Black alderman fought Depression-level poverty in Milwaukee

Former Milwaukee City Alderman Michael McGee Jr. is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 24. An all-white jury in August convicted him in federal court of nine corruption charges. McGee, an African American, faces six-and-a-half to 10 years on these federal counts; a state trial begins Dec. 1 on yet more charges.

U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert on Oct. 10 denied McGee’s request to delay the sentencing and grant him an additional 20 days to respond to a pre-sentence report.

McGee and his many supporters, almost all from the Black community, who witnessed the federal trial, say that he was entrapped, that prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves during the trial, and that the prosecution was allowed to enter fabricated evidence and attempt to pit Arab witnesses against Black ones.

McGee’s supporters have submitted to the sentencing court numerous letters that describe his strong support of poor and working people, particularly of youth, during his terms as Sixth District alderman from April 2004 to 2008. McGee fought police brutality, questioned the rapid gentrification of working-class neighborhoods, wrote a letter to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez inquiring about heating oil assistance for poor Milwaukeeans, fought to broaden affirmative action in contract bidding and city hiring policies, fought massive tax breaks for corporations in the city, and supported political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, among other progressive activities. (For background, search for Michael McGee at workers.org.)

Many questions surround this case, but the central one is: Why are the state and federal governments willing to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars railroading McGee and locking him up, possibly for years?

Why McGee has wide community support

McGee has been moved to various jails since his arrest on May 28, 2007. He has been denied bail, had his jail phones tapped by local police agencies and the FBI, been subject to racist depictions in the corporate media, and worse. Other white politicians facing similar charges over the past few years have been released on bail and served minor jail or prison terms, if any time at all.

McGee’s progressive activities have received virtually no coverage in the corporate media, although he has been a community activist for decades. Nor has the media investigated the social conditions in Milwaukee that have led to his widespread support in the Black community. It is impossible to analyze McGee’s case without putting it into a social, political and economic context—exactly what is lacking in the racist corporate media.

McGee was one of the very few politicians to actively participate in alleviating the semi-apartheid conditions that exist in Milwaukee, the most segregated city in the United States.

Consider these facts about Milwaukee:

• One in every four residents lives below the poverty level, according to federal statistics. For Black Milwaukee, semi-apartheid conditions are the norm and have gotten even worse in recent years with the dismantling of Aid for Dependent Children and welfare, as well as the introduction of charter schools.

• Infant mortality for Black babies is 21 per 1,000 live births—more than four times the rate for whites. (Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services and the Black Health Coalition of Milwaukee)

• Although Blacks comprise only 5 percent of Wisconsin’s total population of 5 million, they make up more than 50 percent of the prison population. The number of Black and Latina women in prison in the state has skyrocketed since the early 1990s. (The Sentencing Project)

• Unemployment in metro Milwaukee among African-American males ages 16 to 64 increased to 51.1 percent last year from 46.8 percent in 2006. This is probably the highest jobless rate Black men here have ever suffered, according to a just-released report by The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development. Milwaukee has the biggest gap between Black and white joblessness in the U.S. In the past, many Black Milwaukeeans had union jobs at manufacturing plants in the city. But the majority of living-wage jobs are now in the suburbs and there is inadequate public transportation to get there from the city. Many Black people in Milwaukee are ready and willing to work but don’t have vehicles, due to institutionally racist factors such as racial profiling and the court system.

• Police brutality and murder have been an ongoing fact of life for Black and Latin@ people in Milwaukee. City police and other repressive local, state and federal agencies, often with paramilitary units, occupy whole sections of the Black community. Since 1990 at least 50 Black men have been shot dead by Milwaukee city police. Even after the highly publicized Frank Jude Jr. case—a struggle against naked police brutality that McGee spearheaded—the police feel free to act with virtual impunity.

McGee was attempting to combat these conditions, often in alliance with progressive community organizations.

McGee supporters say that if he has given grounds for suspicion, it is grassroots representatives of the Black community in his district who should have the right to pass judgment, not the enemies of the people.

The government is spending huge sums on legally lynching McGee. Why aren’t these funds going to alleviate these horrendous social conditions? Aren’t the real criminals the bankers and bosses responsible for these conditions, not those like McGee who fight them? Shouldn’t the rulers be the ones on trial for all the death, misery, destitution and destruction they cause on a daily basis? Shouldn’t they be made to pay reparations?

The government and the ruling class behind it are using McGee’s case—and rabid racism—to strengthen the repressive apparatus against all poor and working people. They are trying to deflect anger away from the rapidly disintegrating capitalist system, the real enemy of poor and working people.