racism
Dirty Water is in Chicago, where he reports on a black couple he met at last night's Red Sox/White Sox game:
... They are from Randolph and ardent Red Sox (and especially Coco) fans. I asked if they get to Fenway often and their reply stunned me. They don't go to Fenway *NOT* because they can't get or afford tickets but because they fear for their safety because of their race. ...
And based on his four years here, concludes he knows Boston well enough to condemn it for all time - and then bolsters his all-knowing conclusion with a book about stuff that happened when the Red Sox were owned by people who haven't had anything to do with the team for years, because they're dead.
Via Jeff Egnaczyk.
Ryan Barrett and some friends were at an Irish bar in the South End last night watching the Celtics game when two older white guys started getting louder and louder:
... We chose to ignore the guys ... until we heard this: "C'mon, make the shot you f*cking spook."
Our table began bouncing questions off of each other - "Did he really just say that?" "I think he just called Paul Pierce a spook!" "WTF?!?!"
The guy overheard our table talk and started rambling to himself about how we didn't understand his life and how everyone called Black basketball players "spooks" in Roxbury in the 60's. ...
That would be local TV newscasts, according to former Channel 4 reporter(and now WBZ radio talk host) Dan Rea. Dan Kennedy profiles Rea in a CommonWealth article that asks the question: Can Rea survive as a genteel local host in an age of screaming invective?
Local television news is one of the great purveyors of racism of our time. They don't understand that. But if you are somebody who lives out in one of the 128 or 495 suburbs, and never have a reason to really interact with people of color, the only time you're going to see young black males is when they're being arraigned, they're being arrested, or they're dying in the street. We ignore the 99 percent of the kids in that community who are trying to do the right thing, trying to go to school, trying to participate in community programs and athletics.
KAB reports her fiance, who is Chinese-American, was on the bus home when some crazed old white guy started yelling racial slurs at him and threatened to kick his ass:
... Shortly after, one of the passengers comes up to Jamie and says, "I didn't hear all of your conversation with him, but if I had I would've said something."
"No, it's okay," Jamie tells him. "You didn't need to — I don't need anyone to fight my battles for me. I went to Boston Latin School — stuff like this happened to me all the time growing up. I know how to handle it. I don't need anyone to fight my battles," he said.
But in telling me the story he revealed something the people on the bus might not have seen. "You know, I really wanted to punch that guy. I felt myself ready," he said, clenching his fist. "I was going to punch him. ..."
Derek takes a look at that Harvard study on racism in greater Boston and discusses his own experiences as a black man born and raised in Boston, says he is more worried about anti-gay violence than racism, but concludes there is still enough racism out there to warrant some soul-searching by whites:
... It's easy enough for us to rail against institutional racism, but what about attacking the pervasive nature of homegrown neighborhood racism? When do conscious members of the white community stand up and take action where they live? One tidbit that gets overlooked in the study is that it sampled people from around the region, not just in Boston. The suburbs have as much soul searching to do as any area of the city.
Peter, though, disputes the Harvard study, saying that minorities might be getting bad service not because they're minorities but because:
Service is terrible everywhere. Service personnel have no respect for anyone. Get used to it!
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