fountain
John W. Fountain biography
A native son of Chicago’s West Side, John W. Fountain is an award-winning journalist, professor, and author of the memoir True Vine: A Young Black …Read More
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A kid is a kid, not a ‘Lil Soldier’
Our sons perish because too many adults have pre-assigned them with hopeless destinies, spoken and sealed by the names we call them.
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My father’s death still haunts me
From an envelope, yellowed and tattered, emerge ghosts of my past. I sit in my office at home, having run across the documents it contains while on a cleaning binge. There is my parents’ marriage license — more than half a century old. Copies of …Read More
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‘These are the sounds of the city’
Air brakes hiss in the evening rush hour fray. City buses squeak and squeal. The L winds around the track above Wabash Avenue, rumbling and roaring, steel on steel — drowning out conversations with a deafening familiar sound. And yet, it is music, of sorts, …Read More
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Excuse me, but ‘ratchet’ is wretched
‘She so ratchet.” “That hairdo was a ratchet mess.” Ratchet this. Ratchet that. Ratchet — as in Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs. Ratchet. It seems to be the latest word in urban slang, spreading like wildfire, spilling from the lips of rappers, celebrities, kids …
A message of hope from one who overcame
Musician Felton Offard chose to persevere — determined to make a good life, to rise above poverty and circumstance, to fulfill a destiny beyond prison and brokenness.
Changed by writing about murder
Sending students out to immerse themselves in a story, in real-life big-city reporting, is one thing. But predicting whether the experience will in some way be transforming is tricky business. Perhaps one measuring stick may be the words of students themselves.
There’s no forgetting racism, slavery
I understand that we won’t always agree. The point of engaging in a dialogue or expressing one’s opinion, as I do in my column, is to exchange ideas. What one may consider to be whining, another may consider to be a heartfelt expression of their truth.
Don’t run from cops, don’t smart off
We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, — / This debt we pay to human guile; / With torn and bleeding hearts we smile … Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask,” 1895 It first …Read More
‘I am not invisible. I am a shadow.’
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe …I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me…” — Ralph Ellison, “Invisible Man” (1952) I am not invisible. I am a shadow. People react …Read More
Confronting the enemy within
Where do we go from here? Amid marches for justice for Trayvon Martin, amid cries for justice for one, the headlines still scream bloody murder for many: “Man shot to death in West Pullman garage.” “Six dead, 22 wounded in weekend gun violence.” The children …
Raising a son in Trayvon’s America
What will I teach my son? What, amid the bitter cold realities of growing up as a black boy in Trayvon Martin’s America, where the hue of his skin is his only sin? In one America, black, where my son’s race and gender can …
Face facts: Deadly violence isn’t a ‘conspiracy’
‘As for my people, children are their oppressors . . .” Isaiah 3:12 Conspiracy? If this homicidal scourge that stains our streets red with the blood of my people is a conspiracy, then we, African Americans, must be at least co-conspirators. For the eyes of …
Letter from prison: ‘Don’t be a thug’
A letter from prison arrived from one of my 555,300 black brothers incarcerated across America. Postmarked March 25, from the Nebraska Department of Corrections, the white envelope was inscribed with an inmate’s name and ID number in blue ink. He says he reads my column. …
My mama knew she was not my daddy
Dear Mama, thank you, in the absence of my father, for teaching me to be a gentleman. Thank you for standing by my side. For comforting me as a little boy. For drying my eyes when my daddy should have been there but had long …
Mothers can’t be fathers too
Ihad not intended to write about fathers again so soon. But dear single sisters who wished yourselves a “Happy Father’s Day,” in my best Maury Povich voice: “YOU are not the father!” I realize this is a sensitive subject. I have already encountered the wrath …
Good dads, hold your heads high
This one’s for you: For every man who is not just a “baby’s daddy” but a loving father. For every father who has faced and also endured BMD. That’s Baby Mama Drama. For every father who has endeavored to be there for his children, despite …
Father’s Day deserves a little more respect
Now, hear this: No soap-on-a-rope. No power tools. No new socket set. Not even a big new barbecue grill. What? So I can spend all of my Father’s Day cooking? Uh, no, I don’t think so. Homey don’t play that. No weed whacker. No revolving …
Her name was Frances: Another young Chicagoan, lost too soon
This is another in an occasional, yearlong series that looks behind the number of murders in Chicago. Not Jonylah. Not Hadiya. Frances. Her name is Frances. Frances Colon. She was 18. She was not just another nameless, faceless statistic in the incessant toll of Chicago …
Why did that kid call me ‘sucker’?
The kid set us up good. He was a cute little tyke with an “S” for Superman carved in the back of his hair and wearing untied expensive leather sneakers as he walked into the coffee shop, clutching his mama’s hand. A friend and I …
‘Dear incarcerated brother, hang on’
Dear Incarcerated Brother, greetings from your fellow brother in the struggle, though I am on the “free” side of cold steel bars. It might seem strange. Me speaking out to you from a newspaper column. But in the spirit of Brother Malcolm X, I am …Read More
