“Milwaukee born and Madison raised” is one way to describe me today.
My earliest memory was me as a toddler in a home with white parents; I can remember being with a white family. Me, placing my hands in theirs, and their hands were so big compared to mine, “never realizing we’re a different race.”
My experiences in that moment didn’t teach me about race and other differences in people, but that Milwaukee would give me a crash course in race and human relations, and Madison would only accentuate those experiences.
I grew up in a Milwaukee foster home. My social worker had said (and I paraphrase): “Jasmine, I’m taking you and your sister to a home with people like you.”
At the age of four, I didn’t understand what “more like me” even meant. I didn’t argue because I learned early not to ask too many questions if you didn’t want to cause trouble or, worse, get in trouble.
The new place was living at my grandmother’s house with my dad’s mom. I thought that, ok maybe, when my social worker said, “people like me,” he meant family and safety.
Boy, was I wrong. Let’s just say abuse comes in many forms, and I learned a new way of being abused. So, the words “people like me,” did not mean safe, did not mean family, did not mean love.
“This was definitely not me.” So, we were removed from there, and I was terrified because this was bad, but the next place could be worse. I still didn’t know what “just like me” meant.
This foster home with people “like me,” was different because they weren’t my family. When I arrived with my big sister, one of my little sisters was already living there. This foster home also had other kids, but no one really close to my age; the other kids were older and mean.
But they were supposed to be “like me.”
They did have an imagination. The kids would think of things to do, and if their mom didn’t like it, we – meaning my sisters and I – would get beat. My sisters and I were moved again.
My sisters would cry for my mom. I stopped crying for her a few moves in, because she never showed up. My sisters started to notice that I didn’t cry and thought I was weird or different. It seems that they weren’t “like me” either.
We moved around some more, and then we finally ended up at my mom’s house – first to visit and then to live.
The Milwaukee neighborhood was just that hood: drive-bys, fights, police chases, shoot outs and robberies.
This Milwaukee neighborhood also had: the icy cup lady, the cool older dude that would fix your bike for free, Uncle Clarence who would give you a ride to the moon and back for two dollars and block parties with free food, dancing and water fights.
I would hate when my mom would give away all our popsicles or ice cream cones to all the kids on the block. But you know what? Those kids were “like me,” and for a moment, everything made sense to me. I wasn’t able to appreciate my hometown of Milwaukee until I moved to Madison.
I definitely experienced hardships there, but I also experienced love and community. If my mom's check was late, I could go to the corner store with a note and the store owner would give us enough groceries so we wouldn’t go hungry. Of course, my mom would pay for them once her check came. I don’t think there are very many stores that do that anymore for their customers, if at all.
I remember on the hottest days, the smell of water from the fire hydrant water. Somebody would turn it on and us kids would play until the police turned it off. I remember neighbors barbecuing so you could smell the meat and charcoal working together to let you know it’s almost time to go home.
I learned that hard times don’t last, hard people do, so what are you going to do? Milwaukee made me resilient, got me tough and gave me common sense – which I learned from then to now is a super power. I stayed there until my mom moved us to Madison.
Moving to Madison: A culture shock
Madison was and sometimes still is a whole culture shock. I remember saying to my grandmother when we moved to Madison, “Where’s the Black people?” She laughed at me as if I was joking, but I wasn’t; in fact, I was pissed.
It didn’t smell like Milwaukee – the Miller Brewery burning yeast, I always thought it smelled like burnt apple juice. Where’s the smell of fire hydrant water or the rust from drinking from the water hose? What about barbecue? Do they even know how here? Where’s the people “like me”?
Madison, a hot and upcoming city with small town values. I am sure most residents would pride themselves on that! This city has been seen by some residents as a melting pot, an eclectic group of people that live in Madison and call it home. Madison is also considered a college town; in fact, it’s got one of the top universities in the United States.
When I moved to Madison, I knew it had had some of Wisconsin’s greatest citizens – like the first known African American graduate of the university, William Smith Noland, who graduated from UW–Madison in 1875, or the first Black woman to graduate from the UW–Madison Law School, Vel Phillips, who earned her law degree in 1951. Both experienced a lot of racism during their time.
For example, in 1951 there were fewer than 10 African Americans attending UW–Madison because of discrimination and segregation. While attending the UW Law School, Phillips and her husband, Dale, were assigned dorms designated originally for the students on the G.I. Bill and their families.
A petition was started to remove the couple from the housing because of their race. The Phillips could feel the threats and danger, and they decided it would be best if they moved to a new dorm that was more welcoming.
Vel Phillips did not let this stop her from her quest to make a difference. Moving back to Milwaukee, she started her political career and in 1956 became Wisconsin’s first African American female City Alderman. Vel never forgot her experience as a student at UW–Madison and used that in her role as alderman and, eventually, as a judge. On November 22, 2021, Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education voted to rename James Madison Memorial to Vel Phillips Memorial.
Now that renaming? This felt more like the city could be for people “like me.” This was an amazing way to show appreciation for Phillips’ grace and resilience.
But, has the racist treatment of African American students changed? Is Madison a reflection of how the world should treat each other? Can people “like me” find a safe home here?
On Oct. 29, 2016, during a nationally televised UW–Madison football game, then-President Barack Obama made an appearance in the crowd. Only it was not the United States’ first African American president. It was a doll of the United States’ first African American president – in a noose. That image went out to the world.
A year later, I happened to be crossing East Washington to go to Taco Bell. As I waited for my turn to cross the street, a truck passed by me. The driver yelled – and I quote – “F*&% you, [n-word].” I was so shocked at what I had just heard. I felt confused, conflicted, upset and – let’s keep it real – hurt.
A few months later, in downtown Madison on Mifflin Street, another driver yelled at me, “Go back to Africa, [n-word].” This time I was mad, but I laughed it off.
I realized this might be part of the culture of Madison, Wisconsin.
That year, our lease was up, and my girlfriend and I needed to move to a bigger place. We were excited. We were going to look at places to live together for the first time with the kids. Neither of us had evictions. We had both been at our jobs for 10 years or more. This was supposed to be a joyous time in our lives.
Instead, we were met with prejudice, ridicule and suspicious questioning. They asked about the kids’ behavior, if we planned on moving in other people and my favorite: Can we afford the place?
This was shocking. How can these types of people still exist in such a melting pot of a city? But it happened. I wondered how Vel Phillips endured through her time in Madison with her housing discrimination, on-campus treatment and feeling like an outcast at times.
Unfortunately those types of people are everywhere, then and now in Madison. They are definitely not “like me.”
Jasmine Benson is a youth advocate and lives in Madison.
