Category Archives: Politics

Chicago mayors Daley, Washington and Emanuel, President Obama and the national scene

A guide to yesterday’s Chicago protests on the Dan Ryan – for people who are new to all this (and trolls)

Chicago, Communities, Media, Politics, Race, ,

The_Dan_Ryan_Expressway_Westbound_near_the_I-55_exit

I spent most of yesterday watching reactions to the shutdown of the Dan Ryan to protest violence in Chicago.

Some of the reactions were genuine – people trying to come to a better understanding of why protestors chose this tactic and why it’s effective.

Some of them were super troll-y.

This is for both groups.

What’s the point of disrupting traffic on the Dan Ryan? Most of the people affected aren’t the ones causing the violence.

One of the biggest problems with addressing violence in Chicago is that it is seen as a problem isolated to a particular area and only affecting certain people and neighborhoods. Yesterday’s protest was like throwing a stone in a pond and causing ripple effects.

If you ended up talking about this protest and the issues surrounding it this weekend, that was the point of the protest. Shutting down the Dan Ryan makes that possible in ways other tactics don’t.

Without calling more people into this fight, the problem doesn’t get solved. Without more pressure on the mayor, the governor, the City Council, it doesn’t get solved. Without a broad-based coalition of people from around the metro area who demand solutions, it doesn’t get solved. Shutting down the Dan Ryan made the problem impossible to ignore.

It was also about forcing people who access Chicago via the Dan Ryan to see parts of the city they otherwise are able to avoid. If you wanted to access the city via I-57, you got diverted to 95th or 103rd Street. You’d have to take State Street or Vincennes or any of the other streets that run parallel to the Dan Ryan to get into the city. You’d have to see the people, the businesses and neighborhoods that make up the South Side – all the places that are largely invisible if you’re taking the Dan Ryan.

At a minimum, this makes the problem more present, less a thing you hear about and more a thing that exists in real ways.

Why don’t they disrupt the spots where the drug dealers / gang members hang out?

People do this all the time. This article is from 2016, but trust me this kind of thing happens out of the reach of TV cameras and reporters frequently.

In fact, Father Pfleger himself leads marches like this every Friday night. His church, St. Sabina, also has an ongoing violence intervention program.

Bringing more attention to the people doing this work is also what the protest was about, not to mention talking about issues like low wages, schools, jobs, etc.

So why don’t they protest in front of the mayor/governor/Mike Madigan’s house?

People do protest in front of the mayor’s house. Often enough that it doesn’t create the kind of disruption or visibility that something like this did. But honestly, this is like asking why civil rights protestors walked from Selma to Montgomery or blocked the Edmund Pettus Bridge. There’s a tendency with protests to see them as either/or rather than “yes, and…”

This is just politics! It’s just a publicity stunt.

Yes. You’ve captured the exact reason why protests happen: to publicize issues and put pressure on political decision makers.

But I’ll agree with you on one point: The posturing by the mayor and the governor yesterday was not particularly insightful or helpful. Especially when you consider the mayor and the governor have both tried to crush unions and teachers, two groups that provide economic and educational health to the affected communities.

This just creates a lot of chaos for law enforcement.

It definitely requires a significant deployment of resources. I don’t have the exact numbers, but I’ll bet it’s roughly equal to the time we closed down Michigan Avenue and most of downtown when the Blackhawks won.

We close streets, disrupt traffic and re-deploy law enforcement officers all the time for street fests, parades, etc. It affects people who aren’t participating in those events, too. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have those things. We should! But again it’s “yes, and…”

It’s a question of what we prioritize.

Also, you might have missed Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson marching arm-in-arm with Father Pfleger down the Dan Ryan. Was this more politics? Maybe. But most folks think better relations between the community and law enforcement are what’s needed here. So if this brought those groups together in a way that showed unity? That’s probably helpful.

Do you think people really don’t know about violence in Chicago?

I think most people hear about Chicago violence, but they don’t know much about it.

Do they hear it exists? Sure. Do they know why it happens? The real root causes of it and not just the stuff Hannity and his ilk spout? I don’t know.

Do they know the ways we fought gangs and dismantled public housing led to a less centralized, more violent gang problem?

Do they know we closed down mental health clinics in our neighborhoods which meant it was more likely that we are trying to treat medical issues as law enforcement problems? And that Illinois’s ongoing budget issues closed even more?

Do they know we closed 40+ schools in black and brown neighborhoods which meant their education was disrupted or kids had to cross gang boundaries? Do they know you end up gang-affiliated not by choice but by location?

Do they know the manufacturing and industrial jobs that were a large part of the South Side haven’t been replaced and that people there are (ahem) economically insecure?

People who live in this city – anywhere, from the North Side to the South Side to downtown and elsewhere – have a part to play. In part because resources to deal with the issue often flow to what demographer Rob Paral calls “the zone of affluence” which stretches from downtown to as far north as Lakeview and parts beyond. If you live in the suburbs, you benefit from the metro area being an economic powerhouse, not to mention the times you come into the city to enjoy its attractions and culture. Yesterday’s protest was about reaching you, too, and asking for your help.

I also find it interesting that some of the same people who say “What about Chicago?” whenever there’s a protest over a mass shooting at a school, church, movie theater, concert, etc. – to suggest no one is protesting over the violence here – are the same ones who are quick to decry this effort as well.

In order for all of us to be better educated on this topic, we need to seek out media, not just expect that it will reach us. More often than not, it’s in seeking out books, magazines and podcasts over TV, daily news and tweets.

It’s how we will know about Chicago violence and not just hear about it.

Why don’t these protestors spend their time calling for mandatory minimums or truth in sentencing laws?

Increasing the carceral state is a further drain on an already financially taxed system. Not to mention that mandatory minimums are usually implemented in ways that are racist and unequal. And Illinois already has truth-in-sentencing laws.

But if we’re interested in solutions that do more than warehousing people, we could start with restoring the funding to social service programs that try to interrupt violence in Chicago communities or provide jobs and other community services. Or we could work on re-opening mental health clinics. Or equally fund our schools.

Is a protest really going to solve this problem though?

By itself? No. And not even Fr. Pfleger thinks that.

We came out here to do one thing: to shut it down,” Pfleger said. “We came here to get their attention. Hopefully we got their attention. … Today was the attention-getter, but now comes the action.”

I’m going to put on my marketing hat for a second and suggest protests like this are about bringing in new participants through awareness and education. None of the other options above would have as much impact on awareness as what happened yesterday. It’s also important to talk through these issues and what else is being done to solve the problem so people know where/how they can spend their time and why it’s so vitally important.

Are the issues and their solutions complicated? Very much so. Chicago Tribune reporter Peter Nickeas talked yesterday about how the work that follows is about offering basic help and services to the people most likely to end up touched by violence:

Softball on Monday + Thursday, afternoon basketball, Tuesday night prayer group, twice-monthly tattoo removal, after-school probation programming w/ substance abuse, therapy, life skill classes, little league baseball. And of course, street outreach, violence intervention…they’ve done *tons* of work off the efforts of volunteers alone over the years, they still do. And people donate space, food, etc. But yea, things cost $. Space, vans, insurance, salaries, permits, jerseys and uniforms, etc.

Pete’s article from last year on how this work is being done in Little Village is a must-read on the topic.

So what am I supposed to do? I want to help, but I don’t know where to start.

Continue to ask questions and listen to the answers from people who’ve been doing this work.

For a regular deep dive into these issues, follow the coverage at WBEZ, Chicago Reader, City Bureau, South Side Weekly and Chicago Reporter as they often go beyond a daily news reporting model. This isn’t to say reporters at the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times aren’t ever doing so, but the approach is different. Having said that, the long reads and watchdog reporting from both those papers (like Pete’s article linked above) are worth your time. Again, “yes, and…” not either/or.

Here’s a list of social service agencies that could use your time, talent or treasure. You could also learn more about the places that fly under the radar who are trying to help.

If each of us takes a piece of this, the load becomes a little lighter.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Families Belong Together protest on Clark St. in Chicago on June 30th, 2018

Our country was founded on a culture of dissent. That’s worth celebrating

Politics, Race, ,
Families Belong Together protest on Clark St. in Chicago on June 30th, 2018
Families Belong Together protest on Clark St. in Chicago on June 30th, 2018

Every year on the 4th of July, I read the Declaration of Independence as a reminder of where we’ve been, how far we have to go and the tools we have available to create what a later document would describe as “a more perfect union.”

From the beginning, we’ve failed to live up to our stated ideals. We said “all men are created equal,” but didn’t really mean it. Doubling down, we extended “certain unalienable rights” only to men.

Then, just as the Declaration goes into its final pitch, there’s a line that describes Native Americans as “the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

The document that began the work of building our country was incomplete, exclusionary. At best, a work in progress. At worst, a codification of prejudice.

(Side note: I want to know which horny founding father was responsible for introducing the phrase “manly firmness” into one of our country’s original documents. John Hancock seems the obvious culprit here, but how much you want to bet it was Thomas Jefferson? Seriously, how were we expecting to be taken seriously with a dick joke in our manifesto?)

Many of us believe we are at one of our country’s lowest points and lack a cause for celebration. At the risk of further twisting the knife, we haven’t lacked for low points: the Alien and Sedition Acts, slavery, the Trail of Tears, Jim Crow laws and the 13th amendment, Japanese internment camps, government-sponsored redlining that created an ongoing racial wealth gap, the AIDS crisis, not to mention the persistent stones in our shoes brought on by a seemingly permanent surveillance state, paying women 82 cents for every dollar a man earns and allowing Rob Schneider to still be a thing.

Reading the Declaration of Independence can seem an indictment of our country’s founding. Yet the same document that creates a separate and unequal state allows for the rectification of the same, a way forward in times when the power of the people seems to be at its lowest. It is a reminder that we have been here before.

To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

“The consent of the governed…alter or abolish it…most likely to affect their Safety…” These seem to be words that track with our current situation. A suggestion that changes can and should be made to part of our government, not necessarily the whole of it.

…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…

We could start with the Electoral College, but your mileage may vary on this point.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good…

Sounds familiar. And then there’s this…

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

Sure, this referred exclusively to white Europeans when it was written, but applications can be found anew.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…

This one seems somewhat TBD but, you know.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

Gross, but still.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world…

Work in progress!

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

Is it a stretch to apply this to declarations of “the enemy of the American people?” Maybe. Maybe not.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…

“Send tweet.”

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We can read the above and not necessarily think it should follow that “these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States” or we should “be Absolved from all Allegiance“ or that “all political connection between them and the State…is and ought to be totally dissolved.”

We can and should, however, read the Declaration as an endorsement of protest – yes, even and especially ones that inconvenience, upset and discomfort. It is dissent itself. Taking to the streets to petition for redress is literally our country’s birthright. It is how many love it so much that they refuse to leave it.

From there, we organize to march, we march to vote, we vote to protect.

Among the fireworks, the hot dogs and the beers is the belief that hope exists for a better tomorrow. We aren’t done yet.

Let there be no greater reminder of this than a holiday reimagined and celebrated as ongoing work to protect the vulnerable, stand for equality and create true freedom for all.

Why are Beverly’s home sales up? Because of the people who live here

Communities, Politics, , , ,

 

Last week in Crain’s Chicago Business there was an article about how home sales in Beverly are on the rise and some of the reasons why. I’ll get into that in a second, but a couple of declarations are in order here.

Neighborhood development – specifically my neighborhood of Beverly/Morgan Park, but also the general concept – is something that’s been on my mind for the last couple years due to volunteer work I’ve been doing. I serve on the board of the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA), I’m a board member with the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative (where we’re working on the launch of a spring festival that highlights the need for more bike/pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods) and I work with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance where I produce a live storytelling series called The Frunchroom which tells stories about the South Side that don’t always make the headlines.

Like most volunteer work, there are intrinsic and extrinsic benefits. I love where I live and I want to see great things happen here. I own a house so a good neighborhood means good property values. More art and less racism means my blood pressure stays low. That sort of thing.

But I also see it as part of a larger belief about where neighborhood development should and must come from: a participatory community that has a voice in our neighborhood – and city. It’s the opposite of the typical top-down, politically-driven model Chicago has often embraced.

HOW BEVERLY CREATES COMMUNITY

beverlyartwalk

A couple years ago, I wrote and performed this piece at The Frunchroom. (Say, have you checked out our podcast yet?) In it, I suggested that bars can be a place of true community and an economic driver, particularly those places that elevate artists and writers. It may have been a bit self-serving or even meta considering I was saying it in a bar during the storytelling series I was producing with a group that showcases art in bars but that didn’t make it any less true. I’d witnessed it as over the last few years more young families had moved into Beverly/Morgan Park, attracted by the home values and classic Chicago neighborhood feel.

This week, no less than Crain’s Chicago Business backed up this assertion with data and reporting.

Beverly ended September with a steep increase in home sales for the year to date, according to Crain’s analysis of Midwest Real Estate Data’s sales information. In the first nine months of the year, 185 houses sold in Beverly, an increase of more than 27 percent over the same period in 2016.

[SNIP]

Meanwhile, new arts and social groups and new businesses have “brought a new energy into Beverly” in the past few years, said Francine Benson Garaffo, an @properties agent who has lived in next door Morgan Park for 29 years.

The neighborhood now has two breweries and a meadery (a meadery makes honey drinks, or mead), the three-year-old Beverly Area Arts Alliance, which hosts an early October Art Walk through the neighborhood, and the Frunchroom series of spoken-word performances.

(The Wild Blossom Meadery is near the 91st St. Metra on the border of Beverly and Washington Heights but grew out of a brewing supply store on Western Avenue.)

We have to recognize what a hard turn this was, especially when the Art Walk and Horse Thief Hollow (one of the two breweries mentioned) debuted:

  • There was nothing like them in the neighborhood. While both were warmly embraced, Western Avenue was (and still kinda is) a haven of shot-and-a-beer joints.
  • While there were some art galleries in the neighborhood, most are like the Vanderpoel Art Museum – gems galore, but hidden away, and not something the neighborhood was known for to outsiders.

These changes are due to individuals who envisioned change and put entrepreneurial thinking behind it. It wasn’t thanks to a city or ward office development plan (though such a thing would certainly be welcome and come to think of it why doesn’t that exist?). It was people – many of them volunteers – banding together in common cause who then attracted like-minded folks to follow behind them. Horse Thief begat Open Outcry and The Meadery. The Art Walk begat The Frunchroom. Etc.

You see this spirit of volunteerism-meets-entrepreneurialism in BAPA as well. Though it has only three full-time staff members, it has an army of volunteers, homeowners and local businesses who make it possible to create a year-long slate of events like the Ridge Run, the Beverly Home Tour, Bikes and Brews and more. They’re also not afraid to take on the city and advocate for the neighborhood like in the current campaign to save the Ridge Park fieldhouse after years of neglect.

HOW BEVERLY FOUGHT FOR OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

schoolsmarch
Parents, students and community members march through the 19th ward to protest Alderman Matt O’Shea and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close/merge three public schools in 2016.

The Crain’s article also had something interesting to say about public schools in our neighborhood.

Schools were the top draw, Clinton added. “It was important to me that if we’re paying Chicago property taxes, we don’t also have to spend the money to pay for private school. I want a good school paid for with our taxes.” The elementary school that serves their new home, Kellogg, scores a seven out of 10 points on Great Schools.

In a time of upheaval for CPS, it’s worth noting that people are moving to the 19th Ward because of our public schools. The article specifically mentions Kellogg as a reason why this family moved here. And that’s in spite of – not because of – efforts by our alderman and the mayor’s control of CPS.

Because if they had had their way, Kellogg would be closed.

In September of last year, 19th Ward Alderman Matt O’Shea revealed to the public a plan that would close or merge three 19th ward public schools: Keller, Kellogg and Sutherland. This also would have had deleterious effects on black and low-income students and affected two schools (Keller and Kellogg) with the highest CPS ratings.

Due to significant public objection, the alderman dropped this plan, which was supposed to be necessary to provide $40 million dollars to solve overcrowding issues at two other public schools in the Ward: Esmond and Mount Greenwood.

Somehow, even without closing or merging those three schools, the $40 million dollars was found anyway and the plans to build annexes at Esmond and Mt. Greenwood proceeded. Since then, there’s been little public information provided on the status of these plans.

As for Keller, Sutherland and Kellogg:

  • Keller has maintained a 1+ rating for two years running with a slight (0.41%) enrollment increase
  • Kellogg has maintained a 1+ rating for two years running and increased enrollment by 3% this year, bucking both ward and city trends for CPS.
  • Though Sutherland’s enrollment dropped its rating increased to 1 and it recruited a new principal with such a stellar record that the Local School Council voted unanimously to hire her without having to narrow its choice down to a set of finalists.

Like our burgeoning art and microbrewery scenes, this all happened because of people who stood up for the kind of community they wanted to see thrive here. But in the case of our public schools, it required them to stand up against Chicago’s ward/machine politics and literally fight City Hall.

rahmosheaschoolemailSee, back in July of last year, it turned out that Alderman Matt O’Shea was talking to Mayor Emanuel about his schools plan – a month and a half before he talked to any school administrators, LSC members, public school parents or the general public. All this was revealed in the email dump spurred by a FOIA request from the Chicago Tribune and the Better Government Association.

 

BEING THE CHANGE WE WISH TO SEE

19th Ward Parents United in a press conference before a CPS board meeting to speak out against the OShea/Emanuel school closing plan.
19th Ward Parents United in a press conference before a CPS board meeting to speak out against the O’Shea/Emanuel school closing plan.

It’s great to see Beverly’s arts scene, new restaurants and public schools creating an atmosphere where home sales and prices are on the rise. There are two lessons here:

1. If you have a vision for change in your community, you and your friends have the power to make it happen
2. Decisions about our communities – especially our schools – should be participatory, not hatched in secret.

When the 2019 mayoral and aldermanic campaigns roll around, I expect that Alderman O’Shea and Mayor Emanuel will talk about Beverly’s home prices on the rise and take some credit for that. But I wonder if they’ll mention the people who actually made it happen, sometimes in spite of their own wishes.

They’ll talk about how much money they’ve brought to two schools in our community. (I’ll never forget how Mayor Emanuel said the money was coming to Mt. Greenwood “because your alderman was nice to me.”) They’ll hope we’ll forget they tried to damage three schools experiencing growth and success.

I hope we won’t.

When does Govenor Rauner start punching up instead of punching down?

Politics, , ,

There’hadow a precept in good satire that you punch up, you don’t punch down.

There isn’t a similar theory about those who hold political office though you generally want to be seen as representing the average person rather than someone swelled with power and money.

Last night, I was listening to Sam Sanders’ podcast “It’s Been A Minute.” He was interviewing members of The Onion’s editorial staff about their work and someone echoed that line about punching up, not punching down. Sanders didn’t ask about it, but the line reminded me of a time when the Onion violated this rule and paid for it with a rare apology.

During the 2013 Oscars awards ceremony, the Onion attempted a joke, via Twitter, that covered the backbiting nature of Hollywood gossip, the misogynistic way female celebrities are discussed and even the way in which we sexualize young actresses. It’s a lot to squeeze into 140 characters and the Onion didn’t even come close to hitting the mark, using a nuclear-option swear word as a shortcut which got them lost in the wilderness. The underlying truth or attempted meaning was obscured by a joke that centered a young, black child within it, making her seem like the joke’s target.

We’re seeing a similar situation unfold in Illinois political circles due to the fallout over a political cartoon from the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank with a CEO who’s often called “the de factor governor” and whose ex-staffers – up until a mass firing last night – served Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in various roles, from chief of staff to communications and messaging.

The cartoon depicts Chicago Public Schools a young black child sitting on the sidewalk with a sign that says “NEED MONEY 4 SCHOOL” while a cigar-chomping white guy in a suit says “Sorry, kid, I’m broke” as dollar bills marked “TIF money” spill from his pockets.

IPI’s explanations about the cartoon have been similar to the justifications people made about the Onion’s cartoon: the point of the commentary was not to portray CPS students as panhandlers but to hold the white, fat-cat politicians up for ridicule and point out their hypocrisy in refusing to give money to Chicago Public Schools despite vast resources of TIF money – property tax dollars that go into a special discretionary fund controlled by politicians instead of to schools – at their disposal.

These are all worthy arguments for political commentary and ones a responsible group of adults ought to be having right now. Equally true is the idea that anyone using a young black child in caricatured form to make a point – a practice so legendarily problematic that there’s a go-to term for it – will find his or her arguments buried underneath an entirely different meaning. It makes you look like you’re punching down instead of punching up.

Incidentally, this is why having diverse staffs of writers, policy makers and communications professionals isn’t about political correctness, it’s about good business. If you don’t, this is what happens.

All of this would probably not get the kind of play it has if it didn’t align with the coded way Rauner himself has talked about Chicago Public Schools and the students it serves.

He’s described Chicago’s public schools as “prisons.” He’s said half of CPS teachers are “virtually illiterate.” He calls attempts to provide equitable funding for Chicago “a bailout.”

With IPI’s (ex-?)staff acting as an arm of Rauner’s government – officially and unofficially – the cartoon seems less like subtext and more like text.

This controversy has been going for more than a week – and jumped from being a local story to a national one – due to the governor’s bungled attempts at response after response keeping it alive (hence last night’s firings).

Refusing to call out the cartoon’s racist overtones – whatever the meaning behind it – makes Rauner look like he either agrees with the portrayal, is covering for his friends at IPI or doesn’t understand how the cartoon plays into the overall tone of his previous comments.

There’s a way to talk about the problems of our state’s education funding and even our state’s public schools without making students, teachers and the work of the people in those schools your targets.

The less focused your punch, the more likely it is you’ll hit the wrong person.

Maybe the governor should hire his next communication staffers from The Onion. They seem to have learned a lesson he hasn’t yet.

Image: U.S. Air Force photo by Jodi Martinez/Released

Time to hit the reset button on the 19th ward school closing/restructuring plan

Communities, Politics,

kellogg

If you don’t live in the 19th ward of Chicago, you might not know there’s a plan to close and restructure some of the schools in our neighborhood in an effort to solve overcrowding at another. The current plan would close a high-performing school, is short on details of how any schools would benefit and is being pushed through without significant community input.

I wrote an op-ed about it for the The Beverly Review but in the interest of it finding the widest possible audience, I’m also posting it publicly here.

—

I am a resident of Morgan Park and a board member of the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative, a group dedicated to preserving diversity within Beverly, Morgan Park and Mt. Greenwood.

The discussion about 19th Ward Ald. Matt O’Shea’s plan to restructure or close public schools in the 19th Ward has dominated local news, Facebook groups and meeting places—and rightly so.

Strong, diverse, neighborhood schools are the backbone of great communities; they support larger initiatives around housing, safety and business development. We have high-performing schools here.

Our ward is not in a crisis. However, it’s clear we need to do more to offer quality education for all.

Through a series of public meetings, many residents voiced concerns about overcrowded schools, inaccurate data and implications for the diversity of our neighborhood. There has been significant discord, but most agree that while elementary schools like Mt. Greenwood and Esmond appear overcrowded or in need of repairs, the plan to close Kellogg Elementary School (a 1+ school), overcrowd Sutherland Elementary School and move Keller Regional Gifted Center is not the right solution.

Too many questions remain unanswered, and the heated discussion threatens to divide our ward into competing interests. We need to come together to serve our children’s educational needs.

It’s time to hit the reset button on this discussion. While O’Shea deserves credit for an attempt to fix a looming problem, this issue is too important to not have members of the community crafting a solution.

A task force of school administrators, local school council members and community representatives should work with the alderman to find an equitable solution that solves our schools’ resource issues while minimizing the disruption to our students and preserving the hard-won diversity that makes our community great.

In addition, our community needs more transparency around the data used to determine whether our public schools are underutilized, overcrowded or experiencing declining enrollment. Using competing data sets from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) or U.S. Census clouds the issue.

One of the task force’s first goals should be to agree upon the best set of numbers to guide its work and make these figures easily available throughout public discussion. Enrollment audits of all schools should also be completed.

Time is critical. State law mandates that CPS release an annual set of draft guidelines on Oct. 1 to guide any school co-locations, boundary modifications or changes in access to high-quality education. A 21-day community feedback process follows the draft’s release. CPS then issues a final set of guidelines on Dec. 1.

For me, this discussion has been a struggle. On one hand, I have a responsibility to support our neighborhood schools as a parent and a resident of this community. On the other, my child attends Catholic school because my family is one of many in our area who seek a faith-centered education. I am sure others have experienced similar feelings and wonder how best to support our neighbors. These are personal decisions, guided by many factors.

While the public school communities most affected by this decision should take the lead on the task force, it is essential that all residents of the 19th Ward make themselves aware of the issues at stake and participate in the discussion. Regardless of your affiliation, the strength of our public neighborhood schools has a direct correlation to the economic vitality of our community and requires all of us to be a part of the solution.

Despite an effort to provide money and resources to Esmond Elementary School, this plan would close Kellogg—a high-performing school—and therefore reduce access for students of color within school boundaries and outside of them. It’s important for us to note that policies adversely affecting people of color are not always intentionally motivated by racism. Regardless, we should not ignore the potential outcomes of this current plan.

Moreover, an Options for Knowledge program that draws a small number of youths from outside of the school boundaries—but often still within our ward—and provides a high level of education to those who might not otherwise receive it does not disqualify that school from being a neighborhood school. Many of us are raising families in this community because of its diversity, and it’s important to us to preserve it, including the educational opportunities it provides.

It’s clear this plan—however well-intentioned—has unintended consequences that we must avoid. Even parents whose schools stand to benefit the most have concerns.

A multi-part solution is required to solve myriad problems within our public schools while keeping high-performing ones available to those seeking them. We are all the 19th Ward. Together we can find a solution that best serves the children in our schools.

However, more community participation, data transparency and honest discussion must be had before we do.

Scott Smith

The South Side is a myth: Tuesday Funk, July 5th, 2016

Chicago, Communities, Politics, , ,

16thstreettower

With The Frunchroom taking up most of my live lit energy in the last year, I didn’t have as much time as I liked to do live readings. I’m trying to get back into the habit and reading at Tuesday Funk earlier this summer was a good way to do it.

This idea was kicking around in the back of my brain for a while. It felt appropriate for this series since it’s held in a Far North Side neighborhood that was not only adjacent to some of the issues discussed but also more likely to have an audience that was open to hearing it.

A couple notes: There are a couple of time-specific references in this piece, so know that I’m speaking of earlier this summer, not now. I changed a couple instances of “there” to “here.”

And if you like watching and listening to things rather than reading them, scroll to the bottom of this post to watch the video.

—

There are a handful of books I recommend to people who want to understand Chicago. And, yes, I’m starting this piece off with a reading list but, look, if you don’t like anything else I have to say at least I’ve given you some options for something better. Think of it like Amazon’s recommendation list in reverse. “People who also disliked this reader at Tuesday Funk bought the following…”

Anyway, if you want to understand Chicago politics start with American Pharoah, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor’s biography of Richard J. Daley and Fire on the Prairie, Gary Rivlin’s book about Harold Washington. If you want to know more about the sectarian, tribal mix of people who call themselves Chicagoans you can’t do much better than Studs Terkel’s Division Street: America. And if you want to understand Chicago’s influence and status as an innovator in everything from architecture to television to literature, read The Third Coast by Thomas Dyja.

Those four books are a great place to start, but they mostly tell you about the past. Natalie Y. Moore’s book The South Side, released just this year, is required reading about Chicago because it tells you about our present and updates the past that Cohen, Taylor, Rivlin, Dyja and Studs all explore.

What’s so essential about Moore’s book is how it argues against myth through a mix of facts and memoir. Against a historical context, Moore explains her own experiences with segregation, the real estate crisis, gun violence, political movements, the decline of the middle class – black and otherwise – and Chicago as the epicenter of social change, good and bad. Moore’s life experience fills in the gaps between headlines and stereotypes. Within chapters like “Notes from a Black Gentrifier,” “Kale Is The New Collard” and “We Are Not Chiraq” lives the nuance of stories often untold.

It’s the kind of nuance that’s tough to fit into a headline, especially headlines about the South Side. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the South Side defies easy explanations.

***

The other day I was talking with these two guys named Max Grinnell and Bill Savage. Max is a writer, professor and University of Chicago graduate. Bill’s a professor, too, as well as a renowned Chicago historian, writer/editor and former bartender. We were talking at that well-known gathering spot for gadflies, loudmouths and public intellectuals called Twitter.

Anyway, about a week ago, Max mentioned his former Hyde Park residency and noted, in an aside, “to some, that’s not the ‘real’ South Side.” Bill replied that “people who say Hyde Park is not the South Side promote a narrow view of the South Side they otherwise despise.”

They’re both correct though I’m not sure such a view is limited to those on any particular side of Chicago. For some who’ve never ventured south of Roosevelt, there’s a desire to convince themselves there is good reason never to have done so, to paint the South Side with the broadest brush possible or tell themselves that Hyde Park has something other South Side neighborhoods do not – like museums or a university or lakefront.

For some who live there, this reaction is something akin to an internal pathology borne of anger: surviving a lack for jobs and feeling overwhelmed by the violence that’s a part of some areas becomes a badge of honor others won’t be allowed to claim.

To make it very clear, the South Side contains multitudes.

31st Street Beach is great if you love water and clean beaches, but hate crowds.

For sheer beauty, heading south on Lake Shore Drive beats the drive north any day, especially if you end up at Promontory Point and walk around.

Maria’s in Bridgeport is one of the city’s great bars.

Vito and Nick’s in Ashburn serves one of the best thin-crust, tavern-style pizzas.

Lem’s in Chatham is barbecue, period, end of sentence.

You can tour a damn submarine at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Pullman contains the city’s only national monument and you can get one of the best burgers and ice cream cones in Chicago at Top Notch Burgers on 95th Street and Rainbow Cone on Western and 91st, which are within five minutes of each other in Beverly.

And that’s just the stuff that Channel 11 will cover. Nevermind the stuff only locals know and oh by the way there’s going to be a presidential library down here in a few years so go now and beat the crowds.

But denying the real South Side also includes Hyde Park or, say, Beverly depends on the tired idea that there are nice neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods – that the problems that plague our city stop at boundaries that are a bigger concern for real estate agents than criminals. It also means denying the nuance within neighborhoods, the prosperity that often lives close to danger.

I live in Morgan Park which is about as far on the southwest side as you can live and still be in Chicago. On the whole, it’s pretty nice with some areas you might diplomatically call “dicey.”

Last week, four people, including a pregnant woman were shot and wounded in Morgan Park.

But the day after that I walked block after block, taking pictures of the historic bungalows, Queen Anne homes and old mansions that populate the neighborhood, blocks that contain more than a few Chicago landmarks and designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. The sun was out.

Three days ago, a man was shot in Morgan Park by the father of his ex-girlfriend. This happened roughly a mile from my tree-lined street with its well-maintained lawns, some professionally so.

I’m barely a block from a park which holds an easter egg hunt every year. It was on this street – my street – two years ago that a couple of guys robbed me at gunpoint two doors down from my house. When a lawyer for one of the guys showed up in my driveway with a subpoena, the first words out of his mouth were “This is a beautiful street. I can’t believe you got robbed here!”

Yeah, me neither.

I could tell you about the pro-am cycling event Morgan Park will host in a little over a week, the annual art walk in October or the live lit series much like this one that I host once a quarter.

I could tell you about all that in an effort to convince you that even within a particular neighborhood nothing is all good or all bad or remind you of the times people have been shot in tourist districts downtown or what we’d call a riot in one neighborhood is called a post-game celebration in another but sometimes it feels like I’m belaboring the point, which is this:

Myths are stories we tell ourselves to explain things that seem far away, things we don’t understand. For a lot of people, the South Side is a myth.

Are there very real problems of poverty and violence in some parts of the South Side? Yes. Let me state unequivocally that there are people living in some places here who would leave if they could escape it. But those blocks – and they are blocks not neighborhoods – are no more or less representative of the entire South Side than Edegwater, Rogers Park, Lincoln Park, Lakeview or Wicker Park are completely representative of the North Side.

That’s what’s always struck me: how often problematic areas on the North Side are referred to by their neighborhoods, while shootings are often said to be happening on the South Side. When good things are happening on the South Side, we often speak of them as exceptions or grade them on a curve. Residents of visitors describing a restaurant or bar as “pretty good for the South Side” is literally why we can’t have nice things.

***

Natalie Moore’s book The South Side is a welcome corrective after years of reporting that has focused on the negative of that part of the city. It doesn’t offer easy explanations. Instead, it embraces the complexity of its subject and describes how policy becomes personal. At some point, if you want to get people to stop believing in myths, you have to replace them with your own stories based in science, fact and experience.

While few of us are ever going to write our own book on the complex parts of Chicago we love, we’re all capable of creating the culture we want. Even if it takes a bit of nuance.

METX 204 at 16th Street Tower image by vixla via Creative Commons license.

Pushing back on racism: The Beverly Review, 12.29.15

Communities, Politics, Race, , ,
integration
Screenshot from WBEZ’s Curious City report on Beverly’s 1970s integration efforts. This was from a presentation called “Beverly Now.”

Yesterday I experienced an afternoon of celebration, reflection and conversation at St. Barnabas Church, where I’m a parishioner. The event was “Following Big Shoes – What Is Ours Yet To Do?” It focused on the past, present and future of the civil rights movement. Specifically, we discussed the work that needs to be done for civil rights in Chicago, now, to eradicate the scourge of gun violence in this city. There was passion and the comfort of shared mission.

The event was part of the Thou Shalt Not Murder campaign, led by a group of South Side churches and pastors leading up to a day without murder or shootings: March 27th, Easter Sunday. Please visit the website, read about the upcoming events and consider adding your voice to those who call for a day without murder in this city.

I will write more about this campaign later, but yesterday’s conversation (and specifically the line “what is ours left to do”) reminded me of an op-ed I wrote that originally ran in our neighborhood paper, The Beverly Review, during the last week of 2015. Our neighborhood is one of the few in Chicago that has an integrated population, but it didn’t come without a fight. The events in this country of the last year proved that the fight against racism isn’t over, nor is it enough for neighborhoods like mine to rest on its laurels. This column is specifically about the neighborhood of Beverly/Morgan Park, but likely has some relevance for you no matter where you live.

In all honesty, this column is a lot more gentle than anything I’d normally publish here. It’s absent the anger I feel about the incidents that led to it. And I purposely sidestepped calling out the neighborhood Facebook groups that are rife with stereotypes and some of the worst things I’ve read about anyone. But I wasn’t trying to reach them; I’m trying to reach those who disagree but feel cowed into silence by the hate they see. It’s those whose voices we need the most: the ones who hadn’t ever thought they can play a role in pushing back.

—

As winter takes hold and the year begins to draw to a close, I’ve been thinking about the past year and taking an inventory of my life in the past twelve months – work and home, good and bad, what I’ve done and what I’ve left undone.

When I’m thinking about the past year’s accomplishments and next year’s priorities, I often find myself thinking in terms of a checklist: which tasks are one-time events that can be forgotten once they’re done and which ones are ongoing tasks that need regular effort?

I’ve thought about this in terms of our neighborhood, too, and how most things we think of as one-and-done really ought to be ongoing matters that always get our attention.

All of which brings me around to matters of diversity and race in our area.

Our community is one of the few in the highly segregated city of Chicago that can claim a measure of racial integration. According to the 2010 census, Beverly’s population is 65% white, 32% black, 3% Hispanic. Morgan Park is 66% black, 29% white, 3% Hispanic. But this mix did not happen naturally.

The racial makeup of Beverly changed only after hard work, court fights and the bravery of those who persevered in the face of stiff opposition. A report last year by WBEZ’s Curious City program detailed this change. Beverly was 99% white in 1970. Members of the Beverly Area Planning Association pushed (and sued) realtors to avoid racially-motivated steering while also speaking to parishes and neighbors about the importance and benefits of an integrated community. A few brave black families began to move here. In the next ten years, the black population in Beverly would grow to 14%.

All of this gives our neighborhood a unique history. But what about our future? Or our present?

Our community’s current racial makeup may lead some of us to think that our efforts at integration can be checked off the list. Yet over the past couple years, it’s distressed me that our neighborhood has too often made local and even national headlines for incidents of racism. Just like in the 1970s, it is not a problem that will go away on its own without the help of people who live here. It will require bravery, honesty and a commitment from those with power.

Of course, our neighborhood is not alone in this struggle. As this country becomes more diverse, it is re-examining its own racial past and asking what work still needs to be done. While we’ve come far as a nation, we have a ways to go before we remove all the structural, economic and cultural barriers that prevent us from living up to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

We can do this here. And we can do this now.

As with most things, stepping outside of our own experiences is the first step. Our community is tight-knit, which is wonderful. But sometimes it prevents us from seeing beyond what’s happening on our block, in our parish or within our immediate neighborhood. Rather than allow suspicions to form around those whom are unfamiliar, let’s agree to try and get to know each other better instead.

This work continues by not being silent when confronted with racism. We don’t need to be consumed by the hate and anger of others. The simple act of saying “I disagree and that doesn’t reflect my views” in response says far more than silence, which can, too often, be read as agreement.

When something happens to one group in this community, let’s agree that it affects all of us. If a racial incident occurs, we can express our concern and our willingness to help to our alderman Matt O’Shea, the police in the 22nd district, BAPA, our churches, our schools and any other organized group in this community capable of bringing people together in common cause. Moreover, groups like Unity in Diversity, Southsiders for Peace and the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative all operate within this area and are interested in fighting racism and increasing diversity.

Forty years from now, will the next generation read about this neighborhood and say that we were the ones who continued the diversity work of those that came before us? We will make mistakes and it will be messy. But when it comes to pushing back on racism, it’s not enough to have good intentions; it has to be followed by good works.

It’s an ongoing effort, but it’s worth every bit of our attention.

Mark Kirk has a very specific image of the South Side

Chicago, Politics, Race, ,

Image: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk of Illinois celebrates at election night rally in WheelingThis week, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk referred to Lindsey Graham – an unmarried Presidential candidate – as “a bro with no ho.” He further intimated “that’s what we’d say on the South Side.” (Kirk was born in Champaign, IL and is a resident of Highland Park, IL where the median income is $108,393.)

The Washington Post heard that second sentence as “on the street.” Either way, it found “bro with no ho” is not in colloquial use on the South Side or anywhere else and is likely something Kirk made up.

It’s tempting to think of this as a one-off remark from an out-of-touch white guy who’s trying to adopt an urban patois that both enhances his cred while simultaneously critiquing the language patterns of a lower socioeconomic population.

In fact, it’s a pattern of Kirk’s who clearly sees the black neighborhoods as a wasteland of violence and corruption.

Back in April, he referred to “the black community” as “the one we drive faster through.

Then there was the time in 2013 when Kirk said he wanted to spend $500 million dollars to have federal agents roll into South Side neighborhoods and round up gang members:

The freshman Republican senator visited Englewood as part of a deal with Chicago Democratic congressman Bobby Rush to help smooth over tensions from earlier this year.  In May, Kirk proposed spending $500 million in federal funds to arrest 18,000 members of the Gangster Disciples street gang as a solution to combat violence. Rush responded that Kirk’s idea was an “upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.” [SNIP] Kirk responded: “Oftentimes when people say you cannot police your way out of this, I would say thank God that Illinois and Chicago didn’t believe that. We could’ve just let Al Capone run the whole place.” The audience scoffed at the decades-old crime reference and tried to explain street crime to Kirk.

At least then he actually toured the neighborhood instead of hitting the gas when he approached it.

As Kirk approaches a re-election fight, it’s also worth remembering the time in 2010 when he said he wanted to “voter integrity” monitors to the South and West sides because Democrats would be likely to “jigger the numbers somewhat” there. Nevermind that voter fraud of this nature barely exists and such tactics are usually intended to suppress minority voter turnout.

So it was interesting to hear Kirk proudly wear the mantle of the South Side this week when he so often seems to want nothing to do with it.

Chicago media is getting rid of what it needs the most

Media, Politics

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Last week, a new report from The Knight Foundation said a lack of local news and information was the biggest cause of declining turnout among millennial voters.

Meanwhile, these three things happened in Chicago media:

* The Chicago Tribune laid off ten people from its newsroom
* The Sun-Times cut its Homicide Watch editor
* WBEZ canceled The Afternoon Shift, cutting two hours – or half – of its local programming

I’ve often heard the phrase “cutting into bone” when describing particularly painful layoffs and it’s hard not to see the above that way. Especially when you consider the Knight Foundation’s findings.

(Full disclosure: One of the people Tribune cut is someone I’m friendly with, I’ve had an op-ed published on Homicide Watch and I’ve been on Afternoon Shift a bunch of times – including its last show – and became friends with its host, Niala Boodhoo, as a result. I’m not exactly a disinterested party here but I’m trying to keep my argument separate from all that.)

In the case of Tribune, the average person probably doesn’t recognize most of those names. Copy editors, image techs and associate/planning editors aren’t exactly star columnists or even as familiar to readers as reporters with a byline. But you’ll notice them when they’re gone. They’re the folks that keep bad grammar and typos out of the copy, ensure the photos look front page-worthy and decide what gets covered when and how. If you want quality local news coverage and not just filler, they’re the people that make it happen.

Yet it’s often easy to think those cuts can be made without damaging the organization. Your average copy editor doesn’t have a big Twitter following so the outcry will be limited to those in the know on a couple media-focused blogs. Everyone who’s left will be asked to “do more with less.”  The mistakes will slip by and everyone will hope no one really noticed.

But hey, at least the the three nationally syndicated columnists who published transphobic nonsense still have a spot on the op-ed page.

With the Sun-Times, you’d think a person whose entire job is to track the names and faces behind the numbers of murders in Chicago would still have a job. But no. How do you not have a spot for that guy in your Chicago newsroom in 2015? Especially with all the evidence that the CPD has previously played a shell game with the true murder count?

When you have something no one else has it puts you at an advantage but only if you realize what you have and know what to do with it. How does the editor of Homicide Watch seem less crucial to a news organization trying to create an engaged, loyal, paying audience than a strategy of Buzzfeed knockoffs with content scraped from social media and other news publishers? Publishers with deeper knowledge and pockets have tried and failed at the latter. Even something like Circa which attracted the best and the brightest, eventually learned that technology and distribution won’t matter unless a unique content strategy underpins it.

As for WBEZ, the Afternoon Shift‘s mission was to feature voices other than the usual slew of bold-faced names, pundits and academics. It was a two-hour show that devoted itself to issues like segregation, crime, jobs, arts and how all these topics interrelate. Award-winning bartenders were juxtaposed with authors, sports figures with community activists. A typical recent show looked at whether local doctors understand nutrition, Illinois’s state budget cuts, NASA’s plan to launch a flying saucer and the Blackhawks. It was unique, it was local, it was entertaining and it informed the public – the latter is a mission critical aspect of public media. It’s all the kind of thing listeners are willing to support with money.

Admittedly, I’m a novice about public media’s overall business model. Perhaps a strategy that creates more shows like Sound Opinions, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and This American Life – shows that can be syndicated throughout the public media universe – and fewer that only appeal to a purely local audience make more sense for WBEZ’s bottom line. And hey, those are good shows! But in just a quick perusal of their financial documents (page 4 of this doc is a good summary), it seems membership contributions, community service grants and other program-specific underwriting drives 70% of revenue. (As a comparative, Wisconsin Public Radio is 59% listener/grant/underwriting-supported.) That all seems driven by local programming, which WBEZ says it’s committed to in shifting staff from The Afternoon Shift to The Morning Shift (though the length of the show won’t change as of now and firing Niala, the show’s host, a journalist with several years experience reporting on Chicago and the Midwest, seems misguided, at best).

But again, maybe the health of the organization overall is in better shape if you’re less dependent on those three buckets so local programming isn’t a great bet for the future. How that delivers on a public media mission and less on a capitalistic one will be for them to figure out.

On the whole, it was a damn awful week for people who believed in the value of quality local news. Discussing it this way gives me no thrill. I want vibrancy in local media.

Now, back to that Knight Foundation report and a quote from the release about it:

“The report highlights that young adults care about their cities and have many concerns that local government can address, but these potential voters lack the information, habits, and social cues that would prompt them to engage and participate in local elections,” said David Mermin, partner at Lake Research Partners.

Chicago recently had a mayoral runoff election. It was historic. Never in the history of Chicago elections did something like this ever happen. The two candidates could not have been more different. Stakes, financial and otherwise, were real. Both candidates cranked up their get out the vote efforts…

Turnout averaged 40%.

I’m generally an optimist, even about the state of journalism and media. This week put me back on my heels a bit. In large part because I work in media so this is a direct concern of mine. But it’s one thing for me to be worried about the future of my friends. At this point, I’m worried about the future of democracy.

UPDATE: My friend Mike Fourcher has a response to the above. I don’t see my argument as “If only someone would provide good local news, people would care” so much as it is “Your audience says they need something and you’re choosing not to provide it.” And if you give an audience what they’re asking for they’ll probably see you as valuable and your chances of survival are better.

“Winter apocalypse” image by Quinn Dombrowski. Used through Creative Commons license.

What I would have said on In The Loop last night

Media, Politics, , , ,

Yesterday I was supposed to appear on In The Loop, WYCC-TV’s news and public affairs show. Unfortunately, as I was pulling out of my driveway to make my way to the morning taping I got a flat tire. So I missed it. (You can watch last night’s show as it aired here.)

I’ll hopefully appear on a future show, but it seemed a waste of research and talking points to not write about some of the topics they discussed.

8782370251_2584e8fecc_mAlderman Fioretti enters the mayor’s race
The narrative around Fioretti’s run for mayor is he doesn’t have name recognition or a strong constituency. The first concern can be overcome pretty easily and I don’t believe the second is much of anything. Even without entering the race, Fioretti polled 25% of the electorate to the mayor’s 43%. Moreover, while Karen Lewis has volunteers at the ready, the current mayor has to rent his GOTV effort. As for Fioretti, he’s been making the rounds, particularly in black churches and is a leader in Chicago’s progressive movement, mostly because the ward remap has given him nothing to lose.

Still, the problem with the narrative is it misses the real story: Chicago is having a moment for progressive politics. Too often, Chicago has favored a strongman view of the mayor’s office and we frequently seek a person to rally behind, rather than ideas or principles. (Witness the scramble during the last mayoral election for a consensus black candidate that obscured the actual concerns of Chicago’s neighborhoods of color.)

If we consider the race through this lens, this mayor’s race is seen less as a race between individuals and more as a contest of ideas. Crime is down overall, but in some neighborhoods it’s up. We’ve starved some neighborhoods of economic resources in an effort to make the Loop the economic heart of the city. Twenty of the 49 public schools closed last year were on the South Side. These are the big issues of the campaign – or should be – and it’s why there’s room for progressive candidates this year.

Finally, as Ben Joravsky reminded us this week, Chicago uses a runoff system for its mayoral election. Unless the mayor gets 51% of the vote, there will be a runoff in April. Plenty of time for any candidate to introduce himself or herself to voters.

Cardinal George’s recent column on gay marriage
The Cardinal is in ill health and regardless of his personal views, I hope for his recovery and comfort.

Anyone who reads the news can tell you we are still litigating many of these issues so to say there’s a uniform state law that governs all activity from economics to sexuality – which is what the Cardinal invokes when he says “sharia law” – is simply untrue. It’s a good line and one designed to provoke – in the same way that it was when the Cardinal compared LGBT advocates to the Ku Klux Klan (for which he later apologized).

But what we have seen is an increasing movement toward equality.

I’m not Catholic but I went to a Catholic high school and I attend a Catholic church. One of the things I’ve always found great comfort in is the church’s stance on issues of social justice and helping those who’ve been set apart from society, often because of laws.

I would hope the Cardinal comes to understand that people who have been denied equal access to marriage or certain forms of health care is an issue of social justice and that while the church may not change its stance on those issues, there is an opportunity for healing between the larger church and those who feel apart from it. Especially those whose marriage does not exist for the purpose of bearing children – older couples who can no longer bear or support children, adoptive parents, etc. – but still fulfills the greatest commandment of love.

The Obama presidential library
I’m glad the statehouse bill to set aside $100 million in public funds got stuck in a drawer somewhere. We sought to raise 250 million in private and corporate donations for the Olympics and raised 73 million the month before our bid was not accepted. The NATO Chicago committee raised $33 million in private donations. (Some of this has been returned back to Chicago’s communities.)

Say whatever you like about the mayor but the man knows how to fundraise. That goes all the way back to his days as director of Clinton’s finance committee in 1992. Chicago will already need to commit public funds to support the everyday operation of the library, so funding its construction with private and corporate money seems the better way to set financial priorities for our state.

The Obama Library is also symbolic and brings prestige to the city. We hear the pejorative of “Chicago-style politics” and it would help beat that back a bit and have a reminder that Chicago gave the country a president.

More people are moving to Chicago
As Greg Hinz said in Crain’s it’s too early to tell if this is a one-time thing or a pattern. But Chicago is definitely seen as a high-tech city despite whatever financial problems are plaguing the state.

What will encourage more people to move here is connecting our public schools into this burgeoning sector. Job training, mentoring programs and getting kids and parents to understand that there are career paths for them in the neighborhoods. Blue 1647 in Englewood is a great example of taking the 1871 model and applying it elsewhere.

If we do want to see downtown as the heart of the city and a place of aspiration we have to make it something that’s attainable for kids who live in our neighborhoods, not just people from outside the city.

People like to say that we don’t make things anymore and it’s just not true. But what we used to make with cotton and steel we now make with 1s and 0s.

Nick Wallenda’s walk across the Chicago River
Sure, why not? Seems like a great way to distract people from the Trump sign.

Image: Chicago Public Radio via Creative Commons