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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, photographers, artists, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Editor

Volume 7, Issue 23 Jacqueline Serrato Martha Bayne Jasmine Mithani

Senior Editors Julia Aizuss Christian Belanger Mari Cohen Christopher Good Rachel Kim Emeline Posner Adam Przybyl Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Politics Editor Jim Daley Education Editors Ashvini Kartik-Narayan Michelle Anderson Literature Editor Davon Clark Nature Editor Sam Joyce Food & Land Editor Sarah Fineman Contributing Editors Mira Chauhan Joshua Falk Lucia Geng Robin Vaughan Jocelyn Vega Tammy Xu Jade Yan Staff Writer

AV Benford

Data Editor Jasmine Mithani Radio Exec. Producer Erisa Apantaku Social Media Editors Grace Asiegbu, Arabella Breck, Maya Holt Director of Fact Checking: Tammy Xu Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Susan Chun, Maria Maynez, Sam Joyce, Elizabeth Winkler, Lucy Ritzmann, Kate Gallagher, Matt Moore, Malvika Jolly, Charmaine Runes, Ebony Ellis, Katie Bart Visuals Editor Deputy Visuals Editor Photo Editor Staff Photographers: Staff Illustrators: Tolentino

Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Keeley Parenteau milo bosh, Jason Schumer Mell Montezuma, Shane

Layout Editors Haley Tweedell, Davon Clark Webmaster Managing Director

Pat Sier Jason Schumer

The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring.

Over the summer we publish every other week.

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

Cover Photo by Mateo Zapata

IN CHICAGO Demanding safe schools CPS will do full-time remote learning for the fall semester, multiple sources reported August 4, though as the Weekly went to press an official announcement was still pending. The reversal came a day after more than 500 cars participated in a caravan to demand Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Lori Lightfoot reconsider their initial hybrid plan that would put students back in the classroom in September. The Chicago Teachers Union also indicated their intention to have a strike vote in an upcoming emergency meeting. As COVID-19 positivity rates climb again in Chicago, with aboveaverage rates on the South and West Sides, having Black and Latinx kids in aging, often poorly ventilated or sanitized buildings is a recipe for disaster.

Although police blocked students, parents, and supporters from entering City Hall, where banners depicting John Lewis currently hang, supportive aldermen delivered their demands to the fifth floor. They included the removal of Chicago police from schools, which currently cost the district up to $152,000 a year per officer and $173,000 per sergeant; the contract is up for renewal this month. Protesters also honored the memory of Caleb Reed, a seventeen-year-old activist with Voices of Youth in Chicago Education, who fought to keep Dyett High School open and to get cops out of CPS, and whose life and promise were lost to gun violence.

Rent lotto The mayor and the Departments of Housing and Family & Support Services have announced a second round of emergency rent relief, this time with a much larger pot of money from federal stimulus funds and private donations.

The $33 million will get distributed in lottery form—at random—once tenants and property owners show documents that demonstrate financial hardship during the pandemic. Over 80,000 people applied unsuccessfully the first time, and those applications will get automatically considered the second time, the City said. But they are accepting new entries for a one-time $1,000 grant at chi.gov/housinghelp. Housing advocates say the assistance only covers one month’s rent, when officials should be offering more permanent solutions in the midst of a crisis, such as rent and mortgage forgiveness, rent control, and regulating luxury development. The Cook County eviction moratorium is set to end August 22.

South Side hospital to close Mercy Hospital recently revealed that it will shut down in 2021. It is one of four struggling South Side hospitals, along with South Shore, St. Bernard, and Advocate Trinity, that tried to merge to build new facilities, but the ambitious plan fell through. With most of Mercy’s patients being aging Black residents, who are the demographic being hardest-hit by COVID-19, the closure of this Bronzeville hospital is expected to aggravate healthcare disparities in South Side neighborhoods during and after the crisis.

IN THIS ISSUE what happened july

17?

A timeline of the conflict at Grant Park’s Columbus statue martha bayne, jim daley, and jason schumer...........................................4 decolonizing chicago

Native American organizer on the intersection of Black Lives Matter and decolonization jacqueline serrato...........................................8 what does ‘defund the police’ mean to you?

Organizers discuss defunding, abolition, and envision ways to reallocate resources nefertari bilal...............................................10 covid: what we know now

Up-to-date information on how to keep yourself and others safe, and what lies ahead for Chicago elora apantaku and charmaine runes; illustrations by grae rosa and thumy phan; maps by bea malsky..............................13 when you say chicago...

2020 student essay contest angela williams, chelsea ike, and morgan new.............................................16 bridging chicago’s food gap

With the pandemic’s significant impact on both the food supply chain and individual food security, the consequences for hunger relief organizations are expected to be dire martha bayne, kari mcmahon, maura turcotte, and kari lydersen............18 mexican and puerto rican museums host a digital summer during covid-19

Museums for the community, by the community, reach families in Chicago and beyond olivia cunningham.........................................24 dr. whirlwind

“There is no reason we can’t have another poet laureate from the South Side.” av benford.......................................................25

What happened July 17?

BY MATEO ZAPATA

A timeline of the conflict at Grant Park’s Columbus statue

BY MARTHA BAYNE, JIM DALEY, AND JASON SCHUMER

O

n July 17, Chi-Nations Youth Council, Black Lives Matter Chicago, BYP100, and other groups organized a Black and Indigenous solidarity rally at Buckingham Fountain and promoted it on social media as an opportunity to “dance, sing, party, and celebrate ourselves.” Speakers addressed the crowd, and Chicago rapper Ric Wilson performed “Fight Like Ida B & Marsha P” while a crowd danced and sang along. The mood, said one attendee, was joyous.

Following the rally, demonstrators marched to the southern end of Grant Park, where a phalanx of Chicago police stood guard around the 1933 bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, which was protectively cocooned in a plastic tarp. A small contingent of the crowd—shielding themselves with umbrellas, Hong Kong style—attempted to drive the police away with a barrage of water bottles, pop cans, and fireworks that CPD later claimed injured eighteen officers. The police initially retreated, and the crowd moved onto the ground around the statue. Some protesters covered Columbus’ pedestal with graffiti while others attempted to tear it down.

Within less than twenty minutes, CPD returned in greater numbers, clad in riot gear. Officers then used force to clear the area: videos posted online and provided to the Weekly show police attacking nonviolent protesters, journalists, and bystanders alike with batons, pepper spray, and fists. Police slashed cyclists’ bicycle tires and confiscated dozens more bikes, also 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

apparently at random. Multiple officers removed or obscured their badges. One video showed what appears to be a police handgun that had been dropped on the ground, unnoticed for nearly a minute in the melee. The police meted out injury to dozens of protesters, many of whom were left bloody and bruised; one reported a broken hand. At least one journalist posted a video of himself being shoved and chased by an irate police officer despite having CPD-issued press credentials.

In the days following the attack, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) announced it is investigating more than twenty allegations of misconduct by CPD that evening, ranging from excessive force and unnecessary use of pepper spray to denying legal counsel to protesters, at least fourteen of whom were arrested.

Miracle Boyd became the high-profile face of the police response to the protest after an officer knocked her front teeth out.

Boyd, an eighteen-year-old CPS graduate, incoming DePaul University freshman and organizer with GoodKids MadCity, had spoken at the rally and was attempting to use a cell phone to record police arresting a protester when an officer struck her. Via a Freedom of Information Act request, the Weekly obtained documents from COPA that identify Nicholas Jovanovich as the officer who “punched [redacted] in the mouth, knocking out some of her teeth.”

According to the Citizens Police Data Project, Jovanovich has at least twentytwo other recorded uses of force—more

than ninety-six percent of officers in the department. At a July 20 press conference, Boyd said the officer should be fired: “No matter what I said, I did not deserve to be attacked.”

At another press conference the same day, Mayor Lori Lightfoot initially blamed the confrontation on “vigilantes” who came looking “for a fight.” CPD later showed surveillance videos that only focused on the people in the crowd who threw objects at police during the initial confrontation.

“That’s not peaceful protest, that’s anarchy,” Lightfoot said. “And we are going to put that down.”

Citing violence in the neighborhoods—and after Chicago Fraternal Order of Police president John Catanzara sent him a letter requesting federal help—President Trump threatened to send federal agents to Chicago.

Lightfoot initially said “we don’t need federal agents without insignia taking people off the street and holding them unlawfully.” (Unidentified federal agents in unmarked vans were seen arresting protesters in Portland.) But later that week, she assented to about 150 agents coming to assist ongoing investigations, pointedly drawing a distinction between them and “troops…who come from the military.”

On July 23, Lightfoot ordered city workers to take down the Grant Park statue, a move she said was temporary; two other statues of Columbus elsewhere in the city were also removed.

The Weekly put out a call for first-person accounts from the June 17 protest and what followed. The mayor and Superintendent Brown blamed the violence directed toward police that day on a rogue group of coordinated protestors, and framed the police counterattack as the inevitable response to violent, left-wing provocations. But according to accounts the Weekly received from dozens of people who were there, police violence was widespread, indiscriminate, and at times reckless. Police targeted peaceful protesters along with so-called vigilantes.

In the pages that follow, we offer a collage of what happened when police returned to the Columbus statue, drawing on first-person accounts, video recordings, and publicly available data. (In the instances when speakers wished to remain anonymous, we respected that wish, though their identities are known to the Weekly.)

As communities continue to organize resistance to and demand a reimagining of policing, we will seek to collect more first-person accounts of other key incidents in this remarkable moment of Chicago history. Martha Bayne is managing editor of the Weekly.

She last wrote about the timeline of and police response to the May 30 George Floyd protests.

Jim Daley is the Weekly’s politics editor. He last wrote about Census outreach. Jason Schumer is the Weekly’s managing director.

JUSTICE

ALL EVENTS DESCRIBED TOOK PLACE BETWEEN 7:30PM AND 8:15PM ON JULY 17, 2020.

“It's hard to pinpoint what, for the cops, triggers an escalation, but more and more cops kept showing up, and those of us in the crowd were linking arms and surrounding the statue and trying to prevent police from infiltrating. They were kind of shifting around the perimeter of the statue, but it did sort of feel like we were surrounded just because of the way that space is.”—Anonymous

7:30 PM "Then all the reinforcements came on the outside and just kept pouring in throughout the rest of the night. There were more bike cops, they were forming a perimeter but eventually those guys left and were replaced just with riot cops that had batons out. And they were keeping their distance for a while, but there was a brief clash around 7:30pm with some cops. You can see them hitting people with batons, pushing us around. They were stepping on bikes, trying to destroy them and steal them. And we had our bikes at the front of the line to help protect us. At one point I saw a cop drop his gun. It was on the ground.I did not see it physically drop. It looked like the standard police pistol. I can't say how long it was on the ground. I started recording right after I saw it there and then my video ends twenty-seven seconds later with a cop appearing to see something on the ground and jogging toward the area.”—Jocelyn Wilcox Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-5 (content warning: police violence and strong language)

medic. We then shielded the medic and the protester with our bikes from further violence. That's when cops began rushing down the hill from Roosevelt into the park.” —Meghan Hasset Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-7 (content warning: police violence and strong language) SCAN ME “As a person with a bike, I was standing in line with other bikers as cops started marching toward me and the folks around me. This was shortly after the person climbing the statue managed to get rope around it. The cops in full riot gear shoved my bike to the ground, consequently shoving me to the ground. I remember getting up again only to be shoved down again, hitting my head (luckily in a helmet) on the pavement. They sprayed my face, neck, and back. Medics rushed in to pull me out and flushed my eyes. My friend managed to find me while I was with a medic, with my bike and backpack. The burning on my face and back intensified, then I had a seizure, and a couple other protestors or medics carried me away from where more cops were moving in because I couldn't physically move. My friend and a medic stayed with me until I was able to stand and breathe normally again, and made sure I had enough water, a new mask, snacks, and medical after-care supplies to take home.” —Lucy Leith

SCAN ME

7:38 PM “While in the bike line, a cop brandishing a knife attempted to slash my tires. Once they decided to break the bike line we were pepper sprayed. Cops had violently broken in from another section and we were eventually ushered to the side. They continued to charge us with bikes who were trying to form a barricade. They had snatched and thrown lots of peoples bikes—I had an officer tell me, ‘I don’t want your bike, just get the fuck out of here’ as he kicked in my bike to get me to move backwards, leaving my legs bruised. Someone next to me was pleading for them to stop which caused an officer to charge and attack her more. At one point everyone around me was choking and gagging.”—Anonymous Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-6 (content warning: strong language) SCAN ME

7:40 PM “By the time we formed a line of bicycles to shield people closer to the statue, cops in full riot gear had assembled all around us. For a while, nothing happened as some protesters attempted to pull down the statue. Suddenly, there was a commotion towards the entrance of the park. I saw massive amounts of pepper spray in the air and batons swinging, and as police broke through the crowd and grew closer, they were throwing anyone they came across to the ground and indiscriminately shoving anyone in their vicinity. I witnessed a man with long brown hair being tossed to the ground by police. As he sat there, looking dazed, a cop walked over to him and cracked him in the head with a baton. The sound was disgusting.

Myself and another cyclist rushed over to him and pulled him towards the grass, calling for a

BY MATEO ZAPATA

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

JUSTICE

7:46 PM “There was a situation where I saw one cop tap another cop on the shoulder and tell him to back off. He was ready to keep swinging and shoving. He was also smirking and mocking the protesters while he shoved them. He is pictured in the photo with no visible badge number. I saw at least a dozen officers with their badge numbers covered or badges removed. –Anonymous Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-9 (content warning: strong language)

BY DIEGO MORALES

“They took my sister's goggles off—her goggles to protect her from the pepper spray. And they sprayed it directly into her eyes. So one of the officers—there were a couple of them there and they had their badge numbers covered—they said ‘back up, we don't want to hurt you.’ And then his colleague to the right of him, that's when he grabbed my sister's goggles. And he sprayed directly into her face and … there's just so much happening. People are yelling ‘medics,’ and they're spraying medics in the face as well. They're directly, literally going up to them and just spraying them super close to the face.”—Leslie “Everyone was angry and yelling. We linked arms and stood behind the bikes. One officer tore a bike away from the front and tossed it over the heads of the front line, hitting me and other protesters with the bike. I watched a police officer push a girl backwards over her bike and down the steep hill. She was yelling at him because he was not wearing a mask. Only twenty-five percent of them were. He got right up in her face and started to yell back at her that he would ‘fuck her up.’ When he pushed her, he laughed as the medics rushed over to her. His colleagues did too. Shortly after I witnessed the same cop pepper spray a medic maybe six inches from her face who was pouring water in someone else's eyes.“ —Rae Flynn Watch video of a similar incident of an officer throwing a bike at a protester: sswk.ly/protest-8 (content warning: police violence and strong language) SCAN ME “I was in the medical team that day. Since I’m DACA, I can’t really risk a lot, so I’m just behind the scenes. But the reason I had to get a little more involved than planned was because this person had a bike and this police officer had that person pinned down and kept punching him in the face. So I was just trying to talk to the police officer, and he wouldn’t stop, he just kept on going.… So I tried to throw myself in there hoping that they would just hit my back or somewhere it wouldn’t hurt as much. Then that cop’s buddy came right behind him with a white pole and that’s when he hit me in the head. So I got up and I saw that he was whacking people with a white pole that he found on the floor. Then he saw that I was bleeding, and he started walking back. Then I felt it dripping, and I got up and went towards him and was like, “Hey man, you fucked up, because at this point you know you’re no longer serving the people, you’re terrorizing people now.” Then I said, “Actually let me grab that badge number,” and he turned around so I couldn't see his star, and he grabbed the pole and threw it as far away from him as possible. After that I got pulled back by the medics.” —Luis Aldair 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

SCAN ME

“I'm just standing there and a white-shirted commander walks up to me, and he looks me in the face and he says the words ‘I don't want to have to beat you.’ At this point, I'm alone. I am standing. I am no way threatening anyone with my bike. I have done nothing to provoke this. And I look him in the face and I say, ‘I don't want that, but I am peaceful.’

And another officer has suddenly popped up on his right, my left and proceeds to beat my arms, my hands on my bike. I remember watching the first hit come down on my left hand, which was holding onto my bike seat. He beat my hands and then all of a sudden I'm seeing from my right, this commander's left, another officer steps in with mace. My bike is being ripped from my hands and I'm maced directly in the face. I then fall back, screaming. And another protester actually managed to step out and grab me and he's holding me and pulling me back into sort of like the larger group, around the statue saying, "I've got you, I've got you."—Anonymous “I went to protest … because I am Potawatomi and I wanted to show up in solidarity with other Natives and our Black relatives. A cop broke my hand with a baton because I wasn’t moving in a bike barricade. And he tried to throw my bike after he broke my hand, but I held onto it and swung it back to me. He then got flustered and backed up. I literally wasn’t doing anything but holding a line with some friends on our bikes and standing in a public park.”—Corrine

7:58 PM “No one was advancing towards the cops, the cops weren't moving either, we were just standing, holding ground. More and more white shirts were arriving. They were talking to each other. Then I saw two people in full military gear coming. A protester in my cluster yelled ‘SWAT is here, SWAT brought chemicals, they have chemicals,’ but no one moved. We stood there with our arms linked and we chanted ‘don't do it, don't do it,’ and it seemed like without breaking stride the SWAT agent started spraying and spraying orange mist. He swept from south to north and I saw his face crinkle up. It looked like the spray was at face level. We ducked down with our arms still linked and I shut my eyes tight. I could feel the spray splatter all over me. I could hear people on either side of me screaming, ‘Oh my god!’" People's arms got unlinked. I couldn't see anything because of the spray. I couldn't breathe.

I was yelling the name of the person I was with and I grabbed her hand and we tried to get out of range.”—Anonymous Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-10 (content warning: police violence and strong language)

SCAN ME

JUSTICE

8:00 PM “By 8pm, another group of both CPD officers, white shirts, and some camouflaged individuals began beating and macing anyone within ten feet of them as they moved into the crowd. This is when the second [video] was taken, with the fifty-plus police on the sidewalk macing people at point-blank range and beating individuals who were on the ground covering their heads and bodies as officers approached the statue.” —Aaron Montemayor Walker Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-11 (content warning: police violence and strong language)

SCAN ME

“Around 8:00pm, the police forced their way through the line of cyclists to the south. They went up the hill, then advanced on the rest of us from above. They yelled 'move twenty feet back or you’ll lose your bikes!’ We tried to hold the line to protect the protesters beneath us, but when they physically pushed us, we began slowly backing up. When I was sure we'd retreated much more than twenty feet, I stopped and said ‘that's been more than twenty feet!’ The officer pushing me backward said ‘you're gonna lose the bike!’ He grabbed my bike and tried to pull it from my hands. I held on tight, and after a moment of struggle, he stopped pulling and just threw me and the bike away from him. My sister said I flew about five feet down the hill.” —Caleigh Watch video of this incident: sswk.ly/protest-12 (content warning: police violence and strong language)

SCAN ME

8:01 PM “Eventually, the cops retook the statue, leaving a wake of injured, bleeding, screaming, blinded protesters in their wake. I saw a young woman on the ground with a messed-up ankle who couldn't walk, and cops were still coming to surround the park on Roosevelt Road. We called a medic, and again I stood by with my broken bike as he taped up her foot. Then I saw [outgoing Chief of Patrol] Fred Waller, the big boss man of all the patrol officers, give the order to clear the park. At first cops were not using violence as people left the park, and I thought we were going to be safe from further brutality. I was thrown to the ground again while exiting the park and my bicycle was taken. When I left the park, I tried to ask the police why they took my bike and how I could get it back. They told me that what happened to me was my choice because I was there, and that I should pick better crowds to hang out with instead of hanging out with violent people.” —Meghan Hassett

BY MATEO ZAPATA

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

JUSTICE

Decolonizing Chicago Native American organizer on the intersection of Black Lives Matter and decolonization

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO Janie Pochel is co-founder and lead advisor of Chi-Nations Youth Council, which helped organize the July 17 solidarity rally that set the stage for the City’s removal of three Christopher Columbus statues in Grant Park, Little Italy, and South Chicago. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Visit our website for the full version.

The conversation about the fake history surrounding Christopher Columbus goes back a long time, at the very least to the 1960s, and there’s also a rich history in Latin America of Indigenous communities toppling monuments of colonizers. So what exactly created the momentum for the removal of Columbus in various cities like Minneapolis and Chicago. And is there any connection to Black Lives Matter?

Yeah, I think it’s directly correlated with Black Lives Matter. I know at least in decolonial work I do, decolonization is not only the return of land, but it’s also the abolishment of slavery. Because those things are what colonized our lands. So if we’re gonna work on getting our land back, we have to also abolish slavery at the same time. And as we know, as American history, slavery never ended—they just switched it over to the prison industrial complex.

So, we’ve been doing uprisings, like Idle No More was one, Standing Rock was another one. And when those opportunities come about, we’re gonna jump on them. So when we seen everybody getting, you know, “woke,” they started saying, “Oh, you can’t have justice on stolen land,” but you’re not even bringing us into these conversations.

When we were talking [among ourselves] about how Natives are going to support this movement, we didn’t want it to be like the oppression olympics. We wanted it to be intentional, to build an actual coalition between Native and Black communities.

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

Are members of Chi-Nations Youth Council part of a nation or tribe or are you open to anyone who identifies as Native American?

We don’t really card anybody; It’s mostly self-identified Natives. Everybody in our group right now is attached to a federal tribe in some way as a dependent or a member, but in the past we’ve had it open. Like two of the Hawaiian kids don’t feel comfortable being part of the group, but the kids accept them as part of the group. Hawaiians aren’t federally recognized. One of the first members was actually from somewhere in Central America, they were Native from there and they didn’t have any recognition.

Most of the kids are recognized in some way, but we are open to any youth that identifies as Native and wants to be part of the group.

Ages thirteen to twenty-four is what we say, but we have younger, ten- to thirteen-yearolds who come to the programs and are not really members of the group, but are going to be members of the group.

“Decolonization is not only the return of land, but it’s also the abolishment of slavery” Some people were surprised by the attempt to remove the statue after the Black Indigenous Solidarity Rally at Buckingham Fountain. It seemed like not everyone was aware that people were going to bring it down the same day. Do you know why there was confusion?

People just don’t expect that kind of action from Chicago, just because we’ve been so tame and peaceful for so long, that as soon as somebody got inspired to fight back against the cops, it was like a contagious courage went through the crowd. I know that some people were confused, but... I think the people that were keeping up with what’s going on around the country, as soon as we got to the Columbus statue, I think that’s when [their] minds started going like, “We’re gonna take this down.” So after the rally, we made it clear that we don’t police people’s protests and that we’re going to protect each other. So I think people got all inspired by seeing the solidarity, they just decided, you know, ‘let’s try to take these statues down,’ and eventually they did come down. So even if it wasn’t successful then, you know, it ended up coming down in the end. And we got to laugh in JohnFOP-what’s-his-name’s face, while it was going down.

A lot of people don’t know much about Native American history in Chicago or Illinois, but if you could tell people something that they need to know about their history, what would you tell them?

Definitely the people of the Three Fires: Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, which are like the colonial names. Then Miami, Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Meskwaki, Sauk... so Chicago’s been a city for a long time and there’s actually, I can go over 100 different nations that claim it as part of their ancestral territory, but I think those are the most prominent in a city that still has tribal members. They’re not really a big concentration. Like Albany Park has a lot of Natives; in West Rogers Park there’s a group of Natives, and I think on the South Side there’s a pretty big [community]. The 70s or 80s is when our neighborhood got broken up, and since then we’ve just kind of been all

over. But through mutual aid, we noticed a lot of Native people just live on the outskirts of the city. Way on the North Side, way on the West Side, or way on the South Side.

There’s not really a lot in the middle.

The name of the event was “Decolonize...” and I’m assuming this is the Indigenous name for Chicago and I don’t know how to pronounce it and I don’t want to mess it up.

Do you know how to pronounce it?

It’s Zhigaagoong (she-gah-goo). It’s actually not the official Ojibwa word. We’re Soto Ojibwa, which is a different dialect, so that’s what we would call it.

I noticed that CPD, the mayor, and also Trump weaponized this event to make a statement about Black Lives Matter and GoodKids MadCity, even though there were many players, including Indigenous and brown people. How were you reacting to the way the media and politicians were using this event to advance their own agendas?

I seen it as a way for them to use their power to put everyone in their place. And since they don’t really know, most people don’t really know a lot about Natives and how to come at us, that they wanted to punish us in some way, so they chose to punish people on the South and West Sides, which are predominantly Black. And that’s just part of America, colonialism, trying to keep everybody in their place. But to us, we see it as scapegoating and definitely targeted based on race. And even when they were taking the statue down [days later], it kinda felt like they were trying to put something in between [it and] the solidarity that was going on because that might’ve been seen as a Native win, and they attacked Black people at the same time. But we seen it as a win for both Black people and Native

people because of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which not a lot of people [associate] that with Columbus.

You mentioned that this was the beginning of coalition building among different groups. Do you look at other places in history or other cities’ efforts as inspiration?

Growing up in Chicago, I just grew up with Fred Hampton a lot. I think he was the last one in Chicago who was trying to really build, through the Rainbow Coalition, a meaningful relationship with Native people, so just growing up hearing those stories. Then recently, the solidarity that happened in Minneapolis, that was a Native neighborhood where everything went down [in response to George Floyd’s murder]. We were able to recognize Native people, we were able to hear them by watching the live videos. There was a condo that got burned down and that was a Native neighborhood right there. So it was our Native friends in Minneapolis who were going live and showing us that this was happening right outside the door. Like the MIGIZI Center, some of the [Chi-Nations Youth] know people who go there. Just watching that stuff unfold live, and then hearing what they were saying, that this sacrifice is worth it for what’s coming up next, nobody was trying to blame anybody, it was almost immediate solidarity.

I noticed Natives were much more visible in Minneapolis. What is the Native American population in Chicago?

There’s a lot of Native nations in Minneapolis, that’s one of the biggest cities populated with Natives. In Chicago, it’s anywhere between thirty and sixty-five thousand. In 2017, the last number I heard was like thirty-five thousand, but the Census said eighty thousand in the area, and sixtyfive thousand in Chicago.

The effort to get rid of Columbus Day came out of Chi-Nations Youth?

We were approached with it by non-Native folks. I mean, my entire life we’ve been trying to abolish Columbus Day. I think replacing it with Indigenous People’s Day is something new and not really something that everyone wants as much as we want Columbus Day to be abolished. We wrote the ordinance for the abolishment of Columbus Day and

BY MATEO ZAPATA

replacing it with Indigenous People’s Day, but it wasn’t something that we sat around and talked about and were very intentional with, it was something that came to us just because a lot of work had already been done by non-Native folks collecting petitions and stuff like that. So we just kind of jumped on board with it.

Have you had the support of your local alderman or other leadership?

Yeah, we’re right on the border of the 33rd and 35th ward. Carlos [Ramírez-Rosa] and Rossana [Rodríguez Sánchez] have been supportive of basically everything that we’ve asked of them, to their best of their ability. I was on WTTW with [38th Ward alderman Nicholas] Sposato and he seemed like he was not open to it, but he was at least cordial and we were able to have a discussion. But he doesn’t think [Columbus] supports white supremacy, so at a base level I don’t think we could’ve agreed on anything.

Some people are saying the Columbus statue is just “symbolic”. But what are your next steps?

We definitely wanna come at the Blackhawks logo. We don’t really know how to do it yet, we’re working with some people, but trying to get people to recognize the Blackhawks logo as a stereotype, and since Chicago Public Schools already have a dress code that prohibits racism, that that symbol can be put in there because there’s a lot of research that shows that it does depress our kids. We want to go at Chicago Public Schools. And W. Rockwell Wirtz, the owner of the Blackhawks, is the board of trustees chairman at the Field Museum, and the Field Museum is like the main educator of Chicago on Native people and they’ve done a disservice this whole time, that we fear that they’re just gonna continue doing that…. There are people in there who are intentional and want to work with the community, but I don’t think there’s enough of them to actually do something meaningful for the Native community and that will truly educate the public about us.

We have a Native-only day at the garden where we get together and barbecue. She came there, she’s doing fine. She’s in high spirits because the statues ended up coming down, and we didn’t really want to trigger her or ask her too many questions about what happened. She was hanging on to her bike and they hit her hand. She’s actually Simon Pokagon’s great-granddaughter. He’s the one who sued the city for the land that we were protesting on, east of Michigan Avenue, in the 1800s.

You mentioned that a Native person had their hand broken, is she okay? Who is she?

Jacqueline Serrato is the editor-in-chief of the South Side Weekly. She last wrote about a Black/brown truce in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests.

Her name is Corinne. She’s recovering. She came to the First Nations Garden last week.

Anything else you want to add?

A lot of people are saying that this is something new, but even at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Native people were outside protesting the idea that Columbus founded us, so just that this isn’t a new thing because people are woke all of a sudden. It’s just new that people are joining us in getting rid of these symbols. ¬

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

JUSTICE

What Does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean to You? South Side organizers discuss defunding and abolition, and envision ways to reallocate resources to communities

BY NEFERTARI BILAL This piece is part of a series that explores the various perspectives around defunding the police.

T

he killings this spring of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor by Louisville police sparked a wave of protests against police brutality across the country. Black and brown activists and their allies are demanding that police be held accountable, and that municipal funding be redirected from police budgets to mental health services, education, and other social programs. Increasingly, there are calls for more investment in these resources for Black and brown communities, as well as for a larger reconsideration of what “safety” means—who the police criminalize and who they protect.

To many in the movement, defunding police means opposing the militarization of the police and rethinking how police are currently used, particularly when addressing the types of crime that advocates argue are results of poverty and racial inequality.

Cities including New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia have committed to or adopted forms of defunding. Minneapolis is the sole city that has voted to dismantle its police department entirely, with plans to replace it with a new system of public safety. Often, the word “defund” has been used interchangeably with “abolish,” but they are two distinct ideas. While both are critical of the role of police in society, especially in Black and brown communities, the movement to defund the police calls for reduced police power and police budgets and reinvestment in social services, while still accepting the police as a necessary, if currently oppressive, 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

civic institution. In contrast, the abolition movement ultimately endeavours to create a society in which both the police and systems of mass incarceration cease to exist. Abolition operates on the idea that policing is inherently racist and corrupt, and that police as such can never be trusted to serve Black and brown communities.

Abolitionists therefore see defunding police as only a step towards their ultimate goal of making obsolete police and the prisonindustrial complex, but not the end in itself.

To get a sense of what the defund and abolition movements mean to South Side community organizers in Chicago, South Side Weekly spoke to four: Vaughn Bryant, Cecilia Butler, Berto Aguayo, and Andrea Ortiz. All of these interviewees believe that police have long targeted Black and brown communities due to racism, which has resulted in the abuse and deaths of people from these communities at the hands of police. They differ in their perspectives on how feasible reform is. Some believe that the police cannot be reformed, and want to abolish both police and prisons. Others think that a traditional police force is still necessary for addressing violent crime, even though they agree that police need to be held accountable for acts of brutality and that more funding should go to social services.

Vaughn Bryant is the executive director of Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, overseeing Communities Partnering 4 Peace, which seeks to reduce violence and gang activity by coordinating with community organizations, Chicago Public Schools, and the Chicago Police Department, providing trauma-informed care and using restorative justice practices.

Cecilia Butler is president of the Washington Park Advisory Council, which plans events in the park, while also seeking to create a space for residents to meet and talk with local police, who hold meetings at the local church.

Berto Aguayo is a 2019 candidate for 15th Ward alderman and the founder of Back of the Yards-based Increase The Peace, which endeavours to address root causes of violence by hosting block parties and advocating for greater resources to be invested in the community.

Andrea Ortiz is a community organizer from the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council campaigning to remove police officers from schools and for the elimination of the city’s gang database.

“We need to be creating those healthy communities that don’t need these cops that think they are saving us, because the only people that can save us is ourselves.”

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

What is the problem with policing as we know it, and how can it be changed?

Andrea Ortiz: I think policing is just inherently racist and anti-Black from its very beginning, whether it was the police that were down South and were slave catchers or the police up North that were union busters.

I think no amount of training would change that kind of mentality. We do know what works, and that is investing in communities: making sure that folks have a livable wage, not just a minimum wage, [and] that they have accessible housing, access to food, a good quality education. And also taking resources to help address harm and prevent harm from happening, instead of police, who are reacting to harm and furthering trauma; harming the community without really addressing the harm that's happening due to root causes.

Vaughn Bryant: There's a lack of trust between the police and the community.

I think it's going to be changed by police knowing the communities they're policing, the communities knowing the police officers as individuals, as human beings versus police officers. I think that when police make mistakes, that they [should be] able to be held accountable by our legal system. That'll help, but I think that ensuring the scope of police work is correct and that we don't send police into situations that are not police matters. Being homeless is not necessarily a crime, and needing mental health services is not a crime. And so we need to make sure police are fighting crime and not issues of poverty.

BY SHANE TOLENTINO

Berto Aguayo: I’ll give you an example of something that happened. … On Friday [at the Hit the Hood peace march] this sergeant tells me before the march starts that you can't march on the street and you have to march on the sidewalk. And I said, I don't know where you are, but that's not going to happen. We're marching in the street, whether you like it or not. And she said, no, you cannot put people on the street…. So there was only resistance to a damn peace march. It boggles the mind when you activate community residents [and] then there's only resistance to it. On Saturday we’re handing out food at a peace food pantry on 47th and Western—hot dogs, produce, ketchup and mustard and Pepsi for people to have a safe, fun night at their house. Out of nowhere, the same police officers that were working against us the day before, they swarmed the place and I thought they were going to kick us out. But no, they come over with camera

crews, tripods taking pictures [and] tried to start handing out food. I'm like, yo we not cool with that. Y'all didn't even contribute to any of this and you were actively working against us yesterday, and now you want to use [us] as promotional material?… It’s got me really upset, and I think that example highlights the problem with policing in the ‘hood as we know it. These folks don't have relationships with trusted community members. They think that they run everything, that somebody can't do a peace march or can't take over a hotspot without their permission and approval. You have to remind them that they work for us and they serve us, instead of the other way around.

Can the police be reformed? Why or why not?

CB: I should hope so. We need [reform].

I'm sure the police can say, “now we

watched what happened to George and we didn’t see George doing anything.” You see what happened to George and how the community, the city, the state, the country, the world has reacted to what happened to George. ‘Cause for eight and a half minutes we saw somebody killing somebody! So it's the truth and we are dealing with it and we'll never forget it.

BA: You can’t reform culture. You can’t reform what people say when the cameras aren’t there. You can’t reform the groupthink that exists when someone goes into a police department; they’ve been conditioned to think that they are the good guys and our communities are the villains. You just can’t.

That’s why I think we need to be creating those healthy communities that don’t need these cops that think they are saving us, because the only people that can save us is ourselves.

VB: I believe police will be reformed. Why? Because I think there's been elements of great policing that are out there. We have some police here in Chicago that I know personally. My father was a police officer in Detroit. I often tell people every coach I had until I got to high school was a police officer. They're human beings. And there’s systems—societal, legislative and policy things—that we need to do to help them improve. There's one thing to train the police, but there’s on-the-job training in this culture and [then there are] ethics that have to be carried out on the job. And all of those things have to be dealt with. I think the other issue is police unions. Oftentimes, they're going to understandably protect police and their jobs but not to the extent where we lose trust in the police officer of the community. That has gone too far, and has to be addressed.

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

JUSTICE

What does abolishing the police mean to you?

AO: I think when we're talking about abolishing the police, we’re also talking about the prison industrial system and abolishing prisons as well. [We’re talking about]how inherently racist and anti-Black [these systems are]. Policing, prisons and jails don't work. [But] I think it's really hard when you're talking to people in communities about abolishing police or prisons, because there is a lot of harm or trauma and you need to be making sure that you're [not] invalidating people's experiences. Growing up in Brighton Park, there is a lot of gang and gun violence and I lost a lot of friends to gun violence. When we're [talking about] abolishing police and prisons, people are like, “What about all this harm that's being caused?” How do we have conversations with folks about what should be in place to make sure that this harm was never caused to begin with? I think that's always the hardest thing to do when talking about abolishing the police: thinking more holistically about a community that goes beyond police.

BA: For me, it's not about defunding CPD or abolishing CPD, it’s about funding the ‘hood and creating an environment [with] more of the things that we want [and less of ] the things that we don't want, like violence… then that creates benefits. I believe when everyone's needs in those communities are met, then we don't need people patrolling our neighborhoods. But what does that mean? That means reallocating the forty percent of the city's budget that [currently] goes towards policing, to things that tackle the root of the tree that is violence. If we continue spending money on an ax to cut the branches, the branches are going to keep growing, but if we take that money and reinvest it in the soil and the water that replenishes our communities in the form of housing, the mental health, education, youth employment opportunities, then we don’t need anything else because those needs are being met.

Why do you think people may be resistant to the idea of abolishing or defunding the police? What can be done to address their concerns?

BA: A lot of our community members [have] lived in our violence-ridden neighborhood 12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

for so long, they've been conditioned to think that safety equals policing. We have to really flip the script and say, look, let’s go to the Gold Coast. Let's go to all these communities that have abundant resources, that are not as overpoliced as we are. But we got to start talking to the streets and educate our communities about how what we're asking for is not so far-fetched. But how do we [translate] that language that me, you, and other activists and other folks on Twitter, on Instagram know already? We gotta be able to meet people where they're at, and educate folks on what [abolishing or defunding] means to a block on 4800 Winchester, or in a neighborhood in Roseland.

Some envision a society where police and prisons would cease to exist, especially if people had the resources they needed, preventing a need to turn to crime. Do you believe this is possible?

VB: I believe in living and operating in the world as it is while trying to create the world that you want to see. And I don't believe, understanding human nature the way I understand it, that we'll ever have a time when there is not police. Would it be ideal to be in a society that didn't require police?

Of course. I don't think that's far fetched as an ideal. I think the question is, is it realistic and is it wise, given what we know about humans, especially in a capitalistic society?

If you've done any studying around all of the different economic systems, then you know capitalism creates haves and havenots.

This is why you have to have some level of regulation to create a middle class. And both tensions are always going to exist in any structure. There's no perfect system because humans are imperfect.

CB: No, I'm not for getting rid of them, because if we don't have them, then what?

Right now, people [are] acting buck wild in the street! … Even if it might be minute in certain communities where you wouldn’t expect it, there is one form of crime or another. Now, do we necessarily need a policeman to handle some of that? We probably don't. Some of that could be a mental problem, but to not be able call 911, let some crime happen on you and see how you feel about it! Not that you want to wish that on anyone, but unless you live with your mother and father and they watch over you, there was always a form of policeman in most homes. They were mother and dad,

and someone or both of them kept order. If not the children would be running it, right?

So we need them, but who and how, that's hard to say.

they've been exploited. And now the just thing to do is to redistribute resources and reallocate resources equitably so that those communities have a chance.

How would crimes such as stalking, robbery, murder, sexual assault, and similar be handled without turning to police?

VB: I think for Black people in particular, it would be great to get to a point where we're just seen as full Americans and race is not an impediment to our progress as citizens. ¬

AO: As someone who's been sexually assaulted, the police didn’t help me. I think that even if the police were to get involved, I wouldn't feel peace, just because that harm was already caused to me. When thinking about rape and sexual assault, there has to be a culture shift of [the] male supremacy and patriarchy that we live in, and people feeling entitled to a woman’s body. I'm definitely challenging myself on how these specific harms are addressed.

VB: I don't think that we will ever live in a society where police aren't necessary. I think police may be the first people you call, especially when somebody's safety is being jeopardized. But incarceration may not be the answer. There are plenty of organizations out there that work on both domestic violence and mental health. There are professionals out there trained to deal with those situations. So I think the police have a role, but then also our community, they have a role as well. I think them working hand-in-hand is the answer, not one or the other. It’s more ... being able to assess the situation and then make sure that the appropriate resources are being used given the circumstances.

How do you envision the world in the future, assuming the current social movement to end police brutality and police racism is successful?

BA: I envision a world where people have direct pathways into careers and into opportunities for long-term growth, but also where we are tackling the root causes of the issue, so that people in our community have resources that are accessible just the same way they are in healthy communities all around the country, whether that's Barrington or Lincoln Park. And I think that requires a redistribution of resources.

We shouldn't be scared to say that that's what should happen. We should be able to say, hey, historically, these communities have been deprived, marginalized, oppressed, and

Nefertari Bilal is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She is passionate about issues of race, gender, social justice, and politics as they affect communities of color. This is her first piece for the Weekly.

HEALTH

COVID-19: What we know now Up-to-date information on how to keep yourself and others safe, and what lies ahead for Chicago

BY ELORA APANTAKU AND CHARMAINE RUNES; ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAE ROSA AND THUMY PHAN; MAPS BY BEA MALSKY

COVID: AIRBORNE OR DROPLET?

T

here have been a few COVID-19 outbreaks in which transmission occurred in a way that suggests it can spread as an aerosol, a light particle that can stay in the air for hours. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have thus far not definitively stated that COVID-19 is spread through airborne transmission. In July, after 239 scientists called on the agency to revise its position, the WHO did update its recommendation, saying in part: "short-range aerosol transmission, particularly in specific indoor locations, such as crowded and inadequately

ventilated spaces over a prolonged period of time with infected persons cannot be ruled out."

Droplet diseases (including strep throat, whooping cough, the flu, and the common cold) travel on respiratory droplets released with coughs, sneezes, and talking. Because of their size compared to air, they usually fall down to the ground and other surfaces quickly and can stay infectious for a long time (several hours for influenza and cold viruses). Airborne diseases (which includes measles, chickenpox, and tuberculosis) are spread on small aerosols that are typically produced by evaporation from respiratory

droplets. They can float in the air for minutes to hours.

Regardless of how the virus that causes COVID-19 travels, wearing a mask and socially distancing have been shown to reduce its spread. If the virus that causes COVID-19 is airborne and spreads through small aerosols, additional caution should be taken in indoor spaces with poor ventilation, where the virus may linger in the air, increasing your chances for infection.

BY GRAE ROSA

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Beautifully updated 4-bedroom Greystone has a wonderful private patio. There is new wiring, new 200-amp electrical service, and central air. House retains original archetectural features: stained glass windows, hardwood floors, two decorative fireplaces, original built-ins and a grand staircase. Renovated bathrooms include one with a jet tub. The kitchen has white quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, extra storage and an additional breakfast area. Spacious bedrooms on the second floor have high ceilings, crown moldings and stained glass windows.

CO N TAC T U S AT 3 1 2 . 3 37. 24 0 0

AUGUST 5, 2020 ÂŹ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

COMMON COVID MYTHS BUSTED

LONG-TERM EFFECTS REOPENING CHICAGO

Myth 1: If you test positive for COVID-19, you will have it for life.

It is possible to recover from the disease, and many do. The Chicago Department of Public Health recommends that individuals who test positive seek medical care and treat their symptoms as soon as they can.

The recovery time for people with mild COVID-19 infections that do not require hospitalization is typically between one and two weeks. According to a WHO report on preliminary data of COVID-19 from China in February, people with severe cases of COVID-19 took a median of three to six weeks to recover.

Recent studies in the US suggest recovery courses can vary a lot depending on age and pre-existing conditions. Age greater than fifty, immunosuppressive conditions, obesity, and chronic kidney disease were most associated with prolonged symptoms.

However, even twenty percent of young adults with COVID-19 continued to have some symptoms after three weeks.

The most common persistent symptoms are fatigue, dyspnea (difficult breathing), cough, joint pain, and chest pain.

However, people who become critically ill with COVID-19 may develop persistent difficulties with cognition, mental health, and physical function.

Myth 2: If you have recovered from COVID-19, you are now immune and don’t have to worry about getting reinfected.

According to the CDC, there is a lot we don’t yet know about COVID-19 immunity.

Individuals who are infected with other coronaviruses usually do not get re-infected in the first few months after they recover, but it is unclear if patients with COVID-19 will experience this level of immunity.

There have been reports of a few cases of apparent re-infection, but more information is needed.

Myth 3: 5G technology is linked to COVID-19.

According to the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the WHO, 5G technology does not spread COVID-19. The novel coronavirus cannot spread on radio waves or mobile networks.

Myth 4: You can use disinfectant lamps and wands to kill COVID-19.

Possibly some lamps, but only on surfaces and objects (according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). The WHO recommends not using UV-C disinfectant lamps and wands to disinfect any part of your body because UV radiation can damage the eyes and skin.

Myth 5: COVID-19 can spread through wastewater.

According to the CDC, the virus that causes COVID-19 has been detected in untreated wastewater, but researchers do not know if it can cause disease through that route of exposure. So

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

far, there has been no evidence that this has occurred, and the risk of transmission through sewage systems is thought to be low.

According to CDPH, the COVID-19 virus has not been detected in drinking water.

Conventional water treatment methods that use filtration and disinfection, such as those in most municipal drinking water systems, should remove or inactivate the virus that causes COVID-19.

Myth 6: People with certain blood types are more prone to getting infected with COVID-19.

One study from Harvard Medical School found that individuals who exhibited symptoms who had B or AB blood types and were Rh positive were more likely to test positive for COVID-19, while those with blood type O were less likely to test positive. The researchers also found that patient blood type had no relationship to the severity of COVID-19. However, this is just one study, and more research is needed to understand what is driving these differences.

On May 17, Mayor Lightfoot announced her reopening Chicago plan that enforces and eases restrictions on businesses and citizens depending on trends in COVID-19 case numbers, case positivity (the percentage of positive COVID-19 test results) hospitalizations, deaths, and testing capacity. Currently Chicago is in phase IV, but reinstated some restrictions, such as reducing the number of people allowed in bars and restaurants, in response to elevated daily case numbers on July 24.

Phase I: Strict Stay at Home: shelter in place, only essential businesses open Phase II: Stay at Home: only go outside as needed, wear masks in public Phase III: Some non-essential businesses can open if they meet standards; social gatherings of ten or fewer people allowed.

Myth 7: The best way to prevent COVID-19 is to avoid all meat products and go vegan.

There are several good reasons to go vegan, but thinking that it will prevent COVID-19 infection is not one of them. According to the CDC, there is no evidence that you can get infected by eating food. The main way coronaviruses are thought to spread is person-to-person through respiratory droplets when someone coughs, sneezes, or talks. Before preparing or eating anything, it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for at least twenty seconds for general food safety.

APRIL

3/16 - FIRST CHICAGO DEATH: PATRICIA FREISON, 61-YEAR-OLD RETIRED NURSE FROM AUBURN GRESHAM.

For everything you wanted to know about masks see our website at southsideweekly.com

Phase vulner T requir cases than 2 days, p the ca daily. H phase be ava If criteri back t

4/23 - CHICAGO HIGHEST DAILY TIVE CASE RATE (1,473 CASES/

MARCH

MASKS

Phase as the allowe contin social

4/8 - COOK COUNTY JAIL IS REPORTED TO BE THE LARGEST-KNOWN SOURCE OF COVID-19 INFECTIONS IN THE U.S.

3/26 - CHICAGO “STAY AT HOME” ORDER ENACTED, REQUIRING PEOPLE TO STAY SIX FEET AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. 3/27 - US PASSED CARES ACT. CHICAGO RECEIVED $1.1 BILLION.

VACCINATION

e IV: All businesses can open as long ey meet safeguards; socially gathering ed up to fifty people indoors, but nue to wear face masks and practice distancing.

e V: Vaccine is available, nonrable individuals can return to work To move to the next phase, Chicago res a declining rate of new citywide over twenty-eight days and/or fewer 200 new cases per day over fourteen positivity rate below five percent, and apability of testing at least 4,500 people However, since the city is currently in IV, it would also require a vaccine to ailable to move to phase V. f Chicago fails at any of the above ia, it will reinstate restrictions, or move to the previous phase.

Y POSI/DAY).

At this time, there is no vaccine for COVID-19, and there is too much uncertainty to predict when one might become available.

Vaccine development happens in three clinical phases, typically over the course of several years.

Phase 1: Small groups of people receive the trial vaccine to test things such as safety and appropriate dosage (CDC) Phase 2: The clinical study expands—people who have characteristics (e.g., age and physical health) similar to those for whom the new vaccine is intended receive the trial vaccine Phase 3: The clinical study scales up—hundreds or thousands of people receive the vaccine to test if it is safe and effective (i.e., does the vaccine reduce the risk of disease for vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated people?)

The Food and Drug Administration licenses a vaccine only if it is found to be both safe and effective, and if its benefits are found to outweigh any risks. Even after a vaccine has been approved, it continues to undergo testing.

There are currently more than twenty-five COVID-19 vaccine candidates undergoing human trials In the Chicago region, two universities have launched initiatives to help test potential vaccines.

In June, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) called for volunteers for a Phase III clinical trial to test an RNA-based vaccine developed by Moderna, a biotech company, as part of a nationwide study.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is administering

the trial. Anyone interested in volunteering to participate in a vaccine trial can register at this website: https://ccts.uic.edu/news-stories/heres-howto-volunteer-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-trial/. The research team is interested in recruiting a diverse group of participants, including first responders and residents in predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods.

On July 27, Northwestern Medicine announced its COVID Prevention Trials Registry. The registry will connect participants, based on their health profile, to different studies for prevention of the disease. Northwestern University is looking to recruit individuals who are eighteen or older and who live or work in places that put them at a high risk of exposure to COVID-19, such as health care workers, public transportation employees, and individuals living in congregate settings. The research team is also looking for participants from communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, especially the elderly, Black and Latinx residents, and individuals with underlying health conditions. A Phase III clinical vaccine trial is expected to launch at Northwestern this month. Researchers will test two doses of a vaccine developed by the biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford: one dose to start, followed by another dose a month later. Anyone interested in learning more about or participating in the study can email nuvaccinestudy@northwestern.edu or call (312) 695-5012.

Dr. Karen Krueger is the principal investigator for Northwestern's COVID-19 registry. In an email, Krueger said it is difficult to predict when a vaccine might be ready, but she is hopeful that one will be ready by 2021.

MAP LEGEND

8/1 - 627,709 TESTS PERFORMED, (23 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION), WITH 61,447 CONFIRMED CASES, 2,787 DEATHS (MORTALITY RATE 4.5 PERCENT, POSITIVITY RATE 3.8 PERCENT).

MAY 5/1 - 91,607 TESTS PERFORMED, WITH 22,744 CONFIRMED CASES, 1,114 DEATHS ( MORTALITY RATE 4.2 PERCENT, POSITIVITY RATE 27.5 PERCENT).

6/26 - CHICAGO MOVES TO PHASE IV REOPENING.

5/5 - CHICAGO HIGHEST DAILY DEATH RATE (FIFTY-SEVEN DEATHS/DAY).

5/8 - CHICAGO ANNOUNCES “PROTECTING CHICAGO” FRAMEWORK, A FIVE PHASE REOPENING PLAN (AND AT THE TIME IS IN PHASE II).

7/24 - CHICAGO REINSTATES SOME RESTRICTIONS (BECAUSE OF INCREASE OF DAILY CASES) BUT REMAINS IN PHASE IV.

JUNE

6/1 - 210,191 TESTS PERFORMED, WITH 45,912 CONFIRMED CASES, 2,156 DEATHS (MORTALITY RATE 4.7 PERCENT, POSITIVITY RATE 10.5 PERCENT).

6/3 - CHICAGO MOVES TO PHASE III REOPENING.

7/15 - CHICAGO HIGHEST DAILY TEST RATE (10,524 TESTS/DAY).

JULY 7/1 - 327,862 TESTS PERFORMED, WITH 52,569 CONFIRMED CASES, 2,531 DEATHS (MORTALITY RATE FIVE PERCENT, POSITIVITY RATE 3.1 PERCENT).

7/2 - TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS ON PEOPLE TRAVELING FROM HIGH CASE-RATE STATES ENACTED

*NUMBER OF DEATHS FROM COVID-19 SOURCED FROM THE COOK COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE, NUMBER OF TESTS AND CASES FROM THE CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH. POSITIVITY WAS MEASURED BY LOOKING AT THE NUMBER OF TESTS COMPLETED AND NUMBER OF POSITIVE TEST RESULTS IN THE PREVIOUS TWO-WEEK PERIOD.

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

Student Essay Contest Winners Rachel Kim, our former education editor, and Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, one of our current education editors, collaborated to hold South Side Weekly’s second student essay contest this summer.

The theme for the contest was inspired by Chicago native Nate Marshall’s poem, “When I Say Chicago.” We asked students: What do you mean when you say Chicago? We wanted to hear how students “find, define, build, and maintain a sense of community in Chicago”: their answers, penned during a pandemic and a summer of immense racial injustice against Black people, were especially poignant.

We received over fifteen submissions from all over the South Side. We are extremely grateful for all of these submissions and for the time, energy, and care students put into writing them during a time of unbelievable stress, pain, and uncertainty. There were so many incredible, thoughtful essays, each offering a different view of what makes Chicago so beautiful and so special. In the end, we chose three essays to print. ¬

WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY CHICAGO?

BY CHELSEA IKE When I say Chicago I mean the city I was raised in I mean the neighborhood people I grew up with I mean the 50 cent chips you can buy at the gas station I mean the city filled with many African Americans, Hispanics and more.

I mean the pizza plaza famous for its deep dish pizza I mean the busy crowded roads downtown & my sister & my brother & my nephew & my aunt & my uncle When I say Chicago I mean the elementary school around the corner I mean the buses going to 95th/Dan Ryan and back I mean the high school that accepted my application I mean the IHOP on Blvd, Hammond that served my family I mean the Longhorn Steakhouse I went to on my graduation I mean the city that caused pain for my neighbor & that man

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& that woman & that mother & that father & that sibling & that family When I say Chicago I mean the time when I walked home from school almost everyday I mean the stray cats wandering around my neighborhood I mean the 4th of July bbq, drinking soft drinks and eating grilled meat.

I mean watching the men and women jog as my dad drives past.

I mean going to Nigerian gatherings and eating jollof rice and meat pie I mean going to the beach with my brother, playing with my siblings & that girl & that boy & that kid & that sand bucket & that water gun & that ball When I say chicago I mean when my brother comes over and brings us fried chicken with fries and oreos I mean when on hot days my mom goes to the store and brings back ice cream.

I mean when the weather’s warm, my sisters and I go for warm walks with our dog I mean when my dad came home with a big fluffy goldendoodle, that leaped everytime it saw us.

I mean the cold winters when I was forced to wear heavy coats and clothing I mean the warm days when I got fast food with my senior friend & this guy & that girl & that group & this friend & that friend & this kid When I say Chicago I mean the nice people greeting one another on the sidewalks I mean people selling CDs at park or gas station I mean people sitting down and chatting at restaurants I mean people on business calls, rushing to get to work I mean people giving out donations of foods, clothing, and hygiene products I mean people donating money to the poor & to charity & to programs & to small businesses

& to clothing brands & to makeup brands & to shoe brands When I say Chicago I think about my family and my closest friends I think about my past and my regrets I think about my broken bonds and tied ones I think about the happy and exciting moments I think about the depressing and anxious moments I think about the pain my people of color are feeling & how they’re feeling & how she’s feeling & how he’s feeling & how Hispanics are feeling & how Asians are feeling & how Native Americans and Muslims are feeling & how Blacks are feeling.

Chelsea Ike is a student at the Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School. She is one of three winners of the South Side Weekly 2020 Student Essay Contest. This is her first contribution to the Weekly.

LIT

WHEN I SAY CHICAGO

BY ANGELA WILLIAMS

W

hen I say Chicago, I mean its violence. The chaos that crowds our broken, discombobulated streets and sidewalks every day. Riots that cry and wail for justice, flames that clog the throats of our activists. Torn up neighborhoods and families, hiding from the wars that yet again lead to dismay. Fear of a contagious disease, the world enslaved in hell with the walls closing in on them.

Innocent people murdered for their color, massacred for their strength.

Sometimes, being here is disappointing. What people have done to “justify” other cruel actions. To steal from those who need what they have is not making anything right. You’re just as much of a criminal.

When I say Chicago, I mean its beauty.

Leaders engaging with their community to help lead a land for the free. Our people are together to bring life during these trying times. Angels give a helping hand to people in need. Despite the despair and pure loss of hope, we pursue our passions that blow millions away! Perhaps that's why we call ourselves the “Windy City.” The cool breeze

of color paints our world, and it's gorgeous inside and out.

When I say Chicago, I mean its reliability. Workers come in day after day to provide for their city. Professionals push themselves to guarantee the security of this city's citizens. Policymakers write the rules to restrict downfall. Organizations help contribute to the villages of low-income.

Several of the gifted voluntarily open their wings. Commanders are cautious of their actions that affect their residents.

When I say Chicago, I mean its connection to me. Due to being here my whole life, this city is a part of me. Most of my family stay near or around me.

The artistic societies I wish to take part in motivated me to be who I am today.

Even though I grew up here and have seen practically nowhere else, I still ache for change. The gunshots that go off in the night. Cries of more victims, making it hard to keep friends. Reaching out for help and being rejected. Feeling this horrid, pitiful feeling for the ones I've lost. Chicago has shown me a lot. Of course, some are dreadful and some sweet. But, this is the

place where I got to decide who I wanted to be. And I'm so very appreciative of that.

When I say Chicago, I mean its people. Groups that assist the poor, and the poor that are beneficial to the rich.

Those that choose to lead to the light or pull followers into their darkness they emit.

A separation between the races that aren’t fully intentional. An absent sense of order as stores come to a close from the fear of their people. Patients clinging to their lives, fighting for the ones they love. Our people are strong but easily misled. Which brings me to the conclusions I’ve made over the years. The people of this city are a complex blend, and that’s one of the many reasons that I still have some love left.

Everything here is diverse and different.

All communities support one another and live together in an attempt to harmonize.

When I think of Chicago, I think of the sacrifices many have made. And I just want to say, thank you. Without you, many would be lost. So please, keep going. What you’re doing is making life so much easier to deal with right now. I appreciate you all in all you do. So, thank you. Continue to

BY ANGELA WILLIAMS

stay safe. You’re doing great! Remember that many love you all for what you do. I couldn’t feel more blessed. We could have better, but that’s something we’ll earn. Stay strong Chicago, and stand tall.

Angela Williams is a student at Richard T. Crane Medical Prep High School. She is a 16-year-old aspiring visual artist whose passion comes from the stars above. She can be found on Twitter at @starcanbe, and on Instagram at @starcanreallybe. She runs an online t-shirt store at stararts20.myshopify. com. She is one of three winners of the South Side Weekly 2020 Student Essay Contest. This is her first contribution to the Weekly, and she is hoping to grow more with the Weekly in the future.

I’M FROM CHICAGO

BY MORGAN NEW

I

’m from Chicago.

BY ANTHONY NGUYEN

Where it’s shoot or get shot. You’re not beautiful you’re hot. Bullets fly and bodies drop. Where you are his side chick not his wife. Some girls don’t go anywhere without a knife, and you can be 16 in a cell doing life.

I’m from Chicago where mommas bury their sons while their daughters are on the run. Some twelve-year-olds can't go anywhere without a gun. I’m from Chicago, where making it to twenty-one is a blessing, and walking down the streets leaves you stressing.

I’m from Chicago, where people have nowhere to stay and girls tell some of the only real men out here to stay safe because they could die the next day.

Listen I'm from Chicago, where mommas crying, children dying, police

lying, gangs riding, people still trying to have hope. But I’m from Chicago and I won’t ever hide it.

I’m from Chicago, but don’t forget, our skyline is the best there’s ever been and Navy Pier never fails to make you feel like a kid again.

I’m from Chicago, so you know I like that deep dish and other places wish they had pizza as good as this.

I’m from Chicago, and though our winters are rough, it makes Chicagoans tough enough to face whatever life throws at us. So stop coming for Chicago because your city probably has issues on it’s own.

We might have different problems but you still should focus on the place you call home.

And if you’re ever driving late at night make sure to drive by the beautiful Lake Shore Drive. Also don’t forget about the

original water tower which was the only thing that didn’t burn, in a fire started by a lantern kicked down by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Don’t know if that’s the real story but that’s what I learned.

And if you’re ever on vacation, wherever you go... just know Chicago will always be here to welcome you home. So now you know the reason why I’m from Chicago, and I won’t EVER hide it.

Morgan New is an actress, model, and dancer, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago.

She is currently a sophomore at The Chicago High School for the Arts with a 4.3 GPA. Morgan has received numerous awards for her writing and academic achievements. She is one of three winners of the South Side Weekly 2020 Student Essay Contest. This is her first contribution to the Weekly.

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

FOOD

Bridging Chicago’s Food Gap

Why’s it so perennially hard to get food to those in need?

BY MARTHA BAYNE, KARI MCMAHON, MAURA TURCOTTE, AND KARI LYDERSEN

VOLUNTEERS DISTRIBUTE FOOD AT THE GRAND BOULEVARD PLAZA SHOPPING CENTER ON JUNE 4, 2020. PHOTO BY MARTHA BAYNE

“With the pandemic’s significant impact on both the food supply chain and individual food security, the consequences for hunger relief organizations are expected to be dire.”

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S

ylvester and Felicia Toliver heard about it from a friend. Catherine Williams found out from her sister. Lolita Taylor’s cousin called her to tell her about it.

On a sunny Tuesday morning in May, they and scores of other Chicagoans—bus drivers and day care operators and home health care workers and custodians and retirees— waited on foot and in their cars for a pop-up food pantry staged by the Greater Chicago Food Depository (GCFD). For many, this was the first time that they’ve ever waited in line for supplemental food.

As they waited, volunteers from local churches and the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation hustled around the parking lot of a closed Save-A-Lot at 79th and Halsted, stacking boxes of produce and dry goods on folding tables.

A video truck screened slides depicting proper handwashing and social distancing techniques, as well as graphics showing the most recent breakdown of COVID-19 deaths in Chicago by race. The Black and Latinx communities have been hit disproportionately hard, and Auburn Gresham has one of the highest per capita death rates in the city. Over the PA, Bill Withers crooned “Lean on Me.” “Are you here for food?” a volunteer asked a passing pedestrian, then pointed her down 80th Street to the end of the line.

Scenes like this played out all over town in May as the GCFD, the food bank serving Cook County, launched a series of pop-up pantries in South and West Side neighborhoods—not just Auburn Gresham but in South Shore, Roseland, Little Village, Austin, and elsewhere, including Guaranteed Rate Field, aka Sox Park, in Bridgeport.

These and other predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods were already food insecure before the pandemic, said Nicole Robinson, the GCFD vice president for community impact. “There's a large group of folks [on] the South and West sides of the city who have had a history of structural challenges related to doubledigit unemployment, housing, and racial segregation that has made living a full healthy life—which includes access to nutritious food—more difficult.” Now, need is skyrocketing.

FOOD

In April, food insecurity doubled nationwide, and tripled among households with children compared to the predicted rates for March, according to a Northwestern University survey. A third of white respondents with children said they struggled with food insecurity, but about forty percent of both Latinx and Black respondents with children reported issues with food running out and not having enough resources to purchase more. In the Chicago metropolitan area, food insecurity rates rose to twenty-four percent.

A widely circulating news item in early April reported that in Texas, 10,000 cars had lined up at the San Antonio Food Bank’s pop-up distribution site in one day.

Such dystopian scenes have yet to arise in Chicago, but at the Auburn Gresham popup the line of cars waiting at 10am stretched three blocks to the west.

“What we needed to do is pop up and bring the community something that they could do to address their immediate needs now,” said Robinson. “We have a lot of folks who are temporarily furloughed, newly unemployed, and maybe are not familiar with our traditional pantry network, which might be in a church basement or at a community center. And if they're not connected, they don't know where to go.”

Operations like the GCFD have an outsize footprint in the landscape of hunger relief, which makes them uniquely able to scale up in times of crisis. But even before the pandemic, the disparate distribution of resources between Chicago’s North and South Side pantries made it clear that scale alone is not enough to meet ever-increasing need. And a number of heavily Latinx neighborhoods on the Northwest and Southwest sides of the city have relatively few food pantries, even as that population is hard-hit by the pandemic and resulting economic impacts.

With the pandemic’s significant impact on both the food supply chain and individual food security, the consequences for hunger relief organizations across the country are expected to be dire. Demand for supplemental food is likely to map across all-too-predictable lines of race and class. In June 2020, shortly after the food pantry pop-ups started, the GCFD released an interactive map that outlines disparity in the city and their “racial equity” strategy to address inequality in the times of COVID-19. But why did it take so long?

In Chicago, under normal circumstances, the GCFD doesn’t distribute

food directly to residents. Instead, it works with a network of more than 700 food pantries, shelters, kitchens, churches, and other organizations across Cook County.

These organizations purchase dry goods and meats, dairy, and produce at reduced rates from the Food Depository, which operates a 280,000-square-foot warehouse near Interstate 55; the organization estimates that it moves 200,000 pounds of food a day.

In 2019, the GCFD announced plans to build an adjacent 40,000-square-foot new facility to house a meal-preparation kitchen and culinary training center, designed to meet the anticipated spike in demand for supplemental food assistance as baby boomers age.

Now, due to the pandemic, plans for the new facility are delayed. The Trump administration’s proposed cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility, which would have forced an estimated 50,000 people in Cook County to lose benefits, are also temporarily delayed, but the nonprofit network Feeding America predicts an additional 17.1 million people nationally will seek food assistance in the next six months. And since the implementation of the statewide stay-athome order on March 20, about thirty percent of the GCFD’s network pantries have closed, some permanently.

Neighborhood pantries that remain open have scrambled to adapt. They’ve instituted mandatory masking and social distancing practices, and placed restrictions on volunteer capacity. Before the pandemic, said Nicole Robinson, the GCFD was working to implement strategies that had the hypothetical (if improbable) goal of rendering the Food Depository obsolete— strategies like getting families enrolled in SNAP, which can provide “twelve times” more food than a trip to a pantry, and is connected to earned income tax credits. The planned Chicago’s Community Kitchen meal prep facility would also provide workforce development for people in communities burdened by high unemployment.

“We were using the food as a connection point to actually get people to work, to get people connected to benefits that they weren't entitled to, that would make it less stressful so we could actually shorten the pantry line,” she said. “We never celebrated having long lines at a pantry. We wanted that line to be shorter and really keep people out of the line. … Unfortunately, we're in a situation now where we've taken a few steps back.”

F

History and disparity

ood banks and food pantries are a relatively recent invention; the first food bank in the country opened in 1967 in Phoenix, Arizona, but the concept didn’t really take off until the early 1980s, thanks to the Reagan administration’s drastic cuts to social safety net programs.

As Andrew Fisher points out in his book Big Hunger, in 1979, there were thirteen food banks in the United States. In 1989, there were 180. In the past decade, since the economic crisis of 2008, food banks have doubled their distribution; nationwide, they now distribute 5.25 billion pounds and serve 40 million people a year.

In Chicago, the number of food pantries increased by around sixty-three percent from June 2018 to June 2019. But with one-third of the 700 or so pantries in the Food Depository’s network, temporarily or permanently closed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, small pantries, with fewer resources, are finding themselves going the extra mile to meet a growing constellation of needs.

Since Chicago’s food pantries are privately run, many of them by churches, there is no underlying system to ensure equity or make sure that all neighborhoods are adequately served. Some lower-income neighborhoods with much need, like Uptown on the North Side, Humboldt Park on the West Side and Roseland on the South Side, have a relatively high number of pantries, according to data from IRS filings analyzed by South Side Weekly. Other swaths of the city have few, including the sprawling Southeast Side; the Southwest Side corridor of neighborhoods like Brighton Park, McKinley Park, Little Village, Gage Park, and Archer Heights; and Northwest Side neighborhoods including Avondale, Albany Park, and Hermosa. All these regions are home to many workingclass Latinx immigrant communities, a population that now has the state’s highest number of COVID-19 cases. The disparity in pantry distribution has persisted even as more pantries have opened in the past couple years.

In addition to the food that the Greater Chicago Food Depository sells at reduced cost to pantries, the depository also donates food to the pantries. IRS filings show the amount of food donated as “non-cash assistance.”

South Side Weekly examined the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s 2018–

2019 Form 990 IRS filings to retrieve information on all organizations in Chicago receiving more than $5,000 in non-cash assistance, and displayed the information on the interactive map.

In 2018–-2019, according to the document, Greater Chicago Food Depository provided non-cash assistance to 499 organizations, predominantly food pantries, in Chicago. Out of the 499 organizations, 113 received more than $100,000 of non-cash assistance; 89 got between $50,000 and $100,000; 60 got $25,000 to $50,000 and 217 got between $5,000 and $25,000. The Greater Chicago Food Depository does not list organizations that receive less than $5,000.

GCFD spokesperson Greg Trotter notes that “the amount of food that a partner receives depends on numerous factors, including their capacity, frequency of distribution, the number of people they serve and how much they choose to order.”

Many of the red dots, he noted, are also children’s meal programs, which are typically smaller in scale than a large food pantry.

Still, Rebecca Sumner Burgos, the community engagement coordinator at La Casa Norte, a food pantry and social service organization working in Humboldt Park and Back of the Yards, observed that when she uses the “find food” function on the GCFD website, there are many providers in some neighborhoods and very few in others, especially in parts of the West and South Sides. For example, the finder lists just two pantries in South Shore, but seven in Logan Square, where the median income is $75,333 compared to South Shore’s $28,890.

And even in the neighborhoods that appear in the data to be well served by food pantries, supplies may not be enough to meet demand, and access can be difficult for families who struggle to get transportation or risk facing violence when they venture out. These barriers are only heightened by the pandemic, when traveling on public transportation has become highly risky for people especially vulnerable to the disease, and neighbors or family members may be less able to help out because they have kids at home or their own health concerns.

A network of neighborhood-based mutual aid groups has sprung up to help provide food to needy people during the pandemic and community groups like Teamwork Englewood and R.A.G.E. (Resident Association of Greater Englewood), and many others, are adding food provision and delivery to the host of AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

FOOD

“We never celebrated having long lines at a pantry. We wanted that line to be shorter and really keep people out of the line. … Unfortunately, we're in a situation now where we've taken a few steps back.” services they already offered on a shoestring budget. In the aftermath of the late-May protests against police violence and racial injustice, when the threat of looting and vandalism temporarily closed the few existing South Side grocery stores, banks, and other businesses, grassroots food distribution efforts saw another strong surge, many of them led by young Black and brown activists. But it’s still unclear how such efforts may be maintained over the long term, and whether they can possibly be enough to meet the vast and increasing need in struggling neighborhoods.

W

Challenges

ith the disparate distribution of resources well documented, it’s worth asking why closing the gap appears to be such an intractable problem.

For some organizations, simply having space to operate is a hurdle, as are the requirements and paperwork of setting the group up as a nonprofit—a requirement to participate in the GCFD’s network. That’s why so many pantries operate under the existing nonprofit umbrella of churches or faith-based organizations, saic Ryan Maia, an AmeriCorps volunteer at La Casa Norte researching “food as medicine,” the increasingly prominent idea that making sure people have affordable and healthy food will improve their health outcomes.

In those instances, “the organization itself already exists,” Maia said. “But if you’re trying to create something new in an area that doesn't have emergency food providers, where are you going to get the money for that? Who's going to just give you a check for $100,000?”

Pantries operating out of church basements and kitchens may have more 20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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flexibility and less bureaucracy than the nonprofits that are part of the GCFD network, but with sparse resources and aging buildings, they often struggle to serve their communities. They might only be open on weekends, or just not have the resources or capacity to run a robust program. South Side Weekly’s analysis showed that out of 499 food pantries listed in Chicago in 2019, more than 170—over a third—were run out of churches.

For example, at Our Lady of Guadalupe church on the Southeast Side, a few volunteers stock nonperishable food, clothes and other emergency supplies in a small room to help the elderly and low-income residents of the once-thriving community that has struggled economically since steel mills shut down decades ago. Working with allies in a coalition called the South Chicago Food Network, they try to reach people who may be homebound, skeptical or suspicious of aid efforts, and not accustomed to getting or cooking healthy, fresh food. The goal is to help residents not only with food but with connections to housing, immigration, and mental health services. At a meeting in the church basement in the early days of the pandemic, a handful of women ate yogurt, blueberries, and granola bars while reminiscing about a successful health fair they ran last year, strategizing about reaching residents, and lamenting the plight of people unable to travel to stores in other communities or Indiana, even if they did have the money to spend on groceries.

The food pantry is not connected with the GCFD, so they rely almost entirely on private donations. While they are grateful, it is not always ideal. “[Donors] give you garbanzo beans, cases for months, so people don’t want garbanzo beans anymore,” said Vanessa Molina, a food pantry director with the

BAGS OF FOOD TO BE DISTRIBUTED AT THE GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY’S POP-UP PANTRY IN AUBURN GRESHAM ON MAY 12, 2020. PHOTO BY MARTHA BAYNE

church. “Connecting people with resources at pantries is a good move because people don’t know what’s out there. They’re real isolated, they don’t know who to ask.”

Molina noted that on July 15, St. Kevin Catholic Church on the Southeast Side held a food giveaway—including watermelon, cabbage, milk, and meat—but few residents showed up. “It’s on Facebook, but a lot of people don’t have Facebook,” said Molina, who with others at Our Lady of Guadalupe prints fliers listing food pantries in the area.

“There’s stuff to be given, it’s just people are unaware. It’s word of mouth, and catch as catch can.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe closed its pantry for several months this spring; it just reopened in early July, handing boxes of food through a gate in the alley by the church. Other church-based pantries on the Southeast Side are in the process of figuring out how to safely reopen.

Meanwhile, the two-year-old Pilsen Food Pantry has stayed open throughout the pandemic, and even moved into the Holy Trinity Roman Croatian Parish church at 1850 S. Throop in the middle of the shutdown, maintaining hours of service five days a week. They’ve seen traffic spike as high as 260 families a week, but, said founder Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, things have currently stabilized at around 220 families and, “every day that there’s one of those pop-ups, if the alderman is hosting or a church is hosting, our numbers go down by

about thirty families.”

Though people are not allowed inside the building to pick and choose their groceries as they once were, they are able to place an order with an intake worker, and then the order is filled by a volunteer working in the back.

“It’s like science at this point. It works really really well,” said Figueroa, noting that it was important to her to try to maintain the dignity of the experience.

What doesn’t work so well is the building, owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has recently closed and merged several churches in Pilsen. “Taking care of these old buildings costs a lot of money,” pointed out Figueroa. “It’s a 110-year-old building. It doesn’t have an elevator; it’s not ADA accessible—we had to build a ramp. The boiler is broken, the windows are terrible.”

In the wake of the May 31 unrest following the killing of George Floyd, the pantry saw a surge in monetary donations. But it’s still not enough. Perhaps more crucially, they also saw a surge in volunteers—but figuring out how to harness that enthusiasm for the long term is a challenge.

“A lot of people were very motivated after the riots and signed up a month in advance, and when we check in with them then you get a cluster of cancellations the day before that makes it very difficult to manage,” said Figueroa. “It’s very hard.

FOOD

Because this is for the most vulnerable people, and it’s really only a three-hour shift, so it’s just very disappointing when people don’t understand that a food pantry operates through volunteers; we don’t have any money.”

T

Innovation and expansion

he Greater Chicago Food Depository has been looking at ways to leverage technology to move the needle on food insecurity issues— even before the pandemic— and such innovations could be even more important now. In November 2019, the depository announced it had partnered with McKinsey, a management consulting firm, to create a tracking dashboard that would rank areas in terms of highest and lowest need, helping them decide which areas to prioritize.

Other initiatives have included the build-out of a chatbot that recommends nearby food resources in partnership with Here360, and a food optimization model, in collaboration with McKinsey, that helps manage the distribution of fresh produce.

The depository isn’t alone in trying to think innovatively about food security and distribution issues. In January, Burgos and Maia said they wanted to explore “food as medicine” partnerships with local hospitals

and health services such as AMITA Health and Howard Brown Health. The services could refer patients to the La Casa Norte food pantry. In turn, La Casa Norte also hoped to implement a new referral service called NowPow, which would enable them to provide and track referrals to other community services such as shelter, health care and social services.

“Something that a lot of emergency food service providers struggle with is hunger is not the only thing that's going on, right?” Burgos said. “It's part of the constellation.”

In March 2019, La Casa Norte launched a new fresh food market in partnership with Lakeview Pantry, one of the city’s oldest food pantries, in an effort to serve a large swath of the city. The partnership came out of a five-year strategic plan built with Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm.

In 2019, Lakeview Pantry covered thirteen neighborhoods, served 9,000 unique clients and received $1.56 million total inkind food donations from GCFD and stores including Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

Lakeview Pantry has developed a lucrative donor base—seventy-three percent of the pantry’s monetary donations come from individuals. Monetary donations from individuals and grants accounted for

VOLUNTEERS FROM LA CASA NORTE AND INCREASE THE PEACE FERRY BOXES OF FOOD ACROSS HERMITAGE AVENUE IN BACK OF THE YARDS ON JULY 10, 2020. PHOTO BY MARTHA BAYNE

$2.5 million in revenue in 2019. Individual funding allows the pantry to be flexible and innovative in its models.

“We can be really creative,” said Jennie Hull, director of programs at Lakeview Pantry. “I think this area has blessed us. I mean we've been around fifty years. I think people know us, and we've gotten really lucky that we have so many individual donors.”

Over the years, Lakeview Pantry has rolled out new services including mental health counseling, home food delivery, career advisory sessions and pop-up pantries in long-term-care homes.

Meanwhile, the new 10,000-squarefoot warehouse that Lakeview Pantry opened last year in Ravenswood, called The Hub, could be a model for pantries of the future. High tech and efficient— equipped with commercial food chillers and a kitchen with a luxury coffee machine— the warehouse allows Lakeview Pantry to serve people living in other neighborhoods through an online ordering system. People from anywhere in the city and suburbs can order food from The Hub, provided they are able to get there to pick it up, a potential challenge since it’s not easily accessible by public transportation.

“You can just go [online] and pick what you want and then just show up and get it,” Hull said. “If you go to our other locations, and it's a busy day, you're going to wait two to three hours.”

Since the pandemic started, restaurants and coffee shops like Starbucks have adopted a model where people order online and pick up their food, often in a “no-touch” system with little human contact to avoid transmitting the virus. This model could increasingly be an option for food pantries, like Lakeview Pantry, allowing them to more efficiently serve a wider range of clients, even during a pandemic lockdown.

While technology and innovation can help food pantries streamline their operations and increase efficiency, veterans of social service work know well that the interlocking challenges facing poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities don’t necessarily lend themselves well to an efficiency-based approach. It’s likely a matter of “all of the above,” where expanded, centralized, data-driven, and innovative food distribution programs are needed, but where at the same time there is no replacement for grassroots organizations or churches that are deeply embedded in their communities.

On the ground with client choice

B

ack in late January, a hushed crowd filled the entrance and main room of Casa Catalina Basic Human Needs Center in Back of the Yards on a Wednesday afternoon. After being closed for three months for renovations, the pantry was reopening with a new “client choice” system for distributing food that allows people to “shop” for options much as they would in a grocery store—as a way to destigmatize the need for food assistance. Sprinkling holy water, Father Gerard Kelly, chaplain for Catholic Charities, blessed the space, “so that the good work here will continue,” he said.

Among its 10,000 unduplicated visitors a year, Casa Catalina serves a largely immigrant population, many of them undocumented. About a third of Back of the Yards residents are foreign-born, and a third of households in the community earn below the poverty line.

But even as the need for food has intensified across Chicago, Casa Catalina has seen a drop in participants, said Sharon Tillman, director of Family Support Services for Catholic Charities. Many clients fear even at the pantry they’ll be caught by the federal government’s steppedup immigration enforcement, she explained.

“They may trust us, but how do they know what's going to happen to them?”

Tillman added.

Ironically, Casa Catalina spent three months revamping its space to launch the “client choice model” just before the pandemic forced it and food pantries across the city to abandon that process. The vibe on that opening day in January showed the important role that the pantry plays in the neighborhood, and the great need for its services.

Several supermarket-like aisles were stocked with canned goods, cereals, and other dry goods, along with several freezers of meat. After the prayer, clients filled the cluster of seats inside as a line formed down the block outside in the cold. One by one, the pantry’s volunteers—that day a mix of older nuns and neighbors, along with young college students—called the attendees’ numbers and proceeded to help them “shop” for food.

Darrell Price, waiting his turn, leaned against a shopping cart in tall diabetic boots with heavily padded soles. Receiving just $16 a month through his Illinois Link card, Price said he was looking forward to picking up

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

FOOD

some beef and other protein. Previously, he added, the prepacked bags the pantry used to hand out didn’t always suit his dietary needs, offering items made with additives, such as corn syrup, that he couldn’t eat.

“I’m diabetic,” Price said. “So now I can pick what I want, like fresh fruit and bread.”

Six months later, strolling the aisles chatting with volunteers and choosing food off shelves is a thing of the past. Groceries now come in prepacked boxes from the GCFD, and are distributed out the back door of the building to clients waiting in socially distanced lines in the alley.

The whole goal now is to reduce contact between volunteers and clients, and thus reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the center’s longstanding volunteer base has shrunk, and the number of workers (now mainly interns) allowed in the building at one time is strictly limited.

With so few workers, “it’s been a struggle to get it all done,” said supervisor Sharon Holmes, who took over in May. “Because believe me, we’ve been working.” In June, said Holmes, the center served 1,110 families, or about 3,000 individuals. Tillman said that the agency as a whole has seen a sixty-two percent increase in need since April 2019.

T

The Future?

he GCFD has been working for the past few years to use data to better understand food insecurity and to more effectively allocate resources. “At the

same time,” said Greg Trotter, “we’ve also committed to putting racial equity at the forefront of our decision-making. We are still early in this journey.”

In mid-July the Food Depository announced plans to disburse an additional $1.3 million in emergency grants from both state and GCFD funds to community partners, the majority of them serving lowincome Black and Latinx communities throughout Cook County. The vast majority of the grant funds, said Trotter, will be distributed by the end of July. Still communities continue to make do on their own.

On June 4, with the South and West sides reeling in the wake of vandalism and looting following protests against the killing of George Floyd, an ad hoc group gathered in the parking lot of a boarded-up strip mall at 54th and Wentworth and gave away 500 chickens. The organizers—who included Todd Belcore, executive director of the nonprofit Social Change, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Erika Orr, and Ta’Rhonda Jones, an actor on Empire—had met just that week when they’d been called to a meeting with Mayor Lori Lightfoot at Chicago Police Department headquarters.

The mayor didn’t show up, but the group decided to join forces on their own to do some good. Kasey Rush, Rep. Bobby Rush’s daughter, offered her father’s campaign office (later revealed as the site where CPD officers relaxed during the May 31 looting) as a command center, and three days later they were in business.

In addition to the chickens, donated

by Tyson, the group distributed fruit and vegetables, cereal, doughnuts, and diapers.

It was a decidedly low-tech affair, with the food heaped in piles on tarps on the asphalt.

Volunteers from other neighborhood groups like R.A.G.E. chipped in and all in all they served an estimated 800 people, said Jones.

Before the pandemic, Social Change focused mainly on amplifying community voices to affect public policy, seeking to drive state and local government to address racial and economic inequity. But right now, said Belcore, “People are hurting and we want to do everything we can to respond to that hurt. We’re a policy organization, but if we have to gather diapers and vegetables, that’s what we’re doing to do.”

Belcore’s sentiments were echoed July 10 by Berto Aguayo, the cofounder of Increase the Peace, an antiviolence program based in Back of the Yards. Increase the Peace isn’t usually in the food distribution business, but when the pandemic hit, the group mobilized its volunteers to help out at Casa Catalina. After the looting and unrest in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the group started to stage their own “Black and Brown Unity” pop-up food pantries in partnership with groups like, on this day, La Casa Norte.

Some Back of the Yards residents are unwilling to go to a traditional food pantry, said Aguayo, because they can’t, or don’t want to, provide identification, or information about their place of residence. Sometimes they are just put off by unreliable hours of operation which, during the pandemic, may be constantly in flux. Or maybe, he said, they just don’t feel welcome.

Increase the Peace is known in the neighborhood for cookouts with teens and other “positive loitering” activities designed to reduce gun violence; during the May 31 looting, volunteers were on 47th Street trying to protect local businesses. When more established groups like this get into food distribution, no questions asked, said Aguayo, it can make residents feel safe because there’s a relationship of trust already in place.

In early June, said Increase the Peace organizer Julia Ramirez, there was a surge of enthusiasm from people anxious to help, but that energy has already dissipated.

“That always happens. It's specifically, like, the people on the North Side were coming. … And then you don't see that anymore. It’s not really that rush and that urgency,” she said. “But the organizations that don't necessarily do like food pantry or food distribution, I think that that has to be one of their main initiatives moving forward.”

“We’re trying to model what a popup food pantry could look like for other organizations,” said Aguayo. “What I envision is for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, or Catholic Charities, or these other big organizations to come out of their bricks and mortar and meet people where they’re at; meet them on the street corner.”

“Like a lot of organizations, we had to pivot to meet basic need,” he added, as a line of volunteers ferried 1,200 boxes of fruits and vegetables across the street from the Huntington Bank parking lot to tables set up alongside La Casa Norte’s drop-in youth shelter at 47th and Hermitage.

“Especially after the riots, we realized we can’t teach people about policy and community organizing if they’re hungry.” This story was produced through a partnership between South Side Weekly and the Social Justice-Investigative specialization at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Martha Bayne is managing editor of the Weekly. She last wrote about the timeline of and police response to the May 30 George Floyd protests.

Kari McMahon is a journalist from Scotland covering business and technology. She is currently studying at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Maura Turcotte is a journalist from Los Angeles studying at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She tweets at @ mcturcotte. She last wrote about muralist Brenda Lopez for the Weekly.

Kari Lydersen leads the Social JusticeInvestigative specialization in the graduate journalism program at Northwestern University and works as a journalist and author covering energy, politics, and more.

SUPERVISOR SHARON HOLMES OUTSIDE THE BACK DOOR OF CASA CATALINA BASIC HUMAN NEEDS CENTER ON JULY 2, 2020. PHOTO BY MARTHA BAYNE

22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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AUGUST 5, 2020 ÂŹ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

VISUAL ARTS

Chicago’s Mexican and Puerto Rican museums host a digital summer during COVID-19

Museums for the community, by the community, reach families in Chicago and beyond

BY OLIVIA CUNNINGHAM

W

hen cultural institutions across the nation were forced to close in March due to COVID-19, digital programming became the go-to strategy for maintaining their missions and goals. Two of Chicago’s community museums located in public parks, the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) located in Pilsen and the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture (NMPRAC) located in Humboldt Park, have had to do the same.

Community members depend on small cultural organizations like NMMA and NMPRAC to provide activities for kids out of school for the summer. Both museums rely on their indoor galleries as well as the surrounding parkland for community engagement. Although museums can now reopen, the cost required to maintain federal guidelines, routine wipe downs of interactive exhibits and capacity limits for example, is too much for smaller museums.

NMMA was founded in 1982 in Harrison Park and hosts several programs for children and teens like Día del Niño Family Festival, the annual celebration of children focusing on their health and wellbeing. NMPRAC, founded in 2000, hosts the annual Barrio Arts Festival that brings together local artists, musicians, and vendors for a family-friendly weekend celebration.

Billy Ocasio is the president and CEO of NMPRAC, which is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. He said the staff discussed the possibility of reopening this summer, but despite support from local 24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

foundations and a federal PPP loan, it would be too much for his already thin-spread staff and ultimately a risk to visitors.

“The main thing is making sure that everyone is safe,” Ocasio said. “We had to become very technology savvy very fast,” Ocasio said.

The Puerto Rican museum created a YouTube channel in March and launched the NMPRAC Online Education video program in June. Chicago’s Puerto Rican artists can submit art videos on anything from painting, to dance, to storytelling.

One of the most viewed videos in the series is from local artist Oscar Luis Martinez. “When the museum came up with this great idea to have artists create videos so they could continue their education piece online, I could not refuse it,” Martinez said.

An arts educator himself, he said it took some time but he’s figured out ways to meaningfully engage students online.

“I wanted to do something not only adults can get into but also young people can get into and [that] is how to go about doing doodles,” Martinez said. The video opens with a formal introduction and a few stories about how doodling has helped him focus in school and relax after stressful situations.

Martinez said he even convinced his cousin to make a submission: in it, Raul Ortiz Bonilla demonstrates his pointillism technique, using tiny dots of color to create a full image, in Spanish. All artists chosen to participate in the video initiative receive a stipend to compensate them for their work.

The school year for Chicago Public Schools ended on June 16, which means

nearly three months of mandatory online learning for students since public spaces closed. But after months of online lessons, parents and educators alike are worried about the increased screen time of young people.

Antonio Pazaran, NMMA’s director of education, said his department took this into account while brainstorming alternatives to their standard, in-person programming.

“The morale of my department is still up there. We try to be as positive as possible,” Pazaransaid.

The biggest department at the museum is Pazaran’s, which includes arts educators, programmers, and tour guides. After the museum closed, the staff assembled “AtHome with NMMA” an online directory of art activities and lesson plans for the whole family.

The museum cancelled its annual Sor Juana Festival. Next up was deciding what to do about their annual summer camp, a five-week, bilingual art camp that promotes creativity and literacy in the arts for kids aged seven through twelve. Pazaran said he thinks the museum has the most affordable summer camp for kids in the city. “When we open up registration for summer camp every year, our summer camp sells out in an hour,” Pazaran said.

Marilyn Lara Corral, an arts educator, said many of the young people return each year, even continuing through Yollocalli Arts Reach, the museum’s arts initiative for teens and young adults located in Little Village.

The program was capped at twenty-five spots due to the capacity of the museum

space and the usual cost is $450, which covered art materials, two field trips, and snacks. This is the first year the Mexican museum tried a virtual summer camp experience for just $125, the cost of art materials and instruction.

Corral said parents whose kids participated in past summer camps were surveyed about screen time concerns and other questions related to schooling and entertaining kids during COVID-19.

Pazaran said the idea of a virtual summer camp was welcomed.

The NMMA’s virtual summer camp began June 29. Parents picked up summer camp kits the week before. Participants logged on for one hour every Tuesday and Thursday with a different instructor each week. Corral was the instructor for the first week, teaching traditional Mexican stories like the Legend of Tenochtitlán, the founding of the Aztec capital by the Nahua peoples guided by Huitzilopochtli, the Sun and War god.

Corral said the kids were pleasantly surprised that they started painting on the first day. Participants learned how to mix colors in preparation for their first project, creating their own version of these legends inside a shadowbox.

“My daughter’s seven and my son’s eleven, so they actually were in the living room watching me do the class,” Corral said.

She appreciates getting real-time feedback on how interesting or boring the lessons are.

Typically, the museum would host an end of camp exhibition of the participants’ work.

This year parents will receive a link to their

LIT

“Luckily we have support from the community and the artists in our community. These digital programs are something we don’t have to limit to now, we can continue hopefully.”

A visit with poet, editor, and educator Tara Betts

BY AV BENFORD

It is lonesome, yes.

For we are the last of the loud.

Nevertheless, live.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PUERTO RICAN ARTS AND CULTURE

kids’ work so that everyone can watch the artwork online.

Pazaran said they’re also working on virtual, live tours of the gallery spaces. The summer camp participants were the first to experience real-time virtual tours and give feedback. He said he hopes this will make up for not being able to use the space inperson.

In mid-July, the museum partnered with the non-profit CALOR to provide free COVID-19 and HIV testing outside, as well as free tacos, face masks, and hand sanitizer.

“The worst part [of the COVID-19 closure] is not being in the museum space and around art all the time,” said Dalina Perdomo-Alvarez, exhibition and program assistant at the Puerto Rican museum. “I think partially the reason people go into these museum careers is so they can work in a museum.”

She started the position in October and said she was just getting used to the job back in March when the museum closed. Still, she said she’s excited to use her background in film studies to rethink traditional programming.

Perdomo-Alvarez said the website needs to be adjusted to hold this new influx of digital programs.

“Luckily we have support from the community and the artists in our

Dr. Whirlwind

community,” she said. “These digital programs are something we don’t have to limit to now, we can continue hopefully.”

On Friday, the Mexican museum celebrated their popular tribute to Selena– virtually–an event that tends to sell out immediately and attracts people of different generations, language and gender fluidity.

NMPRAC is working on an online exhibit to showcase what the Puerto Rican community has experienced in the year 2020 through submissions from everyday people, not just artists. Ocasio said this is a time for reflection across the country. They recently announced the open call for Communities Stories and Art on their website..

“We have to take a look at museums of color and we have to be aware that we don’t have the resources that all these other museums have,” Ocasio said. “It’s going to take us a little longer to get things right.”

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. For more stories about the effect of COVID-19 on museums, please visit the Prairie State Museums Project at PrairieStateMuseumsProject.org.

Olivia Cunningham is a freelance writer and digital content specialist. As a two-time City Bureau Reporting Fellow, she investigated school resource officers in Chicago Public Schools and Black generational wealth in Chicago.

Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.

–Gwendolyn Brooks

D

r. Tara Betts has one of the most enviable heads of hair of any living writer. Her crown is streaked with ferocious shocks of brilliant white.

For the past ten years, I have watched her bloom, growing from a formidable poet and educator with shoulder-length brown hair, a husband she had yet to divorce, and PhD she had yet to earn—into one of the greatest writers, educators, and advocates Illinois has produced in recent memory. Ten years ago I shared a meal with Betts at a mom-and-pop Puerto Rican spot in Harlem, after a session I taught on ekphrastic poetry with the Acentos Foundation, a Bronx-based organization dedicated to poetry and literature by Latinx writers helmed by her then-husband, the poet and organizer Rich Villar.

Fast-forward and it's July 2019. We are in the Ida B. Wells conference room at The Wing, a coworking space for women in the West Loop where Betts is a fellowship recipient.

I ask Betts how the years have been.

“My parents both died right before I came back,” she says. “I got divorced then I moved, then I went straight into the PhD program.

I went into hiding. I am very thankful for acupuncture and meditation and therapy— all of the modalities—cause there was no way I was going to make it.”

She came back to Chicago after getting her PhD at SUNY-Binghamton, she says, because it’s home. ”Even though I had a lot of emotional terrain I had to deal with, [when] I came back I felt like I could breathe easier. I felt like I could recoup from just constantly being on the run, dealing with a lot of different challenges [with] my family and personal life. I could take a beat and just be in a place that was really familiar but wasn’t non-stop [like NYC]. It wasn’t a cultural life where I had to spend every dollar in my pocket.

There is this unmined history and so much unmined culture in Chicago, she says.

“There are a lot of beautiful things about this city that I still want to write about, that I still want to explore and celebrate.”

While neither of us can remember the exact where and when, Betts and I first met on the slam scene in 1998 or ‘99. I was seventeen and had an agreement with the bouncer and bartenders at Mad Bar in Wicker Park, an early rival of the Green Mill slam, that as long as I only drank O.J. they would let me in to watch and compete in the poetry slam. This was long before the days of the Louder Than a Bomb youth slam. Week after week over those few years Betts and I—along with poets Tyehimba Jess, Shappy, Marlon Esguerra, and others—competed weekly for spots on the national AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 25

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team. In 1999 we were supposed to be on Mad Bar’s team together, but after an illness I withdrew, leaving behind an unrealized dream of winning the National Poetry Slam. Betts went on to compete that year and appear on a few episodes of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. Betts reminds me that “back in the day poetry was so small. People don’t believe that Black, White, Asian, Latino poets knew each other. But after Russell [Def Poetry Jam] the level of sincerity brought to the work changed. TV shows like Verses & Flow and Lyric Cafe added to the opportunities but also to the career-focused nature that some folks approached the poetry with.”

I ask what she’s been up to lately.

“It’s funny how the door opens when you publish something or get a PhD,” she says.

“People act like you are doing something you’ve never done before. I’m doing book reviews and interviews. I’m not turning down opportunities to be multipositional.”

Betts has always been loudly outspoken about the harsh economic realities of being a Black woman writer. She makes plain on her social media the choices she makes between paying her bills and self-care. She’s watched the Toni Morrison documentary The Pieces I Am, and feels that it is a good chronicle of her life and her major works up to Beloved. She was deeply impressed by the visual art and was moved by an opening montage of Mickalene Thomas building a collage of Morrison’s face. Betts openly plots an interdisciplinary documentary class.

She’s reading an advance review copy of House of Deep Water by Jeni McFarland and was blown away by the first fifty pages. Her blurb for the book will read: “A poetic hum underpins this intergenerational tale that slowly tangles the residents in relationships that draw people back to small towns, and drive them away. The House of Deep Water is unflinchingly honest.”

She’s also reading The Galaxy Is a Dance Floor, by Bianca Lynne Spriggs, and is tracking down biographies of early punk women like Viv Albertine, who formed the group The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976 and later joined The Slits.

Betts talks of how Chaka Khan has made more profits as an independent artist than she ever did with a major label. Betts is researching Khan for a project, and lives on the street where Chaka spent her childhood.

Khan has been recently quoted in the New York Times as saying, “This is my work, it’s all I have, and I should own it. I now know my worth, OK? I really do. And 26 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ AUGUST 5, 2020

that’s how I’m going to live out the rest of my life, period. I’m not going to sell myself cheap or short. I’m not good old Chaka Khan anymore, you can’t call on me when somebody else said they can’t do the gig — ‘Ask Chaka, she’ll do it.’ I used to be like that, but I’m not doing that anymore. And when you want to hire me, you better have some money.”

Betts thinks this is the same with publishing. “Your book is going to get covered by certain publications. People are going to get hyped about it because there is a big email rush. Even when you look at certain magazines, they aren’t going to talk about the book on podunk press, they are going to talk about the books out on Penguin, Random House, Knopf." Betts has published two books, both on small presses.

She laughs when I ask if that was a choice.

Her first book, Arc and Hue, was sent to more than thirty publishers and competitions. She became a semi-finalist in a couple, but the book was ultimately published by Aquarius Press/Willow Books in September 2009. When I ask how she managed the emotional labor of rejection she quotes a rocker in an article she once read: “You keep sending stuff out and you wait to get approval—you ain’t never going to get it." Her second book, Break the Habit, was sent out to more than thirty publishers and submitted for competitions as well. In the end, it was published by Trio House Press, through a connection Betts gained while in her PhD program.

A year ago I asked Betts about being a Black woman navigating the industry. “I am seeing more women of color winning prizes but I don’t really see any winning the boatload of prizes,” she says. "By and large, there is still this boys-club mentality.

Women uplift each other in different ways but they don’t always do it with a business sense.”

On social media I often see her questioning the business practices of nonprofits and academia. “This neoliberal sense of work in this country has people thinking we need to be working around the clock. Available by email. Answer every text.

That’s not humanly healthy," she says.

She aspires to the camp of The Slow Professor, a book by Barbara K. Seeber and Maggie Berg that takes aim at the overwork corporatization has caused in modern universities. Betts uses the example of a professor sinking under the pressure to answer emails and produce scholarly articles to point out that really, you need

“There is no reason we can’t have another poet laureate from the South Side.”

to take time to do good work. She speaks of the additional emotional labor she faces “because students of color are going to seek you out. Those that are marginalized [are going to seek you] out.” Betts tells me of a young queer student who was over the moon that her professor not only knew something about women of color, but also LGBTQ studies, and was also under the age of fifty.

As co-editor of the anthology The Beiging of America: Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century, Betts is deeply aware of the perception of her skin and her correlating place in a color-struck society. She respects difference and finds alliance in being marginalized. Even when the topic isn't people of color, Betts is the one asking questions and getting in trouble. At one place she taught, the graduate students were organizing and arguing for a union. When some teachers and administrators disagreed with the union drive, Betts posed an echoing question to them, “What does it say about this system, that you can't identify with those that want to be just like you?”

Betts’ resume is a litany of concurrent editorial positions in at least three different publications, adjunct faculty positions, and internships in library and information science, because entry-level positions in that field often pay better than ajuncting. She continues, “Higher education is concerned with student retention, not educators.

Educators who should be pushing certain values but aren't self critical. . . . I am not tenured anywhere and I fully expect that I may never be. I’ve been on the job market for five years. Interviewed at many, many schools. Even with me having more experience under my belt then folks who are already on faculty. Part of me is feeling maybe that is not my path, maybe I need to be writing books and doing other things.”

She finds herself thinking, “You can keep the academy because the academy was never set up for me in the first place.”

T

he year that followed our meeting at The Wing was full of gains and moods for Betts. In August 2019 she became the lit editor at New City, whose 2020 Lit 50 issue is out this month and is noticeably thicker with poets and the voices of oft-marginalized writers. Her third book may have found a home, and is up for publication next year. But neither of those gains is fully paying Betts’ bills, and she continues to juggle multiple responsibilities.

She’s currently on the selection committee to choose Illinois’s next poet laureate and says that lately she's been thinking a lot about Margaret Burroughs and Vivian Herch and their contributions to the South Side. ”It’s bad when you think the city can revolve around a handful of places,” she says.

“There is no reason we can’t have another poet laureate from the South Side.”

Her criticisms of the nonprofit system grew sharper as the world slid and COVID-19 took hold. So in early June of this year it was no surprise when she decided to take hold of her destiny and turn a wish into a reality, by launching a GoFundMe campaign to purchase a building at 56th and State, in Washington Park. She’s dubbed it the Whirlwind Center—the name fittingly taken from a Gwendolyn Brooks poem.

“While dreaming out loud,” she wrote on her GoFundMe, “I posted on Facebook that I would like to get this building so I can run classes and events and possibly host guest residencies for people who would like to do work in the neighborhood,” she says.

“I'm also planning to partner and share this space with other community organizations and individuals that have already invested time, energy, and resources in the South Side. I was surprised and excited to see how many people believe and trust me to begin what will be an exciting development for a city that I love dearly. Although I have been working in the arts for young people and people of color for twenty years, I

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“I am seeing more women of color winning prizes but I don’t really see any winning the boatload of prizes. By and large, there is still this boys club mentality. Women uplift each other in different ways but they don’t always do it with a business sense.”

think it's time for me to start a space that addresses needs with a new, more inclusive vision of, for, and with long-time South Side residents.”

As of the writing of the article, Betts has raised $47,260, with additional funds pledged once the paperwork to establish a proper 501C-3 has made it through COVID-addled Springfield. But all that fundraising raised the profile of the building and may have come at a price.

On July 3, Betts posted a note to Facebook: “The owner of the building pictured above signed an agreement to sell the building to another interested buyer. It was heartbreaking to get that news, but the board of Whirlwind Center has encouraged me to find another building, and we've looked at some possibilities, which have been limited, especially during COVID-19.

There are benefits being planned, and we are brainstorming other programming ideas too.” She remains saddened by the sale because the space she was considering was a turnkey space, meaning she could have started programming fairly quickly, but now the search for a new building starts again.

The monies raised so far will go into an account until another site is found.

Betts tells me of writing, "If I weren't doing this I don't know what else I would wanna do." She tells me of a memorable experience she had at Ragdale, in Lake Forest, during the trial of the cops accused of beating Abner Louima in 1997. She remembers spreading the paper out on her bed and for the first time in a long time taking the time to read it with a full breakfast. We speak in hushed tones of taking the time, and self-care. She is a big fan of moisturizers and exfoliating Korean towels. Her face is usually glowing as a result. Betts recalls reading bell hooks’ Sisters of the Yam and being struck by the question.

Yes, but do you take care of your self ? Do you bathe? Sisters of the Yam, in which hooks

speaks on the “the emotional health of black women,” focuses on the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever-vigilant in the struggle for equality. Betts laughs. “How many times have I gone out ashy cause I know I am pale and it can wait?” ¬

PHOTO BY GLITTERGUTS

Inquiries and donations for the Whirlwind Center can be sent to whirlwindcenterchicago@ gmail.com.

Open nominations for Illinois’s next poet laureate close August 15. Eligible nominees must be a current resident of Illinois, with at least ten years of residency; be willing and able to travel throughout the state; have a history of digital or print media publication, individual performances, poems and/or books, including at least one work that is not self-published or by a vanity press; have an established history of promoting poetry and activity in Illinois’ literary community, including readings, publications, presentations, education, and/or advocacy; and be the recipient of critical acclaim as demonstrated by special honors, awards, and/ or other recognitions. To nominate a candidate email IllinoisPoet2020@illinois.gov or send via USPS to Illinois Poet Laureate Search Committee c/o Office of the Governor, 207 State House, Springfield, IL 62706.

AV Benford is a staff writer at the Weekly. Her last article for the Weekly was 'Sestina for the Looting of the Black Body.'

AUGUST 5, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 27

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