Reggie Jackson, Author at Milwaukee Independent

How Quickly We Forget: The Lost and Disrespected Victims of COVID-19

Posted by Reggie Jackson | Jun 5, 2020 |

“Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.” – Madeleine de Souvre After months of staying at home other than trips to the grocery store or pharmacy my wife and I went for a “leisurely drive” by the lakefront on Memorial Day. It was the saddest experience for me in recent memory. We saw hundreds of people because we went late in the day. I am sure that had we gone much earlier we would have seen...

We Can’t Breathe! The Never-Ending Battle Against Police Brutality

Posted by Reggie Jackson | May 31, 2020 |

“But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and...

Wanted: A Vaccine to Cure White People’s Irrational Fear of Black People

Posted by Reggie Jackson | May 28, 2020 |

As we struggle to battle with a worldwide pandemic, racial issues from the past are creeping back into the forefront or our daily lives. The case of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia shows another senseless killing of an unarmed black person. In Central Park in New York a white woman uses her sense of privilege to call 911 on a black man who had the audacity to ask her to follow park rules by placing a leash on her dog. She claimed on the call that he threatened her. He films the incident on his cell phone, the video goes...

A response to questions about “The Myth of Anti-Whiteness”

Posted by Reggie Jackson | May 24, 2020 |

A reader of my recent column THE MYTH OF ANTI-WHITENESS: WHEN TELLING THE TRUTH IS MISCHARACTERIZED AS ATTACKING WHITES questioned my assertion about Germans and Italians not being placed in interment camps. They pointed out to me that anyone can Google about internment and discover that “some 600,000 Italians who were undocumented were detained, relocated, stripped of property, placed under curfew” among other things. I appreciate any critiques and decided to investigate claims of Italians and Germans being placed in internment camps in the United States. They were, but the numbers were very small and there is no real...

Just like for the construction of the Panama Canal, non-white lives are expendable again

Posted by Reggie Jackson | May 23, 2020 |

“A finer body of men has never been gathered by any nation than the men who have done the work of building the Panama Canal; the conditions under which they have lived and have done their work have been better than in any similar work ever undertaken in the tropics; they have all felt an eager pride in their work; and they have made not only America but the whole world their debtors by what they have accomplished.” – Theodore Roosevelt The arrogance of progress is expressed clearly by President Theodore Roosevelt in this quote. After thousands of men,...

The Myth of Anti-Whiteness: When telling the truth is mischaracterized as attacking whites

Posted by Reggie Jackson | May 18, 2020 |

“Institutional racism insidiously cloaks racial discrimination in the innocence of the accidental.” – Robert B. Baker, PhD “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” – James Baldwin “From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country–not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root.”...