Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

POLITICS Congressional candidate Kina Collins on running again, addressing systemic issues
by Kayleigh Padar
2022-04-16

This article shared 1877 times since Sat Apr 16, 2022
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Gun-violence prevention and healthcare advocate Kina Collins is once again running against longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Danny Davis in the June 28 primary for a seat in the U.S. Congress. She recently spoke with Windy City Times about her campaign and potential plans for office.

Windy City Times: Why did you decide to run against the district's incumbent again?

Kina Collins: Simply put, it's time. It's time for new leadership. It's time to fight for bold, progressive platforms and policies. U.S. Rep. Danny Davis has been my representative since I was 5 years old. I'm a daughter of this district.

WCT: What are you doing differently in this election compared to the last time you [ran] against Davis in 2020?

KC: First off, I think that when you run a second time, you don't make the same mistakes that you made as a first-time candidate. We haven't just united the progressives on the national space; we've also uniquely united progressives locally here in the district as well.

We've also [raised more funds than] U.S. Rep. Davis, and we know the way to win these elections is to organize people and organize money.

WCT: What are your biggest goals or priorities if you are elected?

KC: We've heard a lot from folks in the district about public safety. My background is as a gun-violence prevention advocate. I'm a part of the survivor community. As a child, I witnessed a shooting in my community that resulted in a murder. I knew the victim and the shooter in that situation. That's something that's, unfortunately, continuing today for a lot of young people in my district.

So, I'm coming in with a unique background as a survivor, as an advocate, as a public policy expert and as a leader in this space around common-sense gun safety. I also want to make sure we amplify the voices of victims and survivors.

The second thing I would say is that people are concerned about the economy. They want relief and recovery from COVID and from inflation.

The final thing I'd say is healthcare. Healthcare is everything. It is the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe.

WCT: Why do you feel it's important to have someone in office who has personal experience with gun violence? How does that make you stand out?

KC: The gun-violence prevention movement, which is one of the most important public health emergencies we're dealing with in the United States, needs to be victim-centered and survivor-led. When you elect people impacted by these issues, it allows for solutions that are preventative instead of reactionary.

Ultimately, when I witnessed that murder, I knew that bullet was flying through the air long before anyone pulled the trigger. When we shut down public schools, when we don't have access to things like mental health facilities, when we don't have proper grocery stores, when there's lead in the water and toxins in the air, that's bullets flying.

WCT: Do you believe in defunding the police?

KC: The right has created an echo chamber around the term defunding the police to create fear, but healthcare advocates and physicians have been advocating for the reallocation of resources for decades.

Investment has to go into scaling public health models [and] prevention instead of reacting after tragedy strikes. The truth is, as somebody who is a survivor of gun violence and saw that murder, the police were not there to stop that murder from happening. And as a matter of fact, one of the most traumatic memories that I have of that moment wasn't even just the shooting. It was the fact that the victim, as he was dying, wasn't sent an ambulance. They did not send a paramedic. They sent a police wagon. And he died.

When we talk about the solutions and what violence looks like in these communities, it's not just physical violence it's structural violence. In order for us to stop that, we have to put our money into housing, healthcare, employment and models that include violence interruption.

WCT: You've talked about how all of these things are connected to each other. What do you mean by addressing systemic issues to alleviate violence?

KC: The root cause of issues like gun violence is poverty. When we don't invest in people and communities, they slip through the cracks. A lot of my work has been focused on how to get people the mental healthcare they need.

We have a majority-minority district and a lot of people of color often feel like their voices aren't being heard. The LGBTQ+ community, specifically the Black trans community, doesn't have resources in our district. And what do we see? Black trans women, in particular, [come] up missing. We see them being murdered instead of seeing them being advocated for. So, it is the job of elected officials to speak up on their behalf and fight for those resources.

When I say striking at the root causes, I mean, how are we raising the standard of living and providing people every single possible resource to prevent violence from happening in the first place?

WCT: Which issues that specifically impact the LGBTQ+ community are you passionate about addressing?

KC: There's a high population of unhoused LGBTQ+ people in our district that do not have resources specifically for them. We need to advocate for those resources boldly and say those are exclusively for the LGBTQ community because we know we know the discriminations they face.

I will fight to get the Equality Act signed into law. I think we need to abolish the filibuster in order to get that done.

We also need to talk about healthcare. If I'm going to be a healthcare advocate, that care needs to be culturally competent and include the LGBTQ+ community so they can get access to prescription drugs and resources for transitioning.

We need to highlight that hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed in 2022. Many of those are anti-trans bills and our leaders have not spoken up enough about this. Being a fierce advocate means speaking up on these issues but also training volunteers to phone bank and educate the community about how we can push back and fight as co-conspirators to the LGBTQ+ community. We need boots on the ground. We need to be knocking on doors, holding town halls and educating the public.

For more information about Collins' campaign, visit www.kinacollins.com .


This article shared 1877 times since Sat Apr 16, 2022
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Thailand parliament passes landmark marriage bill 2024-03-27
- On March 27, Thailand's parliament approved a marriage-equality bill by an overwhelmingly large margin—a landmark step that moves one of Asia's most liberal countries closer to legalizing same-sex unions, media ...


Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event 2024-03-25
- Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

Wyoming is latest state to ban gender-affirming care for minors 2024-03-24
- On March 22, Wyoming became the latest state to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors, The Hill noted. In doing so, it joined 23 other states that passed laws restricting or banning the treatment. Legislators in both ...


Gay News

Chicago alder proposes renaming street after Obama 2024-03-22
- Openly gay Black Chicago Ald. Lamont Robinson has proposed renaming Columbus Drive after former U.S. President and city resident Barack Obama, media outlets noted. The street stretches through the Loop from East Grand Avenue to DuSable ...


Gay News

Congressional Equality Caucus on FY24 bills passing the house 2024-03-22
--From a press release - WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02), released the following statement after the House successfully passed the final funding bills for Fiscal Year ...


Gay News

WORLD Uganda items, HIV report, Mandela, Liechtenstein, foreign minister weds 2024-03-21
- It turned out that U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam traveled to Uganda on Feb. 19-27, per The Washington Blade. He visited the capital of Kampala and the nearby city of ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Va. marriage bill, AARP, online counseling, Idaho items, late activist 2024-03-21
- Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bills protecting same-sex marriages at a state level, surprising some, WRIC reported. The bills—passed out of both chambers along mostly party lines—will require clerks ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ candidates Marcelino Garcia, Precious Brady Davis win primary elections to keep MWRD seats 2024-03-21
- Marcelino Garcia and Precious Brady-Davis, the two openly LGBTQ+ incumbents in the race to keep their seats on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), won their primary elections and will move on to the general this ...


Gay News

Small LGBTQ+ candidate pool nevertheless scores some important victories March 19 2024-03-20
- Relatively few openly LGBTQ+ candidates were running in the March 19 Illinois Primary Election. But there were some significant contests in play at the local, state and federal levels. Openly gay Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward) ...


Gay News

Gay Irish prime minister to step down 2024-03-20
- In a surprise move, openly gay Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar has announced his resignation, citing "personal and political, but mainly political reasons," according to CNN. Varadkar said he felt he was no longer ...


Gay News

Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council sets a new course 2024-03-18
- Chicago's LGBTQ+ Advisory Council held its first meeting of the calendar year on Feb. 28 at City Hall in the Loop under the leadership of the recently appointed chair Jin-Soo Huh. The LGBTQ+ Advisory Council is ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Missouri measure, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, judge, Texas schools 2024-03-15
- In Missouri, a newly proposed law could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they're found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning, CNN noted. ...


Gay News

PASSAGES: Former Chicago Commission on Human Relations chair Clarence Wood 2024-03-13
- LGBTQ ally and former Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) Chair and Commissioner Clarence N. Wood died March 5. He was 83. Wood was born April 14, 1940, in Alabama. While primarily raised in Alabama, Wood ...


Gay News

Longtime LGBTQ+-rights activist David Mixner dies at 77 2024-03-12
- On March 11, longtime LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activist David Mixner—known for working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign but then splitting from him over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT)—died at age 77, The Advocate reported. ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ Victory Fund remembers co-founder David Mixner 2024-03-12
--From a press release - Today, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund President & CEO Mayor Annise Parker released the following statement on the passing of LGBTQ+ civil rights activist and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund co-founder David Mixner: "Today, we lost David Mixner, a founding ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.