Of course blacks are not excluded from any of these places. It's not that businesses or government are discriminating against blacks when it comes to the Seaport, it's that it is a place where black people largely do not feel welcome. That's a trickier issue than red lining or discriminatory hiring practices. It's more subtle.
I do think making an effort to be more inclusive with who is on the design and development teams as well as who are the business owners who open up shop in the Seaport can help to address this. I do think there is a larger issue with black people not feeling welcome in many white-majority spaces in Boston, and that of course will take much more of a societal change to solve, but by involving black people more in the creation of the Seaport, at least there is a chance that it could reflect more of what black people are looking for, and creating those kinds of spaces where they do feel included.
cden4, I agree with you here and with several of the points you make in your previous post. The only point I didn't agree with was the evenhandedness of the globe's reporting (though I agree with many of their conclusions); they seem to only be pointing out the failure stories and not a single success story in this overall series on racism. There have been, admittedly, very few success stories, but not zero. Today's piece on Higher Ed. is case in point. They had one sentence about some effective policies at Tufts and MIT, and a dozen+ paragraphs on stalled/failed efforts at the city's other schools...Yet when they compared schools' data from 1980-2015, Tufts and MIT weren't included. My overall take on the series is that the data presented is not fully evenhanded, then it is fair to call into question the quality of the journalism. But I admit that it would be very unlikely that the conclusions would change much. This is a city that needs to be jolted into having conversations on these issues - conversations that weren't taking place.
If you are not of a certain race, you are not in a position to speak to whether someone from that race should feel welcome or not. Those are their feelings you are talking about; such is not equivalent to your
logical take on whether they should/shouldn't have those feelings.
I agree with everyone who is saying that what's transpired in the seaport = economics at play. But the point is, it would not have broken capitalism whatsoever if:
- City planners/officials asked* employers to advertise new jobs more in underprivileged areas of the city
- City planners/officials asked* to keep affordable housing efforts also located within the same neighborhood instead of accepting offsets in another neighborhood
- City planners/officials designated some of the restaurant/bar/shop slots to be for local/not-chain businesses at controlled rent, and advertised those opportunities in underprivileged neighborhoods (e.g., this could have been a type of "offset" accepted, similar to other offsets)...and this could have resulted in minority-owned businesses being part of the seaport's growth.
*I say "asked" because I actually do believe that some of these developers would have taken these actions even if suggested and non-binding.
The point is that these conversations weren't being had because no one considered them vital enough.
And I confidently say this wouldn't have broken capitalism because all of these developers were already paying offsets of one form or another...a well-planned effort could have resulted in much better strategic design of such offsets to help tackle the diversity issue. All of this could have been accomplished without costing the developers more.
"Feeling welcome" is a real thing; if you are not of a certain race, and there was a restaurant/bar near you that you were interested in trying, but when you went there you noticed that 100% of the clientele of that venue was a different race of yours, and you were the only one of your race, would you be a frequenter of that bar? I am just asking an honest question. No one is asking for venues to be all black and non-white...they are just asking from them not to be 100% white. Even a little bit of diversity makes minorities feel more comfortable in a place. There's no reason not to have the conversations about how this can be accomplished, and I do believe it is simply lazy, de-prioritized thinking that results in it not happening.
The city needed a wake-up call.
