I agree with Tito Jackson, Boston city councilor, who remarked on racial tension at Boston Latin: “I don’t think that we’ve had the watershed conversation that we need to have on this topic and this issue.” (NYT 1/30/15) I remember very vividly being invited to a meeting on racial issues at Holy Cross College a few years before the busing crisis exploded [in the 1970s]. I was barely able to get a word in edgewise. I was confronted by a young black man accompanied by the now prominent Ted Wells who instantly launched into a diatribe about what my ancestors had done to his ancestors. This was bewildering. My young black friends didn't know my ancestors. My mother's family were recent immigrants from Ireland where her uncle had spent several years in a British prison for being an Irish nationalist. Their mortal enemies were black all right: the Black and Tans British paramilitary police. On my father's side of the family they were very proud of their association with the Wagners, claiming that grandpa had helped persuade Bob senior to run for the United States Senate. Recall that Bob Wagner was the valued friend of the NAACP's Walter White who had fought valiantly, though unsuccessfully, on White's behalf to enact a federal anti-Lynching law. Perhaps if we had a conversation on race where all sides were willing to listen to each other instead of shout insults, we might at long last have a productive discussion on race.
Friday, February 5, 2016
When Dialogue is a Code Word for Denunciation
Of course the New York Times wouldn't publish this letter:
I agree with Tito Jackson, Boston city councilor, who remarked on racial tension at Boston Latin: “I don’t think that we’ve had the watershed conversation that we need to have on this topic and this issue.” (NYT 1/30/15) I remember very vividly being invited to a meeting on racial issues at Holy Cross College a few years before the busing crisis exploded [in the 1970s]. I was barely able to get a word in edgewise. I was confronted by a young black man accompanied by the now prominent Ted Wells who instantly launched into a diatribe about what my ancestors had done to his ancestors. This was bewildering. My young black friends didn't know my ancestors. My mother's family were recent immigrants from Ireland where her uncle had spent several years in a British prison for being an Irish nationalist. Their mortal enemies were black all right: the Black and Tans British paramilitary police. On my father's side of the family they were very proud of their association with the Wagners, claiming that grandpa had helped persuade Bob senior to run for the United States Senate. Recall that Bob Wagner was the valued friend of the NAACP's Walter White who had fought valiantly, though unsuccessfully, on White's behalf to enact a federal anti-Lynching law. Perhaps if we had a conversation on race where all sides were willing to listen to each other instead of shout insults, we might at long last have a productive discussion on race.
I agree with Tito Jackson, Boston city councilor, who remarked on racial tension at Boston Latin: “I don’t think that we’ve had the watershed conversation that we need to have on this topic and this issue.” (NYT 1/30/15) I remember very vividly being invited to a meeting on racial issues at Holy Cross College a few years before the busing crisis exploded [in the 1970s]. I was barely able to get a word in edgewise. I was confronted by a young black man accompanied by the now prominent Ted Wells who instantly launched into a diatribe about what my ancestors had done to his ancestors. This was bewildering. My young black friends didn't know my ancestors. My mother's family were recent immigrants from Ireland where her uncle had spent several years in a British prison for being an Irish nationalist. Their mortal enemies were black all right: the Black and Tans British paramilitary police. On my father's side of the family they were very proud of their association with the Wagners, claiming that grandpa had helped persuade Bob senior to run for the United States Senate. Recall that Bob Wagner was the valued friend of the NAACP's Walter White who had fought valiantly, though unsuccessfully, on White's behalf to enact a federal anti-Lynching law. Perhaps if we had a conversation on race where all sides were willing to listen to each other instead of shout insults, we might at long last have a productive discussion on race.
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