Milwaukee is a terrible city for many people of color.
Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman, Molly Qerim Rose, and Damian Woody were not happy about the possibility of traveling to Milwaukee for the NBA Finals.
Woody asked Smith if he really wanted to go to Milwaukee and Smith said no.
Rose jumped in.
Steven A, you know what I was thinking. Which is kind of funny. I didn't go to the Super Bowl in Minnesota and this is the first year I don't know what our plans are. She said that it will be terrible cities.
The harsh comments hurt some feelings in Milwaukee, and people highlighted some of the city's many amenities.
Sports leaders mock Milwaukee at their peril.
What if they think Milwaukee is terrible? The things we love about it are listed.
Don't get me wrong. I was born and raised in this city, but I don't think it's hard to see why 80% of Black respondents think the city is fair.
More than half of the white and Hispanic people who were surveyed said the city is excellent or good.
Consider:
There is a petition to ban the crew from coming to Milwaukee.
Antonio Daniels moved from Milwaukee to a suburb of Atlanta because he didn't feel like he was growing as a man.
I never looked back. Daniels, pastor of The Place of Promise Church in Georgia, said that moving from Milwaukee was one of the best things he had ever done.
The family moved to Atlanta in 1999. He lived in the Washington Park area before he moved.
The neighborhood changed over the years. There was no political will to address the needs of African Americans.
Things got worse after a year. Daniels said that they left with no regrets because Milwaukee is not progressive at all when compared to Atlanta.
Daniels said that one of the biggest changes he noticed was a larger Black middle class.
He said that there are a lot of areas like this around here.
Daniels leaves disappointed every time he comes back to visit.
The crime in Milwaukee is out of control and the reckless driving is crazy. He said that when he comes back to visit, he would be ready to head out for his own safety.
Daniels is not surprised by the statements made by the sports journalists.
Milwaukee makes national news for the wrong reasons. I was surprised that you guys still have the same political leaders in place, but you are afraid to make any changes. How long has the mayor been in office? He said it was embarrassing.
Dozens of my friends and family members have left Milwaukee.
It didn't take long for our local leaders to respond to the criticism.
Here is what they had to say.
We have an eclectic and exciting neighborhoods, one of the best dining scenes in the country, and a spectacular Lake Michigan waterfront. There is a reason people are moving to this welcoming gem of a city.
We don't care what you think about our city or any of the other possible NBA Finals cities. Please just talk about the basketball, because we are hype about it. There is a person named Khalif Rainey.
The Milwaukee Common Council is putting a lot of effort into rebuilding the city and making it a vibrant place where people want to live, work and raise a family.
I get the desire to stand up for your city, but reality is closer to the comments from the past couple of years from the Milwaukee Bucks organization.
Two years ago, then a player for the Bucks said he had never lived in a city like this.
Milwaukee is behind in terms of being progressive, according to an interview with The Guardian.
Milwaukee is the most racist place I have ever experienced in my life, according to the speaker.
Milwaukee is keeping from becoming a premier city because of racism and segregation. The Milwaukee Promise project showed why everyone must be valued.
Political leaders fail to act on ideas that are working in other cities.
I wrote about the model for creating more sustainable regional economies that the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland are a good example of.
Some of the hardest workers in Cleveland were given green jobs that paid a living wage.
A resolution promising to look into the program was the only thing that happened.
We do not need more resolutions. We need to take action.
No more excuses.
The real victory would be if the Bucks recover from their loss to Atlanta in the first game of the NBA playoffs and move onto the NBA finals. There is a good argument that Milwaukee is a terrible city for people of color.
James Causey began reporting on life in his city while he was still at Marshall High School. He has been covering his hometown ever since, writing and editing news stories, projects and opinion pieces on mental health, employment, housing and incarceration. He wrote "What happened to us?" and "Cultivating a community" about the lives of his third- grade classmates. Causey was a health fellow at the University of Southern California and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Email him at jcausey@jrn.com and follow him on social media.
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