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 Colonial Society: When Racism is the Pre-existing Condition
ALIENATION: the act of alienating, or of causing someone to become indifferent or hostile; the state of being alienated, withdrawn, or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection. People do not really understand how devastating systemic...
The Milwaukee Flyers: Up in the air but still soaring
If you have ever been to Summerfest, any other summer festival or a Milwaukee Bucks or Marquette Golden Eagles half-time show, then you have likely seen The Milwaukee Flyers Tumbling Team. Perhaps you were at a youth rally, a block party, a church gathering or even a...
Stupid is as stupid does: The Uncommon Nature of Common Sense
COMMON SENSE: “sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.” “Common sense is not so common.” – Voltaire, French philosopher Is it just me or does common sense appear to be...
Refusing terms of concession: When it is not possible to “agree to disagree” because one view is not valid
We recently found ourselves in a now-familiar location: hopelessly stuck in an unnavigable impasse on our respective paths, unable to find a way forward. And, as in so many times before, when the friction became too great and the exchange too heated and the tension...
The danger of denial: Ignoring domestic terrorism and the propaganda that blinds us to its threat
“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes truth.” – Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda One of the greatest tools we have available to understand the world we live in is looking at the past. Humans are a predictable species....
Shorewood residents worry that proposed Atwater Beach fee could restrict recreational access
One of the first times I ever stepped foot in the ocean was at the Inkwell on Martha’s Vineyard. It was 1970 and for a kid from Ohio, the Atlantic Ocean was nothing like the creeks, ponds and swimming pools of the Midwest. The ocean left an indelible impression on me,...
A message to the Democratic Party: Black people will not be the scapegoat if you lose Wisconsin again
SCAPEGOAT: a person or group made to bear the blame for others or to suffer in their place. I have heard consistently since the 2016 election that Black people in Wisconsin caused the Clinton loss. The narrative has been driven into the consciousness of people here,...
A Hard-Knock Life: Social apathy prevents Blacks from turning “lemons” into “lemonade”
“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in...
Ignoring Jesus: The problem with the American distortion of Christianity
I meet thousands of people every year who rightly recoil against Christianity in America, who are fully sickened by its insidious influence in our political system; who see it as a toxic presence in our nation — one that serves only to divide and perpetuate inequity...
