Holiday Spirit

It is early afternoon in Center City, a few days after Christmas. Shoppers mill about, looking to redeem missed and unwanted presents.

Inside a tiny, dim boutique on South 17th Street, the owner rings up the only customer in the store, a small, attractive, 30-something woman with long, dark hair, dressed casually in jeans, a cashmere coat and trendy flats. Her daughter stands at her side, wide eyed with soft brown curls. They just got their nails done. It’s mother-daughter day, and mom's buying pajamas.

“Did you see these?” mom asks the owner. She’s holds her hair back, flashing the flawless diamonds adorning her ears.

“Wow,” says the owner.

“I got these for Christmas,” she says, her smile shining wide. “And I got a Birkin,” – a bag that has a waiting list of more than two years and a price tag starting at $7,500.

“Did he get you that?”

“Yep,” she says, nodding her head victoriously.

“Did he do that by himself?”

“Noooo,” she says. “It would be nice to be surprised, but if I didn’t tell him, he wouldn’t have a clue.”

She tucks her receipt in her wallet and takes her bag, decorated in a dark ribbon. As she heads for the door, she promises to return next week.

Minutes later, a block away, a young boy steps in front of a blind woman’s cane. His wide eyes appear hurried and lost. Several paces back his mother is being harassed by a security guard.

“I ain’t got nothin’,” she tells the guard, a thin, gray-haired man old enough to be her father. Her two small daughters stand at her side, looking up, pleading.

“Lift up the back of your shirt,” he orders her, as they walk down the street, in an odd little dance of him accusing her and her denying.

She lifts up her sweatshirt, revealing nothing but rolls of brown skin.

But he's undeterred. Their dance continues around the corner.

And her son, dressed in a fuzzy hat and worn coat, stares ahead, unable to defend her or leave.

(Photo credit: shopamericantours.com)

The Tale of Two Philadelphias

The Urban League of Philadelphia recently released a report titled the State of Black Philadelphia. Every Philadelphian should read this report. It offers shocking and saddening statistics that expose the social and economic chasm between the city's black and white residents, and paints a horrific picture of black life in some of the city's neighborhoods.

Here are some of the low lights:

• The median household income for blacks is $26,728, compared to $42,279 for whites—a difference of more than $15,000.
• The unemployment rate for blacks is 9.9 percent, more than twice that of whites.
• Only 53 percent of blacks own their homes, compared to 64 percent of whites, and their property values are less—a difference of almost $100,000.
• Thirty-two percent of blacks live in poverty, which is twice as many as whites.
• Only 14 percent of black high school students are proficient in reading and only 10 percent are proficient in math—less than half as many as white students.
• Twice as many blacks are uninsured.
• Blacks are five times more likely to be murdered.

The grim disparities go on and on...

But in addition to ringing the alarm, the report points to a laundry list of common sense solutions. Thing is, we've always known the who, what and where. It only thing perpetually missing is our collective will.

Many of the responses I received to my column about the report point to individual responsibility. Some readers dismissed the measures as a black problem. One person even wrote that black people are just plain lazy.

Such attitudes still find a way to amaze me, that somehow people use them to bolster racial stereotypes. In reality, these statistics represent a social phenomenon, fueled by racism, that withstands simply pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. For some of the city's residents every thing surrounding them points to failure: blighted neighborhoods, inferior schools, no jobs, random violence, no access to healthcare or healthy food.

When we look at our education system, a student can take responsibility for his education and go to school everyday, yet he will still come out with an inferior education. Statistics show that blacks graduate from high school with the same level of education as white 8th graders. That black high school student can graduate with honors and still not get accepted into college or find a meaningful job.

Until we see these conditions as a social phenomenon; until we talk openly and honestly about racism, which is at the heart of these statistics, and the damage it has done and continues to do; until we talk about individual responsibility, and empower individuals to be responsible; until we start investing in young, black men, beyond the millions we pour into the criminal justice system; until we see that racial equality is in everyone's self-interest; until our moral responsibility leads to action instead of apathy, because crime can only be contained in so-called bad neighborhoods for so long. And even though blacks are doing worse than whites in this city, whites, particularly white students aren't faring well either. Until we stop seeing this as a black problem or a neighborhood problem, things won't only not the same same, they'll get worse.

Related Stories:
A Black-and-White Issue.
by Kia Gregory. Philadelphia Weekly. 12/12/07

Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane.
With Patricia Coulter of the Urban League of Philadelphia, Kia Gregory who writes for the Philadelphia Weekly, and Phoebe Haddon, professor of law at Temple. 12/18/07

(Photo credit: Jeff Fusco)

Soul Force

On Tuesday, and every Tuesday, the Father Paul Washington committee wants every Philadelphian to call the Pennsylvania state legislators holding up gun reform.

The committee is lead by his two sons, and self-described best friends, Kemah and Michael, and is part of their father’s mission to save lives

Their motivation is simple: too many guns on the street, too many lives being taken.

“If there’s no crack on the streets, you can’t have crack addicts,” says Kemah, 56. “It’s the same thing with guns. If there’s no guns in the street, you can’t have the level of violence we see in the neighborhoods.”

The brothers, the oldest of five, grew up at 18th and Diamond, four blocks away from their father’s church, the historic Church of the Advocate, which was an island of hope for the struggling North Philadelphia neighborhood.

During his 25 years at the Advocate, Father Paul was a leader in the black community and the black power movemet. He ran a soup kitchen. The Church had sports teams and a myriad of activities for the neighborhood kids. In 1968, the church hosted the National Black Power Conference, and the Black Panther Party convention in 1970.

Until he passed away in five years ago, the church remained a haven.

“This comfort zone really gave folks an opportunity to grow positively,” Michael says, “but five blocks away there with a lot of problems, gangs and violence. They respected the church perimeter. Guys drinking wine on the corner would hide their bottle when Miss So-and-so walked by, but now, the whole community fabric has eroded.”

Michael, 48, says it started unraveling with the lost of jobs.

“In North Philadelphia you had factories like Stenton and Zenith and Westinghouse that made families stable,” he remembers. “Now they’re all gone. “

The committee’s campaign to blog Harrisburg's switchboards has been going on for about a month. They are pushing for two bills, House Bill 22, which would limit handgun purchases to one within any 30-day period, and House Bill 29, which requires gun owners to report lost and stolen guns and the state police to maintain a registry of all firearms lost or stolen in Pennsylvania.

Both bills have been stalling in the judiciary committee for ions. Last week, about a dozen members of the legislative black caucus walked off the house floor in protest over the lack of progress. The church plans to meet with the heads of the caucus next Wednesday.

Recently Diamond Street, from 16th through 19th, was renamed after Father Paul Washington Ave,” who often said, “Soul force does not depend on numbers.”

“A lot pf people think you need masses of numbers behind you to make change,” says Kemah. “Dad always said, ‘If you are doing something for God, He is the only one who needs to be behind you. He arms you with everything you need’.”

The surrounding community has seen its share of shootings and murder and robberies, and the brothers say only the community can heal itself.

“It’s just a community now without a lot of respect of self and life,” says Kemah, recalling his father’s day when men tipped their hats and opened doors for women. “My father loved life. He loved children and just to see them as they are now with no morals and no respect, I think he would really be hurt. It’s something he would cry about, and I know he would speak against it, and I know there would be some activity at the church around this.”

(Photo Credit: Mike Persico)