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Left: Mariia Feliksovna Bri-Bein, Woman Worker and Woman Collective Farmer, Join the Ranks of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, 1934, lithograph on paper, Ne boltai! Collection. Right: Olga Chernysheva, March, 2005. Courtesy: Diehl, Berlin; Pace, London; Foxy Production, New York.

Smart Museum of Art The University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

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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 5, Issue 5 Editor-in-Chief Hafsa Razi Managing Editors Julia Aizuss, Andrew Koski Directors of Staff Support Baci Weiler Writer Development Sara Cohen Community Outreach Jasmin Liang Senior Editors Olivia Stovicek Emeline Posner Politics Editor Adia Robinson Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Rod Sawyer Editors-at-Large Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen Contributing Editors Maddie Anderson, Mira Chauhan, Bridget Newsham, Adam Przybyl, Sam Stecklow, Margaret Tazioli, Yunhan Wen Data Editor Jasmine Mithani Radio Editor Erisa Apantaku Radio Host Andrew Koski Social Media Editors Bridget Newsham, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Deputy Visuals Editor Lizzie Smith Photography Editor Jason Schumer Layout Editor Baci Weiler Staff Writers: Elaine Chen, Rachel Kim, Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, Michael Wasney Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Sam Joyce, Bridget Newsham, Adam Przybyl, Hafsa Razi, Sam Stecklow, Rebecca Stoner, Tiffany Wang Staff Photographers: Denise Naim, Jason Schumer, Luke Sironski-White Staff Illustrators: Zelda Galewsky, Natalie Gonzalez, Courtney Kendrick, Turtel Onli, Raziel Puma Webmaster

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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 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com

Cover design by Ellen Hao, Jason Schumer, & Lizzie Smith

IN CHICAGO IN THIS 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

“Neighborhood Amazon Opportunity Funds” In case city leaders hadn’t made it clear that Amazon should make its new home here, the city made it extra clear with a $2.25 billion incentive package. The city’s bid provides Amazon with extensive tax breaks and free land if Amazon builds its headquarters at the Thompson Center or the former Michael Reese Hospital in Bronzeville. Leaders promise that the money will come back to the people through jobs: $250 million of the incentive package will include investments in workforce development, though funds will be redirected from City College funding and “Neighborhood Opportunity Funds,” grants “to help rebuild long-neglected Chicago neighborhoods with contributions developers make in exchange for being allowed to build bigger and taller buildings” downtown, according to the Sun-Times. And with the city government’s checkered history of making good on such promises, Chicagoans need to ask who’s being prioritized: the people or the corporation? POL(ICE)? Last Thursday, activists, attorneys, elected officials, and undocumented residents of the 10th Ward gathered outside a Southeast Side church to protest what they described as deceptive arrest techniques by Immigration Customs & Enforcement (ICE): wearing vests that simply read “POLICE” and not immediately identifying as ICE officers. An attorney from the National Immigrant Justice Center said that three recent arrestees from the area believed they had been interacting with the Chicago Police Department—subject to the Sanctuary City policy—instead of ICE, and that the Far Southeast Side has been seeing increased rates of ICE arrests. It is currently unknown how many of those arrests may be due to individuals being wrongly listed as gang members by the CPD’s internal database, which would allow CPD to share information with ICE. Restoration Efforts Ablaze Over the winter, the Shrine of Christ the King church on 64th and Woodlawn will get a new roof: the culmination of two years of fundraising efforts. In October 2015, the roof and interior of the Church went up in flames spontaneously, undoing a decade of restoration work on the church. The church congregation has since raised $2.2 million, cleared out the wreckage within the church, and repaired the fire-charred walls. In addition, on October 11 the National Fund for Sacred Spaces and the National Trust for Historic Preservation donated a $250,000 matching grant. Once completed in the spring, the roof will bring the church that much closer to being reopened—but installing new heating, plumbing, electricity, and more will take at least a year longer and as much as $4 million more in funds. CPS Eats Its Words on Special Ed As last week’s WBEZ investigation uncovered, Chicago Public Schools has been systematically reducing services for special education students: the district hired consultants to develop new guidelines that limited the use of busing, personal aides, and summer school; shut parents out of the process; and both cut funds and left some special education funds unexplained, further obscuring its spending. CPS also spent fewer special education dollars in schools with more poor students of color. As of press time, a petition calling for CPS CEO Forrest Claypool’s firing and the restoration of funds and direct services had reached 948 signatures. The investigation validates what parents and educators have been saying at school board meetings, in downtown protests, and on social media for over a year. Until recently, CPS continuously denied that special education services had been cut, despite repeated testimony at public hearings, a letter signed by over six hundred local school council members, and a survey by the teachers union. Let’s hope CPS finally listens.

ISSUE an iconic presence

“This is super exciting but also daunting because it hasn’t been done before in this way.” maddie anderson..............................4 closing the loop

At the helm of a microgreens operation is a farmer with big ideas about sustainability adam przybyl....................................6 opinion: poverty is not a state of mind

“No one is born with the ‘wrong’ mindset. What people are born into are situations that don’t provide them the opportunities to succeed.” nathan petithomme........................8

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OCTOBER 25, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

An Iconic Presence

The Obama Presidential Center design team on their work and their vision for the space BY MADDIE ANDERSON

n Saturday, October 14, rain poured down in torrents, the air cold and dark. It was one of the first chilly, rainy days after two weeks of unusually warm early October weather. Yet dozens of people made it through the storm to the DuSable Museum of African American History for EXPO CHICAGO’s panel conversation introducing the design team behind the Obama Presidential Center (OPC). In a shift from the typically fraught conversations about the OPC’s economic and local community impact, the panel instead focused on illustrating the design process behind the OPC, and discussing its role as an innovative social and cultural institution. On the panel were Louise Bernard, the Director of the OPC, as well as Amanda Williams and Andres Luis Hernandez, artists and members of the OPC’s Exhibition Design Team. Moderating the event was Monica Chadha, founder of Civic Projects and another member of the Exhibition Design Team. The two artists began by giving a brief overview of their recent works, aided by a colorful slideshow. Andres Hernandez, a local artist and educator, shared first, explaining the work he has done through the Revival Arts Collective (RAC), which he cofounded in 2011 to establish creative, alternative models to mainstream community economic development efforts. His work uses civic dialogue, microgrant-making, and “creative place-making” to encourage active citizen engagement in the process. “Particularly on the South Side, where development is stalled, we think about what can we do as artists, designers, and creatives to spur conversation and spur initiatives,” Hernandez said.

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In the past few years, the RAC instituted the Sol Street Festival, which reimagined a vacant lot at 62nd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue; Revival Bronzeville, which focused on the Bronzeville Corridor on 47th Street and King Drive; and Saturday Sweets, a microloan program that raises money for art projects in Bronzeville. “For us, we were thinking about how we can’t always get funding from institutions or philanthropy—how do we do our own microfund within our own neighborhoods?” Hernandez explained. Amanda Williams, a Chicago-based visual artist who trained as an architect at Cornell University, followed Hernandez. Her discussion revolved, in large part, around the works in her first solo exhibition, Color(ed) Theory, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), and the projects that informed them. “Color(ed) Theory” is an extension of Williams’s 2015 project of the same name, for which Williams painted eight houses slated for demolition in Englewood with vivid colors to draw attention to the racial undertones of urban design and decay. At the MCA, Williams presents sculptures from this project, including a large pile of gold bricks. “[In Color(ed) Theory,] it was really important to use the fact that these things go away without our knowledge, without kind of any understanding of how these systems work, as part of the project itself,” she said. “It was sort of the idea of a morning and kids going to school as being as common as these houses going away.” “What I learned from this process...is that most of the foundations of these houses are brick and that the Chicago common brick is valuable from a building standpoint because it has this certain resilience,”

Williams added. “You can imagine that these lots that are being razed [from] these bricks...that’s actually a gold mine.” Williams also spoke about two other aspects of her exhibition at the MCA: a series of eight maps titled “Chicago is Iraq?” and a narrow gold room, visible but inaccessible to museum-goers. “‘Chicago is Iraq?’ is, of course, kind of playing off the idea of ‘Chiraq’ and the controversy around that: it presents this neutral illustration of literally what Iraq over Roseland, over Auburn Gresham, over Austin looks like so that you can really imagine the tension between those two places, as sites of trauma but also sites of possibility,” Williams said. “And then, it’s really important for me to think about being invited inside a place that has historically not been very inclusive of people who look like me and what does it mean to provide this moment of access?” she added. “So I invited six residents of Englewood, all friends of mine but from different walks of life, to come in [to the MCA] and actually go into this room that was a scaled city lot—so a typical lot is twenty-five feet by 125 feet, this room is six feet by fifteen feet—and to really think of this idea of hidden in plain sight. And then to not allow access to anyone else to that room except those six people.” Louise Bernard next took the floor, shifting the focus of the conversation away from the introduction of the design team to discussion of the museum itself. Although Bernard was formerly director of exhibitions at the New York Public Library and, before that, senior content developer and interpretive planner for the museum design firm responsible for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, she talked very little about herself.

Instead, she turned to the model of the OPC designed by Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects, first unveiled in May. The model shows a campus of three separate buildings: at the north of the site, the tallest building will contain the center’s museum, while buildings to the south will house a forum of multiuse spaces and a library, all arranged around a public garden and plaza. “This project is one of revitalization— of really bringing a dominant, cultural voice but engaging with those communities around it. It’s very much a community project,” Bernard said. “I like to think of the museum as being, in many ways, the physical manifestation of the work of the Obama Foundation, which is itself about civic engagement; about what it means to be a citizen.” Discussing the intentionality behind particular architectural decisions, Bernard spoke about the OPC’s presence on the landscape connecting Jackson Park and the lake, adding that it was designed to look metaphorically like a “beacon.” “The building has kind of an iconic presence on the landscape. It’s something that people will be drawn towards,” she explained. “We have to be very thoughtful about how light impacts the building, because we will be preserving objects within, [is] that the building itself, while it seems like a fairly weighty edifice, will [through its materials] give a sense of lightness and translucency.” The verticality of the building, Bernard said, is significant as it contrasts from other presidential museums, most of which are on one plane. “We’re really thinking of this metaphor of movement, of a journey from the grassroots: the idea of individual agency moving up to a point of collective action,”

ARCHITECTURE

MADDIE ANDERSON

she said. “The Sky Room” at the very top of the building will be a space where visitors and local residents will be able to access what Bernard called a “remarkable view of the city and surrounding landscapes.” Bernard also spoke in depth about what is being planned for the spaces within the OPC. She emphasized the idea of “democratic space” and the idea of the museum housing and sharing knowledge. “It’s attached to a forum, which is where many of the programs will take place; these hands-on activities,” she said. “It’s the space where one will find the auditorium. A test kitchen. A recording studio. Other multipurpose kinds of spaces where visitors and local residents will be able to come together and participate in these hands-on programs that speak to civic engagement...It’s a

welcoming space. A space of convening. A space where we might find commissioned public art.” Bernard also spoke to the narrative she intends for the museum exhibition to tell: a multidimensional story focused not only on Obama’s personal history, but also on how African American history and America’s history of racism informed Obama’s presidency. “While the narrative of president Obama is certainly phenomenal in many ways, it’s deeply rooted in history,” she said. “So we really wanted to think of the history of which that watershed moment—the inauguration of the first African American president—came to be and that history is rooted in the history of the civil rights movement, in progressive movements.” “And it’s rooted also in relation to those

counternarratives that worked very precisely against the president and that we have seen come to the forefront unsettlingly today: those forces of racism, white supremacy all have to be accounted for to really make sense of the world in which we live.” She closed with what the contents of the museum’s displays will be, touching on the importance of engaging around physical objects and how these will contribute to larger storytelling. “I think of the idea of the museum itself as a place of stewardship: that we are housing and preserving artifacts that will be maintained for future generations and the importance of the object; of coming to this place and being able to commune, in a way, with individual objects that themselves tell a story,” Bernard said. “It’s important for us all to be reminded

of the power of those objects...This will be a space where artifacts do a lot of work,” she added. “You can see the range here. President Obama’s signing pen, for example...the importance of textiles in the First Lady’s dresses—which tell us not only about her own sense of style and dignity but about a sense of sartorial diplomacy and what Black style actually signifies to a broader world. And the Nobel Peace Prize, for example. So you can really see the richness, the wealth and how that connects to larger stories, larger storytelling.” Notably, the OPC will hold few physical copies of records from Obama’s presidency, which will instead be stored digitally. Before the event closed with a series of questions from audience members, moderator Monica Chadha asked Hernandez and Williams to speak to the significance of inclusivity to the design team. Both spoke to the monumentality of their team being led by Black women, and how that fact is important and exciting to them. “I’m sitting between two very fierce and intelligent Black women,” Hernandez said. “The fact that our team is very diverse and led by women is unheard of in design. I don’t take that lightly. I don’t think any of us should.” Similarly, Williams said, “This is super exciting but also daunting because it hasn’t been done before in this way...the architects and artists are a community: we’re South Siders, we’re Black. All those things become assets when at some point in my life they’ve been told to me to be deficits...this is the kind of project I want to struggle through.” ¬ Staff writer Michael Wasney contributed reporting to this article.

OCTOBER 25, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

Closing the Loop

How an urban farmer is using tiny plants to build a zero-waste operation BY ADAM PRZYBYL Deep in the recesses of a basement at a former meatpacking facility in Back of the Yards, opposite large hydroponic tanks and industrial storage lockers, lives an unlikely success story. Tiny shoots of pea, radish, and peppercress bask under hanging lights, housed on several racks six feet tall and eight feet long. Twice a week, they are harvested and delivered to restaurants throughout the city, where they introduce surprisingly strong flavors into salads and sandwiches. Meanwhile, the leftover soil is composted, and a new set of trays, filled with germinated seeds, is brought out from underneath and into the light. The cycle continues and the demand for microgreens grows. Adam Pollack, founder and head farmer of Closed Loop Farms, the basement microgreens farm, thinks this is only the beginning of his sustainable foods project. He’s come a long way in the past year: from growing microgreens in his apartment and selling them to a few restaurants, he’s moved to a dedicated space at The Plant, a sustainable food business incubator, with over thirty-five regular customers and several part-time employees. Most weeks, he delivers the equivalent of 150 trays. At this rate, he speculates he may have over sixty customers by next summer. Pollack came to urban agriculture from a different wing of the food industry—the restaurant scene. Originally from Highland Park, Pollack left the University of Texas in 2011 and ended up at notable, high-end restaurants in Chicago like Avec, the “rustic Mediterranean shared-plates” restaurant in the West Loop; Publican Quality Meats; and Rick Bayless’ Topolobampo. While still a cook, he became preoccupied with finding ways to reduce waste in the food production chain. Even

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in the food industry, where tight profit margins might seem like incentive enough to minimize waste, he saw it almost everywhere. Bakeries threw out bread at the end of the day, containers in which food was delivered were discarded instead of reused, and unneeded but edible parts of vegetables and other products were composted—better than tossing them in the trash, but still not an efficient use of resources. He began to think about strategies for tackling waste in the food system at the broader level, and tying these ideas to a project of building greater food resiliency and sustainability throughout Chicago. One way was to do it through canning, which repurposes excess food into sauces and spreads. “You can only grow food for eight months out of the year max, so canning and fermenting is totally crucial,” he says. Pollack began experimenting. In one restaurant, where watermelon radishes were hole-punched into small circles for a dish and the leftover radish was composted, he made kimchi out of a week’s worth of scraps—it lasted him over a year. It was after a summer internship at a North Carolina farm in 2015 that Pollack experienced a “big revelation,” he recalls. “My whole life I thought I wanted to be a chef, but I realized grinding it out in the kitchen, day in and day out, wasn’t gonna be something I was gonna do.” Looking for inspiration, he took a permaculture design course in Nicaragua and came back motivated to start his own farm. It didn’t matter to him whether he would be on an outdoor urban farm or in his apartment, so long as he was growing food of some kind. Using his savings, he started his business, Closed Loop Farm, last year, and at the same time launched a

temporary community garden in Humboldt Park and began growing microgreens in his apartment. Pollack wanted to incorporate canning and zero-waste practices into his business. “If you want to talk about building resilient, local food systems, you need to talk about canning,” he says. So Pollack started buying excess and less-than-perfect produce from vendors at farmer’s markets at a discounted rate to make pickles and sauces. With a friend, he made between 500 and 600 cans just in their kitchen.

The microgreens have since taken over—there were lower startup costs and demand was surprisingly high. “Microgreens are a good urban farm business because they grow so quickly that you can increase or decrease production as demand changes,” he explains, noting that fast turnaround time also means that there are more learning opportunities to make small adjustments and conduct experiments. Pollack hopes to have more time for canning one day, but in the meantime, he’s focusing on teaching the craft. Just last weekend, he taught a workshop on canning and preserving foods at The Plant in which

participants could go home with kimchi they had made and a basic understanding of how to make the Korean fermented dish. In that respect, Closed Loop Farms is the perfect fit for The Plant, which has been conducting research about closed-loop energy and food production practices, and implementing those best practices in its Back of the Yards home, since it was established as a nonprofit in 2011. Its programming has contributed tangibly to the network of sustainability-oriented food businesses, and is increasingly looking toward a bigger scale. Earlier this summer, two researchers from Loyola University worked with The Plant to publish a paper on how to move Chicago toward a circular economy. When Pollack was looking for a space for his microgreens last year, The Plant’s owners offered him as much space as he needed, and at low cost. The Plant’s access to networks of volunteers, staff, researchers, and farmers interested in sustainable food systems proved to be a boon as well. Pollack received many of his lights—one of the most expensive elements of the operation— at a heavy discount from another farmer who was leaving The Plant and needed to get rid of his stock. He crossed paths with some of his current part-time employees at The Plant, and being able to advertise his workshops through The Plant’s website has proved effective as well; last week’s kimchi workshop was sold out at least several days ahead of time. As the name of his company suggests, Pollack believes part of the effort in moving toward food sustainability and resiliency necessarily involves transitioning into a circular food economy, in which as many of the resources involved in food production— soil, excess supply, and even containers—are

FOOD

ADAM PRZYBYL

Closed Loop Farms founder Adam Pollack, Jose Popoca, and The Plant market manager Liz Lyon harvest microgreens. recycled back into local economies through composting, canning, and reuse. “That’s the loftier goal [for Closed Loop Farms],” he says. Part of Pollack’s vision for what urban agriculture can do was formed by his experience with a short-term community garden he built up in Humboldt Park last year. He worked out an arrangement with LUCHA, a housing advocacy group in Humboldt Park that was trying to implement more wellness initiatives with their tenants. In exchange for access to land near a low-income housing project that was to be developed that year anyway, Pollack assumed all the costs of working the land: soil, seeds, water, and labor. The garden was also open to participation from housing project tenants as well as other locals. “We were doing things by the seat of

[our] pants,” Pollack says. “We were growing and figuring out ways to structure as we were doing it.” He arranged to pay a neighbor in exchange for their water hose and estimates that there were about ten people—and five core members—who regularly contributed labor and took food home. Drawing on his experience with the community garden, Pollack imagined a scenario in which every ward or neighborhood in the city had its own collaborative farm, with some even including a greenhouse for all-year growing. “Each one can self-organize and see how they want to do it,” he says. “Pay for labor, or don’t pay for labor and all the food goes back to the laborers.” Moving beyond the model of small, individual community gardens, which are plentiful in Chicago but can’t hope to provide serious sustenance for a community,

a system like that could possibly make a real dent in the food deserts of the West and South Sides. But as Pollack imagines ways in which he can expand his vision of a sustainable food system further, he is aware of the

precarious situation of a microgreens farm. Margins are small; he needs to sell most of what he grows to high-end restaurants in order to stay afloat. Pollack is uneasy that most of his income comes from restaurants. He expresses concern about a restaurant bubble and notes that if restaurants start to struggle, “Microgreens are gonna be one of the first things off the menu.” And tasty and nutritious as they may be, microgreens are not a feasible substitute for vegetables and other foods with more nutritional value. At best, they make for a good accessory to an existing assortment of healthy produce—precisely the kind of food inaccessible to people who can’t afford it in stores and don’t have the time, experience, or land to grow their own food. At the same time, Pollack sees accessibility in microgreens in an urban setting. “Microgreens have a good potential… for [people] to be growing them in their own homes,” he explained. Low startup costs (a few trays, some soil, and seeds), relatively easy care, and fast turnaround (around two weeks between planting and harvesting) are factors in favor of people short on time, money, and experience. Earlier this year, Pollack hosted a workshop at The Plant in which he explained how to grow microgreens and even demonstrated how to plant a tray for optimal growth. He sells microgreens at The Plant’s farmer’s market and occasionally sells bulk amounts at discounted rates to local stores and markets. Pollack has a lot of plans in store, but for now, at any rate, he has his work cut out for him. “Once the base is solid, we can move onto another project,” he said. “Once that’s stable, then another. That’s the guiding force [behind Closed Loop Farms], whether we’re achieving it perfectly or not.” ¬

OCTOBER 25, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

EDUCATION

Opinion: Poverty is Not a State of Mind BY NATHAN PETITHOMME

ost of us know Ben Carson as the wealthy, successful neurosurgeon. Many children and adults look up to him. Well, they should—Ben Carson has one of the greatest rags to riches stories in recent U.S. history. As most know, Carson lived off governmental assistance with his mother and brother in Detroit. After his childhood, Carson attended Yale University and became one of the most well-known people in the medical field. Now, he’s part of Donald Trump’s cabinet. Carson has attained numerous awards and titles in his life, one which he is famously known for: Dr. Carson. Contrary to his experiences growing up, the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development supports reducing “government dependency” and stated in an interview: “You take somebody that has the right mindset, you can take everything from them and put them on the street, and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you could give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom.” Carson fails to recognize that unequal opportunities separate people of poverty from the millionaires in Trump’s cabinet— with one of the most apparent inequalities throughout history being the education system. The legacy set for people of color has not been as privileged or bright as non-white people. Since the abolition of slavery, African Americans have been discriminated against through systematic restrictions on quality access to education. While Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that schools could be separate but equal, we all know this was not the reality Black and brown students faced. We know this because of the evidence brought to the courts that resulted in the Brown v. Board of Education case. Social scientists used the doll test that had young children pick the dolls that they liked based on skin color. Overwhelmingly, the children picked the white doll and praised it as better than the Black dolls. The argument was that segregation and unequal facilities made Black students feel inferior 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ OCTOBER 25, 2017

than whites. The findings were cited in the Supreme Court’s ruling prohibiting states from segregating public school students While we may have desegregated schools, we face segregation based on where we live, which leads to modern-day inequitable education and opportunity, especially in Illinois. And unequal opportunities and facilities have already reaped their effects right here in Chicago. Chicago is regarded as one of the most violent cities in the United States. But is crime spread throughout the whole city? No. Most crime is concentrated in the South and West Sides of Chicago, where non-white

people predominantly live. According to the Tribune, the Burnside neighborhood has the most violent crimes in Chicago. Burnside’s main racial demographic is Black—99.5 percent—and most people over the age of 25 have a high school diploma or less —54 percent. Due to the limited job opportunities that a high school diploma offers, the household income in Burnside is only $32,553. Based on low educational attainment, low income, and high crime, we can assume that there is correlation. But what is one factor that separates this community from a white, affluent community? Our education system.

There is a clear inequality in Illinois’s public school districts when comparing Chicago Public Schools to a local suburban district. The Chicago Public School District, the third largest public school district in the country, is eighty-five percent nonwhite, and has is eighty-four percent lowincome students. Thirty percent of the total number of students are college ready or score at or above a 21 on the ACT, an indicator of college readiness. Comparatively, the Winnetka school district, a suburb about twenty miles outside of Chicago, has ninety percent white students and 0.1 percent lowincome students. A whopping ninety-two

EVENTS

BULLETIN Annual Halloween Festival and Haunted House

percent of their students are considered college-ready. The differences in scoring are not due to an innate difference between white and non-white students, or poor and wealthy students. Rather, it’s a flawed system in funding our schools. Presently, the majority of our schools are funded through property taxes—which are almost entirely determined by the wealth and cost of home ownership in the specific town or city. In Winnetka, taxpayers pay higher rates of property taxes than Chicagoans on the South and West Sides of Chicago. According to real estate website Zillow, the median home value in Winnetka is about $1.1 million, while the median home values in Burnside and Englewood are $131,400 and $83,300, respectively. Therefore, Winnetka pays more money into their school system because the people there have higher home values— so they pay may more in property taxes. The more they pay in property taxes can go towards more enrichment/after school programs and resources, like technology. If we believe education to be the cornerstone of success for people, communities, and mobility up the social and economic ladder, then we must decrease our reliance on property taxes for equitable education, regardless of zip code or socioeconomic status. Even within Chicago, we must allocate our funds by investing in schools that have more impoverished students to promote equitable treatment. If our education system is not equitably funded, then how we can expect people to become successful? Without the equal distribution of funds to our schools, I won’t have nearly the same chance to become the next cabinet member or president as my white counterpart. No one is born with the “wrong” mindset. What people are born into are situations that don’t provide them the opportunities to succeed or get ahead.

Gary Comer Youth Center, 7200 S. Ingleside Ave. Saturday, October 28, 1pm–5pm. Free admission and all ages for the festival. For the haunted house: 8+. $3 adults, $2 youth. garycomeryouthcenter.org. It’s that time of the year again—the Gary Comer Youth Center will host its annual Halloween Festival featuring carnival games, live performances by the Jesse White Tumbling Team, and magic performed by Benjamin Barnes. For more spooks and ghouls, the door to the Haunted House is ajar and awaiting. (Yunhan Wen)

Filmmaker Haile Gerima’s Sankofa: Resistance Then & Now Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Saturday, October 28, 3pm–7pm. Free. More information and RSVP at bit.ly/ HaileGerima. Haile Gerima, renowned filmmaker and a leading member of the LA Rebellion movement, will introduce his best-known film Sankofa (1993), a story about slavery across the globe. The discussion will touch upon issues such as racism, identity, and culture. This event is part of Inherit Chicago. (Yunhan Wen)

Stories of Displacement Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, 6500 S. Pulaski Ave. Saturday, October 28, 12pm– 2pm. (773) 582-6500. balzekasmuseum.org As part of its roving programming before it officially launches, the National Public Housing Museum is hosting a popup exhibit at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture on the Southwest Side. Focusing on stories of displaced people, in Chicago and around the world, the exhibit is interactive and encourages patrons to participate. (Sam Stecklow)

Calumet Heritage Conference Lebanon Lutheran Church, 13100 S. Manistee Ave. Saturday, October 28, 8:30am–4:30pm. $20-$30. (312) 646-0436. Registration required. calumetheritage.org The annual Calumet Heritage Conference celebrates those who have worked on the vision for a bi-state Calumet Ecological Park and a Calumet National Heritage Area over the past few decades, including by preserving diverse neighborhoods, cultural heritage, and a variegated ecosystem in the heavily industrialized area that Calumet rivers run through. It concludes with an interpretive tour of “the Region’s most iconic gems.” ( Joseph S. Pete)

The Wall of Respect Book Release and Discussion UofC Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, 5733 S. University Ave. Thursday, November 9, 6pm–8pm. Free. (773) 702-8063. bit.ly/WallOfRespect Join the editors of a new book about the Wall of Respect mural that was painted on an abandoned 43rd Street building in the 1960s. The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago. is an in-depth illustrated account of the mural’s creation that collects essays, poetry, and primary documents into one text. (Sam Stecklow)

Learn to be an African Heritage Cooking Superstar!

Mosque or Community Group.” (Andrew Koski)

Clearing/Ford City Bus Tour Corner of 63rd and Central. Sunday, November 12, 1pm. $20. forgottenchicago.com. The bus tour will roll by architecturally significant factories and homes in the Clearing Industrial District, which once produced toothpaste, linoleum flooring, and more. The three-hour tour, which will provide plenty of stops for photographs, will also visit the Ford City defense plant that cranked out B-29 bomber engines during World War II and other points of note. ( Joseph S. Pete)

VISUAL ARTS Dia De Las Mujeres The Port Ministries, 5017 S. Hermitage Ave. Saturday, October 28. 6pm–9pm. Free. (773) 778-5955. theportministries.org The Day of the Dead inspired this annual fashion and art show staged by Mujeres Mutantes and The Port Ministries. Fashion designer Adriana Pena drew from traditional Mexican design when creating a line of clothing that was used as canvasses by various artists with the all-women collective. Look forward to music, dancing, and the unveiling of two new mural concepts. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Wandering Bird

St. Ailbe Church, 9015 S. Harper Ave. Saturday, November 11, 12pm–3pm. Free. RSVP at bit.ly/ATOAHTraining

Beverly Art Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Saturday, November 4, 7:30pm. $25. (773) 445-3838. beverlyarts.org

Loved last year’s Weekly article “Tradition in the Kitchen” and want to get involved in more A Taste of African Heritage cooking classes? Join the Ridgeland Block Club Association in the kitchen at St. Ailbe Church to learn how to teach your own A Taste of African Heritage class. “Get equipped with the skills, knowledge, and recipes to bring ‘Health through Heritage’ back to the community at your Church,

Sandra Leonard supplies the performance and costumes, Sandra Kaufmann supplies the dance choreography, and you supply yourself to take part in this evening of “wearable sculpture, performance, and dance.” There will also be live—not wearable—music. ( Julia Aizuss)

Nathan Petithomme is a senior at Lindblom Math and Science Academy. OCTOBER 25, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

EVENTS

Christina Sharpe and Cauleen Smith in conversation The UofC Classics Building (room 110), 1010 E. 59th St. Wednesday, October 25, 6pm–7pm. Free. renaissancesociety.org Inspired by “Tenderheaded,” The Ren’s current exhibition of paintings by Jennifer Packer, Duke professor Christina Sharpe and multimedia artist Cauleen Smith will come together to discuss subjects related to the paintings’ investments in black life, visibility, and loss. ( Julia Aizuss)

Kay Hofmann: Forever Young 4th Ward Project Space, 5338 S. Kimbark Ave. Opening reception Sunday, October 29th, 4pm–7pm. Free. Through Saturday, December 2. (773) 203-2991. 4wps.org Calling your exhibition “Forever Young” means something if, like Kay Hofmann, your art career has stretched sixty years and is still going strong. The stone she sculpts and polishes into small and medium landscape carvings are “hopeful and exuberant”—and what the exhibition promises. ( Julia Aizuss)

YCA On The Block: Pilsen La Catrina Café, 1011 W 18th St. Friday, October 27th, 6pm-8pm. Free. Runs every Friday for the next 6 weeks. Hosted at La Catrina Cafe in collaboration with Yollocalli Arts Reach & La Catrina, Young Chicago Authors will be hosting free open mics and workshops there every Friday. Come through and learn how to write poems and hear others perform. (Roderick Sawyer)

Ziziphus Foliatus Triumph, 2055 W. Cermak Rd. Saturday, November 4, 6pm–10pm. Free. (845) 5530053. triumphchicago.com

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

Brooklyn-based, Austrian-born artist Maria Petschnig’s video work has been described by the New York Times as “like a gentler version of Viennese Actionism’s extreme body art.” Ziziphus foliatus seems to promise a botanical twist—Ziziphus being a genus of spiny shrubs—though the event description reads like a cryptic choose-your-own-adventure: “>you are standing in a long dim corridor of a white house. At the end, a boarded silver door. You have a Stable Field Emitter to open it with...[GO IN]...>there is a bullet proof vest on the barrel here...” Want more? Me too. Attend the gallery opening to “keep playing.” (Andrew Koski)

MUSIC Ariel Pink at Thalia Hall Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Saturday, October 28, doors 7:30pm, show 8:30pm. $27 advance, $37 doors. 17+. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Weird rock institution Ariel Pink comes to Thalia Hall in support of his latest album, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, in memory of a one-time rock star who languished and died in relative obscurity. (Think a more tragic version of Searching for Sugarman). Ariel Pink himself has seen his commercial fame wane a bit in the last few years, not that he seems to care; come see him ply his trade, aptly described by his label as “earnest genre drag.” (Christian Belanger)

David Archuleta The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Monday, October 30, doors 7pm, show 8pm. $17–$150. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com David Archuleta “doesn’t like attention, but deserves yours,” proclaims the description of Archuleta’s upcoming show on the Promontory’s website, which goes on to

¬ OCTOBER 25, 2017

outline a career that remarkably makes no mention of his attention-bringing stint on American Idol. You will be able to give him even more attention if you pay for the $125 VIP experience of the concert; either way, fans will be able to head to the Promontory, where he’ll be singing “about the struggle of finding your own voice.” ( Julia Aizuss)

$5 Fridays: Color Card, Easy Habits, Skip Trace Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan Ave. Friday, November 3, doors 7pm, show 8pm–11pm. $5, free for Lumpen Radio members. Buy tickets online. (773) 837-0145. bit.ly/CoProFridays Lumpen Radio debuts $5 Fridays with three local bands at the Co-Pro; they promise “bleary rock music and lasers.” Color Card, Easy Habits, and Skip Trace will no doubt provide the bleary rock music; it’s unclear whether they or the Lumpen team are responsible for the lasers. ( Julia Aizuss)

I Got Life – The Music of Nina Simone The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. West. Friday, November 3, doors 7pm, show 8pm. 21+. $17–$45. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Singer Jaguar Wright and bassist Gerald Veasley, both jazz and soul artists hailing from Philadelphia, front an ensemble whose presentation and re-imagination of Nina Simone’s oeuvre will, The Promontory promises, result in “more than a concert.” ( Julia Aizuss)

Turnover Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Friday, November 10, doors 7:30pm, show 8:30pm. $18–$25. 17+. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com

Turnover is touching down in Chicago this November as part of its U.S. tour. And the indie darlings are bringing friends: special guests Elvis Depressedly and Emma Ruth Rundle are starting the night off. Bring your own friends for a music-filled night in the historic venue. (Michael Wasney)

The Dojo Presents: Queendom Come The Dojo, message on Facebook for address. Saturday, November 18, doors 8pm, workshop 8:30pm, music 9pm–1am. $5 donation. BYOB. thedojochi.com The queens in question at the Dojo next month will be Jovan Landry, Tee Spirit, Freddie Old Soul, DJ Gr-illa, and host for the night Fury Hip Hop. In perhaps less queenly but reliable fashion, F12 Network will be hosting a workshop again at 8:30pm, and nonprofit organization Activist In You will be vending throughout the night. ( Julia Aizuss)

STAGE & SCREEN eta Family Theatre Initiative: “The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves” eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Friday, October 20–Saturday, December 23. $40, discounts available for seniors and students. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org Nora Brooks Blakely’s musical adaptation of a book by her mother Gwendolyn Brooks was already a fitting choice, in the year of the Brooks centennial, to start off eta’s 2017–18 season. Even more fitting, given Brooks’s dedication to youth poetry, is that the musical will launch eta’s partnership with the Chicago Teachers Union Foundation. The initiative will encourage Chicago students to read the book and then to see the musical. ( Julia Aizuss)

The Belle of Amherst Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Thursday, November 2–Sunday, December 3. $35–$68, discounts available for seniors, students, faculty, and groups. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org Emily Dickinson could not stop for death, but you should stop by the UofC’s Court Theatre to see William Luce’s play about the revered poet’s reclusive life in Massachusetts. Kate Fry stars as the prolific Dickinson who “dwells in possibility” and famously characterized hope as a “feathered thing that perches in the soul.” ( Joseph S. Pete)

Spotlight Reading Series: “Trouble in Mind” South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. Shore Drive. Saturday, November 11, 3pm. 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Free, but reservation required. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind offers a satirical take on racism in American commercial theater, spoofing a “progressive” Broadway play about race that’s anything but. The staged reading will revive a play as part of Court’s Spotlight Reading Series, which aims to bring the works of people of color to the fore. ( Joseph S. Pete)

The Revolution Will Not Be Improvised The Revival, 1160 E. 55th St. Every Saturday through November 11, 7:30pm. $5–$15. the-revival.com Ever since Gil Scott-Heron, people have speculated on what the revolution will not be. The Revival’s Fall South Side Sketch Comedy Review adds to that conversation and wrings needed laughs out of the current sociopolitical climate. Max Thomas, Elias Rios, Jared Chapman, Lexi Alioto, Sara Savusa, and Mo Phillips-Spotts blend improv humor and music under the direction of Molly Todd Madison. ( Joseph S. Pete)

Filmversation and Forum about Gentrification South Side Community Arts Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Friday, November 3, 7pm. Free, registration required. (773) 373-1026. bit.ly/Filmversation Tom Freeman of the North is a film by Mo Rabbani showing a young Black man’s struggles with the changes impacting his neighborhood from gentrification. A panel discussion moderated by Pemon Rami, featuring representatives from multiple community organizations, will follow the screening. (Nicole Bond)

The Lips, The Teeth, The Tip of the Tongue: Trauma and Memory in the Context of Horror Filmfront, 1740 W. 18th St. Sunday, October 29, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm. Free. filmfront.org This is the closing day for the movie marathon series curated by Jory Drew, which questions the connection between the tangible mouth and the intangible mind. The final theme will be SWALLOW, and consists of four films to be announced the Friday prior. Come for one or all four. Bringing snacks and beverages is encouraged. (Nicole Bond)

BCH presents THE HORROR Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Friday, October 27, 7pm–10pm. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org Halloween horror with Black Cinema House means taking a critical look at whiteness and the white gaze with the help of the Black protagonists of Lewis Vaughn’s Silverhead and Monika Estrella Negra’s first film, FLESH. For this night, mature audiences only are recommended. ( Julia Aizuss)

youthsrec iveafter-scho ltuoring,mentorin ext rnships,coleg andcare radvisng,and THE LEO S. GUTHMAN FUND THE THE LEO LEO S. S. GUTHMAN GUTHMAN FUND FUND THE LEO S. GUTHMANFUND FUND S. THE LEO S. GUTHMAN GUTHMAN FUND THETHE LEOLEO S. GUTHMAN FUND THELEO LEOS.S.GUTHMAN GUTHMANFUND FUND THE THE LEO S. GUTHMAN FUND THE LEO S. GUTHMAN FUND THE LEO S. GUTHMAN FUND

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OCTOBER 25, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

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