“Why Should We Care?”

To understand why there are folks in the Black community supporting 76 Place, listen to the Chris Murray Report. 

In many ways, Philadelphia Hall Monitor is a family affair.

Because we’re fortunate to have people in our family circle who are experts in certain things, we don’t have to use “Help A Reporter Out” to find people who can talk to us. For example, why bring in someone else to tell us what’s going on with the School District of Philadelphia when we have Lisa Haver, someone who has forgotten more about Philadelphia’s educational landscape than most of us will ever know, to give us the scoop?

Then, there is my personal contribution to the family dynamic, Hall Monitor Sports contributor Chris Murray. In addition to being one of the kindest people I know — something that played a big part in my decision to marry him — Chris has the ability to connect anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, to an event in sports history.

On Saturdays, you can listen to Chris display this particular ability on his WURD radio show “The Chris Murray Report”. Usually, he’s talking about the latest decision that Howie Roseman has made to make the Philadelphia Eagles get close enough to break fan’s hearts. Or why Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper should consider a job in the team’s front office when he finally takes his last at-bat. 

Or, and this is the one that gets him in the most trouble, when Sixers center Joel Embiid is going to get enough heart to take the team past the second round of the playoffs.

That last one kinda leads into another subject that keeps coming up on Chris’s show: 76 Place.

Chris’s listeners on WURD have been paying close attention to what’s going on with the Sixers’ proposed new stadium. If you watched Hall Monitor on Wednesday, you saw a live report we did from Mayor Cherelle Parker’s breakdown of the deal she made to keep the team from pulling up stakes and moving to Camden.

We had a representative from the Save Chinatown coalition on Wednesday’s show as well, and one of the things focused on was the $50 million Community Benefits Agreement that was a part of the $1.3 billion construction. Contained in that agreement was millions of dollars in funding designed to preserve Chinatown, the neighborhood shouting the loudest against the project.

“I want Chinatown’s rich and vibrant community and proud history to not just survive, but to thrive,” Parker said. “We have the best Chinatown in the United States, and I am committed to working together to support it. This is a chance for new partnership and growth based on mutual understanding and respect.”

When Parker was elected to office in 2023, she won with a large percentage of the Black vote. People in North, West and Southwest Philadelphia pounded the pavement in earnest on her behalf. I even heard stories of arguments between her supporters and members of the Black community who wanted to support someone else.

And let’s be honest here. There are a lot of buildings on Temple University’s main campus that used to be homes occupied by North Philadelphians. The area around the University of Pennsylvania and how Black communities have been treated as the University seeks to expand is a story I don’t have room in this column to tell.

So, when one of Chris’s callers asked why so much concern was being given to Chinatown’s concerns when Black communities very rarely, if ever, receive this kind of care from City officials, I wasn’t surprised. The attitude on the part of a lot of the Black community is why should we care about a community that hasn’t shown support when we’ve battled police brutality and other ways that the system has been less than kind to us.

(That’s not true, by the way. But having had that fight with more than a few people, I know that no matter how much evidence I present to the contrary, folks aren’t trying to hear me.)

During one of the interviews that Hall Monitor has done with members of the Save Chinatown coalition, I’ve brought up the fact that there are Black organizations here in the city who have signed on to support the project. The Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity and the African American Chamber of Commerce were the first. Next came the Philadelphia NAACP and groups like Unity In The Community.

During Parker’s presentation on Wednesday, there was a lot of emphasis placed on the number of minority-owned contractors and businesses that would benefit from the arena’s construction and the arena itself. Since 2021, the Sixers have helped Black-owned businesses and entrepreneurs through the team’s Buy Black program, which is part of the team’s $20 million emphasis on minority businesses. One of my favorite businesses, French Toast Bites, was a part of that program.

But while that’s nice for a multimillion-dollar corporate entity that makes its living through the talents of Black people to do, I hate the rift that this arena has exposed. 

When you look at the national pie, there’s 10% that has traditionally been set aside for marginalized communities. That there’s only 10% angers me because it leads to people fighting tooth and nail for their part of that while leaving the other 90% untouched. 

If marginalized communities got together and said, “We’re not fighting over that 10% anymore! We’re going to get together and demand true equality!”, there’s no telling how awesome that would be for everybody, and I do mean everybody.

But instead, those who control the 90% manufacture a Hunger Games atmosphere that leads to something like 76 Place.

Unfortunately, folks like the caller to Chris’s show may not understand that. And that’s intentional.

We’re going to have a show where we talk about all aspects of the 76 Place project. My hope is that we’re going to bring up things like this.

Seeing as Chris will be one of our guests, and he and I have talked about this a lot, I think it’ll happen.