The Demand for Breath: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. I cant Breathe. Breathe. No puedo respirar. I cant breathe. Breathe. No puedo respirar.
Without breath there is no life.
Breathing is the necessity of life. It is life giving. It is life affirming. Without breath there is no life. So, when the chants of I cant breathe, no puedo respiar reverberates through the streets, trembling the core of our bodies, remember that it is a scream; a demand for life. It is a call for a future that we have yet to witness because the past is not past, it is still here.
The 16th street bridge at the time was often jokingly referred to as the longest bridge in the world; one that connected Poland to Africa
I am writing, breathing, and screaming from Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the most segregated city in the United States. However, we are a historical bedrock of activism rarely remembered in the stories of civil rights. On August 28, 1967 Milwaukee, Wisconsin commenced what would become 200 days of marches in the name of fair housing. People of color, predominantly black, in the city were pushed to the brink of need as they were prohibited from equitable renting and buying that yielded inaccessible access to life giving resources. The protesters were met with violent resistance of approximately 8,000 people as they crossed the 16th street bridge that left marchers severely maimed and debilitated. The 16th street bridge at the time was often jokingly referred to as the longest bridge in the world; one that connected Poland to Africa (Rozga 2007). Today, the demographics of Milwaukee have shifted as a result of white flight, but the 16th street bridge now connects to a major root of the Milwaukee’s Latinx/Hispanic community. I note this history as a reminder that Milwaukee is living in the wake of its past, a past that is not yet present, but one that is rife with potential. I can’t breathe, no puedo respirar is a call for life affirming possibilities, one that emanates from a past we are still very much living in the present felt deeply when protestors marched into predominantly white neighborhoods and were met with a present-past: counter-resistance draped in riot gear. I can’t breathe.
People of color in the United States have been and continue to be systematically suffocated; literally left without air, without water, without food, without access to health, without humanity, without the possibilities of breath.
Over the course of the last few months the United States has witnessed the crystallization of systematic oppressions all of which center on the power of the state to regulate, maim, debilitate its own citizenry (Puar, 2017). People of color in the United States have been and continue to be systematically suffocated; literally left without air, without water, without food, without access to health, without humanity, without the possibilities of breath. The death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Marsha P. Johnson, Collins Khosa, Sandra Bland, Christian Cooper, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, George Garner, Atatiana Jefferson, Kathryn Johnson, Anthony Hill, Kevin Davis, Jordan Davis, Walter Scott, Remisha McBride, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, John Crawford, Alton Sterling, Nicholas Thomas, Amadou Diallo, Joel Acevedo, Atatiana Jefferson, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Pearlie Goldeand and countless others are the direct result of a state whose power rests on its ability to regulate life and death.
The demands are screams for the possibilities of life; for a world where your mortality is not determined by the pangs of racism, which as Ta-Nehisi Coates in In Between the World and Me describes as a visceral experience: “…it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth” (2015, 10).
To tell the story of the United States is to tell a story of many asphyxiations and 2020 has crystallized that fact in the midst of a global pandemic that has disproportionately taken lives of color; elder black men in particular. Milwaukee sits at the crossroads of this story. COVID-19 has in every sense of the word asphyxiated people and done so in a capacity that has left communities of color, Black communities, Indigenous communities, and Latinx communities aching from the loss of breath. The wounds of loss continue to grow as we witness one of the largest civil rights moments of our times, but let us not forget that these moments are not unprecedented. People of color in the U.S. have been resisting white supremacy for decades, and Milwaukee is part of this story. The demands are screams for the possibilities of life; for a world where your mortality is not determined by the pangs of racism, which as Ta-Nehisi Coates in In Between the World and Me describes as a visceral experience: “…it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth” (2015, 10).
2020 does not have a summer vacation.
Yesterday, the mayor of Milwaukee announced that all city of Milwaukee bars and restaurants can re-open for dine in service, today, June 5, 2020. The quick decision comes on the heels of seven days of peaceful marches in the city and yet feels more like a tactic of distraction that invites amnesia to the fact that we are still in the middle of a global pandemic. So, let us remember that when people march in the name of and in solidarity with Black Lives Matters it is a demand for futurity, for breath, for life; for the possibilities of a world where racism and poverty are not the determining factors in health outcomes and mortality. It is not a return to business as usual that the world around us longingly seeks in a post COVID-19 world. That world no longer exists and 2020 does not have a summer vacation! The demands of breath require imagining alternative futures: a world without police brutality, a world where we place human life first, a world without cages, a world where lives of color can breathe.
Works Cited
Coates, T. 2015. Between the World and Me. New York: Spiegel & Grau.
Puar, J. 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Durham: Duke University Press.
Rozga, M. 2007. “March on Milwaukee.” Wisconsin Magazine of History. 90, no. 4: 28–39.
