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Download your free copy of our “Eliminate TIFs/Establish The Right To Development” Book. You will be asked to input your email. Then you will be taken to a download page. There is no charge but we would welcome a free-will offering of $10 to help keep our lights on! Thanks!

Register for “Chicago 101” – September 26, 10am-12:30pm – In collaboration with Plant Chicago.

End Oppression. End Economic Oppression.

Saludos,



The CivicLab mourns the senseless and tragic sanctioned murder of George Floyd.



“People are torn and hurt because they are tired of seeing black men die, constantly over and over again… they have pain, they have the same pain I feel…I want everything to be peaceful but I can’t make everybody be peaceful” — the words of George Floyd’s brother, Philonise.



The tragic sanctioned murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Law Enforcement once again highlights the deep-rooted systemic racism, societal injustices and in particular the rampant police brutality that pervades our society against Black and Brown people.



Our people are tired, frustrated and angry! It’s not enough to fight the COVID-19 pandemic with all of the exasperated racial and gender inequities, but to do so all while under direct threat of being verbally harassed, assaulted, beaten and or killed while shopping, eating, bird watching, walking, jogging, or working out. What kind of living is this – Indeed, this has been the normal standard daily routine for millions of Black and Brown people living in these United States, it’s just now in recent decades getting caught on video and more readily available for masses to consume and digest.



United States law enforcement and white people brazenly harass, assault and kill Black and Brown people constantly with impunity and for all to see. They violate with such rigor our civil and human rights daily utilizing all of the forms of oppression with all its tools readily available: ideological, institutional, interpersonal and internalized superiority and with virtually no repercussions for such inhumane and terroristic behavior towards their fellow human beings.



To be crystal clear whenever you put too many sparks around a powder keg, that thing is most likely going to explode and if it is still in the house then clearly the house will be destroyed. We are witnessing the justified outrage and resistance to decades and centuries of brutal subjugation by white colonial institutions like their police forces who continue to terrorize our communities and murder our brothers and sisters fully sanctioned by the local, county, state and federal legal and socio-political institutions of these United States.



AND you, Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Governor Tim Walz, Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey didn’t think that at some point the powder keg in the master’s house wouldn’t explode? You both put on a great press show and yet you call out your police dogs to shoot and tear gas everyday hard working Americans who are sick and tired of tyranny being measured out daily. Sadly, their racist and internalized superiority complex is part of a standard violent pathology that harms people. We are all too familiar with this type of leadership in Chicago. Our past and current executive leadership reflect the same violent and racist pathology toward Black and Brown Chicagoans, its only a matter of time till we experience another brutal sanctioned murder on Chicago streets.



We call for the arrest, charge, indictment and conviction of all four individuals involved in the murder and public lynching of our beloved father, son, brother, nephew, cousin and uncle George Floyd by former officers Derek Michael Chauvin, Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and Alexander Kueng.



As Frederick Douglass once said. “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong, which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” It is evident that those limits and our endurance are now being reached.



We will set the world on fire so that all the light will shine on all of the injustices that Black and Brown people face and out of the ashes of turmoil that must happen will new generations of social justice fighters come forth full of love, passion, strength and resilience seeking justice and equity everywhere.



We call together in unison with all of our local and national allies to continue to expand and maintain direct action for justice and equity by any means necessary.



We call upon all of our allies and communities to work closer together in harmony and unity to dismantle the deep insidious roots of systemic violence perpetrated upon Black and Brown children, youth and families by calling for the abolishment of oppressive institutions like the police department that consistently violate Black and Brown people’s human rights.



We call for direct community accountability of our public health and safety institutions and as Leslie Redmond, President of the Minneapolis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has said, “Our humanity has always been denied on American soil”.



To this we say Basta! Enough!



We call for 100% equitable access to living wage jobs, affordable housing, healthcare and education. Our Black and Brown communities have the fundamental Right to Development, the “… comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting there from,” without any legal, social, political and cultural barriers to all of our civil and human rights as codified in the – United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (1986).



To get the ball rolling for this movement in Chicago we ask you to sign our petition to ABOLISH TIFs and liberate the $1.2 billion sitting in TIF accounts to be used for emergency services for our hardest hit Black and Brown communities right now. Sign up to help lead this campaign at www.https://tinyurl.com/TEP-sign-up.



All of our children growing up in America are witnessing these immoral and inhumane acts of violence. The compounded trauma that is caused by experiencing and witnessing police brutality and sanctioned murder by law enforcement agencies is transferred from one generation to many generations thus creating multi generational trauma and inequity, as future generations will have to shoulder the consequences. We prescribe to the aged old African wisdom of, “ if you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far go together” and while we want justice and equity now, we know that this is a protracted struggle.



We ask that while we fight together for a just society without racism, oppression and tyranny, we must be fully self aware – being kind and taking care of ourselves as well as being kind and taking care of others. During these difficult times it is so vital to our personal, interpersonal and collective well being that we pay extra attention to this aspect of our work by being fully intentional in exercising our self care and care for others.



Our organizations, networks and communities will continue to fight this marathon of a struggle for social, economic and racial justice by any means necessary. Systemic racism, white supremacy and white nationalism will be destroyed by not solely relying on the same political and legal institutions of power that have propped them up over the generations.



We will dismantle them by standing shoulder to shoulder together in the trenches fighting for every inch of dignity and humanity; resisting the direct and indirect attacks against our bodies, minds and spirits; recreating indigenous based restorative and healthy habits of living; and re-imagining a world, a city, a community through our spiritual, social and political sense of Ubuntu, ” I Am Because You Are”.



We recognize and know full well that our humanity is inextricably linked and bound together forever and that as much work needs to be done within our own communities to combat and eradicate our own internalized forms of oppression including anti-blackness racism in our communities. Non Black and non-white communities need to consider their own role and behavior in committing harm toward Black peoples and individuals. We must embrace Ubuntu and only then can we genuinely work together with full reciprocity, as a unified Beloved Community; an economic, social political Alliance that will fight for justice, equity and self determination from our homes, to the streets into the courtrooms and classrooms and with the ballot box and beyond.



As Frederick Douglass also once said, “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

Please be safe, be well, fight for what is right and we will stand together until we win justice for George Floyd and every human being that faces oppression in our nation.



The CivicLab will be working on a campaign around the Right To Development as a partial answer to this terrible situation. Please stay tuned for more information.

We are in a time of crisis.



We know as in all past crises Black, Brown, and poor people take on the lion share of death and devastation. We now have the evidence for the local COVID19 crisis. Black Chicagoans are six times as likely to die from the COVID19 pandemic as White Chicagoans.

Let me be even more blunt.

If you live in a White community in Chicago you are safer than if you live where I live. Your children and elders have a much greater chance to survive and live through the COVID19 pandemic. If you live in a community along the Lake Front or close to the Loop, you are safer and more likely to have access to life-saving resources. If your income is above $100,000 year you are more likely to be well, have wealth and so be in a better position to survive this, and thrive post-pandemic than many of our fellow Chicagoans.



This is a moral and economic crisis that demands immediate political action and immediate relief to Chicago’s long neglected Black and Brown communities.

We know that historically civic planning, mutual aid, and disaster and emergency relief efforts have not benefited Black and Brown people. Rather, such efforts have criminalized our neighbors and committed irreparable harm to Black and Brown communities.

We demand immediate relief that does not criminalize nor harm Black and Brown people and we demand long term structural change in how public education, public health, and public and private services are meeting the needs and wishes of Black and Brown people throughout Chicago.

We are calling on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the Chicago City Council, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and Governor JB Pritzker and all of our legislative bodies to do the right thing and take immediate action to Save Lives Now.

Our elected leaders must take immediate action to slow the community and workplace and prison spread of COVID19 and put in place substantial economic and public health measures that will address the long standing racial inequities that plague our city.

We must SAVE LIVES NOW. The People’s Response to COVID19 has crafted a comprehensive list of economic and public health solutions, a product of numerous groups and thousands of individuals across the city collectively working together for a more racially equitable and just Metro Chicago. PLEASE READ THIS LIST CAREFULLY AND SIGN THE PETITION.

The People’s COVID19 Response demands that the Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the City Council must reinstate the head tax on all businesses with more than 50 employees and use the $100 Million to fund The People’s Response to COVID19. The Mayor and City Council must Abolish All Tax Increment Financing districts (TIFs) now, including the TIFs for the Lincoln Yards and Project 78 developments, and use the $1.2 Billion public dollars remaining in TIF accounts to fund The People’s Response to COVID19 Demands.

To get a full description of The People’s Response to COVID19 Demands and direct access to our End TIFS Now Action Center.

Are you ready RIGHT NOW to join this campaign then click here and sign up. We will contact you.



If you agree with us that TIFs need to be ABOLISHED, sign our online petition and share it widely.



A Luta Continua!

Jonathan Peck

President, CEO

The CivicLab



Watch our video making the case for the ABOLITION of TIFs…

20 minutes

April 2019 – 7 Aldermen-Elect Protest the Lincoln Yards TIF!

The CivicLab(r) is a 501 c 3 tax-exempt nonprofit community-facing “do tank” dedicated to accelerating and deepening grassroots democracy, civic engagement and social justice efforts through collaboration, education and innovation.

We seek to expand civic imagination about what is possible for Chicago’s future.

We recruit, develop, equip and inform new leaders to take us to that future.

Our method is: Investigate. Fabricate. Educate. Activate. Liberate. Repeat.

170+ community meetings and 10,000 people engaged since 2013. 204,000+ people grabbed our online presentations. 200+ people trained. 500+ contributors. Over 250 volunteers engaged and activated. 16 candidates for public office trained. We’re JUST getting started!

You can make a tax-deductible investment in our work via the Action Network.

Become a sustaining member of the CivicLab!

https://www.joinit.org/o/civiclab



The CivicLab has come to the conclusion that Tax Increment Financing districts – TIFs – are racist and that the TIF program should be abolished. We call for the ending of this out-of-control scam and we call for the $1.5 billion sitting in TIF accounts be distributed to the local units of government that should’ve received those property tax dollars in the first place. Read our statement. Take action now. Statement by CivicLab President Jonathan Peck.

Our work is funded in part by Illinois Humanities

CivicLab (r) Reg. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office