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.
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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.
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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.

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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.

@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.