August 6th, 2008
Tiffanie Beatty, our LearnChicago! Coordinator has been hired full time as our Program Associate. She sent this via email the other evening after attending Lollapalooza (with former staffer Shane Peterson).
Tiffanie writes:
“Everyone, I have a confession!
As you know, I have been here a year and up until last night, I LIKED Chicago a lot!
I have even said I “loved” Chicago. But I have been lying.
Last night though, surrounded by over a 100,000 musty, screaming, white suburbanites,
I fell hard.
At first I was mostly excited for Shane. Somewhere in the middle of “Homecoming” I screamed “Shane, you are home!” Right after I said it, I realized so was I.
Standing there, with my diamond in the sky, some of my favorite South Siders (Hyde Parkers to be specific) by my side, Mr. West on the stage goin nuts, and the magnificent skyline behind it all,
I became one of the many.”
May 4th, 2007
This is a poem submitted by Rachel Gray, a student participant in Chicago Center’s LearnChicago! Program for Whitworth College’s Prejudice Across America trip, which spent 3 days in Chicago. The poem reflects on her South Side Tour with Chicago Center staff member Arvis Averette.
She writes, “This was the first poem I wrote after getting back from the Prejudice Across America trip and I was determined to change the world (the intellectual landscape of Whitworth, at least) with it…
Arvis’ Mythology
“Take a good look
at them. They’ll be mythology
soon.” Silent titans loom
grayer than the sky. Concrete stories
upon stories, stains
in the stairwells. Even eyes
closed can’t see black children play
in a packed dirt yard, even under a titan’s
watch.
Home is not soft blades
of grass poking tender pink
feet. It is not walking on
stainless precious plush
carpet (don’t eat on it). Home is
not sliding down polished banisters, or
playing pirates on the stairs.
Instead, it is making sure poorly
placed needles do not stab
tender pink feet. It is understanding
a moment alone could last
forever.
The Olympians have arrived.
A huge iron ball smashes into a living
room betrayed. Dustblood
sprays into the air (the heavy machinery
operators wear masks). Huge chunks
of walls float haphazardly toward
the ground. Off center, a sign
announces the invasion of
million dollar white people
condos.
Black people are tiny against the back
drop of a giant.