We Are More Similar than You Think

The views and opinions of this program do not reflect that of the staff and management of Milwaukee Black Media, but are the sole responsibility of the hosts and guests of this particular show.

with a boom ping ping wisdom sharper than a beast fear sting words like fireflies that light the night he turns the dark into blazing bright boom ping ping the truth takes wing and walkies voice let the city sing

Today is Monday, October 5th, 2026.

We are broadcasting live from the American Family Insurance Studio in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This is a very unique place to say the least.

And if you've been here, if you live here, if you're from here, that sentiment and that statement will make a lot of sense to you.

If you travel, I imagine a lot of you do travel.

And people ask you where you're from because you have a very peculiar accent.

You Milwaukee people.

You sound very funny when you talk.

And folks may inquire as to where you're from.

They'll usually guess wrong, but it's probably somewhere in the upper Midwest.

I got accused of sounding like I'm from the upper peninsula of Michigan.

And here's the thing.

The person was from Canada that thought that I was from the U.P.

I was terribly offended by that.

I said to this person,

You could have literally picked any other region in the country and say that I sounded like I was from anywhere else, but the UP of Michigan.

How disgusting.

However, I digress.

When you travel and you tell people where you're from and maybe there's a sense of pride and where you're from, maybe you like being here.

Maybe this is your favorite city.

Maybe this is your choice every single time to live in Milwaukee, whichever.

part of town that you live on and you also want to show how much you beam with the pride of your city.

If you're a black African American person and you tell someone who was curious or even if they're not where you're from, you'll get a variety of different answers.

Sometimes they'll look at you with a blank stare.

Other times they'll wonder a question like there's black people in Milwaukee.

I honestly cannot tell you how many times I have heard exactly that and it's it's the most ironic thing to hear because most of what we discuss involve the African-American community.

Whether it be local news, it could even be national news and the fact that the black vote in an upper Midwestern state like Wisconsin concentrated in Milwaukee more specifically on the north side.

Actually, in some presidential election cycles has the ability to determine the next president of the United States.

There's always this micro scope on the microcosm of the African American community.

We're trying to figure out what's wrong, how to fix it.

50% of y'all want to return Black Milwaukee to something that it used to be, News Flash, that will never happen.

But there's so much fixation on Black Milwaukee, it blows my mind that even to this day, even with the national news that we make and the international news that we make,

People are still shocked that there are Black people in Milwaukee.

I would argue on some days we have too many.

There's too many on Water Street sometimes, and there's too many on Brady Street sometimes.

We're a segregated city, but because of certain economic conditions, I'm seeing integration take place in very unusual ways.

We're going to unpack a lot of stuff today, and I found some comparisons, other places.

In this country that people may be familiar with because when you tell somebody you are from Milwaukee and I know you love it here so very much You're you're here probably because of the weather.

I know that's why you're all here.

I Want people to be maybe much more familiar with Who and what this city is I'll compare it to another place to another space to another Political climate or another social climate so it makes a little bit more sense because it's it's infuriating to me that we have such

Invisibility is black people in this city We might have a black guy from this city be governor of the state of Wisconsin let that sink in Barring any major catastrophe It looks okay for David Crowley it does and for a a city that is not known for having African-American people because if you travel and you're black and you say that you're from

Milwaukee, they will question the validity of your statement.

They think, well, you got to be from Chicago.

Why would you be in Milwaukee?

There's no blacks there.

You know, it's crazy.

There's a lot of people that still think that Milwaukee is Laverne and Shirley and happy days.

Bronzing a Fonzie didn't help.

Oh, the irony of that day.

I will never forget it.

They had a whole parade to unveil.

The bronze Fonzie statue you guys familiar with the bronzy the bride they took it down for a little while to polish it apparently I guess it's back up Fonzie was a character on the show called happy days set in the 1950s in Milwaukee when Milwaukee was just the best thing smoking you had all sorts of employment you had factory jobs and their breweries and all of the things here

It really was a destination not to mention the city probably has something like 700,000 people.

Nothing even remotely close to that now.

That also brings us to our YouTube question.

I'm very curious how many more of you are going to leave?

We've lost probably 35 ish percent of our population since 1960 and it doesn't seem to be slowing.

How many of you plan to leave the city of Milwaukee and do you plan not how many?

That number might be infinite.

Do you plan on leaving the city of Milwaukee for greener pastures in the next 10 years?

I'm just trying to get an assessment and this is only for those of you that live in the city.

Stop living in Cudahay and in St.

Francis and Oak Creek and say you live in Milwaukee.

You do not.

You have a whole different mayor.

You got a different common council.

You got different rules.

You have a different police department.

Stop it.

You want to say you're from here?

Then move to 27th and capital then.

Register to vote here.

Then you can say that you live here and also suburbanites stop giving your opinions.

Just just stay Where you are until you want to come to the city and have fun and spend a little bit of money But then promptly go back home because we don't need your opinions on anything because you know, we just don't But for those of you that are here that live here in the actual city and the 96.1 square miles How many of you plan to leave stay in the next decade?

Maybe some of you are making your exit plans right now

Might leave in the next six months might wait until the spring or the summer of 27 to get the hell out of here Some of you might be staying because you might have families here Your children are here.

Maybe you want your children to finish the high school here And then your children are gonna fly the coop and then you'll be able to move somewhere else as well But yeah, how many of you plan on leaving in the next ten years and it could be

Less than 10 years, but I'm trying to get an assessment of those who are currently here right now who are likely less than satisfied with whatever the conditions are of the day Do you plan on leaving in the next 10 years?

Maybe some of you are getting divorced and when you get divorced you want to start your new life somewhere else I wouldn't blame you start over fresh somewhere don't know where you're going, but you might want to

You know, go to a different place and meet all new people.

Reinvents yourself if you will.

Now with that, for those of you that are getting divorced, I know that some of you haven't quite told your spouse yet, but at some point you probably will.

Would you like to start your life somewhere else?

I'm trying to get an assessment of how many of you plan on leaving the city in the next 10 years.

So I was talking a moment ago about.

About the segregation which we are known for but there's also a few other cities that share that same dubious Distinction we are really known for it, you know Chicago of course, and you've got Philadelphia really old industrial cities that have lost their industry but the people still stayed and Businesses and jobs went elsewhere.

They went to suburban areas and so office parks.

That's very much on purpose oftentimes outside of the reach

public transportation but also unions are much much weaker once you start moving away from city centers unions and union jobs tend to be very very strong in urban areas and once you start moving into suburban

Rural and exurbant areas the impact and the power of unions begins to fade and dissipate a little bit So there is no shock nor surprise that the office parks have been growing and growing and growing in areas that were once farmland We have remarked about a number of grocery stores

Have closed I saw something somewhere.

I didn't really do much research on it was just something I heard and passing that there's some there's a focus group or There's a study or there's something why there's so many focus groups There's so many focus groups I can't focus on the focus groups because they got to have a focus group and you got to hire a consultant You got you got to get a consultant you got to pay the consultant many hundreds of thousands of dollars over many years So they can tell you stuff that you already know, but I get it

You need to have some kind of an assessment where you go through the facts and the details and the data and then you present the results of the facts and the details and the data from the focus group and from the consultants and then you can make policy from that very unusual because by the time the details of the focus group information is available for you to make policy not only do you have probably different elected officials you have a whole nother new set of issues that you must tackle because there's some issues

that are deeply entrenched in history that are some to just pop up on a random Monday.

So it makes it difficult to make some progress.

But the closing of the grocery store, they want to find out why are the grocery stores closing?

How come people are not shopping at the grocery stores or the grocery stores don't want to be here anymore?

So there's some kind of a focus group or a study.

And we know that that impacts the African-American community greatly.

I don't see it as.

The great Greek tragedy that some make it out to be I think that food purchasing habits Have changed.

I think we are living in a generation.

We're sitting down and making a meal for a family is something of the past grocery stores help facilitate that even how I shop in the last I haven't really grocery shop grocery shop since

It's been a couple of years.

I buy my food as needed.

I'm just one person.

I don't buy a tremendous amount of food and a lot of perishables because that tends to be a waste of money.

Who am I preparing meals for?

It is so much easier.

And dare I say, in some cases, it's even cheaper to buy your meals as you need them than to go to the store and stock up on things.

And then if you don't use certain perishable items, you've wasted a whole bunch of money.

Ain't nothing worse.

I got drawers.

My refrigerator some days I'll be real motivated and I'll go to the grocery store and I'll buy the green peppers and I'll buy the yellow peppers and I'll buy the onions and I'll buy all the cilantro I buy all the things and I put the stuff.

It's a crisper drawer You understand sometimes I forget that I put stuff in the crisper drawer and I look at a crisper drawer two three weeks later And it ain't crisp anymore.

I stopped doing that.

That's a big old waste of money But where the city

is integrating, is grocery stores.

When I go to, and I shop in the suburbs, yell at me if you want, quality is higher, this is.

The number of African Americans that I see in places that 10 years ago I saw none, remarkable.

Not a good thing, not a bad thing, just an observation.

The...

Think it's the points East East Point Shopping Center.

I don't know if that's still a pick and save for if it's a metro mark Metro market Mostly black Metro market on 69th and State Street in a while with Tulsa Mostly black Metcalfs used to be a century right across the street from the Metro market on 69th and State

A lot of African Americans it's unusual though to see the migration patterns of black people when grocery stores in our neighborhoods and our communities close, but I don't see it as As a problem that needs to be solved.

I think that our food purchasing habits have changed It's just as easy and probably more convenient.

I'll be it more expensive to order your food off of

Door dash or uber eats and it is to make a trip to the grocery store and buy food to prepare large meal for family So some things are forcing unusual integrations in the city and when things close and when assets close in the black community We simply will travel somewhere else to receive whatever those services are and it looks like integration even though the cultures are very very separate I'm gonna take a break when I come back

I'm going to provide for you the closest analogy that I could find, not just in the Midwest, not just in the United States, but in the entire world in which I can compare the microcosm of African American Milwaukee, which if you travel, people don't even know that we exist.

So I want to clear up our invisibility because we are very much visible.

But I think one of the reasons why we are invisible is because the poverty and the low levels of literacy.

and the low levels of voter participation and the lack of home ownership and the lack of wealth makes us invisible.

Poverty is a kind of invisibility.

In fact, you don't want to see it.

We don't want to see homeless people.

I'm sorry, unhoused people.

We don't want to see people who might be suffering from mental illness, but unable to get the treatment that they need.

We don't want to see them.

These people become invisible and I take great offense when our people are considered in.

visible.

So we're going to do some comparisons today and we're going to bring our visibility to light.

We're listening to the truth with Sherwin Hughes on one on one seven FM.

I'll be right back.

Don't touch that dial.

The truth with Sherwin Hughes will be right back on one on one seven the truth the truth.

and 1017thetruth.com.

This is The Truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017thetruth, The Truth App and 1017thetruth.com.

The ironies continue because a lot of us trace our ancestry Back to the state of Mississippi.

This is also anecdotal.

This is just what I have seen It's a heuristic if you will like my experiences don't necessarily apply to the whole

Nor can they be considered 100% statistically accurate But most of the black folks that are here have relatives that are from one of three states now there is some variation Arkansas Tennessee or Mississippi with migrants from Mississippi probably comprising 65 or 70%

the African-American folk that are here I am of the first generation in the lineage of my family born north of the Mason Dixon line and there were opportunities afforded to me north of the Mason Dixon line that were not afforded to some of my relatives south of the Mason Dixon line in fact of my mother and this is just my family as an example, but I think it's

An example it has been duplicated many many times over if you or your family is from the South and Members of your family migrated all points north maybe to get a job pursuing opportunity or go to school You may have feared better than those who stayed in the South unless you stayed in Atlanta Atlanta became a mecca of black progress, but it's also very much a corporate city whereas

Milwaukee, not so much.

Not really a lot.

You got corporate cities, I suppose, in Texas, but Texas is such an unusual place.

It's hard to even quantify and qualify Texas as a regular, normal U.S.

state.

Texas should be like five or six different states.

Now all of them would likely be very deep red and Republican, but who knows with the election of James Tallarico to the U.S.

Senate, that could be changing.

I know Beto O'Rourke.

He tried, didn't he?

Little Beto.

Got a Mexican Irish name.

I'm not sure how well that fared but you know, he gave it a shot I think he kind of paved a way for a Democrat potentially to returning to political power in places like Texas Here's one thing I never would have guessed but it's also indicative of Georgia Didn't think Georgia will become a battleground state in my lifetime or at least in the second half of my lifetime I just considered Georgia to be one of those red Bible Belt states that would always love the Republican regardless of who the Republican is

Let's say that Georgia has two Democratic senators, a black and a Jew.

That's too liberal for me, even.

You got to balance it out.

Because look what we have here in Wisconsin, also very indicative of Wisconsin.

We are such a schizophrenic and confused place.

We got

a woman u.s senator who was the first out of the closet lesbian to serve in congress and then our other u.s senator is ron johnson who is a trump and dumb as a box of rocks and i need to apologize when i say that there's not a very nice thing to say that's a horrible thing to call senator ron johnson u.s senator not state senator u.s senator

Ron Johnson dumb as a box of rocks.

Let me go ahead and apologize for that.

I need to watch my mouth sometimes because I don't want to offend a box of rocks.

Got Tammy Baldwin's lesbian lady, very nice lady.

Her her staff apparently listens to the show because one day I was going on about something God knows what.

And I remarked that Tammy don't really come around a lot.

You don't really see a lot of Tammy used to see a lot of Russ Feingold I remember back when we had a Jewish fellow that was US senator in fact our Jewish fellow He got elected in 1992 Russ Feingold did he got elected on the same ballot as Bill Clinton and Russ Feingold great guy

He would travel to all 72 counties and hold office hours and talk to his constituents every single year.

That's a hell of a lot of traveling, but he used to do it.

I think he kind of set the tone for US Senate representation because Russ was always around and if Russ wasn't there, he would send a staff to any and every event that was going on damn near anywhere in the state.

So we got used to seeing Russ, but Russ was also.

The only vote against the Patriot Act because rush tried to tell us back in 2001.

We probably We probably shouldn't be voting for this cuz it's gonna turn into the American people getting spot on Thanks, Russ.

I wish you would have said it louder for the people in the back That vote was 99 to one and ultimately Russ Feingold lost to Ron Johnson again, I apologize to any boxes of rocks Well, if you want to see Tammy just

Get some of that APAC money in your phone.

She'll be right in here.

I'm not doing that today.

I got a point I got to make.

I know that you don't like the APAC money.

There was a segment I was going to do because I get.

I don't know.

All of a sudden people are mad.

APAC has been around for a long time, but now I got to be real careful because there are some people that.

Are anti-Semitic and they'll use things that are uniquely Jewish and Jewish American and be against them.

As a mask and a shield for their anti-Semitism.

I don't really think about Jews all that much I think about you as much as Jews think about me, which probably isn't a lot You know what I mean?

There are probably 15 or 20 other political action committees that I know Contribute to members of Congress that do infinitely infinitely more damage to the American people than a pack of the tobacco lobby as a perfect example It's going to kill hundreds of thousands of people

and they're shifting and they're transitioning now it's vaping and I was these little nicotine pouches that you get and they get to lobby consistently and they're killing millions and people and addicting kids but I guess if the tobacco lobby was run by Jews then we'd probably be a little more angry at them however I digress or an interesting place here in Milwaukee I love it I do

Like the surrounding areas to went to dinner.

We took mom's the dinner was her birthday on Saturday Friday.

I don't know one of those days.

We took her to dinner yesterday.

I went to Fleming's in Brookfield by Brookfield Square Exquisite exquisite dining experience.

It really was it was almost like a custom tailored dining experience

Think I had one of the best wagyu steaks I've ever had my entire life melted like butter my god That was a good steak and I went crazy.

I ordered oysters My family doesn't eat oysters I do what can I say?

I'm cultured Got the seared scallops and eight ounce wagyu filet Brussels sprouts

Chipotle macaroni and cheese And of course you gotta get dessert if you're gonna have a big fat back you might as well expand that big fat back and get dessert because it's an exquisite dining experience We went out for my mother's birthday, but I treated like it was my birthday because guess what on some days and occasions I'm the birthday and Then the bill came

Going out to eat is expensive ladies and gentlemen.

Do you have you guys noticed that and for some reason as I'm ordering insane amounts of food I'm paying no attention to the price who cares about the price.

Well, guess what the price?

It adds up so that I Said all that to say this we have some great offerings in and around the metropolitan area of the city of Milwaukee and fortunately not enough people

who are a part of the tax base are able to enjoy some of the offerings and some of the amenities that we have.

For an upper Midwestern city that's trying to make its way through the 21st century and offer things to an ever-changing and very interconnected world, there's still a large group of people.

who are lagging behind and those people that are lagging behind happen to look like myself and happen to look like Xavier and happen to look like just about everybody here at one on one seven the truth and when we talk about the things that we talk about it's not that there is a fix for everything that is wrong.

You have to understand the pathology of why we are here and we are going to be quote unquote here.

for a very long time.

This is not something that will get quote unquote fixed from one generation to the next.

And I say that because and I say that with great caution because as we consider today's problems and we put together whatever solution is better education, more funding here.

smarter budgets over there, more voter outreach and voter participation.

I don't know whatever it is.

But as we continue to try to fix what's wrong today, there will be a new problem tomorrow that we never even considered.

So whatever progress we are making on fixing these issues right now, we will be overwhelmed and inundated with new problems that we don't even know about because we won't see them until tomorrow.

Mississippi lost the labor system around which its economy had been organized.

Milwaukee lost the industrial employment system around which its working class had been organized in both places.

The old economy disappeared faster than a broadly accessible replacement economy emerged and black communities were particularly exposed to the consequences.

Mississippi had one of the wealthiest plantation economies after the invention of the cotton gin and then when slavery ended, no major industries came in to replace the wealth that was created by slavery and everything associated with it.

Fast forward, then move north to Milwaukee.

The industrial employment literally brought people.

From the state of Mississippi to Milwaukee to take advantage of economic opportunities and factory jobs and industrial jobs and manufacturing jobs and assembly line jobs and brewery drops and those jobs left but the people did not the similarities between these two places are shocking so I'm gonna take a break come back Continue shedding light on these similarities between these two places that you wouldn't think would have a lot in common, but we do

There are many of us that can trace our ancestry and our history and our roots to Mississippi, but also the levels of poverty and the low levels of education and low levels of home ownership mirror one another.

However, I will tell you that one of those places is doing slightly.

better than the other.

But there's a lot more to compare and I just want folks to have a solid understanding of how these two geographically different places have so much social, cultural, economic, and academic similarity.

The truth with Sherwin Hughes will be right

back.

You are listening to The Truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 The Truth, the Truth app and 1017thetruth.com.

Reginald Jones says I do indeed plan on leaving Milwaukee city Most likely less than five years from now why Reggie you don't like it here.

You don't like the weather There's nice people here at least they're fake nice Most people are nice.

They're kind of closed off and guarded at first, but if you engage a Milwaukee person in conversation with

You know something we have in common everybody likes the Brewers now Contrary to popular belief.

I like the Brewers I supported like the stadium to stay here because I knew the revenue that will come It's the fans that are gross Some of the fans come on.

You know what I'm talking about like if Let's say the Brewers offered and maybe they do like $1 seats dollar tickets or $5 tick.

Let's say they had a whole section

All season long of tickets that were five bucks you would have to require those people to wear shoes Or they wouldn't wear them.

They would not They'd go shoeless It's kind of gross and also baseball is nice and integrated sport Internationally, it's integrated but because there are not a lot of baseball programs in Majority black American high schools.

You don't see prolific

Black baseball talent if you have the a sport in high school like we have basketball and football Well, that's why you see so many great basketball and football athletes.

I believe that if you offered tennis and badminton in Majority black schools once we get over The cultural anomaly of some of those sports you'll find the black children are very good.

I used to like badminton You know what that thing is that you hit you guys remember what it's called

The thing you I know you remember what is called Xavier.

I know you had badminton where you went to school.

It's called a shuttlecock.

Yeah, it's a shuttlecock.

Yeah, I remember playing it.

Yeah.

It's shuttlecock.

It wasn't it wasn't my favorite sport because not very athletic.

Hitting the shuttlecock is not

very badminton can be very athletic.

It's better than tennis because the shuttlecock moves slower and you can wind up and crack it.

My Kyle Wiles was just in here.

Kyle Wiles probably got a collection of shuttlecocks.

You remember the shuttlecock.

But no, if we don't have sports offered in schools to our children, then they don't have the opportunity to excel.

We are shot out to the Brewers with eight games away, eight wins away from Winner World Series.

Mark my words, if the Milwaukee Brewers win the World Series, it will be bigger.

that when the Bucks won the championship in 2021, and that was a big deal.

That was huge because we were coming off of the COVID.

I think some of y'all still had COVID.

Are y'all still getting COVID?

Do people still get the COVID or is COVID gone?

Is it still out there?

I think people still get it, but most people I know got the booster in the two shots, so it doesn't really affect them that much.

Not true because it evolved.

The one that we had no immunity for was COVID-19.

Now we're damn near COVID-27.

So whatever, unless you continue to get boosters, I had a COVID booster in probably five years because I was like, this is enough.

But now I think it's just a cold.

We're six seven years ago if you had those symptoms.

Oh my god.

I got COVID.

I must get my affairs and over please reserve me a Ventilator.

I'm gonna need it.

I've lost my sense of taste and smell I've lost my common sense as well.

I got to wear a mask.

I still see people wearing masks Pulled down below their noses though.

Like why are you wearing it?

I got a whole drawer full of masks still

with logos on them.

Remember people were printing masks with logos and they were advertising.

So we had a we went to a press conference myself and a group of colleagues and it was like it was a covid.

Was it the health department that was doing this press conference?

It was in conjunction with the Milwaukee Police Department because they would do like these like these informational.

Public information something so I don't know I Know this much you needed to have a mask To participate in this press conference even though it was outdoors we were weird back then it was stuff was weird and So I didn't have a mask and several other people that were there at this press and we all knew each other Didn't have a mask, but a business owner showed up at the press conference

And he happened to have a whole bag full of masks.

There were cloth ones, not the blue surgical ones, not in 95s, but cloth masks.

And he said, hey, I got masks for everybody so that we can participate in this press conference.

Well, the business owner because you know business owners were very concerned because they were losing money and they they could only do 25% capacity and that wasn't enough to generate profit for a lot of these businesses Then they had to hire these attorneys.

You guys remember this where they had to put together like these 15 and 20 page Safety plans of how they were gonna mitigate COVID and how they were gonna keep social distancing and all these lawyers made all this money because you had to put together all these rules and regulations Then you would submit your plan to the city

The city would send somebody out to come and inspect your establishment and then you would get permission to open up a 25% capacity.

Just absolutely insane.

So I think this press conference was discussing the details of that.

Okay?

Well, the mask that we all put on had logos on them, but here's the thing.

The logos were on both sides of the mask because you know, if you have a mask, you can turn it inside out and still wear the mask.

It was a strip club.

So you had seven or eight people that read a press conference all on television wearing the strip club logo over their mouth.

So I just thought I would share that with you of the many unusual things that happened during COVID.

Please by all means, share your unusual COVID stories too.

Mississippi lost the labor system around which its economy had been organized.

Milwaukee lost the industrial employment system around which its working class had been organized.

In both places, the old economy disappeared faster than a broadly accessible replacement economy emerged, and black communities were particularly exposed to the consequences.

That comparison gets remarkably uncomfortable when race, geography, housing, schools, and intergenerational poverty are added to the mix.

Mississippi and Milwaukee, different histories eerily similar.

economic shocks.

Antebellum, Mississippi built enormous wealth around cotton, land, and enslaved human beings.

Most of the wealth belongs to a relatively small planter class.

When slavery ended in 1865, the underlying economic structure did not magically become an inclusive free market economy.

Formerly enslaved people generally emerged from slavery with no land, little capital, and limited access to credit.

Sharecropping became the replacement system.

By the year 1935 years after the ending of slavery, 85% of black farmers in Mississippi did not own the land on which they worked.

More than 35% of white agricultural workers were also penniless and landless.

Debt and the cropline system could keep families economically trapped for years.

Now, Mississippi did industrialize somewhat railroads, lumber, textiles, and eventually shipbuilding appeared, so it would be inaccurate to say that no industry came to Mississippi after slavery.

But industrialization was late and inadequate relative to the state's dependence on agriculture, even during World War II, Mississippi ranked at or near the bottom in federal war production investment.

Now move the clock forward about a century and drive north to Milwaukee.

Milwaukee's economic catastrophe happened in slow motion.

Milwaukee once possessed something extraordinarily valuable to working-class people, industrial jobs capable of supporting families without requiring four-year college degrees.

Factories became Milwaukee's version of economic infrastructure.

The numbers are staggering.

One historical analysis using census data reports that Milwaukee had approximately 133,000 manufacturing jobs in 1947.

By 2017, only 27,000 jobs remain.

It also documents enormous employment contractions and companies such as Alice Chalmers, A.L.

Smith,

Briggs and Stratton and others I just want you all to conceptualize this for a second 133,000 jobs where only one person had to work and they could take care of the entire family You could have a car.

You could have a house.

You could put money away for a rainy day You'd have a fat pension.

You could even take a couple of vacations 133,000 manufacturing jobs by 2017 that was down to 27,000

there is your poverty now you gotta think about what came in to replace that hundred and ten thousand jobs that left next to nothing

service industry jobs, maybe restaurants, maybe big box retailers like Walmart that don't pay remotely close to what those manufacturing jobs did.

And so now you have an eroding tax base and eroding income tax base.

So the money that we have to invest in people to invest in schools, all of that dried up as well.

I'm going to take a break, come back.

There's even deeper comparisons between Milwaukee and Mississippi.

Also, let me point you to our YouTube channel you can find it at 101 7 the truth you can open up your YouTube app from your smartphone or other mobile device or go to youtube.com Search 101 7 the truth hit subscribe And you'll be able to participate in our YouTube poll Considering all that we have discussed and all that we talk about not just on this show, but all the shows across the lineup

a one-on-one seven the truth because on any given day we're talking about the issues and the problems in Milwaukee and how we can magically fix them you can't even begin to so quote unquote fix the problem until you unravel the deep history that has created them

And as we are considering solutions for what is wrong right now by next summer is probably going to be something else.

So whatever progress we are making on fixing today's problems, we got to save some energy and some bandwidth to make room for tomorrow's problems.

Our YouTube poll question of the day is do you plan to leave Milwaukee in the next 10 years?

Well, look at these statistics.

I'm very disappointed in you people.

65% of you plan to leave in the next 10 years.

That's a larger percentage than I ever would have guessed.

So in the YouTube comments, can you tell me, since two thirds of you aren't going to be here in 10 years, or at least that's your plan, where the hell are you going?

racing Chicago Maybe Detroit, Michigan.

So those of you that plan to leave where you uh, where you headed to I might want to come visit the truth with Sherwin Hughes.

I'll be right back

The truth with Sherwin Hughes returns after this on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth.com

This is the truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth.com

Marvin said he's moving back home to Southeast Arkansas.

That's why the people came up here from the South a couple generations ago and now they're moving back down South.

I think the politics of the South would bother me.

Cost of living I think is lower.

Everything's cheaper in the South.

Homes certainly are.

Without imagining they're probably.

much more expensive than they once used to be, as is the case with

everything.

National Economic Research reinforces why this matters.

A major study of manufacturing decline found that factory job losses were associated with declining black employment and wages and increases in poverty, child poverty, single parenthood and mortality.

The effects occurred among whites too, but we're generally more severe for black Americans.

Now, I can't make a grand assessment of where the black labor market is.

But in the upper Midwest, and we're talking about my hometown of Milwaukee today, are we still waiting for factory jobs to return?

Because we love turning back the clock.

We love being nostalgic and reminiscing when things were better and easier and families were more tight knit.

And of course, you know, if you had a mainstay of employment, it's easier to have all of those social things and have the fabric be very tightly knit.

But do people even want?

Does somebody want to work in a factory?

Now, if you were a step away from slavery and a step away from Jim Crow, absolutely you would sit there and work in a factory.

Wouldn't really require a lot of brain power.

You didn't have to do a lot of thinking.

You could just sit there, execute your job for eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, get you a little bit of overtime and then go home.

Go home miserable, but at least you had a job that paid the bills.

I don't know if people want to do that anymore.

So even if we bring back what made Milwaukee great and would cause a large black migration, I don't think anybody wants to do that.

And you can't just tell folks, hey, go.

do this job because you'll make a whole bunch of money.

Go be a welder or a plumber or an electrician because you'll make a whole bunch of money.

I don't even know if money is the motivating factor anymore.

I think it's status.

I think it's celebrity.

I think it is working as little as you possibly can and enjoying a life of leisure because something has very much changed in the 21st century.

Luxury has become either cheaper or just more accessible.

All these women have very expensive purses.

Everybody is wearing $150 tennis shoes.

Like luxury is everywhere.

It's become very accessible.

If someone wants to ask me what the mainstay of employment is for the black community, I don't even think I can tell you.

I don't even know what the hell we do.

Doesn't everybody work in radio?

I do.

What else do you guys do?

So even if, and we're not gonna bring manufacturing back because it's too expensive.

Unless you can bring manufacturing back for minimum wage or less What incentive does a company have?

To close its operation in Bangladesh and move it to the south side of Milwaukee next to none Especially when it comes to tariffs, there's no incentive to hire American workers because you got to pay us a bunch of money There's always the threat the American workers are gonna start a union.

They might go on strike and starve you of labor

It is not worth it.

You have to pay Americans too much.

And here's the other problem with power poverty being what it is.

And we're going to get to poverty numbers.

We're actually Milwaukee is poorer than Mississippi is.

And Mississippi is the poorest state.

If you take the north side of the city of Milwaukee and you look at it as its own entity, its own state, as its own country, it is poorer and more illiterate.

than Mississippi and people left Mississippi because of the low levels of literacy, opportunity and employment.

Isn't that crazy?

We have become the worst version of the place that we left.

That's wild.

Oh, it gets even worse.

The life expectancy in Milwaukee rivals that of some third world countries.

And we are the epitome of the first world.

Mississippi, cotton slash slave economy dominated economic structure.

Milwaukee,

industrial manufacturing dominated working class economy.

Mississippi,

civil war destroys infrastructure and emancipation eliminates slave labor.

Milwaukee,

deindustrialization eliminates tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of factory and industrial jobs.

Mississippi, replacement economy after slavery was insufficient.

for huge numbers of workers.

Milwaukee, replacement economy increasingly requires education slash credentials.

Many displaced workers often lack.

Mississippi, black workers, possess little accumulated capital.

Milwaukee.

Black Milwaukee possesses comparatively little accumulated household wealth.

Mississippi sharecropping replaces slavery for many agricultural workers.

Milwaukee lower wage service economy replaces many industrial jobs.

Mississippi economic hardship becomes intergenerational.

Milwaukee concentrated urban poverty becomes intergenerational.

Mississippi Milwaukee determines I'm sorry race rather determines geography and opportunity Milwaukee raised strongly predicts geography and opportunity They aren't identical histories But they rhyme the cruelest similarity The economy changed but the people didn't a cotton plantation could disappear the people who depended upon that economy were still there

A Milwaukee factory could close.

The neighborhoods surrounding it didn't disappear.

The children didn't disappear.

The mortgages didn't disappear.

1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth.com

Welcome to our two of the truth with Sherwin Hughes.

We are making very unusual compares The city of Milwaukee I'm really using the whole state of Mississippi, which probably isn't fair But the African-American populations in those respective places have a tremendous tremendous amount of common because they were the most impacted by a changing economy and the economies of those two respective places that did change one after the Civil War

one post in the industrialization left African Americans in the lurch.

Mississippi has made progress in ways that Milwaukee has not granted.

Mississippi has been working on their progress for a longer period of time, albeit slowly.

Now we had different kinds of segregation here, de facto versus de jure.

The de jure kind is, Hey blacks, you have to stay over there because we'll kill you.

The de facto segregation is, well, we're not going to offer you mortgages in certain areas.

Blacks, we shall steer you very so gently over in these areas here.

And we're going to have housing covenants so that the neighborhoods that were crafted and curated to be white for several generations simply will not convey or otherwise provide mortgage and home ownership opportunities.

and neighborhoods that were sculpted and crafted to be white.

Because when you think about it, if you're going to steal the land from the natives, why would you integrate it?

You might as well just give it to all the white folks.

It's the invisibility of the African Americans that live in Milwaukee.

So when you travel, not depends on where you go.

You may go to some enlightened places of the country where they are very familiar.

with the African-American culture and community in the city of Milwaukee.

Maybe.

But then if you go to other places, they question your sanity.

Like, what?

You're black and from Milwaukee.

I didn't know that they had black people there.

It is the invisibility that I find troubling.

I find a lot of this stuff troubling.

But the fact that people don't know that we exist shows that we're just pushed so far to the margins.

We're just like the homeless people that you don't want to see.

Like the drug addicts that we want to pretend are not around.

The people who need mental health counseling that never can get it.

So we just want to try and ignore them or step over them when they're laying on the sidewalk.

I don't want our people and our culture to be relegated to those that are invisible.

There was a period of time where there was a lot of attention.

shown to Wisconsin because of our battleground state status and presidential elections.

I don't know what it's going to be like in upcoming elections.

Maybe we still have that battleground state status.

We'll see.

Where we get a lot of national attention, a lot of presidential candidates would come here.

In fact, both parties have had their conventions here in the last, I don't know, six or seven years.

That's important.

Lot of national media would descend on Milwaukee.

I can't tell you how many interviews we did here one on one seven the truth in fact we covered the Republican National Convention myself and my colleagues were featured on all sorts I did CNN interviews for a couple of years because of the importance of the African-American votes and how heavy it can weigh when it comes to deciding presidential elections that 25,000 to 30,000 votes have decided the last

Several presidential election cycles going back a decade or more even our gubernatorial races even the current gubernatorial races We have going on right now might be decided by less than 30,000 votes There probably will be more than 30,000 African Americans who will not vote and so if David Crowley is able to win It's gonna be white folks to put them in take that to the bank There's also three Referenda questions

On your upcoming ballot and you're gonna start getting your ballots very very soon ladies and gentlemen if you're on the Mail ballot list where you receive your ballots via the mail You might be getting in the next couple of weeks if you haven't received it already Here's what I'm gonna say about the referendum questions and as we get closer to the election, especially when early vote starts I'm gonna go over

those three referenda in great detail, but I'm going to keep it real simple for you.

All three of them are poisonous and put together by a Republican legislature that want to have a tremendous amount of control over the state of Wisconsin and its constitution.

Even after those Republicans lose majority power, you vote no on all three.

It's real simple because most of y'all say no anyway.

Unless you went to Cornell University.

Did a deep dive on that.

I can't share my opinions.

Xavier, I think you know what I'm talking about.

I can't talk about it.

People I can't share.

Yeah, I've I did a little research into it as well.

It's

bad.

It's worse than I originally thought.

Oh, like who the victims actually might end up being.

Yeah, it's very interesting to see the social media aspect.

I've talked to a few female friends that that that I know about it.

And it's very

Interesting to see how people take I'm at I don't know.

I'm just gonna do bad.

Yeah.

Yeah

Consent is a MF Because it depends on who you are You can a hundred percent consent in the moment The moment ends You can withdraw your consent later and bring legal charges to those people even though let me be clear the consent was there in fact it may have been pursued by the one

Who is now the victim but she a woman can withdraw her concern she can withdraw several years later

So I'm taking you've read the the police report from 2024.

I

read a lot of stuff the police report specifically know but more recent assessments of I Can't call them character

witnesses

Well, you know, she was pointing out who she wanted to do the stuff.

We're not.

We can't

talk.

We ain't

talking about

it.

We're going to get canceled.

We're

talking about Milwaukee, Mississippi.

Maybe we'll get to it later.

We'll see.

Let's talk to Al from Sherman Park.

This is going to be a doozy.

Here we go.

Al from Sherman Park.

You're on one on one seven.

The truth.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

How about you, Sherwin?

I'm doing good.

What's on your mind?

I do have an opinion on that Cornell case, but it would derail the whole conversation.

No, we can't

talk about that.

We're

men.

We can't

talk about certain things because we're men.

Well, equality, equality, until we have to be responsible for ourselves.

OK.

I've always said economy, economics 101.

Manufacturing is a nation's wealth, even a state or city.

And I looked at, uh, as Google about Switzerland, what were their top economies, what are France top economies?

I didn't ask what, like, uh, Uganda's top economy economies were industries, but you can correlate what a nation produces.

to how wealthy they are.

And it is very important to bring jobs back here because you can sit and you can yell, well, I want the minimum wage to be $30 an hour.

But if you don't have the jobs, you can now get $30 an hour.

And where is somebody going to come from?

And we have to think about that.

And then what are teachers teaching the students today for the careers tomorrow?

And of course, yes, a nation will always need those physical jobs, the plumbing, the street repair, the engineering of the streets, building buildings, repairing things.

We've kind of gotten away from that.

There's probably a lot of money in repairing.

old items if we didn't stop buying a lot of plastics in China and throw it away.

To this day, I have not bought one thing from Tamium because I know when you support even more junk from China, it depletes the economy at home.

Well, does it though?

Because what if we do not produce

Some of those very necessary consumer goods in America or if we do produce and let's say clothing What if it's more expensive?

To buy American may it is more expensive and maybe there's some pride in that because that American is probably making a decent job They got decent benefits.

They got a pension.

They got health insurance.

They have all those things But if you can get a similar product by not the same quality, but a similar product for 75% cheaper well then

Problem solved, right?

Well, you remember when that commercial used to come on look for the union label I remember my amps used to work at Jack Winner's up near around your road.

I think it's a public storage building now, but People were able to get those kind of factory jobs and it sustained them through life

But when we started, you know, the union said when Clinton signed that North America trade agreement, that all there would be this fucking sound of everything going out the country.

And I didn't believe them at first because I said, oh, you know, trade will mean it'll be fair.

We'll buy their stuff.

They'll buy our stuff.

It don't work that way.

Look at China.

We buy their stuff.

And they put up all these roadblocks by like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle in their country to keep all the wealth for themselves.

So we are draining ourselves when we get into these agreements and we need a president that fights hard for us to make sure that we are not being bamboozled.

It's also national security interest because we don't have any steel industries in the country.

We can't make equipment for war.

We don't have pharmaceuticals made here.

We're held high.

We're talking about the biggest

war time.

The companies and corporations that produce weapons of war are mostly American companies.

They're doing very well.

It's made steel mills where where all you're still coming from without recently the president did invest in Pennsylvania like our only

not

cheap or other

other places, but what America didn't account for

is competition from other countries because when the world was bombed out after World War Two and we thought that the world would never get back online, it would never make things, it would never produce things anymore.

The destruction that was caused after World War Two meant if something was produced or manufactured anywhere on the planet, it had to be made here.

And that's when our manufacturing economy was so robust.

But as those countries rebuilt and built new infrastructure, Germany rebuilt, Western Europe rebuilt and Japan rebuilt, we can't compete with them.

Number one, number two, who wants to hire American workers?

We are

lazy.

We call them sick all the time.

We don't want to work.

Our productivity has gone down.

We spend too much damn time on the internet.

Our kids are not motivated.

The American worker is not worth what the American worker was some time ago.

That's why the wages are so low.

If Americans writ large, we're skilled laborers.

They could command more money, but they're not and they don't have the skills.

That's why we're stuck in the service industry.

We can go back and forth on this all day long But the the time of great manufacturing in America is long long gone now where we have an opportunity is tech We make the chips we make the semi conductors and Silicon Valley is leading the world and that is where we still have an edge But then at the same time Americans hate data centers so

Stuck in a rock in a hard

place,

but I appreciate you got one more comments.

I'll let you get it in

Yeah, our children hate to study and lastly do you trust to steal some China because when I go to Menards to buy replacement pipe?

I'm thinking I'm gonna have to replace this in five years

Thanks Al

Have a good day.

All right you too I know Al knows about pipe

Well, no, he said he buys pipes.

He knows about

about pipe

Americans are bargain shoppers want cheap stuff.

We don't care where it's made I Worked for Ernie Von Slater and he's dead now He owned a car dealership bunch up a little my rub and how many falls I Think he had another one somewhere as well.

I heard a lot of things about Ernie Von Slater and including he used to be a Nazi and he was in the Hitler youth Herdy was racist

When I worked for him these were my summer jobs during My years as an undergrad This is in I got my first job working for Ernie in 96 I Made $6 an hour in 1996 I drove I drove parts so if an auto repair shop anywhere between Milwaukee and Green Bay

needed Valve cover gaskets pistons rings and exhaust manifold They would load up my little pickup truck and I would I would drive it up there and I made $6 an hour driving parts for Ernie One day I came in to work and I said oh sure when you got a whole bunch of orders You're gonna be out on the road for 12 hours and they showed me because every morning I got an order sheet

All the parts that I had to go and pick out the warehouse and I had to write down the address of where there was no GPS back then I used a damn map And I looked at my order sheet and I was like Nah, and I quit I literally just As I've got my oldsmobile and I drove home.

I quit my job.

That was the summer of 1996 I don't know what I did for the rest of the summer.

I was I that's too much work for me.

I also was a spoiled brat

Like my work day Had to be an amount of work that I found reasonable because if it was too much But it was weird though because back then you could just go get another summer job now.

There are no summer jobs anymore So the summer of 1997 comes around and guess what?

Sure one is looking for a summer job again and damn it I couldn't find a damn thing so I went back to Ernie

After I quit, I mean, I left them high and dry the summer of 1996.

Oh, that was a terrible thing that I did.

I just walked off the job because the day would have been long.

So I go back, I reapply in 1997.

And this time I had to go sit down with Ernie himself.

I had to go in his office.

He had his office upstairs overlooking the lot of the entire dealership, floor to ceiling windows.

I'll never forget it.

And I had to sit down.

Right across from early hit this big old mahogany desk.

I'm sitting on the other side of the desk Sure when I heard you quit on me last summer.

Why did you do that?

I was like, um, you know, I'm sorry mr. Von Slater and I just You know, it was a lot of work and I don't think that I could accomplish it.

Okay.

I'll tell you what How about I give you a dollar raise and you don't quit on me ever again

I quit on this old German Nazi and he gave me a dollar raise and I want you to think about this.

This is literally 30 years ago and he gave me a raise to $7 an hour 30 years later the minimum wage is $7 and 25 cents adjusted for inflation.

In fact, it's insane to think because I had no responsibility.

I think the only bill I have is a cell phone bill.

No credit cards, nothing.

I was a kid.

I took a semester off of school to work full time instead of just part time during the summer and was able to save up enough money where I could pay my tuition and cash when I returned back to school making $7 an hour.

That world no longer exists and now I'd imagine whatever job that I had is probably automated or they just ship the parts instead of having an actual person drive them.

That's just in my lifetime and imagine if I go back another generation to my parents lifetime The contrasts are even more stark, but the fact that $7 an hour and I got paid every week I Could be financially irresponsible for six days and on the seven days I got replenished with money what no direct deposit back then you got a check

in an envelope made out of paper

that you had to take to a bank and give to a person.

And then your money would be in an account.

And we had a checkbook.

You give these kids a checkbook right now.

They don't even know how to write.

Do the kids even know how to write now?

I don't even think they do.

The truth with Sherwin Hughes on 101.7 FM will be right back.

The truth with Sherwin Hughes returns after this on 101.7 The Truth.

The Truth app and 101.7TheTruth.com.

You are listening to the truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 the truth the truth app and 1017 the truth calm Welcome

back today

Mississippi being one of the poorest states in the country has a poverty rate of 17.8%.

And ladies and gentlemen, trust me when I tell you that that is high.

Milwaukee's black poverty rate is 22.8%.

Now I need you to understand something.

Mississippi is about as red a state as you can possibly get and their poverty rate is lower.

than it is in Milwaukee.

And I cannot attribute this entirely to politics.

I simply cannot.

But you have to wonder, right?

Wait till I get to the education gains.

In Mississippi, they have figured out how to educate poor black children.

In Milwaukee, we have not.

In a red state, a former slave colony whose economy was slavery.

has figured out how you educate poor black children to such a level that their poverty is lower than that of Milwaukee.

It's not that there are things that are wrong with Mississippi.

It's a victim of its own history.

There's something wrong with Milwaukee because even to this day, the black populations here are essentially invisible to people who live in other parts of the country.

And that is a problem because if we are invisible, so are our problems.

And so what we do is we internalize everything.

And what what bothers me is because this is the easy thing to do when black people.

We begin to just blame one another we are supposed to we're supposed to hate one another We're supposed to be classes against one another and of course we point out some obvious things Some things that are counterproductive I suppose culturally but even if black Milwaukee Walked a certain way talked a certain way didn't wear bonus didn't wear pajama pants that would not impact these statistics

These statistics are being created you think that if we changed how we look and how we appear and if the kids Changed the video games that they played and if they listened to different music you think that would help black children become more literate it would not And so what I think we're witnessing is a cultural rebellion Where regardless of what people do or say or how they act or how they dress or how they talk the statistics will be the same

You think that white folks will hire us and give us opportunities because we speak the way they do?

No.

That's just more evidence for them that their system works on us.

You think that they have any interest whatsoever in having their kids or our kids be competitive with theirs?

Absolutely not.

This is where we are stuck.

Let's talk to someone who knows these issues all too well.

In fact, he may have the solutions that we are seeking.

Hello,

Bob.

Hello Sharon, you know my mother was born in Mississippi, you know and She told me about and she went to certain water water fountains White Sony restaurants white Sony and that's not too far away, you know my mother is 18 she had so that's not too far away, you know and

You know, my father was born in Chicago and it just wasn't like that, you know and When you talk about Milwaukee As you know Milwaukee is like a little Chicago to me You know, I learned that from being a schoolbook driver for two years in Milwaukee.

It's like a little

It's like a little Chicago in a way.

And it's just hard for me.

I used my sister's address twice when I was raising the kids.

It was El Grove Village, Bensonville, you know, all kind of white school that they went to.

And I see it in them, how they talk, how they act, how they interact with technology.

I just see it in there.

Cause they were studious.

Somewhat.

You know, and it's just, you know.

Are we

making a point or are we just talking?

Alright.

Here's the point I want to make.

Okay.

Let's make it.

Let's make the point together.

We play y'all next week.

Chicago play.

Well, praise y'all next week and dr. Ken

Listen, he's not here anymore.

I don't know where he

is.

He's not here

Or carry you bring them up every time you call they're not here.

They're not here They do other things with their lives.

I want you to agree with me or dr. Ken whether he's here or not.

He's listening to you he said that

He's a Green Bay fan up until Chicago if

we were if you were making a point and you said yes I'm gonna make a point and your pointers to bring up the damn Chicago Bears and dr. Ken What the hell ain't we Bob you live in Racine ain't no part about you Chicago Norbert

Yeah, I can't get it out of my system.

I've always hated the Green Bay Packers, and I can't see how Dr. Ken says, I like the Green Bay Packers, but until they play to Chicago, you can't like two teams, man.

Bob, what does this have to do

with Milwaukee being similar to Mississippi other than the fact that some other lived in Mississippi and then she had the segregated water fountains.

You said that wasn't too far away.

And then your father is from Chicago.

And then you said the Milwaukee is a little Chicago.

It helped me understand.

I need to understand something, Bob.

You don't understand

the frame of mind.

I need you to make this make

sense because right now it ain't making sense to nobody but you.

Now, in fact, I don't even think this is making sense to you.

Yes, it is.

OK, listen.

Okay.

Two things about Milwaukee.

All

right.

They need to understand.

Yes.

Two things.

Two things.

What's the first thing, Bob?

Tell us the first thing.

We need to get rid of them potholes.

Oh,

good Jesus.

That's what we can try very hard to get rid of them potholes.

Okay.

And number two, and number two, I can't send my kids if I was raising them to Milwaukee schools.

They're like a little Chicago.

I'd have to...

Grip to somebody to get the edges and that's that's what stands me about Milwaukee, you know

Send them to

private school

or send them to a suburban school.

You ain't got to send them to Milwaukee schools You got school choice send them to a charter school send them to Milwaukee College prep You can send the kids wherever you want to send the kids you ain't got to send your kids to a bad school send them to a good school Just don't

home

because that would be the worst thing you could do if you home school the child they wouldn't even know how to tie their shoes

It ain't like these jobs ain't coming back you are so right about you know They gotta pay people too much.

It's no way they

coming back.

It's cheaper How do you how do you make your money like how do you have a pension?

I'm assuming you got a pension Okay, okay, I do.

Yeah, how much is it?

Social security is not a secret cuz we're all gonna get probably the same how much you get so Social security you

get less by 1800 Keep your social security and how much pension you get to yourself and then if you want a

How much social

security?

And if you want a very nice woman, listen to the whisper.

Listen to the whisper.

How you pay the only one.

When you go to the doctor,

how you figure out how to pay.

You got gap

insurance.

You got AFLAC.

You are number one by the whisper.

Being that woman will like you.

Usually I want you married us a little women Before you get your six man, you know a little

taste of the timers.

I think those little taste is starting to come in real slow Little taste

the whip is you are number one.

Yeah, but that's a cut.

I got I've had enough.

I've had I'm starting to get angry starting to get very angry He got a little taste of it.

This is coming in real slow

Thought we already established that a long time ago now it's been it's proven as facts.

Somebody need to go see about him

Yeah, he's brought up about five different things and

says gonna make a point end up bringing up dr. Ken for some reason he confuses the past with now I hope listen if I ever start sounding like that y'all let me know and I will end my radio career cuz that's what I worry about cuz I'm gonna start I'm gonna get a taste of the timers

And I'm not gonna know it.

I'm gonna think everything is normal and I may end up just saying stuff that don't make no sense whatsoever.

And then once that happens to me, I gotta end this career because it'll only get worse.

I got to get treatment if I get a little taste of the timers.

Yeah, he still thinks I'm your white producer.

I never had a white producer.

Did I?

Well, the Andrew guy Andrew

didn't Andrew just used to fill in.

Oh, for some reason, he thinks I'm Andrew.

That's insulting to you, but it's Bob.

You don't really know.

Bob probably still thinks that Ria's my producer because every now and again he'll He'll talk about her or Bob did he really give him a lot of money.

Oh my god every time he came here He would give every black woman.

He saw cash He left money I got a little counter in front of me He would live because I wouldn't take the money because it's on camera and I don't want anybody thinking I'm taking advantage of Bob So he'd leave the money right here on the counter apparently he sent I have $50 that he Western Union me

And he gives different reasons as to why he Western Union.

I try to give the money to somebody else, actually, because I'm not going to get it.

So I gave whatever detailed information you need to give somebody so they can get the Western Union.

But apparently the person tried to get in and said, no, no, no, it has to be sure when he was.

But no, he tried.

So he would give me money because he would want me to take Rhea and Carrie out to lunch, which is insane.

No interest whatsoever and going out to lunch.

I mean no offense to my co-workers, but just no I don't But no every time he comes and you have a different woman with him because you know he goes to casino and he meets these women I don't think he's sugar daddy's for these women because they're all a bunch of addicted gamblers So with the Ken Bob needs help.

You know what I mean?

Like he needs help around the house He only got one good arm.

Do they look cracked out the women?

They actually did not but one of the women

Disclose something to me Off air that made a lot of sense.

She says sure when he is so mean to me He's mean he calls me and like that That tracks I can see by like he sounds like the little sweet old man and people sure when why you?

Messing with poor old Bob is verbally abusive to women that he pays So I wonder if that changes any of y'all's mind and he called just to mess with me

He calls just to get under my damn skin and I let him

what what what did the woman say he says to her

just cusses them out Like cuz he needs help with stuff But if they don't do it the right way like when he had this one woman in here like helping you can tell she looked kind of like Kind of beat down kind of just worn down and just sick of his mess, but he pays them.

I think he believes

That if he pays them he can talk to them any old kind of way like that's a syndrome that a lot of people have like if you go to a restaurant You think well, I got money.

I'm here spending money in your restaurant.

I can I can treat you like crap.

No, you don't do that So that there's a little backstory behind Bob But just know that he is no longer invited here last time he came he left his vehicle in the intersection of King Drive and Wisconsin Avenue and gave his keys to a random person because he thought

This damn market hall that there's valet parking Luckily the person he gave his keys to was a good like Samaritan they and Kyle Wallace had to go out there and try to find a person to have Bob's keys He literally left his I took a picture of it.

That's insane It is and that's why we can't have him here because he's also a fall risk because the Bob falls You know old people fall they die they fall and they can't get up So if he comes here to play his quote-unquote saxophone and he falls down

And I don't know CPR.

I'm just going to have to leave him down there.

You would really give him mouth to mouth, even if you do new CPR.

I wouldn't want someone to die, but because I don't know CPR, if I gave... In front of me, I'm like, well, Bob, nice knowing you.

I can't I ain't giving nobody CPR in fact if I see somebody pass on in public and I shouldn't say this as someone who's passed out in public I'm just gonna have to let you be cuz I don't know what I'm doing And you gotta like CPR you gotta push hard on the chest like the rib cage has to expand and you gotta You gotta do

it

fast.

Yeah, I learned that in a in a spirit in a health class I

never learned CPR

Yeah, I'm a risk not knowing everybody's supposed to know see I wish I was CPR certified, but I'm not gonna get CPR certified cuz then I'd have to do it on somebody and what if the person is racist?

What if it's a racist white person?

Guess what sure when I listen to your radio show when you're a nigger and then boop they fall over.

Well, I'm gonna just let you die

Well, if you pass out again, I got you.

I won't be giving you a CPR, but

just call 911.

Yeah, I'ma try not

To pass out here because it's inconvenient So hopefully if I wake up one morning And I'm not feeling well I gotta make sure that I email Because I'm whenever we call and stick here we have to email 74 people because if we don't email 74 people and let them know that we're not feeling well Then they send an email to the entire company.

Yeah, you don't want the memos.

They like to single memos here.

No, I don't I can't have them

using chat

GPT.

Oh yeah, strongly worded chat GPT messages.

All right,

we're about to get canceled.

Let's take a break.

Come back.

Comparing Milwaukee to Mississippi.

The comparisons get even stronger.

The truth with Sherwin Hughes will be right back.

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You are listening to The Truth with Sherwin Hughes on 1017 The Truth, the Truth app and 1017thetruth.com.

Sandra you're on one-on-one seven the truth.

How are you?

I am fine today.

How are you today?

Oh, I'm doing just peachy talking about Milwaukee and Mississippi How us Milwaukee black folks are essentially invisible because if you travel and you tell somebody you're from Milwaukee They say there's black people in Milwaukee

And that actually angers me a little bit because we do have a lot of black people in Milwaukee and the fact that people don't know that we're here is troubling.

Sometimes I'd be ashamed to even mention it, but just we'd be on the news media and I'm sure we'd be all over.

So it doesn't bother me because I really, you know, I don't really meet a lot of people that ask me where I'm from.

So that don't bother me too much.

But you were talking about the jobs and offshore, because we talked about that.

I think I mentioned it the other day.

I talked to you about them offshoring the jobs and cheaper labor and all that stuff.

And before when the first started really started recognizing it because they started broadcasting, they were talking about how sick those people were getting because even the fabrics and stuff, they were breathing all that stuff in their lungs.

and they couldn't say nothing because they had no union and nobody to fight for them.

And they couldn't say nothing.

And I saw about the weather in China, they said so much.

The factories are eliminating all the pollution in the air, but they're smoked up by the smog and stuff.

And so it seemed like that's what the big chief up there, that's what they want to do now, you know, all this manufacturing and putting all that stuff in the air.

Everything all I have to do is read about what China doing seem like that's what we're heading toward and did you say something about Walker having some rocks in his head

I Compared us senator Ron Johnson to

a box of

rocks, but I didn't want

to

Because either one stopped that progress of that job over here at A. O. Smith.

He didn't want that to put the high-speed rail response going.

Oh, the train, yeah, because

it would have integrated the region.

Republicans have always been against integrated transportation.

Well, their voters are against it, too, so that's why they oblige them.

Well, what they want us to live off of there?

Yes.

We don't have to have jobs just like they do.

No, we don't.

In fact, their own people, their own people cutting out jobs.

90% of the jobs are going to be gone.

It's going to be automated, robotic and all that stuff.

So there will be out of the job too, just like that girl.

The one ice kill her mother up there talking about she's a Republican and now they want a suit.

They never thought in this world that they would be on the menu.

That's the problem.

They on the menu just as well as we are because if they get this city the way all the United States, all with the cameras and the drones up above your head and the robotics stuff, once they get it all in the way they want it, we'll never get out of it because the rich people will rule the world, the billionaires, the corporations, citizens tonight, everything they've done to us to make it so they can win.

They will win.

That's right.

That's all hit the