Before I began, I would like to Acnkowledge everyone here from Occupy Philly and beyond who oppose this bill. Can you all please stand? Thank you.

 

My name is Khadijah White –  I live in District 9 and my council member is Darrell L. Clarke. I am a PhD candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication. I’ve been proud to serve my fellow citizens, whether it was as a White House intern for President Obama or a journalist at PBS.

 

I am also the oldest of four children. I love my siblings. Thus, I was justifiably concerned and anguished when I discovered that the City Council seemed set on passing a law that would make it illegal for me to take my 13 year-old brother out to a movie on a Saturday night during a warm summer evening. That my mom, and my brother, could be imprisoned for up to 3 months and fined $300 for this seemed to be such an outrageous violation of my civil liberties that I found myself re-reading the bill, in conjunction with the 2007 enforcement ordinance and Mayor Nutter’s recent curfew decree, several times over just to make sure that this was, in fact, true.  I now find myself anxious at the thought of my 18 year-old sister visiting me, worried that if she mistakenly left her ID at home, she might be thrown into the back of a police van and detained as a criminal.