Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

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Taji Chesimet

Taji is a writer, performer, and community organizer. As a Fourth Year, he studies Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, concentrating on prisons, race, and cultural aesthetics of resistance. Originally from Portland (OR), he has been engaged in politics and community building since high school. He was one of the former Chairs of the Portland Committee on Community Engaged-Policing, appointed by the Mayor of Portland, and oversaw efforts of the Department of Justice to implement and maintain a consent decree in the Portland Police Bureau. He was one of the Directors/Founders of the youth-run organization Raising Justice. Taji previously served on the Board of the Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon, the Local Public Safety Coordinating Committee. He has supported the work of Parole Illinois, Prison Neighborhood Arts+Education Project, the ACLU of Oregon, Race Talks PDX, Pennsylvania Innocence Project, Impact-Justice, Senator Akasha Lawrence-Spence (OR D-18), and he advised on the mayoral campaign of Sarah Iannarone, the 2020 Public Safety Task Force and, on the revised community engagement policies for Portland's Office of Community Engagement and Civic Life. With a particular interest in community education, Taji aims to work at the intersections of Performance, Decarcerality, and Political Mobilization to fight for transformative justice and end the systems of oppression impacting all of our communities.