Citizen Suburban Times Weekly 5-29-2019

Citizen Week of May 29, 2019

| Vol. 2 | No. 42 | www.thechicagocitizen.com

SUBURBAN TIMES WEEKLY

Kenya McGuire-Johnson (pictured) is a south suburban resident and has recently taken on the role of relaunching the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Female Executives in Music and Entertainment, Inc. Photo Credit: Provided by Kenya McGuire-Johnson

SOUTH SUBURBAN RESIDENT LEADING REVITALIZATION OF ORGANIZATION FOR BLACK WOMEN IN MUSIC The National Association of Black Female Executives in Music and Entertainment, Inc. (NABFEME) laid dormant for several years before its recent resurgence. With active networks in over 15 cities across the country, south suburban resident Kenya McGuire-Johnson is leading the relaunch of Chicago’s NABFEME chapter. SEE PAGE 2

POLITISCOPE

Despite Dreams of Prosperity, Many African Americans not Financially Ready to Retire PAGE 4

Women take a hit for reporting sexual harassment, but #MeToo may be changing that PAGE 2

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Elected Officials ask Governor Pritzker to support a South Suburban Airport PAGE 5

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COMMUNITY

South Suburban Resident Leading Revitalization Of Organization For Black Women In Music Continued from page 1

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

The National Association of Black Female Executives in Music and Entertainment, Inc. (NABFEME) laid dormant for several years before its recent resurgence. With active networks in over 15 cities across the country, south suburban resident Kenya McGuire-Johnson is leading the relaunch of Chicago’s NABFEME chapter.

McGuire-Johnson first learned about NABFEME in 2010 from her vocal coach who was a member. Despite the Chicago network being very active and having one of the largest networks of members in the country at the time, McGuire-Johnson didn’t join and shortly after that, the organization went quiet. McGuire-Johnson said that she thought she had missed her opportunity but she was wrong.

“I saw that NABFEME was relaunching and having a big conference last September so I decided I would go to the conference to learn a bit more about the organization. At that time, I wanted to just see how involved I could get because I was more developed as an artist and I had my own coaching business so I wanted to go ahead and start to network,” said McGuire-Johnson.

During the conference, McGuire-Johnson was able to meet other black women who work in music and entertainment and said that she thought the whole event was fantastic.

“You could really feel the sisterhood and I felt like it was a very safe space for women of color in entertainment, from artists all the way up to executives,” said McGuire-Johnson.

She returned to Chicago after the conference and began to think about what she could do to support the Chicago chapter of

NABFEME. McGuire-Johnson reached out to Johnnie Walker, the chief executive officer and founder of NABFEME, to see how she could help and was asked to lead the Chicago relaunch herself.

“Johnnie and I spent a lot of time having conversations about her vision for the organization and the relaunch which was in alignment with what I do, in terms of supporting other artists and coaching artists and helping them through empowerment, educating, networking, and mentoring,” said McGuire-Johnson.

Right now, her group is small. McGuire-Johnson said that there are about four members in Chicago so far and they will be meeting throughout the summer to talk about what the network needs to be successful and how it can best serve the community of black women working in music and entertainment

in the Chicago area.

“In today’s culture, and with black women especially, I do think we’re in a very lively space in terms of our development and feeling empowered but I also think there’s a gap between generations. You have some black women who are not millennial age, they are maybe over 45 years old and have succeeded in the craziness that this industry used to be, that have learned a lot of life lessons that could help the younger millennial generation and really bridge that gap,” said McGuire-Johnson.

Being able to rebuild the membership, offer valuable learning experiences, and bring together a multigenerational group of industry professionals will allow McGuire-Johnson to fulfill the NABFEME vision of building a strong support system for black women who work in music and entertainment.

POLITISCOPE

Women take a hit for reporting sexual harassment, but #MeToo may be changing that was jeopardized.

This finding suggests that women who hesitate to report sexual harassment are acting not incompetently, but perceptively and rationally.

BY CHLOE GRACE HART

An unprecedented number of women have come forward to share stories of workplace sexual harassment since the #MeToo movement gained momentum in late 2017.

Yet their allegations are not always well received. Questions like “What took her so long?” and “Why didn’t she report it when it happened?” have become a refrain. They imply that women who initially chose not to report sexual harassment handled it incorrectly - even incompetently.

But my research shows that woman have rational reasons for staying quiet because reporting sexual harassment can come with career risks. An experiment I ran five times in the early months of the #MeToo movement, though, suggest that things may be changing for the better.

Self-reporting stymies promotion In a national survey experiment, I asked Americans to read the fictitious employee file of a woman named Sarah, described as a satisfactory employee who was enthusiastic about her work. Everyone read the same information about her work performance.

However, study participants saw different information about mistreatment Sarah had experienced. In one condition, Sarah reported to HR that a coworker had repeatedly made sexual comments about her body; in

Chloe Grace Hart

a second condition, she reported that a coworker had repeatedly shouted and sworn at her. In a third condition, no harassment was reported. Then I asked participants to rate how likely they would be to promote Sarah.

Each group of participants should have been equally likely to promote Sarah in every case. After all, everyone in the study had identical information about her performance, the most relevant information for making decisions about advancement.

But that’s not what happened.

Participants were just as likely to promote Sarah when she reported the nonsexual harassment as when there was no harassment at all. But they were reluctant to promote her when she reported sexual harassment.

Simply by following the rules – using her company’s designated procedure to report the sexual harassment – Sarah’s career advancement

Not reporting to avoid stigma Indeed, research shows that women sometimes choose not to report or even label unwanted sexual interactions as sexual harassment in part to avoid the perceived stigma of being a target of sexual harassment.

If reporting sexual harassment comes at the cost of future advancement, choosing not to do so becomes strategic.

Why, though, would people hesitate to promote a woman who reported sexual harassment? Cultural stereotypes about the kind of women who are thought to report sexual harassment help to explain.

A woman who reports sexual harassment is often viewed as conniving, deceitful or overly sensitive.

People wonder whether she fabricated the account to sabotage a coworker or was overreacting to a friendly remark.

Consider the example of Anita Hill.

When she testified in 1991 that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had harassed her, Hill was labeled “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.”

Indeed, I found part of the reason that participants were less willing to promote Sarah when she had reported sexual harassment was because www.thechicagocitizen.com

they saw her as lower in characteristics like warmth and social skills.

A clear implication of this study is that it does not make sense to doubt or denigrate people who choose not to report sexual harassment.

In fact, there is no surefire response available to targets of sexual harassment that will improve the situation; while strategies like reporting, direct confrontation or avoiding the harasser are sometimes effective, they sometimes only make things worse.

So although reporting sexual harassment might help, it may simultaneously jeopardize one’s career advancement. Caught in this catch-22, there is no one right way for a victim to respond to sexual harassment.

What can be done to make reporting sexual harassment less risky?

There are two ways forward.

First, bystanders who observe sexual harassment may be able to help.

When study participants read a file in which a coworker, acting as a bystander, reported that Sarah had been sexually harassed, Sarah’s promotion chances were not damaged. Stepping in to report sexual harassment on someone else’s behalf, with their consent, may therefore help defray the costs to the victim of reporting it.

Yet this solution doesn’t change the unfair reality that women are penalized for speaking out against sexual harassment. To address this requires cultural change.

Can #MeToo reduce the penalty?

My research suggests that the United States may be in the midst of such a shift. I first ran the experiment in early October of 2017, only weeks before the #MeToo hashtag began trending. As women spoke out about their experiences of sexual harassment en masse, I reran the experiment.

As the #MeToo movement unfolded, bias against the woman who reported sexual harassment faded. Indeed, by early 2018, participants were just as likely to promote Sarah when she reported sexual harassment as any other case.

This trend should be interpreted cautiously – a year has passed since I fielded the study, and people who speak out against sexual violence continue to be questioned and maligned.

-There is no guarantee that people who report sexual harassment will now be treated fairly, so it is still reasonable to worry that reporting it may harm one’s career.

Yet at the very least, these changes suggest that cultural views about women who report sexual harassment are malleable. By illuminating how widespread and pervasive sexual harassment remains in the U.S., those who spoke out about their own harassment may have shifted how Americans view others following in their footsteps.

Chloe Grace Hart is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at Stanford University.

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 29, 2019

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NEWS

Despite Dreams of Prosperity, Many African Americans not Financially Ready to Retire

BY STACY M. BROWN NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia

The nation’s leading public interest group providing seniors and others with information that empowers them to choose how they live, AARP, regularly publishes a retirement calculator that individuals and families can use to provide a personalized snapshot of what their financial future might look like.

One simply has to answer a few questions about household status, salary and retirement savings (such as an IRA or 401(k)), include information about supplemental retirement income (such as a pension or Social Security), and consider how long they intend to work to generate information that will inform their expected lifestyle as a retiree.

The tool is designed to help potential retirees determine the amount of money they’ll need to retire “when – and how – they want.”

Unfortunately for most African Americans, even the most sophisticated planning tools lead to the same result: retirement has fast become a pie-in-the-sky dream.

“As a whole, Americans are bad savers. But, I believe it’s worse for African American communities because they don’t have access to the right educational opportunities,” said Cory Chapman, the managing partner and chief executive officer of EFC Wealth Management.

“Being raised by a single mom with three kids, I understand the struggle of just trying to pay

the bills and get food on the table. Growing up, saving money was an afterthought and never discussed,” Chapman said.

A report published earlier this month demonstrated how African Americans, Latinos and other minorities will have a more difficult time calling it quits than white Americans.

The report, published on the financial website The Motley Fool, revealed that the troubling disparity in retirement readiness between white Americans and minorities can be explained largely by income and wealth disparities that persist throughout our lives.

“Caucasians didn’t lose as much wealth during the Great Recession and have recovered more of it, so white households now hold close to six times the wealth of African American or Hispanic households,” the report’s authors said.

Median earnings for white households recovered from the recession by 2016, but earning levels for both black and Hispanic households remained below 2007 levels.

Caucasians now earn close to twice as much as minority households do, according to The Motley Fool.

“The African American community is skeptical when it comes to saving,” Chapman said.

“Growing up, we were taught by our grandparents that we couldn’t trust banks and we were better off burying money in the backyard,” he said.

Understanding how money works is actually getting worse with each new generation – black children aren’t learning basic life skills in school, Chapman continued.

“We need to be teaching children about planning strategies to generate wealth. Retired African American clients that come into my office are still just trying to make ends meet,” Chapman said.

“They don’t feel like they can save money when they are trying to put their kids through college and help them buy a home or car. They are forgetting about themselves and their own retirement,” he said.

The most recent MassMutual State of the American Family Study found that there are differences in retirement planning among different cultural groups.

African Americans fall short on executing life-changing measures such as accumulating wealth, being better prepared for retirement and building up savings.

According to the American Family Study, 84 percent of African Americans believe the American Dream means financial security; 78 percent in not living paycheck-to-paycheck; and 77 percent in owning a home.

However, based on the study, many African Americans don’t have tangible assets needed to make those goals happen now.

The study revealed a disconnect between African Americans’ financial situations and their hope toward the future.

Some key findings from the survey: l Outside of retirement accounts, only 37 percent of African Americans own wealth-building products such as stocks and mutual funds. l Only 35 percent believe they are doing a

Unfortunately for most African Americans, even the most sophisticated planning tools lead to the same result: retirement has fast become a pie-in-the-sky dream.

good job of preparing for retirement. l 33 percent have less than one month of funds saved for a crisis and less than 25 percent have amassed more than six months’ of emergency savings. l 58 percent are actively involved in educating their children on finances versus 48 percent of Caucasians. Forty-percent rely on family members for information “The study shows African Americans want to improve their financial situations and are hopeful about the future,” Evan Taylor, African American market director for MassMutual, told Black Enterprise Magazine.

“At the same time, it sheds light on the financial struggles and inequities that the African American community continues to battle,” Taylor said.

“Those contradictions indicate a need for greater financial education and discipline for the whole family to achieve economic success. In fact, the biggest financial regret expressed by respondents was that they wished they had started saving and investing sooner,” he said.

Illinois Agencies Support Point of Use Filters to Reduce Lead Exposure Darrell Garth President / Publisher Janice Garth Sales Manager/ General Manager CST Weekly, published weekly on Wednesdays and distributed in the Township of Bloom, (publishing 52 issues annually).

Written permission is required to reproduce contents in whole or part from the General manager or the publisher. CST Weekly does not assume the responsibility for nor are we able to return unsolicited marterials. Deadline for advertising is every Monday at noon.

For information on subscriptions or advertising call us at (773) 783-1251. Our office is located at 8741 S. Greenwood Ave., Ste# 107, Chicago, Illinois 60619.

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advertising@cstweekly.com Classifieds call us at (773) 783-1251

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates there is no safe blood lead level in children.

Lead exposures come from a combination of environmental sources, which may include lead in water.

U.S. EPA estimates that water can make up 20 percent or more of a person’s total exposure to lead, and infants who consume mostly mixed formula can receive 40-60 percent of their exposure to lead from drinking water.

The source of lead in water is most often a building’s plumbing system.

When a building has a lead service line, the service line is typically the most significant contributor of lead in water.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) support point-of-use (POU) filters as a short-term strategy for reducing lead in drinking water.

A POU system filters water at the “point” where water is being used and is installed at the water connection, typically under the sink in the kitchen or bathroom. Water pitchers with POU filters may also be used.

POU filters are commercially available and can be effective at removing

U.S. EPA estimates that water can make up 20 percent or more of a person’s total exposure to lead, and infants who consume mostly mixed formula can receive 40-60 percent of their exposure to lead from drinking water.

most lead. There are a number of POU cartridge filter units on the market.

They can vary in price and effectiveness. Filters should routinely be replaced or maintained in accordance with manufacturers guidelines and recommendations to remain effective.

To select a lead-reducing POU filter, check with the manufacturer or a third-party website (such as www.nsf. org) to verify the product was tested and certified for lead removal (NSF/ ANSI Standard 53).

For additional protection for www.thechicagocitizen.com

particulate lead, look for a POU filter that is also certified against NSF/ANSI Standard 42 (for class I particulate reduction, 0.5 µm to <1 µm).

To be effective, the POU filters should be installed at locations used for drinking water or for food preparation according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This includes kitchen water faucets and refrigerators with water dispensers and ice makers or in water pitchers.

POU filters should be considered an interim measure until the sources

of lead, most notably the lead service line, have been removed and replaced with lead free plumbing materials.

After replacement of lead plumbing materials or disturbance of a plumbing system, the plumbing system should be flushed for 30 minutes with aerators and screens removed from all faucets.

Because you cannot see, smell, or taste lead in water, testing the water is the only way to determine if lead is present in drinking water.

To access additional information about lead in drinking water and a consumer tool for identifying POU filters certified to reduce lead, please visit U.S. EPA’s website at https:// www.epa.gov/ground-water-anddrinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water and https://www.epa.gov/water-research/ consumer-tool-identifying-pou-drinking-water-filters-certified-reduce-lead.

Lead in homes can also come from sources other than water. To access more information about other sources of lead, please visit IDPH’s website at: http://www.dph.illinois.gov/illinoislead. Consider contacting your doctor to have your children tested if you are concerned about lead exposure.

CITIZEN | Suburban Times Weekly | Week of May 29, 2019

NEWS

Elected Officials ask Governor Pritzker to support a South Suburban Airport U.S. Representative Robin Kelly, along with Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and 52 south suburban officials, sent a letter recently to Governor JB Pritzker requesting his support for the South Suburban Airport (SSA) and surrounding infrastructure.

“The time has come to finally build the South Suburban Airport. We know it will create thousands of good-paying jobs, boost our economy and allow Illinois to reclaim its aviation pre-eminence,” said Congresswoman Kelly.

The lawmakers wrote: “Just as Midway and O’Hare spearheaded Illinois’ growth for the past century, SSA will be a cornerstone for prosperity in the 21st Century…As proposed, it will create an economic engine south of Chicago that would generate tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions in annual tax revenues, and billions in new economic

Robin Kelly

activity for Illinois.”

They continued, “Chicago is the largest US market without three airports;” adding that New York, Washington, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco each have three major airports.

Acknowledging that airports take decades to plan and rarely happen, officials wrote: “Thanks to the bipartisan efforts by five

governors over decades, Illinois has secured the key components – land assemblage, legislative authority, and broad business, labor and political support.”

The FAA first urged Chicago to build a third airport in 1985. Due to capacity constraints, the city has been losing cargo and passenger market-share to places like Denver and Dallas for 20 years.

Kelly and lawmakers also urge the Governor to “apportion $150 million in the 2020 capital bill for initial off-site improvements—a new interchange on I-57, local road upgrades, and connectivity to utilities.” The actual airport, near Monee, will be financed with private dollars.

The letter was signed by three members of Congress; 14 state legislators, including Speaker Madigan; 29 mayors; four Chicago aldermen; two Cook County commissioners and two mayors-elect who represent Cook, Will and Kankakee counties.

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