Here & Now

Controversial Milwaukee Art Helps, Hinders Dialogue

Zac Schultz:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

For Milwaukee artist Adam Stoner, art is how he starts a conversation.

Adam Stoner:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Adam Stoner:

I sort of saw the school-to-prison pipeline, as people call it, actually happening.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Adam Stoner:

We have to look critically at that system and think about why does this plague this one community so much.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Adam Stoner:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

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.

Wille Weaver-Bey, Rachel Krinsky, Tracey Robertson:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

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?

Wille Weaver-Bey:

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.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so I want to ask Rachel that same question. Where do you think we start this conversation, this dialogue?

Rachel Krinsky:

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.

Zac Schultz:

The full episode of that special edition of “Here and Now” is next Friday.