Saturday August 22nd, 2020

 

Dear Walgreens: 

We are Andersonville residents, business owners, community organizations and City, State, and Federal representatives who are highly concerned about recent racial justice violations at your Walgreens-Andersonville location during the installation of a “Black Trans Lives Matter” mural on the street outside. Artists report being racially profiled by your staff throughout the weekend of August 9th and 10th. This racial profiling escalated into explicitly racist, and likely homophobic/transphobic, action when the police were called on several artists who had entered one of your stores as customers on August 10th. This unwarranted escalation of calling the police was in violation of both any company policies and procedures prohibiting discrimination and overt racism, and likely Illinois Law. Worse, the behavior occurred publicly during the “Black Trans Lives Matter” mural installation. The purpose of this letter is to request your immediate attention to swift action in addressing this incident, a public apology, and steps to ensure it will not happen in the future.

While we will not be releasing a video at this time, we unfortunately do have a video recording of several of our “Black Trans Lives Matter” mural artists standing on that very mural, in front of your Walgreens Andersonville store, being publicly confronted by the Chicago Police Department in response to false accusations by Walgreens staff. These customers left Walgreens with only their purchases on their persons and yet shortly after departing from the store, bystanders noticed the police pull up and a staff person pointing in the artists’ direction. Were you to watch the video of the police addressing the artists working on the mural, you would clearly hear CPD publicly humiliating the artists and telling them: “Don’t step into that Walgreens” and “they don’t want you in there,” among false accusations of stealing and threats to press charges. These artists were guests of the 40th Ward and the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce and were working on a project honoring and uplifting Black Trans Lives, Racial Justice, and Trans-Inclusion. The actions of Walgreens were in direct violation of not just the rights of the artists who suffered from racial profiling and dangerous false accusations, but to the values of our Andersonville community. 

It was clear your employees knew they had erred. Subsequent to the police being called, Walgreens staff approached the artists and attempted to apologize and offer $20 gift cards  following the incident. Walgreens staff admitted that he was not certain the artists stole and yet still called the Chicago Police Department.This apology is wholly inadequate and out of touch with the demands of today. Walgreens corporate responsibility statements in support of Black rights, LGBT rights, and social justice become hollow public relations stunts if Walgreen’s allows racial justice violations to be perpetrated by its staff without earnest, swift, and explicit reparative action. Furthermore, internal disciplinary action does not ameliorate harm done and deflects from the systemic nature of the issue. As we know, racist behavior is more than a few bad apples. It is a product of a system promoting and facilitating it that must be fixed. We, as members of the Andersonville community, propose the following actions to mitigate the racist harm Walgreens caused our community:

Reparative Actions

Action must be taken to ensure the safety of vulnerable community members moving forward. The CEO of Walgreens received a total value of 16 million dollars for his compensation in 2019. We propose Walgreens contribute no less than 3% of this dollar amount, $480,000, to the following vital public safety and community enrichment initiatives that demonstrate Walgreens is in alignment with today’s standards for racial justice and reimagining community safety: 

(1) commission primarily BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming artists to design and execute murals with the racial justice and public health message “reimaging safety” or similar anti-racist and trans-inclusive messages at 25%, or no less than 30, of Chicagoland stores by the end of 2021, prioritizing stores that serve predominantly persons of color and are located in close proximity to LGBTQIA community centers or care facilities;

(2) disclose policies and procedures with regard to racial and LGBTQIA nondiscrimination, equity and inclusion, alternatives to calling the Police in instances of conflict and perceived shoplifting, and strategies for hiring, recruiting and retaining a diverse staff, along with review of training in place (e.g. unconscious bias, alternatives to calling the police, trans-inclusive customer service, etc.) to sufficiently prepare staff to follow policies and procedures;

(3) issue a public apology in writing to our impacted artists.

Our first three signatories request a meeting with Walgreens to discuss harm caused and proposed reparative actions. Structural racism and transphobia cause harm to BIPOC and Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming customers every day. It’s imperative that Walgreens be a store and pharmacy that Chicago’s vulnerable community members can trust.

We look forward to hearing back from you in regard to this urgent and highly sensitive matter. 

Sincerely, 

Iggy V. Ladden, Chicago Therapy Collective

Laura Austin & David Oakes, Andersonville Chamber of Commerce 

Andre Vasquez, 40th Ward Alderman