Bryson Forrestor, Part 1

Bryson sat alone. Everything was moving so fast now, but for the most part the pace had helped him keep his mind off things like the events of a month ago. The physicals, the tests, the papers he had to sign, the people he had to meet, and the overall hustle and bustle of the office kept him preoccupied. Now came the “hurry-up-and-wait” he had been told to expect, and everything came flooding back to him like a bad dream. A single tear traced its way down the crease of his nose and landed on his shoe. He reached down and wiped it off before erasing the trail it left on his face. This was the home of bravery and masculinity, not of tears and bad memories; still the thoughts remained.

“Forrestor, Bryson!” he heard as he sat with his head buried in his hands. Slowly he pulled himself off the chair and made his way toward the uniformed titan standing in the office doorway.

***

Everything had been beautiful outside when Bryson left his house on that humid Florida morning, or at least he thought it was. Now that he was returning in shame everything was losing its color. What once was a bright deep blue sky now took on a gunmetal gray sheen, and the green grass he passed was masked by what appeared to him as ominous shadows; an omen that should have foretold the coming disaster that was spread out before him as he left home. As he reached the sidewalk he couldn't bear to even look at the cars that passed by for fear of more heartache; that doom would reach through the window of a passing car and rip his stomach out the way his heart had already been stripped from his chest. Such a thought didn't ease him any, and as he made his way to the nearest tree he felt all the life drain out of him, just as his breakfast spewed forth from his stomach and drained down the trunk of the tree.

            How could this happen? Just a week after graduation, everything seemed to be in perfect order. He was enrolled in college, the same college that his best friend, Ian, and his girl, Julie, were enrolled in. It seemed like it would be the perfect set up. He was almost certain that when they got to school he'd be rooming with Ian, and Julie would be a stone's throw away. Maybe later on they could rent a house or a large apartment together; most likely after Ian found the love of his life like Bryson had. They could do everything together, and why wouldn't they: Bryson and Ian had been friends since they were six years old, and he had been dating Julie for the last four years. They were practically family.

            Of course, “were” was the key word now. That one word incensed Bryson as he started back out on a brisk walk toward home. The walking pace didn't last, though; as he thought more about the word “were” he quickly moved on from a brisk walk to a run. “Were” ruined friendships. “Were” tore apart lovers. “Were” broke apart families. “Were” brought nations to their knees. “Were” caused the world to stop spinning. “Were” was a destroyer of the future. If the world ended today, aliens would pass by the wreckage and say, “There WERE humans there.” When you die your conversations with other dead people would most likely begin, “If I WERE alive...” “Were” was the most useless, no, heartbreaking word in the English language. Then again, “Was” wasn't very far off, in Bryson's mind. “I WAS going to college,” he thought.

            How could he have been so stupid, though? He always felt that Ian was making eyes at her, or whatever it was called these days (a steady diet of old television programming, like The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, sometimes clouded his judgment on exactly what lingo was considered modern). Bryson lived in such an old school world in his mind that he never thought once of it; let alone twice. Seriously, though, how could he have forgotten the way Julie looked at Ian? Bryson knew he, himself, was lazy, but he could have taken Ian's place as captain of the soccer team easily if he had the ambition. He could have even run the Math League had he not been busy with World of Warcraft. Captaining the football team might have been a tad bit harder, but Bryson was confident he could pull it off. Okay, maybe he was kidding himself a little bit. Wait, a little bit? Try a whole lot! There was no way he was as good a person as Ian, and that made things hurt that much more. He knew he would never be on his level. For Christ's sake, he would be lucky if he finished his undergrad, let alone go on to further education like Ian was destined to do.

            In all honesty, he could take betrayal from Julie more than he could from Ian. There was more than one occasion where she had left him in the past and he had always taken her back. Even Ian had wondered why Bryson had always taken Julie back. Bryson never had a question in his mind about it though. Each time Julie left him, he took her back with open arms, no matter what had happened. Why wouldn't he? She was the class president and captain of the volleyball team. On top of that she never neglected her participation on the yearbook staff or as the editor of the Astronaut Herald.

            All in all he wondered where he fit into their schemes and things. He tried playing sports his freshman year of high school but gave that up when the coach pissed him off. There was that time he tried out the school choir but got himself kicked out when he had the whole boy's section cracking up in class as he made fun of the choir director. Now that he thought about it, he was more known for spreading joy through the lower levels of the student body with his shenanigans than he was ever known for his school spirit or academic valor, while those closest to him embodied those latter qualities.

***

Bryson walked into the office and sat down in a chair opposite the burly uniformed individual that had called him in. Looking him over Bryson saw that his name tag read “Sgt. Thompson”. As Bryson sat there Sgt. Thompson kept jotting notes in his notebook, a serious look on his face. What he was writing Bryson was not sure. He hadn’t had a chance to look at his own face so he wasn’t sure if his eyes were red as if he had just been crying or not, but he hoped that he wasn’t giving off a wussy kind of vibe. After all, he needed this.

            “When were you thinking you wanted to leave for Paris Island?” Sgt. Thompson asked, not looking up from the paperwork before him.

            “As soon as possible,” Bryson answered without hesitation.

            “Well, you have a few choices: each Friday for the next three weeks we’ve got groups shipping out; otherwise, there is one that will be leaving here at seventeen hundred hours today.”

            “I'd like to leave today, if at all possible.”

            For the first time since Bryson entered the room Sgt. Thompson looked up from the paperwork with a surprising smile gracing his lips. “Oorah! That's what I like to see, a gung ho future Marine. Well, I'm sure you'll want to call your family to let them know you'll be leaving.” Thompson walked him out of the office, and pointed to a corner of the waiting room where a pay phone stood. “You can use that phone over there, call’s free courtesy of the USMC. You can tell your parents that you'll call them again when you get to Paris Island to let them know you arrived safely. When you're done just come have a seat back over here, we have more paperwork you'll need to fill out before shipping out today.” As Bryson walked toward the phone Sgt. Thompson called Garrett, David into the room after him.

Portrait of an Apology, Revision: Part 2

He was released with a prescription for some sedatives. Theresa had gotten back into town, and during her visit to the hospital promised that she would be there to pick him up and take him home. She kept her promise. She had only been there once, but during that time she had done more for him than anyone else had in years. She offered to take him home and supervised the cleaning of his place. He expressed his thanks in monosyllabic grunts; he couldn’t find the strength for more conversation.

He entered his house and felt it an alien world. Where was he without Francie? Theresa and whoever had helped her had done a great job cleaning the place up; no one would ever have known a murder had been committed here. He sat on the couch looking around wondering if he would keep this place or movie. So many good memories had been made here, yet one memory seemed to destroy them all.

By the time of her funeral a week later he had decided to stay. He felt the place was imbued with her soul now; it was the only way he could feel in touch with her. If he left he felt he would lose that connection. Family and friends came to visit and they never really ever seemed comfortable in the place. They expressed their condolences and Gerard expressed what gratitude he could under the tranquilizers and sedatives he was taking. Many of them brought food. Gerard ended up throwing most of it away. His appetite never fully returned in the wake of Francie’s death, or maybe it was the tranquilizers, either way he didn’t want the food in the house.

Her funeral came and went, and Gerard was able to wean himself enough off of the sedatives and tranquilizers to the point where he was lucid. He still remained sedated enough to keep a lot of thoughts to himself at least, which was beneficial when it came time for him to make a statement. He was also still grieving at the time; anger hadn’t replaced sorrow by then.

It wasn’t long before anger, hatred, betrayal, and a need for vengeance replaced the deep well of sadness within him. It ate through Gerard; bore a hole in his gut as if he was rotting from the inside. By then he would do anything to take his mind off that night; but no matter what, his vision turned toward Francie’s scars and the malice of the one who did it.

It was at this point when he started going to the local dive bars looking for fights. He just wanted to find the toughest meanest son of a bitch in the place and take him down. Gerard didn’t care if he would win or lose. If he lost the physical pain would fill the emotional void for a short time, if he was knocked unconscious he didn’t have to think at all for a while. It was never enough though, and picking a fight wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Often he would get kicked out of bars for causing problems, or he just found himself wasted, puking his guts out on the side of the street or in a back alley.

It’s in places like that where he began to make friends, but not with anyone he’d normally want to see in the light of day. It was puking in a back alley that he learned a line of coke could keep him from throwing up when he drank too much. All it took was a few more lines to learn that with coke he could drink all he wanted, but then he also couldn’t sleep. When he did sleep thought he dreamed of his days as a child on his father's boat, but those dreams were probably more associated with his brawls than his drug induced state. By the time he realized coke was the cause of his insomnia he couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want to. It made him feel like he was in total control; he just didn’t realize he was spinning completely out of control.

Coke and brawls brought him to his current position: passed out in an alleyway. Gerard was awakened from his drugged out sleep by someone kicking him in the ribs. He moaned and rolled over onto his back. He dared not open his eyes. On one hand he didn't want to lose the limited happiness he had in his dream state, but he also didn't feel like he deserved a better bed than the curb side one he napped in now.

The kick came again and he opened them expecting to see the bartender telling it was time to leave, instead it was his dealer. "What the fuck?" he exclaimed as he sat up.

"Bar's closed, I figured you were still out here. Tractor don't come back in the bar from a fight unless dude he's fightin' is knocked the fuck out. Figured I should check on ya."

"Thanks, I'd rather you find me than the bartender. Besides I'm runnin' low."

"Seriously? I just sold you an eight ball a couple days ago. If you're puttin' that down this fast maybe you should slow down."

"I thought you were a dealer. Just sell me the fuckin' coke."

"Alright, I only got a little on me."

"I'll take whatever you got, I've got a family reunion later today and I'll take whatever I can get to deal with those bastards." Gerard got a dime of coke and was on his way.

He didn't sleep or eat the rest of the morning; he didn't go to the doctor either. When he showed up at the reunion he had only run a washcloth over his bloody face. When he showed up at the reunion his left eye was swollen shut, his right cheek had an open cut that was still oozing blood, and some of the bruises on his face were being covered by the beard growth that had accumulated from weeks of not shaving but a few bruises could be seen elsewhere.

The reunion took place in his Uncle Steve's backyard, and there was a lot of family around. He didn't really want to have anything to do with them so he found a spot by himself next to an old oak tree. Every so often people would reluctantly make their way over to him and express their condolences for his loss. He would simply nod, but with each expression of regret he felt angry. He knew none of them gave a damn, if they did they would have come to visit every once in a while, said more than a word or two when we came to these family gatherings. After a while he excused himself to the bathroom so he could do a couple of lines.

When he came out he ran into Theresa. "Hey, how are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm doing alright I guess," he responded. "You?"

"Pretty good. Are you sure you're okay? You look like you've lost a lot of weight and you're lookin' pretty pale."

"Yeah, it's just an after effect of all the shit I've been going through. I'm starting to get my appetite back," he lied, "I was actually about to go grab something to eat."

"That's good."

Gerard walked back outside and true to his word fixed a plate of a hamburger, brat, and some fries. He hadn't been gaining his appetite back, but he felt obligated to Theresa to at least try to eat something. After a couple of fries though he felt he could stomach no more and threw the rest out.

He looked around the reunion from his lonely place by the oak tree and saw laughing smiling faces all around; except for the ones that looked at him with worry and concern in their eyes. He looked at them knowing it was nothing more than an act. It was all a lie. Those were the faces of hypocrites. He desperately wanted to tell them all so.

"What the hell are we all doing here?" he yelled out to them all. "We try to meet once a year like we're one big happy fucking family, for what?" Now he had gotten up and started walking around them, his mangled face contorted into an angry sad grimace. "You come up to me expressing your grief like you actually gave a fuck about Francie when she was alive, but how many of you tried to talk to her when she was alive? Not a single one of you! But now you care, now you want me in the family, but I see the way that you've been looking at me. Staring at me like you want me gone. Like I'm an outcast. But Cindy's still in the fucking club. Hey Cindy, I still haven't heard from your fucking caretaker, Alice. How's she doing? I betcha her kid is still alive. Guess what Francie's not and maybe I should blame her. Or should I blame you because you recommended her?

"No, I know why y'all look at me like you do, because I'm to blame. She was my family, my responsibility. I should have known better than to get help from any of you. I…I…" He was standing in front of a table of food when he collapsed.

When he woke up he was in the hospital; Theresa sat by his bedside. "Hey," he muttered, startling her from the magazine she read.

She looked at him from her seat beside his bed with a tender smile lined with worry, "Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a truck."

"Yeah, you look like you've been hit by one too."

"No, just Tractor."

"What?"

"Never mind. What happened? What am I doing here?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

Theresa recounted the events of the reunion leaving out the more colorful language he had used. She had always been averse to the joys of cursing. The doctors blamed Gerard's collapse largely on dehydration, but also noted from his chart that he had lost 20 pounds since his hospital stay after Francie’s passing.

As she recounted the story of the reunion Gerard noted how Theresa averted her eyes from his. He felt shame in the way that she told the story. A deep pang of guilt hit him that drove tears to his eyes, tears of the saline they were pumping into his veins rather than any reserves of water that had been stored in his body. This guilt stemmed from the thought of what Francie must think of him if she were able to see him in this moment. Where is she? Can she see me?  he thought. If she can surely she must be devoid of the maladies that plagued her in this life, her mind no longer feeble as it once was. There with Theresa by his bedside, for the first time since the night of Francie’s death, he sobbed until he could cry no more.

They kept him overnight and then released him in the morning. Theresa was there to pick him up and take him home. When they arrived she offered to stay with him. He thanked her for her offer but declined. He had things to do.

After she had left he walked inside and sat down at the desk in his bedroom. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil; it had been a long time since he had written anyone a letter. I'm sorry, he started, I'm so sorry. The letter was addressed to his family, but those words were meant for Francie. When he first sat down he wasn't sure exactly what he was going to say, but now he found the words mingling with ink as they dripped from his pen onto the page.

When he was done he closed the letter in an envelope and printed, "Please make sure the rest of the family gets this," on it. From his closet he pulled out a suitcase and packed some clothes. Then he went to the kitchen and packed some food; mainly cans of soup, fruit, and vegetables. Now he knew what he would do. The last bit of his coke he flushed down the toilet.

He loaded the suitcase into the back seat of his car and placed the envelope in the front passenger seat. First stop on his itinerary was Theresa's house. It was right across town from his place, and gave him an opportunity to clear his mind and think of the future. Most of it was hazy, but he was surprised that he hadn't thought of this sooner. He pulled up to Theresa's home. She wasn't there just like he had hoped. He placed the envelope in her mailbox by the street and drove away.

Next stop was the marina on the river. Over the past ten years he and Francie would come out here and take the old boat for a spin just like in the old days. It was when they were both most happy. He loaded his suitcase onto the boat and looked around him. This was his father's spot: the captain's seat at the wheel. He inserted the keys and started the engine and took off. Where he would go he didn't know, the wind blowing through his hair as he drove the boat down the river seeking the ocean. In this moment he was happy.

Portrait of an Apology, Revision: Part 1

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Story Behind "Portrait of an Apology"

I originally came up with the idea for “Portrait of an Apology” several years ago. I used to have a friend who took care of her sister who was mentally and physically disabled, and on occasion when she wanted to go out, I would watch her sister for her. From that I saw how much she loved her sister, as well as how much her sister took over her life. It’s very difficult to maintain personal relationships outside of such a demanding relationship, and I wanted to approach that.

It was not an easy task. I didn’t feel as though that was enough, so I felt I had to sever that relationship to push the main character forward. In my first draft I don’t feel I was as successful as I would have liked to have been in demonstrating that. Because I opted for the letter treatment in my original draft, I didn’t really build scenes for the story. That was a large part of the reason why I opted to rewrite this story.

With that I will leave you with the second draft to come. The concept is still the same, I just moved out of the character to write it. I hope you enjoy it.

Portrait of an Apology

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Those are the words that have been playing in my head for the past few months, but they’ve never made their way across my lips. Now I find them mingling with ink as they drip from my pen onto this page. This is my letter of reconciliation for things that can never be reconciled; my apology for things I know that will not be forgiven. I just hope that the details contained within will allow you all to understand my plight. Maybe then I can earn back your respect.

            “You need some time to yourself, Gerard,” my friends always used to say. “Live your life.” No one ever seemed to understand that Francie was my life. She couldn’t take care of herself, what was I to do; she was my little sister. No one else knew how to care for her the way I did. Who else would provide her with the compassion and the love that I gave her? God knows none of you wanted the burden; hell, I was the only one who didn’t see her as a burden.

            Eventually, I relented though. Lord knows I wish I hadn’t. Some of my old high school buddies were going to a concert and invited me along. It took some convincing, but I finally decided to put to use the caregiver’s number that Aunt Cindy had given me a while back. Why I decided to take Cindy’s advice in the first place I’ll never know; she can tell you more about vodka than her own children (wherever they’ve been all these years), she’s constantly soused. But, hey, if you can’t trust family, who can you trust?

            Sure, I had an appropriately good time at the concert, but when I got home I learned that the fleeting moments of fun were not worth the time spent away.

            Most of you remember the first time you heard the news, and I’m sure it came as a shock. At least I hope it did. As many of you only saw us once a year, I would like to think that being family would not preclude you from the civility of feeling sadness for a family member in pain. As much as it might have shocked you though, you cannot imagine the heart stopping feeling I felt when I came home that night.

            I remember most of it vividly, and I probably will for the rest of my life. As I walked up to the front door I noticed that it was slightly ajar. I recall stopping for a moment as my heart started beating faster. Before I could bring myself to enter the house I called out to Beatrice, the lady Aunt Cindy said would be a great help if I needed some time away from Francie, but there was no answer. I slowly pushed open the door and as I did my stomach hit the floor as my heart leapt into my throat.

            There, right in the middle of the living room lay Francie’s overturned wheelchair and her lifeless body. The stains on the carpet, that must have been deep red long before I had arrived home, were already turning a deep dark brown. Next thing I recall I was holding her body in my lap, her forehead pressed against my cheek. I begged and I pleaded for her to come back, but there was no use: she had left me long before I had arrived. The horror of her condition still haunts me to this day, and even then I tried not to look at her violated body. Words cannot express the depravity of whoever had done this, of the condition they left her in.

            I don’t remember much else about that night. The police arrived with an ambulance to take her away, but I recall I didn’t want to let her go. That was the last time I ever saw her, even her funeral a week later was a closed casket. Never again would I feel her skin against mine. Never again would I kiss her cheek. Never again would I take care of her. I had let her down once, and that’s all it took for her to be taken away from me forever.

            The week between her brutal death and the funeral is all a haze. I know some of you came to visit me expressing your condolences, but I can’t remember who. I do want to express my gratitude for those of you who did come. Unfortunately, I had been prescribed enough sedatives and tranquilizers to take out an elephant for a month. I say unfortunately but in reality it was the only way I could function in any capacity at the time. When Francie died, I died. I had given up everything to take care of her. It’s not that I regret doing it, but when she died I had nothing. Not only had the demon who broke her taken her away from me, but they had taken away my livelihood. I spent every waking moment with her and she was the only person who had ever loved me unconditionally. What was I to do after that?

            Her funeral came and went, and I was able to wean myself enough off of the sedatives and tranquilizers to the point where I was lucid. I still remained sedated enough to keep a lot of thoughts to myself at least, which was beneficial when it came time for me to make a statement. I was also still grieving at the time; anger hadn’t replaced sorrow by then.

            It wasn’t long before anger, hatred, betrayal, and a need for vengeance replaced the deep well of sadness within though. It ate through me; bore a hole in my gut as if I was rotting from the inside. By then I would do anything to take my mind off that night, but no matter what my vision turned toward Francie’s scars and the malice of the one who did it.

This point is when I started going to the local dive bars looking for fights. I just wanted to find the toughest meanest son of a bitch in the place and take him down. I didn’t care if I would win or lose. If I lost the physical pain would fill the emotional void for a short time, if I was knocked unconscious I didn’t have to think at all for a while. It was never enough though, and picking a fight wasn’t the easiest thing to do. Often I would get kicked out of bars for causing problems, or I just found myself wasted, puking my guts out on the side of the street or in a back alley.

It’s in places like that where you begin to make friends, but not with anyone you’d want to see in the light of day. It was puking in a back alley that I learned a line of coke could keep you from throwing up when you drank too much. All it took was a few more tries to learn that with coke I could drink all I wanted, but then I also couldn’t sleep. By the time I realized coke was the cause of my insomnia I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t want to. It made me feel like I was in total control; I just didn’t realize I was spinning completely out of control.

I remember bits and pieces of the family reunion. I remember being sick of everyone telling me how sorry they were about Francie. I knew none of them gave a damn, if they did they would have come to visit every once in a while, said more than a word or two when we came to these family gatherings. I remember Cousin Theresa telling me that I looked pale and sick; that I should go see a doctor. I remember making myself a plate of food wondering when was the last time I actually ate something. Even then I think I choked down a fry before throwing the plate in the trash.

I looked around and saw these laughing smiling faces all around; except for the ones that looked at me with worry and concern in their eyes. I looked at them, I looked at all of you, knowing it was nothing more than an act. It was all a lie. These were the faces of hypocrites. I desperately wanted to tell you all so, and according to Theresa I did. That thought was the last thought to pop into my head before I began shouting at you all in more colorful language than Theresa cared to repeat. She told me all of this as I sat confined to a bed in St. Julia Hospital.

Apparently, after going off on everyone at the reunion I collapsed. The doctors blamed it largely on dehydration, but also noted from my chart that I had lost 20 pounds since I received a complete physical after Francie’s passing. As she recounted the story of the reunion I noted how Theresa averted her eyes from mine. The look on her face was a mix of shame and concern. It struck a chord deep within me; she was the only one I ever felt was truly sincere in her concern. She was the only one to come and visit Francie and me on a regular basis.

A deeper pang of guilt hit me that drove tears to my eyes, tears of the saline they were pumping into my veins rather than any reserves of water that had been stored in my body I’m sure. This guilt stemmed from the thought of what Francie must think of me if she were able to see me right now. Where was she? Can she see me? If she can surely she must be devoid of the maladies that plagued her in this life, her mind no longer feeble as it once was. There with Theresa by my bedside, for the first time since the night of Francie’s death, I sobbed until I could cry no more.

This is why I write to you today. Maybe I’m not even seeking your forgiveness or respect; that time may have passed. I do know that if Francie can see how I acted she would be ashamed, and so I do this for her more than for you or even myself. I’m also writing to let you know I’m going away for a while. I know there have been murmurs that maybe I should go to rehab, but my mind is in a much different place than it was after Francie’s death or at the reunion. For now I need to get away from this place to further my reevaluation of myself. Where I will end up is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure things will be brighter there than they are here and now.

Live Life

Live life:

not as everyone's told you to,

as you want to;

not as a god wants you to,

as you want to;

not as your parents taught you to,

as you want to:

live life.

Compliance

Take the pill, swallow;

slipping into madness, one,

the whole. We all fall…

Void

Broken, separated,

cut off from the one you love.

Empty, without right.

The Story Behind the "Milwaukee Segregation Speech"

The “Milwaukee Segregation Speech” was an academic endeavor. I was originally planning on taking the Celtic Studies Certificate at University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, but then I decided that my first step for graduate school would be getting my MA in Teaching from Cardinal Stritch with a focus on Secondary Education in English. So my plan to take First Semester Gaelic and Celtic Crossings ended when I realized I had other courses I needed to take in preparation for my post-grad work.

In place of those courses I opted to take my English capstone class, Advanced Workshop in Fiction, and I decided to take Public Speaking since that meets the requirement for the Wisconsin Public Teaching requirements. This speech started out as a project for my Public Speaking class. It was my first speech actually. Now I had preached sermons at my childhood church, and I had introduced an inductee into the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame, but this was a different kind of speech.

I changed this speech from the original version I spoke in class. The reason for that was that I presented this speech in the preliminary round of the 2013 University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Public Speaking Showcase: Issues of Community Concern. The majority of what I did for this speech was change my narration and peroration of the speech to allow the listeners to feel the topic more.

I didn’t end up winning the showcase unfortunately but I did well. If anything, I probably read the speech too much (which makes me a good reader), causing me to lose. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the speech, and moreso I hope it makes you consider the life without segregation.

Milwaukee Segregation Speech

In 2011, the Milwaukee County community was outraged by an event that took place at the Wisconsin State Fair. On August 4^th of that year, a group of African American teenagers committed acts of violence against white people as they stood at the gates of the fair. According to one of the teens who was arrested, they targeted white people because they were “...easy targets...” This isn’t the only attack that we’ve seen of this nature in the Milwaukee area. In July a white man named Christopher Simpson was attacked by three black men who told him, “This is for Trayvon Martin.” The question that always comes up after such attacks is why, and one of the answers that is consistently given is segregation. According to an article that appeared in The Business Journal in June of 2013, Milwaukee ranks sixth out of 15 similar regions in diversity with one third of the population of the four-county metro Milwaukee region being part of an ethnic or racial minority; however, Milwaukee is still the most segregated of that group.

Segregation in Milwaukee has become ingrained in the identity of the area, and is an important issue of community concern. It is our responsibility to understand how this affects our identity as well. As citizens we should understand what leads to such segregation in the Milwaukee area, as well as the effect such segregation has on us and those stuck in segregated areas of Milwaukee.

A study of the 2010 Census data by Professors John Logan and Brian Stults of Brown University and Florida State University respectively notes that Milwaukee’s black to white dissimilarity score is 79.6. According to Business Insider in an article “21 Maps of Highly Segregated Cities in America”, a score above 60 is considered very highly segregated. The map of Milwaukee in this article shows that white people are represented as living on the edges of the city and more in the suburbs, where black people are found more in the north-central area, and Hispanics live near Humboldt Park. These areas are known for their minority populations, but they are also known for their poor economic conditions as well.

A large part of the reason why such segregation continues is due to the segregated areas containing largely impoverished populations. A study by Marc Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center of Economic Development titled “Race and Male Employment in the Wake of the Great Recession” shows that as of the 2010 census data only 44.7 percnt of the Milwaukee metro area’s black males of working age were employed. In 2008 this number was 52.9 percent. This lack of employment makes it difficult for many minority families to be able to move out of these impoverished areas. Furthermore, David Papke of the Marquette University Law School notes that some suburban and outlying towns such as New Berlin and West Bend have made a concerted effort to prevent the construction of moderately priced homes that could possibly appeal to residents of impoverished areas seeking to move out of those areas.

With impoverished conditions and an inability to escape comes crime. Even with that realization, though, the African-American population is over represented in our criminal justice system. At the time of the US Census, the data revealed that 12.8 percent of the African American population of Wisconsin was incarcerated. The national average for the incarceration of African Americans was 6.7 percent. John Pawasarat and Louis Quinn of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute stated in their 2013 research, “Wisconsin’s Mass Incarceration of African American Males”, “State DOC records show incarceration rates at epidemic levels for African American males in Milwaukee County. Over half of African American men in their 30s and half of men in their early 40s have been incarcerated in state correctional facilities.” This can be attributed to poverty and the inability to find meaningful work, but could also be the result of institutionalized discrimination. Crack cocaine and powder cocaine are the same drug, however they carry drastically different sentences. According an article in US News, “Crack vs Powder Cocaine: a Gulf in Penalties”, the sentences for selling crack cocaine were 43.5 percent longer than the sentences for selling powder cocaine. They also noted that 82 percent of crack cocaine arrests in 2006 were African Americans, whereas 72 percent of arrests for powder cocaine were white or Hispanic offenders.

As citizens, it is up to us to understand what leads to the segregation of Milwaukee, as well as other areas of the US, and how it affects each of us so we can try to find a way to fix the issue. Our identity is as much defined by the areas that we live in as those who find themselves in these unfortunate circumstances, so as citizens we should remain informed these matters. When Christopher Simpson was attacked he suffered a broken hand as well as injuries to his arms, chest, and head. Our knowledge of the cycle of segregation in our community could help to prevent the violence and crime that caused Christopher Simpson's injuries and heal the economic divide that plagues this city.