Happy Thursday! Here is your Weekly Update from the League of Women Voters Milwaukee County (LWVMC). | Annual Meeting Reminder - Meeting Kit Now Available
We hope to see you at the LWVMC Annual Meeting at Summit Place, 6737 W. Washington in West Allis, on Wednesday, May 24!
Check out the 2023 Annual Meeting Kit (look for the link below). The kit includes the meeting agenda and annual reports from Board members and League leaders.
Important votes:
The business portion of the annual meeting will include these important votes:
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Adoption of the FY 2023-2024 budget
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Adoption of changes to the bylaws
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Adoption of the slate of nominees for office & the 2023-2024 Nominating Committee
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Adoption of program priorities
Social time is at 5:00 p.m., dinner is at 5:45 p.m. and the Business Meeting starts at 7:00 p.m.
| | Parking Directions:
You can park in the Visitor Parking area near the Visitor Entrance to the building. See map below. | “Adopt a Library” Call for Volunteers
We have a couple of opportunities to volunteer as the League’s primary contact for the following libraries; the Shorewood Library, the East Branch Library and the St. Francis Branch Library. If you are interested in working with one of these libraries please find below the volunteer sign up link below. If you have any questions, please contact Heather Lesko at h.lesko@lwvmilwaukee.org.
| | | “Adopt a Library” Call for Co Leadership
The Adopt-a-Library Team is in need of a Co-Team Leader. The individual would collaborate with Heather Lesko the current Co-Team Leader to help communicate with the volunteers, write reports and coordinate volunteers and in-person events. The expectation is that this would require on average two to three hours per week of your time. If you have an interest in discussing this please contact p.schrader@lwvmilwaukee.org. |  | Jail-Based Voting Call for Co-Leadership
The jail based voting team is hard at work providing voter registration events at the Milwaukee County Jail (MCJ) and the Community Reintegration Center (CRC). While there are no more elections in 2023 evidence suggests that if a person is registered to vote that person will be more connected to their community and thus be less likely to to commit a crime and be incarcerated in the future.
For the past eight months we have been qualifying and training volunteers at MCJ and CRC. Our Co-Team Leader Joan Hansen has been doing a wonderful job at CRC and will continue to Co-Lead the team at CRC.
We are seeking a Co-Leader who will work at MCJ. This person will be coordinating with our contact at MCJ, setting up (for now) two voter registration events a month at MCJ, scheduling our pre qualified volunteers for these events and completing a report on the activities of the voter registration event. This leader will refer people to VoteRiders when we need to acquire a duplicate Wisconsin Driver’s license and they will mail paper applications (when electronic voter registration is not possible) along with proof of residence to the appropriate Municipal Clerk.
The weeks when voter registration events are scheduled, the time required will take four hours. On other weeks less than one hour. You must be able to pass a background check and will be required to be fingerprinted and have your picture taken in order to qualify for this work. You will be given training and provided guidance until you are comfortable with the leadership responsibilities.
If you are interested in this work please contact Peg Schrader at p.schrader@lwvmilwaukee.org.
|  | NEXT MEETING: Friday, May 26 - 10:00 a.m.
LOCATION: Community Room of the the East Branch of the Milwaukee Public Library East · MPL, 2320 N. Cramer St.
Our May meeting will be a book club meeting. We will discuss “Poverty, By America” by Matthew Desmond, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning "Evicted." We hope you get a chance to read the book, but even if you do not, or don’t finish it before the 26th, please do not hesitate to come and listen to the discussion of the book and to discuss the issue of poverty in America.
The room is large enough to spread out; please feel free to wear a mask or not. There is plenty of parking available behind the building.
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Classes Now Forming for Facing Racism – One White Woman at a Time
Facilitated by Mary Delgado, a LWVMC member, this nine month program meets via Zoom every two weeks for nine months.
Participants read, write about and discuss seven books, including:
- "Birth of a White Nation" by Jacqueline Battalora
- "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
- "Between the World and Me" byTa-Nehisi Coates
- "Stamped from the Beginning" by Ibram X. Kendi
- "I’m Still Here" by Austin Channing Brown
- "Evicted" by Matthew Desmond and
- "White Too" by Robert P. Jones
Contact Mary Delgado at maryd8@gmail.com for further information.
The experience of learning about the systemic racism in the United States and more importantly examining my own racism has changed my view of the world in which I live. This racism study with other women has been life changing for me. There is so much that I was never taught in school and which I did not understand about my brothers and sisters who have a different skin color. There is still a lot for me to learn but I have a start and I want to learn more and change the behavior that contributes to the oppression of fellow citizens of my country. Martha M.
This is a raw exploration into the roots of racism and white privilege along with its effect on "non-whites", specifically black people. It's opened my eyes to a world I've known only subliminally to exist and moved me to action, if even one small step at a time. Anne W.
| May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
It’s a good time to celebrate the lives and legacies of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Listen to Dan Lee, a local history librarian at the Milwaukee Public Library, discuss Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy. The book covers the nearly 200-year history of Asian migration, labor and community formation in the U.S. For a local focus, Lee recommends Chinese Milwaukee by David B. Holmes and Wenbin Yuan. Milwaukee's Chinese community is the oldest Asian American community that dates back to the 1880s. In addition, he recommends Hmong in Wisconsin by Mai Zong Vue to learn more about Milwaukee's largest Asian ethnic group. All three books are available in the Milwaukee Public Library.
Check out additional Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month resources HERE.
|  | | Jewish Museum Milwaukee
1360 N Prospect Avenue
Extended through August 20
Featuring art from private and institutional collections, this exhibit explores the Third Reich’s use of modern art as a tool of propaganda for public indoctrination to Nazi ideology and some of the artists, movements, events and outcomes of being branded ‘degenerate’.
Between the end of WWI and the Nazis’ rise to power, the Weimar Republic era was a period of social, economic, and political upheaval in Germany and of thriving cultural and artistic experimentation. Modern Art, which cut ties from rigid tradition and promotes freedom of expression, was rising in popularity with new movements like Dadaism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Abstraction taking strong footholds in German society. Hitler considered modernist tendencies to be the result of genetic inferiority and society’s moral decline, labeling the artists and their work as Entartete Kunst, or ‘degenerate’. An unprecedented attack to change and cleanse Germany’s cultural landscape was unleashed – a key step in Hitler’s plans for racial cleansing.
RACE, DEGENERACY AND EUGENICS IN THE LATE 19TH/EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
Thursday, May 11
7 p.m.
Jewish Museum Milwaukee
In the 19th century, in fields as diverse as evolutionary theory (Darwin) and bacteriology (Pasteur), ‘the human sciences’ as we know them today were born. Along with the promise of progress, science simultaneously espoused ideas about racial purity and ‘degeneration’. Sadly, many contemporary views on human nature have been greatly influenced by that seemingly distant world of social engineering and eugenic speculation.
Learn about the dawn of the eugenics movement and how concepts of race, purity, and degeneracy intertwined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Register here for this talk by Sander L. Gilman, a cultural and literary historian, and professor emeritus at Emory University.
| Public Safety Listening Session
The Milwaukee Police Department, the Fire and Police Commission, and the Community Collaborative Commission are holding their monthly district-by-district community listening session on Saturday, May 20 for Aldermanic District 6. See particulars below. This is a great opportunity to express both your concerns and your vision for creating a safer community. You do not need to live in the district, or even in the City of Milwaukee, in order to participate in the sessions. Data from all 15 districts will be compiled into a report to help create a city-wide public safety plan. Scan the QR code on the flyer below to RSVP. | Support Democracy. Support your League.
Your support is critical to help our nonpartisan grassroots organization reach voters play a critical role in democracy. It would not be possible to empower voters and defend democracy without your support.
Thank you!
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