TCR Talks

What segregation is costing Chicago
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A new study quantifies how much the region is losing in lives, income, gross domestic product, and educational achievement due to its high level of racial and economic segregation.
Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/author/srichardson/)
A new study quantifies how much the region is losing in lives, income, gross domestic product, and educational achievement due to its high level of racial and economic segregation.
Critical race theory scholar Ian Haney-Lopez discusses “strategic racism” in the presidential election.
The mayor’s task force acknowledged that racism and a lack of accountability pervade the Chicago Police Department, but questions of legitimacy affect hope for real reform.
From Emmett Till to Rekia Boyd, generations of families affected by racial violence find solace by supporting each other’s struggles.
The video of a Chicago police officer shooting into a car of unarmed black teenagers scratches the surface of deep problems with policing.
In March, Anthony Hill, an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan, was shot and killed by a police officer in suburban Atlanta. Neighbors called police when an unarmed Hill was seen wandering around his apartment complex naked. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Hill’s death is one example of a recent deadly encounter between police and people living with mental illness. Shootings in Dallas and Milwaukee also have made national news and sparked calls for better police training.
Ian Haney-López, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading scholar of critical race theory, talks with Editor and Publisher Susan Smith Richardson about his new book, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class.”
Schools and jobs are the hottest issues in the upcoming mayoral race. So it seemed a logical fit for The Chicago Reporter and Catalyst Chicago to collaborate on a joint publication about a February election that is actually shaping up to be about one big issue: opportunity. Access to quality public education is at the center of the American success story and a lynchpin of the civil rights agenda. With a good education, any child, irrespective of race or class, can potentially climb to the top rung of the economic ladder. Or so goes the narrative.
We don’t typically associate parks with social issues like race and class. But race and class matter when it comes to parks and recreation. Longtime Chicagoans will remember the campaign in the early 1960s to integrate Rainbow Beach in the then white neighborhood of South Shore—one of many examples of the color lines around Chicago’s public spaces. Parks are where we relax, grill, exercise, walk the dog and watch our kids play sports. What can be more universal than that?
As the nation marks the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, we should remember Mississippi’s black residents, not just the students who went to the South to help them register to vote. Two library collections offer a glimpse into the summer of 1964.