Wisconsin Conservatives Act Against Battered Women
How an anti-racism statement cost a shelter $25,000
With Biden leading in the polls, many people are allowing themselves to breathe a sigh of relief and hope that sanity will soon be restored to our nation. However, rural areas are still dominated by backward conservative thinking, and the repercussions of these entitled attitudes continue to create a burden on our most vulnerable citizens.
In Northern Wisconsin, Embrace, a shelter that provides relief to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault had their funding cut after posting an anti-racism statement on their web page.
Despite the fact that there is nothing offensive or illegal in the posted statement, local law enforcement and political entities took immediate action to denounce the sentiment and cut $25,000 in funding.
The statement
Embrace’s racism statement is both eloquent and responsible. With racial tensions extremely high, their position is both necessary and important. The statement begins with the following:
In the midst of a national uprising and dialogue on state violence, Embrace adds their voices affirming the humanity and dignity of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). We share the global grief over the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery as well as the shootings of Jacob Blake, and the many other acts of racist violence perpetrated against Black people over the past 400 years in this country. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Emmett Till, they will not be forgotten. — Embrace
The full statement can be read here.
There is nothing offensive in the comment whatsoever. It’s a simple recounting of facts and a mission statement to do the necessary work to create a better society. Such a statement is completely appropriate on the web page of a shelter that seeks to establish trust among people in desperate need of help.
However, the ongoing commitment to divisive rhetoric that has become the hallmark of the Trump administration has made it difficult for good people to adhere to common-sense positions without suffering punitive retaliations.
The response
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald is one of the individuals who is critical of Embrace’s statement:
They were supporting an anti-law enforcement movement, they were making anti-law enforcement comments and we wanted them to create a neutral environment at Embrace, that’s why we brought Embrace in, a year-and-a-half ago about. So, that’s what we needed them to be, neutral. If one victim is offended by a sign or statement, that’s one victim too many that they’re not reaching and serving. — Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald
It is always concerning to see a law enforcement officer make blatantly inaccurate statements. Embrace is not “supporting an anti-law enforcement movement,” and to say so is offensive. That Fitzgerald would take a reasonable statement denouncing racism as an attack on the police says more about the state of local law enforcement than anything contained in the original post.
Also, his comment that the shelter must take a “neutral” stance represents a false premise. Is the shelter supposed to have a battered woman appear on their doorstep and immediately get on the phone with her husband to get his side of the story? Standing up for the right thing requires taking sides. Staying “neutral” is for Switzerland.
Finally, who is going to be “offended” by an anti-racism statement? Does Fitzgerald truly believe that a person who has been the victim of the most cruel assault and betrayal imaginable is going to read the anti-racism statement and elect not to go in for help?
Fitzgerald’s statement is in all ways absurd.
What about police neutrality?
Once again we see an example of a conservative mentality that abides by the axiom, “do as I say, not as I do.” Where is Fitzgerald’s neutrality on this issue? Shouldn’t his actions be guided only by appropriate legal obligations and not by political sentiment?
Embrace has done nothing illegal by denouncing racism. Embrace has the Constitutional right to make and propagate such a statement. By leveraging his office to punish the shelter for this action, Fitzgerald is infringing upon the first amendment.
This is exactly the kind of entitled overreach that you often see from conservatives. First they become programmed by political rhetoric, then they puff themselves up and start looking for something that offends them, and finally they make an unprovoked attack that they convince themselves represents retaliation.
Fitzgerald and Jayme Closs
Fitzgerald came to public attention because he was the individual who was tasked with the investigation in to the abduction of Jayme Closs. For those unfamiliar with the tragedy, on October 15th 2018, Jake Thomas Patterson abducted the 13 year old after murdering her parents. Closs managed to escape by her own efforts on January 10th, 2019. It is a horrible sequence of events and Closs proved herself to be heroic and resourceful in the actions she took to save her own life.
Throughout the three months that Closs was missing, hope continued to ebb that the young woman would ever be found alive. During that time, Fitzgerald repeatedly came on the news but it was always clear that he was in over his head. In the end it was Closs’s own resilience that saved her life and not the effort of local law enforcement.
Nevertheless, once Closs was found, Fitzgerald received a certain amount of national attention, even getting featured in this article in the New York Times. As is often the case, a certain amount of unearned celebrity can embolden a person to adopt a more aggressive attitude that leads to perplexing behavior. That seems to be the case with Fitzgerald’s apparent belief that he deserves to be a spokesperson against organizations that denounce racism.
Conservative retaliation
Political philosophies have different manifestations in differing geographic regions. In Northern Wisconsin, it’s not uncommon for conservatives to manifest blatant and unreasonable hostility. In this instance, the effect of that hostility contributes to a direct assault on a community’s ability to assist battered women.
What kind of insane reasoning leads a law enforcement agency to cut ties with a battered women’s shelter? Reports indicate that neighboring Washburn Count law enforcement has followed suit and also cut ties with Embrace. How can the individuals involved possibly look at this scenario and believe that it reflects well on their character?
The police need to combat police brutality
I am a teacher. If a person says, “We have to remove bad teachers so that they don’t hurt children,” I don’t throw a hissy fit. I say, “Where do I sign up to help?” It seems to me that the only police officers that would object to fighting police brutality are the ones that routinely engage in police brutality themselves.
Our police need to be neutral. They have to follow the rules of their office and not exceed their legal authority. Fitzgerald seems to be high on his undeserved status that came as a result of a national incident that was resolved without any action on his behalf. Fitzgerald needs to come down a notch and recognize that in this conflict, he is decidedly in the wrong.
Sanity must be restored
This whole scenario once again represents the secondary effect of the divisive rhetoric of the Trump administration. It exemplifies the deplorable repercussions the proliferation of his propaganda has on our most vulnerable citizens.
Barron county and Washburn county are extremely conservative, and their willingness to be influenced by spiteful and blatantly false rhetoric has set their law enforcement agencies on a path of action that will ultimately diminish the help they can provide to battered women.
At some point, our collective citizenry has to stand up and demand that the hate-filled, false rhetoric that has become the hallmark of conservative philosophy cannot be allowed to perpetuate. There are consequences for telling lies. It is an act of evil for an organization that was conceived to assist individuals in need to turn their back on those that most need their help.
Embrace has a GoFundMe page here.
