The Milwaukee police department has an ugly history. Some of its excesses are the result of institutional traditions dating back a century, when it was seen as a bastion of civil order against anarchists and, later, political progressives. Milwaukee had Socialist mayors from 1910 to 1960; unlike most American cities, the state legislature had authority over the city police and appointed police chiefs who often were hostile to the city Socialists. The police department had a reputation for harassment and intimidation of the political left, gay people, and the counterculture. Police officers were linked to a firebombing of The Bugle-American alternative newspaper in the early 1970s. In January 1981 Milwaukee police officers arrested and beat Wendy O. Williams, lead singer of The Plasmatics, when the punk rockers visited the city on tour. Some of the police department's institutionalized prejudices are tragic, like the two police officers (one who later became head of the police officers' union) who found serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer's victim 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone nude on the street, and returned him to Dahmer, later laughing about how they had reunited two gay lovers (Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone). It is also dangerous to be black in Milwaukee. In the 1970s, when I lived in Milwaukee, I remember repeated news stories about black men who were arrested and died in custody. I assumed by now that the police department's violent institutionalized racism had been cleaned up by improved training and diversity in hiring but I was surprised to learn that "black man dies in police custody" is still a common local news story (just google it: "dies in custody milwaukee").
Among US states, Wisconsin has a reputation for "good government" and efforts to eliminate cronyism and institutionalized corruption. The state is known for a history of Progressive politics from an era when Liberalism and Socialism were admired by many. At the same time, Milwaukee has long been one of the most racially divided cities in the US, more segregated than many cities in the South. The state has long been politically and culturally divided. Its divisions, fear and violence, reaction and repression are as much part of the state's history as is its reputation for liberalism, though not as well known.
What does this have to do with a website that promotes the Milwaukee Police Department? Maybe not much at all.
Ah yes, progressives. The folks whose vision of the future hasn't changed since the early 20th century, when they had their greatest political successes, such as "he kept us out of the war" Wilson, who pushed segregation at a national level after southern successes. Despite judicial approval ("three generations of imbiciles is enough" as their hero Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, in a case that didn't involve any imbiciles) they weren't as successful with their other big project, eugenics, and their great regret is that Nazis made it unfashionable.
Among US states, Wisconsin has a reputation for "good government" and efforts to eliminate cronyism and institutionalized corruption. The state is known for a history of Progressive politics from an era when Liberalism and Socialism were admired by many. At the same time, Milwaukee has long been one of the most racially divided cities in the US, more segregated than many cities in the South. The state has long been politically and culturally divided. Its divisions, fear and violence, reaction and repression are as much part of the state's history as is its reputation for liberalism, though not as well known.
What does this have to do with a website that promotes the Milwaukee Police Department? Maybe not much at all.