{"id":44960,"date":"2016-01-04T04:02:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T04:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44960"},"modified":"2017-01-08T03:14:12","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T03:14:12","slug":"young-gifted-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44960","title":{"rendered":"Young Gifted Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young Gifted Black<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Isthmus<\/a>
\nMadison, Wisconsin
\n2015-05-01<\/p>\n

Allison Geyer<\/a><\/strong>, Staff Writer<\/p>\n

Fiery activist group praised and panned for disruptive protests in name of racial equality<\/em><\/p>\n

Dozens of protesters with the Young, Gifted and Black Coalition<\/a> marched on March 19 to a mayoral forum at the Barrymore Theatre, where two white, progressive mayoral candidates were preparing to debate the issues facing the city of Madison. There was no question the city\u2019s racial inequalities would be on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Deep disparities are considered by many to be liberal Madison\u2019s secret shame. And the officer-shooting death a few weeks earlier of unarmed biracial teenager Tony Robinson dealt a crushing blow to the city\u2019s already disenfranchised community.<\/p>\n

Protesters marched down the aisles of the theater holding a banner declaring \u201cBlack Lives Matter.\u201d The rallying cry has emerged nationally in response to what many see as a pattern of systematic state violence against African American citizens that fails to take account of lost lives.<\/p>\n

What did they want? \u201cJustice!\u201d When did they want it? \u201cNow!\u201d And if they didn\u2019t get it? \u201cShut it down!\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Young, Gifted and Black is in some ways a misnomer.<\/p>\n

The group is certainly youth-oriented \u2014 middle school, high school and college-aged students walked out of class to join the numerous marches in the weeks following the Tony Robinson shooting. And many more youth have attended direct action training sessions at UW-Madison. But key organizers of the group range in age from their mid-20s to mid-30s, with members up to 40 and older.<\/p>\n

Members are passionate, with a capacity to inspire and mobilize \u2014 and to piss certain people off. Many are African American or identify as such, but Asian, Latino and white allies also have a strong presence in the group.<\/p>\n

Group leadership is also deliberately feminist and \u201cconspicuously queer,\u201d committed to dismantling patriarchy as well as combating racial inequality. Organizers say these are characteristics that set the movement apart from older iterations of civil rights activism.<\/p>\n

But perhaps what unites many of the core members is a shared experience of discrimination that fuels a desire to change what they see as an unjust world…<\/p>\n

…Matthew Braunginn\u2019s<\/a> activist roots go deep \u2014 his father, Stephen Braunginn, was president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison and a co-founder of Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.<\/p>\n

Braunginn, 29, characterizes previous efforts to combat racial disparity and racism as \u201clip service\u201d and \u201chalf attempts\u201d that didn\u2019t address the root causes of problems plaguing minorities. He graduated from Purdue University and now works for the UW-Madison PEOPLE Project \u2014 a college readiness program for minority and low-income students. He joined Young, Gifted and Black to confront institutionalized racism directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacism is more than just being hateful,\u201d he says, adding that many white people have a \u201cpoor understanding\u201d of the minority experience and how implicit biases exist throughout the society.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost worse that Madison is liberal,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Braunginn is biracial, but he identifies as black. He says his ethnic ambiguity has been a source of stress and confusion \u2014 unable to truly \u201cpass<\/a>\u201d as either black or white, he has struggled with discrimination and uncomfortable questions about his race. He says his identity struggles led him to abuse opioids in his teens and early 20s…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young Gifted Black Isthmus Madison, Wisconsin 2015-05-01 Allison Geyer, Staff Writer Fiery activist group praised and panned for disruptive protests in name of racial equality Dozens of protesters with the Young, Gifted and Black Coalition marched on March 19 to a mayoral forum at the Barrymore Theatre, where two white, progressive mayoral candidates were preparing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1467,8,26,23674,20],"tags":[22545,22543,22544,22546,22542,19560,22540,5661],"class_list":["post-44960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-law","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-allison-bell-bern","tag-allison-geyer","tag-brandi-grayson","tag-eric-upchurch","tag-isthmus","tag-madison","tag-matthew-braunginn","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51081,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960\/revisions\/51081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}