Now we to want preview a "Here and Now" special coming to you
next Friday.
The program is about matters of race, right here in Wisconsin.
Frederica led a conversation on the topic after sharing a story
about a controversial public mural in Milwaukee.
>> For Milwaukee artist Adam Stoner, art is how he starts a
conversation.
>> It becomes a thing that allows me to contemplate issues
that I think aren't being dealt with either in myself
or in society as a whole.
>> The issues closest to Stoner's heart
involve mass incarceration.
He spent a year working as a chaplain for incarcerated youth
in Michigan.
An experience that deeply affected him.
>> I sort of saw the school-to-prison pipeline, as
people call it, actually happening.
>> In Wisconsin, the incarceration rate for
African-American men is among the highest in the nation.
According to the last U.S.
census in 2010, Wisconsin was ranked first in the country at
12.8%.
That's one in eight African-American men.
>> We have to look critically at that system and think about why
does this plague this one community so much.
>> Stoner hoped to bring attention to that statistic with
this mural for Black Cat Alley, an outdoor street art gallery on
Milwaukee's east side.
The mural depicted an African-American man towering
over the alley in an orange prison jumpsuit.
>> I want to start this conversation especially in
Milwaukee right now.
It's so important that we talk about this with all the things
going on in Milwaukee as it involves race and class and
segregation.
I think it's so important that we honestly and candidly bring
it up.
>> The mural story raises many questions.
Perhaps at the top of the list is a point that Milwaukee artist
Wille Weaver-Bey raised in that story: the need to start a
conversation about race relations.
Mr. Weaver-Bey is here in the studio tonight.
He's joined by two others who work full-time on that question.
They are Rachel Krinsky, CEO of the Madison YWCA, with its
robust racial justice mission and Tracey Robertson, co-founder
of Fit Oshkosh, a nonprofit with a mission to increase racial
literacy in Winnebago County and across Wisconsin.
And we welcome all of you here to our studios.
Thanks for being here.
>> Thank you.
>> I wanted to start with you, Willie, and in the story, again,
you said that you feel like we need to have this conversation,
a dialogue on issues of racial division.
In your mind, where do we start?
>> Well, first you start by being willing to talk to someone
or anyone about how you feel about race relations.
In America, no one wants to talk about race relations.
If you see me walking down the street, I don't care if
I'm dressed like this or if I just got on a jogging suit.
Most white Americans will cross the street, cringe, grab their
purse like I'm a pariah or something,
like I'm going to attack you.
You don't even know me and yet you've already stereotyped me
and passed judgment because of what you see in the media.
>> And so I want to ask Rachel that same question.
Where do you think we start this conversation, this dialogue?
>> It's a huge question, Frederica.
Because it's more than race relations.
We do have to be able to talk to each other and get past
stereotypes.
But so much of what's happening around race is about policy, and
the entire criminal justice system needs to be re-examined.
>> The full episode of that special edition of
"Here and Now" is next Friday.