Tag Archives: Rahm Emanuel

The hard work of making Jackie Robinson West happen

Politics, Race, , ,

rahmquinn This is a piece I read for Tuesday Funk last night. It’s a reading series at Hopleaf on the first Tuesday of each month at 730pm. Last night was a particularly eclectic mix of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Normally when I do a live reading, I favor something with some humor interspersed. This was the first time I ever read a piece without any of my usual tricks due, in part to developing this for both Tuesday Funk and an op-ed on the Sun-Times’s website. (The version that appears below is a little longer.) It was great to do something new in a live setting and to get this piece out there in a couple different forms.

—

Over the Labor Day weekend, I was thinking about it means to do hard work. Hard work is filled with lots of little details that eventually pay off in the long-term, but aren’t much fun to hear about until you see the results.

I’d been thinking about what hard work looks like because of some news stories about Jaheim Benton and his South Side teammates from Jackie Robinson West, this year’s United States Little League champions. Benton scored five runs in the series, including the winning run in the championship game. In a month of news stories dominated by violence in African-American communities here in Chicago, in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere, the story of a group of young, inner-city black boys represented the pinnacle of American athletic accomplishment and contradicted an all-too-familiar narrative. This was a feel-good story on the scale of a big-screen movie, playing out in real life.

Just days after the team’s victory, the Sun-Times reported Benton, along with his mother and father, had been sleeping in the homes of friends and family for the past few months. They were homeless. Both parents work, but have been unable to pay their rent on two part-time salaries. Benton’s mother recently had her hours cut as an in-home care worker with Catholic Charities.

The story was a stunning contrast to the events of a few days before at a homecoming rally for Benton and his teammates at Millennium Park. Many of Chicago’s most powerful – the mayor, the governor, the State’s Attorney General and others – took the stage to praise the Jackie Robinson West team for its skill on the field. All were happy to celebrate the win and connect their names to a Chicago victory.

The question on the minds of many was whether any of the politicians who shared the stage with Benton earlier in the week would step up and be there for him now that his family needed help.

They didn’t. But the neighborhood did.

Leak and Sons Funeral Home offered to pay the family’s rent for a year. A South Side institution that has seen the effects of violence firsthand, Leak and Sons is no stranger to helping those in need, often providing discounted or pro bono funeral services to those who can’t otherwise afford it. In a story on ABC7 News, Spencer Leak Jr., said “I would hope that this rent turns into a mortgage that turns into homeownership for them,” said Leak Jr. In a separate Sun-Times story, he was quoted as saying “My dad always say a setback is a setup for a comeback. We’re going to try to help them come back.”

Other offers of assistance followed from various South Side businesses and institutions, including one from Leo High School in Auburn-Gresham, which offered Benton’s mother a job.

It’s easy to show up to a victory rally. It’s harder to show up when there’s lots of work to do and no cameras around. But the politicians were silent even though an offer of help would have been an easy win for them. Would it have been an obvious piece of political grandstanding? Sure. But no moreso than their appearance at the rally.

The reason they didn’t is simple: People in power only like to take credit for a win, not blame for a loss.

The South Side has seen plenty of loss in the last year. Twenty out of the 49 Chicago Public Schools were closed in this part of the city. It also sees a higher proportion of gun deaths and shootings. Many of these neighborhoods are starved for economic resources as well. These facts are all interrelated and help to explain why a family like Jaheim Benton’s would be homeless.

The politicians who shared in Jackie Robinson West’s win don’t want to acknowledge their part in preventing any of the above.

In the same way that electing one black man President doesn’t make racism go away, sending one South Side baseball team to the Little League World Series doesn’t alleviate the problems of poverty, violence and homelessness in the neighborhoods of Chicago. But it definitely shows what happens when you provide the right tools to combat them.

Jaheim Benton’s family has a solution now. But what about all those other families who are on the brink, but don’t have the benefit of a Little League World Series victory to bring attention to their plight? The young men of Jackie Robinson West either live in or live close to neighborhoods that make headlines due to gun violence. But they’re also supported by families, churches and schools. Their victory and the offers of help from Leak and Sons and Leo High School show what is possible when we stop thinking there are either “good” or “bad” neighborhoods.

The comments sections of our local news sites are replete with those who sneer at the notion that the 20 year old kid who was just arrested for shooting someone could be described by his mother as a “good kid.” But the distance between a good kid and a bad kid is short. Maybe only the distance between their home the nearest baseball field. And if we’re going to talk about the importance of baseball to the youth of Chicago, it’s worth talking about what happens to youth baseball when those cameras aren’t around.

In a piece for Substance News, George N. Schmidt notes that most Little League play isn’t affordable for kids in vulnerable neighborhoods. So this leaves baseball fields at the school or park district fields. The frequent rains this summer showed that most Park District fields weren’t maintained well enough to withstand the weather, with flooding a constant problem. As for the school fields, we’re back to those 20 closed South Side schools. If there’s no school, there’s no field. Schmidt also notes “Chicago’s public schools do not have frosh, and frosh-soph baseball programs because the funding to pay the coaches for these programs has been eliminated.” Nevermind all the other issues that plague Chicago’s youth: we haven’t even managed to invest in the very thing our city and state leaders just finished praising.

Even if the most celebrated young men in our city aren’t immune to the city’s larger problems, investment in their neighborhoods may be the key to solving them. Local businesses are present in a community for more than just the exchange of goods and services and public schools are a lynchpin of safety and stability for families with an uncertain home life. When we don’t work to create strong networks of both in our neighborhoods and instead save those tax dollars for downtown, we aren’t investing in our city’s long-term future.

This story is also a reminder that a systemic problem in any of Chicago’s neighborhoods – violence, poverty, failing schools or homelessness – is a problem in our own.

It’s something the politicians at Jackie Robinson West’s victory rally should remember, too: The victories of our youth come only when we take the steps necessary to prevent the losses. It’s hard work that starts long before anyone takes the stage.

Photo via Quinn For Illinois, CC License

Of antennae, pizza, the French and Goats: What’s worth fighting for in Chicago?

Chicago, Media, , , , ,

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Chicago points of pride, both real and imagined. How upset you got over these slights depends on whether you see Chicago as a real place or some kind of carnival ride. Based on our collective reaction, it’s sometimes tough to tell the difference.

First, there was the Sears/Willis Tower losing its status as the world’s tallest building because of an antenna. This one’s in the carnival ride category. New York has a bigger antenna, we have a higher occupied floor. At this point, it’s almost a literal dick-measuring contest and it does not behoove us to separate fly shit from pepper, as my mom used to say. You could maybe argue there’s a real economic loss here due to the possible tourism dollars that flow into a city with the tallest building in the U.S. but since we long ago lost the title of tallest building in the world it always struck me as a bit of a booby prize.

Besides, everyone knows the view at the Hancock is better anyway.

Then there was the whole “Jon Stewart insulted our deep dish pizza” thing, which is really just an outgrowth of the tallest building thing so come on now. It was a master class in trolling as Stewart drew Chicago in a gloriously caricatured sketch. Mayor Emanuel added his own flourish with a faux tough guy response, mailing a dead fish to Stewart – the fish, in this case, being anchovies on top of a pizza. Again, a carnival ride.

Besides, everyone knows the best Chicago pizza is served on a thin crust and cut into squares.

A better man than me, Chicago Tribune‘s Phil Rosenthal, sums up the above thusly:

Civic pride should be a knowing grin, not a battle cry. It’s the world stage on which Chicago wants to play, not some Montessori schoolyard. You are how you beef.

Speaking of the world stage, let’s discuss the French travel advisory which states its tourists may want to avoid the South and West Sides. You’d think this one could be easily dismissed with a Jerry Lewis joke, but no.

One one hand, there’s obvious ignorance at work here and ignorance should be mocked, whenever possible. Leave it to the inventors of the Maginot Line to determine that everything north of 59th Street is A-OK just because the Museum of Science and Industry and Hyde Park are down that way. But even arguing that point reinforces the idea that some neighborhoods should be avoided, that they are unsafe, that they should be left to rot. Just this week, Gapers Block published a post that deftly sums up this ignorance that makes it all too easy for some to decide kids in Englewood are animals.

Yet French idiocy is somewhat useful here. If anything, it demonstrates there are real problems on much of the South and West sides of the city and we aren’t dealing with them well at all. Those problems start at home though so let’s worry less about what the French think and more about why most of us are fine with taking the Dan Ryan to head south through the city but would avoid Wentworth Avenue at all costs. If we’re going to silently endorse the mindset of the French, we don’t get to be upset about it. Especially the mayor. *

Finally, there’s the likely (perhaps temporary) move of the Billy Goat Tavern (nee Billy Goat Inn) from its cozy, dark corner of lower Michigan Avenue. At first blush, this is a carnival ride issue.

It’s the place from the Saturday Night Live sketch! Royko drank there! And they put the curse on the Cubs! That’s Chicago history! 

All of those things are true and they’re worth preserving, in some way. Perhaps in a museum. But it’s not why it’s important for the Billy Goat to remain a vibrant part of Chicago’s downtown.

For some, the Goat’s as much a caricature of Chicago culture as deep-dish pizza: a tourist trap with lousy, overpriced burgers or a calcified tribute to the greatness of Old White Guy Journalism. And for those reasons, we should be glad to see it go. But these are folks who haven’t been to the Goat in a while – if ever – or have been there during lunch when it’s all too easy to bump elbows with, well, French tourists.

The key to understanding why the Goat remains worth fighting for is knowing The Goat at, say, 7pm or 10am is far different from the Goat at noon or 5pm. In the off-hours, you’ll see cops, construction workers and, yes, a couple of journalists. As someone who’s eaten there recently, I can tell you the burgers are a helluva lot better – and cheaper – than most of what you’ll find nearby (though too much bun for my taste). It’s still a place where you can find – in the words of my friend, Chicago Tribune reporter James Janega – “a bit of the realest Chicago I know…A credit to our future and this city’s value. [A reminder] of who you were comfortable being.”

A bar that serves a blue-collar customer in the basement of the National Association of Realtors building is literally underground subversion and that’s what Chicago – especially downtown Chicago which is too often given to showering developers with TIF funds intended for the city’s neighborhoods – still needs. The original Billy Goat Inn opened in 1934 on West Madison, near the old Chicago Stadium (itself replaced by the United Center which went on to create more Chicago history). In 1964 – post-curse but pre-SNL – the Goat moved to a tony Michigan Avenue address but lost nothing of what made it essential to Chicago.

I would prefer the Goat remain intact in its current location. But if the will of real estate developers means that can’t happen and we need to create the Billy Goat Mark III, let’s remember the great Chicago architect’s words “form follows function.” It’s more important to have a place off Michigan Avenue where people can still feel “comfortable being” instead of wringing our hands because you won’t ever hear cheezbooga, cheezbooga again (though I acknowledge the revenue from the latter probably allows for the former). Picture frames, old tables and chairs and tap handles can be moved with all their worn corners intact – if it can happen with Miller’s Pub**, it can happen with the Goat. But their use needs to continue. Move it, yes, but not behind glass lest the Goat turn into an amusement park like its namesake on Navy Pier.

Chicago needs to maintain its active third places to preserve its history and its future. It might keep us from having to pitch fits over pizza casserole and antennas and help us maintain the communities we have instead of abandoning them and letting the French pretend they don’t exist.

* After I wrote the above (but before I published it) Chicago Tribune‘s Mary Schmich pointed out Chicago’s tourism board doesn’t exactly endorse the South and West sides as tourist destinations. 

** Thanks to NBC Ward Room’s political columnist Mark Anderson for the above link.

Image via Wikipedia

Top five moments from last night’s @MayorEmanuel event at Hideout

Internet, Music, Politics, , , , , , ,

Jeff Tweedy recites “My Humps” from Jasmine D on Vimeo.

A totally subjective list but…

5. The Chief Technology Officer of the city of Chicago, John Tolva (@Immerito), DJ’ed the party last night which is probably the best commentary on how this whole project brought the Chicago tech and arts scenes together in one crazy mashup.

4. The Young Chicago Authors kids from Louder Than A Bomb who turned in one of the best live poetry performances I’ve ever seen. In particular, were two girls around 16-17 whose piece on sexuality, body image and adolescent relationships was wisdom so far beyond their years I felt as if they knew more about life than I do, twenty years their senior.

3.The actual Mayor Emanuel showing up, shaking hands and doing an Entourage-like walk through the club before signing @MayorEmanuel author Dan Sinker’s book with “You are an asshole. Mayor Emanuel.” *

2. Jeff Tweedy singing “I Gotta Feeling” and reciting the lyrics to “My Humps” (above via). Just go watch those videos now and be in a good mood the rest of the day.

1. Dan reading the fermented baby food in the crawlspace bit where @MayorEmanuel meets Sweetness, hugs Studs Terkel’s heart and talks with Curtis Mayfield. If anyone still thinks this whole project was just a bunch of vulgar tweets, the literary passion Dan poured into that reading – and this whole event – put the lie to that notion.

I was so proud to be a Chicagoan last night.

* A couple other folks I know got the actual mayor** to sign their books and he signed all of them “Mayor Emanuel” as if to say “No, motherfucker, I’M THE MAYOR. It takes more to get this shit than starting a fucking Twitter account.” @AnnaTarkov told me she asked the mayor if he was a fan of the book and he said no. That answer may have been more persona than anything else (another friend of mine said the mayor exchanged good-natured f-bombs with Hideout co-owner Tim Tuten) but it’s also worth noting how he goes out of his way to show he’s a good sport about the whole thing.

** I love how I keep having to say “the actual mayor” to avoid confusion.