The Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association strongly condemns the desecration of MOVE victims’ remains and unequivocally endorses the statement and list of demands issued by the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA), the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA), and the Black in Bioanthropology Collective (BiBA). MES recognizes the deep legacy of racism in our discipline and our shared responsibility to address historic and contemporary wrongs and work towards more ethical practices. The desecration of the MOVE victims’ remains displays the perniciousness of racist thought that erases the humanity of racialized communities and treats their remains as objects rather than as the bodies of humans who deserve equal respect, in life and in death.
Even the history underlying this horrific story is poorly understood and often overlooked. On May 13, 1985 the City of Philadelphia bombed the home of the MOVE organization, murdering eleven MOVE members, including five children. As anthropologists who were called in to identify remains after this egregious act of racist state violence, Mann and Monge had the personal and professional obligation to treat the bodies of these human victims with respect and the responsibility to meaningfully engage with the family and community in mourning; obligations that they manifestly failed to uphold. We denounce in the strongest terms recent revelations of the desecration of the remains of these children through their use for a course being taught at Princeton University by an