dreams
There is a long-standing acknowledgment and pattern that when women take one step forward, women of color take two steps back. A “glass ceiling” is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents women from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy....
Documenting History in Images: A photojournalist’s journey to remain safe in the Age of COVID-19
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed many fault lines in American society. One of the many issues that has gone overlooked and underreported is how people incorporate wearing a mask into the routines of their daily life. The ongoing argument over masks has mostly been...
The concept of Whiteness: Understanding the role and shared responsibilities of fighting racism
Many commentaries have compared this summer’s upsurge of anti-racist demonstrations after the killing of George Floyd to the nationwide outbreaks after the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968. Mainstream media then reported “riots” across the nation...
Life without Trump: The problems faced by Blacks will not go away after Inauguration Day
The results of the 2016 presidential election came as a huge surprise for many Americans. It did not surprise me. When I heard definitively that Donald Trump had won the election I was not shocked like many people were. I said in the weeks leading up to the election...
