As the Democratic National Convention concludes, the nation’s focus came to not only the City of Milwaukee, but also Wisconsin, a place where racial segregation, economic inequality and police brutality against people of color has long since been a problem.

After the video of George Floyd’s murder on May 25 went viral, the world changed. It was never a secret that Black and Brown people were disproportionately targeted by police, but this instance in particular was the catalyst to cause people to rise up and say “Enough is enough. This has to change.”

Floyd’s death is indicative of a problem facing our nation, including in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has seen countless Black and Brown people lose their lives in police-related interactions.

Here are just a few of the people of color killed in police interactions in recent years:

In April, 25-year-old Joel Acevedo died days after an off-duty Milwaukee police officer put him in a 10-minute chokehold during a fight. Mattioli was charged with first-degree reckless homicide. 

In February, 17-year-old Alvin Cole was fatally shot while fleeing from police outside Mayfair Mall. Police say Cole shot first before officers returned fire. Wauwatosa Police released portions of dashcam footage, but were not equipped with body cameras. This was the third fatal shooting that the officer had been involved in. A charging decision has not yet been made.

On June 15, 2019, 18-year-old Ty’Rese West was fatally shot after a Mount Pleasant Police officer stopped West for not having a light on his bicycle and West fled. The officer claimed West had a gun. There was no body cam footage of the incident, and West’s fingerprints were never found on the gun. The Racine County DA said that the officer’s actions were justified.

In June 2017, 19-year-old Terry Williams was fatally shot by a Milwaukee County Sheriff's Deputy after reportedly attempting to flee from a traffic stop. The deputy fired eight time’s into Williams’ SUV. No charges were filed against the officer.

In May 2017, 22-year-old Adam Trammel died after West Milwaukee Police broke down the door to his apartment and Tasered him 18 times while he was showering. Trammel was pronounced dead when he arrived at the emergency room. The involved officers were not charged.

In August 2016, 23-year-old Sylville Smith was fatally shot by a Milwaukee Police Department officer seconds after body-camera video showed him throwing his weapon over a nearby fence.  The shooting led to days of protests in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park area. The officer was charged, but  was eventually acquitted.

In June 2016, 25-year-old Jay Anderson Jr. was fatally shot by a Wauwatosa Police officer inside his parked car after the officer said that he saw a gun in the vehicle and Anderson kept reaching for it. Anderson was shot five times in the head. The officer, who was not charged, was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting.

In April 2014, 31-year-old unarmed Dontre Hamilton was fatally shot by a Milwaukee Police officer while he was sleeping in Red Arrow Park. Hamilton was shot 14 times. The involved officer was fired, but charged. The decision sparked rage in the community, and led to the Milwaukee Police Department being equipped with body cameras.

It is obvious by these, and countless other examples, that changes need to be made to the infrastructure of policing. In some of these examples, mental health was a major factor. 

A call has been made to ‘defund’ the police, but ‘defund’ is a largely misunderstood word. 

Defunding doesn’t mean eliminating the police department. It means looking at the role police currently play in society, and reallocating resources to include counselors, social workers and other entities who are more suited to deal with the situations that police are involved in each day. Situations, that all too often, result in the death of people of color. 

The defund debate comes as the Trump administration has begun deploying troops to cities across the country, including Milwaukee. We don’t need more police, especially ones kidnapping people and infringing on their rights, with zero accountability. 

As we focus on the DNC, let’s remember these injustices. Let’s ask those in power to look at the systemic prejudices that exist in policing and envision a new way of policing going forward. 

As the Democratic National Convention thrusts Milwaukee onto the national stage, America’s reckoning with police violence and racial injustice will be brought to bear on a city marked by profound racial inequality and oppression. During a time in which Americans are being forced to confront how centuries of white supremacy has shaped virtually every aspect of our lives, there may be no better case study for the present-day impact of systemic racism than the City of Milwaukee. 

For decades, African Americans in Milwaukee have dealt with devastating rates of poverty, intense segregation in housing and education, a criminal justice system that arrests, incarcerates, and devours communities of color at vastly disproportionate rates, as well as a myriad of other hardships rooted in our history of racism.

 A recent report authored by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Marc Levine brings the city’s rigid racial divisions into sharp focus, illuminating just how pronounced Milwaukee’s disparities are, even when compared with other major cities experiencing similar issues.

Levine’s investigation reveals that Milwaukee’s staggering 33.4% Black poverty rate is nearly five times higher than that of whites in the city, while the median household income for African Americans, a figure 42% lower than it is for white residents, ranks as the lowest among America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Milwaukee has long held the disgraceful distinction as the most segregated city in the country, has unconscionably high infant mortality rates for Black babies, and incarcerates its African American citizens at a rate 10 times higher than white people. This rampant racial inequality has become part and parcel to daily life in the City of Milwaukee, an epidemic perpetuated by a collective unwillingness to seriously address it.

If we are to ever eradicate systemic racism here and elsewhere, we first must be clear about where it originates. While many prefer to outright deny the existence of structural racism and instead invoke racial stereotypes that blame people of color for social ills, the injustice that Black individuals endure today is a product of an institution of white supremacy that has prevailed in the United States since its founding. 

Although the era of explicit, state-sanctioned white supremacy is now over, much of the infrastructure established during that time remains intact and unchanged, perpetuating the discriminatory outcomes it was designed to produce. The hypersegregation that pervades Milwaukee, for instance, can be traced back to racially exclusive programs like redlining, racial covenants which expressly forbade African Americans from living in white neighborhoods, and the withholding of federally-backed, low interest housing loans from Black people, making home ownership vastly more attainable for white people. 

The persistence of systemic racism in the absence of legal discrimination means that outlawing legal discrimination, while neccessary, is not enough. Eliminating entrenched racism requires wholesale transformation of the social conditions which allow our society to function in a fashion that excludes, mistreats and endangers people of color. The current movement against police violence recognizes the need for this type of bold vision, calling for accountability for police abuses while also demanding that the institution of policing be fundamentally reimagined.

When we say Black Lives Matter, we affirm the value of all Black people in all facets of life. We raise our voices and fight not only to end racist policing, but also to fully fund Black schools, dismantle mass incarceration, improve social services, reduce poverty, and invest in people of color and the communities they live in. 

As the movement for racial justice marches forward, we want to send a message to the people in power that the decades of disregard they have shown Black people and their concerns will not be tolerated. Systemic racism survives in part because some elected officials have ignored its effects and abandoned those affected by it. The days of inaction are over, and change is no longer optional. We will not rest until we have it.