https://www.inquirer.com/news/move-human-remains-penn-museum-princeton-bombing-1985-philadelphia-20210426.htmlThe University of Pennsylvania apologized to members of MOVE on Monday for using the remains of one of the group’s members as a case study in its anthropology classes, rather than returning them to the family.
“We understand the importance of reuniting the remains with the family and we are working now to find a respectful, consultative resolution,” a university spokesperson said. “... We are reassessing our practices of collecting, stewarding, displaying, and researching human remains.”
That is not an apology. Gouging out your eyes (which were used to study those remains) would be an apology.
Meanwhile, members of MOVE, the West Philadelphia-based radical organization whose compound was bombed by the city in 1985 in a conflagration that killed 11, accused the city and the Penn Museum of mishandling and disrespecting the remains of at least one child who died in the blast.
They rejected the museum’s apology at a news conference Monday at the group’s West Philadelphia office, calling it empty words offered by an untrustworthy institution 36 years late.
Well done!
Pam Africa, one of the group’s most vocal and prominent members, called the museum “body snatchers” and “grave robbers.”
...
Another member, Janine Africa, said the museum’s handling of the remains was “the most disrespectful, hateful thing you can do to anybody.”
...
Consuewella Dotson Africa, the mother of the two oldest children killed in the 1985 bombing, became emotional during the news conference and left the room. She later returned.
”Some 36 years later they come to us and say they got some bones of our children. You go to hell with that bull—,” she said.
...
”I could not imagine, in my worse nightmare, that the government would drop a bomb on us and kill my brothers and sisters. And I could not have imagined 36 years later that they would be displaying parts of our family as if they’re some dinosaur relics that they dug up,”
I guarantee they would have no problem bombing us again if rightists ever regain power.