Talk:Mummers Parade

Merger proposal April 2013

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a

Merge Proposal and / or Redirect. Please do not modify it.
The result of the request for the Proposed Merger of several articles into this talk page's article was:

Not Done—No Consensus to Merge.
— — — — —

[April 2013]: I propose that content from the following pages ought to be merged into Mummers Parade because the articles on groups affiliated with the parade are not sufficiently notable in and of themselves. They are barely above the notability "garage bands" or "local clubs" or a local holiday parade, their coverage is chiefly local and they do not register on the larger media stages which would impute general notability and they are considered unmerited by several editors under the notability guidelines for musical groups. This content currently at the five articles below (other groups do not have articles and are redlinked on the Mummers Parade article) would be better served at Mummers Parade. The effected articles are:

• Adelphia (fancies)
• Aqua String Band
• Greater Kensington (string band)
• Holy Rollers N.Y.B.
• Pennsport (string band)

Also consider WP:PERMASTUB, WP:ADVERT, WP:MERGETEXT, Discuss. --ColonelHenry (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support merger into Mummers Parade.--ColonelHenry (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, you support your own pointy proposal. These "garage bands" are covered in independent reliable sources. (In several cases, the "garage bands" are not bands.) As they meet the general notability guideline, I find no policy-based reason for your "merge". - SummerPhD (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• No hard feelings, but WP:AGF. These articles aren't notable on their own per above-referenced policies.--ColonelHenry (talk) 14:14, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to assume good faith when you are going after theses articles just to be a dick.[1] Don't be a dick. Your point cites WP:N. All of the subjects are the subject of substantial coverage in independent reliable sources. You repeatedly refer to "garage bands" and "musical groups". Several of these "musical groups" are not musical groups. All meet the general notability guideline. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

None of that hostility and incivility addresses the relevant issue that the material is better served merged than to remain a permanent stub.--ColonelHenry (talk) 02:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Doing something to be a dick[2] does not mean you have a relevant point. It means you wanted to be a dick. Congratulations. Meanwhile, the articles are the subject of substantial coverage in independent reliable sources, passing the general notability guideline. - SummerPhD (talk) 03:30, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose It is clear that many of these clubs and bands are notable and their articles are well-developed and referenced. One only needs to read previous discussions on this talk page itself to see that the articles on the independent clubs went through a significant process of vetting, writing, developing. It seems many of them have been there for five years+. It would make this article a mess to reintegrate all the extraneous data and require a significant reduction in coverage and data. Centerone (talk) 09:42, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

— — — — —
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a WP:PM.

Please do not modify it.
Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 00:52, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

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A tale of two edits

The source cited says, "South Philadelphia once was home to large populations of migrants from Ireland and Italy, who produced both Mummers and crowds along the route. Those populations have thinned and been replaced by new immigrant groups - Asians and Hispanics - with fewer ties to the parade."

An editor, Kelleher82 would like this to say, "The Mummers clubs are home to diverse ethnicities, but are most notably Irish American and Italian American, with generations of them being mummers since they arrived from Ireland and Italy."[3]

It does not. It says, "Numerous Irish and Italian immigrants once populated South Philadelphia, forming the Mummers and parade goers. As these groups have begun to be replaced by Asian and Hispanic immigrants, local ties to the parade have weakened."[4] - SummerPhD (talk) 04:54, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Polish American String Band

Time for a new daughter article?

This piece from the Library of Congress is certainly reliable. I'll look for more in a bit. - SummerPhD^v2.0 14:05, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

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Blackface, etc.

Recent edits have pushed blackface and overt racism in the parade into the past.

This edit changed "The parade is has been repeatedly critiqued in the past by local residents, academics, and the media for its racist depiction of minority groups, which often includes has included blackface, brownface, or redface caricatures." with no edit summary.

After being reverted, another IP restored the change with the edit summary: "This was the past. Quit perpetuating disgraceful events that only showed a very small minority of what the mummers are. Many mummers have nothing to do with this and this generalization makes all of us (those who aren't bigoted) look bad."

At the time, the sources were Philadelphia Magazine (2016), Huffington Post (2016), Slate (2013), NBC10 (2016) and Medium (2016). Despite the claims that the overt racism, misogyny and homophobia are now strictly in the distant past, it's interesting that none of the 2016 sources noted the sea change. In any case, I've added a 2017 source from an academic publisher to back up that it's all still there.

No one has said that all Mummers are racist and/or misogynistic and/or homophobic. It was and is, however, a very high profile part of the parade. Wikipedia reports what independent reliable sources have to say about a topic. Those sources consistently say that the Mummers continue to have problems. - SummerPhD^v2.0 20:46, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Would it be a more neutral statement to say something like ""The parade has been and continues to be repeatedly critiqued by local residents, academics, and the media for the racist depiction of minority groups by <some, a few, a small percentage> of its participants, which has included blackface, brownface, or redface caricatures." 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:56, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

"The parade has been repeatedly criticized" in unarguably true. The sources generally are focused on the parade and what the Mummers must do to stop the problem. The suggested words, "some, a few, a small percentage" aim to state that it is not the parade/organization/tradition, but rather a small number of people in the parade. The sources, however, pin it on the parade, the Mummers, the tradition.

Here are the headlines and lead sentences of the sources cited for that sentence:

• "People Are Angry at the 2016 Mummers Parade...Stop me if you’ve heard this before: The Mummers Parade was really offensive this year."

• "This Famous Philadelphia Tradition Has An Extensive History Of Racism And Sexism, Brownface, transphobia and the beating of a gay man: Welcome to Philly’s annual Mummers parade....After the champagne corks stopped popping, Philadelphia celebrated New Year’s Day with an annual tradition ― one that has a long association with racist and distasteful acts."

• "A Philadelphia Parade’s 'Tradition' of Racial Insensitivity"

• "More Diverse Mummers Parade Marred by Homophobic, Racist Acts...Led by a group of drag queens in heels, the 116th annual Mummers Parade strutted into Philadelphia Friday — but despite a push to make the parade more accessible for underrepresented communities like Latinos, blacks and gays, the annual folk tradition was mired in a series of racist and homophobic acts along the parade route."

• "Every Year The Mummers Are Racist Assholes– Fuck The Mummers...Each and every year, specifically at the beginning of each and every year, the annual Philadelphia tradition of tolerated racism struts itself down Broad Street. Every year, because of their condemned racism the previous year, the Mummers are expected to not be racist because of the previous year’s condemnation and every year the Mummers disappoint. That’s because they are racists."

None of those sources say "some", "a few", "a small percentage" or any other "limited number" of Mummers. They all say "the Mummers", "the parade" and "the tradition". - SummerPhD^v2.0 00:14, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Huh, then I'd leave it as is. I think the 4th source above should probably be mined more, but I don't think that last one could possibly be described as objective or reliable. Wikipedia's article describes it as a collection of professional and amateur bloggers and journalists, and this piece appears to be an opinion piece, not journalism. Is the author a respected authority on any given topic? If not, I'd recommend the removal of that source. The rest should stay, and prove your point quite well. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 18:44, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, the last one should obviously go. I don't remember it being there, but it is pretty clearly a WP:SPS. When I was copying the quotes above, though, I just couldn't resist. I don't think the guy is anything other than a blogger -- not a name I'm familiar with anyway.

As for mining the fourth (or any of the other) source for more, I'm a bit reluctant to do so as I suspect we'll get a good bit of recentism in the mix. The recurring nature of the issues, annual outrage and perennial "we've cleaned it up, this time for sure" announcements seem to show up in the press each year. Adding coverage of 2017's "this time we mean it" efforts means skipping similar announcements from prior years going back decades. Instead, I've requested a copy of Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia. University of Michigan Press, 2017 hoping to get an overview of past efforts to clean things up. We're also missing discussion of the black groups in parades up to the nadir. Our bare mentions of minstrel shows as an influence also needs work.

My previous work here has mostly drawn from current popular press. There's more out there. - SummerPhD^v2.0 19:46, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I do know that some of the "main entries" have been questionable at best, from my work on Ferko String Band which you helped me with a few years back. Speaking of minstrels. Since I'm not from Philadelphia and wasn't at all familiar with Mummers before I wrote the Ferko article, what do you mean by "up to the nadir"? 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:09, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not Mummers-slang, that's academia-slang. Rights for blacks in the U.S. improved During Reconstruction (two black senators were elected in Mississippi in the 1870s, for example). The "nadir" is the low point in race relations after that brief improvement, lasting until sometime after WWI. Prior to that -- the early 20th century, the earliest years of the "official" parade -- there were some black Mummers clubs. I'm kinda hazy on the years and have no clue as to numbers. Prior to WWII, they all disappeared in one way or another.

The Mummers deep history is murky with lots of twists and turns. Local news wants happy faces and sound bytes during the parade, conflict immediately after and occasional human interest stuff the rest of the year. So we get happy, fun history notes during the parade, recent racism/misogyny/homophobia/etc. reports in the weeks right after and occasional stories of a sick kid being serenaded by guys playing banjos throughout the rest of the year.

Meaningful research is limited. Yeah, we have some insiders digging through archives at the Mummers Museum, generating stories glorifying either the Mummers in general or their own clubs in particular. Yeah, there are a few "local interest" books stuffed full of anecdotes. Academics studying all of the -isms at work in Philly history get sucked into the Rizzo years, nativists/Know Nothings, free blacks and such and miss all of the history hidden in full view in popular culture. I really should want to research this, but I'd rather find someone else who has already done it. - SummerPhD^v2.0 23:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Joshua Scott Albert, author of the Medium harangue seems to have gotten some attention for an ... um ... aggressive restaurant blog and some jail time for alleged terroristic threats somehow tied to that.[5] I can't see any reasonable claim that he meets IRS for his claims, so I'll yank it. - SummerPhD^v2.0 23:34, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a platform to push a woke agenda. Comments about blackface should be relegated to their own section, not put in the header. Don't let the radicals lead you around by the nose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by User666x (talk • contribs) 15:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Coverage in Wikipedia is based on coverage in independent reliable sources. If you feel WP:WEIGHT is an issue, I can certainly beef up the sourcing considerably. - SummerPhD^v2.0 22:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The other editor's concerns seem to be based on whether the sources are reliable and whether or not there is bias in our coverage. These are separate issues, discussed below in separate sections. - SummerPhD^v2.0 22:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

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Reliable sources vs. "Left-wing media outlets"

The section being disputed by 71.168.181.234/User666x cites numerous sources which they characterize as "poorly sourced" from "Left-wing media outlets"[6]. These sources include Philadelphia (Metrocorp), HuffPost (AOL), Slate, WCAU "NBC10" (NBCUniversal), University of Michigan Press (Michigan Publishing), The Philadelphia Inquirer, WHYY-TV (PBS), the City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia City Council and Philly Voice (Interstate General Media).

Several of these are listed at WP:RSP. If there are any others you feel do not satisfy the criteria outlined at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, please explain. - SummerPhD^v2.0 23:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

NPOV vs. "woke agenda"

71.168.181.234/User666x says the disputed section makes "accusations of racism" as part of some "kind of woke agenda".[7]

The relevant policy here is Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Wikipedia aims to "(represent) fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." This does not mean that we present "both sides" of every issue. If independent reliable sources say the Earth is spherical, Wikipedia does not intend to give equal weight to those who claim otherwise.

Independent reliable sources (see #Reliable sources vs. "Left-wing media outlets" above) say that the parade has been critiqued by local residents, academics, and the media for racist depictions and repeated violations of an official ban on blackface and has continued to include blackface, brownface, or redface caricatures and other racial and ethnic impersonation. Additionally, the parade has often included racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, and culturally insensitive costumes, makeup, and images.

The article does not say the parade or any Mummers individually or as a group are racist.

We do not have any independent reliable sources saying the parade has not repeatedly included this content or that residents/academics/the media have not critiqued it.

If you believe the sources do not support this material, please explain. If you feel there is additional material in the sources which is not included but should be, please explain. If you feel you have additional sources that are not in the article, please provide them. - SummerPhD^v2.0 23:30, 5 January 2020 (UTC)