A city suffering from poverty, addiction, crime and homelessness lies just beyond Penn’s tree-lined campus.
Wednesday night’s panel discussion on urban poverty — titled “A Conversation on Urban Poverty in Philadelphia and the United States” — attempted to raise awareness of these issues at Penn.
It was the first of three lectures associated with “Righteous Dopefiend,” a photography exhibit documenting the lives of homeless heroin users, which is currently on display at the Penn Museum.
Philippe Bourgois, the anthropologist who conducted the research on which the exhibit is based, spoke at the event. Yale Sociology professor Elijah Anderson and Penn History professors Michael Katz andand Eric Schneider were also panelists.
Topics covered included the historical development of heroin usage in the United States, the image of the drug addict, stereotypes of poverty and obstacles facing the urban poor.
Eloise Williams, a woman who feeds local children in her community, said, “I want to know what is going to be the outcome of these meetings. The University of Pennsylvania has a lot of money, but what are they going to do to help the children in the hood?”
Commenting on this point — that awareness of an issue does not necessarily lead to active involvement — Philippe Bourgois stated, “There are infinite ways to get involved in an immediate way that can effect very intensely small numbers of people.”
For social activism, raising awareness of the issues is a critical first step. Penn students who attended Wednesday night’s discussion were afforded a broader perspective of poverty and drug use.
When asked why he chose to attend, Khwezi Mkhize, a first-year graduate student of Africana Studies in the College, said, “I thought it was a good opportunity to try to understand better the dynamics of a city I’ve only newly come to live in and to get a perspective of social issues that transcend Philadelphia.”
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