In Chicago, racial disparities run deep. A history of redlining, disinvestment, and movement of jobs to the suburbs have resulted in disparate life outcomes for Black and white residents. In transportation, this has manifested in longer transit commutes for Black residents, and a disproportionate number of cycling tickets given out in Black and brown neighborhoods, among other ways. Olatunji Oboi Reed is CEO & President of The Equiticity Racial Equity Movement. Based in Chicago, Equiticity advocates for mobility justice for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people of color. In this episode, Oboi discusses how Equiticity is tackling barriers to transportation access by collecting data about existing barriers, and developing legislation and policies that will codify and track the equitable distribution of resources across the city.
In Chicago, racial disparities run deep. A history of redlining, disinvestment, and movement of jobs to the suburbs have resulted in disparate life outcomes for Black and white residents. In transportation, this has manifested in longer transit commutes for Black residents, and a disproportionate number of cycling tickets given out in Black and brown neighborhoods, among other ways.
Olatunji Oboi Reed is CEO & President of The Equiticity Racial Equity Movement. Based in Chicago, Equiticity advocates for mobility justice for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people of color. In this episode, Oboi discusses how Equiticity is tackling barriers to transportation access by collecting data about existing barriers, and developing legislation and policies that will codify and track the equitable distribution of resources across the city.
“The root cause of all injustice experienced by Black, Brown and Indigenous people in our society is structural racism. Our oppression was and is by design. The most important work we must do is the dismantling of structural racism and the building of a society where Black, Brown and Indigenous people thrive. For those organizations that have still not arrived. A reckoning is required.”
To learn more about The Equiticity Racial Equity Movement, click here.
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Disclaimer: Political views raised by guests on the podcast do not reflect the views of TransitCenter.
Music: “Comma” - Blue Dot Sessions
Hosted and edited by Kapish Singla
Produced by TransitCenter
Kapish [00:00:01] From TransitCenter, I'm Kapish Singla. This is High Frequency. We're nearing month eight of the pandemic, and it's become increasingly common to point out that many of our systems are broken. Simply, normal wasn't working for many Americans. So in season two of High Frequency, we'll explore how cities are learning from past mistakes and attempting to remedy inequities in transportation.
Kapish [00:00:27] In Chicago, racial disparities run deep. Redlining, disinvestment, and the movement of job centers have led to disparate life outcomes between Black and white residents. On transit, Black residents spend an average of 13 minutes longer on commute trips than white residents. And data shows that the top neighborhoods where tickets are issued to cyclists are in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods. To talk more about mobility justice in Chicago, I spoke with Oboi Olatunji Reed, CEO and President, of Equiticity. Equiticity is a racial equity movement that works to improve the lives of Black and brown people by advocating for racial justice. They do advocacy and run programs. They've recently concluded a qualitative research study into the barriers to transit on the South and West sides of Chicago.
Kapish [00:01:24] Oboi, how did you come to mobility justice yourself?
Oboi [00:01:30] It was a long, winding road that brought me here. I'm born and raised on the South side of Chicago. Eventually found my way with Champaign, Illinois. Came back to Chicago in 99. Went corporate. During that time in corporate America, I was in a really dark place. Deeply, severely depressed and had taken a leave of absence from my job. Realized I had a bike in a basement and I thought, "Well, maybe I'll just go for a ride." I'm riding, and I see Black people on the trail and just giving somebody a head nod. And they giving me a head nod back. It was gigantic. It meant the world to me. And in that moment, I became a cyclist because I knew there was a role for bikes to play in my own healing. And as I started riding more and more, I noticed a distinct difference between riding bikes on the South side and West side, predominately Black, Brown, low-to-moderate income neighborhoods and riding bikes on the north side and downtown. And I thought to myself, "How many other people struggling with mental health challenges that could use the activity of cycling as a tool in their toolkit?" I became more and more of an advocate. As I'm communicating with white mainstream bike advocates and people at the city--Mayor's Office--the consistent refrain around why is it a different riding bikes in our neighborhoods was well we focus resources, where they'll be used the most. Where resources in our city will be used the most, bicycle resources, is in predominately white, middle or upper income neighborhoods. That is explicitly saying we're gonna give resources to white people and we're not going to give resources to Black people. And let's be clear about this. This is not one man's conjecture. When Divvy, our bikeshare system rolled out of Chicago they rolled out and predominantly white, middle to upper income neighborhoods. Divvy is owned by the city. This is a public resource, a form of public transportation. So all of that led me to question the city's approach. It moved me to focus on a framework around equity. At that time, I was I was leading Slow Roll Chicago, a bicycle movement. Now I want to move to all modes of travel.
Kapish [00:03:49] And you're now the President and CEO of Equiticity. Can you tell us a bit about that work?
Oboi [00:03:54] Yes, I am the president and CEO of The Equiticity Racial Equity Movement. We are working to operationalize a full-throated, sincere commitment to racial equity. We also work on justice frameworks that are policy areas specific or sector specific. And one of those frameworks we work on is mobility justice. We do programs which include organizing community bicycle rides. We do advocacy. And then we do research.
Kapish [00:04:29] And I know that Equiticity has recently concluded some focus group research with low to moderate income Black and Brown residents on the south and west sides of Chicago. What did your research uncover about the barriers to transit in those neighborhoods?
Oboi [00:04:47] The results of our qualitative focus groups uncovered a number of barriers - terrible connections between different transit operators in the region. So we have a municipal system called Chicago Transit Authority, and then we have some additional systems that operate in the region. For people who are coming from the city and going to job centers in the suburbs, they find it difficult to find convenient connections. And then for somebody who works after 9:00 to 5:00, you know, a late shift, those connections are even more challenging. Of course, cost is a barrier, especially for people who are very poor, who may not be able to afford a Ventra card or the passes-- a 7 day pass or a 30 day pass. Quality is a barrier. Service levels are barriers to people, you know, how long they have to wait for a bus or train. The condition of that bus or train or that train station or that bus stop are also barriers.
Kapish [00:05:56] Was there anything in the focus groups that you think others would be surprised by?
Oboi [00:06:02] I think a lot of people will be surprised by the extent to which we make accommodations for the racialized transit inequities in our city. I'll give you an example. We heard from, again, low to moderate income Black and Brown people in the South and West side that they are willing to incur significant cost to own a car because of their unwillingness to ride transit. For me, that's heartbreaking. The quality of transit, the ability to get me to my destination in a way to safe and affordable and convenient. The inability for that to happen is pushing our people to own cars. I think a lot of people who have not been in tune with what it means to access transit on it in our neighborhoods will be surprised by that. I also believe that people will be surprise by hearing that Black and Brown people prioritize police violence as one form of violence that hinders their use of transit. I'm not suggesting that interpersonal violence is not prioritized or that the vehicular violence is not prioritized. What I'm suggesting is that for white advocates, they talk a lot about vehicular violence. They rarely talk about police violence. And we are deeply concerned about police violence when we're engaging in active forms of transportation and when we're taking transit.
Kapish [00:07:44] And in terms of beginning to address some of these issues, how does Equiticity approach racial equity work?
Oboi [00:07:52] Foundational to our approach is our position that racial equity is an economic system. Every resource in our society is a tool to improve the condition of those who are under the most egregious of inequities. It is using the resources in our society to address racism, to improve racialized outcomes. Foundational to our framework on racial equity is a new fair, just distribution of resources in our society. Our framework is inclusive of a number of guiding principles. One is prioritizing local innovation. Who owns the planning processes in our communities? Is it the transit agency? Is it a housing department? Or is it the people who are living and working in our neighborhoods every day and know these problems like no other? And also have a much better handle on what the solutions may be to resolve the problems and the inequities that exist in our neighborhoods.
Kapish [00:09:06] And how does Equiticity work to advance these priorities?
Oboi [00:09:10] I also co-chair the Transportation Equity Network, a relatively new transportation focused collaborative. And at a big picture, the way we operate is largely focused on creating legislation here in the region. We want legislation that is formulaic, full-throated and it's directional. It requires at the forefront a process that is owned by neighborhoods to develop this framework and turn that framework into policy and legislation.
Oboi [00:09:53] Legislation requires a comprehensive analysis of the inequities. That analysis feeds a mathematical formula which determines how resources are distributed. The legislation also requires there's a public acknowledgment of the outcomes that are being sought. And then there's an accountability model so that the data is available publicly to people to assess. Are we achieving the outcomes we set out to hit? And in the event that they're not, there's a mechanism of power that rests at the neighborhood level to come into this project and make the necessary adjustment.
Kapish [00:10:33] And the city of Chicago recently announced an equitable transit oriented development plan prioritizing housing near transit hubs on the South and West sides of Chicago that hadn't seen TOD investment before. Where have these programs fallen short in the past? And what's the perspective that you plan to bring to this upcoming project?
Oboi [00:10:55] What I will tell you about how we think about this work, sort of in general, is that there's a real risk of equitable TOD accelerating displacement in our neighborhoods. And what's more important than the development coming, say, years down the road is policies being implemented today to increase affordable housing and arrest gentrification. We often bring on these these TOD projects and then gentrification and displacement accelerates. And should the city then respond with policy and resources, it's often too little, too late. So I will be looking at that plan from that critical perspective. How are we ensuring that the racial makeup of the neighborhoods that these developments are targeted for stays intact?
Oboi [00:12:03] And I did want to make a connection to police violence in our neighborhoods. One of the outcomes of gentrification is, sort of, policing in our neighborhoods taking a different tenor. When racial complexion of our neighborhood changes, policing changes. Where in our neighborhoods, socializing in a park, listening to some loud music, barbecuing, you know, smoke billowing all over the place where that was normalized. Now, white people who are not appreciative of what it means to socialize and connect and engage in our neighborhoods are now calling 911. And police are responding to them in a way that they were not responding to us, further criminalizing us. So not only is the risk us being pushed out of our neighborhoods, the risk is us being criminalized in our neighborhoods in a way that we were not before.
Kapish [00:13:05] And we've mainly been talking about Chicago. But I know that Equiticity's vision extends beyond Chicago to other mid-to-large sized cities. Can you share what that larger vision is?
Oboi [00:13:17] Yes, our vision is to help create a mid to large size city where racial equity is policied and operationalized to the extent that every resource has a pervasive racial equity lens applied to it, and that there's a mathematical formula that determines how resources are distributed in this city with the strict focus on removing racialized inequities, improving life outcomes for marginalized racial groups. We want to go all in on creating a city such as this, because we believe that by having one city serve as an exemplar, it'll then be a resource for other cities to glean lessons learned.
Kapish [00:14:11] And finally Oboi, is there anything that I haven't asked about that you would like to share?
Oboi [00:14:18] Everyone in the sound of my voice. Listen to me clearly, please. The root cause of all injustice experienced by Black, Brown and Indigenous people in our society is structural racism. Our oppression was and is by design. The most important work we must do is the dismantling of structural racism and the building of a society where Black, Brown and Indigenous people thrive. For those organizations that have still not arrived. A reckoning is required. Like winter in Chicago, that reckoning is coming.
Kapish [00:15:07] Thank you for your words. And thank you so much for your time.
Oboi [00:15:12] The pleasure's mine. Thank you Kapish
Kapish [00:15:16] That's all for today's episode. I'm your host. Kapish Singla. High Frequency is part of the events program at TransitCenter. For more information, please visit us at TransitCenter dot org.