SSW 01.27.22

JANUARY 27, 2022

ARTS, CULTURE, POLITICS

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CPS Walkouts

Perspectives from students who demand to be heard FROM CLOSED SCHOOL TO SKATE PARK, ABJ ARTS, SAFETY IN CHINATOWN, AND MORE

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Cover Collage by Miranda Ploss Cover Photos by Gerri Fernandez, Oscar Sanchez, Paul Goyette

IN CHICAGO Van Dyke gets off easy The ex-cop who shot teenager Laquan McDonald sixteen times, Jason Van Dyke, is expected to be released from prison on February 3 after fulfilling roughly half of his nearly seven-year prison sentence due to good behavior. His lawyer has said that he doesn’t want any more public attention. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other Black activists are planning a protest that day at the Federal Plaza to condemn the slap on the wrist. Jackson and McDonald’s family are seeking to pressure the Department of Justice to press federal charges. During a press conference, he called on CTA employees to withhold their labor on the 3rd and “shut down the city.” Meanwhile, former mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is accused of covering up the video evidence of the murder, just arrived in Tokyo for his new job as ambassador to Japan.

Libraries stocked with Narcan As of this month, fourteen Chicago Public Libraries on the South and West sides will be provided with Narcan for public use. The nasal spray is a form of the medication naloxone and can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. Through this program, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDHP) is hoping to prevent opioid-related overdose deaths in the most affected areas of the city. In 2020, the community areas with the most overdoses were in North Lawndale, Austin, and Humboldt Park. In the first half of 2021, the city saw 467 opioidrelated deaths. According to the Healthy Chicago 2025 report, overdose deaths are one of the top drivers of the 8.8-year life expectancy gap between Black and white Chicagoans. Narcan will be available in wall-mounted boxes, and anyone can administer it–even without medical training. There are no harmful effects if it is given to someone who is not experiencing an overdose. By the end of 2022, CDPH is hoping to expand the program to twenty-seven library branches.

Academics ask mayor to deny General Iron permit The City is delaying its decision on a permit for Southside Recycling’s metal scrapper to open on the Southeast Side until at least February. The permitting process has been on hold since last May, after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wrote to Mayor Lightfoot suggesting that the City complete an environmental justice analysis before approving the permit. This letter followed continued protests from Southeast Side residents–including a month-long hunger strike last February–against the proposed move of the General Iron facility from Lincoln Park to their neighborhood. Since November 2021, two virtual meetings have been held to evaluate the health impacts of the facility and gather input from residents. The third and last meeting of this “health impact assessment” (HIA) was scheduled for January, but has been postponed due to COVID, officials said.

Earlier this month, the Dean of the UIC School of Public Health, Wayne H. Giles, as well as UIC professors and other academics, wrote a letter to the mayor asking her to deny the permit. The letter was also ccccccsigned by eight elected and City officials, sixty-nine organizations, and 754 individuals.

IN THIS ISSUE PUBLIC MEETINGS REPORT

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level. documenters, india daniels, scott pemberton.....4 FEAR AND DISCONNECTION AMONG ASIAN AND BLACK COMMUNITIES

Many Chinese residents are calling for increased policing while some Black residents call for less policing. wendy wei..........................................5 CPS WALKOUTS

Perspectives from students who demand to be heard. chima ikoro and madeleine parrish............................9 BAD DATA

CPS underreported school-specific COVID case numbers since the beginning of the year. jacqueline serrato........................13 FROM LEGACY TO GENESIS

A Q&A with Pastor Victoria Brady, CEO of ABJ Civic Arts Center. dierdre robinson............................14 HOW TO TURN A SCHOOL INTO A SKATE PARK

A short film shows how skaters repurposed an abandoned school. malik jackson...................................17 THE EXCHANGE

The Weekly’s new poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours. chima ikoro, armani rogers, kathy powers...................................19 CALENDAR

Bulletin and events. south side weekly staff.................22

Public Meetings Report ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLEY APPOLD

Jan. 10 Using Chicago Public Schools (CPS), alderpersons’ offices, and community-based organizations, the Chicago Department of Public Health plans to distribute 1.9 million KN95 masks on a first-come, first-serve basis. At a monthly hearing of the City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations, Dr. Allison Arwady, the City’s public health commissioner, shared this information and other statistics related to the City’s ongoing COVID-19 response. Arwady discussed the “science on returning back to school” but did not comment on negotiations on reopening between CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union. Arwady reported that as of December 30, there were fifty-three outbreaks (two or more cases linked within fourteen days) across fiftyone CPS schools, with an average of 2.5 cases per outbreak.

Jan. 11 At its meeting, the Cook County Board Health and Hospitals Committee learned that seventy-five percent of suburban Cook County residents hospitalized due to severe cases of COVID-19 had not been vaccinated. Representatives of the Cook County Department of Public Health also reported other suburban vaccination statistics: 80.3 percent of residents had received at least one dose, 60.8 percent a full vaccine series, and 38.4 percent a booster shot. The COVID test positivity and hospitalization rates were the highest since the pandemic began, the department reported. Some pop-up testing sites are charging fees, which is not illegal but is considered “inappropriate.”

Alderpersons at the second remote ward remap hearing this year debated whether to hold an in-person hearing, but did not talk about redistricting. The discussion occurred at a meeting of the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules. At least one committee member noted that gathering in person or in a hybrid format changed “the tone of the conversation” and that negotiations are more productive. Others argued for staying with remote meetings because the spread of the Omicron variant was increasing.

Jan. 12 At its monthly meeting, the Chicago Transit Board voted to approve a $30,000 insurance policy to cover spills, leaks, injuries, and legal actions. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) stores more than 10,000 gallons of bus diesel fuel in forty-five underground storage tanks and has more than 1,800 buses in its fleet. The agency plans to transition to an all-electric fleet by 2040. The CTA’s amended 2021 budget shows a surplus of about $45 million. Both revenue and expenses were less than expected.

The agency still has $32 million in CARES funding available and has not used other federal funds yet.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners will prioritize improving broadband internet access this year, specifically in county-run public housing, suburban courthouses, and rural areas, the Cook County Board of Technology and Innovation Committee learned at its meeting. Each county department shared its technology priorities for 2022. County officials have long expressed concerns about an outdated 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level for the January 27 issue.

BY DOCUMENTERS, INDIA DANIELS, SCOTT PEMBERTON

midframe and mainframe system, and this system is expected to be phased out by 2023.

Departments tend to run their information technology operations independently and use systems they select.

Jan. 13 At its meeting, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted to make $285 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds available as community initiative grants.

Specific grant priorities include $37 million to support small businesses, $35.9 million to prevent violence, and $30.5 million to improve transportation infrastructure. Last December, Cook County published a community engagement report after months of surveying residents on how it should spend ARPA funds.

Jan. 18 Renovations of Albany Terrace (3030 W. 21st Pl.), a seventeen-story, 350-unit senior apartment building in La Villita, is a key project this year, Commissioner Francine Washington reported at a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Board of Commissioners meeting. Several contracts were approved by the board, including biohazard cleanup and remediation at CHA properties ($1.1 million with Spaulding Deacon), waste and recycling services across sixty-three CHA properties ($13,775,154 with Waste Management of Illinois), and architectural and engineering services ($25 million) with twenty-seven vendors yet to be determined and including the Albany Terrace renovations.

Jan. 20 Stroke patients treated at Stroger Hospital tend to be “younger, Black, and Hispanic,” neurology division chair Dr. Lakshmi Warrior reported during a meeting of the Cook County Health Quality and Patient Safety Committee. The median age of stroke patients at Illinois hospitals is seventy; at Stroger it is sixty. Warrior described aspects of Stroger’s stroke program, which include conducting a CT scan and addressing food insecurity post-discharge.

Jan. 21 Counting total population instead of voting-age population could create a “mirage” of political power and representation that doesn’t translate to the ballot box, American University professor Allan Lichtman told the City Council Committee on Committees and Rules at its meeting. Chair Michelle Harris (8th Ward) invited Lichtman to speak about proportional representation and the legality of the map sponsored by her committee and the map proposed by members of the Latino Caucus under the Voting Rights Act. The primary conflict between the proponents of both maps is whether or not citizen voting-age population (CVAP) should form the basis for drawing Chicago’s wards, rather than total population. CVAP excludes non-citizens and people under the age of eighteen. Supporters of the Latino Caucus map argue that total population should be the standard from which the ward lines are drawn because alderpersons represent everyone who lives in their ward, not just the people who can vote or who voted for them. “Bottom line is,” Lichtman said, “whichever plan this body in its wisdom adopts… there’s no voting rights case to be made against it.”

This information was collected in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.

POLICE

Fear and Disconnection Mask Common Interests Among Asian and Black Communities

Chinese and Black Americans in Chicago both want safer neighborhoods amidst recordhigh violence. What’s preventing more racial solidarity in proposed solutions?

BY WENDY WEI

W

oom Sing Tse, a seventyone-year-old grandfather was shot twenty-two times in broad daylight outside Haines Elementary School in Chinatown as he was crossing the street on December 7.

The suspect, Alphonso Joyner, twentythree, was charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bail.

Though the police commander found no motivating cause for what the police called an “execution-style” murder, several community members consider it yet another hate crime against people of Asian descent.

Messages expressing sorrow, concern, and anger intermingled in a virtual chat room of a community public meeting in Chinatown that was held online and in-person at Chinese Christian Union Church on December 21. The event brought together residents, elected officials, police representatives, and community organizers to discuss the shocking homicide. On the same day as Tse’s murder, a carjacking also occurred,

another area of concern for Chinatown that has escalated during the pandemic.

For the Chinatown community, Tse’s murder is the continuation of over a year of violent attacks on Asian Americans since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. It began with a double homicide in Chinatown in February 2020, described as the first of its kind in decades, and then another in December 2020. These are among the constant incidences of antiAsian hate crimes rolling in from across the country. According to Chicago Police Department data, homicides in 2021 in the 9th District are up fourteen percent compared to the previous year and are 121 percent higher than in 2019.

In response, the Chinese community in Chicago began to organize around public safety with unprecedented willpower. The Chinatown Security Foundation was established last February to raise funds for surveillance cameras on every major intersection in Chinatown. A neighborhood watch group, Chinatown Neighborhood Watch, was formed in

close partnership with the Chicago Police Department and also works to donate surveillance cameras and provide installation assistance for residents.

Prominent voices, including Illinois State Representative Theresa Mah, have emphasized the importance of a “twopronged approach” to combat violence.

This includes long-term community investment to address root causes such as poverty, on top of increasing public safety resources.

At present, however, those calling for more policing are the loudest voices in Chinatown.

After the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021, where eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women, hundreds gathered in Chinatown Square for a Stop Asian Hate rally spearheaded

by Chinatown Security Foundation and sixty-five community organizations. Calls were increasingly made for individuals to take community safety into their own hands. Alarmingly, some discussions on Chinese social media channels

encouraged Chinese residents to arm themselves in self-defense, vigilante style.

To gain insight into diverse perspectives on public safety in the Chinese American community, the Weekly spoke with Chinese and Chinese American residents from the South Side, both life-long Chicagoans and international college students, as well as organizers who are working to build cross racial solidarity.

C

hinese and Black residents in the South Side have built their communities in close proximity to each other for over a century, according to Angela Lin. She is a Chinatown community organizer and co-founder of People Matter, a non-profit working to improve race relations among Chinese, Black and Latinx communities in Chinatown and surrounding areas of Bridgeport, Bronzeville, Douglas, McKinley Park, and Pilsen.

Since the late 1800s, racial tensions have existed in the largely immigrant

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

POLICE

and diverse communities of the South Side. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad, Chinese migrants escaping harassment and antiChinese sentiment on the West Coast moved east to cities like Chicago, Boston and New York. Most of these Chinese migrants were rural or urban workingclass Cantonese speakers from southern China with little formal education.

In Chicago, they settled in the near South Side, where they were joined by working-class immigrants from Poland, Ireland, and Italy, as well as Black people who were leaving the Deep South. These groups all settled in around the area known as present-day Chinatown.

Communities of color in the South Side have a long history of living in fear due to racial tensions with “white ethnics.” Most infamous was the 1919 race riot that began in Bridgeport, when racist white mobs, mostly Irish, violently attacked Black Americans in Chicago’s Black Belt over the course of a week.

According to Lin, older Chinese residents remember Irish Americans increasingly gaining formal power as city cops being the main violent threat to Chinatown safety. “Someone who I talked to who grew up here in the 60s was talking about [how] she was surprised that we were talking about antiBlackness among Chinese communities, because back then it was an anti-Chinese and anti-Black [attitude] from the white communities,” Lin said.

“There have always been a lot of Chinese folks and a lot of Black folks who live near each other," she explained.

"In the 1960s, a lot of public housing buildings were created. I believe that [in] this area, Armor Square, the number of Black folks increased by about 400,000 between the decade of the 60s to 70s.”

The racial makeup and dispersion of many parts of Chicago fluctuate dramatically by the decade, and the Chinatown area is no exception to demographic change. Lin cited that Haines, the school where the recent shooting happened outside, used to be all Black and now it's about seventy percent Chinese. Archer Courts, which is a block

down and offers section 8 housing, used to be one hundred percent Black. Now it's seventy percent Chinese, she said.

Though the earliest Chinese immigrants in Chicago arrived in the late 1800s, today’s Chinatown population continues to be carried by recent immigrants from China and Hong Kong.

Many have a limited understanding of English and stick to Cantonese. Unlike the more affluent, educated and whitecollar Chinese immigrants residing in the suburbs, Chinatown remains a working class community and thirty-eight percent of residents of Armor Square, which includes Chinatown, live under the poverty line. According to a May 2015 report from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, more than half of Chinese residents report speaking English “less than 'very well.'”

Lin pointed out that “because of the [racial] segregation of Chicago, a lot of different communities of color just aren't in conversation with each other.

There isn't really a relationship that has been built up between Black and Chinese communities.”

Despite a century of proximity, there is little meaningful interaction between the Black and Chinese population, in large part due to the language barrier.

Anti-miscegenation laws and strict quotas on Chinese female immigrantion prevented Chinese families from forming and assimilating into American society like other immigrant groups. Thus, Chinatown remained a tight and insular community without much interaction with others, even over generations.

Chinese immigrants bring their own understanding of public safety and the role of policing, shaped by lived experiences in their home country which are quite different from the United States.

A

visible portion of the Chinese presence in the South Side are university students at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Illinois Institute of Technology who have not been to the United States until they attended college.

Chinese youth enrollment in American

6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

higher education took off in the 2000s. In 2021, around a third of all international students in the United States were Chinese.

Chinese international students venture often to Chinatown for groceries and entertainment. Binweng Chen* is one of them. A 2021 masters graduate from U of C, he frequently made trips to Chinatown while living in Hyde Park.

Before Chen left China, his family and friends had already warned him about safety issues in Chicago. However, he was told that he did “not need to worry about these [safety] factors because there are spaces that are safety zones and some dangerous areas. So if you do not go to the dangerous area, everything will be fine."

For him, Chinatown and Hyde Park were safe places until 2021.

Chen’s sense of safety was irreparably shaken on January 9, 2021 when fellow resident and U of C PhD student Yiran Fan was shot and killed in the parking garage of Chen’s apartment complex.

“In 2019, I thought these were very safe places,” he reflected. “But [after] violent accidents happened to the places I’m quite familiar with, this makes me feel very unsafe. Because you realize that if you go out at some point, maybe you could be the victim."

Like many other international students and immigrants, Chen believes the solution to the uptick in violence should focus on increasing protection measures in the community. For Hyde Park, he believes the current levels of surveillance, UCPD patrols, and shuttle routes are not adequate to keep students safe from violence. Chen suggested that, “especially at night, they should patrol the community very often. I think that they should drive their car around Hyde Park and make sure that every corner is good.”

Chen’s views on solutions for public safety are shaped by a different political and social environment than the United States. China is a country of remarkable cultural homogeneity compared to the United States. The ethnic majority, Han Chinese, makes up 91.1 percent of the population according to the 2020

Chinese census.

Chinese people also generally have a high level of trust in the government.

In 2021, the Edelman Trust Barometer showed that ninety-one percent of Chinese respondents trusted the government, while only thirty-nine percent of Americans trusted the government. China isalso home to the world's largest surveillance network, employing half of all global surveillance cameras and four times that of the United States.

Further, recent Chinese media has been criticized for focusing onedimensionally on looting and violence in the United States during civil unrest in 2020, as part of a larger ideological battle that pits the perceived failures of open democracy with the security of statecontrolled social order.

In Chinese media, police are part of the solution, not the problem. There is a household saying that goes, “If you are in trouble, seek help from a cop.” Wanting the Chinese model to look favorable to the U.S., Chinese media often zero in on gun violence in the U.S. and frame the violence as a consequence of “too much freedom” , while boasting China’s own low homicide rates. This impacts Chinese immigrants abroad because many still get their news from Chinese sources, either official or on social media.

For Kesan Li, the rise in gun violence in Chicago over the past two years is not surprising. Li, also of Chinese descent, immigrated to Bridgeport as a young child from China over two decades ago.

Unlike Ruihan, Kesan grew up in the South Side where he still resides.

“If I had to say, maybe it got a little worse, but you know, who knows? How much worse is worse? Because Chicago has always had a very, very rough, terrible track record of gun violence.

We're always hearing [about] people getting shot, people getting killed. And as unfortunate as it is, I think we've all become desensitized.”

Growing up as a South Sider and a Chinese immigrant has shaped Li’s understanding of the varying perspectives on gun violence. A proud graduate of

POLICE

COURTESY OF PEOPLE MATTER

Chicago Public Schools, Li comes from a family of Chicago educators. His mother and late step father both worked as CPS Chinese-language teachers, which inspired him to pursue his current career as a student counselor for a Hyde Parkarea high school.

Li believes that the difficulty of Chinese immigrants to get on the same

page about solutions to gun violence stems from lack of understanding of the Black experience in America. “They're just really fearful of African Americans...

They don't really try to understand the African Americans in Chicago. They don't. They have no experience of what it's like.”

As a counselor at a predominantly

African American high school, Li is intimately aware of the negative impact police presence can have on certain students.

"Racial profiling is one hundred percent real,” he emphasized. “When I did my internship to become a school counselor, there was this one student that I dealt with a lot. One day, she told me

that she hates the police, because every time she sees them, especially ones that had guns right on their holster and it's a visible trigger, sometimes they'll cause [her] to have a meltdown. Because she's seen loved ones and friends basically gunned down by the police before. I understand that it's very traumatic. It's just not conducive for the mental health

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

POLICE

of these students."

Rising fear is a sentiment that both communities can relate to during the tumultuous years of the pandemic. Kesan agrees with Chen that the violence has spread to unexpected areas, stoking fear in new swathes of residents. “To hear people get killed in Chinatown, that's almost basically unheard of, so yes, people were absolutely shocked. They were terrified.

And as for Hyde Park, no one expect[ed] the university students to get shot and killed in that area.”

While the shootings in Chinatown and Hyde Park were disturbing and unexpected to many, "violence happens disproportionately within the AfricanAmerican community in Chicago,” Li emphasized. Chicago crime rates have shot up, but the violence especially impacted already hard-hit Black communities in the West and South sides.

This is on top of the heightened tensions with police following violent responses to Black Lives Matter protests.

Notably, the murder rates in more affluent, predominantly white Chicago neighborhoods last year were near record low levels, despite large media attention on the shootings, carjacking and retail thefts in those areas.

Li concedes that misunderstandings go both ways. When reflecting on the reactions of police critics to competing views on public safety, Li believes that sometimes "[they] don't really understand the history of Chinese-American or Chinese internationals in America.”

“Asian Americans are also in a very unique position in America. When it's convenient for white America, we serve as the proverbial model minority. But at the same time, there's some resentment from the Black community because it's seen as that we're getting preferential treatment from the whites,” Li said. “But if you look at it as a whole, the history of Chinese [in America], it's pretty sorry. We are the perpetual other, we're always aliens in both groups. Because it seems that we're so different, we'll never assimilate into American society, whether it is white or Black."

Similar to Black Americans, Asians

also have a fear that their community and their people are under attack. Li pointed to the skyrocketing of Asian hate crimes as evidence of Asian-Americans’ precarious status in American society and fuel for the increased fear among the community that’s driving extreme responses. A recent report from Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate cited more than 10,000 hate incidents against AsianAmericans and Pacific Islanders between March 19, 2020 and September 30, 2021.

Li describes it as a horror to have to “watch your back wher[ever] you go.”

Lin affirms that the violence has taken a hard toll on the Chinatown community, where “a lot of Chinese immigrants are scared to leave their house due to the most recent shooting."

D

espite both communities seeing rising crime rates, the Chinese community seemed to receive a quicker and more sympathetic response from authorities, perhaps due to the fact that some Chinese residents are calling for increased policing and some Black residents are calling for decreased policing. Li and Lin both agree that a major barrier to working together is a lack of a foundation.“There's no open dialogue.

[There's a] lack of understanding, lack of communication. Again, fear mongering,” Li lamented.

Consuela Hendricks and Lin started the non-profit organization People Matter in February of 2020. They first met in 2018 while both working as organizers in Chinatown and recognizing a lack of cross-racial solidarity in a community that is home to many ethnic groups.

“We break down language barriers, we try to get them to talk across cultural lines, we try to get them to talk about how they feel, and to express their understanding of racism, in hopes that people will empathize with one another," Hendricks explained.

Hendricks is a Black, thirdgeneration Chicagoan, and thinks that the conversation on gun violence and fear is coded with anti-Black rhetoric.

She explains that often people imply it is Black people rather than certain

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

neighborhoods that are dangerous.

As a Black woman, Hendricks says that she sometimes feels uncomfortable and unwelcome in Chinatown. “Being a Black person walking in spaces, regardless of if I'm from a different community or live within that community. I'm getting stared at, I'm getting followed, I'm getting targeted. Because I am perceived as the danger in the community,” Hendricks said.

When people say that they are scared of a certain area because it’s dangerous, she feels that they are really saying that they feel unsafe around “a certain skin color, a certain feature, a certain look.”

Discussions around community safety in Chinatown often erroneously paint Black people as the source of violence. Images circulating on mainstream and Chinese ethnic media have predominantly depicted Black people attacking Asian people. However, analysis of crime statistics has shown that over three-fourths of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States were committed by white offenders, both before and after the pandemic [cite].

Hendricks believes that this misleading media entrenches in the Chinese community the fear-mongering narrative that Black people are the source of crime. She sees how fear and misunderstanding destroys potential paths for racial solidarity between the two communities of color.

Hendricks and Li founded People Matter because they saw a need to move both Black and Asian Americans collectively towards better conditions in the South Side. According to Hendricks, many Black residents also want more police and surveillance in the community to achieve more safety. “I think that a lot of Black residents are calling for the same things [as Chinese residents],” she explained. “But it's an underlying thing where a lot of Chinese residents think [the problem] is the Black people. And, again, associating danger with skin color.”

She points out that surveillance with the purpose of catching criminals does not solve “the pipeline of crime.”

Lin added, “Organizations need to

be on the same page where they want to address the holistic solution. That needs to be our collective long-term goal. Even as people may try to have immediate responses, I think that the long term goal of addressing the problem at its root is really important."

According to Lin, the newer Chinese organizations tackling gun violence have a lot to learn from Black-led organizations that have been addressing violence prevention in their communities for decades.

“Chinese organizations should listen to their expertise and understand what is the root cause of the issue,” she said.

Wendy Wei is a writer based in Chicago.

She is on hiatus from a fellowship at People Matter where she researched political participation among immigrants. This is her first story for the Weekly.

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COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Perspectives from CPS Students Who Walked Out

BY CHIMA IKORO AND MADELEINE PARRISH

PHOTO BY PAUL GOYETTE

T

wo days after Chicago Public Schools (CPS) resumed in-person learning after a weeklong shutdown, as City officials and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leaders negotiated bitterly over COVID safety protocols, hundreds of students from an estimated forty-plus CPS schools walked out around noon on Friday, January 14, demanding for a safe return to classes, an action organized by the newly-formed student coalition Chi-RADS. Many showed up to CPS headquarters at 42 W. Madison, calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to listen to them. Their main demand: that the City bring students to the table and ensure their voices are prioritized in conversations about developing a COVID-19 safety plan in CPS, and for City officials to release and be transparent about school COVID-19 data.

It’s believed to be the largest mass mobilization of students the city has seen in many years, organizers said. Among their demands, they called for CPS to support students through fully funding CTA public transportation for all students, providing one full-time therapist or psychologist for every thirty students, providing every student with a personal laptop, funding social emotional learning as well as arts and music programs, and providing COVID relief stipends to students and their families.

They rallied for the implementation of measures to slow the spread of COVID, such as by providing rapid antigen tests in every school, as well as distributing them to communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. They called for vaccine education for skeptical and non-native English-speaking parents, and the provision of sufficient N95 masks, as well as wipes, hand sanitizer, hand washing stations, and working air ventilation machines in every classroom. Students also demanded a “sustainable and efficient contact tracing system that considers where infected students are in all parts of their day, with the help of student and school community input.”

As part of CPS’ agreement with the CTU, which passed on January 12 after CTU members voted to approve it, CPS will provide additional KN95 masks and allow each school to have a contact tracing team that will allow staff to be paid to do contact tracing for student cases in their buildings.

Acknowledging that there’s no blanket plan that will work for every school and student, students also proposed that “every school should have a peer pod task force” made up of members of the school body, including teachers, staff, and students, and parents and the administration to create a school-specific COVID response plan.”

Each pod would consider the way the building should be used and occupied, create teams of peer/teacher support, engage in restorative practices, and determine what kind of extra support CPS should provide.

The Weekly asked CPS students who participated in the walkouts to share their thoughts. Here’s how some of them responded: Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s community organizing section editor. Madeleine Parrish is the Weekly’s education section editor.

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PHOTO BY GERRI FERNANDEZ

“I believed in the demands/manifesto of sorts posted by Chi-RADS, and while I supported CTU in the remote work action, I felt neither CTU nor CPS were listening to students, even though we are the majority in every school. I felt unsafe going to school with no option to go remote unless I tested positive, and that the metrics of school-wide remote learning only when forty percent of students or thirty percent of teachers quarantine were way too high. We're fighting for our [lives].” Adrián R. (they/ them), a junior at Whitney Young High School. “[It was] beautiful. Seeing more than one hundred students at my school walk out was so amazing and empowering.

Going downtown and seeing all the joy from students all over Chicago made me so happy. Our school had a bus full of students go downtown and seeing the bus come was amazing. We built community downtown and at our schools. We did that.” Leila (she/her), a sophomore at Little Village Lawndale High School.

“I was motivated because I was tired and constantly anxious. I did not want to get COVID. I did not want to bring it home to my family. I wanted to bring attention to the way our schools function during the pandemic, the way they do not keep us safe, the way CPS does not invest in Chicago youth, the way we are risking our health for education.” Rein (they/ them), a senior at Solorio High School.

PHOTO BY PAUL GOYETTE

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

“I wanted to bring attention to the way our schools function during the pandemic. The way they do not keep us safe. The way CPS does not invest in Chicago youth.”

“To be able to have schools across the district come together and demand the same thing shows how essential this fight is to the liberation of youth. We’re tired of not being heard, so we’re going to keep fighting.” Judai Smith (they/ them), a senior at Kenwood Academy and an organizer with Chi-RADS.

“The youth collective fights to be heard, as we’ve always have. Revolution occurs whether you hear it or not. We plant for growth so that the youth rise.

And they will rise.” Shujaa, (all pronouns), a junior in high school and an organizer with Chi-RADS. PHOTO BY GERRI FERNANDEZ

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING PHOTOS BY OSCAR SANCHEZ

“Students are begging for safer environments for their education, we’ve sat in unsafe classrooms and protested, but still see no changes. You claim to value students yet profit off of mandating attendance in unprecedented highs in a pandemic. Stop treating the children of CPS as an afterthought and start valuing us as people. We’re the ones who have to experience these conditions, not you, not your staff, and definitely not your own children.” Ava (she/her), a junior at Westinghouse College Prep.

“To Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools, y’all absolutely disgust me. The way y’all have treated Black and brown children for decades gives y’all no redemption ever. How we were treated since the beginning of the pandemic was horrific and nothing but. Lightfoot, your gross fascist, antiBlack, and capitalist ways have harmed my community, Black people in my generation, and shows nothing but your true self: a slimy neoliberal jerk who’ll do nothing but protect profit and increase police presence in Black and brown neighborhoods and not actually put the people FIRST and start the process of restorative healing for us. There will be no more chances with y’all making your actions up. Y'all's reign of terror on Black and brown kids are over. Physical revolution via all colonized people in Chicago and beyond is needed, and NOW. We will not stand by and continue to allow academic and systemic violence against Black and brown kids continue… This. Is. Our. Time.” Ashanti Douglass (she/they), a senior at Urban Prep Academies Bronzeville.

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

EDUCATION

Bad Data

City officials quietly underreported COVID numbers by school, not giving a complete picture of the state of COVID in the classroom.

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

A

fter making an unannounced change in its COVID case reporting methods, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) administrators have underreported school-specific COVID-19 case numbers since the beginning of the year as parents, teachers, and City officials determined if it was safe to return to in-person learning during the Omicron surge.

The inconsistency was discovered by a CPS parent and cloud engineer who has been tracking the numbers from home, and it has sparked anger from parents who feel they are not being given a complete picture of the state of COVID in their children’s schools.

In early January, as Jakob Ondrey was sending his children back to school, he noticed that COVID cases in CPS’s official dashboard were not matching the volume of notifications that parents were receiving about potential exposures at the school.

As parents tried to figure out how many classes were in quarantine, “something like twenty out of thirty classes had a letter [to parents],” he told the Weekly. “But then you would go to the CPS official dashboards, and there would be nothing there.”

Ondrey, a former technician in the special infectious disease lab at Lurie Children’s Hospital, started analyzing the data behind the Twitter bot that he launched independently in February 2021. The account automatically pulls

COVID numbers directly from CPS databases.

He said that before the winter break, CPS was releasing pretty consistent COVID data for both individual schools and the district as a whole. But on January 3, right before the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted to temporarily switch to remote learning, he noticed that the data abruptly diverged and the rising number of cases across the district no longer matched the sum of cases that CPS was reporting from individual schools.

Ondrey said he reached out to CPS for clarification more than once and was unsuccessful. He said the data was presumably manipulated during the dispute between CPS and CTU to give parents the impression that the prevalence of COVID was not so bad in their child’s respective school.

He went to Twitter to vent: “Today I’ll share the story of how [CPS] has been displaying different sets of COVID data to intentionally deceive parents & the public about COVID in schools. I’ll share evidence about how and (shockingly) WHEN they started fudging the numbers.”

While district numbers skyrocketed as kids were heading back to the classroom on January 3, numbers for individual schools remained static, his graph showed.

Many educators and parents were able to relate and his tweet went viral.

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

During the week of January 9, for example, CPS data showed that Lane Tech had five cases, while Ondrey’s figures showed there were actually thirty-seven cases.

On his website (cpscovid.com), Ondrey keeps an interactive map of COVID cases in CPS schools over the past fourteen days. As of publication, it shows that Hubbard High School in West Lawn, Curie High School in West Elsdon, Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy in Brighton Park, and Hamline Elementary School in Back of the Yards had the largest number of total cases on the South Side.

In response to public pressure, a CPS spokesperson released a statement in which they admitted that CPS changed the way it published COVID numbers by school by opting to only report what they call “closed cases”– cases that have been verified by contact tracers–rather than all reported cases in a school. However, they denied that the change happened in early January and also cited privacy concerns as a reason for their decision to stop sharing schoolspecific data.

Ondrey’s takeaway is that CPS knowingly misled the public with “bad data” and didn’t notify them or apologize.

He said, “the assertion of CPS that they are ‘not required to provide the data’ is offensive and dismissive to the 330,000 students in CPS and their families.”

He said he will continue to publish his daily findings on Twitter @CPSCovid.

Jacqueline Serrato is the Weekly’s editorin-chief.

From Legacy to Genesis A Q&A with ABJ Civic Arts Center co-founder and CEO Victoria Brady.

BY DIERDRE ROBINSON

A

nnie B. Jones Civic Arts Center (ABJ) has made the most of its changes in recent years. Founded in 1993 by Dr. Vivian R. Jones, ABJ is a youth-focused organization that provides community arts and leadership training programs for people between the ages of fourteen and thirty-five. The organization, a branch of Annie B. Jones Community Services, Inc., was located in South Shore for twenty-two years until it moved in August of 2021 to Douglas. ABJ has been headed by Pastor Victoria Carol Brady since her mother, Dr. Jones, retired in 2013.

Known by many titles, such as Pastor Brady, Big Mama, or simply Pastor V, Brady is a self-described “work mutt,” a motivating characteristic reflected in her notable achievements and continued success leading the organization handed down by her mother.

The Weekly caught up with Brady to discuss the rise of ABJ, its continued transformation, and plans for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does your organization do and who is it for?

ABJ, as in ABJ Civic Arts Center, stands for Annie Bell Jones.

Annie Bell Jones was my grandmother. We use civic arts to help develop youths into stronger citizens and/or leaders, whether as artists or non-artists. We want young people at their best, and we want to help them get to that best. Our programs center around inner healing, peace building, leadership development, and what it means to have true grit. A lot of our work is born out of my desire to meet them on that last stop before they become adults.

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

PHOTO BY GERRI FERNANDEZ

How did ABJ’s journey begin?

Annie B. Jones Community Services Inc. was the vision of my mother, Dr. Vivian Rose Jones. I think the journey stems from my mother’s experience of being a teen mother, pregnant with me at the age of fifteen. [Eventually] she worked in the child welfare system, and I remember my mom being very frustrated, at times, about the policies and stipulations that were in place. She began to talk about this whole notion of a one-stop shop, so to speak, where the physical, social, and emotional needs of youths and adults could be met. That was the original mission statement. At that time, [the Department of Children and Family Services] had a mentoring program where they were bringing in small and/or new nonprofit organizations to contract with them. ABJ was brought in through the mentoring program. The operation began, and I was there the day it started.

Is the work you do a challenge at times, especially in today’s current climate?

It’s hard work, but it is absolutely worthwhile because that’s my anointing. We do things that other people would not dare do.

When I say hard work, I see it as hard work now because so much has changed, and a lot of my work centers around unity and unifying our people. That is very, very difficult but not impossible.

Have you been involved with ABJ since it first started?

When ABJ opened, I was working with youths for the Chicago

ARTS

ABJ CIVIC ARTS CIRCLE TRAINING GRADUATION, PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNIE B. JONES CIVIC ARTS CENTER

Park District. I was barely out of college myself. I couldn’t wait for her to get [ABJ] open. I kept asking, “Is it ready? Is it open?” I didn’t even really know what it was, but eventually she did get it open and running. We started first with foster care programming and got a chance to do a lot of great work. We had over a thousand families. You can just imagine the workload. We just grew in leaps and bounds almost overnight.

What about the original vision has remained the same?

You mentioned that when ABJ first started, it was heavily focused on social service initiatives such as foster care. From ABJ’s early beginnings until now, has that focus changed at all? If so, why?

We primarily service youths (and young adults) between the ages of fourteen to twenty-four years old. Our ABJ Millennial Tribe tends to be twenty-five to thirty years old, but the tribe members are like alumni of ABJ. They help raise funds, mentor, and provide leadership, almost like an advisory board.

The spirit and heart of ABJ is absolutely the same. We still want a stronger, healthier community, but my mother retired in 2013. She was more of a social service provider.

I am a singer, actress, and artist. So, I was like, I can’t keep doing these programs. This doesn’t work too well for me. But even then, we were doing arts and culture; arts and culture was always a part of the menu of services that we provided. When I took on the responsibility of ABJ, I did begin to close down those [social service] programs.

The first one was foster care.

The desire to reach people in a deep place, the deep part of themselves, the root and essence of who they are, and then help bring out the best of that. We still do that work!

What age range are most of your youth and young adult programs geared toward?

In your opinion, why is the work that you do at ABJ important for our young people today?

Unfortunately, many schools are not really equipping our young people for the real world. There’s no real smooth bridge from high school to either college, post-secondary school, or a career. Or, even a family-owned mega business. We don’t typically have that.

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

ARTS

“My mother is very proud of ABJ. As far as she’s concerned, we’ve done our work and if we don’t do anything else, she’s satisfied.”

Does ABJ offer specific programs or training to help youths bridge that gap between high school and beyond?

Yes. We have the ABJ Civic Arts Circle Training, which is basically a culmination of all of my work over the years and the work of our team. You can really consider it as a rite of passage program. It’s that last stop before you’re supposed to be at the age where you have figured out some things.

We received a [Healing Illinois] grant from the Chicago Community Trust [and the Illinois Department of Human Services] under the Changemakers Network; our Circle Training is what I wrote to do the grant on. We were funded, and from that we did our first cohort.

What were some of the outcomes of earning the [Healing Illinois] grant and starting the Circle Training program? What are you most proud of?

gonna have to get Big Mama.” From that conversation the notion came that we would start the Big Mama Movement. We wanted something that would hold us to the task and give us that grit! You know everything is gonna be all right when Big Mama’s on the scene, and we wanted to use our voice to unite the Black family. Our role is to be that authoritative voice that gives you comfort, and if anybody can help reunite us as a people, if anyone on this planet can do it, it’s Big Mama.

As the founder of ABJ, how did your mother feel about you changing the name? Is she still involved with the organization?

I got my mom’s blessing on that. She’s totally on board with everything we’re doing.

She’s still the president emeritus and probably one of my biggest fans. She loves what we’re doing and continues to give me advice from time to time. She is truly a champion of ABJ: all that it is and all that it has ever been.

I’m so happy to say that we have a young lady who started a business, one who went through a highly specialized entrepreneurial program, graduated, and got certification.

Another very bright young lady is a chef, and we were her first client. She cooked the food for the eighteen-week training and was able to scale up her business. I also love that the participants have to come up with their own community service projects, such as the Zoom-A-Thon that raised funds for an eight-year-old girl who contracted COVID last year and as a result needed a kidney transplant.

After twenty-two years, was it difficult moving to a new location?

How can a young person join ABJ? Is the application process pretty tough?

We were blessed to be able to move to Trinity Episcopal Church on 125 East 26th Street, right across the street from Mercy Hospital. We are where we’re supposed to be for now.

In partnership with After School Matters, we’re provided with a database of names of young people who have applied for our program, and they go through an interview process. It’s not likely that I’ll turn anyone away. The biggest thing is to complete the application and follow up on the interview.

What about older adults? What programs do you offer that are geared toward them?

We’re really big on intergenerational programming. It’s an absolute must for ABJ. The youth are the primary focus, at all times, but we have multiple projects, such as plays, that are intergenerational. We have a very nice program now called ABJ Blocks of Beauty where teenagers interview block club leaders, they learn what block clubs are and all of the positive things happening on the block. Then, the young people take those interviews and turn them into works of art such as drawings, poems, or songs.

Speaking of intergenerational, can we talk about the Big Mama Movement? You’ve been referred to as one yourself. Tell us more.

Big Mama Movement Chicago was born out of the work that a group of us was doing to follow up on things like reparations, self-determination, gun violence, and a whole slew of things that could truly bring change to our community. A group of us had gone to a press conference in July of 2021, and although it looked like we had made some traction, it wasn’t working. Cecile Johnson (a Big Mama) and I were standing outside of City Hall saying that we need to do something different. I believe she said, “We’re 16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

It was very traumatic especially in the midst of even going through COVID. It was probably one of my biggest challenges without my mother, but I am so happy where we are.

Where is ABJ’s new home, and how do you feel about it now?

How can someone learn more about ABJ and its vast offerings?

They can reach out to us through our website, www.abjchicago.org. There’s a “Contact Us” page, and I’m crazy enough to take people’s phone calls. On the website, we have the Big Mama page, and they can [also] contact us through that.

What’s next for ABJ? We have quite a bit coming up over the next six months, and everything will be on our website. Next month, we’re kicking it off. We’re launching everything in February.

We’re offering a free dance class for youths in the community, Zumba on Tuesdays and Thursdays online, and a hip-hop opera. We have a play coming up, and the Civic Arts Circle is restarting mid-February. We left our old location under Exodus, and we’re launching our new programming under Genesis. I’m just so excited.

For more information about Annie B. Jones (ABJ) Civic Arts Center, visit abjchicago.org or call (773) 209-4586.

Dierdre Robinson is a writer and manager in Chicago. This is Robinson’s first piece for the Weekly.

CULTURE

How to Turn a School Into a Skate Park

A short film shows how skaters from all over Chicagoland ventured to an abandoned school with no heat or running water to skate with one another.

BY MALIK JACKSON

P

eople from the South Side have a certain kind of DIY attitude to them. Decades of expropriation have made it so that we have no other choice. This attitude rings through chants like “Whose Streets, Our Streets!” and “We Keep Us Safe!” and it animates the countless organizations working to rebuild and remake our communities. In his short film The Sanctuary, Katon Blackburn shows us his own vision for this DIY spirit: that on top of building our own communities, we can create our own fun, and that if we’re resourceful enough, we can do it in the very spaces that were taken from us.

It started with Seamoss, Katon’s first street-skate film shot on the South Side.

Katon’s mom recognized the voice of a shouting bystander in the video and connected him with Katon. Turns out, he had access to Anthony Overton Elementary School, which was among the fifty schools Rahm Emanuel infamously closed in 2013.

Winter was approaching, and Katon lobbed a request to use the space as an indoor skate park. His wish was granted. “It all just happened so organically…We finally had a little place to skate over the winter, on the South Side of Chicago—which was like the biggest deal for me and him, because that’s something we’ve never ever had growing up as skaters,” Katon said.

What followed was The Sanctuary: a 35-minute chronicle of the winter spent skating in Overton back in 2020, with graffitied walls adding new character to the hallways, songs from classic artists like Maze and Alice Coltrane, and of course, tricks like ‘krook nollie heel outs’ and ‘faker flip switch mannys’.

The life force of the film is carried by the fist bumps, the soothing sounds of trucks hitting cement floors, the pure joy for skateboarding evident on each face featured in the video, and the nostalgic grain of the Sony Digital Handycam and MK1 fisheye lens, reminiscent of something from MTV circa 2005.

The film opens with footage of Bronzeville and audio from news coverage of the school closures, followed by a clip of Eve Ewing dissecting inequities in the public education system across racial lines in this country. This combination of media sets the context for the set of the film: one of the schools that the district decided not to save.

In the winds of winter, Katon, Roland Wiley, and skaters from all over Chicagoland ventured to an abandoned school with no heat or running water to skate with one another. In the film, Katon asks them, “What do you love about skating?” Each answer revolves around skateboarding’s freeing qualities and its ability to bring people together, no matter their walk of life. A nation-builder in its own right.

Katon is no stranger to building communities. He is one of the founders of Natty Bwoy Bikes and Boards, a skateboard and bicycle repair shop that was housed at Boxville, a shipping container marketplace by the 51st Green Line station. When the

PHOTO BY JACOB KING

weather’s nice, he teaches skateboarding lessons at Kenwood Park on Sundays to youth of all ages. The two ventures alone serve unique purposes—but together, they create an ecosystem, an entry point.

“When I was growing up as a kid on the South Side I felt like it was kind of hard to get into it,” Blackburn said. “So for kids who don’t have that access, I just want to make sure that there’s a space now on the South Side where, if you want to get into this thing, you can come and you can feel welcomed.”

The Weekly caught up with Katon to ask him more about his skate journey, how it led him to filming The Sanctuary, and what he hopes people take away from it.

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

CULTURE

“The fact that we were able to be in this space and cultivate it and create it, and continue to kind of progress in our own journeys on the board. It became a place of education, we would go there as if it was Skate High School.”

PHOTO BY DOM WESTBURY

Where in Chicago are you from? What are the spaces you frequented and how did you get into skateboarding?

I'm originally from the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago. I was born in my grandma's house on 73rd and Constance. We lived there for a little and then when I was maybe like, around five or something, my mother bought a house at 81st and Euclid, and I spent ten years of my life there. How did I even get into skateboarding?

I have two older brothers. And I just remember before I even started skating, we had scooters, like those Razor scooters. And riding around on them only was like, so fun for so long. So eventually, we started trying to do tricks on them and like, jump on them. And then I remember one day, my older brother Kahari brought home a skateboard. And I was just super enchanted and fascinated by it. So we ended up on a skateboard. My mom bought one for all of us. And in our backyard, my mom had this little court, like some cement laid down that we use as a basketball court—that's where I kind of learned how to skateboard on those courts. And it was just like our flat ground area. And we would just build hella shit with like two-by-fours and sheets of plywood and bricks.

really be a part of this culture, this thing called skateboarding, because I saw myself represented so much in him.

You were building stuff from an early age?

Do you feel like skateboarding is unique in the ways it brings people together?

From an early age we were building our own little skate sets, and like our own types of obstacles to skate. And we would make little gaps and we would make ramps, we would make little rails—like the rails would be so sketchy. It would literally be like two bricks stacked on each other and then a two-by-four laid across some bricks. So the rail could fall at any moment, it wasn't like drilled in or anything. We literally learned how to skate in that backyard.

Probably the most influential space after that backyard would be when we discovered 31st, the skate park over on the lake. Spent a lot of time up there. We kind of grew up as skaters up there. And going to 31st was when I had one of my first experiences seeing other skaters that looked like me. And one that I remember in particular is a big homie of mine—his name's Billa and he actually has a clip in The Sanctuary. I probably first met him [at 31st] when I was like in second or third grade, and he had like the longest locs all the way down his back. He was always doing tricks on the manual pad. It definitely helped me envision or just made me feel like I could

I wouldn’t say that it’s unique in that manner. I feel like sports in general kind of do that. But [this is] what I always say is kind of different about skateboarding: I do consider it a sport, but I also consider it an art form. I also consider it a lifestyle. A lot of people ask me what do I do? ‘Oh, what do you do? What do you do? What's your job?’ And all the times I don't have a job to tell people, I just say, ‘I'm a skateboarder.’

That is kind of how I identify myself.

One thing that I think is unique about skateboarding: with most other sports, you need someone else to do it with you. I mean, you can practice soccer on your own, you can practice basketball on your own. But, uh, to actually be good and understand how to play the game, you're gonna have to eventually start playing with other people. And skateboarding is different in that manner. All you need to get better at skateboarding is you, yourself and that determination. You have to actually want to get on your board all the time.

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

And from the film you can see that it’s more of an individual pursuit in that way.

Not all of you are doing the same tricks, you all have your own style.

Yeah. At the beginning of my part, I say this quote by Lance Mountain, who's a skateboarder. ‘It's not that you're able to do it, but it is how you do it.’ And a huge thing just about skateboarding in general, it's all about style. It's all about how you see it. The course for the most part stayed the same throughout the video. But anytime I brought another person to the space, they would totally look at it differently.

Sometimes I compare skateboarding to cooking in the fact that like, you only have so many tricks or you only have so many things. I only have a tomato, a shallot and onion, and dry pasta. So like, what can I do with it? And what I think I can do with that tomato, onion, shallot and pasta might be totally different than what the next person thinks they could do with it.

Skateboarding is a super creative thing because everyone has a different brain. So I'm just going to look at the course differently. And we're going to assess that course based on what it is that we're capable of doing. So, yeah, that's where you start to see the individuality of the art form.

T

h e Exchange is The Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “THINK ABOUT ONE OF YOUR MOST VIVID MEMORIES. WHY DO YOU REMEMBER IT IN SUCH DETAIL?”

What does it mean to transform a school that was closed into one where your community could come together?

It was a blessing and we were fortunate to be able to do it. And it was just sick that it became a place of education once again. This is the wintertime. This is a time where normally skaters, especially from the South Side of Chicago, wouldn't be skating much. We would be losing tricks. So the fact that we were able to be in this space and cultivate it and create it, and continue to kind of progress in our own journeys on the board... it became a place of education, we would go there as if it was Skate High School.

There's this one scene where we run into these kids on the street. Me and Roland, we see them outside the window and they had their skateboards, [so] we invite them into the school and we're like, ‘Yo, like you guys skate? Come in here, blah, blah.’ They were super hyped. I ended up staying in touch with one of the kids and we made sure they were straight. I bought them a fresh pair of Vans and we would bring them decks and anything they needed in terms of skate supplies. And it was sick to just be able to do that because he literally stayed right down the street. He was living at his grandma's house. So that would have been his neighboring school, had it still been open today. So the fact that he could go there those few times and actually learn something—it was pretty cool. It was like he was going to school just for skating.

Would you consider yourself an educator?

I would say that's not far off. I mean, I've been giving skate lessons for like over a year now. So I mean, that's the education in its own. And I mean, skating has made a huge impact on my life. It has made me more confident. It's made me more fearless.

It's helped my social skills. It's helped me understand and break down certain cultural barriers. I think skating is a huge educational tool and a huge tool that can be used to help motivate and teach kids things.

Malik is the housing editor for the Weekly. He last wrote a review of Roots of the Black Chicago Renaissance.

You can watch The Sanctuary on YouTube using this QR Code.

Our thoughts in exchange for yours.

This could be a poem, a stream-ofconsciousness piece, or a short story.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com.

Lint

by Chima “Naira” Ikoro My uncle called us while we were sitting in an IHOP after church 13 years ago to tell us a branch had fallen from our family tree before it had the chance to grow a single fruit or see her flowers bloom.

I remember where in the restaurant we were sitting and I remember what song played in the car as we drove home and what seat I sat in and what window I looked out of and the things that we passed and which street we were driving down as the news fell over my head like dead leaves do you see how grief clings to the binding of your life like lint. And I wash and I brush and I wash and I wash but it never lets go.

And I wonder if she even remembers me as if that's even a thing–as if memories can remember. Like, if she can remember then she also could be looking at me right now.

And once I turned older than her, seeing my own fruit immature, my own petals still stuck to one another, the lint I’d thought I’d dusted away was right back where I last saw it.

Chima Ikoro is the community organizing editor for the Weekly. She last wrote about CPS’ back-to-school conundrum.

JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

LIT

Featured below is a reader response to a previous prompt.

With me

by Armani Rogers I keep all pieces with me. Heirlooms of different times logged only by their significance to me Extensions of me I call them. Badges for the rite of passage in my mind Sometimes blemishes Sometimes broken The souls never left I still carry them with me For they are pieces of my soul Some are parts of others. Given in a heat of the moment exchange. Airing grievances or hoping for a better union.

Acts I come to cherish as they bare new life As part of me It’s painful but I’m not in control of that. Face the music Some I make my piece and share to others.

I let them go like they were my ideas given life Ready to leave the nest in my head And give new meaning to someone’s life I’ve had my time now they must live with you.

And the next Or maybe die Like everything, they come with cycles Here today and gone tomorrow Nobody is ever sure when either happens but it does It just does.

I can say I’m happy with that Knowing that I don’t know Bits and pieces leave me and make space for new in my ever-changing existence These phases can’t be helped

Not my Baby

by Kathy Powers

It’s finally back to school.

We’ve been holed up and Buried our dead. Forever bound

By COVID surges.

Liefoot prepared her testimony The schools are safe, as she Installed unopenable windows At a Rogers Park high school.

Go back to school the blame-and-shame Mayor decreed, “The schools are safe,” With unvaccinated teachers and students, No soap, supplies, and knock-off HEPA filters.

She decried, “Expect some casualties,” It’s because of the teachers.

The bully mayor ordered In-person learning will prevail.

I care about your education.

The nervy CTU demands remote learning.

I hold hostage your laptops And lock out teachers.

I’ve been perfectly clear: The schools are the safest.

Homes are the spreader culprits, Not our Aramark-cleaned schools.

Back at school, staff, students, parents Sickened and died from COVID. We no longer hear false school bells: Not us, our babies, or our parents!

They are with us until they are not

#LoriLockout2022

Armani Rogers is an artist from Chicago Lawn. You can find him on Instagram and Twitter @koifshhh

Kathy Powers is a writer from Rogers Park. You can find her on Twitter @KathyPowers2020

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

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Construction

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“Below Market Rate” rental units available at 3478 N Broadway at monthly rents as follows: 7-one-bedroom units $1,010/mo.; 2-two-bedroom units $1,211/mo.; and 2-three-bedroom units $1,398/mo Must be income eligible. Households must earn no more than 60% of Area Median Income. 1-person-$39,180; 2-persons-$44,760; 3-persons-$50,340; 4-persons-$55,920; 5-persons-$60,420; 6-persons-$64920. Please contact Optima Lakeview® for an application and more information at (773)828-1700 or info@ optimalakeview.com. Units available through the City of Chicago’s Department of Housing are subject to monitoring and other restrictions.

Visit https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/ depts/doh/provdrs/developers/svcs/ aro.html

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ILLUSTRATION BY THUMY PHAN

BULLETIN Wooded Island Bird Walk

Wooded Island, Jackson Park, 59th St. and Cornell Dr., Sunday, January 29, 8:00am10:00am. Free. chicagoaudubon.org/ new-events/2022/01/15-wooded-islandbirdwalk The Chicago Audubon Society hosts its weekly bird walk (weather permitting) at Wooded Island in Jackson Park. The walk will cover two miles across Wooded Island, the Bobolink Meadow, and the lakefront. Meet on the west side of the Columbia Basin (north lagoon). Parking is available on Stony Island Ave. near 59th St. Bring binoculars and a field guide if you have them, and dress for the weather. ( Jim Daley)

Radical Peoples Study Hall

Online, Monday, January 31, 7:00pm.

Free. bit.ly/33HLuIi Hosted by ChiResists and Chilean via the Bronx and Chicago hip-hop duo Rebel Diaz, the Radical Peoples Study Hall is a free online workshop exploring the histories of hip-hop culture, neoliberalism, and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. More information can be found on Instagram @ chiresistsorg! (Chima Ikoro)

Where Did All the Public Housing Go?

Old Chicago Inn, 3222 N. Sheffield Ave., lower level, Thursday, February 3, 7:00pm– 9:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3qVy7Nc Join Chicago for Chicagoans and architectural historian Elsa Haarstad for a talk on the history of public housing in Chicago, from its postwar construction to its turn-of-the-century demolition and the displacement, privatization, and controversy that followed. Inperson event will also be live-streamed; preregistration required for in-person attendance only. (Martha Bayne)

EDUCATION Just Help! How to Build a Better World with author U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Online, Wednesday, February 2, 6:00pm– 7:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3At8bvO The Chicago Public Library hosts U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to celebrate the release of her new children's book, Just Help! How to Build a Better World. Sotomayor will

22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY JANUARY 13, 2022

be in conversation with award-winning Chicago author and sociologist Dr. Eve Ewing. To register for the event and to ask questions in advance, visit bit.ly/3At8bvO. (Maddie Parrish)

LSC 101

Online, Wednesday, February 2, 6:00pm– 7:30pm. Free. bit.ly/3FUH65E Raise Your Hand Illinois's virtual LSC 101 workshop for current and prospective Local School Council Members will discuss the basic power of LSCs and how they can strengthen communities. All parents, caregivers, community, staff, and high school youth are welcome. Spanish interpretation will be available. Register at bit.ly/3FUH65E. (Maddie Parrish)

ARTS Pilsen Vendor Market

Pilsen Art House , 1756 W. 19th St., 12:00pm–5:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3m9yMID This family-friendly weekly market invites artists and vendors to sell their wares such as candles, jewelry, woodwork, apparel, handmade goods, and more. There are both indoor and

outdoors space, and masks are required throughout the event. (Alma Campos)

Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott

Chicago Cultural Center, Exhibit Hall, Fourth Floor, 78 E. Washington St. Free. chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/ colescott.html A comprehensive retrospective exhibit of the work of Robert Colescott, a Black twentieth-century artist and satirist who took aim at race, class, and gender in America, will be on display through May 29. DCASE Director of Visual Arts Daniel Schulman will lead a gallery talk on February 16. ( Jim Daley)

Chinese New Year Arts and Crafts Show McKinley Park Field House, 2210 W. Pershing Rd., Saturday, January 29, 10:00am –2:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3H2FeZW

Shop and celebrate the Year of the Tiger at the Chinese New Year Arts & Crafts Show. This family-friendly event is free to the general public, with space for up to twenty-five vendors. (Isabel Nieves)

Young Chicago Authors Wordplay Open Mic

Instagram Live, Tuesday, February 1, 6:00pm–7:30pm. Free. instagram.com/youngchicagoauthors One of the longest-running youth open mics, Worldplay, is back every Tuesday on Instagram Live. The virtual open mic is hosted by DJ Ca$hera, and showcases music, spoken-word performances, and a featured artist. (Chima Ikoro)

Center Days: Dream

Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Sunday, February 6, 1:00pm– 4:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3nSywOG Join Hyde Park Art Center for their first Center Days of 2022 as they celebrate their Dream exhibition.

The family-friendly day will include intergenerational art-making activities, artist workshops, artist talks, open studios, and a tour of the exhibit, which showcases work by artists who recently participated in the HPAC's Center Program. Register to attend at bit.ly/3nSywOG. (Maddie Parrish)

Like Queer Animals: We Hold Your Gaze Epiphany Center for The Arts, 201 S. Ashland Ave., Monday, January 31, 9:00am –5:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3468L6d

Like Queer Animals (LQA), the collaborative team of artist Jessie Mott and writer and queer scholar Chantal Nadeau, presents the exhibition “We Hold Your Gaze” in the Catacombs. The exhibition will include all new work, including several works on paper, screen prints on fabric, and audio. Register to attend the free opening reception for this exhibition at bit.ly/3468L6d.

(Isabel Nieves)

Chicago International Puppet Festival Various, Friday, January 28, $20-$40. chicagopuppetfest.org

The Chicago International Puppet Festival continues through January 30.

Performances include an adaptation of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye cocreated and performed by South African artist Janni Younge and Californiabased actor and performance artists Margaret Laurena Kemp at the DuSable Museum of African-American History, while Epiphany Center for the Arts hosts Vermont's celebrated Bread & Puppet Theater and their large-scale puppetry production of Aeschylus's The Persians. See chicagopuppetfest.org for a complete festival schedule.

(Martha Bayne)

celebrates ten years of cross disciplinary experimentation with this group show of work by a decade's worth of fellows, including Alison Bechdel, Theaster Gates, Cauleen Smith, and many more.

Anchored by a gallery space showcasing a wide range of creative approaches to the notion of "drawing," the exhibit also includes films and audio interviews with the artists. Admission is free but reservations are recommended.

(Martha Bayne)

Scan to view the calendar online!

"Energy Never Dies" Book Discussion

Online, Saturday, January 29, 2:00pm– 4:00pm. Free. bit.ly/3FZwnHc The Chicago Public Library and the Black Metropolis Research Consortium present an online conversation with Chicago Public Media host and producer Ayana Contreras. Her new book, Energy Never Dies: AfroOptimism and Creativity in Chicago, explores the history of Black artists and entrepreneurs in Chicago, connecting the dots between success stories from Afro-Sheen to the Stony Island Arts Bank and crafting an uplifting narrative of positivity and triumph that binds Black Chicago together. Preregistration required. (Isabel Nieves)

Logan Center Exhibitions

Logan Center Gallery, 915 E. 60th St., Thursday, January 27, 9:00am–9:00pm.

Free. loganexhibitions.uchicago.edu Two exhibits open this week at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts. On January 27, "Truth and Beauty in the Hard Places" is the culmination of a yearlong project by poet Tara Betts and artist and former death row prisoner Renaldo Hudson.

The pair were the inaugural “Poet/ Artist for the People” practitioners-inresidence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and the Pozen Center Human Rights Lab. The next day, the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry's "On Drawing Drawing On''

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JANUARY 13, 2022 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

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