Antiracist Action Update: September

By Rachel Bloom-Pojar, Danielle Koepke, Chloe Smith, and Madison Williams 

Last month, we made a commitment to amplify, support, and engage with antiracist writing, rhetoric, and organizations across Milwaukee. We made a promise to highlight the ways that everyday writing and rhetoric are being used to advance social justice, challenge oppression, and empower communities. In order to hold ourselves accountable to these commitments, we pledged to publish an Antiracist Action update reflecting on our actions each month, and this is the first of those updates.

Our goals for our Antiracist Action updates, beyond holding ourselves accountable, are to give our readers options for taking tangible actions to support the antiracist missions of local and national organizations as well as celebrate and uplift the ways in which various organizations and activists improve, empower, and fight for our local communities. 
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Communities across Southeastern Wisconsin continue to be in the national spotlight around issues of racial injustice and police brutality. To the right are just a few of the major events over the past month that have highlighted the need for increased anti-racist action and community organizing.

What We’ve Been Doing
Here are some actions we’ve taken in response to recent events. We encourage you to do the same.

Check your voter registration status and make a voting plan now. Decide whether or not you will be voting absentee or in person, then make the necessary arrangements—request your absentee ballot, figure out where you will go to vote in person, what time you will go, how you will get there, etc.

Call the Kenosha Police and Fire Commission and Governor Tony Evers to demand the resignation of Kenosha Police officials. Follow the link for contact information and a sample call script from the Wisconsin ACLU.

Sign Color of Change’s petition calling for Mayor John Antaramian and Kenosha City Council to fire Kenosha police chief Daniel Miskins. 

Sign Color of Change’s petition demanding that the officer who shot Jacob “Jake” Blake is held accountable. 

Sign Color of Change’s petition demanding that the NBA league office and team owners lift the strike ban in players’ union contract.  

Discuss antiracism, protests for racial justice, and how to make sense of current events with your children. Here is a list of resources for talking to children about Race, Racism, and Racialized Violence. One of us recently bought the book Antiracist Baby and has added it to storytime with her child. 

Talk to family members about current events, racism, and privilege. We’ve been working through some difficult conversations with family members who don’t understand the gravity of racial injustice and the necessity of swift antiracist action. Here’s a resource where Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, offers advice on conducting these conversations.  

Other Resources:

• ACLU Protestors’ Rights Resource Page
  
• ACLU guide to writing your elected representatives

We Want to Hear From You! 
Is there an antiracist cause, organization, or event that we should be featuring? We invite you to write a post on it. Here are our guidelines for submissions:

• Keep posts between 500-750 words
  
• Write captions and/or descriptions for any media 
  
• Use hyperlinks for important locations, people, and organizations 
  
• Include a working title
  
• Cite quotes and references in MLA format
  
• Compose a brief bio (75-100 words) and 3-4 keywords that could be used to categorize the post
  
• Submit as a single Word Document

Send submissions and questions to writingandrhetoricmke at gmail dot com. For posts on upcoming events, please submit drafts at least 3-4 weeks prior to the event. We look forward to reading your posts!

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