Where to Listen:
Milwaukee is at the center of what the federal government calls an “Area of Concern.” A place where so much toxic water pollution and environmental degradation have happened over the course of more than a century, that it needs special attention and funding to get cleaned up.
But how do you confront and begin to heal the collective harms of legacy pollution? Of decades of injustice that is still happening? Amy talks with Shalina S. Ali about how that process can start with art, with creativity, with channeling the mixture of emotions—the joy and pain—that comes with working toward change.
Host:
Amy Barrilleaux
Guest:
Shalina S. Ali, Co-Executive Director, TRUE Skool
Resources for You:
Area of Concern Community Advisory Commiteee
Peace Park & Garden Mural Unveiling
Transcript:
Amy Hello and welcome to the Defender, Wisconsin’s environmental podcast, I’m Amy Barrilleaux. The Defender is powered by Clean Wisconsin, your environmental voice since 1970. So Milwaukee is at the center of what the federal government calls an area of concern. A place where so much toxic water pollution and environmental degradation have happened over the course of more than a century that it needs special attention and funding to cleaned up. The Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern has been the focus of major cleanup and restoration efforts since 1987, but there’s still a long road ahead, and that leads to a big question. How do you confront and begin to heal the harms of legacy pollution, of decades of injustice that’s still happening? Well, it can start with art, with creativity, with channeling the mixture of emotions, the joy and the pain that comes with working toward change. On this episode, I sit down with the co-executive director of TRUE Skool in Milwaukee to learn about the connection between art, expression, and our environment. That’s right now on The Defender. After almost 40 years, the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern restoration work has become about more than healing the land and the water. It’s bigger than that. Through the project’s community advisory committee, there’s a focus on healing communities, on ensuring that the people living in the area are connected to the work and have a voice. My guest is Shalina S. Ali, who serves on the Community Advisory Committee, or CAC for short, and is co-executive director of TRUE Skool in Milwaukee, where we are right now, where art and music engage, empower, and educate youth, families, and communities. Shalina, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I know you’ve got a busy schedule, so I appreciate it.
Shalina Very busy schedule, but this is an important conversation and it’s my life, so thank you for asking me to be a guest on the show.
Amy So we are sitting here in TRUE Skool. Tell me a little bit about what True School does and why it’s important here in Milwaukee.
Shalina Well, TRUE Skool is Milwaukee’s Center for Transformative Arts and Hip-Hop Culture. And because it is hip-hop culture and it’s really about youth engagement, it’s about developing artists as problem solvers, it is about honoring a rich history of young people through creativity, arts, and having something to say about their own lived experiences. Is this allows an opportunity for them to have an opinion about environmental justice, about different social causes, about advocating for the kind of city and just life experience that they desire and quite frankly deserve.
Amy When we walked into the main space a little while ago, we were surrounded by art. How does it make you feel to walk in here every day and kind of see the creativity as it happens?
Shalina I’m lucky. I’m luck in a few ways. I have been, first of all, raised in Milwaukee, being a part of a family that has understood what it means to rise above the kind of barriers that can exist growing up in Milwaukee especially for young people of color and for having family, both my parents are immigrants, and to have a conversation about the environment or justice period and not acknowledge how race and color plays a role would just kind of be a dishonest conversation. So to come from that and have such a vast experience in the nonprofit world and then be able to have the opportunity to take all that I’ve learned through my lived experiences through my young lived experiences, through my adult lived experiences and have a place like True School where I could create an environment for young people that is conducive to their wellbeing, to their belief in their own abilities. You know, it’s an honor. And I don’t do it by myself. I have a co-director Fidel Verdin. We have an entire team that really is committed to this mission. But they’re committed to this mission because this is the culture that we grew up in and this is a culture that we are also ensuring that is able to be passed on to the next generation. So when you talk about the art, it’s beautiful because it’s not just art for me. I know who made every piece. I know what young person created what, at what time, what was happening in their lives at that time. Who is the lead artist that was working with the young people, what were the unique things that TRUE Skool was doing, that the young were involved in. And a lot of times we’re still connected to those alumni now, as you saw when you came in. So, you know, it’s pretty special because, you know the way that you have like pictures of family members on your walls at home, this is kind of what happens for, this is a feeling I get about my TRUE Skool family here.
Amy How did you, I guess, what was your journey to get here? Because we talk about these big issues, kind of overwhelming issues like environmental justice, like social justice, and then there’s art. And this is kind of working at reinforcing those connections. How did you kind of wind up here doing this?
Shalina You know, here is, you know, what is here? You know I’m a mother, I’m an artist myself, I’m business person. I have a desire to see young people be well and thrive because then they’re gonna become amazing adults who also recreate that nurturing environments for other young people. Me being here is a result of generations of what my family has gone through and what other people I care about have gone through. So I don’t know how to curate how I got here now, but I know I stand on the shoulders of some amazing people. And one day I’ll be an ancestor and somebody else is gonna talk about what I did that got them to where they’re at. So yeah, I guess that’s my answer.
Amy I think art is so much of an expression of happiness and joy, but also of pain and of struggle. What are some of the things that TRUE Skool does in terms of kind of facilitating that expression and some of projects that you’re working on here?
Shalina I think art expresses the truth. And the truth is complex, and the truth has emotion, but it also has, you know, it holds the documentation of what’s happening in a particular time. So really what we’re doing and in the culture of hip hop, knowledge is the most important element. So whether a young person is creating a poem, a song, a visual art piece, a break dancing routine, whatever creative thing that they’re doing, including like product developments, that could be like clothing design, that can be marketing plans, because we work with a lot of different partners throughout the city who also lend, um, information and, and, um also extract creativity with that information that supports their mission as well. So it begins with the knowledge. We have to have conversations and then our young people are going to take what they understand from those conversations. And they’re gonna create art that has a messaging in it. So, you know, at that point now, the artists are the griots, they’re the storytellers, and they are capturing history in a particular way. So, yeah, art has a huge role in so many things. Like when we look at history books, or, you now, I’ve seen in different presentations, say around like the area of concern projects, which is. You know, environmental projects to somewhat either remove toxins, restore spaces. There’s a long list of what each AOC project is intended for. But you look at pictures from way back in the day, that’s art, you know? It’s like one of those things where you’re like, you don’t even understand the value of the art in real time until you kind of take a glimpse back. To look at how art has informed us about another time. And so, you know, I think like so many things are happening especially in the environmental sector, like there’s the policy aspect, there’s a community engagement, there’s that activism, there’s an actual restoration of different sites. And because of that, there is also a lot of history that is coming to surface that, kind of like how people want to. Figure out how to cap and suppress the toxins and the contaminated soil, there is sometimes an attempt to bypass telling the story of how we got here. And the art doesn’t allow us to bypass the story. So the art is so critical because without those photos, without the poems, without the songs, we really don’t know what happened. It just like, it happens and then it’s a piece of history that is gone. So I look at art as a responsible time capsule, and we need as many different people participating in creating that time capsule as possible if it is gonna be a holistic and truthful story.
Amy So you mentioned the AOC, the area of concern. It’s a lot of money coming in to clean up the Milwaukee estuary, decades and decades of legacy pollution. And you’re a part of that on the CAC. What is the kind of work that you do to try to get community members engaged and have a voice in this process?
Shalina The CAC, I think one of my favorite things we’ve done, and I’m just gonna jump right to the grants. So we created small grants so that we can engage different community organizations around the city who are already engaging residents, youth, elders, but people who are really kind of disconnected from systems to make sure that they’re aware of what is happening around the AOC. So that they can also understand that there are certain places that are gonna look completely different, and in the process, it’s gonna be loud, and it’s going to be ugly, and they’re gonna look like construction sites. And people are, you know, they care about their homes. The home that they live in, the homes that surround them, the places that they play, where they walk their dogs, parks that their children have grown up playing at. So we have to have conversations with these people. Who interact with these environments so that they can understand what is happening to their environment. And if they understand where it’s at now and why these developments are happening and what, and then if they have a chance to participate in, okay, so how does the outcome of this become repurposeful for you? Like, what do you want? Do you want a park back here? Well, we get to redesign that at this point. Are there walking paths, you know? And so it’s a mixture of. The responsibility of letting people heal, like we’re healing the earth and the land, let the people heal in that process as well. And that is through that knowledge and understanding. There’s a process of allowing people to participate in looking forward to the future through that design process. But I think there’s some humility and being honest about the past and how we got here as well, so that’s what we’re doing. The mini-grants allows us to make sure that there’s some money going into smaller organizations that are doing critical work on the ground to engage particular communities. And then the other part of that is ensuring that when they have responses to it, when they have concerns, when they questions, or they have really great ideas, that we’re making sure that that information goes back to systems who don’t have the capacity to do the work that we are doing. So we’re like a critical middleman. So that’s one. Some of the outcomes from those mini grants, for instance, True School was one of them. We have a mural on 5th and Locus, which is a super grassroots peace park and garden. It was formerly kind of like an unofficial dumping site that nobody was doing anything about and residents and grassroots leaders took a stand, got. The debris and the garbage removed from there and repurposed it into a beautiful place that is now growing food that is free for residents. And we do community service days and so those become teachable days for the community and other youth organizations. And we put in a brand new beautiful mural that really captured more of a spiritual essence around environmental justice. And we held a few community meetings with the youth. To inform that design, and then we did a really big, beautiful unveiling and work day. So that’s just one example, but you know, each organization has been able to come up with a unique approach to how they would like to inform their community, engage their community and feel like it’s a meaningful process that also aligns with their mission.
Amy You know, it didn’t always happen this way when you’d have these systems coming in. In fact, when the issues were first created by a lot of unwise building and engineering around the Milwaukee River Estuary, there wasn’t any community input. It was just like, we’re going to do this this way, and that’s what it’s going to be. How important is it that there’s a recognition that, hey, you know, community members need to know about what’s going on and then be involved in their environment.
Shalina It was more than just a lack of community input, it was community harm. People were displaced. We had a healthy environment at one point that had an ecosystem that was purposeful to water, to the natural environment and to the people. And so corporate greed is a real conversation that we have to be able to have. And I think this is part of what CAC literally is all about is to say, let’s stop using bubble words and and words that kind of dance around the problem and let’s get right to the root because that’s the kind of energy we need to have real accountability as to how we’re going to do this for the community and with the community, and rather to the community once again. And so, you know, there’s opportunities for for jobs and there’s opportunities to redesign education even for like through our public school system that allows young people to be stewards of our environment, stewards of our land, and to determine if like blue-green industry is something that they actually want to pursue with a clear process on how that can happen. You know, we have different programs like WRTP, Big Step. We have the Environmental Youth Collaborative. That it’s like 13 organizations that have youth paid internships every summer with diverse environmental jobs for young people to get them excited about the possibilities of what their leadership could look like in Milwaukee. And then we have to talk about the diverse entry points to what this potential for a workforce is because that’s also on a policy level, that’s procurement. Sometimes that’s hands in the dirt, sometimes that’s art and beautification, that’s architecture, that’s urban design, that how we plan our cities, then we get into housing, then get into health. It’s really expansive. I really think, through all the work that I’ve done, that environmentalism is in the center, it’s at the root of every injustice that any of us experience. And so when you look at that then from a racial justice lens, then we really start addressing those issues that are happening behind corporate doors in a way where nobody is left out of restoring harm that has happened in legacy and that’s happening today. Yeah, there’s legacy toxins in the soil, but there’s still bad practices happening today. There’s laws that are not protecting us. There are people who are benefiting from inhumane practices that have a negative impact on the environment that then in so many intersectional ways have a direct negative impact on our health and lived experience.
Amy So, you’ve talked about a lot of things, which is great, a lot things that are happening, a lot thing that need to happen, so much that has happened in the past and is happening right now that are huge barriers. Do you ever feel overwhelmed facing both the good things that you’re working on and then all of the harm that you are working to push against?
Shalina I don’t. And you know what? If I am overwhelmed, then I’m going to pass on that energy. And that’s not what I want to do. What I want do is have a really great balance between accountability when accountability is needed. And then I want inspire people to understand how they can participate in solutions. And it really begins with a personal relationship with the environment. So we also do recreation with the young people. Sandcastle building competitions at Bradford Beach. We meditate outdoors. We talk about grounding and the way that these things are good for our physical and our spiritual wellbeing, which then has a direct result on our mental health. So we’re also talking about being a full and well-balanced human first, and then having knowledge, and then doing some art, and then also not being afraid to advocate, because now you’re informed from so many different perspectives. And I think that that is an important piece that we all need to be looking at. How do we begin to inspire people to determine. How they participate in this movement of environmental justice. There’s not one way. So I can’t judge somebody else’s part that they’re playing, and especially as somebody who, when I said I’m a mother, I’m mother to my daughter. I’m also a mother in the community. So the approach of working with the young people, and even working with adults, because I’ll tell you what. Everything that is good for a young person is good for an adult and I’ll tell you, if you wanna be a responsible person in the community, if you want to have a responsible voice in the media, think about what your approach to a young person would be and understand that there’s something in there that the adults need to. And you know, it’s not gonna come from. A place of judgment, if you’re really in this movement for the right reasons, it’s gonna come from a place of what are we going to do? And so, you know, one is punishment and the other one has movement. And that’s what we’re talking about here, right? A movement. So we have to act like we want something to move. And that has to, for me, is fueled by excitement for the possibilities. And also not everything is on me. Now, I’m a part of a community. The CAC has multiple members. We have people in systems that we work with that we know wouldn’t do anything different if we weren’t applying pressure. But there are other people who are like, thank goodness you’re here because this feeds my soul and this is how I wanna move within this system. Those people exist. And then on the other part of that, we are creating art, which feeds the soul. And then We’re also, and I guess this part is, where it comes in with TRUE Skool, if we’re raising the next generation, then that’s how we become bigger than ourselves, period.
Amy You mentioned helping people not be afraid to advocate. But it feels like there’s starting to become this environment of fear, at least coming from the federal level. How do you navigate this moment when there’s not a support coming from a federal level, and then it feels maybe it’s starting to erode throughout these systems that you’re talking about?
Shalina Yeah, so there is a group also in Milwaukee called the Milwaukee Environmental Justice Alliance, formerly known as the Milwaukee environmental justice round table. And this is where I say the name of Brenda Coley because she is such an important piece of the Milwaukee environment justice movement, especially in Milwaukee, but her impact on the movement goes much further. You know, I heard her say something to the effect of, because it won’t be word for word. But the people on the ground, the community, have been advocating for environmental justice long before it became trendy and popular, long before the federal government got on board and got behind and put money into this movement. And so while they figure things out and get their shit together, we’re gonna keep doing what we’ve always been doing. So we’ll wait for them to circle back around. It’s all right, no problem, no stopping. We get creative and again, artists are problem solvers. We are going to figure this out together and we’re going to take care of ourselves and each other in the process and remain fluid and remain flexible. And we’re going to rise to the occasion no matter what happens.
Amy Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and for letting me come into this space with all this beautiful art, I really appreciate it.
Shalina You are very welcome. I appreciate this conversation and Invite me back!
Amy Definitely! Thank you so much. And thank you for listening to The Defender. You can find a link to video of the Peace Park and Garden mural in the show notes and information on TRUE Skool’s Summer Park Jam coming up on August 9th featuring hip-hop legends EPMD, plus other live performances all day long, graffiti battles, dancing, interactive art walls, and so much more. Again, you can find more information on the show notes or head to cleanwisconsin.org and click on the podcast page. I’m Amy Barrilleaux. Talk to you later.
