To say that Philadelphia City Council is a disappointment on the issues of racial injustice and police and prosecutorial misconduct would be an understatement.
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The selective outrage employed by the women of Philadelphia City Council who this month came out against the District Attorney for not firing individuals who in 2009 and 2010—before working for the city—purveyed pornographic emails among colleagues that are said to denigrate women, minorities and those in the LGBTQ community, is quite nauseating to me, considering a year ago today, with no assistance whatsoever from the lawmakers who now portray themselves as a guardian of the vulnerable, a black teenage boy and his single mother emerged victorious in a more than year-long battle against the Office of the Philadelphia District Attorney, officially closing a horrid case of police and prosecutorial misconduct.
Philadelphia City Councilwoman Ms. Jannie Blackwell, who today “feels very sad for the women and the children,”—the primary victims of the tasteless jokes and hate speech contained in the emails—and who now feels compelled to stand up against malfeasance, never once publicly expressed empathy with Mr. Tomayo McDuffy, now age 20, who was falsely accused of attempted murder by his then next-door neighbor, or stood with his mother, Ms. Nesheba Adams, who, with a few family members and several brave black men, marched in the pouring rain to demand her son be freed from prison, where he spent his 18th birthday, despite their being no evidence—literally, none—linking him to a plot to fill a row-home adjacent to his with gas from an unlit stove pilot.
City Councilwoman Mrs. Cindy Bass, the instigator of the current condemnation against Mr. Seth Williams, the City’s first black District Attorney, is concerned that those who enjoyed the emails while working for the state and who now sit in judgment of Philadelphia residents, will find it difficult to be fair, considering the racist and sexist nature of the web content shared.
Mrs. Bass, however, indicated no concern of fairness in 2013 when Mr. McDuffy, who had no criminal record, was originally held on bail of 500K, which was eventually reduced to $100, 000 due to activism.
On November 20th, 2014, when Mr. McDuffy walked out of the Juanita Kidd-Stout Criminal Justice Center with charges against him dropped, there was no signed resolution—like the one autographed yesterday by nine members of Philadelphia City Council urging Mr. Williams to terminate the three prosecutors who were involved in ‘Porngate’—demanding consequences for the Assistant District Attorneys who, without even having Mr. McDuffy’s fingerprints found at his neighbor’s home, aggressively pursued prosecution, and in the process, wasted taxpayers’ dollars.
The only thing my stomach can tolerate from Philadelphia City Council members is truth, and that, albeit minimal, was expressed by outgoing politico Ms. Marian Tasco, who classified Mr. Williams as “politically vulnerable” and acknowledged that “there’s a growing dislike” of the DA in minority communities.
In addition to a bulk of notable names inside City Hall turning on him due to the porn scandal, Mr. Williams lost a sizable among of support in the black community over his handling of the investigation into the officer-involved shooting death of Mr. Brandon Tate-Brown, a black man in his mid-20s who was said to have been reaching in his car for a gun when shot, though he was actually unarmed and running away from police seconds before meeting his end on December 15th, 2014.
“Where is the fairness?,” said Ms. Tasco, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, again referencing ‘Porngate,’ not the treatment of young black men by the criminal justice system.
In fact, Philadelphia City Council was equally silent on the case of Mr. Tate-Brown as they were on Mr. McDuffy’s. To date, as we approach the year’s anniversary of the fatal shooting, and as today marks the year anniversary of Mr. McDuffy’s triumph over evil, no one from the 17 year member body has uttered in public the words “Black Lives Matter,” let alone the names of the two aforementioned Philadelphians.
To say that Philadelphia City Council is a disappointment on the issues of racial injustice and police and prosecutorial misconduct would be an understatement. And to say that they, as a collective body, despite what I’m sure are good intentions, project guardianship of the vulnerable, would be a lie.
‘The Modern Day Civil Rights Movement,’ a free 6:30pm panel discussion at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia preceding Grammy Award-winner Mr. Christian McBride’s Nov. 21st 8pm concert at the Merriam Theater, will be moderated by Christopher “Flood the Drummer” Norris.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™