Podcasts about west garfield park

Crain's residential real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin talks with host Amy Guth about news from the local housing market, including the NAR taking a hit in a new survey, a West Garfield Park builder's vision for an ecosystem of improvement vision and more.Plus: Where consumers spent money as Chicago-area retail sales rose almost 5% last year, Blackstone facing $346 million foreclosure at River North office building, Gold Coast's distressed Ambassador Chicago hotel finds a rescuer and remote software firm Nerdio gets $1.2 billion valuation in $500 million equity round.

Dylan Sharkey, Assistant Editor at the Illinois Policy Institute, tells Shaun about Brandon Johnson's 'affordable housing' scheme with his friends in West Garfield Park and the $234M in taxes and fees he has proposed in the 2025 City of Chicago Budget.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brandon Johnson's budget woes, J6 Watchdog report, and drones flying all over America - it's definitely Friday the 13th! PLUS, Dylan Sharkey, Assistant Editor at the Illinois Policy Institute, tells Shaun about Brandon Johnson's 'affordable housing' scheme with his friends in West Garfield Park and the $234M in taxes and fees he has proposed in the 2025 City of Chicago Budget. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happy Thursday, y'all! Today come and learn about West Garfield Park once again. This episode originally aired January 10, 2022Send us a textSupport the showCheck out our weekly newsletter! Also, catch Dario on the new season of Netflix's "High On the Hog" here!!If you have anything you'd like us to talk about on the podcast, food or history, please email us at ⁠media@77flavorschi.com⁠ WATCH US ON YOUTUBE ⁠HERE⁠! Visit our website ⁠https://www.77flavorschi.com⁠ Follow us on IG: 77 Flavors of Chicago ⁠@77flavorschi⁠ Dario ⁠@i_be_snappin Sara @sarafaddah

Three years after it took over a handful of run-down Save A Lots on the South and West sides, grocery operator Yellow Banana has opened its first renovated store. Crain's retail reporter Ally Marotti talks about the West Garfield Park opening and the branding headwinds facing the company.Plus: White House picks Monroe Capital to develop $1 billion fund for auto suppliers, Caterpillar joins Ford and Lowe's in diversity rethink as backlash grows, private-equity firms see growing profitability in affordable housing, and Bulls and Blackhawks eliminating plastic bottles for upcoming seasons.

During the Democratic National Convention, some people repeated harmful narratives about crime, framing Chicago as a “combat zone.” Chicagoans don't deny that gun violence is a real issue, but exaggerations can be dehumanizing – and they often ignore the people who are most affected by gun violence, as well as the efforts of locals working to solve this issue. Reset learn more about local efforts to reduce gun violence with Rita Oceguera, reporter for The Trace, Cedric Hawkins, strategic initiatives manager at Chicago CRED, LaQuay Boone, deputy head of programs with Chicago CRED and Dwayne Hunter, outreach supervisor for West Garfield Park for the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago. For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.

Golden Voice Robin Miles and Moe Egan do fine work narrating Linda Gartz's revealing memoir of Chicago's West Garfield Park and the author's life, family, and experiences with race relations—especially during the 1960s. Host Jo Reed and AudioFile's Alan Minskoff discuss this story of family and policy. Egan voices the author and her timbre, tone, and style are just right. The supremely talented Miles narrates the many African American voices and does them very well. This is mostly a family story of striving German Americans who stay in Garfield Park despite urban blight, which is enabled by the federal redlining policies that were crafted to harm housing opportunities for Black Americans. Read the full review of the audiobook on AudioFile's website. Published by She Writes Press. Discover thousands of audiobook reviews and more at AudioFile's website. Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus and HarperCollins Christian Publishing, publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Reba McEntire, Zachary Levi, Kathie Lee Gifford, Max Lucado, Willie Nelson, and so many more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last Thursday, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced that the Roseland Mental Health Clinic will reopen after 35 years. The city will also add mental health services to a Chicago Department of Public Health clinic in Pilsen in August and inside the Legler Regional Library in West Garfield Park. The City Cast Chicago team breaks down how this announcement delivers on the mayor's campaign promises and some of the major challenges ahead. Plus we discuss a new initiative to increase remote work downtown and the Chicago Reader's return to weekly publishing.   Want some more City Cast Chicago news? Then make sure to sign up for our Hey Chicago newsletter.  Follow us @citycastchicago You can also text us or leave a voicemail at: 773 780-0246 Learn more about our sponsors: “Black Sunday” at TimeLine Theatre DCASE celebrates Millennium Park's 20th anniversary Become a member of City Cast Chicago. Interested in advertising with City Cast? Find more info HERE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Driver John Williams picked up a young woman in West Garfield Park — dubbed the Windy City's most violent neighborhood by the Chicago Sun-Times — on Sunday night, the video shows. His passenger appeared calm as she got into the backseat — before suddenly saying, “Go, go, go! He's going to shoot at the car.” --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/foundationkings/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/foundationkings/support

This year the city of Chicago is rolling out a violence-prevention strategy to bring resources and investment to four of its most crime-impacted neighborhoods: West Garfield Park, Little Village, Englewood and Austin. This comes after a drop in homicides and gun violence both locally and nationally in 2023. But Chicago did experience an unusual spike in robberies last year. Reset learns more about crime in Chicago and the steps being taken to reduce it by speaking with Chicago's deputy mayor of community safety Garien Gatewood and Kim Smith, the director of programs at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

Also in the news: Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has resigned; Reckless conduct trial starts today for father of accused Highland Park killer; A grocery pop-up will appear in West Garfield Park today and more.

Also in the news: Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has resigned; Reckless conduct trial starts today for father of accused Highland Park killer; A grocery pop-up will appear in West Garfield Park today and more.

Also in the news: Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa has resigned; Reckless conduct trial starts today for father of accused Highland Park killer; A grocery pop-up will appear in West Garfield Park today and more.

Curtis Lefebvre shares why he left New York for the Windy City to start investing in Real Estate! Curtis jumps right in by getting granular on acquiring and stabilizing his first househack in East Garfield Park. He discusses everything from dealing with problem tenants to DYI'ing renovations. He dives into the numbers of his killer househack which allows him to not only live for free, but also cash flow while living there! Curtis defines the borders of the neighborhood, and with Mark's input, talks about the differences between East and West Garfield Park. Curtis justifies betting big on East Garfield Park by sharing his bullish outlook on the neighborhood! If you enjoy today's episode, please leave us a review and share with someone who may also find value in this content! Connect with Mark and Tom: StraightUpChicagoInvestor.com Email the Show: StraightUpChicagoInvestor@gmail.com Guest: Curtis Lefebvre | E-mail Link: Brian Lindstrom (Lender Referral) Link: SUCI Ep 195 - Victoria Barkate Sponsors:  Build Your Team and NEGC Remodeling ----------------- Guest Questions 03:02 Housing Provider Tip: Processes to prevent loss of lock keys and codes! 04:21 Intro to our guest, Curtis Lefebvre! 07:03 How did Curtis decide on which Chicago neighborhoods to invest in? 11:48 Curtis' experience acquiring his first rental property in Chicago! 21:39 Dealing with problem tenants. 25:30 DYI'ing renovations on the first property! 32:39 Curtis' bullish outlook on East Garfield Park! 36:04 Borders of East Garfield Park and Going West of the Park! 39:03 What is Curtis' competitive advantage? 39:28 One piece of advice for new investors. 39:40 What do you do for fun? 40:13 Good book, podcast, or self-development activity that you would recommend? 40:36 Local Network Recommendation? 41:17 How can the listeners learn more about you and provide value to you? ----------------- Production House: Flint Stone Media Copyright of Straight Up Chicago Investor 2023.

0:00 - Dan & Amy take reaction to the surprise firing of... Don Lemon 13:41 - More reaction to yesterday's firings 34:05 - Dan & Amy discuss Kim Foxx' reelection plans, a potential landing spot for Lori Lightfoot and the fight for charges in West Garfield Park stolen car crash that killed a baby 50:30 - Biden announces he's running for reelection 01:05:18 - Christopher Whalen, investment banker, chairman of Whalen Global Advisors LLC and editor for The Institutional Risk Analyst, explains the Mortgage Rates by Credit Score federal rule and predicts The Bank Deposit Run Is Not Over. For more from Chris @rcwhalen 01:24:48 - President at Wirepoints, Ted Dabrowski, warns that "Mayor-elect Johnson's ‘silly' kids comments could embolden the criminal actions of Chicago teens". He also points to another frightening problem for Chicagoans: Empty Downtown Offices Get Ted's latest at wirepoints.org 01:39:24 - Dan & Amy respond to Justin Trudeau claiming he never forced anyone to get vaxed  01:56:13 - Kevin Dahlgren, homelessness and addiction expert based in Portland. He has worked in addiction outreach for thirty years: Why ‘harm reduction' is no match for fentanyl. Kevin was recently providing outreach in Chicago & Evanston and will return soonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reset sits down with Eric Davis and Frank Brim leaders of the BASE Chicago, an organization based in West Garfield Park that provides a range of programming for urban youth from baseball and softball training, to violence prevention and even college readiness.

Sankofa Wellness Village will receive $10 million from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation. Reset revisits its conversation with prizewinners Theodore Joseph, Ayesha Jaco and Kemena Brooks about their plans to improve West Garfield Park.

 Bios:Ernest Gray Jr. is the pastor of Keystone Baptist Church located in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.  He is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Pastoral Ministries, and a graduate of Wheaton College with a Master's Degree in Biblical Exegesis.  He completed his PhD coursework at McMaster Divinity College and is currently completing his thesis within the corpus of 1 Peter. Mr. Gray has taught in undergraduate school of Moody in the areas of Hermeneutics, first year Greek Grammar, General Epistles, the Gospel of John and Senior Seminar. It is Mr. Gray's hope to impact the African American church  through scholarship. Teaching has been one way that God has blessed him to live this out.  Ernest is also co-host of the newly released podcast Just Gospel with an emphasis upon reading today's social and racial injustices through a gospel lens. www.moodyradio.org    Jen Oyama Murphy  "My love of good stories led me to Yale University where I received a BA in English. Upon graduation, I felt called to bring individual stories into relationship with the Gospel Story, and I have worked in the areas of campus and church ministry, lay counseling, and pastoral care since 1989. Over the years, I sought a variety of ongoing education and training in the fields of psychology and theology, including graduate classes at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and Benedictine University. I also completed the Training Certificate and Externship programs at The Allender Center, and I previously held roles on their Training and Pastoral Care Team, as Manager of Leadership Development, and most recently as the Senior Director of The Allender Center. Believing that healing and growth happens in the context of relationship, I work collaboratively to create a safe coaching space of curiosity and kindness where honesty, care, desire, and imagination can grow. Using my experience and expertise in a trauma-informed, narrative-focused approach, I seek to help people live the story they were most meant for and heal from the ones they were not. I am passionate about personal support and development, particularly for leaders in nonprofit or ministry settings, including lay leaders who may not have a formal title or position. I'm especially committed to engaging the personal and collective stories of those who have felt invisible, marginalized, and oppressed. I love facilitating groups as well as working individually with people. I currently live in Chicago with my husband, and we have two adult daughters.Rebecca Wheeler Walston lives in Virginia, has completed  Law School at UCLA, holds a Master's in Marriage and Family Counseling, is also a licensed minister. Specializing in advising non-profits and small businesses. Specialties: providing the legal underpinning for start-up nonprofits and small businesses, advising nonprofit boards, 501c3 compliance, creating and reviewing business contracts.TJ PoonDr. Ernest Gray (00:41:40):Absolutely. Absolutely. There will be stories told in the next five, no, two or three years now about, this is the fascinating thing I'm trying to wrap my mind around is that it is this, I need to do a more research upon the Ukrainian Russian thing wherein you have, um, my ignorance, you have an apparent Eastern European, you have, uh, you know, have an eastern European kind of, this isn't anything about pigment autocracy, but culturally, I'm op I'm opposed to you because you have Russian descent, and I'm a Ukrainian descent. So upon the, upon the outside, it's not anything that has to do with the, with the merits of, of, of, uh, racial, racial, a racialized racialization. It has more to do with the cultural, um, ethnicity kind of, um, indicatives that create this hostility between the two. And to hear the atrocities that are ongoing right now against, you know, each o against the, the Ukrainian Russian conflict, right now, we're gonna hear about those things and, and, and hear just how egregious they are or whether it's the, um, the tusks and the Hutus in the Rwandan conflict, or whether it's the Bosnians versus the, um, the Serbians. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of that. There's, we, we find that these things occur, um, and that, and that it's, it's all because of these notions of superiority and, and tools of the enemy in order to, to, to divide and conquer. Um, and then coupled with power create, you know, devastating effects. I, I I, I, I think that there's a, um, there's a, there's a, the, the collectivist idea of seeing us all in the same boat with various facets is something that we need to strive. It's not easy to always to do. Um, but it's gotta happen. If we're going to create a, a better human, if we're not creative, if the Lord is gonna work in a way to, to help us, uh, move toward a better humanity, one that is at least honoring may not happen in our lifetime, may not happen until we see the Lord face to face. But at the same time, that's the work that we're, I'm called to is to be, uh, or, you know, to, to be the embodiment of some type of re repa posture, um, modeling for others what it could look like. Danielle (00:44:19):Sure. Yeah. Um, Rebecca and I put this in here, Hurt versus harm. Um, hurt being, and, and again, these, these are definitions coming from us, so I recognize that other people may have a different view and we can talk about that. Um, hurt being in, in, when Rebecca and I were talking about it inevitable in any relationship may cause painful feelings and hurt someone's feelings. Um, harm violating a person's dignity, and it takes energy non consensually from someone So how do individual hurts add to or cement structural power structures and our perspective and experience of harm? How do individual hurts add to or cement structural power structures and our perspective and experience of, of them? Dr. Ernest Gray (00:45:31):Yeah. Um, it's cuz you've got muscle memory hurt, um, over and over and over and over and over of sorts provides a muscle memory, a knee jerk, a kind of , Oh, this is familiar, here we go again. Ow. So I think that's one way, I'll, I'll step back now, but I think that, that it's the body that maintains a powerful memory of the feeling and it feels, and it's gonna be a familiar kind of triggering slash re-injury that until it's interrupted, can create, can see this as, um, broadly speaking, a a, a more, um, yeah, a reoccurring thing that is, that needs to be interrupted. TJ Poon(00:46:27):I'm really mindful of this in my relationships because there's a lot of horror from white people, from white women towards different communities. And so, like in my relationships, you, there's a, there's a mindfulness of like, maybe we have a disruption and at the level of me and this other person, it is a hurt, but it, it reinforces a harm that they've experienced or it feels like, um, feels similar to. And so it's not like we, I it's not like we opt, we can opt out. Like it can't opt out of that collective narrative. I can't say, Oh, well I'm just, you know, this one person. Um, so I, I think that is complex because the individual hurts do contribute. They feel like what Dr. Gray was saying, like it is muscle memory. It's some sometimes where something can feel or just reinforce, I guess, um, what has already happened to us in contexts. Jen Oyama Murphy (00:47:36):I mean, I think the complexity of the relationship between hurt and harm, um, contributes to how hard it can be to actually have meaningful repair. Because I, my experience sometimes, and I, I know I do this myself, that I will lean into the hurt and apologize or try to do repair on a personal one to one level and somehow feel like if I do that, it will also, it also repairs the harm. And that doesn't, that's, that's not true. I mean, it can perhaps contribute to a restorative process or a repair process around the harm, but Right. Just me, um, in charge of a small group repairing for a particular hurt that may have happened in the small group doesn't necessarily address the structure, the system that put that small group together, the content that's being taught, you know, the, the opportunity for those participants to even be in the program, Right. That there is something that's happening at a, at a harm level, um, that my personal apology for something that I did that hurt someone in the group isn't actually addressing. But we can hope that it does or act like it does or even have the expectation, um, that it will. And so the, I love the new, the nuance or the, the clarity between the two definitions that you guys are, um, asking us to wrestle with. I think that's, that's good's making me think just for myself. Like where do I go first, you know, out of my own, um, training or naivete or just like wishful thing, thinking that, that I can't repair systemic harm by apologizing or repairing like a personal hurt. Danielle (00:49:36):Um, I mean, Jen, I've been wrestling with that and, and when I, when I, in my experience, when someone apologizes to me, and I know they're apologizing for personal hurt, but I feel like they haven't said in, in, in a way I can understand often I'm not understanding how do I actually get out of this so we're not pitted against each other again. Mm-hmm. , when I feel trapped in that space and I receive an apology, I often, I, I feel more angry even at, even if I know the person sincerely apologizing, if I'm telling a more true story to you all as a Latinx person, and I've noticed this in my family, I receive the apology, and yet when I have to continue to function in the system, I am more angry afterwards. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , there's a frustration that happens, which then of course is bottled down and it, I often talk to my clients about this, but I was talking to my husband about it. It's like we threw all this stuff in the pressure cooker cuz we do a lot of pressure cooking and put a plastic lid on it. And now the s h I t spread sideways. And that's kind of how it feels when we, now I'm not saying we can do this perfectly or I even know how to do it, but when we address hurt, that's part of systemic harm without addressing the system. I think in my experience, it feels like I'm feeling my own pressure cooker mm-hmm. and I'm not able to contain the spray at different times. Mm-hmm. . Dr. Ernest Gray (00:51:20):Yeah. I think I think about for, I think about for me, the, my, my the, you know, systemizing, systematizing the way in which I associate things, what the right environment, the way in which my, you know, my senses have associated things. I'll have dejavu because I had a certain smell from my childhood and it'll, it could be triggering, right? I smell something and I'm like, Oh man, that reminds me of this moment. All that categorization to me tells me how my brain functions and how mm-hmm. associative. Mm-hmm. , it is for instances, smells, places, um, things that occur. And it's, it's the, it's the ongoing sense of that, especially if we've come out of, um, houses or, um, families where this was it, it was normative for us to experience these things on a regular basis so that any, any hint of it elsewhere outside of that, outside of the confines of that can reignite that same kind of shallow breathing and response. And I don't wanna, um, but, but definitely the advancing of hurt versus harm. It, it, it, the harm the those in whatever that instance is that creates, that, that response outta me lets me know that more that it is, it was the ongoing nature of those things which created the harm. Um, and so it almost asks, I it's first acknowledgement and then secondly saying, What do I need to do to take care of myself in this instance? Where do I need to go? What do I need to give myself in this moment so that I'm not going down this road of, here we go again. I'm in a corner . I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna kind of check out. But, um, I think about the west side of Chicago where I'm ministering, um, and I'm thinking about, you know, just this community that it doesn't really affect them. It, it really doesn't to hear gunshots, to hear, um, to hear, uh, sirens and things like that. These are everyday occurrence so that the, so that the, so that the ongoing nature of what they're used to just has evolved into this kind of numbing sense. But I, but I guess in going back, it is interrupting that, that delicate, um, sequence of events so that it does not cause me to shut down in that moment that I've, that I'm still learning how to do for myself. Right. And I think that in our interpersonal relationships, especially, here's where it meets the road, is in our interpersonal, or even our most intimate relationships, the ongoing hurt and does eventually, uh, you know, cross the line into harm because it has taken away the energy out of that, out of the other person, uh, or or out of us. Um, after such a long time after repeated, repeated instances. Rebecca W. Walston (00:54:31):I, I think what I think I'm hearing everybody alludes this sense of like, can there be an awareness of, of the, where the interpersonal and the individual kind of collides with the collective and the systemic, right? And, and just a more complex understanding of how any incident, however big or small the rupture is. Where is the interplay of those two things? So, so that a comment between two people can actually have this impact that's far more and reverberates with the kind of generational familiarity that that all of a sudden, it, it, it, it, um, we're, we're out of the category. My feelings are hurt and into this space of it feels like something of in me has been violated. Um, and I think it takes a, an enormous amount of energy and awareness on the part of both people, both the person who perpetrated something and the person who was on the receiving end of that, to have a sense of like where they are and where they are and where the other person is to kind of know that and build all to hold it, um, with some integrity. There was a point in which we brought a group of people, uh, to, to view the equal justice initiative, um, landmarks in Montgomery, Alabama, and the conversation and a processing conversation between a white woman and a black woman. And, you know, after having come from the, the National Memorial and Peace and Justice and witnessing the history of lynching, understandably, this black woman was deeply angry, like profoundly angry, um, and trying to manage in the moment what that anger was and, and, and turned to the white participant and said like, I, like I'm really angry at you. Like, I kind of hate you right now. Mm-hmm. , um, two people who are virtually strangers. Right. And, and, and, and for the white woman to have said to her a sense of like, um, I get it. I got it. I'm, I'm white and I'm a woman.And there's a sense in which historically white women called this particular place in the lynching of black bodies mm-hmm. . Um, and also can, can I be in this room in the particularity of my individual story and know that I personally, Right. Um, don't, don't agree with that, stand against it, have not participated actively in it. Kind of a sense of like, you know, and it may have been an imperfect or, or generous engagement, but you can hear the tension of like, how can we both be in this room and hold the collective historical nature of this? And the particularity of the two individuals in the room together hadn't actually been the active participant interrupter. So Yeah. I think it's hard and messy. Danielle (00:57:51):I, I love what, uh, Rebecca wrote. There was, you know, been talking to me about do we imagine Shalom as a return to where we started? Cause the very nature of the disrupt disruption being we cannot return from Eden to the city of God. Um, and Rebecca, I'll let you elaborate on that a little bit more, but when we were talking Rebecca and I, you know, as a mixed race woman, and in those mixes, you know, is indigenous and Spanish and African, and, you know, just this mix, I'm like, where would I return to? Right? Mm-hmm. , what community does a Latinx person returned to? If, if it's a return to Eden, where is, is Eden lost? And so, um, yeah, Rebecca, I don't know if you wanna expand on what you were thinking. Rebecca W. Walston (00:58:43):Uh, I mean, I I've just been wrestling with this in particular, you know, we talk about individual hurt. It's easy to talk about like the disruption that happened in Eden, that what God meant for me individually, what you know, is reflected in the Garden of Eden. The kind of peace and the kind of generosity and the kind of, um, uh, just more that, that is in the Garden of Eden. And, but when I, when I try and so, so there's a depend in which I can step into this work and have this individual sense of like, Oh, you know, I wasn't meant for the fracture and my relationship between myself and my parents, Right? I was meant for something that was more whole than that. So how do I, how do I have a sense of what that was like in Eden, and how do I have a sense of going back to that kind of, that kind of space? But when I translate that into like collective work around racial trauma, I get lost like Danielle, right? In this, this sense that like, um, in, in her book, Born On the Water, um, the author sort of makes this argument that though these African people got on the ship at the beginning in Africa, while they made the journey across the Atlantic and before they landed in the United States, something happened on the water. And there's something in that hyphenated existence that created a new people group in, in a way that like, I can't actually go back to Africa. I like, I can't, I mean, I will go there and for half a second somebody might mistaken me for a, a colored person, right? And if you're inside Africa, that means I'm not fully African. I'm not fully white, I'm somewhere in the middle. But the second I open my mouth, they, they know I'm not African. I'm something else, right? And there's a sense in which I can't actually go back to Eden. There, there's something that happened in the rupture and the displacement that actually makes it impossible for me to return for that, right? And, and I still have that sense of being displaced in the hyphenated existence in the US that makes me, in some ways not fully American either. So what, what is the answer to that? And as I started to wrestle with that theologically, you know, I'm looking at the text going, actually, the, the journey for the Christian is not back to Eden . Like the end game is not back to Genesis, it's to revelation in the city of God. And so that's my sense of this comment is like, do do I pivot and start to imagine repair as not a return to Eden, but onto something else? And, and, and, um, you know, then I begin to suspect that, uh, that, that there's something even in the journey of, of that, that that is a far more value to me that I would want more than just the return to Eden. There's something sweeter having made it onto the city of God. So this is my wonderings. Curious how, how that hits for any of you. Dr. Ernest Gray (01:02:09):I think the, I think you're spot on. And I guess I, I guess it's a maturity mark that says that this continuum, this, this, um, I think you get to a certain and you just realize you never really arrive. And I think this fits within that same conceptual framework of like, you know, hey , you know, you, you could reach the pinnacle of your career. And, um, and yet, you know, it's still not be ultimately satisfying because it's like, is that it? You know, I think I'm on top of the mountain and I, and I guess that's the, that's inherent of human, of human of humanness for me is that I'm, I'm, I'm resigned to thinking about completion and absolute perfection. I'll be perfected when I meet Jesus. They'll be the more work for me to do or work in me to be done. But in the meantime, um, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be striving, blowing it, striving, um, gaining some, you know, gaining some, um, some skills and learning how to navigate better life and figuring out what works and doesn't work any, uh, as I go, as I age, as I, and hopefully in growing wisdom. Um, but I, I like this idea because there's a sense of, of jettisoning your experiences as though they're irrelevant. No, they're what brought me to this place and they're what's propelling me forward. Um, there's this sense of I might as well give them a hug and bring them with me on the journey, uh, because then they create a sense of meaning and value for me and for those of, uh, you know, for me, uh, as I'm, as I'm making my progress through, through life. So, so, so, um, that to me shows marks of, uh, a sense of maturity and, you know, some restore some restoration. I think, you know, and, and again, it comes down to like this sense of like, you know, the things that have value for us are can, can be worn. You know, Like, my son's got a got, you know, a favorite stuffed animal that is horrible. I wanna wash it every time I see it. You know, it's just like, we get rid of this thing. No, it's just, there's something about this particular stuffed animal that I just cannot part ways with. And so that's, that's kind of how we don't wanna get rid of our vinky or you know, our blanky, whatever it is. We got . Cause we love itself. , TJ Poon (01:04:53):I was really moved when I read this slide and listened to Rebecca and Danielle talking, I think, um, so I named my daughter Eden. And, you know, the, the meaning of pleasure, delight, just that, that the nature of what we were meant for. And in the end, we find it in the city full of people that look like us and not like us. And the image of that is represented there. And just kind of that shifting from like, our delight is found in this garden where it's just as in God, um, to our delight is in this city and, you know, the lamb of God is their light. All these different images that are really powerful and revolution, I think about that. Like that, that has meaningful too. Uh, just a shifting, um, where is our, where is our pleasure? Where is our delight? How do we come to experience that shaone? And who are the people that we experience that through? Dr. Ernest Gray (01:05:53):That's huge. And I, and I, yeah, and I, it's those people that are really part of that, you know, that space for us, that that really kind of helps us to, you know, experience the full, the sum, the full sum of what shalom means for us. I think that that's really important for us to really, for me especially to, to not shy away from that because I, I I, I, my ma my natural inclination would be to just be very isolated and monastic as opposed to engaged in community . But it's experienced in community and it's experienced together, and it's experienced with other shattered people too. Right. Um, and that to me is where I draw strength and energy and, um, you know, peace from as well. So, thank you, tj. I think yours mm-hmm. , I like what you share there. Danielle (01:06:57):I, I guess I would add like, to that, like, I think so much of my experience is being like in this very moment when I feel joy or maybe shalom or a sense of heaven, even in the moment, because unaware of what, I'm always not aware of what will come next. I don't know. Um, yeah. So just the feeling of heaven is in this moment too, with, you know, in the moment that I get to sit with the four of you, this is a piece of heaven for me, a reflection of hope and healing. Although we haven't even explored the ways we might have, you know, rubbed each other the wrong way. I have a sense that we could do that. And in that sense, that feels like heaven to me in spaces where there could, there are conflict. I'm not saying there isn't just a, just, I think in my own culture, the, that's why Sundays feel so good to me. For instance, when I'm with a couple of other families and we're eating and talking and laughing and, you know, the older kids are playing with the younger kids, like, to me, that feels, oh, that feels good. And, and if, if that was the last thing I felt, I would, that would feel like heaven to me. So I, I think there's also that, I'm not saying we're not going to the city of God, but there's just these momentary times when I feel very close to what I think it, it might mean. Mm-hmm. , Rebecca W. Walston (01:08:41):I, I do think, Danielle, I mean, I resonate with what you're saying. I think, I think the text is very clear that there are these moments, um, along the way. Right? I think that's that sense of, yay, do I walk through the valley of the shadow, Right? I, I will be with you. I, I think like wherever you are in the process, along the journey, the moments where you have a sense of, um, I am with you always. Right? And however that shows up for you in a faith, in a person, in a smile and an expression, in deed, whatever, however that shows up, it definitely, like, if I, I do have a sense of like, things we pick up along the way and, and a sense of final destination all being a part of the, the, the healing, the, like, the journey of repair. Um, and, and I start to think about, um, You know, the story of Joseph is a very significant one to me, has very reflected my own story, and then, then will know what that reference means, um, to me in particular by, you know, the, the sense in, in Joseph of like, what sad to meant for evil, God meant for good, right? And the sense of him naming his two sons, Manas and Efram, and one of them, meaning God has caused me to forget the toilet of my father's house. Um, and God has caused me to prosper in the land of my infliction is the meaning of the other son. And so I do think that there's, there's something in the text even that, that is about the journey and the destination being sweeter and holding something more, um, that than had our, our soul existence only been in Eden, Right? I mean, and, and that isn't to say like, I don't wish for that, you know what I mean? Or that I wouldn't love to be there, but, but I, but I mean like, leave it only to God to, to assert this idea that like, um, all of the rupture holds something more, um, that than life without any, without there ever being any sense of rupture. Right? And I think we're in the category of like, the mysteries of God by I, I think. I think so I think there's, there's such value in the journey in the valleys and what we pick up there about ourselves and God and people in it with us. Um, you know, Yeah. Like that, that feels aspirational to me and also feels true in some senses. You're muted, Ernest. I can't, can't hear you. So I said Dr. Ernest Gray (01:11:33):I was low, I was very low when I said that resonates. I, um, I was thinking about, um, you know, for me in the last few years, you know, Covid has done a, has done an, an immeasurable service in many ways. It has been incredibly harmful for a lot of us, but it's been a, it's done an immeasurable service at the same time, um, to reorient us. Um, for me it is increased my, depend my creaturely dependence on God in a way that here to four I would not have been focused upon. Right? I, you know, I spent 12, 13 years in the, in, in the classroom as a professor teaching, uh, on autopilot, um, from God's word, from, um, and teaching students how to study and think and what, what these words in the Bible say and what they could potentially mean, um, to the best of my ability. But that was autopilot stuff. And I felt insulated, if you will. But, but the repair and the why of the repair, why it's important, why, why the, um, the rupture is necessary, and we can call I, I, I would call covid and the time prior to, and subsequent to be very rupturing, I, I would call it as necessary, because it helped me to see my why and why dependence upon God had it be reframed, refocused, re you know, recalibrated so that I could not, so I could get out of a sense of, um, oh, my training prepared me for this to know my, you know, what I am and who I, what my journey has been, did not prepare me for this, and all the attendant features that have come as a result, the relationships that are broken and realizing that they were jacked up from a long , they were jacked up. I just couldn't see them during all those years. Um, but these remind me of the need for God to be embodied, uh, in my life in a way that, um, I had been maybe not as present with. And I think that that's part of the reason why, um, this is my re my why for repair, is that it creates a better, more relational dynamic between me and God that had I not gone through some rupturing event, I would not have appreciated the value of where I'm at with him now. More than that. I think one other thing is that I think that there's a sense too that there's a, um, there's a heightened awareness of all these other aspects that are coming, that are coming about. My eyes are now not as with, you know, blinders on. Now I can look around and say, Wow, this is a really jacked up place. Where can I help to affect some change? Where could I, you know, where can I put my stubborn ounces? Where can I place you know, who I am and what God has put in me, um, in the way so that I can, um, be a part so that I can help, you know, groups that are hurting, people that are hurting communities that are struggling, Um, and the, like, Jen Oyama Murphy (01:15:19):I'm trying to work this out. So I'm just working it out out loud for you all. But, um, I think kind of pi backing off of Rebecca, your, um, juxtaposition between Eden and City of God, and like, why for repair? I think for me, it's the invitation to both humility and hope. And, and for me, humility, um, often in my story and experience has led to what I felt like was humiliation, right? And the way that I learned culturally to avoid that was, um, to not need to repair, to do everything perfectly. To do everything well, to always get the a plus, you know, to, to not make a mistake where I would need to repair. But there's a desperation and hopelessness that comes with that kind of demand or pressure where, um, it's, it is dirty and painful, and it doesn't have that sense of like, Oh, there can be something of the goodness of God that can restore these parts that are dying or dead back to the land of the living. And, um, I think that the idea of that we're move, it's not binary. I'm not completely broken, and I'm not totally healed, and that there can be, um, hope and humility in making that journey. And if I'm able to make that journey with all kinds of different people, um, how much richer and deeper and broader that experience, that growing of humility, I think that can lead to growth and restoration and learning and healing. That just feeds into the hope, right? The hope that yes, I, I will reach the kingdom of God at the end, and there will be kind of the way that what we'll all be who we were meant to be. And there will be such goodness there, all that will continue to grow. Um, if I can stay kind of on that journey and not feel like, um, not give into the poll to be at one place or the other, you know, where I'm either totally broken and there's no hope or completely healed and there's no humility Dr. Ernest Gray (01:17:54):Sounds like a dash to me, a hyphen space, very much so that that hyphen space does so much, it preaches a better word, really does. Then the opposite ends of those two, those two realities are consum, consum, you know, conclusionary kind of places you wanna be. It's the hyphen that where we, where we ought to be. Rebecca W. Walston (01:18:25):Did you, is that word hyphen intentional? I Dr. Ernest Gray (01:18:31):Think so. I think so. It's the interim, well, we call hyphen the interim, you can call it all of that good stuff. Um, I, I think it's because, you know, whether, you know, whenever we, wherever we frequent a cemetery, we always think about how stoic it is to see the name and the date of birth and the date of death. And that hyphen is, that's what preaches the better word, is the hyphen in between what this person and how they went about their, their lives with their, their ups and downs, their navigation through the world for people like, um, people, for people who have been on the receiving end of, um, of trauma pain, um, and racialized, um, uh, this ambi or dis disor dis dis dis disorientation or trauma , we, we realize that they have a lot more weight to bear and that their experiences were far more complex. Um, and so this makes their stories even more winsome and more intriguing for us to learn and know about because we're, we're in relationship with them. Um, but the hyphen is the best place to be. And I find that in many ways, um, that is where real life occurs, and that's where I'm at right now. Um, as, as, as a matter of fact, Rebecca W. Walston (01:19:59):I, I mean, I've, I've heard that it has a very black sermon right there about the hyphen and the dash, right? But it hit me in particular because Danielle knows I often introduced myself as African hyphen American. So that your, that word hyphen hit me in that, in that context. Right. And as I was listening to Jen talk about humility and hope and how she, what she learned of how to settle into that space in her Japanese nest or her Japanese Hy American, I just, it just hit me, it hit me about the hyphenated racialized experience in the US and what you might be suggesting consciously or subconsciously Right. About that being a good place to be. Danielle (01:20:50):Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jen, when you were talking, I was like, wanting to cry. I can still feel the tears. And I was just like, I felt the literal pull, I think at both end of that spectrum, when you talked through them for yourself, I was like, Oh, yeah, that's where I'm, Oh, wait a minute. Then you described the other end, and I was like, Oh, that's where I am . And I was, I think I was like, I was like, Oh, to sit in that, that interim space, you know, the hyphen space, sometimes I have felt like that space would kill me. Mm-hmm. the shame of not knowing how to be one or the other. Mm. Or to try to hold, or to try to explain to someone, you know, I, I think, what is your wife or repair, Why wouldn't I repair? I think of my own, you know, body. And, and, and when Rebecca's talked about not earnest, and, and you, I, I think like I have to be doing that internal work. I mean, because, you know, as you know, if you live in the body of the oppressor and the impressed , how do you make, how do, how do what repair has to be happening? It it, it's, it's happening. And, and if I'm fearful and wonderfully made, then God didn't make me like this on a mistake. It wasn't like, Oh, crap, that's how she came out. Let me see if I can fix it. Hmm. Um, indeed. So those are the things I was thinking as you were talking, Jen. Hmm. Rebecca W. Walston (01:22:47):I, I think Danielle, you're, you're in that sense on the slide of like, any version of repair must work towards the salvation and their redemption of the oppress, the oppress onlooker. Right. And that there has to be, we, we have to have a sense of categories for all of those things. Dr. Ernest Gray (01:23:10):And the work by each, I wonder, which, you know, I'm always trying to determine which one is gonna be the easier to repair, which, which person are you, the pressor or onlooker? And we would just assume that the onlooker would have the least amount of, but they might actually bear the biggest burden is because they're gonna have to deal with assumptions and biases that they have accumulated that are entrenched and that they don't wanna deal with and come to terms with. That's why it's easier to simply, you know, just lull their response or, or stay silent as the, as the notion below here says it's, it's easier to stay silent, to be, you know, resign, say it's not my issue than it is to get in and, and, and to really unearth whether or not this is actually something in internally that they're wrestling with that's far more scary to do. Um, and the majority of people might have some, this is a generalization, but it seems to me like the majority of people don't wanna really, really do that work, Danielle (01:24:19):Um, because all of us have been onlookers to one another's ethnic pain, whether we like it or not. I know I have absolutely. I've been an onlooker mm-hmm. , Yep. Mm-hmm. . Yep. And, and just, and then that's where you have where to step in is just like, Oh, that does not feel good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. try to own that. My part in that, Dr. Ernest Gray (01:24:45):Ladies, it's almost a sense of a little bit of a reunion that I've had with you this afternoon, but I do need to go and pick up my two boys. And so for this part, I'm gonna need to jump off of the, um, of this, of this great time together, and hopefully I'll be invited back again so that my, um, so that we can, we can continue the conversation. Danielle (01:25:37):I will. Did you all have any final thoughts? TJ Poon (01:25:44):I've been noodling something since the very first slide, which is just like this distinction. I don't know if it's a useful one between disruption and rupture And how like rupture needs to be repaired, but a lot of times repair can't happen without sub disruption. And, you know, that first slide talks about how we kind of pathologized or like said negative anything that has to do with rupture, but you can't, like, you literally can't, um, repair without disrupting the systems. And I think in white imagination, those things are often made equivalent. Like anything that's disruptive is rupturing uncomfortable. Like, I need, I, I need to fix it as fast as possible. Um, versus no, actually this disruption is an invitation to something different. It's a disruption that actually will lead to an authentic repair or real repair as opposed to like, what calls dirty pain, like silence avoidance. Um, so I've just been thinking about those two different words and what they can mean. Mm-hmm. , Rebecca W. Walston (01:27:07):I like that distinction a lot. It, it feels almost like trying to get at like harm versus hurts, right? And, and try to have a sense of like, um, you know, are we always in the category of this is bad and awful and it needs to see immediately, Right. Or are there places where actually good and we need to let it play it itself out, So, yeah. Jen Oyama Murphy (01:27:35):Mm-hmm. Well, I think that also connects maybe fun too to Rebecca. You are, um, differentiating between like the demand to return to Eden or the like blessing of being on the journey to the city of God. Cause if the demand is to return to Eden, then anything disruptive is gonna feel, not like Eden, Right? But if, if it is about growing and learning and healing and developing on the road to the city of God, then disruption is part of that process, then it's something that may be hard, um, but it's necessary and hopeful or has the potential to be that. Rebecca W. Walston (01:28:22):Yeah. It, it does pivot something for me pretty significantly to be, to be talking about like the, my destination isn't actually Danielle (01:28:40):New ladies are really smart. can bottle all that up. I like that. TJ Poon (01:28:53):I mean, Jen, when you were like, I'm just working this out. And then you said something super deep and profound. I think what I was, what I was struck about what you said was like, um, just the demand to not ever need to repair like that internal pressure demand. And that's, that's how I feel all the time. Like, just, just be perfect and then you all need to repair mm-hmm. . Um, and just what, uh, yeah, just what a demand. What a, a burden. I don't, I don't know all the words, but like, it, it's dehumanizing cuz what it means to be human on this earth is to have disrupt, is to repair. Like you are going need to because we're all, we're all humans. And so there, when you said that, I was like, Oh, that's so important. Danielle (01:31:07):Because everything feels so lost. But I hope that this will be an encouragement to people about a conversation. Hopefully it'll feel like they can access something in themselves where.  

One community-based project will get $10 million from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation for the best plan to improve the lives of residents on the South or West Side of Chicago through economic development projects. Reset speaks with Theodore Joseph of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative; Ayesha Jaco with West Side United; and Kemena Brooks with Community Builders, to learn about their Chicago Prize submission to create a safer and healthier community in West Garfield Park.

Bios:Ernest Gray Jr. is the pastor of Keystone Baptist Church located in the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago.  He is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute with a degree in Pastoral Ministries, and a graduate of Wheaton College with a Master's Degree in Biblical Exegesis.  He completed his PhD coursework at McMaster Divinity College and is currently completing his thesis within the corpus of 1 Peter. Mr. Gray has taught in undergraduate school of Moody in the areas of Hermeneutics, first year Greek Grammar, General Epistles, the Gospel of John and Senior Seminar. It is Mr. Gray's hope to impact the African American church  through scholarship. Teaching has been one way that God has blessed him to live this out.  Ernest is also co-host of the newly released podcast Just Gospel with an emphasis upon reading today's social and racial injustices through a gospel lens. www.moodyradio.org    Jen Oyama Murphy  "My love of good stories led me to Yale University where I received a BA in English. Upon graduation, I felt called to bring individual stories into relationship with the Gospel Story, and I have worked in the areas of campus and church ministry, lay counseling, and pastoral care since 1989. Over the years, I sought a variety of ongoing education and training in the fields of psychology and theology, including graduate classes at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology and Benedictine University. I also completed the Training Certificate and Externship programs at The Allender Center, and I previously held roles on their Training and Pastoral Care Team, as Manager of Leadership Development, and most recently as the Senior Director of The Allender Center. Believing that healing and growth happens in the context of relationship, I work collaboratively to create a safe coaching space of curiosity and kindness where honesty, care, desire, and imagination can grow. Using my experience and expertise in a trauma-informed, narrative-focused approach, I seek to help people live the story they were most meant for and heal from the ones they were not. I am passionate about personal support and development, particularly for leaders in nonprofit or ministry settings, including lay leaders who may not have a formal title or position. I'm especially committed to engaging the personal and collective stories of those who have felt invisible, marginalized, and oppressed. I love facilitating groups as well as working individually with people. I currently live in Chicago with my husband, and we have two adult daughters.Rebecca Wheeler Walston lives in Virginia, has completed  Law School at UCLA, holds a Master's in Marriage and Family Counseling, is also a licensed minister. Specializing in advising non-profits and small businesses. Specialties: providing the legal underpinning for start-up nonprofits and small businesses, advising nonprofit boards, 501c3 compliance, creating and reviewing business contracts.TJ Poon serves with Epic Movement, where we both serve on the People & Culture Team (HR). TJ is the Director ofPeople & Culture and and also serves on Epic's leadership team to provide her leadership, wisdom, vision and direction for the ministry.Danielle:SO on screen and feel free to add to your introductions. Uh, Ernest, um, Dr. Gray is someone I'm met Yeah. Um, on screen during one of our cohort, um, virtual weekends and just listening to him talk, I think he was in the Caribbean when he was giving us the lecture mm-hmm. and talking about theology, and I was frantically taking notes and eventually resorted to screen shooting, like snapping pictures of the screen as he was talking. Uh, and then like quickly texting some friends and my husband to say, Hey, I was learning this that. And so that was kinda my introduction to Dr. Gray. And then we of course had a chance to meet in Montgomery. Um, yes, my respect just, uh, grew for you at that point. Um, the ability for you to be honest and be in your place of location Absolutely. And show up and show up to present, it felt like a theology that had life, and that feels different to me. So, um, thank  Dr. Ernest Gray:Thank You for that.  Thank you for that. No, I'm, it's a pleasure to join you all. I, I see some familiar faces and I'm excited to be with you all, and, um, yeah, I'm, um, yeah, I'm, I'm thankful that you thought me, um, thought my voice would be, uh, would be relevant for this conversation. So I'm, I'm grateful to be here and, um, yeah, I'm, I'm here to, um, to both participate and to, um, to learn as much as I can in this moment, so thank you.  Danielle:Mm. You're welcome. Um, and then there's Rebecca Wheeler Walton who is the boss, and she's both smart and witty and funny and kind and extremely truthful in the most loving ways, and so have highest regard for her. Back when I answered the phone, Luis would be like, Is that Rebecca  Yeah. Um, yeah, and tj, uh, TJ had gotten to know TJ over the last year and, um, you know, she's kind of introduced as like an admin person, but I've quickly learned that she, her heart and her wisdom are her strongest attributes and her ability just hang in the room in a tough conversation, um, has, I've just had an immense respect and hope for, for the future by, in getting to know ut j mm-hmm. touching. Yeah. And then at the top, y'all on my screen is Jen Oyama Murphy. She was my first facilitator at The Allender Center. Um, and she showed up in her body and her culture, and I was like, Man, that is freaking awesome. Um, and I wanna, I wanna do what she's doing with other people in this world. Um, Jen loved me and has loved me, and I don't think it can be overstated how wise and patient she is. Um, and just like when I say the word intuition, I mean it in a sense of like, deep wisdom. And, and that's, that's like, I keep searching. Like I wanna have access to that me. So, so thank you, Jen. Yeah.  Jen Oyama Murphy :Hmm. Gosh. Thank you, Danielle. Thanks. Well, I'm, I feel very privileged to be a part of the conversation, so thanks for inviting me.  Danielle:Yeah. So, I mean, I, Ernest you probably didn't get a chance to watch this clip, but it's this clip we're not gonna show. We talked about it. It's about, um, it's the border and there's like a three minute time, um, like timer for people to cross the border and hug each other and interact with one, one another on the southern border. And so there's like a tiny clip of this here. And, um, it's Latinx Heritage Month, and it felt really important to me to have a diverse conversation around repair, because Latin X is, um, Asian, it's black, white, it's European, it's white, it's indigenous. And I feel like, you know, in this conversation, what does repair look like for a Latinx person? And what, what does arriving, you know, to heaven mean, you know mm-hmm.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Indeed.  Danielle:So, yeah. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. And I have the slides up, but I, you know, I wanna hear your all thoughts on, on it, you know? Do you mind hitting the next slide, Tj?  Dr. Ernest Gray:Very good.  Danielle :Do you want me to keep moving? ? Yeah. Um, this is this guy that isn't red in, uh, Western psychology, although he was European descent and lived in El Salvador. He was murdered by, um, CIA operatives in El Salvador. And, uh, he was a liberation psychologist. And partly part of the reason he wasn't as well known here is because he gave almost all his lectures in Spanish on purpose. Hmm. Because he wanted to be rooted in a Latin American tradition. Um, and so I thought it was important to just lay the foundation for what rupture and repair means. He had a real vision for psychology to be a liberating movement, not just one that maintains like, Here, let me get you healed so you can function in this oppressive system. Like, um, yeah.  Dr. Ernest Gray :You know, I think about that kind of, um, movement, which seems to me has always been very much so a part of, you know, this resilience, this resilience push amongst indigenous people, groups, communities. It, it, it is a, it is a sense to regain their, um, their humanity when they've been trampled on, when that humanity has been trampled on. And so there are different epox I think that I've seen as of recent, um, where we see that this has come to a head. You know, I'll never forget the, in the, the ministry of, um, Dr. Cera Na Padilla, um, who was, who just passed a couple of years ago. And, um, I was fortunate to have a class by him, but it was his eyeopening class, uh, a world Christian perspective that gave me the ability to, um, um, hear just how liber the gospel can be and how restorative to the humanity of people groups that have been trampled upon, uh, actually is.  So I think that repair in many ways is just the, is just the acknowledgement that, hey, something in me is not right. And, um, it's not any one person. It feels as though this is a, um, this is the water in which I'm swimming, Like the water I'm in is like rotten. Um, and, and I wanna be rejuvenated through a, a water that, that refreshes and rejuvenates my life. Um, and that, that that water that it seems to be about is my aka the systemic kind of components that have trampled upon, um, indigenous groups. But that first step is acknowledgement, saying, Hey, um, something's broken in me. And it's not any one person. It's more of a system. It's more of the water in which I'm in. Um, that needs to be, uh, ameliorated. It needs to be, um, you know, I, I need it. It, I can't live like this. I can't, I can't, I can't live like this anymore.  Um, I think as well, there's, there's a lot of things that I think are many, very much so, um, um, you know, kind of tied to this, this equilibrium. I think, um, when I, when I hear about these struggles and I hear about how people are trying to, um, go for at least make sure that they are, um, pursuing their inherent dignity and worth it, it, it shouldn't seem as though it, it's such a, um, a, um, there's so much resistance to that work. I mean, where, as human beings, we really want to be affirmed. We wanna be loved, we wanna be cherished, very, very basic things. Um, but to have, but to have resistance to that amongst systems also shows that we, we've got to pull together to be able to make a, uh, a concerted effort towards bringing back a type of, um, um, regenerative and healing kind of ethic to our communities that are shattered, that have been broken.  And I, and I, and I, and I, and I personally see this right now as it relates to, you know, my community, which is African American, and I personally feel this, especially when I think about, um, people who are in survival mode and making bad choices. I always wanna pause and, and tell people, Listen, do not, don't, don't blame the victim. I mean, you're looking at William Ryan's book here as Right in front of me blaming the victim, Right. And I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna blame the victim because they don't, people don't wake up in the morning and think, you know, I wanna go out here and commit crime. I wanna do things I don't want, I don't wanna do these things just because I'm inherently, um, you know, um, malevolent person. No, I wanna do these things cause I'm, I'm trying to survive.  And, and it, and there, that signals to me as well that there's something broken, uh, in the social order. And that these communities in particular, the most vulnerable ones, uh, shouldn't be subjected to so much, um, to, to these things, to, to where they have to resort to violence, crime, or, um, you know, pushing against laws, unjust laws, if you will, uh, that people see is, um, oppressive. Shouldn't we should demo dismantle the laws that, that create these things. So that was a very, Forgive my thought, forgive my, um, thought, thought there, but I, I just wanted to kind of think and, and draw out some, some, some broad strokes there.  Jen Oyama Murphy:Yeah. I, I resonate with that a lot, Dr. Gray. I mean it, like, we've all been trained in kind of this narrative, um, therapeutic way of working with people. And so much of my experience has been looking at that story only as that story and not being able to look at it within a culture, within a system, and even within the context in which that story is being read. So if you are a person of culture in the group, you probably are at best, one of two in a group of eight mm-hmm. . And that has a story and a system all to itself. So even the process of engaging someone's story, even if you are mindful of their culture and the systemic story that that's in, you're also then in a, in a story that's being reenacted in, in and of itself, you know, that, um, I mean, Danielle and Rebecca know cuz they were in my group.  Like, you, you have best are one of two. And even within that too, you're probably talking about two different cultures, two different systems. And so that sense of, um, having repair, healing feel really contained to not just your story, but then a dominant structure within where that healing is supposed to happen. Like, it's, it's the water. Most of us have swarm in all our life, so we don't even know right. Where the fish that's been in that water all the time. And so we don't even know that that's happening. And so when, when the healing process doesn't seem like it's actually working, at least for me, then I turn on myself, right? That there's something bad or wrong about me, that, that what seems to be working for everyone else in the room, it's not working for me. So I must be really bad or really broken.  And it doesn't even kind of pass through my being of like, Oh, no, maybe there's a system that's bigger than all of us that's bad and broken. That needs to be addressed too. So I, I love what this cohort is trying to do in terms of really honoring the particular personal story, but also then moving out to all the different stories, all the different systems that are connected to that personal story. I'm, I'm grateful for that. And it's hard work, hard, hard, complicated work that it's full of conflict, Right. And math, and it's not gonna have five steps that you can follow and everything's gonna work out well for, for everyone. I mean, it's, it's gonna be a mess. You guys are brave.  Dr. Ernest Gray:This final statement here about overthrowing the social order not to be considered as pathological. Um, you know, that, that, that last part there, uh, the conflicts generated by overthrowing the social order not to be considered pathological people. I mean, I think that there's a sense that people really don't want to have to resort to this language of overthrow if these systems were not malevolent from the very first place. Right. And, and I think about this, how, how the exchange of power has become such a, has created such a vacuum for, um, the most vulnerable groups to be, um, um, you know, maligned taken advantage of, pushed under the bus or where's eradicated, um, without, with, you know, with impunity. And I think about that, that there, there has to be, in many ways when we see the e the various, um, TIFs and the various, um, contests that arise around the, around the globe, there seems to be a common theme of oppressive oppression, power abuse, um, and then it's codified into laws that are saying, Well, you're gonna do this or else.  And I guess that's, it's, it's almost as if there's a, a type of, um, expectation that this is, this is the only means that which we have to overthrow social orders that need to be, um, uh, eradicate need to be done away with. So, so there's, there's a lot of truth to this, this, this, this last part especially as well. Um, but I, I think that's what we see, um, constantly. One of the things that's popping in my mind right now is the ACON in South Africa. Um, and they're, they're dominant, The Dutch domination of South Africa and the indigenous group there, the, the South Africans, um, of af of, of, um, of black descent and how their struggles have ha have, you know, just constantly been, um, you know, so, so, so rife with tension and there's still tension there. And so it just takes on a different form.  I, I think that there's a lot of things that we can learn from the various contests, but we might, when we strip away layers of the onion, we might find that a lot of it is the way in which this power dynamic and power exchange, or lack thereof, is actually going on. Um, and again, we can call that what we want to, we can say it's Marxist. We can say it's, um, you know, um, critical, but critical theory helps us to, helps us with some of this to see in which power way in which power is leveraged and the abuse of it. Lots of it.  Rebecca W. Walston :I mean, I think, um, Ernest, if I can call you back if I've earned right quite yet, maybe not . Oh,  You got that right . Um, I, you know, I think what, what what hits me about your statement is, is, is the sense that, um, that there's that power and a sense of overthrow inextricably tied together in ways that I, I don't think they should be, I do not think that they were meant to be. Um, and I, it, it makes me think of a conversation that I had with the Native American, uh, uh, um, friend. And we were, we were together in a group of, um, diverse people watching, um, a documentary about a group of multi-ethnic, a multi-ethnic group engaging around race and racism. And we were watching the, um, this group of people sort of engage about it. And, um, I was, by the time the thing was over, like I was full on like angry, all kinds of things activated in me a around the Black American experience.  And I turned to this Native American guy sitting next to me, and, and I said, I'd like to know from you, what is your version of 40 acres in a mule? A and, and I said, you know, in, in my community, like, we have a thing about 40 acres in a mule, that kind of encapsulates a, a, a sense of what was taken from us as, as enslaved Africans, and some sense of what it means to, to start to repair that breach, right? And, and to give some sense of restitution. And it's codified in this sense of 40 acres and mule given to freed, uh, newly freed Africans as, as a way to, to launch into a sense of free existence. And I said to him, If I were you, I'd be like, pissed. Yeah. I, as an indigenous man, like, I'd want all of my stuff back, all of it, all of the land, everything. Like all the people, everything, everything. And so, I'd like to know from you, what is your version of 40 acres in the mill? What's your measurement of what it would look like to start to, to repair and to return to indigenous people? What was taken from them?  Hmm. And this man looked me dead in my face and said, We, we have no equivalent because the land belongs to no one. It was merely ours to steward, so I would never ask for it back.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Wow. Floored. Mm-hmm.  Rebecca W. Walston:A and I'm still by that it's been maybe six, seven years. And I've never forgotten that sentiment and the sense that, um, I, I wanted to sit at his feet and learn and not ask more questions. I just, and just the sense of like, what could my people learn from the indigenous community and how might it allow us to breathe a little deeper and move a little freer it? And so I, you know, I hope you guys can hear that as not like a ding against my community and what we're asking for, but just a sense of for how another people group steps into this question of rupture and repair that is radically different from, from my experience, and causes me to pause and wonder what must they know of the kingdom of God that would allow them to hold that kind of, that kind of sacred space that feels unfamiliar to me,  Dr. Ernest Gray:That is quite revolutionary. And if are representative of this type of, and again, those are just, those are just the terms we use to, to talk about repair and, um, and re restoration. I wonder if the, if see what I, what I'm struggling with is that what we are, what we wrestled through as an African American context was, and the vestiges is of, um, ownership. It's ownership and, um, ownership of bodies and ownership of land. And the indi, the aboriginal people of America, the Native Americans, they have this really robust sense of it belong. If that's the case that belongs to no one, my next question would be then, and again, if I'm thinking about ownership, well, that it's the damning sense of what ownership did to their communities, how they were decimated, how they were ransacked, how, how, um, you know, the substance abuse has ran rampant.  So if from, if it were me, I would ask a follow up question to this individual and ask why. Well then if the land is not an issue and it's not a, it's not a monetary thing that needs to be repaired, what about the damage? How will we go about putting a value upon or putting some type of thing upon the decimation of, of communities, the, um, the homes. Let's take, you know, Canada is r in pain, especially with the Catholic church and what was done in certain orphanages. Okay. And so, um, if not a monetary thing, what would be the re another response to repair the brokenness that the people have experienced? And I, and I, I don't, I understand the land is one thing, but there's also a people that have been shattered absolutely, absolutely shattered. And, and I think that still remains a question for me.  And again, it's a perennial question that is affecting multiple communities. Um, but these are felt more acutely, especially as, um, you know, Africans, uh, in the transatlantic route. And, and, and aboriginal native Americans who were, who are, um, you know, no one discovered them here. But this ownership piece is something that I think is what is inherent to whiteness, and it has created this vacuum. And why we need to have a sense of, um, you know, how it impacts every single debate. Every single debate. I would go down a rabbit trail about, you know, gospel studies and New Testament studies, but that's just, it's all, it's there too. It's, it's right there, too.  Danielle:TJ, can you hit the next slide? I think we're into that next slide, but I think what I'm hearing, and then maybe Jen has a, a follow up to this, is, I, I think part of my response from the Latinx community is we're both perpetually hospitable and perpetually the guest. Mm. Mm-hmm. We don't own the house. Mm. And we, and yet there's a demand of our hospitality in a house that's not ours. Mm. And there's a sense of, I think that comes back to the original cultures that we come from, of this idea that you showed up here, let me give you food. Let me, let me have you in, let me invite you in. And in the meantime, you took my, you took my space and, and you put a, you put a stake in it that said, Now this is mine and you're my guest. And now there's different rules, and I may be polite to you, but that does not equal hospitality. Right. And so, and I don't know, I don't have the resolution for that, but just this feeling that, that Latinx communities are often very mi migratory. Like, and, you know, we have, then you get into the issue of the border and everything else. But this idea that we, we don't own the house, and yet there's a, there's an, there's a demand for our hospitality wherever we go.  Rebecca W. Walston:What's your sense, Danielle, cuz you said, um, both there's a demand on the hospitality and also something of that hospitality hearkening back to your indigenous culture from Right. In the place where you're not a guest, you're actually at home. So is that a both and for you  Danielle:Mm-hmm. , because I think that's the part that's, that's robbed the meaning, The meaning that's made out of it is robbed. I think sometimes the hospitality is freely given. And, and that's a space where I think particularly dominant culture recognizes that. Right. And so there's, there's the ability to take, and then, then there's the complicity of giving even when you don't want to. And also like, then how does a, and this is very broad, right? And the diaspora, right? But the sense of like, the demand, if you don't give your hospitality then at any point, because you're the perpetual guest, they can shut you out and you can never return. So I haven't quite worked that through, but those are some thoughts I was having as you all were speaking.  Dr. Ernest Gray:Mm. I think that's, I think that's very keen, uh, you know, as a keen observation, my wife is, you know, from a Caribbean context, and so there's the hospitality notion wherein it's, I mean, that's just, it's irrespective of what you feel. This is just what you do. And so I think that it's, when it's taken advantage of or hoisted upon people in a way that is saying, Oh, you must do this, that harm can enue. But, um, there's a, there's a, for me, it's, it's, it's really, really foreign to, from the outside looking in to understand how that culture, um, has, um, historically genuflected or just kind of, um, it can become a part of weakness. It can become a part, or it can be become abused. Especially when this is an expectation of the culture. Um, and I think that's where the harm lies, is that there, there has to be some measures of, of like,  When conditions are, are, you know, almost in a sense of like, this isn't automatic. And it, and then there needs to be some kind of, some kind of ways in which it can remain protected. So that's to not be abused by those who know that this is an expectation of the community. Um, but yeah, that's, that's from the outside looking in, it's hard. My only connection is through, you know, my wife and her culture and seeing how that is, you know, I don't care what's going on inside. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna be hospital, You're gonna host, you're gonna continue to be, you're gonna reach out. You're gonna continue to be that person because that's what's expected of you.  Jen Oyama Murphy:I mean, Danielle as a Japanese American. I mean, I feel that bind of, I mean, it's not even perpetual guest for, I think Asians often. It feels like perpetual alien. Um, and, and yet, you know, there are cultural expectations and norms, you know, among the Japanese, around what it looks like to welcome someone into your home, what it means to be gracious and deferential, and that, So there's a whole culture that's, um, informing of a way, a style of relating that I think to Dr. Gray's point can be taken advantage of. Um, and can, I think be in some ways, consciously or unconsciously used by, um, that culture to kind of escape wrestling with the experience of, of marginalization and abuse and trauma. Because there's a culture that can give you some sense of safety and containment and soothing. If you go back to what, you know, um, culturally, I mean, after the internment camps, the incarceration of the Japanese during World War ii, that's exactly like what happened is the, the idea of, you know, being polite, being deferential, working hard, using productivity as a way to gain status and safety, and in some ways, right, taking the bait to, to be, to like out white, white people.  We're gonna be better citizen than the white people. And like, what that cost the Japanese Americans who, if you had asked them what kind of repair did they want, they would say none. We're just so grateful to be able to be in this country. It, you know, the, the grandchildren of the people that were incarcerated that kind of ly rose up and said like, This is wrong. And so it's just, it, it feels so complicated and like such a, such a math, um, in it. And that's where I feel like, um, learning not just the, the white Asian story, right? But having exposure and experiences and relationships with, um, a variety of different ethnicities and being able to learn from their histories, their culture, their way of, um, engaging trauma, working through a healing process, and not staying in a single lane in my culture only anymore than I wanna stay in a single white Western culture only.  But being really open to learning, growing. I mean, my experience with you, Danielle, and you, Rebecca, even in my group, right, opened me up to a whole different way of engaging story and working with the, um, methodology that we had been learning. And I'm so grateful I wouldn't have had to wrestle or contend with any of that if I hadn't been in relationship with both of you who have a different culture than I do, and a different style relating and a different way of responding to things than I do. That was so informative for me in broad slu, um, opportunity to really first own that there is a rupture, and then what it looks, what it could look like to repair. And that I didn't only have two, two options like my Japanese American way or the, the White Western way that I had learned all my life.  Rebecca W. Walston:I resonate with that, Jen. I think that, um, what comes to my mind is the sense of Revelation seven, nine, um, and at the throne of grace at the end of this, that identifying monikers every tribe and every tongue mm-hmm. . And, and it causes me to wonder why that moniker, why is it that the identification that the throne of grace is tribe and come. Right? And, and I think it hints at what you just said, this sense of like, there's a way in which this kind of hospitality shows up in each culture, um, in, in a way that I think each culture holds its own way of reflecting that text, um, in a way that is unique, um, in the sense that we won't have a full and complete picture of hospitality until we have a sense of how it shows up in every tribe and every time. Um, and, and so I love that that image from you of like, what can I learn from, from you as a Japanese American, and what can I learn from Danielle? What can I learn from tj? What can I learn from Ernest and, and how they, they understand, uh, and embody that with, with the sense of like, my picture will be a little bit clearer, a little bit more complete for having, having listened and learned.  And I, I do think we're talking in terms of hospitality about sort of, to me, the connective tissue between a erector and a repair is really a sense of resiliency. And, and it feels to me a little bit like the, there's a way where we can talk about hospitality that is really about, um, something of a God given capacity to navigate a rupture, whether it's individual or collective in a, in a way that allows for hopes, for pushes, for some sense of repair. And, you know, I was listening to Ernest talking, you know, I feel like I can hear Michelle Obama saying, when they go low, we go high. Right? And that is a, that is, it's a, it's a different kind of hospitality, but it feels like, feels like hospitality than the infant, right? It, it feels like I won't give in, um, to, to this invitation to join the chaos. I, I, I will, um, be mindful and thoughtful and intentional about how I move through it so that I don't find myself, uh, joining joining in it, but actually standing against it. And that, that feels very hospitable to me. To, to stand on the side of what is true and right. And honoring and, and, and not not joining the fray.  Danielle:You can see how our collective ruptures that we've all described, and I know TJ, you haven't spoken yet, um, how our trauma rubs up against one another and likely is in a heated moment, is very triggering.  If I'm in a, if Jen and I are in a space where we feel like we have to stay, keep our heads low, because let's say I have a family member, um, who's undocumented, right? Or Jen has a memory of, I don't know, a traumatic experience dealing with dominant culture. And we're with, you know, like you say Rebecca, like our African hyphen American friends, and they're like, Come on, let's go get it. Mm-hmm. , you can feel the rub of what repair might look like, and then there's a fracture between us. Mm-hmm. . If we don't, that's, I mean, and then the hard thing that I've been challenged lately to try to do is stay really close to my experience so I have a sense of self so that I can bring that full self to you and say like, I feel this way, and then I can more, more be able to listen to you if I can express a more truer sense of what I'm feeling. Does that make sense?  Dr. Ernest Gray:Perfect.  I think, I think, um, yeah, I, I, I think about the triggering aspects of how we have been collectively kind of retraumatized. You know, when you think about, you know, this since Trayvon Martin and and beyond here in America with African American context, we've just been trying to figure out how to stay alive and t-shirts keep printing regarding, um, you know, can't go to, can't go to church, can't go to a park, can't do this, can't do that, can't breathe. And it's almost as if it's, it's exhausting. Um, but it's entering into that space with other groups, other communities that creates a sense of solidarity, which is sorely needed. Because we would assume, and we would make this as this assumption, like, Oh, well, you don't have it so bad. That's not true. It looks different. It feels different. And until we can, at the same time, um, I like what you said about own, what we are feeling while we are in that moment, it allows us to at least get it out there so that we can then be active engagers with others and not just have our own stuff, you know, uh, for stalling, any meaningful connection.  I wanna think that there's a sense that, um, because, you know, our expressions in every way, whether it's hospitality or whether it's in the way in which we deal with, um, the various cultural phenomenons that we're closely associated with, is that these create the mosaic. If we, back to Rebecca's idea of Revelation seven, nine, these re these is why I love mosaics is because the full picture of our, um, similar, similarly expressed experiences do not look the same, but when they're all put together, eventually we'll see the, the picture more fully. And I think that that's the key is that it, it's so easy for us to be myopic in a way in which we look at everyone else's, or especially our own, to where we can't see anybody else's. That that creates this isolation, insular kind of isolation idea of, Well, you don't have it as bad as I do. Or they're not as, they're not as shaken as this community or that community or this community. Um, and wherein there's some truth to that, Um, if we're going to regain a sense of human, our full humanity, we've gotta figure out ways to, to do that active listing so that our ours doesn't become the loudest in the room.    

Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle is urging people to apply for a guaranteed income program called the Cook County Promise. About 32,000 applications will be chosen at random, and the winners get those monthly $500 payments for two years to spend however they choose. Reset checks in with Preckwinkle about the basics of the program. We also hear from Rachel Pyon with Equity and Transformation, a group of activists that have started their own guaranteed income program in West Garfield Park.

Reset sits down with leaders of the BASE Chicago, an organization based in West Garfield Park that provides a range of programming for urban youth from baseball and softball training, to violence prevention and even college readiness.

Also in the news: Three people arrested after stealing phones from Lollapalooza attendees; Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski killed in two-car crash; A man was killed after being hit twice by separate drivers in West Garfield Park and more.

Also in the news: Three people arrested after stealing phones from Lollapalooza attendees; Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski killed in two-car crash; A man was killed after being hit twice by separate drivers in West Garfield Park and more.

Also in the news: Three people arrested after stealing phones from Lollapalooza attendees; Republican Congresswoman Jackie Walorski killed in two-car crash; A man was killed after being hit twice by separate drivers in West Garfield Park and more.

Shamus Toomey, Editor in Chief and co-founder of Block Club Chicago, joined Bob Sirott to share the latest Chicago neighborhood stories. Shamus had details on: Maifest Returns To Lincoln Square Thursday For 1st Time In 3 Years, Here's The Full Schedule: The annual event in the heart of the neighborhood was canceled in 2020 and 2021. […]

On Wednesday, alderpeople authorized the city to spend $700,000 to buy a now-vacant Aldi in West Garfield Park. But it's not yet clear if the city will actually acquire the property, if it will ensure a new grocer takes over, or how long it could take. While WTTW's Heather Cherone was watching City Hall, she and her colleagues also launched a series looking at the history and present-day effects of segregation in Chicago. She talks about both of these stories with City Cast's Jacoby Cochran and Simone Alicea. They also talk about the mask mandate ending Monday and share some cute animal stories, including one about otters in the Chicago River. Stories discussed: FIRSTHAND: Segregation — A Year-Long Exploration of Segregation in Chicago City Council Approves Plan to Buy Closed West Side Aldi (and check out our Wednesday conversation) Why Rogers Park Hare Krishnas Are Worried About Proposed Development Chicago to Lift Indoor Mask, Vaccine Mandates Monday ‘Hank the Tank' Offers a Vision of a Better Life River Otters Are Back in Chicago “Women of Soul” at Mercury Theater Follow us on Twitter: @CityCastChicago Sign up for our newsletter: chicago.citycast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are currently no grocery stores operating in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. An Aldi that operated there for three decades suddenly boarded up their doors in October, and now the Save-A-Lot is temporarily closed after failing a health inspection. Losing a grocery store has big consequences for people living in the neighborhood. It means longer commutes, higher prices, and losing access to healthy foods. It means a community where the average life expectancy is 16 years lower than that of neighboring white, affluent communities is left even more vulnerable to malnutrition and illness. The city could step in to buy the vacant property and facilitate a new grocer coming into the neighborhood. Community members are demanding that whoever moves in be held accountable to its neighbors. WBEZ's Linda Lutton and Director of the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative TJ Crawford join host Jacoby Cochran to discuss what's next for West Garfield Park. Follow us on Twitter: @CityCastChicago Sign up for our newsletter: chicago.citycast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Governor JB Pritzker has announced that Illinois is on track to remove the statewide mask mandate by February 28. The Chicago Department of Public Health echoed the Gov's message and said if COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to decrease the city could also drop the mandate at the end of the month. Lead Producer Carrie Shepherd, Producer Simone Alicea, and Host Jacoby Cochran break down the latest in the mask debate and, also discuss the absence of grocery stores in West Garfield Park, warming temperatures, and their moments of joy! Follow us on Twitter: @CityCastChicago Sign up for our newsletter: chicago.citycast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode we talk all things West Garfield Park. This one is a community area with a past that the great people living here won't let be their story. This is a great community to learn a ton from! We ate at Jerk 48 (hi, Channel!) Delicious, jerk food! Big thanks to City Bricks: Report card Project for providing the information we need to make change. Please learn how you can get involved. Also make sure to check out the WTTW documentary, "We Witness". It's a powerful look at the community and it's story directly from the people! WATCH US ON YOUTUBE HERE! Follow us on IG: @77flavorschi @dariodcomedy @TamarHindi.s --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/77-flavors-of-chicago/support

Also happening today, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown lit into comments made at a recent webinar by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office on violent crime, particularly gun possession; Mayor Lightfoot is now proposing a midnight ban on alcohol sales at packaged goods stores, backing off an earlier proposal; some Indiana residents and clergy are suing Governor Holcomb over his decision to end extended unemployment insurance benefits on Saturday; and much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Also happening today, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown lit into comments made at a recent webinar by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office on violent crime, particularly gun possession; Mayor Lightfoot is now proposing a midnight ban on alcohol sales at packaged goods stores, backing off an earlier proposal; some Indiana residents and clergy are suing Governor Holcomb over his decision to end extended unemployment insurance benefits on Saturday; and much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Also happening today, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown lit into comments made at a recent webinar by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office on violent crime, particularly gun possession; Mayor Lightfoot is now proposing a midnight ban on alcohol sales at packaged goods stores, backing off an earlier proposal; some Indiana residents and clergy are suing Governor Holcomb over his decision to end extended unemployment insurance benefits on Saturday; and much more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rendel Solomon, Strategic Advisor to Goalsetter, knew that his studies would be the key to opening doors throughout his life. Through pivotal moments in his journey, he also realized that his full potential could not be measured through individual success and set out to support his family and community to reach their potential as well. Our discussion is filled with so many stories from his begginnings having rock fights in the Chicago neighborhood of West Garfield Park to being mentored by Robert Smith, billionaire tech investor and philanthropist. Listen to hear one of my favorite storytellers share his story of moving on up.Episode References:- Sharecropper to Shareholder TEDx Talk  - One Stock One Future  - Thomas KR Stovall - Launch Fog - Rendel's introduction of Robert Smith  - Killer Mike/Michael Render - Tanya Van Court - Goalsetter  3 Stories Rendel would want to hear:1) Jesus  2) Frederick Douglass  3) Abraham Lincoln  You can connect with Rendel at:Instagram  LinkedIn Goalsetter App 

In this episode Deb drank pomegranate flavored kombucha tea, needless to say Maria inspired her. Maria drank iced mint tea with fresh mint and Eric Kent's Rosé which can be found at: https://www.erickentwines.com/shop/item?itemid=1811&catid=17Deb and Maria talked about being anti-racism and discussing the current climate in the U.S.Warning: This episode contains content related to violence, abuse, and traumatic events. TED Talk Maria was referring to: https://www.ted.com/talks/robin_steinberg_and_manoush_zomorodi_the_us_is_addicted_to_incarceration_here_s_how_to_break_the_cycle?rss=172BB350-0207Emotions Chart Maria uses: https://www.patreon.com/posts/38091713 What is institutional or systemic racism? "less overt, far more subtle"Institutional racism was defined by Sir William Macpherson in the UK's Lawrence report (1999) as: "The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city – Birmingham, Alabama – five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which most people will condemn. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.Jim Crow Laws: Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.[1] All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by blacks during the Reconstruction period.2] The Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965.Facilities for African Americans and Native Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to the facilities for white Americans; sometimes, there were no facilities for people of color.[4][5] As a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans and other people of color living in the South.The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michelle AlexanderThe New Jim Crow tells a truth our nation has been reluctant to face.The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement.Alexander shows that, by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.Police BrutalityThe shooting of Walter Scott occurred on April 4, 2015, in North Charleston, South Carolina, following a daytime traffic stop for a non-functioning brake light.Bettie Jones was fatally shot Dec. 26, 2015, by police responding to a domestic disturbance call at a West Garfield Park apartment building near Chicago, Illinois. Verdict: settlement On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African American man, was stopped while driving and fatally shot by Jeronimo Yanez, a 29-year-old Hispanic-American police officer from St. Anthony, Minnesota. Verdict: Not guilty"He killed my boyfriend," Reynolds said. She claimed that police had opened fire when Castile reached for his driver’s license, as an officer requested: "He let the officer know that he had a firearm, and he was reaching for his wallet, and the officer just shot him in his arm."On September 6, 2018, off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger entered the Dallas, Texas, apartment of 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean and fatally shot him. Guyger said that she had entered the apartment believing it was her own and that she shot Jean believing he was a burglar.[1][2] The fact that Guyger, a white police officer, shot and killed Jean, an unarmed black man, and was initially only charged with manslaughter, resulted in protests and accusations of racial bias.[3][4][5] On October 1, 2019, Guyger was found guilty of murder.[6] The next day, she received a sentence of ten years in prison.[7]Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old woman, was shot and killed in her home by a police officer in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, in the early morning of October 12, 2019. Police arrived at her home after a neighbor called a non-emergency number, stating that Jefferson's front door was open. Police body camera footage showed that when she came to her window to observe police outside her home, Officer Aaron Dean shot through it and killed her.[2] Police stated that they found a handgun near her body, which according to her 8-year-old nephew, she was pointing toward the window before being shot.[3][2][4] On October 14, 2019, Dean resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department and was arrested on a murder charge.[5][6] On December 20, 2019, Dean was indicted for murder.[7][8] Jefferson was black and the officer who shot her is whiteOn March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American woman, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department officers in her sleep. African-American emergency room technician. After a brief confrontation, they fired several shots, striking her at least eight times. According to The Louisville Courier Journal, the police were investigating two men who they believed were selling drugs out of a house that was far from Ms. Taylor’s home. But a judge had also signed a warrant allowing the police to search Ms. Taylor’s residence because the police said they believed that one of the two men had used her apartment to receive packages. The judge’s order was a so-called “no-knock” warrant, which allowed the police to enter without warning or without identifying themselves as law enforcement. The three officers have been placed on administrative reassignment.On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died in the New York City borough of Staten Island after Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, put him in a chokehold while arresting him.[3] Video footage of the incident generated widespread national attention and raised questions about the appropriate use of force by law enforcement. NYPD officers approached Garner on July 17 on suspicion of selling single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. After Garner told the police that he was tired of being harassed and that he was not selling cigarettes, the officers attempted to arrest Garner. When Pantaleo placed his hands on Garner, Garner refused to cooperate and pulled his arms away. Pantaleo then placed his arm around Garner's neck and wrestled him to the ground. With multiple officers restraining him, Garner repeated the words "I can't breathe" 11 times while lying face down on the sidewalk.Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old African American woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a pretextual traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide.On 22 November 2014 Tamir Rice, a 12-year old boy, was fatally murdered in Cleveland, Ohio by Timothy Loehmann, a 26-year-old police officer. Rice was carrying a replica toy Airsoft gun; Loehmann shot him almost immediately after arriving on the scene. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Connie's guest on this week's show is Anita Solick Oswald, author of "West Side Girl," a memoir of West Garfield Park, Chicago, and a nice companion piece to last week's book "Redlined."

Robert describes doing business in Chicago as full of "good people". He says Chicago is one of the best places in America to launch an apparel manufacturing business. What about the city makes it a hospitable place for skilled workers in this industry? You can learn more about Dearborn Denim at dearborndenim.us or on Facebook @dearborndenim. *** How’s Business? is created by the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School (IJ Clinic) and is hosted by Stacy Massey. Podcast editing services by Andrea Klunder and Edwin Ruiz at The Creative Impostor Studios. Follow us on Instagram @howsbusiness_chi Chicago-based business owners who are interested in being featured on How’s Business? are especially invited to connect with us at howsbusinesschi.com!

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has just two months left in office. What is he trying to get done before his last day?On Wednesday, City Council approved two high-profile items left on Mayor Emanuel’s final to-do list: the $6 billion Lincoln Yards development and the $95 million police and fire training academy in West Garfield Park.Morning Shift checks in with David Greising, president and CEO of the Better Government Association; Heather Cherone, managing editor and City Hall reporter at the Daily Line; and WBEZ politics reporter Dan Mihalopoulos, to find out more about Emanuel’s priorities before he leaves office.Later, Chicago architecture sleuth Dennis Rodkin stops by to bring us another installment of "What's That Building?" We all know the proposed site for the Barack Obama Presidential Center is in Jackson Park, but tucked next to a Walgreen’s in Hoffman Estates, you’ll find a nondescript low rise building that’s currently home to all the documents related to former president Barack Obama’s eight years in office. 

GUESTS Monica Trinidad is a visual artist and organizer, born and raised on the southeast side of Chicago. She is a co-founder of For the People Artists Collective, a radical squad of Black artists and artists of color in Chicago who create art for Chicago's most powerful justice movements. Monica creates artwork to cultivate the practice of hope and to spark imagination in both organizers immersed in the day-to-day spadework of movement building and in every resident in Chicago. Her work is currently in permanent collection at DuSable Museum of African American History. You can listen to her every week on the Lit Review podcast, a literary podcast for the movement, with her co-host Page May, founder of Assata’s Daughters. Debbie Southorn is a queer abolitionist who works for the American Friends Service Committee in Chicago, where she supports community-based efforts to end police violence, surveillance and militarism. She’s also a founding member of the People’s Response Team, and serves on the National Committee of the War Resisters League. From #NoCopAcademy: “#NoCopAcademy is a grassroots campaign launched by Assata’s Daughters, Black Lives Matter - Chicago, People’s Response Team, For The People Artists Collective, and 100+ grassroots organizations to mobilize against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plans to spend $95 million for a massive training center for Chicago Police in West Garfield Park on the city’s West Side. The city’s quiet unveiling suggests they are trying to avoid public scrutiny of this latest spending scheme, but we will not be robbed of our resources quietly. We refuse any expansion of policing in Chicago, and demand accountability for decades of violence. We will fight for funding for our communities, and support each other in building genuine community safety in the face of escalating attacks.” OVERVIEW As two adult lead organizers in #NoCopAcademy, Monica and Debbie outline their journeys into activism, noting how they both cut their teeth in organizing in the 2000s in resistance to the Iraq War. The group discusses Chicago’s history of radical organizing from the Rainbow Coalition in the 1960s, to We Charge Genocide in 2014, to Reparations Now and Justice 4 LaQuan. BrownTown and guests dissect what the larger Invest/Divest framework means in terms of #NoCopAcademy as positioned against reformist arguments of piecemeal solutions to systemic problems. Recorded about a month after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that he would not run for a third term in February 2019, BrownTown listens to Monica and Debbie’s reaction to the newst, organizers’ relationship with his administration, and the (presumed) effectiveness of public shaming people in power. With coalition-building at the helm, Monica and Debbie are clear to describe #NoCopAcademy as a campaign first-and-foremost with a coalition built around it, rather than a coalition taking on several campaigns over its tenure (like R3 Coalition Chicago). Coalition work is difficult but, at times, necessary. Debbie elaborates, giving a nod to musician, activist, and Black Feminist Bernice Johnson Reagon’s reflections on the subject, as well as noting some of the endorsing organizations who throw down for #NoCopAcademy through their own unique perspective, experience, and analysis (noted: i2i in the Lunar New Year parade, SURJ, etc.). Last but certainly not least, the group takes their hats of to the youth who consistently spearhead the campaign, and look forward to the next iteration of the fight, the upcoming municipal election season, and what it means for the future of Chicago. Find out more about the campaign at NoCopAcademy.com and @NoCopAcademy on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. -- Follow Monica on Twitter, Instagram (personal / work), and Facebook. Learn more about her and buy her work at MonicaTrinidad.com. Follow Debbie on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and learn more about her work with American Friends Service Committee. -- CREDITS: Intro song Cops Shot the Kid by NAS. Outro music by Fiendsh. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro. -- Bourbon ’n BrownTown Site | Become a Patron on Patreon! SoapBox Productions and Organizing, 501(c)3 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Site | Support

At a time when the home ownership gap between whites and African Americans is greater than it was during the Jim Crow era, it seems important to recall some of the historical roots that gave rise to such inequality. And at a moment when the administration in the White House is actually weakening standards that banks must meet when considering community investment rather than strengthening them, the need to reflect becomes all the more urgent. In Redlined: A Memoir of Race, Change, and Fractured Community in 1960s Chicago, author and documentarian Linda Gartz employs a trove of found documents to illuminate her family's experience of "redlining"--the marking off of areas where banks avoided making investments based on community "demographics." While the Chicago suburb of West Garfield Park is Gartz's focus here, similar events unfolded in other cities across the North, where as white-majority communities began to be integrated, banks employed discriminatory redlining, with white flight, disinvestment and community decline predictably following. One of the interesting aspects of Linda's story is the evolution of her family on the civil rights arc: they neither took up King’s call to action, nor did they support the racist cause. Like so many white, middle Americans scared of the unknown, Gartz’s parents were at first reluctant to allow their community to be integrated. Yet they remained as their white neighbors fled, came to befriend their new neighbors, and in the end made a significant donation of real estate to a local organization that supported the Black community. The resulting picture is one of growth and change. And unafraid of tackling challenging family history, Gartz also explores the taboo subject of mental illness and the changing sexual mores of a country undergoing the tectonic shifts of the 1960s. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/steve-richards/support

    Caullen Hudson is always seeking to inspire - it's just a little different from place to place. In the gym, he's encouraging fitness enthusiasts and flipping tires. Outside of the gym at the company where he's Founder and Executive Producer - SoapBox Productions - he's encouraging youth and flipping aldermen. On this week's episode of #WeGotGoals, Hudson talks about the intersection of wellness, race, and media. His spot on the Venn diagram is right where those worlds intersect and he uses his spot to spread ideas and encourage action. In naming and branding his company, the soapbox sends a pretty clear message about what he and his business partner David A. Moran are creating. SoapBox Productions creates media - or micro-docs, as the teams calls them - to spread an idea and encourage incremental change. It all started with a documentary that Hudson produced as a Film Student at DePaul University when he studied and documented the parallels between drill rap and activism in Chicago. That project - Chi DNA - continues to live on as a multi-media project from film to editorial to a web presence. And if you're wondering what "drill rap" is, it's a form of rap that's steeped in Chicago's south side and often includes themes of violence and gang references - Chief Keef is widely associated with popularizing this form of hip-hop. Also discovered at DePaul - his love for fitness. It all started when a friend asked him to take on Shaun T.'s Insanity workouts. When he did, he fell for the kind of cardio that comes with bodyweight workouts, high knees and burpees. And as soon as he saw that DePaul was auditioning new fitness instructors for a bodyweight-specific fitness class, he took it as a sign. As those two vocations grew in parallel, Hudson saw opportunities to fight against racism, fascism and sexism in big and small ways. Inside the gym, it's as simple as renaming an exercise "person-maker" instead of "man-maker." As a producer and community organizer, he's supporting high school aged students in West Garfield Park who are organizing to fight against the erection of a Police Academy. Throughout this week's #WeGotGoals episode, you'll hear Hudson reference the project, #NoCopAcademy. To fully understand it, spend 3.5 minutes on this video. If you were moved by that short video, it's on purpose Hudson said. The arts help people understand larger social issues. “They may not read a research paper, but they’re going to watch a documentary that will help them understand,” he said.   You can listen to #WeGotGoals anywhere you get your podcasts — including Spotify! If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating and a review. Make sure to listen all the way through, because at the end, we heard from a real-life goal-getter just like you. (Want to be featured on a future episode? Send a voice memo with a goal you’ve crushed, a goal you’re eyeing, or your best goal-getting tip to me at cindy@asweatlife.com.)

Brendan Shiller is fighting. He is one of the founders of the West Side Justice Center, and is a co-partner in the law firm Shiller Preyar LLC, serving the needs and legal battles of the divested from and disenfranchised across the city. He is the lead attorney for the #NoCopAcademy Campaign, which was rumbling through City Hall last week in opposition to the $95 million proposed project to be built in West Garfield Park. Recorded live 6/31/18 at WHPK 88.5FM in Chicago Music from this week's episode: disappear - @oatmello Ignorin - Omar Apollo

On a warm September night, a gunman walked into a West Side restaurant, greeted the manager, and shot him three times. Hours after the murder, Chicago cops were still trying to figure out if the shooting was gang-related, the Chicago Tribune reported. This may sound a lot like Chicago in 2018. But the murder actually happened in 1936. The alleged gangs were Chinese — and the killer was after my family. That’s one of the reasons I recently took on a Curious City question about the history of Chicago’s Chinese gangs — also called tongs. The questioner didn’t leave their name, but they wanted to know how these powerful gangs got started, what they did, and what happened to them. I wanted to know the answers to these questions to help me finally understand why my family members were targeted for murder back in 1936. But as I dug into the history of Chicago’s Chinese gangs, I realized that my family’s story offers insight into the social structure and unwritten rules that defined Chicago’s Chinese-American community during much of the 20th century. How did these Chinese gangs get started in Chicago? It turns out that the tongs my family got caught up with in Chicago actually originated as secret societies in China. They were divided into two main factions: the On Leong and the Hip Sing. These rival gangs first arrived in the U.S. in the 1860s with Chinese railroad workers. They operated in cities from San Francisco to Chicago to New York, and in just about any town with a large Chinese population. Part of their role was to provide protection for members within Chinese immigrant communities. This protection was essential when low-wage Chinese workers came under attack for bringing down railway worker pay, says Gangland Chicago author Richard Lindberg. “As a means of self-protection, the Chinese community organized extensions of the tongs of Imperial China here,” he says. “And then they divided along traditional tong lines of the Hip Sing and the On Leong, which were the principal rivals of 17th-century China.” In his book, Lindberg writes extensively about the operations of Italian and Irish gangs, but says he found much less open information on Chinese gangs. “Asian crime in Chicago is not well-documented simply because it was conducted under the veil of secrecy for most of its history,” Lindberg says. Historian Huping Ling offers one of the few detailed accounts of Chicago tongs in her book, Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community Since 1870. She describes On Leong as a  “self reliant, quasi-legal and social organization of Chinese immigrants.” Ling says Chinese immigrants relied on organizations like On Leong and Hip Sing because they “received little protection from the homeland government or the host country authorities.” The On Leong Merchants Association Building on Wentworth Avenue in Chicago’s Chinatown was once the organization’s headquarters. (Today, the building is a community center.) On Leong was one of two rival Chinese gangs that first arrived in the U.S. in the late 1800s. Courtesy of Chicago Daily News negatives collection and Chicago History Museum Not just crime, but also social services While these gangs were most closely associated with crime, Ling points out they also operated as social service agencies in the Chinese community. Among other things, they helped with translation, education, burials, business licenses, and immigrant resettlement. They also served as de-facto courts, resolving a wide range of community and family disputes. While I’m not sure if my family ever relied on the tongs for these services, Chicago arts advocate Nancy Tom says hers did. In the 1950s she married into the prominent Tom family, who served as business and civic leaders in Chinatown and beyond.  At that time, she says, the On Leong was a central force their community. “If anyone got into trouble or anything, they would go to the On Leong and they would protect them, but all of it was for a fee,” Tom, 82, recalled. “[If], say, an uncle was stealing from another uncle, they would settle all of that. So they were useful for everything.” Tom says her own mother-in-law turned to the On Leong when there was an inheritance dispute after the death of the patriarch in their family. She says the community simply had more faith in these institutions than the American courts. “They didn’t trust the outside,” Tom says. “They didn’t trust because they didn’t understand what was going on. So [they thought] it would be better to fight with your own, within your own community. They felt more secure.” The dark side: rules and violence As I learned all of these things about Chicago’s tongs and their roles in keeping order and peace, I had a hard time reconciling that image with the brutal gangs allegedly involved in gambling, drugs, and the murder of my family members — specifically my great-great uncle John and grandpa Harry Eng in 1936. But then I learned about something called the tong’s “one-mile rule.” It prohibited restaurants and laundries from opening too close to each other, and, in my family’s case, it explained a lot about how keeping order and committing murder could go hand-in-hand. Newspaper accounts of the 1936 murder say that my great-great uncle John and my grandpa Harry opened a restaurant called the Paradise Inn in West Garfield Park, right around the corner from an existing Chinese restaurant called — get this — The New Paradise restaurant. Courtesy of Chicago Tribune, 26 Sep 1936, Sat, Page 3 When I asked my 90-year-old Uncle George about the case a few years ago, before he passed away, he said that our restaurant was in flagrant violation of the one-mile rule. And when something like this happened, he said, the wronged party could go to their tong boss and complain. “They’d say, ‘Hey boss, look at that. I was making money and the other guy just came in and chopped it up. Go and kill him.’ Then a guy would go in, get an order of chop suey, and bang — it happened so often,” said Uncle George, who married my father’s sister and was an elder in the Hip Sing tong. But he also noted that tongs often gave violators warnings to close their business before they escalated matters. But Uncle George said my grandfather and his Uncle John ignored the warnings. “So they just got somebody to go and kill someone,” he alleged. “At that time the target was [grandpa] Harry Eng, but then somebody inside the store stayed there — John Eng — and they killed him instead.” So what stopped the gang from continuing to hunt down my grandpa Harry after that September night in 1936? Uncle George said that shortly after the murder, my grandpa was visited by On Leong representatives who wanted to have a “friendly discussion.” “They said, ‘Hey Harry, you better join my tong and we can protect you.’ And Harry accepted the suggestion,” he recalled. So in 1936, my grandfather joined the On Leong, the gang that allegedly authorized a hit on him and his uncle. It may seem like a weird move, but it allowed him to live another 30 years, create a successful restaurant group, and a have a family with six kids, including my dad. And, as a bonus, that meant I got to be born. According to Monica Eng’s uncle George (top left), her grandfather Harry Eng (seated second row, left) joined On Leong after his uncle John Eng was murdered. Harry Eng’s association with the tong allowed him to stay alive, bring relatives over from China, and raise his growing family. Courtesy of Monica Eng So what happened to the tongs? Uncle George said the U.S. tong wars — fueled by gambling issues, territory disputes, and revenge — continued off and on for a few more decades. But in the mid-’60s, leaders decided to hold a national peace summit in Washington, D.C. It brought together tong leaders from across the U.S., including from Chicago. “We said to each other, ‘You’re On Leong big shots and I am a Hip Sing big shot, so we should talk and not kill each other anymore,’” Uncle George remembered. “So in 1960-something, we get to Washington, D.C. to have a meeting. We talked about why we had to kill each other, and that we are coming to America to make some money and a living, and so we should settle down without all this killing.” After the peace summit, he said, the tongs also decided to stop protecting members who violated the truce. “We decided that we would let the American government take care of them and let the guy go to jail.” This summit ushered in an era of relative peace, with some notable exceptions. But generally the On Leong kept to its territory in the South Side Chinatown, and the Hip Sing operated out of its base in the North Side Chinatown at Argyle and Broadway. This would all change in 1988, when, with an informants help, the FBI raided both tongs and shut down their gambling operations. The raids led to convictions of Chinese tong leaders and investigations of Chicago cops, an alderman, and a judge who abetted their activities. Uncle George said the raids and closure of their private casinos took a toll on membership. “To be honest, those organizations depended a lot on gambling to make money,” he said. “People liked to join to enjoy that kind of life. But now the government said you cannot have the Chinese gambling shops. So it got pretty hard to get people in the On Leong and Hip Sing because there was no more gambling.” In the intervening years, other institutions in Chicago have taken on some of the tongs’ traditional roles. Organizations like the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the Chinese American Service League, Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, and Chinese Mutual Aid Association have filled in many of the business and social service needs. Municipal courts and police now play a bigger role in the lives of Chinese-Americans, community members say. And on the gambling side, mainstream casinos have targeted Chinese consumers with Asian entertainment and food, as well as convenient buses from Chinatown to their poker tables and slot machines in Indiana. But that’s not to say the On Leong and Hip Sing tongs have completely disappeared. “They didn’t really go away, they’re both still here,” Ling says. “They’ve just become one of the many community organizations in the area.” Indeed, both still occupy buildings in their respective Chinatowns. Hip Sing offices sit next to the Argyle El stop, and the On Leong occupies a small building around the corner from its once grand headquarters on Wentworth Avenue — now a community building called the Pui Tak Center. The Hip Sing Association currently has its headquarters in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Monica Eng’s uncle George, who was a Hip Sing elder, attended meetings at this location next to the Argyle El stop. (Bashirah Mack/WBEZ) But are they still involved in the same activities? Chicago Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says his department doesn’t publicly comment on any of its ongoing gang investigations — Asian or otherwise. And when I called and stopped by the two organizations, they didn’t answer the phone or respond to my questions. As for my own family, as far as I know, our connection to the tongs ended with my Uncle George. I don’t even have any family elders left to ask. The last of that generation passed away in the last decade. And their kids, who are senior citizens themselves, don’t know much about these admittedly secret societies. After a recent lunch with my cousin Winston (Uncle George’s son) in Uptown, I asked if he’d walk over to the Hip Sing Association building with me. We rang all the buzzers, but no one answered the doors. Winston said he used to drive his dad, who was well into his 80s, to the building regularly for Hip Sing meetings. “But did you ever go up and see what was going on?” I asked. “Not really, I usually waited downstairs,” he said. “And when I went up, it was mostly just a lot of older Chinese guys smoking cigarettes and hanging out.” More about our reporter Monica Eng at the grave of her grandfather Harry Eng and grandmother Nora Sit Eng in the Chinese section of Mount Auburn Memorial Park in suburban Stickney, Illinois. (Katherine Nagasawa/WBEZ) Monica Eng is a veteran Chicago journalist and WBEZ reporter whose great-grandfather Joe Eng came to Chicago around 1920. Within a few years, he opened restaurants in West Garfield Park, including The Chicken Shop and a “dine and dance” ballroom called the Golden Pumpkin. After losing all the businesses after the stock market crash, Joe launched new restaurants in the early ’30s with his relatives, his daughters, and son Harry Eng. These included the Paradise Inn on the West Side, the ornate Hoe Sai Gai on Randolph Street, and House of Eng on Walton Street. Monica has never formally worked in restaurants, but has written about hundreds in her years as a food journalist at the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. She continues to explore food, health, and history on her Chewing podcast. Monica Eng is a WBEZ reporter. Follow her at @monicaeng or write to her at meng@wbez.org.

Ken Davis is joined by the Chicago Reader’s housing and criminal justice columnist Maya Dukmasova. They discuss a lawsuit being brought against the city by a developer who claims that the ago-old tradition of “aldermanic prerogative” is not lawful and should be declared illegal. The dispute stems from a plan to build a 300-unit apartment building in the 41st Ward, a project the Alderman approved but then rejected immediately before zoning approval. They also talk about a dispute at Atrium Village, where developers say they’re planning to move all the low-income residents into a single building and deny them access to the amenities at neighboring buildings. And they talk about Mayor Emanuel’s plan to build a $95 million police academy in West Garfield Park, and the rigorous opposition it’s sparked in the community. This program was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).

This is the second Chicago Drill and Activism (AKA "Chi DNA") installment of Bourbon ’n BrownTown. Chi DNA is an ongoing documentary and multimedia project, which also features interviews, micro-documentaries, and editorial pieces on drill rap and the activist resurgence in Chicago. GUEST Ruby Pinto, is an artist and activist based in Chicago. She’s a member of For the People Artist Collective (FTP), a group that integrates art and activism to amplify struggles and uplift marginalized voices. She also makes jewelry out of copper and other scrap metal, inspired by the cityscape and human ingenuity. Ruby is a prison and police abolitionist, and is committed to building alternatives to the current system to keep us safe so that we no longer need to rely on the violent, exploitative police state. FTP’s organizing work and art was pivotal in the #ByeAnita campaign to unseat then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez in 2016. OVERVIEW Fast forward two years after Alvarez's ousting, #NoCopAcademy, a new youth-led coalition, has formed to fight back against the City of Chicago’s plan to build a $95 million cop academy in West Garfield Park. Apart from specific activist campaigns, Ruby and BrownTown take a step back to analyze intersectionality within organizing circles, online and offline “call out culture” and everything in between. The gang discusses how systems of oppression—racism, capitalism, sexism—intertsect to further a legacy of white supremacy and ultimately make a Trump presidency possible, rather than vice versa. Furthermore, Ruby and BrownTown unpack the resistance to such systems in the #MeToo movement, organizing for state funding of social services, and challenging everyday white privilege. How do newly radicalized people get involved in social movements without being ostracized for their previous ignorance? How do we “call in” those who cause us and our allies harm while remaining vulnerable to the blind spots in our analyses? Here’s BrownTown's take. CHI DNA The Chicago Drill and Activism project explores the creation, meaning, perspectives, and connections between drill rap and the resurgence of grassroots activism since the early 2010s through the eyes of the people involved. It focuses on contemporary Chicago as an intentional place for the resurgence of these two formations of cultural and political resistance during relatively the same time period. It examines how authenticity, community, and other important values to the subjects are impacted and promoted via technology, social media, and a rejection of traditional means of movement politics and corporate structures. As told by activists and drill rappers alike, the project situates the the subjects’ experiences and actions into a broader theoretical and empirical history of systemic inequality and resistance in Chicago. Follow the ongoing project at Chi-DNA.com for more. -- Find Ruby’s jewelry on her Instagram, Facebook, or Etsy pages. Follow her on Twitter and For the People Artist Collective on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. -- CREDITS: Intro/outro music by Fiendsh. Intro soundbite from Ruby Pinto's speech at a December 2014 #DecarcerateCHI protest outside of the then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez's office. Audio engineered by Genta Tamashiro. -- Chicago Drill and Activism Site | Twitter | Micro-Docs | Support Bourbon ’n BrownTown Site | Become a Patron on Patreon! SoapBox Productions and Organizing, 501(c)3 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Site | Support

The rain begins to fall as I make my way north through the middle of the west side. Traveling through this section of the city can only be described as passing by block after block of what used to be. As I turn on Madison Street, I passed a boarded-up, trash-filled, abandoned building; where campaign posters for a local politician hang ironically from a chain link fence.Even this majestic building which is my destination used to be something else: a center of life for a community of Irish Catholic Chicagoans who have who have long since migrated away from the surrounding neighborhood of West Garfield Park.Your first impulse when entering this hall is to look up towards the ceiling, and along the walls. Two sets of large stained glass windows depicting what I assume are scenes from the Bible rest in the walls closest to me. In the middle of the hall, a pair of beautiful circular stained glass windows face each other from opposite sides of the hall.This is such a traditionally religious space, built from a very different culture, by people who sing very different songs...and yet, the people here this morning are moving freely and comfortably in this space. They seem to be at home here. Later on, five minutes were set aside for audience members to greet each other. A man in a suit greeted me, introduced himself, and invited me to an upcoming Saturday brunch where the men of the community gather.As I was about the return to my seat, I noticed that no one was in the rows of benches around me. In fact, no one was in any of the benches. The audience members had made their way to one of the three main aisles in the hall and began to stand side-by-side, holding the hands of the people next to them.Once everyone was standing, a young woman went to the front stage and began to pray for the entire crowd. She said a lot, but one line in her prayer stayed with me:“Even through all this, thank you.”The journey continues in the Garfield Park neighborhood on the west side, at the corner of Washington Blvd. and Kildare.Intro Theme Music: Victory Lap by QSTN ft. Mecca:83Background Music: www.bensound.com/Register to receive an advance copy of the companion book at https://godinchicago.com/Join the conversation! Follow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Y94abI and on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2z6q5W4