Writes S. Ani Mukherji:
In January 2015, local leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement convened at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to discuss the ways that activism on campus might connect with anti-racist work in the city. Following a comment about the Wisconsin Idea, community organizer Angela Walker stood up in the audience to speak. In a sharp statement, she stressed the need for white Wisconsinites to be honest about the reality of racism in the state: 'The Wisconsin I’ve always known is racist. So let’s be willing to be up-front when we’re talking about what this Wisconsin Idea is.' The comment drew applause from some but raised the eyebrows of others as it discredited a beloved idealized image of the state as exceptionally progressive.
Racism in Wisconsin is meaner than most, and wedded intimately to the worst traditions of the provincial idiocy and brutality of rural America.
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