[Music]
I’m volunteering at an after-school
Community Center on the south side of
Chicago as I’m getting ready to leave
one of the young men what’s called
Marcus stops me and says hey keV how you
get home tonight I tell him that I’ll be
taking the bus because I don’t have my
car he says well be careful because it
gets dangerous around here at night he
then proceeds to tell me a story about
how he saw a man who had been shot and
killed outside of his apartment
Marcus is nine years old I was
speechless even though I didn’t know how
to respond that moment has stayed with
me to this very day when I got back home
later that night I could not stop
thinking about Marcus and I haven’t
stopped thinking about him since for the
past three years I have heard countless
stories of pain trauma loss and violence
from the amazing young men that I’ve had
the privilege of working with at a
therapeutic residential facility here in
Chicago mark is the story and the many
others have inspired me to search for
some type of tangible solution to a
complex problem rooted in years of
discrimination segregation and racism I
want you to take a moment and imagine
with me what the south and west sides of
Chicago would look like without the
threat of gun violence
imagine a Chicago where parents and kids
don’t have to worry about the safety in
their neighborhoods
imagine a Chicago that does not receive
national media attention for having some
of the highest rates of gun violence in
the country imagine a Chicago where
economic development does not negatively
impact the longtime residents of low
income communities imagine a Chicago
where South and West Side neighborhoods
are thriving economic engines today I’m
inviting you to reimagine the city of
Chicago the south side of Chicago the
west side of Chicago these are two parts
of the city that are ignored by many for
both fear and ignorance
have you ever asked yourself why some
parts of the city look so drastically
different when compared to others
ever since moving to the city in 2014 as
an outsider looking in I have been
intrigued by the structural differences
that exist in various neighborhoods for
instance why does one neighborhood have
successful businesses nicely paved roads
and beautiful landscapes when another
neighborhood struggles with high rates
of gun violence and lack of economic
resources what are the consequences of
having neighborhoods that are so
socioeconomically segregated in a recent
2016 study the University of Chicago
found that five Chicago neighborhoods
alone accounted for nearly half of the
city’s overall homicide increase these
five neighborhoods were Austin Englewood
New City West Englewood and greater
Grand Crossing four of these five
neighborhoods were predominantly
african-american and all five of these
neighborhoods had unemployment rates of
9.6 percent or higher to provide you
with some context that is more than
double the unemployment rate in the
entire United States let’s break that
down a little bit to better understand
how employment and violence negatively
impact people without a sustainable
income people can struggle to take care
of their basic needs like paying for
rent or a mortgage buying groceries
paying for gas or public transportation
and preparing for this preparing for the
future living paycheck to paycheck can
be extremely stressful and anxiety
provoking I know the stress personally
from growing up in a single-parent
household in Manchester New Hampshire
where money was tight my father is an
immigrant from Haiti who worked two jobs
most of my childhood and my mother who
was from northern New Hampshire was an
administrative assistant at an urgent
care center my parents divorced when I
was four so my sister and I moved into
an apartment when we were young I can
recall times when there would be a
letter on the front door stating that we
had not paid rent yet and if we didn’t
make a payment soon we could be
potentially evicted I can remember times
when we would be driving around in a car
and the car would break down
and we wouldn’t have enough money to
take care of the repair so my mom would
have to ask others for help growing up
like this was extremely stressful and
anxiety provoking for me as a little boy
because I never felt financially stable
but at least I wasn’t dealing with
violence at the time the neighborhood
that I grew up in didn’t have a lot of
issues with violence and gun violence
was very rare if you add violence to my
childhood there is no telling where I or
my sister would be today research shows
how exposure to violence can change the
structure and function of a child’s
brain the American Academy of Pediatrics
refers to this phenomena as toxic stress
toxic stress can change the behavioral
and health problems for young people to
many of our sheykh hago children are
living under toxic stress and their
brains and internal organs are suffering
the consequences Chicago needs to also
better understand its history in quite a
troubling history to understand its
current predicament with violence and
unemployment in the 20th century Chicago
enacted racist policies and practices
that discriminated against African
Americans these policies and practices
can be traced back to the great
migration when African Americans moved
from the south to the north for a better
life
many white northerners were upset and
fearful about having to share their
neighborhoods with someone of a
different skin color one of the most
notorious practices to come about during
this time was redlining redlining was
when banks refused to provide loans to
African Americans who wanted to move
into white neighborhoods along with
redlining
after World War two white veterans
received subsidies from the federal
government to purchase for low-interest
loans to purchase new homes in the
suburbs african-american veterans did
not have the same type of access to this
program even when African Americans
successfully moved into white
neighborhoods white flight took place
immediately without these loans or
subsidies black Chicagoans were left in
overcrowded housing with landlords that
did not care
and didn’t maintain the property so
public housing in the form of high-rises
were built as an alternative to rundown
housing over time these high risers
became isolated parts of the city where
unemployment poverty drugs violence
became the norm in these areas and they
were heavily concentrated eventually
these high-rises were torn down and the
residents were relocated but the poverty
drugs and violence continue to this very
day
so we’ve now got poverty drugs violence
toxic stress racist policies and
practices and hyper segregation when we
add all these ingredients into the
recipe can you really be surprised with
the outcome really think about that for
a moment public officials and civic
leaders have many different ideas of how
to solve the issue of gun violence in
our country some might say that we need
to have a greater police presence in the
community while others might say that we
need to focus more on our education
system or that we need more access to
mental health resources there’s no one
magical solution to this problem but I
think I know where we can begin I
believe the conversation needs to begin
with economic development and one of his
most famous speeches titled the ballot
or the bullet Malcolm X said we should
own operate and control the economies in
our communities we need to become
involved in a program of re-education to
educate our people and to the importance
of understanding that when you spend
your dollar out of the community in
which you live the community in which
you spend your money becomes richer and
richer the community that you take your
money out of becomes poorer and poorer
and then what happens the community in
which you live becomes a slum the
conditions become rundown Malcolm X’s
words were very wise and they’re still
really relevant today
today we do not own operate and control
the economies in our communities instead
we stop shop at liquor stores and
currency exchanges that take advantage
of our community and guarantee that the
money leave just like Malcolm said 60
years ago so we know we’ve got a problem
our neighborhoods that are economically
deprived are struggling with high rates
of unemployment and high rates of gun
violence so what’s the solution we need
to provide resources and opportunities
for neighborhood residents to own and
operate the businesses in their
communities but how do we get there
what if there was a program that was
supported by either public or private
dollars that allow neighborhood
residents to own and operate the
businesses in their communities
imagine you have a restaurant in an
economically deprived neighborhood in
Chicago this restaurant ends up being
successful and financially stable
neighborhood residents are hired at this
restaurant and there’s a unique
apprenticeship program that provides two
promising employees with the knowledge
and education needed to own and operate
the business after completing the
apprenticeship program the two employees
will then have the business under their
vision and management you might be
thinking right now that that is way too
good to be true
but I want to challenge you and say why
not I currently live in South Shore
where I see plenty of hungry students
and working professionals getting
breakfast lunch and dinner from many
fast-food restaurants is it really too
hard to imagine that those same folks
are gonna walk into a community owned
restaurant and is it too hard to imagine
that that same restaurant is owned and
operated by a resident of South Shore
you see when we get to this point in the
conversation we are now talking about
neighborhood residents creating the
economic change needed in their
neighborhoods we are no longer talking
about the big grocery store chains and
fast food restaurants creating jobs in
the community which don’t get me wrong
is vitally important and I am not
downplaying the role but I want to take
you one step further I want to take you
to a place where the restaurants cafes
diners laundromats tax services legal
services are owned and operated by the
people in the
community we need to begin to have a
shift in our mindset and view the people
as a solution to the problem they are
the untapped potential I want you to
take a moment and imagine that reality
for our city it is critical for the
privileged and knows in positions of
power to focus all of their attention on
early job skills training and providing
neighborhood residents with a stake in
the game especially the disenfranchised
I’m envisioning a Chicago where the
disenfranchised have the power to
dictate their future instead of having
to rely on others who don’t care or
don’t understand I want you to think
about that for a moment we are the
future change agents of our community
because we will hire those who have gone
through the criminal justice system
because there are brothers sisters loved
ones and neighbors good people just
looking for a second chance we will hire
the men and women that are undocumented
because they are our friends and our
loved ones and we know that they’re not
criminals they’re just people looking
for a better life we will pay a livable
wage because we care about the quality
of our community and we recognize a
common unity and community there is
absolutely nothing that can stop us once
we become unified and begin to empower
one another
inspired by Malcolm X’s vision I’m
currently pursuing my MBA at DePaul with
the hopes of one day starting a small
business on either the south or west
side of Chicago before starting this
business I want to move into the
neighborhood to have a better
understanding of what the neighborhood
residents want in need it is always
important to allow the people to be part
of the process this business would hire
people from the community and would have
a unique apprenticeship program that
would equip the two employees with a
knowledge and education again needed to
own and operate the business I am
thoroughly convinced that this can
happen I got a lot to figure out but in
order to reimagine you must think about
what is currently impossible and find
ways to make it possible right so that’s
what I’m inviting you to do with me
today right here
right now honey I’m sick and tired of
seeing images on the news of beautiful
brown and black children men and women
getting shot or being the perpetrators I
don’t want to see another mother cry
staring into the camera saying please
stop the shooting as she prepared a bury
her child and say goodbye one final time
what happens when we see these events
unfold on our television screens they
reinforce negative stereotypes about the
Chicagoans that live in these
neighborhoods they make us think that
this is a way that it will always be in
Chicago and had the people living in
those communities they don’t have a
chance but that couldn’t be further from
the truth
the historical and ancestral lineage of
these neighborhoods is rich with people
who have fought for social change from
Robert s Abbott in the Chicago Defender
in the early 1900s to the 21 year-old
Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers we
stand on the shoulders of those who have
come before us it is time that the
residents of South and West Side Chicago
neighborhoods create the change that
they need the question remains will we
provide them with the resources to do so
because they always have been and always
will be the foundation for change I want
to invite you in a thought experiment I
want to challenge each one of you to
imagine nine-year-old Marcus from the
south side of Chicago differently I want
you to imagine Marcus as a future
business owner entrepreneur and change
agent in his own community thank you [Applause]
I’m volunteering at an after-school
Community Center on the south side of
Chicago as I’m getting ready to leave
one of the young men what’s called
Marcus stops me and says hey keV how you
get home tonight I tell him that I’ll be
taking the bus because I don’t have my
car he says well be careful because it
gets dangerous around here at night he
then proceeds to tell me a story about
how he saw a man who had been shot and
killed outside of his apartment
Marcus is nine years old I was
speechless even though I didn’t know how
to respond that moment has stayed with
me to this very day when I got back home
later that night I could not stop
thinking about Marcus and I haven’t
stopped thinking about him since for the
past three years I have heard countless
stories of pain trauma loss and violence
from the amazing young men that I’ve had
the privilege of working with at a
therapeutic residential facility here in
Chicago mark is the story and the many
others have inspired me to search for
some type of tangible solution to a
complex problem rooted in years of
discrimination segregation and racism I
want you to take a moment and imagine
with me what the south and west sides of
Chicago would look like without the
threat of gun violence
imagine a Chicago where parents and kids
don’t have to worry about the safety in
their neighborhoods
imagine a Chicago that does not receive
national media attention for having some
of the highest rates of gun violence in
the country imagine a Chicago where
economic development does not negatively
impact the longtime residents of low
income communities imagine a Chicago
where South and West Side neighborhoods
are thriving economic engines today I’m
inviting you to reimagine the city of
Chicago the south side of Chicago the
west side of Chicago these are two parts
of the city that are ignored by many for
both fear and ignorance
have you ever asked yourself why some
parts of the city look so drastically
different when compared to others
ever since moving to the city in 2014 as
an outsider looking in I have been
intrigued by the structural differences
that exist in various neighborhoods for
instance why does one neighborhood have
successful businesses nicely paved roads
and beautiful landscapes when another
neighborhood struggles with high rates
of gun violence and lack of economic
resources what are the consequences of
having neighborhoods that are so
socioeconomically segregated in a recent
2016 study the University of Chicago
found that five Chicago neighborhoods
alone accounted for nearly half of the
city’s overall homicide increase these
five neighborhoods were Austin Englewood
New City West Englewood and greater
Grand Crossing four of these five
neighborhoods were predominantly
african-american and all five of these
neighborhoods had unemployment rates of
9.6 percent or higher to provide you
with some context that is more than
double the unemployment rate in the
entire United States let’s break that
down a little bit to better understand
how employment and violence negatively
impact people without a sustainable
income people can struggle to take care
of their basic needs like paying for
rent or a mortgage buying groceries
paying for gas or public transportation
and preparing for this preparing for the
future living paycheck to paycheck can
be extremely stressful and anxiety
provoking I know the stress personally
from growing up in a single-parent
household in Manchester New Hampshire
where money was tight my father is an
immigrant from Haiti who worked two jobs
most of my childhood and my mother who
was from northern New Hampshire was an
administrative assistant at an urgent
care center my parents divorced when I
was four so my sister and I moved into
an apartment when we were young I can
recall times when there would be a
letter on the front door stating that we
had not paid rent yet and if we didn’t
make a payment soon we could be
potentially evicted I can remember times
when we would be driving around in a car
and the car would break down
and we wouldn’t have enough money to
take care of the repair so my mom would
have to ask others for help growing up
like this was extremely stressful and
anxiety provoking for me as a little boy
because I never felt financially stable
but at least I wasn’t dealing with
violence at the time the neighborhood
that I grew up in didn’t have a lot of
issues with violence and gun violence
was very rare if you add violence to my
childhood there is no telling where I or
my sister would be today research shows
how exposure to violence can change the
structure and function of a child’s
brain the American Academy of Pediatrics
refers to this phenomena as toxic stress
toxic stress can change the behavioral
and health problems for young people to
many of our sheykh hago children are
living under toxic stress and their
brains and internal organs are suffering
the consequences Chicago needs to also
better understand its history in quite a
troubling history to understand its
current predicament with violence and
unemployment in the 20th century Chicago
enacted racist policies and practices
that discriminated against African
Americans these policies and practices
can be traced back to the great
migration when African Americans moved
from the south to the north for a better
life
many white northerners were upset and
fearful about having to share their
neighborhoods with someone of a
different skin color one of the most
notorious practices to come about during
this time was redlining redlining was
when banks refused to provide loans to
African Americans who wanted to move
into white neighborhoods along with
redlining
after World War two white veterans
received subsidies from the federal
government to purchase for low-interest
loans to purchase new homes in the
suburbs african-american veterans did
not have the same type of access to this
program even when African Americans
successfully moved into white
neighborhoods white flight took place
immediately without these loans or
subsidies black Chicagoans were left in
overcrowded housing with landlords that
did not care
and didn’t maintain the property so
public housing in the form of high-rises
were built as an alternative to rundown
housing over time these high risers
became isolated parts of the city where
unemployment poverty drugs violence
became the norm in these areas and they
were heavily concentrated eventually
these high-rises were torn down and the
residents were relocated but the poverty
drugs and violence continue to this very
day
so we’ve now got poverty drugs violence
toxic stress racist policies and
practices and hyper segregation when we
add all these ingredients into the
recipe can you really be surprised with
the outcome really think about that for
a moment public officials and civic
leaders have many different ideas of how
to solve the issue of gun violence in
our country some might say that we need
to have a greater police presence in the
community while others might say that we
need to focus more on our education
system or that we need more access to
mental health resources there’s no one
magical solution to this problem but I
think I know where we can begin I
believe the conversation needs to begin
with economic development and one of his
most famous speeches titled the ballot
or the bullet Malcolm X said we should
own operate and control the economies in
our communities we need to become
involved in a program of re-education to
educate our people and to the importance
of understanding that when you spend
your dollar out of the community in
which you live the community in which
you spend your money becomes richer and
richer the community that you take your
money out of becomes poorer and poorer
and then what happens the community in
which you live becomes a slum the
conditions become rundown Malcolm X’s
words were very wise and they’re still
really relevant today
today we do not own operate and control
the economies in our communities instead
we stop shop at liquor stores and
currency exchanges that take advantage
of our community and guarantee that the
money leave just like Malcolm said 60
years ago so we know we’ve got a problem
our neighborhoods that are economically
deprived are struggling with high rates
of unemployment and high rates of gun
violence so what’s the solution we need
to provide resources and opportunities
for neighborhood residents to own and
operate the businesses in their
communities but how do we get there
what if there was a program that was
supported by either public or private
dollars that allow neighborhood
residents to own and operate the
businesses in their communities
imagine you have a restaurant in an
economically deprived neighborhood in
Chicago this restaurant ends up being
successful and financially stable
neighborhood residents are hired at this
restaurant and there’s a unique
apprenticeship program that provides two
promising employees with the knowledge
and education needed to own and operate
the business after completing the
apprenticeship program the two employees
will then have the business under their
vision and management you might be
thinking right now that that is way too
good to be true
but I want to challenge you and say why
not I currently live in South Shore
where I see plenty of hungry students
and working professionals getting
breakfast lunch and dinner from many
fast-food restaurants is it really too
hard to imagine that those same folks
are gonna walk into a community owned
restaurant and is it too hard to imagine
that that same restaurant is owned and
operated by a resident of South Shore
you see when we get to this point in the
conversation we are now talking about
neighborhood residents creating the
economic change needed in their
neighborhoods we are no longer talking
about the big grocery store chains and
fast food restaurants creating jobs in
the community which don’t get me wrong
is vitally important and I am not
downplaying the role but I want to take
you one step further I want to take you
to a place where the restaurants cafes
diners laundromats tax services legal
services are owned and operated by the
people in the
community we need to begin to have a
shift in our mindset and view the people
as a solution to the problem they are
the untapped potential I want you to
take a moment and imagine that reality
for our city it is critical for the
privileged and knows in positions of
power to focus all of their attention on
early job skills training and providing
neighborhood residents with a stake in
the game especially the disenfranchised
I’m envisioning a Chicago where the
disenfranchised have the power to
dictate their future instead of having
to rely on others who don’t care or
don’t understand I want you to think
about that for a moment we are the
future change agents of our community
because we will hire those who have gone
through the criminal justice system
because there are brothers sisters loved
ones and neighbors good people just
looking for a second chance we will hire
the men and women that are undocumented
because they are our friends and our
loved ones and we know that they’re not
criminals they’re just people looking
for a better life we will pay a livable
wage because we care about the quality
of our community and we recognize a
common unity and community there is
absolutely nothing that can stop us once
we become unified and begin to empower
one another
inspired by Malcolm X’s vision I’m
currently pursuing my MBA at DePaul with
the hopes of one day starting a small
business on either the south or west
side of Chicago before starting this
business I want to move into the
neighborhood to have a better
understanding of what the neighborhood
residents want in need it is always
important to allow the people to be part
of the process this business would hire
people from the community and would have
a unique apprenticeship program that
would equip the two employees with a
knowledge and education again needed to
own and operate the business I am
thoroughly convinced that this can
happen I got a lot to figure out but in
order to reimagine you must think about
what is currently impossible and find
ways to make it possible right so that’s
what I’m inviting you to do with me
today right here
right now honey I’m sick and tired of
seeing images on the news of beautiful
brown and black children men and women
getting shot or being the perpetrators I
don’t want to see another mother cry
staring into the camera saying please
stop the shooting as she prepared a bury
her child and say goodbye one final time
what happens when we see these events
unfold on our television screens they
reinforce negative stereotypes about the
Chicagoans that live in these
neighborhoods they make us think that
this is a way that it will always be in
Chicago and had the people living in
those communities they don’t have a
chance but that couldn’t be further from
the truth
the historical and ancestral lineage of
these neighborhoods is rich with people
who have fought for social change from
Robert s Abbott in the Chicago Defender
in the early 1900s to the 21 year-old
Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers we
stand on the shoulders of those who have
come before us it is time that the
residents of South and West Side Chicago
neighborhoods create the change that
they need the question remains will we
provide them with the resources to do so
because they always have been and always
will be the foundation for change I want
to invite you in a thought experiment I
want to challenge each one of you to
imagine nine-year-old Marcus from the
south side of Chicago differently I want
you to imagine Marcus as a future
business owner entrepreneur and change
agent in his own community thank you [Applause]
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