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AUSTINWEEKLY news ■ Black women in pain matter, too, PAGE 11
Vol. 33 No. 2
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January 9, 2019
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
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LLoretto tt conducting d ti clinical trials, page 9 SOMETHING TO SAY: Chicago-based rapper Charles Donalson, also known as Dahzi, poses for a photo on Dec. 28 outside of his family’s old home on Kenilworth Avenue in Oak Park.
Fields narrow in West Side alderman races
Many objections still being processed ahead of Feb. 26 election By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
Chicago Board of Elections hearing officers worked through the weekend to process objections against more than a hundred candidates hoping to run in the February 26 municipal election. Although many of the objections against candidates running on the West Side still need to be processed, the fields have been narrowed. Two of the challenges against incumbent Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) have been dismissed, while his attorney, Pericles Abbasi, expects him to survive the third challenge with enough valid signatures to stay on the ballot. Meanwhile, the 24th Ward race is shaping up to have at least two candidates, as candidate Toriano Sanzone dropped his objection against incumbent Ald. Michael Scott (24th). Preliminary recommendations call for Sanzone to remain on the ballot. In the 37th ward, it appears that incumbent Ald. Emma Mitts will face at least one opponent, as Tara Stamps survived an objection against her. And in the 28th Ward, See ALDERMAN RACES on page 6
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
‘America to Me’ star’s wit crackles in new rap CD
Charles Donalson’s acerbic racial insights extend from poetry to hip hop By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
The 10-part documentary series America to Me, which aired last year on Starz, plunged into the complex depths of Oak Park and River Forest High School’s long, layered struggle with race. The series was,
in many ways Shakespearean in its dramatic range and pathos. Charles Donalson, then a 16-year-old poet with a sword-sharp wit, was a Falstaffian character. Jester-like, seemingly nonchalant and somewhat aloof, Donalson is often seen on camera walking the halls with his headphones on, tuning out the madness of the crowd. He often provides some muchneeded comic relief, but the viewer quickly learns, though, that Donalson is wise beyond his years. “Every activity, every assembly, everything is made for white kids, because this
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school was made for white kids, because this country was made for white kids,” Donalson, then a junior and a precocious member of OPRF’s Spoken Word Club, tells the audience. “They have to realize that some things just have to be ours.” Donalson, now 19, is currently back in Oak Park, “taking a gap year,” he said. When he isn’t reading and writing, he’s working with area young people through Friday Night Place — a recreational program in Oak Park. See DONALSON on page 4
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