Even before Milwaukee erupted into violence this weekend over a police shooting—and prompted Republican Gov.
Scott Walker to activate 125 members of the National Guard—the highly segregated rust-belt city had long been considered a powder keg just waiting to explode.
For instance, during the riots that took place in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the 2014 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Milwaukee councilwoman Milele Coggs ominously warned that her city was “just a death or two away from being Ferguson.”
“This is one time I wish I was wrong,” Coggs wrote on her Instagram account Sunday after fires engulfed half a dozen businesses in the area surrounding the shooting scene in the city’s Sherman Park neighborhood.
“The ashes from the hurt, pain & frustration that are an outgrowth from years of abject poverty, inequities, segregation & racism can’t be swept away,” Coggs continued. “They forever stain the foundation of this city & will continue to if ignoring them is the strategy that is pursued.”
Coggs is by no means alone.
From local rap artists such as Gat Turner—whose song “The Fire This Time” includes a lyric that says Picture Killwaukee up in flames! — to a writer who said two years ago that Milwaukee “may out-Ferguson Ferguson,” there is no shortage of individuals—including some in academe—who felt the unrest in Milwaukee was just a matter of time.
