In 1619, a Dutch ship delivers the first permanent African settlers to Jamestown, Virginia. In 1865, the United States created the 13th Amendment to formally abolish slavery. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed to allow African Americans to vote. In 2008, Barack Obama is elected as the first African American President of the United States of America. In 2016, after over almost 400 years since the first account of slavery in the United States, African Americans around the country experience the stifling effects of racism within their everyday lives. Society likes to claim that racism was solved during the Civil Rights Movement but the reality of the fact is that it remains present in the lives of the suppressed. Society also believes racism exists only in the southern part of the country. States such as Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina are typically targeted to be holding the country back in their movement to equality. However, both of these false theories on racism in the United States creates a shield between moving forward and being stuck in history. The whole country needs to understand that the effects of racism are present in all parts of the country, today. Specifically, the effects are prevalent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to statistics, Milwaukee is one of the worst places in the country for African Americans to live (Downs). The United State's cruel history of racism has caused thick segregation throughout the entire country. This segregation has led to high incarceration rates for African Americans along with a gap in education, especially in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Milwaukee holds the title of being the third most segregated city in the country (Kent and Frohlich). At first Milwaukee was slow to attract African Americans from the South during the Great Migration because majority settled in Chicago. But in the late 19th century, many different groups came in search of jobs in the manufacturing industry. Soon Milwaukee was deemed as "the most foreign city" in the country, as many German, Polish, and Irish migrants began to build lives there (Downs). After the Great Migration, many African Americans skipped Chicago and came to Milwaukee. At this time, the economy stood still as it was no longer the booming industrial capital it once was. Tension bubbled between the immigrant and black communities and the segregation between communities has stayed present ever since. African Americans and Hispanics are 57% of the city's approximately 600,000 residents (Sanchez). African Americans are concentrated in the city and whites are spread out among the nearby suburbs. Looking closer, the suburban counties of Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington have less than 2% African American residents and less than 5% Hispanic residents (Sanchez). As almost 90% of African Americans live in the city with no convenient transportation to the suburbs, the city remains divided. Along with geographical segregation came relationship segregation. A division of unity began, creating Reginald Jackson, a Milwaukee schoolteacher, to believe "people are afraid of each other. Black people are afraid of the white parts of town. White people are afraid of the black and Latino parts of town" (Sanchez). Nationally, 68% of younger whites say the people they socialize with are all mostly white. Taylor Smith, a white pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee says, "there are no actual gates, but we know that there is gate keeping that goes on -- whether with the police or just the way commercial and retail operations treat you. You live in the isolation, the racial prejudice, the hostility in all kinds of ways" (CNN). This quote alone exemplifies the cruel segregation. Isolation became normality and citizens accept it more than they try to fight it. For example, the African American community surrenders to the injustices of racially divided society even if they are affluent. According to research, nearly 16% of affluent black households, with income above $200,00, live in neighborhoods with poverty rates over 40% (Sanchez). Specially, an affluent African American household in Milwaukee is 24 times more likely than one of the same income level in Baltimore to live in an extreme poverty neighborhood (Sanchez). These African American families do not feel welcome in those neighborhoods due to the years of separation. The cycle of segregation will never end unless these neighborhoods and suburbs are integrated. The integration is crucial for the communities to feel comfortable with each other. A lot of the families in these communities have no negative feelings towards the other but keep their distance because that is what all their neighbors are doing. The feeling of uncertainty and non-comfortableness subconsciously transfers from generation from generation. The cycle is vicious and will not end until someone paths a new path. However, the hesitation does not come from just the African American community. White families experience the same unsteadiness while attempting to integrate into predominantly African American neighborhoods. Their peers would drop comments regarding how it is unsafe there and that their children will not get a quality education. The stereotypes pollute the brains of the white families to make them scared of African Americans and their neighborhood. An old joke lives on of calling Whitefish Bay "Whitefolks Bay" when the NBA Buck's player John Henderson was racially profiled at a luxury jewelry store in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. This October, the basketball player, who is black, entered the suburb that consists of 91.9% white citizens and only 1.9% African American citizens according to the United States Census Bureau. When the store owners saw a large African American man approaching their doors, they locked them and told Henderson to go away. Henson responded by simply ringing the doorbell twice. The situation escalated as all the employees hide in the back of the store and called the police. The police then questioned Henderson with such questions of why he wanted to go into the store and how he came to be in possession of the vehicle he was driving. As soon as the store realized Henderson was a player for the Milwaukee Buck's they apologized and claimed the incident was a misunderstanding. Henson responded with an Instagram post saying he "wouldn't wish this on anyone. This store needs to be called out, and that's what I'm doing. You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light" (ESPN, "Bucks' John Henson Accuses Luxury Jewelry Store, Cops of Racial Profiling). The overwhelmingly white neighborhood lived up to its name through this incident and through this incident the effects of segregation were highlighted. The consequences of segregation are startlingly present still in 2016.

The intense segregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has led to high incarceration rates for African American men. Over the past decade, Wisconsin has invested more in private and public prisons than ever ion the past 20 years (Abdul-Alim). The state of Wisconsin has to invest so much money due to the amount of citizens they imprison. Precisely, Wisconsin incarcerates the most African American men in the country. As well, more than half of all African American men in their 30s and 40s in Milwaukee County have spent time in prison before the age of 34 (Bonds and Farmer-Hinton). African American men are 11 to 12 times more likely to have drug-related prison admissions than white men in Milwaukee (T.C. Productions). The racial disparity also appears as African American drivers are seven times more likely to be pulled over by a policeman than white drivers (Tobin). African American drivers are also searched at twice the rate of white drivers. The bad statistics continue with Milwaukee's imprisoned men and concentrated in the same neighborhoods. Almost two-thirds of Milwaukee County's jailed African American men come from Milwaukee's six poorest zip codes. No coincidence there are the cycle of incarceration continues among the African American community (Wilkerson). The District Attorney in Milwaukee Country, John Chisholm has taken a certain interest to the racial imbalance in Milwaukee's prisons. Through independent researchers, Chisholm found that Milwaukee prosecutors failed to prosecute forty-one percent of whites arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia versus twenty-seven percent of African Americans. Regarding prostitution, African American female offenders were likelier to be sentenced than white defendants (new Yorker). 

Wisconsin's budget allows for more funding for correctional facilities than it does for higher education and the results are visible. Wisconsin's gap in graduation rates between African American and white students has widened to the point to become the largest gap in the country. Wisconsin also ranks worst in the nation for the difference between how well black and white students perform on a national benchmark test, the likelihood that African American students will be suspended from school, and the difference between African American and white students graduation rates. "Statewide, only 15 percent of black students tested proficient on statewide exams in math, compared to 43 percent of white students, according to 2013-2014 test scores from the state Department of Public Instruction" (Abdul-Alim.org). "A 2014 College Board report showed that three percent of African American graduates in 2013 took an AP class during high school, compared to 85 percent of white students" (Abdul-Alim). A huge attribution to this failure of success comes from African American students coming to school hungry, neglected, or abused. "In a comparison of 46 states, Wisconsin's black residents ranked as the worst in four of 12 indicators including delayed childbearing, young adults who are in school or working, children who live in two-parent households, and adults who have completed at least an associate's degree, the report found." (Abdul-Alim). Clearly, the bad home lives effect the kids' performances in school as well. The gap in education will keep African Americans in a vicious cycle of struggling to succeed. 

Although it is apparent that the effects of the country's racism still hurt Milwaukee, some people disagree. Sheriff David Clarke in Milwaukee claims that police brutality and racism has ended (Bice). He says that these problems ended in the 60s and that Milwaukee has no issues regarding them. The fact that an African American policeman of the city of Milwaukee thinks that racism and police brutality do not exist shows that some people are unaware or too stubborn to admit this is a problem. First, the citizens of Milwaukee must be educated on the problem before a change starts to happen.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin's citizens feel the backlashes of the history of racism. From education gaps to incarceration rates, to deep segregation, all show the hardships that African Americans have to face in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The racial inequality creates barriers between the communities that have yet to be broken down. When I decided to come to the University of South Carolina, so many people ridiculed me for choosing a school in a racist part of the country. Seeing all the news stories of the south loving their confederate flags and calling African Americans the "n-word", no one could believe I was coming here. My friend told me all about the many statues surrounding the state house that were white supremacists or confederate soldiers and she was in disbelief that a state government could be so behind in their social policies. And then, to put icing on the cake, there were South Carolinians waving confederate flags the day after the shooting in Charleston. I came down to the south with a stingy opinion in my mind thinking that everyone was racist but I was blind to see what was happening in my own city. I love Milwaukee and I think it has great potential but the racial disparities are holding the city back as a whole. Constantly, events occur that set our city back. One would think from reading a newspaper article that it was a newspaper from the 1960s due to the discrimination within the article. Rightfully so though, the city of Milwaukee is stuck in the olden days, when it was viewed acceptable to discriminate African Americans. In my suburb of Milwaukee, there are only one of two African American families living there. At the country club I belong to, there is only one African American family that belongs there. At my church, there are no African American families that go there. At the gym that I work out at, there are two or three African American families that go there. I will stop because you get the point that I am trying to make. African American families are scarce in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Our communities are not integrated one bit and it is embarrassing. The north cannot be accredited as nonracist as we have many statistics and facts that point otherwise. We like to pride ourselves are more accepting than the south but really we are just discriminating African Americans in a different way. For example, when I was a senior in high school, my history class was having a discussion about white privilege. A daring student in my class raised her hand and said quite bluntly, "White privilege is not a thing. It is the excuse that African Americans use when they think they are being treated unjustly". At first I was so astonished that she thought such a thing but then it hit me. She lived in a suburb that had less than 2 percent African American residents. She probably avoided African American neighborhoods like it was the plague because she was scared that she would be robbed. And she probably did not have any African American friends. I judged her super hard and then I realized that this was a result of Milwaukee's society. Due to the huge segregation between the African American community and the white community, she probably never had a chance to experience people outside of her culture. She also never understood what the incarceration rate did to the African American community because she was not exposed to it. And she definitely did not see the education gap because she went to school with girls and boys just like her. Milwaukee needs to change if, as a city, they want to be successful. Such a huge part of the population is stifled just because of the color of their skin. They are stuck in a cycle where they spend more time in jail then they do in school. And, when they are in school, they are too hungry or mentally distracted to do well. Segregation was a result from the United State's history of racism however we keep letting it continue. As a society we like to believe that segregation and racism ended in the Civil Rights Movement but Milwaukee, Wisconsin proves that it has not. The change that Milwaukee needs is within the next generations to come. But for this change to be tangible, Milwaukee must break down the invisible barriers between the communities and integrate. If the generations to come can live next to a different race from themselves, more collaboration can take place, which can lead to more success. More success means less African American males being incarcerated and more African American students getting an equal education to their counterparts. Racial inequalities are not just a problem in the south and in the 1960s because Milwaukee, Wisconsin holds the same exact problems today in 2016. The citizens of Milwaukee need to follow the words of Ghandi and "be the change that they want to see in this world". That change can affect the lives of African Americans across the city as well as improving the city as a whole. 

