Bones of Black children killed in police bombing used in Ivy League anthropology course

[friendly_iconoclast]

Source: The Guardian

The bones of Black children who died in 1985 after their home was bombed by Philadelphia police in a confrontation with the Black liberation group which was raising them are being used as a “case study” in an online forensic anthropology course presented by an Ivy League professor.

It has emerged that the physical remains of one, or possibly two, of the children who were killed in the aerial bombing of the Move organization in May 1985 have been guarded over the past 36 years in the anthropological collections of the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.

The institutions have held on to the heavily burned fragments, and since 2019 have been deploying them for teaching purposes without the permission of the deceased’s living parents.

To the astonishment and dismay of present-day Move members, some of the bones are being deployed as artifacts in an online course presented in the name of Princeton and hosted by the online study platform Coursera. Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology focuses on “lost personhood” – cases where an individual cannot be identified due to the decomposed condition of their remains.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/22/move-bombing-black-children-bones-philadelphia-princeton-pennsylvania

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I'll say what I said when I first read this:

This is beyond horrible, and needs to stop NOW

[hlthe2b]

1. Horrible, but if you don't know the true story of this bombing and ITS terror, please read:

This full Guardian article is worth every sentence. I vaguely remember, but had no idea that then Philadelphia mayor, a black man, Mayor Goode approved the bombing (who still says he'd do it again--shocking):

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/10/move-1985-bombing-reconciliation-philadelphia

[hlthe2b]

4. I'm still sickened that a Black Mayor ordered it.. and though he's sort of apologized (unofficially)

he seems totally unremorseful.

[friendly_iconoclast]

7. IMO, any show of remorse on Goode's part is performative at best

The Philly cops were ready, willing, and able to go Full Curtis LeMay-but Wilson Goode had to sign off on it.

And he did...

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[bucolic_frolic]

5. As amazing as it sounds, they saw nothing wrong with this

At the Ivy League, the World is Your Oyster!

[iluvtennis]

6. The bombing that the Mayor and District Attorney levied was atrocious. No need for

the level of violence imposed. A sad day for Philadelphia and America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE

MOVE, originally the Christian Movement for Life, is a militant black separatist group that advocated for nature laws and natural living founded in 1972 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, by John Africa (born Vincent Leaphart). The name, styled in all capital letters, is not an acronym. MOVE lived in a communal setting in West Philadelphia, abiding by philosophies of anarcho-primitivism.[1] The group combined revolutionary ideology, similar to that of the Black Panthers, with work for animal rights.

MOVE is particularly known for two major conflicts with the Philadelphia Police Department (PPD). In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and received life sentences. In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped two bombs onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse located at 6221 Osage Avenue.[2][3] The resulting fire killed six MOVE members, and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood.[4]

The police bombing was strongly condemned. The MOVE survivors later filed a civil suit against the City of Philadelphia and the PPD and were awarded $1.5 million in a 1996 settlement.[5] Other residents displaced by the destruction of the bombing filed a civil suit against the city and in 2005 were awarded $12.83 million in damages in a jury trial.

...continued at link

[iluvtennis]

10. First I'd heard of it was with this post today. What a tragedy. n/t

[Jedi Guy]

9. Seems like this would be illegal without the next of kin's permission.

What these universities are doing isn't a whole lot different than grave-robbing, I'd say. But after all, won't someone please think of the Ivy League anthropology students?

[maxsolomon]

11. I'm going to go out on a limb here:

I don't think they'll be using the remains in an online course again.

[mahina]

12. Nightmare

It was a disgrace then, what was done to those people, and this is a disgrace now. That professor should be ashamed, and find a solution.

[Kid Berwyn]

13. Authorities

May each of their CVs list “Desecration of a Corpse,” along with “Grave Robbing.”

[moriah]

14. For what it's worth, Coursera has removed access to the course now.

I don't know if Princeton is still using it in their own online classes, but hopefully not.

I also would think the only ethical thing that could be done now, given that modern DNA analysis has led to the identification of so many 80s-era homicide victims and both of the girls who fit the description of the remains have at least one living parent, that any university should offer to conduct the tests on the remains if the families wish it -- and if they don't, return them to be buried with a marker for both of those two children.

[marble falls]

15. How do some people with children of their own sleep at night being responsible for this?