Speak for Yourself, Jimmy

In response to Jimmy Sullivan's hate-filled screed [Mailbag, "Onward Christian Soldier," Jan. 26, 2006], as an Irish-American, I would like to say that we are not all racist, anti-Semitic pinheads. Unfortunately, Sullivan does represent an ugly element in my ethnic group that too frequently claims to speak for the rest of us, the same idiots who threatened to kill me at the 2000 St. Patrick Day's parade when I refused to take a "Justice for Daniel Faulkner" button.

I was born here and my family has lived in Philadelphia for generations, but I grew up in Richmond, Va., because my father moved there to work in civil rights. I was brought up to see the Irish as "the Blacks of Europe" in solidarity with African-Americans, Jews and other minorities in this country. As a carpetbagger, I felt relieved that my ancestors had not owned slaves and had fought for the Union, even though this left me alienated from many of the other white kids with whom I grew up. I naively thought most Irish-Americans were progressive and had a lot of African-American and Jewish friends. When I moved back to Philadelphia, I was horrified that many of my brethren had become the "Orangemen of the U.S.A.," who keep African-Americans and other minorities out of the unions and use the slogan "Irish Pride" as a code for "White Power."

Also, as a great-grandnephew of Cardinal Dougherty (but no fan of his), I hope that the recent priest sex scandal will finally force change in the Catholic Church, an institution that has oppressed my people as much as the English Crown [Philly Blunt, "Bearing True Witness," Brian Hickey, Jan. 12, 2006]. Allowing married persons, open homosexuals and women to become priests would be good start.

As a final thought, I wish Sullivan would actually read Irish history and realize that it is the supreme insult to our ancestors to be on the side of the oppressor.

Jamie Graham
Grays Ferry

Are you suggesting that because 70 percent of the city's homicide victims last year had been arrested at least once that they somehow deserved to be killed [News, "Bell Curve," Jan. 26, 2006]? Your glib call to "put an end to crime-on-crime crime" trivializes their lives. A young man in my family was one of the 380 killed in Philly in 2005. He also had been arrested before. That doesn't mean he was charged or convicted of anything and it certainly doesn't mean he deserved to be murdered. Those statistics were released to give the public a false sense of security, to make people feel that only criminals are being killed so the law-abiding have nothing to worry about. The entire city should be more concerned about the rising level of gun violence and less concerned about demonizing the victims.

Shawna Holts
Southwest Philadelphia

The architectural rendering of the Ben Franklin's Ghost exhibit [Mix Pick, "Ghost Hunter," Drew Lazor, Jan. 19, 2006] was provided by the Kevin Lee Allen Design firm.