Letters to the Editor | Sept. 2, 2025

If President Donald Trump wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize (and he desperately does), then, in light of the recent shooting of the schoolchildren in their church in Minneapolis, he could easily do so by leading the effort to ban assault rifles.

Pat Suplee, Philadelphia

Erin McLeary’s and Sara Ray’s choice to keep stolen human remains on display at the Mütter Museum, discussed in Rosa Cartagena’s recent article in The Inquirer, offers a horrifying and baffling contrast to the actions of major museums around the world. In the past few years, institutions such as New York’s Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, and the Smithsonian have removed human bones from view, frozen researcher access, and explored pathways to return stolen ancestral remains to descendants. But despite this growing consensus, the Mütter’s leadership claims that “the issue isn’t whether we should or shouldn’t exhibit human remains, but rather can we do so in a way that does justice to these individuals and their stories.”

We are disgusted to see the claim that continuing to exploit stolen ancestral remains to generate ticket sales could in any way be about “justice.” The two University of Pennsylvania doctorates behind these choices would do well to remember that this is not an abstract academic argument: these are people’s ancestors. The Mütter Museum’s continued exploitation of the dead has deepened the trauma experienced by Philadelphians ever since 1765, when they protested at the house of College of Physicians of Philadelphia founder and president, William Shippen Jr., against his theft of their family members from their graves — and most recently, when they learned, in a story that one of us broke in this newspaper, that the Penn Museum held the remains of two Black children murdered in the 1985 MOVE bombing.

There is no reason why, in 2025, the Mütter Museum should continue to exist. The museum should be closed, and the College of Physicians should pay for descendants to determine what happens with their ancestors’ remains, in a process that could look similar to that which we have proposed for the infamous Morton Cranial Collection at the Penn Museum. Although our own energies as the co-conveners of Finding Ceremony are dedicated to a descendant community-controlled reparationist process for the return of stolen ancestral remains held in the Penn Museum, we deeply hope there are others out there who can take up the work at the Mütter Museum, which holds stolen remains from the same Philadelphia Almshouse population that Samuel George Morton preyed upon to build his collection of human skulls.

aAliy Muhammad and Lyra D. Monteiro, co-conveners, Finding Ceremony

The Inquirer’s recent article on Philadelphia’s shipyard says that Hanwha Industrial Group, which bought the facility in 2024, wants to expand its operations to include the construction of military ships, drones, submarines, and liquid natural gas carriers.

Our city is facing multiple crises: catastrophic cuts to SEPTA, plans to close more public schools, and crumbling infrastructure, which means residents aren’t even safe in our own homes. Yes, we need more jobs, too. But why can’t we invest in jobs that help repair and take care of our roads, our schools? We need investment in our communities, not for building more weapons of destruction.

Sunhee Volz, Philadelphia

At a time when SEPTA is collapsing due to funding shortfalls, Donald Trump’s visit to the Hanwha shipyard in South Philly with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung shows that the U.S. desperately needs to divest from the war economy and militarism. The trillion-dollar military budget not only results in higher tensions, the loss of life in other nations, and environmental degradation, but each dollar spent on warships and other weapons is a dollar stolen from the healthcare, education, housing, and mass transit our communities need.

Joe Piette, Philadelphia

Bravo to Dustin Dove’s recent op-ed calling for an increase to the Parks and Recreation Department’s budget. I have been volunteering as a member of a small park Friends Group in Germantown for 16 years. We count ourselves among the lucky ones in that parks and recreation staff have been very responsive to our needs. In that time, we had a major makeover with new lighting and playground equipment. We’ve also benefited from the city-funded program known as Rebuild. We are an oasis for families to get a break in beautiful green surroundings, to picnic and play games. The health of our entire community depends on these precious green spaces.

But, and this is a very big but, the funding for maintenance, repairs, and tree care is never there when needed. It shouldn’t take the threat of a tree falling on a nearby property to get it taken care of. It shouldn’t take five years to get one light pole replaced. It shouldn’t take two years to get swing seats replaced. My perennial cry at meetings with city staff is “maintenance, maintenance, maintenance.” Our parks and rec staff are stretched way too thin and without adequate resources to do a good job. They are exhausted. We, volunteers, work really hard to plant gardens, pick up trash, and hold special events. We have no corporate donors, no large businesses to underwrite our needs; we raise our own modest budget by holding a flea market and bazaar. Where is the “green” in the mayor’s budget? It is so shortsighted to spend dollars on a makeover and then not budget anything for ongoing repairs.

The parks don’t have paid lobbyists. We’re volunteers, and it is discouraging to have our work depended on but not supported. I hope the mayor and City Council members read the op-ed and take its message to heart.

Ruth Seeley, Philadelphia

Donald Trump seeks $2 billion to clean up Washington, D.C. — or what he calls the “crime-infested rathole.” And it’s about time. And the place to begin cleaning is the White House, where the world’s most famous felon resides.

Frederic C. Kaplan, Upper Darby

I find it frightfully sad and appalling that the United Nations, the U.S., member nations of the European Union, and NATO continue a steady hands-off policy toward Israel’s massive and merciless assault in Gaza. Day and night, Israel unleashes a steady torrent of death and destruction along with systematic starvation upon the civilians of Gaza, as the conflict approaches the two-year mark. Zionists and the religious right will denigrate this reality in the belief that Israel can do no wrong. Unfortunately, U.S. media — both liberal and conservative — refuse to divulge the bare truth that independent networks like Al Jazeera uncover daily, despite a loss of more than 200 journalists to the Israel Defense Forces.

Still, if a majority of our citizens remain detached instead of imploring our Congress to immediately stop sending more money and weapons to Israel, the only thing left is to weep and pray for Gaza’s desperate civilians. One can only hope that justice, morality, and compassion will somehow reemerge before it’s too late.

Sid Sussman, Hallandale, Fla.

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