Democrats Forced to Face Boston's Messy Racial Past

When one of New York's top political leaders, Herman D. Farrell Jr., questioned having a party in South Boston during the Democratic National Convention this summer, saying that neighborhood had a "history of racial turmoil and tension," a Boston official called him a "racial agitator" and insisted that the busing fight of the 1970's had little to do with racism.

Mr. Farrell, the longtime assemblyman from Manhattan who also is chairman of the state party, immediately tried to reduce the chance of a racial flare-up, saying yesterday that he was satisfied that Boston had changed since 1974, when some white residents of South Boston stoned school buses carrying black children into their neighborhood. Mr. Farrell, who is black, said that he was happy for the New York delegation to have its welcoming reception in South Boston.

His comments, detailed in a letter he wrote to convention officials in April, became public this week in the Boston newspapers, opening old wounds about the past and stoking the bitter rivalry between the two cities. The front page of The Boston Herald declared yesterday, "N.Y. Slams Southie."

James M. Kelly, who represents South Boston on the City Council, said yesterday: "I don't know this guy; we've got some racial agitators in the city of Boston as well and obviously you have one in New York. That's what he sounds like to us."

Suddenly, the tensions of three decades ago resurfaced, forcing Democrats to confront a messy racial issue just as they were trying to unite behind Senator John Kerry's candidacy for president. The arguments of today, while expressed against a far calmer backdrop than decades ago, nevertheless recall a divided Boston.

To many blacks, opposition to the busing was seen as opposition to integration of the schools; to many whites, it was a reaction to what they viewed as the unfairness of having their children sent out of their own neighborhoods to go to school.

It is a topic that Democrats would have preferred not to have to address now, especially as Mr. Kerry is struggling to excite black voters behind his candidacy.

Racial past?

They ought to look at it's racist present: Speaker of the House Finneran has recently been accused of, and sued by black organizations for, Gerrymandering Boston districts to ensure his and his white crony's political futures. They have purposely and systematically disenfranchised black voters by carving up predominantly black districts for their own gain. Even a Dem judge was forced to order them to undo what they were attempting to do. For a reference, see http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/02/25/bostons_districts_must_be_redrawn/

It is pretty hard to point a finger at Republicans in this overwhelmingly Democrat dominated state too. You can't blame President Bush or Governor Romney for this. No sirree, it is pure, unadulterated (no Kennedy reference here!) liberal Democrat racism.

But you can bet that 90% of those same blacks will vote Democrat. Talk about having a constituency in your back pocket!

The bussing riots were a result of a failed liberal attempt at forced integration. Essentially they bussed poor black kids into a neighborhood of poor whites that had schools that were just as bad, if not worse than that of Roxbury's.

The residents of South Boston revolted at what they viewed as their subjugation at the hands of a city government that had betrayed any of their interests in lieu of some bullshit idea of ‘progress’.

I have no idea of where you are from, but I don’t think your community would readily accept the forced integration of its school system (if there are any minorities in your school system) particularly if you had no say in the matter. However, unlike the residents of 1970’s south Boston you would probably have the choice to send your kids to a private school.

Boston did the same thing to the Jewish community of Mattapan, it was called “redlining” essentially some bureaucrat in Boston drew a red line in the middle of a map and decided that the area to one side of the line would be zoned for low income housing for blacks. They figured that the Jews were overall accepting and would accept the city’s interference with their community for liberal ideals. They were wrong. When the blacks moved in, the Jews moved out. When their interests were marginalized they voted with their feet. The Irish and Polish in South Boston couldn’t vote with their feet so they did it with rocks, bottles, and in case, an American flag.

The bussing riots were a poor white man’s revolt, unfortunately, the myth that the people of South Boston were well off whites who were so racist they would rather riot than accept blacks has twisted this fact into non-existence.

The people rioting were like caged animals, it was a community that was ravaged with drug abuse, unemployment, gang violence and alcoholism, but it was still a community. When control of the community was threatened and taken away all hell broke loose.

The liberals who pushed for the bussing scam are the worst type of scum this city has ever seen. They put the interests of the lowly white middle class in the gutter for their own sense of self-righteous accomplishment. The black kids on those busses were pawns as were the white kids throwing stones at them.

So you can LOL all you want. Boston is a very complex place that has been torn apart by virtue of its being a test subject for liberal ideology over the past 40 years.

BTW, I’d like to know where you eat when you’re in Boston. I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t see a lot of Black waiters/waitresses outside of Mattapan, and I doubt you’d ever set foot there.

I was born and raised in NYC, Manhattan, not the boroughs. And while I am sympathetic to the whites in Boston over bussing, I have always been struck by the complete abscense of any "people of color" in public there. But I guess that's just me, my quest for diversity.

Boston is a mess, revealing as it does the conflict between the dem masters and their serfs. The coming convention shows that, as does the continued hegemony of the Kennedys.

I am an Irish American, as I said my father grew up in Worcester, Mass and he did graduate from Holy Cross. I think the Irish Americans ongoing support of the corruption of the Democrats in Massachusetts is a great disgrace.

Good take on the busing situation. I grew up in Boston during that era and remember it well. Most of the liberals pushing that nonsense lived in the suburbs and sent their kids to nice schools. The poor blacks and whites in the city were treated like laboratory mice.

That poster you are referring to probably never set foot in Boston because he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. Boston may be infested with liberals, that doesn't make it any different than just about every other major city in this country. Aside from that, the Boston area is one of the best places in the country to live.

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