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Misunderstandings abound in Cecilian Village project

  By NW Philly, Published Op-Eds, West Mt. Airy Neighbors

Chestnut Hill Local, January 18, 2003 The dispute over the Sisters of St. Joseph’s (SSJ) proposal to place 49 units of low-income senior housing in the historic Pelham district of Mt. Airy has, as it should, generated a great deal of debate in this papers’ letters columns as well as in many private discussions. But along with reasoned argument and debate have come some serious mistakes and misimpressions about what is at issue in this dispute. I would like to correct one of them here. The most serious—and indeed appalling—charge that has been made in this debate is that WMAN is acting to protect the interests of well-off and mostly white homeowners who fear that the proposed project will bring low-income and mostly black senior citizens into their midst. This claim has been a sub-text in some letters to the editor that have recently published. And we have heard reports… Continue reading

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A new supermarket for Mt. Airy

  By Economic Development, NW Philly, Philadelphia, Published Op-Eds, West Mt. Airy Neighbors

Mt. Airy Times-Express, May 9, 2001  A New Supermarket for Mt. Airy Position Paper on the Proposal for a New Acme Supermarket In Our Community  West Mt. Airy Neighbors (WMAN),  Mt. Airy USA, (MAUSA), South Mt. Airy Task Force (SMATF)  Mt. Airy needs and deserves a new, first-class supermarket. Why? A supermarket in our community is a necessity for neighborhood residents, especially those who come to the existing Acme on foot or by bus. Mt. Airy has the buying power to support a new first-class supermarket.  Today, a majority of Mt. Airy residents do their grocery shopping elsewhere—often outside the city—where they have access to new stores that, unlike the current Acme in Mt. Airy, are clean, well-designed, stocked with fresh food, staffed by trained, courteous employees, and able to provide many of the services found in the best contemporary supermarkets. Not only will a new first-class supermarket be a much… Continue reading

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Christianity in the Western Tradition

  By Academic, Biblical thought, Christianity, Conference Papers, Modern Political and Moral Thought, Philosophy, Published Paper

“Christianity in the Western Tradition,” in Don Thompson, Darrel Colson, and J. Scott Lee, Universality and History: Foundations of Core(University Press of America, 2002) An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Core Texts and Courses in April 2000. The link is to a slightly expanded version of the published article. This paper examines the place of Christianity in the Western tradition. It is a dissent from the idea—found in a wide variety of mid-century works—of a great tradition of political and moral thought that begins in Athens and Jerusalem and is rejected by the founders of modernity. On this view, Ancient Greek and Biblical thought share the aspiration to ennoble human beings. Modernity, on the other, builds on low but presumably more solid foundations. In this paper I wish to put forward a different story. My claim is that, though modernity fundamentally rejects the… Continue reading

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Forty Good Neighbors: An Introduction

  By West Mount Airy

In 1999 West Mt. Airy Neighbors (WMAN)celebrated its 40th anniversary. As part of that celebration, a committee led by Mark Hartsfield and Dick Cox honored forty people (or families) as West Mt. Airy’s Forty 40 Good Neighbors. Though new to the neighborhood, I was then the Vice President for Community Affairs of WMAN. I volunteered to write most of the short biographies though I had help from Lois Frischling, Mira Rabin, Laura Siena, Melanie Black-Sellers, Elizabeth Werthan, Betty Gottlieb and the people who took the time to nominate the people from whom the Forty Good Neighbors. I also wrote this introduction to them. Writing these pieces was great fun and introduced me to the community and so many people within it. Links to the individual biographies are below. In the following pages you will meet our 40 Good Neighbors. These short biographies cannot do justice to the varied activities and… Continue reading

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How Much of Communitarianism is Left (and Right)?

  By Academic, Communitarianism, Conference Papers, Political philosophy, Published Paper

How Much of Communitarianism is Left (and Right)?  in Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey, eds. Community and Political Thought Today (Praeger, 1998). An earlier version was presented at a conference on Communitarianism and Civil Society at Berry College on October 17, 1996 Abstract In the last few years, the conflict between communitarians and liberals has cooled. Communitarians have pointed out—and many liberals have recognized—that for all their criticisms of liberal political and social life, communitarians are firmly committed to the central achievements of liberalism: the protection of civil rights and liberties and liberal democratic government. Liberals have pointed out—and many communitarians have recognized—that liberalism can be defended apart from any commitment to the individualist, asocial philosophical anthropology found in philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke. Thus a liberal political theory need not neglect the inherently social character of human life. Nor need a liberal regime deny the importance of… Continue reading

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Lani Guinier and American political principles

  By Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties, US

The withdrawal of the nomination of Lani Guinier to be assistant attorney general for civil rights is a sad reflection on the skills of the members of the White House staff who failed to either foresee or prepare for the onslaught against her. It is an even sadder reflection on the unprincipled opportunism and, in  some cases, hypocrisy and demagoguery, of her opponents, who grossly misrepresented her record. The saddest part of the whole affair, however, is that we will not see the issues raised by the nomination of Professor Guinier debated in front of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. Such a debate would have provided an extraordinary opportunity for public education on the principles of American politics. And it would, I think, have shown us that it is not Professor Guinier, but her opponents, whose arguments betray a striking misunderstanding of the constitutional, political and moral traditions of… Continue reading

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How to fight the politics of racism

  By Published Op-Eds, White Supremacy and Structural Racism

The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 20, 1990 Racism is widely–and rightly–thought to have been a major factor in Jesse Helms’s victory over Harvey Gantt in the North Carolina Senate race. But the way in which racism was important is rather different than commonly understood. Many white voters were encouraged to come to the polls by the racially tinged Helms campaign. But few people voted against Gantt just because he is an African American. Most of the voters in North Carolina who are influenced by racial considerations would probably not vote for any liberal democrat, black or white. Indeed, exit polls show that Gantt won 35% of the white vote. This is only a few percentage points less than white candidates such as Jim Hunt received in his 1984 race against Helms or Bob Jordan attained in his unsuccessful race against Governor Jim Martin in 1989. The real damage that racism did in… Continue reading