January 11, 2017 by South Side Weekly

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Volume 4, Issue 14 Editor-in-Chief Jake Bittle Managing Editors Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger Director of Staff Support Ellie Mejía Director of Writer Development Mari Cohen Deputy Editor Olivia Stovicek Senior Editor Emeline Posner Education Editor Lit Editor Music Editor Stage & Screen Editor Visual Arts Editor

Hafsa Razi Sarah Claypoole Austin Brown Julia Aizuss Corinne Butta

Contributing Editors Maddie Anderson, Joe Andrews, Ariella Carmell, Jonathan Hogeback, Andrew Koski, Adia Robinson, Carrie Smith, Margaret Tazioli, Yunhan Wen, Kylie Zane Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producer Maira Khwaja Web Editor Camila Cuesta Social Media Editors Sierra Cheatham, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Deputy Visuals Editor Jasmin Liang Layout Editors Baci Weiler, Sofia Wyetzner Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Sara Cohen, Bridget Gamble, Christopher Good, Rachel Kim, Michal Kranz, Anne Li, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger Fact Checkers: Eleanore Catolico, Sam Joyce, Rachel Kim, Adam Przybyl, Hafsa Razi, Carrie Smith, Tiffany Wang Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Luke Sironski-White Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Social Media Intern

Ross Robinson

Webmasters Alex Mueller, Sofia Wyetzner Publisher

Harry Backlund

The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring. Over the summer we publish every other week. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637

IN CHICAGO

A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

Woodlawn Wins the Curbed Cup If the last couple of months have significantly weakened your faith in the democratic process (a sentiment we at the Weekly sympathize with), here’s a piece of news that may restore your belief in populism. That’s because the winner of the Curbed Cup—an ultimately meaningless online competition run by Curbed Chicago—went to the home of Blackstone Bicycles, newly saved Shrine of Christ the King, and, yes, the South Side Weekly: Woodlawn. Chicago’s new favorite neighborhood beat out Lakeview, home of urine-soaked streets and sports riots, by nearly a three-to-one margin, thanks in part to a vigorous Get Out The Vote effort (read: acts of voter fraud) by various members of this publication. Perhaps this will teach Chicagoans from other parts of the city not to disregard the South Side: three of the past four Curbed Cup winners lie south of Roosevelt, with Chinatown and Pullman rounding out the pack alongside this year’s champion. Two Police Shootings So Far This Year The Chicago Police Department waited two whole hours before shooting its first unarmed person of 2017. The man has not been identified, but was shot after two police officers attempted to pull him over for missing a stop sign, and, as the Tribune reports, got into an altercation with him. The man was taken to the hospital in critical condition and should survive. CPD continued to ring in the New Year on January 2 at 9:30am with the second officer-involved shooting of the year. In the second shooting, the Tribune reports that an off-duty officer shot thirty-nine-year-old Jose Nieves because of an argument. Don’t worry about both incidents being resolved in a timely and just fashion, because IPRA and CPD are investigating them. Later on January 2, President elect Donald Trump chimed in on the situation in a tweet in which he reminded everyone of Chicago’s 2016 Chicago shooting statistics and telling Rahm that he’d be happy to help the situation. Blowing the Whistle on Wayne Watson In late December, Chicago State University (CSU) settled a whistleblower lawsuit brought by Chief Financial Officer Glenn Meeks, before the January 9 trial date. In his suit, the university’s third since 2014, Meeks accused former university president Wayne Watson of misconduct regarding his personal relationship with an employee, who Meeks said was improperly hired and promoted despite submitting a falsified resume. The university’s insurance company paid the $1.3 million settlement after CSU paid an unspecified deductible. However, the company will not pay into a separate settlement of over $3 million awarded to former CSU attorney James Crowley in 2014—the first successful whistleblower claim filed under the 2003 State Officials and Employees Ethics Act—because CSU lost the suit. CSU is also still facing a pending whistleblower suit filed by former interim vice president of enrollment Lashondra Peebles. Crowley alleged that “he was fired for reporting questionable contracts and refusing to withhold records pertaining to Watson’s employment in response to a public records request,” and Peebles “alleges she was fired after refusing Watson’s directive to file a sexual harassment claim against an outspoken professor, even though she said she was never harassed” and “refusing to backdate a contract,” according to the Tribune. These settlements cap off a tumultuous year for the cashstrapped university that included an ongoing state budget crisis, declining enrollment, and costly administrative shakeups, including a $600,000 severance package for President Thomas Calhoun Jr., who started his position last January and was voted out by the board of trustees in September after just nine months on the job.

IN THIS ISSUE beyond the ivory tower

“The community is guiding us...because we’re still outsiders.” elaine chen.......................................4 the price of food in englewood

Where does Whole Foods fit within the existing retail food network? marcie hill.......................................7 englewood through my lens

Photos of daily life in Englewood tonika johnson.................................8 not in my back yard

Telling recent migrants to fight stereotypes by not loitering, or not leaning on their porches while eating watermelon. kylie zane........................................10 a people's history of chicago

the father is mixed. the father is Black.

kevin coval......................................12

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Cover art courtesy of the School of the Art Institue of Chicago.

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Beyond the Ivory Tower

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

BY ELAINE CHEN

SAIC works toward community engagement in Lawndale

fourteen-story red brick building stands firm, looming above the rows of residential houses that form the Homan Square community of North Lawndale. The words “Sears Roebuck and Co,” written in white, crown the top of the building, and two white columns guard its base. Formerly Sears’s headquarter space, the building is now called Nichols Tower and houses numerous art, leadership training, and other nonprofit organizations. Among them is the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), which was invited by the Foundation for Homan Square last year to run an art center in the tower. SAIC currently operates three types of programs through the center: residencies for artists, degree-granting courses for SAIC students, and continuing studies courses for local residents of all ages. The school aims for the center to “primarily benefit the neighborhood,” said Jaclyn Jacunski, research 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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associate at SAIC’s Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration. With that perspective, it seems fitting that the fourteenth floor of Nichols Tower has windows on all four walls, providing those inside a near 360-degree view of the surrounding community it serves. Visible when looking westward from the top floor windows is a daycare center, an elementary school, and a park—all developed by the Foundation for Homan Square in the last twenty years. The Sears catalog plant that used to stand in their place was demolished just prior to their development, many years after Sears moved its headquarters downtown to the Willis Tower in 1974 and closed the plant. According to Taykhoom Biviji, SAIC’s Homan Square Community Coordinator, the move left residents who worked in the plant unemployed, causing many to leave and the number of residents in North Lawndale to drop from 135,000 before the move to 38,000 today.

SAIC’s artist residency program has been heavily involved with this newly built community hub. Sculptor and performer Cheryl Pope, who recently concluded her residency, worked with students from the elementary school, seniors from the park district community center, and other youth in the surrounding area to create a textile mural. Pope said she did not plan beforehand who in the community she would work with; she invited groups of all ages to contribute, and the piece became an amalgam of their works. For the mural, the elementary students drew images of their dreams for the future on t-shirts and fastened them onto pieces of fabric shaped as clouds. The seniors wrote words of wisdom on strips of fabric that were arranged as sun rays. “They’re like the bookends of the day… the beginning and the end,” Pope said, “hold[ing] the community together in that way.” The mural also contains round mirrors

with imitation eyes stuck on, representing the spirits of those no longer physically present in the neighborhood. Pope said they included this to represent the whole community, because “these spirits are with us…[for example] when somebody is killed, they are not gone.” The mirrors catch and reflect the sunlight, “just as we reflect and think about them, and feel them near us.” Pope says she sees her art as poetic journalism, a means to include the “felt experience” beyond the “narrow, linear narrative generated by institutionalized contacts such as the newspaper.” In her eyes, SAIC’s artist residency program at Homan Square is helping the community better express and document this felt experience “not [by] bringing art to the community— the arts have always been in the community,” but by acting as “a new support system.” To improve this support system, Pope suggested that SAIC extend the residencies to be six months rather than three, to allow

VISUAL ARTS

artists to establish stronger relations with the community. As her residency was ending, she realized, “Oh, yeah, I'm not going anywhere…I just get in too deep.”

ooking further west from the tower’s top floor, past the community center, is a small grassy area featuring several umbrella-shaped sculptures. These are arrangements of grow lights: LED lights that emit specific wavelengths to maximize the absorption of light energy by plants in order to help them grow. These sculptures were constructed through one of SAIC’s degreegranting courses run from the center. The installation, called bLUMEN, was conceived with the aim of creating an outdoor structure that addresses safety by providing light at night, and promotes healthy eating by providing locally grown produce sustained through the energy produced by that light. Throughout the course (also called bLUMEN), the project developed into a community effort, Jacunski explained. SAIC students ran a booth in the North Lawndale Arts Fair, asking locals for input on the project. The course’s professors, Petra Bachmaier (of the Luftwerk art collaborative) and Iker Gil (of MAS Studio), also scheduled community leaders to talk to students. These leaders included Robin Cline, assistant director of the urban land trust NeighborSpace, and Sheila McNary, chairman of the arts and culture committee of North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council. Additionally, the Homan Square Housing Association provided feedback as part of the students’ midterm and final. The course strove to “be flexible to change directions,” said Jacunski, to ensure that the project was as informed by the community as possible. When members of the community asked for an informational plaque to be installed with the piece, the school ordered the plaque. Residents also requested seating near the sculpture, which is now on track for a designer, according to Jacunski. SAIC appears to be fulfilling its promise for responsive action. However, Roderick Sawyer, an SAIC student who took a different degree-granting course on hip-hop pedagogy, said these courses could actually be more community-driven. For example, his class created a gallery with artist interviews and a global research project, but Sawyer thought the semester could have been better spent talking to residents about their desires. Sawyer said SAIC could improve its outreach by “really just talking to people [more] …[to] really start supporting what others are doing already in the community.” “We don’t want to put things in the community, we want to help the community build themselves up,” he said. He attributes part of this need for improvement to the newness of the program. To that end, Jacunski said that SAIC is working toward having initiatives such as these “totally run by the community,” and for SAIC to “give [residents] the keys”—that is, resources for carrying out the initiatives. Pope says that SAIC is beginning to achieve this. A strength of the school’s faculty members, according to Pope, “is that they listen, that they respond, and that they respond quickly.” For example, she proposed an idea for the school to invite local artists to the tower for a show-and-tell event called “Make Share.” SAIC ran the event the next week. “The community [is] guiding us…because we’re still outsiders,” Biviji said. “We don’t want to tell anyone we know what’s good for you, what’s bad for you…[the] only thing we can do right now is listen.” JANUARY 11, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

VISUAL ARTS

ooking to the south from the top floor, an expansive graffiti mural graces the railroad berm, completed by students in a continuing studies course “The Art of Graffiti,” held this past summer. This course, along with the others that SAIC offers to the community, is designed around considerations of oral history interviews with local residents, surveys completed by neighborhood partners, and two years of meetings with community organizations, Jacunski said. The mural, depicting giant letters spelling out “peace,” seems to contrast with the nearby Homan Square police station, which recently drew heavy media attention. In 2015, The Guardian revealed that thousands of people had been detained there over the course of nearly two decades, with most arrestees denied access to lawyers and many subjected to physical violence. Biviji said that media coverage focused solely on such incidents has obscured the “good that is not reported.” “Twenty years of hard work [conducted by the Foundation for Homan Square and local residents in 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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restructuring the neighborhood]…is written off in a [headline].” Homan Square’s “complicated” situation—as Jacunski put it—is evident in the juxtaposition between the critical atmosphere surrounding the police station and the unity expressed through the “peace” mural. Crashun Jones, a young man from the community who was hired as a youth ambassador by SAIC to review the continuing studies courses, voiced how the graffiti course brings to light the talent and aspirations of the teenagers taking it. “When you come to Lawndale, you would be surprised…There’s a lot of kids that actually know how to draw, but they don’t really put their artwork out there… they feel they won't be paid attention to,” he said. “[It’s] crazy that you can find artwork in places other than just in downtown or up north.” He expressed a similar review for another continuing studies course held in the summer, “Our Stories, Our Sounds,” a DJ and podcast course. As part of the class, Lawndale students commuted to SAIC’s

downtown campus to record at the school’s radio station. “Not a lot of people can talk publicly in front of people,” Jones said. At the end of the course though, many students “actually opened up a little more to society by not being afraid to talk in front of a crowd of people… [and] not scared to express their opinions.” Whether or not the students pursue an arts-related profession, the courses are “worthwhile because you learn, you pick up a skill, and have fun while learning,” said Jones.

o the east, far away even from fourteen floors up, is the Chicago skyline. Skyscrapers, short and tall, and roofs, sharp and round, form the city’s silhouette. The pointed antennae of the Willis Tower distinctly jut out. “I didn’t have that height and perspective growing up,” Jacunski said, “to look out on the view of your city and ask questions.” Jones said he used to draw buildings when he was young, because he wanted to be an architect. He “wanted to build a city,” he said. Now, standing on the top floor looking east,

“It’s inspiration! ’Cause you can see the whole city.” Looking back down from the sight of Chicago’s skyline is the immediate North Lawndale community, sprawling before you. The view contains both the residents whom SAIC’s programs aim to benefit and the question of how to best do so. “There still needs to be more involvement,” said Sawyer. “We don’t want to be in this space and use it to just use it, we really want to be there to help create for the community.” Pope described a time she shared this heightened view. “We’re looking out over the city,” she recalled. “By being in this space that is elevated…you change an angle, you get to see yourself differently.” The change in vantage point mirrors a similar shift in perspective that arts education can provide. The possibility of increasing accessibility to this changed outlook—“that’s what’s exciting about the arts being here.” ¬

FOOD

The Price of Food in Englewood

Perceptions of price make shoppers hesitant to try new Whole Foods

BY MARCIE HILL

hough Whole Foods opened in Englewood in September, dozens of interviews with local residents reveal that perceptions of the high-end grocery store remain a barrier to accessing fresh produce. In an attempt to address food deserts in Englewood, Mayor Rahm Emanuel negotiated a $10 million tax incentive to bring Whole Foods Market (832 West 63rd Street) to the South Side neighborhood. This match garnered much discussion as people wondered why this store would come to a low-income community and whether the residents could afford to shop there. A food desert is a community that lacks access (usually within a one-mile radius) to affordable fresh meat and produce. In lowincome communities, affordability might mean that stores should accept food stamps. “So why do certain neighborhoods have quality grocery stores and other neighborhoods have none or just very few, perhaps one?” said Mari Gallagher, the researcher who coined the term “food deserts,” in a WBEZ interview. She adds that one reason food deserts exist is that grocery stores “misunderstand the African-American market.” Englewood shoppers cited three main

CHRISTOPHER BROWN

reasons for not shopping at Whole Foods: loyalty to Aldi because of its low prices and longevity in the community; perceptions of high prices at Whole Foods; and the inability to taste the difference between products sold at both stores. Some people didn’t even know the store existed, despite numerous community meetings over the past three years, heavy media coverage, and a grand opening celebration. Very few people expressed an interest in eating organic foods. Loyalty to Aldi is a major barrier for Whole Foods, which is located just two blocks away. Prior to Whole Food’s arrival, Aldi was the only full-service grocery store, serving 30,000 to 40,000 residents. The store opened on 620 West 63rd Street in October 1991. Corner stores and mini-markets helped fill this void by selling food, produce, and beverages. Unfortunately, their prices are higher, and the produce selection is limited— if offered at all. At many of these stores, food is an afterthought; wine, liquor, lottery tickets, and cigarettes are their primary products. Produce at corner stores can be scarce, spoiled, or not displayed prominently. Englewood residents also tend to assume Whole Foods’ prices are higher than those of other shops in the community. A City Bureau

DENISE NAIM

analysis showed that, in fact, Whole Foods prices are higher than Aldi’s, but sometimes lower than corner stores’. An interactive map available online at bit.ly/englewoodfood documents the locations of Englewood’s grocery stores, Walgreens, corner stores, and mini marts to show the distance residents have to travel for food. Prices of bread, eggs and milk are • • •

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compared to determine affordability of staple products. City Bureau conducted additional research to find if Walgreens and corner stores sell fruits and vegetables, as well as the quality and prices of these products. ¬ This report was produced in collaboration with City Bureau, a Chicago-based journalism lab.

The price of milk at both Aldi and Whole Foods is $1.99, but eggs, white bread, and wheat bread at Whole Foods cost a dollar more than at Aldi. Walgreens, the only drug store in the community (650 West 63rd Street), sells food and produce. Their milk is $3.19, which is more expensive than milk at both grocery stores. Their produce is also much more expensive. There are more corner stores than full-service grocery stores in Englewood. Many corner stores sell milk, bread, and eggs. Some offer a limited selection of fruit and vegetables, although the quality of these products is very low compared to full-service grocery stores. Of the corner stores City Bureau visited, Jimmy’s Market (503 West 59th Street) had the freshest produce. The store, which is far from its nearest competitor, had recently re-opened in November with produce prominently displayed near the front of the store. There are no stores on Garfield between Racine and Wells, the northern border of Englewood, leaving residents in that area with few options. The same is true along Wentworth on the eastern side of the neighborhood. In addition to the Whole Foods and Aldi, there are plenty of corner stores on Halsted, in the financial center of Englewood. Similarly, there are plenty of options (at least five open corner stores) on the western border of the neighborhood on Racine. JANUARY 11, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

Englewood Through My Lens

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONIKA JOHNSON

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PHOTO ESSAY

onika Johnson's photos document everyday life as it is lived in Englewood among families and friends, young folks and old; they take place in front of stores and on sidewalks, in parks and on trains—all the places we find ourselves every day, but sometimes forget to think of as beautiful. “My passion for Englewood and community work, plus my belief in the power of contemporary art [as] a conduit for social awareness, motivated me to use my art to challenge public perception of Englewood,” she said of her photos last year in a Weekly article about the first annual Englewood Art Fair in Hamilton Park. Some of these photos have been shown in galleries or published in other outlets before; others appear here for the first time. Her next exhibition, Everyday Rituals, will open at Rootwork Gallery in February, and will feature photography as well as an experimental film short.

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Not in My Back Yard

A new book aims to reinterpret the role block clubs have played in Chicago's history, but its main points leave something to be desired BY KYLIE ZANE

he cover of Amanda Seligman’s latest work on urban studies shows photographs of four South Side neighborhood welcome signs, the kind you immediately associate with her ostensible topic: the historically African-American block clubs of Chicago. And yet, reading the book, you can’t help but feel that the narrative of Chicago’s African-American block clubs has been omitted, a fault that Seligman explains by citing the limits of the archive she worked with while writing the book. If this was indeed the case, perhaps a sociological approach would have been better suited to her task. Her studied impassivity can be trying at times, especially to readers with inclinations toward revisionist history. That said, Seligman’s account is detailed, and helps to elucidate the relationship between Chicago’s neighborhood organizations and its city government, as well as the relationship of neighbors to each other over the last century, allowing readers familiar with the city’s history to identify ways in which Chicagoans have, at various times, worked to both oppress and uplift each other. Seligman, a professor of history and urban studies at University of WisconsinMilwaukee, published the book with University of Chicago Press this past September as a follow-up on material that had come up during research for her 1999 dissertation project for Northwestern University, which traced neighborhoods on Chicago’s West Side. The introduction is promising: Seligman elucidates the origins of block clubs, started 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

in the 1910s by the Chicago Urban League to “help black Southern migrants acclimate to the city.” On one hand, the Urban League could be characterized as a project of erasure of black Southern culture and a racial assimilation of black migrants into white culture, funded by wealthy white Chicagoans under the banner of “urban acclimatization.” On the other hand, the Urban League could be seen as an attempt by well-meaning white urbanites to welcome and assist black migrants. While Seligman herself remains neutral on the political project of the Chicago Urban League, she is perhaps strongest when she refers to the work of other historians on the subject. The most useful critique offered in her book might be that of historian Touré F. Reed: “The League’s strategy of treating organized activities as a means of improving the character of black neighborhoods was an accommodation to residential segregation… [but] Leaguers, like all of us, were products of their historical moment. They used the intellectual and institutional tools at their disposal both to understand their world and to try to create a more democratic society.” (Note to a would-be reader: if this view of the Urban League is too charitable for you, I would not, in good conscience, be able to recommend this book as an enjoyable read.) Instead of a chronological narrative, Seligman organizes the book into six topics relating to the functions and operations of block clubs: protection, organization, connection, beautification, cleanliness, and regulation. Avoiding the broader social and political movements of her chosen period, the twentieth and early twenty-first

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century, Seligman instead focuses on the archives left by a handful of block clubs and neighborhood organizations, and the ways that they approached the aforementioned topics. While this methodology is useful for a discussion of the function of block clubs, which Seligman argues have been overlooked as a social structure, the approach ignores the historical influence of organizations such as the Nation of Islam, African-American churches, and the Civil Rights Era, all of which critically influenced the landscape of South Side of Chicago, and arguably had (and still have) important ramifications for residents at the neighborhood level. Seligman focuses mostly on three neighborhood organizers, all of whom are white: Faith Rich, the secretary of 15th Place Block Club, a club within the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission (GLCC); Julia Abrahamson, executive director of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HPKCC); and Father Francis X. Lawlor, a racist Catholic priest who tried to prevent integration in West Englewood through the Southwest Associated Block Clubs (SWABC) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Organizer Saul Alinsky also gets a thorough treatment over the course of the narrative. That said, one of the strengths of Seligman’s introduction is her insight that the contributions of women, and particularly black women, in the daily work of block clubs have been overlooked. The book is certainly a testament to women in organizing, though the glimpses of black women’s efforts and experiences are all too fleeting.

The voices of individual African Americans involved in the century long history of block clubs are expressed—with brevity compared to their white peers—by just two women: Alva B. Maxey, head of the Chicago Urban League in the 1960s, and Gloria Pughsley, who spearheaded block club organization in North Lawndale in the 1950s. Maxey, as head of the Chicago Urban League, certainly can’t be claimed as an example of grassroots organization at the neighborhood level, so we are left with the description of Pughsley as our singular voice of black neighborhood organizing. The description is problematic at best, given historic portrayals of American black women, and Seligman remains critically neutral while relaying that Pughsley was seen as angry, “difficult,” and “hostile,” as well as relating an incident in which Pughsley was ridiculed by a social service worker in a report for being overweight. While the characterizations of white block clubs’ activities and white block club members themselves are detailed, the treatment of predominantly black block clubs and their members are disturbingly brief. Though it is not difficult to imagine that nuanced writing and news coverage of black migrants in the twentieth century was sparse, the partial and white-centric history of Chicago’s block clubs that results is utterly disconcerting and goes largely unaddressed by Seligman. That’s not to say that a history of African American block clubs at a structural level does not emerge in the work: Seligman’s analysis traces the ways in which early block clubs, organized by members of

LIT

the Urban League, stressed a politics of respectability and emphasized a clean and quiet neighborhood. During World War II, the block club was implemented citywide by Mayor Edward Kelly to emphasize patriotism through support of troops, bond-buying, and cultivation of victory gardens. Block clubs shrunk again in the postwar years, and the white block clubs that remained focused on imposing racial segregation through restrictive covenants and explicitly violent acts of racism against blacks who tried to move in to white neighborhoods. Black block clubs had their own issues: black property owners, concerned for their safety and property values, responded to the waves of poor Southern migrants that arrived during the Great Migration by imposing further restrictions on acceptable appearance and behavior, such as telling recent migrants to fight stereotypes by not loitering, or not leaning on their porches while eating watermelon. Additionally, the strain of migration manifested in the exclusion of renters, who were not seen as having a significant stake in the neighborhood, from block club organizations. Seligman points out that in both cases block clubs supported exclusionary and classist principles targeted at poor migrants. As block clubs approach the turn of the century, the narrative shifts from anti-migrant to anti-blight and anti-crime. Seligman discusses blight as exemplified by increasing numbers of abandoned buildings and vacant lots, where dangerous and criminal activities occurred. As for crime, while Seligman doesn’t address the construction, decay, and eventual destruction of Chicago’s housing projects (causing an influx of poor black families into middle-class black neighborhoods, as discussed in a chapter of Natalie Moore’s incredible book, The South Side) or the Chicago Police Department that policed them, she does pause to provide a description of Chicago’s gangs, describing the way they menaced communities, corrupted youth, and formed large structures for organized crime. While her statements contain truth, they lack analysis of the structural conditions leading to Chicago’s gangs, and gangs are largely the only organizational structure besides block clubs attributed to Chicago’s African Americans in the section, which make her reasons for treating the topic in such a selective way seem misguided at best. In the 1990s, in order to address increasing concerns about crime, the city again took block club organizing into

FINN JUBAK

institutional hands. This time it was through CPD, and specifically through a program called Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), which led efforts to organize neighbors for the purposes of neighborhood surveillance and reporting of suspicious or criminal activities. As Seligman points out, “the CAPS program … represents the first time the city government has tried to systemically create a partnership with Chicago’s block clubs that is responsive to resident’s daily concerns.” And it’s true that early on, the CAPS program helped to foster community-police relations and its implementation correlated with decreases in crime. But reduced funding to CAPS through the 2000s and rising mistrust in the CPD over past decades mean that the wellintended program is now a shell of its former self, a fact Seligman neglects to mention. It is hard to miss how, again and again, the block club was used as a means of controlling black citizens, whether through the Urban League, through housing discrimination by white block clubs, or through policing. And yet this telling of the story is not the one Seligman chooses to emphasize. Instead, there’s an overabundance of minutiae: Seligman recounts how a Hyde Park club raised the funds to install lighting on an

unlit street, or how another club paid one cent for every littered bottle neighborhood children brought them, or the role of holiday decorating, or the use of positive loitering in Uptown to deter crime. For Seligman, the point here is to emphasize the intermediary role the block club fills: its power is greater than the efforts of an individual citizen, but not as great as a neighborhood association, alderman, or the police. With these details, Seligman builds her argument for neighboring as an important urban relationship worthy of scholarship. While she points out that neighborhoods that look nice, thanks to the efforts of block clubs, are more pleasant to live in, there are critical issues inherent in her history of block clubs in Chicago as a whole. Her account raises complicated underlying questions: is neighboring essentially a form of surveillance and control, or a relationship of support? What is neighborhood safety and how (and against whom) does it operate? Can we envision cleanliness, beauty, and safety in ways that are not racist or classist? The answers are not provided in this book. The conception of neighboring Seligman has outlined in Chicago Block Clubs is far from the borrowing-a-cup-ofsugar style. Though she does not explicitly state it, Seligman outlines a relationship of

neighboring that contains seeds of classism, racism, ageism, and renter-discrimination. Despite her numerous examples of neighbors working together successfully on smallscale improvement projects, Seligman is not completely dismissive of the more divisive aspects of this complicated relationship. In her own closing words: “Neighbors do not choose each other as companions in the way that friends mutually consent to their affiliation…It is tempting to imbue the word ‘neighbor’ with a range of uplifting meanings that imply positive connection and mutual care. But neighbors do not always treat each other well…neighbors [can] be adversaries rather than allies.” ¬ Amanda I. Seligman, Chicago’s Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City. University of Chicago Press. 312 pages. $30.00.

JANUARY 11, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

POETRY

A People’s History of Chicago

POEMS BY KEVIN COVAL

he following is a poem excerpted from Chicago poet and activist Kevin Coval’s forthcoming book A People’s History of Chicago. The book will be published on March 4 by Haymarket Books and will include a foreword by Chance the Rapper. The book, says Coval, “flips to the b-side of history in the tradition of Howard Zinn, Ida B. Wells, and the counter-narrators to American terror and mainstream whitewashing.” He wants to “set the record straight and remix it and dig in the crates to rescue and retell some of the best and most radical and real and celebratory and difficult parts of our Chicago story.” The book begins before the arrival of Europeans in North America and ends with the Chicago Cubs’s World Series victory late last year. Look for a full review of A People’s History in the coming weeks, plus further coverage of Coval’s planned “year-long journey” around Chicago— he plans to give readings and talks in each of the city’s seventy-seven community areas by the end of 2017.

The Father Is a Black Man 1779 There is not a single street in the city of Chicago named in honor of the Black man who founded this city, not an alley...but John Kinzie, a white man, who came after DuSable, when DuSable was forced out or pushed out or whatever, he ended up with DuSable’s property, & Kinzie has a bridge, Kinzie has a street, Kinzie has a building, & all he did was buy DuSable’s house. Lerone Bennett, Jr. the father is mixed. the father is Black. his mother a slave. his father a french mariner. the first non-Native  to settle in Chicago Jean Baptiste Point duSable was a hustler.  he worked the trap.  traded pelts at the frontier. married Kittihawa a Potawatomi woman  he saw sailing the Mississippi.  the traditional ceremony  officiated by a Chief.  the father was cool  with the Indigenous.  they settled at the mouth  of the river, where the tribune sits spewing untruths in english.  DuSable spoke spanish, french, english & several Native dialects.  the father a genius. he made okra & oxtails  with sos pwa noir, a black bean sauce, & joumou, a pumpkin stew harvested from the acres he farmed. his house had a large stone fireplace a piano, a garden & orchard. he collected paintings, mirrors & walnut furniture.

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the father had style  and maybe some gators.  he finessed pesos, pounds & francs  from folks traveling thru town, down  the river, out west or back east. he stayed  serving. awash in wampums. the father was ballin. his granddaughter, the first non-Native born  in Chicago, was mixed. the first child was mixed. the father, a product of terror & rape. the father, the city forgets, is mixed the mix made the British nervous. a body protestants couldn’t wrap their heads around. the father is a Black man pushed out by a white man rich & thirsty. DuSable left to die far from the city built with his hands. his mixed hands. his Black hands. the father is a Black man.

EVENTS

BULLETIN See Through Stigma Week University of Chicago, locations vary (see website). Through January 13. Polaroid Project daily, 11am–2pm. Individual events Wednesday, 11am–2pm; Thursday–Friday, 6pm–8pm. Free. stsuchicago.strikingly.com Active Minds and Axis UChicago, two student groups devoted to educating and dismantling stigma around mental illnesses and disabilities, bring a week of awareness events to the UofC campus. Programming includes faculty-led discussions on stigma and trigger warnings, a health and wellness resource fair, screening of the movie Touched with Fire, an artistic performance night, and an interactive Polaroid photo display. (Sara Cohen)

Bronzeville Animal Clinic Fifth Anniversary Celebration Bronzeville Animal Clinic, 203 E. 31st St. Wednesday, January 11, 4pm–8pm. Free. Call to RSVP. (312) 949-1838. bronzevillevet.com Get down with the best vets in town! Pets and owners alike are invited to partake in a celebration of Bronzeville Animal Clinic’s fifth year of operation, marked by a commemorative gathering and refreshments for all. (Sara Cohen)

Long Range Transportation Planning in Cook, DuPage and Will Counties Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, 233 S. Wacker Dr., Ste. 800. Friday, January 13, 9:30am–11:30am. $5–$15. Buy tickets online at bit.ly/ConnectingCookCounty. (312) 603-1652. connectingcookcounty.org As our communities continue to shift in needs and population, counties in the Chicagoland area have begun redesigning their long-term transportation plans to suit the needs of current and future residents. Check out this event to see what Cook, DuPage, and Will Counties have planned for the future, and

how it may affect your community. (Bridget Newsham)

MLK Jr: Day of Reflection Movie Screenings Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Monday, January 16, 11am–5:30pm. Free. (773) 324-5520. hydeparkart.org Three films, handpicked by teenagers in the Hyde Park Art Center’s programs, will be screened on the day memorializing the great champion of the Civil Rights Movement. The documentary 13th will play first, followed by Brother Outsider and Black Power Mix Tape, relating American civil rights issues with the aim of bringing ongoing racial injustices and resistance efforts to the forefront. (Sara Cohen)

Englewood Meeting on New HS, Lots Hamilton Park Cultural Center, 513 W. 72nd St. Tuesday, January 17, 6pm–8pm. Free. (866) 845-1032. ragenglewood.org At this bi-monthly village meeting, the Residents Association of Greater Englewood will discuss Englewood’s new high school; participation in the Large Lots Program, which sells vacant lots for $1; and look back on a year of RAGE successes. Call or email joinrage@gmail by January 12 to register as a speaker. (Neal Jochmann)

Farewell, Obama Harper Theatre, 5238 S. Harper Ave. Thursday, January 19, 6pm–9pm. $10. Buy tickets online at bit.ly/ FarewellObamaScreening. (773) 966-5091. blackownedchicago.com Farewell, Obama, presented by Black Owned Chicago, is a documentary project highlighting the stories of those who knew Obama before and during his presidency. Come celebrate our president one last time through stories, snacks, and discussion. (Bridget Newsham)

VISUAL ARTS Riot Grrrls

Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. Thursday, December 15, 2016 through Sunday, June 18, 2017. Tuesday, 10am–8pm; Wednesday–Sunday, 10am–5pm. $12 adults, $7 students; free Tuesdays. (312) 280-2660. mcachicago.org As one would expect judging by the name "Riot Grrrls", this exhibit is a refreshingly direct challenge to the sexism that has long permeated the art world. This stunning collection features a series of abstract works by eight prolific, pioneering female painters including Mary Heilmann and Charline von Heyl, as well as works from the generation of female artists that followed. (Bridget Newsham)

Obama at Chicago State. He hopes to show that there’s reason for hope in the long march toward progress. ( Joseph S. Pete)

MUSIC Emily Lordi on Donny Hathaway Live with Tara Betts Seminary Co-Op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Friday, January 13, 6pm–7:30 pm. Free. All ages. (773) 752-4381. semcoop.com UMass Amherst professor Emily Lordi will discuss her volume in the 33 1/3 book series, Donny Hathaway Live, the first nonfiction work written about the soul music prodigy Donny Hathaway. She’ll be in conversation with Weekly interviewee Tara Betts, a poet and lecturer at UIC. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Spencer Rogers: Modern Abstractions

AMFM and The Dojo present: Blue Lion Reimagined

S. Rog Gallery, 739 S. Clark St., 2nd floor. Opening reception Friday, January 13, 6pm– 9pm. Through March 10. Open Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10am–5pm, and by appointment. Free. (312) 884-1457. sroggallery.com

AMFM Gallery, 2151 W. 21st St. Saturday, January 14. Doors 7pm, show 8pm–11pm. $10. All ages. amfm-mag.com

It takes a painter’s imagination to curate an exhibition as dazzling as "Modern Abstractions," comprised of mind-blowing macro photographs selected for interesting detail and exploded in vibrant, dripping acrylic paint. 125 copies will be made of each of these images, which will be on sale to all attendees. Snacks also provided. (Neal Jochmann)

Onward! Movements, Activists, Politics, and Politicians Uri-Eichen Gallery, 2101 S. Halsted St. Opening reception Friday, January 13, 6pm–10pm.Through Friday, February 3 by appointment only. Free. (312) 852-7717. uri-eichen.com Photographer Michael Gaylord James’s exhibit spans fifty-four years of politics, from the Berkeley Free Speech Movement to Black Lives Matter, from JFK in Mexico to

AMFM Magazine’s newly opened gallery and arts incubator in Pilsen hosts Boogaloo Urbano pioneer Lester Ray, who plans to release “Blue Lion Reimagined” a year after his “Blue Lion” EP dropped. International DJs like Bleepolar, AfroQbano, and El Bles, to name a few, have all covered Ray’s tracks, and for those who need a little convincing: the cost includes the album and Puerto Rican pernil if you arrive a little early. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Sauers Reunion Part 2 at Promontory The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Sunday, January 15, 10pm. 21+. $10 in advance, $15 at door. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com The Chosen Few, the original devoted disciples of house, resume their multi-part celebration of famed venue, restaurant, and house party locale Sauers. This event, like the first one, is for those who “were there, or wish they were there, or want to learn what it was

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all about.” An honor roll of the Chosen Few DJs will spin throughout the evening. ( Jake Bittle)

Steve Gunn at Thalia Hall Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Monday, January 16. Doors 7:30pm, show 8:30pm. 17+. $18 in advance, $20 at door. (312) 5263851. thaliahallchicago.com Steve Gunn, the Brooklynite guitarist from Kurt Vile’s backing band The Violators, and a solo singer-songwriter in his own right (he’s got a dozen-odd albums and counting), will come to Pilsen’s Thalia Hall in mid-January. He will be joined by Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth and Californian Meg Baird, a founder of the psychedelic band Espers. ( Jake Bittle)

STAGE & SCREEN Blues for an Alabama Sky Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. January 12–February 12. Ticket prices $38-$68. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org Pearl Cleage’s 1999 play explores the effects of the Great Depression on a set of characters living in the wake of New York’s Harlem Renaissance. The play is part of a larger celebration of the Harlem Renaissance around Hyde Park, including jazz concerts and asyet-unspecified visual arts and poetry events. (Christian Belanger)

Abeer’s Day Off Cooking Show Premiere Screening The Silver Room, 1506 E. 53rd St. Friday, January 13, 5:30pm–7:30pm. Free. (773) 947-0024. bit.ly/abeersdayoff Abeer Najjar has always loved cooking and food, especially because of the way they connect her to her family and Palestinian heritage. Watch the first few episodes of her new cooking web series at the Silver Room this Friday, and get inspired to make a new dish of your own to cook away the January cold. (Emily Lipstein)

Color My World Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Friday, January 13, 7pm. (773) 702-8596. filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu

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The first in a series of new and restored experimental films, “Color My World” features seven short works unified by vibrant use of color. Two 16mm prints from each coast (one loaned from Anthology Film Archives in NYC and the other from the Academy Film Archive in LA), sit in the midst of contemporary video works playing with hues and tints. (Spencer Choi-Schagrin)

Too Close to Home eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Friday, January 13, 7pm. $10. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org Second City veteran Lisa Beasley will be kicking off eta Creative Arts’s 2017 Magic Box Series with her hilarious Too Close to Home comedy show. And she’s bringing friends! Lisa and co. will be combining standup, storytelling, and improv into a routine which—warning—could cause an incurable case of the belly laughs. (Michael Wasney)

Ambiguity Forum The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. Saturday, January 14, 3pm. (773)702-8670. renaissancesociety.org In a selection of poems, essays, and other written works, artists and writers consider the idea of ambiguity. These texts, which will be performed aloud as part of The Ren’s exhibition Sadie Benning: Shared Eye, seek to answer the following: should ambiguity be embraced, challenged, or questioned? The answer isn't always clear. (Cynthia Mao)

God, Do I Hear Wedding Bells and Phillis: The American Revolutionary eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Sunday, January 15. Wedding Bells, 5pm; Phillis, 6pm. Free. (773) 7523955. etacreativearts.org Returning for its second year, eta’s Magic Box series features two works on Sunday: Wedding Bells, a reading, seeks to raise awareness of domestic violence through a comical twist. Redd Opera’s Phillis recounts the early life of our legendary activist poet, Phillis Wheatley. (Lorraine Lu)

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