Mastodawn

David McMullin May 3, 2023

The other day, talking about issues on the fediverse, @mekkaokereke proposed an (apt) analogy which led to a tangential conversation about racism in Boston. I noticed, as I have whenever this comes up, a curious thing about what “Boston” seems to represent in the public imagination.

A thread (a rant?) about #Boston #demographics…
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https://musicians.today/@mcmullin/110283766606470442

David McMullin (@[email protected])

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Boston resident here with one clarification: Boston is _not_ especially white. What it is is segregated. But there are plenty of Black people here and they’re not hiding. (Imagine listening to everyone agreeing about how white NYC is, as if the Upper East Side below 96th St. is the whole city.) Whether Boston is as racist as everyone thinks, I’m not qualified to say. (Black Bostonians can tell you.) But compare it to NYC, Philadelphia, New Haven—not VT.

Musicians Today

David McMullin May 3, 2023

I’m not going to offer an opinion about racism in Boston, because there are 1.3 million residents of color in the Boston area who can speak about that with more authority.

Does that surprise you? That’s actually what I want to talk about.

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David McMullin May 3, 2023

One thing everyone seems to agree on is that “Boston” is about the whitest city there could ever be. That’s apparently its defining feature. People say things like “I lived there for a year and there were no Black people anywhere!” Then it turns out they’re talking about Cape Cod or the exurbs beyond 495. Or Vermont, even.
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David McMullin May 3, 2023

You could never get away with saying “New York City has no diversity at all,” and then trying to back that up by talking about Greenwich or the Hamptons. But use that logic for “Boston” and everyone just nods along. Whatever this place is that people mean when they say “Boston,” it’s not the actual city of Boston.
4/

David McMullin May 3, 2023

The City of Boston itself is less than 50% white. Granted, the city lines are rather arbitrary, and it’s part of a larger metropolis including several other municipalities and rings of suburbs. But many of the nearby communities are also quite diverse. It gets whiter the farther out you go, but however you define Greater Boston, it’s going to include a substantial nucleus of non-white residents: 1.3 million, according to the Census Bureau.
5/

https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/Massachusetts/Boston/Race-and-Ethnicity#figure/place/non-white-population

David McMullin May 3, 2023

The only way Boston could be as white as everyone thinks is if these people just don’t count.

The “Boston” people are thinking of seems to mean: just the white parts of the largest possible geographic area around the city, excluding most of the city itself. And sure, if you do it that way, then “Boston” is all white.

But so is Chicago. So is Detroit. And no one ever talks this way about those places.

6/

David McMullin May 3, 2023

Why are people so committed to this odd mythic conception of an all-white “Boston,” and what agenda does it serve?

(Not a rhetorical question; I’m honestly curious.)

7/end

I think what may be going on, is that white visitors to Boston are completely unprepared for how segregated the city is.

If you're white, and you visit Boston and go to white places, you see almost no Black people. So if you're baselining on a "normal" level of segregation, you might reasonably conclude that "Boston is super white!" When the truth is that Boston is super segregated and super racist.

David McMullin May 3, 2023

Oh it’s segregated, no doubt—and that surely reflects racism. I don’t blame people for getting the wrong idea who visit once and just walk down Newbury Street.

But a lot of these comments come from folks who claim to know the place better than that. And from people who don’t know anything but are quite confident that places like Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan etc either can’t exist or if they do, they aren’t “Boston.” That’s what bugs me.

Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD May 3, 2023

@mcmullin @mekkaokereke I grew up in Arlington, which is only 6 miles from Boston, not an outer suburb. In the 1960’s and 1970’s when I lived there, I never saw a single Black person in Arlington or the neighboring cities and towns. I see on Wikipedia that in 2010 Arlington is still only 2.3% Black. I did not hear people explicitly saying racist things, but that level of segregation is not random variation.

DemonHusky Aug 29, 2023

@EricFielding @mcmullin @mekkaokereke Arlington's stopping the Red Line extension was explicitly racist, "not wanting those people coming here", so yeah, not random demographics

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
It’s funny this thread from a few months ago came to life again today. Anyway, yes, Boston’s racism was built into its infrastructure in ways that are not subtle at all. I don’t know the specific history, but a quick look at the transit map shows the T lines all seem to be drawn to avoid serving the non-white areas or connecting across racial lines.

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
The point of my original thread was not to deny or defend Boston’s historic or current racism, but to remind people that half the city’s residents are POC—who are the people most affected by this and the ones we should listen to about it. It’s not helpful to pretend they don’t exist.

DemonHusky Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @EricFielding @mekkaokereke I didn't even realize it was an old thread, but I think people noted pretty well how segregated the city is, and how the "destinations" are more centered on the whiter areas. I was just adding how explicit some of the decisions that still segregate the region were about race.

Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD Aug 30, 2023

@DemonHusky @mcmullin @mekkaokereke Mastodon and the Fediverse has a more relaxed interaction rate, one thing I like about it compared to the former bird site.

Alexx Kay Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
Relevant anecdote. My wife and I (both white) live in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, very much majority black. For a while, my wife (who is blind) would be taking the MBTA home from JFK Station every day. Now, at JFK, the Red Line bifurcates, one branch going to Dorchester, the other going to (mostly-white) Quincy. (continued)

Alexx Kay Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
Since people tend to assume that blind people are incompetent, on multiple occasions "helpful" white commuters earnestly informed my wife that she was "on the wrong side". Because why ever would a white woman go to Dorchester? (To be clear, there are a *lot* of white people here, just more black people.)

Venita Aug 30, 2023

@AlexxKay @mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke It wasn't always majority Black. Boston neighborhoods still segregated smh.

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@venitamathias @AlexxKay @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
Just to clarify, without looking it up, it’s a long way from majority Black, but it’s no longer majority white. And it remains very segregated. Since this thread sparked some misunderstandings before, I’ll reiterate that Boston’s problems with racism and segregation are real and longstanding. But that’s different from being an all-white city like people think.

André Mayer Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke The T lines are mostly very old however, and Boston was very white for a long time. Perhaps more likely that lower-income groups tend to move into less-served neighborhoods.

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@havhmayer @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
It can be a self-reinforcing phenomenon either way, but as @DemonHusky and @knizer pointed out, at least some of those choices were definitely intentional.

Jeff Byrnes Aug 31, 2023

@mcmullin @havhmayer @EricFielding @mekkaokereke @DemonHusky @knizer a lot of the segregation started out as anti-immigrant (anti Irish & anti Italian mostly) & anti-Semitic. But by the post-WW2 era it was largely about race. The story of Arlington blocking the Northeast Expansion of the Red Line is a perfect example of anti-Black racism, as is the busing crisis of the 70s.

Jeff Byrnes Aug 31, 2023

@mcmullin @havhmayer @EricFielding @mekkaokereke @DemonHusky @knizer it’s also important to recall that many late 1800s/early 1900s European immigrants were not considered “white” back then (nor were Jews). So the segregation has its own internal consistencies, even if it’s all just bullshit bigotry.

Jeff Byrnes Aug 31, 2023

@mcmullin @havhmayer @EricFielding @mekkaokereke @DemonHusky @knizer the major T railways were laid out in the early 1900s, when Roxbury & Mattapan were very different demographically, but still considered “not white” by many in power.

Things changed, but didn’t really get better, when Irish American folks began to gain power. That’s changing again, since Boston has been majority-minority for a while now. We regularly refer to “old Boston” and “new Boston” when talking #BOSpoli.

Michael Sokolov Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke when the orange line was built, 1901, the city's racial makeup was quite different. I believe Roxbury was largely Jewish then. Not saying you're wrong, but the story is not simply black and white

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@msokolov @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
Thanks—I don’t really know this history, or when Roxbury became a Black neighborhood, except that it wasn’t recently. But if it turns out antisemitism rather than racism is why the trains mostly avoid the neighborhood, I guess that wouldn’t be shocking either.

Michael Sokolov Aug 30, 2023

@mcmullin @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke another nuance is white suburban neighborhoods not wanting the train to go there because they didn't want city people coming (Arlington), or something. So I really don't think it's simply a story of the trains avoiding minority neighborhoods of whatever complexion

David McMullin Aug 30, 2023

@msokolov @DemonHusky @EricFielding @mekkaokereke
Right, that’s the specific case that was brought up before. I don’t claim to know the actual history here, and would defer to anyone who does—Things are usually more complicated than they seem. (And sometimes, as when white suburbanites express concerns about mixing with “city people,” they’re not really so complicated.)

knizer Aug 30, 2023

@EricFielding @mcmullin @mekkaokereke

If anyone else is interested in pulling at that specific thread because it also surprised them, here's citation backing up @DemonHusky's assertion:

https://tuftsobserver.org/red-tape-why-the-red-line-stopped-short/

Red Tape: Why the Red Line Stopped Short – Tufts Observer

A working-class, Irish-Catholic community on the edge of suburbia, with access to downtown Boston, and a small-town feel that no one wanted to change—this is Arlington, MA in the 1970s. Most families had lived in the town for their entire lives, and connections ran deep. The church parish was strong (“devout, conservative and traditional”) and

Tufts Observer – Tufts's Student Magazine Since 1895

Ari Ofsevit Aug 31, 2023

@mekkaokereke @mcmullin was on a plane and a super-racist lady was telling us that Boston seemed "safe" after telling us about how Chicago was dangerous because her neighbors were shady or something.

Clearly she hadn't seen many Black people and figure it was safe.