Misguided or Intentional?: 
An Update on the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine's Support for Hate Speech

Diversity Education has a very important role in any Medical Program.  Lifestyles vary greatly between communities, particularly in the United States.  This can impact the social stigma of a diagnosis, the approach individuals take to an overall healthy lifestyle, or how a treatment plan can be realistically implemented.  Also, there is great value in celebrating the accomplishments of the diverse communities which compose the United States. 

On Wednesday March 25th, Dr. Velma Scantlebury was honored by PCOM as the first African-American female to perform organ transplant surgeries.  Her speech was entitled "Kidneys are Colorblind."  President Feldstein was present to honor her achievement.  We at No Haters At The Podium would like to join in congratulating Dr. Scantlebury on her achievements and for providing an inspiration to future physicians.

However, either Dr. Feldstein was not paying attention to her speech or he was not paying attention when signing off on paying Tim Wise over $7,500 to spew his hate towards the PCOM student body.  Perhaps this invitation was driven by other forces in the PCOM administration...perhaps not.

There is still time for Dr. Feldstein to do the right thing and cancel Tim Wise's speeches at PCOM on April 10th and 11th.  If he does not, we can only assume that Dr. Feldstein thinks that Jesus is an image of White Supremacy, that the disappearance of White people is to be cheered on and even encouraged, and that there is no African-American, Person of Color, or LGBT individual who is as capable as Tim Wise at addressing his students.

We will be glad to correct this assumption once Dr. Feldstein demonstrates with his actions that he does not hold these views.
-Dan Smith

How Can You Help?

We received an email from an anonymous stranger asking how she can help with our cause to end hate at the podium. First of all, to this individual: thanks for getting in touch! I would like to post a verbatim version of my response here, because this answer applies to everyone:

Thanks for getting in touch! Sorry for the late response. I don't check this email address as much as I should. We are just getting started, but we're growing quickly. We've already heard from people in multiple cities where Tim Wise is speaking during his current tour. I should clarify that we are not just against Tim Wise. We are against people who seek to profit from stoking racial tensions, especially white people who do this. Tim Wise just happens to be a very prominent example of this.

You ask how you can help. There are a number of ways. First, if you live in a city where Tim Wise is speaking you can help organize protest against him. We are basically just asking venues where he is speaking to disassociate themselves from him and cancel his speaking engagement. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be much incentive for venues to cancel. Probably they have to pay a hefty fee if they do. So in the long run, we hope to show that there are better people to speak on these topics than Tim Wise. We recommend hanging flyers and speaking to people directly. We have found that when we talk about Tim Wise with people on the street they have never heard of him and are outraged by what he says, so simply engaging with people is an effective way to raise awareness.

Second, if you are not in a city where Tim Wise is speaking then you can help in other ways. If you have graphic design skills, we could use assistance in developing flyers that we can provide to protesters in each city where he is speaking. Also, we could use writers for our blog. We would like our blog to include regular analysis of inflammatory statements by Tim Wise and others like him. There is much to be said, but so far we have not had time to fully document everything that could be said. In fact, there are many other people less famous who use the same tactics as Tim Wise and we would like to eventually start campaigns against them as well. It's truly unconscionable that people deliberately work to create racial tension and then profit from speaking out against the problems they have instigated. If you hear about people who do this, please let us know.

Lastly, and perhaps the most easy of ways to help, please share our Facebook page, blog, and Twitter account with people who you think might be interested in stopping hate at the podium. This is a new initiative, only started a few months ago, and while we are impressed with the progress we are making, we have not been very successful in getting the word out. For my part, I've been shocked at how my friends have completely ignored my requestes for them to pay attention to this cause. On the other hand, we have been hearing from a few brave people such as youself, who are looking to make a difference. So we are still pleased with the results thus far, and we believe that we can succeed!

Hope to hear from you soon,

Avi

If you have further questions please email us at nohatersatthepodium@gmail.com. We apologize in advance for delayed responses. We are an all volunteer organization.

Welcome BMPC Congregants

We are sorry to inform you that your Church has invited the bigot Tim Wise to address your Congregation. Tim Wise has referred to Jesus as a symbol of White Supremacy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzDZYTvAu8), has called for the murder of Tea Partiers and has accused Glenn Greenwald and Cornel West of being apologists for White Supremacy and Social Darwinism (see our previous posts).
In other words, Tim Wise is unhinged.
There are 1,000 of distinguished speakers who can address the very serious problem of racism. We would encourage BMPC to continue to address this problem but without legitimizing the bigotry and hatred propagated by Tim Wise.
We encourage you to look into his past yourselves and if you agree with us, please call Rev. Agnes Norfleet at (610) 525 2821, extension 8866, and ask her to cancel Tim Wise's visit.
Dan Smith

We had a great response to our call for volunteers for exposing Tim Wise to the community. 

Here is the flyer we will be passing out. 
Feel free to print this picture out and pass it out at your church this Easter, even if you haven't written to us.  While you're at it, take a picture like the those we posted earlier and we will retweet it.  We encourage you not to identify yourself in the photo considering that Tim Wise has called on his supporters to commit violence in the past (and at times they have followed his orders).

Thank you for waking your neighbors up!
-Dan Smith

Student Outreach at PCOM to #StopTimWise

Thanks to the volunteers who passed out over 200 flyers to students and placed them on cars today at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.  The seasoned activists who went were amazed that every person who was handed a flyer read it with respect and curiosity.  The flyer included basic information about the upcoming Tim Wise event, one of his calls for the extinction of White people, as well as an article by an African-American feminist critic of Tim Wise.  Some students even returned to ask how they can help the campaign.  

The Campaign to #StopTimWise has also personally reached out to dozens of Osteopaths in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area to pass along information about how their alma mater is spending donor money on hate speech.  The fact is that the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine has a reservoir of good will in the community, but they cannot pay a bigot like Tim Wise to harangue their students without dipping into that reservoir.  The doctors who were available to comment are upset that the reputation of their school will be sullied for the narrow political goals of radicals who are not even Doctors within the administration.  Their responses can be summed up as basically, "Dr. Feldstein should know better."

Nearly 100 Osteopaths who could not be reached personally have been left voicemails and sent letters.  So far, NoHatersAtThePodium has limited its campaign against the Tim Wise speech at PCOM to the inner circle of students and alumni.  If PCOM does not cancel this event by the end of the week, we will reach out to the public at large.  We hope that Dr. Feldstein will listen to reason.

If you are interested in volunteering for our public outreach campaign sceduled to begin this weekend, write to nohatersatthepodium@gmail.com 

Our materials for public distribution will be posted soon.  Until then, please spread the word to your fellow students and alumni at PCOM.