Philly

About a month ago now I went on a day trip to Philadelphia with one of my classes. This class is a seminar called "Making Room at the Table". It has a lot to do with culture, racism, ethnicity, identity, and basically life in general. Our prof had set up this little trip so that we could visit a very historical church in downtown Philly called "The Church of the Advocate". It's an old gothic church that was built in the late 1800s, and is still being used today by a very small predominately Black congregation and a secular organization that runs programs with the arts to keep kids off the steets. The church was cool and it reminded me of plenty of churches I saw while in France 3 years ago. The real reason that we were at the church was because inside there are paintings that were done during the mid-1900s by Black artists hanging on the walls on the inside of the church. Each of the paintings depicts a specific Bible passage, but they're all depicted in a way that represents Black slavery and oppression. I found them all very interesting, but there were also very grusome. Here's one of the paintings, but this is really one of the more mild ones. One of the paintings showed a Black man with a knife through the neck of a White man, and many of the paintings had similar images. After we had time to look over the paintings, a man who helped with the secular organization that uses the church building came and spoke to us about the paintings. One thing we discussed during that time was whether or not it was appropriate for grusome paintings like this to be in a church. He felt as though they should be there as a reminder of what has gone on and to make sure that it doesn't happen again. For me I wasn't really sure how I felt about them being there. I was trying to imagine sitting in church on Sunday morning with paintings of burning Black men killing White men. It seems terribly irrevent and a disgrace to God's house, but at the same time it is reality, it really did happen, and we can't allow ourselves to forget it. I don't know, it's something that I've thought about ever since, but I just don't know how I feel. I'm interested to hear other people's opinions so feel free to share. After our time at the church we went to the Reading Street Market which was also an interesting experience. I've never seen a place quite like it in the United States before. It was full of vendors selling food, sweets, fresh meats and cheeses, jewelry, and plenty more things that I'm not rembering. What was really interesting was that they had things from absolutely every culture as well. There were even traditionally dressed Dutch people selling Dutch goodies...that definitely made me smile. It's was a pretty cool place, and a memorable one for me because it's where I had my very first Philly Cheese Steak. Ok so it really wasn't that good, but I've at least had one now, and in downtown Philly! Ok I had a picture to go along with the Philly Cheese Steak part of my story, but it's not loading so I guess you'll just have to envision me with a big hoagie in my mouth :)