For much of the last 50 years, “Southie Won’t Go” was the battle cry of school and housing segregationists in the nation’s largest white ghetto, but yesterday the voters of South Boston joined their neighbors in Dorchester in electing Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry to represent them as the first Haitian-American state senator in Massachusetts history.
As a small but growing number of writers keep reminding us, the ghettos of 20th century American urban life were creatures of public policy. They didn’t happen by accident, or because of the “pathologies” of their residents. Those ghettos are still with us today in Boston and cities across the country. But just as ghettos (black and white) were created by public policy, they can be dismantled by public policy.
Dorcena Forry’s victory—and the widely agreed upon fact that Boston is a better place to live than it was 40 years ago—is due in no small part to the use of state power to dismantle (if only partially) the segregation of Boston’s public schools (in the 1970s) and public housing (in the 1980s).
For many longtime Boston residents, part of the joy associated with Dorcena Forry’s victory is that it’s all so normal. After all, she’s a Boston native who grew up in St. Kevin’s parish, graduated from Msgr. Ryan High and Boston College, worked at the State House as a legislative assistant and then at City Hall, before getting elected in 2005 to fill her mentor’s seat in the state house of representatives. It’s exactly the career path followed by generations of pols who’ve represented South Boston. Why wouldn’t she get—as she did—81% of the vote in this heavily Democratic district?
And that’s the point. By dismantling the artificial and unjust structures of the ghetto, the truth that we humans are far more alike than we are different, that what we call racial differences don’t actually exist, can be revealed. Congratulations to Sen. Forry and to all of her constituents.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/