Freedom and the WI State Supreme Court
DON’T TAKE THE BAIT
We start this new year with a State Supreme Court race that will decide how easily and how powerfully our opponents can rob us of our freedoms.
Our freedom to decide if and when to have children — in a Wisconsin without safe and legal abortion.
Our freedom to send our kids to school or go about our lives without fear of active shooters – in a Wisconsin where certain politicians and their backers lie, vote, block and sue to flood our towns and cities with automatic weapons.
Our freedom to vote, be counted and choose our leaders — in a Wisconsin where certain politicians put hurdles between voters and the ballot box and decide who counts and how much, all based on where we live and what we look like.
So, we are unsurprised to see them lead with a message that glorifies mass incarceration in a place that violently cages human beings at rates that shock the senses and bring shame to our state. [See, Wisconsin imprisons 1 in 36 Black adults. No state has a higher rate, Wisconsin Public Radio, The Sentencing Project]
In the guide below, we offer thoughts on how to message this moment so that we can energize our people and persuade those in the middle to win elections, yes, but to not stop there and keep going until our leaders at long last enact the freedom and justice that we vote for.
But we begin simply with these words from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., may he rest in power, whose birth we marked and honored this week:
Letter from a Birmingham Jail [Excerpt]
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.
We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”
Freedom and the WI State Supreme Court
KEY GUIDANCE
In a state that horrifically tops national and international levels for incarceration, our opposition is advancing a narrative that Wisconsin needs to double down on that cruelty and reach truly unimaginable levels.
To fail to call out those outrageous claims — and worse, to adopt their talking points as our own — will further violence that rips apart Wisconsin families and communities every day. It would ensure our failure to end mass incarceration long after the election is over.
Avoid the Opposition’s Frame
To those who believe that adopting racial dog whistles and chest-thumping on incarcerating Wisconsinites will help us win this April, we offer two thoughts:
It is not enough to win the battle but lose the war. Electing a candidate who runs on a platform we oppose will doom our work to end mass incarceration long after the election is over. It will haunt us and undermine us every organizing and policy step we take. And it will further alienate our friends and neighbors whom we urge to vote with the promise of change, far too often to leave disappointed when, say, the legislative session ends.
Adopting our opposition’s frame in the name of winning will always do the opposite – it ensures that we lose. We cannot out-fearmonger our opposition, and voters who are swayed by their rhetoric will choose the candidates who most embody that message. If we make this election a race of “who loves to put people in prison more,” the opposition will always win.
Anatomy of a Winning Narrative
As always, here’s how we express our most effective messages, step-by-step:
Lead with our values explicitly naming that they are shared across races, backgrounds, and genders
Name specific people who violate our values (i.e., certain politicians) and expose their motivation for spreading lies and scapegoating people in our community.
Inspire action with a clear call to action, like coming together as voters this April.
Close with a positive vision of our future and how coming together makes that happen.
Respond, Don’t React
Remember, some things that feel intuitive set us back:
Don’t negate our opposition’s falsehoods. Negating these frames — and repeating them in the process — only reinforces a lie in voters’ minds. Instead, when it happens, name that certain actors are spreading lies about something without repeating the lie in question, and then quickly pivot to what we are for.
Don’t bring facts to a frame fight. Fact-checking or offering versions of our opponent’s frames centers their message. Voters want to hear what our values are and what the candidates we support stand for.
SAMPLE NARRATIVE
Keep an eye on our social media for bitesize messages and graphics lines to amplify or adopt, and check back next month for a social media tool kit.
PROTECT OUR FREEDOMS
In Wisconsin, whether we’re Black, white or brown, we value our freedoms — our freedom to vote, to decide whether and when we grow our families, and to know our kids will make it home safe at the end of the day.
But today, Trump conservatives running for Wisconsin State Supreme Court want to take away our freedoms by blocking safe and legal abortion, preventing gun safety, and dividing our communities into unfair maps to silence us based on what we look like and where we live.
They know that many more of us — from Up North to Milwaukee’s north side — support the policies these MAGA Republicans block.
That’s why they try to distract us with false claims about where progressives stand on safety and crime. These certain candidates [or name specific people] are hoping to turn us against progressives [or name specific people] who will protect our freedoms, families and futures.
We know better. This February [or April], our vote is our power. And from all across our state, we’re coming together to elect champions for freedom and justice for all in Wisconsin, no exceptions.
