October 5, 2016

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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 2 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 Joe Andrews, Ariella Carmell, Jonathan Hogeback, Andrew Koski, Carrie Smith, 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 Layout Editors Baci Weiler, Sofia Wyetzner Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Maddie Anderson, Sara Cohen, Bridget Gamble, Christopher Good, Michal Kranz, Anne Li, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger 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.

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

A Rapturous Centennial On October 2, the Faith Community of Saint Sabina celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its 1916 founding with a special Sunday mass. Parishioners were joined by African drummers, a mariachi band, and a more-than-ordinarily-animated Father Rev. Dr. Michael Lewis Pfleger.

Father Pfleger later posted on Facebook that the day was one of the best days in his forty-year ministry. “I LOVE YOU ST. SABINA,” he declared. “Let’s continue to make the devil mad and hell nervous.” Pfleger joined the church in the 1970s, when white flight had gutted the church’s previously Irish membership under his ministry. Since then, the church has engaged in decades of protests, lobbying, development work, charity, and social engagement. Its influence has been described as “transformative” and the “lifeblood” of the Auburn Gresham community.

No River Wide Enough This week, the city began construction on a road that will connect Chinatown directly to the Loop. More than a century ago, Daniel Burnham proposed a thoroughfare between Chinatown and downtown; in preparation, city planners moved parts of the Chicago River to accommodate it. Work on the project was halted once the Great Depression hit. Now, construction has finally begun on the much-anticipated Wells-Wentworth Connector, for which Rahm Emanuel allocated Chicago’s favorite Tax Increment Financing (TIF) revenue more than two years ago.

According to 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solís, construction of this road will turn Chinatown into the “next great neighborhood” of Chicago, with emphasis on cyclist and pedestrian accessibility rather than just motor vehicles. The thoroughfare, which will connect Wells to Wentworth between 18th Street and Roosevelt Road, is slated to complete its first phase in June and begin its final phase in 2018.

CTA Hitchhikers In phantom-itch-inducing news, a Reddit user reported seeing small bugs on their seat on the Red Line while commuting to the Loop on Monday, September 26. After discovering more bugs under their clothing later that day, they consulted with a doctor, who believed the bugs were bedbugs, while the passenger (and other users of Reddit) think the bugs are lice. Although DNAinfo reports that the CTA cleans all bus and train cars “daily” and that any CTA vehicles are removed from service once a pest problem is identified, since 1.6 million rides are taken on the CTA every day, who’s to say that all infestations are taken care of ? Bedbugs, lice, or other critters might even hitchhike from line-to-line using passengers as vectors. A recent study from researchers at New York’s American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine compared the bedbug genome to DNA swabbed from subway stations in order to map relationships between the city’s bedbugs. “We found more north-south connectivity for the bedbugs than we found east-west,” Mark Siddall, one of the paper’s authors, told The New Yorker. If that’s also true for Chicago, Red Line riders: continue to beware.

IN THIS ISSUE “keep

working with it”

“If you cook, you can see, if you keep working with it, you already got a basis.” adeline graham............4 boxing as memory

“ You’ve got champagne dreams, boy.” ariella carmell...............................7 a history of 911 in chicago

javier suárez and alex v. hernandez............................8 girls of the south side

art by biance alebiosu...................10 notes from the white rhino

“As teachers, we fight for what’s best for students and what’s manageable for teachers.” ray salazar......................................11 reinventing ghosts

“Art that hits at the ideas of injustice rather than its emotional fallout.” eleanore catolico..........................12

S ON OUR WEBSITE SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM

SSW Radio soundcloud.com/south-side-weekly-radio Email Edition southsideweekly.com/email

Cover art by Javier Suárez Cover design by Ellen Hao

OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

“Keep Working With It” In the kitchen with Miss Lee

BY ADELINE GRAHAM

L

ee Hogan grew up in Sledge, Mississippi, graduating from Quitman County High in 1962. She came to Chicago that winter and began waiting tables. She has owned and operated her own restaurant, Miss Lee’s Good Food, in Washington Park for the last eighteen years.

What gave you the idea to open up the restaurant?

I always had a desire for it. I never wanted to fail. I wanted to have enough money to be able to live, pay my rent, or whatever, you know, my taxes, whatever I had to do, and still operate the restaurant, and do it. And I had had that desire that I wanted to do it, and I had feeled it. Then when Gladys let go 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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ELLEN HAO

[of her restaurant]—when I say let go, she let her daughter run the place. And I said, now, with my knowledge and ability, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it, because age and time was catching up with me. But I said, if I didn’t do it then, you know, or I could forget it. So I passed by here, and I saw the “For Rent” sign in the window, so I stopped, I come around and I came back. Because I had the desire. There was some of the equipment, some of the things he had set up in here that I could work with. So, anyway, it was always in the back of my mind, that if I can wait tables, cook, and all this...you can do it! It’s just a matter of fear. I just didn’t want to fail.

family did together? Or is it just something you came into when you were a young adult?

What was food like in your house when you were growing up? Was it a thing that your

I just had always been in restaurants, around food, but I did cook at the school.

No, my mother cooked. And we would go in the kitchen and watch her cook, or either be in there sometimes, not all the time. And so many tips you pick up. Sometimes, like even with dishes I’m making, I, you know, you go back in the back of your mind, say, “I wonder why this is like this?” or something, and you go back, and when Mama was cooking, then it come back to memory.

So when did you start cooking?

Carnegie School?

Carnegie, yeah, Carnegie. I did Carnegie school, I cooked there for about four or five years. And I came here [to Miss Lee’s] in ‘98. But before then, I had always worked at Gladys’. You know, Gladys’ Luncheonette, 45th and Indiana, for years—thirty-one years. For the last ten years I worked at that school [Carnegie] and Gladys’. But she was very, very well known, you know, for home cooking. And a lot of people called it soul food to me. I call it “home-cooked meal.”

But a lot of the dishes, like that grilled herbal chicken and baked herbal chicken? That was a gift to me. When I went on a fast when I was fighting cancer, and for forty, thirty-nine days I was using a detox and, see, coming off

FOOD

of that, for nine months, no meat. Period. I had to do the vegetables. And through that experience, you know, when I did start eating chicken and fish, that’s when I learned about different herbs, different seasonings. And that kinda thing, where you was sick but you was working on it (all these different cases come to mind), when you start those spices, and you try ’em. And I was trying, when I did go back to food, you know, meats, I was trying to get that taste, you know, something from old taste with the new that I would enjoy. So I picked up a lot of different chickens and seasonings. Being around food, I just do it.

Same way with cobbler, it come to mind. If you cook, you can see, if you keep working with it, you already got a basis.

And you put your little two cents in, what you think would be good, and then try it!

Like now, I make a buttermilk pie. I’d never heard of it. Someone said, “Miss Lee, you can use buttermilk instead of whole milk.” But I had my ingredients mixed. After he told me that, he said, “I’ll be back and pick it up Thursday.” And then, sure, I made three pies and sold ’em, and I put ’em on the menu, and they’ve been on the menu ever since. And then, about two years ago, I was back there making the pies, [chuckles] someone came to me and said, “Why don’t you try lemon?”

So I got regular buttermilk pie and lemon buttermilk pie. The lemon tastes better cold.

Kind of like lemon curd, right?

Yeah, and it’s good. But it’s like a custard, it’s a custard pie. So, it come to mind, like I said, same thing with the herbal chicken. Now I do a real herbal catfish, and my dressing and stuff, you know I make my own biscuits and corn muffins for my dressing, and you can tell it’s different. Which is so good. You know, you don’t pick up all that artificial stuff, you know? Anyway, that’s me. So, when

I came here, I just tried the different dishes I tried. Same way, it came to mind, “I gotta have something like a stew.” I make a stew, diced chicken and rice. I make a stew, diced turkey and rice. One on Tuesday, and one on Thursday. So, you know, you just come

Do you all ever sit down and have a family meal, you and your staff?

No. No, maybe we should. But sometime we in the battlefield, sometime. That restaurant work is a monster, sometime, isn’t it? All that

It’s not that I wanna give up, it’s more like let go, because I’m getting up in age and everything. I wanna enjoy life and what not, but you feel God bless you so with it. It’s gonna hurt to think that I’m gonna walk away from it. up with ideas, and you try ’em. All of ’em, basically, most of ’em work!

So what has your staff been like over the years? Has it mostly been the same people?

Basically, yeah. Most of the people here, let me see, that gentleman back there washing the pots and pans, he been here with me just about ever since I’ve been here. That gentleman back there, he been here about eight [years], same with her, I think. And the other cook, we worked at the same place, at Gladys’. Now, she was the cook at Gladys’.

And even with her, some of the things I do and make, I don’t fix it like that, but this is the way I want it, cause I feel I have a right, this the way I want it. It’s better for me to teach somebody else, or do it the way I do it, and then learn her way and try to teach somebody else.

different personality? It’s your customer, you know what he want, you trying to get his order, and then bluh-bluh-bluh-bluh. You know, come on now! So it get heated, twisted with this food [chuckles].

What do you love the most about cooking?

I don’t know, it give me that inner peace, too.

You know, like I’m dealing with it, and I think I’m doing something that somebody enjoy, and I’ve had people start from the airport to come by here and get some food. You know, you see what I’m saying? Because they done heard about it, and they say, “If I ever go to United States or go to Chicago, I’m going

by Miss Lee’s.” So, you know, it’s stuff like that, when you get back there working, all that come to mind, and you get a joy that you pleasing people. And that’s a good feeling.

You see, I have people, see, they, with my dressing, they take it all the way to Florida.

At Christmas time, a teacher had me cook

two large pans and a half pan, and cook it, and she wanted [it] halved and wrapped and put it in the freezer. She wanted [it] frozen.

And then she going to Florida. A lady, she was telling me, came in yesterday, “You know, we had your peach cobbler.” Wait a minute!

[Chuckles] They took it to Florida. But what they do, is when they travelin’ in their car, and it’s a holiday, they be packin’ everything before they leave. When they get ready to go, on their way out, they stop by here and pick it up, so it won’t thaw out so bad, you know.

So, those kinda things, that you doing, it just soothes you, with the thought. So maybe I done got old and nothing else to do, see, I don’t know, but anyway, I enjoy it.

What’s your favorite thing to cook for people?

The desserts. Cause I make all of my desserts.

That’s my most favorite. And those herbal dishes with those dishes that I came up with myself, you know. That bringing me joy, because I know they good. That give you good feeling, so I get tied up and balled up in joy, you know, doing that.

Yeah, and when I have enough help, my anniversary coming up. I’m gonna do fried pie, peach pies, apple pie. Eighteenth anniversary. I also have a blueberry cobbler, blackberry cobbler. And I still run all my regular desserts. Nothing beat my bread pudding. I get a kick out of that bread pudding. I usually bring in a special dish but sometime I like to do a grilled shrimps and pink salmon. Oh my god... but you see, the price I have to give for it, and then some people can’t afford it, and then that be ruining it. I just don’t like to go to that extent ’cause I don’t like to have no leftovers, you know. So, I’m not certain. There’s still a question mark in the back of my mind. And I know if I did OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

the chicken and dumplings, I can’t go then do fried pies, too. That’s too much on it. Too much. Sometimes [staff will] help me, but it’s when they know. As soon as I roll out the pie crust, if I gotta stop and show you, do it, and put this... That would make it easier, but if they don’t [know], that’s on me, so I don’t wanna be disappointing the customer.

So what’s kept you going for eighteen years?

By the grace of God, first. And you know why I’m gonna say that, too? Like right now, how you feel like...It’s not that I wanna give up, it’s more like let go, because I’m getting up in age and everything. I wanna enjoy life and what not, but you feel God bless you so with it. It’s gonna hurt to think that I’m gonna walk away from it. It’s hard, you know, I feel like I’m more indebted, and I’m gonna keep doing it, provided I get the help. But if he does bless you that way, I feel I owe...you know how you say you feel you owe back?

And maybe I’m not giving him nothing back, but just my satisfaction with what he did for me…He’ll see you through, so. That’s it. That’s me, dwelling in that peace.

So what’s been the most difficult thing for you in the last eighteen years? What’s been hard?

What’s hard for me is the amount of work I’m doing and the hours I’m doing. It’s beating me, you know, it wearing me down.

But I get in trouble not getting enough sleep, and I already knew that. I’m not getting enough rest, I’m overworked. So that’s a hard challenge. It’s hard to let go and see that’s what you need to do, you know? So that would be the hardest, but another part is waiting on the customers and just cooking, it doesn’t make it any different, it’s all right. ’Cause I feel I’m pleasing. I don’t really consider that hard, like, that part is just a part of, you know, of an overload sometimes.

What do you see as the future of your restaurant? Do you see yourself keeping it up or giving it to a family member?

I really don’t know. I have a sister, she work here on Sunday, she write orders, and a brother, one of my brothers, he help me. But

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not enough willing to come in and do the work and learn it. And if they don’t learn it, if you don’t learn it, it’s a waste, that’s a waste, because it’s not gonna be the same. That is the big question mark in my mind. Even though that’s maybe on a different level, I look at some things like, three weeks ago, I went to the supermarket at 39th and King Drive, Mariano’s. They’ll take four items, five, and then they call it an expo, a Business Expo, and then you can get in the market like that, and then get some of your dishes on the market. That is a good idea, in a sense, that some of the dishes or some of the things you prepare, that if you can get in the market selling it, you can get your percentage. So it’s just different things that go through my mind, whatever proceeds, I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s a good idea, but with the preparation, and you gotta have your own truck to bring things in, and stuff like that, so it just exposes to different things. They want me to do a recipe book.

Who is it that wants you to do a recipe book?

I have three or four people want me to do a recipe book, even that lady that bought Gladys’ recipe. I have never did the book. I never even write my recipes. So that’s a hard one.

What’s your sense, do you feel hopeful about the future?

Yeah, I do, I do. I do. I think of leavin’ or stop workin’ or shut off or let it go.

[Aside, to customer] Ok, goodnight! Thank you!

I just don’t know what I’d do. Sometimes, the number of hours I work, and everything... how would I exist if I wasn’t doin’ it?

[Chuckles] I keep prayin’. Put it in God’s hands. That’s all I can do. ¬

STAGE & SCREEN

Boxing as Memory The Man in the Ring evokes the psychic pain of the physical realm

BY ARIELLA CARMELL COURTESY OF COURT THEATRE

I

n 1962, television viewers across the nation watched, mouths agape, as boxer Emile Griffith delivered blow after blow to the head of his opponent Benny Paret.

The last blows ultimately proved fatal; Paret died after a ten-day coma. It was an event so shocking that the sport of boxing was barred from free television until the 1970s.

This moment is the axis on which the narrative of Man in the Ring, a new play running until October 16 at Court Theatre, spins. The play weaves together the perspective of an older, ailing Griffith (Allen Gilmore), suffering from cranial trauma-induced dementia, and that of Griffith in his prime (Kamal Angelo Bolden). These two incarnations interact with each other like specters in their respective peripheral visions: as the elderly Griffith mumbles to what seems to be himself, his younger self stands in the background—the ghost lingering in his mind. “You’ve got champagne dreams, boy,” he tells his starry-eyed youth.

But his former self is not the only ghost.

Griffith—a gentle soul in a sinewy body whose first ambition was to make women’s hats—mourns his accidental killing of Paret

(Sheldon Brown). He relives the battle in one flash, a highlight of the play. The momentary strobe lights capture a tableau of the two men in the midst of fighting in a far more effective manner than showing the actual fight in its entirety ever could. It is one of many expressionist moments where the haziness of memory is personified through evocative techniques, such as actors taking on multiple roles and singing Caribbean children’s songs to transition between the scenes, reflecting the boxer’s ancestry.

In that sense, Man in the Ring represents some of the best aspects of contemporary theater’s propensity for portraying feeling rather than chronology. We truly empathize with the current of memory as shown, at once dreamlike and jolting. But at a slim ninety minutes (including intermission), the play could have spent just a little more time delving into the events of a story that is quite gripping on its own. Though much attention is paid to Griffith’s covert gay dalliances—it was Paret’s homophobic remarks that ignited Griffith’s fatal anger at him in the first place—less is given to his feelings regarding his own sexuality. Like-

wise, we are never given access to the boxing world that seems to know Griffith’s secret so well—what, if anything, did Griffith even enjoy about the sport and his fellow boxers?

Despite there being room for more, Man in the Ring succeeds at evoking the guilt of a man who no longer recognizes himself as he was or as he is. Both actors do an impressive job at bringing out the different sides of the character, his brashness and later his frailty, whilemaintaining his gentleness and playfulness in both personas. Though Bolden saunters and Gilmore hobbles, they both share a twinkle in the eye and a broad smile.

The young Griffith’s physique is described with the line, “You can serve dinner for six on those shoulders,” and Bolden is expertly plausible as a naturally gifted boxer: at one point, he does several pull-ups with one hand, and my seatmate and I turned to each other with wide, incredulous eyes.

Though Griffith is haunted until the end of his life by Paret’s voice, he tries to make amends with his son (smartly played by the same actor as Paret), only to mentally devolve and begin apologizing to Paret himself. Though Paret’s son feels the forgiveness

is not his to give, he ultimately concedes to comforting Griffith. The scene, which could have been saccharine, ends up making us feel the easing of nearly forty years’ worth of pent-up guilt.

A play about boxing could have easily isolated more arts-inclined theatergoers (which might be assumed to be the majority of that specific population), but the story itself is so intriguing and the execution so lively and cerebral that the play can engage anyone, regardless of their interests.

As someone who abhors sports, I still found myself engrossed in the mind of one damaged by its brutalities. Playwright Michael Cristofer chose to expand a horrific event in the world of boxing into a meditation on memory, aging, and repentance; the result is a work that transcends the field of sports entirely and becomes something more inclusive. By choosing to hone in on the emotional and mental aspects of an athlete’s life rather than the play-by-play of his career, the play opens up his soul to a broader, empathic world. ¬

OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

A History of 911 in Chicago CONTINUED FROM THE COVER

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ART BY JAVIER SUÁREZ WORDS BY ALEX HERNANDEZ

HISTORY

There are few services with as con- sistent a range of public trust—and little public understanding—as the 911 emergency system. This past City Bureau cycle, a team of reporters set out to understand how the Office of Emergency Management and Communications handled 911 calls in Chicago, and what stories there were to be told about the dispatch system. We found that there are few resources to offer dispatchers help with chronic PTSD that can affect their job performance, that the outsourced language translation system can lag at critical times, and there remains enough distrust in 911’s relationship to police in Chicago for some groups to seek to bypass it altogether. This comic is one of the results of this reporting.

—Yana Kunichoff, City Bureau cycle leader

OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

ART

Girls of the South Side BIANCE ALEBIOSU

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COLUMN

Notes from the White Rhino What Chicago Public Schools teachers are fighting for

our city leaders have of what good teachers do. We build professional relationships with our students and engage them with material that builds their academic and emotional intelligence. It’s already difficult with classes of twenty-five to thirty students or more. Forty students in one room and two hundred students a day for a highschool teacher would be chaos.

So, we need parents and community members to help us push against turmoil like this. And if it’s a bluff tactic to encourage us to put pressure on Springfield, CPS needs to stop playing games with students’ educations.

2. Decrease paperwork

Ray Salazar

A

s I begin my twenty-first year as an educator, I can honestly say I’ve never before felt the need to defend my profession as I have in the last few years. When I started teaching at twenty-two I got lots of praise for choosing this career. But these days, I’m always on the defensive against so many people who have a negative view of teachers in Chicago Public Schools.

No other district in the state is as scrutinized, as criticized, or as dismissed as ours is. But teachers will not be victims. True, as a group, as a union, we have not done the best job communicating our motivation and intentions. For the last few years, this has been my mantra as a teacher leader: As teachers, we fight for what’s best for students and what’s manageable for teachers.

After working for over a year without a contract, and pursuing contract negotiations with CPS leadership through the summer, 95.6 percent of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members voted in late September to authorize a strike, which has now been set for October 11.

This is how I summarize what Chicago Public Schools teachers are fighting for: 1. Maintain reasonable class sizes CPS officials threatened us with staffing cuts that would squeeze forty students into single classrooms.

Besides being impossible because of fire codes and the sizes of some of our classrooms, this would be damaging for students.

This threat reinforces the misunderstanding that

District leaders, and sometimes principals, demand so much documentation that it’s impossible to keep up with the compliance tasks in one or two free non-teaching periods a day. This paperwork, which so often contributes so little to our teaching, robs us of the time that we need to plan our teaching and engage with students in meaningful ways.

Testing has been decreased at the high-school level but the district still requires elementary schools to give an over-abundance of tests. When this data is generated, more needs to be done so that this data can be teacherfriendly, not administrator focused.

3. Increase support services for students Teachers cannot do it all. Students need counselors, social workers, nurses, security staff, and librarians so their academic and social-emotional needs are met. Students also need to eat good food and walk around in clean schools.

In an effort to save money, our city and our district have cut positions outside of the classroom and contracted with companies that have not, or cannot, provide quality food and cleaning services. I want to emphasize here that it’s not the fault of the lunch staff or custodians—it’s the fault of the companies’ leaders, who don’t give them the resources they need to do a better job.

Additionally, this year’s funding for special education teachers is not accurately determined by a school’s current need, and schools struggle to find enough certified teachers.

4. Increase funding for current schools Instead of closing schools and cutting the funding for schools, teachers want CPS and city leaders to invest more than only about $5,000 in each student.

Business leaders—who seem to have all the answers to improve education—would never expect to get more from a product they put less into, at least not if they wanted the product to last. The monetary investment in students stays low, but the amount of resources needed to help today’s students gets higher and higher—especially with the trauma of violence in our city.

Teachers these days seem disposable to city leaders.

As for charter schools, I do believe charter schools have a place in our city (my children go to one). But I do think we need to reconsider the number of schools one charter school operator can have.

City politics influence which communities get new schools and which don’t. Let’s be honest: those neighborhoods with economic or political influence get more of the city’s investment.

5. Protect our livelihood and retirement.

As a former colleague who worked in CPS for thirtyfive and a half years used to say, “A full day’s pay for a full day’s work.” Since the school year was extended a few years ago, teachers work uncompensated for about an hour a day—and this is not a lunch hour.

The school day for high school students was increased to seven and a half hours a day, but teachers are only compensated for six hours and fifteen minutes each day.

While we might not be directly in front of students for those seven and a half hours, we are in the building and working for over an hour without compensation.

Because the city and CPS leaders reallocated city funds that were supposed to go to pensions, they now expect teachers to take a seven-percent pay cut and solve their problem.

In this economy, I wonder if people have begun to equate a pension with a type of welfare. I can hear people say, “I’m not paying for your retirement.” I attribute this bitterness to the poor performance of our city leaders whose questionable decisions contribute to the tension and division of our historically divided city.

People will say I’m complaining and this is the old “I work so hard as a teacher” whining. But these critics would never think of publicly criticizing or devaluing the work of teachers in affluent cities. These critics will continue to suggest that Chicago teachers get paid too much. Quite simply, these critics will never see the good in Chicago Public Schools teachers.

We’re seeing the aftermath of this negative bias as fewer and fewer young people choose teaching as a profession—especially in high needs areas of special education and bilingual education.

ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER SUÁREZ

OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

COLUMN

This is why, as a labor organization, the Chicago Teachers Union must ensure every moment in front of the microphone and every tweet and press release and interaction communicates our fight clearly, sensibly, and accurately.

There’s a Spanish saying: “Hablando se entiende la gente.”

Through dialogue, people understand each other.

So it’s essential that we—a labor organization that must exist to protect teachers—continue to push each other to have these difficult conversations. Through this dialogue, we will move forward more effectively and more unified. Despite what some union members think, tough conversations won’t break us apart.

In late August, the CTU sent members an update on our position in the contract negotiations. This update shifted our fight from a monologue—which I think it has been for a long time—to a dialogue about what’s best for students and what’s manageable for teachers. This is a conversation every Chicago resident has to have with teachers, not for teachers. And every member of the CTU must contribute to this dialogue by ensuring that we, too, communicate our fight for what’s best for students and manageable for teachers clearly, sensibly, and accurately.

This column was first published on Ray’s blog, The White Rhino (www.chicagonow.com/white-rhino/) on September 1.

Since 1995, Ray Salazar has been an English teacher in Chicago Public Schools and is a National Board Certified teacher. He started writing The White Rhino about education and Latino issues in 2011. Ray lives on the Southwest Side. Follow him on Twitter @WhiteRhinoRay

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Reinventing Ghosts Erica Mott pays homage to the men who built Chicago

BY ELEANORE CATOLICO

A

quartet of male performers walks solemnly onto dirt and rock, holding steel sheets above their heads.

An aerial view of a flock of birds flying over the Calumet industrial corridor is projected onto two jagged concrete pillars with a break of open space at its center. The performers break out of from formation and scrape the metal sheets in feverish circular motions, creating clouds of dust. Already the performers embody the spirit of steel mill workers and mimic the machines surrounding them.

Here at 87th Street and Lake Shore Drive, men used to work at a U.S. Steel South Works site. Now it’s a vast wilderness of unkempt grasses and shrubs. It was here that performance artist Erica Mott staged “Trials and Trails”, the final part of her “Cowboys and Vikings” trilogy of performances, on a cool Saturday evening two weeks ago. Under the bright glow of the harvest moon, the grounds have an undeniable ghostliness.

The allegorical theater of “Trials and Trails” fuses movement, object, image, and sound to wrestle with the city’s industrial and manufacturing past. It is rich with allusion and illusion, playing with the shadows and silhouettes of the four athletic performers.

Amidst the maelstrom of physical activity, it is hard to not inhale the dirt and debris swirling about, a discomfort that reflects that of the performance’s real-life corollary. Working in such conditions every day, steel mill workers risked chronic health problems and other safety concerns. It’s an effective exercise—walking a mile in shoes that so many Chicago workers have worn.

It’s also art that hits at the ideas of injustice rather than its emotional fallout.

The structure of the piece is more or

less a chronological montage as “Trials and Trails” navigates critical moments of the city’s industrial past. Not until midway through the performance do the dancers confront the audience to deliver a speech based on the writings of Milton Friedman. It’s not a surprise that the show’s critique takes a shot at globalization, but the criticism hews a bit too far toward the abstract; this kind of moment begs for a more personal story.

Still, the switch to speech does not disrupt the momentum of the performance. At one point, one of the performers points west, exclaiming, “Hyde Park!”—a not-so-subtle jab at Chicago’s contemporary problems, like gentrification.

The climax of this historical dreamscape is an interpretative reenactment of the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 at Republic Steel, the third largest steel manufacturer of its day. The head of the company refused to sign a labor contract, leading to a strike, and police officers ended up killing ten unarmed men. The gaze of the audience is meant to fixate here, as a setpiece for Mott’s confrontation with the historical roles of masculinity in Western civilization. Mott eulogizes these men, but it is also a provocation. A wave of cynicism washes over me as I watch: why is the companion of progress always violence?

Why is masculinity so often defined by violent instincts—and can these instincts be transformed into a desire for beauty?

Inspired by the struggles of these steelworkers, Mott reached out to a local retired steelworker group to help develop the choreography.

“They would talk about how they would communicate in the mills because there was so much noise around them,” she said. “They had to use gestural languages around them to form a communal language. This is quite

STAGE & SCREEN

EVENTS

BULLETIN The Racial Gap in Maternal Morbidity/Mortality: Why Reproductive Justice Matters Billings Hospital, 860 E. 59th St., room P-117. Wednesday, October 5, noon–1:30pm.

Free. (773) 702-1453. macleanethics. uchicago.edu In a 2015 article for Dissent magazine, Dorothy Roberts contended that “true reproductive freedom requires a living wage, universal health care, and the abolition of prisons.” Now, the influential University of Pennsylvania professor is headed to the UofC to discuss the relation between reproductive justice and race. (Christopher Good) Build a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign in Five Steps

COURTESY OF ERICA MOTT

a fascinating thing, that men across cultures and generations have a common language through the body. So often for men there are not many publicly sanctioned ways for which they can use their bodies to express themselves.”

Carlos Lopez, one of the performers in “Trials and Trails”, says he was drawn to Mott’s deluge of artistic and political motifs.

“Everything I was doing [in the show] had a reference point,” he said. “There are points that refer to mechanics and repeated motions. There are other points that referred to accidents of those who lost their lives. It was about living the experience in order to pay tribute.”

The movements of the dancers, juxtaposed with the images of the workers, conveyed the most explicit message of “Trials and Trails”: that we must see these men as soulful artisans, not just cogs in the machine. Making steel, railroads, and bridges has just as much artistic currency as making sculpture. Art is their salvation, their opportunity to define masculinity on their own terms.

Mott is well-suited to recognize this; her artistic process recognizes the meaning objects can take on when given a creative context.

“They’re not just directly what they are,” she says. “I’m much more interested in the transformation of materials and sites and stories. There are multiple possibilities in it and there is a space that they are ‘both and’ instead of an ‘either/or’.”

But “Trials and Trails” ends on one optimistic note: an underlying faith in the resilience of these working men to live and be free. Video footage of the Jane Addams children’s choir is the final image shown.

Layered over a recording of a field of grass on a sunny day—a renewed commitment to nature—the children sing, “Hard times will overcome.”

Historical records, video footage, and newspapers of the past continue to teach us, Mott reflects, but art gives the opportunity to feel and experience something completely new.

“Art provides a site of true potential,” Mott said. “It’s not just fact, although

there’s a lot of historical information in it; it’s not just emotion, but hopefully you feel something in your body and in your mind and heart as well. Art allows a space where you can feel all that and not have to define it. It can be this and this and this and this.

Art encourages us to find disparate bits of information and find how they fit together.”

“Trials and Trails” rewards the viewer’s vigilance and curiosity, but can be inaccessible to those with less factual knowledge of the city’s history. The burden of discovery falls on the viewer to extract meaning; thus, the piece’s marriage of the artistic and the political is both exhilarating and over-stimulating.

Still, a persistent conflict emerges: how can we reconcile our dependence on labor and industry with the havoc the steel industry brought to the lives of these men, and on the land itself ? There is no reconciliation in South Chicago on the night of the performance; “Trials and Trails” is a history lesson that’s as much a reckoning as it is an homage. ¬

Community Programs Accelerator, 5225 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Wednesday, October 5, 12:30pm–2pm. Free. Register at bit.ly/2dllp57. (773) 702-8803. communityprograms.uchicago.edu Looking for some capital for your first ever start-up? Getting frustrated by Kickstarter and Indiegogo? UofC’s Community Programs Accelerator offers just what you need. Join their workshop for strategies on crowdfunding. In the past, only thirty-eight percent of crowdfunders have succeeded—you could help enlarge that number.

(Yunhan Wen) Respect and Protect: Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Justice.

Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan Ave., Sullivan Room. Wednesday, October 5, 4pm– 5:30pm. Free. Register at bit.ly/2dlmlGK. (312) 341-3670. roosevelt.edu/loundy Having worked for decades on native issues and the preservation of more than 1900 acres of forest, professor Joseph Standing Bear Schranz will give the opening speech of the Distinguished Environmental Organizer Series. (Yunhan Wen)

OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

Community Organizing Series: Facilitation & Popular Education

at bit.ly/2do4hun. (773) 429-9820. naacpcss. org

6pm–9pm. Through October 30. Free. (312) 361-3208. researchhouseforasianart.org

Chicago Freedom School, 719 S. State St. Wednesday, October 5, 6pm–9pm. Free for youth (under age 18); adults pay on sliding scale: $15–$35. Register at bit.ly/2dAp9g3.

Dinner provided. (312) 435-1201. chicagofreedomschool.org

The NAACP’s South Side chapter starts off the new year with a meetup for black high school students interested in competing in this academic and cultural achievement program. Whether you’re a veteran of ACT-SO (the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics) or a newcomer, you’ll be able to learn about applying to the yearlong program, and participating in the national competition.

(Hafsa Razi)

Workers of the world, unite: the Co-Prosperity Sphere and Research House for Asian Art have joined forces to curate a collection of little-seen posters from China’s Cultural Revolution. Zhang Pingjie, one of the artists responsible for the agitprop, will be in attendance at the opening reception. (Christopher Good)

For almost a decade, the Chicago Freedom School has encouraged and enabled young people to “use their unique experiences and power to create a just world.” At this workshop, the issue of schooling itself will be reconsidered as a foundation for activism.

(Christopher Good)

Resolved: State Voter ID Laws are Unconstitutional Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Wednesday, October 5, 6pm–8pm. Free.

Register at bit.ly/2do4qhh. (215) 409-6715. chicagoculturalcenter.org Throughout the twentieth century, legislation and judicial decisions dismantled rules designed to prevent minorities from voting.

The last decade has seen the reintroduction of many barriers to the franchise, in the form of voter ID laws. At this event, representatives of liberal and conservative legal thought will consider the constitutionality of this shift. (Adam Thorp)

Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Wednesday, October 12, 6pm–7:30pm. Free.

RSVP at bit.ly/2cLqjZV. (773) 752-4381. semcoop.com

National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Friday, October 14, 10am–8pm; Saturday–Thursday, October 15–20, 10am–4pm; Friday, October 21, 10am–8pm; Saturday and Sunday, October 22–23, 10am–4pm. Free. (312) 758-1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org

As part of the Urban Readers Series, sociology professor and author Forrest Stuart will present his newest book, Down, Out, and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row. In the book, Stuart examines the ways our cities police poverty, with a focus on the judicial system in Los Angeles.

(Hafsa Razi)

Artists from all corners of Mexico come to the NMMA to occupy its own corners for a week-long celebration of their folk traditions and artistic craft. A range of materials and techniques are featured, from Talavera pottery from Puebla to foot-pedal loom weaving from Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca.

(Corinne Butta)

Down, Out, and Under Arrest

FRUIT

VISUAL ARTS

What is the Latino Vote?

Ours is Not the Only Planet Earth Has Been

UofC Quadrangle Club, 1155 E. 57th St. Thursday, October 6, 6pm–7:30pm. Free.

Register online. (773) 834-4671. politics. uchicago.edu

Ballroom Projects, 3012 S. Archer Ave., #3. Opening reception Saturday, October 8, 7pm–10pm. Open by appointment through October 29. Free. ballroomprojects.tumblr.com

Mainstream conversation about the “Latino vote” is wide but not deep—America’s changing demographics are widely understood to be important, but pundits rarely allow the complex reality of different religions, races, and national origins to complicate the picture. This panel of politicos, including ex-mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, will try to answer the titular question. (Adam Thorp)

The subject of Ballroom Projects’ newest retrospective is not a collective, but a corporation. Enter: Earthbound Moon, a six-person 501(c)(3) with the express intent of terraforming the Earth. Admittedly, it’s slow going—but they’ve got plenty of time to create before the heat death of the universe. (Christopher Good)

NAACP Southside ACT-SO KickOff Bessie Coleman Library, 731 E. 63rd St. Saturday, October 8, 9am–noon. Free. RSVP

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ OCTOBER 5, 2016

11th Annual Folk Art Festival

The Red Art: Propaganda Posters from the Cultural Revolution Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. and The Research House for Asian Art, 3217 S. Morgan St. Opening reception at Co-Prosperity Sphere on Friday, October 14,

Produce Model Gallery, 1007 W. 19th St., Ste. 1. Exhibition through October 22. Saturdays, 11am–6pm or by appointment. Free. producemodel.com As a sticky Chicago summer came to an end, Produce Model Gallery installed their inaugural exhibition, FRUIT. The exhibition explores the poison and the pleasure of stimulation and consumption—it’ll be sure to leave a sweet aftertaste. (Corinne Butta)

#30 Día de los Muertos: Journey of the Soul National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Through December 11. Tuesday– Sunday, 10am–5pm. Free. (312) 758-1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org The number thirty marks both the number of years this annual exhibition has returned to Chicago, and the number of days in a month—and a month is just about how much time is left to see this exhibition celebrating the history, traditions, and roots of

the Day of the Dead before the November 1 holiday is upon us. (Corinne Butta)

MUSIC The Dojo Presents: Communion Refuge Chicago, 416 S. Clark St. Thursday, October 6. Doors 8pm, show 9pm. $5. 21+. thedojochi.com The Dojo and Chicago-based singer/songwriter/producer Rhea the Second will be presenting at a curated music release series featuring Chill Evans, Gem Tree, and DJ Skoli. Attendees and apprentices alike can enjoy a night of creativity, collaboration, and community. (Rachel Kim)

Rhye Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Thursday, October 13. Doors 7pm, show 8pm. $30 standing room, $36 seats. 17+. (312) 5263851. thaliahallchicago.com Elusive LA R&B duo Rhye, composed of Canadian singer Milosh and Danish instrumentalist Robin Hannibal, come to Thalia Hall to bring the soft, downtempo stylings from their 2013 album, Woman.

Having been largely quiet since their debut with hints of a second album nowhere to be heard, many surprises, as well as emotions, are sure to be in store. (Efrain Dorado)

In The Wurkz: Pop-Up Listening Session Battlegroundz, 1716 E. 87th St. Sunday, October 9. Doors 9pm, show 10:30pm. $5.

Local footwork dance legends The Era have had a phenomenal year, with features in yours truly, the Reader, The Fader and even Vice’s dance music vertical Thump. Now they’re going through with the soft release of their first mixtape project; check it out here at hallowed footwork arena Battlegroundz. (Austin Brown)

Africa Hi-Fi FELAbration The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, October 8. 9pm. $10 online, $15 in person. 21+. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com

EVENTS

Coming off the successful revamp of Africa Hi-Fi at their August 31 Silver Room reunion show, Sonia Hassan and Ron Trent continue to build up the return of the long-dormant Afropop party series. New York house legend Timmy Regisford headlines, with Trent, Duane Powell, and local West African dance group Ayodele Drum and Dance opening. (Austin Brown)

STAGE & SCREEN Tonight at 8:30: Two One-Act Plays by Noel Coward Augustana Lutheran Church, 5500 S. Woodlawn Ave. Friday, October 7, 8pm. $5. (773) 493-6451. hydeparkcommunityplayers.org On the eve of the Hyde Park Community Players’ 2016–2017 season, attend this staged reading, directed by Christopher Skyles, of selected work by Noel Coward.

Delight in the cheekiness of the Brit’s notorious wit, and gather thoughts to share with the actors themselves once the curtain’s drawn. (Neal Jochmann)

The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers Logan Center for the Arts (2nd floor screening room), 915 E. 60th St. Friday, October 7, 7pm. Free. (773) 702-8670. renaissancesociety.org Ben Rivers’s latest film takes its lengthy title from Paul Bowles’s 1945 short story, “A Distant Episode.” Set, in multiple languages, in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert, the film is a meditation on Orientalism that will challenge you cerebrally (on a Friday night). (Isabelle Lim)

Indigo Nation Chicago Art Department, 1932 S. Halsted St. Friday, October 7, 6pm–10pm and Saturday, October 8, 3pm–8pm. Free. (312) 725-4223. chicagoartdepartment.org This weekend is all about celebrating those blue jeans. Put on by the fashion blog Runway Addicts and arts brand AMFM, this two-day festivity will have something for everyone, or at least every denim-lover: denim art installations, a photo booth, “live

sewing,” live music, “denimology” workshops, and a denim swap where you can pick up some new (for someone else, old) threads. (Isabelle Lim)

Alternative Histories of Labor: Finally Got the News Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Sunday, October 9, 7pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. southsideprojections.org With the Chicago Teachers Union poised to strike, South Side Projections’ newest selection is particularly timely: a documentary about the Detroit-based League of Revolutionary Black Workers and its struggle to organize the automotive industry. The screening will be followed by a discussion with panelists Annie Sullivan and Mike Siviwe Elliott. (Christopher Good)

Steve Everett: Out of the Frame High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Wednesday, October 5– Sunday, October 9. Wednesday, 5pm–8pm; Thursday, 3pm–6:30pm; Friday–Sunday, 2pm–6pm. Free. highconceptlaboratories.org One of the books that merited Natasha Trethewey’s 2012 Poet Laureate position, Bellocq’s Ophelia, reimagined the life of a prostitute photographed by E.J. Bellocq.

As part of this year’s Ear Taxi Festival, UIC professor Steve Everett reimagines Trethewey’s poems as an interactive audio/ video installation: another approach to inviting the audience into 1912 New Orleans. ( Julia Aizuss)

The Great Flood

Drive-In Happening University of Chicago Campus North Parking Garage, 5525 S. Ellis Ave. Friday, October 14, 6pm. Free. (773) 702-2787. arts.uchicago. edu To celebrate the return of Wolf Vostell’s 1970 artwork “Concrete Traffic” to Chicago, the Fluxus mainstay artist’s films will be projected upon the walls of a parking garage. Even if you’re unimpressed by car culture (or Cadillacs encased in cement), the German food and Vostell-inspired brews will make it worth the drive. (Christopher Good)

Man in the Ring Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through October 16, 8pm. $38; discounts available for students, seniors, and groups. (773) 7534472. courttheatre.org

chael Cristofer and the direction of Charles Newell, is a story about fighting, both for boxing titles and the ability to define oneself. (CJ Fraley)

The Colored Museum eta creative arts, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Through Sunday, October 23. Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm; Sundays at 3pm. $35; $25 seniors; $15 students. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org In eleven “exhibits,” George C. Wolfe’s satirical play, staged by Pulse Theatre Company, examines stereotypes and identity in the black experience from a “celebrity slave-ship” to an imagined dinner party where “Aunt Jemima and Angela Davis was in the kitchen sharing a plate of greens and just goin’ off about South Africa.” (Adam Thorp)

The true story of legendary boxer Emile Griffith, brought to life through the writing of Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Mi-

Finish the sentence:

The best thing about my community is

Blanc Gallery, 4445 S. King Dr. Wednesday, October 12, 7pm. Free. southsideprojections.org Our country’s very own diluvian disaster takes center stage in this screening of Bill Morrison’s 2013 experimental film about the 1927 Mississippi River Flood, one of the driving forces behind the Great Migration. The New York Times called the film “visual poetry”; here it’s paired with the surrounding visuals of David Geary’s exhibition on Chicago migration. ( Julia Aizuss)

Tell us what you love about your ‘hood!

Text SOUTHSIDE to 312-697-1791 This is a community engagement project from City Bureau, a journalism lab based in Woodlawn. www.citybureau.org OCTOBER 5, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

CITY BUREAU & SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY PRESENT

THE PUBLIC NEWSROOM Once a week, the office shared by South Side Weekly and City Bureau will become an open space for journalists and the public.

Join us for guest speakers, skills-based workshops, discussion of local issues, and equipment training and checkout.

LAUNCH PARTY Thursday, October 20th, 6:30pm The Experimental Station 6100 S. Blackstone Ave

S