"Brace yourself 'cause this shit is bananas."
June 12, 2024 12:40 PM Subscribe
"You Didn't See Nothin'" is a seven-part investigation of the 1997 racist assault on a Black child in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. (cw for racism and violence--most of the links in this post mention or describe the assault at the center of this podcast.) The podcast is the work of Yohance Lacour, who reported on the nearly fatal assault of Lenard Clark in 1997 for the South Street News, a South Side neighborhood paper. Returning to the story 25 years later, Lacour looks into the local figures who pushed a racial reconciliation narrative on the story and details the mob ties of the primary identified assailant.
Throughout the podcast, Lacour also reflects on his journey from a young aspiring artist and journalist, through a prison sentence for selling drugs, and into his current work. There is some heavy truth-telling on the expectation of forgiveness and reconciliation when Black people are wronged in US society. I learned quite a bit from this podcast even though I was already well familiar with the story.
'You didn’t See Nothin’' podcast revisits a 1997 Chicago hate crime and its aftermath, NPR, May 2024
In 1997, a 13-year-old was beaten by white Bridgeport teens. A podcast challenges the racial narrative that followed, Chicago Tribune, June 2023
‘You Didn’t See Nothin’ Podcast Takes A Closer Look At The Lenard Clark Case And Its Impact On A Fractured City, Block Club Chicago, March 2023
The podcast is over a year old, but has gotten a boost recently after it won a Pulitzer.
As an aside, Lacour is also a leather artist whose work is featured in this Smithsonian article and on his website.
Throughout the podcast, Lacour also reflects on his journey from a young aspiring artist and journalist, through a prison sentence for selling drugs, and into his current work. There is some heavy truth-telling on the expectation of forgiveness and reconciliation when Black people are wronged in US society. I learned quite a bit from this podcast even though I was already well familiar with the story.
'You didn’t See Nothin’' podcast revisits a 1997 Chicago hate crime and its aftermath, NPR, May 2024
In 1997, a 13-year-old was beaten by white Bridgeport teens. A podcast challenges the racial narrative that followed, Chicago Tribune, June 2023
‘You Didn’t See Nothin’ Podcast Takes A Closer Look At The Lenard Clark Case And Its Impact On A Fractured City, Block Club Chicago, March 2023
The podcast is over a year old, but has gotten a boost recently after it won a Pulitzer.
As an aside, Lacour is also a leather artist whose work is featured in this Smithsonian article and on his website.
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The Invisible Institute also maintains the Citizens Police Data Project where you can look at a database of CPD misconduct going back 35+ years.
For my own personal intersection of Bridgeport racism and police complaints, I'll share my Girl Scout story. 10ish years ago my small, fledgling GS Service Unit had co-meetings with the much larger and tenured Service Unit for Bridgeport as we got up to speed. The SU leader in Bridgeport was one of the most unpleasant people I'd ever had to interact with, so I tried to extricate my group from theirs as quickly as possible. Still had plenty of time to be involved with her, unfortunately. She was a former cop (active in 1997!) who, yes, you can look up on the CPDP database and find multiple complaints for verbal abuse and neglect of duty, among others.
Anyway, I use the past tense here because she's also a former Girl Scout. She loudly and in front of children complained that her troops were filling up with (n word, hard r) and that this was bad for her unit. A classless yet efficient way to get fired from a volunteer role, if you're looking for tips on that.
posted by phunniemee at 1:20 PM on June 12 [5 favorites]