When she speaks to groups about the legal gulf separating whites from blacks in Dane County, Celia Jackson likes to pull a bleach-stained T-shirt over her tailored business suit.
“We have a stain in this community,” she says. “We need to own it. “It?s a simple but effective prop, illustrating the incongruity of a county that likes to consider itself enlightened on matters of social justice locking up young black men at a rate beyond almost any other place in the country.
….Former Dane County Circuit Judge James Martin said he retired in 2009 in part because of his frustration over the problem. He cited a 2006 hazing incident among members of the UW-Madison marching band that included young women being forced to kiss other women, and male upperclassmen forcing freshman women to drink alcohol. The scandal was handled as a school disciplinary matter rather than a crime.
“If that had happened on Allied Drive,” Martin said, naming one of Madison’s poorest neighborhoods, “you’d have criminal charges.”