Written with support from ONEin3 Dorchester Chair Jackney Prioly
By now, you’ve most likely heard about how a group of black Harvard and Yale alumni had their party shut down because the club, Cure, was afraid that “gangbangers” might sneak in among the patrons and cause trouble.
This incident has rightly touched a nerve in Boston, where tolerance and inclusion are much emphasized virtues. At ONEin3, we feel that, as young people, we have an obligation to grapple with the causes and effects of such an incident. We realize we’re treading on some risky terrain here, so please tell us what you think (positive, negative and in between) in the comments bearing in mind that ONEin3 Boston does not tolerate racism or segregation and we take these issues seriously.
Here is how I see it:
While Cure and the party’s organizers had an obligation to be prepared for potential security concerns, it’s impossible for me to believe that a group of mostly white alumni would be held to the same standard by the club.
At the very least, the proprietors of Cure were guilty of lazy thinking on the issue of race. They perceived a risk in allowing the alumni group to proceed with their party because they could not distinguish between black Ivy alumni and “gangbangers.”
For starters, there is no more pernicious stereotype than the one that paints black men as “gangbangers.” And let me remind you that these men were in all likelihood studying economics or biology at Harvard or Yale a couple years ago.
But more importantly, they have the right to go to any establishment they choose. No one deserves to have a door shut in their face because they might present a problem. That’s unfair, discriminatory and un-American.
Socializing with friends is a necessary feature of human life and, as a cosmopolitan City, our biggest advantage is the relative ease with which residents and visitors can access this outlet. If we allow an environment to exist in which any group is assumed to be a safety risk, we prejudicially deny people a basic benefit that city-living offers.
This is short-sighted and self-defeating. Boston loses talented, committed people when simply socializing with friends is difficult.
A friend of mine, a very successful young African-American doctor, once told me that Boston is professional heaven and social suicide for African-Americans. She came here after medical school despite warnings about our social climate and racial problems and found tremendous professional satisfaction. She worked at a great hospital, managed a strong team, found exceptional mentorship. Her employer invested time and money in her development and gave her opportunities to take on responsibility.
However, she found it difficult to make new friends and felt isolated. Let me repeat: a beautiful, talented doctor with a great personality, tons of interests and an openness to the world felt isolated in Boston because she could not find a social life in which she could express her fullest identity. And man, her dating stories were either comic or tragic. I’m still not sure.
In her future, I feel sure that she will run a hospital, sit on Presidential committees, teach the best and the brightest, but she will do it in Atlanta where she moved this fall in search of personal fulfillment.
In my friend’s case, the same dynamics that led Cure to close the Harvard/Yale alumni event diminished her social options and caused her to leave. Her case is not unique.
Boston is an exceptional place. It has the potential to be the best city in the world for anyone to live. It will never reach that potential when groups of people are shut out.
This city belongs to us young people now. We may not sit in power positions, but don’t let that fool you. We own this place and we can shape it if we want to. For Boston’s survival, we need to face the fact that we are segregated in order to change the perception of Boston as a bastion of quiet, institutional racism.
At ONEin3, we’re ready to go all in. We keep talking about it but we need partners, supporters and organizers. Most of all, we need ideas about how to make Boston’s social sphere more integrated and welcoming.
This past summer, ONEin3 Boston co-hosted a Community Dialogues group with the YWCA. It was a worthwhile experience, although there is significant room for improvement. Our group had some ideas, including Friendly Takeovers of bars with racially diverse groups of friends, book and discussion groups and a plan to use this blog as a platform to continue the conversation.
Are these good ideas? Would you be willing to help with any of them? What other actions can we take immediately and over the long-term?
Please weigh in in the comments!
Devin and Jackney:
I’m all in, as well.
While I am caucasian, I’ve had the experience of not being treated well when in the company of my friends of color. In one case, even being asked to leave a restaurant in my own neighborhood because my friend (who is African American) was confused for some other individual who allegedly took a jacket.
To say the least, it’s troubling. We have to look at our past, learn from it, and come down hard on those people simple enough to let things like what happened at Cure happen in our City.
Thanks for a well written and insightful post.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ONEin3 Boston, Robert K. Bench and map-lab architects, Meg. Meg said: RT @ONEin3: Let's do something abt Boston's reputation for segregation and racism. http://ht.ly/3ouH7 #Harvard #Yale #CureIncident [...]
First, I would like to say thank you Onein3 for starting the conversation on such an important topic. As a white, female who works in Boston and lives in a suburb of the city, I was not aware of the degree of social segregation in Boston until very recently. I am constantly surrounded by people who are truly welcoming of all types of people. However, when I actually pause to think about my social experiences in the city, they are predominately white. From my personal experience, I think that I have been willfully ignorant of the segregation largely because I talk a good game of racial acceptance. I am honest in my racial acceptance and maybe that has made me passive in the progress Boston has made toward social integration. It takes a conscious effort to execute and demonstrate racial acceptance and if we all start walking the walk instead of just talking the talk, I think Boston could make quick progress under a unified effort of social consciousness.
petition!
http://humanrights.change.org/petitions/view/tell_cure_lounge_to_apologize_for_shutting_down_a_black_ivy_league_event_2
The fact that there was outrage over the Cure incident is a step forward. The folks at Cure wound up with a PR nightmare on their hands, which will hopefully send a message to other venues in the city that this type of behavior won’t be tolerated here.
I resent your deliberate attempt to portray Boston as a city of deep-seeded institutional racism. Do other cities get slapped with that label every time a single individual or institution does something wrong? Why must you insist on turning this into an opportunity to spread White Liberal Guilt? I believe racism is very real and it’s a serious problem, but when I look at this website I see little more than the blathering of some liberal arts college do-gooder.
You can’t even discuss this issue without LYING about what happened at the club. They weren’t concerned about who “might” show up. THEY WERE CONCERNED ABOUT WHO HAD ALREADY SHOWED UP. The bouncers - and a bounder’s job is to remember the faces of “troublemakers” and ensure they don’t come back - recognized several people in the crowd, people they knew to be a problem. Perhaps they overreacted at that point, and perhaps they wouldn’t have overreacted if the crowd was mostly white. (perhaps not, but I’ll indulge you) If so, there could be a real issue here. But you’re not really interested in those facts, are you? You’re mostly just looking for a reason to cry “RACISM” and blame it on the entire city of Boston.
This is why identity politics always fail.
Dave,
These are not the rantings of a liberal arts college do-gooder trying to evoke liberal white guilt. This is about moving the conversation on race in Boston to the next level. We talk a lot about how diverse Boston is, but when you go to certain neighborhoods or out on the town it doesn’t appear that way. Our rich ethnic and cultural diversity should be reflected in every part of the city.
As someone who was born and raised in Dorchester, one of the most diverse yet still segregated neighborhood in the city, I have seen the progress, but I know there are ways in which we can improve. As a black woman, I have been to places in this city where I get questioning glances, but this is MY city and no one will make me feel as if it is not.
My question continues to be how can we, as the next generation in this city, truly foster diversity in this city? How do we make sure everyone- black, white, asian, latino- feel like this is their city too? When will we get to the point that we do not need “Friendly Takeovers” for people to feel like they can explore the city without having to justify why? These questions are very real for many people, including myself.
My asking these questions does not mean that I condemn Boston as racist. Every city has its issues, but Boston, as stated in this post, is an exceptional place to grow up, live, work and play…but I want it to be the best.
Jackney
Ok, so I’m commenting on my own post. This post has popped up on a lot of people’s facebook pages, which is awesome, and there has been scattered commentary in each place. I thought I’d compile some of the comments so they’re in one place:
“This really pissed me off when I first read the article. I believe majority of us young black adults have experienced this on numerous occasions. I REFUSE to give these rascist clubs my money I work hard for.”
“The sad part about this is that I strongly feel as if these club owners do this because they know that in this city they can get away with things like that. What we can do to change something that’s been going on for years? I feel as if it’s going to take young adults of all races to come together to help this stop.”
Dave,
Thanks for your comment.
Whether or not Boston has an actual racism problem (I would argue that we have a segregation problem at the very least), we are perceived negatively across the country by people of color. I think we need to deal with this head on.
The incident at Cure brought up a lot of emotion in the black community here and beyond. I see a direct connection between that sort of event and the very real experiences of friends of mine that I actually know and who have experienced racism both hard and soft in Boston.
Why is it that people, white and non-white alike, saw this incident as just another in a long train of questionable incidents?
This is not about identity politics, whatever that means. It’s about a problem, perhaps born out of inaccurate perception, that has a direct effect on Boston’s ability to retain talented, educated and productive young people of all races.
You say you believe racism is a real problem. I am curious to read your analysis of the problem.
Do you see this issue as one merely of perception? If so, how do we deal with it?
If not, what is the shape of racism in Boston 2010-11?
If you wouldn’t mind chiming back in, I think it would be valuable.
Devin
Thanks for this article Devin. Undoubtedly one of the biggest obstacles to any group, be it a city, school, class, etc., addressing the issue of race is simply that its a difficult subject to bring up for discussion in the first place. No matter what people’s opinions are of the content of your article, the fact that those who agree with you and disagree with you are talking about their differences, on this and other forums, shows that your article accomplished the goal of getting people to think about the issue, engage in it, and talk about it. Well done.
The author is exhibiting another type of prejudice in this article, as well as the original article referenced from The Harvard Crimson.
“And let me remind you that these men were in all likelihood studying economics or biology at Harvard or Yale a couple years ago.”
“Regardless of our crowd representing the pinnacle of academic achievement as Harvard and Yale College alumni, Law, Medical, Business and PhD students…..”
In addition to racism, Boston is also a victim of elitism. I’m pretty sure the “black Ivy alumni” wouldn’t have let the “gang-bangers” into the party either. Its not just your skin color which gets judged in Boston, but also your education and economic status.
Boston is a snobby, racist place, but don’t blame Bostonians. I’m a Bostonian and I never encountered racism until I went to college, and suddenly the demographic changed. I was now surrounded by a majority of white people who grew up in majority white communities from around the country. Every-year Boston is flooded with a new crop of upper middle class, educated, and sheltered white people, bringing their prejudices into our diverse city.
Also, look at the petition website which Heather Green posted, the writer states: ” Plus, the event organizers say that tickets to the event were presold exclusively to Ivy League alumni. Therefore, it makes little sense that common thugs had managed to infiltrate the event. ”
So there are no bad Ivy-League people?
Something tells me that is this were a UMass or Northeastern party, I don’t think Onein3 would be covering it….
Hey Steve…you are right to identify a class aspect to this story. I chose not to address that side of the story in this article because I see it as secondary here.
Class will, however, play a big role in future posts because it is a barely submerged fault line running through a lot of issues in Boston. I also suggest that you read Tim Smith’s piece from a couple weeks ago, in which he discusses bridging his childhood in Dorchester with his current job at Northeastern: http://www.onein3boston.com/2020/11/17/this-is-boston-us-vs-them/
I’m not entirely sure why you would assume that we wouldn’t cover this story if it were about a UMass or Northeastern party comes from. ONEin3 is not a program with a focus restricted to Ivy League schools. Please ask the Northeastern and UMass alumni who serve and have served on the ONEin3 Mayor’s Advisory Council.
To be honest, there aren’t many facts in the story. One group says one thing, the other group says another, but because one group is elite, they are trusted, and you are publishing their words over the other group. Is that not prejudice?
What I tried to say before, is that if this group of students were not Ivy-Leaguers, you wouldn’t be so sure that they were the victims in this case. Because of their background and who they are, they get preferential treatment in your article. Same as a “gang-banger” can’t get into a club because of the way he looks, an Ivy-Leaguer gets many benefits because of where they went to school and their connections….. Both of those are some pretty bad realities of Boston.
Is Boston anywhere near as racist as is was when most of us were born? All signs say no. The pattern of housing segregation is breaking down rapidly. The deliberate racist behavior of the public school system ended long ago. We have members of our communities of color in positions of power and influence politically, socially, and in the business community. Do problems remain? Absolutely. There is too much silo behavior where people associate only with people like them, which often becomes (though not necessarily intentionally) people of the same race. There is still far too much stereotyping of places like Roxbury being referred to as war zones by ignorant people who only watch local news. And perhaps most importantly, there is still a wide and unacceptable disparity between the academic performance of white and Asian children compared to black and Latino children in our city. At the end of the day, I think it is safe to say Boston has come pretty far and is likely no more racist than anywhere else in America but at the same time still has a lot of work to do to break down these institutional barriers that remain. It is very heartening to see that people of all races are concerned with these institutional barriers and actively working to break them down.
[...] Check out friends at ONEin3 Boston (@ONEin3) who have a write up of the incident at Cure and actions they are taking to combat stereotypes to move Boston forward. If This Is the New Boston Then Preaching Diversity Is Not Enough [...]
You definitely captured the sentiments of me and lot of my friends. I appreciated that you recognized that the social scene is tough for African Americans despite our contribution to the city via our profession, community involvement or by being students. I do agree that it’s important to be able to socialize and and feel everyone is due that right if we live as responsible citizens in Boston.
I honestly don’t know how Boston can be welcoming like cities like ATL and DC. It’s possible that maybe African American ownership should increase in the downtown Boston area and not just the areas where its predominately Black. Currently, there is no “one spot” to hang out, but there are nights that promoters have at clubs/bars/lounges that are “premitted/allowed” on certain nights.
I certainly think that future collaboration and communication about this topic is a great start!
Devin & Jackney,
Thanks for posting this, and for following up on the brief conversation we had about this issue at last week’s Advisory Council meeting. This story has particularly good timing, considering yesterday’s Globe coverage of Governor Patrick’s new Chief of Staff, Mo Cowan. The article references Mo’s efforts a decade ago to organize “friendly takeovers” with other young African-American professionals at downtown nightspots in an effort to address some of the issues that, as this incident demonstrates, still persist today. As a fellow Northeastern University School of Law alum, I don’t know Mo but I know his legacy, and I’m willing to bet that he might be a great partner in addressing these issues once again. And might I suggest that Onein3 follow his lead in scheduling some “friendly takeovers”?
Here is the article: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2020/12/13/for_top_patrick_aide_echoes_of_governors_journey/
Keep up the great work,
Mike Loconto
First Bravo Devin & Jackney on this blog- Race is always an issue that strikes a cord with people on either side of the discussion.
Lets not fool ourselves. Yes we have one of the most beautiful cities in the country, Yes it is rich with history, but Yes it still suffers severely with segregation and overall issues of racism. As a professional black woman I can say this from personal experience.
The incident at Cure is not the first of its type- African-Americans have had parties canceled last minute by a number of the club owners around our city for fear of “gang-bangers” but when young Caucasians get into altercations at clubs and bars they are not banned from hosting their parties. These incidents aren’t the only of their type, It just happens that the club scene is easier for us to openly talk about. But I myself have experienced it (it being racism) in shops, or out dining with large groups of African-Americans/Latinos (many of which are truly movers and shakers) and most painfully in stereotypes of my neighborhood Roxbury.
But if we can all step out and realize that yes- change has been made, but there are still many strides to be taken- then maybe one day our city will be the most integrated and welcoming to all. We have to own that and pledge to each take our part. Step out and not be fearful, don’t assume the worst expect the best.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this conversation, and thanks to Devin, Jackney and Tim (in other related blog posts) for bringing this issue to the forefront. I was really impressed by all the response, and am finally getting around to posting myself.
Just because any one of us behaves and thinks in an equitable way doesn’t negate the fact that racism exists - our institutions favor those who have traditionally been in power. Just having a person of color (or many) in a position of prominence alone doesn’t change these structures. Take a look at the persistent disparity in education, health and economic outcomes across different racial/ethnic groups and it’s clear that we have serious systemic issues.
At the heart of it, regardless of to what extent one sees racism in Boston, what does it matter? Perception is key. If my friends of color don’t feel welcome, or feel less engaged or less at home than I do, then we all have a problem. I don’t feel that it’s my position to make that call. But we all need to get involved in addressing it. If we can agree that the city will be stronger when everyone feels welcome, then we can move forward and take action.
Everyone who has something to say about this topic should get involved – we need your help.
- Join a YWCA Dialogue to engage in a conversation on the topic of race in Boston:
- Participate in YWCA’s Annual Stand Against Racism on April 29, 2020:
-The Onein3/YWCA dialogue group is planning a Friendly Takeover in January 2011 – want to come? Email me.
If we can have these conversations, we can all take action together to make changes.
[...] of you readers, you stepped up big and engaged in a great conversation on race and segregation in Boston, a subject we believe needs addressing. We hope you’ll continue the conversation with us in [...]