‍ ‍WHITE PAPER

Don’t Be Surprised: Anti-Blackness, Cross Burnings, and Racial Terror Don’t Stop at the Mason-Dixon Line

Written by: Gina E. Miranda Samuels

“ A data-driven analysis of hate crimes, anti-Black violence, and extremist activity in Chicago and the American North

INTRODUCTION: THE MYTH OF THE SAFE NORTH

When I was a little girl growing up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the 1970s, my white mother used to warn my sister and me (both Black) not to walk past a little white church on our way to school. "That is where the Posse Comitatus meets," she would say. "Don't talk to anyone there." She was very clear in explaining who they were and why they should be avoided. This started when my sister was three and I was five.

Growing up, we were regularly called the N-word, were racially bullied, and had KKK written on our car and school lockers, and often saw confederate flags when we visited our grandparents in rural northern Wisconsin. Police routinely harassed us throughout our childhood and adolescence.

 So the idea that real, ugly (and physically dangerous) racism only lives in the South was a myth that I know firsthand…”