April 20, 2016 by South Side Weekly

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Editor-in-Chief Jake Bittle Managing Editors Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger 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, Eleonora Edreva, Andrew Koski, Lewis Page, Sammie Spector, Carrie Smith Editors-at-Large Mari Cohen, Ellie Mejia Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producer Maira Khwaja Social Media Editors Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Layout Editor Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Anne Li, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Kristin Lin, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger, Darren Wan Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Finn Jubak, Alexander Pizzirani, Julie Wu Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Editorial Interns

Gozie Nwachukwu, Kezie Nwachukwu, Bilal Othman

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, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly. 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

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

No Deal The latest development in the contract negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union: an independent fact-finder released a recommendation for the new contract, which was quickly rejected by the union. The district, on the other hand, embraced the fact-finder’s recommendation, which closely aligned with the district’s own January offer, which had also been rejected by the union. The union has argued that the fact-finder’s report was doomed to fail because he was unable to consider issues that were beyond the scope of the existing negotiations, such as more far-reaching revenue solutions to the district’s budget problems. The conclusion of the fact-finding report brings CPS one step closer to another teachers’ strike—the CTU can strike as early as thirty days after the recommendation’s release (that’s May 16), as long as they give ten days’ notice to the district. However, the fast-approaching summer may give the union pause as they consider whether to hold the strike at the end of this year, when students are trying to graduate, or at the beginning of next school year. Hyde Park Records Celebrates Record Store Day This past Saturday, Hyde Park Records celebrated Record Store Day with a bit of a twist and shout—the store hosted Soul Reunion, a day-long tribute to sixties and seventies soul, R&B, and funk legends, many of whom feature in the history of Chicago music. For the past six years, HPR’s Soul Reunion has been a spring programming event that aims to bring soul music to the South Side and educate locals on the genre through live DJ sets and special guest appearances. Visitors meandering into the shop on the lazy weekend afternoon found themselves surrounded by soul music jams from the likes of Gary P. Tyson, PJ & Uncle Raymond, and The-Duke ofEarl, and spring-showered with heaps of snacks and some fantastic deals. The tiny shop’s impressive sound spilled out onto 53rd Street, but the best

music found there is always tucked away. The secret to shopping at HPR is patience: carefully sifting through the teeming stacks and bargain crates is well worth your time, and wallet. But to celebrate the independent store’s existence itself on this national holiday, fans and new listeners alike scoured for their favorite vinyl while enjoying the live sets and atmosphere as sunny as the sidewalk outside and as funky as Chicago’s seventies glory days. The Lakeside Strikes Back The McCormick Place Lakeside Center was designed in 1969 by Gene Summers and Helmut Jahn, two noted students of the renowned European architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. This year, Preservation Chicago named the building as one of the top seven most endangered buildings in Chicago. However, unlike most endangered buildings, McCormick Place is threatened by more sinister forces than just the slow progress of time. George Lucas, also known for destroying the dreams of a generation of science fiction fans with a monstrously disappointing set of prequels, might be setting his sights on the lakefront convention center. After plans to build the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on park-district-owned lakefront land were put on hold due to objections by the nonprofit advocacy group Friends of the Parks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed that George Lucas might like it if the City of Chicago reenacted the destruction of the Death Star with McCormick Place East and let him use the space to build his museum (designed by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong) in its stead. The process would require the city to borrow $1.2 billion dollars to tear down the eastern section of McCormick Place and build bridges connecting its two remaining buildings. Proponents cite a net gain in parkland as well as industry and tourism that would be attracted by the Lucas Museum. Opponents might cite the architectural renown of the current building or the dubious artistic mission of a museum that cites the digital animation in the Star Wars prequels as a major point of influence.

IN THIS ISSUE love light divine

in the reports

“A painful but necessary reckoning is upon us.” compiled by christian belanger & jake bittle...4

“The themes of activism and radicalism have taken root and shaped the trajectory of her art.” michelle gan...6 now is the time

“No no no! They were artists in their own right.” lucia ahrensdorf...8

Cover art by Hank Jordan

big city teachers

big assumptions

That is what Chicago is competing with. troy laraviere...10 how to succeed in business

“When are you free? Because I really need your help, Ms. Marissa.” marissa warner...11

ON OUR WEBSITE SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM

a cpd reading list

Relevant and impactful coverage of the police emily lipstein & sam stecklow bit.ly/1WCtQZe

South Side Weekly Radio soundcloud.com/south-side-weekly-radio APRIL 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

IN THE REPORTS In December of 2015, in the wake of uproar around the release of video footage showing the murder of LaQuan McDonald, Mayor Rahm Emanuel established a Police Accountability Task Force to review and evaluate the standards and practices of the Chicago Police Department. On April 13 this Task Force released a 180-page report calling for significant reforms in the way the CPD polices neighborhoods, interacts with people of color, disciplines officers, and treats arrestees and detainees. Below, we have highlighted a few key numbers and phrases from the report, which is available online at chicagopatf.org COMPILED BY CHRISTIAN BELANGER & JAKE BITTLE

Number of sworn officers in the CPD, the second-largest police force in the nation: 12,500 Salary of a new police officer after probationary period: $70,380 Latest year for which there is trend-based analysis of crime data available on CPD’s Data Portal: 2010 Phrase used in the report to describe challenges faced by the police in fighting crime: “increasingly daunting” Phrase used to describe CPD methodology: “not sufficiently imbued with Constitutional policing tactics and … also comparatively void of actual procedural and restorative justice” Presented without comment: “The Task Force heard over and over: just because you can use force, does not mean you should use force.”   How many times the phrase “code of silence” appears in the report: 19 …And the phrase “culture of accountability”: 8 Approximate number of cases involving civil rights allegations against a police officer handled by the city between 2010 and 2015: 2,000 Amount of money paid out by the City in settlements and legal fees between 2010 and 2015: $376.9 million …Amount the city has spent to date on settlements, judgments and legal fees relating to Jon Burge alone: “upwards of $100 million” Number of complaints for “less serious transgressions” filed against a police officer by a supervisor between 2010 and 2015: 20,922 …Percentage filed due to a failure to show up for a mandatory court appearance: 45% Number of Complaint Registers (CRs) an officer needs to have between 2010 and 2015 before the Task Force recommends their “fitness for duty” be assessed: 10 Approximate number of officers with 10 or more CRs between 2007 and 2015: 1,572 Number of CPD arrestees in 2014 who had attorneys: 3 out of every 1,000 …In 2015: 6 out of every 1,000 Judge’s description of testimony given by a CPD detective who interviewed suspect while suspect was sedated on morphine: “garbage” Combined instances of the words “sadly,” “unfortunately,” “woefully,” “badly broken,” and “tragically”: 22 Percentage of those shot or killed by police officers between 2008 and 2015 who were African-American: 74% Phrase used to describe the dismissal of manslaughter charges against Dante Servin, the off-duty officer who shot Rekia Boyd in 2012: “an odd twist” Percentage of those tasered by police between 2012 and 2015 who were African-American: 76% Percentage of traffic stops in 2013 involving African-Americans: 46% Rate at which CPD found contraband during searches of white motorists, compared to both Hispanic and African-American motorists: twice as often Percentage of African-Americans in Chicago’s population: about 33% Phrase used to describe present relationship between CPD and youth of color: “antagonistic, to say the least” How many times the word “racism” appears in the report: 14 Number of officers enrolled in one of the CPD’s two behavioral intervention programs in 2007: 276 …In 2013: 0 …In 2015: 13 Percentage of CPD officers the Task Force recommends be trained in crisis intervention: 35% …Percentage currently trained in crisis intervention: 15% Number of people admitted to Cook County Jail in 2012: 76,400 …Number of those admitted who were living with mental illness: 46,000 Number of homeless people detained overnight at Cook County Jail last year: 2,134 …Percentage of those flagged for mental illness: 34% Instances of word “trauma” in the report: 33 Institutional bodies recommended for dissolution by the Task Force report: IPRA, CAPS New acronyms for respective replacement organizations: CPIA, CEED Phrase used to describe the state of “the CAPS brand”: “significantly damaged” Phrase used to describe IPRA’s and the Bureau of Internal Affair’s review processes: “opaque, drawn out and unscrutinized” Percentage of IPRA and BIA complaints filed by African-Americans: 61% …By whites: 21% Percentage of sustained complaints filed by African-Americans: 25% …By whites: 58% Word used in the report to describe community’s lack of trust in CPD: “justified” 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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POLITICS

In addition to examining the PATF report, the Weekly also took a look at several past municipal and federal investigations of the Chicago police, stretching back to the very end of the nineteenth century. What follows are anecdotes that attest to what's changed and what hasn't.

The Berry Committee was put together in order to investigate the management of police in Chicago. It found that “the law, as administered by the present administration, is a sham and a delusion.”

1898

e quote one instance: An examination had taken place for a certain office. Only three men passed the examination. There was a vacancy in that office. The man who stood highest was certified by the Commission to the foreman of that department. He presented his certificate, which entitled him to the office, to the foreman. He hesitated a moment, but at once arose to the occasion, and informed that Civil Service man that he had that morning abolished that particular office, and therefore he could not be appointed, and he was not: while this same foreman placed a man in that position, but under another name, who at the time your committee was in session was doing the work and drawing the salary which, under the law, the other man was entitled to. The difference seemed to be, one was qualified and had complied with the law, but did not have any particular pull, while the other man had neither passed the examination nor was qualified according to law, yet the mayor, and his appointees wanted him, and that was sufficient to procure his appointment. Many of these men, whose records they had before them, had been discharged from the [police] service, many of them two and three times, some as high as six and seven times, and they were discharged for such offenses as intoxication; being found drunk while on duty: found intoxicated in saloons; off duty without permission; firing pistols in the street while on duty and under the influence of liquor; willful maltreatment of prisoners; willful maltreatment and assaults upon citizens; immoral conduct and conduct unbecoming a police officer.

1912

The “Chicago Police Report of the Chicago Civil Service Commission” was commissioned by Mayor Carter Harrison, Jr. in order to investigate a “criminal conspiracy” between the Chicago police and illegal gambling operations. The investigation ended up becoming more extensive, though; in this excerpt, the Report condemns the working of the United Police, a secret policemen’s order that primarily provided legal aid to its members.

he organization, composed of members of the Police Department and known as the United Police of Chicago, is inimical to the best interests of discipline. Its original purpose, namely, to protect members of the department from suits for damages arising out of the performance of police duty, was in itself harmless, but there should be no necessity for such an organization. The city of Chicago should take care of such suits, and hold members of the department harmless, unless it clearly appears that the policeman sued has been guilty of the improper use of his power, or abuse of his authority. The purposes of the organization, however, have been greatly enlarged, and now it defends its members at trials for breaches of departmental rules and regulations, collects and disburses funds to influence legislation, and has been charged with a conspiracy to secure salary advances by means of bribery.

1968

This report to the City of Chicago’s Committee on Human Relations was commissioned after the April riots caused by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

he question of police-community relations lingers as an issue. Where there is strong neighborhood feeling against the police, racial incidents can easily be whipped into serious conflict. The Chicago Police Department continues to be caught in the middle, pressured to take more vigorous steps to curb crime yet aware that even routine police action can result in a riot-provoking incident. To increase the Police Department's human relations sensitivity, the Law and Order Department staff assisted in training police personnel. Commission representatives lectured to 1163 recruits about civil rights laws and to 511 pre-service and command officers about human relations. Topics included current developments in the civil rights movement and an evaluation of the climate within Negro and Spanish-speaking communities, stressing the importance of impartial enforcement of the law. During the spring, staff participated in special training of an additional 1138 task force police in human relations. The staff also participated in a Human Relations Seminar for 278 command officers ranging in rank from Lieutenant to Deputy Chief.

1972

This report, titled “The Misuse of Police Authority in Chicago,” was chaired by U.S. Representative (and track and field world record holder) Ralph H. Metcalfe. The impetus for the report came from “the community outcry against abuse of authority by Chicago policemen.”

here can be no dispute that police mistreatment of citizens occurs. Even Superintendent James B. Conlisk, Jr., has agreed that the use of excessive force is a reality. How often does it occur? There are only rough measures: more than twelve hundred (1200) citizen complaints of abusive police conduct each year to the Police Department: and yet other complaints that are never compiled and counted. Comparative information is available as to the frequency of the ultimate form of abusive police conduct: civilian deaths at the hands of police officers. According to a report by the Chicago Law Enforcement Study Group, the use of fatal force by police is far more frequent in Chicago than in other major urban centers. "Chicago's civilian death rate (at the hands of law enforcement officers) was nearly one and one-half times the Philadelphia rate and more than three times the rate for New York, Los Angeles and Detroit." Significantly, 75% of the civilians killed in Chicago were black.

1997

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez was one of five members of the Commission on Police Integrity that authored the report that contains the following excerpt.

he need for a sophisticated and thorough early warning system can be seen in the backgrounds of the ten officers currently under indictment from the Austin and Gresham districts. According to the information presented to the Commission, the seven indicted Austin officers had a total of 93 complaints numbers lodged against them during their respective careers. in only two of the cases were the allegations sustained. The three indicted officers from the Gresham District had a combined 40 CR numbers during their careers, with only three being sustained.

2016

painful but necessary reckoning is upon us. That is what these times demand. The Police Accountability Task Force arose amidst a significant and historic public outcry. The outcry brought people into the streets, on social media and on other venues to say in a very clear voice that they had reached a breaking point with the entire local law enforcement infrastructure. People were and are demanding accountability and real and lasting change. The outcry was not localized in any particular neighborhood or demographic, although communities of color and those ravaged by crime added some of the most poignant commentary.

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Now is the Time UIC moves to digitize Latino art BY LUCIA AHRENSDORF

hen Nancy Villafranca, director of the Chicago office of the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR), went to the fourth Latino Art Now! Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2013, she was inspired and overjoyed by the incredible display of talented Latin-American artists from across the United States. The accompanying exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute, Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, complemented the conference, which would discuss the work of many of the artists featured in the exhibition. Although the collection included decades of prominent Latino artists from the United States, Villafranca realized that there was only one artist from the Midwest. “Nowadays there’s no book written about Chicago Latino artists specifically,” says Villafranca, recounting her experience of the conference. “So even though we know that production is happening, it’s not as well documented or even disseminated or shared across the country.” Frustration over the lack of preservation and exposure of Chicago Latino art resulted in an initiative by the IUPLR and the Smithsonian Latino Center that brought this year’s Latino Art Now! Conference to Chicago. As a director of the IUPLR—self-described as “a consortium of university-based centers dedicated to the advancement of the Latino intellectual presence in the U.S.,” housed at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)—Villafranca hopes to contribute to national conversation about the presence of Midwestern Latinos in American society. Eric Garcia, a political artist and educator at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen, explicitly addressed the problem of visibility. “People don’t realize that in the heart of the U.S., in the Midwest, there’s these Mexicans, these Latinos,” he said. “So I think that this conference is a big eye-opener for people who just think, ‘Oh, the Midwest, that’s a bunch of cornfields.’ They don’t think of a Latino presence being there—much less an artistic presence.” The Latino Art Now! Conference aims to incite conversation between scholars, artists, educators, and art enthusiasts. The mis6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

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sion statement, according to the conference’s website, is to “explore U.S. Latino art and its relationship to contemporary American visual culture and art while advancing awareness, education, scholarship and knowledge in this emerging field of inquiry.” These three-day biennial conferences bring hundreds of scholars, artists, collectors, and curators from across the country to discuss changes in Latin-American art, as well as to share knowledge about particular artists, movements, and pieces that might not be well known—now that the conference has come to the Midwest, topics range from Latina artists in Chicago to a discussion about political art and murals in Chicago.

they’re still growing.” This conference will bring curators and collectors from across the country, hopefully to create more visibility for local artists who hope to gain national recognition but just don’t have the resources. Diana Solis, a prominent Chicago artist and co-founder of Pilsen Outpost, one of Pilsen’s major art galleries, believes “What the conference Latino Art Now! has done is bring a lot of the artists out of the woodwork and create pop-up studios. There were a lot of artists. There always has been, but we’ve never seen them all come out together at the same time.” Another initiative of the IUPLR that Villafranca is heavily involved with is the Chicago

“People don’t realize that in the heart of the U.S., in the Midwest, there’s these Mexicans, these Latinos. So I think that this conference is a big eye-opener for people who just think, ‘Oh, the Midwest, that’s a bunch of cornfields.’ —Eric Garcia, National Museum of Mexican Art

Besides D.C., the previous conferences took place in the usual hubs: New York City and Los Angeles. One of the reasons to bring the conference to Chicago, says Villafranca, was “to highlight Chicago Latino artistic production nationwide. ... With this conference we hope to educate the curators more about the Midwest.” Olga Herrera, who works as an art historian at the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington, D.C., also hopes that the conference will draw the attention of more curators to these artists. “Sometimes the artists don’t have the profiles in the museum or you know, they don’t have the funds for travel, so they just concentrate in certain very small areas while

Latino Artchive: a digitization of Latino artists from the past hundred years to the present. The online archive will include biographies, image galleries, and artists’ personal statements, and will even feature videos and essays for the more contemporary Chicago artists. Though an official URL has not been set, the site will be accessible through iuplr.uic.edu. The move to accumulate all of Chicago’s Latino art history into a digital source will help the artists reach a wider audience, especially a younger and more technologically savvy demographic, and also further support the fight to place Chicago Latino art on the national spectrum. The directory will be unveiled in the fall for the beginning of the academic year.

VISUAL ARTS

“You know...Chicago Latino artists have not just been producing art in the last couple of decades. It’s actually been since the early 1900s.” —Nancy Villafranca, Inter-University Program for Latino Research NANCY VILLAFRANCA

However, collecting information on Chicago Latino artists from the past has proven to be difficult, especially for artists who have died. Garcia laments, “So in the early years of Chicago—Latinos have been in Chicago for a long time now—and in the earlier years because of them being overlooked, a lot of these Chicago Latino artists aren’t documented or aren’t on lists where we can find them: who they are, or

what they were doing.” Villafranca elaborates: “We wanted to make sure we made that connection clear. That, you know, that Chicago Latino artists have not just been producing art in the last couple of decades. It’s actually been since the early 1900s.” One additional challenge for artists in the past, Garcia speculates, may have been a language barrier. “Artists couldn’t speak English

so they couldn’t reach the gallery scene or find people to represent them in museums.” The difficulty of trying to achieve a complete history of Chicago Latino artists has prompted Villafranca and others organizing the project to hold community meetings to try to find past artists through personal connections. In addition, they have organized teams of artists and art historians to dedicate themselves

to uncovering through archives and members of the community information about Chicago Latino artists in the last hundred years. One participant in this search is Diana Solis: she’s particularly interested in tracking down female Latin-American Chicago artists, for the Artchive as well as for the Latin American/Latin@ Cultural Activities and Studies Arena (LACASA), whose Board of Directors she is on. The difficulty of tracking down Chicago Latina artists, Solis says, is even more pronounced. “It’s normally only the men that get documented,” she says. “When I approached one person a few years ago, saying that there were other women artists, because I was around and I photographed them, they said, ‘Oh, but those were just the girlfriends of the guys.’ And I said, ‘No no no! They were artists in their own right.’ The attitude is that the women are just an adornment, or just hang out, or cook the beans—or whatever. So in order to track these women down, we had to go into the archives of the Art Institute to look for women artists who worked in Chicago.” With videos and essays, the site will prominently feature contemporary artists; their biographies and online galleries will be interspersed with artists from the past. Garcia is quick to point out that the challenge of preservation does not end with artists from the past. “Even in our contemporary time, it’s hard to gather all the names of the creative Latinos who are working right now,” he says. “Chicago is just like an enormous mask, you know—how can we make sure that we get all of them? New generations are popping up all the time, so it’s almost an ongoing task.” The project has received funding from local organizations like the Chicago Community Trust Fund (CCT), a “foundation dedicated to improving our region through strategic grant making, civic engagement and inspiring philanthropy.” “This grant opportunity, which is called artistic and cultural diversity, is specifically to address some of the disparities which we see in our cultural ecosystem,” explains Sandra Aponte, of the CCT’s Associate Program Office for Arts and Culture. She indicated that they chose IUPLR’s project because they saw a great need APRIL 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

to publicize the history—and the existence— of the Chicago Latino art community. “When you think of Chicago locally and globally you think of it as a very vibrant artistic and cultural landscape,” says Aponte. “We have a lot of museums, dance companies, theaters. But that doesn’t mean art is present or emphasized in every aspect of the people’s lives.” Though the CCT’s main role is financial support, Aponte was invited to attend some of the community meetings. As the daughter of a Wicker Park gallery owner who specialized in Puerto Rican and Caribbean artists, she could even provide names of Chicago Latino artists to include in the directory. Aponte criticizes Chicago’s internationally recognized museums for their disconnection from the community they serve and their lack of diverse voices. Carlos Tortolero, who founded the National Museum of Mexican Art in 1982, agrees with Aponte’s criticism. Tortolero emphasizes the importance of the community and the community’s experience in his museum. “You know what my favorite thing in the museum is?” he says. “It is not the artwork. My favorite thing is when we get a high school teenage couple on a date at the museum. I love that. That’s what it’s about to me.” Tortolero says the city’s other major museums don’t interact enough with the diverse local community of artists. “Neither the MCA [Museum of Contemporary Art] nor the Art Institute has a gallery dedicated to Chicago artists,” he says. “One of our strengths is that we show so many local artists. We show local artists because we care, we promote them, we have them teach classes.” The absence of similar local interaction and support from major organizations, Solis adds, is not just disappointing but ultimately inhibiting. “The lack of national recognition is connected to the institutions,” she says. “I think that part of it is just that there has been some recognition, like Marco Raya at the MCA, but there really has not been a big digging deep in these institutions into ‘What is Latino art?’ or why Latino art is important in our communities.” Part of the problem is the lack of Latinos in important positions at these institutions; Solis believes that if Chicago Latino art is to be given the level of attention it warrants, that would need to change. She emphasizes a few important actions for Chicago institutions to take: to demonstrate that they know who these

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Latino artists are and that they support them in the way that the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Smithsonian in D.C. do for their communities. What organizers like Villafranca and Tortolero are saying—and putting into practice—is not that Chicago artists deserve more recognition because they, say, present an innovative approach to Cubism, but rather because their perspectives and experiences deserve to be treated as culturally relevant. The artists living in this city, they say, deserve to have their work catalogued, archived, discussed, and examined just as do their contemporaries in LA, Renaissance sculptors in Rome, and pottery makers in ancient Greece. Despite lack of recognition from the Art Institute, the MCA, and other major institutions in Chicago, the Chicago Latino arts community has created its own spaces and fought for visibility—to great success. In the eyes of Professor Karen Mary Davalos of Loyola Marymount University, interest in and support of Chicago Latino art point to a promising future ahead. Another offshoot of the Latino Art Now! Conference is a season-long event called Spring of Latino Art, also co-sponsored by the Smithsonian Latino Center and the IUPLR, which will showcase Latino art in exhibitions across forty distinct organizations in Chicago. Between March and June 2016 work will be shown in venues across the city, from DIY gallery spaces to established art centers like the Hyde Park Art Center. In comparing LA’s recognition of Latino art with Chicago’s, Davalos focuses on similar city-wide initiatives aimed at celebrating Latino art. “Chicago was able to collaborate across many kinds of institutions, not just community-based, not just small organizations with small budgets, but major organizations to bring Latino art to the whole city,” she said. “And that’s profound, it’s unprecedented, it’s historic. I mean, here we are in Los Angeles, jumping up and down, saying how profound and historic it is that the Getty has supported these arts exhibitions and programming about Latino art, but you know what? To be able to do it without 8.5 million dollars from a major arts institution, that’s historic. That’s unprecedented.” ¬ If you know of Chicago Latino artists who should be included in the directory, please email iuplr-chicago@uic.edu

Love Light Divine

TASHA on radical art, BYP100, and love BY MICHELLE GAN

hicago native Tasha Viets-VanLear, also known by her stage name TASHA, grew up surrounded by and involved with the arts. As a child, her mother, a teaching artist, would have Viets-VanLear accompany her to all kinds of classes; she also grew up doing theater, singing, jazz, hip hop, and ballet, among other creative pursuits. Considering that her early introduction to the arts was inspired by the creativity that she shared with her family, it’s fitting that the release of Viets-Vanlear’s first EP, Divine Love, along with the debut of her musical career was influenced by another type of family. As a sophomore at Northside Prep High School, Viets-VanLear pivoted from her early beginnings in theater to poetry, where her experience with the school’s slam poetry team caused an important shift in her life. “That was really the time that opened my eyes to poetry in a way that I hadn’t seen it before,” she says, “and the first time I really started thinking about identity, and youth, community, and all of those big ideas.” Her team would compete in the finals of Louder Than A Bomb, the largest annual youth poetry festival in the world, for all three years she was on the team. “[Slam poetry] was where I really found a solid group of people who were artistic, and really fantastic performers and made me feel really welcome and loved,” she says. Even as she enjoyed music and singing, poetry remained her primary passion through high school. While a student at St. Olaf College in

Northfield, a small town in Minnesota with a population of 20,581 (83% white), Viets-VanLear shifted her artistic gears to dance. She characterizes her time with dance as marking a new way of thinking about performance. While at St. Olaf, she developed her own major called Black Expression and Artistic Performance, a culmination of her love for different kinds of performance. Explaining her final senior project, Viets-VanLear recalls that “it specifically focused on how different black dancers, poets, and other performers have used their art as a form of radical revolution, and how art in general can be used as a tool and a voice for black folks in a time of great violence and depression.” Viets-VanLear was inspired to undertake this project when she returned home for Thanksgiving break during her senior year in college. Her younger brother, a musician who goes by Ethos (featured on the Divine Love track “(We Got) Power”), had joined the youth-centered activist organization Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) while she was away at college. She recalls being impressed by the actions organized and led by BYP100, but unable to participate while in Minnesota. However, she soon participated in a BYP100-led action on Black Friday of 2015 that involved a march from Water Tower Place to the large intersection of Milwaukee and Damen Avenues in Wicker Park. The action inspired TASHA’s thesis project on radical black art and marked the beginning of her activist work.

MUSIC

“It’s about how I have experienced loving myself and the people around me in ways that are more grounded."

—TASHA

RAZIEL PUMA

Even after Viets-VanLear finished her thesis, the themes of activism and radicalism continued to shaped the trajectory of her art. After graduating college last summer, she moved back to Chicago and officially joined BYP100, participating in the #SayHerName campaign, which calls attention to police violence against black women. As a citizen organizer, Viets-VanLear has participated in monthly occupations of the Police Review Board hearing meetings as well as a larger action that shut down the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference. This January, she started a full-time position as the Executive Assistant for Charlene Carruthers, the National Director of BYP100. Now that she is privy to the back-end, administrative aspects of the organization, she has a much larger hand in planning meetings. She speaks about the importance of building BYP100’s membership and community, in addition to and beyond simply leading actions: “Our meetings have more intentional-

ly become spaces for political education, giving space to folks to learn about our current moment and the political climate we’re in now, where we’re coming from, and what organizations like the Combahee River Collective have accomplished before us.” The sense of community in BYP100 doesn't just flow through her music—it was also one of the primary reasons she created Divine Love. “I was making a whole bunch of new friends [at BYP100] and a lot of my friends are singers and rappers,” Viets-VanLear says. “All of our kickbacks would inevitably end up in a cipher and so I started singing a lot more in front of other people. Then I realized that I wasn’t bad, and that it was something that other people maybe enjoyed.” It took her three months to write “Divine Love,” “Snacks,” and “(We Got) Power,” three standout tracks from the EP, and only realized after completion just how intertwined the songs were. “There was a general energy to all these songs that I feel accurately encompass

the growth and journey I’ve had since coming back to Chicago with myself and with my political community, because it’s all about love,” she says of the realization. “It’s about how I have experienced loving myself and the people around me in ways that are more grounded,” she says. “I feel like I was missing that up until this point, that I didn’t have a real solid community or a real solid sense of myself to ground my love in. Since coming back to Chicago, I’ve been able to find that.” Viets-VanLear says BYP100 provided a place for her to channel the love and light that lived inside her. Her brother and fellow BYP100 activist Ethos added verses to her first song, “(We Got) Power.” He connected her to the studio where she recorded her EP by introducing her to his sound engineer Luke, of Luke Skywalker Music. In talking about BYP100’s role in her music, her love clearly shines through. “BYP100 does an amazing job of making

people feel like they are part of a family,” she says. “That’s not so surprising, because there are so few places where young black people actually have a place to go where they are surrounded by other young black people who can speak to the same hurt, the same violence, the same daily work that we have to do in a white supremacist state.” It’s obvious that TASHA’s blossoming career is just beginning, and one can see the continued influence of BYP100 and her activism. “Even outside of [BYP100], the Chicago communities of other organizers, of artists and creative people, is so vibrant, and it’s so infinite,” she says. “In a way, I think that being in a small little white school in Minnesota really made me realize as soon as I got back: ‘Oh yeah, this is what I’ve been missing.’ ” ¬ You can listen to TASHA’s Divine Love EP at soundcloud.com/tashavvmusic

APRIL 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

How to Succeed in Business Helping prepare youth for the job market

Marissa Warner

n my last column, I walked you through the alternative schools in which Community TV Network—the nonprofit I work for—has digital media programs. I shared the unique challenges that a special pool of students faced in their last-ditch effort to get a high school diploma and their fears of what’s next for them after the diploma. In addition to my work assisting teachers in video production classes and finding funds for youth film projects, I voluntarily serve as a mentor to about ten students on a rotating basis throughout the year. My mentees are typically one year out of high school, but, like my video production students, they also ask me often if I know anyone who is hiring. But when they ask, they do so more urgently. Sometimes my mentees will call me during the work day and ask, “When are you free? Because I really need your help, Ms. Marissa.” I automatically know that means they need help finding a job. It's amusing to me that young people look up to me and ask me for advice, as I’m still trying to find my way through the perils of life. Balancing my work and personal life is still a challenge for me, which is something I’m not shy about expressing to them. But I guess young people can sense my present and non-judgmental nature and consider it a valuable resource as they are trying to figure things out. People don’t realize that a non-expert can still offer small pieces of advice to young people and still make a big difference in their lives. While the youth joblessness documentary at Joshua Johnston Fine Arts Academy was in its pre-production phases, I was also spending weekends and late nights preparing mentees for the job market, and these two experiences went hand-in-hand. I helped them prepare for interviews, sent them job postings, and reviewed professional interview attire via text

COURTESY OF MARISSA WARNER

message. This left me wondering if others in the city were providing these same services and if so, why weren’t these job training services made visible to the youth who needed them the most? The Chicago Urban League sends staff out into the communities to pass out flyers to recruit sixteen to twentyfour-year olds into their success strategies workshops and summer youth employment programs. These programs offer job readiness skills like employment search techniques and resume development training to seventy-six out-of-school and out-of-work youth. My mentee Darnisha Washington, a 2015 Joshua Johnston graduate, went through a similar job readiness program that focused on looking professional for a job, which she said helped her stand out for her interview at a big box store. When she walked into the store for her interview, she did a mental wardrobe inventory and was surprised that the other five people there for the interview were so unprepared. Many of them were wearing jeans and non-uniform clothes. “This one girl was sitting there in a Nike pullover coat,” Darnisha told me. “And I was thinking that she should take that off before her interview, but she didn’t.” I agreed that the girl's hoodie, made of black leatherette material with the white Nike swoosh on the front of the coat, was only appropriate for weekend wear. I told Darnisha that it was possible that she didn’t have anything else to wear. But she told me that the style of coat was in season, so she could tell it was a recent purchase. I thought to myself that either these people didn’t know what professional attire is, or they didn’t want to let go of clothes that represented a cultural identity.

“You can still be swagged out at work by wearing certain pieces of jewelry or different hair styles.” But it seemed like she understood that you had to abide by professional rules to gain employment. “When you want a job you have to look nice and presentable,” said Darnisha. She said her family had given her tips on what to wear to a job interview. The Chicago Urban League’s Director of Workforce Development, Andrew Wells, told me, “Some of today’s youth aren’t prepared for the work force because their parents in the home spend years without working.” The youth grow up without seeing an example of how to carry themselves as an employee. Wells also said that in the school systems, teachers are dealing with behavior problems so much that “they don’t have the time to walk the students through career development.” Wells wished that the League had the funds to walk thousands of students in the city through career development but due to lack of funding, they serve up to about eighty youth a year. He understands that a lack of jobs is an issue but he witnesses youth who don’t take pride in their work ethic trying to get in the job market, and he believes that slashes their chances of ever getting hired. I do come across a lot of young people interested in get rich quick schemes or fantasizing about becoming a rapper or entertainer rather than putting in hard work. Darnisha, on the other hand, told me that although her feet hurt after standing up doing her cashier duties for many hours, she's excited to have her own money this summer. ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER SUAREZ

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¬ APRIL 20, 2016

COLUMN

Big City Teachers and Big Assumptions Critics of higher salaries for Chicago teachers fail to recognize market realities and racial assumptions

Troy LaRaviere

n the debate over how Chicago’s teachers should be compensated, I have noticed the use of subtle but intensely loaded language by those who seek to devalue Chicago’s children by diminishing the worth of their teachers' work. There are two major conclusions to be drawn from their sloppy and inconsistent use of language. First, the inherent logic of the language they use completely ignores the market-based principles they claim to value. Second, their argument bolsters the systemic institutionalized racism in the manner in which teachers are compensated in Illinois and across the nation—a racism that negatively impacts students just as much as it impacts their teachers. The Argument: “Big City” Teachers Corporate apologists often qualify their disdain for the fact that Chicago teachers make a decent living wage by comparing their salaries to those of other “big city teachers.” Ted Dabrowski of the deceptively named Illinois Policy Institute is a clear example. He and his ideologically pro-corporate and anti-worker organization consistently do a disservice to Chicago’s students by repeating the line that their teachers make as much or more than their “big city counterparts” in places like Atlanta, Milwaukee, or Detroit. However, there are two fundamental problems with using other “big cities” as a frame of reference for compensating the teachers who educate Chicago’s children. Problem One: Wrong Market When any institution sets a price for a good or service, the number one factor in determining the price is the market. Markets can be local, national, or international. If the market for your product is a local one then you don’t set a price based on the prices in a different local market. You set it based on your local market. That is, while oranges may be fifty cents per pound in Florida, they might be $1.00 per pound in Illinois. If you’re an Illinois orange seller and you base your price on a local market in Florida, you will have under-priced your inventory and paved a road toward financial ruin. A similar kind of logic is at play in salaries and labor markets. There are American careers that operate a national labor

market, such as college professors. Universities compete for the top scholars in a national market for the best academic talent and those scholars regularly relocate across the country for more prestigious and better-compensated posts. There is however (with a few exceptions) no vibrant national labor market for teachers. When teachers leave their district for better compensation, it is typically for a better position in a different but nearby district. That means that if a district wants to recruit the best teachers for its students, it must set a salary that competes with nearby districts, not districts in other big cities halfway across the country. Dabrowski limits his point-of-reference to other large urban school districts. In doing so, he completely ignores the fact that school districts compete for teachers in a labor market that is primarily local, not national. Put simply, it doesn’t matter what Detroit is paying its teachers when the best talent available to Chicago’s students will be poached by the nearby school districts of Oak Park, Niles Township, La Grange, Roselle, and River Forest—all of which pay their teachers significantly more than Chicago does. A Teacher Salary Data Analysis for 2014-15 conducted by the Illinois State Board of Education reveals that while Chicago salaries may be comparable to those of other large urban districts, they don’t stack up so well in the labor market that actually matters. ISBE did not include Chicago in its analysis so I simply plugged the 2014-2015 CTU salary scale into ISBE’s statewide spreadsheet and it revealed the following: At $54,161, CPS is 46th in the state in beginning salary for a teacher with a Master’s degree. Niles Township is ranked first at $68,072. At $57,670 CPS is 49th in the state in beginning salary for a teachers with a “masters degree plus.” Number one is Roselle at $75,626. CPS is 127th in the state in master’s plus maximum salary at $93,146. Number one is La Grange SD 105 South at $137,345 At $97,655 CPS is 135th in the state in highest scheduled salary (teacher with a PhD who has taught for 16+ years). Number one is River Forest at nearly $140,000. In summary, while Dabrwoski and other anti-worker forces may call Chicago “competitive” with other big cities, Chicago is far less competitive when you look at where our actual competition is: suburban school districts. Problem Two: Race and Racism The market-based argument I make above is incredibly important when one looks at the power of compensation to attract and retain the best educators for Chicago's children, who are often Black and Hispanic students from low-income households. I will take a moment or two to make it clear what I mean when I use the term “racism.” Racism begins with the idea of race itself, and that idea is a lie. It is a three-hundred-year-old lie that gives exaggerated meaning and weight to a set of differences in physical features we would have otherwise treated as meaningless. It is a lie that wealthy European planters told to the descendants of Africans to keep them in their place, and to the descendants of poor Europeans to give them a false sense of superiority. Part of what makes racism functional is the fact that a critical mass of people all hold the same negative race-based assumptions. Racial prejudice by itself however, is not racism.

Racial prejudice is a belief about the people assigned to a racial category. Racism is the power to have a substantial negative impact on people’s lives based on their racial category—the power to act on that prejudice. I venture to assert the great majority of Americans—of all racial classifications—act on race-based assumptions without ever being conscious of it. Those race-based assumptions are at play when a school district shuts down forty-nine schools and none of them serve communities composed primarily of residents defined as white. The city authorities have their assumptions about the value of funding neighborhood schools for the students they define as “black” or “brown” and they act on those false assumptions. As a result of more than three hundred years of race propaganda, the negative assumptions tied to race are a powerful and pervasive part of our culture, and they are nearly always in play. They are at play in the debate about compensation for Chicago public school teachers. When teachers union critics fail to include La Grange, River Forest, Oak Lawn, Niles Township and dozens of other local school districts in their salary comparison, what they say by omission is that “big city” children who are Black, Hispanic, and low income don't deserve to learn in a school system that attracts good teachers with the competitive salaries that will keep the best of them in Chicago. I make no accusations of intentional racism; I am not a mind reader. But I can clearly see the racially disparate results of their policies, whether intended or not.

he race and class disparities promoted by the assumptions behind the “Big City Teachers” argument are abundantly clear. At least ninety percent of CPS’s student population is non-white, and over eightysix percent of its students are economically disadvantaged. Judging the adequacy of the compensation levels set for the people who teach these children compels us to examine the compensation levels of nearby districts that serve a different demographic. Critics pretend not to see the obvious job market forces that make decent levels of CPS compensation a good thing for Chicago’s children: the better the salaries (and working conditions) the more likely CPS is to recruit and retain the best teachers for its students. The implication of their argument is that the poor African American and Latino students in Chicago don’t deserve the kind of high quality teachers attracted and retained by the salaries in districts that serve suburbs like Winnetka, or Maine Township High School District 207 in Park Ridge, where in 20112012 the average teacher salary was $116,044. That's average—not top. That is what Chicago is competing with, and our children deserve a better representation of that competition than the misleading anti-teacher spin coming out of the mayor’s office, the governor’s office, and organizations like the Illinois Policy Institute. Troy LaRaviere is a CPS graduate, a CPS principal, and a parent of a CPS student. He leads Blaine Elementary, one of the highest performing neighborhood schools in Chicago, and relentlessly defends public education. He blogs about education policy and his own observations of CPS policy at troylaraviere.net. Catch Troy’s column every second week of the month. ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER SUAREZ

APRIL 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

BULLETIN Clean Air, Power, and Coal? Chicago Booth Harper Center, 5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue, room 104. Thursday, April 21, 3:30pm– 5pm. Free. (773) 702-0627. epic.uchicago.edu. Explore the future of clean energy with Richard L. Revesz, co-author of Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the “War on Coal.” Revesz will discuss how “grandfather clauses” have allowed coal plants exemption from the Clean Air Act. (Anne Li)

UChicago Medicine: Community Forum KLEO Community Family Life Center, 119 E. Garfield Blvd. Thursday, April 21, 5:30pm– 7:30pm. Free. Light refreshments and dinner provided. (773) 702-1000. RSVP at uchicagogetcare.org With a hard-won trauma center now on the way, the UofC is closer than ever to providing fair and accessible healthcare for all—but the conversation is far from over. Make your voice heard and shape the rollout of the proposed “Get CARE” program at this open community forum. (Christopher Good)

Kathleen Neal Cleaver: CSRPC Annual Public Lecture International House Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th St. Thursday, April 21, 6:30pm–8:30pm. Free. (773) 702-8063. csrpc.uchicago.edu As one of only a handful of women at the commanding heights of the Black Panther organization, Kathleen Neal Cleaver lived an eventful life, fleeing to Algeria, North Korea and France after her husband participated in an ambush of Oakland police officers. Neal Cleaver, now living a presumably more sedate life as a law school professor, will discuss the role of women in the Black Panther movement. (Adam Thorp)

Conference on Justice and Resolution Richard J. Daley College Beattie Theatre, 7500 S. Pulaski Rd. Saturday, April 23, 9am–12pm. Free. (708) 208-7477. Network with local criminal justice organizations at the Re-entry Education and Criminal Justice Summit. Examine problems of recidivism and reentry with other professionals, and consider restorative justice solutions. (Anne Li)

The Job Market Revolution

Jackson Park: Earth Day 2016 Parks and Preserves Clean-up

Chicago Innovation Exchange, 1452 E. 53rd St. 2nd floor. Thursday, April 21, 5pm–7pm. Free. (773) 702-2076. meetup.com/tech-jobs-space

Jackson Park, 6401 S. Stony Island Ave. Saturday, April 23rd, 9am–12pm. Free. (312) 857-2757. fotp.org

The increasing sophistication of robots and artificial intelligence leaves old-fashioned human workers with some questions about their future: for instance, the hopefully comprehensive list of twenty increasingly worried and worrying questions this event’s organizer promises to try to answer. (Adam Thorp)

Celebrate Earth Day by helping clean Jackson Park. After a few rewarding hours, you can relax: there will be Earth Day celebrations until 2pm at Humboldt Park and everyone is highly encouraged to attend. While most sites will have extra work gloves, to ensure you have a pair, please consider bringing your own. For a full list of clean-up sites in Chicago, and to register, go to earthdaychicago.com. (Camila Cuesta)

Demo Night Incubator Session: Chicago Public Schools Robert R. McCormick Foundation, 205 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 4300. Thursday, April 21, 6pm–8pm. Free. demonight.org Part of a monthly series on public engagement and building on questions raised last month, this month’s focus will be on examining and exploring ways to improve the approach taken by Chicago Public Schools in engaging its communities. Those affected by budget cuts and school closings are encouraged to attend. (Carrie Smith)

R.A.G.E. Open House Kelly Library, 6151 S. Normal Blvd. Saturday, April 23, 10:30am. (866) 845-1032. englewoodportal.org If you are a resident of Englewood or are eager to spur change in the community, join the Resident Association of Greater Englewood initiative to join forces with like-minded individuals. Informational sessions at this open house will provide opportunities to join R.A.G.E. and detail the fundamental steps required in order to address current problems. (Gozie Nwachukwu)

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¬ APRIL 20, 2016

EVENTS

VISUAL ARTS Erik Salgado: Brick Painting

Between the Ticks of the Watch

The Egg, Alley next to 2214 S Sawyer Ave. First garage on the left. Opening Friday, April 22, 6pm; through May 6. Free. newchiplace.tumblr.com

Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., 4th floor. Opening Sunday, April 24, 4pm–7pm; exhibition runs Tuesday–Friday 10am–5pm, Saturday–Sunday 12pm–5pm. Through June 26. Free. (773)702-8670. renaissancesociety.org.

Chicago-based interdisciplinary and hiphop artist Erik Salgado will bring his graffiti inspired artwork to The Egg. This is part of an ongoing series called “virgin bricks” for which Erik searched and found the perfect place to spray paint his ephemeral, but beautiful, modern and post-modern artwork. (Troy Ordonez)

What do you know about anything? Instead of spending time puzzling over that question of questions, spend your time with the work of artists including Kevin Beasley, Goutam Ghosh, and Falke Pisano, who embrace doubt as the starting point for all things. (Corinne Butta)

Shared History: SSCAC and SAIC Joint Anniversary Exhibition

MUSIC

South Side Community Art Center, 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Opening Friday, April 22, 6pm-9pm; exhibition runs Wednesday–Friday noon-5pm, Saturday 9am-5pm, Sunday 1pm-5pm. Through July 2. Free. (773) 373-1026. sscartcenter.org

June Yvon

Celebrate 75 years of America’s first black art museum, the South Side Community Art Center, and 150 years of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With featured works from many noted artists—including Archibald Motley, Margaret Burroughs, and Ayanah Moor—this exhibition is sure to reflect the rich history and kinship between two of Chicago’s chief art institutions. ( Joe Andrews)

Local Jazz veteran June Yvon will take over the Mo Better Jazz stage this coming Friday. Ms. Yvon has performed all over Chicago alongside collectives like the Rajiv Halim Quartet. Stop by for a night of drinks, fun, and music. (Bilal Othman)

The Feeling and Movement of Place National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Saturday, April 23, 1pm–3pm. Free. (312) 738-1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org As the world gets smaller, artists find themselves at a new crossroads of cultural belonging and creation. What is to be done? The NMoMA will host a panel on the entanglement of art and place, driven by commentary from artists such as Rozalinda Borcila, Faheem Majeed, Maria Gaspar, Josh Rios, and Erina Duganne. (Christopher Good)

BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer) Mana Contemporary Chicago, 2233 S. Throop St., 6th floor. Saturday, April 23, 8pm–10pm. Free. (312) 850-0555. manacontemporarychicago.com Dozens of artists. Dozens of projectors. What do you get when you combine the two? An audiovisual extravaganza of flashing lights, moving images, and illuminated dust motes, all projected upon the walls of the Mana Contemporary. Elsewhere, the projector is used for the humble classroom PowerPoint—but here, it is a canvas. (Christopher Good)

Mo Better Jazz, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, April 22, doors and show 7pm. $10 suggested donation. All ages. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us

D∆WN Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S. State St. Friday, April 22. Doors 6:30pm. $15-$20. All ages. (312) 9490120. reggieslive.com Experimental R&B singer D∆WN will perform Friday at Reggies Rock Club. Finding early success with Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money, D∆WN’s experience shines through in her ear for offbeat songwriting— publications like the New York Times and FACT Magazine have given her most recent album, 2015’s Blackheart, critical acclaim. (Kezie Nwachukwu)

Lissie Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Friday, April 22. Doors 6:30pm, show 7:30pm. $20 standing room, $26 seats. All ages. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Pop-rocker Lissie brings her approachable yet arena-ready sound to Pilsen’s Thalia Hall for the second-to-last gig of a US tour promoting her 3rd album, My Wild West. Genre-bending New Jersey singer-songwriter Skrizzly Adams will open. (Neal Jochmann)

F I R S T

A N N U A L

Washington Park

A R T S F E S T I VA L Come celebrate local art, watch performances from UChicago students and community groups and enjoy FREE FOOD from local vendors!

Featuring

LE VORRIS & VOX CIRCUS THE RANSOM NOTES RUN FOR COVER UCHICAGO MAYA BALLROOM AND LATIN DANCE ASSOCIATION MEMENTO (MEMORYHOUSE MAGAZINE) CHICAGO SWING DANCE SOCIETY MAROON TV UNIVERSITY BALLET OF CHICAGO ARTSHOULD STORYARTS SUMMER CAMP SOUTHSIDE SCRIBBLERS SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY FRIENDS OF WASHINGTON PARK SOUTH SIDE FREE MUSIC PROGRAM UNDERGROUND COLLECTIVE

and Spoken Word Performers and Artists from THE KLEO CENTER CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS

APRIL 23, 2016 | 12:00 - 3:00 PM CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS, 5350 S. PRAIRIE AVE

facebook.com/events/1595998367387402/

Jadakiss The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thurs-

APRIL 20, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

EVENTS day, April 28. Doors 8pm, show 8:30pm. $20 GA, $35 VIP, $75 meet-and-greet. 17+. (312) 8012100. promontorychicago.com Steady Roc-a-Fella journeyman MC Jadakiss, possessor of the most distinctively raspy voice this side of DMX, comes to the Promontory next week to showcase his “blunt smoke and liquor treated voice,” as the release for the show reads. Kiss is promoting his upcoming Freddy vs. Jason mixtape with fellow New York City mid-aughts mainstay Fabolous. (Sam Stecklow)

Pacifica Quartet Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Sunday, April 24, 3:00pm. $30 regular, $5 students. All ages. (773) 702-8484. arts.uchicago.edu Come see Pacifica Quartet perform classical pieces in dedication to others. The program includes “Mozart’s Quartet in G Major,” which was dedicated to Mozart’s close friend and “Shostakovich Quartet No. 11,” intended to honor the second violinist in Beethoven's Quartet. Be sure to stick around—the show will conclude with “Beethoven’s Quartet in C-Sharp Minor,” a grandiose piece for the Prince Nikolai Golitzin. (Gozie Nwachukwu)

STAGE & SCREEN The (In)Justice For All Film Festival Opening Screening Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 W. 95th St. Thursday, April 21, 7pm–9pm. Free. www. injusticeforallff.com The festival’s third year kicks off with a short program featuring remarks by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, sneak peeks of this year's nine-day fest, and a screening of Dramatic Escape, a documentary about inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility who put on a behind-bars play. (Eleonora Edreva)

Can I Live: Cypher Dorchester Art + Housing Collaborative, 1456 E. 70 St. Thursday, April 21. 7pm–9pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org In partnership with the Can I Live Block Party Chicago, young Chicago hip-hop artists gather to share a beat at Dorchester Collaborative’s shared space to represent the South Side’s music landscape as a hotbed for artistic progression and social change. (Neal Jochmann)

And When I Die I Won’t Stay Dead Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Friday, April 22, 7pm–9:30pm. Free. (312) 8575561. rebuild-foundation.org Join the Black Cinema House for a screening of Billy Woodberry’s biopic on the seminal African-American beat poet Bob Kaufman. With its inspired use of archival footage and non-linear storytelling, Woodberry’s film will parallel the poetry of its subject, “Wailing his triumphs of oddly begotten dreams / Inviting the nerveless to feel once more.” (Christopher Good)

The Last Pullman Car Kartemquin Films. Streaming online from Thursday, April 22–Thursday, April 29. Free. (773) 472-4366. kartemquin.com As it explores the neighborhood’s transition from industrial expansion to economic peril, The Last Pullman Car weaves unions, railroad magnates, and shipping empires into a gripping requiem for the Rust Belt. The film will be available to stream free online as Kartemquin celebrates its fiftieth anniversary—but only for a limited time, so act fast. (Christopher Good)

Ripe Leeks: lucid dreams

South Side Weekly Civic Journalism Workshops

The Art of the Feature A reporting & editing workshop with Chicago Magazine Culture Editor Elly Fishman

Filmfront, 1740 W. 18th St. Saturday, April 23, 6pm. Free. filmfront.org Support local artists by coming to Ripe Leeks, a quarterly screening series that solely features works produced by Chicago filmmakers. This quarter's theme is dreams. Explore the work of Andrew Rosinski, Amanda VanValkenburg, Derek Weber, Kaitlin Martin, Kent Lambert, LJ Frezza, and Lilli Carré all in one fantasy-like evening. (Bilal Othman)

Works-In-Progress: Stephan Moore

Sunday, May 8, 2016 1pm–3pm

High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary Chicago, 2233 S. Throop St. Wednesday, April 27, 7pm-8:30pm. $5 suggested donation. highconceptlaboratories.org

Experimental Station 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.

Performance art group a canary torsi is giving an exclusive look at their new interactive installation, Performer Standing with Curtain. The work is still in progress, and audience members will have a chance to provide feedback and help shape the future of the piece. (Eleonora Edreva)

The Chicago Civic Journalism Project is presented by the South Side Weekly, City Bureau, University of Chicago Careers in Journalism, Arts, and Media, and Chicago Studies. 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

¬ APRIL 20, 2016

LIT

Bernadette Mayer Reading

Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St., Room 122. Wednesday, April 20, 6pm–7:30pm. Free. (773) 834-8524. lib.uchicago.edu Bernadette Mayer is the author of more than two dozen collections of poetry. Part of the influential New York School, her experiments in poetic form (not to mention her innovative multimedia works) have changed the landscape of American art. Ms. Mayer is a national treasure. Do not miss this reading. ( Jake Bittle)

The Frunchroom O’Rourke’s Office, 11064 S. Western Ave. Thursday, April 21, 7:30pm. Free. thefrunchroom.com Enjoy the power and potential of Chicago stories with The Frunchroom’s quarterly reading series, in which five local writers give their thoughts on the South Side. Come early or stay late to celebrate the start of the series’ second year. (Sarah Claypoole)

Grown Folks Stories The Silver Room, 1506 E. 53rd St. Thursday, April 21, 8pm–10pm. $5 suggested donation. (773) 947-0024. thesilverroom.com Grown Folks Stories emphasizes storytelling in its purest form: “no theme, no judging, no poetry, no readings.” Hosted monthly by Cara Brigandi, you’ve got two to five minutes to tell whatever story you’d like. Just put your name in the jar. (Sarah Claypoole)

Every Person is a Philosopher Seminary Co-op, 5751 S. Woodlawn Ave. Sunday, April 24, 3pm–5pm. Free. (773) 752-4381. semcoop.com Educator and activist Hal Adams garners much-deserved critical attention in a new volume of essays. Four of its co-authors—Bill Ayers, Janise Hurtig, Peter Kahn, and Christine Tarkowski—gather to discuss Every Person is a Philosopher: Lessons in Educational Emancipation from the Radical Teaching Life of Hal Adams. (Sarah Claypoole)

Blackstone Public Library Spring Book Sale Blackstone Public Library, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave. Saturday, April 30, 10am–3pm. (312) 7470511. Support your local branch of the public library by attending its annual sale. As the sale only happens once a year, make sure you come then to find both paperback and hardcover books. All proceeds go to the library. (Sarah Claypoole)

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