Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Alden Loury

For young Black people in Cook County, jobs are few and far between

2023-12-09T04:14:00-06:00

A young man is among those demonstrating in the Loop in June 2015 for higher wages in the fast food industry. Job opportunities are scarce for young Black people in Cook County, Alden Loury writes.

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Last month, I walked into a sandwich shop on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

A young woman behind the counter greeted me with a wide smile. We exchanged pleasantries, after which I looked over the menu. She asked what I’d ordered in the past and encouraged me to try something new. So I went with her recommendation: the chicken club, her favorite.

The young lady making my sandwich was my 19-year-old daughter.

I was visiting her during Dad’s Weekend at the U. of I. Getting a chance to see her work was the highlight of my weekend with her. And the sandwich was pretty tasty, I must say.

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I can see how the job is working its magic on her. She’s beginning to handle some of her expenses on her own. She’s turning down social plans to get more hours at work, and she’s even saving money to reward herself from time to time. It’s a joy to watch.

I hope the grind of working a job, no matter how mundane, inspires her the way it inspired me. That inspiration is why employment opportunities, which new Census data show are in short supply for young Black people, are so essential.

Jobs as a source of life skills and hope

More than 30 years ago, I was also making sandwiches on the very same campus.

As I tried to rebound from years of academic struggles — flunking out of the U. of I. three times — and figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, I took on a number of minimum-wage jobs. In addition to assembling sub sandwiches, I packed boxes of cheese into plastic containers at one factory, bagged plastic cups at another and harassed people with telemarketing calls at yet another job.

It wasn’t a glamorous life. However, it taught me responsibility and some basic life skills. But, most importantly, it gave me hope.

After getting a full-time gig as a bank teller, I still needed additional income to begin paying back student loans even though I wasn’t enrolled at the time and still light years away from earning a degree. I picked up a part-time evening job at the Champaign News-Gazette fielding calls from high school football and basketball coaches and compiling box scores of their games.

I thought it would be a fun way to earn extra cash, but it opened my eyes to the world of journalism and put me on the path that has led me to where I am today.

That journey began with long hours of menial work where I tortured myself with regret, but it ended with a college degree and the promise of a rewarding career. Along the way, I learned I had determination and resilience, and discovered my passion and capabilities.

Cook County’s racial employment gap

But the opportunities are diminishing for young people in the Chicago area, particularly those who look like me, to experience similar work journeys and earn the priceless benefits they can yield.

Census data released this month shows Cook County is home to nearly 170 census tracts where the unemployment rate was higher than 16%, triple the national rate. The numbers come from responses to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey from 2018 through 2022.

Cook County led the nation in census tracts with that high level of unemployment. And to no one’s surprise, those census tracts were most often in Black communities on Chicago’s South and West sides as well as the near west and south suburbs of Cook County.

Meanwhile, unemployment in Cook County among Black 16-to-24-year-olds is staggering: a whopping 35% during that five-year period, according to the recently released census data. For all other 16-to-24-year-olds in the county, unemployment was 13%. For county residents of all ages, unemployment was 7%.

For centuries, millions of people have gone to great lengths and traveled thousands of miles to find jobs in this country in pursuit of their dreams. Those work journeys led Europeans across the Atlantic Ocean, African Americans from the Jim Crow south to the segregated north, Mexicans across the southern U.S. border and, more recently, South Americans across a continent.

Far too often, American employers outsource or automate jobs to increase their profits. The long-term benefits those jobs can provide for workers are being traded away for the short-term benefits of profit.

Creating jobs, even low-paying jobs, is important and necessary because it does more than put a few dollars in peoples’ pockets. It can transform their lives.

Alden Loury is the data projects editor for WBEZ. He writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

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Chicago’s armed robberies surge, in five charts

2023-12-07T15:52:09.44-06:00

A police vehicle sits outside of the Holstein Park field house in Bucktown on Sept. 23. Community residents met with police to discuss the rise in robberies in the communities during a CAPS meeting in the building.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file

Chicago is in the midst of its sharpest spike in robberies in at least 20 years, according to a WBEZ analysis of city crime data.

Robbery totals in the city have increased faster since July 1 this year than they have during any similar span in the past two decades largely due to the soaring numbers of armed robberies, the analysis shows.

1. The rise in robberies started in July.

This year through Nov. 26, there were more than 8,700 robberies citywide. That’s the highest yearly total, through that date, since 2017.

But what’s notable is the surge from July 1 through Nov. 26: Nearly 4,900 robberies were committed in Chicago, an increase of more than 55% when compared to the total for the previous five months. That’s the highest increase in robberies between consecutive five-month periods since at least 2001, the earliest year for which crime data is available on the city’s online data portal.

‘Bank jackings’ in Chicago see robbers drain victims’ accounts with their phone apps

The WBEZ analysis includes robberies and attempted robberies but excludes carjackings and attempted carjackings. Carjackings peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic but have receded the past couple of years. WBEZ excluded carjackings to isolate trends occurring with other forms of robbery, like armed robberies.

Chicago is seeing largest spike in robberies in over 20 years, analysis shows

One indicator of the intensity of the trend is the total daily counts. From July 1 to Nov. 26, citywide daily robbery totals surpassed 45 recorded crimes 20 times, roughly once a week. During a six-day span in late September, the city topped 45 daily robberies four times. During an eight-day stretch in late October — including three straight days from Friday, Oct. 27, to Sunday, Oct. 29 — the 45 mark was exceeded five times. More recently, the city surpassed 45 robberies in a day twice during the four-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

2. Armed robberies, sometimes in concentrated sprees, led the way.

Nearly 3,600 armed robberies were reported between July 1 and Nov. 26 this year, a 75% increase when compared to the number reported during the previous five months. All other robberies combined increased by a comparatively low 18%; these robberies include strong-arm robberies, where no weapon is used, and aggravated robberies, where no weapon is viewed but an offender implies they have a weapon.

In November, Chicago Police issued at least 15 community alerts warning residents about rashes of robberies occurring across the city. In many of the alerts, police indicated that groups of offenders — sometimes identified by physical characteristics, wearing masks or by the descriptions and license plates of the cars they were driving — were engaged in mini-sprees of multiple robberies at various locations within a span of a few hours.

The armed offenders would drive up to victims, who were on foot or in their own vehicles, jump out of a car and demand money or property, according to several alerts. On Thanksgiving morning, Chicago Police warned Southwest Side residents about a blitz of 12 robberies committed in about one hour. In all, the robberies spanned five community areas, with the first three occurring in the Lower West Side community in rapid succession at 7:20 a.m., 7:25 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., according to the alert.

The WBEZ analysis shows that such robbery blitzes increased dramatically during the city’s five-month surge. From July 1 through Nov. 26, sprees — where three or more robberies were committed within the same hour of the day in the same community area — happened 102 times, or nearly five times a week. That total represents an 89% increase from the previous five-month period from February through June, which saw just 54 instances.

While robberies overall are spread out across dozens of community areas in the city, these blitzes were far more concentrated. Since February, more than half — 81 of 156 — have occurred in just five communities: Humboldt Park, West Town, South Lawndale, Lower West Side and Logan Square.

3. The number of total robberies in Chicago is actually only at a six-year peak.

Through Nov. 26, there have been more than 8,700 robberies citywide. That’s the highest yearly total, through that date, since 2017. However, when you extend the timeline, there have been fewer robberies this year than in years past. Citywide robbery totals surpassed 10,000 each year from 2001 to 2013 and also in 2016 and 2017.

4. Austin, Humboldt Park and West Town had the most robberies during the citywide five-month spike.

Some areas, where robbery figures are usually low, have seen dramatic percentage increases. In 19 community areas, the robbery total doubled or more than doubled this year when comparing the figure for July 1 through Nov. 26 with the figure for the previous five months. Although scattered throughout the city, most were located on the city’s Northwest and Southwest sides.

Pullman and Bridgeport are among the communities with usually moderate robbery figures witnessing tremendous percentage increases since July. There was just one robbery reported in Pullman between February and June — compared to 11 reported since July. In Bridgeport, robberies jumped from seven to 42 between those time periods.

5. Other communities that have long struggled with robberies have seen things get even worse.

Humboldt Park, West Garfield Park and East Garfield Park had the highest robbery rates in the city during the July-to-November surge — near or above 50 robberies for every 10,000 residents. That’s essentially one robbery for each 200 residents in each of those communities during that five-month period. Percentage-wise, the robbery increases in some South and West side communities have been smaller than some other communities during the citywide July-to-November surge. But the sheer volume of robberies and the per capita robbery rates in some South and West side communities remain among the highest in the city.

Logan Square, the Lower West Side and Belmont Cragin stand out as areas that were struggling with robberies before the recent five-month surge and saw things get even worse from July through November. Comparing then and now, Logan Square ranked 13th from February through June and rose to 5th from July through November; the Lower West Side went from 21st to 6th; and Belmont Cragin from 25th to 8th.

Who got hit, and what do police advise?

Chicago’s violence reduction dashboard shows that the highest numbers of robbery victims this year have been adults in their 20s, 30s or 40s. Collectively, they accounted for more than 63% of robbery victims between Jan. 1 and Nov. 26. More than two-thirds of the victims were men.

Among robbery victims during that span, at least 37% were Latino, 35% were Black, 16% were white and 5% were Asian or Pacific Islander. The race and ethnicity was unknown for 7% of the victims, according to the city’s dashboard.

The highest numbers of robberies occurred during the evening and early-morning hours between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. During the recent spike, some of the highest percentage increases have occurred among robberies committed between midnight and 1:59 a.m., between 3 a.m. and 5:59 a.m., and between 9 p.m. and 9:59 p.m.

But there’s also been a noticeable jump in robberies during the lunch hour: The combined total of robberies committed between noon and 12:59 p.m. was 69% higher from July 1 through Nov. 26 than it was from February through June. The surge has also been marked by a dramatic increase of robberies committed on Sundays.

To avoid robberies, police offer a number of safety tips and advise residents to be aware of their surroundings, free themselves from distractions and report suspicious activity.

Here are some other tips from police:

If confronted by an offender, remain calm, do not resist during a robbery and do not pursue a fleeing assailant;
Dial 911 immediately and provide a detailed description of the offenders, including any vehicle description and license plate information;
Request contact information from any witnesses who approach to offer assistance.

Alden Loury is the senior editor of WBEZ’s data journalism team. Follow him @AldenLoury.

Chicago sees largest spike in robberies in over 20 years, analysis finds

2023-12-07T07:09:15.325-06:00

Jeremiah Watson was robbed as he walking to the Citgo Gas Station on the corner of 76th and S South Chicago on the South Side.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

It all happened in a matter of seconds.

Jeremiah Watson was walking to a gas station Oct. 28 near 76th Street and South Chicago Avenue when a group of people surrounded him and pointed a gun in his face.

They beat him up, smacked him with the gun and stole the cash he had.

Watson, 29, went to the hospital and received six stitches. The scarring has started to fade, but Watson remains on high alert when walking in his Avalon Park neighborhood.

“I’ve really been staying in the house lately,” Watson told the Sun-Times. “Especially when it’s getting dark, I’m indoors somewhere. I gave them [police] the best description that I could give, but I haven’t received word or anything at all that, ‘yeah, we got these guys.’”

Watson is not alone in his experience. City data analyzed by WBEZ indicates Chicago is seeing its largest spike in robberies in more than two decades.

There were nearly 4,900 robberies between July 1 and Nov. 26, an increase of more than 55% compared to the total for the previous five months. That’s the largest increase in robberies between consecutive five-month periods since at least 2001 — the earliest year tracked in the city’s online crime portal.

‘Bank jackings’ in Chicago see robbers drain victims’ accounts with their phone apps

Humboldt Park, West Garfield Park and East Garfield Park saw the highest robbery rates in the city during the July-November surge, with essentially one robbery reported for every 200 residents in those communities during those five months, according to the analysis by WBEZ. Humboldt Park, along with the Austin and West Town community areas, also saw the highest number of total robberies reported during that time.

Chicago’s armed robberies surge, in five charts

It’s unclear why the surge is taking place.

A Chicago Police Department statement didn’t address potential reasons for the spike but said since July, the department has enhanced its efforts to combat robberies, resulting in a 25.8% increase in robbery arrests compared to the same period in 2022, according to its data.

“We will continue to hold these offenders accountable and pursue justice for all victims,” the statement said.

Lance Williams, a professor of urban community studies at Northeastern Illinois University, also was unsure why robberies have increased so dramatically, but said what stands out to him is that “again, the Black neighborhoods that have been struggling continue to struggle.”

Overall, total robberies in the city are lower compared to where they were from 2001 to 2013, and again in 2016 and 2017, when robbery totals surpassed 10,000 each year. But with more than 8,700 total robberies reported through late November, the city is on pace to see the most robberies since 2017.

On carjackings

Robberies surge as carjackings dip

WBEZ focused its analysis on the surge in reports of robberies and attempted robberies, excluding carjackings and attempted carjackings, which are tracked separately by police, even though the crimes are similar in some cases. The city saw a peak in carjackings in 2021, with a total of 1,850, but that number has since been on the decline.

Then-Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced a raft of measures aimed at slowing the surge of carjackings, including beefing up the department’s Vehicular Hijacking Task Force. In March, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced $21 million in grants to police departments and task forces across the state to address the issue.

As of Nov. 26, there have been 1,177 carjackings reported in the city, according to city data.

Jeremiah Watson shows the scar near his right eye after he was beaten and robbed near a gas station on the South Side.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Armed robberies increased markedly between July and Thanksgiving

Armed robberies appeared to be driving the recent spike in robberies, according to the WBEZ analysis. About 3,600 armed robberies were reported between July 1 and Nov. 26 of this year, a 75% increase compared to the number reported during the previous five months.

Daniel Penates, 34, was leaving a bar near the Mag Mile in the early hours of Oct. 22 when someone approached him from behind and hit him on the back of his head. Penates was able to throw the attacker off, and he kept walking, but the man got up and approached again, this time pulling out a gun.

“Next thing you know, I hear somebody running behind me and when I turn around he has the gun pointed straight at my head,” Penates told the Sun-Times. “He said, ‘Do something stupid again, and I’m gonna shoot you.”

Penates, who lives in Miami but is in Chicago for work, handed over his phone and the chain he was wearing.

“My chain cost a lot of money, but my life is worth more,” Penates said.

Walgreens workers bound, robbed at gunpoint in Gold Coast: ‘We just came for the money’

He went to the police station the next morning to report the crime but did not expect many updates. The man was masked, so Penates was unable to offer any description to police.

His phone was later found about 20 blocks from the scene.

Penates said crimes like this are also common in Miami, but that he is extra cautious while in Chicago.

“I don’t care what time it is, as long as I’m walking, I don’t take out my phone,” Penates told the Sun-Times. “I’m always just looking around, vigilant. You always gotta be looking around 24/7.”

In 19 Chicago community areas, the robbery total doubled or more than doubled this year during the five months from July 1 through Nov. 26 compared to the previous five months — primarily in communities on the Southwest Side and the Northwest Side.

The Logan Square, Lower West Side and Belmont Cragin communities already were seeing higher numbers of robberies this year but saw their figures rise more during the July-November surge, when their totals ranked among the 10 highest neighborhoods in the city.

John Cook and his girlfriend were parked outside her apartment building near the border of Logan Square and Bucktown in late October when all of a sudden someone pointed a gun at them through the windshield.

“Both the doors just flew open,” Cook, 22, told the Sun-Times. “There was a guy in the front of the hood with a gun, guys on either side and a guy in the car as well. They just took our phones and wallets, nothing else. They didn’t really check our bags, our jackets … It was all done within five seconds.”

As soon as the robbers began driving away, Cook spotted a police car heading in the other direction.

“I flagged him down and made the police report within two minutes of being robbed,” Cook said.

Cook’s wallet was recovered just a few blocks away with only a credit and debit card missing — the cards were never even used. The couple’s phones were also dropped somewhere in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

In Cook’s eyes, there seemed to be no explanation for the robbery.

‘Where’s the f- - -ing cash?’

In West Town, one area with the highest total number of robberies in the last five months, Emily and her roommate had just returned to their apartment at about 3:30 p.m. Oct. 22 when they noticed a car driving toward them.

“They came from far away … It was a bit weird. It was coming really fast. I thought: ‘Jeez, they’re going to hit me,’’’ said Emily, 29, who asked to be referred to only by her first name.

When the car stopped right next to them, three or four young men in their late teens or early 20s wearing hoods over their faces jumped out with guns drawn. They screamed, “‘Where’s the f---ing cash?’’’ she recalled.

The robbers took their purses, wallets, a fanny pack and a makeup bag before speeding away.

“We got everything back except for the money,” Emily said. “They drained all my change too — and left me a penny. I call it my lucky penny.”

Police told them the same group robbed seven or eight people right after them.

Emily, who asked to only be referred to by her first name, was robbed Oct. 22, right outside her home. Police found what she calls her “lucky penny” in her wallet after they recovered her stolen items.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Emily, who was robbed near her home in October, stands in her living room Friday.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

In November, the Chicago Police Department issued at least 15 community alerts warning residents about rashes of robberies occurring across the city. In many of those alerts, offenders would drive up to victims who were on foot or in their own vehicles, exit their vehicles wielding firearms, and commit the robberies.

WBEZ also analyzed city crime data to find other instances in which three or more robberies were committed within an hour in the same community area. The analysis showed that those robbery blitzes increased dramatically during the five-month jump.

From February through June this year, citywide daily robbery totals never surpassed 45. Since July 1, that has happened at least 20 times — about once a week.

Most robberies over Thanksgiving holiday in 7 years

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, there were at least 281 people robbed between Wednesday, Nov. 22 and Sunday, Nov. 26 — the highest number reported over the holiday since 2016.

Chicago police have issued community alerts about at least five robbery sprees during that period.

One robbery during that time involved an off-duty Chicago police officer who was robbed of his star, badge and gun on the Northwest Side.

Ald. Felix Cardona Jr. (31st), who represents the ward where the officer was robbed, said residents are frustrated and scared.

“They know that the police are doing their job, but their hands are tied,” Cardona Jr. told the Sun-Times.

He added that changes to the police department’s no-chase policy would better equip officers to address this increase in crime, but the department says arrests have increased.

The police department told the Sun-Times that personnel from the Bureau of Patrol and the Bureau of Detectives meet weekly to “identify and review patterns,” related to robberies and motor vehicle thefts.

In these meetings, they also discuss strategic deployment and “leveraging technology as part of the investigations.” Police department officials did not provide any further details.

Williams, who works closely with several Chicago-area violence prevention groups, says the issue will not be solved by police but by investments in the community.

“You have to invest in the infrastructure of the neighborhood,” Williams said. “You have to bring viable businesses into the neighborhood. You got to bring in functioning social services, invest in the schools in order to help those individuals. And the city is just overwhelmed with that task.”

Contributing: Rosemary Sobol

Racial profiling isn’t just a traffic thing. For Black people, it’s everywhere

2023-11-11T05:30:00-06:00

Richard C. Jackson sits in the driver seat his vehicle outside his Bellwood home, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023, in Bellwood, Ill. Jackson was featured on a recent project WBEZ’s Alden Loury worked on with colleagues and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity documenting racial disparities in traffic stops in Illinois. Loury, who is also Black, writes that traffic stops aren’t the only ways African Americans are profiled everyday.

Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times

The last time I was pulled over by a police officer was a couple of years ago on DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Seeing two other drivers who were pulled over, it dawned on me that I probably needed to slow down, as I was driving probably a good 10 miles per hour above the speed limit.

Then, I saw the flashing lights behind me. It was my turn to pull over.

As traffic stops go, this one was fairly routine. The officer was cordial. He told me I was speeding and asked for my license. After returning from his squad car, he told me to slow down. Painless, except for the speeding ticket he gave me.

I hate getting tickets. Who doesn’t? But I was more curious than angry. Were there police waiting to catch motorists on the North Side? To find out, I headed north, purposely driving the speed limit to get a sense of how many others were over the limit.

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Practically everybody passed me with ease from 39th Street on the South Side all the way to Hollywood Drive on the North Side. Yet, not a police car in sight.

I didn’t see another police car until I got back to the South Side, where a motorist was pulled over not far from where I’d gotten my ticket.

I wasn’t surprised by the discrepancy, but I brushed it off. Maybe the cops would be catching speeders on the North Side the next day.

I was wrong. Racial profiling of drivers is alive and well in Illinois.

For months this year, I worked on a project with colleagues from WBEZ and journalists with the Investigative Project on Race and Equity to document the widening racial disparities in traffic stops in Illinois. Two stories were published by WBEZ and the Sun-Times.

We found Black motorists were the subjects of nearly 31% of all traffic stops in Illinois last year, even though just 14% of the state’s adult population is Black. In 2004, Black motorists were the subjects of about 17% of traffic stops statewide. Several Black men recounted the many times they’d been pulled over by police. Some shared details of tense encounters.

The statistics and stories were all too familiar for me. I’ve been stopped by police at least a dozen times, mostly on the South Side and usually because I forgot to turn on my headlights or a tail light was out. Most of those encounters have stuck with me. During my first traffic stop, two state troopers searched every inch of my car — under the seats, in between the seat cushions, even unloading my trunk. One trooper even asked if I had anything on me that I didn’t want him to find.

There are those who say Chicago police target Black and Latino drivers to look for more serious crimes, like guns or drugs. But last year, collectively, Black motorists were stopped by Chicago police four times more often than whites, even though there are more white adults in the city than Black.

Frequent reminders of other people’s suspicions

Whether it’s a single encounter or an entire department’s wide racial disparities, traffic stops communicate law enforcement’s suspicions of Black motorists.

But racial profiling isn’t solely a law enforcement issue. I am often reminded of other people’s suspicions of me.

I’ve sensed the tension in the cold silence when I’m alone in an elevator with a stranger. I’ve watched others redirect their paths, even crossing the street altogether, as I walked toward them. I’ve been followed by employees or security guards while perusing the aisles in stores.

And practically everywhere I shop in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods, I see bulletproof glass, employees checking my bags before I exit or merchandise in locked cases. In some stores, buying batteries, detergent, deodorant and even a $3 tube of toothpaste requires shoppers to get a clerk to unlock a case — and the employee takes the merchandise to the check-out counter until you’re done shopping.

Recently, I couldn’t bring myself to ring a bell for customer assistance in the toothpaste aisle. I just left. I’ll buy it someplace else, I told myself.

I am not a threat or a thief. Yet, everywhere I turn, there’s someone communicating to me, in some way, that I am. That other Black people are as well.

It’s degrading. It’s dehumanizing. And it’s exhausting.

About 20 years ago, in a landmark study, renowned sociologist Devah Pager found that white job applicants with a criminal record were more likely to get a callback or a job offer from employers than Black applicants with no criminal background.

“This suggests that being Black in America today is essentially like having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding employment,” Pager (who died in 2018) said in an interview with the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Apparently, being Black in America is like having a felony conviction in many other walks of life.

Alden Loury is the data projects editor for WBEZ. He writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com

When neighborhood schools won’t cut it, Black families opt out

2023-10-06T05:45:00-05:00

Students and parents arrive at Jacob Beidler Elementary School in Garfield Park on the West Side on the first day of school Aug. 21.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

One of my most anxious moments as a parent came while waiting for my middle daughter to complete an assessment to determine if she qualified for a kindergarten seat in one of Chicago’s most celebrated elementary schools.

It wasn’t a written exam. Instead, an evaluator tested her on a range of basic reading and math skills until they reached the limits of her knowledge. I sat in a large waiting room with two to three dozen parents who were also waiting for their children. Essentially, the longer the child remained with an evaluator, the better he or she performed. The assessments typically lasted 15 to 45 minutes, parents were told.

Our neighborhood elementary school had struggled for years, and private schools were too expensive. So it felt like my 5-year-old daughter’s academic future was riding on how long it was before she emerged from the assessment.

Those thoughts ran through my mind as I waited, and fidgeted, and sweated, and bit my fingernails.

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I breathed a sigh of relief when a few children emerged after 15 minutes. I grew even calmer when more children emerged after 20 minutes. When the evaluator returned with my daughter after a little more than 30 minutes, I was feeling pretty good. Surely, she’d performed well enough to get in a good school somewhere.

Weeks later, when the results came back, she had been accepted at just one school, a well-regarded classical elementary school. But she was on the waiting list, and a seat wasn’t likely to materialize by the time classes started. Ultimately, she was enrolled in a charter elementary school a couple of miles away — the best option available.

Years later, she tested well enough to earn a seat at a selective enrollment high school. We were lucky.

Far too many other Black families are not so fortunate. Just ask the Black community activists who last week called on Chicago Public Schools to take more steps to close the Black achievement gap.

Leaving the city, for better schools elsewhere

CPS may have a variety of programs and curricula, but the system is shamefully lacking in what many parents consider viable academic options, especially for low-income children and many students of color. Too often, under-resourced neighborhood schools post low test scores and are considered schools of last resort.

Children’s educational fortunes often rest on how much their parents can pay or how well a child performs on a test.

Long before school choice became a buzzword, tens of thousands of Chicago parents — most of them white — employed their own system of choice, if they could afford to, by opting out of public schools and sending their children to parochial or private schools.

The percentage of white Chicago children enrolled in private schools is far higher — more than 40% — than for their Black and Latino peers, at about 11% and 9% respectively, according to American Community Survey data from 2017 to 2021.

The flight of white residents to the suburbs also depleted the public schools: The number of white students fell from roughly 270,000 in 1960 to about 95,000 in 1980, according to census data prepared by the University of Minnesota. By the 1999-2000 school year, just 43,000 white students were enrolled in CPS, district data show. Now, it’s about 36,000.

For those families who fled to the suburbs, public schools were, and are, the system of choice. Regardless of race, ethnicity or income, roughly 80% to 90% of suburban school children are enrolled in public schools, ACS data shows.

Most parents aren’t willing to gamble with their children. They will make the best choices they can among the available options. And if they can’t find or afford suitable options, they’ll simply opt out.

And Black parents are now divesting from CPS and the city altogether.

Black enrollment in CPS this year, about 113,000, is slightly less than half what it was in the 1999-2000 school year, roughly 227,000, district data show. And over the past two decades, children have been overrepresented in the city’s massive Black population decline: The number of Black children, age 17 and younger, fell by 49% from 2000 to 2020 — a much steeper decline than the 14% decline in Black adults.

It’s great that Chicago’s selective enrollment high schools are among the nation’s highest-rated. It’s laudable that public schools now offer more of the highly regarded International Baccalaureate programs.

Yes, there are choices. But what parents, Black parents in particular, really need is more overall quality. That means investing in neighborhood schools, whose students didn’t win an admissions lottery, didn’t score high on a test, and don’t have the same advantages as their peers from wealthier families.

Alden Loury is the data projects editor for WBEZ. He writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

Send letters to letters@suntimes.com

Is the worst behind us? What unemployment data for metro Chicago indicates

2023-09-11T15:49:24.07-05:00

A closed sign is on display outside a Chicago store in May 2020. The Chicago metro area posted an overall unemployment rate below 4% for three consecutive months this year, a first since before the pandemic.

Nam Y. Huh/AP

In May, the federal government formally declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

That same month, the Chicago metropolitan area registered an unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, below 4%, according to federal government data. The last time that happened in metro Chicago was February 2020, a month before the city announced its first COVID-19 death.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in metro Chicago — which includes a total of 14 counties in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin — remained below 4% again in both June and July.

While it might be premature to declare an end to the regional economic emergency resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the return of pre-pandemic unemployment levels for three consecutive months is, perhaps, a sign that the worst is behind us.

WBEZ analyzed more than 20 years of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Current Population Survey to get a closer look at the region’s elevated unemployment rates during the pandemic. We wanted to see how they compared with rates during earlier times of economic upheaval. Here’s what we learned.

Sharper spike and speedier recovery

In April 2020, metro Chicago’s unemployment rate jumped nearly 13 percentage points from the previous month to 18.72%. That’s the highest jump and the highest rate in a single month since at least 1990, the earliest date for which regional unemployment data was available on the bureau’s website.

By January 2021, the unemployment rate had dipped below 7%. By November 2021, it fell below 5%, and it dropped below 4% this May. While unemployment took more than three years to return to pre-pandemic levels, it was a shorter recovery period compared to the wake of the Great Recession.

The economic downturn resulting from the housing market crash is considered to have lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. During that window, the rise and fall of unemployment in metro Chicago was not nearly as dramatic as during the pandemic, and the higher rates dragged on for much longer. The region’s unemployment began its slow and steady ascent in August 2006, when it was 4.45%. That rate increased each month, reaching a peak of 11.49% in January 2010 — almost 3 ¹⁄₂ years later. The rate slowly decreased over the next few years, but it didn’t dip below 5% until January 2017.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics Information and Analysis • Note: The Chicago metro statistical area consists of 14 counties: Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will in Illinois; Jasper, Lake, Newton and Porter in Indiana; and Kenosha in Wisconsin.

Alden Loury/WBEZ

Unequal patterns among racial groups

No racial or ethnic group of workers, no age group and no gender in metro Chicago was immune to the sting of the pandemic.

But for some groups, unemployment spiked higher or lasted longer, according to a WBEZ analysis of raw data from the Current Population Survey, a monthly poll of the U.S. labor force sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Once the rates came down, they settled into the same unequal patterns that existed before the pandemic, the analysis shows.

The estimated unemployment for Latinos in metro Chicago skyrocketed at the onset of the pandemic — growing in April 2020 from under 6% to more than 23%. It would top 20% again in both May and June of 2020.

Meanwhile, neither Black nor white workers saw rates top 20%. For white workers, unemployment also jumped dramatically from less than 4% to nearly 16% in April 2020. In that month, Black unemployment rose from under 9% to nearly 17%, a smaller increase than for the other groups. Black unemployment didn’t reach its peak of nearly 19% until August 2020, according to the WBEZ analysis.

However, overall unemployment estimates for white and Latino workers settled back to pre-pandemic rates much faster than they did for Black workers. White unemployment fell below 4% for three straight months by October 2021. Latino unemployment dipped below 6% for three consecutive months by November 2021. Unemployment for Black workers in metro Chicago didn’t drop below 9% for three consecutive months until July 2023.

Source: IPUMS-CPS, University of Minnesota • Note: The Chicago metro statistical area consists of 14 counties: Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will in Illinois; Jasper, Lake, Newton and Porter in Indiana; and Kenosha in Wisconsin.

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In addition, for much of the past two decades, Black unemployment estimates in the region have typically remained at least twice as high as those for white unemployment. Since 2000, the average monthly unemployment estimate for Black workers in metro Chicago has been about 12.63%, which is comparable to the 13.19% average monthly unemployment estimate for white workers during the four months when it was at its peak — from April to July of 2020.

Since 2000, those were the only four months when white unemployment estimates topped 10% in metro Chicago. However, for Black workers, unemployment estimates have topped that mark in 209 months since 2000.

Essential workers meant lower pandemic unemployment

The surge in Latino unemployment may have been influenced by the large share of Latino workers in the restaurant and food services industry, one that was hit hard during the earliest months of the pandemic.

In 2020, restaurant and food services was the leading industry for Latino workers in metro Chicago. But by April 2020, unemployment for restaurant and food service workers was nearly 45%. It didn’t fall back to single digits until September 2021.

In recent months, however, the industry appears to have rebounded. Restaurant-related unemployment has been below 4% in six of the eight months between December 2022 and July 2023. And the region’s estimated number of workers in that industry topped 340,000 in July 2023, the highest such figure since June 2019.

Alden Loury/WBEZ

As it might be expected in a public health crisis, unemployment for hospital workers has been much lower and far more stable. It was just 4% in April 2020. It climbed to 10% in May 2020 before falling below 7% in June 2020.

The leading industry for Black workers in 2020 was hospitals, the WBEZ analysis shows. That might have helped keep Black unemployment from growing as dramatically as it did for other groups during the first few months of the pandemic.

Alden Loury is the data projects editor for WBEZ. Follow him at @AldenLoury.

Chicago’s Black neighborhoods pay a steep economic price for the stigma of race

2023-08-26T05:00:00-05:00

Homes seen on South Calumet Avenue in Bronzeville.

Max Herman/For the Sun-Times

One of the best things I remember about my years living in the Greater Bronzeville area was driving home from work.

Soon after exiting DuSable Lake Shore Drive at Oakwood, I’d catch a glimpse of a majestic home just across the street from Mandrake Park at 39th and South Cottage Grove. With a large, circular window above its double-door front entrance, the gated and well-maintained property always caught my eye.

I’d often say to myself as I drove by: One day, I’d love to own a home like that.

Despite the stigma and the negative headlines we often see about Black communities, to me, that home — and all of Greater Bronzeville — represent the promise of Black neighborhoods in Chicago.

Greater Bronzeville — Douglas, Grand Boulevard, Kenwood, Oakland and Washington Park — is on the come-up. Since 1990, median household income in all five communities has increased. Just three other majority-Black communities can make that claim: North Lawndale, Riverdale and Woodlawn.

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But the sobering fact is that each of those Bronzeville communities still rank in the bottom half of the city’s 77 neighborhoods in median household income, according to data provided by local demographer Rob Paral.

Black communities that were once the picture of middle-class living have been in economic free-fall for decades, historical data from Paral shows. In those Black neighborhoods that are growing economically — including in Greater Bronzeville — the share of Black residents is declining.

In fact, the highest economic gains of the past 30 years have occurred in neighborhoods that, as they gentrified, lost their Black majorities.

Shattering the economic glass ceiling

It’s almost like there’s an economic glass ceiling for Chicago’s Black communities. And the only way for them to break through is to shed their Blackness. For those that don’t, economic decline is almost a certainty.

Take the Near South Side and Near West Side, both of which have shattered the glass.

In 1990, both were majority-Black and were among the most economically-depressed areas of the city, ranking 74th and 75th, respectively, in median household income. Littered with vacant lots and abandoned warehouses but just a stone’s throw from downtown, they have rebounded mightily over the past 30 years.

Near West Side median income rose by more than 700% from 1990 to 2020, and by nearly 400% for the Near South Side. Along the way, both communities welcomed a bonanza of private-sector investments — restaurants, nightclubs, condos, hotels and sports facilities.

By 2020, both communities ranked in the top 11 economically, with median incomes above $90,000. And both shed their Black majorities: Black population on the Near South Side fell from 92% in 1990 to just 22% to 2020. On the Near West Side, it fell from 66% to 24%.

The economic burden of racial stigma

Meanwhile, once-stable Black communities lost their economic footing.

Between 1970 and 1990, several South Side Black communities were ranked, at least once, among the city’s top 30 for median household income — including Auburn Gresham, Avalon Park, Burnside, Calumet Heights, Morgan Park, Pullman, Roseland, South Deering, Washington Heights and West Pullman.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, middle-class Black families had integrated those communities, only to watch their white neighbors flee to the suburbs or to the North Side. Jobs and development followed and disinvestment set in. Eventually, many of those middle-class Black families left also, in pursuit of better economic conditions, safer neighborhoods and well-resourced public schools.

By 2020, only one of those communities was still among the city’s top 30 in median household income: Morgan Park. Many of the other once-middle class neighborhoods saw their median incomes decline dramatically, anywhere from 22% to 47%.

Columns by Alden Loury

There are no clear remedies to this phenomenon. But the cause is perhaps easier to discern.

Racial stigma is powerful. It led millions of white Chicagoans to pack up, sell their houses and move, out of fear of Black neighbors who were, in fact, their economic peers. Racial stigma can also make the value of a home dramatically lower, simply because its owners are Black rather than white.

Racial stigma has led white consumers to avoid stores and malls near their homes, because they no longer feel comfortable once the clientele becomes increasingly Black. It has led commercial enterprises to shun Black areas so much that billions of dollars each year flow from those neighborhoods to white areas where businesses are located. It has robbed Black Chicagoans of opportunity, leaving them more likely to be underemployed and underpaid than whites with less education.

These structural forces impact all of us, often without anyone’s premeditation or even awareness. We fool ourselves into thinking that inequity is driven by economic factors, without considering the ways racial stigma masks how we interpret the bottom line.

But the stigma is real — and its economic impact is devastating, for some of us.

Alden Loury is data projects editor at WBEZ and writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

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Chicago’s exodus of grocers offering healthy variety on South Side, West Side paint bleak picture of food access for some

2023-08-11T13:55:12.877-05:00

A produce aisle at a Lakeview East Jewel supermarket is stocked with a variety of fresh foods — items that shoppers say they want more of in their neighborhood grocery stores.

Mariah Rush / Sun-Times

Scanning the aisles of the Englewood Save A Lot, Martisha Mack is on a mission. She’s looking for canned chili but typically wouldn’t head to the former Whole Foods location because she looks for “healthier options.”

She steers clear of perishables — about a dozen milks sit expired nearby in the dairy fridge.

Nine months ago, the store at 832 W. 63rd St. was a Whole Foods. Mack, 29, a Bronzeville resident, would stop by each week to grab produce, nondairy milk and seasonings.

Now, she won’t rely on the Save A Lot for her groceries, though the store was meant to fill a void of low food access on the South Side when it opened in May.

“I hate to say that I’m not surprised, but I just don’t think stores [on the South Side] are prioritized, and sometimes I think the overlooking is intentional,” Mack said.

Low food access in Chicago has jumped by 63% in the last decade, a WBEZ-Chicago Sun-Times analysis found, painting a bleak picture for people on the South Side and the West Side who might not have access to thriving supermarkets.

A produce aisle in a West Garfield Park Save A Lot.

Mariah Rush / Sun-Times

Walmart plan to shut 4 stores by Sunday leaves customers perplexed: ‘You came in and filled a void — now you’re taking it away’

Several major store closings in recent months — including a Walmart Supercenter in Chatham, a Whole Foods in Englewood and an Aldi in Gresham — have left people living in these neighborhoods upset and scrambling to find full-service stores where they can buy fresh healthy foods at a low cost.

Shoppers fill their carts during final days at Englewood Whole Foods: ‘Devastating’ for the community, customers say

Some have blasted the presence of discount grocers, such as Save A Lot and Food 4 Less, and an increasing number of dollar stores, as unsuitable substitutes for the major grocers that have moved out, questioning whether the discount grocers stores offer high-quality, healthy or diverse options. Food access and industry experts also question whether the discount grocers are offering diverse, healthy options.

Emanuel’s push for grocers

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel began his first term in 2011 by making food access a priority, with an initiative to bring grocers to areas still largely segregated by race.

His time in office saw the Walmart Supercenter open in Chatham in 2012 and a Whole Foods in Englewood in 2016. Two years into the initiative, the mayor’s office produced numbers to show food access had improved.

In the last year, though, the supercenter and Whole Foods closed, prompting an uproar from shoppers.

Also during Emanuel’s term, Target closed two locations on the South Side, and Dominick’s went out of business, closing 15 Chicago locations. Kmart closed its final store in Chicago in 2018.

Most of the major grocers that have opened have notably been on the North Side.

Tax breaks, including city tax-increment financing, had been used to lure stores like Whole Foods, Save A Lot and Walmart.

“Ten years ago, there was real intention to grow these neighborhoods, which is why you’re now seeing some of them pulling out,” said Steve Caine, a Chicago senior partner with consulting firm Bain & Co.’s retail division.

After announcing the closings of half of its Chicago locations in April, Walmart said all of its stores in the city remained unprofitable even after trying “different strategies.”

Grocery operators have pointed to crime and homelessness as reasons they’ve needed to invest more in security, driving up costs, according to Amanda Lai, a Chicago director of food industry practice for the consulting firm McMillanDoolittle. These grocers also deal with hefty overhead costs in cities.

Ruby Ferguson, food equity policy expert for the city, said having a variety of options is key for all communities, though she did not say how City Hall would try to lure major grocers.

“It’s a key part of the vision for food equity and justice,” she said. “That choice, that variety ... all of these things accessible to every Chicagoan. It goes back to leaning on traditional solutions, while also innovating and exploring new ways.”

Emanuel’s 2013 goal to eradicate “food deserts” by 2020 was “laudable,” but those efforts weren’t sustained, according to Elaine Waxman, a food access expert.

The snack aisle at a West Garfield Park Save A Lot store.

Mariah Rush / Sun-Times

Discount grocers remain

What remains to fill the void of supermarkets and superstores in many of these areas are discount grocers.

Not all discount grocers are created equal, experts say.

Lai and Phil Lempert, a food trend expert known as the “Supermarket Guru,” deem Aldi — a chain that has stayed in the city but still closed stores — a better, on-trend, cost-efficient alternative to Save A Lot.

Save A Lot, whose Englewood location replaced the shuttered Whole Foods, prompted protests regarding expired food, unhealthy options and unclean stores.

Englewood Save A Lot opens at former Whole Foods site without fanfare

“It is known as one of the worst grocery operators, poor quality products, less-than-fresh produce, off-brand products,” 16th Ward Ald. Stephanie Coleman said in April. “If you visit any of their stores, you’ll see that we just deserve better.”

Save A Lot locations under the ownership of a company called Yellow Banana have opened on the South Side and the West Side. Save A Lot locations have closed unexpectedly, and Yellow Banana owners have acknowledged poor store conditions and expired foods. A location closed briefly in 2022 due to a rat infestation.

A parent stopping for baby food at Save A Lot will pay 70 cents more for the same product than at Jewel, whose deals for staple items, such as bread and milk, will save shoppers money.

The snack aisle in a Lake View East Jewel store.

Mariah Rush / Sun-Times

When a reporter tried to buy a gallon of expired fat-free skim milk at the Englewood Save A Lot, a cashier searched for a nonexpired gallon of the same kind but came up empty.

“Would I take it home and put it in the fridge? I wouldn’t want my kids to drink it, for sure,” Yellow Banana CEO Joe Canfield said in April about another expired milk that was found on store shelves in a West Garfield Park location.

“We have to do a better job of trying to stay on top of that,” he told residents in a May meeting. “We have category rotation schedules. We rotate dairy every day … but sometimes we make mistakes.”

A Mariano’s — also in Lake View — included similar prices to Save A Lot, and more competitive sales.

According to experts, providing access to quality groceries hits a roadblock when supermarkets pull up stakes in Black and Brown neighborhoods, leaving them with smaller grocery stores that offer fewer options — often not at competitive prices — for fresh foods.

“On the North Side, do we expect our community neighbors to be satisfied with just a Save A Lot?” Waxman asked.

Low food access, by the city’s 2013 definition, meant “living in a census block located more than a mile from a large grocery store.”

A commonly used definition of low food access considers how far people are from supermarkets and supercenters, plus large grocery stores.

Chains like Jewel-Osco, Aldi and Trader Joe’s are categorized by the U.S. Agriculture Department as supermarkets. Superstores include Mariano’s, Pete’s Fresh Market and Target.

However, establishments categorized as large grocery stores include corner stores, butcher shops, liquor stores and international food stores.

“Just because the store carries a few of the staple items doesn’t mean that it has affordable food so people can prepare a variety of foods at home,” Waxman said.

In 2013, 38,000 Chicago residents lived more than a mile from a supermarket or superstore. The number rose to 102,000 residents by 2023, a WBEZ and Sun-Times analysis found.

Organizers say Chicago’s food deserts don’t just happen, they’re created

One advantage of supermarkets and superstores, Waxman said, “is the variety of foods that people can get. They tend to have more competitive prices.”

The produce section of a Lake View Mariano’s.

Mariah Rush / Sun-Times

Target, Mariano’s, Pete’s Fresh Market and Trader Joe’s are the supermarkets and superstores in Chicago that have seen consistent growth in the last decade, primarily near the Loop and on the North Side.

Black residents’ food access declined drastically in the last decade, with the number of people experiencing food scarcity going up by 197%, according to the WBEZ and Sun-Times analysis. In 2023, 1 in every 12 Black residents is experiencing low food access, compared to 1 in every 105 white residents, the analysis shows.

Roseland, a South Side neighborhood with over 38,000 residents — 94% Black — has no supermarket or superstores. The Near West Side, with a white plurality, has 11 major grocery stores.

“Some chains saw locations in more prosperous areas as more desirable,” said Tracey Deutsch, a University of Minnesota capitalism and grocers professor. “They were concentrated in areas of higher income, and those were often whiter areas.”

The location of a majority of supermarkets and superstores paints a telling story of where major grocers are willing to venture.

“Whether or not redlining and racism are causes of chains leaving these areas, it reproduces exclusion,” Deutsch said. “It definitely gives poverty a new dimension, and it frankly gives living in a Black neighborhood a new dimension.”

What comes next?

Lempert said he thinks high-quality national grocers can make it in Chicago, with some alterations. He points to Grocery Outlet, a low-cost chain that has stores primarily on the East Coast and the West Coast.

“One of the hidden secrets to Grocery Outlet is they’re individually owned,” Lempert said. “Typically, the people who own them also live in that neighborhood. … It’s much more personal than Save A Lot, which I find very impersonal.”

When Save A Lot was named as Whole Foods’ replacement, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot said, “Despite the fact we talked to all of the grocery chains in the city, we had no takers.”

If city officials can’t find grocers to fill the space, Waxman said, they need to fund a different solution — like community-based grocery stores, instead of forcing stores in communities that oppose them.

“If private-sector chains won’t solve the problem, then [City Hall] has to come up with some other solution,” she said. “We can’t just say, ‘Well, we tried, and they wouldn’t come.’ Well, OK, do better.”

Additional data reporting by Matt Kiefer and Ola Giwa.

Discount grocers, including Food 4 Less, are among options that shoppers use when major grocers have moved away.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Affirmative action hasn’t made up for centuries of racial discrimination

2023-07-08T06:00:00-05:00

People walk on the campus of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill on June 29. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admission policies at UNC and Harvard were unconstitutional.

Getty

I had a vivid flashback when I heard the news of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.

I was whisked back to my high school drafting class during one of the final days of my senior year.

I was comparing notes with a white classmate about our upcoming college plans. Our grade point averages and ACT composite scores were practically identical. I was just one position higher than he was in our final class rankings. And we both applied for admission to the architecture program in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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I told him that I got accepted. He told me that he didn’t.

There was a pause. I didn’t know what to say.

He said it wasn’t fair.

I’d been accepted to the U. of I. through a program designed to boost the enrollment of students from underrepresented groups. I was elated when I got word of the scholarship. And while I was aware of the pushback toward affirmative action policies, that conversation with my white classmate was the first time I’d spoken with anyone who felt that such programs were unfair to them.

At that moment, I felt awful. But that feeling would fade.

A couple of months later, during my first weekend on campus, my roommate and I encountered three other Black male students we knew from high school as we walked along the main business strip near campus.

As we stopped to greet each other, a campus police car pulled up beside us. Two officers exited the vehicle and approached us, asking to see identification. The officers were nonchalant, even pleasant, engaging in small talk as they waited for each of us to reach into our pockets and produce our student ID cards. They thanked us as they got back into their squad car and drove off.

The encounter lasted for just a few minutes, but it has stuck with me ever since. I imagine it was a routine exchange for the officer. For me, it was a subtle, yet clear, sign that I stood out.

Even though affirmative action got me admitted to a predominantly white college, it didn’t mean that I was accepted. The officers chose only to question five Black men in a sea of white students parading along Green Street — including many who had also gathered briefly in small groups as we had.

The sympathy I felt for my white classmate who did not get accepted has eroded over the years, as I’ve gained a deep knowledge of the overt racism of our past and the more subtle forms of discrimination that persist. Affirmative action may have provided me an advantage in getting into the U. of I. But he has advantages in practically every other facet of life.

Data shows he’s more likely to be approved for a mortgage, hired for a job, benefit from generational wealth and see his property values appreciate faster. He’s also less likely to attract the suspicions of law enforcement or the public at large.

A ‘tone-deaf’ ruling

The six Supreme Court justices who voted to kill affirmative action may have followed the letter of the law, but their assessment that the policy is “unfair” feels tone-deaf in a nation that was literally built on a system of oppression — a system that most Americans don’t seem to be motivated to change.

What’s more, the court’s ruling could ultimately weaken our ability to fight racial inequities across the board. A college education has long been viewed as one of our most valuable weapons in the fight to level the playing field. And there may not be a place in need of such weapons more than Chicago.

Consider that the unemployment rate for Black Chicagoans with a high school diploma, about 33.3%, is nearly five times higher than it is for their white counterparts, 7.2%, according to my analysis of 2021 Census data provided by the University of Minnesota. That gap narrows, but doesn’t disappear. The unemployment rate is three times higher for Blacks with a bachelor’s degree and two times higher for those with a graduate or professional degree.

Losing affirmative action could make an already daunting path to a college degree even harder for those who’ve long battled racial discrimination. There’s work to be done to address social, economic and educational inequalities, so that affirmative action programs are no longer needed.

And we should have a growing army of people ready to engage.

Surely those who fought to end racial preferences in college admissions will be just as passionate about ending racial preferences in all walks of life.

Alden Loury is data projects editor at WBEZ and writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.

Father’s Day: A dad’s job is never done

2023-06-16T11:51:59.147-05:00

Alden Loury and his three daughters (from left to right) Amirah, Arielle and Alexis on Father’s Day in 2017.

Provided

My oldest daughter sobbed as she gathered her words. I’d always known her to be composed, so it was unusual to see her display such emotion. Sitting in my car a couple of summers ago. I listened patiently as she described the intense pressure she was feeling.

In her early 20s and just a few weeks away from starting law school, she shared her worries about relocating to a new state, finding an apartment, living apart from her longtime boyfriend and taking on her greatest academic challenge. And she was feeling alone. She asked if we could talk more regularly and spend more time together. She said she needed her father more than ever.

I was taken aback. She’s smart, courageous, hard-working and civic-minded. I’d watched her excel from grammar school through college. And after working for a couple of years, in Arizona and then North Carolina, she was accepted to at a strong law program on the East Coast.

Our conversation made me realize that I was wrong to think that she didn’t need her dad the way she did when she was younger. A proud father of three girls — ages 25, 19 and 14 — I’d fooled myself into thinking that my job would be pretty much done once they left home and gained their footing.

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For most of their lives, I’ve focused on providing my girls with the necessities — a stable upbringing, a decent home, a quality education and enriching activities. Now they’re making their own life choices and providing many of the basics for themselves. But they still need dad — something I’ve been reflecting on as Father’s Day approaches on June 18.

Soon after that emotional conversation with my oldest, we started talking on the phone more often discussing a book on prison abolition by Angela Y. Davis, among other topics.

And I began making periodic visits to see her in Maryland. During one visit, I got a little misty when I picked her up from her law school campus and reflected on when I would pick her up from preschool.

I was with her when she got the call that she’d earned a spot on the school’s mock trial team. And I’ve been there for some of her trial team competitions, including earlier this year when her school’s team captured first place in a national competition.

As I prepared to head back home from my most recent visit, she told me how much it meant to her that I’d been so present and supportive. This time, I was the one who got emotional.

Over the past few years, I’ve learned that my role in my daughters’ lives is perhaps even more critical now that they’re older. The stakes are higher, and the pressures are greater. And so, too, are the benefits of fatherhood.

It has been a joy to watch my daughters blossom, mature and endure. They’ve stumbled and fallen from some challenges, but they’ve also managed to get back up, fight for themselves and work through things.

Alden Loury’s daughter Alexis (center) on her prom send-off in June 2022 with her sisters, Amirah (left) and Arielle (right).

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After a rocky start, my middle daughter finished strong in her freshman year in college. She’s a fighter and also the most compassionate person I know. She feels deeply for anyone who has been wronged or oppressed, and I love that she’s beginning to recognize her own strength and resilience and that she can fight for herself with the same force and energy she displays for others.

My youngest daughter is coming out of her shell as she prepares to enter high school in the fall. While typically shy and soft-spoken, she spoke at her eighth-grade luncheon about her math teacher, who helped her gain confidence to conquer a subject that had always intimidated her. “Because when you have at least one person who believes in you, you start to believe in yourself,” she told the crowd as she choked back tears.

My conversations with my daughters are rich and substantive, giving me a clear sense of their personalities, their passions and how they view the world and their place in it. And my daughters have become my confidantes, sharing with me their advice on social media (my IG page is in serious need of help), fashion and even dating — knowing when to text, what to say and what not to say.

Fatherhood is the hardest job I’ll ever have. It’s a roller coaster ride to strike a balance between discipline and diplomacy, to set high standards but be accountable when you fail to meet them yourself, to demand excellence while also displaying compassion when your children fall short.

There are days when I feel like Super Dad, and there are others I wish I could take back. But it’s also the most rewarding and the most meaningful thing I’ll ever do with my life.

Gifts are nice for Father’s Day, but not necessary.

The sheer joy of being dad to these three amazing young women is the greatest gift I could ever have.

Alden Loury is data projects editor at WBEZ and writes a monthly column for the Sun-Times.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.