The last year’s outrage over police brutality and racism that has led to the national Black Lives Matter Movement is not a recent development, but part of a long history of inequality in the justice system, according to Madison musician and historian Simon Balto.
In the third installment of the spring Black Lives Matter Speaker Series Thursday, Balto, who studies policing and blackness in Chicago, spoke to members of the UW-Madison community to tell the story of racially charged police violence over the past century.
Balto’s historical retelling of racial injustice began in the 1910s with black southerners fleeing to the north in pursuit of a better life. It ended with the war on drugs, but Balto said the similarities between these distant eras show a surprising lack of change.
“When I look at 2014 and 2015’s landscape, I feel, in some ways, twice broken, both for the obvious reasons as a human and an activist and also as a historian,” Balto said. “I am astounded by the multigenerational gulf from then to now, and the many apparent mirror images and experiences I see cascading all around us.”
Balto said one of those mirror images is the widespread activism in response to news of police violence, which gives him hope.
“The fact that more than 100 different organizations in Chicago alone were devoting themselves to police reform efforts at the same time provides glimmers of inspiration, much as I feel when I think about [Young, Gifted and Black] and similar groups. But it also strikes me as being intellectually dishonest, were I to end there simply because it makes me feel better.”
Art student Jay Katelansky displayed some of her work involving themes of racial injustice to wrap up the discussion and shared stories of her undergraduate experience at a predominantly white all-girls school in Philadelphia. She emphasized the importance of staying informed while presenting.
