Shalom All:

I used to live in Milwaukee in the early 1980's.  And I do remember the
horrible events we in the rest of Wisconsin heard about in the years of the
late 60's.  The terrible violence ... on BOTH sides!

When I lived in Milwaukee my co-worker was a lovely black lady.  She was my
wedding witness and she was the one I turned to when I miscarried our first
child.  But .. she said at times she was so ashamed of their black men
because they were willing to kill each other over something as little as a
cigarette!

I also worked with a young black woman who was of the Jehovah Witness
religion.  Her parents made it very clear to their daughters that they were
not to "entertain" men!  That the daughters were expected to value their
lives and live them responsibly.  These were the ones who might escape the
ghetto.

Just two weeks ago our family returned to Milwaukee for an organ concert at a
downtown church.  With all the construction going on, we had to use
alternative streets, getting us into areas where a very real "black ghetto"
is evident ... and sadly ... growing like a cancer.  It is sad but true that
the enemy is really within!

Shops that I remember being open are closed and boarded up.  Shops still
existent in the black neighborhoods are barred-up like prisons!  Abandoned
cars, property in disrepair, graphetti.

A self-enforcing law of life is that you carry within yourself your
"neighborhood".

Milwaukee's black leaders say the enemy is within
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050707/2005-07-07T210629Z_01_N07726547_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RIGHTS-MILWAUKEE-DC.html
---clips for the link---
"You have a population of older African-Americans ... who are now afraid of
the children in their neighborhoods," McKinney (Civil rights leader
57-year-old Prentice McKinney) said.

Milwaukee, with 583,624 residents, 37 percent of whom are black, is the
country's 22nd-largest city. It remains deeply segregated, civil rights
activists say.

The struggles over segregated schools and housing in Milwaukee began in 1963,
when marches and civil disobedience were organized by Roman Catholic priest
James Groppi.

Marchers who crossed an invisible line were met by mobs of angry whites. Three
people died in the summer of 1967, 100 were injured and 1,700 arrested.
Groppi and the NAACP Youth Council later began 200 consecutive days of
marches aimed at breaking down the laws that forced blacks to live in
ghettos.

The passage of an open housing law in 1968 broke open the boundaries of the
ghetto but it also led to black flight, and those who could afford it moved
to more affluent areas.
---end clips---

I don't think the results of Father Groppi's violent actions are what he and
those who used them hoped to achieve.  A self-enforcing law of life is that
violence begets violence.  And those who can escape the ghetto ... DO ... and
they don't come back.  And considering what the ghetto LIFESTYLE is, I can
see why!!

Dianne
<*}}}><
( Request a flow chart of Revelation Seals at  talsmawi@centurytel.net  )