The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.
Volume 11, Issue 14
Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato
Managing Editor Adam Przybyl
Investigations Editor Jim Daley
Senior Editors Martha Bayne
Christopher Good
Olivia Stovicek
Sam Stecklow
Alma Campos
Politics Editor J. Patrick Patterson
Music Editor Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales
Immigration Editor Wendy Wei
Community Builder Chima Ikoro
Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton
Visuals Editor Kayla Bickham
Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino
Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma
Shane Tolentino
Staff Reporter Michael Liptrot
Director of Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley
Fact Checkers: Patrick Edwards Arieon Whittsey Christopher Good Mo Dunne
Layout Editor Tony Zralka
Executive Director Malik Jackson
Office Manager Mary Leonard
Advertising Manager Susan Malone
Webmaster Pat Sier
The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.
Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to:
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IN CHICAGO
Biden exits, Harries rallies, and Pritzker…waits
On the afternoon of Sunday, July 21, President Joe Biden announced in a letter addressing Americans that he would step down from seeking a second term. The move makes Biden the first candidate who secured enough delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination to decline to be nominated. He soon endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
There was a swift outpouring of support for Harris. Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed her, followed by former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama later in the week. Locally, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Gov. J. B. Pritzker also threw their support behind Harris. A day after announcing her candidacy, Harris raised over $81 million, a singleday record for this election cycle. She quickly secured enough delegates to be the presumptive nominee, awaiting confirmation.
As the Harris campaign looks to name a running mate, Pritzker’s name has been floated, along with Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Politico initially described Pritzker as a “long shot” when reporting his consideration. However, most recently the Sun-Times reported Tuesday that the Harris campaign is actively vetting Pritzker’s financial portfolio, as his wealth is central to his VP potential.
Sonya Massey’s family rallies in East Garfield Park
On Tuesday, the family of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who was fatally shot on July 6 by a white sheriff’s deputy in her Springfield home, held a rally at the New Mount Pilgrim Church in East Garfield Park.
Last week, Illinois State Police released bodycam footage showing Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Grayson shooting the thirty-six-year-old mother of two in her own kitchen. Outrage at the killing spread across the country, leading to protests and vigils in remembrance of Massey that lasted through the weekend.
The Massey family, along with activists such as Rev. Al Sharpton and civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, organized a press conference on Tuesday to address a grievance filed by the union representing Sangamon County Sheriff’s deputies. The grievance requested Grayson be reinstated and reimbursed for lost wages. Hours before the rally, the union announced that it will not continue pursuing the grievance. Grayson was arrested and has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
He has pleaded not guilty.
“Why would they even let him out to the public with a badge and a gun, knowing that—all the stuff he has going on? There’s no way. None of this should have happened, honestly,” said Malachi-Hill Massey, Sonya’s son, at the rally. Crump told CBS the Massey family wants to ensure that Grayson faces stiff punishment.
“If we’re not vigilant, then you’ll get the Laquan McDonald treatment, where they’ll give a slap on the wrist and give three years for an execution,” Crump said, referring to the 2014 murder of McDonald, a seventeen-year-old, by then-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. Van Dyke was convicted in 2018 of murder and sixteen counts of battery, and served thirty-nine months of a nearly seven-year sentence.
IN THIS ISSUE
shotspotter legislation stalls
An ordinance that would empower the CPD superintendent to negotiate contracts with the gunshot-detection company was sent to the Rules Committee.
leigh giangreco 3
artists against the blockade send funds to palestine and cuba
At fourth event in the series Artists Against the Apartheid, artists and performers explored the need for political art in social change.
cesar toscano 4
sky fans proud to be part of basketball history
The team’s new roster and coach are breaking women’s basketball records and drawing on the sport’s fraught, defiant history for inspiration.
maya goldberg-safir 5
14th police district council navigates fierce divisions
An independent “public safety committee” has fueled rancorous debate around the council’s role.
jim daley .................................................. 8
the exchange
The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours
Scooter riders transform Chicago into an electrifying playground.
jordan esparza-kelley ......................... 12
chicago legends debate the origins of house music
Chicago house heads discuss whether 2024 is truly the genre’s 40th anniversary.
evan f. moore and michael liptrot ... 14
white sox woes
The White Sox are on their longest losing streak in franchise history.
malachi hayes ........................................ 18
combating maternal mortality in the black community
Black Girls Break Bread supports Black mothers by creating safe spaces and advocating for legislation that contributes to maternal health.
kayla lane .............................................. 20
public meetings report
A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.
scott pemberton and documenters .. 23
Cover photo by Jordan Esparza-Kelley
ShotSpotter Legislation Stalls
An ordinance that would empower the CPD superintendent to negotiate contracts with the gunshot-detection company was sent to the Rules Committee.
BY LEIGH GIANGRECO
The specter of ShotSpotter rose once again on July 17, when 17th Ward alderperson David Moore introduced legislation that would give the police superintendent control over negotiating a new contract for gunshot-detection technology or extending ShotSpotter’s existing agreement with the City.
Moore introduced the measure amid a flurry of new business near the end of the City Council meeting. The legislation would direct the CPD superintendent to negotiate a gunshot-detection technology contract and potentially revive ShotSpotter, which Mayor Brandon Johnson promised to sunset by the end of November. The measure failed when 6th Ward alderperson William Hall sent it to the Rules Committee, a parliamentary maneuver that stalls or often kills bills. Upon hearing that another alder scuttled his legislation, Moore shot up in his seat and demanded to know who was responsible. As Moore searched the room, other alders exchanged looks, with some half-jokingly saying it wasn’t them.
Following the meeting, Moore’s tone was cordial, even if his response to reporters who asked if he’d retaliate against Hall carried a veiled threat.
“I don’t do retaliation. If you want to use the word ‘retaliate,’ what people are going to learn is not to mess with David Moore,” he said. “In politics, no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interest. My interest is keeping the citizens of Chicago and specifically the residents of 17th Ward safe.”
Last month, Moore told reporters he’d blocked housing legislation sponsored by 1st Ward alderperson Daniel La Spata in response to La Spata stalling another of Moore’s bills in May.
Hall characterized Moore’s proposal as a last-minute attempt to circumvent the mayor’s authority on a city contract.
“It was something that colleagues didn’t have a chance as a collective to review. Secondly, it’s passive aggressive politics,” Hall said. “In it, there’s the opportunity to
move past the mayor with something that’s very serious, such as safety, which is a priority for all fifty of us. A priority for the mayor.”
ShotSpotter landed in Johnson’s crosshairs during his mayoral campaign, when he pledged to end the City’s contract with the controversial gunshot-detection technology company. Since the City first inked its contract with ShotSpotter in 2018, Chicago taxpayers have shelled out over $53 million for it. In 2021, the City’s Inspector General found that ShotSpotter’s alerts rarely lead to evidence of a gunrelated crime. In February, a six-month investigation by the Weekly discovered that CPD reported hundreds of missed shootings to ShotSpotter.
Moore’s proposed legislation calls on the police superintendent and the City Hall’s corporation counsel to negotiate and execute a contract extension, renewal or new contract for acoustic gunshot detection technology. That contract would last at least two years and would ensure there is no gap in service.
Lobbyists for ShotSpotter’s parent company, SoundThinking, helped craft the proposed legislation. “We’ve been working in conjunction, together, on this,” Moore said of working with ShotSpotter on it.
In a statement to the Weekly, SoundThinking threw its support behind Moore’s measure.
“We remain committed to serving the citizens of Chicago and helping the Chicago Police Department save lives and fully support the endeavor of the aldermen to secure an extension of gunshot detection services for the citizens of Chicago,” said Gary Bunyard, senior vice president of corporate development at SoundThinking.
Moore’s proposal marks his latest effort to keep ShotSpotter in Chicago. In a 34-to-14 vote in May, alders approved Moore’s measure that would notify City Council members of any decision to remove violence-prevention funding, including ShotSpotter, and would require a full Council vote before removal. The Reader reported that emails showed Moore had also worked with ShotSpotter lobbyists
on that legislation.
That same order required CPD to post data, including response times to shootings and the number of arrests resulting from a ShotSpotter alert, to a city portal. At the City Council meeting, Moore and 29th Ward alderperson Chris Taliaferro, a proponent of ShotSpotter who chairs the Committee on Police and Fire, expressed frustration that CPD has yet to post that data nearly two months after they passed the legislation.
“The data is in the review phase,” said CPD spokesman Tom Ahern, who added that the data will be posted on CPD’s dashboard. “I don’t know exactly when, I’m being told that it’s forthcoming.”
CPD declined to comment on Moore’s proposal, citing departmental policy on not commenting on pending legislation.
During a press conference with reporters following the City Council meeting, Johnson brushed off Moore’s statement that he had the votes to push through his latest ordinance.
“ShotSpotter has been canceled. It’s been canceled,” Johnson said. “The effort should really be: how are we making sure we’re building a better, stronger, safer Chicago?”
The mayor’s response echoed his retort to Moore’s successful effort in May. Johnson threw cold water on that measure, telling reporters at the time that the ordinance didn’t make sense and that the executive branch held authority over negotiating contracts.
During the meeting, the City Council approved an $11.25 million settlement to twelve women who failed a “discriminatory” physical test after being hired as paramedics by the Chicago Fire Department. The Council also passed an ordinance imposing fines of up to $1,000 for posting flyers containing hate speech, and sent an proposed ordinance lowering the citywide speed limit to 25 mph to the Rules Committee.
Mayor Johnson caught flak during the meeting from alders on his decision to appoint 25th Ward alderperson Byron
Sigcho-Lopez to the powerful Zoning Committee chairmanship. The seat has been vacant since 35th Ward alderperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa resigned in November following accusations that he bullied 37th Ward alderperson Emma Mitts.
But Johnson’s pick to replace Ramirez-Rosa has drawn criticism from his colleagues as well. Sigcho-Lopez has stirred controversy in recent months after appearing at a protest against U.S. support of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza where demonstrators had burned an American flag. That incident prompted some alders to call a vote in April that would have stripped Sigcho-Lopez of his Housing Committee chairmanship, though the measure ultimately failed, 16-29.
Alderperson Brendan Reilly (42nd Ward) stalled the appointment by calling attention to a parliamentary rule requiring at least thirty-four votes to install SigchoLopez. Ahead of that expected vote, Reilly passed out paper copies of the rule printed in large font to each alder. That display may have been enough to quell 8th Ward alderperson and Rules Committee Chair Michelle Harris, who withdrew the vote.
Despite the retreat, Johnson stood by his pick of Sigcho-Lopez for Zoning chair.
“You’re talking about someone who has fought against gentrification throughout the entire city of Chicago, someone who is supportive of development in Black and Brown communities for affordable homes, public housing and social housing,” he said. “Who do you want fighting for affordable housing and development in this city? Someone who believes that housing is a human right, someone who believes that economic development should be focused in the neighborhoods and people who have been harmed the most.” ¬
Leigh Giangreco is a freelance reporter based in Chicago. You can follow her work on Twitter @LeighGiangreco and on her website at https://www.leighgiangreco.com/
Artists Against the Blockade Send Funds to Palestine and Cuba
At the fourth event in the series Artists Against the Apartheid, artists and performers explored the need for political art in social change.
BY CESAR TOSCANO
Last Friday, artists and performers gathered to highlight the importance of political art in liberation movements and raise funds for medical care in Palestine and Cuba. The event, Artists Against the Blockade, was held in Pilsen on the 71st anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and explored the effects of U.S.-directed and supported blockades and embargoes against Cuba and Palestine.
Organized by Palestinian artist Saja Bilasan and writer Alithia Zamantakis, the event is the latest in their series Artists Against the Apartheid. The idea for the series started after a chance encounter on a bus to a protest for Palestine led to Bilasan and Zamantakis discussing Bilasan’s artwork and how it could help Palestine. The first Artists Against the Apartheid event took place in December; this Friday’s event was the fourth.
“The call for creating the initial event in December 2023 and continuing with a series up until now was to raise funds to donate to Palestinians both locally and in Palestine; Gaza and the West Bank in particular,” Bilasan said. “We have given funds for food, water, medical supplies, aid for evacuation efforts, e-sims to keep Palestinians connected and facilitate the movement of aid across Gaza, money for cancer treatment patients, and money for refugee camps.”
Zamantakis and many of the volunteers are a part of The Party for Socialism and Liberation. PSL has been a key organizer since the first event in the series. For this event, they helped bring together organizations such as
Palestinian Youth Movement, Code Pink, BreakThrough News and Chicago Liberation Center.
Pro-Palestinian and pro-Cuban artists and performers came together for the event last Friday at Healthy Hood, an organization focused on communitybased support for underprivileged neighborhoods. In the prior three events, they raised 25,000 from ticket sales and vendor donations. As of writing, $6000 was raised from ticket and raffle sales alone, with donations from vendors still being counted.
According to a United Nations report, the sixty-two-year-old embargo of Cuba, a reaction to global Cold war politics in the 60s, has cost the island $4.87 billion between March 2022 and February 2023 alone (in Cuba,
the embargo is often referred to as “the blockade”). The embargo blocks medication, food, and chemical products that are used to maintain water quality. Internationally, the policy is unpopular. The United Nations General Assembly has voted almost every year since 1992 for the U.S. to lift the embargo, and each year the U.S. and Israel are the only nations to vote against it.
Through the Hatuey Project, donations can go to Cuban medical centers and help treat cancer in children without intervention from the U.S. government and payment apps such as Venmo. Funds with the note “Cuba” can be frozen and flagged by apps under pressure from the U.S. government.
In addition to Palestinian land being occupied by the U.S.-funded Israeli
military since 1967, Israel instituted a complete air, naval, and land blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007, limiting the influx of necessary goods such as food and medical supplies. In the past nine months, Israel has further restricted goods and destroyed food and medical centers, leading to widespread famine and disease.
The event hosted twenty artists, seven performers, and six speakers who are Palestinian or dedicated to Palestinian and Cuban liberation. Artists had to apply for a spot at the event, and Zamantakis and Bilasan tailored the group to artists whose work was political and focused on social justice.
For Shahzaad Raja, the event was a way to “give back to the cause” ever since being a part of the inaugural event in December. A collage multi-media artist, his handmade art is scrapped from newspapers, magazines, and books. I was struck by one of his collages of a Palestinian protester with the phrases “Ceasefire Now”, “End the Siege” and “Free Palestine” splattered across the canvas in red and green paint.
“It is a difficult time for a lot of people. There are genocides happening so people sometimes feel hopeless in what they can do, so it’s important to not isolate yourself but be a part of a community,” Raja said. “Events like this are important for people to come together. Not only to be around like-minded people but also feel like they’re giving back to the cause.”
Raja added that he takes personal responsibility as an artist, especially when delivering a political message. “Artists
Artist Shahzaad Raja’s artist table featuring his collage work. His political work depicts Palestinians seeking liberation from Israel’s occupation. Photo by Cesar Toscano
specifically have a role to help change the hearts and minds of people. These events help shift and change culture,” he said. “It might not seem like it, it’s not going to happen overnight, but it is slowly moving the needle. The last nine months have been a testament to that.”
Palestinian performer Yaman Othman said he also hopes to help the Palestinian cause through his art. Othman channels this through lyrical and political hip-hop. The focus of his music is to inspire and educate people on the history of his people, especially dispelling misinformation and propaganda. His latest track, “Greed,” features an intense series of lyrics such as, “Resistance is blood, rocks in my hand” and “I’ve been watching this shit from the comfort of my home while they bomb the people they call a zone.”
“I needed to find a way to spread awareness for the cause, so I mixed it with something I love, which in this case is music,” Othman said. “So, a lot of my rap and harder tracks will call out the myths or the lies that come up in propaganda and other biases around the USA. It is our duty to educate people here and tell the true story so people are not listening to lies.”
Asked what he had hoped to accomplish with his performance Friday night and beyond, he said, “I hope to spread awareness and basically tell the story of my family because I think it’s important for people to understand what happened in the past and how it relates to today. I hope I can get everyone to
see how connected Palestine is to every single issue that is wrong with the world.”
Artists used the Palestinian and Cuban struggles to connect with their own communities. There were Latinx artists who explored the theme of imperialism while Black artists such as Derrick Little challenged white supremacy and policing in their neighborhoods.
“People often see U.S. imperialism as something that happens abroad, but it happens here too,” Zamantakis said. “We can see, on the South Side, the murders of Black people by the police, we can see the ways in which so many workers in Little Village don’t have access to work permits, because of the U.S. administration, but are forced out of their countries because of free trade agreements and U.S. corporate policies that eradicate economies all across Latin America.”
For Zamantakis and others in attendance, solidarity abroad has ramifications here.
“US imperialism affects us here on the South Side, just like it affects the rest of the world,” Zamantakis said. “and doing everything we can to support Palestine and Cuba will ultimately help us free ourselves.” ¬
Toscano graduated from Columbia Chicago with a B.A in Creative Writing and found love for journalism during his last year of college editing for the Columbia Chronicle. He is going to the University of Illinois Springfield this fall to continue studying journalism.
Sky Fans Proud To Be Part of Basketball History
The team’s new roster and coach are breaking women’s basketball records and drawing on the sport’s fraught, defiant history for inspiration.
BY
MAYA GOLDBERG-SAFIR
Reading about the WNBA in local papers this summer, one might think that this season’s defining moment was a flagrant foul by the Chicago Sky’s Chennedy Carter that took place during the team’s June 1 game against the Indiana Fever. As the third quarter wound down, Carter, a 5' 9" shooting guard, knocked down 6' 0" media darling Caitlin Clark, eliciting a chorus of criticism that threatened to turn Chicago into the WNBA’s villains.
But Chicago Sky fans are largely unmoved. As Sky season ticket holder Sam Crane, forty-three, told me, “These writers are just trying to wriggle their way into relevance by perpetuating a narrative that mirrors the racism and sexism of society at large. It has very little if anything to do with basketball.”
Instead, they have bigger things to worry about. Longtime fans like Crane are more concerned about other changes
stemming from the WNBA’s growing popularity, like management’s confusing promises around a training facility upgrade and the jarring announcement of an increase in ticket prices between 100265 percent. More notably, Sky fans have embraced a newfound sense of possibility and hope that revolves around rookie and star player Angel Reese and new head coach Teresa Weatherspoon.
But the recent media scrutiny does illustrate one thing, which is that Clark’s whiteness provides a spark for combustible fears around the sport that date back to the 1800s. In fact, as long as women have been playing basketball, and as long as their fans have been watching, they’ve faced suppression and outrage, layered with racism and misogyny. This history of the sport also shapes fandom to this day. The Sky’s potential to generate new, groundbreaking legacies is what truly defines this season, beginning with
Derrick Little, an artist from the South Side, features their embroidery art. Their work often depicts themes of pleasure through a Black Queer lens. Photo by Cesar Toscano
rookie star Reese breaking records and Weatherspoon’s passionate return to the league as a former player turned head coach.
The nickname for Sky fandom is Skytown. It is a culture, a community. It includes Skyriders (or season ticket holders); Premium Skyriders (with access to the food buffet); old heads in Sylvia Fowles jerseys; style queens wearing fresh braids and leather; Lori Lightfoot; the occasional Bulls player (most commonly Javonte Green); queer people of all ages flanked by their partners or friends; studs walking hand-in-hand; disabled folks; fitness influencers; clusters of teens; lanky parents and their lanky kids in matching uniforms; and dozens of people with Playa Society shirts that read, “If you are just now tuning into women’s basketball, we told you so.”
More than twice as likely to be interested in political and social movements, committed WNBA fans now avidly follow a robust array of storylines, from players’ continued fight for equity and respect to the league’s desperatelyneeded expansion, starting with the Golden State Valkyries in 2025. WNBA fans embrace more than just competitive game play, too. They’re immersed in love stories and rumors of rebirthed romances, rallying cries for mental health advocacy, and of course, every arena now turning into “The Hottest Runway of the Year.”
But this kind of relevance and popularity is new to women’s basketball. In fact, it was almost impossible to be a fan of the sport for much of the last hundred years.
While women immediately began participating in basketball after its invention in 1891, reception of the sport was full of skepticism, if not overt anger and outcry. As longtime sports columnist and author Sally Jenkins wrote in 1997, in honor of the WNBA’s first season, “Parents forbade their daughters to participate, and medical doctors and physical education instructors wrote long worried studies about the psychological and physical effects of the sport, calling for it to be abolished.” Victorian views of female fragility were widespread at the time. Here in Chicago, in 1907, the city’s school superintendent Edwin Cooley
even banned girls basketball leagues entirely.
And so it went. For the better half of the 20th century, women’s basketball grew and stalled, spread and stopped. Rules were created to limit women’s exertion and curb signs of masculinity, like being strictly confined to certain areas of the court or limiting the number of players allowed to score. As men’s basketball grew in popularity, women continued to find ways to play, often without audiences or investment, though they were sometimes stopped from even stepping foot on a court entirely. It wasn’t until nearly two decades into the founding of the men’s
fans could hold on to.
The lopsided treatment of women's basketball also made following the sport nearly impossible. Catherine Stewart, fifty-four, started playing basketball in Grade 9 during the mid-1980s in a small Canadian town. She always badly wanted to follow the sport, to watch the greatest players in the game: Heidi and Heather Burge, Pat Summitt, Ruthie Bolton. But there was nowhere to find them. “I’d scrounge for content—games were never on TV or written about,” Stewart said. “Two of my high school teammates and I were driven down to Tacoma by a parent to see the 1988 Final Four. It was like a dream come true.…It wasn’t until years later the women’s final was shown on TV. But that was the only game. No other games were allowed!”
Nonetheless, women kept playing. As Galloway-McQuitter said in a presentation ahead of the 2023 NCAA Final Four, “We were there. We never left. And we’re still here.” In the mid-1990s, former players like Weatherspoon helped to usher in the new era of the WNBA. Weatherspoon, one of the original players to sign with the New York Liberty, led the team as point guard, playing for audiences averaging over 13,000 that first season in Madison Square Garden. After spending eight years playing overseas, she felt the weight of visibility. “We wanted to make sure to show the world that this was real,” Weatherspoon said of that first WNBA season. “Because when this league first started, everyone said this won’t last five years.”
National Basketball Association that women were finally allowed “unlimited dribbling” in 1968. The passage of Title IX in 1972 transitioned the game to full-court play, but it remained hindered by a dearth of coverage and inconsistent progress toward equity. And while pioneering players like Elizabeth Galloway-McQuitter continued to force open opportunities and create new leagues like the Women’s Professional Basketball League in 1981, none lasted. It wasn’t until the WNBA was created by the NBA in 1996, with games beginning in 1997, that professional women’s basketball got a foothold its players and
Now, Weatherspoon’s role for the Sky makes her a new kind of icon for fans. She’s joining a tiny group of former players who have ascended the ranks as WNBA head coaches. The franchise’s rebuild relies on a new crop of young players, including Reese, Cardoso, and Carter, and on Weatherspoon’s ability to lead them. Weatherspoon’s pride in the league’s history runs deep, and her connections with players are striking. “She’s a players’ coach,” said Carter, early in the Sky’s season. “She’s played before. She’s been in my shoes, and I think that’s why I can connect with her.”
Longtime fans of the WNBA can see the power of Weatherspoon’s
Sky fan Carolyn Davis shows off her T-shirt, featuring Chi-Town Barbie Angel Reese and “Chennedy Expressway” Carter, during a game.
Photo by Justine Tobiasz
approach, inextricable from the Sky’s success. Stewart describes watching one of Weatherspoon’s press conferences this way: “T-Spoon sat there like the amazing Great Pyrenees amongst her flock, protecting. It’s a beautiful moment, to see her scoop those young kids up, so to speak, and carry them away to safety. She is the Sky head coach for a reason!” One of only three Black women head coaches in the WNBA, Weatherspoon reflects a new paradigm of the sport. Not only does she embody the league’s longevity, but her open, loving respect for players and fans unites the women’s basketball community as a whole.
Then there’s the Sky’s two rookies, Reese and Kamilla Cardoso, part of a WNBA draft class that brings new levels of obsessive fandom and national attention. As ESPN correspondent and former player Chiney Ogwumike recently wrote in The Players Tribune, “Honestly, I feel like women’s basketball for so long has been The Hunger Games. Every generation has fought to move the game forward. But now we are Catching Fire. We are bringing that main-character energy.”
In Chicago, the hope is to funnel this excitement into an ambitious rebuild by the Sky’s front office following the exit of stars like Kahleah Copper and former head coach James Wade. The franchise has struggled to retain its biggest stars for long-term contracts, including Copper, who reportedly requested her trade to the Phoenix Mercury in 2023. “I was devastated,” Crane said. “That was a really low point.”
Now, the potential of the team revolves around a new cast of characters and in particular Reese, who arrived in Chicago already with an unprecedented level of fame and financial success. And so far this season, the Sky have defied expectations. While some power rankings put the Sky last in the league, the team’s record stands at 10-14 at the end of July, a collection of thrilling victories and frustrating losses. But fans remain invested. This season, “there are so many bright spots in every game,” Crane said. No moment was brighter than on June 30, when Sky fans witnessed Reese make WNBA history.
Known for her rebounding prowess, Reese quickly racked up a streak of consecutive double-doubles (notching double digits in both points and rebounds) from nearly the start of the WNBA season. This continued for nine games straight, setting the stage for Reese to break the league record, ten, for backto-back double-doubles in a single season. But in order to do so, Reese would have to face the Minnesota Lynx, a heavily favored team that boasts Olympian and star forward Napheesa Collier.
On June 30, a month after the Chicago-Indiana game sent local media
flatlined, and offensive errors piled up. The game was slipping away.
With less than a minute to go, and the Sky decidedly defeated, Reese managed to stave off Collier on the baseline, drawing contact from Collier on a missed layup. No foul call. So Reese kept going. Without averting her eyes, she grabbed her own rebound, attempting a putback, to no avail: another miss. And still, Reese bounced up, rising with the hope of Sky fans all at once, to sink her third attempt, putting herself just one point away from making history.
It came down to the final few seconds
“Sky fans have embraced a newfound sense of possibility and hope that revolves around rookie and star player Angel Reese and new head coach Teresa Weatherspoon.”
into a frenzy, Sky fans arrived at Wintrust Arena in the thousands, their excitement and energy reaching new heights. The court, gleaming under the arena’s bright lights, seemed to almost glow with anticipation. Adam Morris, forty, had traveled to the game from Florida after recently following Reese on social media. It was his very first time watching professional basketball in person.
“She’s just got such amazing presence. The way she plays, her persona, her fashion sense…she knows she’s the shit, but she’s also open to learning,” Morris told me. Reese’s self-definition as a stylish, confident young Black woman at the forefront of popular culture has hooked many new Sky fans in exactly this way.
Reese, on the verge of making history, played fearlessly. In the first half, her hands were a magnet for the ball, and she collected rebounds in double digits by the end of the third quarter. But by the fourth quarter, the Sky’s scoring had
On July 13, in a home game against the New York Liberty, Reese’s doubledouble streak came to its historic end at 15, a WNBA record. The truth of Reese, according to Sky fans, is that she is a lifeline for the team.
“Her ferociousness is a huge blessing to our team,” said twenty-eight-year old Stefania Gomez, a season ticket holder from Hyde Park and the creator of Patchwork Sky, making WNBA fan gear out of colorful upcycled materials. “That’s why it’s so crazy that people paint her as a villain, because she’s really just a force for positivity.”
Perhaps Chicago sports fans don’t get every gift, but Reese most certainly is one. In Wintrust, it’s easy to feel the intensity of fans’ support. “She’s just a force for good,” Gomez said.
Halfway through the season, Reese’s breakout stardom is the talk of the WNBA. She remains in contention for Rookie of the Year, championed by Weatherspoon. Meanwhile, the Chicago Sky’s front office strives to keep pace, recently announcing a $38M dedicated practice facility to open near Midway in 2026.
of the game. Reese caught the ball in the paint, a bullet to the rim, drawing the quick foul. But then she missed her first free throw. Everyone in Wintrust held their breath. Then, on the second shot, as the ball sailed through the net, the arena exploded.
Diehard Sky fans remain along for the ride. As Crane summed it up: “I would run through a brick wall for this team.” ¬
Maya Goldberg-Safir is an independent writer and audio producer based in Chicago (and sometimes Oakland, where she was born and raised).
14th Police District Council Navigates Fierce Divisions
An independent “public safety committee” has fueled rancorous debate around the council’s role.
BY JIM DALEY
Inaugurated last May, Chicago’s twenty-two Police District Councils were tasked with increasing transparency, accountability, and community collaboration with the police. Borne out of years of organizing for more civilian oversight, the councils, as well as the citywide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, have grappled with residents’ competing ideas around their purpose.
In the 14th District Council, spiraling political divisions have descended to shouting matches, physical altercations, and backdoor politics amid accusations one council member was working with a resident to circumvent the authority of the council’s abolitionist majority.
That councilor, Libertarian Party member Chris Laurent, was accused by left-wing councilor David Orlikoff of promoting the work of an independent committee above that of the council. Orlikoff, meanwhile, has shouted down audience members and has been the subject of formal complaints.
Police District Councils (PDCs) and the citywide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) were created by an ordinance passed in 2021 as a compromise between police accountability activists and thenMayor Lori Lightfoot. Many PDC candidates, new to electoral politics, were given a crash course in running for office by the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) Coalition, which advocates for more police accountability and oversight. Others were endorsed, and
in some cases funded, by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).
Orlikoff and Laurent were the only two candidates to make it onto the ballot in the 14th District, all but ensuring they’d each have a seat on the council. In a Reader candidate questionnaire, Orlikoff selected options such as defunding police and increasing civilian oversight of the department. Laurent’s questionnaire choices supported working with the police and providing them with more resources.
Two other Logan Square residents, Ashley Vargas and Justin Tucker, ran as write-in candidates for the council’s third spot. Tucker, the executive director of the Illinois Libertarian Party, didn’t campaign widely and was not sent a questionnaire. Vargas, who grew up in Logan Square, told the Reader in an interview that she was recruited to run by Alderperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa. In the questionnaire, she selected abolitionist options.
Orlikoff and Laurent got 16,483 and 10,719 votes, respectively. Vargas won the third seat handily, garnering 4,006 votes to Tucker’s forty-one, giving the 14th District Council a pro-accountability majority.
The council has held monthly meetings at various locations in the 14th District, which includes parts of Humboldt Park, Logan Square, and Wicker Park. Orlikoff and Vargas have attempted to steer the committee toward that goal and away from tough-on-crime initiatives, inviting speakers to talk about issues ranging from the SAFE-T Act’s abolition of cash bail to restorative-justice approaches to violence.
“We’re not here to increase arrests or criminalize youth,” Vargas told the Weekly “We’re here to perfect the accountability system and actually do something about police misconduct.”
Tucker soon became a fixture at council meetings, where he occasionally lobs comments, including proposed parliamentary motions, from the audience. “I get that it’s not my place to do so, and I have no power, really,” he told the Weekly. “My points of order, or whatever, are more or less a heckler’s sort of suggestion.”
He’s among a group of regular 14th District Council meeting attendees who, like Laurent, are primarily concerned with reducing crime. During public comment and question portions of meetings, they’ve occasionally clashed with accountability-minded audience members, as well as Orlikoff.
14th Police District Council members (from left) Ashley Vargas, Chris Laurent, and David Orlikoff at a July 2024 meeting in Humboldt Park. Photo by Jim Daley
One regular, a Logan Square resident named Adam Burck, began attending 14th District Council meetings early on, armed with data on robberies and other crimes that he wanted the council to focus on. Orlikoff and Vargas demurred, preferring to focus on police accountability. Undeterred, Burck started his own group with Laurent’s blessing in October. He named it the Community Committee for Public Safety and Policing Initiatives.
Laurent also agreed to be a counseloradvisor to the committee. “Mr. Burck is very zealous; he’s very organized and he’s very stringent, and this is something he’s very passionate about,” Laurent said. “I can’t tell you how amazing it is to have someone [who’s] that committed to helping his community.” He started attending Burck’s meetings, and the pair routinely exchanged emails about the official District Council. In the fall, Burck and Laurent both attended the CPD Community Academy, a ten-week course on police procedures designed to “designed to build ambassadors” to the community.
Tensions soon rose over the perceived legitimacy of the committee with respect to the council. Burck began meeting with local alderpersons as well as the 14th District police commander Melinda Linas. Orlikoff and Vargas, meanwhile, said they were unable to get a hold of Linas for months. Orlikoff and others also accused Burck of tacitly misrepresenting his committee as being officially sanctioned by the elected 14th District Council, a charge Burck denied.
But a few residents who regularly attend meetings told the Weekly they’d been confused because Burck’s group often meets at the same locations and on the same days as the official District Council. One person who was granted anonymity so they could speak candidly said they attended what they thought was a 14th District Council meeting at Holstein Park after getting an email invite, only to realize midway through that it was a committee meeting. “I never gave [Burck] my email,” they said. “I didn’t know how they had me on their list. I thought I was coming to the regular council meeting, signing my name…and
it turns out I just gave my email to some committee that I had never intended to give my name to.”
Burck also chose imagery and fonts for his email announcements that were similar to official City and CCPSA branding. In December, a CCPSA staffer emailed Burck to ask him to make it clear his was an independent group that wasn’t sanctioned by the District Council. Burck renamed the group the “14th District Public Safety Committee,” added a line noting it was independent, and started using a different version of the Chicago star in his logo.
In March, Burck further clarified the committee’s status in an email to subscribers. “This Committee was created in October 2023 at the invitation of the Chairman of the 14th District CCPSA Council, but is not an official public body and is made up of private volunteers with no power or authority other than our voices,” Burck wrote (emphasis original). “We aim to work cooperatively with the 14th District CCPSA Council, our four Alders, other elected officials, and governmental employees to reduce crime in our community.”
At least one alderperson was also
occasionally omitted any information about official 14th District Council meetings. Waguespack said Burck told him he was working with Laurent, and he agreed to mention the committee meetings in his newsletters “three or four times.” He added that he’d gotten complaints that Orlikoff had shouted at residents in meetings and didn’t want to promote them because of that.
Orlikoff was incensed by the oversight, as well as an incident in which he says a ward staffer incorrectly referenced Burck’s group as the official one (Waguespack told the Weekly it had been an “inadvertent” mistake). In February, Orlikoff berated the staffer over the phone. He said it was because she told him Waguespack wouldn’t meet
unclear on the status of the committee. In an email reviewed by the Weekly, Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward), whose ward includes part of the 14th Police District, wrote to Orlikoff: “I can affirm the false pretenses; I definitely believed that the District Council had voted to establish his sub-committee and was working in coordination. I appreciate the clarity.” La Spata declined to comment for this story.
Ald. Scott Waguespack’s 32nd Ward includes parts of the 14th, 18th and 19th District Councils. His ward newsletters have sometimes included announcements of Burck’s meetings and
“This was basically him trying to intimidate us,” Waguespack said. “You could hear him yelling from the front door all the way to the back door of the office.” Waguespack got on the phone, and Orlikoff continued “a complete tirade that I couldn’t even keep up with,” cursing and calling him racist. “I was trying to say, like, this is unethical, you’re a City official, you’re acting inappropriately,” Waguespack said.
Two weeks later, Waguespack filed a complaint with the Office of Inspector General (OIG), alleging Orlikoff had violated the City’s workplace violence policy. Orlikoff emailed the OIG in March to complain about several grievances, including the ward newsletters. A spokesperson for the OIG declined to comment on the complaints.
David Orlikoff attempted to grab the chair’s gavel during an argument at an April 2024 meeting.
Photo by Jim Daley
In April, the 14th District Council directly addressed the issue of Burck’s committee at its monthly meeting in a community room at Logan Square Library. The walls were brightly adorned with construction paper ABCs and coloring-book art, and some two dozen people were in attendance. There were several agenda items. Before they could address the committee, however, the meeting descended into chaos.
About forty-five minutes in, amid a discussion of pretextual stops, Orlikoff got into a shouting match with Tucker, Laurent, and Gilbert Jimenez, another tough-on-crime regular and a former public policy and legislative affairs director at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. At the height of the argument, Orlikoff tried to grab Laurent’s gavel, eliciting gasps from the audience. After a beat, the shouting started again. “Maintain order when they speak!” Orlikoff shouted.
Not to be outdone, Tucker hollered, “Hey, order, Mr. Orlikoff!”
Orlikoff turned to Tucker. “You do not speak for the council, be quiet!”
“I can speak for anybody I want to!” Tucker yelled back.
Orlikoff made a motion to remove Tucker from the meeting. Neither Laurent nor Vargas—she had not spoken during the shouting—seconded the motion. “I don’t want to exclude anybody,” Vargas said. “If you just, please, don’t raise your voice [or] speak out of order. And, everyone, David is very passionate about this. I just really want to move on.”
Orlikoff agreed to retract the motion, and Laurent asked the room to maintain decorum. The meeting returned to regular business.
The last item on the agenda was new bylaws introduced by Orlikoff and designed to distance the District Council from Burck’s committee and restrict its activities. One of the bylaws reads: “Groups or individuals who are not explicitly empowered within these Bylaws as official representatives of the 14th District Council should not engage in activities which imply that they represent the Council.” Another prohibits the “impersonation” of public officials. Laurent argued that the council had no
power to create bylaws pertaining to an unrelated civilian committee, but was outnumbered. The measure passed, 2-1.
Later that evening, Laurent sent an email to Burck expressing his continued full-throated support for the committee. Burck passed the email on to his committee’s email list, and Waguespack reprinted it in that month’s ward newsletter.
“I encourage you all to continue to operate as usual,” Laurent’s email read. “The narrow-sighted decisions of my colleagues will not magically make the problem go away. In short, my support remains with you all and this committee.”
chair by a unanimous vote. They do not allow anyone to seize the chair’s gavel.
In May, a CCPSA staffer gave a presentation on de-escalating tense meetings to councilors in the 5th District Council, and used a video clip of the April meeting as an example. When Orlikoff found out, he was livid. He called the staffer to complain, and the discussion reached an impasse. Orlikoff flew off the handle.
By all accounts, Orlikoff repeatedly called the staffer a “horrible piece of shit.” The staffer filed a workplace complaint. Orlikoff said that he and the staffer have agreed to mediation.
The meeting highlighted a challenge many councils, and even the CCPSA, have grappled with, namely: if police—from CAPS officers up to the superintendent—are reticent, these civilian oversight bodies can’t compel them to be more forthcoming.
Laurent reiterated that he would remain an adviser on the committee and urged its members to “stay vigilant.”
Laurent told the Weekly he filed a complaint about Orlikoff with the OIG; he hasn’t heard back yet.
Since April, Burck and Tucker said that flyers bearing their names and photographs and calling them “parasites” have appeared in the neighborhood. Last month, Burck filed a police report about them. Orlikoff said that he discovered his own mugshot posted on flyers as well last year. Nobody knew who had posted the flyers or why, but everyone suspects they’re related to the District Council meetings.
The April meeting was “exceptionally hostile,” Orlikoff later told the Weekly. He stopped short of disavowing his attempt to grab the gavel, arguing that committee bylaws allow him and Vargas to overturn decisions made by the chair. The bylaws allow Vargas and Orlikoff to overrule the
District Council meetings seem to have reached a kind of détente. Despite the new bylaws, Burck’s committee has continued to meet. He said he has “stayed in touch with our alders and the [14th District] commander’s office,” and is keeping a “close eye on crime, and especially robbery.” He and Tucker, as well as accountability-minded residents, have been in attendance over the summer, but meetings haven’t collapsed into shouting matches.
In June, Commander Linas attended a 14th District Council meeting, which Orlikoff and Vargas attributed to a months–long pressure campaign by accountability-minded residents. That meeting was comparatively serene. Tucker heckled only once, and the councilors and audience members remained polite throughout, even as Linas declined to answer tough questions about an officer in the district with ties to the far-right Oath Keepers organization. The meeting highlighted a challenge many councils, and even the CCPSA, have grappled with, namely: if police—from CAPS officers up to the superintendent—are reticent, these civilian oversight bodies can’t compel them to be more forthcoming.
Fed up, CCPSA president Anthony Driver sent Orlikoff a stern text message, admonishing him to “stop threatening staff” and calling the behavior “disgraceful, racist, and bullying.” Orlikoff replied with an expletive-laden barrage that called Driver, among other things, a “dumb fucking stooge” and a “pathetic self serving failure,” and blamed the CCPSA president for Dexter Reed’s death. Driver declined to comment for this story.
Orlikoff said he has undiagnosed autism, but added that while he’s had difficulty with communication and being misunderstood by neurotypical people, that’s not the reason for his language. Due to personal trauma he’s experienced, “when someone tells me they aren’t going to listen to me at all, it becomes much more difficult for me to care about what I say to them,” he said. “I understand that when I respond emotionally, it is most often counterproductive.”
More recently, the factions at 14th
On July 21, nine residents attended the monthly 14th District Council meeting at Humboldt Park Library. Burck and Tucker were in the audience, as was a representative of the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability and an activist sporting a hammer-and-sickle tattoo and a “Free Palestine” t-shirt. There was a brief debate over who should be in charge of the District Council’s email list, but the discussion remained civil.
As is the case with many of the District Councils, the debate is ongoing in the 14th. Despite the cooled tensions, questions remain about the future of police accountability and public safety.
“We’re still working on it,” Vargas said. “We definitely want to work with everybody in the 14th District, and there’s always room to be better.” ¬
Jim Daley is the Weekly’s investigations editor.
Our thoughts in exchange for yours.
The Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.
A List of Things That Went Missing That I Still Wonder About by
chima “naira” ikoro
1. The forks in my parents house that my dad swears we must have thrown away.
2. The see-thru Chinese restaurant carry-out containers my mom said to save that I definitely threw away.
3. The lid of a bowl that I tried every single lid in the cupboard on and couldn’t find a match for, threw that away too.
4. The $20 bill I got for finding someone’s lost dog.
a. I went to spend it immediately and didn’t even have it anymore.
5. All of the school supplies I begged my mom to buy from Office Max in September that never made it to winter break.
6. The left or right foot of every ankle sock I’ve ever owned, without fail.
7. The cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo, remember that?
a. Also what the hell even is a cornucopia?
8. The $1.3 billion dollars of cocaine found on a cargo ship that was owned by J.P. Morgan, remember that?
a. Where do you even store twenty tons of coke?
9. All the toys my cat really likes;
a. Why would you hide something you love from yourself?
10. The “girls” we were talking about with the hashtag “bring back our girls.” Remember that?
a. April made ten years since 276 girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria.
i. Ninety of them are still missing.
11. Every lip gloss I’ve never finished;
a. How could you lose something you love so carelessly?
12. Hostages that probably wouldn’t survive being carpet bombed, obviously.
a. Maybe their families didn’t specify that they be recovered in one piece but I thought that was implied.
i. You can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs from a drone.
1. Maybe peace wasn’t ever an option on the ballot in the first place.
13. A child under rubble who was still alive when they stopped being searched for.
14. The alleged “terrorists” under that hospital, a. and that church, b. and that school,
c. and that entire city, i. and the one next to it, ii. and the other one, too.
15. The tens of thousands of Black women and children who’s beige files collect dust while memories of them outlive the system's urgency.
16. The link that makes all these things connected, or else this poem would just be clickbait.
17. The reason why anybody wants anything so much, it is worth the life of a person you can afford to not care about, because you need an upgrade.
18. The forks that were in the sink all along when it was my turn to do the dishes.
19. The container I regret throwing away because I understand how much everything costs now, and how stupid it is to treat something like it’s disposable just because someone told you it is, but it really shouldn’t be.
20. The lid of a bowl that I could never find a match for because it wasn’t mine to begin with.
21. Money I got for just being a decent person, because decency is an anomaly.
22. The difference between the left and the right: a. I can’t tell which sock is missing b. I don’t know if there will ever be a person on this ballot that will do the right thing.
23. The school supplies I wasted while girls from the same country as me dissolved into history.
24. This concept of peace, and the light I had in my eyes the first time I went to a protest.
25. Every pair of earrings I loved.
a. One day you take them off when you’re drunk, and you never see them again.
26. My insurance, which expired at the end of last month, when I turned 26.
a. Turns out this country can’t afford healthcare because there will always be something worth more than our lives, or anyone’s, for that matter.
Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.
THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WHAT HAVE YOU LOST THAT IS STILL WORTH FINDING?”
This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces. Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com
Scooter Thrills Dominate Thrasher Weekend
Scooter riders transform Chicago into an electrifying playground.
BY JORDAN ESPARZA-KELLEY
On a recent Saturday, more than 100 scooter-riders turned the Museum Campus into an exhibition space for their best tricks. The Chicago Scooter Jam emerged as part of Thrasher Weekend, a two-day celebration of skate and scooter culture named for the magazine hosting it the weekend of July 12. Across the South Loop, people of all ages sized up big rails and huge sets of stairs, looking to fulfill airborne ambitions.
On the surface, it might not seem like scooter riding could turn highoctane, but spectators were pleasantly surprised at the ways these athletes use
their two wheels to expand and diversify action sports. From the steps of the Field Museum to the docks of Northerly Island, riders found new obstacles to test their tricks on.
Trevor Monahan was one of the most engaged riders at this event (and one of the few wearing a helmet).
“I’ve been doing it for eight years and I’ve never gotten bored once,” Monahan said. “There is always a new trick to learn and a new obstacle at the skatepark to ride. It’s an even better time when you get your homies to do it with you.”
Some attendees traveled from out of state to participate in the scooter jam.
“This jam honestly is just a testament to how big scootering is starting to become,” said rider Cyrus Anderson, who traveled from Minnesota to attend for the second year in a row. “More people keep coming every single year.”
Much like skateboarding culture, the scooter culture largely spreads via trick videos shared online. Anderson credits OHLAY Brand, an online publication dedicated to scootering, for introducing him to the jam with videos from past years. Last year’s recap video of the jam racked up 10,000 views.
Despite the growing popularity of the event and the occasional injury, police
are tolerant. “We appreciate the lack of trying to stop this event,” said Busty, a jam organizer. “If they have a problem with it, I would understand. The action sports community is traditionally kind of reckless, a little bit… But I haven’t gotten any resistance from the city of Chicago.'” The jam is “one of the most incredible things that I choose to do with my time,” Busty added. “It’s an incredible experience and we all look forward to every year.” ¬
Jordan Esparza-Kelley is a photojournalist covering the arts, culture and social movements in Chicago.
A scooter rider initiates a bar spin while clearing a set of steps at the museum campus.
Photo by Jordan Esparza-Kelley
The
look of success after riding down a set of steps, holding on through each
“This jam honestly is just a testament to how big scootering
Photo by Jordan Esparza-Kelley
seum Campus.
Photo by Jordan Esparza-Kelley
Scooter riders take turns grinding down the rail on the ramp to the docks at Northerly Island.
Photo by Jordan Esparza-Kelley
Chicago Legends Debate the Origins of House Music
Chicago house heads discuss whether 2024 is truly the genre’s 40th anniversary.
BY EVAN F. MOORE AND MICHAEL LIPTROT
Who created house? Where was house created? What’s the name of the first house track?
Who’s the godfather of house? The impetus of house music, the Chicagocreated genre which can be loosely defined as electronic dance music featuring high tempo beats, has caused spirited debates that have raged on for decades.
Depending on the “house head,” the answers may differ.
For instance,“The Godfather of House” is one of four (or more) DJs/producers: Frankie Knuckles, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Ron Hardy, and Lil Louis.
According to some of the genre’s historians, the term “house” has its genesis in the Warehouse, an iconic former house music venue that received landmark status in 2023. Others point to early house parties hosted by LBGTQ+ community members in neighborhoods like South Shore.
The story told about house music’s birth by both local and national media outlets often finds its way to a musical and cultural flashpoint that took place during a 1979 doubleheader at the South Side’s Comiskey Park.
A baseball promotion named “Disco Demolition Night,” where disco records were blown up, was celebrated by folks who reveled in rock music. Also, it became a symbol of hatred by folks who loved the genre, mainly Black people and people of color and the LGBTQ community. According to Vince Lawrence’s account, some of the records Comiskey Park staff members found weren’t of disco artists; many were the work of Black musicians in other genres.
artists took disco records and played them at faster speeds, helping create house music’s iconic high tempo beats.
The origins of the Black musical genre and questions around credit and success were discussed at length at a Q&A session held in June by Lil Louis at the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts called “The Real History of House.” During the event, in which cell phones and audio recording was prohibited, he quizzed the
crowd on their knowledge of local house
One of the questions Lil Louis asked was about the birthplace of the genre. Many Chicagoans in the crowd shouted “Chicago.” One person yelled “New York.” In response, another person pushed back saying: “The lies you tell.”
Later on during the Q&A, Lil Louis and Kirk Townsend, who’s well-known in house circles for DJing Mendel Catholic High School’s (now Gwendolyn Brooks
College Preparatory Academy) legendary parties in the mid-1980s, began to engage in a spirited debate over house’s first record.
Townsend is of the belief that Jesse Saunders’s 1984 track “On & On” was the genre’s first track. Lil Louis said it’s not. Lil Louis didn’t get into specifics, but many in the house community seem to believe that “On & On” was the first recorded house track. However, elements of the genre were present before the term was coined.
The Q&A was reminiscent of the late Chuck Roberts’ 2019 video for the track, “In the Beginning,” where dueling sides plead their case regarding the creation of house.
The Weekly spoke with artists, DJs, dancers, promoters, producers, record label executives, and party goers—who fashion themselves as “house heads”—to discuss house music’s past, present, and future.
Longtime house music DJ Lady D (her first paid gig was in 1995, she says) picked up DJing at an early age by learning the craft from her two older brothers in their Washington Heights home. While she understands house’s most pressing debate, she says the “culture” that birthed house predates the genre having an official name.
“Well, I think that debate is good as long as it’s based in fact… If you make an argument for something, you actually have to have facts. You have to have references,” said Lady D. “You have to be able to back it up. Whether that be with statistics or metrics; actual documented things, right? But I would say some of the issues with house music is that it is a history based [on]
Lady D says longtime house heads should move forward and uplift the genre.
Photo by David Sabat
the spoken word…
“I can say based on my own experience that I first started to hear about house music around 1981, 1982—not necessarily house music, but the culture of house. The culture of house is an umbrella with a lot of things. The way we danced, the way we dressed, the music that was listened to, and the way we partied—our ethos, what drove us to form a community.”
Roseland-born house impresario Braxton Holmes, who spun regularly at legendary house venues like The Clubhouse and is known for his work on tracks “People Everyday” and “12 Inches of Pleasure,” witnessed the back-and-forth between Lil Louis and Townsend. He said a lot of folks in the industry are resentful about not being the recipient of the credit they believe they deserve.
“I think we’re all getting older and people that were involved want their name to be known. I feel like everybody that deserves credit should get credit. And there’s a lot of people that deserve credit for the development of house music. It’s just not one,” said Holmes, a 1988 graduate of Mendel, the school’s last graduating class.
“A lot of people are seeing the end of the road. They want to be recognized. It was unfortunate, but I knew some of that drama was going to happen. … A lot of people in the early days of the music pretty much was robbed. Lots of people got paid off the backs of young Black Chicagoans…People still have to heal from past trauma and it’s coming out.”
“One thing my generation learned was to put out our own [music]. A lot of independent labels that were birthed from the fact that people got ripped off in the early days of house music,” said Holmes, who put out music on Cajual Records and acted as director of sales for The Clubhouse’s namesake label.
“For instance, Cajual Records. Cajmere [AKA Green Velvet] is the person who owns Cajual Records. So he just decided that he was going to take matters into his own hands and put out his own music. And a lot of us that came later learned about licensing and things like that. … We learned a lot from the pioneers getting screwed, so our business acumen was a lot better than the previous generation.”
In the 1980s, a big factor that served as a catalyst for the genre’s growth was its popularity in the gay Black community.
“A lot of the straight folks would come down to the gay clubs to listen to the music, especially underground clubs,” said house DJ Michael Ezebukwu. “There were a lot of different places that were out at the time. Up until the end of the ’80s, early ’90s, you could go someplace different every night a week.”
Frankie Knuckles was a prominent figure in house music. Known today by many as the “Godfather of House Music,” Knuckles was the resident DJ at the Warehouse nightclub in the West Loop from 1977 through the early 1980s. The
Black community, including Club LaRay, The Clubhouse and Rialto Tap.
“With straight clubs, it was more funkbased. There was a lot of funk and R&B in the Black gay clubs also, but crossing over more,” Ezebukwu said. “Gay folks were more into new music and straight folks more into music played on the radio. A lot of music played in the gay clubs you wouldn’t hear on the radio…When straight folks got into it, it’d spread like wildfire.”
North Kenwood artist Patric McCoy photographed much of his life during the 1980s, and last year curated an exhibit called “Patric McCoy: Take My Picture” that displayed daily photos he took mostly in 1985, including at the Rialto Tap in the
“Lots of people got paid off the backs of young Black Chicagoans. … People still have to heal from past trauma and it’s coming out.”
club was an early focal point for Chicago’s Black and gay communities and considered a hotbed for the emergence of house music.
The late Knuckles, who worked until his death in 2014, said on the accepting nature of the genre: “House music is a church for the children fallen from grace.”
During this time, Ezebukwu DJ’ed at many spaces frequented by Chicago’s gay
be dedicated to [house] because a particular DJ would come in and people would flock to it and it was not exclusively gay,” McCoy said.
“The music affected them because it slowly changed the way people partied and danced within those spaces. It was a thing where there was no necessity for a partner, whereas with the previous music, R&B and so forth, people really didn’t just get up and dance by themselves.”
As house music spread throughout the ’80s, Ezebukwu also says the distinction between Black straight and gay spaces was not as explicit or exclusive as today. The biggest message across all groups was being yourself and having fun.
“After they got in the club, self expression was the thing. It was just a wild party,” Ezebukwu said. “It was a place to come, let your hair down, be yourself and be around folks that are like you and have the same kind of attitudes. Music was one of the unifying topics.”
Chatham-born DJ All the Way Kay doesn’t describe herself as a “house DJ,” she says she’s more of an “open format DJ,” which means she spins what the moment(s) calls for. She says she grew up listening to old house cassette tapes stemming from mixes on WBMX and WGCI.
All the Way Kay, who has honed DJ gigs consistently since 2004, says as a LGBTQ person, she primarily sought out venues that played the music she liked— not based on “gay” bars or clubs.
South Loop.
“House music was a component of the scene in the gay community,” McCoy said.
By 1985, McCoy said the Rialto Tap had weekly house music nights, and the Power Plant and Music Box were established house venues.
“Cuts were played in places like Rialto, and Rialto would have nights that would
“Our preferences weren't the most important thing. Really the most important thing was the music and the culture and the audience because we could find likeminded people within those spaces that existed outside of those spaces,” All the Way Kay said. “So you would represent yourself [by] the way you work, the way you wear your clothes, and the way you dress. And it would help you to identify people like you outside of those scenes because once we were in there—although we were making friends and having conversations— most of us were there to dance and be a part of the energy as a whole.”
As house music carried the momentum of the successes of the 1980s into the 1990s, Chicago artists began traveling overseas for
32nd annual Chosen Few Picnic in July. Photo by Marc Monaghan for the Hyde Park Herald
international shows while forming local efforts that would be seminal for unity among house heads and create many of today’s house traditions.
Longtime DJ Wayne Williams founded the Chosen Few Disco Corp in 1977 and recruited local DJs to be members. This roster included his step brother Jesse Saunders, Tony Hatchett, Alan King, and Andre Hatchett. The classic group of five DJs performed as a collective before members began moving away from Chicago.
In 1989, the group reunited to perform at a Christmas dance party, and they considered hosting an annual reunion. In July 1990, the first Chosen Few Picnic was held behind the Museum of Science and Industry. “The first picnic was probably around fifty people. We were just playing football, softball, barbequing and playing some music,” Williams said.
“The following year and the following year, more and more people started coming. Then by the seventh or eighth year it had grown to like 1,000 people.”
about the experience led to an exponential increase in attendance. The following year’s picnic drew around 4,000 attendees as the Chosen Few Picnic and cemented its place as a staple in Chicago culture.
acts. In 1990, Hunter, then a nineteenyear-old Chatham resident, released his first record, “Madness.” It was a hit in the United Kingdom and landed Hunter his first trip to London.
Woman (La da dee la da da)" by Crystal Waters peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1992, “Percolator” by Cajmere reached #2 on the Billboard dance charts. Major labels began to invest in music videos and promotion for house artists.
Ultimately, Hunter said new audiences brought the genre out of the lull of the ’90s.
“Now, obviously, you can play disco music and classics here and they are going to love it, but crowds are more diverse,” Hunter said. “They’re younger. You have the older generation that is mixed all in there and every ethnic group that you can think about: Black, white, [Latinx], Asian, you name it. We’re partying together right now and they want new music.”
Hunter said that in the 2000s, the genre had realigned to a better position for new producers to flourish such as Masters at Work, David Morales, Mike Dunn, Maurice Joshua and himself to steadily release new music and travel.
“It meant a lot to me, because in the ’80s when I was coming up as a DJ, as a teenager in high school, early on I knew I didn’t want to just be a local DJ,” Hunter said. “At that time, between ’87 and ’89, I figured out that to get out of Chicago you need to try to produce a track.”
As Hunter built a global career, he says that back home he saw the house scene going through a slow period as new acts tried to break through.
“It was a new scene, a new group of guys coming through in the ’90s. In Chicago, in my opinion, while those new guys were making their way they were changing the sound, but we in this city went through a very still period in house music. That’s how hip-hop was able to come through and flourish, because we as Chicagoans were stuck,” Hunter said.
He recounted how early anthems were so popular that it limited space for new music. “If it was not records that they heard before, disco records or old Chicago Trax Records… they didn’t want to hear it. It was very hard to play new music in the ’90s in Chicago for a very, very long time.”
Though new house music may have been stagnant in the clubs, new house songs were on the rise in national media. "Gypsy
A major point of contention at the Q&A was whether 2024 is the 40th anniversary of house. Many house heads believe that is not the case as other musical genres that later became known as house had their impetus well before 1984.
Beverly resident Ed Mothershed became a fan of house as a teen while growing up in Austin. His entry into house stems from listening to punk bands like Public Image Ltd and Bad Brains and industrial artists such as Nitzer Ebb.
“Everyone has their recollection of how things went… We keep saying ‘On & On’ was the first house song technically, and that's what I understood when that was happening,” said the independent record producer.
“[‘On & On’] was the first recorded, but I agree with [Lil] Louis that house existed before that song… . I think this is a recorded technical thing that this is the first house song and I think that's what I think the verbiage should be when people talk about that. I just think it's a technical thing.”
“Something that stuck with me that Louis did say—and I think this is that same scenario—that when you're out there busting your butt doing stuff, and you're good at it, the popular people are the ones who will get recognized or who will be seen.”
Kathy Chaney, fifty-one, is a self proclaimed house head and was first exposed to the genre about forty years ago at age eleven. She recalls her older cousin listening to the music, attending parties at clubs and her later listening to house in her childhood best friend's basement, before they were of age to visit clubs.
As an adolescent, she grew to love classics like “Fantasy Girl,” “Mr. Fingers,” and more vinyl. She says the feeling was like no other.
“House music is just…you just can’t describe it. It’s soulful music, it’s beautiful, it’s everything. It’s just an indescribable feeling,” Chaney said. “I have been a house music fan—a house head, a true house head—since the beginning.”
As Chaney entered her teenage years she was still too young to attend major clubs like the Warehouse, but began attending house sets at Mendel, then led by the aforementioned Townsend. Entering her early twenties, Chaney, now off in college, would come back to Chicago to attend parties at De Joie’s near Merchandise Mart. It was at the now-defunct club where Chaney met her husband.
Decades later, Chaney, now a wife and mother, still regularly attends house events at 57th Street Beach’s Truth on the Beach, 31st Street Beach’s Pier 31, and other spots for roughly every day of the week. As she sees it, the legacy of house is unquestionable, as well as the influence disco had on the formation of the genre.
“[Disco] has a huge legacy because it’s part of the foundation, the fabric of the beginnings of house,” Chaney said. “I don’t think you can really talk about house without bringing in disco. You have to pay homage. You have to give that respect and pay that respect to disco.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx says she got into house as a student at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. She discovered house as many of the Chicago-based creatives would DJ parties across the state. Since then, Foxx has made an appearance at the Chosen Few Picnic.
“If Mr. [former Cook County State’s Attorney Richard] Devine likes to listen to Frank Sinatra and someone saw him at a jazz club singing ‘My Way,’ it wouldn’t be a thing. I think, for us, our music
and particularly our culture, not being appreciated by the mainstream until it's co-opted is frustrating. And so for me to be able to say I am the State’s Attorney, I have this role, I have this position of power, and I'm a house head. And when there’s a big house festival on the South Side that celebrates us, of course I’m going to be there.”
She told the Weekly of a time she attended an event where Darcel Clark, the District Attorney for Bronx County (NY), whom she considers a friend, claimed house was created in New York City.
“Darcel had a number of us in the Bronx a couple of years ago, and we went to this club and they were, like, jamming Chicago house, ‘Jack My Body’ and other traditional Chicago house. And so I'm like: ‘Yo, I didn’t know New Yorkers were into house music. This woman, square in my face, was like, ‘New York originated house.’ I kid you not that I almost flipped the table,” Foxx said in jest during a phone interview.
“It is interesting to watch. People may claim this thing that I do think is uniquely Chicago that is universal, but sitting in that conversation I was highly offended that New Yorkers would have the audacity to claim the origins of house music.”
stand out from the other genres of music he grew up listening to is the camaraderie within the house community. He says he’s more interested in recognizing everyone’s contributions in making house as we know it instead of ongoing spirited debates.
“Some people I’ve seen [at parties] for thirty, forty years, I don’t even know their name,” Mothershed said. “We see each other in passing; lately in the past year I’ve been asking them their names and tell them: ‘Hey, I’ve been seeing you for like years. What is your name?’ …I think we should all give each other our due while we’re still around.”
On July 13, tens of thousands of house heads converged on Jackson Park for the 32nd annual Chosen Few Picnic. Thumping bass, barbeque grills and Chicago’s top DJs reminded concertgoers of the staying power of the genre.
“House music is about love, unity and music and pretty much that’s it. And that’s what I think brings people together,” said Williams. “I think that’s enough, especially in a world where there’s a lot of crazy nonsense going on. It’s a safe place for people.”
Lady D echoes Williams’s sentiments
regarding house’s longtime acceptance of all who enjoy the music. She also says that longtime house heads should move forward with uplifting the genre instead of rehashing decades-old arguments.
“I'm very encouraged by where house music is right now…Because of people who have dabbled in house like Drake and Beyoncé, it’s become a more commonplace term among young people—and that’s a good thing for house,” Lady D said. “I am encouraged because there are lots of young people who are now into house…They are really feeling house and really getting into it and starting their own crews and having their own events, their own parties, placemaking and creating space.”
“Old people who want to argue about the past, they can do that, but they’re missing out on the future.” ¬
Evan F. Moore is an award-winning writer, author, DePaul University journalism adjunct instructor, and third-generation South Shore homeowner.
Michael Liptrot is a staff writer for the Weekly and the Hyde Park Herald
Mothershed said what makes house
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dances backstage during the 2019 Chosen Few Picnic in Jackson Park.
Photo by Marc Monaghan for the Hyde Park Herald
32nd annual Chosen Few Picnic in July. Photo by Marc Monaghan for the Hyde Park Herald
White Sox Woes
The White Sox are on their longest losing streak in franchise history.
BY MALACHI HAYES
Baseball is a game of failure. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s an entrenched facet of a game in which the defense is always stacked against hitters and winning streaks are fleeting at best. A baseball superstar with a .300 batting average is still only getting a hit three times out of ten. Award-winning pitchers usually allow somewhere around one baserunner per inning and at least a couple runs per game. The challenges to mounting any sort of offense at all, let alone one that wins games consistently, are woven into the game’s very essence. It’s part of what makes baseball compelling.
Even so, this year’s Chicago White Sox have failed far more often than not. More than just about anybody, in fact: their record of 27-82 after Monday’s loss ranks dead last in Major League Baseball (MLB). The 15-game losing streak they entered after that loss tied for the longest in club history, and may have already been extended by the time this issue hits newsstands. A few weeks ago, they became the first team to ever lose 70 games before the All-Star Break, and are now one of four teams with multiple losing streaks of 14+ games in one year. Not only are they on pace to obliterate the White Sox team record of 106 losses set in 1970, they’re on a worse pace than the fabled 1962 New York Mets, whose all-time high of 120 losses in a season remains the stuff of legend. All told, it’s almost indisputably the competitive nadir for a franchise whose history dates back to 1901.
But the White Sox reached the playoffs as recently as 2021. How have they fallen so far and so quickly? On the surface, their struggles appear primarily a product of the team’s offensive woes. Like the win-loss record, they’ve been nearly historic so far this year: a .218 batting
Rate Field.
average and .278 on-base percentage rank among the lowest ever recorded. Their current rate of 3.1 runs scored per game would be the lowest of any team since 1972—the end of an era in which overall offense was so scarce that the pitching mound was lowered and Designated Hitter created in an effort to boost scoring. The Sox have scored no more than one run in a whopping 31 games (28%) and were shut out a record eight times in the course of a painful 3-22 start.
Lack of offensive firepower has been
the defining characteristic of a rocky debut for Chris Getz as general manager. Getz was promoted last August after the dismissal of longtime executives Ken Williams and Rick Hahn. A former player, the 40-year-old was drafted by the White Sox in 2005 and played seven years in the major leagues, including two in Chicago. He joined the team’s front office in 2016.
The hire was criticized at the time due to Getz’s lack of high-level experience beyond his rapid ascent through the White Sox organization. The team’s decision to
not conduct an external candidate search, an unusual move, was also criticized.
Getz’s offseason goal of bolstering the team’s speed and defense has been largely unfulfilled. Beyond a struggling offense, the statistics suggest their defense has also been among the game’s poorest. Many of the club’s recent additions have struggled mightily: Naperville native Nicky Lopez is popular with fans, but his .237 batting average and zero home runs leave much to be desired. Catcher Martín Maldonado is known as a positive clubhouse presence but was a whopping 91% worse than the average hitter before he was released in early July.
Despite high hopes, young players like Braden Shewmake, Dominic Fletcher, and Nick Nastrini failed to keep their heads above water in the majors and have since been demoted to the minor leagues. No offseason acquisition has been better than 5% below average, with most falling well lower.
Not all of the Sox’ woes can be blamed on front-office maneuvers. Injuries plagued the team’s starting lineup from the season’s outset. Lineup mainstays Luis Robert Jr., Eloy Jiménez, and Yoán Moncada have played together in just 130 of 327 possible games, a recurring theme in recent years. And even when healthy, Jiménez, the team’s third-highestpaid player by salary, has played at a level that, according to modern stats like Wins Above Replacement, is no better than a generic minor leaguer. Moncada, the team’s highest-paid player this year, hasn’t appeared in a game since April 9th due to injury.
Before the 2023 season, outfielder Andrew Benintendi signed a five-year, $75 million free agent contract, the largest in the team’s history. Today, he’s one of
Guaranteed
Photo by Michael DiGioia
the least productive hitters in the major leagues. In all, 16 hitters have taken at least 50 at-bats for the Sox this year. Only Robert Jr. has resembled a capable big leaguer by most measures.
There have been scattered bright spots. Despite the offense’s ineptitude, the team’s starting pitching has been among the best in the game in recent months.First-time All-Star Garrett Crochet emerged to lead the league with 160 strikeouts in his first year as a starting pitcher. Equally unlikely has been the success of Erick Fedde, who has a career-best 3.11 ERA just a year after he was pushed out of the Majors and went to the Korean Baseball Organization for a job. Some young players have lived up to expectations, with prospects Drew Thorpe (six quality starts in nine games) and Jonathan Cannon (4.43 ERA) looking like possible mainstays in the starting rotation.
Unfortunately for the team’s current prospects, they’ll be without some of those players for the rest of the season. On Monday, Fedde was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals alongside outfielder Tommy Pham in exchange for two minor leaguers and Los Angeles Dodgers utility player Miguel Vargas. White Sox reliever Michael Kopech, once one of the game’s most promising pitchers, was sent to the Dodgers in the deal.
Crochet is expected by many to be dealt this offseason after rumors of a midseason deal failed to materialize earlier this week. The aforementioned Jiménez, however, saw his tenure with the Sox end on Tuesday, when the team announced his trade to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for a pair of low-minors players. But how is all of this being received outside the stadium?
Fans on the South Side can be vindictive. MLB saw a massive attendance spike in 2023, while Guaranteed Rate Field suffered an equally massive drop in ticket sales. Just a year after the stadium reached two million fans in attendance for the first time since 2011, the White Sox were one of just four teams to draw fewer fans in 2023 than 2022, with their drop of nearly 340,000 more than twice as large as that of the runner-up. Thus far in 2024, only the Miami Marlins and Oakland Athletics have drawn fewer fans than the Sox. Overall, around 7,000 fewer fans are
showing up to each game than were a year and a half ago.
But team records and attendance aren’t always correlated. The last-place Cubs aren’t having much trouble regularly filling Wrigley. The New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals finished second and fourth in overall attendance last year despite both suffering through their worst win-loss records of the 21st century.
Sox fans are less forgiving. Losing may have been the norm for over a decade, but the depths of this pit are becoming more than even some of the team’s most dedicated fans can handle.
“In 2016, I probably went to something crazy, like 40 home games,” said Bridgeport resident Sean Qualls. “So I sat through a lot of not-great baseball, waiting through that rebuild.”
The rebuild Qualls is referring to is the period between 2017 and 2019, when the team traded away its established stars in hopes of building a better club for the future. While it did result in postseason appearances in 2020 and 2021, the Sox failed to advance beyond the first round in either year. After years of struggles, it wasn’t the payoff that fans had hoped for, making the current crash particularly painful.
The team indicated last year that their aim is to be competitive in short order, but Qualls senses a bleaker mood than in years past. “There is a completely different feel
since 2020.
She also called the team’s decision to resign pitcher Mike Clevinger “a slap in the face,” a sentiment echoed by many fans and media members. Clevinger was alleged in 2023 to have physically abused previous partners, as well as his infant child. MLB declined to discipline the 33-year-old following an investigation, though he agreed to undergo counseling for anger management and drug abuse.
“You see a lot of poorly made decisions and the same mistakes being made over and over again,” Scurio said. “We’re definitely seeing those results on the field.”
to it this time,” he said. “It feels like what’s [happening] in Oakland…where they’re trying to be as bad as possible so they can end matters and fold the company.”
The Oakland Athletics and their ownership have come under fire in recent years, with some accusing them of sabotaging the team as a pretext for their recently announced, but still up-in-theair, departure for Las Vegas. Similarly, rumors of the White Sox’ relocation have periodically popped up for decades. They most recently surfaced last August, when owner Jerry Reinsdorf hinted that a successor may look to move the team without a new publicly funded ballpark.
Janice Scurio is another fan whose distance from the team has grown larger than ever. “This year feels different,” she told the Weekly. “I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or repetition. I don’t think I would say I’m done, per se, but I’m very close to being there.”
Scurio, a Southwest Side native who’s written about the White Sox and MLB for numerous websites and publications, cites a lack of investment from the team in its fans. Like Qualls, she gets the feeling the team simply “doesn’t care what the fans think.”
She also says the record-setting losing is only one part of the fanbase’s increasing alienation. She noted rising ticket prices and the absence of SoxFest, the longtime team-run fan festival that hasn’t been held
She isn’t alone in citing organizational dysfunction as a factor in the team’s issues. As a symptom, experts note a consistent team-wide failure to get the most from their best talent. “There seems to be a fundamental inability to put players in a position to get the most out of their skills,” sports analyst Esteban Rivera wrote to the Weekly. “When you can’t get guaranteed production out of your most talented players, you’re doomed.”
With a poor foundation in the minor leagues and an unwillingness to spend money on highly-coveted free agents, Rivera said that the current collection of Sox players was, for all intents and purposes, set up for failure. “When you’ve constructed your roster to be made up of mostly guys whose best outcome is an average season, your odds of putting together any extended stretch of winning baseball are abysmally slim.”
The team did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
There is a brighter future on the South Side, if only by virtue of what may be a powerful dead-cat bounce. Just how bright it will be remains the burning question of seasons to come. The Sox’ pursuit of alltime ignominy this season seems certain to come down to the wire. Only time will tell whether there will be a long-term payoff—or how many fans will remain invested enough to see it. ¬
Malachi Hayes is a Bridgeport-based writer and South Side native.
Guaranteed Rate Field.
Photo by Michael DiGioia
Combating Maternal Mortality in the Black Community
Black Girls Break Bread supports Black mothers by creating safe spaces and advocating for legislation that contributes to maternal health.
BY KAYLA LANE
After experiencing hemorrhaging and nearly miscarrying during her first two pregnancies, Jessica Davenport-Williams could only imagine the barriers faced by pregnant people who are poor and uninsured.
“On paper, I checked off all the boxes that society tells you to: private insurance, high household income, highly educated, etc. And still, I was a near miss,” said Davenport-Williams, who is Black.
In Cook County, Black women face the largest disparities in maternal mortality in the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pregnancy-related deaths are 2.6 times higher among Black women than white women.
Experiences during maternity also vary by race. According to the CDC, 40 percent of Black women report mistreatment such as being threatened with withholding treatment and not having their concerns taken seriously by healthcare providers. In its position paper on reducing Black maternal mortality the CDC calls on healthcare providers to “recognize and work to eliminate unconscious bias in themselves and in their office on an ongoing basis.”
“The U.S. is the only global north country that has had escalating rates of maternal mortality for three decades, and it’s Black women. It’s across all economics,” said Jennifer Dohrn, a midwife and professor of nursing at Columbia University in New York City. “You could be Tori Bowie or you could be Serena Williams. There’s more to it than just money. It’s so embedded in the structures of how this system works, and it’s unacceptable.”
In 2016, Davenport-Williams, Jazzy Davenport-Russ and Khadija Warfield decided to address the problem by creating
Black Girls Break Bread. The nonprofit was created with the “goal of empowering, uplifting and inspiring Black women and girls through the creation of safe spaces for intergenerational discourse and engagement,” as stated on their website.
Part of that work focuses on maternal health. They set their sights on working with public health systems at the local, state, and federal levels to develop solutions to address racial disparities. Since then, they’ve not only worked with existing healthcare operations, but also opened a maternal health center in a place that desperately needed one. In 2021, they co-led the development of The Family Christian Health Center in Harvey, IL.
Black Girls Break Bread also successfully advocated for the passage of Illinois House Bill 5013, a 2022 law that ensures pregnant patients have the freedom to choose any qualified provider for pregnancy-related care, regardless of whether the provider has an active contract with their specific Medicaid health plan.
This is especially important for pregnant people who don’t live near an in-network provider. “[Limited transportation] has created these huge travel times for patients to be able to receive medical services,” Davenport-Williams said. “So being able to help to enact a house bill to pass that allows for perinatal health services to be covered, regardless of the insurance type for Medicaid members, was something we were extremely proud of.”
In addition to working with policymakers, Black Girls Break Bread helps connect Black women and girls, creating a supportive community.
“We want to be able to create safe spaces for Black women because we had experience navigating through the
segregation that exists in Chicago,” Davenport-Williams said. “There was a need to be able to come together and take off the many hats that we wear as Black women, leave it at the door and be able to sit, commune and break bread with other women across the city.”
Maternal health is just one of the pillars of Black Girls Break Bread. The organization also serves other community needs, like mutual aid. At the start of the pandemic, when communities on the South and West sides disproportionately suffered from a lack of resources, Black Girls Break Bread distributed food and clothing for more than 2,000 people. And it engages the community in supporting Black women and girls, such as by donating items like diapers, wipes, formula and menstrual products.
Black Girls Break Bread also addresses the mental health issues among Black women, who have higher rates of chronic stress, anxiety, postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder when compared with other women. Since 2020, Black Girls Break Bread has sponsored over 500 free therapy sessions by partnering with Black mental health professionals.
“At the heart of maternal and mental health, there’s a lot of overlap,” DavenportWilliams said. “Raising more awareness around mental health, to be able to delineate the nuances specific to that demographic, has been very important.”
Maternal death rates are increasing in the United States, surpassing those of other high-income countries. Deaths caused by medical complications are largely preventable with proper prenatal care. According to the CDC, more than 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable.
This is especially true for those with
preexisting conditions. “The best time to manage a preexisting condition is before pregnancy,” said Jacqueline Hairston, an assistant professor specializing in maternalfetal medicine at Northwestern Medicine.
For Black women, the most frequent underlying medical issues leading to death during pregnancy and delivery are cardiac and coronary conditions. According to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Black women of childbearing age are twice as likely to have uncontrolled high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart-related complications during pregnancy like preeclampsia. This condition can affect kidney and liver function and lead to birth anomalies.
Prenatal care can make all the difference in maternal outcomes. “We often encourage patients to do a preconception consultation where they meet with a physician to talk about where we would like their numbers to be before pregnancy to make sure their medications aren’t contraindicated or harmful to pregnancy,” Hairston said.
But research gathered by Pubic Health Reviews in 2022 found that Black women are less likely than women of other races to receive prenatal care, particularly in the first trimester.
“Prenatal care is evidence-based,” said Pamela Pearson, the director of nurse midwifery at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a researcher at Melanted Group Midwifery Care, which is investigating whether wraparound care from a team of Black midwives, nurses, and doulas can improve pregnancy outcomes for Black women. “There are warning signs we need to recognize to get them the care they need.”
But on the South Side, Black women
face additional obstacles when it comes time for delivery. There are few birthing centers on the South Side. Numerous hospitals have either suspended or closed their labor and delivery units. Between 2019 and 2020, maternal care offerings on the South Side dropped from 7 to 3, including Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center, St. Bernard Hospital, and Insight Hospital and Medical Center. This disinvestment in healthcare has caused the area to become known as a “birthing desert.”
Black Girls Break Bread is one of a number of efforts underway to improve outcomes for pregnant Black women. The nonprofit Chicago South Side Birth Center will be one oasis in this desert when it opens, but it is still in the process of fundraising.
Earlier this year, at the future site of the Chicago South Side Birth Center, Governor J.B. Pritzker proposed $23 million in funding to support communitybased care in Illinois's Fiscal Year 2025 budget. Pritzker has also announced a number of initiatives to aid the issue of birthing inequity. These include Birth
Equity Resource Building Grants, a Child Tax Credit, a $5 million increase to the DHS Home Visiting Program, a new DHS diaper distribution program, and a $1 million increase to the Illinois Reproductive Health Facilities Grant.
On Monday, Governor Pritzker signed a law that expands insurance coverage during and after pregnancy to lower infant and maternal mortality rates among Black women in Illinois. This law will ensure that insurers provide state-regulated health care plans to cover pregnancy and postpartum services for covered individuals for up to twelve months after the end of a pregnancy.
The Department of Healthcare and Family Services expects it will take several months before all eligible programs such as midwife services, doula visits and lactation consultants
In the meantime, Black Girls Break Bread and other organizations are encouraging existing healthcare providers to pay more attention to the needs and the voices of Black women. According to a survey of research published in the Journal of Midwifery Women’s Health, pregnant women need “culturally congruent” prenatal care, meaning healthcare providers who are of the same culture or understand
their culture.
“In my experiences working as a midwife, in Englewood and South Shore, patients would gravitate towards me because they felt that connection,” Pearson said. “I looked like them and I was gonna really support them. You have to let them know that you care, even if you don’t have all the answers. If they really believe that you’re trying and you care, then that translates a long way.”
Seven years in, Black Girls Break Bread has a raft of achievements but still struggles to convince some healthcare providers that racism and unconscious bias exist and need to be remedied. “That’s a constant struggle,” Davenport-Williams said. “It becomes exhausting having to constantly explain the disparities and how systemic this is. In my belief, it shouldn’t take this much to be able to just eliminate a lot of the disparities that we face.” ¬
Kayla Lane is a 2024 graduate from Columbia College Chicago with a B.A in Journalism, and has a passion for writing about culture and social justice.
Jessica Davenport-Williams.
Illustration by Vivian Jones
Public Meetings Report
A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level.
BY SCOTT PEMBERTON AND DOCUMENTERS
Public meetings: What good are they? In celebration of the 75th Public Meetings Report…
City, county, and state officials hold thousands of public meetings each year that affect you, your family, your friends, and your neighborhood—next week, next year, or over the next ten years. Have you learned something in the Public Meetings Report that caused you to contact your alderperson or other public official, speak your mind at the next meeting, ask your friends and family what’s going on and what can be done about it? Let us know what you’ve done by sending an email to editor@southsideweekly.com with “Public Meetings Report” or “PMR” somewhere in the title. We want to help you use public meetings—and the Public Meetings Report—to make the right things happen in your community.
June 25
At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards heard twelve public speakers and fielded nearly forty zoning change requests. The Committee has jurisdiction over all zoning matters, land-use policy and recommendations, and building code ordinances, along with the designation, maintenance and preservation of historical and architectural landmarks. The first speaker voiced support for a project in Irving Park with sixty-nine Affordable Requirements Ordinance (ARO) units. He complained that approval has been delayed three times since April 16. Another speaker, saying he was a professional urban planner, noted that the Zoning Board of Appeals doesn’t have its full number of members, jeopardizing the proposal process. He was especially concerned about approval of an Uptown homeless shelter. A third speaker asked why the City demolished a property owned by their family since 1972, and by what authority. Thirty-five zoning change requests were passed for forwarding to the full Council for consideration, including two with substitute narratives.
July 10
Echoes of anger from over a year ago were heard at a meeting of the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners as public commenters demanded that the local community’s access, health, and safety be prioritized over revenue when planning private events in the parks. Speakers hailed from Douglass Park to Washington Park. Among their concerns with Riot Fest and other music festivals is that they take over the parks for weeks, cause damage to the park that’s not repaired for months, and force youth sports teams to find other places to practice and play. One speaker called for a summit to encourage “peace and reconciliation.” The park district’s chief administrative
officer, Juliet Azimi, explained that the park-use permitting process for large events now includes community engagement, hiring, and park improvement goals. These events also bring in revenue for the parks, she said, which is expected to reach $10.5 million by the end of the fiscal year. “The truth has not been totally told about what has occurred in Douglass Park,” said Denise Ferguson, a local activist. “The Park District played a tremendous part in [conflict] happening by putting us in the boxing ring with the promoter.” This year, the three-day punk rock music festival is scheduled to be held in suburban Bridgeview. At this meeting, the Park District board approved a five-year deal with Sueños, the reggaeton and Latinx music festival hosted in Grant Park since 2022, with expected revenue of at least $1.5 million each year. Myetie Hamilton, a South Shore native and president of the Board of Commissioners, announced that she will be stepping down, and was honored for three years on the board. In her time on the Board, she had emphasized youth participation and established a Center of Accountability for the park district.
At its meeting the Chicago City Council Committee on Housing and Real Estate reviewed the status of the ChiBlockBuilder platform, which makes City-owned vacant land available for purchase at a discount. The platform’s website describes it as an “application portal to encourage the purchase and redevelopment of [...] land in partnership with community stakeholders.” The goal, the site says, is to streamline the purchase of properties across the “South and West Sides and [increase] transparency.” The site offers an interactive online map with information on environmental clearances, zoning, square footage, and market value. Uses eligible for the land include affordable housing, side yards, “market rate” development, urban agriculture, and open space. Committee members had questions about when, to whom, and for what purposes the land is being sold. Among the sales approved at this meeting was that of a vacant lot to Theaster Gates, a world-renowned Chicago artist who is developing several projects on Dorchester Avenue. Gates is a University of Chicago visual arts professor who advises the university on cultural innovation. Committee members also asked the Department of Planning and Development to address market speculation in Woodlawn and to update the program to ensure that purchased properties are maintained and improved.
During its meeting, the City Council Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation heard from Tom Tunney, a former City Council member, about how to bring public art to Chicago neighborhoods. Tunney is a member of the board of Chicago Sculpture Exhibit, a nonprofit organization that connects sculptors and sponsors for one-year public art installations. To date, the program has placed six hundred sculptures in more than thirty wards. If the works aren’t purchased after a year, they return to the artists. Several Committee members were interested in using their discretionary menu money to fund the one-year $4,000 per participant cost. Menu money provides funds to Council members to spend on capital improvements in their wards. The program is a part of the City’s Participatory Budgeting program and has provided Council members as much as $1.5 million annually. The Committee also approved consideration of an ordinance to allow the Chicago Department of Transportation commissioner to deny an athletic event a permit if the event presented a reasonable risk of harm to participants, bystanders, or City personnel.
July 12
A forty-minute meeting of the Chicago City Council Committee on Health and Human Relations could have a long-term impact on rats. Council Member Timmy Knudsen (43rd Ward) proposed an ordinance to penalize “hate littering.” Knudsen proposed the ordinance after plastic bags containing anti-Semitic flyers and possibly rat poison were found on cars in Lincoln Park. The ordinance would provide for fines of from $500 to $1,000 for leaving “threatening materials” on private property. Council Member Anthony Napolitano (41st Ward) introduced a measure designed to reduce Chicago’s rat population by making the feeding of outdoor animals a crime. Enforceable by the City’s Department of Streets and Sanitation, the modification of an existing ordinance would allow fines of $300 to $600 for each day food is accessible to rats outdoors.
This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.
