Hometown Magic

Usually peace and tranquillity wrap their arms around the fringes of my childhood stomping ground. This is a place I climbed the rocks as a child at the edge of the Allendale Neighborhood. We would climb the cliffs to the Lake Michigan below, knowing that if our parents knew they would worry about us being swept away by the unrelenting waters. Many have drown in these turbulent tides. Today the water is calm, but back in August 2020, that silence was shattered by seven bullets. Seven bullets unloaded into the back of a black man at the hands of police. Seven bullets shot in his back while he entered his car where his children sat in the backseat. After that fateful day August 23, 2020, my once quiet and tranquil city has had a racial reckoning. People took to the streets in anger. The entire Uptown neighborhood burned down in what is a metaphor for the fires of racism that burn in the Kenosha Community. A privledged white teenage militia member took it upon himself to protect and defend the streets of a city that he doesn’t even live in and took the lives of two protestors with an assault rifle. This assault rifle became a symbol of the white privilege that Kenosha has grown to embrace. While police threw curfew violating people of color in jail over curfew violations. They tossed bottles of water to this white teenager with his gun as an “atta boy” type of gesture. It has been six months since that day, and our city is attempting to heal. Unfortunately the hashtag that rose from the ashes of Uptown after the riots has a divided message. #Kenoshastrong for those of us who want to see a new more equitable Kenosha see #Kenoshastrong as a movement towards a better justice system that truly echos the message, “Erected by the People of Kenosha County to the Cause of a Just and Capable Governement,” etched on the stone above the grand entrance of our Kenosha County Courthouse. My father spent almost 20 years committed to working as a Court Commissioner committed to justice and equal rights for all. I often wonder three years after his death how he would feel that the steps of the Court house have seen tumultuous protests since the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in May and June. I believe that my hometown is a place that truly can serve everyone in the community as do many other community activists who have taken to the streets, the screen, and the paper calling for unity and change. Faith communities have come together to work for social justice. Unfortunately there is a divide between working class Uptown and upscale Dowtown. I am worried about the effects of the fire that burned out Uptown and the possible gentrification that could grip a once diverse neighborhood full of people helping people. It seems that the priority is more division in the wake of tragedy. In spite of the ongoing racial divide, I still call Kenosha my home. Today I have hope as I cast my vote for what could potentially be the first judge of color in Kenosha County. This is the dawn of a new day. Hope springs from the shores of that tranquil Lake where I played with my childhood friends until the street lights came on and my mom would yell down the street for me to come inside for dinner. It is a place I grew up feeling safe. A place I learned to love everyone no matter who. A place that a community activist can bring back the magic of Christmas with letters and sleigh bells delivered in the middle of the night to small children. I wrote 60 of those “Santa Letters” because even as an adult in my forties, I believe in the magic of a place I call home, Kenosha, Wisconsin.