A rant, Christopher Sweat

Austin Berg wanted to talk about structure before we talked about anyone’s name. We sat down in Lincoln Square on a summer afternoon. The problem, in his telling, is the shape of the government itself, more than any one mayor. Berg has spent a decade on that argument. He runs the Chicago Policy Center, an arm of the free-market Illinois Policy Institute, writes The Last Ward to more than 158,000 s...

We met Vasquez on his own turf, a North Side space he is quick to say is not a taxpayer-funded ward office. He calls it a community hub, a co-op, a place where neighbors come in to work through what they want to get done. He keeps what he jokingly calls movement merch on hand: t-shirts, hats, and the small Chicago Star butterfly pins his team made during last fall’s surge in immigration enforcemen...

Chris Smalls is sitting across from me in Chicago. For six years, he’s been told he was wrong. For six years, he’s been proven right. He was right that Amazon was an unsafe place to work in the early weeks of the pandemic. He was right that workers at the Staten Island JFK8 warehouse, a million-square-foot facility with ten- to twelve-hour shifts and a thirty-minute lunch break, could win a union...

Teta Jalila, c. 1920. The photograph Laila Grace uses as the logo of her design practice. A conversation with Laila Grace at SAIC Galleries about her thesis, Jalila's Vanity, Palestinian futurism, and the design lineage that runs through her distant cousin Rajie Cook. Full essay below. If you have ever found a bathroom in an airport, you have used a piece of design produced by a Palestinian Christ...

At the Illinois State Capitol, Norma Hernandez broke down the political realities behind how legislation moves through Springfield. The conversation covered HB2723, progressive revenue proposals like the digital advertising tax, and broader fights over taxation, corporate power, and economic inequality in Illinois. But much of the discussion focused on something less visible from the outside: the...

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This conversation took place inside the Illinois State Capitol. On its surface, it’s an interview with a policy organizer working on active legislation. More broadly, it offers insight into how some political actors are thinking about the relationship among advocacy, policy, and capital. At the center is Illinois’ anti-boycott framework and the effort to repeal it. As described in the interview, t...

Editor’s Note This interview is part of GrayStak’s ongoing coverage of political movements, governance models, and institutional dynamics in major U.S. cities. The views expressed reflect Alderperson Rodriguez-Sanchez’s perspective and are presented to understand better how power is organized and exercised at the local level. As part of our Chicago coverage, we are speaking directly with policymak...

National attention around the race for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District has begun to grow. Veteran political strategist David Axelrod recently pointed to Kat Abughazaleh as a candidate drawing unexpected attention — a sign that what began as a relatively unconventional campaign is now entering broader national political conversation. Abughazaleh’s run has broken with many of the traditional no...

I sat down with Karina Villa for a 39-minute discussion about her campaign for Illinois Comptroller and her broader vision for the office. Villa frames her candidacy around what she calls a “true progressive” approach to fiscal oversight. In our conversation, she makes clear that she sees the Comptroller’s statutory responsibilities — paying the state’s bills, maintaining transparency, and safegua...

We interviewed Kevin Ryan, Marine veteran, public school teacher, and candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, aboard the campaign bus he drives across the state. The bus — wrapped in imagery honoring high-impact American activists and community leaders — provides a visible expression of the reform tradition he situates himself within. Our discussion moved beyond biography and into policy. We examin...

In our latest GrayStak interview, congressional candidate Anabel Mendoza outlines the electoral strategy driving her campaign in Illinois’ 7th District. Rather than relying solely on traditional party machinery, Mendoza’s approach centers on coalition-building across immigrant communities, labor networks, grassroots organizers, and younger voter blocs that are often under-mobilized in federal elec...

State politics are often treated as background noise — procedural, incremental, easy to ignore unless something breaks. But in moments of institutional strain, state legislatures are where legitimacy is either rebuilt or quietly eroded. I sat down with Nick Uniejewski, a community organizer and policy analyst running for Illinois State Senate in the 6th District, to talk about what representation...

This post serves as the primary release point for the full video and audio versions of our conversation with Jessie Fuentes. Readers can watch or listen to the complete interview below, or continue reading for GrayStak’s institutional analysis and framing. Editor’s Note Municipal politics is often treated as administrative, small-scale, or secondary to national power. In reality, it is where power...

Dylan and Demi are political candidates who have been outspoken in public interviews and appearances about their understanding of executive power, public order, and accountability. In multiple widely circulated clips and statements, they’ve said they would be willing to refuse or countermand National Guard orders under certain circumstances, arguing that obedience to authority should not override...

Interview conducted at Chicago City Hall | Reporting from Little Village In this interview, I speak with Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) at Chicago City Hall about a sequence of events that unfolded over two consecutive days in Chicago, beginning with federal immigration enforcement activity and followed by a public political confrontation involving state and city leadership. On November 8...

I sat down with Heena Musabji , Legal Director of CAIR-Chicago, and Ahmed Rehab , Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, for a wide-ranging conversation on the urgent legal and political challenges facing Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities in Illinois and across the country. Heena detailed the legal landscape—from doxxing and discrimination to immigration enforcement and ICE encounters—and exp...

Andy Thayer is one of Chicago’s most enduring and influential direct-action organizers, with decades of work across LGBTQ liberation, anti-war mobilization, and civil liberties defense. Raised in a politically charged household in upstate New York—his father designed missile parts while his mother aided Vietnam War draft resisters—Thayer was drawn early into dissent. By 17, he was exposing corrupt...

I sat down with Mahnoor Ahmad , who previously ran for US House of Representatives in Illinois’ 6th Congressional district to challenge Sean Casten, and is now running for DuPage County District 2 to represent her community on the DuPage County Board. We discussed Mahnoor’s trajectory and motivations for running, her experiences as a candidate, and specific structures she observed throughout her c...

This discussion was held on the GrayStak Media platform at the Jerusalem Academy of Arts in Little Palestine, Bridgeview, IL. The panel speaks independently of the venue and forum, representing its own views and perspectives. The topic of the discourse is the overlap between ICE and the IDF. Speakers explore forms of repression, the expression of dissent, and the impact of a repressive government...

I sat down with activist and organizers Juli and Nino from the Party for Socialism and Liberation to discuss a myriad of matters, including U.S.-Venezuela intervention, socialism, revolutionary theory, political theory, two Americas, immigration challenges facing communities in Chicago, black, trans, workers’ rights, identity broadly, and so much more. It was a fascinating conversation, and Juli a...

I sat down with Richard Berg , longtime labor organizer and host of FightBack! Radio , for a conversation that cuts right to the core of the labor struggle today. Richard brings decades of experience from the shop floor to the bargaining table, and this interview pulls from all of it. We got into the real terrain: collective bargaining, how labor power intersects with domestic and international po...

On Day 2 of the People’s Conference for Palestine, I spoke with Hani Almadhoun, Director of Philanthropy at UNRWA USA and co-founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, to talk about humanitarian relief, the crisis in Gaza, and the urgent need for global solidarity. Hani brings both personal and professional insight: while raising millions for refugee relief through UNRWA USA, his own family in northern Gaz...

I spoke with Farah Chalisa, a human rights attorney and activist at the People's Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan, over Labor Day weekend 2025. We discussed the conference speakers, issues facing the Palestinian people, zionism, language, analytical frameworks, critique, and more. Our discussion began as light and humorous before transitioning into more serious discourse on internatio...

In my conversation with Kenneth Roth —longtime head of Human Rights Watch and one of the most influential voices in global human rights—we dive into the heart of the Chicago activist scenes and connect it to broader patterns of political repression in the U.S. Roth brings a sharp, global perspective to local struggles, unpacking how police abuses, protest suppression, and authoritarian tactics tha...