Douglas statue flap: ‘A lot of catching up to do’

Sherry Williams

     Unlike you, I’ve actually been to the Stephen Douglas Tomb at 35th and Cottage Grove. Three years ago, at the invitation of Sherry Williams, president and founder of the Bronzeville Historical Society. The BHS had stashed its collection in the tombkeeper’s house and was being kicked out — by the Illinois Historical Preservation Agency, ironically enough.
     I mean, I assume you haven’t been there. Maybe you have, on a school field trip or something. So I apologize. It’s bad practice to make broad statements about groups of people you don’t know. A kind of prejudice, really, no matter who does it.
     Where was I? The Douglas Tomb. Not a must-see spot. Not exactly the Bean. As a fan of historic preservation, I was sorry to see the society’s collection, meager though it is, without a home.
     Which tips my hand regarding the statue. There’s no question Douglas was a bad guy — Williams called him “despicable.” He not only owned slaves but treated them so badly that other slaveholders complained, which is really saying a lot. Douglas was something worse than a sincere advocate of slavery — he did so cynically, politically, to hoover up votes from displaced Southerners downstate.
     So ditch the statue? Honestly, it’s not my call. Whose call is it? J.B. Pritzker’s? Three state reps wrote the governor Tuesday asking that the 9-foot-tall statue be removed from its 96-foot granite pedestal and the site no longer promoted to tourists.
     If you’re asking me — OK, you’re not, but let’s pretend — I view the site as a complete historical artifact. The tomb of Douglas. After he died, the neighborhood became a brutal prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate soldiers, plus a few stray traitors like former Chicago Mayor Buckner Morris, held for nine months for conspiring with the Confederacy to free prisoners. (Is his portrait up with the rest of Chicago’s mayors outside Lori Lightfoot’s office? Still waiting to hear. Another problem with purging history of the unworthy: it’s an endless task).

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Flashback 2002: Readers' thoughts on reparations

     A reader remembered a column I had written on reparations in 2002, and I posted it Tuesday. It makes sense to then share some of the reader reaction I got to it. Reading this nearly two decades later, I'm struck by how much more crazed we've become, as country.

     My column last week on the issue of reparations for slavery seems to have touched a nerve with a lot of people, white and black. Most gratifying of the many responses I got, and thought were worth sharing, were letters and e-mails from African Americans who were astounded to find a white person expressing an opinion that made sense to them. Like this one from Kathy B. Hayes of Chicago:

     "This is a 'thank you' for being bold enough to share your thoughts with the public on this very sensitive matter. I, being African American, was beginning to feel that this was something that 'White America' would never fully understand. Though it just seems to be so clear cut, most people I've discussed the matter with say, 'I didn't do it . . . [African Americans] should be grateful they've come so far.' Many won't accept the fact that America was built on the backs of my ancestors! The issue is deep, and many African Americans are suffering from generational curses, but many seem unable to break the curse. As you seem to be aware, there are people today who have been unable to recover from the days of slavery up to the '60s, when the hatred toward African Americans was as deep as in the days of raw slavery. 

   "The first step is to resolve this issue. What better way than monetary reparations in some form or another? The Bible tells us that money serves ALL purposes (Ecclesiastes 10:19),whether in the form of low-rate mortgages, college tuition, etc. Time has not healed the marks from all that's transpired right here on American soil. America must remember the Bible also tells us that whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap.     "Now is the perfect opportunity to show some compassion for the crimes that took place."

     White readers, on the other hand, tended to take what I call the "that's not my table" approach. Their relatives were in Ireland, or Sicily, or somewhere else, and the whole thing is not their problem. Ron Moran wrote:

     "I'm a bit more cynical on the subject of Americans being blamed for slavery and having various panderers like Jesse J. demanding payments. You are correct in establishing the issue of slavery going back to before we were a country, as well as for the plight of the Irish, Jews, Asians, Italians et al. as they assimilated.
     "Slavery has been a worldwide practice to the detriment of the temporarily enslaved in many cultures, from the Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and still exists today in various parts of Africa, India and some S.E. Asia areas.
     "The African slavery trade would not have been possible (then as now) if it did not have the cooperation of various strong African tribal chiefs going out and rounding up weaker tribes and hauling them to the coast to trade (primarily) for rum.     "Slavery has been a worldwide practice to the detriment of the temporarily enslaved in many cultures, from the Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and still exists today in various parts of Africa, India and some S.E. Asia areas.     "The African slavery trade would not have been possible (then as now) if it did not have the cooperation of various strong African tribal chiefs going out and rounding up weaker tribes and hauling them to the coast to trade (primarily) for rum.     "If there are reparations to be paid, then it should begin at the source, which is with the African tribal chiefs' descendants -- which would be a difficult task, but a proper beginning. The first of the initial purchasers/traders in slaves to this country were the English. Let's start and end there."

     The problem with this approach is that it isn't extended toward other aspects of American life. Nobody says, "Gee, I'd like to be protected by the Bill of Rights, but my relatives were in Prague when it was ratified." You come to this country, you become an American, you inherit the country's burdens along with its joys.
     James Reyes argues that reparations could galvanize black youth to new achievement:

     "The big lie about reparations is that white people would be negatively affected. This is the real reason why there is a great reluctance to even discuss the issue . . .     "If free college tuition is offered to descendants of slaves, or even all African-Americans, they better be ready to take advantage . . . . The disillusioned, bored, directionless young people of this country would be the new heroes of the civil rights movement."

     Many who wrote in opposition of reparations had an amusing tendency to unconsciously illustrate the pervasive racism that blacks are still up against. Perhaps sensing the loathsomeness of their opinions, they tended to write anonymously. Here is "Frank L." explaining his viewpoint:

     "What created slums, and why are they still there? Blacks did it all by themselves, and it's not gonna get any better because they don't care. I lived in those neighborhoods, and where the white people moved out, they were beautiful and well-kept. If you build new, they will wreck that in no time. Take a look at all those buildings on the South, West and North sides that have to be torn down. Who wrecked them? Common sense will tell you that's where all the gangbangers come form. Reparations? Hell no."

     I can't end on that note. Let's return to planet Earth with Phoebe Novak, of Chicago:

     "Yes, history is what has brought us here today, as each generation builds on the previous one. When previous generations of one group were held in slavery, we cannot say that we all have run this race from the same starting line. When the gun went off at the starting line, [they] were chained at the starting blocks. Well, eventually the race officials (no pun intended) released those people, and they started running, trying to catch up to all the others . . . . They would have to be superhuman to catch up at that point. Fair race? No, a false start, but the race was not rerun.     "Your column put this issue in very clear words. The United States should set this matter right. Maybe scholarships are one way to begin. I don't have the answers, but we should at least start."

     —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 17, 2002 

All that natural beauty made my eyes itch

   Nobody will ever ask me to create a school curriculum. But if they did, I would suggest just two essential classes to help students navigate life.
     Not home economics or shop. You can figure out how to hammer or bake on your own. While I’ve had reason to use algebra since learning it in 7th grade, I’ve never again used a band saw.
     No, my two classes would be Dealing with Deceit and Managing Toxicity. The first is so obvious I’m surprised it isn’t already taught. Lies infect much of our world. Not just in the miserable nadir of Trump, but before. Religion demands we accept the most ludicrous untruths without a flicker of doubt. History encourages wild overvaluation of ourselves and our accomplishments. Commerce puts us on a treadmill, doing jobs we don’t like so we can buy crap we don’t need but are tricked into wanting.
     Yet we assume people are honest. Back in April, when Trump said the nation would open up by Easter, I was talking to a neighbor who said, in essence, “Well, he must know something, have some secret plan, or he wouldn’t say that.” I almost screamed. Knowing all we know, educated people cling to a touching, baseless faith in the president’s honesty. Our default is still to automatically believe any random stranger is telling the truth.
     We have to fix that. “Is this person lying?” should be our go-to reaction to just about anything. I’d have the class chanting it, declining it like grammar: “Am I lying? Are you lying? Is he lying? Are we lying?”
     And toxicity. Social media is a snake pit of mean, stupid people, inflamed by certainty, shielded by anonymity, gleefully inflicting damage. Maybe if we learned that in 2nd grade, kids — and adults — wouldn’t suffer so much.

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Flashback 2002: Fighting slavery's legacy—Reparations reconsidered

Family of freed slaves, Crawfordsville, Georgia, 1866 (G. Gable; Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Sometimes my wife will say, "Good column today..." then pause, pondering, "...what was it about?" And I will tell her, if I remember—I sometimes also forget and I wrote the damn thing. The day before.
     So it's a great compliment, when a reader remembers a column, not just for a few hours, but, in the case of the column below, for 18 years. She noticed I mentioned "reparations" in Monday's column and sent me a column I wrote, sharing her reaction to the one below. 
     So I thought today I would post the original column, which I believe holds up well to the grind of nearly 20 years, and Thursday post her reaction. 
     The sad part, of course, hardly needs to be mentioned, but I think I will: since this ran in 2002 our nation has backslid, has lost sight of its purpose and its goal, certainly on a national level, and no doubt among individuals, who are so used to operating as scattered shards of party and region, race and class, that the idea of our belong to a cohesive nation with common goals can seem breathtakingly radical. But I believe that figuring out how things can be better is particularly important during times when they're growing worse.

     Most people never change their minds. Blame ego for this, probably. Reversing your opinion is an act of humility. It suggests that, previously, you were wrong. Wrong! Nobody wants to be wrong. We'd rather be consistent. Changing your mind takes effort, too. It almost hurts.
     So we cling to our beliefs. To make this easier, we limit our intake of information to stuff we agree with. Whatever might rock the boat is screened out. Thus keeping up with the news becomes more an act of comfort, like eating ice cream, than an intellectual exercise.
     I try not to be that way. Not being an especially smart person, I've developed a bag of tricks to make myself seem brainier than I really am. One of those tricks is to ask, if only occasionally, "Am I wrong here?" It's an enormously helpful tool. I can't tell you how many times it has saved me: in arguments with my wife, in discussions at work.
     And it helps when trying to make sense of the pulsing chaos of the world. For instance, when the idea of reparations to black Americans for slavery in this country was recently raised--again--I prepared myself, as I did two years ago, to return to the ramparts to defend patriotism and historical truth. Demanding reparations for slavery seemed to paint black Americans, inaccurately, as victims, while their middle class was actually growing year by year. It was unpatriotic--a slap at all those abolitionists and Union soldiers. A slap at Harriet Beecher Stowe.
     My thinking went like this: History is a rough place, filled with bad things, and to try to cash in on your misfortune now is extortion, the same lunging after a sliver of pie that Rainbow/PUSH is famous for. Blacks were taking their inspiration from Jews, ironically enough, using the Jews' unseemly success at prying a few billion dollars out of the Germans due to the 20th century Holocaust as an excuse to try to right this dusty 19th century wrong … an impossible task that would only lead to further dissension and fragmentation. Next Mexico would demand Texas back and, having caved in on the slavery issue, we'd end up forced to pay them off.
     That was my thinking. I had it all worked out, down to the pithy ending, and had flopped my fingers on the keyboard and started to write, when an objection occurred to me that I just couldn't bat away.
     What about the big black slums on the South and West sides of Chicago, and in every city in America? What about Detroit? What about South Central L.A.? What about the entrenched poverty and pervasive dysfunction which, despite gains, is such a problem for black America? What created that, and why is it still here?
     Remember, all manner of national and ethnic groups were once dirt poor in this nation. The Irish who arrived were penniless and hated. The Jews, no strangers to hate, sold rags on Maxwell Street. You could pass it off to skin color. Those Colleens and Cohens could melt into society in a way black people couldn't. But now we are seeing groups of other ethnicities--Asians, Hispanics--arrive in this country and scramble up the ladder in a way that black Americans haven't. Why?
     What is it about black people? If you believe, as all rational people do, that everyone is the same at the start, human beings, equal in their potentials and abilities, that we all have the same capacity to grow, live, learn, love, then where did this mass of black poverty and generation-to-generation dysfunction come from?
     At first it seemed ludicrous to me to write it off to slavery. That ended 140 years ago. A long time. But slavery really didn't end with the Civil War. In the South, it continued on with an additional century of repression that, if not actual chattel slavery, was very close. In the North, it continued as 100 years of bigotry and segregation.
     Could the 200 years of institutional slavery (unlike reparationists, who don't help their cause by exaggerating, I trace slavery, not back to 1492, but to the 1600s, when slaves actually appeared) plus 100 years of repression that have not ended to this day, somehow have a role in the widespread poverty we barely recognize, never mind deal with?
     Well, to quote young people: duh.
     This does not mean I believe the United States should cut a check.
     Frankly, I'm not sure what the nation should do. Apology isn't it. Apologies are symbolic and don't help people. But I do know--now--that we need to commence a process that begins with the thought: How did this group of Americans, who happen to be black and poor, get to this position in life? And what can their country, the United States, do to make sure that the promise of America is as true for them as it is for others? What can be done now that hasn't been done?
     I am beginning to suspect that it is the people demanding the issue of slavery be addressed who are the patriotic ones, the ones who believe in the grandeur of the United States and the sweep of history.
     History is what brought us to today. I have no trouble believing one reason I'm a bookish kind of guy is my great-grandfather studied the Talmud. So why is it so hard to accept that one reason, perhaps the main reason, a certain segment of America is poor and dysfunctional is its great-great-grandparents were separated in chains on a slaver's dock?
     And to accept that idea--and really, what other explanation is there--is to be on the road to believing that the same nation that fractured a group of citizens at one point in history can, 150 years later, do more to set matters right.
      —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 10, 2002

Day after day after day after day after day

The last normal thing: Northbrook Chamber of Commerce meeting, March 6, 2020. 

     “Any idiot can survive a crisis,” Anton Chekhov once wrote, “It’s this day-to-day living that grinds you down.”
     OK, Chekhov didn’t actually write that — at least not anywhere anyone could find it. Witty, anonymous thoughts are sometimes paired with him, or Hemingway, or Kurt Vonnegut, to give them a little extra pop.
     Though the non-Chekhovian observation is popping aplenty right now, with an additional twist as we try to survive day-to-day living in a crisis. The worst of both worlds. Of many worlds, all burning. Since it can be easy to lose track — it’s Monday, right? — let’s review.
     Mid-July in the Plague Year of 2020. Four months since what I consider the last normal thing, the March Northbrook Chamber of Commerce meeting. The benchmark before life got strange. Take a look at the picture. Crowded, huh? Shoulder to shoulder. Did you ever think you’d miss crowds? Not me.
     More than 135,000 Americans dead. Six hundred Americans die of COVID-19 every day. No end in sight. Economic collapse. Thirty million unemployed. Complete paralysis of the federal government, frozen, punctuated by the continual yapping sound of our imbecile president.
     Plus, his clueless fans demanding to die. Plus, nationwide civic unrest over racist police brutality followed by ... well, where are we now, exactly? Some Great Awakening to the racial disparities of our country? Pretty to think so — that is Hemingway. Although to me, it seems the only people really confronting the situation are those who already know.

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We can’t fly; we can’t hug; at least let us grin

     This grew surprisingly unpleasant. Someone at the paper saw a story Thursday about this COVID-shaped snack, and asked if I would weigh in. I had just finished my Friday column but, stout soldier that I am, I happily cobbled  together what I thought was a light take. The central challenge was getting the photo at right from Alinea, since being a newspaper, we couldn't just pluck the art off Instagram the way a web site could. 
     Friday, the guy originally complaining about this cursed canapé then wrote to complain some more about how his complaints were mishandled. 
     I tried to be charming and soothing, but the more I tried, the uglier the conversation grew. So into the filter he went. I considered posting the exchange here, but honestly, it was just depressing, all this angst about an amuse-bouche.
     Then the folks at the local news site which broke the story picked up the complaint itch, complaining on Twitter that I had shat on their news gathering skills with my less-than-reverent reference to their reportage. The shock of it—I thought I was giving them a grinning shout-out—must have stunned me senseless, because I defended myself on Twitter, alway a mistake. I felt like a mastodon stuck in a tar pit, attacked by raptors.
    So I blocked all involved, vented to a few actual friends in the living world, was soothed by their response, so rare on social media: human kindness. Then I moved on, which is one of my superpowers.  

     When my boss asked me to gather thoughts on Alinea’s new novel coronavirus-shaped canapé, conscientious newsman that I am, I suggested heading over right away to try the tidbit. To comment intelligently, I had to first sample the purplish sphere of coconut custard with Szechuan peppercorn, dotted with freeze-dried raspberries that caused some on Instagram to grouse that lives lost to COVID-19 are being mocked by a confection.
     Shoe-leather reporting. Direct experience. Can’t beat it.
     Alas, time is of the essence. So all I could do is acquaint myself with the thorough treatment by Block Club Chicago, which sadly chose to quote one, count ’em, one disgruntled person by name, complaining on Instagram. “This isn’t ok ... this isn’t ‘cute.’ This is shameful,” wrote the irked individual, whose identity we’ve decided to shield, out of an excess of kindness.
     No, what’s shameful is Donald Trump insisting America’s schools reopen in the fall, pandemic be damned. As are the same people who are willing to sacrifice Grandma to stay behind him now tossing Junior onto the pyre as well. Our nation marinates in humiliation like Hawaiian chicken.
     This is ... well, wry. Artsy. Maybe a little decadent. Much like Alinea itself, though I hasten to note that the custard with the controversial shape was not served at Grant Achatz’s 3-Michelin star Lincoln Park shrine, but at AIR — Alinea in Residence — a West Loop rooftop pop-up. It’s offered after prospective diners have had their temperature checked and are given a mask: if anything, the treat is a commentary on where we are at this awkward moment.

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Texas notes: Karen

    The latest report from Caren Jeskey, EGD's Austin Bureau Chief.

     "Marsha Marsha Marsha!" You may recall these three words yelled by Jan Brady when she felt that her taller, prettier older sister came out ahead and Jan, the middle child, was left in the shadows. 

      Today the Urban Dictionary defines this phrase as “a whiny dramatic response by someone who is jealous of another person.” 

     Enter Karen stage right, originally typecast in social media as a whiny, overbearing, entitled white lady behaving very badly by acting in an entitled, unreasonably controlling manner: “Get me the manager! My soup is lukewarm!” “I am NOT tipping you! You don’t deserve it even if you crawled to work today!” “Tsk tsk tsk! You are NOT in your place in line, now get back there.” 

     They don’t have an off-switch for their lack of ability to read a room and realize that the world does not revolve around them. Karens seem to take great pleasure in micromanaging the world to suit their version of how things should be. Karen has now morphed into the word used to describe anyone leaning on their privilege and calling the police on or falsely accusing non-white people of imagined bad behavior.
     For example, there is the intrusive white lady in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco threatening to call the police last week on a non-white man. James Juanillo was stenciling the words Black Lives Matter in chalk on his own property when Lisa Alexander and her husband Robert Larkins walked by and decided Mr. Juanillo was up to no-good. Not only did she assume he was creating an act of vandalism, she lied to him and said she knew the “true” owner of the property, even though he’d been the homeowner for nearly 20 years. This woman lost a big contract for her skin care line, and Mr. Larkins, the male Karen with her, lost his job at Raymond James according to several news reports.
     If this makes you uncomfortable it should. Non-white people are harassed constantly in the land of the free, and have been since their tenure on this land. I wrote a bit about it in my EGD post Searched a few weeks back. I'm thrilled that these incidents are now recorded for all to see, and can no longer be denied. 

     “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr

     I've been taught to call out racist behavior in real-time every time, and am starting to feel safer to do so. I wish I’d recorded these: a few years ago while working at a hospital in Texas a nurse told me that “black people need to get over slavery! That was 400 years ago,” when I provided an impoverished black man with a bus pass. As a hospital social worker it was my job to create safe and expedient discharges. That $2.50 bus pass may have saved the hospital thousands of dollars that would have been spent if this patient had no way to get home and had to spend another night or two. The nurse saw it as me enabling a black person to milk the system.
     A colleague once told me that he calls his pastor “Pastor Black, because he's from Africa. Get it?”
     A doctor in a rural hospital confronted me on an elevator where I was trapped with him and a high-level nurse: “oh look it’s Caren the socialist worker.” They laughed at me. “Hey dumb ass. Getting these patients you hate and disrespect out of here is my job. Would you rather cough up ten thousand dollars out of your inflated pocketbook to put them up another few nights in the hospital? Didn’t think so. How about thanking me for my diligent efforts to plan a safe discharge?” I said. Well OK, I did not say anything. The nurse, however, took it as a chance to jump into the harassment. “Caren you know what we should do with all of those [non-white non-English speaking homeless traumatized sometimes veterans of our great country] patients you help? Put them on an island somewhere so they can stop taking advantage of you. Then you can focus on [white] patients who deserve your time. “Thanks Karens, good talk,” I imagined myself saying as I pressed myself against the elevator doors, frantically pressing the button for the next possible stop and way out of this clown parade.
     I first started hearing people say “don’t be such a Karen” before Karen became the descriptor for the embodiment of white privilege she is today. Prior to a few weeks ago, the meme was simply unpleasant background noise. I’d cringe a little when someone asked me my name, since I knew what they might think when I said it. I live in a young town and many people I came across in my daily travels would stifle a laugh or even laugh aloud when they’d hear me admit I was, in fact, a real live Karen.
     In a moment of feeling sorry for myself, I posted on Facebook that some Karens out there feel bullied and teased by the use of the meme. Friends responded with acronyms for my name “Caring, Altruistic, Rad, Excellent, Neighborly,” and sentiments such as “you are the anti-Karen.” What I found more interesting was the friend who said “don’t take it personally,” and pointed out how effective this one word has become for naming very bad behavior and waking us up. I realized that by taking it personally I was closing my mind to learning about why it has taken such hold. The Karen meme is not going anywhere and will affect me for years to come. You can’t fight popular culture any more than you can fight city hall, so I decided to dig deeply into what being a Karen means, and why it’s important for us to take a look, and seek to understand.
     Thankfully I have never been a cop-calling against non-white people Karen, but I have been a let-me-talk-to-the-manager type. I am now seeing how tiring that is and I want to cut it out. I have so much to be grateful for and will be happier when I can let go of perfectionist tendencies and be more flexible— to enjoy life more and be a better member of a tough society rather than one who makes things more difficult.
     Here is where it got really exciting for me this week. A friend posted this on my Facebook page: The "CAREN Act" (Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies) was introduced on Tuesday at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting by Supervisor Shamann Walton.  This ordinance would make calls to 911 that are deemed to be discriminatory and racially biased illegal and the offender, if found guilty, would face fines, sensitivity training, and even possibly jail time. There is already a bill in California, AB-1550, that prohibits “Discriminatory Emergency Calls,” but the CAREN Act has been getting more attention this past week.
     The friend who pointed out this act suggested that "Carens with C should call the cops on Karens with K for calling the cops on non-white folks. I love it.” I love it too.