Here & Now

Noon Wednesday with guest Wenona Wolf

Marisa Wojcik:

Welcome to Noon Wednesday, I’m Marisa Wojcik, a multimedia journalist with Here & Now on Wisconsin Public Television. Election season is on us and a Wisconsin Non-profit is asking people to get out and vote. But, they’re not only asking you to get out and vote, they’re asking you to vote in mind with racial justice being at the top of your priority list. So Kids Forward has launched an initiative called “Race to the Polls” and joining us from Kids Forward is Wenona Wolf. She’s the communications and development manager and thanks for being here.

Wenona Wolf:

Yeah, thank you for having me here.

Marisa Wojcik:

So what are you asking voters to do?

Wenona Wolf:

Well, first and foremost, we want people to get out and vote but, we want people to go to the polls and think about racial justice. Here in Wisconsin, we are plagued by alarming racial disparities that are really impacting the well-being of communities of color. We don’t think that’s talked about enough so we think we should be talking about race more. And then we also think that we need to be electing leaders who are going to talk to communities of color, address these issues so we can really make Wisconsin a great place for everyone.

Marisa Wojcik:

Where did the idea for this initiative come from?

Wenona Wolf:

Well for the past five years, Kids Forward has been working on issues related to communities of color. In 2013, Our special project, the “Race to Equity” project, released a report that looked at the gap in well being between the African American community and the white community here in Dayton County. That kind of set Kids Forward off into further analyzing race in our state and how race and disparities are really impacting the well being of people here. So having spent the past five years doing that and really seeing a need for the state as a whole, for the communities, for all people and especially our elected officials to really start addressing these issues. I think far too much in our state, or everywhere people have this mentality to create public policies with the assumption that it’s going to help everyone. But I think historically we’ve seen that’s not the case and in fact, we’ve had what people thought as good policies and further hurting communities of color. So that has been a big conversation at our organization and that kind of led to us thinking about how we can start making bigger change related to race relations here in our state. So with it being election year, we thought Why don’t we really encourage people in Wisconsin to take race seriously and start really paying attention to issues that are affecting communities of color and start going to the polls with that in mind.

Marisa Wojcik:

Do you think people are sometimes averse to having those conversations because they’re tough and can be wrong in a lot of ways? Do you think those conversations are being had?

Wenona Wolf:

Well, yeah, I mean, I think talking about race is a really hard thing for a lot of people to do and I think that alone has put us in the place where we are right now where we’re seeing disparities, we’re seeing so much tension between races but we need to first be able to talk about that. I think that everyone in this state, I think we have an assumption or not an assumption, but we know Wisconsin is a predominately white state, but that doesn’t mean that there are communities of color that there are people of color all throughout our state and all parts of our state and we need to realize that in order for us to be a really productive state, whether that be economically, or related to education or health, that we need to ensure that every person in our state is thriving. And we’re not doing that right now. So, it starts with talking about race. It starts with our elected officials talking about race, and it starts with our candidates talking about race and then thinking about how those conversations can influence public policy. So we start seeing policies address some of these really big issues we have in Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

So what’s a unique element of this campaign? There’s kind of a storytelling component.

Wenona Wolf:

Yeah, you know we call it a campaign but we also call it a movement because we don’t want to just talk about this between now and November We find that’s where there’s problems. We find that maybe candidates only talk about race or only knock on certain people’s doors one time a year or once every two years, once every four years. We want to start talking about it now and we want to carry that momentum beyond the election cycle but we also want this to be driven by the people We want people’s stories. We want the issues that are affecting communities to be heard and we want voters to listen to those stories understand what’s going on and then be able to talk to candidates and vote with these issues in mind and some of these issues are the issues that we aren’t hearing our candidates talk about.

Marisa Wojcik:

What are some stories that you’ve been hearing?

Wenona Wolf:

Yeah, I mean I think we’ve heard from a range of people, a range of issues, People, I’ve talked to some people in the African American communities that are saying, You know there’s some really big issues related to police violence, related to where our investments are being made and candidates aren’t listening to those. I’ve heard from tribal leaders that candidates won’t even take the time to visit with them, make time in their schedule to visit with them, or even acknowledge them. Which is something, you know, terrible here in Wisconsin being that it’s the first people of this state and there is a large number of tribes here in Wisconsin. We’ve also heard from a lot of white people that re saying, you know what, I’ve kind of gotten away with not talking about race or not paying attention to these issues. And that’s not okay anymore and I need to start talking about that.

Marisa Wojcik:

Is this a partisan campaign? Are you endorsing candidates?

Wenona Wolf:

We are not. We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. Our main goal is to get people out to the polls and get people thinking about race and frankly, you know, to us it doesn’t matter which party is doing this, or which party is not doing this. We want all of our candidates to do better whether they’re Republican, right, left, conservative, liberal. We think everyone can be doing a much better job than they are.

Marisa Wojcik:

Are you reaching out to candidates before or after the elections?

Wenona Wolf:

So, we are producing some issue guides where we are highlighting some of the issues that our organization works on that we want to draw attention to and especially framed around how these issues are impacting communities of color. So we’re looking at juvenile justice, we’re looking at healthcare, we’re looking at our early education system. So we’ll be doing some outreach to candidates but we’re really focused on voters and getting voters caught up on this information, voters wanting to talk about this and voters making this a priority this election season.

Marisa Wojcik:

And Kids Forward, as you said, came out with a 2013 “Race to Equity” report, and kind of the results of that surprised a lot of people.

Wenona Wolf:

Mm-hmm.

Marisa Wojcik:

What is Kids Forward working on now, are more reports coming down the pipeline?

Wenona Wolf:

Yes, we just released a huge juvenile justice report that looks at kind of the maze and the large racial disparities and the number of youth that Wisconsin is locking up. We also will be doing an update to our “Race to Equity” report because it’s five years later now. We’ll also be looking to do more of the racial disparities research and analysis on a statewide level. So we’ve been doing some work around immigration and what is happening to the immigrant community her in Wisconsin. We’re also hoping to do more highlighting of tribal communities and the well-being in the state of American Indians here in Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

If someone, who’s out there listening, wanted to share their story with “Race to the Polls” or with Kids Forward, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Wenona Wolf:

The best way would be to go on our website is www.racetothepolls.org. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and once you’re there, we have a pledge that you can sign There you can share a story, you can read other people’s stories and we’ll be rolling out more and more things so, if you go there, sign up, you’ll be updated every week on some of the things that we’re rolling out and what we’re doing here in the state.

Marisa Wojcik:

Alright, well, Wenona, thanks so much for joining us.

Wenona Wolf:

Yes thank you so much for having me.

Marisa Wojcik:

If you want to hear more from Here & Now and Wisconsin Public Television, please visit wpt.org and thanks for joining us on Noon Wednesday.