Unfortunately, a lot of my experience with city outreach was driven by my engagement with the race relations committee, which was under the leadership of Randall Blakely, who, unfortunately, resigned from the club due to the ULCC’s unwillingness to make a stand against the many discriminatory actions of the current administration.
Voter suppression and imprisonment of asylum-seeking and economic opportunity-seeking refugees were just a few things the subcommittee on race relations, through Randall’s leadership, asked this club to speak out against. Their lack of willingness to do so, particularly after he (President Trump) pardoned over 1500 people involved in the January 6 capital takeover (the vast majority convicted criminals), caused him to make a stand and resign. It’s quite sad because he’s one of the great leaders of this city when it comes to race relations. We lost a good one there.
Now I can answer your question, but it’s through that committee that I can do so. Things I’ve learned are that we live in a large city that’s a combination of scores of micro cities. Not only are (predominantly white) Lakeview and (predominantly black) Austin different, but when we have an event that takes us to meet people from Austin or Roseland for example, you very quickly see that not all African-American subsectors of the city are created equal, as those neighborhoods have significantly more challenges than Woodlawn or Hyde Park.
We’ve engaged with non-profit back-to-work and religious operators in South and Westside neighborhoods where people have been brought up in impossible conditions. Without the club’s programming, I never would have seen the work Chicago Cred is doing (off the streets / out of prison into the workforce training and assistance), I never would’ve had the opportunity to hand out turkeys on Thanksgiving in the many housing projects that we still have, despite Cabrini (Cabrini Green, a now-demolished public housing project) coming down. There’s a whole world out there that most of us don’t even know exists, and once you step in, you see that life isn’t fair. I often think, if I were born here, would I have been able to get myself out?
