As a Bostonian, I want to know more about this.
Why is Boston Americaās most racist city? Because an actual Nazi likes our football team? Because Tom Brady voted for Trump (because heās kind of a lunkhead)?
Massachusetts and Boston in particular is a solidly blue, Democratic, liberal spot on the map. Weāve been a progressive city for decades. Please stop calling us racist.
Great. Lovely. Whereās their evidence for any of this?
Well, first, I didnātā¦ Michael Che did. That being said, Boston doesnāt have the best record on race relations, even being a solid blue city. There were riots over desegregation bussing in the 70s, for example and there was a long history of de facto segregation in the city:
And you know itās perfectly acceptable for people to constantly harp on the racism of the south, where I live. In a black majority city. So I know what itās like to be constantly called racist, backwards, and ignorant based solely on where I live.
I have family from MA (Springfield) and I was born in Concord MA. I also have an Arab friend who lives in Boston and tells me of racism heās seen and at times experiences there.
I didnāt call you racist, because I donāt think you are. But when we talk about American racism, no place has a clean record, no where is free of a racist past or even present.
Heās rightā¦ the Tea Party was often an astro turf movement! 
No, you said āMichael Che called itā¦ Boston is Americaās most racist city.ā Iāve been seeing this all over Facebook and Twitter.
I moved to Boston from Cincinnati, where while I was living there in the 90s, the city OKād the KKK to put a flaming cross (made of metal, lit with propane) next to the menorah in the city square. The Klan had marches in town. I remember watching race riots a few years later from my office window and the city going under curfew.
No city is āpureā, but Boston and many other cities have come quite a long way since the early 70s. Iām sick of letting Nazis on Twitter guide the national dialogue to deem what cities are Nazi-esque, and seeing Boston and the Patriots be lumped in with Nazis all over social media this morning isnāt what I expected to wake up to.
Iām also curious.
If the reason is because the races donāt mix, social mobility is limited, something something 80s busing scandal, something something Southie, Iād be willing to at least listen. If itās something to do with liberal college professors and east coast elites, then hell no.
Every place Iāve lived has been racist in one way or another. Boston does seem highly segregated, but so do Chicago and Cincinnati. But the exact nature of the racism is different, so Iām not really sure.
Well, first of all, I was riffing off Cheās joke.
Maybe ask a person of color who has been to Boston why theyād say that, then? Iām going on what they say. If they experience racism in a place, who am I to ignore that. If a black guy who does stand up is making a joke about boston being racist (or the most racist city), maybe there is a reason for that (even if itās overstating the case, for a joke). [quote=āLearnedCoward, post:543, topic:93556ā]
Boston does seem highly segregated, but so do Chicago and Cincinnati.
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At some point white Americans need to come to terms with the racism in every part of the country and believe black people when they say they experience it, instead of having knee jerk reactions to criticism. If we canāt come to term with our past and present, then we may as well just concede to the nazis, fold it in, and live blind. I donāt reject it when people talk about racism here (which, despite being a black majority city does exist - look at the belt line project and whatās about to happen to the West side, home of a large historically black community and the Atlanta University Center).
I have no ideaā¦ but then I did talk to a lovely gramma from Dearborn Michigan who swore up and down that shareera law was taking hold there and that a dear mooslem friend of her from quilting was beheaded on her front lawn for having white friends. So you know. #AltFacts
I have no doubt that there are very many racist people in Boston, especially in Southie, and with our heavy population of Italians and Irish, thereās most definitely a lot of segregation.
But having come from a terrifyingly racist city with an active and vocal Klan contingent, and having left that place specifically because of the rampant racism and homophobia there, Iām most definitely in a far less racist place these days with a wonderful ethnic mix all around me. I live on a street with Italians, Haitians, and a family from Tibet. Itās a shame that Michael Che had a bad experience here, and I hope he follows up with a bit of explanation sometime. But, speaking as a Bostonian, his joke wasnāt funny.
Boston apparently ranks #2 in hate crimes. (Columbus, Ohio is #1.)
Harrison, Arkansas (pop. 12,000) has been called Americaās most racist town.
According to one study, the most racist parts of the US are āthe rural northeast and the south,ā based on the number of searches over several years for the word ānigger.ā Boston, like the rest of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, seems to qualify as āmuch less than average.ā
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2012/04/26/boston-racist-city/
I too came from a place that had a Klan presence and ended up in a much more diverse, tolerant place, so I understand that. And where I live now is far more diverse of a place to be, which I like.
But racism isnāt an easy thing to accept and understand, and one way to deal with it as a fact of life is comedy - laughing at the reality and highlighting it in order to better understand it. I watched Cheās comedy concert thatās up on netflix recently, and he did this whole bit on how white women are the most powerful force in the world (he said we should drop a bunch of white women into Syria in order to defeat Daesh). It got a bit uncomfortable, as a white woman, because I donāt feel powerful - but itās still true. White supremacy, still a force in the world, seeks to make me, as a white woman, feel safe and comfortable - all that is true, even as I donāt feel that all the time.
Alsoā¦ at least youāre not from Springfield - thatās where the REAL racists are!
IME neither Cincinnati nor Boston is homophobic as a whole. Even though Cincinnati isnāt perfect in that regard, I thought Iād have problems there but I really didnāt. Cincinnati has probably gotten a lot better than it was, though.
I donāt think that really counts as diversity, but in Cincinnati, there arenāt Latinos or Caribbean people of any kind, and there are like one or two Italian people. So, maybe comparatively speaking, it is. However, it would be interesting to throw a regular black family into the mix. Not immigrants, not a well-to-do Cosby Show family, but regular black people. That is the true litmus test.
Cincy has made leaps and bounds from where it used to be, absolutely. When I lived there, they were one of the only cities in the country with laws specifically allowing discrimination against people suspected of being LGBT. I was fired from an executive job at a design agency; I was told āthereās members of upper management who are very uncomfortable about the way you are. You know,ā as they made a limp-wrist gesture, āyouād be better off in, say, San Francisco, with people like yourself.ā Those laws are long gone and the cityās better for it.
Possibly, but I still think thereās good evidence heās doing it on the toilet.
Itās the best place to drop a load of crap like that, after allā¦
Not sure if this is where to post this, butā¦ the FCC just rescinded last monthās approval of nine companies for its Lifeline program, offering subsidized broadband for low-income users.
New FCC Chairman says the latest decision to prevent āthese last-minute actions, which did not enjoy the support of the majority of commissioners at the time they were takenā from ā[binding] the agency going forward.ā In other words, if Obama did it, itās automatically bad.
See also:
Not directly Trumpingā¦
https://twitter.com/Timmbarton123T/status/828664520738435072
It would be nice to see some of the more draconian anti womenās health laws get struck down because they violate one of the silly anti-sharia laws that keep on getting passed.
