A Family Matter

Letters to My Brother

Before my brother, I never knew anyone who had served time in prison. And growing up in Milwaukee, in a predominantly black community –– this was a privilege. Not because my family was immune to the criminal justice system, but because the incarceration of black men in Milwaukee is as common as the city’s potholes or snowstorms.

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Nationwide, 1 in 3 black men will serve time at some point in their lives. In Milwaukee, more than half of all black men in their 30s have been to prison, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Cartel was one of the 26,000 black men from Milwaukee incarcerated in the state of Wisconsin between 1990 and 2012.

With the largest incarceration nationwide of black men, nearly 13 percent (double the national average), black families in Wisconsin, and more specifically Milwaukee, are forced to learn the meaning of serving a sentence on the outside.

My brother’s time in prison stunted a relationship that never had a chance to blossom. This is my family’s story.

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Life in Photos

Photos of my family spanning over the course of over 20 years.