Letters to the Editor

What You Say

I'd like to thank Brian Hickey for his willingness to discuss racism within the African-American community [Philly Blunt, "Murder, in Black and White," Aug. 16, 2007] in a way that the mainstream media almost never does — honestly.

Adam Levick
South Philadelphia

As Philadelphians, we strain to find good newspapering.The Inky, now slave to yet another corporation, is becoming increasingly hard to bear. The Daily News represents everything I dislike about my beloved hometown. And then there is Philadelphia Weekly — Philadelphia Fucking Weekly. Were their offices on fire, I would rush to the scene and watch as their staff came screaming from the building, their skin aflame. I would have prepared for this event by drinking liter after liter of cola. I would stand emotionless, peeing on the building across the street while the dude who draws "Kime Agin" screams in pain and agony begging me for the salvation that could come only from my warm urine.

I am left with City Paper. Except I'm not settling. Your paper is good. The stories are well researched and well told. The features are unique and fun. And every week I turn to two pieces first: Bell Curve and Running Numbers. For the past two weeks, though, I have been thoroughly disappointed in [Naked City, "Running Numbers," Nick Norlen].

We'll start with July 18 . First of all, don't call them "The Fightins" and then admit to A) not owning a Phils shirt, and by insinuation B) not having the initiative to go buy one. You can get one for about $10.99 at Modell's. The rest of your column made weak, unoriginal jokes at the Phils' and baseball's expense. I ignore your slights on my beloved sport and team until next week: "NASCAR and science, never the twain shall meet?" Come on, man! Long gone are the days when NASCAR was a sport of good ole boys who learned to supe up their cars from their daddies who learnt them that from the days of prohibition! NASCAR is one of the most popular sports (I know, I know ... ) in this country.You have arrived in corporate America when you can sponsor a car. Luxury booths and helipads are required features at all tracks.Teams employ physicists to help them go faster. Every car on those tracks every weekend are some of the most scientifically advanced vehicles you'll see.

The point is this: This city isoverrun with worthless, hipster douchebags who ride their bikes in skirts and heels, crowd Bob & Barbara's like it's actually a nice bar, dress like everyone around them in a pathetic attempt to buck the norm, and most importantly, make fun of things they know nothing about simply because it was something to which they were never exposed and because they think it is cool to be dissenting, sarcastic and angry.

I'm not an Eagles fan, I don't do that stupid cheer. I hate Mormons, but didn't say it out loud until I read the book of Mormon and raised my concerns to Mormons who couldn't address them.

Get your facts straight before e-mailing that final copy in. I won't stop reading, but I really hope the tone in your column changes.

Ben P
Via E-mail

Nick Norlen responds:

So this doesn't come off as a form letter, and so I can say a few things in my defense, I'll respond to your criticisms specifically.

As for the Phillies column, my use of "the Fightins" appears to have implied that I am a fan. However, most of my references to baseball have included disclaimers about how I really think it's terribly boring, much to the chagrin of my superfan editor. That said, I'm not trying to offend Phillies fans, or any other fans, when I take jabs at their teams. Because sports aren't typically featured in other sections, I try to fill that void by including them in my column. But because it is a column, mentions of teams usually come with my usual sarcastic remarks (unoriginal as they may be sometimes), and an attempt at reflecting the critical Philadelphia sports fan persona. It's just my way of trying to be genuine. However, since I devoted an entire column to them, it's safe to say I'll lay off the Phils until they do something very good or very bad in terms of their wildcard pursuit.

In terms of my NASCAR comments, it's slightly more complicated.

The formula for my column is such that I include both events worthy of attending and those that are, in my opinion, ridiculous (read: worthy of ridicule). But I think it should be noted that both types are almost always followed by some kind of joke about the event or the attendees. The NASCAR mention falls somewhere in between.
While I do thoroughly despise NASCAR for its promotion of what I think are essentially commercials on wheels, I don't deny that there are plenty of science and strategy involved. And I'm not going to fault someone for being interested in both.

That's why I included a preview of the event, which I think, is in some small way evidence of how I try to be balanced. Whether you buy that or not, I at least hope you see there is a thought process behind what might come off as your typical hipster rants. I understand your concern about the current overuse of snarky comments, but I feel I'm pretty consistent in trying to not sound too pretentious or arbitrarily pissed off, hence my insistence on being intentionally corny and subsequently making fun of myself for it.
For that reason, I can't say my column's tone will change.

But I will promise to be extra careful about preying on easy targets — and those that I know less about than I could.

Anyway, I'm glad you read my column and care enough to point out when you think it falls short. I hope it meets your expectations in the future, and that I've at least earned your willingness to lend your urine to future firefighting efforts at the City Paper office.

Sincerely,
Nick Norlen

Nice to exchange emails. And my firefighting skills were aimed at the worthless hacks at Philly Weekly, not CP (just to make that clear).

That being said, thanks for your genuinely thorough response.

As I read it, I felt a bit ashamed. Perhaps I fired off my email a bit quickly and harshly. In fact, yes. That is what I did.

Your concise points and explanations made me realize that I wrote a semi-angry email to a writer whom I enjoy reading about things I really shouldn't be semi-angry about because frankly, there are way more important things about which we should be a lot angrier.

...What a dick.

By no means should your column's tone change. And I would never presume to think that it would because of me. That was never my intentions. You definitely DON'T come off as pretentious or arbitrarily pissed. I guess that is the point. I wanted to make sure that one of the few things I like reading every week didn't go the way of the Roller Girls.

Again, thanks for writing back.

-Ben

Gov. Rendell, Sen. Fumo, ex-chairman Tad Decker, and the local and state judicial systems are all at fault concerning the casino legislation and location decisions [Loose Canon, "Secret Slot Talks," Bruce Schimmel, Aug. 9, 2007]. Having "bought" the two best real estate sites in the city, the casinos will never agree to any moves.We must continue to fight this corruption.

Bill George
Northern Liberties

As always, another white man wants to hang an African-American on the tree and say it's justice [Slant, "Retribution," Michael Washburn, Aug. 16, 2007]. I thought the American way was to get the facts, try the case and convict according to the case without a shadow of a doubt before we start hollering death to the black man.

Nobody has the murder weapon with Mumia's fingerprints on it nor were there any witnesses to this murder, but still the Caucasian people want the innocent dead. Let me spell this out fer ya: There's no such thing as justice in America for African-Americans.

In the O.J. Simpson case, he was not found guilty of murder but the Browns and the Goldmans got an unlawful wrongful-death suit without the guilty murder charge. In the same year in Los Angeles, an African-American teenager gets killed by a Korean store owner for no reason (notice this teenager wasn't armed, either); it was on videotape, the murder weapon was present with the store owner's fingerprints on it, and the store owner admitted to killing the teen but [he] was let go because a racist judge says the store owner didn't know that murder was against the law in this country! His mother can't get a wrongful-death suit because the Korean was not charged (or because the child's mother is black) but still, they stuck it to OJ without the charge of murder — I wonder how that happened?

You can't go anywhere in the world and just kill anybody and get away with it — except if you kill a black man in Los Angeles. Let's do this right and by the law, and not by the color of our skin, people! Let that man go and let him go not now, but right now!

William "Wonderful Wil" Dixon
Center City

Washburn's Slant misrepresents the position of death penalty opponents on a number of levels. First, he seems oblivious to the materialist understanding of racism. This views racism as not fundamentally a problem of bad attitudes, but of structural inequalities that not only have disparate impacts on "whites" and "people of color," but also serve to continually reproduce discriminatory practices — sometimes consciously racist, sometimes inadvertently so — that in turn perpetuate the material inequalities.

Washburn appeals to tradition by noting the prevalence of retribution as a theme in many cultures. He conveniently neglects that this often takes the form of cross-generational retribution, resulting in endless cycles of revenge. Moral rightness can't be decided by the mere prevalence of a custom. After all, racism, misogyny and religious intolerance are all prevalent across many cultures, too.

Washburn also assumes that calling the death penalty racist implies that only "people of color" are executed. This is an absurd dichotomy; a disparate impact doesn't have to be 100 percent to be real. He also ignores the fact that simulated trials have found that white juries given identical information are more likely to sentence a "black" person to death than a "white" for the same crime. Disparate impact is about how people in different color castes are treated for the same actions, not about how they commit crimes at different rates — something that's hard to tell since racial bias also acts on the level of police and prosecutorial conduct.

Apparently just for kicks, Washburn throws in a slander against Mumia Abu-Jamal, claiming he initially tried to defend the shooting of Daniel Faulkner on political grounds. On the contrary, this was the prosecution's claim; Mumia has always denied shooting Faulkner. It's true enough that he said some crazy things at his original trial, being under the undue influence of the cultic MOVE organization; but that group has never advocated initiation of violence, any more than had the Black Panthers, to whom Mumia's earlier affiliation the prosecution used to convince the jury to convict him.

Last but not least, Washburn claims that human beings have a "need" for retribution and catharsis. But in reality many survivors of murder victims oppose the death penalty, while many that supported it find that rather than giving them closure, it's only delayed the process of healing from their grief. It does survivors both a disservice and a dishonor to assume that imitating the violence of the killer, whether directly or through the agency of the state, will make them better.

We humans make ourselves better, rather, not by imitating the behavior of the lower animals, but by differentiating ourselves from it.

Eric Hamell
Via E-mail

This is a free paper, and it is supposedly a free country, but with all due respect, you really pulled a boner with printing Washburn's Slant. I know little about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and will for convenience concur with Washburn that the man is guilty as charged and deserves just punishment for his crimes. Where we strongly differ is that we can all live without the death penalty, and Washburn's commentary is completely out of line.

First, I'd like to address a rhetorical question Mr. Washburn asked: If a white criminal murdered someone I cared about, do I think I would not want the murdered to pay with his life? The answer is no. A close member of my family was murdered when I was 16 and never at any time did any of us survivors seek the death penalty. Why? It would have accomplished nothing. It wouldn't have brought her back, and it wouldn't have, as he states, "brought at least partial closure and deliverance from ... abyss of sorrow and rage."

But others may differ on this. To them, I'd like to point out the death penalty has been proven not to be a deterrent. If anything, it probably gives succor to some hardened individuals that an end to their miserable existence is in the offing.

It isn't cheaper for taxpayers. Having consulted a number of public defenders, I've discovered that with the appeal process as it is, a convicted criminal will cost more to go through the proper process of appeals of his sentence than if he simply is clapped up in jail forever. Perhaps Washburn prefers the romanticized vigilante "justice" of his Mad Max films, but until our society dissolves into such anarchy we abide by the law, whether free citizens or incarcerated prisoners.

It has been proven in several states to be cruel and unusual. More and more evidence has shown that state mandated death by injection methods are painful and slow, and many times don't even take! A number of prisoners in the past 15 years have walked away from the gurney of death as the injection solution was improperly administered or simply faulty. Thus the prisoner files for more appeals at the public's expense, understandably in this case.

Lastly, a short reminder to Washburn and other death penalty aficionados. The U.S. and Japan are the only First World countries that offer the ultimate punishment, and Japan's tradition of honor suicide prevents the government from completing this task nine times out of 10. If Washburn wishes to be a part of a medievalist or Third World society that prides itself on "the human need for retribution," he should relocate himself to Nigeria or Pakistan where this type of quick and easy justice abounds.

If he doesn't, than maybe he should reread "Macbeth" to remind himself what "the need for retribution" gets one.

Daniel Elyar
Via E-mail

Washburn pointed out that Mumia's lawyers argue that racism is the central issue. He and the media leaving out that Mumia at times argued otherwise even fired lawyers who were ignoring other issues Mumia considers important.

From media snapshots, one would think that Pam Africa spends most of her life arguing for Mumia's freedom. Actually she spends at least as much time trying to free the Move 9. Maybe even almost nine times as much effort trying to free the Move 9 as she does Mumia.

Abu-Jamal didn't insist on crazy defense along the lines that he was right to shoot a cop for political reasons. He insisted on a crazy defense that a cop was murdered by his peers, as a conspiracy by all of civilization to prevent John Africa's truths from being known.

Both Judge Sabo and Mumia's lawyer, Tony Jackson, refused to let Mumia argue that Officer Faulkner was killed by a fellow police officer. Even if Mumia was wrong, he should have been allowed to claim what he claims he saw.

When Arnold Beverly came up with another explanation that fit in with Mumia's memories, Mumia stopped insisting that his arrest was a massive frame up. Incidentally, the confusion caused the USSR and Cuba to stop supporting Mumia, which I think was Beverly's and the federal agents behind Beverly's purpose.

So, the media puts words in someone's mouth then condemns them for saying it. Supposedly this is presenting both sides of an issue.

Richard Kanegis
Via E-mail

In [Food, Small Bites, "Good Eats," Kelly White, Aug. 16], Good Eats was misidentified as a catering company. It is a program launched by M Catering, a catering company owned by MANNA. Its delivery range was identified as "Center City to University City," but it also services Fairmount, Old City and Northern Liberties. There is no financial qualification to receive services from MANNA, a nonprofit that helps individuals at nutritional risk due to life-threatening illnesses.