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Epicenter: Chicago: Reclaiming a City from Neoliberalism
In many ways, all eyes are on Chicago. The city increasingly finds itself at the epicenter of multiple discourses of violence and safety – from hubristic Presidential tweets claiming federal intervention is necessary to address Chicago’s murder rate, to hand-wringing national headlines calling the city the “gang capital” of the United States, to threats to send migrants seeking refuge at the border to Sanctuary Cities like Chicago, to everyday corner conversations about the latest shooting, whether by a police officer or community member. Chicago is also a hub of resistance, fighting back against a number of national trends, including racial profiling, police violence, discriminatory “stop and frisk” programs, intensified gang enforcement and surveillance, criminalization of poverty, targeting of migrants, continuing residential segregation, gentrification, attrition of public housing, and privatization of public education and public services. Movements across the country are looking to Chicago’s uniquely intersectional organizing and recent wins on several fronts.
Now, in the wake of Emmanuel’s unexpected declaration that he would not run for a third term, Chicago is facing a new future under a new Mayor and newly configured city council on hotly contested political terrain.
Under the banner “Free the City, Heal the City,” Chicago’s cross-sectoral and intergenerational organizing community is calling on the new city leadership to adopt a whole new politic – one that conclusively rejects privatization of public goods, disinvestment from low-income communities and communities of color, and reliance on policing and criminalization as the primary response to social problems and substitute for social services and social goods. There is much we can learn from Chicago’s journey to this moment and the visions for the city that are emerging during this transition.
Andrea J. Ritchie is Researcher in Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color and the co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women and Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. She is a recent part-time transplant to Chicago.
Now, in the wake of Emmanuel’s unexpected declaration that he would not run for a third term, Chicago is facing a new future under a new Mayor and newly configured city council on hotly contested political terrain.
Under the banner “Free the City, Heal the City,” Chicago’s cross-sectoral and intergenerational organizing community is calling on the new city leadership to adopt a whole new politic – one that conclusively rejects privatization of public goods, disinvestment from low-income communities and communities of color, and reliance on policing and criminalization as the primary response to social problems and substitute for social services and social goods. There is much we can learn from Chicago’s journey to this moment and the visions for the city that are emerging during this transition.
Andrea J. Ritchie is Researcher in Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color and the co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women and Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. She is a recent part-time transplant to Chicago.
22 pages, ebook
Published June 1, 2019
21 people want to read
About the author
Andrea J. Ritchie
7 books104 followersAndrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant and police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, and advocacy around criminalization of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color over the past two decades. She recently published Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color now available from Beacon Press.
Ritchie is a nationally recognized expert and sought after commentator on policing issues. She has testified before the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and several United Nations Treaty Bodies. She has appeared regularly in the New York Times, as well as on MSNBC, C-Span, NBC Nightly News, NPR, Al-Jazeera, and Mother Jones. Her blogs and opinion pieces have been published in The New York Times, The Root, Colorlines, Rewire, Cassius Life, Portside, Praxis, Bilerico and TruthOUT.
Ritchie is currently Researcher-in-Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In 2014 she was awarded a Senior Soros Justice Fellowship to engage in documentation and advocacy around profiling and policing of women of color – trans and not trans, queer and not queer.
Ritchie is also the co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (African American Policy Forum July 2015); A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People Living with HIV, (Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School 2014); Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press 2011), Stonewalled: Police Abuse and Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in the United States (Amnesty International 2005); and Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBT Youth, YMSM and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex, Urban Institute. 2015; and author of Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color, in The Color of Violence: The INCITE! anthology (2006, South End Press).
Ritchie was lead counsel in Tikkun v. City of New York, groundbreaking impact litigation challenging unlawful searches of transgender people in police custody, contributing to sweeping changes to the NYPD’s policies for interactions with LGBTQ New Yorkers. She also served as co-counsel to the Center for Constitutional Rights in Doe v. Jindal, a successful challenge to Louisiana’s requirement that individuals convicted of “crime against nature by solicitation” register as sex offenders, and Doe v. Caldwell, the class action filed to remove all affected individuals from the registry, resulting in relief for over 800 class members.
Ritchie is a nationally recognized expert and sought after commentator on policing issues. She has testified before the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the White House Council on Women and Girls, the Prison Rape Elimination Commission, and several United Nations Treaty Bodies. She has appeared regularly in the New York Times, as well as on MSNBC, C-Span, NBC Nightly News, NPR, Al-Jazeera, and Mother Jones. Her blogs and opinion pieces have been published in The New York Times, The Root, Colorlines, Rewire, Cassius Life, Portside, Praxis, Bilerico and TruthOUT.
Ritchie is currently Researcher-in-Residence on Race, Gender, Sexuality and Criminalization at the Social Justice Institute of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. In 2014 she was awarded a Senior Soros Justice Fellowship to engage in documentation and advocacy around profiling and policing of women of color – trans and not trans, queer and not queer.
Ritchie is also the co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (African American Policy Forum July 2015); A Roadmap for Change: Federal Policy Recommendations for Addressing the Criminalization of LGBT People and People Living with HIV, (Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School 2014); Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press 2011), Stonewalled: Police Abuse and Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in the United States (Amnesty International 2005); and Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBT Youth, YMSM and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex, Urban Institute. 2015; and author of Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color, in The Color of Violence: The INCITE! anthology (2006, South End Press).
Ritchie was lead counsel in Tikkun v. City of New York, groundbreaking impact litigation challenging unlawful searches of transgender people in police custody, contributing to sweeping changes to the NYPD’s policies for interactions with LGBTQ New Yorkers. She also served as co-counsel to the Center for Constitutional Rights in Doe v. Jindal, a successful challenge to Louisiana’s requirement that individuals convicted of “crime against nature by solicitation” register as sex offenders, and Doe v. Caldwell, the class action filed to remove all affected individuals from the registry, resulting in relief for over 800 class members.
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