Vol. 3 Issue 12
Anwuli on a renewed love ethic; new stories from Sam, Alison, and Jamie
Afam approaches Experimental Station (school day series), 2019 by Anwulika Anigbo. Afam (they/them) is Anwuli's child and recipient of Jamie's "Letter to my twelve-year-old friend,” from VFTG issue 6, referenced below.
January 27, 2022
“I hope love can live here,” by Anwuli Anigbo
It has been over two years since the start of the global pandemic; paradoxically, we seem less lucid than in those early days of cheering for care workers and doing grocery runs for our immunocompromised friends and neighbors. At the time, I discussed my excitement about the reemergence of the concept of neighbors and neighborhoods with Jamie: the possibility of neighborhoods as something more akin to what Jane Jacobs and Mr. Rogers explored rather than the tidy names used to signal the value of an area. The collective "we" that gave us hope then is fading to resemble its pre-pandemic form.
When I am brave enough to mention my love of Mr. Rogers, the sentiment is often met with embarrassed looks. He is a distant relic, idealistic at best in the minds of most. As a black child growing up in Valparaiso, Indiana, Mr. Rogers’ persistent invitation provided evidence that the cloud of antipathy my family lived under was formed by a series of choices. Choices can be reversed; this interpretation provided my heart much needed relief. I often reflect on how I might approach the world differently had my experience in those early years taught me that specific characteristics, positive or negative, were inherent to a person or group. A shared respect for human complexity and the possibility of change drew me to the Invisible Institute and its quality of attention to storytelling and human connection.
We are all engaged in one shared attempt at humanity. Neighborliness requires us to conceptualize and exercise love in a space where interpersonal distance does not diminish our willingness to accept the reality of a shared outcome. This is a difficult balance within our ever-expanding ability to live in true isolation—having no need for those we have not chosen to need. Neighborliness allows us to connect, complicating our understanding of ourselves and honing our endeavors.
In All About Love, bell hooks explores how we lost the "hopeful vision of justice and love" that had been invoked by the liberation movements in the sixties: "folks stopped talking about love." She describes the despair and fear that gripped the nation as beloved leaders were assassinated. This despair and fear preceded the removal of what hooks referred to as a “love ethic” from the public sphere and public policy by the late seventies. Jamie's letter to my then 12-year-old in the wake of the January 6, 2021 insurrection points to the same time in history:
"In 1960, I was the age you are now. I grew up during an era when, for a brief shining moment, there was political will to address conditions of structural racism. Then, as at earlier moments in our history, modest steps toward equality provoked fierce, relentless reaction."
Jamie goes on to call back the memory of national nonviolent protests in response to the killing of George Floyd as just as much a part of our current reality as the insurrection. By pointing to love, Jamie and hooks provide a more complete account of people and a time we have reduced to pithy quotes and curated images. It was, in fact, a protracted, chaotic time of love and fear in equal measure.
We cannot lose sight of the love ethic that began to re-emerge in those early pandemic days as we labor through another period of protracted chaos. Love in the public sphere remains, as it was at the start of the pandemic and the sixties, a formidable force. Within this understanding rests the possibility of shared humanity and more effective public policy.
Jamie's letter ends with this,
"At times like this, peril and possibility inhabit the same moment. The challenge is to remain alert to both. I don't know if there is a name for the quality of poise required to do this, but it's what I strive for and what I wish for you, my friend."
The "quality of poise required" is, in fact, love. Love in all its forms but especially its most neglected, neighborly.
Anwulika Anigbo
Director of Development
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In a new forensic follow-up investigation, Alison Flowers pushes for answers in the 2019 St. Louis police killing of Cortez Bufford, who was shot multiple times in a dark gangway between two homes. The local Riverfront Times’ cover story unpacks lingering questions about Bufford's death and conducts reconstructions under the guidance of an expert. Prompted by her 5-year-old's fascination with the moon, Alison explores how the lighting conditions—and the particular position of the moon in the sky the night an officer shot Bufford—played a role in whether the officer could have seen Bufford pull out a gun as he later told investigators.
Read the new forensic investigation in the Riverfront Times →
In December, our open data team published its first story about police misconduct in downstate Illinois. Our team is working with reporters in Urbana and Champaign to document police abuse while also gathering and publishing police records using our experience with CPDP.co.
Our first story, written by Sam Stecklow of the Invisible Institute and Dylan Tiger of CU-CitizenAccess, our local partner, digs into how the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office handled an officer with a string of complaints involving alcohol abuse, racist language, and other inappropriate behavior.
Read more in CU-Citizen Access →
Meanwhile, our team continues its First Amendment work outside of Illinois, including apush to release police certification data in Colorado.Sam Stecklow reported last month on the ongoing data access lawsuit and the Colorado Attorney General's office's contradictions.
Read more inThe Gazette →
On Wednesday, February 1 at 6pm CT, Beneath the Surface will host a virtual convening of supporters & volunteers for an update on our findings thus far and the next set of volunteer tasks!
RSVP to the event →
Last month, Jamie Kalven published an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune on the refusal of the City to release completed investigations of officers under the command of disgraced former CPD Sgt. Ronald Watts. Thus far, more than 100 individuals framed by Watts and his team have had their convictions overturned. 83 additional petitions for exoneration are pending and will be addressed in a series of hearings next month.
Jamie Kalven has an essay on the police murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago Exposed: Defining Moments from the Chicago Sun-Times Photo Archive, edited by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams.
The book was released in conjunction with the Chicago History Museum’s acquisition of the Sun-Times photo archive.
