POLITICS
Meet the Challenger: Kina Collins The gun violence advocate speaks on the green economy, reparations, Roe v. Wade and more. BY CHIMA IKORO
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unning for Congress in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District is Kina Collins. The Weekly spoke with Collins about her plans if elected, her race against seasoned incumbent Congressman Danny Davis, who was elected in 1996, and much more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Describe the communities of the congressional district that you intend to serve if elected. IL-07 stretches from the western suburbs. From Westchester [to] Oak Park, River Forest, and then we have the entirety of the West Side of Chicago [and] all of downtown, Chinatown is encompassed by our district, and then it swings out to Bridgeport, Bronzeville, and West Englewood. What do you think are the top three issues faced by the constituents in the district you’re running for? The top issues are gun violence and public safety—making sure that we elect a common sense gun safety candidate is really important to the voters in this district.And health care: we actually have the largest life expectancy gap in the nation. If you live in Streeterville, you live to the age of ninety; if you take a thirty-minute car ride to the South Side of Chicago in West Englewood, your life expectancy drops to sixty. We know that that is because of the social determinants of health, which are things like not having proper housing or living in a food
desert. Gun violence is a public health issue. The final thing I would say is relief and recovery from this pandemic. People want to elect someone in this district who understands that we need a strong local economy, and that we need to get relief and recovery for families as this pandemic continues to rage on. How would you address these issues if elected? What’s really important is that we include the voices of those who are most impacted by these issues. And so, making sure that I’m fighting for those federal resources to bring dollars back to the district to invest in things like violence interruption programs, [giving] people access to things like mental health services, make sure that I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with housing advocates and those who are housing insecure, and fighting for affordable housing here in the district. We’re laser-focused as a campaign on making sure that once I’m elected, we focus on racial, gender, and economic justice for working people in our district. Abolition is constantly discussed when addressing how to prevent harm, and some of these models include defunding the police, reallocation of funds toward various community resources, and so on. Do you plan to incorporate these types of ideas? I think it’s important that we have this conversation around defunding the police, because it has become an echo chamber for Republicans and the GOP
ILLUSTRATION BY SHANE TOLENTINO
to make Democratic cities, and just cities in general, all across the country into the bogeyman—this work that a lot of abolitionists are doing. The facts are that the Chicago Police Department has never, ever, been defunded*, and that is the fact for a lot of police departments across the country. But what has been defunded is housing, education, health care, the things that raise the ability for us to have a quality of life that is sustainable. I live in Austin. How is it that Austin has some of the highest police presence in the city, and yet, we still have some of the most crimes and shootings that happen? This is not working for us. We need to make sure that we’re putting policies that work for everybody in the district. I want to advocate for those dollars [going] towards actual prevention instead of reaction. We’re asking police officers to serve as mental health counselors when people are calling in and having mental health crises, and then it ends in a catastrophe because [police] are not equipped to do that. We want to make sure, once again, that the investment is in prevention and not reaction. It’s in treatment, not into trauma. And so a lot of our communities that have dealt with these disparate outcomes and that have not received the resources that they need, are being re-traumatized because, really, the budget is going towards policing, and the facts are that you cannot police poverty away.
One of the ways that we have really centered economic development in our campaign is talking about transitioning into a green and just economy. That means investing in urban farming, because a lot of the neighborhoods in IL-07 are food insecure. It means making sure that we are putting trades and vocations back into schools so that people are prepared to work in a green economy—which by the way, in the next decade, is projected to generate $23 trillion. So that is a lot of money that is going to be generated from green technology and green energy. And we want to make sure that not only are we improving the health and the wellbeing of our communities, but we’re also making sure that the folks who get those jobs are the ones who have been most impacted by environmental racism and traumatized in our communities. You’re known as a gun violence organizer and activist. What would you do to address gun violence in Chicago while in Congress? When I speak about this issue, I’m speaking from the context of being a survivor, witnessing a murder in front of my childhood home, knowing the victim and the shooter. And the truth is, that bullet was flying long before anybody pulled the trigger—I tell people that all the time. When we deal with public school shutdowns, when we deal with the evisceration of our mental health JUNE 16, 2022 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
