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Vol. 35 No. 22

Allies wanted, but ‘woke’ artists need not apply

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June 2, 2021

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PAGE 9

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West Side d church h h now a landmark, page 6

Banning Black hairstyles will likely to be illegal The Jett Hawkins Law is named for the 4-year-old boy whose West Side school banned him from wearing braids. Now it’s been sent to the governor’s desk to sign

By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago

Illinois schools soon won’t be able to ban students from wearing traditionally Black hairstyles thanks to a West Side mom’s fight and a bill that has been sent to the governor’s desk.

Officially called the Jett Hawkins Law, the new rule will call on the Illinois State Board of Education to complete a review of school handbooks and policies to ensure they don’t single out and ban Black hairstyles like cornrows, locs and braids. Schools that don’t comply will face funding cuts and may lose their recognition with the Illinois State Board of Education.

The Jett Hawkins Law was passed by the Illinois House of Representatives Thursday after previously being passed by the Senate under the sponsorship of state Sen. Mike Simmons.

The rule was inspired by a West Side mom, Ida Nelson, who spoke out in March after her 4-year-old son, Jett Hawkins, fell victim to hair discrimination at Providence St. Mel School in Garfield Park for wearing a braided hairstyle.

“No child should have to experience discrimination based on something that is part of their bodies, something God blessed them with that makes them uniquely beautiful,” Nelson said.

See HAIRSTYLES on page 8

CREDIT: FACEBOOK

#NoCopAcademy protesters stage a die-in at City Hall in May 2018 demanding the mayor invest in education rather than the police and fire training facility.

West Siders battled to block $95M police training academy Now they’re sharing what they learned through No Cop Academy toolkit

By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago

Activists who tried to stop the city from bringing a police training facility to the West Side have developed a toolkit to pass along wisdom to other groups organizing

around the issue of police funding.

The organizing toolkit released Monday is an archive of the No Cop Academy campaign from 2017 to 2019, protesting a $95 million police training facility in West Garfield Park. The materials document the tactics activists used to build a powerful coalition demanding that City Hall in-

vest in schools, mental health clinics and social services rather than pouring more money into Chicago Police.

“These resources in the toolkit have been years in the making,” said organizer Destiny Harris. “There are campaigns See ACADEMY on page 7

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

New artwork unveiled at Austin bus facility

‘Sunburst’ mural by Shinique Smith unveiled at Chicago Avenue bus stop

By AUSTIN TALKS Publishing Partner

Mayor Lori Lightfoot last week unveiled a new work of art for a Chicago Transit Authority bus facility in Austin.

The CTA’s investment in the new artwork is part of a shared commitment to expand public art throughout Chicago, and also complements the mayor’s INVEST South/ West initiative.

“This artwork is more than just a decorative piece,” Lightfoot said in a statement.

“It is a beacon of light that is reflective of the spirit and energy of our Austin community.

“Through our signature INVEST South/ West initiative, we will be able to attract even more projects like these, which will help our city’s South and West Sides heal and grow thanks to the power of art.”

The artwork, titled Sunburst, was created by artist Shinique Smith, an internationally recognized visual artist whose work has been exhibited across the United States, and has produced commissions for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Los Angeles Metro.

AUSTIN TALKS

ARTISTIC RESURGENCE: New artwork on the CTA bus facility on Chicago Avenue in Austin.

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Sunburst is a painted aluminum sculp- ing Association (AAABNA) — a corridor ture created specifically for the recently manager for Invest South/West — hosted refurbished CTA bus turnaround at the a community meeting with the artist in corner of Chicago Avenue and Austin Bou- December 2016 to solicit community feedback. levard.

“It is my sincere hope that Sunburst will The artwork is reflective of the radiating, bright energy at this well-traveled be a focal point and a talisman light for all who travel the Austin bus turncorner in all seasons. Symboliaround,” Smith said. cally, the artwork also highlights CTA President Dorval R. Cartrecent upgrades to the facility, er Jr. added: “This artwork will which now serves as a charging depot for the CTA’s newest allhelp put the Austin neighborelectric buses that were added as hood on the map as a destination part of regular service in early within Chicago for seeing worldApril. renowned artwork.”

The bus turnaround includes Over the last decade, the CTA’s an electric quick-charging stapublic art collection has nearly tion to support the CTA’s newestdoubled to include more than 70 generation electric buses that permanent works of art across have been operating along the SHINIQUE SMITH all eight rail lines and multiple #66 Chicago bus route. bus facilities. It includes mosaArtist The artist, currently based in ics, art glass, sculptures and inLos Angeles, is recognized interactive installations created ternationally for her exuberant by nationally and internationpaintings and sculpture that celally acclaimed artists, many of ebrate the power of human expression and whom are local. resilience.

The value of the new installation in AusSmith was one of nearly 350 artists who tin is $200,000, which includes artist fees responded to CTA’s Call for Artists issued and the costs of fabrication, shipping/dein 2015 for the bus turnaround. The evalu- livery and a project contingency fund, was ation committee selected Smith based on paid for using funds provided by the Fedher artistic merit, qualifications, profes- eral Transit Administration. sional recognition and her written stateFor more details on these new installament of interest. tions, visit transitchicago.com/art.

The CTA, in partnership with the Austin African American Business Network- CONTACT: austintalks.org@gmail.com

“[I hope] the Sunburst will be a … light for all who travel the Austin bus turnaround.

Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

West Side Lives

Nurse Sylvia Williams, 62, on putting the ‘care’ back in healthcare

By MICHAEL ROMAIN

a year, about as many as Mt. Sinai in North Lawndale. So, we’re very busy, but sometimes our patients use the emergency department as their primary care clinic. They don’t necessarily have primary care physicians. We want them to use our PCC clinic on the first floor.

I’m anxious to have Pipeline establish more primary care centers in the community. The ER is not really outfitted for people to use as a clinic, but sometimes that’s the only source of healthcare for many of our patients.

Editor

This week, I interviewed Sylvia Williams, nurse director at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park. The longtime Austin resident spoke about what inspired her to become a nurse, the importance of community hospitals and how West Siders can help keep West Suburban honest.

On her start in nursing I wanted to be a nurse, because I grew up watching “Julia,” which starred Diahann Carroll who played one of the first Black nurses broadcast on TV. In order for me to know whether I really wanted to be a nurse, I said I better get a job as a nursing assistant, to make sure I can stand the sight of blood and needles and those kind of things.

I began my career at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood as a nursing assistant, with a primary focus on oncology. But I ended up having a lot of departments and my dad got sick. I had him enter West Suburban. We had never really heard about the hospital. I grew up on the West Side in the 1960s. I had no affiliation with West Suburban. But I brought him here as a patient in 2004 and noticed that it was a family medicine environment Sylvia Williams that didn’t have a whole lot of layers.

Sometimes, when you go into academic medical centers, there’s a lot of breakdown in communication and other things. At West Suburban, I was in communication with his surgeon, social workers, primary care doctors, etc.

On landing at West Suburban I applied here in 2007. Since then, our hospital has been through various acquisitions — from Resurrection to Vanguard to Tenet and now Pipeline Health. We’ve always been a staple in Austin, but I think West Suburban has been one of those best kept secrets.

We have a number of programs I don’t think people are fully aware of. We’re not in the news all the time, but we do great things. Our emergency department sees about 40,000 patients

PROVIDED

AUSTIN WEEKLY

news

Equity Editor/Ombudsman/Editor Michael Romain Senior Editor Bob Uphues Contributing Reporter Igor Studenkov Reporting Partners Block Club, Austin Talks

On her hope for more funding

Columnist Arlene Jones

Last month, Gov. Pritzker hosted a press conference here where the Illinois Black Caucus announced the passage of one of their bills that would allocate more funding to safety net hospitals like West Suburban. I’m very anxious to see how that pans out. We’re now waiting on how they want to disseminate those funds to hospitals in underserved communities.

We also need funding for really robust clinics in the community, so that our residents can have access to care that’s directly affiliated with primary care physicians.

Staff Photographer Alex Rogals

On how residents can help keep West Suburban honest

We’re going to resume our Patient Family Advisory Council. I’m a liaison for that. Now that Covid cases are going down in the city, we want to resume that Council, in which patients and families here at the hospital can tell us what we can do better and what work still needs to be done.

The Council is open to any previous patients and families out there who want to participate. They should have either had care at the hospital in the past or didn’t have care due to problems getting access. We want people who can not only tell us the negative, but help us with come up with solutions.

Anyone interested in joining the Council can contact me at (708) 763-1380 or email me at sywillia@westsubmc.com.

CONTACT: info@vfpress.news

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

City officials, stakeholders give update on Laramie Bank Roundtable on INVEST South/West, Soul City corridor held May 28

By ZACH CUNNING AustinTalks

City officials, developers and stakeholders provided updates on the Laramie State Bank development and Soul City Corridor at a neighborhood roundtable event on May 28 Athena Williams, executive director of the Oak Park Regional Housing Center, told attendees the Austin United Alliance – which was selected in March to develop the Laramie State Bank building and is made up of the regional housing center and Heartland Housing – is “very Austin Talks open to working with everybody City officials, developers and stakeholders held a virtual roundtable event on May 28 in the community.”

She said they have held pre- to discuss the Laramie Bank redevelopment project. sentations for numerous community groups, including the 14- to 18-month construction period.”

Austin Residential Council, Ald. Mitt’s 37th Ward CommuBut, he said, that timeline is dependent on numerous nity Meeting, Austin African American Business Networkfactors, including tax credit financing and “lining up our ing Association (AABNA) and the 15th District Faith and capital stack as necessary to build this project,” as well as Community Committee. weather.

Austin United Alliance is “planning to lodge a lot of work Williams said wealth-building in the community is “a big beginning June 1,” Williams said. part of this project.”

She said that work includes a website with real time upThey plan to host virtual wealth building seminars, as dates so the community can stay abreast of the developwell as live events, and will develop a team of “Laramie ment, flyer distribution, putting information in community State Bank Ambassadors that can walk through this process newspapers and holding events throughout Austin.

As previously reported by AustinTalks, city officials an- with us,” she said.

Williams said the goal is to “make sure that wealth goes nounced March 8 that Austin United Alliance had been seback into the community” and that will be the sole purpose lected from among seven applicants to develop the Laramie of having a community-led board of directors for the bank.

State Bank building.

The board of directors will manage and operate the bank The winning proposal includes a new bank branch in the building at the corner of Laramie and Chicago, as well as building’s budget, she said, and at the end of the year they a café, an interactive blues history museum and a business will “develop a plan to invest either in the businesses on Chicago Avenue or to help the capacity of a nonprofit in the incubator.

They’re also planning 76 rental housing units and a park- community.”

Once it’s up and running, there will be plenty of businessing garage, as well as a common space between the bank building and residential units, said Earl Chase, executive es along Chicago Avenue for the bank to invest in.

Malcolm Crawford, executive director of the Austin Afdirector of Heartland Housing.

Chase said they plan to start construction in the first rican American Business Networking Association – the quarter of 2022 and are “estimating somewhere around a corridor manager for the Chicago Avenue priority corri-

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dor under INVEST South/West – said there are numerous businesses receiving neighborhood opportunity fund money and many additional businesses opening in the near future along what is known as the Soul City Corridor.

The Soul City Corridor stretches along Chicago Avenue from Austin Boulevard to Cicero Avenue, and Crawford sees it as an economic driver specifically for Black Chicagoans.

“In Lagos, Nigeria, which is 9 million Blacks, there is a Chinatown, and there is no place for … Africans in that country as an economic driver. So, to have this place Soul City on Chicago Avenue, there is no place like that in the world where blacks are beginning to control the economics in their community,” he said.

Some of the new businesses opening or soon opening along the corridor include a location for Batter and Berries, which will open alongside an event space called The Bruce at 5925 W. Chicago Ave.; Marseil Jackson’s Soul City Studios (5849-51 W. Chicago Ave.); 40 Acres Fresh’s first brick and mortar grocery store (5713 W. Chicago Ave.); and Soul City Place (5814-45 W. Chicago Ave.), which Crawford said will contain 30 housing units and 10 storefronts.

Drip G Art Gallery recently opened at 5525 W. Chicago Ave, a venue called the Comedy Shop is coming to 5804 W. Chicago Ave., and two soul food restaurants will be opening, too.

“There’ll finally be a place in this country where Black people do business with Black people, and everybody else too,” Crawford said.

CONTACT: austintalks.org@gmail.com

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

Pascal Sabino / Block Club

The family of Adam Toledo at a mural pained in his honor.

Adam Toledo’s family launches nonprofit farm The 13-year-old boy was fatally shot by a Chicago police officer in March.

Toledo’s family debuted Adam’s Place on what would’ve been his 14th birthday

By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago

The family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old boy who was killed by a Chicago police officer, launched a nonprofit farm on May 26 to give at-risk boys a safe haven from the streets.

Toledo’s family unveiled the Adam’s Place program on what would’ve been his 14th birthday. His family said they hope the program will prevent other families from experiencing the tragic loss of a child.

Housed at a rural farm in Wisconsin, the Adam’s Place residential program will teach young people from Chicago about nature, agriculture and livestock.

Toledo’s family launched Adam’s Place to give young people who are vulnerable to violence a place where they can grow and thrive.

The project honors Toledo’s earnest curiosity of nature and his love for animals, his mother Betty said in a state-

ment read by the family’s attorney Dee- here commemorating his loss,” said Joel na Weiss-Ortiz.

Hirschhorn, an attorney for the family.

“We know Adam would have loved a As Adam’s Place finds its footing, the place in the country where boys can learn program initially plans to launch as a to be responsible by helping summer camp for an initial take care of animals,” Betty cohort of eight young men.

Toledo said in the statement.

In the future, it could host ” …The kind of place where more young men, and the boys can learn and grow and residential program is exhave a chance to fulfill their pected to run year-round. ambitions.”

Adam’s Place will be modThe nonprofit purchased eled after the Boys Farm in 71 acres in Potosi, Wisconsin, Newberry, South Carolina, a to house Adam’s Place, and 50-year-old program that has work on a barn and farmhelped 1,000 youth with diffiBETTY TOLEDO house for the program may cult family situations.

Mother of Adam Toledo start as early as October.

In the early morning Nonprofit leaders will work hours March 29, Toledo was with churches and neighfatally shot by Officer Eric borhood groups to create a Stillman in Little Village referral system to enroll loas he raised his hands in a cal youth, especially Latino boys, in the Little Village alley, video shows. Video program. released after the shooting appeared to “Life would have been a lot different show Toledo tossing the gun behind the for Adam Toledo had he been able to at- fence moments before he is shot.

The fatal shooting made national news. tend … Adam’s Place. We wouldn’t be

“What I really want is to have Adam back, but I can’t have that.”

Toledo’s family pushed back against public commentary that suggested the 13-year-old killing’s was justified or that he was a bad person.

“He was a kid who was learning his way around the world. He deserved a chance to make mistakes and learn from them,” said Esmeralda Toledo, the boy’s older sister.

She hopes Adam’s Place will give kids a refuge away from the negative influences that can put them at risk.

“What I really want is to have Adam back, but I can’t have that. But we can try to help other families to protect their sons from the temptations that took Adam into the street that night, the night he was killed,” his mother Betty Toledo said in a statement.

Pascal Sabino is a Report for America corps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago.

CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

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Pentecostal Church of Holiness was originally built by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

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By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago

The West Side has a new Chicago landmark: the 90-year-old Pentecostal Church of Holiness in the K-Town neighborhood of North Lawndale.

The landmark designation was approved

by City Council on May 26, giving the building at 1444 S. Keeler Ave. protection from demolition and access to tax and financial incentives. The church’s Pastor Chaun Johnson started pursuing landmark status in 2019.

“We want to ensure that those who hear about North Lawndale will know that there is a lily in the valley. There is beauty in what seems to be degradation,” said Pastor Chaun Johnson.

The church was originally founded as a Catholic parish, Our Lady of Lourdes, that served the predominantly Czech population who migrated to Lawndale from the Pilsen neighborhood. The Catholic parish was originally a wooden building, but as the congregation grew, it was rebuilt in 1932 in the Romanesque Revival-style architecture that survives today.

The church remained a central part of KTown even as the area transformed to a Black community in the ’50s, as racist housing policy and disinvestment made it one of the poorest parts of Chicago.

The landmark status also recognizes the contributions of Bishop Michael R. Dempsey and the legacy of social service upheld at Pentecostal Church of Holiness since his ten-

ure there.

Dempsey became pastor of Pentecostal in 1965 as unemployment in Lawndale was growing markedly and the membership of the church was shrinking. Dempsey founded a program called Lawndale for Better Jobs to help residents find employment. In one year, over 300 people were granted jobs, planning department officials said.

Lawndale for Better Jobs was eventually modeled into a citywide program that served over 93,000 job-seekers by 1973. The program was given national recognition after a visit from then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Even after becoming a Pentecostal congregation in 2005, the church continues the legacy as a center for advancing the quality of life in Lawndale.

The church’s ministries continue to support job seekers in the area. They also have programs that provide free food, education resources, mental health services and clothing to residents. The church is currently working on vaccination initiatives to provide relief from the pandemic, and the congregation is also working to establish a community garden, Johnson said.

“I want to preserve it. We want to preserve our history, and demonstrate and show the community that we are invested in our neighborhood,” Johnson said.

Pascal Sabino is a Report for America corps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago.

CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org

Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

ACADEMY

“Sometimes people who don’t share all of the same values can be aligned around one goal.”

Lessons learned from page 1 going on all over the country far and wide.

Campaigns are an important tool to building power. We wanted to be able to break down the parts, the ways we built community power through the No Cop Academy campaign.”

The campaign was launched in 2017 when then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel slated the police and fire training center to be built at 4301 W. Chicago Ave. Activists criticized the plan for dedicating more money toward an already massive police budget while doing little to address the root causes of violence or supporting more community-based resources.

Emanuel pushed the controversial proposal through a divided City Council in his final weeks in office in 2019. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, then in a runoff with Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, supported a new training facility for officers but called on the project to be halted.

After she was elected, she said the current plans for the facility might not be expansive enough to meet the need and signaled that far more than $95 million could be spent on it.

Though the No Cop Academy campaign was not successful in stopping the facility from being built, the effort has many suc-

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BENJI HART Activist

Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Dream Jordan, a student at Lindblom Math & Science Academy, dances as students demand cops be removed from schools during a protest outside Chicago Public Schools headquarters during a Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, August 26, 2020. cesses and had a lasting impact, Hart said.

The activism helped train a formidable cohort of youth leaders and expand public conversations on police violence, abolition of prisons and defunding the police, activist Benji Hart said.

“Sometimes people who don’t share all of the same values can be aligned around one goal,” said Hart, an adult organizer who

helped guide the youth-centered campaign.

The campaign also brought together a diverse coalition of 105 organizations — including those that don’t want to defund Chicago Police — by uniting on tangible ways the funding could be better spent, Hart said. “”Some of the folks who came to the table weren’t totally down with the idea of defunding the Chicago Police Department

or the idea of abolition,” Hart said. “They did understand an additional $95 million investment in a police department that already receives $1.7 billion annually is a misappropriation of funds, when we know schools are closing and we’re losing mental health clinics and all these other resources that prevent violence from happening in our communities.”

The No Cop Academy effort also set the stage for more recent and ongoing social and political campaigns, including demands to slash police funding, and the youth-led campaign to remove school resource officers from Chicago Public Schools campuses.

Many of the young leaders in those campaigns were also active in No Cop Academy, Hart said.

“Not even we could have imagined… there would be a national uprising making the same demands, to defund the police department and fund social services,” Hart said.

CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

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The changing culture of dying

ach and every one of us will die one day. The older I get, the more accepting I’ve become that death is my final destination.

When I was young, I thought of death as something way off in the future. Years back, that used to be the mindset of everyone who was young. Now with young people dying daily from senseless gun violence, death has become a fingertip reality.

And because so many young people are dying, it’s also changing the way we participate in funerals and grave memorials.

Memorial Day was this past Monday.

Originally created to memorialize those who had given their lives in military service, it has become an opportunity to remember all those who are no longer with us. And as I pass the multitudes of cemeteries in the various areas of the city, I can’t help but notice the way gravesites are no longer the somber realm of my youth. Instead many have taken on the appearance of mini-festivals, fairs, and circuses.

Several days ago, I was driving northbound on Harlem, approaching Cermak. I looked to my left and saw a sea of pastels. There were balloons, wind spinners, flags, real and artificial flowers, stuffed animals. You name it. Had I not known better, I would have wondered what was happening at that park. But I knew it was a graveyard.

And what I was witnessing was a cultural phenomenon occurring right before our

eyes. It is not confined to one cemetery but to a lot of them if they have space where younger people are being buried. We are seeing how young people and middle-age adults are dealing with the deaths of young people. The once rare phenomena of a young person dying is now a daily occurrence. So our funerals and graveyards are reflecting the attitudes of those who are generations younger than I and their need to honor the dead.

I am neither a proponent nor opponent of the idea. It is a reflection that graveyards are no longer the dominion of the old. Truth is that, after having lived a long life, nobody would have decorated Grandma and Grandpa’s grave with wind spinners, balloons and all sorts of paraphernalia. As we sit on the cusp of this changing cultural phenomenon, we need to do some soul searching as a society. We can’t control death in old age, but we can do better controlling the number of young people who die from senseless gun violence.

We should have a PSA showing an old part of the cemetery versus the sections where the young are now being buried and asking of America, “The young have always been the trendsetters for this nation. But is this the trend we want to set?” The somberbut-visual reality is a wake-up call, long overdue.

ARLENE JONES

“The young have always been the trendsetters for this nation. But is this the trend we want to set?”

AUSTIN WEEKLY NEWS Mail your letter to the editor to: Austin Weekly News, 141 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park, IL 60302 or email michael@austinweeklynews.com

Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Jett Hawkins poses for a portrait, donning his hair in braids, in his family’s Douglas home on Wednesday, March 17, 2021.

HAIRSTYLES

New law will protect them from page 1 Simmons — who keeps his hair in long, freeform locs — drafted the bill with the State Board of Education after Nelson shared her son’s story.

“In this country, Black hairstyles have often been targeted and criminalized. And that’s got to stop,” Simmons said. “Oftentimes, there are attempts made to control Black bodies, and ultimately that’s what it comes down to. … This is my body. You don’t get to make laws and rules and policies around my body.”

Although nearly the entire student body at Providence St. Mel is Black, the school’s handbook bans students from having several Black hairstyles, including locs, braids and cornrows on boys.

When Nelson fought the school’s hair policy, a multitude of students, alumni and parents stepped forward with their own stories dating back to the early ’90s of being disciplined, ostracized and humiliated by school administrators for having natural, kinky hair or traditional protective hairstyles.

Lauren Leggett, a 2019 alumna of Providence St. Mel, said the school’s attitudes toward natural Black hairstyles shook her self-esteem.

As part of Leggett’s natural hair journey, she slowly worked up the courage to wear a “big, beautiful afro” to school. Once she did, she got a lot of strange looks and comments from students and faculty, she said.

The next day, Leggett smoothed her hair into a ponytail “because I felt kind of ashamed,” she said. When a dean commented on her ponytail, it triggered every insecurity she was feeling about her kinky hair.

“She said, ‘I like your hair better like that.’ It just affirmed for me that my natural hair will never be accepted,” Leggett said.

Keli Stewart, of the class of 1997, drew the ire of school officials for having natural hair and for wearing traditional headwraps like the Nigerian gele.

“The hair policy speaks to a larger culture of anti-Blackness,” Stewart said. “I just remember how I felt expressing my Black self, that this wasn’t the space to do that in.”

School rules that discriminate against traditionally Black hairstyles create a culture of self-hatred and shame toward student’s African heritage, Leggett said.

“We know racial discrimination is directly tied to degradation of mental health,” Leggett said. “This is not just to protect our hair. This is literally to protect Black lives. We are losing children to instances of racial discrimination.”

The hair policy at Providence St. Mel will be reviewed after the end of the current school year, Principal Timothy Ervin previously said.

“It’s not about disrespecting people or discriminating against people,” Ervin said.

“It was just clearly trying to be very distinguished in the neighborhood.”

But the Jett Hawkins Act is a powerful move against discrimination, Leggett said.

“The next step is to look to defund racist institutions on every scale,” Leggett said.

Donors who financially support institutions that uphold racist policies are also to blame for allowing discrimination to exist, she said.

They must take stock of who they choose to support and stop funding schools, organizations and businesses that are known to participate in white supremacy, Leggett said.

“Why are we funding a school that has historically been racist and used respectability politics as a weapon to make Black children feel voiceless and unheard?” Leggett said.

“Black children deserve an education without that mental and emotional cost.”

Pascal Sabino is a Report for America corps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago.

CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org

Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

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Allies wanted, but ‘woke’ artists need not apply

official, Newsom appointed Dr. n June 2019, Dr. Karen Sonia Angell, a former employSmith, California’s top ee with the U.S. Centers for Dispublic health official, ease Control and Prevention exited her position, leaving (CDC) who had experience “in Dr. Charity Dean to fill the neither California nor commurole in the interim. nicable disease.”

Dean had been chief health Angell’s most recent job beofficer for Santa Barbara before her appointment had been fore her unusual tenacity and working on heart disease in care for a job nobody noticed New York City’s health departgarnered the attention of a ment, Lewis writes. Later, after few bigwigs. By the time Smith Angell abruptly resigned amid departed, Dean had risen to bethe pandemic, Newsom excome the state’s second-highest plained that he had appointed public health official and was her, in part, because of “her positioned to be her boss’ natuwork in righting racial injusral replacement.

Commentary If California Governor Gavin tice in health care.”

Newsom had appointed Dean Dean was later told “that she — whom author Michael Lewherself had never been a seriis, in his new book The Premonition, described ous candidate” because it would have been bad as “clairvoyant” for her ability to anticipate for “optics.” the pandemic before it happened — the state “Charity was too young, might have been in a better position to serve as too blond, too Barbie,” Lewis a national model for pandemic management. writes, quoting a senior official ficial After all, seeing the organizational flaws her in California’s health system. tem. colleagues couldn’t was Dean’s unique gift. “‘They wanted a person of “In any large organization, the solution to color.’ Sonia Angell identified ied any crisis was usually found not in the offi- as Latina.” cially important people at the top but in some For someone hired, in obscure employee far down the organization’s part, because of equity, Annchart,” Lewis wrote, referencing others who gell’s reported workplacee had noticed that Dean fit the trait of an “L6.” treatment of Dean was “The L6,” Lewis explained, is “the person rather appalling. buried under six layers of organization whose “The first thing Karen muzzled voice suddenly, urgently needed to be Smith had asked Charity heard.” to do was to resolve a criFor years, Dean worked competently in the sis on the U.S.-Mexico shadows, doing what most people in her po- border,” Lewis writes. sition would avoid. That’s why she was dis- “The first thing Sonia patched to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Angell asked her to do “I’d heard that Trump was trying to create a was to figure out how crisis,” Dean told Lewis, “trying to turn people to set the time on the against immigrants. It was just a rumor. But clock on her desk phone.” when I get there I find this is all true. They’re Dean also “found her new boss a tailor, b t il just dumping families on street corners at two a hairdresser, and a dry cleaner,” and worked in the morning. They were trying to create a to “dismiss the thought that her new boss was asking her to do these things to remind her of disaster.”

Dean’s task was to “mitigate the health risks her place.”

An expert in infectious disease who would posed by the new arrivals,” and for that she had to get up close and personal with the peo- sit in front of a whiteboard in her office “comple affected by Trump’s policies. In Our Lady ing to terms with exponential growth,” Dean of Guadalupe Church, there was a shelter, may have literally been the only person in Calwhere Dean “found hundreds of tired, scared, ifornia government who knew what even the CDC refused to recognize until months into and obviously unhealthy refugees.”

She found terrified mothers and babies, who the COVID-19 pandemic: the fact that we were had been kept in cages, and shell-shocked tod- in a pandemic.

But Dean was labeled an alarmist when she dlers. She treated them with medical supplies obtained from the home medicine cabinets attempted to broach the topic with her new of church volunteers. Dean learned that San boss. Eventually, Angell banned Dean from Diego County and the Red Cross didn’t want using the word “pandemic” in meetings and anything to do with the migrants (the latter told her to “erase the math and the tsunami because the nonprofit “didn’t want to offend curve on her whiteboard” before banishing Dean from important planning discussions their Republican donors,” Lewis writes).

Dean risked her own health to offer medical altogether.

When California officials realized the crisis treatment to these new arrivals, jerry-rigging the response into an unmitigated success. they were dealing with, it was too late. Many But even after all of this, the state’s number thousands had already died, with many more two health officer got overlooked. Instead of ap- deaths to come. pointing Dean to succeed Smith as top health Angell would eventually resign during the

MICHAEL ROMAIN

pandemic due to what state officials reported to be a “tech glitch that resulted in an undercount of coronavirus cases and confusion about the scope of infections as the state’s death toll crossed 10,000,” according to a statement officials released at the time.

Ironically, in a parting email to staff, Angell wrote: “We have led with science and data, and with equity at the core of our intentions.”

The situation with Angell is a case study in what I’ll call the equity industrial complex, which is less interested in erasing the foundational basis for systemic inequities than in treating the symptoms — or to switch metaphors, applying mascara to conceal much deeper problems.

In a recent piece for the New York Times, Talmon Joseph Smith put his finger on the equity (or anti-racism) industrial complex when opining on why the globe-spanning racial justice movement that sprung up since the death of George Floyd last year has yielded such tepid systemic results.

“Talk of social justice efforts and antiracism reached new levels of influence in the Zoom-layered corridors of the intelligentsia, corporate America, and other upper-middle-class or elite-controlled institue tions,” Smith writes. ti “Yet “Y this reckoning often didn’t have ambitions for di systemic change as much sys as it i concerned itself with matters like representamat tion, tion diversity, promotion and renegotiating the terms of corporate social responsico bility.” .

In other words, the moveo ment inspired i by a poor Black man iin Minnesota has much to show for itself in the way of book deals, six-figure salaries, speaking engagements and consultant fees (an environment ripe for exploitation by ‘woke’ artists), but much, much less in the way of, say, protection against systemically racist policing for Black and Brown people like Floyd.

“Protest leaders didn’t march last summer to widen the trend of Black Lives Matter signs in tree-lined progressive neighborhoods, where Black neighbors are often conspicuously absent because of classist zoning laws,” Smith adds. “While many cultural shifts have been welcome, it’s not clear that people were protesting for things like greater demographic variety in the ads, magazine covers or entertainment that we consume.”

Quiet as it’s kept, in Oak Park and River Forest, there are a lot of Sonia Angells — high-achieving professionals who preach and “perform” equity in public, but who in their professional lives are working to uphold not only systems and practices of oppression, but also the worst aspects of modern institu-

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tions, including their tendency toward blind arrogance and rigid, often counterproductive, hierarchies.

In his 2020 book Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism, Toure Reed writes that, since “the Cold War, liberals have tended to “abstract racial disparities from the political-economic forces that generate them,” tracing those disparities “to whites’ ingrained prejudices and poor blacks’ cultural deficiencies.”

According to this framework, embodied in the likes of Obama and Oprah, the antidotes to racial injustice are opportunity, education and personal responsibility. But as the case of Angell shows, simply installing Black and Brown faces in high places does not translate into institutional reform.

Frameworks of equity based on racial representation, diversity, “the culture of poverty” and ethnic pluralism touted by “postwar liberal policymakers” like the Clintons and Obama may result in historically diverse presidential cabinets and much breaking of the ubiquitous glass ceiling, but they often ignore much deeper root problems.

“Liberals’ tendency to divorce race from class has had dire consequences for African American and other low-skilled workers,” Reed argues, I believe correctly. These policymakers “have generally ignored the impact of issues such as automation, deindustrialization, public-sector retrenchment and the decline of the union movement on Blacks.

“Instead, modern liberal antipoverty efforts have generally bound macroeconomic growth agendas to a mix of antidiscrimination policies, cultural tutelage, job training and punitive measures ranging from welfare reform to the carceral state.”

We need an equity framework that goes beyond racial reductionism and is based on the public good, which unfortunately isn’t currently en vogue among the jet-setting political class (just consider Obama’s and Clinton’s disdain for Bernie Sanders’ gruff championing of popular and necessary policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal).

It’s time we rethink our conception of allyship, placing a serious understanding of social structures, raw political power, economic solidarity and the public good at the center of any cross-racial alliance.

For example, if I’m governor and deep change means appointing a “too young, too blond, too Barbie” doctor who gets public service and can model true equitable leadership, then the job is hers.

And if I’m a white-collar, salaried employee at Amazon’s comfortable corporate offices in the Loop, then I’m speaking and acting out against the exploitation of wage workers at Amazon’s distribution centers.

If an institution has to endure bad optics in order to start genuinely looking at its own system and culture through a racial equity lens that is laser-focused on the economic and material roots of inequity, then so be it.

CONTACT: michael@austinweeklynews.com

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Austin Weekly News, June 2, 2021

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