Thread by @travtufts

For my fellow white #bospoli voters, especially those of us in District 5: A thread on place, identity, and entitlement.
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I’ve knocked on a lot of doors this cycle, and talked to a lot of voters in Rozzie and Hyde Park. As the Boston City Council edges toward a majority POC body, one theme I’ve heard from white voters is a concern over “identity politics”.

This worry over candidates of color (who note their own perspectives as an attribute) assumes that electeds can’t provide constituent services while ALSO working to promote #equity in a city with a huge racial wealth gap. It also ignores the fact that…

A non-scientific, 10yr survey of Ward 18 lawn signs would show almost perfect overlap in households for Stephen Murphy, Marty Walsh, Dan Conley, Marty Keogh, Tim McCarthy, and Maria Farrell. But please tell me more about this *new* phenomenon of “identity politics.”

Full disclosure: I was not born here. For some that makes me ineligible to comment on topics ranging from space savers to school busses. But not being “from here” doesn’t seem to be just about your place of birth…

Here’s my city councilor Tim McCarthy in December, indirectly referring to a challenge by @RicardoNArroyo who was born and raised in Hyde Park. What does it mean to call growing up here, playing sports here, graduating from BPS here as “parachuting in”?
dotnews.com/2018/mccarthy-…

.@RicardoNArroyo grew up the son of a BPS teacher and the first Latino to run citywide in Boston. He graduated from @OBryantSchool, and pursued a *lucrative career* as a public defender. So many folks I talk to light up saying “I’ve known Ricardo my whole life!” He is FROM HERE.

After hearing that Councilor McCarthy posted and subsequently deleted the same “parachute in” statement following a preliminary election where @RicardoNArroyo came in first, we need to unpack what it means to be “from here” to some folks.

Hyde Park is a neighborhood full new and old residents, white, black, and Latinx families who have lived there for decades, and young families just settling there. It is now a global-majority neighborhood in a city that is undergoing a demographic shift over the past 60 years.

During these decades of change in District 5, as our neighborhoods have become browner and blacker, our representatives in City Hall and on Beacon Hill have remained largely white.

I certainly don’t think district demographics disqualify white electeds, but it’s near impossible for a white person to truly understand the experience of POC in America. When a candidate is “worried about the future” of D5 and prizes “historical knowledge” I fear they won’t try.

Over the next 6 weeks I hope to see two campaigns of IDEAS for how we can make D5 a better place for ALL residents, new and old. I hope to hear about advocacy for housing, schools, local businesses, and folks who have been historically marginalized.

My fellow white #bospoli voters, we shouldn’t fear a government that reflects the city in which we live. We shouldn’t shrink from the reality that our brightest future leaders may be POC. And we shouldn't let anyone deny the life experience of a candidate as “identity politics.”