Dear readers, I’m writing to you today with an important message: The South Side Weekly needs your support. Eight years ago, we made it our mission to provide high-quality print and digital journalism for the South Side and to give it away for free. We believe that everyone should be able to access reliable information about their community, regardless of their ability to pay for it. Today, we remain deeply committed to this model, but its success relies heavily on voluntary reader support. Many of you already know this. We recently conducted a large survey of our readers and asked how people feel about paying for local news. Nearly 70 percent of you answered “those that can, should pay.” Today, less than 1 percent of our monthly readers donate to the Weekly. Even getting that number to 2-3 percent would be a game changer for us. So if you can, we’d love to have your support. And now—through December 31— NewsMatch will match your donation, up to $1,000. That means that every donation we receive is doubled. Your support will help us continue to produce the kind of journalism you won’t find anywhere else and to continue giving it away for free. If you value this model for local journalism, please show your support by giving today. With gratitude, Jason Schumer Managing Director
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The
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds. Volume 9, Issue 6 Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato Interim Managing Editor Jim Daley Senior Editors Christian Belanger Christopher Good Rachel Kim Emeline Posner Adam Przybyl Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Martha Bayne Arts Editor Politics Editor Education Editor Housing Editor Community Organizing Editor Immigration Editor
Isabel Nieves Jim Daley Madeleine Parrish Malik Jackson Chima Ikoro Alma Campos
Contributing Editors Lucia Geng Matt Moore Francisco Ramírez Pinedo Jocelyn Vega Scott Pemberton Staff Writers Kiran Misra Yiwen Lu Director of Fact Checking: Kate Gallagher Fact Checkers: Grace Del Vecchio, Hannah Farris, Savannah Hugueley, Caroline Kubzansky, Yiwen Lu, and Sky Patterson Visuals Editor Haley Tweedell Deputy Visuals Editors Shane Tolentino Mell Montezuma Anna Mason Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Layout Editors Haley Tweedell Tony Zralka Webmaster Pat Sier Managing Director Jason Schumer Director of Operations Brigid Maniates The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We publish online weekly and in print every other Thursday. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com
IN CHICAGO Bye, Jack John Catanzara, the bumptious head of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, resigned from the police department last week rather than face possible firing by the Chicago Police Board. Catanzara, who had been a CPD officer since 1995, racked up more than fifty allegations of misconduct, ten of which were sustained by investigators, and was suspended from duty at least eight times during his career, according to the Citizens Police Data Project. Despite that checkered history, the union rank and file elected him their leader in May 2020, giving him fifty-five percent of the vote in a runoff election with then-president Kevin Graham. Catanzara had made a name for himself by railing against the federal consent decree that CPD remains under, and Graham had failed to secure a new contract at the time of the runoff. Under Catanzara’s leadership, the FOP agreed to a new contract this summer. As FOP president—a post he can keep as a “retired” officer—Catanzara has harangued the City Council, grassroots organizers, and anyone else who would listen to his unabashed support of former President Donald Trump, his love of Columbus, and his hatred of COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Upon resigning, he announced his intention to run for mayor in 2023. His chances, unlike his CPD disciplinary file, are slim. Libraries open on Sunday By the end of 2021, all eighty-one Chicago Public Library (CPL) branches will be open on Sundays! CPL began rolling out Sunday hours at select locations this summer and will continue to do so throughout the rest of the year. From 1-5 p.m. on Sundays, students, families, and book lovers will be able to browse books, magazines, and music and utilize the libraries’ resources, including free WiFi and homework help. South Side library branches now open on Sundays include Archer Heights, Avalon Park, Back of the Yards, Beverly, Brighton Park, Canaryville, Chicago Lawn, Chinatown, Coleman in West Woodlawn, Douglass in North Lawndale, Greater Grand Crossing, Hegewisch, Kelly in Englewood, McKinley Park, Mt. Greenwood, South Chicago, South Shore, Vodak-East Side, Walker-Morgan Park, West Englewood, and West Pullman. Second round of Emergency Rental Assistance The Chicago Department of Housing recently announced a new influx of cash into their Emergency Rental Assistance Program. $102 million of federal funding will be used to offer up to eighteen months of rental assistance and utility payments for residents of Chicago whose circumstances have been impacted by COVID-19. Applicants are eligible for up to $2,500 per month for fifteen months of past due rent or utility payments and up to three months of future payments. Landlords can apply for assistance on behalf of a tenant, and may also register their properties using the online portal to be notified when a tenant has started the application process. Applications will be accepted at Chicago.gov/renthelp or through an in-person visit with a partner community organization starting 10 a.m. on December 6, 2021 through 11:59 p.m. Saturday, December 18, 2021.
IN THIS ISSUE public meetings report
A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level. documenters, scott pemberton, india daniels...........................................4 a cba for south shore
South Shore organizers demand the City address displacement associated with the Obama Presidential Center. grace del vecchio..................................5 op-ed: be careful what you ask for
In response to demands for increased safety, we ask: whose safety are we speaking of ? durrell malik washington sr., brianna suslovic, samantha guz.........7 op-ed: create pathways to parole for
‘violent
offenders’
An incarcerated contributor argues those serving long sentences deserve a way out. phil hartsfield......................................9 complaint department
CPD audits show police and school resource officers’ disciplinary histories in the past five years. jim daley................................................13 southeast side change agents
City Bureau interviews three environmental justice organizers. bridget vaughn, city bureau..............14 gola studio opens in bridgeport
A new studio space has big plans for the art community in the city. isabel nieves.........................................16 playing on thin ice
An interview with Evan Moore, co-author of Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. sage behr.............................................17 the whole truth
Looking for Lorraine provides a fuller portrait of the author best known for ‘A Raisin in the Sun' lauren johnson.....................................20 the exchange
Cover Illustration by Haley Tweedell
The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours. chima ikoro, vernique dyson..............22
Public Meetings Report A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level for the November 25 issue. BY DOCUMENTERS, SCOTT PEMBERTON, INDIA DANIELS
Nov. 10 Public commenters called for the creation of an Asian-majority ward at the second redistricting hearing held by the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules. A speaker from the Chinatown community quoted Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” While Chicago has had an Asian American Council member before—Ameya Pawar represented the 47th Ward from 2011 to 2019—Asian communities in Chinatown and parts of the North Side have historically been an afterthought when alderpersons draw the lines for the city’s fifty wards every ten years. 2020 Census data show that Chicago’s Latinx population has surpassed the Black population and that Asians are the city’s fastest growing racial demographic. In current redistricting efforts, the City Council’s Black and Latino Caucuses are sparring over two wards. The Black Caucus wants to retain its eighteen Black-majority wards while the Latino Caucus seeks to increase the number of Latinx-majority wards from thirteen to fifteen to reflect population growth. Another map, proposed by the Chicago Advisory Redistricting Commission and created by nonprofit organizations, would leave sixteen Black-majority wards and fourteen Latinx-majority wards. An Office of Protection will be created to intake and investigate all allegations of discrimination, harassment, and abuse in the Chicago Park District, the district’s Board of Commissioners learned at its meeting and public budget hearing. Unexpectedly, after a closed session, Chair Avis LaVelle announced that she would immediately step down from the board. This resignation came less than three weeks after the board pushed Parks Superintendent Michael Kelly to resign over his handling of allegations of sexual abuse among Park District lifeguards. LaVelle said she took responsibility for the toxic culture because it came to light during her leadership. She maintained that Mayor Lori Lightfoot did not ask her to resign. Interim Parks Superintendent Rosa Escareno, who signed a ninety-day contract in October, noted that more than 3,000 park district staff will have participated in sexual harassment training by the end of the year. Escareno also presented the Park District’s 2022 budget proposal. The budget totals $510.9 million, an increase of 2.4 percent. About twenty-five percent is allocated to restoring programs to pre-pandemic quality. Nov. 17 Members of the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Coalition for community areas around the planned Obama Presidential Center called for follow-through during public comment at the meeting of the City Council. The CBA Coalition is requesting a meeting with the city’s Department of Housing and Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward) to make progress on securing fifty-two City-owned lots, specifically, those east of Cottage Grove Avenue on 63rd Street zoned for high-density development. While 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLEY APPOLD
the City Council passed the neighborhood-specific Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance in September 2020, speakers said they hadn’t seen much movement. Alderman Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) delayed the vote on Lightfoot’s nomination of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) interim chief administrator Andrea Kersten to a permanent position. Twenty Council members had signed a letter opposing her nomination based on the COPA report about the Anjanette Young raid that recommended the suspension of Officer Ella French, who was involved in the case, but who was later killed in an unrelated traffic stop. The Council members said the report was an “insult to the memory of Officer French.” Nov. 18 The City Council gave the Chicago Police Board the green light to develop a process for people to appeal their listing on CPD’s Criminal Enterprise Information System (CEIS), the City’s new gang database, which will be discussed at length at the Board’s next meeting. At the most recent meeting, COPA’s interim chief administrator, Andrea Kersten, expressed sympathy for Ella French’s family and emphasized that the Anjanette Young report was not disrespectful of a fallen officer. Officer French, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in August, was also present at the botched raid of Young’s home in February 2019. While the COPA report praised French for taking Young to her room to put on some clothes, it also recommended she be suspended for three days for failing to turn on her body-worn camera and file documentation of the raid gone wrong. At the fourth redistricting hearing held by the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules, geographic information specialist Frank Calabrese presented a detailed overview of the amended version of the “Coalition Map” proposed by the Latino Caucus. It would draw 11th Ward lines with a population that is forty-nine percent Asian, up from the forty-one percent in its initial proposal. These new lines would unite the Asian populations in Bridgeport, Armour Square, and Chinatown that are currently split between the 11th and 25th Wards. If demographic trends hold, the 11th Ward—formerly the Daleys’ home base—would likely become a majority-Asian ward within a few years, according to Calabrese. Most recently, the Black Caucus presented their own map that proposes seventeen Black-majority wards and fourteen Latinx-majority wards. Council members have a December 1 deadline to vote on a final map, with a last-minute “informational hearing” scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving by Alderperson Michelle Harris (8th Ward). This information was collected in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.
HOUSING
A CBA for South Shore
South Shore organizers demand the City address displacement associated with the Obama Presidential Center. BY GRACE DEL VECCHIO
J
acky Brooks has lived in Woodlawn for three years and recently has been looking to put down roots in South Shore by purchasing a home there. But they ran into repeated road blocks. To start, every house that they looked at required a certain degree of rehabilitation, which was not in Brooks’ budget. When they went to look at condos, they found that in order to utilize their Federal Housing Association loan for first-time homebuyers when buying a condo, fifty percent of the condos in the respective building must be owneroccupied. If there are no buildings that meet this standard, then the buyer must pay for the condo outright, without the loan, and Brooks couldn’t afford that either. “[For] folks that want to come back and live and be in the community, there are barriers now around it,” Brooks said. “I was privileged, I had enough space to be able to try to do that, but if that’s what I'm experiencing at this level, then I can already connect the dots of what it's like for renters and other folks.” Brooks, who is a member of the South Shore community organization NotMeWe, which has agitated for a community benefits agreement (CBA) that would protect residents from being forced out of the area by skyrocketing property values, said they saw this as another sign of the displacement to come as construction of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) gets underway. The OPC’s website talks of the many benefits the center will bring to the South Side communities surrounding it, including youth programming, workforce development and jobs and a space for community members to gather. But one of the biggest questions that
residents have spent years asking is, will they still be in the community to see it? In September, as Barack and Michelle Obama—who have thus far declined to support any community benefits agreement—attended a groundbreaking ceremony for the OPC in Jackson Park, a coalition of community groups gathered a few blocks north to continue to demand guarantees for the surrounding communities. The Coalition for a CBA, which includes community groups from Kenwood, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and South Shore, has already secured a City ordinance that offers some protection to residents. The Woodlawn Preservation Ordinance, which the City Council passed last year, includes $4.5 million for affordable-housing programs in that neighborhood. But the coalition says it doesn’t go far enough. The coalition is focused on two issues: holding the City accountable to following through with the Woodlawn Ordinance and introducing a similar CBA for South Shore. But one thing that South Shore doesn’t have is time. It took the coalition five hard-fought years to even get the CBA introduced to City Council. Now, as the OPC breaks ground, for residents in South Shore without any source of protection, the danger of displacement is imminent.
A
few days after the Obamas broke ground in Jackson Park, NotMeWe hosted a series of inperson and virtual town halls for South Shore residents to voice their concerns and help devise the demands in the South Shore-specific CBA. “I think the biggest takeaway
PHOTO BY OSCAR SANCHEZ
from the town halls was that everyone acknowledges that there's a serious housing issue in South Shore, whether it's renters—which is the majority of the neighborhood—but also condo owners and homeowners,” said Dixon Romeo, an organizer with NotMeWe. “Overwhelmingly, the majority of folks understand that unless we have protections, we're going to get priced out of the community or displaced. For those who may be able to stay, they won't be able to really maximize the benefits of this center because they’ll be worrying about holding on to their property.” Even without the looming threat of gentrification, housing troubles are not new to the South Shore community. In 2017, the Reader’s Maya Dukmasova reported that more evictions were
happening in South Shore’s primary ZIP code, 60649, than any other ZIP code in the city. In 2020, City Bureau highlighted this continued disparity in a series where South Shore renters voiced concern that any investment in South Shore would be accompanied by displacement. Displacement in Chicago is not new. And when it comes to preventative action against gentrification, there is research that shows how governments can avoid displacement. A study published in 2019 by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement instructed the City on the best way to help residents in Woodlawn: create more affordable housing. The study even identified the
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
HOUSING correctly zoned, City-owned land in Woodlawn where the housing could be built. But what about affordable housing for South Shore? South Shore’s absence from the CBA that became the Woodlawn Ordinance has created friction between organizers and Alderperson Leslie Hairston (5th), with organizers claiming that South Shore has always been in need of the same guarantees as Woodlawn. “If people are naming that they need this [affordable housing], people are literally naming their needs, coming to town halls, engaging in community conversation, about the things that they're facing in their homes right now. If you are really having conversations with people, you will be so shocked to hear what people are experiencing in their homes on a regular basis,” said Trina ReynoldsTyler, co-founder of NotMeWe and resident of South Shore. Hairston told the Weekly that she believes South Shore and Woodlawn are different spaces with different
demographics and therefore would require different CBAs. She also extended an invitation to South Shore residents to come to her to discuss their concerns. Organizers say that increasing affordable housing and establishing housing protections in South Shore isn’t just a matter of housing, but also one of safety and care for community members. Reynolds-Tyler’s family has a deep, long-term connection in South Shore. The home where she currently resides has been in her family for decades. She wants to continue building her family’s legacy there, but said she is concerned for the future of the community. “The displacement of Black communities, displacement of communities, period, is ultimately violent and leads to more violence. This is where I want to raise my family. I'm engaging in community on a regular basis and I want to feel safe and I know that many people don't feel safe,” Reynolds-Tyler said. “Safety, public safety, would be doing these things and building protections for South Shore residents so that people can
Winter Fun in the
PARKS
More Virtual Programs!
Register for Winter Programs at the Chicago Park District! View programs online the week of November 29 Online registration opens Monday, December 6 & Tuesday, December 7 In-person registration opens Saturday, December 11. Winter session runs January 3 to March 20. For more information about your Chicago Park District, visit www.ChicagoParkDistrict.com or call 312.742.7529 or 312.747.2001 (TTY)
6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
City of Chicago, Lori E. Lightfoot, Mayor Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners Rosa Escareño, Interim General Superintendent & CEO
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
STAY CONNECTED.
be able to not just survive here...so many people are just barely surviving, but not actually thriving. A community [should] foster stability.” On November 14, following months of community engagement and consultations with researchers and attorneys, NotWeMe presented the organization’s full list of demands to the public. The list is split into six sections and eighteen specific demands, each including precise policies and practices that could be implemented by the City to not just ensure that residents can remain in South Shore, but also thrive there.
Here’s a look at some of the CBA demands: Prevent and Address Displacement: The Right to Return When a building is bought and tenants are asked to leave in order for the buyer to make their desired rehabilitations, a right to return policy gives those tenants preference if they want to return back to their units after those changes are made. The right to return, or sometimes known as resident preference, is already being implemented in cities such as Seattle where displacement threatens the Black, Brown, and working-class communities in the city. “We know that because of our proximity to the center, because of our proximity to the lake, that between now and the center's construction in the years following, there will be new construction, there will be developments in South Shore,” Romeo said. “And so for those affordable units, who should have the priority to get those?” Expand Tenant Protections: Create and Fund an Office of the Tenant Advocate An Office of the Tenant Advocate, which is already established in cities such as New York and Washington D.C., would provide information and services regarding tenants’ rights. Such services include but are not limited to providing legal aid for tenants, emergency housing, and rental assistance programs. Ensure Equitable Development in South Shore: Set Aside 100% of the City-owned Vacant Lots in South Shore
for Affordable Housing Development Furthermore, seventy-five percent of units must be reserved for residents who make fifteen to thirty percent of the area median income (AMI) with the other twenty-five percent of units reserved for those who make sixty percent of the AMI. This practice ensures that residents who make a lower percentage of the AMI and are in need of housing the most are prioritized for affordable housing. Preserve Affordable Housing: Establish and Allocate a South Shore Loan Fund The $5 million loan fund would go towards the rehabilitation of vacant single-family homes and multi-unit buildings. Sixty percent of units must be at thirty percent AMI and forty percent at thirty percent AMI. Protect South Shore Homeowners: Establish a Renew South Shore Program Said program would allocate $12 million to provide grants and downpayment assistance for South Shore residents. Also on the docket, is the call to allocate $20 million to the Long Term Homeowner Improvement Grant Program for South Shore homeowners. Finally, forgive the $2.3 million in tax debt owed by primarily low-income residents in the 5th and 7th wards.
“P
eople are always saying, come back and invest and support and where you came from,” Brooks said. “My question has been, what I've been really grappling with is, I'm seeing my community get displaced, so when we come back, I think particularly for young Black Chicagoans, we're coming back and trying to live where we come from, what does it mean when we're not able to do that financially, but also when our community is being displaced?” ¬ Grace Del Vecchio is a Philadelphia-born, Chicago-based freelance journalist primarily covering movements and policing. She last wrote about Hyde Park Academy’s vote to replace one of their school resource officers with a dean of climate and culture.
OPINION
Op-Ed: Be Careful What You Ask For The misrepresentation of surveillance as safety.
BY DURRELL MALIK WASHINGTON SR., BRIANNA SUSLOVIC, AND SAMANTHA GUZ ILLUSTRATION BY HALEY TWEEDELL
T
he murder of University of Chicago alumnus Shaoxiong “Dennis” Zheng is a tragic event that will have a lasting impact on the University community and Hyde Park neighborhood. Zheng’s death marks the third university affiliate to have died as a result of gun violence in a ten-month period. The grief and fear associated with these losses is palpable as community members consider strategies to make the campus and surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood safer. One proposal is a public letter signed by over 300 University of Chicago faculty. The letter demands that the University make antiviolence a “TOP priority” by enlarging the University’s private police force’s (UCPD’s) patrol footprint, establishing a University committee to oversee UCPD policies, and engaging “with the
Southside [sic] community to come up with a long-term plan to tackle violence.” The request to enlarge UCPD borders involves increasing surveillance in Hyde Park to ensure “that every block and every street corner is covered in surveillance cameras” and that security guards patrol “every road crossing in the neighborhood.” Despite being framed as an “antiviolence” intervention, the demand for surveillance cameras and increased patrolling fails to recognize the scope of security cameras and cops that are already omnipresent in our neighborhood. The potential for additional tragedy due to well-documented racial bias in policing and surveillance cannot be understated. Though the faculty letter calls on the University to engage with South Side communities, it is not clear how the initiatives they are demanding would
engage with community members who have been victimized both by violent police profiling and by Chicago’s gunviolence epidemic. Any conversations about processes of accountability need to include the communities that have already been negatively impacted by the University’s policing system. The notion that making arrests and sentencing people is the only way to build public trust contradicts the numerous requests by campus and community coalitions who have voiced their lack of trust in UCPD and the University at large. The UCPD is Chicago’s largest private police force, and they already patrol the entirety of Hyde Park as well as portions of surrounding Southside neighborhoods such as Woodlawn and Kenwood, with an extended patrol zone spanning 37th to 64th Streets.
Across Chicago, there are already an estimated 30,000 surveillance cameras connected to the command center of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Footage from existing surveillance cameras aided in locating a suspect in the murder of Zheng within three days. However, the conversation about community safety must contend with the reality that this large and well-funded police presence has not prevented harm. As University of Chicago students, social workers, and Hyde Park residents, we are concerned about faculty and students’ requests for additional policing and surveillance in the neighborhoods surrounding campus, for several reasons. First, we are concerned that faculty and students are requesting an increase in existing policing and surveillance technologies that have not effectively prevented tragedies. Second, given the history of UCPD’s policing tactics, we are concerned about the impact that increased surveillance and policing may have on Black and Latinx students and community members. Third, we are concerned with the shaky outcomes of evidence surrounding increases in surveillance and policing. It is ultimately irresponsible for faculty from an elite research university to call for interventions that place some community members at increased risk of harm without engaging with data demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the proposed strategies and engaging a larger number of community voices.
W
e are most concerned with calls to expand the power and jurisdiction of the University of Chicago Police Department and neighborhood surveillance cameras. In 2018, UCPD shot a student of color on campus, and for years, UCPD has been accused of racial profiling in their arrests and stops. It is notable that despite the public release of policing data and statistics from an Independent Review Committee, local residents continue to express distrust and concern about the unbridled power of the University’s police force. It also must be acknowledged that between 2005 and 2020, the vast majority of complaints
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
OPINION submitted to the UCPD Independent Review Committee were filed by Black individuals. Although surveillance cameras aided in identifying a suspect in the case of Zheng’s murder, there is not substantial evidence supporting the claim that Chicago’s massive surveillance camera system has reduced violent crime. Additionally, the American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern since 2011 about the pervasive nature of surveillance cameras in Chicago as a threat to citizens’ civil liberties, privacy, and freedom from racial discrimination. We appreciate and wholeheartedly support the call for University of Chicago to fund the travel of Zheng’s family as they grieve, waive any outstanding tuition fees, and provide financial support for funeral and memorial service costs. We
8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
also firmly believe that the University should expand support for international students and their families before tragedies occur. With an endowment of 11.6 billion dollars, the University can afford to offer more crisis resources, legal support, transportation, and healthcare support to international students and their families. If the University’s goal is to prevent harm, we support creative safety interventions that build relationships and do not increase police surveillance, such as carpools, self-defense classes, and expanded shuttle programs. International students and their families should feel safe when walking around our neighborhood and campus, but we are not convinced that increased policing and surveillance will achieve that. Rather than establishing a committee
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
to oversee the University’s safety goals and related policies, as the student/ faculty letter demands, we encourage the University to think critically about the relationship it has fostered with community members on the South Side of Chicago. In response to demands for increased safety, we ask: whose safety are we speaking of ? Why are we advocating for the university to put more money behind ineffective solutions, when we could be advocating for investment in the organizations such as Project Hood, Acclivus, Claretian and the many people who have a proven track record of interrupting and preventing violence? Rushing to an increase in surveillance methods and law enforcement presence is not a sustainable safety measure; these measures often only slap a temporary
bandage on the issue and don’t get to the root causes of violence and harm in our community. In response to senseless tragedy, it’s time to think about more creative, community-oriented solutions to violence. Rather than potentially exposing our classmates and neighbors to police violence and surveillance-driven racial profiling, we are advocating for a stop to police-driven responses to violence. ¬ Durrell Malik Washington Sr. and Brianna Suslovic are abolitionist social workers and PhD students, and Samantha Guz is a social worker and PhD student, all at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY HAMMERMEISTER
Op-Ed: Create Pathways to Parole for ‘Violent Offenders’ Research, cost, and low rates of recidivism agree: Illinois needs a pathway to parole. BY PHIL HARTSFIELD
G
eorge Knights is seventy-four years old, which is somewhat rare in the penitentiary, and everyone calls him Mr. Knights because he is our elder. Mr. Knights has served more than two life sentences for a violent crime he was convicted of in 1970. Because he was sentenced before the so-called
truth-in-sentencing laws were enacted in the 1990s, Mr. Knights gets to see the parole board, but has consistently been denied parole. He related to me how he never read a book on the outside, and how he had turned his time in the penitentiary into a mind-building place where he
has rehabilitated himself. After he had been incarcerated for a few years, his wife told him she was afraid that, since he had changed so much, she might not recognize him anymore. He says he has changed—but for the better. Now he is nowhere near the same person he used to be. If he were released, his daughter, his
grandkids, and his surviving family are the only ones he would have time for, and because of that, plus the years spent here and his age, he would have no problem staying out of prison. Mr. Knights moves slowly, though his steps seem to be thought out. I’ve had the pleasure of observing him for several
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
OPINION
“I’m not the same person I was. I see life differently, with higher expectations of myself and life in general.” —Sean Bowens
months and must say: the only thing he is a danger to is some cookies and a card table. The United States currently spends over $150 billion a year incarcerating about 2 million Americans like Mr. Knights. Calls for criminal justice reform largely focus on releasing low-level drug offenders, who make up the minority of people held in jails and prisons. Much of the prison population consists of those with violent offenses. In Illinois, individuals with violent offenses do not have the opportunity to earn parole, since the state abolished discretionary parole in 1978. Before truth-in-sentencing laws, someone with a sixty-year sentence could serve thirty with the chance of parole. But with these new laws, people with violent offenses have to serve most or all of those sixty years—essentially a life sentence. Additionally, mandatory minimum sentencing takes discretion out of the hands of judges, as do the sentencing enhancements. In one example, Illinois’s mandatory enhancement adds a minimum of fifteen years to sentences for murder committed with a firearm. To achieve real criminal justice reform, we must look for solutions that truly rehabilitate people who were convicted of violent offenses to release them. The United States is the only country that incarcerates this many people for this long. Morally, at some 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
point we must ask: is there not a human aspect to this? Can this money be better spent? Are these individuals not more than their crimes? So why do we continue to hold them contrary to the evidence? Those deemed “violent offenders” in this article are individuals convicted and serving long term sentences for homicide, assault, robbery, kidnapping or rape (strictly for this op-Ed, this excludes the habitual offenders, serial killers, serial sex offenders, and mass murderers). These are all serious crimes, and those lawfully tried and convicted should be punished. But to what extent? How long is too long? If the ends don’t justify the means, then what is the point? Justice, retribution, paying your debt, payback, or revenge, call it what you want, but if at the end of the day the point is to make society safer, as well as punish and fix the bad behavior, is that what we’re doing? Can we release the wolves safely at a certain point while making society safer for everyone? Let’s change the thought of being hard on crime to being smart on crime, being right on crime! Long-term prisoners who have served fifteen or more consecutive years may never get out. These individuals often wind up with a de facto life sentence, essentially being sentenced to “a mandatory term-of-years sentence that cannot be reasonably served in one lifetime,” as defined by the Illinois Supreme Court. The life expectancy for
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
an average male in the United States is seventy-five years, but the life expectancy of someone serving a lengthy prison term is significantly less. One study estimated life expectancy of imprisoned individuals at about fifty years, due to the high incidence of violence, poor healthcare, harsh conditions, poor diet, and lack of exercise in prisons. So, extraordinary long sentences simply cannot be completed within that life expectancy. There are many different reasons for long sentences, one of the most significant being the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed by then-President Bill Clinton. The $30 billion crime bill pushed for “tough on crime” legislation, for “truthin-sentencing,” “three strikes” laws, and “mandatory minimums.” The bill specifically allocated $10 billion for states that adopted these truth-in-sentencing laws, which mandate that people convicted of violent (and some nonviolent) crimes must serve eighty-five to one hundred percent of their sentence.
A
common argument behind the need for long prison sentences is that it will prevent those convicted from committing further crimes. But this hinges on the prejudice that paints all imprisoned people as career criminals, and it gives heed to the argument that they are inherently violent, as opposed to someone who engaged in violence at one point or another in their life. As John Pfaff wrote in his book Locked In, “[F]or almost all people who commit violent crimes, violence is not a defining trait but a transitory state that they age out of.” Locking them up forever and a day negates the fact that a person’s impulsivity, hard-headedness and risktaking behavior at the age of eighteen or twenty-one will be severely diminished by the age of thirty-five or forty, at which point there is no longer the need for such a long sentence. The point of the criminal justice system is ostensibly to make society safer, so if we have succeeded in doing so by incapacitating the criminal behavior until
a time in which the individual can rejoin society in a productive manner, then why wouldn’t we welcome them back? Judges and prosecutors also often cite the need for “deterrence,” the idea that a threat of punishment will deter people from committing crime, to justify long prison sentences, especially in cases of severe or serious offenses. However, in 2016 an Illinois Appellate Court recognized that deterrence is no longer a recognized fully legitimate goal. The more rational and practical deterrent is the probability of being caught. The certainty of an extremely long sentence if the person gets caught won’t matter, as it’s not considered when committing the crime. “Recidivism,” the likelihood that someone who has been incarcerated will eventually return to prison for another conviction, has been widely studied. But “violent” offenders have the lowest recidivism rate. In 2016, a two-decade study of recidivism rates among people who had served long sentences in California found that of those incarcerated for at least fifteen years consecutively, one percent were rearrested for new felonies after being released, and ten percent violated parole for technical reasons. Additionally, a 2014 article published by The Marshall Project noted a five-percent recidivism rate for long-term prisoners who were offered liberal arts classes. The “tough on crime” approach needs to be changed to “smart on crime,” because what we’ve been doing doesn’t seem to be working. Who are we locking up, why, and for how long? If the recidivism rate of certain offenders is very low, then why would we continue to incarcerate them?
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he pattern of declining violence and criminal behavior as individuals get older is called “aging out of crime.” By the time the offender reaches thirty-five or forty years old, they may have spent half of their life in prison. At that point in life, you’re no longer the same person you were when you were incarcerated at a young age. The rationale that the lengthy sentences are
needed due to the individual essentially being defined by their crime, instead of acknowledging the fact that they committed their crime, is not justified, nor is society any safer, as is proven by the fact that years later these individuals have not succumbed to their violent environments of prison and instead have changed with age. Evidence shows that most violent offenses peak between the ages of seventeen to twenty-four, and severely decline after thirty-one. Psychologist James Garbarino, a professor at Loyola University and author of several books, has argued that young adults who lack guidance and self-control grow into adults who, through their own reflection and self-rehabilitation, can become productive members of society. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark decision Miller vs. Alabama (2012), noted research that found the frontal lobe of young adults may not be fully developed until the age of twentyfive. This is the part of the brain that understands consequences and controls impulsivity and reasoning. As someone matures, their propensity for violence tends to decline. And for those who can grow while incarcerated, the fact that a harsh, violent, maddening, hateful place like prison has not made them even more dangerous after serving a long sentence is a testament to the fact that people are not their worst mistake.
I
llinois, which incarcerated nearly 59,000 people in 2020, spends more than $20 million a year on just two of its three maximum-security prisons: Stateville, in Joliet; and Menard, in downstate Chester. About thirty-five to forty-five percent of people in Illinois prisons are doing time for violent crimes. In Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform, Pfaff describes how a lot of these costs are put on the State by prosecutors. The County stops paying once an individual hits the state or federal penitentiary. Now, why is this important toward the cost-benefit of letting out long term
offenders? Here’s why: prosecutors get rewarded politically through prosecution, either through promotion or election. What prosecutor has run on a record of leniency or gets a promotion for being lenient? Due to over-prosecution, many more people are not only charged but sentenced to these long terms. Prosecutors have the authority to be lenient and not overcharge people or crimes, but what’s the incentive for being lenient, especially when prosecutors have virtually no limit to the amount of charges they can give? They in turn utilize this power to leverage a plea, even to the point where five people will be charged with a crime when only two committed it, but all go to prison. This all relates to the cost of imprisoning people for a long time. Imagine the amount a state like Illinois would save releasing only half of its longterm offenders. Imagine what that money could go toward in a cash-strapped state like Illinois: schools, teachers’ pensions, or even crime-prevention programs. State prisons are often called “correctional” in some form. How long after a person has been “corrected” should they continue to be incarcerated? The statistics clearly show that among individuals who have served at least fifteen consecutive years, reoffending considerably declines, and more so the older they get. Some, if not all, are not even physically capable of committing the same offense, let alone want to. The plan worked; they’re reformed, rehabilitated, “corrected.” Imprisoning them any longer is arbitrary and not doing anyone any “justice.” Take a look at another country: Norway, which abolished life sentences decades ago. The longest sentence for any crime is twenty-one years (though for extenuating circumstances, “preventative detention” can be ordered for extensions of five years at a time). Yet you don’t hear about Norway’s high crime rates due to criminals “not being deterred” or “fearing the consequences.” It appears that Norway has been ahead of the curve now for some time. Even in the United States there are some states that, in the name of “justice
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NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
OPINION
reform” and to reduce their prison population, have successfully released some long-term prisoners. Mississippi, a notoriously conservative, “tough on crime” state, successfully released some of their violent offenders, who make up about forty percent of their prison population. Mississippi reduced the minimum time required by truth-insentencing laws from eighty-five percent of a sentence to half, based on behavior while imprisoned. Mississippi safely reduced its prison population by fourteen percent in just three years—without seeing a rise in crime.
I
n addition to Mr. Knights, I also spoke with others who are serving long sentences in Illinois. I asked Freddie Bibiano, who was incarcerated for more than a quarter century, why society should believe he has paid his debt (he has since been released). He gave me a concerned, stern look and nodded his head, clearly understanding the greater meaning and ramifications the question held for, if for nothing else, his own peace of mind. As he looked up, he said, “All the pain and suffering I’ve caused everyone involved, it changes you. I’m not anywhere near the person I was in that moment. I’m humbled and really appreciative of life and my family. Not ever wanting to put myself, my family or anyone else in society through any of this is my reason.” I also spoke to Sean Bowens, who
had served more than eighteen years at the time. Mr. Bowens is small in stature but big in heart. “I understand what it is to be productive. I no longer want the type of lifestyle that led me here,” Bowens said. “I’m not the same person I was. I see life differently, with higher expectations of myself and life in general. I’m optimistic of my future and incorporating the skills I’ve learned from this time into my freedom when it comes.” These men have all served decades in an extremely harsh system, yet are optimistic of their future given the chance. These are human beings who have persevered through some unfortunate circumstances without even knowing if there would be the reality of one day getting out. But this further proves the human aspect of the need to release these individuals. The last person I spoke to had been an employee of corrections for over twenty-three years, having held positions as an officer, in clinical services, and even as a warden. This is a person who has had the chance to observe and deal with long-term prisoners in many capacities for over two decades. While they wished to remain anonymous, the corrections employee said that in their opinion, the long-term violent offenders were the easiest to work with most of the time. They added that if such offenders took advantage of opportunities while they were incarcerated, they could be successful if released. The employee also said there was merit in the argument for their release.
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o, can it be done? I’m not advocating to simply open the prison doors and let anyone and everyone out. No matter how or when an offender gets out of prison, there are always requirements of that release: usually some type of parole or probation, consisting of employment, drug testing, house arrest or curfew, and refraining from any criminal activity. So, even when someone is eventually released, it’s not without restrictions. This also isn’t to simply say everyone should be released. Obviously, there should/ would be some requirements before that
12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
could happen, like so many years in, age, a certain conduct, etc. But the conversation needs to move to action! I understand victims’ rights advocates would argue against this. They have a valid point and position. However, even if these individuals spent multiple lifetimes in prison, it would never change the past. The crimes they committed were horrible, and they were wrong. But if an individual has truly changed, borne the brunt of responsibility for their actions and is no longer a threat to society, at what point does their sentence become simple retribution? American prisons are extremely brutal. Every year spent incarcerated is equivalent to two on the outside, by many expert opinions. Lack of healthcare, incidents of violence, and verbal abuse can cause or exacerbate pre-existing mental health issues. This is not easy time: fifteen or more years of living in a box, being told what to do and when to do it, losing family, never seeing children, and enduring strip searches, monitored phone calls, letters, food you might not feed a dog, and sometimes conditions that lack basic human necessities. It isn’t a free ride: it’s hard time. At a certain point, as a society we must be humane and smart on crime. We must realize that you don’t teach someone to act humanely by treating them inhumanely. To hold an individual accountable for the rest of their lives for a horrible moment is, to an extent, counterproductive. At a certain point, you must move past the crime and look at the person. You can never change the past, but you can change the future, improve future outcomes and right the wrongs. Other nations’ criminal justice models show that we could do this safely. Research has shown that these people are ready to be released. Financially, it would save millions (if not billions) of dollars, and directing that money to crime prevention rather than retribution would make us safer. It’s for all these reasons that I believe we can safely release people convicted of violent offenses who have served long
terms. These aren’t offenders: they are people—people who made really bad decisions many years before, some as long as forty or more years ago. These aren’t the same people that they once were, and they aren’t only that bad choice. These are grown, respectable, responsible, remorseful individuals, who are and can be productive members of society. They are not even capable of committing the same offenses they were convicted of. Some of them are authors, journalists, college graduates, fathers, grandfathers, sons, and brothers. These individuals have so much more to offer this world, to their families, communities, and to themselves. It’s time to find a pathway to release them. Anyone interested in working for fair systems of review and fair pathways home for people in Illinois with long sentences can contact Parole Illinois at paroleillinois@gmail.com. ¬ Phillip Hartsfield is a social activist who earned his bachelor’s degree in the history of justice with a sociological and psychological perspective, and is currently earning his master’s degree in criminal justice. He last wrote about how new parole laws leave out many.
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POLICE
Complaint Department CPD audits show police and school resource officers’ disciplinary histories in the past five years. BY JIM DALEY
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ecords the Chicago Police Department (CPD) released to the Weekly last week following a court order include two internal audits prepared by Chad Williams, the former civilian commanding officer of the department’s Audit Division. The audits, which Williams prepared last year, analyzed disciplinary histories of all CPD officers and of school resource officers (SROs), respectively. At least one was apparently prepared in response to grassroots efforts by organizers last summer. The documents provide a glimpse of the work Williams did in his threeyear tenure at CPD. The audits were designed to offer context to discussions between the department and the Independent Monitoring Team tasked with implementing the 2017 federal consent decree, which the department remains under. Williams, who joined the department in 2018, quit in August; the Tribune reported that he sent a resignation letter to Mayor Lori Lightfoot in which he alleged CPD brass were uninterested in reform efforts and had retaliated against him for voicing concerns about the department’s adherence to the consent decree. The Audit Division was created by the consent decree. In June, Williams spoke to SashaAnn Simons of WBEZ’s Reset, and said the City, Illinois Attorney General, and Independent Monitoring Team involved in implementing the consent decree are “in an ongoing back-and-forth” about the decree’s meaning. The department provided the audits to the Weekly after a Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled that CPD
had improperly redacted those and other documents that we originally requested as part of another investigative report. CPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
T
he first audit, dated May 6, 2020, is a department-wide analysis of how many active police officers had formal complaints levied against them in the previous five years. (The collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police prohibits incidents more than five years old from being considered in disciplinary cases.) That audit found that 6,153 sworn police officers, or about forty-seven percent of the department, had been the subject of one or more complaint investigations in that time. Twelve percent had been investigated twice in the fiveyear period, six percent were investigated three times, and about six percent were investigated more than three times. Of those 6,153 officers, nearly twenty percent had at least one complaint that investigators found to be sustained. Additionally, 125 officers, or about one percent, had two or more complaints sustained by investigators; twenty-three had three sustained complaints; five had four sustained, and one officer had five complaints sustained. The vast majority of officers— ninety-one percent—had zero sustained complaints on their records in the fiveyear period the auditor analyzed. Investigations may find complaints not sustained for a variety of reasons, including investigators being unable to locate witnesses, complainants dropping their cases, and other cops contradicting witness testimony. Until earlier this year,
ILLUSTRATION BY SHANE TOLENTINO
investigators could find a complaint unsustained because complainants declined to sign sworn affidavits. When investigators find a complaint to be sustained, it means they determined there was enough evidence to justify disciplinary action against the officer involved, which can involve reprimands, suspensions, or termination.
T
he second audit, dated July 21, 2020, analyzed how many school resource officers (SROs) had formal complaints made against them in the previous five years. School resource officers were a focal point of grassroots organizing during last year’s protests against racism and police brutality, and several local school councils voted to remove some or all of theirs. The audit was prepared at the request of then-Deputy Superintendent Barbara West, apparently in response to those grassroots efforts. In an email accompanying the audit, Williams wrote “...the topic of SROs has obviously been in the news. As a result, Deputy Superintendent West requested that we update the analysis to make it as current as possible.” West led oversight of the department’s consent-decree compliance efforts until she resigned in September 2020. According to the audit, of the 203 SROs and school liaison supervisors who
were active in 2020, thirty-three percent had been the subject of a complaint in the previous five years. Another twenty percent were the subject of two or more complaints. One officer had four complaints in the previous five years, and another officer had five. Eighteen SROs had a complaint against them that investigators found to be sustained, and one SRO had two complaints against them sustained. The audit also found that fifteen then-current SROs, or about seven percent, had been suspended from duty as the result of disciplinary action in the previous five years. Departmentwide, about six percent of officers were suspended during that same time period. Eight school resource officers had been suspended for at least a week as the result of a complaint investigation. Specifically, three officers had a fiveday suspension; one had a fifteen-day suspension; one had a twenty-four-day suspension; two had twenty-five day suspensions; and one was suspended for thirty days. The audits did not disclose the identities of the school resource officers who had been suspended as a result of an investigation. ¬ Jim Daley is the Weekly’s interim managing editor. He last wrote about CPD Officer Bruce Dyker’s long history of complaints.
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
IN ORDER: PEGGY SALAZAR RECENTLY STEPPED DOWN AS THE DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTHEAST ENVIRONMENTAL TASK FORCE AFTER TEN YEARS OF SERVICE. VANESSA SCHWARTZ IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICES ON THE SOUTHEAST SIDE. AMALIA NIETOGOMEZ IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE ALLIANCE OF THE SOUTHEAST. (BRIDGET VAUGHN/CITY BUREAU)
Southeast Side Change Agents City Bureau talks to three organizers on the Southeast Side. BY BRIDGET VAUGHN, CITY BUREAU
When U.S. Steel South Works shuttered its doors in 1992, the Southeast Side was still a thriving community. Steel mill workers were paid enough to buy homes, send their children to college, and take vacations. Yet, the community’s place as a former industrial hub has also made it environmentally overburdened, and in addition to a lack of jobs, residents also face the result of generations of exposure to high levels of pollutants. Peggy Salazar, Vanessa Schwartz, and Amalia NietoGomez know and understand these challenges. Their work, collectively and separately, addresses these needs. City Bureau fellow Bridget Vaughn interviewed them about the pollution the steel mills left behind, today’s environmental activism, and the most recent hurdle in a grassroots effort to stop a major company, General Iron, from moving a scrap metal plant to the area. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Peggy Salazar Peggy Salazar recently retired after ten years as the director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force (SETF). 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
Before she was the director, Salazar served on the SETF Board for five years, a position she was recruited to after dedicating her time as a volunteer. She grew up across the street from the U.S. Steel plant, and her husband worked there for thirteen years. How did you get involved with the Southeast Environmental Task Force? I was always engaged in my community. Through that engagement, I would occasionally rub shoulders with the task force. One year, I was asked to become a volunteer or to be on the task force board. I said I’ve never been a board member. I’ll volunteer for a while and see how it goes. And before I knew it, I was a board member for five years and the director for ten years. I am not young. Presidents have term limits. I actually needed to have term limits too. It’s a good thing to bring in new people. What impact has Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot had on environmental justice on the Southeast Side? I had high hopes for her, but she inherited
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
a lot of crap. You assume that she’s willing to take on whatever comes her way. It just seems to me, like right now she’s overwhelmed. She did disappoint me. She came down here after she was elected. She held a meeting right here at the local high school. It was supposed to be about the budget, but then the floor opened for questions. Someone brought up the issue of General Iron moving to the Southeast Side. Mayor Lightfoot responded by informing the audience that General Iron was not moving to “your” neighborhood, only the assets are now. I was disappointed in her. But, I also understand the position she was in because the developers on the North Side were on her big time. So, once again, did you not know you were walking into this? I don’t think she did. She didn’t pay attention to our community being as active as it was. We had just gotten out of the coal gasification fight. We’ve just gotten out of the Petcoke fight. Maybe she thought we were worn down. But we weren’t going to give up. What three things do you want people to know about the task force and you?
First, the task force is always going to be evolving to meet the needs of the community. What the task force does may be local in most cases, but those local changes have broader impacts. Second, the task force, even if we made mistakes, we always thought we were doing the right thing. So even when we make mistakes, it’s not because we intentionally did something, it’s because we thought it was the right thing to do. I think that’s how the task force will always operate. Third, I’m hoping we will be able to continue to engage the community and slowly build the people's power. Keeping the community engaged and building on what you have. I’m also hoping to bring in some of the other neighborhoods like Jeffrey Manor.
Vanessa Schwartz Vanessa Schwartz was born and raised in a working-class community on the Southeast Side. Her mother had a beauty shop and her dad worked for a steel manufacturer of retail items. Her grandmother was a nurse’s aide at LaRabida Hospital.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING After college, Schwartz started her career working at a domestic violence shelter. For nearly three decades, she has served her community through her work with Metropolitan Family Services, where she currently serves as the executive director. By Schwartz’s estimate, approximately eighty-five percent of the families receiving services from the organization are at or below the poverty line. So many people migrated and immigrated to the Southeast Side of Chicago looking for a better life. Did they find what they came for? I think the steel mills were a generational kind of entity that really helped families to grow. The steel mills provided good paying jobs that really helped sustain families. As their children grew up, they also filtered into the steel mills as well. And then paychecks from the steel mill jobs created opportunities for small businesses in the community to thrive. In its heyday, Commercial Avenue was bustling. I remember just walking down the street. It felt like walking downtown. Montgomery Wards was one of the anchor stores. Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is down the street, is the oldest Mexican parish in Chicago. When we first came here, there were a lot of Eastern Europeans, and then Latinos came in, and then African Americans. Now it is a melting pot of multiple generations of people. What are the health issues that Southeast Side residents experience by working at and/or living near the steel mills? I know there’s a lot of asthma, bronchitis, upper respiratory illnesses and a lot of childhood cancer in this area. There used to be, just down the street by the lake, humongous piles of petcoke [a byproduct of the oil refining process] that were not covered. So when you get really heavy winds that stuff would spray everywhere, and especially in the community. There was really no regulation on how to store that to protect
the citizens. And then you’re looking right on the waterfront. So, of course that goes on the water, contaminating the water. You have a lot of people who would like to fish here and eat fish. I think my mom made a comment like, “Why would you eat that fish?” It was a polluted lake. What do you remember about pollution growing up? As a kid, I remember Saturday being a cleaning day. We would dust and then we would open the windows because we didn’t have air conditioning. By nighttime, it was all dusty again. My dad would talk to a lot of residents because they were very upset that their yards and their houses were covered in this white soot. And I remember my dad coming home with that petcoke, like literally on his jeans or with that material in his boots and on his hands. And I remember him blowing his nose and you could see the white stuff. He worked there for fifty years. He retired in the early 2000s.
Amalia NietoGomez Raised in a blue-collar family in California, Amalia NietoGomez has been an activist since she graduated from Princeton University. She found her way to Chicago to work on a housing campaign to stop predatory lending and got involved with local, statewide and national organizing. She remains actively involved with the Alliance of the Southeast as the organization’s executive director. What brought you to Chicago? I’d just come out of college and connected with the national organizing entity, National Training and Information Center, now known as People’s Action in Chicago. I started working on a housing campaign to stop predatory mortgage lending. I ended up running a statewide coalition and getting the first city ordinance to stop the law on what defines predatory lending in Chicago. A year later, we got state regulations. The next
year, we got a state law. And then, the following year the economy collapsed because of the housing bubble, which was caused by the predatory loans I had been working on. What keeps me passionate is that the community has a voice in what’s going on, what’s important to them, and that they win what they want. What are the challenges faced by the citizens of the Southeast Side? Many challenges are rooted in the massive divestments in all of the communities. The Alliance of the Southeast covers the East Side, South Deering, Hegewisch and Park Calumet Heights. Those four neighborhoods also make up the 60617 zip code. We are one of the largest police precincts, the 4th District. And, we are one of the largest wards in the city. One of the biggest things we are working on is the South Works development. When it is developed, it will be one of the largest developments in the Midwest, let alone Chicago. At one point, I knew they were predicting 100,000 jobs. That’s no joke. The South Works site is two and a half times the size of the Loop. That’s over 400 acres, which included 100 acres given to the Chicago Park District. Take a look at the Lincoln Yards mixed-use development project that received $1 billion in tax increment financing (TIF) and compare it to South Works, seven times the size of Lincoln Yards. South Works received $119 million in TIF money. South Works is three times larger than Lincoln Yards. While it is purported to create 100,000 jobs, it’s not clear what percentage of jobs will be permanent. It’s a mix of permanent jobs and construction jobs, from the beginning of development to its completion.
What is the status of General Iron and its progress of moving to the Southeast Side, near Calumet Beach? We’ve been working with a lot of really great organizations on the Southeast Side. We couldn’t have done it individually. Because of where things stand right now, we did have several wins. Our partners filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and a federal complaint with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We had a big win with the EPA calling for the city to delay the permit indefinitely until environmental and health analyses are done. This was a big win. The city of Chicago actually agreed to hold off. It hasn’t moved forward. That’s a huge thing. After they said they would hold off on their decision until the environmental and health analysis is done, General Iron filed a lawsuit suing the city for breach of contract. The complaint stated that the promise was breached. The victory came when the judge threw the case out. This is just the beginning. It’s not a permanent win where a decision has been made, but it’s definitely a win. Everyone was saying this is a done deal. I think it is very clear that it’s not. The decision has implications for other toxic developments. ¬ Prior to working with City Bureau and the Weekly, Bridget successfully navigated the corporate and higher education sectors. She is an avid photographer and a diehard Chicago sports fan. One of her proudest moments was winning a 2019 Lisagor Award for The Narratives of Robeson High School, a podcast on the closure of Robeson High School in Englewood.
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15
ARTS
GOLA Studio Opens in Bridgeport
New art space plans to bring unique projects, screenings and community gatherings to Bridgeport. BY ISABEL NIEVES
PHOTO BY ISABEL NIEVES
L
ast Saturday night, artists and community members gathered in Bridgeport at GOLA, a new studio space that features the artwork by Roland Santana, for a fundraiser that supported Indigenous organizations such as Save Bell Bowl Prairie, the American Indian Center, and Semillas y Raices. In the Pakistani language of Urdu— Santana’s partner Aliya Haq is Pakistani, and they collaborate creatively—GOLA means a cluster of materials in a spherical shape or just a spherical object. When stepping into the art space, those shapes take form and you can feel the art—from vibrant abstract paintings to chunky, painted clay rings. “That’s kind of like my main practice,” Santana said. “Making more works that kind of pop out at you.” “Overall, GOLA is a space where you can just open up conversations with other artists,” said Santana, a visual artist and “mark maker” from Virginia. He has been based on the South Side for five years with his partner Aliya Haq, an experimental filmmaker from Texas and 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
founder of the film collective Bitchcraft in Chicago. Since their opening, the fundraiser was just one way GOLA plans to connect art with the community. “I think overall [the studio’s purpose is] exposure and including people into the space that hadn't been in [art] spaces before, or kind of like bridging discussion from people who may have had a more academic background to people who are more self-taught,” Santana said. Like many artists, the way Santana created his art changed once the pandemic started. “Materials were less accessible during the pandemic, so there was a transition, like ‘Okay, what do I use—in my space, in my neighborhood?’” Santana said. “So, I’d started including a lot more industrial materials, such as concrete plaster, silicone, and foam.” Santana said that being creative in how he creates his art moved him from painting into sculpture. He explained how he goes into his community and surroundings to find materials for his pieces. “Sometimes they have a shape
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in itself and kind of like aging values to them,” Santana said. “[The materials] have embedded marks and footprints and all this stuff. I kind of enjoy those small details because I think there is a captured moment in it.” He cited his inclination for music as an inspiration for his art. “I use a lot of those vibes [from music] and rhythm and sensation to translate into a visual medium,” Santana said. Maria Herrera, a Columbia College student who grew up in Pilsen but now resides in the south suburb of Lansing, talked about why spaces like GOLA are important to artists in the South Side. “I guess just promoting the whole idea of art, creating, you know, hopefully that’ll inspire the people around the area to create similar spaces,” she said. Santana hopes to bring more artists to the studio and use the space to house conversations amongst artists. In response to the challenges artists faced during the pandemic, Santana started an online directory and database called Rupture
Chicago which showcases BIPOC artists around the city. “Before having this space, I designed [Rupture] to get artists to organize spaces...and just even get them [to be] part of the discussion,” Santana said. “I want to use it as a round-table meeting spot where we can have meetings and discuss, check up on how everyone is doing, sharing knowledge...like how do you pay taxes if you’re an artist, how do you establish yourself as a business, or like what are different grants and share around different grants you’ve applied to before. Kind of like just opening that resource and conversation between each of us.” To check out the studio space for yourself or book a showing, visit GOLA’s social media account @gola___space. ¬ Isabel Nieves is multimedia producer and Arts Editor for the Weekly.
LIT
Playing On Thin Ice
An interview with Evan Moore, co-author of Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It BY SAGE BEHR
COURTESY OF EVAN MOORE
W
hen South Sider Evan Moore first began playing hockey, he rarely encountered other Black players in the rink. Even though he loved the sport, he grew frustrated with social and political issues in hockey culture. Now, as a sports writer, Moore brings his firsthand experiences as a player into a new book, Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It. Jashvina Shah, the book’s co-author, has had a similarly complicated love affair with the sport, caught at the intersection of hockey and its social issues. As two of the most prominent critics taking on hockey’s deeply ingrained culture, Moore and Shah decided to band together to write about the sport and offer potential solutions for both hockey at every level. Game Misconduct is a worthy read for anyone, hockey fan or not. The book lays out hockey’s issues in the broader context of sports solidarity with social justice movements. It is neatly divided into sections that confront racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and more. While many of hockey’s issues do feel reflective of broader issues in American society, Moore and Shah skillfully elucidate the specificities of hockey as an example of a wealthy, white sport that desperately needs to shed much of its identity in order to grow. Perhaps the fact that Moore and Shah dedicated so much time and energy to eviscerating hockey culture reveals, as Shah writes, that the sport really should be for everyone. They criticize hockey because they love it, and because they feel that this sport has a potential future to offer so much more than its present. Game Misconduct is a call to arms for anyone who loves hockey, and especially those that have felt hurt, left out, or ignored by the sport. Evan Moore sat down with the Weekly to discuss Game Misconduct, as well as his relationship with the sport that he not only loves, but would also love to see change. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I'd love to hear about the beginnings of your relationship with hockey. What is it about hockey that is so compelling to you as a sport? It's really fun and dangerous. And there's a lot of work put in to just even learn how to skate, how to not hurt yourself. I feel like there is science to it, or even poetry. When I saw it as a kid, I saw a really fun and engaging sport. I mean, it caught the eye of a Black kid who grew up on the South Side of Chicago. And it caught the eye of my co-author, a South Asian woman from New Jersey. So we're both from two different backgrounds, where we would be most likely into other sports based on where we grew up. But somehow, some way, we fell in love with hockey. NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17
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Sports is politics. They coincide, they exist together. Why is your favorite rink named after a corporation?
COURTESY OF EVAN MOORE
Basically you stay with a billet family and play in all these different leagues, which will help you be seen by colleges and also the NHL. And with that, we have all these young kids leaving home way too early and thrown into situations in places and spaces where they may not have the social gravitas to react to it. With the coaches, it’s way too much power. In the book, we talked to a player who played in one of the junior leagues. And he was smoking weed with his teammates. This was a Black player, and he was the only player kicked off the team. In that sport, the stakeholders, whether it's coaches, administrators, or other folks, have way too much power over someone's career. Why is hockey so expensive?
How did your and your co-author Jashvina Shah’s identities and experiences with hockey inform one another's perspectives while you wrote the book together? That's a great question, because I was a victim of racism and she was the victim of sexual assault. We both learned a lot from each other. I’m a man who generally believes that he’s as progressive as it comes. But as much as I’m progressive, I think I have some blind spots. I learned a lot from reading her, and she learned a lot from reading what I wrote. For almost a year and a half, most of my text messages and DMs are from her. What are some of the overarching issues in the hockey world? Racism, classism, homophobia, sexism, and ableism, to start off. Do you see any commonalities between those issues in the sport? Marginalized people in one way, shape, or form are always on the outs. In the book we lay out a case on why that is. We turned in our manuscript in January of this year, and so much has happened in hockey since. A lot of things happened after the book came out. The Blackhawks [sex abuse] scandal, and the Danvers, Massachusetts [high school hazing scandal], and the thing with the girl goaltender [in Pennsylvania] when the crowd was chanting stuff about her. So, these people try to get mad at us and say, “Oh, nothing’s wrong, the sport’s not toxic.” But meanwhile, they’re doing toxic shit. Could you describe the tradition of ‘billeting’ in hockey? What is it? And how does it impact young players? In hockey, if you're really good, you leave home pretty early, and stay with a billet family. A lot of them are in Canada, or in northern states, where there's hockey towns. 18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
A lot of first generation Europeans came to the States from places where ice sports were prevalent. And as those generations left the city for the suburbs, those rinks went with. The majority of the rinks in the Chicago area are where there’s wealth, and most of the population is white. We know certain groups may not have the resources or the capital to continue on with this sport. That’s what keeps the sport looking like what it is. Toxic masculinity seems to underscore a lot of the problems that you identify with hockey culture. Do you see such a cis male-dominated sport ever being on the vanguard of changing that culture of toxic masculinity? Hockey has long dragged its feet on race and social justice issues. That's because of their mostly white fan base. Even though all this stuff keeps happening over the years, and these folks always say, “Oh, there's no place for this in our sport,” it’s ongoing. And it’s been there for a long time. You know, why don't you lean into figuring out what's really going on? Because the NHL has had diversity efforts since 1994, but yet these incidents happen all the time. The Blackhawks scandal has really shone a light for the broader public on some of the ugly truths about hockey culture that you cover in your book. What was your reaction to the scandal when it broke? I wasn’t shocked. For me, reading the report and seeing that interview [with Kyle Beach], the first thing I said to myself was, if they’re covering for a video coach and providing services for a video coach—what length will they go for players? How would you respond to people in the fan base or in the organizing structure of the NHL who say that these issues are political, and sports offer an escape from issues such as these? Sports is politics. They coincide, they exist together. Why is your favorite rink named after a corporation? There's people out there who want to stick their head in the sand when they say, “Stick to sports.” There's so much hypocrisy out there. At this point, someone who thinks that way is being willfully ignorant. They're making a conscious
LIT choice to ignore centuries of history. And that's on them. You saw that locally, with the Blackhawks and what was laid out. And you still have people out there who have a hard time understanding the power dynamic, where a hockey player was told by a coach, “Go along with this experience or you're not going to play hockey.” Knowing hockey culture, where these players’ only goal in life is to make it to the NHL and make it to professional hockey. When you have that singular focus, unfortunately, you may be susceptible to going along with things that are otherwise awful. What do you think comes next for the NHL?
There’s strength in numbers if we do that.” They transitioned from that to raising money and providing scholarships for young Black girls to play the sport. You have different groups all over, but since this is the South Side Weekly,I’ll keep it local: Hockey On Your Block, Inner-City Education, and Chicago North Stars, which is an allwomen’s team that plays in the men’s league. All these different people have different entryways into the sport, and they see the way things are broken. So they feel like, “We have to do things our way.” Do you feel optimistic about the future of hockey?
I mean, they've already made provisions not to change. So we’ve got to keep pressure on them, and keep pressure on their corporate sponsors. Even though we got the desired outcome, the league allowed them to run their own investigation. That should have been taken out of their hands and given to an independent group.
I’m more optimistic than I thought. I look at it like, we’re not going anywhere. I remember when I first wrote about being a Black hockey fan, and I heard from so many people. Black folks that were like, “I feel seen. Thank you for writing about our experience.” So, as more people get into it, and feel comfortable, the face of the game will change. ¬
If you could speak to the Danvers school administration, parents, and that hockey team, what would you want them to hear?
Game Misconduct: Hockey’s Toxic Culture and How to Fix It, by Evan Moore and Jashvina Shah. 256 Pages. Triumph Books, 2021. $28 hardcover.
I feel like these behaviors are learned. So they saw it or heard it somewhere, whether it was at home or at the rink or in school. And it goes into what we see in terms of sexual assault, or racism and homophobia — all this stuff is learned behavior. It’s hard because of how young they are, and how resolute in what they were saying and doing. And it’s like, is this just how somebody is? Or is there still time for them to change their behaviors? And I will say to administrators and parents, this is on you. Step up, and tell your kid to cut the shit. If you don’t, you’re training the next generation of people who probably were at the Capitol on January 6th.
Sage Behr is an actor, writer, and barista, originally from Iowa City. She last reviewed Gabriel Bump’s novel Everywhere You Don’t Belong.
Your young daughter plays hockey. What does she love about hockey, and what do you love about seeing her play this sport? I didn’t necessarily try to push her into the sport. But I got wind of a girl’s hockey class that was hosted at the Blackhawks rink. And she loves it. There are times where I’m in the house, shooting the puck or whatever, and she’ll be like, “Dad, why are you doing this without me? What the hell?” And now it transitioned to: “Are we playing hockey today? I love hockey, let's go play hockey!” As she progresses in the sport, obviously I think about some of the stuff that we describe in the book. I moved up the timetable for me and her mom to speak to her about race, because she’s one of the few melanated kids out there. So I've had a conversation with her: “If someone says something to you or makes you feel uncomfortable, you grab me or grab your mom or talk to a coach.” Because in the book I discuss how I was called a racist word by a teammate and I handled it internally, away from coaches and everything else, because at that age I already knew that I was going to be on my own with this. But I don't want her to internalize that experience, you know? I bought her a Barbie doll set where one is a white player and one is a Black player. She turned six a few weeks ago, and she already is aware of who she is. I have a video of her opening up the dolls. She ran to me and gave me the hardest hug I think she’s ever given me. And she says, “This girl plays hockey like me.” What groups and individuals are you seeing work to counteract specific issues in the hockey world? Oh, you got Black Girl Hockey Club with R. Renee Hess, the founder and executive director. She actually wrote the foreword for our book. And that group started because she heard of a bunch of Black women and other allies who wanted to go to hockey games, and they felt like, “Hey, we ought to get a group together and go together. NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19
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The Whole Truth
Looking for Lorraine provides a fuller portrait of the author best known for "A Raisin in the Sun' BY LAUREN JOHNSON
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hen a person leaves this world too soon, their legacy can become distorted. Often we focus on their biggest triumphs and wonder what else they could have achieved, instead of recognizing all of their successes and complexities. This is incredibly applicable to our beloved Lorraine Hansberry, a writer, artist, activist, and native Chicagoan who died at thirty-four years old. Her life was cut too short, and past biographies have primarily directed their attention toward her play A Raisin in the Sun. In her account Looking for Lorraine, professor Imani Perry argues that Hansberry's accomplishments were actually countless—and far from ordinary. Looking for Lorraine invites us to ponder why certain texts and aspects of Hansberry’s life are taught and remembered, while others are wrongfully excluded and left unnoticed in our public memory. With current misrepresentations of Hansberry’s life and her vast number of works, Perry begs us to investigate the full truth. In a text packed with detail, Perry fights against a previously incomplete narrative by deliberately writing about what has been overlooked. Perry begins by shedding light on Hansberry’s foundational childhood on the South Side. With a booming Black press, Black gospel, and Black arts scene in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, young Hansberry was directly exposed to Chicago’s Black Renaissance. But she recognized the classist undertones of such spaces. While occupying these exclusive spaces, Hansberry simultaneously found progressive sites in Chicago that radicalized her political ideology. For example, Hansberry discussed social realism with Joseph Elbein, a Communist 20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
Party member and University of Chicago student. Social realism was a period that emphasized the importance of artists using their work to raise consciousness, specifically for changes for the working class. These necessary conversations at a young age would later influence Hansberry’s own writing. And although it is a site that is currently memorialized, Perry still discusses 6140 S. Rhodes Avenue to highlight Hansberry’s awareness that it was a house in the South Side that was not built with her family in mind. Due to a dispute between members of the Woodlawn Homeowners Association, one member sold the house to her father, Carl Hansberry. This decision came with several white mobs who desired for the space to remain white-only. The Hansberry’s were wrongfully evicted, and Carl Hansberry fought for his property rights and prevailed three years later. Hansberry is young—but clearly observant of her surroundings. She was a witness to a renaissance, protests, white mobs, and legal battles. By incorporating details of Hansberry’s childhood in Chicago, Perry demonstrates that Chicago was an essential site that led to her radical politics and an inspirational location for her future creative endeavors. Even when away from Chicago, Hansberry wrote about the city. In one of her journal entries, she noted that “Chicago continues [to] fascinate, frighten, charm, and offend me. It is so much prettier than New York.” It was a city that she hoped could change for the better, but still always considered it home. Perry could not omit Hansberry’s deliberate decision to write about Chicago in her most well-known play, A Raisin in the Sun. The play follows
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
COURTESY OF BEACON PRESS
a Black family in the South Side who just received a $10,000 life-insurance check. Each member of the family has their own opinions on how the money should be spent, and they debate using it for education, moving to a white neighborhood, or investing in a business. Although the play is already a clear part of Hansberry’s legacy, Perry’s inclusion helps emphasize that A Raisin in the Sun is a play that deserves to be remembered. But in order to continue painting a full story, Perry focuses on what is less known in the public memory by providing insight on Hansberry’s other projects and offering some thoughts as to why they are less remembered. Hansberry’s play Les Blancs, which premiered after her death, considers the importance of directly fighting against white supremacy. In it, Hansberry created a fictional country in Africa and there are several revolutionary moments where characters resist and cast off colonial authorities. Hansberry also worked on an unpublished story called “The Riot” which depicts a Black community resisting white attacks and police violence. The short story was inspired by an experience she
had at Englewood High School. While Hansberry was a student there, there was an attempt to increase the number of Black students, which led to white students staging a strike. Hansberry was frustrated by a weak and compliant Black middle class who did little to stop these racist strikes. Her short story is ultimately quite different and more radical than what she observed, as she creates an alternate tale where Black people resist and fight back. Later in her career, Hansberry wrote a television miniseries called The Drinking Gourd. It was a radical screenplay which exposed the evils of capitalism that were connected to the legacy of slavery. Sadly, the screenplay was not picked up by any television station. These are just a few examples of Hansberry’s writing, so much of which has been consigned to obscurity. A lot of her works failed to have the same level of success as A Raisin in the Sun because they were considered too radical or ahead of their time. I would argue that nothing is ever actually written before its time and, instead, a white majority was cowardly incapable of facing their demons and
LIT complicity. It makes me wonder what would have happened had more of her work been published? Who could have read it and who could have been inspired by it? Along with remembering her works, Perry sheds light on aspects of Hansberry’s personal life that are not widely recalled. Most know of her marriage to Robert B. Nemiroff, a publisher and huge supporter of Hansberry’s work. However, Perry spends time discussing her other significant romantic relationships, including with Molly Malone Cook, Ann Grifalconi, and Dorothy Secules. Her sexuality was something she constantly grappled with. Perry incorporates a diary entry that Hansberry wrote that has a column of things that she likes and hates, and the phrase “my homosexuality” is in both columns.
Lorraine Hansberry purposefully used the words lesbian and homosexual to define herself. Although Hansberry was closeted, Perry’s acute attention to her self-identification shows us that it is not so clear-cut. Perry helps demonstrate that Lorraine Hansberry is a young Black queer woman struggling with her identity like many. We need to remember all aspects of Hansberry–her creativity, her radicalism, her queerness, her travels, and all of her works, whether they were published or not. Perry successfully paints a clearer and fuller picture of an artist who did so much in so little time. Her text encourages us to continue to investigate, as the possibilities for further research on Hansberry are endless. Inspired by Perry’s work, I decided to wander around the South Side and
observe the sites where Hansberry stepped. 6140 S. Rhodes is about a twenty-minute walk from the DuSable Museum of African American History. Visitors are welcomed to the historic West Woodlawn and there is a sign that notes that the area is “a great migration legacy community.” At her home, there is a plaque that cites the house as a Chicago landmark and gives context on her family’s legal battles. It was this house that Carl Hansberry fought tirelessly for when others believed the area was for white residents only. A mile away, there is a secluded park named after Lorraine Hansberry. Englewood High School, which she attended and which was about a mile and a half away from her home, changed its name to Englewood Technical Prep Academy and then closed in 2008. The
campus is now home to two charter schools: Urban Prep Academy and TEAM Englewood. I couldn’t help but wonder if there are uncharted areas that Hansberry traveled to that we are unaware of. There must be more places and people that she touched during her time in Chicago. As Imani Perry reminds us, it is urgent to find these alternative sites so that we can remember all of Lorraine Hansberry and tell her full story. ¬ Lauren Johnson is a recent college graduate currently living in Chicago. This is her first piece for the Weekly.
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21
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Unidentified
by Chima “Naira” Ikoro the commodification of radical language and slam poetry are both to blame for y’all thinking it’s more profound to call Black folks “bodies.” what first started as a motif for the objectification of our flesh turned into a trend, as most things do, and y’all started referring to We the very same way the origin of that verbiage was looking to hold a mirror to and dismantle. if i’m just a body, how am i different from a car which also has a body or a gun which might have several bodies depending on who it belongs to. people are living. but bodies are carcasses, bodies are hollow shells. or filled with them. see, hollow shells are for hunting animals like deer or moose, google says they’re best for hunting creatures with thick skin. doesn’t that sound familiar? that We would be what We eat. all the casings We’ve swallowed. the world sees Us and sees meat to pierce through, and niggas were getting on stage and describing Us by the skin of Our framework and the shrapnel of Our bones; if i’m a body i could be anything. papers have body paragraphs, like “40-something people killed in a single night in chicago” on the front page. no names, no descriptions, no individual memoriam, no faces no cases just 20, 30, 40 some-things. bodies. covered by black tarp draped over concrete, Blackened by blood. it could be anything under there; a bird, a plane, a bus driver, a 12-year-old girl, a groom-to-be, a recent high school graduate, a dj, a man whose dad just got out of jail. a body could be anything. papers have bodies, rolled and smoked, ashes to ashes, dusting to dust speeches have bodies. in 1971, Nixon declared a war on drugs. 50 years later and that speech is still catching bodies to this day. and each one of them could have been anything. a doctor, a teacher, a rapper, a lawyer, a 12-year-old boy, a toddler in their car seat, a dj, a man whose dad just got out of jail, a boy i grew up with who grew a boy himself, a gangbanger, a criminal…whatever that means, a black person, a black human being, whatever that means. people are living, but we’re calling Ourselves bodies and hiding the pages of Our obituaries under Our tongues, imagining Ourselves more dead than alive. some people fancy calling their past partners bodies cause they don’t mean shit to them they were just a valley to rain in; a dip, a blip, a back to break. a heart to shelter themselves and flee when the sun is out so what does that make my skin? a pothole to hold water for rats to drink from? a crevice collecting dirt and boogers? a moment in time? a flash? a strike of lighting? a break between songs? a second? a body? just a thing. just a fucking thing. what is alive about that? bodies break down. they cannot hold spirits. ain’t no room for a soul in a body that’s already been stuffed by the taxidermist and propped up on stage, tryna describe yourself in a way that will get claps and snaps. anything can snap; bodies, bones for broth, reducing yourself from tomato juice to paste burning at the bottom of the blackest most burnt pot in the world and calling it poetic. whatever that means. Chima Ikoro is the community organizing editor for the Weekly. She last wrote about two artists from Roseland. 22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ NOVEMBER 25, 2021
T
Our thoughts in exchange for yours.
h e Exchange is The Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly. ¬
THIS WEEK'S PROMPT:
“OFTENTIMES, WE DESCRIBE WHO WE ARE. INSTEAD, DESCRIBE WHO YOU ARE NOT.”
This could be a poem, a stream-ofconsciousness piece, or a short story. Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com.
Featured below is a reader response to a previous prompt. The last poem and prompt can be found here.
Blindspot
by Vernique Dyson Rivers cry at night. A forever flow sings to the moon, and it’s beautiful without a witness. It perceives beauty upon a hallelujah chorus and never wonders about who’s not singing. In the brink of its soul, it is waiting for an onlooker to love it for more than what it can provide. There is a course of tenderness and contribution planted in a streambed not many are familiar with. So, thank it. Thank the things you’ve never encountered up close but make you whole enough to speak on. There are flaws whose standards never felt welcome as if perfection has an address. As if the mute woman standing in a room of conversations couldn’t use an affirmation in her language from time to time. As if to say beauty is in the eye of the beholder but we never asked for opinions from strangers. Well, I find beauty daily. In plush pillows and memory foam mattresses made to caress my soul. In mirrors that I give compliments to for seeing through. There are many definitions, so if it causes your heart to flutter like lovers promise me you’ll call it like it is. Beautiful. Vernique Dyson is a writer and dancer from Kenosha, Wisconsin, residing on the West Side of Chicago. You can find her on Instagram @VerniqueD!
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COVID-19 vaccine is free for all children. Appointments for kids ages 5 and older can be scheduled anytime. Schedule your child’s first- and second-dose appointments with just one phone call. Flu shots are available.
Call Comer Children’s COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at 773-834-8221 to make an appointment for your child at an available location.
