A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
Police, Protests, and Presidents
Sixty-six protesters were arrested outside McCormick Place on Saturday after they chained themselves together and blocked traffic. The protest was a challenge to participants in the ongoing International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference taking place inside the convention center. They were from a crowd of hundreds of other protesters representing various groups, including We Charge Genocide and the Black Youth Project 100. The groups gathered to call for an elected police accountability board and to oppose Rahm Emanuel’s plan to increase police funding and hire 300 additional officers, among other demands. At press time, President Obama had not yet made his planned Tuesday speech to the conference, though last week he did defend protesters’ use of “Black Lives Matter” instead of “All Lives Matter” at a criminal justice forum.
Spike Speaks
On Thursday, Chicago Magazine had the honor of presenting Spike Lee’s first in-depth interview about his film Chi-Raq, to be released in December on Amazon. Lee opened up to reporter Bryan Smith about his clashes with the mayor over the movie’s theme (Chicago gun violence), his tight relationship with Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina, and some details about the film. Lee called Rahm Emanuel a “bully” for accusing Chi-Raq of bringing Chicago bad press and impairing tourism, when, Lee claims, tourism and economic development are doing just fine downtown, while the South Side is neglected. Lee also confirmed that the film will be based on Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, in which women withhold sex from men in order to convince them to end the Peloponnesian War. (The remaining two percent of people who weren’t already eagerly awaiting Chi-Raq’s release must now be anxiously anticipating how Lee will pull off this unlikely marriage of themes.) Overall, Lee says, his primary mission with the film is to “save lives” by highlighting the impact of violence. The movie will include Purpose Over Pain, a group of mothers who have lost their sons to gun violence. “Calm down,” says Lee to those concerned about the film’s plan to intertwine humor and death. He promises he will address the violence with its due gravity; otherwise, he says, “Father Pfleger would have…damned me to hell a long time ago.”
Curse of the Byrd
Today, Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool is set to go in front of the Board of Education to propose opening two new charter schools in the city. During the same meeting, the CPS proposal will call for ten charter schools to be put on a warning list, which could result in a shutdown in the next few years. The numbers just aren’t in CPS’s favor this week—Emanuel’s proposed budget calls for $480 million in state funding for the city’s schools. There’s only one problem—the state budget isn’t likely to pass anytime soon. To cap it off, CPS enrollment decreased by 4,400 students this year, dropping below 400,000 for the first time in twenty years, most of it in district-run schools. Though charter school enrollment went up.