PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10 - 17, 2022

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PHIL • A • DELPH • I • A Ancient Greek: phílos (beloved, dear) and adelphós (brother, b rotherly, siblings, sisterly), "The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection."

WASHINGTON AVE. REDESIGN: THE HOT MESS EXPRESS 09 TO UKRAINE WITH LOVE XOXO PHILLY 08 UNBOTHERED: BIDEN SCOTUS PICK UNFLAPPABLE IN FACE OF RACIST SMEARS AND GOP HYPOCRISY 11 Photo by Alejandro Barba

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THIS WEEK’S ISSUE 03

Editor’s Note

by Josh Kruger

12

Books You Can Go Your Own Way (Novel Excerpt)

04

Event Spotlight The Batman: Review

14

News Who Are We Leaving Behind as the Mandates Lift?

16

Sex with Timaree GOP Uses Queer Kids as Pawns

09

News Washington Ave Redesign

17

News EARN IT Act

10

Something to Do Underrated Historic Sites

18

Opinion Does Accessibility Really Matter or is it Just a Box to Check Off?

11

News Biden’s History Making SCOTUS Nominee Unflappable in Face of Racist BS

06 08

Calendar Take Action 5 Ways You Can Help Ukraine Right Now

19

Doing Good Why Not Prosper

Image: Mae Axelrod

Philadelphia, PA 215-543-3743 mail@philadelphiaweekly.com

Philadelphiaweekly.com @phillyweekly MARCH 10 - 17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

Ian Moe Publisher Michael Chambers Director of Circulation

Josh Kruger Editor-in-Chief

J.R. Blackwell Managing Editor

josh@philadelphiaweekly.com jrblackwell@philadelphiaweekly.com

Art & Design: Brittni Albright, Karl Michelfelder

To contact the news department: mail@philadelphiaweekly.com.

Len Webb Arts & Entertainment Editor len@philadelphiaweekly.com

Contributors: Kennedy Allen, A.D. Amorosi, Bobbi Booker, CJ Higgins, Josh Hitchens, Timaree Schmit, Eric Smith, Aubrie Williams

To purchase advertising in Philadelphia Weekly, contact Sales at 215-543-3743, ext. 104, or sales@philadelphiaweekly.com.

X 3

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR I t’s admittedly a little ironic to cel- sure you’re alright and calls 911. He makes ebrate love the same week we are sure you get on that ambulance even if you bearing witness to such tragedy hap- were kind of ruining his schedule. For the pening across the planet in Ukraine. rest of his life he remembers you as the guy But wiser people than I’ll ever be con- who ruined his day one time who sends him sistently say that love triumphs over nice Christmas cards every year now. But all in the end. Given that we’re in the lead up your life is saved. What is love, anyway? to Holy Week for observant Christians when This strange, indelible component of our themes of death, resurrection, exclusion, local identity, this apparent contradiction at inclusion, love, hatred, despair, and hope all least in style if not substance also explains seem to converge into one singularity, choos- why Philadelphians seem to masochistically ing love amid a variety of choices is both a enjoy the opprobrium and jeers of other citradical act and a timely topic. ies at sporting events. Meant to degrade us, it Our city’s name loosely means actually builds us up when han“City of Brotherly Love.” I say dled properly.

BY JOSH KRUGER loosely because when William This kind of reversal of exPenn founded and laid out his pectation is found also in Kurt “greene country towne” with Vonnegut’s breakthrough novhelpful perpendicular blocks going north to el, “Slaughterhouse-Five.” In it, Vonnegut south and east to west, the word he translated works through his own trauma as a veteras “brotherly,” ancient Greek’s “adelphos” an and former POW captured by the Nazis. is not as cut and dry as Strunk & White ob- He also takes the book to explain that time sessed purists who cling to gendered English doesn’t really exist and the way we view it usage will claim. isn’t helpful, either. In one excerpt, the novRecords show the masculine form of the el’s protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, witnesses one word was used in both a gendered male sense of the most brutal largescale events in the to mean brothers or brotherly as well as a entirety of World War II: the Alllies carpet genderless sense, including at times with sis- bombing the German city of Dresden into ters or with loftier concepts of all of human- rubble. ity sharing a sibling like bond. With that in Except Pilgrim sees this backwards. mind, it’s probably best to use the nonexis“The bombers opened their bomb bay tent word “siblingly” instead of brotherly if doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism we’re courting accuracy. But City of Sibling- which shrunk the [Dresden] fires, gathered ly Love sounds vaguely weird in a bad way. them into cylindrical steel containers, and Still, Philadelphia’s brand of love is a cu- lifted the containers in to the bellies of the riosity we could spend years analyzing. I’ll planes,” Vonnegut envisions. It is his deexplain it thusly: A Californian will see you scription of the bombs themselves that turns lying on the sidewalk. They are warm and this quirky novel into a deeply serious profriendly explaining to you why they cannot cess – for the writer, yes, but also for all of us. help you at which point they step over you.

“When the bombers got back to their A Philadelphan sees you lying on the side- base, the steel cylinders were taken from the walk. After a string of exasperated profani- racks and shipped back to the United States ties and complaints about your body in front of America, where factories were operating of his front step, he gets on his knees to make night and day, dismantling the cylinders,

separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.”

How I wish the past two weeks involving Ukraine could go backwards. Then again, it’d be even better if we could apply this to the past several years.

If we could, then nearly one million sick people in hospitals and nursing homes would all experience miraculous recoveries, in many cases walking themselves out of the hospital as they grew more comfortable doing tasks that involved their lungs, like running or even just light cooking. Tears would not fall but instead vanish into people’s faces, grief stricken anguish replaced by less upset expressions and even happy ones, too. Masks littered on the ground were drawn into the hands of people who demonstrated how to use them before returning them to their boxes for safe storage for future emergencies.

Children ran from their boring, confining homes and happily back to school where they played, learned, and grew. Fear and rancor nationwide would turn to warmth and agreement on shared core values.

Yet, if we did have the ability to reverse any of this, would we have still learned the lessons like we did when we experienced them as they naturally occur, forwards from start to finish and not backwards? Have we even learned any lessons?

And is saying love conquers all just a platitude that reduces everything, flattening life’s contours into a saccharine slogan?

Who knows? Just know that I’d help you if you were on the sidewalk blocking my front steps. And I’m sure you’d do the same.

If you’re a Philadelphian like me, we’d just complain about it for the rest of our lives.

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 3-10, 2022

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MARCH 10 - 17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

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REVIEW: THE BATMAN att Reeves is celebrated for those scenes. This film gives Gordon agency methodical storytelling and within their relationship and shows him to precise direction, on display have good standing as a detective himself in “Dawn of the Planet of the (kudos to Jeffrey Wright, incapable of bad Apes” and “War for the Planperformance). Colin Farrell is unrecognizet of the Apes,” well-received able as Oswald (soon to be Penguin), but his genre films that won him “charm” is unmistakable. Paul Dano’s Ridthe director’s dler is as much a puzzle maker as Batchair of WarnerMedia’s “The man is a code breaker, yet this Riddler Batman,” not to be confused is motivated by insecurities that fuel the with Tim Burton’s “Batman” BY: LEN WEBB plot of the movie. of 1989 or “The Dark Knight” And then we have Selina Kyle, not fully trilogy from Christopher Noformed as the Catwoman, yet no less elulan. This is a new iteration of sive. Her backstory is the B-side to the movie, DC Comics’ caped crusader and, in many but Zoe Kravitz is no album cut; this is a platways, the truest screen interpretation of the inum single. Her family issues play a role in hero as he has been seen in the comic books the film and she’s not above being a bit masince 1939. nipulative of our hero to get her way; but it This Batman is two years under the cowl, is in that manipulation where the torch is lit menacing the cowardly criminal lot from the between Bat and Cat and, man oh man, the shadows and scaring police and citizens at sparks! Kravitz and Pattinson work. More, first sight. As depicted by Robert Pattinson, please.

Bruce Wayne is a man tortured by the loss Look — I’ve been a Batman fan since the of his parents (thank you, Mr. Reeves, for days of Colorforms (ask your grandparents), foregoing an eleventeenth recreation of that so on a molecular level, I enjoy the characscene) and motivated solely by vengeance — ter in all his shapes, sizes and media. But I’m it’s literally his nickname. I appreciate that not a Batman-89-aholic; I prefer “Batman this Batman is not the one that we’ve seen Begins.” Kevin Conroy is the voice of the before. He’s not fully confident — oh, he’s a night, but Bruce Greenwood (Young Justice) badass, no doubt, but he’s not so cocky that is a close second. Watching this film, I truly he won’t think twice before jumping off the believe Matt Reeves and company present roof of a building or stand with clenched the character as he was originally conceived cheeks under his cape as he’s crowded by 80+ years ago by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. A Gotham’s finest in a small interrogation creature of the night who is the scourge of room. That’s why he leans on a tenuous allethe underworld and our torch-bearing guide giance with Lieutenant Jim Gordon for help in the dark. And he’s only two years into the in cracking the puzzling codes of the deadgame! If we’re lucky to see this character rely Riddler; trusty butler Alfred, portrayed turn to the screen, I look forward to growing in the flesh by Andy Serkis, throws his two old again with “The Batman.” cents in, as well.

M

Reeves and writer Peter Craig have produced a taut crime thriller — despite its 3-hour run time (granted Bats could walk a tick quicker at times) — full of the requisite set pieces expected in the superhero genre but stripped down to their muscular frames, like the charged up Batmobile, star of the best of

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PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10 - 17, 2022

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CALENDAR

A WEEK'S WORTH OF ADVENTURES A C R O S S P H I L LY ' S N E I G H B O R H O O D S

HELLO AND WELCOME BACK TO THE NEW PHILLY WEEKLY EVENT CALENDAR!

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY

THUR MARCH 10

MUSIC

The Tacács Quartet

The Takács Quartet is a Philadelphia favorite for its unique blend of drama, warmth, humor and precision, combining their compelling musical personalities to bring fresh

heights, to be as endearing as it is alluring; what say you?

Glamorama - A Luxurious Burlesque Experience!

Thursday, March 10, Doors at 8 p.m., show at 9 p.m.; Franky Bradley’s, 1320 Chancellor St., Philadelphia, PA 19107; 21+ Event

FRI MARCH 11

the Divine Black Woman; Friday, March 11, 4-8 p.m., Our House Culture Center, 6380 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19144 COMEDY

Gutted!

Alex Grubard, comedian/ game show host (“Weeding Out The Stoned”), headlines a lineup of stone killers mistaking your stomach for your jugular and slaying you with belly laughs. Or you’ll get smoked out. Leave smiling, either way. Also features Tyler Rothrock, Betty Smithsonian, LeMaire Lee, and Eddie Finn.

Gutted! A Comedy Show w/ Alex Grubard, Friday, March 11, 7 -9:30 p.m., The 700, 700 North 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA 19123 MUSIC

Welcome back to the Philadelphia Weekly event calendar. Before we check out what’s going on N, S, E, and W of Broad, let’s hear from your fellow weekly Phillies in response to last week’s calendar.

L. Crudup of Mount Airy had a problem with me that A Tribe Called Quest was a quartet. Excuse me, but if Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed, and the late Phife Dawg considered Jarobi a member until the end, then that’s good enough for me. She also suggested that Boyz 2 Men was a better quartet, historically and locally. There she may have a point, so consider me rightfully chastised. I will carry this shame to the End of the Road.

In response to my call for local DJ shout-outs, Randy Green aka R-Son The Voice of Reason (I swear it’s on his passport; it’s how he answers the phone) shows love for Duiji 13 and Vinyl Tap 215, a wonderful monthly way to spend an afternoon with amazing DJs and their signature sound, good vibes and fun for vinyl addicts and wax slingers – “Especially in these days and times when we're trying to find ways to reconnect, music is most often the key. Duiji Mshinda and Vinyl Tap 215 are doing the work, bringing us all back together with dope beats, high energy, and all the fun we need these days.” Vinyl Tap 215 returns to Common Beat Music in West Philly on Saturday, April 23.

EMAIL ME: len@philadelphiaweekly.com, the new A&E Tribble on the scene.

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

insights to the string quartet repertoire.

Takács Quartet at Perelman Theater, Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m., Kimmel Cultural Campus, 300 S. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19102 SHOW

Glamorama

Step into an immersive experience of interesting nightlife characters, curated projections, themed cocktails and live performances from some of the top burlesque, drag and cabaret artists working today, including the vivacious Vera Valentinaa, Eyrie Twilight, Nirvana Noire, and more! *I find burlesque, performed at its

ART

Femme Noire: A Photo Gallery Celebrating The Divine Black Woman

Two-time poet laureate Gaze upon the divinity and various identities of Black women while supporting photographers from various Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Femme Noire is a collaboration between photographer Julian Moore-Griffin and the Philadelphia Black Women’s March, with proceeds benefiting Lil’ Filmmakers Inc. Femme Noire: A Photo Gallery Celebrating

Electric Violinist Karen Briggs With Gerald Veasley Band Linked by improvisation and embellishment, Briggs’ audio-visual signature is extremely popular and she is constantly sought after for a variety of projects internationally. And now her virtuosity lights up Broad Street for two nights only.

Unscripted Jazz: Electric Violinist Karen Briggs with Gerald Veasley Band; Friday, March 11 and Saturday, March 12, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., South Jazz Club, 600 North Broad St. at Mt. Vernon, Philadelphia, PA 19130 COMEDY

Circa: Humans 2.0

CALENDAR

YPHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY Bold. Exhilarating.

Spellbinding. Those words describe the new production “Humans 2.0,” presented by the Australian circus troupe Circa. The 10-member company brings its love letter to humanity, in its joyous physical artistry, to Philadelphia for the delight of the entire family. *I am a family entirely of me; I want to be delighted, too.

Circa: Humans 2.0; Friday, March 11, 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 12, 2 p.m., Zellerbach Theatre, Penn Live Arts Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104

SAT

19123

MARCH 12

CULTURE

Museum Of Illusions Philadelphia Grand Opening With 35 museums opens across the globe across the globe since 2015, the Museum of Illusions unveils the mechanics behind mind-bending illusions while also shocking the senses and playing on perception.

From 2D artistic illusions to fully immersive exhibits where you become the illusion, wonders await all who enter. No rabbits were

harmed in the writing of this promotion.

Museum of Illusions Philadelphia Grand Opening; Saturday, March 12, 9 a.m.-10 p.m., 401 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19106 BAR CRAWL

Kiss Me, I'm Irish: Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Bar Crawl

Welcome to our annual official Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Weekend Pub Crawl where many people* will be bar hopping across the city in celebration of St. Patty's, with festivities kicking off at the venerable Howl at the Moon! Including honorary Irish folk, me and my bestie who will reclaim her .000254% Irish ancestry by the 6th hop; I’ll be green by the 2nd.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish: Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day Bar Crawl; Saturday, March 12, 12-8 p.m., Howl at the Moon, 258 S. 15th St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; visit pubcrawls. com for more information COMEDY

Comedian George Lopez The star of television and

film to where it all started: stand up. His OMG Hi! Tour, in full swing across the country, confronts political discourse and racial stereotypes with each laugh. *Is it me or did the salt and pepper make Lopez even funnier?

MMR Rocks George Lopez: OMG Hi! Comedy Tour; Saturday, March 12, 8 p.m., The Met Philadelphia, 858 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19130

SUN MARCH 13

MUSIC

Chris Lane

Ground-breaking, chart-topping, genre-bending, instantly enthralling – Scottish folk act Talisk fuse concertina, guitar and fiddle to produce an innovative, multi-layered signature that has captivated audiences worldwide.

An Intimate Afternoon with Talisk; Sunday, March 13, 3-5 p.m., Philadelphia Folksong Society, 6156 Ridge Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19128 MUSIC

Trap N' Paint Fundraiser

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New Beginning Foundation is turning your ordinary paint-and-sip up to another level. Enjoy a night of instructed painting with trap music sounds provided by DJ Dez Davis. Everything you need to create your art is included. Proceeds benefit the New Beginning Foundation Literary Program. I’ve heard there’s beauty in trap music; this puts that idea to the test..

Trap N’ Paint Fundraiser; Sunday, March 13, 5:308:30 p.m., The Fillmore Philadelphia, 29 E. Allen St., Philadelphia, PA 19123

MON MARCH 14

SHOW

Theatre Exile presents Absolution

Theatre Exile’s new play development series, Studio X-hibition, presents a onenight only virtual reading of “abSolution,” by Philadelphia playwright Brenden Dahl.

Studio X-hibition presents live readings of local playwrights’ scripts as an opportunity for playwrights to see their work performed for an audience and receive constructive criticism from their community. A community is a people with common interests living in a particular area, such as a Zoom link in Philly on a Monday night.

Theatre Exile presents Studio X-hibition 2022: “abSolution” by Brenden Dahl; Monday, March 14, 8 p.m.; visit theatreexile. org for registration

Next week’s special will be...

Which Philly restaurant offers THE BEST LOOKING MEAL FOR INSTAGRAM? Email your answer to len@philadelphiaweekly.com

TUE MARCH 15

SHOW

Elie Mystal | Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide To The Constitution

The guidebook for how the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in opposition to Republican claims was authored by the legal editor of “More Perfect,” Radiolab’s podcast about the U.S. Supreme Court. The man rocks a mean soul pick; see for yourself as he shares his “brightly alive ideas” with the audience.

Elie Mystal | Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution;

Tuesday, March 15, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103

MUSIC

Philly Sings Philly

Back by popular demand, hometown musicians gather to pay homage to their idols, adding a personal touch to their favorite songs by other Philly artists every third Tuesday from their new home, The Lounge at World Cafe Live, Can someone do “I Don’t Love Her Anymore” by Teddy Pendergrass for me, please?

Philly Sings Philly; Tuesday, March 15, 8 p.m., The Lounge at World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104

WED MARCH 16

CULTURE

Viet Thanh Nguyen | The Life And Letters Of Migration

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen (“The Sympathizer”) shares his family’s experiences as refugees of the war in Vietnam, reads from his latest work, “The Committed,” and talks about literature, culture, politics and migration.

Viet Thanh Nguyen | The Life and Letters of Migration; Wednesday, March 16, 5-6:30 p.m., Harrison Auditorium, Penn Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia,

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

8

TAKE ACTION

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY

To Ukraine With Love, XOXO Philly:

Five ways to support the courageous people defending democracy

BY JOSH KRUGER

F

or all our faults as a people, Americans consistently demonstrate compassion in the face of incalculable tragedy, offering to help strangers they’ve never met – sometimes faraway in places they’ve never heard of.

Ukraine is a place most of us have heard of, probably. The cities of Kyiv and Odessa we might’ve seen in movies or even visited at some point. In the Philly area, about 60,000 people claim Ukrainian heritage, with about 16,000 Ukranian emigres calling the Delaware Valley home, according to reporting by Noah Zucker for Philly Voice.

2

out this workaround gets cash directly into the hands of Ukranians, a high impact way to help instantly.

Donate to the Kyiv Independent. This modest newspaper reporting facts not propaganda is currently carrying the entire war’s reporting on its back.

Many journalists refused to stop working, opting instead to chronicle the invasion. They desperately need funds to maintain operations. It’s worth noting that journalism is an inherently dangerous career, in particular across war zones. TIME reports that a cameraman was killed on

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Donate to the International Red Cross. Historically, Switzerland remains entirely neutral in conflict, even doing so during World War II in the face of Nazism. This time, however, the Swiss government is being less craven and actually speaking in a language they understand, money, by joining the world in levying economic sanctions against Russia. With the Swiss principle of neutrality as backdrop, the International Red Cross, based in the Swiss city of Geneva, has enjoyed protection under international law and treaty as a result of their concern for all combatants and civilians.

They’re working on efforts providing relief to refugees fleeing Ukraine as well as civilians and combatants still in the country. You can donate online.

Given Philly’s obsession with realness, the specter of Soviet-style disinformation and profligate mind games and deception is a glaring philosophical assault on our local values and customs.

Do you think that dirtball Vladimir Putin would ever get out of line at a Sixers game? Gimme a break. The bum.

Save that for cities that aren’t afraid of the sports fanbase.

But more than our shared values or the cold, emotionless DNA connection is our figurative connection as sibling democracies, one much older and the other much younger. The younger, Ukraine, is now under grave threat of being forcibly led astray away from fairness, multiculturalism, fact-based policy debates, and individual rights and toward the cave dwelling ignorance of superstition and rumor, propaganda, whataboutism, rampant corruption, and societal standards and laws that constantly change based upon the whim of whoever is the most senior bureaucrat holding a rifle pointed at that state’s citizens.

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Donate cash or supplies to Razom for Ukraine.

This pro-democracy national organization is currently providing direct aid to the frontlines by way of medical supplies. They’re also prioritizing storytelling, ensuring that the facts are shown globally about Russian atrocities, the losses painfully incurred by the people of Ukraine, and what the reality is on the ground.

These are big issues, admittedly. Overwhelming even. So, how, exactly, can Philadelphians help?

Here are five ways you can make a difference right now for Ukraine as the country heroically resists the Russian occupying force. Most involve monetary donations. Cash is the most effective way to help any one organization, cause, or humanitarian effort. Low on cash? No problem.

Then you should use your First Amendment right this way (with instructions).

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Rent an Airbnb in Ukraine when you have no intention of staying there or visiting. This option took off like wildfire on the Internet this week because it is one of those things that sounds ingenious that upon second thought sounds too easy and good to be true. NPR investigated, however, and it turns

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

Currently, the Biden Administration is refusing to support a NATO or US-led no-fly zone as it would be enforced

by American or allied jets taking down Russian jets in violation of the zone. Russia, whose nuclear arsenal rivals the United States’ own gargantuan nuke supply, has said such action would be interpreted as joining the war against them. With that in mind, a workaround would be to equip the Ukranians themselves with the technology and airplanes needed to maintain air superiority over Russia while still technically not immediately activating a global nuclear war. Granted, that’s what the actual experts say on MSNBC. Anyway, you can find your representatives in Congress online at congress.gov.

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March 1 in Kyiv. Across the border in Russia, new crackdowns on free speech and paramilitary attacks on foreign journalists make it even more perilous than normal.

Urge Congress and the White House to support NATO and provide the necessary aid so Ukraine can defend itself more robustly or enforce its own no-fly zone.

A no-fly zone requires the use of technology like electro-magnetic pulse or traditional weaponry and guns.

Still want to do more? You could always go above and beyond and stop whining on Facebook about gas prices since Russia’s illegal war and sanctions imposed on the rogue nation are affecting global oil supply. Gas prices might be higher for a little bit. This is where it actually matters: does freedom have price? And are human lives worth more than refilling our gas tanks?

Besides, nobody needs to know how high the gas price is at the Sunoco down the way. We can see it, it’s the big lit up sign.

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Hot Mess Express:

Washington Ave. redesign process is a yellow light for Philly’s Vision Zero progress

R

ecently, the City’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (oTIS) announced it had chosen the mixed lane option for Washington Avenue as its final final plan. It’s a good plan, albeit not as good as the original final plan.

When the City unveiled the final final plan on March 1, some expressed their disapproval of street safety improvements in general.

Others were disappointed in the final plan reaching finality and being replaced by a less innovative design.

While not everyone agrees on which plan is ideal, we can agree that it’s confusing that the previous final plan is not the final plan and this final final plan is the final plan. We can also all agree that nobody wants Washington Avenue to stay the same as a dangerous, confusing, crater-ridden obstacle course.

Previously announced in September 2020 after five years of studies, evaluations, and analyses, the original plan was a three-lane configuration that maximized safety and speed reduction along Washington Avenue’s five-mile stretch bisecting South Philly. It would slow cars down and reduce the likelihood of people – drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, kids, adults, youth, seniors, everyone – being killed or seriously hurt in crashes.

This kind of unnecessary tragedy is not a hypothetical, either. Out of 254 crashes between 2012 and 2018, four people died, including 83 year old Sarah Wood, 29 year old Sheena White, and 11-year-old Samantha Nguyen-Ortanez.

The redesign, then, was a case of government responding to tragedy in an effective, albeit long overdue manner.

And it aligned perfectly with the concept of Vision Zero bringing us to zero crash related deaths, a key agenda item to Mayor Kenney’s successful election and reelection.

Everything seemed fine: the decision was based on sound engineering and a robust public engagement process involving dozens of online community surveys during the height of the quarantine when everyone was working remotely or home in general. This outreach yielded thousands of survey results that overwhelmingly supported the three lane option.

Except everything, apparently, wasn’t fine.

Some community members said they felt left out of the largely online public engagement effort. A few businesses said that the plan would jeopardize their operations.

Cynics might say that there was a lack of political will to push back on any of this.

Despite the extensive outreach that had occurred, oTIS reopened the public engagement process – in a way.

There was a small “working group” that formed in fall 2021 to log these newfound concerns.

In the end, the final plan reached its finality and oTIS torpedoed it in February 2022. Then, on March 1, 2022, they

unveiled the new final final plan, a mixed lane plan featuring some of the old plan, to replace it.

First, here’s what’s good about the new mixed lane plan.

10 out of 22 blocks use the original plan’s three-lane configuration. It’s important to note that the only alternative offered is at least four lanes across the entire stretch of the avenue.

18 blocks of parking protected bike lanes that could be protected with concrete with future funding. There are currently no protected bike lanes on Washington.

Leading pedestrian intervals letting those walking cross the street a few seconds before cars can proceed.

Other speed and safety improvements, including some being used for the first time on a major Philly arterial like bus boarding islands, speed cushions on side streets and speed slots narrower on the avenue, hardened centerlines, and slow turn wedges at the corners.

Automated red light camera enforcement.

Here’s what’s a problem and disappointing about the mixed lane plan.

We lose 7 out of 22 blocks of the three lane plan.

The five busiest blocks in the center of the corridor between 16th and 12th streets, which were always going to remain five-lane, have few traffic calming measures. The bike lane will be a painted five-foot one and only speed slots, which are like speed bumps but with cutouts for emergency response vehicles, function as calming measures.

17th Street doesn’t have the kind of safety features this major crossing for children, many of whom attend nearby Stanton Elementary, requires.

The conflict at the shared bus pullover zone in the fourlane areas makes it more dangerous. It’s likely illegal parking will be problematic here, forcing bicyclists into the travel lane.

Short of reinstituting the original plan, the problems with the mixed lane plan are all easily mitigated by: filling the bike lane in with green paint from 16th to 12th as done on the Parkway, adding a six-foot-wide pedestrian refuge island in the middle of the crosswalk along with wider crosswalks set further back from the intersection at 17th Street, and moving the bus stop to the other side of the One glaring overall issue that the original plan addresses is the length of crossing the street. While the mixed lane plan addresses it in points, it’s still concerning for seniors and children along most of the route.

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SARAH CLARK STUART, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE BICYCLE COALITION OF GREATER PHILADELPHIA The curious demise of the three-lane option was frustrating for many reasons, not the least of which is that Washington Avenue is on the High Injury Network and particularly dangerous because a person walking or biking on Washington Avenue is much more likely to be hit than on other Philadelphia streets. It deserved the safest option possible.

There are real issues that opponents of the original plan expressed, namely the reality of inequitable access to information and community input opportunities in general, years of racist and classist disinvestment or no investment at all in certain neighborhoods, and an overall lack of trust in agency officials, their data, and their conclusions based upon a variety of factors including the racism of many past urban renewal projects in general.

We as a city and nation have a long way to go on addressing historical abuses that fuel current, and frankly righteous, outrage as neighborhoods change and gentrification and America’s housing crunch together jeopardize so many. It’s wrong to be dismissive of these concerns when sincere.

Clearly, these issues are worth addressing and remedying overall, both locally and across the nation.

Whether these issues should be the rationale for not saving as many lives as possible when given that opportunity is less clear.

This isn’t the first time that a Vision Zero or traffic safety project that prioritizes pedestrians or bicyclists has hit the buzzsaw of hyper local or even national politics, though. And it probably won’t be the last.

Locally, all too frequently, projects get watered down to make them acceptable to neighborhood civic associations like RCOs or blocks of neighbors.

Philadelphia’s car culture and the standard operating procedure of deferring to the position of near neighbors, especially those near neighbors who are politically connected, remain significant hurdles.

In this case, the chosen mixed lane option is a compromise with pros and cons. The planning process is a microcosm of large, structural issues at play whether people want to acknowledge that or not, too.

Whether we let these issues affect how many lives we save and prevent from being killed in crashes is entirely on us and those we entrust with decisionmaking. Now more than ever, Mayor Kenney and councilmembers Johnson and Squilla must prioritize safety.

In the end, the mixed lane plan isn’t just better than nothing, though that’s true too. It does dramatically improve safety. So, let’s get on with making Washington Avenue safer for all already.

Sarah Clark Stuart is Executive Director of the Greater Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition. She may be reached by email at sarah@bicyclecoalition.org.

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

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UNDERRATED HISTORIC SITES It’s no secret that Philadelphia has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to historic sites and museums. Here are a few that are a little off the beaten path that deserve your attention.

BY: JOSH HITCHENS

THE EBENEZER MAXWELL MANSION

There are many wonderful historic sites in Philadelphia that focus on 18th century history, but the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, located in the heart of the Tulpehocken Historic District of Germantown, is unique. It is the only authentically restored Victorian house museum and garden in the city, giving visitors a glimpse into how upper middle class Philadelphians lived in the 19th century. In recent years, the Mansion has shifted its focus to Black history events and programming, most notably with its immersive tour Deep Rivers, which tells the stories of 10 Black men and women who achieved excellence in the Victorian era, including Julian Abele, Elizabeth Keckley and Henry Ossawa Tanner. www.ebenezermaxwellmansion.org

THE INDEPENDENCE SEAPORT MUSEUM

Founded in 1960 and located right on the Delaware River, the Independence Seaport Museum is a must-see for anyone interested in Philadelphia’s maritime history. Exhibits include Tides of Freedom, which tells the story of the African slave trade at Penn’s Landing, River Alive, a fun and informative scientific exhibit about the river, and Patriots and Pirates, about the founding of the United States Navy in Philadelphia. What truly makes the Seaport Museum essential is that you can also tour the USS Olympia, built in 1895 and the oldest steel warship in the world that is still afloat, as well as the Becuna, a World War II submarine. Both ships are included with your admission and provide an amazing way for kids and adults to step back into history. www.phillyseaport.org

PAUL ROBESON HOUSE AND MUSEUM

Paul Robeson was a true renaissance man — a brilliant singer, actor, athlete and human rights activist. The first African American to play a leading role in a movie and one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century, Robeson’s career was hindered by persecution from the FBI due to his vocal support of civil rights. Plagued by ill health, he moved into his sister’s West Philadelphia home for the final 10 years of his life. Today, the Paul Robeson House and Museum has been meticulously restored due to the heroic efforts of the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. Located at 4951 Walnut Street, the Paul Robeson House and Museum is a powerful celebration of a great man as well as the surrounding community who made it their mission to preserve this invaluable historic landmark. www. paulrobesonhouse.org

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

ROSENBACH MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

Located on the idyllic street Delancey Place, the Rosenbach Museum and Library can be easy to miss if you aren’t looking for it. But I highly recommend you explore this extraordinary museum, which is a book lover’s dream. Here you can see the original manuscript for James Joyce’s Ulysses, Bram Stoker’s research and planning notes for Dracula, the papers of poet Marianne Moore, and many other rare works. The Rosenbach also offers a robust program of special events and virtual classes, as well as free online book clubs such as the currently in-progress Sundays with Jane Eyre and a Shakespeare Read-Aloud group. www. rosenbach.org

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Unbothered:

First Black woman nominated to Supreme Court persists despite racist dog whistles, GOP hypocrisy Across 233 years of history, the United States Supreme Court has relied on the legal expertise of 115 sitting justices. Among these justices and across those centuries, only five justices were women and only three minorities.

With that in mind, it made sense that then-candidate for president Joe Biden promised that if he had an opening on the court, he would nominate a black woman. And for the first time in 233 years, the President of the United States did just that recently in selecting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the nation’s highest court.

Previously, Biden successfully nominated the jurist to the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington with the U.S. Senate confirming her with the support of three Republicans, even: Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

has already expressed consternation, tweeting that her nomination is a victory for the “radical left.” In one of the more stark examples of a double standard, Fox News personality and Hungarian authoritarian admirer Tucker Carlson wondered why her LSAT scores have not been released.

It is not normal for nominees to share their LSAT scores.

In fact, it appears that no white nominees have ever been required to share their test scores.

In other words, a double standard preceded Jackson’s nomination. It was even on display during her last hear-

“For too long our government, our courts, haven’t looked like America,” the president said alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, herself the nation’s first Black and Asian and female vice president. During a presentation last month at the White House, Biden commended Judge Jackson’s intellect, legal ability, and experience, as well as the representation she carries, both in identity and life experience.

If confirmed, Jackson would be the sixth woman to serve on the Supreme Court, following Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and current justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Amy Coney Barrett. As an African American, she would be just the fourth justice who is not white, along with Justices Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas (who are Latina and Black, respectively), as well as former Justice Thurgood Marshall, himself the first Black American to sit on the court.

Despite Judge Jackson’s sterling judicial credentials, she’s encountered racist dog whistles plaguing her nomination as she and the White House prepare for hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, set to start on March 21.

Despite voting to confirm her to the D.C. appeals court just one year ago,, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham

BY BOBBI BOOKER Cornyn has asked this question of any white or even Asian or Latino nominees before.

Jackson avoided the pitfalls around Cornyn’s question and responded with extraordinary grace. She observed that race was an inappropriate factor in her decision-making. She then quoted iconic Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The life of the law has not been logic. It has been experience.”

She then added, “I’ve experienced life in perhaps a different way than some of my colleagues because of who I am, and that might be valuable, if I was confirmed to the court.”

After getting his question answered, Cornyn voted against Jackson.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, the child of a teacher and a lawyer. In her nomination acceptance speech, she said that her interest in law goes all the way back to seeing her dad study while he was in law school. Her own legal experience includes time as a federal public defender.

In March 2017, she told students at the University of Georgia law school: “I learned how to reason and how to write. And I gained the self-confidence that can sometimes be quite difficult for women and minorities to develop at an early age. I have no doubt that of all of the various things that I’ve done, it was my high school experience as a competitive speaker that taught me how to lean in, despite the obstacles. To stand firm in the face of challenges. To work hard. To be resilient. To strive for excellence. And to believe that anything is possible.”

In a curious development following Biden’s nomination of the D.C. circuit court judge to the Supreme Court, none of the Republicans who voted for her previously would commit to voting for her again.

According to a Pew Research analysis in January, only 70 of 3,843 federal judges, merely two percent, in the United States have ever been Black women.

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Civil rights activists, both traditional and new wave, stand ready to fight for Jackson’s nomination. This is why the #SheWillRise campaign at SistaSCOTUS.com has one measurable, achievable goal: to ensure a Black woman sits on the Supreme Court.

ings as a nominee to the D.C. circuit. Reporting for Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer compiled a brief list of just a few of the offensive and bizarre things Republicans have observed or asked her.

In perhaps the most bitingly ironic case, Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, himself a legacy student at University of Mississippi Law School whose father was a prosecutor and elected official, secured his senate seat not through the standard elections process but instead via appointment and special election following former Sen. Trent Lott’s resignation, mused that Brown Jackson was a beneficiary of “positive affirmative action.” Wicker made the comments to a local radio personality, the context of which involved Wicker’s bemused exasperation that the federal jurist would be in a position to rule on affirmative action cases.

Likewise, Texas Sen. John Cornyn inquired at her appellate court nomination hearings to what extent her race affects her work as a judge. It does not appear that

The group takes its name from Maya Angelou’s classic poem “Still I Rise” and uses the tagline “Using #BlackGirlMagic to get the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court” on its Twitter account.

Kimberly Tignor, the co-founder of the #SheWillRise campaign, is eager about Brown Jackson’s momentous step into American history.

“I think that what excited me the most, and that she just did so perfectly during her speech, is that she brings humanity and kindness,” noted Tignor on MSNBC recently.

“I think it is in her aura…it is the feeling that the Court is not this distant thing made up of justices that cannot relate at all to your day-to-day life. She removed that. And she showed up as a complete person. As a mother. As a community advocate.

Tignor goes on to say that “it’s that humanity that she brings to this moment and to her interactions that I think is just so wonderful and important.”

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

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You Can Go Your Own Way

Eric Smith’s latest book, You Can Go Your Own Way, is a heartwarming and thoughtful enemies-to-lovers rom-com about two teens—one trying to save his family’s failing pinball arcade, the other working for her tech genius dad who wants to take it over—who get trapped together in a snowstorm. With references to Gritty, NextFab, and the South Philly IKEA, its more than just set in Philadelphia, it makes its home here. While Philadelphia Weekly isn’t usually a host for fiction, when a story is good, an author is local, and it features Philadelphia, we’re happy to share.

CHAPTER 1 Adam “The playfield is truly the heart of every pinball machine. All of the player’s goals are right there, splayed out in front of them. And like life, it’s up to you to find a way to reach them, with the tools you’re presented. In this case, it’s a ball.”—THE ART AND ZEN OF PINBALL REPAIR BY JAMES WATTS The sound of collective screaming and a massive crash shake my entire workshop, and I almost stab myself with a piping-hot soldering iron.

“Adam!” my mom yells from inside the arcade. If another pack of junior high kids from the nearby Hillman Academy “accidentally” flip over a machine trying to get it to tilt, I am going to lose it. I grip the iron, the cracked brown leather wrapped around the metal handle squeaking a little against my skin, and shake my head, trying to refocus. Maybe I can finish this before it’s time to pick up that custom piece— And another crash rattles the walls. A few parts tumble off my shelves, tiny intricate pieces of metal and glass, bits of copper wire, all clinking against my table.

I attempt to catch a few of the electronic pieces, trying not to burn myself with the iron in my other hand, and then a hammer falls off the perforated wall of tools in front of me.

It collides with a small cardboard box full of pinball playfield lightbulbs, and I wince at the small crack and pop sounds.

“Goddammit,” I grumble out. I toss the soldering iron aside and try to clean up the mess. At least those lightbulbs are like, ten bucks a dozen on arcade wholesale websites. But pinball machines have a lot of lights.

“Adam!” This time it’s Chris. “Dude, where are you?”

I’m about to bolt from the workshop when I remember Mom is out there. I reach for the latest read I promised her I’d finish—We Built This Gritty by Kevin Michaels, a book on launching small businesses by an entrepreneur here in Philly that one of her colleagues is teaching at the county college—and immediately yank my hand back. The soldering iron had gone right in between the pages when I tossed it, and the book is already smoking. I pull the iron out and set it aside and flap the book around wildly, little wisps pooling up from inside the bright orange book. I flip it open.

It’s burnt right down the middle. Great. Something tells me she won’t be able to trade this back in at the campus store.

I glance over at The Beast and give the forever-in-progress Philadelphia-themed home-brewed pinball machine a pat, the glass still off the surface, wires and various parts splayed out over the playfield. My well-worn copy of The Art and Zen of Pinball Repair by James Watts sits smack in the middle of everything. I’ve still got a way to go before I can try playing Dad’s unfinished machine again, but if anyone is gonna get me there, it’s Watts. If I could just get a free chunk of time in between the studying and the arcade and the— An array of swears echoes from inside the arcade,

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

snapping me back.

Right. Chris. Mom. Chaos. Potentially broken and nearly irreplaceable machines worth thousands of dollars.

I unplug the soldering iron and place it in its little stand, like a quill pen in an inkwell. I wedge the now-toasty book under my arm and take a few steps to pick up some speed, to get a little force, and I push my shoulder against the dark red wooden workshop door. I push, gritting my teeth. The splintering surface presses into my arm, stinging with the pressure, until finally, the wood squeals against the frame, shrunken in and wedged together due to the sharp Philadelphia winter.

The whole workshop is like that, really, casting a major contrast to the polished, well-kept-despite-its-years pinball arcade. The cracked workshop table that is way more rickety than it has any right to be, tools showing their age with hinges that refuse to move and metal pieces falling off shrinking wood and weak plastic handles, vintage pinball parts that maybe still work, a concrete floor with a surface that’s chipping away, revealing dirt and dust, lightbulbs I don’t even remotely trust. My sad excuse for a drafting table sits off to the end of the workshop, and I’ve never really used it, preferring to fuss with plans right on the messy workshop table, next to all of Dad’s scribbles.

We could clean it up, have this room match the rest of the arcade. But I love it. It reminds me of him.

The door swings open suddenly and hits the wall inside the arcade with a loud bang.

And it is absolute chaos here.

A bunch of little kids are rushing outside, and I see a couple of adults gathering coats and their small children, who are likely about to join the exodus. The afternoon light that’s pouring in from the wide-open front door and the large plate-glass windows lining the wall make me wince.

The glare hurts only slightly less than the idea of customers hustling out of here on a Saturday, easily our best, and only, solid day during the wintertime off-season. Especially now, at the end of the year, with so few days left before we close for the New Year holiday.

People don’t come to pinball arcades in the winter.

Well. Maybe they do, but not when your arcade is located near all the tourist stuff in Old City, all the college students are away on break, and you don’t serve any alcohol. No tourists, no college kids, no booze, no pinball. It’s a neighborhood for expensive restaurants and niche boutiques, old-timey candy shops and artisan pour-over coffee. Not an arcade with a poor excuse for a snack bar inside that mostly serves soda, chips, and reheated chicken tenders and fries.

If it wasn’t for the upcoming Old City Winter Festival, I’m not sure we’d be able to keep the lights on come January. And there’s a businessman out in West Philadelphia who would very much like to see that happen, and there’s no way I’m going to let him do that. I’ve eaten way too many burnt chicken tenders that were “well, these are still kinda good, Adam” according to my mom, but not good enough for the customers. I’ve paid my dues.

“Mom!” I shout, looking to the back of the arcade.

“Chris, what is—” But then I see it.

On the other side of the arcade, my mom has her hands on her hips and is glaring intently at a handful of college guys who are sheepishly milling about near one of the windows. And Chris is trying to lift up a machine that’s currently knocked over, the glass that would normally be covering the playfield shattered across the floor. Another machine is tilted, leaning against a support beam, and looks okay from here. But judging by the angle and the amount of force it would have taken to get it off the legs in the first place, I’m betting we’re going to have some dents on the light box (the back of the machine that juts up over the area where you actually play, and displays the score and art).

“What the hell?” I snap, kicking the workshop door closed and storming across the arcade. My thick black boots squeak loud against the worn, polished hardwood floor, all the imperfections of the ancient Philadelphia wooden boards permanently glossed in place. A few more guys, these ones my age, weave around me, fiddling on their phones and oblivious. Bits of glass crunch under my feet, and I glance down at a bumper, red and black and looking like one of those crushed lantern fly bugs that litter the city sidewalks.

“What happened?” I ask, tossing my burnt book onto the floor. I nudge the tilted machine upright and then bend down to help Chris, who is straining to move the machine on the floor. I manage to wedge my fingers under the side, carefully tapping the metal, trying to avoid any extra glass, and lift.

Chris lets out a groan and I grit my teeth as we push the machine upright, and it nearly topples back over the other way, but Mom reaches out and stops it.

“They happened.” Mom nods back at the guys who are standing about awkwardly. “Any updates there?” She points at one of them, and that’s when I realize they’re all sort of keeping an eye on one vaguely familiar-looking dude in the middle, who is fussing with his phone.

“Just a second,” he grumbles out, and he flicks his head to the side, his emo black bangs moving out of his eyes.

I can’t help but squint at him, trying to place his face. Half his head is shaved, and he has this sort of Fall Out Boy look that would be cool, if he and his pals hadn’t clearly destroyed a pinball machine in my family’s arcade. A splash of anxiety hits me in the chest as I realize I don’t know what game has been totaled, and I turn to look at the machine.

Flash Gordon.

I exhale, relieved that it’s not one of the more popular or rare games in the arcade. But still, it’s a machine from the ’80s. One of the first games in the industry to use the popular Squawk & Talk soundboard, a piece of technology that is wildly expensive to replace, since it isn’t made anymore. That’s the sort of pinball trivia both Chris and my mom tend to shush when I start rambling too much, telling me “that should be a tweet,” which translates to “shut up” in the nicest way possible. I’m almost positive that’s the reason they pushed me to get the arcade on social media—to have a place to share those musings.

The machine didn’t deserve this, even if that awful

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I run my hand along the side of the other machine that was just bumped into, leaning on one of the wooden beams that are scattered throughout the arcade, you know, holding the building up. It’s the Terminator 2: Judgment Day machine, and thankfully, it looks undamaged. A little dented along the light box, as I suspected, but the glass and everything else seems fine. It’s a popular one with the Millennial crowd, and I’m relieved.

“How much is it going to cost to fix?” the familiar guy with the hair asks. He must catch me staring at him, ’cause his eyes flit over to mine, irritated, and I look away, focusing back on the machine.

I pluck at some of the glass on the surface, nudging around some of the broken obstacles on the playfield, and feel a sharp sting in my hand. I quickly pull away and spot a thin line of red trailing along my palm.

“Adam?”

I glance up, and my mom, Chris, and Emo Hair are all staring at me expectantly.

“What?” I ask, focusing back down at the machine and then back at all of them.

“The cost,” my mom presses. “That machine. How much do you think it’ll cost to fix all of this?” She gestures at the floor and shakes her head, her mouth a thin line. All that brewing frustration that she’s trying to bury down.

Kids mess with the machines often, and we’ve certainly had a few hiccups like this before, but I’ve never seen her looking this wildly angry. I didn’t even think she liked that machine.

“Oh.” I swallow and clear my throat.

“I don’t know. It depends on how bad the damage is?” I scan the playfield and then the side of the machine, which has a sizable dent in the steel that I can probably hammer out. But the shattered glass, the pieces, and who knows what’s going on inside it. I think back to Watts’s The Art and Zen of Pinball Repair, my holy tome, written by my hero.

“If you think it’s broken, it is. And if you think it’s going to be cheap to replace, it’s not.”

I stare at the broken glass.

“You know what, how’s a thousand dollars?” the familiar guy holding the phone asks. He looks around at his dude friends, their faces awash in expressions that are essentially shrugs, each nodding at him. “Everyone Venmo me two hundred after this or I’ll kick your asses.”

Some of the guys laugh while the rest break out their phones.

“Why?” scoffs one of them. “You’re the one with the money.”

Emo Hair snorts out a laugh and shakes his head, and glances back up from his screen. The fact that all of them are so relaxed about that much money irks me. The arcade is barely scraping by these days, and it’s no wonder other businesses have been sniffing around the building this year, leaving painfully awkward notes and emails for Mom. I’ve seen a few of them, here and there. The worst ones come under the guise of pretending to be supportive. Do you need anything? We’re here for you. Just checking in. And then in the same breath, bringing up property values and plummeting interest in arcades.

And despite frequent requests to stop mailing us, a local real estate developer loves sending us physical mail about the benefits of selling real estate in Old City now, and they’re always addressed to Dad. Assholes.

“What’s your Venmo?” he asks, looking at my mom and then at me. My mom and I exchange a look. He

huffs. “How about PayPal? Apple Pay?” “I mean…we could take a check?” My mom shrugs, wincing. One of the bros groans like this has somehow physically wounded him, and before I can say anything, my mom snaps a finger at the guy. “Hey, you five are the ones who broke this machine. If I want you to go get that thousand dollars in a burlap sack full of coins at the bank down the road, you’ll get it.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” one of them mutters.

“Just Venmo it to me,” Chris says, pulling out his phone. “I’ll hit the bank when I run out to pick up sidewalk salt for the snow, and get it taken care of, Mrs. Stillwater.”

He glances at my mom and shakes his head at me. I know that look. He’s about to force another freaking app on me, and I don’t think I’ll be able to talk about pinball on Venmo.

It was bad enough when he tricked me into joining Pinterest, convincing me it was a pinball thing.

He steps over to the pack of guys, and they’re all looking at one another and their phones and his, and I really shouldn’t be surprised that he knows how to handle this. Him and his apps. I wish he’d just run the social media for the arcade, but he says it wouldn’t sound “genuine” or something. If typos make someone sound genuine, I am very genuine.

A year behind me at Central, a junior, Chris has this whole Adam Driver look about him. Same sharp cheekbones and bits of facial hair, only a little shorter and with thin square glasses, and as geeky as you can get without actually being in a Star Wars movie. My best friend since I was eight, and our only employee in the off-season, as everyone is either a college student heading home for the break or a fellow local high schooler who has no interest in working over the winter.

He nods at the guys, looking at his phone.

“All right, I got it,” he says and then turns to us. The bros stand there for a beat.

“You can leave,” my mom snaps and points toward the door.

“Right, right,” the familiar guy says and gestures for the rest of his pack to follow. They amble out of the shop, their feet crunching the glass on the floor in a way that makes me feel like it’s on purpose. I take a step forward, but Chris reaches his arm out, his hand pressing against my chest.

I glance up at him, and he just shakes his head.

I huff and bend down to sift through the glass and pieces of machine, while my mom disappears into the back office. There are some bumpers on the ground, and a few small white flags, little targets meant to be knocked down for bonus plays, are scattered about like baby teeth.

The glass, though, that really bothers me. A good sheet of playfield glass can go for a little over a hundred dollars, and while I know that’s not technically a lot of money in the grand scheme of things…we don’t have that much to spare these days.

Jorge over at NextFab, the makerspace that Chris practically lives in when he isn’t here, has been great at helping me replace some parts, as well as teaching me how to build some of my own, which is way more helpful than YouTube tutorials. But a whole sheet of glass? Bumpers

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with intricate circuitry and copper coils? That’s not something easily 3D printed, especially when he keeps doing it for free. And I don’t know how much of that I can manage in my workshop. Or afford, for that matter.

I look around the dirty playfield for the remaining flags but…dammit, they are nowhere to be found. At least the back glass, the lit-up artwork on the back of the machine, isn’t damaged. Flash is still there, looking dead ahead at me, alongside Dale and the…ugh, wildly racist Ming the Merciless.

Hmm. Maybe the machine did deserve this.

Chris squats down next to me.

“Want me to grab the broom?” he asks, picking at a broken bumper.

I look back to my hand. The line in my palm is ugly but clean. I flex my hand a little, and the cut widens, and I see just how far up and down my hand it goes. I wonder if I’ll need stitches or if it’ll scar.

“Sure.” I clear my throat and both of us stand up.

I glance toward the arcade’s exit, the place now empty, as Chris walks over to the snack bar. “Must be nice,” I say, “being able to drop that much money without thinking about it.”

“Yeah, well, not like his dad isn’t good for it.”

“His dad?” I ask, peering over. Chris is behind the bar, some paper towels already scattered out in front of him, a broom in one hand. Heat lamps keeping fries and onion rings warm tint his face a reddish orange for a moment before he ducks back out.

“Well, yeah?” He shrugs, walking over. He places the paper towels in my hands and nods at the cut. “Apply pressure.” He starts sweeping, moving bits of glass and broken parts into a small pile. “I swear, one more incident like this, and that is what’s gonna make me finally try to get a job at the makerspace. Or a coffee shop…” He looks up at me as I stare at him. “What? You know I can’t work in here forever, bro.”

“What do you mean what? I know that part.” I laugh. “Who is his dad? You’re just gonna leave the story hanging there?”

He nearly drops the broom but reaches out to grab the handle.

“Are you serious?” he scoffs. I shrug and he shakes his head. “Adam, that was Nick. That’s why I thought you were so mad, looking like you were about to charge after him and his goons.” I shrug again. “Jesus, Adam. Nick Mitchell.”

The stress on that last name.

Mitchell.

It sends a shock through my entire system, and I turn to look at the exit, as though he and his friends might still be there. I tighten my hand into a fist, and the pain from the cut sears through my palm, lighting me up through my forearm. And I swear, for a moment I can feel it in my head, bouncing around like a pinball against bumpers.

Nick Mitchell.

Whitney Mitchell’s brother.

And also the oldest son of the man trying to buy my father’s arcade from my mother, with plans to make it into another one of his eSports cafés. He’s been poking around all year, like a vulture circling over something that might just die any minute. But this place still has a little life in it. A little fight in it.

And dammit, so do I. Excerpted from You Can Go Your Own Way by Eric Smith, © 2021 by Eric Smith, used with permission from Inkyard Press/HarperCollins.

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

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NEWS

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY

Who Are We Leaving Behind as The Mandates Lift?

Four thousand, eight hundred and eighty one Philadelphians are dead because of COVID-19. The City’s Health Department says that along with those 4,881 neighbors, coworkers, friends, loved ones, and colleagues, laboratories, physicians, and rapid test kits diagnosed about 305,734 cases of COVID overall here in Philadelphia.

Nationwide, we are poised to hit one million dead within the next few weeks. “The sheer scale of the tragedy strains the moral imagination,” writes The Atlantic’s Ed Yong. Covering the terrible coronavirus from the start, Yong’s fidelity to the story, the constant recitation of the death tallies and reporting on the virus, likely makes the weight of that one million feel particularly staggering.

“On May 24, 2022, as the United States passed 100,000 recorded deaths, The New York Times filled its front page with the names of the dead, describing their loss as ‘incalculable,’” Yong adds. “Now the nation hurtles toward a milestone of 1 million. What is 10 times incalculable?”

Yong’s observation is one that we all mostly know to be true.

There is a deep level of contradiction, nonsense, and hypocrisy in the way we as a society approached this virus, especially right now. At one point in COVID history, 2,000 deaths per day in the United States was cause for great consternation and grief.

This past Christmas, the CDC was greenlighting holiday get togethers as the death counts rose to levels not seen since the worst days of the entire pandemic..

In some places across the nation, we shuttered schools as unsafe but kept bars open.

The juxtaposition of hypocrisy and conviction, of claiming one thing is a crisis when something seemingly worse isn’t, of frenetic and ever changing rules and apparently values at the very top of government, has had a terrible effect on our nation’s response to the virus. The total number of Americans dead is currently somewhere around 980,000, a figure which places us number one in COVID deaths worldwide.

Throughout the entire pandemic, the U.S. has consistently had one of the worst per capita death rates, too, amongst the richest nations.

How can you explain lifting mask mandates while the virus still rages today, new outbreaks are happening across our oceans right now just as they have started multiple times in the past including most recently with the Omicron variant, and people in general seem to still not be doing so well? We said viruses don’t recognize political boundaries, but did we mean it? Isn’t what’s going on elsewhere important to our health and vice versa?

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

Plus, I’m still not OK. Are you? Is anybody? What about more vulnerable communities?

raging on, I mean it’s not gone away. We’re acting as though it’s just gone away.”

The Health Department says that 18,621 Philadelphians live with diagnosed HIV. COVID seems to have blunted HIV diagnoses lately with new infections in 2020-21, but this corresponds with a reduction in testing since the start of the pandemic. It could be that they’re just not reaching everyone who is HIV+ with testing, in part. Or, infections could genuinely be going down. It will take time to figure that out.

The City’s Health Department is quick to say that the concern over HIV+ Philadelphians who are not virally suppressed, while genuine, is not necessarily supported by data or the practical realities of running society.

BY JOSH KRUGER

Over 18,000 people equates to little over 1 percent of the city’s overall population.

Here in Philadelphia, about half of this population, people living with diagnosed HIV, are virally suppressed or what’s called undetectable. Upon reaching this point, the HIV+ person cannot transmit HIV to sex partners and the long term outlook for them is much closer to typical than not. If a person is not virally suppressed or undetectable, this means they aren’t adhering to or responding to modern treatments, in some cases due to lack of access or other structural hurdles.

It isn’t a question that masking and other social distancing measures on transit and in public spaces kept this population of people, and populations like it, in Philadelphia safe.

The question is more whether or not we as a society feel their lives and the lives of others with similar immunocompromised and other conditions are worth the public’s general inconvenience of masking up and taking modest precautions.

Accessibility advocate and self-described disabled actress Shannon DeVido looks at the situation as one laying bare the ableism inherent in society..

“The mask mandates being repealed feels like another example in a long line of examples how society treats people with disabilities as disposable,” she tells PW. “The pandemic exposed that all along. Even when you look back in the beginning of the pandemic, everyone was saying, ‘Oh, it’s fine, it’s just people who are sick or elderly who are very high risk.’”

She adds that even if only the most vulnerable in society are at risk of serious complications or death, it says something if people just sort of shrug since it doesn’t directly affect them.

“It’s as if their lives are disposable,” she explains.

Is she wrong?

“To be clear, I am not saying that the entire world is just giving people the middle finger and saying good luck. Many people do care and are trying to keep people safe. It just feels like when you remove mask mandates while the pandemic is still

“During flu season, there is always a risk of being exposed to flu,” says Health Department spokesperson Jim Garrow.

“Masks can help cut someone’s risk of respiratory virus exposure, but they cannot eliminate it,” he adds when asked about public masking. “Since the restaurant vaccine mandate and mask mandates have ended in Philadelphia, flu cases have been nearly zero. Due to that, we think the risk to Philadelphians, including those living with HIV or people ho are not virally suppressed, is extremely low.”

It’s worth noting the mandates just lifted recently as flu season continues to wane, and many people are still unaware that even happened let alone comfortable with diving right back into “normal.” At its core, though, remains the question about whether we’re comfortable making decisions that bring back danger to people’s lives – especially if those dangers are seemingly unnecessarily courted by relaxing rules.

Typically, every year in America, the CDC says somewhere around 20,000-50,000 people die of flu. Those who succumb to flu are the same populations kept safe by social distancing measures for COVID. Flu deaths went almost entirely away for two years straight. Are we really eager to see them come back as a side effect of “being normal again?” What does normal even mean now?

“Every public health response to a disease, including flu and COVID, is a balancing act. The way to ensure that people are completely safe from COVID or flu is to institute a stay at home order,” explains Health Department spokesman Jim Garrow. The order he’s describing is colloquially known as the “lockdown.”

“I think that everyone agrees that should not be the go-to response to flu season. The next safest level would be something similar to our Safer at Home response, where there were mask requirements and proscribed social distancing.”

It’s at this level we’ve been for most of the past several years.

“Even when we did that, we saw businesses and the workers at those businesses suffering.”

How, exactly, asking people to wear masks negatively affects the actual operations or bottom line of a business isn’t immediately apparent.

Speaking with one local restaurateur with a location in

NEWS

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY South Philadelphia, the burden appeared more political than anything else. In order to speak candidly about masks at all, this owner requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from anti-vaccine or anti-mask groups. That itself is a statement.It was also a common refrain: supporting science, embracing the mandates, refusing to ever say anything publicly about vaccines or masks for fear of the angry online mob.

“People who feel comfortable based on their own individual circumstances have been choosing to dine in for months now,” this business owner tells PW. “I don’t see this latest lift really changing anything for restaurants.”

For Mullins and his colleagues, it was a no-brainer. “We try to build goodwill into everything we do. Some of our longer serving employees have been here decades. In one case for 45 years. We don’t do the churn and burn thing some hospitality businesses do. When you look at how many employees we had before COVID and how many we retained, it’s extremely high and looks even better when you learn about what’s going on elsewhere. While it took awhile to get everyone back based upon their level of comfort, our goal was always to get people back.”

Then, why even change it at all?

Mullins goes on to say that his, like other businesses, went to great lengths to take of workers during the so-called lockdown. Safety was a priority coming back, too. But it was also personal.

“I have supported mask mandates throughout the pandemic and worn them faithfully, but I think we are at a new phase.

I think the restaurant industry has been in a different context all along due to the nature of having to remove your mask to eat. The biggest factor here was the individual’s level of comfort and whether or not they even wanted to dine out inside.”

“I just couldn’t do it,” he says, reflecting on the minimum required social distancing requirements. “We lost an employee who worked here for 25 years to the virus,” Mullins pauses. “We sponsored him as a citizen to this country. He was like family. He got COVID and died. This was a very strong, healthy man who died of COVID. People can say whatever they want, but for us it’s real.”

Still, part of the reason this owner was reluctant to be identified was past run-ins with anti-mask people leaving negative reviews because the restaurant followed the rules and, frankly, the science.

So McGillan’s required vaccines to enter from the jump, well ahead of the City’s mandate. Nothing’s changed yet, either.

Regardless of what’s going on with the mandates, William Way LGBT Community Center leader Chris Bartlett tells PW that masks are still going to be required when visiting the 13th and Spruce hub of the local LGBTQ community.

“We’re glad that the COVID pandemic trend seems to be moving in a positive direction in our region. This is a relief for all,” Bartlett says in a statement to PW. “Given that we serve a very diverse group of community stakeholders including seniors and those living with HIV and others who are potentially at greater risk for COVID complications, we feel we’re held to a higher standard than the City has currently set [so] we are keeping our mask mandate for the time being. We look forward to your visit,” Bartlett concludes, “and please bring a mask.”

It’s confusing to say the least to deal with 50 states with 50 different health agencies and governors and laws, each with their local counterparts. It’s compounded by the fact that, in the case of mask or vaccine mandates, even private businesses have in many cases enacted stricter requirements than the City.

“We’ve been here for 162 years, so we always take the long view,” Christopher Mullins, Jr., tells PW. He’s the owner and manager of McGillan’s on Drury Street. He’s also been in the hospitality industry his entire life, the last 15 at McGillan’s.

For years known as a place that provides a welcome atmosphere for visitors to Philly – during the 2016 Democratic National Convention, MSNBC basically embedded the network there – McGillan’s is also known on the street as one of the more worker friendly businesses in the city.

It’s also a business that has had stricter requirements in place than the City mandated, requiring proof of vaccination status since last summer.

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“We want to do right by our customers and staff. We’re doing this to safely operate. We take the long view,” Mullins adds, “I don’t want a reputation as one of those places that’s unregulated, that’s an illegal business, that doesn’t care about workers. I want to walk out of this thing being able to say that we did the right thing for our employees and our customers.”

He did add, however, that it’s the communication and implementation of any requirement that’s key. At McGillan’s discussions about the vaccine requirements happen outside the bar when checking IDs. “Have the fight over the vaccine cards outside rather than the mask fight inside,” Mullins explains. “It’s way easier to fight them at the door than to worry about it being an issue inside.”

It’s not even an unpopular thing, the mandates.

“We get it all the time. People are so happy that they felt extra safe. People give us accolades for doing the vaccine requirement early. I personally have nothing to regret and neither do our staff or managers. We survived the pandemic before this one. We survived Prohibition. We’ve survived both world wars. We’ve survived here,” he stops and thinks about what he’s about to say, “and it was because we tried to do the right thing.”

Shannon agrees about the messaging.

Is the solution a perpetual lockdown? Is that the option?

“Can we live our lives the way that we have the past two years? No, absolutely not. I think that having people quarantining for however long this is going to continue isn’t feasible. And I totally understand that. But there needs to be clear, unified messaging and unfortunately with our current political climate, I’m afraid people with disabilties like myself are going to feel left behind.”

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

12 SEX WITH TIMAREE

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY

GOP Uses Queer Kids As Pawns The party for “small government” and “personal freedom” is at it again. And by “at it,” I mean using the power of the government to wildly overreach into citizens’ personal matters.

In an effort to win political points, Republican Texas governor Greg Abbott is using trans kids and their families as pawns. Last week he sent a directive to state agencies saying that giving trans kids gender-affirming health care constitutes child abuse and that anyone who facilitates this care should be investigated. He even threatened criminal punishment for teachers, doctors, and the general public who fail to report said “abuse.”

It’s a dumb stunt. It doesn’t fundamentally change the law about child abuse and is founded on absolutely no facts or expert opinion.

His baseless assertion is directly opposed by everything child healthcare and mental health professionals say about care for trans kids.

His directive ignores years of research that gender-affirming treatments like puberty suppression and hormone treatment are not harmful, but instead can be lifesaving. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry, American Medical Association, American Association of Physicians for Human Rights, Pediatric Endocrine Society, and a slew of other professional groups have come out to affirm that the current practices of care for trans kids are incredibly necessary and effective.

From the pearl-clutching of the GOP, one would assume doctors are performing irreversible genital surgery on children. Well, they

DR. TIMAREE

are. But we’ll talk about circumcision and unnecessary operations on intersex kids another day.

In reality, there are standards of care for trans kids that require extensive therapy for children and their families, and medical treatments are mostly focused on suppressing and postponing their endogenous puberty. That is: not making them go through the unwanted breast development, body hair growth and other physical changes that would happen otherwise. Puberty is scary and hard enough if your bodily changes are affirming your gender; they’re incredibly daunting for someone who experiences gender dysphoria.

Access to these kinds of treatments has a huge impact on the mental health of trans kids. A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health shows that being able to get gender-affirming care is associated with lower rates of depression and fewer suicidal thoughts and attempts. Being needlessly investigated by Child Protective Services and potentially removed from a loving family and put in foster care, though? Not generally great for a child.

So why is Abbott ignoring mounds of evidence and the overwhelming consensus of professionals, while threatening to break up families and punish innocent people?

Abbott is running for a third term as governor and while he’s firmly in the lead, the primary is apparently a little too close for his comfort.

His Republican primary opponents have been vying for the Lone Star State’s swelling sociopathic vote by saying he’s not adequately conservative. This is a man who has decades of far-right bona fides, sued the Obama administration 44 times, has made sweeping, unprecedented challenges to voting and abortion rights and still has the approval of former President Trump.

But going after LBGTQ kids is an easy way to score political points for Republicans across the country right now. Abbot’s hateful stunt is just one of many recent ones.

Instead of funding girls’ sports and making sure the coaching teams are free from predators, they’re banning trans girls from playing sports. Instead of providing consent education that combats rape culture or funding school building infrastructure, they’re pushing for schools to keep trans kids from being able to safely use the bathroom.

Instead of making sure every child gets access to quality healthcare, they’re threatening medical professionals with licensure loss for treating trans kids. They’re refusing to let teachers talk about the existence of LGBTQ people and forcing schools to out queer kids to their parents.

The impact on LGBTQ kids and their families is immeasurable.

While it remains to be seen if state agencies are going to do anything differently as a result of the directive, many parents are rightfully nervous.

Amanda Briggle, an activist and the parent of a trans child, recently published a thread on Twitter about preparing for the worst.

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@TIMAREE_LEIGH

Where ALL GUYS come together Visit www.squirt.org today to join the action

She recommends creating a “safe folder” that includes letters from the child’s pediatrician, counselors and other healthcare providers affirming their gender, as well as drawings made by the child that demonstrate consistent gender identity, videos and photos of the child displaying their gender, and any other documents like birth certificates, passports, and even report cards and awards.

Briggle concludes by saying that she hopes no one needs to use the cache of information, “But if someone calls CPS on you for doing nothing more than loving your transgender child and supporting them in the ways that they need, then you have evidence to back you up that YOU ARE A GOOD PARENT.” Regardless of political affiliation, hopefully voters will see these empty, hateful antics for they are: cheap ways to score points without addressing the actual problems facing families.

SEX WITH TIMAREE

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The EARN IT Act

The bill you’ve never heard of that’s going to destroy the internet We can all agree that child sexual abuse is bad, right? Action that makes it easier to catch predators is usually assumed to be a good thing.

Supposedly, protecting kids is the aim of the EARN IT Act, which is why it has such huge support among politicians of both parties.

They want the easy win of a headline that says they are fighting predators. In reality, the bill is based on a misunderstanding of both technology and communications law and will do anything but what it claims.

What is the EARN IT Act?

censoring lots of content, and that people in adult industries are facing far more danger.

But EARN IT is even more dangerous than FOSTA-SESTA. The bill would undermine privacy by discouraging companies from using end-to-end encryption, so they wouldn’t risk being held liable for CSAM. It also potentially gives the government more backdoor access to all your private communications and makes users more vulnerable to other kinds of “cyber threats,” according to online privacy activists.

And that’s only one reason to be alarmed. If we do want to combat the issue of CSAM, this bill poses a threat of making it much worse.

EARN IT was first introduced in the Senate in 2020 but was beaten back. A variety of privacy experts, LGBTQ activists, technology companies, sexual health educators, Why EARN IT will endanger kids sex workers and free speech advocates joined forces to EARN IT is based on a misunderstanding of how point out the bill doesn’t actually help kids … but it does Section 230 works. Right now, tech companies have a hurt everyone on the internet. variety of moderation options to deal with illicit content Despite that, the bill is back and moving forward with posted by users. They can try different approaches to full force. On February 10 the EARN IT Act was revived see what is effective without fear of being held liable and passed through the Judiciary Committee. Its next for things that slip through the cracks of an algorithm. move will be the Senate floor, where its opponents say it Removing their liability protection will make it less poses the threat of eradicating online privacy, censoring likely that companies “seek out, take down and report sexuality information, and — ironically — making it CSAM,” according to opponents. harder to stop people who prey on children.

Smaller online platforms — especially the ones Experts say the EARN IT Act will not achieve its hosting marginalized communities like LGBTQ activists, purported goal of combatting child sexual abuse DR. TIMAREE sexual health educators, sex workers, etc. — might be materials (CSAM) online. Posting those images is sued out of existence by anyone who wants to see them already illegal and tech companies are already required @TIMAREE_LEIGH shut them down. turn them over to the authorities when they find them.

Further, the bill presents a huge constitutional issue, They do so frequently, and inexplicably many of the since it ignores Fourth Amendment protections from leads are never pursued by police. search and seizure. That could mean that distributors of CSAM This bill was originally schemed up during the Trump could make a legitimate challenge to their arrests and convictions, administration as part of his efforts to curtail criticism of him throwing out the only real evidence that could be used against online and force websites to give a platform to misinformation. them. In this way, EARN IT makes it harder to put away predators.

Trump wanted to change the Communications Decency Act, specifically Section 230 — which allows websites to moderate content and avoid legal liability for what users post.

What can be done to stop EARN IT? This bill would make platforms liable for whatever is posted on While there is a lot of support for the act on both sides of the their site, which gives them a big motivation to censor anything aisle, it can still be stopped before it’s law. There are online that remotely smells of sexuality, even if it’s not CSAM. We petitions to raise awareness. Activists and security experts are know that sites routinely err on the side of abridging free speech, banding together to voice their opposition. Tech companies can especially if it relates to sexuality or LGBTQ issues. make a big difference, as they were instrumental in blocking the bill when it was first introduced. And, as always, we can directly Lessons from FOSTA-SESTA contact our representatives to express our concerns before it’s too We’ve already experienced this chilling effect from FOSTA- late.

SESTA, a bill passed in 2018 that claimed to combat human trafficking, but only ended up censoring adults and making life more dangerous for sex workers.

Though FOSTA-SESTA was created with the stated goal of protecting trafficking victims, there is no evidence that’s happened.

However, we have several years of proof that it has actually made it harder to find trafficked people, that websites are now heavily

SCHMIT

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

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OPINION

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As The CDC Removes Mandates, We Must All Fight The Idea Of “Acceptable Losses”

BY AUBRIE WILLIAMS

A

s the CDC removes the mask mandate, it’s almost like everyone is returning to their normal programming. Those who can afford to return to it shout, “The pandemic is OVER!,” mask-less and two inches away from you, even though you politely ask them not to. In spite of the shouts, the global pandemic still goes on. The daily trend in the numbers of COVID-19 deaths in the United States was 1,566 new deaths on March 4th, 2022 (Covid Data Tracker). The chart spiked to the second-highest number of deaths in one day in the entire pandemic on February 2, 2022. Sure, people would love to get back to “normal,” but as the CDC pulls the mandate, it feels like many versions of “normal” have a lot of privilege attached.

lockdown, many non-disabled people are experiencing, for the first time, how it feels to have external barriers preventing you from participating in everyday life” (Why coronavirus may make the world more accessible, BBC).

People who had been asking for years to work from home were finally given the option, but only because everyone now needed it. “Many of the solutions we’ve needed for this pandemic are the same solutions, like remote working, that disabled people have been requesting for years” (Why coronavirus may make the world more accessible, BBC).

Anger, fear, and frustration are being expressed in vulnerable communities as they are once again unfairly discounted. Elliot Kukla, a Rabbi, states that “Taken together, the stark message to chronically sick, disabled people and elders is that we are ‘acceptable losses’” (My Life Is More Disposable In This Pandemic, New York Times).

Matthew Cortland, JD (@mattbc), a lawyer who is chronically ill and disabled (they/them) tweets, “When public health officials refuse to take questions from chronic illness, disability, and ageing organizations, that’s a sign they know they’ve f *cked us over- and they just don’t care.” Not to mention the fact that “up to 59% of the U.S. population is comprised of people who are typically not included in clinical trials -- children, the elderly, and people with intellectual or physical disabilities” (Already Vaccinated? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Stop Wearing Your Face Mask Yet, Cleveland Clinic). Unlike those who were included, these communities don’t have the data to reassure them how they will react to the vaccine.

When actions as small and temporary as social distancing and wearing a mask are no longer required by law, how many people will have to die for all of us to collectively put others before ourselves? 6 million and counting Covid deaths (CDC.gov) feels like too many, yet people still express that a mask infringes upon their “freedom.”

This “freedom,” the mere act of being able to state that “if it doesn’t affect me, I don’t have to care about it,” is a privilege. The CDC’s list of high-risk individuals includes those who are smokers, pregnant, have mental health conditions, are obese, have heart conditions, have cancer, and are physically inactive, among many others. That is a lot of people who are currently less important than the simple, temporary, and effective safety measures of masks and social distancing.

The cracks were always there, but they are being exacerbated by a global pandemic. “With millions under

MARCH 10-17, 2022 | PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

ple that you can be trapped at home, by no fault of your own, and you can still contribute,” says Mike Scarlet, an expert in the field of access and inclusion for disabled people. “In the same way that we’re trying to plan our end of lockdown, can we also plan for the end of society being inaccessible?” (Why coronavirus may make the world more accessible, BBC) When the mandates were in place, it felt like there was a collective “we” that, for the first time in American history, included everyone. In many small and simple ways, this pandemic showed us that helping each other was possible. The stark reality is that it was only possible because we were forced to. Flu deaths were down from 22,000 in 2019-20 to 700 in 2020-21. From 2021-22, they were completely eliminated (Flu Has Disappeared for More Than a Year, Katie Peek). Wearing a mask can be less than ideal, but so many people are still here because we eliminated the flu. Look how much can be accomplished when there is no other option- GO TEAM! According to their website, “the CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S.” Although it says “America,” it feels like they meant “the healthy parts of America” based on their decision. Ironically, the CDC also has an infographic on their website that says “Disability Impacts ALL of US.” If this is true, why didn’t it change their decision? If “public health is for all of us”, why were the 61 million adults that live with a disability (CDC.gov), the 1.2 million people living with HIV (KFF.org), and the many others who are high-risk not prioritized over those who are more likely to survive?

The programming that we’re returning to in America was always more suited to some than others. There have always been stigmas around certain groups that deem them more disposable, with or without a pandemic. This isn’t new. “The more protections that we remove, the less accessible the rest of the world becomes to people who are high-risk,” [Sara] Willette, who has Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorder (CVID), said in CNN’s article “As the US looks to move on from COVID-19, highrisk and disabled Americans feel forgotten.”

No one questioned it or forced anyone to disclose an invisible disability against their will. Even though we were told it was impossible, we saw it happen. During the pandemic, art became more accessible. You could audition remotely, produce showcases and shows on Zoom, and stream theater and new movies without leaving your house. It felt like concrete proof that a new normal was possible, a normal that many people fought to see for a very long time. “Hopefully this pandemic has shown peo-

The pandemic showed us these things were a reality, which was monumental. Everyone could see that these options were because they couldn’t be withheld. When we are shown this, we can choose to listen to it and learn from it. I attended an Americans with Disabilities Act at 31 webinar over the summer and one quote that was extremely powerful was “Disability stems from the barriers that society puts on people to prevent them from living their chosen life. We must continue to remove these barriers.”

DOING GOOD

PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM @PHILLYWEEKLY

Doing Good: Why Not Prosper?

19

BY JR BLACKWELL

A Nonprofit Spotlight

W

elcome to Doing Good, Philadelphia Weekly’s nonprofit spotlight. Every week we’re introducing you to an organization that’s doing good in our community. Every nonprofit gets the same five questions, and every week you get to meet the people who are making our city better. The nonprofit spotlight is here to lift your spirit, shine a light on the helpers, and, who knows, maybe you’ll be inspired to get involved, volunteer, or donate to an organization you meet here.

learning to trust God. She has gone from being drug addicted, insecure, lost and unambitious to being educated, employed and self-confident. And this within a span of a few years. She is now absolutely sure of her path forward and has become a role model for others. She has learned to listen to her mentors, instructors and pastors. While at Why Not Prosper, Faith has earned her Associate of

This week we’re introducing you to Why Not Prosper, an organization that helps formerly incarcerated women.

What is your mission?

Our mission is to help women from prison systems discover their own strength by providing them with the support and resources that will empower them to become responsible, economically self-sufficient and contributing members of the community.

How have you made a difference?

Over the past 20 years, Why Not Prosper has helped thousands of women through its residential program, hotline and resource center. Their programs have helped formerly incarcerated women: -Find employment -Increase job skills -Retain employment -Secure safe, decent and affordable housing -Abstain from alcohol and illegal drugs -Re-unite with their children -Not return to prison Across our four properties, we offer a residential program for 25 formerly incarcerated women in Philadelphia and nearly 45 in Harrisburg, PA, who need a place to land after living months, years, or sometimes decades behind bars.

“I’ve seen thousands of women’s lives change,” Rev. Dr. Michelle Simmons, Why Not Prosper’s Founder and CEO says. “I’ve seen the women whose lives change reach back and grab another woman’s hand and bring them to the program and say, ‘This is where you need to be. This is where you’re going to get your help from.’”

Women in Why Not Prosper’s residential program find a supportive community where they receive trauma-informed therapy, attend 12-step recovery meetings, and help each other navigate the maze of obstacles that perplex and frustrate many of the 600,000 people released from prisons each year.

Can you tell us a story about the work you do?

A perfect example of the impact our work has on the women we serve is the story of Faith Bartley. Faith was skeptical at first when she entered our program in 2017 but she put all of her hope into moving forward and

Arts Degree from Harcum College and her Bachelor’s Degree from Chestnut Hill College. She is proud to be the first person in her family to graduate from college. She is an inspiration to so many because of her dedication, and at times, single-mindedness in attaining her degree.

While at Why Not Prosper, Faith has had the opportunity to let her imagination soar and dream big dreams for herself. Because of her work ethic and finding out that she has many talents, she has enjoyed the trust placed in her by The Village of Arts and Humanities, where she is not only employed but has taken on a leadership role as a co-founder of the S.W.A.G. (Sisters With A Goal) program. She was also recently featured on a City of Philadelphia “Point of Triangulation” Mural along with Rev. Michelle. She is now a role model and respected member of the staff and community. Faith has been a real asset to the Why Not Prosper program and we are proud of her dedication and hard work in becoming the beautiful person that she was always meant to be.

program was born from my personal experiences.”

We also want people to know that our program is about more than just having a bed to sleep in. It’s about having a community of support and encouragement. Without places like Why Not Prosper, women have no way of plugging into the resources that they really need and that are valuable to their survival. Women get help in finding and keeping a job, increasing their education levels, remaining free of alcohol and drugs, reuniting with their children and not returning to prison. It takes a village to make all this happen.

But, most importantly, we want people to know that if you have the will to succeed, we’ll help you find the way. Our community really cares about you as a person.

Everyone needs to understand that we are not our mistakes. We are not our experiences. We are somebody. Together, we will help make a woman’s reentry journey successful no matter what it takes.

How can people get involved?

There are various ways in which people can make a direct, positive impact on our community. We are dedicated to working together to offer women in distress a hand up, not a handout! It is definitely a joint effort to sustain our programs and continue our work. Volunteers are needed as mentors for our women, on committees for marketing and fundraising, as advocates and speakers, for social media engagement and as project leaders for our online store, health awareness campaign and even our food distribution efforts. If you have time, talent or treasure to share, there is a place for you at Why Not Prosper. Volunteers can get involved at www.why-not-prosper.org.

What do you wish people knew about you?

We want women to know that there is a place for them, that we care about them, especially if they have been incarcerated. We know what women want to do when they return from prison. We know because we’ve been through what they’ve been through. “I know firsthand what it’s like to go through the wringer and get home from prison and not know where you’re going to go, not know where you’re going to sleep, not know where you’re going to eat,” says Rev. Michelle. “The cornerstone of our

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY | MARCH 10-17, 2022

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