Disinvestment & Gentrification: Two sides of the same racist coin

On yesterday's Hitting Left show, community activists Christian Diaz and Cory Stevenson both agreed. Southside disinvestment and northside gentrification were simply two sides of the same racist coin.

Nowhere is this more evident than in city policies of closing dozens of schools in struggle south and west side communities while opening up new charter and selective enrollment schools on the north side. This tweet from the parent group, Raise Your Hand, brings the contradiction into clear focus.

#ERSBnow this is absurd. District lost 40k students in 7 years, resources spread way too thin. CPS keeps putting out charter RFPs yearly. @ILSenDems @HouseDemsIL what's the plan? https://t.co/uS4uIRXbR8

— RYHAction (@RYHAction) November 14, 2018

Cory Stevenson pointed to the impact the closing of two southside Target stores could have on his community and relatives in terms of loss of hundreds of jobs and access to basic needs for families that don't have cars.

The Target store closings are symptomatic of the structural disinvestment and erosion of public space and public decision-making now taking place in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods. This includes the closing of schools, clinics, stores and other city services, making many areas of the city uninhabitable.

While across town, gentrification has created a housing crisis for poor and middle-class, mainly Latino families in neighborhoods like Logan Square. This, according to Diaz, who is the housing organizer at Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA).  LSNA has been organizing community meetings and marches to protest high rents and support affordable housing projects.

While supporting the push for new rent-control laws, Diaz doesn't think current emphasis on lifting the ban on rent-control is the best tactic. "My fear is that we're talking about a campaign that may take 10 years and in the meantime, families are losing their homes and rents are climbing, making affordable housing out of reach."

Instead, LSNA is pushing for a "community land trust" where a nonprofit, community-based organization develops and stewards affordable housing, community gardens, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community assets on behalf of a community.

Harold died 30 years ago. 

At our holiday family gathering this week, we will take a moment to remember Chicago's greatest mayor, Harold Washington, who suffered a fatal heart attack the day before Thanksgiving 30 years ago. Today the city is more in need of a mayor like Harold, than ever.

Instead, big-money corporatists and old-line machine Democrats have jumped into the race following Rahm Emanuel's departure and they appear to be sucking up all the air and money from the campaign as they try and push out upstart progressives. The shakeout will begin in earnest after Nov. 26, the day that nominating petitions are due. Without a big campaign war chest and paid staff or ward organization to round up the needed 12,500 valid signatures, several of the early runners are likely to drop out. Actually, campaigns really need to collect at least double that amount so they can withstand a challenge.

More on that to come. But for now there two developments in the past week that caught my attention. The craziest came from candidate Bill Daley, who more than all the others, combines the worst of big-money corporatism with old-line machine politics. Daley, trying to outflank former top-cop, Garry McCarthy as the law-and-order candidate, says he wants to have thousands of camera-equipped drones flying over the city.

He tells the Sun-Times:

“I’d have as many cameras as we could buy so the people could feel safer wherever they’re at … I’d have a camera on every block in the city if I could.”

Chicago’s network of 29,000 public and private surveillance cameras is already billed as the largest “federated” system in the nation. But I'll bet there's a Daley family member or close business associate who'd be thrilled to get that drone contract. Kind of like Rahm's red-light camera plan.

The other recent development is the entrance of Susana Mendoza into the race. Mendoza, who has always been viewed suspiciously by progressives as a Rahm/Madigan machine puppet, is now staking out progressive territory and trying to outflank frontrunner Toni Preckwinkle on the left. She promises to stop school closures, including the closing of embattled National Teachers Academy, the re-opening of the clinics closed by Rahm, and support for an elected school board.

You can believe her or not. But for now at least, other candidates will have to respond on these issues.

Dizzying!

Sense of urgency at last night's community hearing on police accountability [Updated]

AMAZING!...No sooner did the Progressive Caucus of the City Council hold the first of its hearings on police accountability THEN THIS HAPPENED.

Instead of watching Trump's "Make America Germany Again" speech last night, I and hundreds of others went over to Malcolm X College on the west side, where the City Council's Progressive Caucus was holding its Community Forum on Police Accountability.

The purpose of this forum was to gather testimony and recommendations from members of the public. The Caucus deserves kudos for listening and for doing what the city and the mayor have so far stalled on doing.

Supporters of CPAC, which calls for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council from the city's 22 police districts, came out in force.

The meeting was moderated by WVON's Dometi Pongo. Ald. Rick Munoz (22) and Ald. John Arena (45) and Rod Sawyer (6) were the only aldermen to speak, and only at the opening and close of the meeting.  Ald. Scott Waguespack (32), David Moore (17), Toni Foulkes (16), Ariel Reboyras (30), Jason Ervin (28), Sue Sadlowski Garza (10), and Willie Cochran (20) also attended.

Most disappointing to me was Police Board President and Police Accountability Task Force (PATF) chair Lori Lightfoot who went on much too long until the crowd demanded that she stop since she was cutting into allotted testimony time. Worse, she left to attend a Police Board meeting while audience members urged her to stay and listen. It wasn't her night. That's for sure.

Munoz says the Progressive Caucus plans to draft its own reforms in the coming months and members were there to listen.

"We listened, we heard people's voices, and that will be part of the legislative process... we will have a series of ordinances in September, October, and November, on how to reform the police department."

People want less talk. More action.

Dyett hunger strikers keeping the PUBLIC in public schools

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to the 12 Dyett hunger strikers who are putting their bodies on the line to keep the public in public education. The community-based movement to put a real public, neighborhood school back into Dyett has drawn support from a coalition that includes the Chicago Teachers Union, the Chicago Botanic Garden, Teachers for Social Justice and other groups.

The movement to save Dyett, first from the condo developers and then from cynical attempts by the mayor and Ald. Will Burns to make it a charter -- or its bastardized version, a "contract school" -- is a fitting response to the mayor's closing of 50 schools. Other communities, ie. Humboldt Park, are watching closely as the idea of re-opening shuttered school buildings as new schools or public mixed-use sites, percolates.

Dyett activists begin hunger strike. (DNAInfo)

All this takes me back to Mother's Day, Sunday May 13th 2001, when parents and neighborhood activists in Little Village, launched their hunger strike to get a new high school (a campus of 4 small schools) built in their community. The school had been promised by the board. $30 million had been allocated and spent elsewhere, and the land already purchased. But like Dyett, the process kept dragging out and parents became desperate.

The Little Village hunger strike lasted 13 days, drawing widespread support from the entire community, until finally the Mayor Daley, new CEO Arne Duncan (Paul Vallas had been canned, in part because of his mishandling of the strike), the school board relented and victory was declared. A new public school -- not a charter -- was built at 31st and Kostner. It stands as testimony to people power and public decision-making.

Community Rejuvenation Muralist Desi Mundo

Desi Mundo

Strong coffee this morning with Desi Mundo, visionary artist and  founder of the Oakland-based Community Rejuvenation Project. Desi grew up tagging and writing on the walls of Chicago and eventually became an airbrush artist of renown. His work in Oakland and surrounding towns has covered the walls of schools, grocery stores, housing projects, bridges, and buildings threatened with demolition.

Desi was in town to complete a new street mural at 75th and Coles, and to present a series of 5 vivid portraits of Liberation Theologists of Latin America, created in collaboration with artist Lavie Raven. He also presented a portrait of the beloved late educator Sarah Spurlark to Hyde Park's Ray Elementary School, which Desi attended as a child while Spurlark was the principal.

Sarah Spurlark mural

The Community Rejuvenation Project in Oakland brings together artists to work with communities in creating new art that reflects the stories of residents and their institutions--schools, playgrounds, parks, housing projects and even grocery stores. CRP describes itself as a "policy to pavement organization that cultivates healthy communities through public art, beautification, education & celebration." To learn more about this work and the art of resistance to gentrification, privatization, and destruction of communities, visit:  http://crpbayarea.org/

Who at CPS leaked the Benn Report and why?

Remember how Rahm's spin machine demanded that teachers hold off on their strike vote until after the release of the fact-finder's report? The implication being that CPS would abide by the report's recommendations for a teacher pay raise.

Now the question is, who from CPS leaked parts of the fact-finder's report to the Tribune days before it was supposed to be released, and why? Or let me put it another way. Why, with less than 4 weeks to go before teachers are forced to strike, does Rahm/Brizard seem hell-bent on sabotaging the contract negotiations?

This morning's Trib carries an ass-covering editorial -- on the one hand denouncing Edwin Benn's recommendations as "irrelevant" while on the other, claiming: "We haven't seen Benn's report yet."

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Please join me this evening for an SOS Webinar, when I interview CTU Pres. Karen Lewis and KOCO community organizer Jitu Brown. You can register for the webinar here and join in at 8 P.M. (CDT). For those of you who don't know what a webinar is, think of it as an online, interactive radio show, where you can participate by asking my guests question or making comments as time allows. Otherwise just listen and take it all in. All you need is a computer with internet access and a working mic (if you want to speak).

At Whittier School yesterday...

Supporters blocking the gate. (M. Klonsky pics)

After getting a call yesterday, that Mayor Emanuel was moving to arrest parents at Whittier School who've been defending La Casita, the site promised for a new school library, I hurried over there. What I found was a small group of supporters, who had also received calls, blocking the gate and asking the (de)construction crew and truck driver not to cross the line. About a dozen of Chicago's uniformed finest stood poised for action. Ironically, the mayor and his hand-picked school chief, J.C. Brizard, were a few blocks away at a community meeting run by charter school operator UNO.

Dump truck with police escort turned back.

As things turned out, the union guys agreed not to cross our line. The dumpster-bearing truck pulled out to the cheers of the crowd, the police dispersed and went back to fighting real crime as promised by new police Supt. McCarthy. Parents planned to continue their vigil over La Casita this morning at 5:30 a.m.

Chicago's finest poised for action.

The mayor seems determined to violate the agreement won by the Whittier parents, after last winter's occupation of the building.  The agreement was, to build a school library at La Casita. He now says he will create library space inside the school by displacing Whittier's special education program. The parents reject that plan and are threatening to continue the occupation along with support from community partners.

The struggle continues.

Mendoza's firing was an outrage

Former CPS art teacher Francisco Mendoza (wearing hat), talks with friends and well-wishers during an auction of donated art items for his benefit held at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago on February 27, 2011 . Mendoza has cancer and was fired last summer by CPS. l Keith Hale~Sun-Times

I went to the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Pilsen last night to help fired CPS teacher Francisco Mendoza. The place was packed with hundreds of Mendoza supporters who raised thousands of dollars to  support the renowned artist/teacher in his battle with cancer and CPS.

Mendoza, a painter, muralist and pillar of Pilsen’s art community, tried not to cry Sunday night as hundreds of friends showed up to support him at an art auction fund-raiser — yards from Orozco Elementary, where he once worked. “I’ve got to stay strong,” said Mendoza, smiling beneath a black cowboy hat, seated in a wheelchair. “I feel like if I cry — everyone here will start crying.” -- Sun-Times

The firing of Mendoza while he was on sick leave, was a disgrace and a big blow to his students and the entire school community. He was diagnosed last April with multiple myeloma, a form of bone marrow cancer. He spent five months at Rush University Medical Center undergoing chemotherapy, and survived a close call with a lung infection, before returning home to find a termination letter. 

Corporate reformers, including mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, want to eliminate tenure and other collective-bargaining rights so they can easily fire teachers like Mendoza, leaving them with no health care or any means of support and replace them with younger (certainly not better) teachers who are paid less and are less likely to get sick.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"The not-even-second-city"

Sources close to the mayor privately concede that, after two decades in office, the bench has been depleted. He increasingly relies on a relatively small handful of aides like Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman and likely incoming Chicago Transit Authority Chairman Terry Peterson, rotating them from post to post as problems crop up. To recover his stride, Mr. Daley will have to change that equation. (Greg Hinz, Crain's Chicago Business)

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"Who's Adrienne Hiegel (And why's she still working at CPS?)"--(Russo)

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Rhee fires hundred of teachers, staff in D.C.

No doubt the dismissals will be challenged in court. Already, Ms. Rhee is being criticized by D.C. Council members who say she should have used stimulus funds to avert the layoffs. (WaPo)

Maddow on ACORN

This whole ACORN mess breaks my heart. They've been out there doing some of the toughest grassroots political work imaginable for years and years, hiring from the neighborhoods, expanding the voting franchise, helping the neediest people in our country. And they have been the very convenient target of the racist right wing during all that time, for all the obvious reasons. It's painful to see the Democrats cut and run when the right finally gets some wingnut porn to run with. (AlterNet)

Showering Bloomberg's enemies

That's how the N.Y. post describes a proposed community-based training program for parents, at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Urban Education.

Democrats in the state Senate want to shower enemies of mayoral school control with up to $1.6 million a year to operate a citywide parent-training center

OMG! "Showering the enemy"???

Isn't this why we invaded Afghanistan? Can we allow NYU to become a training base for the Mayor's enemies, ie. Al qaeda parents??

Deb Meier says:

"Today, parent power and citizen and community voices have entirely disappeared," Meier wrote for a book panning Bloomberg's education record. "There is nothing that lies between the million families whose children attend our public schools and the system itself."

Deb is obviously one of those shower-ers.

Weekend Quotables

Fallout from the Ownership Society

In the bubble decade, making money as an end in itself boomed as a calling among students at elite universities like Harvard, siphoning off gifted undergraduates who might otherwise have been scientists, teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists or inventors. (NYT columnist Frank Rich)

Then again...

“Community organizing has become cool,” said Marshall Ganz, who dropped out of Harvard in 1964 to join the civil rights movement in Mississippi and spent 16 years with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Of course, a tough economy helps attract people to professions they might not have otherwise considered, as does a crusading time when Wall Street has become a symbol of greed, arrogance and irresponsibility. (NYT)

Afghanistan--the new quagmire

The danger for Mr. Obama is that a chorus of criticism could stir new public unease with the U.S.-led wars. A public backlash could be particularly problematic for Afghanistan. Mr. Obama's strategy envisions that the U.S. military could be engaged there for years to come... Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) said he fears Afghanistan could become a quagmire. "I just have this sinking feeling that we're getting deeper and deeper into a war that has no end," he said.

Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) dismissed Mr. Obama's plans as "embarrassingly naive," and suggested that the president is being led astray by those around him. "He's the smartest man in American politics today," Rep. Conyers said. "But he occasionally gets bad advice and makes mistakes. This is one of those instances." (Wall street Journal)