Citizen Suburban Times Weekly 5-8-2019

Citizen Week of May 8, 2019

| Vol. 2 | No. 39 | www.thechicagocitizen.com

SUBURBAN TIMES WEEKLY

SOUTH SUBURBAN TEACHER AND AUTHOR PROVIDES MENTORSHIP AND CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE EDUCATION This week is Teacher Appreciation Week across the country and there is one south suburban teacher that has gone above and beyond to connect with his students. First generation Ghanian American, Samuel Agyarko Jr. teaches at Thornwood High School and is committed to providing culturally responsive learning experiences for his students along with offering them mentorship.

SEE PAGE 4

Samuel Agyarko Jr. (pictured) is a teacher at Thornwood High School and believes in providing his students with a culturally responsive learning environment. Photo Credit: Provided by Samuel Agyarko Jr.

ART SCENE

TRAVEL

2019 Study: Traveling Americans Unsure About Health Insurance Outside The US PAGE 2

AFRICOBRA: Nation Time PAGE 2

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POLITISCOPE Prescription for journalists from journalists: Less time studying Twitter, more time studying math PAGE 3

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2 | CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 8, 2019

ART SCENE

AFRICOBRA: Nation Time AFRICOBRA: Nation Time is an official Collateral Event of Biennale Arte 2019 (May 11th – November 24th 2019), in Venice, Italy and is presented by bardoLA, originated and supported by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, and curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D. AFRICOBRA was founded on the South Side of Chicago in 1968 by a collective of young Black artists, whose interest in Transnational Black Aesthetics led them to create one of the most distinctive visual voices in 20th Century American art.

The key characteristics to what we now consider the classic AFRICOBRA look—vibrant, “cool-ade” colors, bold text, shine and positive images of Black people —were essential to everyday life in the community from which this movement emerged. It is a movement with roots in the soil, streets, classrooms, studios, and living rooms of the South Side of Chicago—yet its influence has extended around the world.

The five AFRICOBRA founders—Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams—understood the potential power visual art has to communicate deep meaning on multiple layers.

They had the sophistication to mobilize the organic elements of their everyday visual environment into something capable of affecting the hearts, minds, and spirits of contemporary people. Their collective impact, in addition to Napoleon Jones-Henderson and Nelson Stevens both of whom joined the group in 1969 on the visual arts scene helped establish the visual voice of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s.

Their further impact—as artists, educators, and community leaders—has brought the members

of AFRICOBRA to the forefront of contemporary conversations about the history, legacy, and future of Black Art in America and the world.

AFRICOBRA: Nation Time is the next chapter of AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People, which premiered at MOCA North Miami during Art Basel Miami 2018, AFRICOBRA: Nation Time will focus entirely on the historic aspects of this vital, Chicago-born Black Arts collective.

More than 40 works will be on view by Jeff Donaldson, Gerald Williams, Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, and Nelson Stevens. Historic documentation, archival photographs and other ephemera will be showcased throughout the exhibition offering a unique and comprehensive narrative of AFRICOBRA’s birth and evolution on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s and its reverberating effect on the art scenes of Washington, DC, New York City, and Lagos, Nigeria.

This groundbreaking exhibition will be mounted within the historic, picturesque Venetian Gothic palazzo of Ca’ Faccanon, offering more than 5,000 square feet of exhibition space.

Its perfectly central location is only meters away from the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s square.

AFRICOBRA: Nation Time at Biennale Arte 2019 is the first time the work of this vital, definitive, and historic Black Arts collective has been given the opportunity to be celebrated by global audiences on this scale.

AFRICOBRA: Nation Time is an exhibition of historic importance for the Black Arts Movement in the United States and all international audiences who are curious to discover more

Angela Davis, Gerald Williams, 1971, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in. (122 x 122 cm), Courtesy of Gerald Williams and Kavi Gupta

about the ways in which the aesthetic of African American artists relates to politics, culture and identity. Capturing the sentiment of their time with a visual language of vivid colors, rhythm, compositional arrangement and shine, the artists in AFRICOBRA: Nation Time reflect how a marginalized group found a way to empower themselves in a society that consistently denied them their power.

“The fullness of Blackness is important in our global culture and AFRICOBRA addresses and connects the Diaspora in their art,” said Hayes.

“While it represents this movement of nationhood in the 1970s, this exhibition explores the social and political fabric that continues to hold Black people together, even through the struggle in our contemporary moment.”

The exhibition is sponsored by Kavi Gupta Gallery and made possible with generous support from the City of North Miami, Florida, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Black Family, Wadsworth Jarrell, 1968, acrylic on canvas, 46 x 36 in. (117 x 91 cm), Courtesy of Wadsworth Jarrell and Kavi Gupta

The exhibition is also supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art as part of Art Design Chicago, an initiative exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy.

Special thanks go out to Shirley and William Lehman, Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, Wege Foundation, Kravets Wehby Gallery and Lise and Jeffrey Wilks. The forthcoming catalogue is made possible with support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. For more information about AFRICOBRA: Nation Time, please contact Abbie Lipton / Durée & Company, Inc., 954-723-9350, 213056@email4pr.com or Elizabeta Betinski / bardoLA, 310-902-3027, hello@bardola.org.

TRAVEL 2019 Study: Traveling Americans Unsure About Health Insurance Outside The US An alarming number of Americans are unclear whether their health insurance works outside the US, according to a new survey from InsureMyTrip.

Over fifty-eight percent polled were not sure whether their domestic health insurance plan would cover any emergency doctor or hospital visits while traveling outside the country.

Twenty-four percent said their domestic health insurance would offer no coverage, while the rest believed their insurance plan would offer coverage.

Survey question: Does your domestic health insurance cover any doctor or hospital visits while traveling outside the US? Survey results: Yes: 17.1% No: 24.2% Not Sure: 58.7% Understanding Coverage Travelers unclear on whether they have coverage should

contact their health insurance company on whether emergency medical coverage will extend outside the US. Depending on your specific plan and area of travel, medical coverage can vary widely.

Policyholders may discover they have either “in-network” coverage, limited coverage, or no coverage at all. Travelers should also be aware of the following: Deductibles: the amount a patient must pay for covered services before insurance kicks in Co-insurance: the amount a patient is responsible for a covered health care service Co-payments: a set amount owed for a covered health care service A Word About Medicare Original Medicare does not cover emergency medical care for travelers outside the US. There are supplemental plans

such as Medicare Advantage and Medigap that can provide limited additional coverage, for more details visit Medicare.gov.

Emergency Medical Evacuations According to the US State Department, very few domestic health insurance companies will pay for a medical evacuation back to the United States, which can easily cost up to $100,000, or even more, depending on the condition and location of the patient.

Travel Insurance Options Travelers should know about any limitations of domestic health insurance policies while out of the country. In most cases, there are gaps in coverage.

Some gaps are significant. Travel insurance is recommended because it can act as supplemental or primary coverage.

Most travel insurance providers offer one or two different types of insurance plans that provide emergency medical

coverage outside the US: Comprehensive travel insurance —- offers the most protection for travelers. It provides a variety of benefits including trip cancellation, trip interruption, emergency medical coverage, emergency medical evacuation, 24/7 emergency assistance, and baggage protection.

Example: For a $5,000 two week vacation to Aruba, a comprehensive travel insurance plan will cost a couple in their 50s around $200. This includes a $50,000 emergency medical limit, $250,000 for emergency medical evacuation in addition to trip cancellation coverage and other benefits.

Travel medical insurance — provides emergency medical coverage, emergency medical evacuation coverage, and 24/7 emergency assistance. Trip cancellation is typically not included.

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Example: For the same trip to Aruba, a travel medical insurance plan will cost a couple in their 50s around $80. This includes a $50,000 medical limit with a $250 deductible and $500,000 medical evacuation.

How it helps Both comprehensive and travel medical insurance plans are a valued supplement while traveling overseas, offsetting possible coverage gaps evident in some domestic health insurance plans including: Emergency medical care: when a traveler requires a doctor or hospital visit when traveling abroad.

Emergency evacuation: when the attending physician requests that the traveler be transported to a more adequate medical facility or back home for further care.

24/7 emergency assistance: when a traveler needs help with a medical issues, needs to find

a doctor or hospital or requires translation services.

Some travel insurance policies may also cover pre-existing medical conditions. To learn more about eligibility requirements, visit the learn section on InsureMyTrip.com.

Travel smart In addition to seeking proper medical protection, travelers can also reduce health risks by learning about destination-specific medical concerns, including required vaccinations.

The US State Department is a helpful resource.

Contact news@insuremytrip.com for more information.

Methodology The survey was sent to those identified as Americans, male or female (18+), who use websites in the Google Surveys Publisher Network. The survey was conducted from April 25, 2019 - April 27, 2019, and generated 1,516 completed responses.

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 8, 2019

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3

POLITISCOPE

Prescription for journalists from journalists: Less time studying Twitter, more time studying math

BY JOHN P. WIHBEY

You hear a lot of heated claims and baseless generalities these days about what’s wrong with the news media.

What’s seldom heard is what the underlying data indicate about true problem areas and where journalists need to improve.

News reporting requires doing a lot things well, but two crucial elements are being independent of political (or other) interests and knowing one’s subject well enough to select what’s important for the public.

I am a media scholar and former journalist.

In my research for my book “The Social Fact: News and Knowledge in a Networked World,” I tried to quantify certain aspects of these two dimensions of news media.

While the overall evidence shows journalists to be ethical in their practice and fair and public-spirited in their mission, I found some troubling signs in my research.

Partisanship The first question I looked at was whether

But one novel aspect to consider in our hyper-polarized, social media-driven age is the relationship between journalists’ work and their online social networks, in particular Twitter, where reporters and editors spend a lot of time these days.

Is partisanship visible not just in the reporting of stories, but elsewhere, in the social networks that journalists inhabit?

As part of a 2018 study with my colleagues Kenny Joseph of the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and David Lazer at Northeastern University, we analyzed partisanship across more than 300,000 news articles produced by 644 journalists at 25 different U.S. news outlets.

We did this using algorithms that helped us sort and analyze each article and journalist, John P. Wihbey from more conservative outlets such as The journalists were partisan. That would affect Wall Street Journal and National Review to their stories by making them biased and more liberal ones such as The New Yorker and therefore less trustworthy.

The New York Times.

Research in general continues to show news We looked at the frequency with which key media have left- and right-leaning partisan B:10.75”political terms were used, such as “LGBT,” slants, although the degree depends on the T:10.75”“equal pay,” and “Voting Rights Act” for outlet and subject in question. left-leaning persons, and “bureaucrats,” “illeS:10.75”

gal immigrants” and “sponsor of terrorism” for right-leaning persons.

We then compared this analysis with a careful look at the individual journalists’ social networks on Twitter – which accounts they follow, and the degree of partisanship of these accounts.

Twitter is a figurative water cooler where journalists spend hours, and surely it shapes some of what they believe is important and colors their views. Research suggests that journalists see Twitter as valuable for their work, and they use the platform at relatively high rates compared to the public at large.

We did not design our research to be able to establish true causation, but rather set out to explore just how much of a correlation there was.

Overall, what we found was a modest correlation between the partisanship of the personal network a journalist follows on Twitter and the content she produces. Of course, just because a journalist chooses to follow, say, mostly conservative social media Continued on page 4

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4 | CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 8, 2019

COMMUNITY

South Suburban Teacher And Author Provides Mentorship And Culturally Responsive Education Continued from page 1

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week across the country and there is one south suburban teacher that has gone above and beyond to connect with his students. First generation Ghanian American, Samuel Agyarko Jr. teaches at Thornwood High School and is committed to providing culturally responsive learning experiences for his students along with offering them mentorship.

Growing up, Agyarko said that he noticed “there really is no space for culturally responsive education,” and wanted to change that by going into education and creating that space in his own classroom.

In essence, culturally responsive teaching is grounded in a teacher’s cultural competence and encourages each student to relate their

learning experiences to their own cultural experiences.

“My bachelor’s degree was in Applied Computer Information Systems but it just wasn’t speaking to me spiritually so I switched gears, left IT behind, and got my masters in Educational Leadership and committed to working with students in disenfranchised communities who have had an experience similar to mine,” said Agyarko.

While working as a teacher and developing his own best practices for connecting with students and allowing them to be their authentic selves in his class, he noticed that even though there were guidance counselors and school psychologists, there was still a lack of social and emotional resources for students.

“School psychologists that are supposed to connect with students on a social-emo-

tional and holistic level don’t really have the capacity to do so. I recognized that during my growth as a teacher, that the vast majority of my conversations with my students were not about the content of my classes, they were about how to conduct themselves or how to channel their frustrations,” said Agyarko.

It was this experience that led Agyarko to start his own nonprofit organization, The A-TEAM, Educational Consulting with Response to Intervention Services. The nonprofit’s goal is to provide culturally responsive educative mechanisms for student success which further extend the work that Agyarko is doing at Thornwood.

The A-TEAM, Educational Consulting with Response to Intervention Services was created to provide disenfranchised communities with learning opportunities outside of what they

are offered during the school day.

Agyarko described disenfranchisement as being “not just necessarily a black or brown issue” because it is “based on economics and class.”

“To level the playing field, I started my nonprofit to provide workshops for these disenfranchised students and communities who don’t necessarily have the resources or the capacity to focus on the fun stuff because they have to concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic,” said Agyarko.

In addition to teaching at Thornwood, Agyarko also serves as the Work-Based Learning Coordinator where he is responsible for bringing in culturally responsive guest speakers which allow students to see people who look like them from backgrounds similar to theirs who have executed a plan for success.

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Foot Locker Foundation, Inc. recently surprised high school senior Cade Pinalto of Chicago with a celebration and an oversized check in the amount of $20,000 as part of its annual Foot Locker Scholar Athletes Program at Lane Tech High School.

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Prescription for journalists from journalists: Less time studying Twitter, more time studying math Continued from page 3 accounts doesn’t mean she will necessarily skew her journalism in that direction. It is not a mechanical relationship. But the data show a reasonably strong connection.

There is solid evidence of partisan segregation stretching across the news and social media worlds, and society should be worried about trends that might make polarization worse over time.

Competence The second issue to consider in terms of areas of improvement for journalism is the degree to which journalists may not have sufficient knowledge or understanding of certain issues in order to inform the public properly.

Even if President Donald Trump’s criticism of the media is

usually bombastic and misguided, it’s certainly legitimate to inquire about the competence and knowledge of news outlets.

We have been asking reporters and editors both about their knowledge and skills and their aspirations for the profession in survey work we are conducting through the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard.

It’s clear there are many journalists who have substantial knowledge of many public affairs topics. But the profession continues to struggle with competence in a variety of areas, particularly with reporting about numbers, data and research.

Across the board, journalists know they should be better able to do quantitative analysis and interpret information more www.thechicagocitizen.com

critically, a finding in our survey research. They know these skills are key to seeing through the potential bias of sources, be they politicians, health care companies, energy firms, Wall Street, Madison Avenue or the White House.

For example, when a police department makes a claim about reducing crime, or a health care provider touts progress on patient safety, skeptical journalists with good data skills will have greater ability to analyze the data themselves, see through faulty claims and call out misinformation.

Yet the training and preparation for the profession of journalism often falls short. As a journalism educator myself, I fully admit that the responsibility and burden are very much on us, as educators, to provide training in these areas, par-

ticularly as the world grows more complex and data-driven.

Taking a hard look at the press is not easy at this time, as it can seem to feed the lies about journalism fueled by the president. All of this analysis is not to validate the often poisonous criticisms of the press in recent years, which have tended toward exaggeration.

But if we are to have any hope of regaining broad public trust in professional news media – and improve public knowledge and discourse in the way that most people want – we need to start by getting much more empirical about what is wrong and what is right with our media institutions.

John P. Wihbey is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Innovation at Northeastern University.

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 8, 2019

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5

NEWS

Black Men Still Incarcerated at Disproportionate Levels

BY STACY M. BROWN NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia

The fact that African Americans make up a disproportionate amount of the United States’ prison population remains a defining characteristic of the nation’s criminal justice system, and though the latest numbers from the U.S. Sentencing Commission show a gradual change, many organizations said it’s still cause for alarm.

The most recent available report shows that African Americans comprise only about 12 percent of the total population in America, but still represent 33 percent of the federal and state prison population.

By contrast, 64 percent of American adults are white, but just 30 percent of those individuals are locked up.

It’s statistics like those that have some organizations and media outlets trying to get to the bottom of why America continues to lock up African-Americans, particularly Black men. (The Vera Institute have continued to write about this issueand CNN now has a series called “The Redemption Project with Van Jones,”which airs Sundays at 9 p.m.)

According to the most recent U.S. Sentencing Report, which analyzed data over five years from 2012 to 2016, black men serve sentences that are on average 19.1 percent longer than those for white men with similar crimes.

Without considering all of the facts involved per case, some might argue that criminal history and other mitigating circumstances come into play when a judge imposes a sentence – regardless of color.

However, the Commission’s report also debunks that view.

“Violence in an offender’s criminal history does not appear to contribute to the sentenced imposed,” according to the authors of the Commission’s study.

The nonprofit Sentencing Projectfound that Black men are nearly six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated and for Black men in their 30s, one in every 10 are in prison or jail on any given day.

When accounting for violence in an offender’s past, black men received sentences that were on average 20.4 percent longer than that of white men, the report noted.

The nonprofit Sentencing Projectfound that Black men are nearly six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated and for Black men in their 30s, one in every 10 are in prison or jail on any given day.

Though the gap is closing presumably because of stiffer policing in rural and predominately white areas and the opioid epidemic that’s hit white areas hardest, agencies in cities around the country are still trying to offer ways to stop the mass incarceration of blacks.

According to a report from the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies(FPWA), if you are poor in New York City – especially if you’re a low-income person of color – there’s an increased likelihood that you’ll be drawn into the criminal justice system.

And once justice-involved, climbing out of poverty becomes harder, the report said.

Also, the report’s authors said the local government should be doing more to support those who

are justice-involved, including those who are formerly incarcerated and those with parole, probation, and community supervision.

These individuals and their families struggle with access to housing, employment, educational opportunities, and meeting health and mental health needs and experience a patchwork of services that are under-resourced and not targeted to meet the complex challenges that come before,

during, and after justice involvement, FPWA officials said.

The result is a continuing cycle of poverty and incarceration that has a devastating impact on families for generations, they said.

“If we are serious about ending mass incarceration, if we want to disrupt systems that criminalize the poor, we must better utilize and resource the organizations that are already providing critical services

in these communities,” said FPWA CEO and Executive Director Jennifer Jones Austin in a news release.

“Systemic racism drives both poverty and the mass incarceration of low-income people, especially people of color. This cycle of poverty and criminal justice involvement feeds on itself and creates herculean barriers to achieving economic and social advancement, for those who have been justice involved and for their loved ones,” Jones said.

“There are proven ways to support communities experiencing high levels of poverty, income insecurity and incarceration. Human services organizations are a key part of those solutions,” she said.

There’s a need for more resources, “more compassion, and more political will to end the poverty to prison pipeline and we must also recognize the role of intergenerational trauma in creating the pipeline and provide mental health and trauma-informed services to those who are justice-impacted,” said Michael A. Lindsey, Ph.D., MSW, MPH, executive director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University.

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The center is open to everyone – BCBSIL members and non-members - and offers no-cost programming focused on whole-person health: physical, mental and social. There will be classes and programming targeting chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease, behavioral health, as well as parent and child wellness. Visitors can enjoy fitness classes, learn how to better use health insurance and be connected to community resources that provide access to food or transportation.

For more information, visit www.bluedoorcenteril.com or call the center directly at (773) 253-0900.

Promotional rate and APY are available to individuals only from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin. Minimum balance to open and earn the promotional rate and APY is $25,000 in new money. New money is defined as funds not on deposit with First Midwest Bank within the last 90 days. Promotional rate and APY are valid as of 5/1/19. Rates are variable and subject to change at any time without notice. Monthly Maintenance Fee of $15 will be charged if the daily account balance any day of the month falls below $1,000. A transaction fee of $15 per item will be charged if the Regulatory Transaction Limit is exceeded. Offer is subject to change and may be withdrawn at any time without notice.

Annual Percentage Yield is based on monthly compounding. Fees may reduce earnings.

2 Limited time offer may be withdrawn at any time, cannot be combined with any other offer or rate enhancements, and is open to individuals only from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) are eligible. Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is valid as of 4/18/19 and assumes monthly compounding for Certificate of Deposit (CD) and quarterly compounding for IRA with a 2.40% APY. Minimum balance to open CD and earn stated APY is $5,000 in new money. New money is defined as money not on deposit with First Midwest Bank at or within 90 days prior to account opening. Money must remain on deposit for length of time specified to earn stated APY. The 10 month CD will automatically renew in 9 month intervals earning the then current APY of the traditional 9 month CD. Penalty for early withdrawal. Fees may reduce account earnings. No brokered deposits.

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www.thechicagocitizen.com

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CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 8, 2019

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WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Latina smoked for 23 years, and switched to JUUL in 2017.

“My least favorite thing about smoking was the smell.”

Make the Switch Designed for adult smokers. Not for sale to minors.

NOT FOR SALE TO MINORS: This is an age-restricted product and age verification is required at sale.

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