I've received a ton of thanks, and I thank you. I was amazed at how the communities of color came out to vote for Menino. If you went by percentages you would think that Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester were the best places in the City to live, with people that are happiest with the government. Funny, but whenever I'm in Dudley everyone is begging for a job, or a better job, and the rents on my apartments in Roxbury have gone down, sale prices have collapsed, and Menino didn't even go to the forums.
My theory: because the schools have been so bad for so long, we haven't taught our children the critical thinking skills to properly analyze the situation, nor taught them the tools needed to bring change. One friend from Roxbury writes:
You guys did make an effort to be proud of. In the end the communities of color overwhelmingly supported Menino. Sadly, though, we still have lousy schools, few jobs and no future in our communities of color. But we got a lot of housing! What are we thinking?
You know the old saying in the black community: "All I have to do is stay black and die". When did it become: "All I have to do is stay poor, black and die"?
Take care Kevin! And I'll see you around.
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2 comments:
Kevin, you should be proud, and many people are grateful because you did what no politician would do: you ran a race not on the gamble that you'd win, but on the certainty that you could educate people about their government, so whoever won, they could hold him accountable. Even without being elected, you are a public servant.
As a Latina in the city of Boston, who lives next to Franklin Park, I would ask that you don't continually try to point to "people of color" as having terrible lives and "begging for jobs on the corner." I went through the Boston Public Schools, the Trotter, the Hernandez, the King -- I graduated college, I currently hold a job, and I'm intellectually capable enough to know that Mayor Menino is one of the only mayors in the country who actively fights racism. Understanding where racism comes from, the fact that is has been institutionalized since Europeans came to America, Mayor Menino acknowledges the price our city has paid for a historically segregated and discriminatory past. He also knows the only way to fight the national racial wealth divide phenomenon is to directly address it. While other candidates use race when it's convenient, Mayor Menino has been dedicated to combating racial inequities since day 1.
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