Tonika Johnson: A Reckoning
I had the honor and pleasure of painting and conversing with my dear friend, artist, and activist Tonika Johnson twice throughout the course of the pandemic. Tonika is the founder of the The Folded Map Project which uncovers the impacts of housing discrimination and other forms and structural racism, and invites residents across our hyper-segregated city to meet each other, build relationships, and imagine a Chicago that is more welcoming, safe, and just for everyone.
In our initial conversation, in May 2020 we chatted about the day-to-day impacts of the pandemic on our mental health, the young people in our lives, and our ability to stay productive. By the time we caught back up in January 2021, the conversation shifted to inspiration, building, and reparations.
How it started …. May 2020
Irina: How has this time been for you?
Tonika: There was this two week period… it was the second week of the stay-at-home order because during the first week, I, like most people was like, “I’m a problem-solver… I’ll be fine, I’ll be really productive at home!” Then the second week, all the cancelations from the speaking engagements I had was triggering me. I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s right… that’s income I’m not getting.” That subconsciously gave me… insomnia. I didn’t even realize I was getting it until the middle of the second week of me experiencing it and I was literally staying up all times of night and when I did go to sleep, it was only for 3 hours. I realized I couldn’t get to sleep and I was irritable and tired. Then I was told to take Indica edibles and the first night I slept for 5 hours, then the next I slept for 6, then I felt so energized. I was really masking it… now, what you’re getting now, is almost two weeks of good rest. My son was helping me by telling me to listen to soundscapes while I slept. He was like, “listen to rain sounds.” and I was like, “Oh, yeah that’s a good idea, you 15 year old boy?!” So that’s been my remedy!
Irina: That’s great advice! What time is it on the clock of the world?
Tonika: I feel like we’re all suspended in time right now. We’re out here just floating and it’s so moment by moment, and to me, that’s just what outer space is. You have no control, you have no gravity, you can’t ground yourself. You're just out there.
Irina: What do you think this time is teaching us? Or what does it have to teach us?
Tonika: I think that It’s helping people who are already on a path of retrospection and want to help the world. For those people, I think what it’s doing for us, is making us go inward and think about how we want to be an evolved version of ourselves after this. For people who don’t think like this, I don’t know… But, collectively as a world, regardless if it’s a conspiracy or not (which it is because this was so perfectly coincidental that it’s actually insulting it’s so obvious that it’s planned), I think everyone is realizing the importance of their relationships.
On the flip side, everything is always a reminder of the injustice the US does to people who are not the majority in this country. Period. Point blank. I’m hoping that relationships will be more important to people after this, and not just the ones people have in their own social circles, but so that they’ll think of people as individuals who have relationships and lives… just to humanize all of us, that’s what I’m hoping we come away from all of this. Then I hope we have some government-funded social program to help people restore their financial livelihoods and the economy.
Irina: Yeah, this is huge. We’re probably going to be feeling the effects of this for another 10 or 15 years.
Tonika: Yeah, it has absolutely impacted everything. I have to remind my family and friends who don’t have teenage kids -- you know, my daughter is a senior -- they’re like, “Oh, they’re missing graduation, that’s sad…” and I’m like no, could you imagine your life your senior year of high school? Let alone the summer after high school? Let alone the first half of your freshman year of college especially if you decided you want to go out of state just to start your own personal life journey of collecting your own experiences? All of that was taken from them. I can’t imagine that. Even thinking about my daughter’s fall freshman year of college… even just the universities… they’re probably not going to let people go on campus. That’s going to affect where people go to school. It’s changing how people view their future. I had to let my daughter process everything before we discussed the alternatives. She said she definitely didn’t want to start Freshman year out of state schooling online so we came up with an alternative, which if that’s the direction they go in, then she’s going to stay here and do some pre-reqs on community college online because it’s just until they can be back on campus. It’s changing everything. We’re planning a surprise graduation parade, though!
Irina: That’s a great idea! We just have to be creative right now.
How it’s going … January 2021
Irina: The last time we talked was in May talking about your daughter’s graduation and insomnia… now it’s January.
Tonika: Oh my gosh. That is so wild.
Irina: I just wanted to catch up and see where you’re at. How are you finding yourself in this moment?
Tonika: Just focusing on getting my life organized because I might have an opportunity in the fall. I was nominated to apply for this 9 month fellowship at Harvard that would start in August. My goal this year was to get a home, but since that’s an opportunity, I have to start now. My goal is to be in one before summer so that I can get everyone situated because then if I get accepted, I can just go off. I’m preparing for the fall for my daughter since she wasn’t able to go away to school for fall this year. We’re going to be going to visit New Orleans so we can schedule a tour of her school.
And of course, just Folded Map stuff, which is now a 501c3, so just getting that together.
Irina: Congrats!! I feel like I see your name everywhere doing racial healing for the entire city of Chicago!
Tonika: I’m working on my next project, which is what I’m going to use my fellowship at Harvard to examine more. I’m basically creating land markers for homes that are still existing in greater Englewood that were sold to Black families on land sale contracts, which were a discriminatory way to extract wealth from Black homeowners -- these Black homeowners thought they had a mortgage and it turned out that it was a land sale contract, which is basically like “rent to own.” So, they didn’t own their homes and they didn’t find out until after the fact. Some of those homes are still existing, like still standing. Most of them have been demolished and a lot are vacant, and so I want to create land markers for those and to use the project as a platform to eventually talk about, concretely, reparations.
Irina: Yes! I was waiting for you to say that word.
Tonika: Yeah, because it’s evidence. We can put numbers to this. We now know the effects of this discriminatory financial product that has resulted in what this neighborhood has become, and that needs to be addressed. Even though the use of the land sale projects discriminatorily has been made illegal, there has been no accountability or justice for the damage that occurred. I want to use the collection of those homes as a way to show the damage that was done. Homes that are vacant, demolished in neighborhoods like greater Englewood that people just assume, “Oh because of violence…” no no no, it’s because of this.
Irina: This could be an interesting collaboration between my congregation, who’s working on a reparations project, and the work you’re doing.
Tonika: It’s interesting that you said that because I actually am going to be giving a talk at Anshe Emet day school to talk about the land sales and reparations because I really want to create solidarity between the Jewish community and the Black community because many of the investors and speculators were Jewish, but a lot of the allies were Jewish as well. I really wanted to tap into that connection because Jewish community is amazing at memorializing their history and the trauma that has happened, and that’s essentially what I want to do with this issue. Seeking out input and support to do that with that community is something that I want to do. I’m also trying to shed some light on the complexity of people being perpetrators of the issue and allies as well so that I can use it to build solidarity.
My land sale contract project is going to be multiple phases. The first phase is doing the actual land markers and sharing engagement around that. If the pandemic is still going on, creating a way for people to be engaged, like a self-guided engagement, and create a virtual space for them to share back thoughts and feelings. The third phase would be having the project be used as evidence for a national platform for this organization that’s being formalized now -- a multi-racial national coalition to talk about reparations that intends to have chapters in cities that have experienced segregation. This project could be used as a way for this national organization to identify a target for the litigation aspect of reparations. Once that national organization makes their announcement, then the push for my project will be for people to engage and the action will be to join this coalition if they support it.
Irina: Wow. That’s so exciting!
Tonika: Yes, I’m so excited! I’m working with my girl Paola Aguirre to design the land markers, and the National Public History Museum to help with interviewing the people who live on those blocks that we’re going to identify their oral history and preserve it.
Irina: I love seeing the evolution of your work… national legislation, having a class action lawsuit for reparations… what!
Tonika: They’ll be leading that, I’m just… ya know…
Irina: You’re the artistic vehicle that brings this home to people. That’s the point of art. That’s how we create change, by inspiring people to see themselves and see a way forward.
Tonika: That’s true. That’s it with me… what about you? And this amazing project!
Irina: It’s been fun to reconnect… hanging in there and excited about this reparations project we’ve been working on for this past year. We’ve been working with Chicago police torture survivors and the reparations bill that just passed… Joey Mogul, who’s one of the lawyers who worked on that, is part of the congregation. We’re also working with Indigenous groups who are forming land taxes and having settlers pay a land tax as part of a way to rematriate the land… and thinking about what that would look like here because there’s such a complex history of indigenous tribes who have rights to these lands.
Tonika: Yeah, and that’s also something with me working on the land sale contract project, a connection that I’ve been making as well, that I want to use my time if I get that fellowship to explore more the connection between the legalized theft of homes and wealth of Black families here in Chicago as well as how that’s so very similar to the contractual legalized theft of land from Indigenous people. Making that connection to always encourage solidarity to say, “you know these populations have actually experienced the same legalized theft.” This was their land and for Black families, this was their homes and money that was stolen from them on the land that was stolen from Indigenous people… it’s crazy. I totally appreciate and see that connection… it makes sense to bring that up for the larger public to know and be educated about.
Irina: It was so powerful to see all the Black and Indigenous organizing that happened this summer and the rally to take down the Columbus status and all the Defund The Police trainings. It feels like this was the summer that made this solidarity so visible in ways I haven’t seen before.
I know you’re super busy so I’ll ask you the same question I asked in may: what time do you think it is on the clock of the world?
Tonika: Oh my gosh. The first word that comes to mind is “reckoning.” It’s definitely a movement that I think we’ll have to go through more of it to really be able to look back in hindsight to see how to really describe it. In the midst of it, I can definitely say it’s a reckoning. It’s an awareness within the public consciousness that has emerged in a way that I can’t recall experiencing in my lifetime. It seems very similar to what people possibly felt like during the Civil Rights movement… to have so many protests happen throughout the country at the same time, and the documentation of it transformed how the larger media is even talking about it. It feels heartbreaking to have some of the incidents that occured to kind of create this dialogue and action, but I must say I’m proud to be part of a period in time where so many people are being vocal about this inequity and showing so much solidarity. Regardless of the pushback, it cannot be denied of the multi-racial solidarity. I haven’t studied history enough to know, but I know these movements have happened, but this feels way more than those other times. I just feel a reckoning. Everyone is definitely becoming aware of systemic racism, structural racism, segregation, the historic impact on present day racism and segregation. People are really starting to learn about the plight of Indigenous population; it’s all become common language now. That is definitely necessary to do any kind of movement-building. You have to start with education, awareness and connectivity. If anything else is going to happen, whether it’s policy, laws, it has to start with a movement… so that’s what this represents to me.. that movement being started.
Irina: And you are such a part of that! The oral histories that you’ve been collecting and the mapping that you’ve been doing… you are leading city-wide conversations on reimagining monuments and racial healing. Your work is in curriculum in schools, I mean this is huge.
Tonika: Thank you!
Irina: Thank you for your work. It’s been such an honor to collaborate with you.
Tonika: I feel the same.
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This conversation was lovingly transcribed and edited by my dear friend, writer, and cultural organizer Rivka Yeker. You can check out their work at @hooliganmagazine.