As we do once a month every month - we check in with Angela Giampolo, of Giampolo Law Group and Philly Gay Lawyer for a segment we call speak Out about the LGBTQIA community and ways issues impacting it affect us all. Today we address anti-LGBTIA+ violence.
https://www.phillygaylawyer.com/
https://giampololaw.com/
First, Penn Museum along with a host of community and civic partners are working together to unearth and preserve the untold or erased history of the Black Bottom neighborhood through Heritage West: West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project. The neighborhood, known for its rich cultural heritage and close-knit atmosphere, succumbed to the expansion of the University of Pennsylvania and the construction of the Schuylkill Expressway. I made a visit to Penn Museum to talk about the project with Dr. Megan C. Kassabaum, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Weingarten Associate Curator for North America at the Penn Museum and Dr. Sarah Linn Assistant Director of the Academic Engagement Department at Penn Museum.
Heritage West: West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project
https://www.phillygaylawyer.com/
https://giampololaw.com/
First, Penn Museum along with a host of community and civic partners are working together to unearth and preserve the untold or erased history of the Black Bottom neighborhood through Heritage West: West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project. The neighborhood, known for its rich cultural heritage and close-knit atmosphere, succumbed to the expansion of the University of Pennsylvania and the construction of the Schuylkill Expressway. I made a visit to Penn Museum to talk about the project with Dr. Megan C. Kassabaum, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Weingarten Associate Curator for North America at the Penn Museum and Dr. Sarah Linn Assistant Director of the Academic Engagement Department at Penn Museum.
Heritage West: West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Good morning, Welcome to What's goingOn, a show about making a difference
in our lives and our communities.I'm Lorraine balladmorl. As we do once
a month every month, we checkin with Angelo Giampolo of Giampolo Law Group
and Philly Gay Lawyer for a segmentwe call Speak Out. But First.
The destruction of Philadelphia's Black Bottom neighborhoodwas a deeply impactful event in the city's
(00:23):
history. During the mid twentieth century, urban renewal initiatives and infrastructure projects led
to the displacement and dismantling of thisvibrant African American community. The loss of
Black Bottom stands as a poignant reminderof the complexities and consequences of urban development,
under scoring the importance of preserving communitiesand their historical significance. Penn Museum,
(00:46):
along with a host of community andcivic partners, are working together to
unearth and preserve the untold or erasedhistory of this neighborhood through Heritage West West
Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project. I visitedPenn Museum to talk about the project with
doctor Meighan cas Bomb, Associate Professorof Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania Wine
(01:07):
Garten, Associate Curator for North Americaat the Penn Museum, along with doctor
Sarah Lynn, Assistant Director of theAcademic Engagement Department at Penn Museum. Well,
let's begin, and I'm going tostart with you, doctor Cassibomb,
to talk a bit about the BlackBottom neighborhood. Try to create for us,
for those who are not familiar,what this neighborhood was all about.
(01:30):
Yeah, sure, so, Imean we focus a lot in this project
on trying to understand that very question. So I hope that in two three
months we'll be able to give evenmore detail. But what we have to
go off of right now is thestories that we hear from the people who
grew up there or whose parents livedthere. And what we always hear about
is a neighborhood largely black. Neighborhoodwas at one time an immigrant neighborhood that
(01:52):
were lots of Irish and various otherfamilies. There After the Great Migration,
as people from the American South werefleeing Jim Crow to come, they moved
in and it became a predominantly blackneighborhood. So when we hear stories from
Black Bottom residents. We hear abouthow everybody always knew what everybody else's kids
were doing. We hear about thefact that kids thought they were on their
(02:14):
own, but really they were beingwatched by all of their surrogate parents that
sort of lived on their blocks ordown the street from them. We hear
about the way that people used tosit on their front porch and tell stories
and you talk to each other asthey walked to and from the movie theaters
and the various banks. And thenwe hear about how the neighborhood got decked
out for Christmas with amazing Christmas lights, and so we get these little snippets.
(02:35):
But of course we as ark Yellejust we weren't there at that time,
and sadly, this neighborhood is kindof underdocumented in the written historical record.
And so what we're trying to doreally is take what we hear from
people and then augment those stories byproviding some of the material objects that were
left behind by those folks, andhope that in the process of uncovering those
objects, we can fill in someof the blanks in those stories, some
(02:57):
of the things that don't even makeit into the oral history or some of
the things that people have forgotten andmaybe those memories will be sparked by one
of the things that we uncover.Sarah, there are a number of components
to a heritage West, some innovativetechnologies and excavation and engagement with the community.
I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about all the different components,
including the community aspect of it,but also some of the technology,
(03:22):
because there's some new technology that's beenutilized. Sure. So we started talking
about this project and how we'd goabout doing something like this in twenty nineteen
and we reached out to a fewcommunity partners. So we started talking to
members of the Black Bottom Tribe Associationdoctor Walter Palmer, for example, and
(03:42):
what is now hopeful used to bePeople's Emergency Center. So we've been partnering
from the outset with the goal ofbetter understanding with the community is interested in
what their research questions might be andto get at that and to expand our
community networks and who we're speaking with. We participated in Parking Day in twenty
twenty one where we took over aparking spot on Lancaster Avenue and we built
(04:04):
an interactive timeline. So This wasa parking space structure where we created a
timeline starting you know, in theeighteenth century all the way up to the
present. We had a few markson there, so you know, the
great migration, things that had happenedin the neighborhood, Martin Luther King coming
to speak, for example. Andthen we just invited passers by people who
(04:25):
were living in the neighborhood to comeand add to that timeline, to tell
us a little bit more about whatthey remember from the neighborhood itself. And
that's where we heard stories about,you know, Lancaster Avenue getting just decked
out in Christmas lights for example.And what we noticed there too is that
people's oral history is what they remembersort of stop around nineteen fifties. They
also remember some things from their historybooks, but there's a whole space in
(04:48):
there where people weren't really filling inthe timeline, and that's where we felt
like archaeology could could do some good, could fill in some of the blanks
from what people remember of the neighborhoodand push it into the earlier history of
that. So we you know,we found a space. It's a difficult
neighborhood to excavate in because it's beenso built up. So it was a
challenge actually to find a location thatwould give us information archaeologically. And we
(05:11):
had happened to partner with the CommunityEducation Center for some of our workshops.
We had done a series of workshopsin the spring of twenty twenty two and
we'd hosted two of them there andrealized that there's an incredible history at the
Community Education Center. This was aQuicker meetinghouse and then a friends school in
what is now the back parking lotwas actually part of the Black Bottom neighborhoods.
There were two wooden houses. Wefound all of this in the archival
(05:34):
records a bit later, and somebrick row homes as well in the part
of the neighborhood that is now inthe CEC's parking lot. And so we
started to do some archival research,as I said, and then also to
utilize some technology. So ground penetratingradar was the most successful. This is
an instrument we partnered with Chad Hill, who's a postdoc here at Penn to
(05:55):
use this instrument. We'd drag italong the ground basically, and it bounces
radar back to us. It tellsus what's closer to the ground if there's
more of a poll and it mappedout some of the ground what is below
the surface for us. So ithelped confirm some of what we were finding
in the archival record that the foundationsof these two wooden houses were probably still
(06:15):
intact. And that's how we decidedwe're to excavate, right, kind of
turning back to the whole concept ofurban renewal, it was a policy that
was designed to revitalize and transform urbanareas that were perceived as blighted, overcrowded,
or economically disadvantaged. However, urbanrenewal often resulted in the destruction of
(06:38):
established communities, as it did inBlack Bottom, the loss of cultural heritage,
and the marginalization of vulnerable populations.And this is not exclusive to Philadelphia.
This has happened all across the country. Now, wonder if you can
put that a little bit in context. I think perhaps there was some positive
intent, but the actual result wasthe destruction and the rature of of many
(07:00):
black neighborhoods across the country. Yeah, so, as you said, I
mean, this is something that happenedin cities all across the United States and
obviously it happened here in Philadelphia.It's maybe important to emphasize that a lot
of our project is focused on tryingto understand what this neighborhood was like before
that moment, and so you know, we're not necessarily the ones writing the
histories of how this process took place. We're relying on historians and scholars that
(07:24):
have written about this for decades,so you know, our understanding and the
way we're framing this project. Thiscomes from the basis in a federal law.
So once certain federal laws are passed, it gives cities the right to
use eminent domain to take certain portionsof neighborhoods. In this case, the
West Philadelphia Corporation was doing a lotof the research on the neighborhoods surrounding what
(07:44):
is now Pan and Drexel's campuses.They were passing that information onto the city,
and then the city was making determinationsabout what areas could potentially be used
in this way. Of course,you know, the pull of the educational
institutions in West Philadelphia was definitely afactor in the Philadelphia's corporations decisions to want
to expand in this area, anda number of institutions, Penn, Drexel,
(08:05):
the hospitals in the area, actuallya number of other institutions further out
in the suburbs all sort of collaboratedto come up with this idea of building
a science center and university science centerin this area. So when you stand
on the site today, we thinkit's really stark. We stand at our
excavation units, which are situated abovethe homes of people, and what we
see our high rises are big scientificbuildings sort of all around us, and
(08:28):
that's a really stark sort of visual. But I also think it's important to
note that as you sort of walkdown the street. So we're situated on
Warren Street right now, and asyou walk down Warren Street, there's a
small strip of row homes that stillexists. They're the only ones that still
exist in the Black Bottom neighborhood.So we always take our students or any
visitors that we have there to remindthem that, you know, these few
homes do exist, and it givesthem sort of a visual of what this
(08:52):
neighborhood might have looked like when theythen turn around and see all of these
high rises. As archaeologists and theability to really dig down and find these
stories and create these histories or recreatethese histories. I wonder if you can
just share some things that's either surprisedyou or delighted you in your process of
uncovering the history of a Black Bottom. Yeah, so we you know,
(09:16):
we've been excavating for about seven daysso far, so we are very early
on in the excavation. What we'refinding right now is just test for what
we're going to expand into. Sothe hope is that with this pen class
that we are teaching in the fall, and with the community participation, we
will learn a great deal more.But we just started. In the last
(09:37):
two days, we've been excavating aprivy that was probably the outhouse of one
of these wooden homes, and we'vefound some really remarkable things. In the
other units that we've been working in, we found a few things, and
I think one thing I can saythat delighted me was having form a Black
Bottom residence actually come to the siteand be confronted with some of these small
(09:58):
finds, some of these small objectsthat were fin things as simple as a
straight pin or a bone button andhaving its spark memories for them, right,
they remembered a member of the communitythey called buttons and bows, for
example, who got dressed up togo to church on Sundays just by seeing
a bone button that we had discovered. So I think that, to me
is a genuine delight, is howmaterial culture can actually in memory, can
(10:22):
inspire storytelling. And you know,oral histories are not new. There are
great oral histories from people who livedin this neighborhood. But I think what
archaeology can do is ground that inthe material culture. Right, they can
both push it back in time chronologically, but it really gives you something to
look at, It gives you somethingto hold in your hand, and it
tells us about the day to daylife. Right, we found a huge
(10:43):
cowbone, right, Maybe not thatexciting, but it actually gives us some
insight into what people might have beeneating. We're finding a lot of clamshells,
right. It actually turns out seafoodwas a huge part of the diet
earlier on in Philadelphia. So we'refinding some really remarkable things in just these
couple days. But we hope thatwe can heed to you know, as
we continue to excavate that we'll havecommunity members and Penn students working alongside one
(11:05):
another and discovering these things and havingconversations about what memories does actually spark what
about you? Well sare still someof the really good ones. But there's
one other thing in here that Ithink really blew my mind. So when
we first opened this privy, wepretty quickly found a little round piece of
dark gray material and we cleaned itoff and at the top end it looked
(11:26):
like it had been sort of sharpened. So we quickly thought about what this
might be, and it turns outthat it's a slate pencil. This is
a pencil that would have been usedto write on a slate board. This
would have been how they taught childrenhow to write the same way that we
do with white boards today. Youknow, you don't waste all of the
paper giving them achie to paper anda pencil. You let them write on
something where you can just wipe itdown and erase it. And I think,
(11:46):
you know, that alone was reallyexciting, But what was really cool
about it was that over the courseof the next two days, we've found
six or seven more of them,and so this really made us think,
like, are the kids that areliving in this house just breaking slate pencils,
you know, left and right,and it made us consider our setting.
And so we're located directly behind whatis now the Community Education Center,
(12:09):
but for much of its history wasa friends school, and so it made
us think like, perhaps, youknow, the school itself is throwing some
of their trash away in this privyand we're getting all of the pencils this
way. Or perhaps the kids inthis house attended school right next door and
brought stuff home with them and itmade it in there, And so it
really gives us this It sort ofhumanizes the past. I guess you can
picture someone picking up and holding oneof these pencils. We've read in our
(12:31):
research about other archaeological sites that sometimeskids even carved their names into the bottoms
of these pencils, so they knewwho was who's We're hoping that one of
the ones we uncover might have thoseinitials. We could potentially then tie that
to some of the people that weactually know lived in this home. The
census records give us this amazing littlesnapshot into people who lived there every ten
(12:52):
years, right, so we haveinformation from nineteen twenty and from nineteen ten,
and so it's possible that we canfind out that, you know,
this is the child, the youngchild of a couple that moved up from
King George Virginia, probably as partof the Great Migration, spent time living
in this house for a short periodbefore perhaps moving on elsewhere. Or we
could find that these initials don't matchwith anyone we know, and it's someone
(13:13):
who lived in this house between thosesensenses, and these people have sort of
effectively been erased from the historical record, but in no way raised from the
archaeological record, and so these littleobjects give us windows in those people and
their lives and their children and allof these things. So I think those
slate pencils are really high up therefor me as an exciting moment. How
(13:35):
is this project a step towards reparativejustice? So, I mean, I
think for me personally, this wasreally important because as archaeologists, we work
all over the world, and it'svery rare that we have the opportunity to
work in the places that we live, in the places that we work,
you know, all the places thatwe have sort of our day to day
life and our day to day existence. And so for me, bringing some
(13:58):
of that knowledge that I've gained throughmany years of school learning how to do
archaeology into the communities that I livewithin is really really important to me.
I also think it's important to acknowledgethat we are, by doing this,
bringing resources, both those knowledge basedresources, but also the pen grants that
we've been given into this neighborhood,and we're providing opportunities for community members to
(14:20):
gain a type of education that's oftenvery sort of squirreled away in institutions of
higher education. I train a lotof undergraduates in archaeology. Normally I take
them with me to Mississippi where Ido a lot of my research. But
it's sometimes undergraduates can't do that right. They can't choose to leave for a
whole summer, they may not havethe ability to not have a summer job,
for example. And so I'm hopingthat in the process of training both
(14:43):
these students and community members who arenot in any way associated with an institution
of higher education, by training themin archaeological technique, in archaeological interpretation,
by allowing them to have firsthand experiencewith this, we're kind of democratizing access
to archaeological training. And for me, that is the only way that we
will ever go about making archaeology asa discipline a more interesting and diverse place.
(15:07):
You know, right now, itis a discipline, like many academic
disciplines, that have long histories ofbeing really limited for who can be involved.
And the only way we change thatis by sort of opening those doors
originally and creating pathways towards people developingan interest in this, towards gaining the
skills that they need, and thenhopefully, you know, one person that
we work with goes on to becomean archaeologist or chooses to pursue history in
(15:31):
some way. And that's really theonly way we're going to start to make
these disciplines sort of more diverse,more open, and just of interest to
a wider range of people. AndSarah, how do people get more involved
in this project? There's a numberof ways to get involved, but we
hope that community members will actually justcome out and excavate with us. So
starting this fall with the Penn classSeptember first, we're going to be teaching
(15:52):
sort of outside of the field,but on September eighth, we're going to
be digging again at the Community EducationCenter, and we hope that people will
come out and join get a trialand dig in the excavation units, screen
the soil that's coming out, andfind the objects. And we're going to
be doing that every Friday through thefall semester, so up to about November
seventeenth, I think is the lastday of field excavation, and then there'll
be other opportunities in the spring aswe wash the material in the lab and
(16:17):
do some of the research. Sothere's lots of ways that people can get
involved. And then we also recognizeFridays might not be convenient for everyone,
so on Saturday, October twenty feet, which is International Archaeology Day, we're
going to be hosting a big openfield day so for anyone to come out
and participate in the excavation. Andif people want more information about all this,
where do they go? They cango to our website Heritage westphl dot
(16:41):
org and there's a form that youcan fill out to express your interest and
we'll be in touch. That wasdoctor Sarah Lynn, Assistant Director of the
Academic Engagement Department at Penn Museum,and doctor MEGANC. Cast Bomb, Associate
Professor of Anthropology at the University ofPennsylvania and E Garten, Associate Curator for
North America at the penn Museum,which, along with a host of community
(17:04):
and civic partners, are working togetherto unearth and preserve the untold or erased
history of the Black Bottom neighborhood throughthe Heritage West West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project.
You're listening to what's going on,as we do once a month every
month, we have Angelo Giampolo ofGimpolo Law and Philly Gay Lawyer for a
(17:29):
segment we call speak Out where weaddress issues related to the LGBTQIA community and
also reflect on how that impacts allof us. And thank you so much
for joining us once again, Angela, you are back. You're tan,
which I hate you, but youare on vacation a warm climate. But
you are back to a warm andnot so fun warm climate. But we're
(17:52):
here to talk about some issues thatare certainly on top of mind for so
many people, and that includes thedeath recently of O'SH. Sibley. He
was a Philadelphia dancer who was withPhilidenko, a well known Philadelphia mainstay dance
company, and he was killed whenhe was with a group of gay black
friends dancing at a New York Citygas station and was attacked by a group
(18:15):
who confronted the teenagers and taunted themand in the end killed o'sheay O'she was
very much loved. And that alsobrings us to the fact that the rate
of violence against gay, lesbian,and bisexual people over the age of sixteen
is more than two times the rateof heterosexual identifying people. The rate of
violence against transgender people even higher twopoint five times the rate of cisgender persons.
(18:40):
So what we're talking about here isa hate crime and also the probably
underreporting of crimes against those who identifyin the LGBTQIA plus community. Yeah,
absolutely, you know, and Iwant to pinpoint there the reported, right,
those stats that you just read offare based off of crimes and incidences
(19:03):
that have been reported to the police, and quite often, especially transgender folks.
Black trans folks will not report acrime, especially sex workers, if
they are beaten or sustained violence ofany kind to then report that is to
bring a light on the crime ofsex working that they were in the midst
of doing. So. There's justso many crimes that go unreported and then
(19:27):
even just not feeling safe with thepolice. Right, Black folks in general
not feeling safe. So LGBTQ folksof color just not feeling safe calling the
police, and LGBTQ folks generally notfeeling safe necessarily with authority. So I
was just recently on a panel anentire symposium sadly dedicated to the topic of
(19:48):
hate, and in particular, mypanel was the legal and social implications of
hate and we discussed hate crime legislationand sort of the somewhat ineffectiveness of it
and what can be done. Butone of the biggest pieces of ineffectiveness is
the data. This is all basedon data, and if folks don't even
(20:10):
feel safe enough to report a crime, you know, how can we then
protect them? Right exactly? Andyou know, as we move into this
decade, it seems as though,you know, again, as we've often
said before, it's like we moveone step forward, two steps back,
and we're seeing the proliferation of legislationacross many states that have direct impact on
(20:33):
the LGBTQI A community, whether it'srestricting education and access to information about the
community, to the recent Supreme Courtdecision which we talked about. I think
the last time we were speaking thatrelated to a company that said that it
was okay that they refuse business toa gay person because they are gay,
(20:57):
and that's their right. It's Freedomof Speech Act. And so I wonder
if we can talk a little bitmore on the broad perspective about the impact
of this kind of legislation. Weoften sometimes silo our opinions and say,
oh, yeah, that doesn't affectme, that has nothing to do with
me, and yet all of thishas something to do with everybody. Absolutely.
(21:18):
I mean, in living as society, what affects one person affects all
And in particular, before we sortof zoom out and look macro, looking
micro, the Trevor Project, whichis an organization that supports LGBTQ ia folks
that are experiencing suicidal thoughts to suicidalideations, and so they're a national outline
(21:40):
and they quite often do studies tryingto either predict trends for LGBTQ folks with
mental health illnesses. And so theydid a study on anti LGBTQ legislation and
the increase of suicide ideation, suicideattempts, and just general mental health issue
(22:00):
within the LGBTQ community. Depression,anxiety, and the results were staggering.
If chills, eighty five percent ofLGBTQ folks reported a higher increased rates of
depression anxiety when anti LGBTQ laws arebeing passed. Seventy one percent of folks
reported feeling unsafe at school or athome. I mean, just imagine living
(22:22):
in a society, right, So, if you do not identify as LGBTQI,
plus, imagine being a part ofhis society next to sitting next to
working with or your teacher being taughtby right folks within a group where seventy
one percent feel unsafe, right likethat is going to have an impact on
(22:45):
you. More eighty five percent areexperiencing and reporting upticks and depression, anxiety,
and suicidal ideations and thoughts. So, while clearly it's directly impacting,
severely pervaded, pasibly impacting the LGBTQcommunity, anything that impacts one whole group,
let alone just lots of people,but one whole community will have a
(23:10):
ripple effect throughout all of society.Right when you think about someone that you
love and that you're close to,whether it's a family member or a close
friend, and they just happen tobe LGBTQIA and they do harm to themselves
as a result of the depression thatthey feel, that increased sense of risk
and not feeling safe. It is, you know, going to impact of
(23:33):
course you because we are living andworking in the family members are are around
us, all around us, andas you say, something that affects this
community is going to affect us allbecause we know people, we are their
friends, their colleagues, they're familymembers that are impacted by this, and
(23:53):
that's going to have, as yousay, at a ripple effect. Absolutely,
And we don't have a time.I just want to sort of circle
back to hate crime legislation generally,right, and it's ineffectiveness. Dmitry Papov,
who is currently being charged as aseventeen year old being charged as an
(24:15):
adult for murder with hate crime addedon for the murder of Osha Sibley,
you know, and we'll just notmake it about them. It's just easier
to say, you know, ifsomeone hits me, just hits me right
and goes to jail for two yearsfor aggravated assault. But then they find
out that he hit me because ofa lesbian So then the addition of hate
(24:37):
crime gets added on to that.So now that person is going to go
away for six years because of theaggravated addition of the hate crime, right,
not just aggravated battery, but witha hate crime. So instead of
two years, he's going to prisonfor six years. Do you think that
person is going to hate me lesswhen he comes out six years later where
(25:00):
he had four more years to beemboldened by his hatred of me for the
fact that he feels as though hewent to jail because of me, right,
And just like the death penalty,the fact that hate crime legislation exists
is not a deterrence. It's notlike he would have thought before hitting me,
Oh, I better not hit herbecause if I hit her, I'm
going to go to jail for someone. They're going to act out of that
(25:22):
hatred regardless. So it's not adeterrence. It emboldens hate, right.
And so what we and the databehind it is all skewed. All fifty
states in the United States of Americahave their own version of hate crime legislation.
It can all differ. Then there'sthe federal one which is also different,
and then you have the racism andsort of the unconscious bias of police
(25:44):
themselves that are meant to be protectingthese groups, but because they may be
homophobic or they're a racist. It'sshown that the groups that hate crime legislations
are meant to protect actually are chargeddisproportionately with hate crimes. So if I'm
a racist cop, and and I'llsay that I'm monitoring areas like the gahborhood
or areas that more black folks livein to protect them, but I'm really
(26:10):
monitoring those neighborhoods because I'm looking fora sex worker, right like. So
there's just so much behind hate crimelegislation that actually doesn't work. And you
know, I just keep saying thatany type of legislation or any type of
deterrence really needs to focus on hateitself. How can we cure hate itself?
(26:34):
And I don't know that it's curable, but you know, through education,
through compassion, through exposure, therapy, meet me right like, but
bringing communities together, and especially whenthere's religion at play, which the panel
that I was on it was howdoes religious liberties coexist with LGBTQ rights?
And it's having folks like the Popesay being gay's not a crime, right,
(26:57):
having leaders and religious leaders come togetherand bring communities together. So that
hate, right, because really,if you think about hate, it's it's
a belief that added with tension,resentment, and hostility then turns into eventually
turns into hate. Hate and somewherein their fear gets mixed in. Right,
(27:18):
But it's it first starts as abelief, like they think they believe
that homosexuality, being gay is wrong. Okay, So why can't it just
end there? Right? What arethe steps that embold in it to the
level of hate, to the pointwhere Dmitri Papov murdered O'sha Sibley? Right,
Like, what happens there and nothingis addressing that? We that we
(27:42):
just then come down on Dmitri Papovharder right through the criminal justice system and
punish him in order to give retributionand peace of mind and some solace to
a Shase Sibley's family. But inbetween, there between punishment and the family
(28:03):
getting justice, where is hate beingaddressed? Right? Right? I see
your point. It's a very importantpoint. And again pop Off allegedly is
accused of killing oshasively, what you'resaying is this hate? Thanks for the
good legal see how I jumped onthat. You see, how were you
talking. We've been We've been doingthese long enough anyway, so I see
(28:26):
your point. And just like thedeath penalty is really no deterrent to murder,
these hate crimes clearly have not beena deterrent to hate crimes themselves,
and that in the end, it'simportant that we talk about education. We
talk about having open conversations, Wetalk about having our thought leaders and influencers
being able to like the Pope forinstance, saying that being gay is not
(28:48):
a sin. It's you know,let's accept folks for who they are as
human beings. That's really where weneed to go. But it wasn't a
sin, he said, it wasn'ta crime. Oh okay, good point,
because finalized around the world, thankyou for he probably thinks it's a
sin, right, okay, goodpoint, but not a crime, but
not a crime. So what justkind of summarize to me and to us
(29:12):
what you think we, in thebest of all possible worlds, need to
do in order to go forward onthis. You know, again, the
show is for everyone right to talkabout issues that impact the LGBTQ community,
but really how it impacts us allAnd I think all of society, every
single person here listening can fear peopleless and have less judgment. And maybe
(29:37):
maybe you don't hate somebody, butmaybe you have hostility towards someone, a
group, what have you and justlooking inward and coming up for yourself.
What needs to happen for you tohave less hostility, less fear? Great
book Conversations with God as a lesbian, love that book. Listen to all
(29:59):
someone anything ya community fear. Youcan also listen on the think can be
boiled down Philadelphia community, whether you'rescared on Twitter and Instagram at larrainow hostile
something serious? Talk community right andif you're graceful, what do you love
standing? So everything to you boileddown? So if everyone just took a
minute for themselves to boil down whatevernegative feelings they have towards other people or
(30:25):
groups and hone in on what they'reafraid of, and if they were willing
to have that conversation with themselves,there would be a lot less hate in
the world. The Golden Rule likesexercise that. Angelo Gianpolo as always a
pleasure having you in the studio withus. Angela Giampolo from gm Polo Law
and Philly gay lawyer. If peoplewant to get in touch, how did
they do that? Yep? Youcan go to my website Jampolo la dot
(30:45):
com, call my office two onefive six four five twenty four fifteen,
and find my instagram Angela dot Champolofantastic, Thanks Ala, Angela, Thanks
Erin. As always, you couldlisten to all of today's interviews by going
to our station website and typing inkeyword community. You can also listen on
the iHeartRadio app Gay Words Philadelphia CommunityPodcast. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram
(31:11):
at Lorraine Ballard. I'm Lorraine BallardMorrow and I stand for service to our
community and media that empowers. Whatwill you stand for? You've been listening
to what's going on? ED,Thank you
Good morning, Welcome to What's goingOn, a show about making a difference
in our lives and our communities.I'm Lorraine balladmorl. As we do once
a month every month, we checkin with Angelo Giampolo of Giampolo Law Group
and Philly Gay Lawyer for a segmentwe call Speak Out. But First.
The destruction of Philadelphia's Black Bottom neighborhoodwas a deeply impactful event in the city's
(00:23):
history. During the mid twentieth century, urban renewal initiatives and infrastructure projects led
to the displacement and dismantling of thisvibrant African American community. The loss of
Black Bottom stands as a poignant reminderof the complexities and consequences of urban development,
under scoring the importance of preserving communitiesand their historical significance. Penn Museum,
(00:46):
along with a host of community andcivic partners, are working together to
unearth and preserve the untold or erasedhistory of this neighborhood through Heritage West West
Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project. I visitedPenn Museum to talk about the project with
doctor Meighan cas Bomb, Associate Professorof Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania Wine
(01:07):
Garten, Associate Curator for North Americaat the Penn Museum, along with doctor
Sarah Lynn, Assistant Director of theAcademic Engagement Department at Penn Museum. Well,
let's begin, and I'm going tostart with you, doctor Cassibomb,
to talk a bit about the BlackBottom neighborhood. Try to create for us,
for those who are not familiar,what this neighborhood was all about.
(01:30):
Yeah, sure, so, Imean we focus a lot in this project
on trying to understand that very question. So I hope that in two three
months we'll be able to give evenmore detail. But what we have to
go off of right now is thestories that we hear from the people who
grew up there or whose parents livedthere. And what we always hear about
is a neighborhood largely black. Neighborhoodwas at one time an immigrant neighborhood that
(01:52):
were lots of Irish and various otherfamilies. There After the Great Migration,
as people from the American South werefleeing Jim Crow to come, they moved
in and it became a predominantly blackneighborhood. So when we hear stories from
Black Bottom residents. We hear abouthow everybody always knew what everybody else's kids
were doing. We hear about thefact that kids thought they were on their
(02:14):
own, but really they were beingwatched by all of their surrogate parents that
sort of lived on their blocks ordown the street from them. We hear
about the way that people used tosit on their front porch and tell stories
and you talk to each other asthey walked to and from the movie theaters
and the various banks. And thenwe hear about how the neighborhood got decked
out for Christmas with amazing Christmas lights, and so we get these little snippets.
(02:35):
But of course we as ark Yellejust we weren't there at that time,
and sadly, this neighborhood is kindof underdocumented in the written historical record.
And so what we're trying to doreally is take what we hear from
people and then augment those stories byproviding some of the material objects that were
left behind by those folks, andhope that in the process of uncovering those
objects, we can fill in someof the blanks in those stories, some
(02:57):
of the things that don't even makeit into the oral history or some of
the things that people have forgotten andmaybe those memories will be sparked by one
of the things that we uncover.Sarah, there are a number of components
to a heritage West, some innovativetechnologies and excavation and engagement with the community.
I wonder if you can talk alittle bit about all the different components,
including the community aspect of it,but also some of the technology,
(03:22):
because there's some new technology that's beenutilized. Sure. So we started talking
about this project and how we'd goabout doing something like this in twenty nineteen
and we reached out to a fewcommunity partners. So we started talking to
members of the Black Bottom Tribe Associationdoctor Walter Palmer, for example, and
(03:42):
what is now hopeful used to bePeople's Emergency Center. So we've been partnering
from the outset with the goal ofbetter understanding with the community is interested in
what their research questions might be andto get at that and to expand our
community networks and who we're speaking with. We participated in Parking Day in twenty
twenty one where we took over aparking spot on Lancaster Avenue and we built
(04:04):
an interactive timeline. So This wasa parking space structure where we created a
timeline starting you know, in theeighteenth century all the way up to the
present. We had a few markson there, so you know, the
great migration, things that had happenedin the neighborhood, Martin Luther King coming
to speak, for example. Andthen we just invited passers by people who
(04:25):
were living in the neighborhood to comeand add to that timeline, to tell
us a little bit more about whatthey remember from the neighborhood itself. And
that's where we heard stories about,you know, Lancaster Avenue getting just decked
out in Christmas lights for example.And what we noticed there too is that
people's oral history is what they remembersort of stop around nineteen fifties. They
also remember some things from their historybooks, but there's a whole space in
(04:48):
there where people weren't really filling inthe timeline, and that's where we felt
like archaeology could could do some good, could fill in some of the blanks
from what people remember of the neighborhoodand push it into the earlier history of
that. So we you know,we found a space. It's a difficult
neighborhood to excavate in because it's beenso built up. So it was a
challenge actually to find a location thatwould give us information archaeologically. And we
(05:11):
had happened to partner with the CommunityEducation Center for some of our workshops.
We had done a series of workshopsin the spring of twenty twenty two and
we'd hosted two of them there andrealized that there's an incredible history at the
Community Education Center. This was aQuicker meetinghouse and then a friends school in
what is now the back parking lotwas actually part of the Black Bottom neighborhoods.
There were two wooden houses. Wefound all of this in the archival
(05:34):
records a bit later, and somebrick row homes as well in the part
of the neighborhood that is now inthe CEC's parking lot. And so we
started to do some archival research,as I said, and then also to
utilize some technology. So ground penetratingradar was the most successful. This is
an instrument we partnered with Chad Hill, who's a postdoc here at Penn to
(05:55):
use this instrument. We'd drag italong the ground basically, and it bounces
radar back to us. It tellsus what's closer to the ground if there's
more of a poll and it mappedout some of the ground what is below
the surface for us. So ithelped confirm some of what we were finding
in the archival record that the foundationsof these two wooden houses were probably still
(06:15):
intact. And that's how we decidedwe're to excavate, right, kind of
turning back to the whole concept ofurban renewal, it was a policy that
was designed to revitalize and transform urbanareas that were perceived as blighted, overcrowded,
or economically disadvantaged. However, urbanrenewal often resulted in the destruction of
(06:38):
established communities, as it did inBlack Bottom, the loss of cultural heritage,
and the marginalization of vulnerable populations.And this is not exclusive to Philadelphia.
This has happened all across the country. Now, wonder if you can
put that a little bit in context. I think perhaps there was some positive
intent, but the actual result wasthe destruction and the rature of of many
(07:00):
black neighborhoods across the country. Yeah, so, as you said, I
mean, this is something that happenedin cities all across the United States and
obviously it happened here in Philadelphia.It's maybe important to emphasize that a lot
of our project is focused on tryingto understand what this neighborhood was like before
that moment, and so you know, we're not necessarily the ones writing the
histories of how this process took place. We're relying on historians and scholars that
(07:24):
have written about this for decades,so you know, our understanding and the
way we're framing this project. Thiscomes from the basis in a federal law.
So once certain federal laws are passed, it gives cities the right to
use eminent domain to take certain portionsof neighborhoods. In this case, the
West Philadelphia Corporation was doing a lotof the research on the neighborhoods surrounding what
(07:44):
is now Pan and Drexel's campuses.They were passing that information onto the city,
and then the city was making determinationsabout what areas could potentially be used
in this way. Of course,you know, the pull of the educational
institutions in West Philadelphia was definitely afactor in the Philadelphia's corporations decisions to want
to expand in this area, anda number of institutions, Penn, Drexel,
(08:05):
the hospitals in the area, actuallya number of other institutions further out
in the suburbs all sort of collaboratedto come up with this idea of building
a science center and university science centerin this area. So when you stand
on the site today, we thinkit's really stark. We stand at our
excavation units, which are situated abovethe homes of people, and what we
see our high rises are big scientificbuildings sort of all around us, and
(08:28):
that's a really stark sort of visual. But I also think it's important to
note that as you sort of walkdown the street. So we're situated on
Warren Street right now, and asyou walk down Warren Street, there's a
small strip of row homes that stillexists. They're the only ones that still
exist in the Black Bottom neighborhood.So we always take our students or any
visitors that we have there to remindthem that, you know, these few
homes do exist, and it givesthem sort of a visual of what this
(08:52):
neighborhood might have looked like when theythen turn around and see all of these
high rises. As archaeologists and theability to really dig down and find these
stories and create these histories or recreatethese histories. I wonder if you can
just share some things that's either surprisedyou or delighted you in your process of
uncovering the history of a Black Bottom. Yeah, so we you know,
(09:16):
we've been excavating for about seven daysso far, so we are very early
on in the excavation. What we'refinding right now is just test for what
we're going to expand into. Sothe hope is that with this pen class
that we are teaching in the fall, and with the community participation, we
will learn a great deal more.But we just started. In the last
(09:37):
two days, we've been excavating aprivy that was probably the outhouse of one
of these wooden homes, and we'vefound some really remarkable things. In the
other units that we've been working in, we found a few things, and
I think one thing I can saythat delighted me was having form a Black
Bottom residence actually come to the siteand be confronted with some of these small
(09:58):
finds, some of these small objectsthat were fin things as simple as a
straight pin or a bone button andhaving its spark memories for them, right,
they remembered a member of the communitythey called buttons and bows, for
example, who got dressed up togo to church on Sundays just by seeing
a bone button that we had discovered. So I think that, to me
is a genuine delight, is howmaterial culture can actually in memory, can
(10:22):
inspire storytelling. And you know,oral histories are not new. There are
great oral histories from people who livedin this neighborhood. But I think what
archaeology can do is ground that inthe material culture. Right, they can
both push it back in time chronologically, but it really gives you something to
look at, It gives you somethingto hold in your hand, and it
tells us about the day to daylife. Right, we found a huge
(10:43):
cowbone, right, Maybe not thatexciting, but it actually gives us some
insight into what people might have beeneating. We're finding a lot of clamshells,
right. It actually turns out seafoodwas a huge part of the diet
earlier on in Philadelphia. So we'refinding some really remarkable things in just these
couple days. But we hope thatwe can heed to you know, as
we continue to excavate that we'll havecommunity members and Penn students working alongside one
(11:05):
another and discovering these things and havingconversations about what memories does actually spark what
about you? Well sare still someof the really good ones. But there's
one other thing in here that Ithink really blew my mind. So when
we first opened this privy, wepretty quickly found a little round piece of
dark gray material and we cleaned itoff and at the top end it looked
(11:26):
like it had been sort of sharpened. So we quickly thought about what this
might be, and it turns outthat it's a slate pencil. This is
a pencil that would have been usedto write on a slate board. This
would have been how they taught childrenhow to write the same way that we
do with white boards today. Youknow, you don't waste all of the
paper giving them achie to paper anda pencil. You let them write on
something where you can just wipe itdown and erase it. And I think,
(11:46):
you know, that alone was reallyexciting, But what was really cool
about it was that over the courseof the next two days, we've found
six or seven more of them,and so this really made us think,
like, are the kids that areliving in this house just breaking slate pencils,
you know, left and right,and it made us consider our setting.
And so we're located directly behind whatis now the Community Education Center,
(12:09):
but for much of its history wasa friends school, and so it made
us think like, perhaps, youknow, the school itself is throwing some
of their trash away in this privyand we're getting all of the pencils this
way. Or perhaps the kids inthis house attended school right next door and
brought stuff home with them and itmade it in there, And so it
really gives us this It sort ofhumanizes the past. I guess you can
picture someone picking up and holding oneof these pencils. We've read in our
(12:31):
research about other archaeological sites that sometimeskids even carved their names into the bottoms
of these pencils, so they knewwho was who's We're hoping that one of
the ones we uncover might have thoseinitials. We could potentially then tie that
to some of the people that weactually know lived in this home. The
census records give us this amazing littlesnapshot into people who lived there every ten
(12:52):
years, right, so we haveinformation from nineteen twenty and from nineteen ten,
and so it's possible that we canfind out that, you know,
this is the child, the youngchild of a couple that moved up from
King George Virginia, probably as partof the Great Migration, spent time living
in this house for a short periodbefore perhaps moving on elsewhere. Or we
could find that these initials don't matchwith anyone we know, and it's someone
(13:13):
who lived in this house between thosesensenses, and these people have sort of
effectively been erased from the historical record, but in no way raised from the
archaeological record, and so these littleobjects give us windows in those people and
their lives and their children and allof these things. So I think those
slate pencils are really high up therefor me as an exciting moment. How
(13:35):
is this project a step towards reparativejustice? So, I mean, I
think for me personally, this wasreally important because as archaeologists, we work
all over the world, and it'svery rare that we have the opportunity to
work in the places that we live, in the places that we work,
you know, all the places thatwe have sort of our day to day
life and our day to day existence. And so for me, bringing some
(13:58):
of that knowledge that I've gained throughmany years of school learning how to do
archaeology into the communities that I livewithin is really really important to me.
I also think it's important to acknowledgethat we are, by doing this,
bringing resources, both those knowledge basedresources, but also the pen grants that
we've been given into this neighborhood,and we're providing opportunities for community members to
(14:20):
gain a type of education that's oftenvery sort of squirreled away in institutions of
higher education. I train a lotof undergraduates in archaeology. Normally I take
them with me to Mississippi where Ido a lot of my research. But
it's sometimes undergraduates can't do that right. They can't choose to leave for a
whole summer, they may not havethe ability to not have a summer job,
for example. And so I'm hopingthat in the process of training both
(14:43):
these students and community members who arenot in any way associated with an institution
of higher education, by training themin archaeological technique, in archaeological interpretation,
by allowing them to have firsthand experiencewith this, we're kind of democratizing access
to archaeological training. And for me, that is the only way that we
will ever go about making archaeology asa discipline a more interesting and diverse place.
(15:07):
You know, right now, itis a discipline, like many academic
disciplines, that have long histories ofbeing really limited for who can be involved.
And the only way we change thatis by sort of opening those doors
originally and creating pathways towards people developingan interest in this, towards gaining the
skills that they need, and thenhopefully, you know, one person that
we work with goes on to becomean archaeologist or chooses to pursue history in
(15:31):
some way. And that's really theonly way we're going to start to make
these disciplines sort of more diverse,more open, and just of interest to
a wider range of people. AndSarah, how do people get more involved
in this project? There's a numberof ways to get involved, but we
hope that community members will actually justcome out and excavate with us. So
starting this fall with the Penn classSeptember first, we're going to be teaching
(15:52):
sort of outside of the field,but on September eighth, we're going to
be digging again at the Community EducationCenter, and we hope that people will
come out and join get a trialand dig in the excavation units, screen
the soil that's coming out, andfind the objects. And we're going to
be doing that every Friday through thefall semester, so up to about November
seventeenth, I think is the lastday of field excavation, and then there'll
be other opportunities in the spring aswe wash the material in the lab and
(16:17):
do some of the research. Sothere's lots of ways that people can get
involved. And then we also recognizeFridays might not be convenient for everyone,
so on Saturday, October twenty feet, which is International Archaeology Day, we're
going to be hosting a big openfield day so for anyone to come out
and participate in the excavation. Andif people want more information about all this,
where do they go? They cango to our website Heritage westphl dot
(16:41):
org and there's a form that youcan fill out to express your interest and
we'll be in touch. That wasdoctor Sarah Lynn, Assistant Director of the
Academic Engagement Department at Penn Museum,and doctor MEGANC. Cast Bomb, Associate
Professor of Anthropology at the University ofPennsylvania and E Garten, Associate Curator for
North America at the penn Museum,which, along with a host of community
(17:04):
and civic partners, are working togetherto unearth and preserve the untold or erased
history of the Black Bottom neighborhood throughthe Heritage West West Philadelphia Community Archaeology Project.
You're listening to what's going on,as we do once a month every
month, we have Angelo Giampolo ofGimpolo Law and Philly Gay Lawyer for a
(17:29):
segment we call speak Out where weaddress issues related to the LGBTQIA community and
also reflect on how that impacts allof us. And thank you so much
for joining us once again, Angela, you are back. You're tan,
which I hate you, but youare on vacation a warm climate. But
you are back to a warm andnot so fun warm climate. But we're
(17:52):
here to talk about some issues thatare certainly on top of mind for so
many people, and that includes thedeath recently of O'SH. Sibley. He
was a Philadelphia dancer who was withPhilidenko, a well known Philadelphia mainstay dance
company, and he was killed whenhe was with a group of gay black
friends dancing at a New York Citygas station and was attacked by a group
(18:15):
who confronted the teenagers and taunted themand in the end killed o'sheay O'she was
very much loved. And that alsobrings us to the fact that the rate
of violence against gay, lesbian,and bisexual people over the age of sixteen
is more than two times the rateof heterosexual identifying people. The rate of
violence against transgender people even higher twopoint five times the rate of cisgender persons.
(18:40):
So what we're talking about here isa hate crime and also the probably
underreporting of crimes against those who identifyin the LGBTQIA plus community. Yeah,
absolutely, you know, and Iwant to pinpoint there the reported, right,
those stats that you just read offare based off of crimes and incidences
(19:03):
that have been reported to the police, and quite often, especially transgender folks.
Black trans folks will not report acrime, especially sex workers, if
they are beaten or sustained violence ofany kind to then report that is to
bring a light on the crime ofsex working that they were in the midst
of doing. So. There's justso many crimes that go unreported and then
(19:27):
even just not feeling safe with thepolice. Right, Black folks in general
not feeling safe. So LGBTQ folksof color just not feeling safe calling the
police, and LGBTQ folks generally notfeeling safe necessarily with authority. So I
was just recently on a panel anentire symposium sadly dedicated to the topic of
(19:48):
hate, and in particular, mypanel was the legal and social implications of
hate and we discussed hate crime legislationand sort of the somewhat ineffectiveness of it
and what can be done. Butone of the biggest pieces of ineffectiveness is
the data. This is all basedon data, and if folks don't even
(20:10):
feel safe enough to report a crime, you know, how can we then
protect them? Right exactly? Andyou know, as we move into this
decade, it seems as though,you know, again, as we've often
said before, it's like we moveone step forward, two steps back,
and we're seeing the proliferation of legislationacross many states that have direct impact on
(20:33):
the LGBTQI A community, whether it'srestricting education and access to information about the
community, to the recent Supreme Courtdecision which we talked about. I think
the last time we were speaking thatrelated to a company that said that it
was okay that they refuse business toa gay person because they are gay,
(20:57):
and that's their right. It's Freedomof Speech Act. And so I wonder
if we can talk a little bitmore on the broad perspective about the impact
of this kind of legislation. Weoften sometimes silo our opinions and say,
oh, yeah, that doesn't affectme, that has nothing to do with
me, and yet all of thishas something to do with everybody. Absolutely.
(21:18):
I mean, in living as society, what affects one person affects all
And in particular, before we sortof zoom out and look macro, looking
micro, the Trevor Project, whichis an organization that supports LGBTQ ia folks
that are experiencing suicidal thoughts to suicidalideations, and so they're a national outline
(21:40):
and they quite often do studies tryingto either predict trends for LGBTQ folks with
mental health illnesses. And so theydid a study on anti LGBTQ legislation and
the increase of suicide ideation, suicideattempts, and just general mental health issue
(22:00):
within the LGBTQ community. Depression,anxiety, and the results were staggering.
If chills, eighty five percent ofLGBTQ folks reported a higher increased rates of
depression anxiety when anti LGBTQ laws arebeing passed. Seventy one percent of folks
reported feeling unsafe at school or athome. I mean, just imagine living
(22:22):
in a society, right, So, if you do not identify as LGBTQI,
plus, imagine being a part ofhis society next to sitting next to
working with or your teacher being taughtby right folks within a group where seventy
one percent feel unsafe, right likethat is going to have an impact on
(22:45):
you. More eighty five percent areexperiencing and reporting upticks and depression, anxiety,
and suicidal ideations and thoughts. So, while clearly it's directly impacting,
severely pervaded, pasibly impacting the LGBTQcommunity, anything that impacts one whole group,
let alone just lots of people,but one whole community will have a
(23:10):
ripple effect throughout all of society.Right when you think about someone that you
love and that you're close to,whether it's a family member or a close
friend, and they just happen tobe LGBTQIA and they do harm to themselves
as a result of the depression thatthey feel, that increased sense of risk
and not feeling safe. It is, you know, going to impact of
(23:33):
course you because we are living andworking in the family members are are around
us, all around us, andas you say, something that affects this
community is going to affect us allbecause we know people, we are their
friends, their colleagues, they're familymembers that are impacted by this, and
(23:53):
that's going to have, as yousay, at a ripple effect. Absolutely,
And we don't have a time.I just want to sort of circle
back to hate crime legislation generally,right, and it's ineffectiveness. Dmitry Papov,
who is currently being charged as aseventeen year old being charged as an
(24:15):
adult for murder with hate crime addedon for the murder of Osha Sibley,
you know, and we'll just notmake it about them. It's just easier
to say, you know, ifsomeone hits me, just hits me right
and goes to jail for two yearsfor aggravated assault. But then they find
out that he hit me because ofa lesbian So then the addition of hate
(24:37):
crime gets added on to that.So now that person is going to go
away for six years because of theaggravated addition of the hate crime, right,
not just aggravated battery, but witha hate crime. So instead of
two years, he's going to prisonfor six years. Do you think that
person is going to hate me lesswhen he comes out six years later where
(25:00):
he had four more years to beemboldened by his hatred of me for the
fact that he feels as though hewent to jail because of me, right,
And just like the death penalty,the fact that hate crime legislation exists
is not a deterrence. It's notlike he would have thought before hitting me,
Oh, I better not hit herbecause if I hit her, I'm
going to go to jail for someone. They're going to act out of that
(25:22):
hatred regardless. So it's not adeterrence. It emboldens hate, right.
And so what we and the databehind it is all skewed. All fifty
states in the United States of Americahave their own version of hate crime legislation.
It can all differ. Then there'sthe federal one which is also different,
and then you have the racism andsort of the unconscious bias of police
(25:44):
themselves that are meant to be protectingthese groups, but because they may be
homophobic or they're a racist. It'sshown that the groups that hate crime legislations
are meant to protect actually are chargeddisproportionately with hate crimes. So if I'm
a racist cop, and and I'llsay that I'm monitoring areas like the gahborhood
or areas that more black folks livein to protect them, but I'm really
(26:10):
monitoring those neighborhoods because I'm looking fora sex worker, right like. So
there's just so much behind hate crimelegislation that actually doesn't work. And you
know, I just keep saying thatany type of legislation or any type of
deterrence really needs to focus on hateitself. How can we cure hate itself?
(26:34):
And I don't know that it's curable, but you know, through education,
through compassion, through exposure, therapy, meet me right like, but
bringing communities together, and especially whenthere's religion at play, which the panel
that I was on it was howdoes religious liberties coexist with LGBTQ rights?
And it's having folks like the Popesay being gay's not a crime, right,
(26:57):
having leaders and religious leaders come togetherand bring communities together. So that
hate, right, because really,if you think about hate, it's it's
a belief that added with tension,resentment, and hostility then turns into eventually
turns into hate. Hate and somewherein their fear gets mixed in. Right,
(27:18):
But it's it first starts as abelief, like they think they believe
that homosexuality, being gay is wrong. Okay, So why can't it just
end there? Right? What arethe steps that embold in it to the
level of hate, to the pointwhere Dmitri Papov murdered O'sha Sibley? Right,
Like, what happens there and nothingis addressing that? We that we
(27:42):
just then come down on Dmitri Papovharder right through the criminal justice system and
punish him in order to give retributionand peace of mind and some solace to
a Shase Sibley's family. But inbetween, there between punishment and the family
(28:03):
getting justice, where is hate beingaddressed? Right? Right? I see
your point. It's a very importantpoint. And again pop Off allegedly is
accused of killing oshasively, what you'resaying is this hate? Thanks for the
good legal see how I jumped onthat. You see, how were you
talking. We've been We've been doingthese long enough anyway, so I see
(28:26):
your point. And just like thedeath penalty is really no deterrent to murder,
these hate crimes clearly have not beena deterrent to hate crimes themselves,
and that in the end, it'simportant that we talk about education. We
talk about having open conversations, Wetalk about having our thought leaders and influencers
being able to like the Pope forinstance, saying that being gay is not
(28:48):
a sin. It's you know,let's accept folks for who they are as
human beings. That's really where weneed to go. But it wasn't a
sin, he said, it wasn'ta crime. Oh okay, good point,
because finalized around the world, thankyou for he probably thinks it's a
sin, right, okay, goodpoint, but not a crime, but
not a crime. So what justkind of summarize to me and to us
(29:12):
what you think we, in thebest of all possible worlds, need to
do in order to go forward onthis. You know, again, the
show is for everyone right to talkabout issues that impact the LGBTQ community,
but really how it impacts us allAnd I think all of society, every
single person here listening can fear peopleless and have less judgment. And maybe
(29:37):
maybe you don't hate somebody, butmaybe you have hostility towards someone, a
group, what have you and justlooking inward and coming up for yourself.
What needs to happen for you tohave less hostility, less fear? Great
book Conversations with God as a lesbian, love that book. Listen to all
(29:59):
someone anything ya community fear. Youcan also listen on the think can be
boiled down Philadelphia community, whether you'rescared on Twitter and Instagram at larrainow hostile
something serious? Talk community right andif you're graceful, what do you love
standing? So everything to you boileddown? So if everyone just took a
minute for themselves to boil down whatevernegative feelings they have towards other people or
(30:25):
groups and hone in on what they'reafraid of, and if they were willing
to have that conversation with themselves,there would be a lot less hate in
the world. The Golden Rule likesexercise that. Angelo Gianpolo as always a
pleasure having you in the studio withus. Angela Giampolo from gm Polo Law
and Philly gay lawyer. If peoplewant to get in touch, how did
they do that? Yep? Youcan go to my website Jampolo la dot
(30:45):
com, call my office two onefive six four five twenty four fifteen,
and find my instagram Angela dot Champolofantastic, Thanks Ala, Angela, Thanks
Erin. As always, you couldlisten to all of today's interviews by going
to our station website and typing inkeyword community. You can also listen on
the iHeartRadio app Gay Words Philadelphia CommunityPodcast. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram
(31:11):
at Lorraine Ballard. I'm Lorraine BallardMorrow and I stand for service to our
community and media that empowers. Whatwill you stand for? You've been listening
to what's going on? ED,Thank you
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